Languages are made up can you believe that? it’s just a bunch of phonetic sounds gibberish none of it actually means anything. this post??? i could smash my hand on the keyboard and it could mean the same thing, it only doesn’t because we say so. Nothing is real
jacques derrida is gonna rise from his grave and give you a high five bc you just described his theory to 75,000 teenagers and they listened
I had thought this would fit particularly well in your de-aged slave children AU. Because this Anakin, whose identity as a slave is known by everyone as far as he’s aware, doesn’t have his older self’s reticence to divulge his past.
Picture this:
Baby Anakin becoming enthralled by a particular piece of tech. A very shiny, cutting edge piece of tech. The kind of which he only dreamed he could get his little desert rat fingers on before. And of course since this is an army on the move the piece of tech is a weapon system.
And the adults clones are like, maybe we should not let the little 3.5 years old, mechanical genius or no mechanical genius, play with things that are lethal.
So one of them picks him up, sets him down at a safe distance, and tells him he shouldn’t touch it.
“Do you know why?”
“yes, sir. It costs more than I do.”
Have I mentioned I love your brain? Because I do. Baby Anakin would totally say that, voice pitched in that sing-song tone of a child repeating something he’s been told a thousand times before. “And if it breaks, I’m the one getting sold to replace it,” Anakin says, finishing the threat more familiar than the sound of his own name.
OKAY BUT IMAGINE THE REACTIONS
Rex just kind of stares at him for a really long moment, trying to process what the tiny, child version of his general just said.
In fact, all the clones in earshot are staring.
And finally, all Rex can get out is, “I-I…no. No, it’s dangerous, and we don’t want you to get hurt.” Which sounds lame, even to his own ears but what in the hells does he say to that???
yeah but later could u imagine the clones comparing notes since they cost money too.
“the general was a slave”
“yeah he said he’d cost less then –”
“so about how many of us would he have cost then?”
Today I figured I’d write a bit about an interesting phenomenon in Scandinavian folklore: the concealment of the true names of some of our wild animals.
The idea that a true name holds magical power is fairly universal; it pops up in everything from Egyptian mythology to German fairytales, and nowadays it’s a pretty common fantasy trope too. In Nordic folklore in particular, it was often believed that speaking the true name of a dangerous creature could actually summon it. For example, the English idiom “speak of the devil (and he shall appear)” has as its Swedish equivalent “speak of the trolls (and they stand in the hallway)”, stemming from the belief that trolls would appear if you mentioned them by name.
Now, what’s really interesting about all this is the way it’s shaped the Swedish language. You see, the danger of speaking a creature’s name out loud also applied to wild animals that were feared in the old days: bears, wolves, and so on. As a result, people invented new names for these animals - false names, if you will, that could be spoken without risk. Nowadays, such false names are said to be “noa words”, while the true names are “tabu words” (these terms are borrowed from Māori, just like the English word taboo).
Over time, the noa words for many of these animals became their de facto names. That’s just kind of how language works: call something an X enough times, and voilà, now its name is X. Even today, many of our animals’ true names are archaic words that a Swedish speaker would never use naturally. Here are some examples:
Wolf:The true name of the wolf is ulv, which shares its etymology with the English word. Ulv is archaic; the average Swedish speaker would recognize it, but never think to use it. Instead, we say varg, which originally means something along the lines of “killer” or “criminal”.
Magpie: The true name of the magpie is skjora. This word is still in use in some dialects, but most Swedish people would not have heard it, and it is not officially recognized. Instead we say skata, meaning “something long and thin” or “something that sticks out”, referring to the tail. The magpie might not seem like an animal to be afraid of, but they were considered bad omens, thieves, or even harbingers of death… and besides, have you ever been swooped by a magpie?
Fox: The true name of the fox is räv, and in this case, it has actually remained in usage. I guess the fox wasn’t intimidating enough for its name to become completely forbidden, hehe! In the old days, farmers would sometimes refer to the fox as Mickel to avoid summoning it. You see, foxes weren’t direct threats to humans, but they did have a tendency to break into hen houses and run off with the chickens. (This is also why foxes are known in our folklore for being cunning and sly, rather than outright dangerous). I’m not entirely sure why the farmers chose to refer to the fox by what is essentially a Scandinavian version of “Michael”, but I did a bit of digging, and it turns out that old Danish uses Mikkel as a generic insult for an incompetent or foolish man. So, I guess it’s a little bit like calling the fox an asshole.
Bear: The true name of the bear has been lost to history! No one actually knows what they were originally called, since all Germanic languages use “bear” or some variation thereof, and Slavic languages use medved (meaning “honey-eater”, from what I gather). In any case, the contemporary Swedish word is björn, which - like the English word - seems to just mean “brown”. Historians speculate that the true name of the bear might be similar to the Greek ἄρκτος (arktos), but I guess we’ll never know.
There are more examples on Swedish Wikipedia, but sadly there seems to be no article in English. Still, I hope you learned something interesting from all this!
Now, imagine the kind of power we would have if we knew the bear’s true name…
Yes, a deer. A three-day-old baby deer. It was a terrible idea. When the students rocked back up to the field station with it, we told them off for stock rustling, took it to the farmer who was like, what the fuck am I going with that, I’ll have to cut its throat and use it for dog meat, and we were like, uh, no, so we took it to the SPCA, who were DELIGHTED.
I THOUGHT A “FAWN” WAS SOME KIND OF OBSCURE GEOLOGICAL TERM I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND
YOU PUT A BABY DEER IN A BACKPACK
More geology field shenanigans!
Respected professor claims our hydrochloric acid solution is less acidic than coca cola. We dare him to drink it. HE DOES.
Hiking up a mountain on crutches. “YOLO!”
Painting Cambrian-age trilobite fossils with nail polish.
Creepy abandoned fishing villages. So many creepy abandoned fishing villages.
Student finds brachiopod fossils in an outcrop behind said creepy abandoned fishing village. Respected professor gasps and squeaks “Brachiopods??!?” and goes tearing off up a hill to find them.
Students collect so many rock samples that we can no longer see the floor of the 15 passenger van. The van floor begins to develop its own stratigraphy.
Racing the roadside moose in the 15 passenger van.
Respected professor takes both hands off of the wheel of the moving van to get a picture of the moose. Panic ensues.
Mapping an island with nothing but a Brunton compass, a field notebook, and the largest bottle of fireball whiskey money can buy.
Respected Professor singing along to “Man-Eating Trilobite”
Entire class goes to local bar and won’t stop singing local drinking song for about a week.
That one vegan student that survives off of french fries for a month.
Stealing rock samples from National Parks
Straddling the moho
Licking the moho
Peeing on mantle peridotite just to see if it fizzes
Using the same pocket knife for everything. Eating. Scratching rocks. Removing splinters. Seriously, it’s gross.
Hiking down a river only to discover the water level is MUCH HIGHER than anticipated
Nearly drowning in said river but damn it you kept your electronics DRY
“It’s not safe to drink the water. So everyone gets 2 beers per meal”.
Fitting the entire class into a single hot tub
Every lobster is named Jack Daniels. It is known.
That one “Chinese Canadian Fusion” restaurant
*DID* IT FIZZ?
my husband was once Responsible Adult on a geology field course and the highlight was when I was calling him and it was like
Dr Glass: Oh, an undergrad’s just thrown his compass into the sea.
