kittydesade:

sharktoothjack:

galwednesday:

galwednesday:

Mentally combining the “bees are unionized and will leave if they don’t like their working conditions” post with the various “humans stow away on alien spaceships and do the jobs that are too dangerous for more fragile species” posts

Interstellar guidelines state that while approaching humans carelessly or aggressively can result in serious injury, and while you absolutelyshould not try to trap a swarm of humans on your ship, if you build a human-friendly habitat with enough food within grazing distance and safe places to sleep, you just might entice a colony to move in

Trapping a swarm of humans on your ship:

• unauthorized tunnels keep popping up in restricted zones
• theft of various items they consider cozy, delicious, cute, or extremely hazardous
• equipment sabotaged in supposedly impossible ways, and/or supposedly explosion-proofed material exploding
• received communications vary from heartfelt pleas for freedom to vengeful declarations of war to treatises on the sacred rights of spaceship-occupants to disturbingly specific threats to incomprehensible slam poetry

Encouraging a volunteer human colony to thrive:

• leaving items they like + building materials in areas they can access, then coming back later to find those areas transformed into fully organized warehouses/gardens/workshops
• items left lying around spontaneously being made cuter, cozier, tastier, and/or more hazardous
• new workarounds, temp fixes, or repurposes being tried out on any equipment that’s on the fritz (and some that’s not)
• disturbingly creative and fervent allies against outside forces
• sound of happy poetry coming from the vents

… this is the fae. You have reinvented the fae. We are space brownies.

Human Asleep. Can’t Move.

“Min,” the voice on the communicator crackled. “Min I know you can hear me! Where are you?”
Min, who was tucked away comfortably in a quiet nook of the ship’s library, pulled his ears back tight against his skull. Maybe if he did so tight enough, he wouldn’t be able to hear the whiny voice coming from the comm device on his wrist.
No such luck.
“Min, you were supposed to get the lower deck cleaned up a quarter of a cycle ago. I just walked by and the remains of the send-off party are still everywhere. The floors are a mess and the recycling compactors are full to the brim! I know we don’t get new passengers until Moyrs 2, but we’re halfway through the Tamp System now and still have a lot to do! You’re supposed to be on duty, so where are you?!”
Min sighed and rubbed the sleep from two of his eyes. The human sleeping next to him stirred at the commotion. Together they’d spent several decarrtiks to get the library back to order. The ship’s passengers on the last leg of their galactic tour had really done a number on the usually quiet haven of study. Actually, they’d done about the same to the entire ship - even a few corridors they weren’t supposed to have access to. Poor Human Zehireta had to scare a few nilta youth out of restricted access more than once during the sendoff celebration alone. They’d been little nightmares the whole trip, but tried to use the wild commotion of the party as cover for their shenanigans.
Thankfully, humans seem to be really good at knowing when others are up to no good. The troublemakers didn’t stand a chance. Not when humans themselves are masters of those kinds of tactics. No matter how sneaky the entitled nilta brats were, or thought they were, their antics were thwarted time and time again by Zehireta or the other human on the crew, Cherise.

