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heyclickadee · 1 month

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The first of several Tech Lives posts. I was going to do in show quotes, possible foreshadowing, and moments that are just kinda suspicious in one post, but just the quotes got too long. So, with the caveat that I’m arguing that I don’t think a Tech return was cut and that it’s just going to happen later than we expected, here’s a list of lines either said by or connected to Tech that could point to him coming back at some point:

"Better late than dead." Phee, as her introductory line, right before she starts hitting on Tech, "Spoils of War."

"Hey, I'm a survivor. Remember?" Romar, to Tech, followed by like a six second camera hold on Tech before he goes back to get into the ship. "Ruins of War"

The entire exchange about culture and memory; Tech's actual character arc was about experiencing life outside the war and the narrow definitions the war gave him. That was not an arc that was completed, no one steps up to fill that space or continue that arc, and maybe it’s not an arc that could have been picked up in season three without focusing on Tech and writing Omega into the background of her own show. Maybe it needed its own space.

This exchange (which I bring up because it happens right after Tech fixes Romar's databank and restores that cultural memory, and we do get the implication in season three that Tech could be running around with amnesia. So.):

Romar: You--you actually did it! Tech: Of course I did.

THIS exchange:

Omega: You did it! Tech: You sound surprised. Wrecker: I thought you were a goner.

Like. Come on. He drifts into a cloud of dust so that the outcome of the race is hidden from view at first, Wrecker and Omega thought he was going to die because he made the decision (in defiance of their requests not to) to do something that would have killed almost anybody else in order to save them, he succeeds and he comes out alive.

"I guess I owe you one, Goggles." Cid, in "Faster." This isn't something they just forgot about, either. Tech indirectly brings it up as a reason she should help them at the end of "The Crossing," and it actually does get Cid to relent a little and say that she'll see what she can do before cutting off the call. But, since she doesn't come through on that, she still owes Tech that favor.

This exchange:

Phee: Don't go running off with any pirates or smugglers while you're gone. Tech: No. This mission should not require either.

Because of course this isn't literally what Phee means, she even clarifies in the next sentence that this isn't literally what she means, but can we at least all agree that this is a weird ass way to say, "Don't run off with any hotties while you're out, I'm still interested and I'm right here?" There's no reason for her to say it this way…unless Tech is going to end up running into some pirates and smugglers. Which hasn't happened yet.

"See you around, Brown Eyes." Phee, the current last thing she says to Tech, in "The Summit."

This exchange:

Crosshair: Where's the jedi? Hunter: Stunned him when he jumped. He didn't make it.

you know, the one where Hunter and Crosshair are talking about Caleb, the jedi who very much did not fall to his death (which plants the idea that falling deaths are suspect right in the first fifteen minutes of the series, btw), is worded almost identically to THIS exchange:

Omega: Where's Tech? Hunter: Omega…Tech didn't make it.

And it's the only two places in the entire show that "Where's X?" is followed up with, "X didn't make it,” btw.

THIS LINE:

"We have to go back! What if he's hurt? He--he needs us! Tell him, Wrecker. We can't just leave him! No! Tech's not gone! He can't be!" Omega, to Hunter and Wrecker about Tech, in "Plan 99."

Two things. One, Omega is actually…usually right about this kind of thing. We never do get explicit confirmation that she has any force sensitivity, but we do get a somewhat implicit one that she does at least have a little bit of natural ability. And even if she doesn’t, when she has a feeling about something that feeling usually turns out to be justified. No reason this should be any different. Two, I got through the rest of this episode about a dozen times and the entirety of season three without ever knowing for sure if Omega even thinks that Tech is dead. The closest she ever gets is saying that she "lost" him, and then goes on to use that exact word in the exact same sentence to describe Hunter, Wrecker, and Echo being captured, and actually said that they'd lost Echo way back in "The Crossing" when Echo was very much not dead and she knew it.

And then when we get to season three, she never actually talks about That Time Her Brother Threw Himself Off A Gondola To Save Her On The Worst Day Of Her Life, and she only brings Tech up once, and only when prompted by Crosshair. I have NO IDEA if she's accepted that Tech is gone or if she even believes he's never coming back, we're given no real indication either way. You know what she WAS real explicit about, though? Demanding that they go back because Tech isn't gone and needs their help.

Honorable Mentions:

"This story changes every time she tells it." Tech, about Phee, in Entombed. This isn't an obvious comeback line, and it's a bit of a stretch, but the thing is. The thing. Is. That Tech being alive, especially depending on how he comes back if he is, when, who knew what, who was hoping what, etc. has the potential to completely recontextualize the entire third season, if not the entire show. A lot of things would be different without actually having to change anything at all.

"I thought it was obvious." Also not foreshadowing, but makes for one hell of a zinger if it turns out he's alive and the clues were there all along.

"Yes, I am playing against myself. It is the only time this game is a challenge," would be one hell of a line if it turns out Tech was forced to be someone else for a while and ends up really struggling with that once he's recovered. Not like. There's any hinting. That this is a thing that could have happened.

“The last time we crossed paths, you had just lost a member of your squad. And it appears history may repeat itself. CT-9904 resisted my conditioning in the past, but I've made alterations to my methods. If you all survive, you will make fine operatives. And if not, well, there's no shortage of clones to test on next.” Dr. Hemlock, “The Cavalry Has Arrived.” I blazed right over this line originally, but @eriexplosion brought up that it’s just *real weird* for Hemlock to be bringing up Tech and that history is going to repeat itself in the context of being right about to start CX-ing the others and being so confident it’s going to work. So here’s what I’m thinking might be happening here: either he CX’d Tech and Tech’s standing right over there in the room with them, or he did something else to Tech and Tech was the change he made to his CXing method. This is actually one of several reasons I don’t think the CX-Tech plot was dropped or cut, and that we aren’t actually done with this—we get little bits of hinting it’s him even in the final episode.

“This isn’t over.” Wolffe to CX-2, “Extraction” Like a few others in this “honorable mentions” section, this relies on Tech being CX-2 either physically or mentally. But I uh. Do think it points to Wolffe potentially having a run in with CX-2 again.

Controversial, but I’m putting it on this list anyway:

“Clone Force 99 died with Tech! We’re not that squad anymore!” Crosshair to Wrecker and Hunter, “The Cavalry Has Arrived”

I know.

But here’s why.

First, one of the long running narrative questions of The Bad Batch was whether or not Clone Force 99 could ever be whole—whether they could ever fix what the Empire broke in “Aftermath.” Because we never get a full reunion by the end of the series, the answer we get isn’t a “yes,” but it wasn’t really a “no” either. Because the entire Tech situation is so unconfirmed, and because the show did nothing to allow either the audience or the other characters to let him go, the possibility of a full batch reunion and reconciliation remains on the table. There’s still a remote chance that they can fix what the Empire broke after all. Maybe they won’t all live in the same place when all is said and done, but maybe, maybe they can still be a whole and complete family. Because the story never fully closed that off as an option.

And the thing is, the show could have had the family fully heal without Tech. They could have resolved the family stuff without him by dealing with him as dead and allowing everyone to treat their wounds and move on. But because we get this line in the last episode, because no one ever pushes back on it in a meaningful way, because Crosshair never takes it back, that’s not what the story does at all. So the answer we end up with here is, “Maybe, maybe not—but not without Tech, apparently. They’re still broken without Tech.”

Second, Crosshair has always been a little cynical, but this season went out of its way to establish him as Pessimism Georg, an outlier who shouldn’t be counted. The last time he said someone was probably dead, way back in “A Different Approach,” we knew it almost definitely wasn’t true and Omega immediately shut him down. He wasn’t there on Eriadu, he doesn’t know any more about Tech falling (he might know other things but we don’t know that) than the others and probably less, and I think there’s a possible future spoiler reason why they had Crosshair say this when Omega wasn’t around to hear it instead of any time that she would have been.

Third, like. Okay. Crosshair might believe Tech is dead. Crosshair might know something about what happened to Tech that no one else does, and might need to believe Tech is dead because of it. He might have suspicions about where Tech is. He might know nothing. Whatever Crosshair actually thinks or believes, though, one thing I do think we have to keep in mind here is that words very rarely leave Crosshair’s mouth without being sieved through fifteen layers of Crosshair being Crosshair, and so Crosshair frequently exaggerates, omits, talks from a certain point of view, lies, and so on.

He’s a genuinely perceptive guy who can read people and situations like no one’s business BUT his brain cells turn off and that big wounded heart of his takes over whenever he has to make a decision, so his internal logic makes sense but goes through such a tortured filter on the way he comes to some wild conclusions. (For example: The batch escaped without him and from his perspective, they didn’t do enough to give him a chance. Reasonable given what he knows about the situation. Justified. His solution to that is to capture them and invite them to the apocalypse to hear the galaxy’s worst business pitch.) He’s just. His observations are often good and, in contrast to his foil, Omega, who’s usually right about this kind of stuff, Crosshair has a tendency to come to the wrong conclusion.

And on top of that, let’s remember that this is a guy who will say the most cutting, ruthless, out-of-pocket thing in order to get a reaction or even to get people to leave him alone. And he’s good at it. It’s a skill. I’m not sure he even has a sense of what going too far looks like (I don’t think he left Tech out of his fight with Hunter because he thought it was a step too far, I think he left Tech out of that fight because he blames himself for Tech too much to blame Hunter for it). This is a man who told a child he would leave her to die if he had the chance. A child he would both kill and die for. So of course if wasn’t true, Omega immediately calls him out on it, but he still said it because he thought it would get her to leave him and save herself. It’s worth noting that the entire reason Crosshair launches into the entire “Clone Force 99 died with Tech” speech is because he’s trying to get Wrecker and Hunter to protect themselves and let him go into Tantiss alone.

Lastly, even if Tech was definitely dead, this line is custom made to get Tech spinning in his grave so fast that he’d spontaneously resurrect for the sole purpose of decking Crosshair across the jaw because what does Crosshair think he fell for then? You…can’t really have the final note on a man who (supposedly) died to save his family be that his family is irrevocably broken because he “died.” Which is another thing—they’re not just a squad. They’re a family, and Tech thought of them as a family. Like. Just. This entire line is just so perfectly crafted as something that feels like it needs to be pushed back against and refuted I’m just. I’m *biting biting biting*

All this to say that Crosshair should not be regarded as a source of objective fact.

Aaaand that’s. All the ones I can remember.

#the bad batch #tech lives #I’m. sorry the formatting is weird I wasn’t sure how to lay it out

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benny-the-spaceman · 4 months

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one of these days im going to release my tlm drafting headcanons from my notes app purgatory and that day is Today.

HERE'S HOW I THINK LEGO MOVIE CHARACTERS WOULD PREPARE AND MAKE DRAFTS

...under the cut

Batman

• Fairly good at drawing. Somehow able to draw straight lines without a ruler perfectly fine every single time but otherwise nothing super noteworthy (he does brag about this constantly however)

• Drafts in white and yellow posca pen??? will use white colored pencil for finer detail however, specifically one of those mechanical colored pencils

• Drafts on black paper because he thinks it makes his designs cooler (it doesn't)

• Dimensions in imperial and would be annoyed if you dare even *insinuate* he use metric. no justification here

• Doodles around his drafts, specifically likes to doodle bats and himself because he, once again, thanks it makes his drafts cooler (the bats kinda do)

• Refuses to leave notes on his designs. you either know what to do or you don't

• Does however write his drawing title obnoxiously large

• Used autocad for like a day, hated it, switched to solidworks and never went back

• Buys autodesk licenses for the rest of the masterbuilders. unwillingly, mind you, wyldstyle just knows his credit card information and abuses it

Benny

• Good at drawing exclusively spaceships. big shock i know

• The king of eyeballing a line or an angle and then labelling it however the fuck he wants. proper measurements take time he could spend drafting or making more spaceships, he'll save measuring and straightedges for drafts he deems important enough

• Uses blueprinting paper. there's no practical purpose for this, he just digs it

• Drafts with whatever writing utensil is on hand

• He gets inspired quite often so he usually keeps a drafting notepad on him just in case

• Leaves a *lot* of notes. Most of them are completely unnecessary and are a funny contrast to his haphazard dimensioning

• Pretty dang good at autocad! Usually reserves it for projects that require a lot more collaboration however

• Usually drafts in metric, can dimension in imperial but prefers not to

• 100% sets autocad to the light background like a monster

• Do not give him any 3d modelling software, he might blow up the computer

Emmet

• Either really good or really bad at drawings (obvs leaning towards bad. we remember the break in plans)

• Dimensions in imperial. I cant justify this one he just does. god bless america or something idk

• Owns a couple drafting pencils but rarely uses them, most of the time he drafts in marker or pen much to the chagrin of anyone who needs to read his drafts (or delight if you're unikitty)

• Started learning how to use autocad after taco tuesday and he's actually pretty good at it! he does use an architectural dimstyle for everything though which is particularly annoying when he's quite often not drafting buildings now

• Has labelled and colored layers 👍 enough said

• Uses disgustingly thick lineweights. horrible.