Me: is that… part of the exercise?
Dr Glass: *nonjudgmentally* well…
(an unearthly, animal roar is heard over the phone)
Dr Glass: Ah, now he’s going into the sea.
Me: …To get the compass?
Dr Glass: I think he just wants the sea to take him.
(a peaceable, nonjudgmental silence follows, with distant splashing)
Dr Glass: Well, I think I’ll go get him now.
I wanna know the lyrics to “Man-Eating Trilobite”.
-Leaping away from rattlesnakes you can only hear, not see.
-Playing “hide the rock”
-Loosing your compass because it flipped out of your holster while you were peeing on the outcrop, which was actually a win, because it’s so hot out that usually you don’t pee all day.
-Flinging your rock hammer (i.e. lightning rod) and running like mad because a thunderstorm suddenly hits.
-redrawing cross-sections at night while the tent bows inward from the force of all the insects trying to get in.
-finding dead things and getting unreasonably excited because it’s something other than a rock.
-Listening to a professor sing WWII german army songs…
-Trying to keep up when drinking with a European and regretting it one hour later.
-Climbing up an outcrop and then realizing there is no reasonable way to get down.
-Eating at the last restaurant open in town because it’s 9 pm and camp is still not set up.
-Losing half your caravan when there was only one time the road split.
-Inspirational night pees out under the milky way.
Oh, god, this post keeps bringing back all my repressed college memories.
-Running away from angry cows
-Running away from suspicious, armed ranchers who think you’re from the govt
-Squatting to pee and falling over into a cactus
-Losing parts of your tent as you raft down the Green River; by the end of the trip, your tent no longer stands
-Having to ground your raft repeatedly in stands of seriously thorny salt cedars
so tonight I’m at synagogue, listening to the Purim Night reading of the Book of Esther, like you do
and near the end of this chapter my brain presents me with the following:
nooooo ooooone plots like Haman calls the shots like Haman plans a genocide by casting lots like Haman
(It only works with the Hebrew pronunciation of Haman, which, like Gaston, is accented on the second syllable.)
By the time we get home my brain has added:
for there’s none so well-favored and kingly yes, we all can be certain of that he’s so rich that his pockets are jingly and he looks really sharp in a three-cornered hat
*face in hands*
Petition to sing this every year at Purim.
I shared this with my dad, and he added:
No one’s spruce as Haman, Nor abstruse as Haman; No one’s half as good tying a noose as Haman! He’ll use gallows in all of his decorating! No one else hangs as well as Haman!
niiiiice
i know several people who will definitely appreciate this.
this is beautiful
oh wait
When I was a lad I hatched four dozen plots Every morning, to raise myself high… And now that I’m grown I hatch five dozen plots So all those who oppose me shall die!
Been seeing a lot of these Humans Are Space Orcs posts around- which is good, because I love them- and I started thinking: in sci-fi stories, humans in the future often have a bit of genetic engineering- like disease immunity or faster healing or even just a lack of body hair.
And I had a thought- what if that’s just us? What if we’re the only species to engineer ourselves like that? Imagine how freaked out they’d be;
“You’re telling me that you alter your own genetic code?”
Or take it a little further- we’re the only species to use vaccines. Every other race just toughed it out and evolved past it, but humans injected ourselves with weakened diseases to make ourselves stronger.
Or even further back, when people used to drink poison to gain an immunity- imagine that reaction:
“OH MY GROP THEY DRINK POISON TO GET STRONGER THAT’S IT FUCK THIS PLANET I’M OUTTA HERE”
Equally, what if we’re the only ones who don’t use genetic engineering on a mass scale? Like, we just make machines that’ll adapt for us, and everyone else does it by biology - much slower, but much less chance of it breaking down at the critical moment?
Imagine a species who’ve spent decades adapting a small group to colonise a planet with an inhospitable atmosphere, almost ready to start their mission, and along come the humans like “masks on, lads, here we go!”
And imagine the reactions that humans get when they come along in their environmental suits. Like, we have everything our bodies need to survive in our suits and then we go off and explore. We use our suits to set up shelter that we can live in without our suits.
And the aliens are uber-confused by the fact that we don’t wait to adapt to an environment. We go with what we’ve got and then change the planet to meet our needs. (“What do you mean your bodies aren’t suited for this environment? Why are you here then? Wait, you can deal with it because of that mask?”)
Can you imagine how frustrating it must be when they’ve spent years adapting a group to survive a planet they want to colonize and humans just show up and go, “Eh, we’ve got breathing masks. Let’s go!”?
And I don’t mean like attractive cute, I mean like baby otter cute. What if the stumble upon us and go “ohhhhh my god!!! Oh my god!!!! I’m dying this is- look at it! Look at them!!! Oh my god!!!”
We usually imagine having to come up with some Devils trade or unholy arrangement to get tech and trade with aliens, but the instant they see us the aliens immediately set out into conservation efforts. They’re like “their habitat is becoming harsh and unlivable for them! We have to save them!” And everyone just puts a picture of us next to this information and they all agree “Look at them! We have to save them!!” We become like the panda mascots of intergalactic conservation efforts.
Simultaneously, our main export is just streams, videos, holograms, and photos of us. Aliens lose their composure completely over videos of us sneezing or yawning or eating pop tarts or playing video games or taking care of our kids.
There are lines of aliens who would LOVE to have a human in their home or on their ship. It’s a little condescending (we’re not sure if we’re guests or well treated exotic pets) but still a good opportunity, and any human who wants can go to space at any time basically for free or even for profit, and the aliens will go out of their way to give you anything you ask for.
There are obvious downsides. We struggle to be taken seriously. While it’s usually shut down pretty quickly, every once in a while some alien group sees the demand for us and tries to start an illegal trade. But at the same time, it’s neat that somewhere out there is an alien (or usually a LOT of aliens) that would love you unconditionally, find every flaw and idiosyncrasy endearing, be worried about you and do anything they could to make you safe and happy. They work hard to make our planet and our personal lives better and don’t ask for anything in return. They just do it because they decided we are important and worth saving just for existing. It’s an odd relationship, and we’re not always sure what to make of it, but honestly it goes a lot better than we worried alien contact would.
I’m down to be a spoiled pampered alien pet.
It would be a lot easier to get “fixed.”
We’re all a bit confused by the cute human memes, which are usually just pictures of some random human with a phrase in alien cuneiform next to it, but which many of the aliens think are hysterical. Photos of the Lincoln Memorial are particularly popular for this for some reason, and it’s a little unsettling to see the alien spaceships with pictures of Lincoln plastered across their forcefields, saying “g+gnor’gax!” and the humor just doesn’t translate at all.
I mean, it’s not bad, exactly. Just…odd. And fortunately alien music is mostly outside our hearing range, so the sad commercials with the interstellar equivalent of Sarah McLachlan broadcasting over them, explaining how the humans are suffering at this time of rotation just look like a rather puzzling montage of normal people. It’s just the aliens get so sad when they see it and their temporal glands leak and it’s…well, a little messy.
I love the idea that we are SIMULTANEOUSLY batshit-bonkers space orcs and the alien equivalent of Red Pandas or kittens.
Like, “Oh they’re adorable!” “Yes, but for the love of zornax, don’t let one bite you! My pod-cousin lost a hand that way!” “Do you think they evolved this way to surivive the terrifying fauna on their world?” “I saw a holovid of one riding one of the so-called “moose” one time!”