The grating voice piped up again, “Min, report in or I’m going to write you up!”
Ugh. ‘No rest for the wary,’ or however the human phrase goes.
“Charutt, I’m still in the library. Zehireta and I were told to start here before the zilt sludge could do any serious damage to the consoles or server bays. We’ve been at it for most of the cycle.” That last part was mostly true. It had taken them several grueling decartiks to get the biohazards contained and removed, then still deal with the general mess and dishevelment on top of that. Once they had gotten the library to an acceptable level of cleanliness, they’d decided they had earned a break. Or, rather, they desperately needed one and all but collapsed onto a few newly-laundered cushions in a study nook. It’d been a nice rest, but not nearly long enough.
“You should have finished the library already. You need to get your tail to the lower deck, now!”
A growl started deep in Min’s chest, but he cut it off quickly when the still-sleeping Zehireta stirred again. With an uncharacteristically pitiful squeaking sound, she shifted and dropped from her precarious sitting position to lie on her side in what must have been a more comfortable spot. Min froze. The human’s head and shoulders were now solidly planted on his legs. She exhaled loudly as if telling him to either wrap it up or keep it down or both, and then her breathing steadied again.
“Charutt, I’ll get to it when I get to it.“ He growled in a hushed tone. "Have you ever cleaned up zilt sludge? When you’re around delicate circuitry, you can’t just hose it down with ferrox suds. It’s way more meticulous and extremely exhaustive.”
“Be that as it may, we are behind schedule and you need to put a little more hustle in your-”
“Half the crew quit the moment we made port on Junto,” Min tried to sound as forceful as he could while still managing to keep his voice low. “You’re lucky the rest of us had enough pity, didn’t have enough sense, or needed the money badly enough to stick around to make sure this ship got put back in order before the next passenger pickup.” Min had thought of leaving too, after the exasperating trip to Junto, he knew things would be bad but decided to stay aboard as crew. He’d second-guessed himself on that decision a few times once he finally understood the full extent of the disaster the previous passengers had left.
“We may be understaffed, but that just means I need everyone to pull their weight even mo-”
“If you don’t want me to quit once we get to Moyrs 2, you’ll rethink how you’re going to finish that sentence.”
After a tense pause, Min also added, “If I go, you know the other half of the crew will go too. Including the humans.” Min knew that would seal it. Humans were high in-demand hires for the cruise and cargo industry. Not only did the knowledge of their presence deter space pirates and marauders, but they also helped keep unruly passengers in line. As bad as the last group had been, it would have been a lot worse without Zehireta and Cherise. There’d been more humans before, but they’d been transferred to other ships or had found other employment. Still, two humans were far better than no humans, and it would be hard to try to hire more on Moyrs 2. Humans that traveled out that way were usually already on a job or had hundreds of competing offers to choose from.
“Just…” Charutt sighed, “just get to it as soon as you can.”
Knowing he had won, and wanting to bask in the victory for just a moment longer, Min looked down at the now snoring human head in his lap and hit the talk trigger one more time. “I’d love to, but I have a sleeping human on me, and you know how it is. Can’t move now.” He flicked his ears with a grin, “but I’ll get to the lower deck as soon as I can.”
It was a dumb joke, he knew. And under normal circumstances, he’d never pull a stunt like this, but it was too perfect. Charutt can’t afford to fire him right now. And he was genuinely exhausted. Plus, everyone knows you shouldn’t wake up a sleeping human. For one thing, it was not good to have a grumpy, tired human mad at you

for bothering them, and another thing, they just looked so peaceful when they slept. It nearly felt like a crime to disturb them.
Min quickly switched off his comm device. Again, he normally wouldn’t dare do so, but he was done with Charutt, and didn’t need to have him wake up Zehireta. The only other people with the authorization to make comm calls without needing call acceptance were the security manager and the ship’s captain. They’d be otherwise preoccupied at the moment, and not even Charutt would dare “waste their time” to try to tattle on him right now.
With a deep, satisfied sigh, Min rested his head against the wall of the nook. He knew he did, in fact, need to move on and get the lower deck cleaned. And he would. He took his job seriously, even if he was just a simple crew member of a mid-level galactic cruise ship.
But right now, he could take a few more moortiks. Besides, what he told Charutt was true, he had a human asleep on him. He would likely be stuck here for a bit.

nakedfullmonty:

this website pisses me off, everyones always like “space is so cool!” not its not, space is bullshit and i hate everything about it, i genuinely just saw the phrase “a black hole with a mass two billion times the mass of the sun” im so pissed off, shut the fuck up, dont patronise me scientists you knowi dont know what the fuck that means, my sad little brain cant comprehend the mass of one sun let alone two fucking billion, i cant even count past 10 without getting confused and youre out here talking about the mass of two billion fucking suns, shut the hell up. and dont even get me started about black holes or the expansion of the universe because thats another two seperate rants entierly. oh and apparently theres a planet made of ice except the ice is also on fire??? yeah sure fucking thing, scientists. and this is just the shit i know about. i purposely dont research space because it pisses me off so much, god knows what other fucking bullshit exists out there that ive yet to read a fucking wikipedia article about. i dont think space is real, literally everything about space is so fucking fake, this is just some elaborate fucking practicle joke. two billion times the mass of the sun, fuck you

Yeah, this is totally Wenona

Salted - Part 2

Bet you weren’t expecting an update on this, were you? I certainly wasn’t! But after I made the animatic of part 1, a lot of people, my fiance included, wanted mooooooooore…. So here we are

You can read Part 1 HERE if you want to refresh.
I Will probably do an animatic for this one as well, eventually

