me: *whispering* idk if this is at all what you wanted but i read this prompt and literally could not get this one thing out of my head also ilu and this idea
The
train rattles by Solenski Plaza, and Will notes it as a reminder of the time,
filing it away in the recesses of his mind like he’s been trained to do since
childhood. He counts the cars by the jostling of their connections over the
rails, just to have something to do.
He’d
pay attention to the beating, but it’s really just not interesting enough.
“I keep better time during hockey season,” Jack tells him once. “Easier to track a life in wins and losses than in idle days, eh?”
And Nursey can definitely relate, but he definitely doesn’t say so. Not when Bitty gets that look on his face at overhearing the conversation, like what Jack’s just said is the saddest thing to ever be uttered. The hockey robot who can’t quite human the way he should.
The thing is that Nursey is his own kind of robot, if he’s honest with himself. Which he tries not to be anymore. “Honesty” usually packs a punch that he would rather not suffer through if he can help it.
Robot Nursey is very good at projecting the appearance of a person that is the polar opposite of the person all of his internal thoughts and emotions want him to be. He can compartmentalize nearly any situational response that goes against this outward ruse. And he can neatly divide his own life up into a series of challenges that his careful mask has faced, and a collection of coping mechanisms to go with them.
as always, i don’t identify as ace and am open to revision if i get something wrong.
Tango is so, so confused.
He got what he wanted last night. He thinks. At least, it’s what he thought he wanted. He was sitting with Whiskey, and Whiskey was laughing at him (the good kind of laughing, Tango’s pretty sure), and all at once the smile fell off Whiskey face and he was leaning in and laying a hand on Tango’s face. And then Whiskey was kissing him, Whiskey’s lips warm and sweet on his. Tango’s heart had sped up and flown to his throat, and he’d kissed back, as well as he could. He didn’t know what kind of kisses felt good, because kisses … well, they were nice, but they weren’t the right kind of nice, somehow.
I have never written this pairing before! Let’s see what I can do.
Tango’s curious. Tango’s so curious he might as well be named George instead of Tony. Doesn’t bother Whiskey much, but nothing bothers Whiskey much. He’s just not the type to get bothered. He doesn’t see why everyone else has to get so excited about shit. Life is the way it is, that’s Whiskey’s point of view and always has been. You take it and you deal with it.
And he deals with Tango. What’s the alternative, really? Bitch at him for all his questions? What good will that do? It’ll just upset Tango, and then he’ll have an upset Tango to deal with. Nah, it’s better to just indulge him. Let him be himself. Honestly, Whiskey secretly finds it kind of satisfying to hang out with Tango. Everything excites him, and it’s fun to watch. In a way, letting Tango get excited about things is the closest Whiskey can come to getting excited himself.
Today Tango’s in his dorm room. He asked if he could come, and Whiskey shrugged, because sure, hanging out with Tango is usually better than not hanging out with him, he guesses. Maybe it’ll even help. Lately Whiskey’s room has felt a bit like a prison. He’s not happy in the confines of small rooms in general, and this one feels particularly small, particularly confining. Sometimes he think he’ll itch to death if he stays there one more minute.
But maybe Tango will bring some… color to it, for lack of a better word. Some dimension. Just walking beside him, Whiskey feels something akin to encouragement. Being with Tango, he can breathe that much easier.
I love how it’s “The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and MISTER Hyde” as in, yeah, they are basically two sides of the same person but only ONE has a doctorate
#unless your bitch ass second personality helped you write that thesis it is your fucking doctorate
A changeling is a creature found in folklore and folk religion. A changeling child was believed to be a fairy child that had been left in place of a human child stolen by the fairies.
A silly little comic I wanted to do in my spare time about a changeling child dropped off but the fairies forgot to do the actual swapping part.
So one of my favorite themes on this site is the “Humans Are Weird To Aliens” thing. Most people realize that we could be considered unusually friendly or unusually tough to an extraterrestrial species.
Yet people don’t realize just how alien we might really be to them.
There are moons in our own solar system that will never see liquid water in normal circumstances. To aliens that evolved in this frigid climate of liquid methane oceans, we’d be exotic lifeforms that melt mountains down for a drink hailing from an infernal planet that would boil away they methane-soluble bodies within seconds of arrival.
Imagine an interaction with a creature that considers steel impossible simply because steel’s melting point would kill everyone that tried to reach that temperature.
Life in other planets could be so alien, that we’d never recognize it as life.
It occurs to me that as much as “humans are the scary ones” fits sometimes, if you look at it another way, humans might seem like the absurdly friendly or curious ones.
I mean, who looked at an elephant, gigantic creature thoroughly capable of killing someone if it has to, and thought “I’m gonna ride on that thing!”?
And put a human near any canine predator and there’s a strong chance of said human yelling “PUPPY!” and initiating playful interaction with it.
And what about the people who look at whales, bigger than basically everything else, and decide “I’m gonna swim with our splashy danger friends!”
Heck, for all we know, humans might run into the scariest, toughest aliens out there and say “Heck with it. I’m gonna hug ‘em.”
“Why?!”
“I dunno. I gotta hug ‘em.”
And it’s like the first friendly interaction the species has had in forever so suddenly humanity has a bunch of big scary friends.
“Commander, we must update the code of conduct to include the humans.”