• Rarely if ever 3d models so he's not good at it, he mostly works on things that 2d conveys better anyways

• Although he's not the best drafter of the master builders, his construction background makes him the best at reading drafts, give him a unikitty draft and he can decipher it like it's nothing

Metalbeard

• Probably the best at drafting of the master builders, he's got the age advantage and lots of practice from making ships

• Drafts in pencil, quill, or charcoal depending

• Who needs straightedges or angle stencils when youre basically a pirate cyborg, expect robot like precision

• Doesn't use standard measuring conventions, instead opts to use the dumbest things possible. The Sea cow's units of measurement were seagulls. It isnt that he cant do normal units of measurement, he just prefers his made up ones

• Makes his drafting paper by himself

• Pretty good with 2d and 3d modelling surprisingly. He doesn't like either, however, he much prefers drafting on paper

• Leaves an average amount of notes on his drafts but has the most disgustingly fancy cursive and writes in his piratey english. Often a nightmare to read if you aren't used to his writing

• Will sometimes do blueprint swaps with Benny wherein they critique each other's work. not sure when they started doing it, but it's become a weekly activity for them

Unikitty

• Worst drafter of the main masterbuilder crew. Most people think it's because she's a cat but no she just doesnt take drafting seriously in the slightest

• Drafts like she's making an arts and crafts project. She has put several bottles of glitter on singular drafts and she will do it again

• Dimensions in rainbows, no knows what this means other than emmet

• Gives the longest, most complicated titles possible

• No such thing as straight lines

• Is entirely capable of drafting properly, just refuses to

• Leaves notes that are entirely unrelated to the draft. she wont tell you how youre supposed to connect two objects but she *will* tell you about the sandwich she ate while making the draft

• Doesnt use autocad, looks too boring

• Didnt use any 3d modelling softwares until she realized you can change the appearance of materials. that was a game changer. still much prefers drafting on paper though

• Likes drafting with emmet sometimes since he seems to be the only person who understands her drawings. to this day no one understands how he does it

Vitruvius

• Going blind has, surprisingly, not made him much worse at drafting, just changed his process a bit

• Drafts in pencil

• Probably the person who least frequently drafts of the main masterbuilders. On account of just not needing to and also on account of being dead

• Dimensions in the old anglo-saxon units of measurement

• Doesn't title his drafts and doesnt see a point in doing so

• Leaves the most vague, utterly confusing notes on his drawings. theyre still related to the drawings unlike unikitty's notes, but theyre very odd

• Doesn't use autocad or 3d modelling softwares, partially because he wouldnt really be able to on account of being blind but also partially because he doesn't really know what they are

• There isnt really much to say about his drafting skills he's about as normal of a drafter as a masterbuilder can be

Wyldstyle

• An engineering teacher's dream student. She may not have the amount of experience metalbeard has but she's still very skilled

• Doesn't like drafting on paper and won't if she doesn't have to

• When she does draft on paper she uses a drafting mechanical pencils. she also 100% collects them

• dimensions in metric to exactly 3 decimal places

• leaves very few if any notes (always very concise ones if included)

• has a case of staedtler stencils that she bought 4 years ago and never uses

• picked up a habit of doodling on drafts from batman but will never admit she got the habit from him

• Autocad PRO. Also really damn good at solidworks and fusion. Give this girl a computer and she'll give you a motorcycle assembly within the hour

• Specializes in automotives

• Spends time with Emmet on the weekends teaching him how to use digital drafting softwares (this process was incredibly frusturating at first but gets easier with time)

#this has been rotting in my drafts and i needed to set it free #live laugh love kind of boring headcanons and combining your interests #the lego movie #lego movie

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pulchrasilva · 1 year

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Genuinely obsessed with how like. Useless most of the crew are in a fight.

Like you've got drey and finn who were once infamous pirates but now can't really fight so well anymore

Queen who can give bardic inspiration but can't reeaally do damage? And like if you're thinking about it outside of the dnd mechanics its kinda hilarious to have this guy on your ship to play atmospheric music while you're getting your ass beat. I dont think they even knew queen could do that when they invited her onto the ship, he was literally just supposed to play bohemian rhapsody for them or something.

And then there's gryffon who is in theory a monster hunter but who's literally never done anything useful in a fight (sorry buddy it's true)

And then there's Old Man Earl who they were gonna just drop off on the nearest island but they never did?? And he doesn't fight either, he just makes juice with magic powers. Again, the idea of having a guy on a pirate ship who's just there to make juice is fucking hilarious

Even the crew who aren't there anymore, Ollie and Felipe, were like. They were just there to be the ship's little guys they just bonded with the captains and were immediately adopted into the crew. Like they joke about how ollie's job was to be the small boy they keep on the ship but it's literally true he was a literal child and even with the belt he couldn't realistically do that much

All in all Alphonze is probably the most useful in a fight, given that he's the literal ship and can move them to ram something or flee, and I think has control over the canons

But I love how they've just collected people for the crew and they weren't chosen for their skill or strength or any of the requirements you'd expect of a pirate crew. Theyre just there because the captains care about them, because of childhood memories or because they went on an adventure together and grew fond of each other or whatever. It's not a functional pirate crew but it's a family <3

#jrwi riptide #jrwi #jrwi spoilers #riptide spoilers #should i tag all the characters i mentioned. no i wont im too lazy

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mable-stitchpunk · 1 year

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Could we get descriptions of the human characters, any original designs, and any differences the animatronics have from canon designs in Home and when any appearances may have changed throughout the story? I wanna draw some events from the books but I'm kinda blind to character descriptions in stories unfortunately.

Sure thing!

Mike stands about average height and is of athletic build. Like, not ripped, but he runs regularly and stays in shape almost getting himself killed all the time. He has sharp, blue eyes and black hair that's usually styled to look a little unkept. He has a mild tanned skin tone.

Jeremy stands slightly shorter than Mike and also has blue eyes, and almost always is seen wearing his glasses. His hair is blond and goes to about his neck. He has a pale skin tone and his features are a bit more softer.

Fritz stands a couple inches taller than Mike and Jeremy. He has brunette hair that's kept short, brown eyes, and usually keeps some stubble on his chin. He has a darker skin tone from Mike- I suppose dark tan is sort of the best way to describe it. Mature but friendly features. Dips from having "worked all night" rings under his eyes to a "slept fine" lack of them, and back and forth.

Natalie looks pretty much exactly like Vanessa. I don't know how that ended up happening, but it did. 👀

Initially, Scott's physical description was kept majorly up to interpretation for the reader, but since then he's sort of turned into a brunette with hazel eyes. He has visible but faded scars on his cheeks and across his body from his accident. He lost his lower right leg and wears a prosthetic, though is usually covered by his pants. He frequently wears cardigans and sweaters, slacks, comfortable and soft clothing. He wears glasses when he works and reads, but doesn't require them elsewise.

When CGHA began, Scott looked especially weary and was taking poor care of himself. Living as a recluse and showing such by usually existing in a bathrobe and staying unkept. By the time of GHIAB, Scott is consistently cleaned up and looks healthier.

Louise stands a little taller than Natalie, usually because she wears heels. She has a soft, heart-shaped face and slender but curvy build. Though initially introduced with brown hair, she dyed it red during Halloween and has kept it that way since. She tends to wear skirts and dresses with matching nails and makeup.

Tabitha is a middle aged woman with short brown hair and is frequently seen with a 'I'm done with this world' look on her face. She has a heart-shaped face that matches Louise's, but not as youthful or full.

Chrissy has wavy or semi-curled blond hair and big blue eyes. If that sounds similar to Susie from Pizzeria Simulator, that was in fact another Natalie-Vanessa situation. XD Though Chrissy's hair is not nearly as curled and is more naturally tussled.

All of Charlie's friends stick pretty close to their graphic novel versions.

Gregory looks the same as in Security Breach and while Cassie hasn't appeared yet (in case you're curious), she will have her cutout design.

Ness is a pale woman with shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes. She has body proportions very similar to that woman who's been running around in a bunny suit, which is probably a coincidence.

Okay, now with the major humans out of the way, onto the animatronic changes!

Marionette looks a lot like canon Mari. The only difference is that his neck is a little shorter- though later versions of the Puppet shortened the neck anyways. XD

Foxy looks relatively similar to Fnaf 1/Fnaf AR Foxy. The only difference being that as of the middle of CGHA, Foxy was repaired. He no longer has a tear in his chest and now has fabric over his hand, but still has his hook. Foxy has fabric lower legs and feet that he wears during showtime, but he takes them off when he's not on the clock. His shorts have been repaired and during work hours he can be seen wearing a green pirate coat (the pirate coat from Captain Foxy's Dark Ride in Help Wanted).

Security Puppet Charlie looks a little softer than Pizzeria Simulator Security Puppet. Originally she was supposed to just be that same one, but I keep imagining her with a head and face that's a little close to Mari's in shape, though still with the rounder eyes. The cuteification of Charlie.

Baby originally looked like Scrap Baby, but over the course of AFLH she was repaired. Having plates replaced and repainted to look more like a complete version of Scrap Baby. In GHIAB, Baby took down her pigtail wires and changed them into a low ponytail (to regain her own identity) and then began to wear a small hat. The hat is a refurbished Freddy had, covered in red crushed velveteen with an orange band and a feather, and is a gift from Scott.

Ennard originally looked very much like normal Ennard, though a little more put together. His hands resemble the ones from Ennard's Help Wanted cutout picture instead of the knotted wires like in Sister Location. At the end of AFLH, Ennard got shot in his right eye and had to replace it with a yellow one, with his left remaining blue.

As of GHIAB, Ennard was gifted a technician suit styled to look like a clown costume. Because I'm feeling lazy, here's the exact design from the chapter-

"It looked like the coat a ringleader would wear, though green in color and without coattails. Golden colored buttons lined two rows in the front, with a zipper hidden under an edge of fabric between them. The collar was a deeper, emerald color and edged with sequins that matched the buttons. The sleeve's cuffs matches the collar, but with an edge of a white frill lining it.

The pants had one leg green and the other yellow and were made out of a slightly stretchier material, but otherwise looked like normal pants. There were a pair of new work gloves and boots in the bottom. These were relatively simple compared to everything else, just forest green to somewhat match the theme of the rest. There was a velveteen red ribbon in the bottom, likely to be tied in a bow."

Balloon Boy is in the Little Joe body from Sister Location instead of his old BB body due to concept unification.

Springtrap looks a little less deteriorated than he did in Fnaf 3 because of the time difference.

The last notable animatronic change/appearance is Jake.

Jake is the old Sun. So, his body resembles Sunnymoon's except greyed out due to his lack of glow. Jake wears the Stitchwraith's mask, of which a lone blue eye peeks through, and his tattered black coat (which is often equated to a trash bag like material). Underneath his mask, his face is damaged from having parts removed. His pants are tattered and cut short, and his lower leg has been replaced with an endoskeleton one off of the old Stitchwraith body.