***
Garchi carefully rubbed his eyes as he sat back. He needed a break, he’d been at this for so long, he was getting screen strain.
Humans sure do love their strange measurements. Teaspoon this, liter that, and then all of the sudden there’s something called metric and standard? Why were there two completely different systems of measurement? Why hadn’t humans just transferred to solaric? It made so much more sense!
“ Oh hey, Garchi! I thought I’d find you here,” Vera pulled the weary akeno out of his study-induced stupor. Her curly orange hair bounced slightly as she entered and carefully leaned her shoulder against the doorway with her hand behind her. That was a weird position. Was she holding something in her hand back there?
“Chris says you’ve been up here for hours. What are you studying for? I thought you already passed level 5 certification.”
“Oh yes, I did,” Garchi sat up straighter and tried to discreetly fix his skewed poncho. “I, well, actually, I’m not studying per se, I’m, uh, well I’m trying to wrap my head around this,” he gestured at the hard-copy book sitting open on the desk surrounded by datapads and notes.
“My cookbook?”
Garchi nodded for a moment, then his heart froze. “Oh, it’s your book? I’m so sorry! There were a couple in the kitchen area and I assumed they were just stocked by the ship. I didn’t realize they were private property!”
“Oh no worries, I was just wondering where it went. I couldn’t find it and had to use Terri’s to bake… this.” She straightened her stance while she pulled out what she’d been hiding behind her back.
Garchi stared for a bit.
“Is that…?”
Vera stepped fully into the room and held out the plate in her hand. On it was a yellow-ish cube that seemed to radiate the most delicious smell Garchi had ever experienced.
“It’s safe, no chocolate in this one. It’s my favorite, so thankfully I had it pretty much memorized. Just a simple sweet butter cake. Well, kind of. I replaced the butter with coconut oil because I know akenos are lactose intolerant. So… sweet coconut cake? I think it gives it a nice flavor, but you tell me what you think.” With that, she handed the plate over.
Garchi took the offered cake and gently pushed the cookbook and datapads over to make room to set the plate down in front of him. His heart was racing again as he looked at it. Was this safe for him to eat? Humans loved so many dangerous foods, would this be okay?
Vera leaned closer, and for a split tic, Garchi’s heart felt like it was going to beat its way out of his chest as her curly hair fell over her shoulder and briefly brushed him.
“Oh, here’s the fork. Nearly forgot.” She set the shiny utensil next to the plate and backed away with an expectant smile on her face.
And that was it. It was the smile. Garchi couldn’t imagine letting any hesitation or worry about the cake ruin that smile. Plus, Vera made it for him! She even altered her favorite recipe! He returned a smile and did his best to copy the way he’d seen her eat the terrible chocolate cake he’d made for her only a few cycles ago.
The smell of the cake had been amazing, but it did not do justice to the flavor itself. It was sweet and light and warm - not only in temperature but the flavor - the flavor itself felt warm. He didn’t even know flavors could be described by temperatures, but here was this cake, tasting warm! And the texture! It was soft and spongy and felt like he was eating pure fohbra fluff! On top of it all, the frosting was rich and tasted like nectar but it was applied thinly enough that it wasn’t overpowering.
“What do you think?” Vera prompted after a few tics. “I usually add a bit of citrus zest to the frosting, especially when I use tropical flavors like coconut, but I wasn’t 100% sure how the citric acid would affect you, so I didn’t want to risk-”
“It’s so good!” Garchi blurted out as soon as he swallowed the first bite. He froze. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. It’s just that this is absolutely delicious! It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten!” And he took another, even larger bite. This slice was not going to

last

much longer.
“I’m glad,” Vera laughed. “That’s a relief!”
Garchi was torn between trying to eat the cake as quickly as he could or trying to eat it slowly and savor it. Before he could really decide what to do, the slice was pretty much gone. Garchi poked at the last bits and crumbs, trying not to waste a single morsel. Whatever ‘coconut’ was, he decided he really liked the taste of it. He almost had the plate totally cleared when he paused and looked over to Vera questioningly.
“You said you used coconut oil instead of butter?”
Vera nodded. “Yeah, because akeno can’t eat dairy. You’re lactose intolerant.” She scanned Garchi’s quickly creasing face. “It’s nothing bad, it just means you can’t break down and digest the lactose in milk products. That happens to some humans too.”
By the stars, was this lactose stuff some more poison that humans loved to eat?!
“It happens to humans too?” Garchi asked. “What happens? Why only some humans?”
Vera shrugged as if this wasn’t vital health information. “Yeah, humans, and well, all Earth mammals can produce lactase enzymes that break down lactose and drink milk when we’re babies, but some humans thousands and thousands of years ago started being able to produce lactase into adulthood because of a genetic mutation.”
Garchi blinked slowly while listening. “Mutation?”
“Yeah, and for some humans back then, being able to get those extra calories and nutrients as adults helped keep them alive and spread those genes. I think the latest study said over a third of the human population can drink milk as adults.”
Garchi nodded. He should probably be writing this down, but he still had questions and wanted to ask them more than note-taking.
“Wait, so butter is like milk? Only some humans can eat it too?”
“Yeah. Same with cheese, cream, yogurt, and all that stuff. It’s all dairy. All made from milk.”
“Oh. I thought they were all completely different ingredients.” He gestured to the cookbook. “When they’re in recipes together, they’re all listed separately.” He paused and frowned. “I guess I don’t know much about milk. Akenos don’t do that, and I know only a very few species who do, and even then, each one goes about it so differently.”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty specialized evolutionary trait. I will say, making milk is one of the main things that sets mammals apart from the other classes of Earth animals.” She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, though. It’s not like you can eat dairy anyway. It will make your stomach and guts really upset at you.”
Garchi looked down at his stomach. Upset? He figured it must be a human idiom for digestive troubles.
“I see. Thank you for taking the time and care to avoid that with the cake then.”
The beaming smile Vera gave made Garchi’s stomach act like it was “upset,” but in a good way. It was… a weird sensation, but he felt it a lot around her.
Vera nodded at the books and datapads that were still scattered on the desk in front of Garchi. “Should I let you get back to studying, or maybe help you clean up so we can go get more cake?”
Garchi shot to attention. “There’s more cake?”
“Well, maybe,” Vera chuckled, “unless Terri and Chris already found it. I did leave it on the commons table.”
Garchi was on his feet immediately gathering loose notes and study materials as quickly as he could. Vera grabbed her old cookbook and the used plate and fork. Soon, both human and akeno were out the door with their arms full and smiles on their faces.
“Yep,” Vera laughed to herself quietly as she followed Garchi’s hurried steps, “quickest way to the heart.”