#wait #we’re big cats #giant murder cuteness
Oh my god that’s exactly it! :D
But imagine that last bit as two different groups. Okay, so to one species of alien we’re adorable, right? And to another we’re orcs. Imagine the conflict of those two cultures. Team Orc is talking to Team Cuddles about how useful we are on dangerous field missions and Team Cuddles LOSES THEIR SHIT.
“You sent my cuddle-fwumpkin WHERE?!? to do WHAT!?!”
“They’re uniquely qualified to explore dangerous territories that are uninhabitable to most lifeforms … ”
“I don’t caaaaaare! Hfjfjfj HD bf!!!”
Like, foreign policy issued specifically for the proper utilization of human laborers. How would human cultures engage differently in these circumstances? Like, in the US would people look down on the humans that hang out with Team Cuddles as looking for alien handouts? Would they be blamed when Team Orc humans don’t get taken seriously on expeditions?
Like, there’s so muuuuuch more to explore here.
Cue unscrupulous or ironic human merchant selling “Save the humans! (Collect the entire set)” stickers in various alien scripts and fonts.
You know i haven’t seen any of those “
humans are weird/space orcs/space australians” posts where humans are actually the first species to get to space …
I mean honestly considering how risky and difficult it was to launch people in space it would make sense if the first specie to do so was also the most resistant
and if we cross this with the post about humans randomly helping animals:
what if humans are seen as this super dangerous species who will nevertheless immediately go out of their way to help you if you need some help ? sure humans are terrifying but as a whole they’re just seen as this strange protector/guardian species that has always been out there
so, sorry if someone has mentioned this before, but i saw a post about how humans were apex predators a little while ago, and one of the points it mentioned was that it’s cause humans have such a wide diet you don’t find in a lot of other animals. plus, we’re pretty poison resistant to things that would hurt/kill most other animals (we’re the only species that is lactose tolerant as the norm, chocolate isn’t poison to us, plus other things that surprised me and i wish i had kept the post :c)
what if most aliens have limited things they can eat? the Susutians can only eat plant matter of a specific color, or Luttans can only eat certain meats from certain types of insects on their planet. so, when they come to earth they’re all like ‘on so what do you eat?’ and they’re thrown through a loop at what choices we have! and they find out that a LOT of the food we eat on the regular is super poisonous to a majority of the known universe!
like, “oh hey, human-steve, thank you for visiting my planet. we’re about to eat the meal of the tirid sun, will you join us?”
“o yeah cool what’s the apple looking thing on that tree?”
“apple….. oh, you mean the highly poison and deadly Punnadix Fruit? those are a scourge of my peopl- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
“uh….. eating it? it’s delicious?”
cue an alien having a heart attack, or whatever the equivalent is. on top of all the other weird shit they’re known for, this makes then rise higher in the list of ‘creatures we are REALLY glad are on our side’.
OKAYOKAYOKAY B U T Aliens that only have mates to reproduce. Once every couple of moons they find their partner, do the do, then find a completely different one the next cycle. Imagine these aliens being confused about the human concept of marriage - “you stay with them for life?“ - and not understanding that while yes, Intaquk, you are very attractive I am married so no I will not be your mate this season. Imagine Valentines Day rolling around and one of a crews humans is feeling sad and the aliens are like “yo r u okay should we feed u or something is this natrual” and the human “just kinda bummed i dont have a valentines” and after a bit of research of the holiday one of the aliens gets down on one knee and offers the human a small rock like “I heard these..proposals are common in human culture?” AND THE HUMAN JUST STARTS SMILING AND TAKES THE PEBBLE LIKE ‘thank you fruiyo’ AND THE OTHER HUMANS AROUND START GUSHING OVER HOW ADORABLE THE SCENE WAS. THE ALIENS PICK UP ON HOW THESE PROPOSALS MAKE THE HUMANS ELATED, THEREFORE SEVERAL OTHER PEOPLE ARE PROPOSED TO WITHIN THE MONTH A N D
With pack-bonding and stuff … what if humans are the only species who developed body language as an instinctual means of communication?
Humans are known for being terrifying in battles … especially if there’s more than one of them. They can coordinate their attacks without talking to each other. They only need to glance at each other and they know when and where to go. When asked about this mystical near-telepathy, most just make one of their strange movements-with-meanings called a “shrug” [note: a “shrug” suggests confusion or uncertainty] and say it has something to do with “knowing” the other person.
Sensible species explain what they’re doing when they want to work together. Yet once when when we were attacked by pirates, the two human guards barely said a few words. One whispered “Watch the green one.” - barely even a proper order! - and that was all they needed to charge forward.
They didn’t even need to shout their plans to each other when the two Z'arzz started the pincer movement they’d discussed before boarding. One human just stopped, the other hadn’t even asked her to distract them, she just did it! Charging forward and causing chaos almost immediately was a massive advantage for us. With only the cargo crew of a food shipment, it got us the extra time we needed to plan.
After we came to an agreement and took over, seeing them “team up” against the massive Grulnar (also known as “the green one”) was incredible - a reminder of the power of pack predator species. They barely even spoke and yet it was like they were wearing comms and voice-silencers. They moved like a hive-mind species, but with the tenacity and grace of humans to boot. I would have excreted in fear had I seen such powers used against me.
A problem that we might have is the importance of food. There are certain things that I’m quite certain will be constant from culture to culture, and, barring the possibility of aliens taking control of their evolution in such a way that they no longer need to eat, I think food would be one of them.
People would be careful in the beginning, but eventually some people would break more and more quarantine and contraband laws, resulting in unusual fusion which we might not be able to predict.
“What’s this apple-looking thing I’m eating?”
“It’s actually an animal that sucks sap out of trees. Think of it as a vegetarian tick.”
“What is that?”
“It’s called chocolate, want some?”
***Two Hours Later***
“I see colors!”
“Chocolate is space cocaine. Got it.”
“Human, I have made gumbo using ingredients from my planet. Would you like some?”
“Isn’t your biome arsenic-based?”
“Your point?”
“Want some chips?”
“Are you insane human!? That has SALT in it! Are you trying to kill me!?”
Another humans are weird space orcs idea because I really like thinking about it. What if aliens have no idea how to hide their emotions? Like, they suck at poker because they can never keep a straight face or anything. or, on a darker note, their ship is hijacked and they can’t keep the fear out of their faces, but all the humans look cold and emotionless to them. Other aliens hating having to bargain with humans becase we can bluff and keep our emotions in check so well, but when they get frustrated it’s all over. Pirates threaten the space ship and they send the human to do negotiations, and the pirate talking is super confused because no matter what threat he makes, the human just doesn’t seem to be fazed one bit.
Someone please, feel free to add to this, I love to see what else people come up with!
Okay, but now I’m thinking about how this ability is used in the context of animal training/hostage negotiation/teaching/customer service. Not just looking stone-faced, but completely lying with affect, body-language and vocal tone to seem calm, friendly, relaxed and in control of the situation in order to build rapport with an animal or person and to de-escalate aggression in a situation.
Proximity alarms start going off. A vessel is approaching.
Camilian: <looks at viewscreen> “Oh zark it, it’s the Parg.”
Camilian: <shudders>: “The Parg. Remember the civilisations living on those five planets Lei-ward of Helios 6?”
Human: “No? I thought that system was empty of sentient life.”