...And yes, that does look vaguely similar to Eclipse. XD That was another one of my patented random fnaf predictions, lol.

I hope that covered everyone! If not, drop me a line and I'll add more! ^_^

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bump1nthen1ght · 1 year

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A Pirate’s Life For Me (Gender Neutral!Reader/Female!Siren)

Pairing: GN! Pirate! Reader x Female!Siren

Warnings: Non-sexual nudity, Alcohol

Word count: 2100 words

Summary: Brightly’s captain is everything a pirate captain should be; Bold, raucous, easy to laugh, and intimidating as all hell. This navigator think she knows your type well, but an unexpected detour shows you have a dangerous side even she can’t predict.

Based off this request: Hope you’re doing great today. I have kinda of a mouthful for you.

Could you do a Siren with a Pirate (S/O)? With the siren having a prideful personality, and the pirate being impulsive?

…I’d be lying if I didn’t say these two are based off my ocs.

A/N: the request didn’t specify but I ended up going with a Gender neutral!Reader and a Female siren. Hope y’all enjoy!

“Captain?” The young voice of your new navigator rings in your ear, snapping you out of your stupor at the helm. The clear horizon often lulls your mind into a state of dozing. Most of your crew knows not to disturb you in these moments, so you choose to believe it’s quite important.

“Yes, Brightly?”

“I was taking a look at our charts here and saw we were supposed to go through-” Brightly points to one if the maps, shoving it in front of your view, “-here. Is there a particular reason?”

“That path is the fastest way to our destination, Brightly. What seems to be the problem?”

“Uhmm, it’s just-” Brightly adjusts her glasses. “That’s the Dragon’s Teeth, one of the most dangerous passes this side of the world.”

“Yup.” You nod, popping your p. Seems this conversation wasn’t so important after all.

“....Shouldn’t we go around it? It would add around 3 days to our journey, but the benefits outweigh the cost-”

“Brightly, did you become a pirate for it’s financial stability?” You ask, eyes still clear on the horizon, but you can imagine the scrunched up look on the young navigator's face.

“No, captain.”

“What about flexible hours, workman's compensation? Any of that?”

“....No, captain.”

“Exactly.” You flick one of her jacket buttons. “You joined for adventure, great treasures, and the best thing of all-” You turn and throw her a wink, “-hot women. Correct?”

Brightly’s face flushes a red, adjusting her perfectly in place glasses again.

“I understand, Captain. But-”

“Ahh ahh. Just trust me, Brightly, your captain knows what they’re doing.”

—----

Brightly leaves you alone for the rest of the evening, no doubt still embarrassed by your hot women comment. Poor thing was still a little buttoned up from their previous work as a clerk. Hopefully a romp through the Dragon’s Teeth would help stoke that gut need for adventure. You found that it brought out the best in your crew, even the ones with simpler sensibilities.

One such crewmates calls out that you're nearing the treacherous passage from the crows nest, perking up the slowly dozing crew to action. This isn’t the first rodeo through the pass, but it requires the same level of detail and finesse each time. The sharp outcroppings of rock at minimum could cut up the hull, and at worst could plunge through and sink the ship entirely, leaving you and your crew stranded in a rocky gorge in the middle of the ocean.

You make small movements with the wheel, keeping an ear turned towards the crows nest to know when to avoid the sharp rocks. Brightly taps her fingers against the ships edge, eyes wandering across the dense grey all around you.

“Does anyone hear that?” She whispers, a general murmur agreeing with her across the board. “It sounds like…singing.”

“Really? I don’t hear anything.” Your voice lilts, trying to conceal your laughter. The oldest crewmates roll their eyes, but keep their lips tight and keep working. You can’t help but smirk; It’s fun to tease the newbies once in a while.

Brightly doesn’t enjoy not being in on the joke, but her nerves keep her eyes on the water below, half-expecting a giant tentacle to shoot up and crush the ship. You glance over, seeing her shoulders suddenly bunch, whipping her upper half around. She paces over to your side, trying to conceal her concern.

“Captain, I think there's a problem.”

“Is that so?” You humm, not acknowledging her worried fidgeting.

“I think-” She takes in a breath, rubbing the bridge of her nose, “I think I saw something in the water. And I know I’m gonna sound crazy and I swear I’m not just scared, but I’ve heard myths about the-”

“The Dragon’s Teeth? Why there are hundreds of myths about this place, what could be so troubling?”

“Well, you see, my mother used to sing me this song about, about…” she stumbles over her words, looking over the rather nonchalant crew. She leans in close to your ear. “....Sirens.”

You pause your steering, looking Brightly dead in the eye, exaggerated doubt in your brow.

“Now, whats so scary about that?”

“Well-”

It's then that Brightly and the rest of the crew notice just how loud the singing has gotten. It’s become unavoidable, no longer a hum in the back of the mind but a melody you can’t ignore. Heads swivel, trying to find the source, but you just lay your arms across the wheel and rest your face in your palm.

Always the one for the dramatics, she is.

The singing has become cacophonous, crowding the newer crew into the center of the ship and away from the sides. The experienced ones wander in, but aren’t nearly as worried. Brightly grips your shoulder urgently.

“Captain, we’ve got to-”

“Who dares enter my pass!”

A voice, melodic and terrifying, booms across the rocks. You feel Brightly jump and leap behind you, looking upwards towards the bluffs. The unnerving singing goes quiet in an instant, but no relief comes from the still silence.

“The Daring Demon, my queen!”

A giant, monstrous shadow darkens one of the outcrops, matching the booming voice and creating a picture of a true monster. Brightly quivers in her boots.

“You are awfully brave, or maybe awfully stupid, to come here.” The voice purrs. “Why have you doomed yourself so?”

You place a foot on the side of your ship, taking off your captain's hat and putting it to your heart.

“I’ve come to see the most beautiful, most fearsome, most powerful sea beast in all the many oceans!” You dramatically bow, hat flying thrown behind you as you offer your hand outward. “And to offer her a drink?”

You can hear Brightly squeal behind you, a harried and terrified “Captain!” squeaking out as a shadow comes across your face. You look up, boldly staring the Siren Queen dead in the eye.

She’s ferocious. Her human, if one could call it that, torso sits a solid 6 feet tall, not accounting for her massively long tail, eel-slick with fins sharp enough to slit a man's jugular. Her hair is long, a briny green that runs down her back, and compliments the luminescent blue of her eyes and fins. With a wicked smile full of sharp teeth, her clawed hand brushes across your jaw, pulling you closer to her face with just a bit of force. Hot breath blows across your cheeks, the siren queen smirks at your playful wink.

“Finally, I was wondering when you’d get here.”

She grabs you by the shoulders, a gasp dying in Brightlys throat as she pulls you overboard and into an embrace, your cackling laugh only confusing your poor crew.

“Sorry dear.” You give your love a kiss on the cheek. “Ran into some marines on the way. Very scary stuff.”

She gasps, throwing her hand against her chest.

“Scarier than me?”

“Oh, no one is scarier than you, my darling.” You plant a kiss on her cheek, her low chuckles sending a warm feeling in your chest.

Right behind you, Brightly faints.

—---

It takes two sirens and some smelling salts to bring Brightly back to consciousness. The site she sees is that of merriment and way too much drinking; Sirens and sailors all strewn about the deck while your resident musicians play a jaunty tune to encourage some (terrible) dancing.

Across the deck is you, her captain, attempting to throw a knife through an apple precariously balanced on the helms. While your gaze is focused and your hands are steady, the number of empty bottle seem to indicate you’ve already jumped neck deep into alcohol. The siren queen, perched in a luxurious chair plucked from your captain's quarters, cheers you on with a mix of sarcasm and sass.

“If you were a real champion, you’d balance it on one of your crewmans heads.”

“Unlike your posse dear,” You adjust the knife’s handle in your hand, sending a wink to your lover, “My crew won’t take a knife to the eye socket so lightly.”

“Coward!” She jeers, though her big smile and your contagious laugh reveal that its all in jest. You throw the knife a second later, hitting the core spot on and toppling onto the ship, where the sharp edge sticks with a shing!

“Hell yeah!” You take a swig from a dirty rum bottle, turning around for some raucous applause. It's then you notice Brightly, finally awake.

“Well look who finally joined the party!” You saunter over, a big flagon of water in hand. Your drunken grip has splashing over the sides, mostly onto Brightly’s face. She sputters and coughs, making you chuckle before setting down the drink. “Take this Brightly, it will help your head. Another round, if you please!” You call a siren right sitting near a keg. She unsheathes her claws and sliced open the tap, inebriated sailors flopping to the ground to try and get a sip. You cackle, nudging Brightly with your foot. “Better start on that water, don’t want to start drinking already dehydrated.”

You saunter back to your lady, The Siren Queen yanking you down by your collar for a brutal kiss. A kiss you fall into easily, not minding the teeth or the claws.

Brightly sighs. Her captain is something else.

—---

It's the end of the night, sailors and sirens alike all lying drunk all over the deck. There's a faint buzz in your head, a little sway to your step, but not enough to stop you from double checking that everyones alive. You tilt a snoring Brightly on her side, tucking her jacket under her head. The young siren she had been talking to for the past hour lays near her, and you make sure to entwine their hands without waking them up. It should get a fun reaction out of both of them, you think.

Mellonah sits in her tub as you walk into your cabin, hanging up your hat and jacket. She fiddled with a golden locket you recently stole off a real nasty buccaneer, admiring the way it shines in the low candlelight. The bathwater smells of lavender soap and bergamot oils, her favorites from that one medecine shop on the shore.

The room is cold but you find no difficulty in taking off your thick layers, quickly scurrying to the bathtub to join your love. She laughs at your chilled jog, splashing hot water in your face as you sit in the tub. You orient your body and settle against her chest, straddling her long tail as you rest your face against her collarbone. Mellonah’s claws run through your hair.

“Good find, love.” She says, holding up the locket. “I’d say this earned you at least an hour of cuddles.”

“Wow, a whole hour? Did christmas come early this year, or are you just feeling generous after all the booze?”

“Little bit of this, little bit of that.” Mellonah waves her hand around, her playful smirk looking extra mischievous. You splash some water in her face in retaliation, but she heartily accepts the extra moisture.

“Hmm, then I guess I should soak up all this attention while I have it.” You mutter, nuzzling your face into Mellonah’s skin. It seems adorable, at first, but the loud raspberry you blow quickly tampers the ambiance. Mellonah looks down at you, an unamused frown on her face, but you know she loves your shenanigans.

“Of course, be happy to be blessed by the Siren Queen’s presence, whelp.”

She dramatizes a sneer, pressing another kiss against your forehead.

“Oh don’t you worry, I feel,” You kiss her neck, “very,” then her cheek, “very,” another on the opposite cheek, “blessed.” and send off with a quick peck to her lips. You can feel her laugh against your lips, putting a big dumb smile on your face.

The water draws you in, letting you sink deeper as you rest your chin on Mellonah’s shoulders. You can feel your eyes droop, the liquor leaving your brain ready for relaxation. You let yourself fall into the feeling, loosening your muscles and laying your weight on Mellonah. Her claws still run through your hair.

“You’re awfully bold, falling asleep in a siren’s hold. In the water, no less.”

“Boldness is my middle name, dear.” You press another lazy kiss into the crook of her neck. “Besides, to die like this would be to die a happy captain.”

Mellonah just hums, her other hand now rubbing your lower back, knowing how sore it gets after standing all day. You smile.

“I love you, Mellonah.”

“I love you too, Captain.”

#my writing #reader insert #monster x reader #gender neutral reader #fluff #monster romance #sirens

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papermonkeyism · 1 year

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Pardon if it's been asked before, but is there an origin to the name 'wurr'? And how do you say it? The same way as whirl/whirling?

Okay, so. In the ancient days of July 2007, I had just drawn the very first page(s?) of Wurr, I had scanned it and was excitedly uploading it into DeviantArt where people could see it... And realized I'd never thought up a name for the comic. The upload thingy requires a title, though, so I panicked, and tried to think up anything (the comic was thiiiiis close to being titled "Children of the Night").