All species who first officially fly outside their own solar system are soon met with several thousand more species not as far as they thought. Those out there past a sun’s orbit will quickly reach out to make contact with these new creatures.

When you, humanity, reach past your own star, you are met with traditional greeting. The rundown, the history, who’s in charge, the laws.

And to that you said… nah.

The entitlement. Yikes. But that wasn’t uncommon and set off no red flags for the older and clearly much wiser species. Sometimes new species think they don’t need to be governed. You were regarded like a young toddler saying no to everything.

But as time went on, you continued to grow. And you continued to not accept governance from anyone else.

You got in trouble a lot.

This resistance wasn’t later detered. You doubled down, you armed your vessels, and you continued by your own laws.

That’s not to say you were unreasonable. (Although you surely saw yourselves as so). Despite the fears - even among your own kind - you didn’t take over planets already inhabited. You didn’t create needless wars or enslave innocent alien souls.

Then what was the problem, if not your morals?

You simply had your own way of living.

They recommended new planets for you, but no, you wanted that one.

They’d ask you let their services protect you from pirates, but no your missles did just fine. They explain that owning your own weapons is illegal… No it’s not because you didn’t make it illegal.

They’d teach you how to set up currencies… mmm, maybe? No. Never mind. Your way has been has been the norm for the past thousand years, and you, humanity, don’t do well with change. Unless it was your own idea.

Let us teach you the ways of art. Sure! But the Greeks did it better, still.

Your spaceships move too fast. You considered that to be the whole point of spaceships, despite alien’s insistance that it was illegal. At least communicate your routes. Of course! You didn’t want to crash, that’d be unreasonable.

Truthfully, humanity, you weren’t always right. And some of your ways really did have to change… at least one day. The aliens wouldn’t be your pushovers. You didn’t get away with everything. Scratching the furniture and knocking over a vase was frowned upon, so to speak.

But, you were mostly harmless. And eventually the other aliens learned that some of your ways they needed to let you do your way.

The alien opened his drawer. Inside, a little plastic blue lizard stared up at him. He picked it up, regarded it, and tossed it on top of the dresser.

Inside the bathroom, he picked up his toothbrush and brought it to his only two teeth.

Something red was sticking out behind the toothbrush holder. With his claw, he pushed the ceramic piece to the side.

Behind the toothbrush holder was a little plastic red lizard.

Odd.

Throughout the morning routine, he continued to find lizards around his unit. The pillows, the hammock, the ceiling fan, his shoe… nowhere was safe.

With every new lizard he found, he thought surely it would be the last. With every “last one” there was one more to follow.

Pretty soon, he had thirty-one lizards stacked on top of his dresser.

“Where the hell did all these come from???”

It was later at breakfast that the alien would learn the origins of the little toys. It came in the form of another little creature - a human - who cheerfully sat down beside him.

“Find anything odd this morning?” they said.

“Are you the asshole who left a bunch of lizards in my unit?”

“Haha, April Fools’! You like them?”

“April what?”

Humans were known for their playfulness and pranks, so the explanation that came after was of no surprise to the alien. It would make sense that these little orcs made a holiday around it. 

Later, the alien led the smaller creature back to his unit and was greeted by a torn apart bedroom and a colorful pile of lizards.

The human - unprompted - went to work sorting the little toys so they lined up in their respective color.

The red line was shorter.

“Hmm…”

“What? What is it?”

“You’re missing one.”

“What!?”