Camilian: “Exactly.”
Human: “…ah.” <looks at flashing lights on console> “They appear to be hailing us.”
<Camilian and Egrat scuttle backwards away from console.>
Human: “…thanks a bunch, guys.” <presses hail pick-up button> “This is Communications Officer Haley Makini of the Starboat Fribling, how may I help you?”
Parg ship: “This is Zek of Parg.”
Human: “Hello Zek! How are you feeling this day-cycle?”
Parg Ship: “…”
Human: “I for one have been missing my family lately, I got a vidcall from my little sister and my cousins - same-generation kin-people - and they told me that cousin Wendy is getting married to her girlfriend Mila, isn’t that nice? So I’m really hoping I can make it to the wedding - that’s romantic lifebond ceremony - because otherwise they’d all be sad, they told me so. Do you have any family - lifemates or brood or other kin-people back in your home-system Zek?”
Parg Ship: “…Zek of Parg has brood of five. All Smallings, but soon Biglings. Soon.”
Human: “Oh! You must be so proud of them!”
Parg Ship: “… Yah. Good future replacements for Parent-bodies for Glory of Parg.”
Human: “And that’s all any of us could want! Imagine how sad our kin would be if either of us were to fail to make it back home! That’s why I want to help your ship Zek, in any way we can. The Fribling is only a small ship, but we have some surplus goods and skills to offer if you need anything from us.”
<long pause>
<No one on board the Fribling speaks, but Egrat has anxiously chewed their claws to the quick>
Parg Ship: “Have Lucrum cable? Parg Ship underengine in poor condition, jury-rig not hold, need hitch-tow to Dellar System.”
Human: “Oh, that’s only 8 parsecs away. Sure, hah, we can manage that. No problem.”
<78 minutes later, after the two ships have been attached via Lucrum cable>
Parg Ship: “…What kind you?”
Human: “Huh? ….oh, I’m a human. I’m from Sol 3, Earth.”
<Human sinks to ground, hand on chest, hyperventilating slightly>
Human: “HolyfuckhowdidIpullthatoffohholyfuck!”
Camilian: “Wait, you were scared too?”
Human: <glaring> “Cam, we’ve worked together how long? I’d have thought that by now you’d trust my threat assessment abilities. Phew! That one was so close I felt the breeze going past.”
Egrat: “…how. How did you just do that?”
Human: “It’s not hard. Stay calm, just keep smiling, and build rapport by pretending to care about their problems, and meanwhile showing that you’re a real thinking being. Tends to defuse situations rather than escalate them.”
Egrat: “…I think I saw what you did, but where did you learn how to do that?”
Human: “5 years customer service experience.”
I appreciate that you lumped customer service in with both animal training and hostage negotiation, I won’t lie. Mainly because, oh god, I have had those customers. *shudders*
Me too @amy-vic me too. O.O
*cackling* reblogging both for the space orc-humans, and the *customer service experience!* so very very true.
No, no! You guys are missing the opportunity of a lifetime!
Sgarlk sprints into the med bay, all seven pasterns slipping on the tiles as xe takes in the sight of poor, poor Human Carl on the gurney. Xer dermis darkens to midnight blue as sorrow and worry washes through xer. The human is pale and hollow-opticked, as most of its oxidation fluid is on the gurney. And the floor. And its dermis and coverings. And the med team.
“Oh. Oh, Human Carl. Your poor appendage.”
The med team are all varying shades of worry, fear, and grief as they work to close the gaping wound on Human Carl’s upper torso. Human Carl, on the other hand, seems only mildly put out by all the bustle, despite its unnatural pallor.
“Meh. Just a scratch.”
Sgarlk blinks. All twelve eyes go through the motion. “No. I fear you misunderstand. Your arm, Human Carl. It is… it is off.”
Again, Human Carl doesn’t seem to care. “Just a flesh wound.”
The deep blue fades to a confused purple-grey mottle, and xe gestures at the battered appendage in the hermetically sealed container off to the right. “What is that, then?”
The human does the curious shoulder gesture classified as a “shrug”, though the movement looks strange without the second appendage to balance it out.
It seems to always be the case that aliens have names that are “unpronounceable by the human tongue.” But, y’know, humans are actually really good mimics. We can do impressions of anything, and some of us are really good at it. What if that was a special skill of ours that was constantly surprising the aliens?
Alien talks about human like s/he’s not there, only to be shocked when its own language comes out of that strange little mouth.
Alien can’t figure out WHAT that noise onboard is, only to find human crewmate pranking it. (“As soon as he leaves, I’m gonna do the sound of a failing hover engine, okay? Just see where he looks first!”)
Alien hears a different noise and a thud, then “Sorry, I tripped.” (”But you squeaked.” “Yeah, didn’t mean to. Sounded kinda dumb.”)
Alien is alarmed to hear the sound of two Dangerous Animals coming from the containment room. Thinks the one has multiplied. Runs in, find human yowling back at it. (“It seemed lonely, so I was talking to it. Reminds me of a cat I had once.”)
The away team is threatened by a Large Animal protecting its young. Alien Captain knows what to do. Shoves the human up front and points. “Make the noises that the little ones are making. This is your time to shine.”
I particularly like that last one. Now imagining that the Large Animal quickly adopts the human and won’t let the others near it. The human just sits in the giant pile of fluff and shrugs helplessly.
i still cannot believe they cut out “there’s no need to call me ‘sir’ professor” like…. everyone in the gryffindor class got that tattooed on them….. ron weasley literally had it put on his gravestone……. dean thomas literally almost made that entire phrase his first born’s middle name………. and ur just not going to put in the movie???
Leliana: I can discretely send in spies to take your tests for you. Josephine: we have connections with the school, I can get a school administrator to give you all A’s. Cullen: This is too important, I can send in troops to rip up all of the tests.
I have a thesis due in 17 days (I don’t know what day of the week it is, but I can tell you down to the minute how long I have to finish my thesis) and am therefore p much offline. I do like five minutes of Tumblr a day and I do not always remember messenging is a thing, I am Sorry.
Point is, @everyone who has tried to contact me and gotten either NO response or a super perfunctory one, PLEASE DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONAL, I forgot lunch two days this week, I’m a mess and ily I just haven’t answered you, okay, take care of yourselves drink water etc etc, I’m fine I’m just also dying.
I’ll let you all know when I’m Done and also it will be obvious because I’ll start putting out fic again. @everyone who has asked about this or that fic or series, it’s not abandoned, I WILL finish it, just not atm because see above re: death and also dying.