But as a random stroke of luck, I had my sketchbook on the computer table next to me, and on it was open the page with the very first concept doodles I'd done of the characters, a bunch of sketch portraits, and on the upper corner of the paper I'd written "wurrr" (with three Rs). I put that in the title-slot as a place holder.

Except that I suck at naming things, and that place ended up held long enough that's what everyone ended up calling the comic when talking about it and in the end I never changed it.

Ta dah!

(I do have come up with a canon explanation for the name since as well, though, but that was years later, and that's kinda tongue-in-cheek and something I've scripted to be revealed on the very last page of the comic, maybe aside from any epilogues I might decide to put in, so I'm not gonna spill it here, but there you go.)

Ehh, when it comes to pronouncing things in the comic, I've just accepted that I'm Finnish, and pronounce things the Finnish way, which tends to make many names sound very different and/or very hard to pronounce when non-Finnish people say them, and I'm fine with there being multiple ways to read them. (long ago I once asked people to record themselves pronouncing the character names out of curiosity, and Pyramos especially kept cracking me up so much. The Finnish Y does not exist in English, and everyone had different ideas how the name could go)

If you want to try my way, the Wu is like a German person saying "wurst", but roll the Rs like they were said by the most Scottish pirate you can imagine, and you're kinda close.

#Wurr #For the record if you want to pronounce Y the Finnish way hold your tongue as in E-sound but purse your lips like in U-sound #In Finnish every letter only has one way of pronouncing it and every letter gets pronounced #Our written language was constructed relatively lately in the game and it's written phinetically so it's easy to learn to read #Mind you it's also one of the hardest languages to learn to understand as it shares no linguistic roots with the rest of the Europe #Aside from like Estonia (hi neighbors!) and Hungary #*phonetically #I can type

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lisa-and-shadow · 1 year

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My thoughts on Starfield:

First of all, I do really enjoy the game for all of its flaws. Just want to get that out of the way first.

It is, from toe to tip, a Bethesda game. For better or worse. It definitely has a very Fallout-esque flavor. As a big fan of Obsidian's The Outer Worlds, I can't help but compare the two and they are similar in a lot of ways. We are definitely having cowboy times in space doodoo do doo. That's not a bad thing though. I think it's easy to see influences from all sorts of sci-fi sources throughout the game. We've got space miners on asteroids, rag-tag space pirates, slick corpos, uptight military leaders, and the aforementioned independent minded space cowboys. Pick a trope from a popular title and it's in there. We've even got space drugs made from fish!

Technical downsides? Menu upon menus within loadscreens within menus. It's fairly quick, but it just takes you out of the action. So you wanna fly to another planet? Sit in the pilot's seat. Tiny unskippable scene of you sitting down. Menu to take off pops up. Cinematic cut scene of you taking off plays. Now you're in orbit. You might have a random encounter in orbit, peaceful or hostile. (Some really fun ones.) Open your main menu. Go to the star map. Find the star system you want to travel to and select it. Click Jump. Cutscene of your ship doing a FTL jump to that system. Load screen. Now you're in orbit in the new system. Open that menu back up to scan the planet and find a landing site. Etc etc.

ORRRRR you can pick a planet you've already been to, or from your quest log, and just fast travel there from the main menu and never fly in space at all. ??? Aside from kinda defeating the point, you have skill points to level up how much cargo your ship can carry that requires you to make FTL jumps. And BY GOD will you need cargo space.

The game does not explain things well. I guess Todd was tired of hearing about how Skyrim was too "hand holdy" because this game doesn't tell you shit. Once I played for a while I figured things out or I just looked them up online. I also watched a couple of Gameranx videos before I started playing. (I 💜Jake Baldino and Falcon.) That helped tremendously.

Speaking of not telling you things... there are NO city maps. The cities are huge with lots of buildings and shops you can explore and people you can interact with. Good luck memorizing them, bitch. (You'll get used to them eventually, honestly. But I'd kill for a map.) Planets have a surface map but it will only show you a very condensed local area with specific landmarks highlighted on a blank blue background.

There's a lot of really funny stuff in the game that has made me LOL and I want to shout out the writers. Just kooky jokes and silly encounters. Had a pilot hail me to make a Uranus joke. Dead. Had another ship invite on board to party. Very fun.

I personally have not encountered any major bugs to speak of. I thought I did on my first mission but I was in the wrong place bc the game didn't tell me where to go bc fuck maps. I did lose some weapons bc of bugged weapon racks on a ship I got but they weren't anything special. I haven't seen any floating mammoths or anything.

The leveling system is not my favorite. There are a ton of things to potentially put points into from pistol damage to carry weight to how well your ship steers. When you put a point into a trait it unlocks a "challenge". For example, I put a point in security, so until I unlock 5 locks I don't get the bonus from that point. Then once you complete the challenge, the bonus is activated and the next level of that perk is available to unlock. The problem is for some of the combat perks, you're going to be making pistol kills (or whatever) that aren't counting towards your perk bc you don't have a point to unlock the next level. Or maybe you forgot to go into that menu 30 minutes ago, or didn't realize that perk was done. Bethesda said they were trying to keep players from getting too OP and having too many perk points but damn. It sucks bc base building is also limited by perks.

Base building! Ok so this is a mash-up of Fallout 4 and No Man's Sky sort of... kind of. Apparently your main objective is to place bases on planets to harvest valuable resources like Helium-3. Considering that I already have more companions than I do places to put them, I was looking for a place to assign these folks so they'd stop pestering me on my dang ship. You can build bases right from the get go, but certain things are blocked off until you have a couple of perks unlocked. I always need more perk points. Ugh.

There are 4 companions you can romance. I immediately started flirting with the cowboy single dad. He looked boring before the game came out, but I'm 100% a sucker. He has a southern accent and a raspy voice and calls his daughter "gumdrop". He's like a 15% himbo. One of his voice lines after I looted a corpse was, "To the victor go the spoils... Did I say that right?" Shut your mouth and kiss me. AND! His baby mama is NOT dead. I won't spoil it, but it is refreshing as fuck!!

Yes, I did unlock the Adoring Fan from Oblivion and add him to my crew. How could I not?? He's everything you could possibly imagine and more. 11/10

Heller 💜

I'm a ways into the main story but these are my take aways without any real spoilers. It's fun. It really is. I'm a loot gremlin and Beth outdid themselves with the lootables on this one. So yeah. I like it. It's pretty much what I expected.

#starfield #I'm sure i forgot something i wanted to say #brain is potato 🥔

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jonathancjones · 4 months

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name: Jonathan Jones

nickname: Johnny and probably a bunch of curse words depending on who you ask.

gender: Male

romantic orientation: Pansexual

preferred pet names: He doesn't have any preferences as long as you don't call him something over cute like pookie or something. Johnny's pretty laid back. I don't feel like he'd care if his partner called him pet names as long as they didn't degrade him or take away his manly heir.

relationship status: I default him to single in all my rps unless it's specified. Each rp is it's own timeline anyway.

opinion on true love: "I'm sure it exists, but doubtful it does for me. It'd be kinda funny though, in an ironic way...if someone even felt even close to that about someone like me."

opinion on love at first sight: "Arr! I don't trust enough to act on it...but maybe it's happened to me before. It's nice people can know exactly what they want and go for it. Good on 'em, really. I respect that."

how ‘romantic’ are they?: Johnny doesn't have many friends, much less romance in his life but when he loves, he loves hard. I imagine he'd give you whatever you wanted, kill anyone who messed with you (or at least beat them up enough to make their faces concave) and be protective and loyal to you. He's the kind of guy to remember your favorite flower and bring it to you because you said you liked it once. He's thoughtful, not overbearing. He can be intense at times but he's just awkward tbh.

ideal physical traits: He doesn't really have any. He loves people for many different reasons and looks has never really been something he's judgy about. He can find the beauty in anyone. It's mostly what's in someone's soul for him.

ideal personality traits: He likes positive, ambitious people. Those who are competitive and honorable. He especially loves it if you're good at fighting and will want to fight you if you ever reveal it to him.

unattractive physical traits: He'd expect people to have some self worth and class enough to take care of their appearance at least a little. Other than that he's not too judgy.

unattractive personality traits: Braggarts, people who will stoop to any level to do something terrible, people who treat women and children terribly, people who have no class, and just overall if you're an asshole he'll want nothing to do with you.

ideal date: Johnny loves stargazing. The stars are special to him. It is required that you go stargazing at least once with him.

do they have a type?: Not really he just wants to be loved.

average relationship length: Uh...I mean anyone he's with he'd be with them until they died. Johnny's exceedingly loyal. He's there for life, and since he's technically dead it's forever.

preferred non-sexual intimacy: Johnny loves to hug people and cuddle them. He likes to carry people around, too. He likes to show off how strong and manly he is. He doesn't mind kissing, but he won't be the first to do it because he's awkward and doesn't want anyone to see his face. That and uh...kissing this man just looks like he's literally trying to eat your face and it's never not hilarious.

opinion of public affection: "Their MINE. Look at 'em! I'm gonna show 'em off, because look at how great they are! I'm so lucky to even have them and the world's gonna know it! Anyone who has a problem with that can get their face blasted off with my hook shot!"

past relationships? Besides flings he's has with his men, I don't think there's anything substantial.

Tagged by @red-man-of-mustache

Tagging: Be a pirate and steal it! Arr!

#headcanons #ooc

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furryprovocateur · 1 year

Text

and just like that, we're now back at five stars across the board baby!!! can't wait to lose it when we do AGIT. oh well.

chapter went very well all things considered. dread isle's not a terribly difficult chapter and the only "mistakes" i think you could say i made were a. not managing to get the torch staff thief (whatever. who cares.) and b. not finishing faster (somewhat fair criticism but i played safe because the nomads at the end are scary + uhai is a mean cunt on hhm). it's kinda funny i was juuuuust shy of that experience goal, but i take that in stride because it's a fairly lofty goal to hit considering that the chapter's enemy placement.

anyways, for experience i tried to catch up bartre and rebecca a bit because the PKs are very killable for them if you know what you're doing + know their spawns. fiora is a fucking great unit idc what anyone says because she starts with an axereaver and can 2HKO the pirates that approach. granted 2HKOs aren't as good as 1RKOs but considering she's underleveled, i'm cool with it. i got her and rebecca one level (both got good stats!) and bartre got two (one great level up, one mediocre, so it balances out). idk if this is a dumb way to play the chapter but i otherwise just sent my lord trio down the left side and kent + sain + guy down the middle. probably would've benefited greater from not using the lords but i really want to make sure i hit linus FFO and they needed experience anyway.

uhai, as mentioned, was a mean cunt (he even killed kent in one of my better attempts). my strategy with him has always been to get someone to lure him out into using a bow (usually hector because he has so much defense in most playthroughs) and then the next turn fucking RUSHING him with 1-2 of mani katti/wolf beil/rapier (in this case, mani katti got the crit). it's probably the slower strat because it requires burning a turn but again, dude's scary with that killing edge + genuinely good stats + me being generally less trained up than i'm used to being. oh well. it's always poetic when uhai gets decimated by lyn imo. obviously personal experience means nothing, but lyn is such a convenient boss killer sometimes.

can't wait to get my second silver card and mald over not being able to kill kishuna next chapter. should be great fun.

#fire emblem #long post #long

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niamhuncensored · 2 years

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Whats Fantasticland about?

SO GLAD YOU ASKED (this summary does contain some spoilers btw) Fantasticland is a book about a few hundred theme park employees, most of them teens and college students, who are trapped by a hurricane into a knockoff disneyland. it's formatted as a series of interviews. Quickly after leaving the park's storm shelters, one of them dies/is killed and this causes them to splinter into a handful of factions which the book calls "tribes" but i think should probably be called literally anything else.

The park is split into a number of different regions to accommodate different kids, so the factions take those up as territories and name themselves accordingly.

The factions are

The Deadpools. They stick to the Hero Haven and use improvised weapons.