“Why? Are they more aggressive than we anticipated?”
“It seems to be the opposite Commander. Just this morning a crewman nearly lost their hand when attempting to stroke an unidentified feline on an unknown world. Their reaction to the attack was to call the creature a “mean kitty” and vow to win it over. Upon inquiry it seems they bond so readily with creatures outside their species that they have the capacity to feel sympathy for an alien creature they have never seen before simply because it appears distressed. I hate to say this commander but we must install a rule to prevent them from endangering their own lives when interacting with the galaxy’s fauna.”
“I see what you mean. So be it, from now on no crewman is allowed to touch unknown animals without permission from a superior officer. And send a message to supplies about acquiring one of these “puppies” so that their desire to touch furred predators can be safely sated.
Ehehehe I love this! Every time someone adds a short story to my post it gets like 90% cuter and more epic
Lets be honest, the humans would ignore the hell outta that rule whenever alone.
“So I hear that you’ve just recruited a human for your ship.”
“Yes, it’s the first time that I’ve worked with these species,
but they come highly recommended. Say, you’ve worked with a few, what tips can
you give me? I’d hate to have some kind of cultural misunderstanding if it’s
avoidable.”
“The
first rule of working with humans is never leave them unsupervised.”
“Wait, what?”
“I’m serious. Don’t do it. Things. Happen.”
“But wait, I thought that I heard you highly recommended that
every crew should have at least one on board?”
“Absolutely, and I stand by that. Humans are excellent
innovators, and are psychologically very resilient. If you have a crisis, then
a human that has bonded wth your crew properly can be invaluable. Treat your
human well and you should get the best out of them as a crew member. Their
ability to get on with almost any species is legendary.”
“But Toks, didn’t you just say…”
“The
trouble is that they will potentially try to bond with anything. If you leave them
unsupervised, you have no idea what kind of trouble they can get themselves into. It was
sheer luck that the Fanzorians thought that it was funny that the human picked
up the Crown Prince to coo at him.”
“Crown Prince Horram, Scourge of Pixia?”
“The
very same. Surprisingly good sense of humour. But don’t even get me started on
that one time with the Dunlip. Al-Human wanted to know if they could keep it.
As a pet.”
“A Dunlip? You
mean the 3 metre tall apex predators from Jowun?”
“Yup. Don’t
leave your humans unsupervised.”
“I’ll uh, take that under advisement.”
“Seriously. Get a supply of safe animals for the humans to bond with or they will make their own. I mean, they will try to befriend anything they come across anyway, but without any permanent pets they can get… creative. Don’t even get me started on the time one of them taped a knife to one of our auto-cleaners and named it Stabby.
Three weeks in and when we finally caught the wretched thing, half the humans on crew tried to revolt about us “killing” Stabby by removing the knife.
“How… how did you resolve that sir?”
“Glaxcol made a toy knife out of insulation rubber and strapped that on instead. Quite a creative solution, I suppose.”
“And that sated the humans?
“Worse.”
“Worse?”
“They thought it was so funny they made a second one, strapped false eyes on springs to both and held mock battles. Then decided Stabby and Knifey were in love and now none of them will allow the others to stage fights between them any more.”
Stabby is an omniversal constant.
Oh my gods, we’re the Steve Irwins of the universe.
this is my fave thing.
it can’t even be safe to assume humans would only attach themselves to only fuzzy, furry things. reptilian and even insectoid creatures are just as likely to be randomly selected as “this is a thing i love” by a human.
“Excuse me, captain? Human-Rob requests that we … bring aboard … a Kilarn.”
“A Kilarn? The giant poisonous and highly aggressive insectoid predator? Am I hearing you correctly?”
“…. Yes ser.”
“For the love of- WHY?”
“I asked the same thing, to which they replied “he’s trying his best” in a distressed tone of voice.“
*captain sighs and holds head in hands*
“WHAT’S GOING ON THIS TIME?!” The ship’s captain screamed over the shrill security breach alarm.
“HUMAN-ELLIOT AND HUMAN-JAIME MANAGED TO SMUGGLE A BORAKASH ONTO THE SHIP, SIR.” The first lieutenant shouted in response, her face turning a sickly shade of yellow that conveyed her fear and panic.
“HOW DID THEY MANAGE THAT??? BORAKASH ARE SIX METERS LONG, WEIGH A LITERAL TONNE, AND THE TOXINS THAT COAT THEIR REPTILIAN SCALES WILL KILL MOST LIFE FORMS ON CONTACT!!! THEY ARE THE MOST DEADLY SNAKES IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE!!!!!” The captain screeched. He, too, was turning yellow.
“ACCORDING TO PRIVATE MILAK, THEY WERE WEARING THEIR FULL BODY SUITS, SO THEY AVOIDED CONTACT WITH THE TOXINS. APPARENTLY THEY FOUND IT ASLEEP, ROLLED IT ONTO BOTH OF THEIR HOVERBIKES, AND FLOATED IT INTO THE CARGO BAY USING THEIR ID LANYARDS AS A LEASH.”
“WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM THEIR SUPERVISOR?!?!?”
“THEY SAID IT WAS, AND I QUOTE, ‘SHAPED LIKE A FRIEND!’, SIR”
just moving along like everyone else 