The best part of ‘me, an intellectual’ is that the grammatically correct pronoun would be ‘I’.
you: me, an intellectual
me, an intellectual: I, an intellectual
hi where the fuck do you think that fragment is getting nominative case. listen to me. subjects of transitive verbs in nom-acc languages get nominative case by agreeing with a tense node. are you listening. fragments are accusative in english because that’s the default case when there’s no case-assigning node. meet me in the pit behind the denny’s and i will explain this to you. bring a whiteboard
you: The best part of ‘me, an intellectual’ is that the grammatically correct pronoun would be ‘I’.
kirby, a linguist:
meet me in the pit behind the denny’s and i will explain this to you. bring a whiteboard
maybe my favorite post to ever happen
“hi where the fuck do you think that fragment is getting nominative case”
Does kirby-ebooks know that literally everything they said here is Iconic?
i follow a blog that is 100% dedicated to animorphs.
idk if that person is in a mutual with me, but im gonna ask this because you talk about it a lot:
how is marco bi? also, who is marco? what animal does he turn in to?
im so fucking confused about all of your posts and ive never seen or read animorphs in my life but im not gonna unfollow you because you are just so passionate about it and i want to know why it drives you so wild.
okay ANIMORPHS cooking headcanons, who can follow a recipe, who doesnt understand portion control, who sets pasta on fire
wow what a surprise i cannot believe u have requested this
take 3 on the cooking headcanons. U ASKED FOR IT
marco: remember how when
marco was 11 his mum died and his dad fell into a major depressive episode and
marco unofficially became his own sole carer for 2 years? HA good times well
marco knows how to cook. thats how he’s alive. he never viewed the task with
much enthusiasm bc it was just like,, something that needed to be done,, (at
least some of the time. obviously 2 in 5 days it was just m&ms for dinner)
and he’s got all his skills from trial-and-error and from watching the terrible
daytime cooking shows that his dad watches, so he’s not an Artiste™ but his
practical skills are off the wall. he can make a shockingly palatable meal out
of nothing but convenience-store canned items, jake’s lunch leftovers, and
gently-expired condiments. also he is a MASTER when it comes to Secret Kitchen
Tricks (many of which were cannily passed down to him by a forward-thinking eva
before she disappeared). the only person who knows about these talents this is
cassie. one time he called her and she was like “im SORRY marco im distracted
by this bacon disaster, i just put the olive oil in and its all going wrong”
and marco’s like “well duh there’s your first problem. you dont FRY with
OLIVE OIL cassie. thats why it SMOKES. use rice bran oil like the rest of us”
and cassies like ???????? she never tells anyone bc she realises hes lowkey
embarrassed by the fact that he’s developed this as an Adaptive Survival skill,
and when hes a kid he plays it down like nbd, but later on when he gets
older he starts to milk this talent for all it’s worth. hes like hang on…. this
shit is VALUABLE. that’s when his true culinary talents can blossom
jake: u
worded this “who sets pasta on fire regularly” and my response to that is that
one (1) time jake did Not set the pasta on fire and it made marco cry real
tears of joy. listen jake tries So Hard (because, in the spirit of being the
Ultimate Straight Ally Dadfriend and an All Round Decent Fella, he’s lowkey
aware of his existence as a straight white guy and makes well-meaning attempts
to avoid hypermasculinic douchebaggery in domestic life. also he’s probably
that disgustingly wholesome Hey Mom Do You Need Some Help In The Kitchen kind
of kid) but when he tries its just. so bad. oh my god its so bad. he’s only
ever tried like 3 ultra-basic Good Ol Classic American meals and every time he
does its a crime against his culinary heritage. his brownies come out lopsided,, he puts
wildly incorrect ingredient volumes in,, he confuses salt for sugar,, somehow
never manages to stir the cake mix properly,, tries to do taste tests like “i think
it tastes ok??” no it doesnt jake this gravy tastes like toxic waste,, without
fail lets something catch on fire while he’s squinting at the recipe trying to
figure out which step he was up to,,, its a mess. his family suffers through it
nevertheless because they are Heroes. “t-tastess – gre at,, llittleb uddy”
pre-yeerk tom says once, with tears of anguish streaming from his eyes
rachel: terrible
cooking is a berenson gene and if rachel had survived the war marco’s talk show
would have included a nailbiting Reality TV segment where contestants sample a
mystery berenson dish and have to race to identify the Cousin of Origin before
food poisoning sets in. this segment would have been discontinued after the 3rd
hospitalisation and a food safety inquiry. in essence rachel is as terrible as
jake but also worse because the constant failure pisses her off so much that
all of her concoctions are brewed with a terrible bitter malice. Fuck You,
Pasta. You Deserve to Burn. also i think at some point in the series it
mentions taht rachel tried being a vegetarian and i choose to believe this is
true and also that it is the point where things go from worst to worster.
eventually even she has to admit she’s never gonna manage it and resorts to
like. deep-frying entire zucchinis or something
tobias: u
know what?? im gonna say Not Terrible?? tobias is pretty creative and lbr i
doubt his neglectful ass relatives were gonna cook for him. he probably picked
up some stuff from recipe books bc he liked reading through them (listen i cant
cook for shit but even i get a kick out of lookin at food books bc goddamn??
the aesthetic?? plus tobias was a book kid in general so) also if we’re running
with the autistic tobias concept (its Canon, folks) i like the idea that as a
human tobias couldve been hypersensitive esp. to tastes, so he was pretty good
at noticing when two flavours clashed and figuring out what stuff to put
together to avoid that. (obviously he cant do this as a hawk but sometimes he
watches ax’s food choices and the twist of primal horror he experiences is a
comforting reminder that some vestiges of his humanity remain). HOWEVER by the
same token he also doesnt strike me as the sort of Organised Efficient person
who’d be a really productive cooker. i might be self-projecting here but like,,
have u ever tried to string together a series of practical tasks into an organised
sequence while in the kitchen,,, theres like 80 bowls and justt too many
utensils and timers goin off and u forgot to put the herbs in and u ran out of
bench space so u gotta try start washign up at the same time but meanwhile u
gotta Coordinate all the cooking stuff really fast so u dont poison urself or
start a fire and then u lose focus zonin out thinkin about smth else u already
messed up the order of actions sso do u start again or just eat the garbage or
??? look cooking is hard and i feel like tobias gets that. he’s ok at it in
theory but his application is shit. also hes a bird
cassie: id
say she’s not a natural culinary prodigy but with lots of patient practice
she’s become pretty decent. im not sure if its canon but for some reason im
convinced her dad is a really good cook?? meanwhile her mum is approaching
berenson-level bad and DESPISES it. hooooo boy. (she and rachel bond over
this). this means her dad enlists cassie as Head Kitchen Assistant and teaches
her the ropes, and she really quite enjoys it? preparing a meal is simple and
practical and instantly-gratifying in a way thats really calming, and she likes
being able to spend time with her dad. also not to be sappy but one time they
have rachel over for dinner and cassie and her dad are helping each other stir
the pot on the stove while her mum and rachel viciously chop vegetables and
toss carrot tops at them from across the kitchen as a protest against being
relegated to washing-up duty, and afterwards cassie tries to make brownies but burns
them atrociously and they gotta pick through the charred remains to find edible
bits and rachel says “HA who’s top of the Poisons Authority Watchlist now??…
dont answer that” and thats. a really good night. cassie holds on to that. ALSO
after the war cassie pretends she’s a way worse cook than she actually is so
she has an excuse to invite marco over to “”help her”” and get him doing
something different. he never admits that it helps but she knows from
experience it does
ax: HOOO BOY HERE COMES THE WILDCARD. i was torn between
saying “theres an intergalactic petition to establish a restraining order
between ax and Every Kitchen” and “he is a culinary TREASURE” but u know
what?? porque no los dos. ax around food is an unrestrained force of nature. this is a canonical fact. he gathers his flavours from the world around him (literally from the entire world around him, and from under him, and sometimes from the gutter to his left) AND im gonna say that despite his unconventional pantry choices hes actually,, not too bad at making flavours Work. unfortunately since he never has to occupy a human body for longer than 2 hours he has never had to work around the concept of “”food poisoning”” and his talents would have gone to tragic waste,, had marco not stepped in to save the day. with the help of marco’s PRACTICALITY and his handy snippets of earth advice like “the alfoil is a
UTENSIL not an INGREDIENT what the FUCK AX how are u even CHEWING THAT” ax’s raw talent is skilfully tamed. together they are
unstoppable. They take out several team cooking shows on network tv,
once because ax famously used the kitchen’s set props as a garnish. Ax probably
briefly invests in a popup restaurant for the fun of it and meets with roaring
critical success before it is gently shut down by the well-meaning and
highly-entertained food safety authorities, on account of his questionable
ingredient choices. Notable exchanges in the restaurant’s brief and
spectacular history include the food connoisseur who located ax personally to
implore “what is this…. subtle twist of flavour? the acidic flare that tingles
in the throat and warms the belly to its deepest crevice? please aximili, u
must reveal what mystery ingredient is responsible for this luxuriant gustatory
sensation” “its helicopter fuel”
For most species, bared teeth are a threat, even on earth. So it shouldn’t be very surprising that most alien species tend to respond poorly to a human smiling at them. Humans who spend a lot of time around aliens do their best to train themselves out of the habit, adopting (as much as they are physically capable) the expression of enjoyment used by whatever species they socialise with most. But it’s really hard not to smile when you see another human… Harder still not to smile back when one smile at you. This leads to the common misapprehension that humans generally don’t get along with strangers.