The Pirates. Stay in the pirate cove under one of the rides. use swords, guns (iirc), and at one point a cannon. they kidnap and kill people for various reasons. The clear aggressors.

The molemen. Maintenance people who holed up in the tunnels under the park (just in case you forgot this was disneyland.) mostly keep to themselves.

The Freaks. They stick to the World circus. use traps and improvised weapons. They used halloween decorations and stories to keep everyone else out.

The fairies/pixies. stuck to the fairy prairie. decimated by the pirates, due to their disorganization.

The Robots. no fucking clue. they're not mentioned beyond the fact they exist. in fantastic future world.

The shop girls. protecting the shops on the golden road. use bows and arrows and improvised weapons.

the whole book takes place over 34 days from storm to rescue, but it's never entirely clear what's happening when. You get a vague sense, mainly, and you can kind of track it by body decomposition (not kidding), but it's wishy-washy. i guess that's natural, given the format.

The thesis statement, by the end of it, is mostly "These damn kids and their iphones" with a sprinkling of "the media and people in general are assholes who profit off of suffering."

AND IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH BETTER

The existence of one clear aggressor makes the timeline work. kind of. Because i don't think it would have become omni-directional warfare in a month, especially when A.) there is explicitly enough resources to go around and B.) everyone is so far apart (at one point a character says that you could scream bloody murder in one part of the park and not hear it in another) that they're unlikely to bother each other.

So like. it works kinda. but it doesn't serve their purpose or the story! If you're going for moral ambiguity and "are any of these kids actually Bad and Violent or are they just in an extreme situation", don't have one group provoke everything! Just make it last longer!

And if you make it last longer, you could have each group develop more of an identity based on the skills their terrain would require. Pirates are already brutal and have a literal code of honor. The deadpools could be very strong and good at parkour. The shop girls could still be badass archers but might actually fight less, since they worked retail and developed some deescalation tactics. The fairies could use poisons. the freaks could be acrobatic when they need to be. The robots could have homemade tazers or some shit. Just any kind of identity beyond the aesthetic.

and the theme is really fucking annoying holy shit. how many times have we heard some variation of "Kids are glued to their phones and this is morally corrupt"?

and btw in situations like this, people generally work together.

All in all a 4/10 hated every word mandatory reading. I feel like i just ate mashed potatoes with no butter milk or salt. cannot stop thinking about how much better or at least more fun it could have been.

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somedaynotsoon · 11 days

Text

Super Small Stardust Saga, Chapter 4

"Captain Skylor says: TEN choices!? Wow! And you don't even have to pay a subscription fee to the website! Gosh, now that's futuristic!"

OOPS ALL ALIENS As usual, the formatting is broken due to it being written for Cohost's html.

Okie doke! Now that you're seated, you turn to Jynx. You glance at the ship manifest and decide to pick who you'd like to meet first.

"Ok! Jynx, I'd like to say to hi to..."

[Option 1: ID #000, the Evacuations Director]

"...The Evacuations Director?" You say, glancing at the top.

"Hi, that's me." Jynx replies instantly.

"...Oh."

Jynx is using some kind of telekinetic power to float around in circles. She's thankfully far enough away from you that her relative size doesn't disorient you. You don't know what it would be like to be on her body when she's spinning around or floating like that, but you're glad she didn't do that while carrying you around earlier. This day has already been overwhelming enough without nausea.

"Why are you listed first, anyway? I'm like... Number 4? I feel like the captain should be 1." You ask.

"Oh, yeah, I can explain that. Ship IDs are listed in 'Wake-Up' order. If there's an unknown emergency, the ship wakes me up first, then the Reactor Specialist, Head Engineer, Head Comms Officer, and then wakes up you, Mads, and then the rest of the crew." Jynx says.

"Why's that?"

"Alright, picture this. You're eight months into a trip between two galaxies. You're not gonna see any Collective ship or station that can help you for another three months, on top of that. The ship automatically detects the Main Reactor going critical. It wakes up you, the reactor specialist, and the head engineer. Your dorms are placed on opposite sides of the ship because you have a hundred ID numbers between you. By the time you can meet up and make a plan of action, boom. Ship explodes, everybody dies."

"Oh, that's not fun."

"Right? Ok, another example. You're being raided by space pirates. They know better than to ask the enemy to just give up their own captain, so they handle it themselves. They walk to the dorms, crack open the first two doors they see, and woops, there you are. Bang. Pipe bomb gets thrown in your face."

"How does the weird numbering system fix that?"

"Simple. When there's an emergency on the ship, the one who gets woken up first...is me. The Evacuation Director is a highly intensive role requiring a lot of experience. Most E.Ds are retired captains. If the captain and co-captain bite it, authority gets passed to me."

"So...what do you do?"

"It's my job to know what to do when there's an emergency, and to respond to it as fast as possible. My dorm alone has six different buttons in it that wake up very specific configurations of crewmates to instantly respond to any possible crisis. I am in the perfect position to do one job and one job only - answer emergencies, and if need be, evacuate everyone safely."

"Have you ever done this before?"

"I have done this for almost every single Academy Station graduate for the last six hundred years." Jynx says it so matter-of-factly. It's hard not to take her seriously, even while she's upside-down.

"I had no idea you Greys could get that old."

"Who are you calling old...? I'm like, 32 in human years."

"How old are you for actually?"

"...................uh, 617?"

You can tell that's a lie almost instantly. "Really?"

"Ugh!! Fine! I'm like, 4,810. I've been around the block for well over half the time the Collective's even existed, so why don'tcha show me some respect and don't talk to me like I'm some kinda grandma!"

"Oh, right. Sorry, Jynx. Do a good job, okay?"

Jynx stops floating and lands perfectly upright in one of the bridge's seats, catching her hat with a forepaw. "I always do a good job."

[Option #2: ID#001, the Reactor Specialist]

"Hey, so I guess let's call ID 1 up here. They're not a member of the officers, right?" You ask.

"Correct. Vanilla is, however, very important because he's the Reactor Specialist. He makes sure the ship doesn't get enveloped in plasmatic hydrogen and become a star." Jynx says. "I'll call him up to the bridge so you can say hi."

Three minutes later, and Vanilla arrived.

"Vanilla is a Siccus. They're primarily composed of plant cells, but they aren't really 'plant-people' if you get my meaning. They don't play well with other plant-based aliens, and instead work well with animals, myconids, and silicatids, et cetera." Jynx rattled off a bit of alien trivia as Vanilla entered. You suppose that was for your sake.

"Nice to meet you, Vanilla!"

His gaze was intense. He seemed flowery in his superficial appearance, but there was little doubt in your mind that he was all-business.

"Captain. Name's Vanilla. I handle the solar reactor above the Gallery Deck. It produces light that rivals that of a star. Don't stare at it." He approaches your chair and...hands you an appropriately-sized pair of sunglasses.

"For small crewmates." He says. "Since you will have to look up a fair lot."

"Oh, thank you!" You put on the sunglasses. "They're so cool!"

Vanilla immediately strolls back over to the elevator.

"Oh! Are you leaving already?" You ask.

"I will be busy a lot of the time. Big ball of fire powers the ship. I am the guy who knows how to make it not go boom. Also. I need to give a few other small crewmates sunglasses, as well."

"Oh! Well, best of luck! I hope we can talk some more later when you're not so busy!"

Vanilla blinks slowly, but his expression doesn't change. "If you need shade...and I have free time to spare... I can stand over you. If you want." He says it in such a straightforward fashion, you don't realize he's flirting at first.

"O-oh. I'll think about it!! Hehehehe." You admit, he is definitely very nice to look at.

"Goodbye." And then he leaves.

"How long in advance did he make those sunglasses for you, I wonder." Jynx appears to have been keeping herself busy by drawing a picture of you wearing anime-style sunglasses on the room's big monitor.

[Option #3: ID#002, the Head Engineer] [This sequence contains: Thighs.]

"Can you call the Head Engineer up? The way I see it, they're basically one of the two most important people on a vessel like this." You say.

"Yeah, of course. Though really, the Captain's mates are the higher authority." Jynx says. She presses a button on her chair. "Lieutenant, we'd like to have a word with Moss Gilliam."

A minute later, and in strolls a rather...mossy and green character from the elevator.

"Miss Gilliam is a Miregreen Saltcony. You'll note the single eye and floral body." Jynx says.

"Hi, nice to meet you!" You say, standing up.

Moss approaches the Captain's chair and looks over the odd configuration of stuff on the cushion meant to accommodate for your size. Her huge eye looks over everything but you, seemingly. She blinks and then turns right around, seemingly to leave.

"Hey, wait, where are you going-?" You start, before Moss leaps up, her body passing entirely over you before landing against the regular-sized seat-back, sitting in your chair with your miniature captain's chambers between her legs. You crane your neck up and turn around to meet her eye, which only now is looking at you.

"Cap'n." Moss nods. "Welcome aboard the Rampant Lovelander. I hope you like the Dollhouse Theater I prepped for your Captain's seat. I figured it'd be cozier than a field of cushion fibers."

"Oh? You mean this miniature captain seat here is something you built?"

"It's not just a tiny chair, it's also a kitchenette, an office fit for a war room, a shower room, walk-in closet. Lounge. Exercise Room. A hella gamer setup. I especially love the Micro-Management sim at the back. It's got an interactive hologram of the whole ship with a live map of estimated positions of every crewmate. You can issue orders anywhere, anytime, to anyone, easier than ordering takeout. If y'ever wanted to feel BIG? That's why I called it the Dollhouse Theater." Moss offers a prideful smirk.

"Oh, wow! I'll have to check that out later. I guess I didn't know how impressed I should be. I thought you were just making fun of me for being small." You say.

"Well. The fact that it fits between my thighs with 2 inches to spare on either side is a nice bonus."

"About that..." You really tried as hard as you could to keep looking at Moss' face. The fact that her bare thighs and all were surrounding you like a wall of mountains was a bit hard to pretend to ignore.

"Miregreens like Moss usually are covered in bandages and flora to hide the parts of their bodies where their animal tissue meets the plants they symbiotically bond with. It's atypical to meet one so...exposed." Jynx says. She's not even looking.

"We don't have hands or feet or tails, so our 'paws' are bonded with plants that take the right shape. Most Saltcony also cover the side of our heads where our eye isn't, but I guess I'm 'an egomaniac' because I think I look pretty. I lead with with the best of me."

"Moss, could you at least ASK before you sit here and surround me with your thighs 'n crotch and all-!" You protest.

"Haha! Sure." Moss gets up, lifting one thigh and passing it over the Dollhouse Theater, before hopping up and out of the chair. She turns her head to you as she walks over to her own seat on the bridge. "Though, just remember that you can ask me for anything! If you want me to build anything, I'll do it. If you want me to introduce you to give you six new hobbies, I can do that. Or if you want to explode in the best way possible and wake up a week later sore in a hundred places-"

"Go sit down, Moss. And get in line. Everybody thinks the Captain's cute." Jynx says, almost bored.

"Yeah yeah. Killjoy." And off Moss goes to her seat. She winks at you from across the room. Or...blinks? Hard to tell, one eye. She is at least a little cute, you decide.

[Option 4: ID#003, the Head Communications Officer] [This sequence contains: paw.]

"Ok. Let's see. How about the Head Communications Officer. I think of the Commsperson and the Engineer as basically the two most important people on the ship, y'know." You say.

"Well, that's kind. You're wrong of course, because it's you and me, but still! Really nice of you to think that." Jynx says. She calls Mads to send up the HCO.

A minute or so later, a rather dignified...no...sleepy-looking, bunny-alien walks in from the elevator.

"Miss Zero is a Nevergreen Saltcony. Saltcony come in a few varieties, but the Nevergreens are the ones that always look cold and have legs and tails made of crystalized salt." Jynx says. She seems to have the biological information on the species of all the crewmates memorized.

"Howdy." Friya says. She doesn't walk closer or anything, she just greets you from across the room.

"Uh...howdy?" You reply.

"Howdy..." Friya says again. She's got one eye, the other side of her face has a big eyepatch across it. You know Saltcony only have the one eye, but it's a little odd that it's on one side of their head rather than in the center. For whatever reason, you find yourself paying a lot of attention to Friya's eye - probably because she looks so completely and utterly spaced out.

"Howdy. I'm Justine! What's your name?" You try to get anything else out of her.

"Friya."

"Hi Friya!" You smile! You try to plead with Jynx with your eyes for any sort of help at all.

"FRIYA!" Jynx shouts.

"AHiii...yes?" Friya seems to wake up for a moment.

"Go get some coffee. And quit staying up late playing MMOs before launch day. I will kick your ass if you embarrass the captain because you fall asleep at the wheel, got it?" Jynx clicks her tongue.

"Yes, ma'am. I'lla go right away. Ain't easy getting decent shuteye on the station. Sorry y'all."

"Don't worry about it!! We can chat more later when you feel a bit more alert!" You try to be encouraging.

Friya walks over to the captain's chair now, and lifts one of her paws. It's true, her leg is basically one big carved, salty rock. She lowers it over you and...pets your head. It's surprisingly gentle - well, as gentle as getting pressed on by a big rocky ceiling can be. Little salt grains slightly taller than you are fall around you.

"You're a...good egg. Nice ta meet ya, Captain." Friya murmurs.

"U-uh...! Yeah! Nice to meet you too." You say, trying not to flinch under the unyielding weight of her foot.

With that, Friya heads back down the elevator.

Jynx blinks slowly. "Ugh, she acts like she's still a college student, it's the worst. At least she keeps a decent sleep schedule while she's on the ship."

"How do you know everybody, Jynx?" You ask.

"Not everybody. Just the characters."

ID#004 is You.

ID #005 is Mads, the Co-Captain, otherwise known as the First Mate.

[Option #5: ID#006, the Second Mate] [This sequence has: Licking.]

"The first mate is the co-captain right? I don't think I need to do a proper introduction to the Lieutenant. I think we already did that, more or less. So...how about the second mate?" You say.

"Good choice." Jynx says, pushing the intercom button on her chair. "Hey Mads, Jynx. Send Nadira up."

Rather than waiting in silence for a minute for Nadira to arrive, Jynx continues talking to you while you wait. "Now, before Nadira arrives, I should let you know that she's a Phosfynx. They're a canid-like alien that swaps between a bipedal anthropoid morphology and a quadrupedal one in accordance with the moon. Though, without a moon to sync up with, they swap every other day, more or less. Nadira's a biped today. And this is important, so listen - Phosfynx have a 'crown' with a serpent head. That's where her real eyes are, so try not to look at it. Her 'main' head's eyes are just eye-spots, kind of like an orca. It wigs out her species when others meet their real eyes' gaze because it sets off their prey instincts. They were in kind of a middle of the food chain position on their home planet, see."

"Don't look at the snake head, got it." You say.

Nadira arrives just as soon as you finish that sentence.

Her winter boots produce squeaks against the polished floors. She prances with a confident strut over to your chair, then right past it. Then she stops and backs up until she's in front of your chair again.

"...I forgot the Captain was a Sellan on the way up here." She says. She kneels in front of your chair to be more at your eye-level. You can tell from the way she moves her head she's intentionally doing her best to make it look like she's looking at you with the eye-spots on her big canine head. It's hard not to occasionally glance at the snake-head, especially when you notice the smaller hat.

[Footnote: Regarding the Translator] [The Interplanetary Translator worn by all the characters has a few quirks that are worth re-iterating. For starters, the way it works is by collecting a huge amount of data from spoken language, before mapping several language models in an attempt to find the best fit. This process is fast only because it takes a Hypercomputer's worth of processing to accomplish. However, it's worth noting that its translations prioritize successful communication of core concepts over perfect accuracy. Jynx, for instance, has never seen an orca in her entire life, and definitely would never reference an Earth animal as an example. Instead, the translator pulled this example in order to communicate the idea faster.

Another quirk of The Translators is that they censor slurs, epithets, pet-names, and other slang for species' names using an arbitrary catch-all term. These terms exist for every species, but the only one you need to know is "Sellan" for humans. Whenever a character calls a human "Sellan", it is a placeholder for a word in that character's home-language that refers to humans, but cannot be Translated because it is derogatory, potentially offensive, or would be difficult to parse. Basically, the Translators have a built-in feature that stops the Collective from giving each other insulting Ben 10-style alien nicknames.

Okay, back to adventure.]

"Uh, it's okay!! As long as you don't accidentally forget I'm small while I'm on the floor or somewhere, it's fine if you take a little bit to get used to it!"

"We are Nadira III. Honorable princess of great repute. It's nice to meet you, Captain."

"Oh, are you actually a princess? That's super cool!" You say.

Out of the corner of your eye, you look past Nadira at Jynx. Jynx is doing a 'cut it out' motion with her forepaw over her neck. She's also holding up a holographic screen that reads 'She's not a princess, none of them are princesses. They just talk like that. Nobody knows why.'

"The Captain thinks I'm cool..." Nadira seems to blush for a moment, before regaining her composure. "We shall be the bestest of friends. You shalt not refuse."

"Y-yeah! Okay! We can be friends if you want! Looking forward to working with you!" You hold out a hand for a handshake. You know it's very very small, but the gesture can't hurt, right?

The sphinxfoxgirl instead leans in closer, closer, closer. When her snout almost touches you, she sticks out her tongue, and her tongue presses you down in your chair. She laps at your body for a moment, before lifting her head and letting you slowly drip off of her tongue. She lifts her pawfingers and dries your dot of a body out of the droplet of spittle she left on your whole region.

"A handshake is plebian and unbefitting of authority and princesses like us. A kiss is much more in line with Our stature. We look forward to working with you, Princess Captain Skylor."

You try to dry the front of your spacesuit with your hands. ...Nope, still gonna be a little soggy for the rest of the day. "Uh...yeah!! See you later, Nadira! I'll call you when I need something."

Nadira heads over to her chair. She keeps seeming to be tasting something in her mouth, like she's sucking on a piece of candy. Is she...appreciating your flavor? That's a bit weird.

"The Second Mate usually handles diplomatic duties, by the way." Jynx says.

"I am quite diplomatic." Nadira says it in an oddly defensive manner, like she's trying to hoard her position to herself.

[Option #6: ID#007, the Third Mate] [This sequence contains: Sharp claws.]

"Can you call up the Third Mate to the bridge?"

"Yup. On it."

Topsy plods off the elevator a minute or two later.

"Topsy is a Demi-human." Jynx says, beginning to prattle off some sort of rehearsed info-dump, but you have to stop her right away.

"Sorry, a Demi-human?"

"Oh...uh... sorry, hang on. Just call them 'Demis' for simplicity's sake. The Translator automatically fills in the suffix part of their name with a common referent for bipedal aliens. There really isn't a more convenient word for Topsy's species; even their own language refers to themselves as "Half-and-Halfs" or something to that effect. Right?"

Topsy nods.

"Uh, hi! Sorry to be talking about you rather than to you. I'm Justine!" You put out your hand for a handshake.

Topsy approaches and lifts one of his arms, holding out a razor-sharp claw from one of his digits. It's so sharp, in fact, it's thinner than your microscopic body at its edge. You...carefully and gently hold the tip of it and shake it. It's a very dangerous finger-handshake.

"Topsy. I'm in charge of safety. Let me know if your spacesuit needs adjusting or anything. It's my job to make sure there's life-vests and breathable atmosphere aboard for everyone."

"Oh, neat! Do the claws help you with your safety-stuff?" You can't help but ask.

"Nah. Well, yeah. If you're ever tied up I've got ya. But really I just like to paint m'nails."

"Oh, neat!! Maybe we could do that together." You offer.

"That's awesome." He points at you with the knife's edge of his scary-sharp claw. "You're a real one."

"Ahaha...t-thanks!" You gulp. Mental note: do not make him mad.

"Remind me to get you safety goggles and a swimsuit and the like later. It's no rush, but you ought to have them just in case. For now I've gots to go and check the seatbelts on the escape pods."

"Oh, right! Th-that sounds important. Best of luck!" You weren't trying to dismiss him so quickly, but it was hard not to be at least a little intimidated, despite how otherwise relaxed Topsy seemed to be.

Topsy tips his hat with one of his claws, and then plods right back out towards the elevator. He really is quite a weird beast - half-cat, half-human-ish, all chill. Though, he is quite a bit bigger than humans were now, obviously.

"You know, he's actually really precise with those claws of his," Jynx says, seemingly to nobody in particular. "He can slice the clothes right off you without even leaving a scratch."

You consider chewing Jynx out for the unnecessary aside, but the instant you began thinking about what she said, it became hard to get it out of your head.

[Option #7:ID#008, the Fourth Mate] [This sequence contains: expletives!]

"Yeah, let's call the fourth mate up to the bridge. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, sure thing, Captain." Jynx is quick to reply, and just as quick to call 'Ramon Reilly' up to the bridge.

It takes a bit longer than you might otherwise have expected any of the other crewmates to arrive. In fact, it takes longer than five minutes.

"Hey...what's the hold-up? Nobody else so far has taken this long."

"Aw, just give poor Ramon a minute. He's always quite punctual and responsible, I'll have you know. I'm sure he just got caught up on the way." Jynx is snickering to herself about something.

"...Can I at least know what kind of person he is? What species is he?"

"Oh, he's perfectly normal. And just a swell dude, all around. Totally reliable. Easy to keep by your side."

You note her failure to answer the second question. "Then where is he?"

"Oh, or didn't you know? He's been in the room with us this entire time."

"No I didn't know? Am I being pranked, is he invisible or something?"

"Nyaha! Invisible. That's funny. Not at all, I thought you might be able to relate some! You and Ramon have a lot in common!"

"Jynx, go get Ramon. This is silly."

"Yeah, sure."

Jynx hops out of her chair and approaches a different one on the opposite side of the room. She reaches out one of her paws to the middle of it, and you hear a series of rustling, echoing noises over your earpiece. After a minute, you get a brief bit of sharp, loud feedback. And then, as Jynx picks him up, you hear Ramon speak.

"You seriously left me here on the chair overnight without my headset!? You frickin' brat! Unfuckinbelievable."

Jynx sets him down in front of you.

"Oh hey! I didn't know there were other humans on the ship! Let alone in the officers! Hi!" You perk up right away, forgiving Jynx for making you play a guessing game in your excitement.

"And whose fault is that, huh?" Ramon glares at the Grey looming off to the side of both of you.

"I'm not sorry, it was funny." Jynx states it flatly as though it were a fact of life.

"It was NOT funny! I had to wander the stupid friggin' cushion for half a day because you took my earpiece away. This shit SUCKS!! You macros are terrible!"

Jynx seemed to miss part of what Ramon said. "It doesn't have anything to do with me being a Grey! All of us think you humans are cute."

"Macros?" You ask.

"Oh yeah, that's a catch-all term for aliens the Translators-" Jynx starts.

"No, not that. Sorry, you probably can't get context, Jynx. I can understand Ramon without the translator, so I'm hearing what he's saying unfiltered, and I think part of what he's saying just...isn't being picked up and localized the right way." You pluck your translator off your ear for a moment, finding a little switch on the side to see if you can fiddle it on or off while someone else is talking.

"Okay, Ramon, can you tell me what a 'macro' is?" You say, putting your earpiece back in, ready to force-switch it on and off in the middle of Ramon talking.