When, by whatever series of events, a crew or team with a human member acquires an additional human or two, the atmosphere gets tense for a few cycles while the nonhumans wait for some kind of establishment of hierarchy to take place. Some humans humor the assumption and perform a mock battle in some public area - these are generally those who have encountered the scenario before and became tired of trying to explain.
Rap battles, trivia contests, simple sports matches and other activities that a human would recognise as popular recreational activities often feature in these dominance rituals. The participants find that the performance serves as a great ice breaker and so the practice is becoming increasingly common. It is likely, therefore, that the misinformation about human social strata will persist.
I absolutely love all the space australia/ humans are weird/space orcs things going around, so I haven’t been able to stop thinking about stuff like metaphors and idioms and figurative speech. Like, what if those had been purely human concepts?
Human: “He really broke Omar’s heart”
Alien: “What?? Is Omar still alive? Can he be healed? Is it culturally appropriate to seek out revenge?”
Human: “No, no, like… He hurt him badly.”
Alien: “Yes I understand that your cardiovascular system is important.”
- - -
Human: “She’s a real wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Alien: “What is a wolf?”
Human: “It’s a predator - you know, the one dogs descent from?”
Alien: “… She looks human. How do you know the value of her clothes?”
- - -
Human: “That dickhead stabbed me in the back”
Alien: “MEDIC!!!!”
- - -
Human 1: “Wish me luck!”
Human 2: “Break a leg!”
*Horrified aliens in the background*
Human: “It cost me an arm and a leg”
Human"Well burn that bridge when we get there" Alien" we’ll be doing what now?“
I am watching Curse of the Black Pearl, and I am still super fucking committed to Elizabeth Swann, she of the wild eyes and voice like Damascus steel and hungry heart of a pirate.
Ngl I ship Alfred × the Waynes REALLY REALLY HARD now. Curse u!! How dare u make me ship something that there is literally 0 content for aaaah
when i started wayne manor i did not intend for this to happen but quite frankly it’s all thomas’ fault. WELCOME TO HELL.
i don’t know if there’s a name for a ship that is so obscure it might as well not exist, but then if you voice the idea out loud people go “WAIT BUT THAT MAKES SENSE??” but anyway that is the level of hell we are at with this and it’s just the worst.
“Recently Gaiman shared his thoughts on “racebending” in an interview with Junot Diaz. Bleeding Cool reports that during the interview, Gaiman brought up two of his books: Anansi Boys and American Gods.
Apparently Gaiman refused to the sell the rights to Anansi Boys when a
producer told him he would have to change the race of the two main
characters because “Black people don’t like fantasy.” Considering the
entire book is about two brothers whose father was an African god, their
race is vital the story and is not something Gaiman would ever consider
changing.”
Gaiman had offers to make a film out of his 2005 best seller Anansi Boys, about the sons of an African god discovering their magical background while living in the corrupt modern world, but moviemakers wanted to change the lead black characters to white or drop the magical elements altogether. “I don’t need the money,” Gaiman says. “Not needing the money puts me in a magical place because I can say no. I like the idea of having good movies made or having no movies made.”
why come they called him “beast” in the castle when everyone knew his name cuz they’d been working for him forever anyway? like …. i would just be like “hey chewbacca-Adam” or some shit, there’s no reason to call him beast … id hide in my room all day too if my employees started making fun of me..
If my manager decided to pull some rude ass shit with a witch and got me living the next ten years of my life as an immortal singing toaster oven you can bet your ass I’d wake him up every goddamn morning with a flaming panini directly to the face. rise and shine, you ugly fuck, time hear a song
I call this one, “ode to an inconsiderate pissbaby” and the first 9 verses are just me screaming at various decibels
@jollysunflora, who suggested an AU with modern technology. Going to split this one in half to avoid one ginormous post, because this is one headcanon per book.
1. When Cassie calls out to Elfangor, Marco whispers, somewhat hysterically, “Don’t be silly. Aliens don’t speak English. Haven’t you seen District 9? Arrival? The Avengers?”
Elfangor proves them wrong, of course, but when Marco blurts out a question he merely explains (with a hint of amusement) there are some forms of communication more sophisticated than mere words.
2. After Rachel sneaks back out of Chapman’s house, they listen intently to everything she describes.
“So what you’re really saying,” Marco says, “Is that the yeerks have enough technology to travel between stars, create impossibly advanced illusions of just about anything, take over entire other species… And all they did with it is make Skype 3D?”
“Yeah,” Rachel says, “but, like, good 3D. Not shitty have-to-wear-glasses 3D.”
“Nah,” Marco concludes, “still lame.”
3. Rachel gets Tobias a smart watch. She tells him it’s so that he can keep track of their time limit, but in reality she knows he’s lonely and bored out there in the woods, and at least this way she can call him. He can answer calls and check the time if nothing else; they talk for almost an hour before bed every night.
4. With Ax’s help, they turn off location and tracking and wifi and cookies on their phones. After that, there are a lot fewer meetings in Cassie’s barn, a lot more group messages with carefully coded content. Tobias proves to have something of a knack for coming up with ways to talk about yeerk plans (usually disguised as discussions of video game or movie plots), suggestions of morphs slipped into long-winded anecdotes that happen to mention a single animal species by name, and meeting locations’ coordinates as extra phone numbers added to the group chat with no actual phones connected. Jake encourages them not to talk in person, once their phones are secure from traces, because it’s safer this way.
5. After they get back from the mission, Marco spends almost two hours scrolling through Eva’s Facebook page, forever set to In Memoriam. The messages still come in sometimes, from friends and coworkers and distant family members Marco has never met; as the page admin, he filters them all.
So much wasted grief, he thinks. So much pain and loss and longing, all of it caused by the yeerks. Sound and fury, all over a death that never happened. Helpless and sick, he writes on her wall one last time: “I love you, Mom. I miss you. I WILL find a way to help.” And then he deletes the page.