The boy seems all too eager to launch into a tirade. "All of these godforsaken fockin' aliens treat us people like dirt!! or germs!! it's indescribable!! The entire -" {kzzt} "- Collective tends to be more than a little handsy in some ways that are quite a bit irresponsible. I honestly feel quite disrespected when Triploids or Kiddians or Lydiates try to carry us Sellans in their -" {kzzt} "- wretched cavernous pussies! Every fuckin' minute I'm off of a human colony world is another minute of Hell!! And the fetishists drool their brains dry all 'OoOOoO I love macros, aliens are sooo hot. I'm gonna get MaRrIeD to this betentacled nerd who treats me like a nipple stud.' FORGET IT!! If I'm gonna get abandoned on a cushion and left there overnight like I gotta survive the fuckin' Sahara, I might as well -" {kzzt} "-take it up with someone who has a modicum more tact and care when handling vulnerable individuals. Surely, Captain, you understand where I'm coming from, when I say that-" {kzzt} "-getting fucking STEPPED on in gross dusty toes is worse than-" {kzzt} "-virtually any other potential embarrassment this unpredictable universe tends to throw us humans. I'm going to complain to the Bureaucrats about this the next chance I get." {kzzt} "Am I fuckin' wrong, or what? What the hell are you starin' at?"

Ramon looks winded after that long rant.

"Oh, I was just testing something with the Translator. I don't think people are hearing you swear up a storm and complain so...verbosely...about the whole...macros and Nanokink...thing." You say.

"...I knew that." Ramon didn't know that.

"You're the Fourth Mate, right? So I guess you handle tactical decisions and plan out resource management, and stuff like that. Nice to meet you, Ramon. I'm Justine. I'm the new Captain. Hopefully folks will be a little nicer to you as long as I'm in charge. I'll do my best, so... do me a favor, and try to keep a lid on the temper, please! It's not healthy for you to get so heated like that."

Ramon blushes for a moment, putting his hat on to cover his eyes so he doesn't have to look so completely dumbstruck. "Y-yeah. Alright, Captain. Sure. I'll...work on it."

"Jynx, can you go put Ramon back? And don't take stuff from humans without asking, that's dangerous."

For once, Jynx actually seems deferent to your authority. "Oh! Uh, right away, Captain."

[Option #8: ID#009, the Navigator] [This sequence contains: Paws, slime]

"I wanna meet my Navigator." You say to Jynx.

"Roger that, Captain. Paging Poppy Lorde." Jynx hums to herself for a moment, then seems to remember something.

"Oh, Captain, I should tell you, before she arrives on the deck - she's got a chronic condition affecting Salmalkin. It's not contagious, but like...you know how normal Salmalkin look?"

"Uh, they're bluish-green, with red fur during certain parts of the year, with a generally fishlike appearance, right?"

"Right. Anyway, Poppy is bright pink with purple-ish hues and red fur. She's got a bubblegum-looking appearance, and she's a bit gooey all over. Her entire outer layer of blubber is composed of a non-Newtonian fluid that can dissolve and release oxygen."

"You mean she's made of breathable goo?" You blink.

"Yyyyeah, more or less." Jynx seems apprehensive. Maybe she just doesn't want to get into the technical details.

"What even causes a condition like that?"

"It's an environmental thing. Salmalkin bodies adapt to swim in many different places. Even ones that aren't water."

The elevator door opens. Poppy strolls in and hops up onto one of the tables to the side of the room and lays down on it.

"Hi Poppy!" You say.

"Hiya Captain. Sorry if I seem out of sorts. I've been bored stiff parked here waiting for ya. The ship's way more fun than a stuffy campus space-station. We've got foosball tables aboard." She's a bit irreverent, and gives off the impression of a slacker.

"Well! We're launching tomorrow! So get excited for that! And you're navigating, right? So I hope I can count on you." You say, tilting your head a little bit.

"Count on me?" Poppy seems to perk up, and approaches your chair, lifting a paw over you. It drips a long string of sticky, viscous goop that makes contact with you before she lifts it up and gets you stuck to her front pawtoes. She flips her paw over to get a good look at you.

"Count on me? Wow. I can't remember the last time someone talked down to me like that. You're real spirited for a girl smaller than a sprinkle, huh? Well, lookie here. I'm the champ round these parts. I keep the ship from running into meteors or black holes on the outside, and I keep brats and jocks from thinking they've got the run of the place on the inside."

She claps her front paws together and pulls a string of goop out between them. You're stuck in the middle as it slowly thins and droops the further apart her paws get from each other. You can't exactly speak when you're swimming in her pawgoop. You also sincerely don't want to breathe it, but the longer she talks, the harder it gets to hold your breath until you gasp in. Her slime fills your lungs, and as gross as it is to have the thickness of it in you, it's definitely entirely breathable.

Poppy keeps talking. "We can play ball, you and I. We're both in the business of giving orders and knowing better than everybody else, right? So we're going to call it a competition. I might not have the know-how to be a captain, but that's fine, 'cuz that's not what I want anyway. How about this - If you win and one-up me in whatever contests I toss your way, Captain Dotgirl, I'll get you vacay reservations to the most exclusive resort hotspots in the galaxy. I'll pay for your media subscription services. I'll shove your bullies in lockers. But if I win, I'll add "Toegoop Sniffer" to your list of responsibilities and roles aboard the ship, yeah?"

She rolls the long, stretched string of gooey gum between her front paws, spinning you like cotton candy. Finally, she flexes the digits on her front paw again, and you drip out of her pawslime and back into your seat, mostly dry aside from the fact that you feel sticky all over. You're at least grateful Poppy's pink stuff doesn't cling to your hair.

"What kind of offer is that? I'm the Captain, I don't have to do anything you say if I don't want to, you know." You retort, but Poppy seems unconvinced.

"Oh! Well. I guess 5-star hot springs aren't your thing, huh? What is, I wonder." The fishcat seems to be trying to attach a value to you with her eyes.

"Come back to me when you figure it out. Until then, I! am going to talk to someone else on the crew manifest and try to feel a little less covered in bubblegum." You cross your arms. You try to think about your hobbies for a second and actually consider something you would be willing to risk contesting Poppy over.

Well, you liked anime and games, and you also were a pretty decent climber and hiker. You liked plushies, too, you guess. But there wasn't really anything you really wanted so much you would go for some kind of vapid ego contest like that. ...except maybe...that one thing. That one really embarrassing thing. Ehehehe...yeah...maybe that. But you were definitely never going to let her hear you say it, and definitely not where anyone else could hear it.

Poppy goes over to her own seat. She occasionally steals daring and competitive glances at you. She's pretty cute aside from her desire to prove she's better than you for some reason.

[Option #9: ID#011, the Chief Bosun] [This sequence contains: Thighs]

"Can I talk with 11? The...Bosun?" You struggle to remember much more than the top few lines of the crew list, even after just having looked at it.

"Yeah. Just so you know, there's like, a quartermaster and a bosun for every section of the ship, basically. The Chief Bosun is just in charge of all of them." Jynx goes right ahead and pages Jora to come up.

She arrives within the minute, and instantly swings herself into her chair without looking at you first.

"Hi! Nice to meet you!" You start.

"Skylor, right? I'm Jora. I'm the one who built the ship. A fortress of my design."

"Oh, really? That's kind of impressive-!" You look around and try to picture Jora working on all this stuff with her paws. It always astonishes you how dexterous quadrupedal aliens like her can be sometimes.

"I had help. I'll introduce ya to the Bosun's Mates when I feel like it."

"That's not your chair." Jynx interjects.

"Oh, isn't it?" Jora seems to take it as a challenge. "I installed the things. They swivel cuz I said so. But suddenly they're not mine just 'cuz someone else sits in it?"

"That's the way assigned seats works, yes."

"Hah!! Fine. How about this one, then?" Jora hops up and approaches your seat. She throws herself into it with a huff. She seems almost to disregard your presence between her huge thighs until she crosses her legs and you find yourself rolled between her haunches.

"That's the Captain's seat." Jynx doesn't seem to be mad so much as playing along.

"Aw, please! We can share." Jora squeezes you tighter. Your miniature-scale Captain's room-setup on the chair is thankfully spared, but you are rubbed up and down across Jora's massive, smooth, somewhat slick thighs.

"Don't hug me with your legs so tight, if you're going to insist that-!" You protest, trying and failing to push the unyieldingly thick heft of Jora's thigh off of you.

Jora complies immediately and spreads herself out, letting you fall back into your small-seat and catch your breath some. She chuckles, seeming to savor your reactions. "Sorry! I get a little...'handsy' sometimes. I can't help but hug what I love, and I adore humans." She flutters her star-shaped eyes at you.

It's difficult to think of something to say back when the gap between Jora's thighs has been absolutely steamy with her body's warmth since she approached you.

"W-w-well!! A-at least ask for permission the next time you want to s-share, okay?" You stutter, trying and failing to keep yourself from blushing. Dangit. It was way too easy to flirt with you.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll keep it in mind. Mind if I sit here a while longer?"

"Uh, g-go ahead?"

Jora got up, though, and sat in a third chair. "Nah, I changed my mind. We're launching tomorrow, so everybody's running around pecking at me to do stuff. I'd rather play when I've got a free evening. If I wanna kill some time, I wanna kill hours of it all at once. You go do your thing and call up whoever else you wanna meet in the officers."

"Oh, yeah, good point. Good point."

"Don't say 'good point', that's letting her win. Don't just roll over and let her give you thigh-hugs whenever she wants to." Jynx is invested.

"Yeah, Captain. Don't just roll over and take it. It's more fun for me if you fight and squirm."

Well, now you don't know what to think.

[Option #10: ID#018, whose role name escapes me] [This sequence contains: implied violence, threatened violence/gore.]

"Is #18 important?" You ask. You genuinely can't even remember looking at the crew manifest any more. The mere thought of that exhaustively long list makes you want to curl up and sleep.

Jynx tries to auto-complete your poor understanding of the crew list. "Well...#17 is the Bulkhead Bosun, but #18 is the Airlock Specialist. They're not really an officer, so I dunno if they're necessarily -"

"Oh, yeah, call them up here! The Airlock Specialist handles the airlock, so if I ever end up in space, I'd wanna know I can trust whoever's at the door." You cut her off immediately.

"...Yeah, okay. Let's see...#18 is... oh geez. Chemisier Avaleur." Jynx winces and presses the call button on her chair anyway.

Twelve seconds pass. The door to the elevator slams open. You weren't even aware it could slam open. A premonition of death wafts in, and Chemisier steps into the bridge shortly after.

"Hello! It's nice to meet you!" You greet her. She doesn't respond, instead looking at Jynx and nodding her head.

"Yeah, I'll tell her." Jynx says, then pulls up a document on the big monitor. "Ahem. First of all, I'd like to state that Chemisier is a Rasqué, whose primary characteristics are a lifespan somewhere in the ballpark of eight months, and a fantastic cross-generational cultural memory. You shouldn't have to worry about it for a while, considering Chemisier is middle-aged, but somewhere around four months from now Chemisier's progeny will seemlessly replace her and most of us won't be able to tell the difference. That is, if not for her...appearance." Jynx mimes a black eye.

"Uh? What do you mean?" You're mostly just trying to be polite. You weren't going to mention the weird eye, actually.

"Hooo...well. This document here is a Bureaucracy-issued Class E Restriction on Chemisier Avaleur. Quote, 'Following the incident on 3-22-13-9010' (so, about 44 days ago), 'Chemisier Avaleur is barred from interaction with the following species: Vyrmkin, Nezumites, Humans, and Salmalkin. This restriction shall remain in place until such time as Chemisier has been rehabilitated.' That's what it says." Jynx reads it with something of a distraught look on her face.

"Oh. Well, Chemisier, you might not be able to interact with me directly, but...I won't tell anybody if you talk out loud while I happen to be in earshot. I'm still happy to have you as a part of the crew!"

The mouse-snouted alien seems to ponder this for a minute. Finally, she speaks. Her voice is raspy and stressful to listen to.

"I handle the airlocks. I like them. They're cold. The job is easy. I don't have to talk to anyone. I don't like small little freaks that get in the way. I had a different job before this one. I got removed from that job and put on this ship because they told me it was bad to try and flatten the little freaks into tattoos for getting in the way. I got in a fight. I won."

"Yyyyes...thanks, Avaleur. You can go now." Jynx is eager to not be in the same room as Chemisier as soon as possible.

"Whoa whoa! Jynx, you mean Chemisier tried to crush humans and some other folks, too? What's that about-?" You lean out of your chair a little bit. You feel like you ought to know.

Chemisier answers first. "Body paint is chic. Humans would be...better as smears." She growls.

Jynx has already pressed the call button on her chair and is murmuring a command to it. "Can we get someone from security up to the bridge to detain Avaleur? I really don't think she should be in the same room as the captain."

"No!" You chastise. "I don't get it, what would possess you to do that? We should all get along here-!" You weren't sure if you were talking to Jynx or Chemisier at this point. Maybe both of them.

"Khehehe..." Chemisier stalks forward with a hoarse little giggle. "You're...an interesting bug. It's so hard to even think of most of you as people. You're just...skittering things. You actually seem to think enough to be able to surprise me. I can't decide... Whether I want to bite down on you to see what happens. Or. put you in this awful, restrictive dive suit they stuck me in and see how long it takes to turn you into a stamp."

She's almost upon you now. You're more than a little tempted to hide behind your chair, but you remain firm and stare directly into Chemisier's eyes. It's odd how passionate and bright they seem when they're so obviously messed up from fights.

"You really shouldn't talk to me that way. I'm the Captain, so I have to look out for everyone. That includes you, too." You're scared, but you don't move a muscle.

Chemisier leers down at you with a snarl. "KHAHAHA!!! ARE YOU KIDDING!? MY SISTER EATS YOU LITTLE FREAKS FOR BREAKFAST!"

Jynx taps the call button again. "Bring the sleep-gun. Step on it."

You remain firm, and speak as clearly as you can. You can feel sweat on your forehead. "I don't think you want to hurt people. I think you're just saying that to be scary." You have to admit, she is more than a little scary, especially when her face towers over you so high you have to crane your neck to look her in the eyes.

"YOU LITTLE PUNK. I COULD CRUSH YOU FASTER THAN YOU COULD BLINK. YOU WOULD COME OUT IN THE WASH AND NOTHING WOULD BE LEFT."

"So what? Anyone could do that! I'm still here, though, aren't I?"

Chemisier continues drooling and grimacing. You can feel every rage-filled breath wash over you.

Nevertheless, several seconds pass, and you lose your patience having her in your personal space like this.

"What are you waiting for? If you wanted to hurt me, you would have done something already! Either do something or...or fuck off, and quit fogging up my glasses!" You squeak.

Chemisier remains in place for a second, then her crazed expression practically falls off of her face, and she stands back up and takes a few steps back. She looks just as bored and deathly tired as she did when she walked in. She sits on the floor and lets out a throaty sigh.

"...You said your name was Skylor during your speech. I'll remember that. Let's talk again, some other time. I've been having a bad year."

Just then, a few security guards appeared from the auxiliary elevator. They burst into the room and fired some beam at Chemisier. You didn't really even get a good look at them, they were so fast.

The villainess of a Rasqué fell forward, landing on her face and appeared immediately groggy. She sighed. "I'll be seeing you...Captain." She quickly passed out and got hauled off, leaving you in silence once more.

"Never do that again." Jynx stared at you gravely.

"I'll do whatever I want, I'm in charge." You shoot back.

You have no idea what possessed you to do all that. But somehow, you feel proud of yourself for trying.

[Option 11: ID#024, who I seem to remember being important] [This sequence contains: Utter nonsense.]

"...You know, I kind of want to know who the head doctor on the ship is." You say.

"No you don't." Jynx contradicts you. She seems utterly confident in herself.

"Yeah I do. Call the head doctor up to the bridge. I figure they're just as important as anybody else on the ship. Can't do our jobs if we're sick."

"Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you." Jynx taps the call button on her chair. "Hey, Lieutenant Bitwise, can you send up-"

The elevator door opens before Jynx finishes. On it stands a weirdo quadrupedal alien in a kigurumi...?

"Who's this?" You ask.

"-Nevermind Lieutenant, he's here already." Jynx finishes on the call. "Yeah, I have no idea why/how Dr. Inkblood got here before I finished asking for him."

You try to place the look on his face. Is it a smile? A grimace? It's weird, but for how expressive he looks, he seems to be in an entirely neutral mood.

"Nice to meet you, Doctor! Care to tell me about yourself?"

Dr. Inkblood speaks up in a light and boyish voice. "Yeap. I'm Ed." He puts a forepaw to the side of his head, and then starts talking again, in a voice that sounds exactly like Jynx's. "That's Ed Inkblood, he's the Head Doctor. He's a Kawaigu, a species whose main population isn't in space yet technically. The spacefaring ones are neurodivergent and are called Sillymanders. They're a bit unpredictable, so try to be patient. Despite whatever first impression he leaves you with, I can give you my assurance that Ed's a trained and experienced medical professional. We don't know why, but he sat through med school with perfect attendance and behavior in a way that seems entirely uncharacteristic of the short attention spans of his ilk. We aren't sure what his game is, but he tends to go missing and be hard to find once he boards the ship until you need him for something. We don't know where he goes, to be honest." Ed finishes impersonating Jynx and then blinks very slowly at you.

You turn to look at Jynx. She seems just as dumbfounded as you are. "That's more or less what I would have said, yeah."

You turn back to Dr. Inkblood. He's six feet closer than before, even though you didn't hear him walk closer.

"Well, I hope we get along, doctor!"

"Hey, what's that?" He points behind you.

You turn to look, and Dr. Inkblood is standing on the opposite side of the room in the place that he was pointing to. Well, that's confusing. He taps a button on the far console and pulls up a diagram on the room's big monitor. It's a simplified model of the human brain, rendered in a scribbly, low-detail manner. It's colored in sloppily, and signed "Ed Inkblood" in perfect English cursive at the bottom.

Inkblood produces a yardstick from behind his back - hang on, that's the same yardstick Lieutenant Bitwise had earlier - and points to a small node highlighted in blue around the lower center of the brain. "Captain, this is the amygdala. It's an almond-sized thing that you need to turn short-term memory into long-term memory, and it also does something involving decision-making and emotional responses, probably." He circles it with the yardstick. "Neurological anatomy varies greatly between species, but in humans like you, this is our very important culprit."

"Culprit? What's this lecture about?" You ask.

"Neurocognitive biases responsible for the demonstration of a single instance of the Mere Exposure Coincidence and/or Nanokink Effect." Ed rattles off the answer like you just asked him what he had for breakfast this morning.

"Eh?"

Ed puts a paw to the side of his head, and speaks in a voice that sounds almost identical to yours. "Oh! I get it! You're the type of person who likes to give a gift to the new Captain by giving them a salient biology lecture that potentially affects their tenure!"

"...Is that prescriptive?" You ask. You're not sure how you feel about having words put in your mouth.

Ed uses his normal voice for a moment. "No, this is prescriptive." And then he launches right back into it. "In six days, I'm going to go to bed with a Blood Alcohol Level of .14 because I don't know I can't handle a Moscow Mule yet!"

"What's a Moscow Mule?" You ask.

"Don't worry about it." Jynx replies.

Ed whaps the big monitor with the yardstick to get your attention again and resumes his lecture in his regular voice. "This part of your squishy brains is the culprit. The novelty of encountering entirely new and unfamiliar specimens in-person freaks out your amygdala, and causes it to falsely allocate a disproportionate amount of short-term memory to long-term very rapidly. Neurochemically speaking, it's an extremely emotional process, so you perceive the flood of hormones, oxytocin, and dopamine as a 'Love at First Sight' phenomenon. You implicitly trust aliens you meet in-person much faster than you might unfamiliar people. This is a cognitive bias that will put you in dangerous situations if you're unprepared. Hey look behind you what's that?"

You turn around. Ed is miraculously behind you. He's got a chainsaw. He revs it menacingly. You flinch instinctively just because of how loud and scary chainsaws are, but Dr. Inkblood just seems to be trying to make a point along the lines of 'you turned your back on someone you just met?' and you're not entirely sure how effectively the message comes across when he seems to defy all logic. You get the impression you're supposed to turn back around again, and so you turn back around to look at the big monitor again. Sure enough, Ed's at the big monitor again somehow.

The slideshow has progressed to a drawing of several other alien species, with the same drawing of a human brain superimposed on their heads. The brain drawing now has a fish tail or a plant stem or various other doodles sticking out of it depending on the alien species in question.

"So as I was saying, you will trust others when you meet them in-person more easily than they might deserve. Be aware of this bias, obviously." Ed smacks one of the drawings on the monitor with the yardstick. All their expressions change to look frustrated with him. This would be an impressive magic trick, but it's a touch-responsive hologram projected on glass, so you're not impressed. "But we're talking about a Coincidence, Captain. So keep in mind that even though others have differently shaped brains than you, that run on plant or fish oil, they still experience some version of this same thing. It just works differently in its nitty-gritty mechanics. Others will develop a crush on you when they meet you in person, too. This may be dangerous for you for entirely different reasons. Also, this particular Coincidence has its effects magnified when encountering multiple individuals at once, so anyone who's ever encountered a crowd of humans at once will have experienced a much stronger version of this phenomenon. We call it 'the Nanokink Effect' when an individual demonstrates a romantic or sexual attraction to all humans following an encounter with a crowd of them." He clears his throat. "There is a 78% Nanokink saturation among crewmates of the Rampant Lovelander. In other words, 3 out of 4 of your crewmates have a fetish for your presence. Sun Tzu says know the enemy and yourself and you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

"Who the heck is Sun Tzu?" Jynx asks.

"Who IS Sun Tzu?" Ed blinks slowly, then sticks out his tongue and winks.

"..." You stare at Dr. Ed Inkblood for what feels like the longest four seconds of your life. He's completely goofy, arguably a liability for how bizarre he acts. Yet you can't seem to shake the feeling that he's the smartest person in the room by a country mile, and not just because of the medical degree. "I think I get what you're trying to say. I'll keep that in mind, thanks." You sigh. You were admittedly sort of hoping the ship's head doctor would be a curvy nurse-looking type.

"Yeap. Here's my number. Use it if you ever need me to make a 'house call'. Fair warning: it's completely normal if it goes to voicemail."

The slide on the big monitor flips to read: Dr. Ed Inkblood M.D. Channel: MERL Line: NVR-7RU5T

"Yeah got it, thanks!" You say. "Nice to meet you, Doctor!"

You think you've got a handle on how this works now. You turn around to look at the elevator. Yup, he's there already somehow.

"Yep. Don't stay up late tonight! Go straight to bed, yeap. You'll thank me in the morning, yeap."

And down the elevator he goes.

You turn around. Ed is back at the big monitor. He grabs the yardstick out from under the desk. "Sorry, I forgot this on my way out."

Your palm hits your face. You take it back. This guy's a doofus.

~~~

After talking to all the officers, you and Jynx agree to call it a day. You're able to navigate the Lovelander better than you initially expect. There's a system of human-scale walkways along the walls with escalators that move and make navigating the ship way faster than your walking speed.

You get lost at least a little, but eventually you manage to find your way to Dorm #004, the Captain's Quarters. It's sized for normal aliens, but you find the floor has many segmented platforms for your access and ease. It's surprisingly easy to navigate a bedroom for someone thousands of times your size.

Atop the pillow, there's a cozy mattress-suite bigger than a king-size to you. It's actually rather stable on the pillow, and you are able to get comfortable pretty easily. You suppose this miniature setup meant for you is another gift from the Head Engineer, in all likelihood. You get the Computer to turn off the lights and try to get to sleep.

An hour passes, but you're still awake. It's difficult to get to sleep when you're this excited and anxious. For whatever reason, you feel like you need to...talk to someone. Confide. Hug? You don't know.

You think about it. Finally, you come to a decision. You're gonna invite someone to your room.

{Most of these choices weren't yet written at the time of Cohost's closure.} Option 1: Jynx Option 2: Vanilla Option 3: Moss Option 4: Friya Option 5: Nadira {To Chapter 5} Option 6: Topsy Option 7: Ramon Option 8: Poppy Option 9: Jora Option 10: Chemisier Option 11: Inkblood

#macro #micro #macro/micro #micro/macro #giantess #quadruped

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