6. “Don’t send anyone to Jake’s house,” Marco says, “it’s too risky. Instead, we just have Jake…” He gestures at Ax. “Video-call his parents a few times a night to reassure them that he’s still doing just fine working on that project at my house and not…” He gestures to Jake, who is currently tied to a chair with zip-ties using a technique Marco found on a Pinterest tutorial.
“Of all the stupid ideas you’ve come out with so far, that has got to be the stupidest,” Temrash 114 says in Jake’s voice. “Do you seriously think my parents won’t notice anything off about Ax? How clueless do you think they are?”
“They never noticed your sorry ass living in their house for over four months,” Marco says coldly.
In the end, it works, more or less. Jake doesn’t exactly appreciate the long lecture about communication when he finally gets home, but no one asks whether he was replaced by an alien so at least there’s that.
The next day, Tom’s inbox displays a single new email from an anonymous sender.
7. Rachel’s Instagram account is, in many ways, its own work of art. She copies down famous quotes onto post-it notes with swirling writing, multicolored pens, and even tiny illustrations crammed between the words. She has over 5,000 followers, and she doesn’t even think about how much she’s lost interest in the project until one of her mutuals messages her to ask when she’ll start posting again. She opens her account and realizes that she hasn’t posted any new photos in almost a month, and stares at the multipack of micro-tip Sharpies on her desk for a few minutes before she shuts her laptop without responding.
MM1. They don’t worry about Rachel not texting them back—after all, her gymnastics camp is way off in the mountains and it’s entirely possible she doesn’t have a cell signal there. It’s not until Ax tracks down her phone and finds it abandoned in her bag next to the bus stop that they all start to worry.
There’s a weird incident with a tornado at Darlene’s house in the middle of the Rachel crisis, but after the twenty-third different cell phone video of the incident gets uploaded to YouTube, the bizarre dust storm made of tiny mouths disappears into thin air and no one hears about it again.
8. “I don’t think I can do yeerk pool reconnaissance tonight,” Rachel says. “Too much homework.”
Ax sighs loudly. «Boo, you whore.»
There’s a very long pause, and then Tobias says, «Okay, that’s it, I’m deleting your tablet’s Netflix app.»
«I much prefer YouTube anyway,» Ax says cheerfully. «It has those shorter messages which play before the main video, and often concisely describe goods or services you can purchase through the use of bitcoins or other human currency. Did you know that those messages change so that their information reflects your preferences for different types of internet content? So informative! So considerate!»
9. The six of them spend over nine hours in the woods, morphing and demorphing and morphing and demorphing to try and keep their phones with them. It shouldn’t be that different from morphing minimal clothing, especially not when (for instance) Rachel has her phone taped tightly to the inside of her arm, but even Cassie can’t manage it. By the end of the exercise they’re exhausted, frustrated, and still short one solution for how to prevent Jake’s parents from freaking out when he regularly goes for several hours at a time without texting them.
10. “It’s really simple,” Marco says. “When it comes to resources, there’s a clear power difference here. I mean, seriously. If you only had to bet on one horse, wouldn’t you bet on the one that owns half the planet?”
“It’s not about who has more toys.” Jake shakes his head. “It’s about doing what’s right. And sometimes that means breaking the law.”
Marco throws up his hands. “There’s nothing right about Captain America starting a freaking war just because he doesn’t like Iron Man’s law! Anyway, what does he hope to accomplish outside of tearing the Avengers apart? He’s got, what, Hercules, Ronan, half a dozen other B-listers on his team? Does he seriously think he can take on Black Widow and Ms. Marvel and like 700 Thunderbolts?”
Jake rolls his eyes. “I think you’re forgetting that the Anti-Reg team has Luke Cage, Black Panther, Storm, and Daredevil. Sometimes the battle itself is worth fighting, because the alternative is allowing a huge injustice to stand. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you—”
“Don’t go quoting the River of Truth speech at me. We were having a perfectly civil conversation here!”
11. Rachel uploads a cell phone video of Jake and Cassie square-dancing to Facebook. Jake leaves dire warnings in the comments section, but Cassie gives it a thumbs-up and he stops threatening to murder his cousin.
12. “It’ll be okay,” Cassie mutters, “Just as long as my mom doesn’t start talking about Nice With Altruism.”
“What’s Nice With Altruism?” Rachel asks.
“You know, that one band with the initials NWA? The one whose iTunes album popped up on my mom’s credit card bill?”
Rachel’s eyes widen in comprehension. “Cassie, you minx!”
13. Tobias becomes a grand master at taking out drones. Each time he manages to snatch one out of the air he immediately dives, hurling it toward the ground at the last second as he flares and swoops away from the metal and plastic exploding on the pavement below. Afterwards, he brings the broken pieces to Ax for dissection like a housecat bringing home kills to a proud parent. Some are yeerk (spy cameras or hunter-tracker bots), some are purely human (neither of them exactly feels guilty about destroying some rich creepers’ toys) and some are disguised as human devices but with yeerk tech inside (“like a human-controller!” Marco says, and no one laughs at his joke). The yeerks notice that their spy bots disappear all the time, of course, but can’t do anything about it short of sending an entire helicopter to check on that one section of woods.
14. After Cassie posts her first and only Facebook selfie, brand-new Aeropostale outfit and all, Marco writes a fifteen-sentence treatise in the comments section to the blinding power of her beauty, which has stabbed him through the heart following this magnificent transformation.
“How much money did Rachel add to your Steam Wallet to get you to do that?” Cassie asks him in Messenger.
“$10,” Marco tells her. “Would have done it for $5.”
Jake, meanwhile, likes Cassie’s photo. After a minute he goes back and changes the thumbs-up to a heart. Then he panics, and changes the “love” back to a “like.”
15. “So we can’t morph brain-control chips,” Rachel says, “and we can’t morph cell phones. Maybe it’s just that we’re not allowed to morph technology?”
«That doesn’t make sense at all,» Ax says.
“Do you have a better explanation?” Marco snaps, more harshly than he means to.
«No,» Ax admits.
Rachel claps her hands. “All right, then. That’s the one we’re going with.”
16. “I lost my phone,” Jake tells his mom for the third time that year. This time around he’s even telling the truth. Nevertheless, she grounds him. He sneaks out anyway. She grounds him more when she catches him, and he waits until the middle of the night before he once again sneaks out. He starts timing their fights so that, when he has to disappear from all text contact, she mistakes it for the silent treatment. He hates himself a little more every time it happens.
17. “Send help!” Marco texts. “I told my dad that I bought so much oatmeal because it was gluten free, and now he has us BOTH on this stupid fad diet.”
18. When getting new shoes, new clothes, or food on the fly, Ax always buys for them. He does something with his home computer that allows him to literally make his own bitcoins, and so for now the limits of his bank account are nearly infinite. One of these days he’s going to get his accounts shut down by the NSA, but for now he’s (as Marco says) their sugar daddy.
MM2. “You know what’s not fair?” Marco calls over the building storm.
Jake sighs. “The fact that we’re out here at all?”
“No!” Marco gestures over at where Rachel and Cassie have both kicked off their boots—Uggs and Timberlands, respectively—and are starting to morph with the rest of their clothes still on. “How come girls get to wear yoga pants and camisoles in public, while if guys tried that same look we’d be the laughingstock of Reddit in less than an hour?”
“Because,” Rachel calls back, voice dangerously sweet, “if we’re not going to get equal pay, reproductive rights, the ability to choose our own standards of appearance, or a say in Congress, then the least we deserve are a few consolation prizes.”
19. The Amber alert for Cassie and Karen floods the town, and for the next ten days until they’re found, the rumors fly throughout the school. Brittany’s friend Alice heard on their school’s message board that Cassie killed herself. T.T. was texting Andy, who said that Beth’s mom works for the school and she heard that Cassie kidnapped Karen. An anonymous tip to the local police website posts a blurry photo of what appears to be a half-eaten body with some hysterical story about an escaped jaguar.
Rachel punches her classmate Allison for sharing a post which speculates that Cassie ran away from home to marry a guy twice her age she met on Tinder. Allison tattles immediately, since (she tearfully tells Chapman) it’s not like she wrote the post; she was just sharing it.
Jake’s science teacher confiscates his phone after she catches him using it to watch a video in class. However, after she discovers that he’s live-streaming footage of a Monarch butterfly chrysalis, she decides it’s probably educational and gives the phone back without even a demerit.
An anonymous post to their school’s confession board shows a cropped photo of Cassie, with text written over it: “Apparently, you have to disappear into thin air to get noticed around here. I wish someone would pay this much attention to me.” Rachel recognizes the handwriting as Melissa Chapman’s.
20. David leans in close to whisper to Marco. “It’s cool, see? I figured out how to make sales on the dark web using information I got off my dad’s computer, and once I had a buyer I just emailed the guy to negotiate—”
“You sent him an email?” Marco’s voice gets a lot higher. “From your home computer? Please tell me you’re not actually that stupid.”
Later that afternoon, the Animorphs assemble in the bushes outside David’s house. «The yeerks have his location, and they’re coming now,» Jake tells them. «So we break in, grab who we can, and run for it.» He hesitates, and then adds, «If we can only save one, the priority is David.»
21. Jake is mid-mission on CounterStrike with David, not actually giving a damn about firing imaginary weapons at imaginary terrorists but trying to bond with the new guy in TeamSpeak, when David says, “Man, that carry. You’re awesome at this! I bet you’re way better than Rachel, and she was bragging up and down about allegedly knowing shooters so well. I hate fake geek girls like that, always talking about their lame records. It’s like, go back to Animal Crossing!”
Jake straightens up in his seat, not even noticing when blood fills the center of the screen as he meets a messy end. “Actually,” he says slowly, “Rachel kicks my butt every time we play this. She’s right that she’s got a knack for it.”
“Ouch.” David laughs. “Must hurt, getting owned by a girl.”
Jake forces a laugh of his own. “Yeah, but at least she doesn’t gloat about it like Marco does.”
“Last time a girl thought she could beat me at this game, I doxxed the shit out of her.”
“You did what?” Jake demands.
“Chill. It’s not like I hurt her or anything. Me—and a bunch of other guys who got her info—were just sending the message that we saw through her bullshit and we weren’t going to stand for it. Not my fault she was too lazy to VPN. She probably even learned something from the experience.”
Jake doesn’t say anything. He feels a little sick to his stomach.
David laughs, too high, too late. “I’m kidding, man. Kidding. I wouldn’t actually do that. Swatting, on the other hand…” There’s something calculating in the tone of his voice. “Better watch out, man. If you have a dog, the cops shoot it on their way in the door. Just saying.”
“I should probably get to bed,” Jake says.
“Jeez, I’m still joking! Come on, can’t you take a stupid joke?”
“Apparently not.” Jake quits the game before he gets a response.
22. Rachel comes out of the bathroom to find her phone has a text alert telling her that she has several new picture messages. The most recent photo—the first one she sees—isn’t sent to her phone, but sent from it. It just shows a tiny bit of the curve of her back and her head wrapped in a towel, but it was taken less than five minutes ago.
Hands shaking, face dead-white but fists clenched in rage, she scrolls up through the photos. All are of her, most taken from oblique angles. When she gets to the first one taken, of Jordan still asleep in bed some time last night, she has to run back into the bathroom to puke her guts out into the toilet.
“How do you like me now?” says the accompanying text message.
“I will tear your fucking head off with my claws, and I will enjoy it,” she sends back to David.
23. For his fourteenth birthday, Rachel gets Tobias a tablet which has been specially adapted to be easier for people with arthritis to use; after some experimentation, she and Cassie have figured out it’s not that hard to use with a beak and talons. He downloads Rick Riordan and Scott Westerfeld novels to read when he gets bored during the day. At night, he’ll often put on Ellie Goulding’s music, turned down so low that it would be undetectable to human ears, and he’ll fall asleep to the soft flow of her voice.
24. “If you couldn’t even be bothered to take a picture of the thing, can you at least tell me what kind of toy space ship we’re talking about?” the guy in the shop says. “Rogue One? Endurance? Axiom?”
“Sort of like the Prometheus,” Rachel says, “with those engines on the sides?”
“Yeah, but with a big thruster in the back like Serenity has,” Jake adds. “And flat on top, like…”
“Like a helicarrier!” Cassie suggests.
“Yep.” The guy nods. “I know exactly which one you mean.”
25. “Jeremiah,” Marco says. “What a beautiful name for a beautiful young man.”
Jeremiah looks a little startled, but he leans against the locker door anyway to look at Marco through his eyelashes. “Do you like organic food truck rallys?” he asks.
“I love organic food truck rallys!” Marco enthuses.
Later, he googles “food trux rallie + organic” to find out what he just got himself into.
“So much gluten free quinoa!” he texts Jake an hour into the date. “Such cultural appropriation! SO MANY FAUX HIPPIES! Send help.”
Jake, being the true bro that he is, fakes an emergency call and rescues Marco from the granola overdose.
26. “I don’t think I like this section of Minecraft very much,” Marco says shakily.
Jake rubs a tired hand over his face, looking around the brilliantly stacked Iskoort world for any sign of Howlers. “Same. I could kill for a cup of black coffee right now. And I don’t even like the taste of coffee.”
Rachel turns around, slowly taking in his artistically-faded designer shorts and flannel-patterned t-shirt. “You are such an incredible hipster I cannot believe we’re even related,” she says.
27. “So,” Jake asks as they head for the beach, “What do we know about giant squids so far?”
«Apparently,» Ax says, «giant squids are gay. Not just a subset of the population as would normally occur, but every single member of the species. Which raises several fascinating questions about their system of reproduction, and has important implications for our understanding of squid gender. However, the source of this information also informed me repeatedly that giant squids had copulated with my mother, which leads me to believe that this was partially a case of mistaken identity.»
There is a very long pause. Tobias becomes the one to break it. «Ax, buddy, where did you go to look for information about giant squids?»
«Initially, I posted an inquiry to an online platform known as Reddit which frequently encourages questions. However, I was then approached by several individuals from a website called 4Chan…»
«Do me a favor and please don’t judge our entire species based on anything you saw there,» Tobias begs.
They walk for several more minutes in shocked silence, and then Marco says, “O-kay! Who wants to know what I learned about giant squids off Wikipedia?”
I am still INTERNALLY SCREAMING at Ax saying «Boo, you whore,» oh my GOD
I love
everything about this. David would absolutely be that guy.
I am 100% convinced that “exit, pursued by a bear” is a reference to some popular 1590s meme that we’ll never be able to understand because that one play is the only surviving example of it.
