driftfleet | 4. Note-Tina Books

Who: Tina Belcher and you
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: SS Paisley, if desired
When: April 6th

[There is a crate on the Paisley's cargo bay floor addressed to Tina Belcher, Warrior Of Love and Tina's hovering over it uncertainly.]

Look, sponsors, I appreciate that you seem to like me but after that thing with the unicorn meat, you can't expect me to want to open this, can you? Can you? Well, I refuse. Yep, this is just going to sit here unopened and you'll never get me to satsify my curiosity OKAY I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE, I'LL OPEN IT.

[And she does pry it open, revealing a stack of notebooks, a package of glitter pens, and... several unicorn candles. Thankfully, these are unmelted, and Tina seems pretty happy as she nods at the camera.]

Hey, looks like you all paid attention to me this time. This is a pretty good gift, in fact. I can start writing again! I'll do my best to live up to the rumor that I AM, in fact, Tina Belcher, Warrior of Love. ... though there's no truth to the rumors that I'm secretly vegan or prefer Jimmy Pesto's hamburgers to my dad's or just hate hamburgers in general. I found all 3 of those on the fridge this morning and I'm not sure how all 3 are supposed to be possible at once.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He'd say he's pretty sure unicorns don't exist, but he's not really in any position to debate if something magical can be possible or not. ]

Well. It was very good of you to decline. We must keep to our morals, no?

Mais qui! It binds us to the people most important to us.

I agree. Some of my crewmates were perfectly willing to eat it,t oo, so at least it didn't go to waste.

Mmhmm. And it gets you through tough times. My family might be poor and our restaurant might not do too much business, but we have each other, no matter what.

And they suffered no ill effects?

Exactly! If we face life's hardships together, those troubles seem much lighter.

Not as far as I know. I'm not sure canned meat will ever taste good as fresh, but if they ate it, must not have been too bad.

Yeah... I do miss my family a whole lot, and I can never replace them, but my crew is helping me do that. Face hardships and stuff. They're so nice.

I have honestly never heard of canned meat before. I cannot see how it would taste as good as fresh at all.

[Wouldn't it be all metallic and gross? He doesn't know. ]

Then I am glad you have someone here to take care of you, mademoiselle.

Yeah, it's full of, like, salt and stuff. Preservatives. So it stays edible longer. I've been spoiled by having fresh stuff available all the time, but here we eat mostly that protein stuff and whatever we can get from planets. Or the sponsors.

I feel like I lucked out, really. It's going about as well as a kidnapping could, all things considered.

I would hardly call what we have here 'food'. It is a travesty.

[He has Strong Feelings about what the food replicators have to offer. ]

True. Our hosts are far more welcoming than I expected kidnappers to be.

[Says the guy who is technically an accessory to a kidnapping. ]

Yeah, it really is. I can cook with it alright, but it's just not as good as the real deal.

They don't like to talk to us, though. They haven't since I got here, anyway, which is more than a month. I'd have been lost without everyone else to give a helping hand.

It lacks a certain je ne sais quoi for me.

[Lumiére, you can't even eat it right now. ]

That is true. I would have expected at least a hello.

[Tina's... not quite sure what "je ne sais quoi" means, so she's just going to address the second bit.]

It just seems to weird to me. You'd think they'd give us instructions or advice or... something. Let us know how we're doing in the ratings and all. Having us all be totally clueless doesn't seem like it'd make for a good show.

Even the simplest of actors need a little stage direction to make their play make sense, after all. Perhaps our cluelessness is part of the entertainment? It has to get boring, after a while, though.

Yeah, and ideally there'd be a script. Even if they want us to just go about our way on our own, someone had to be the first person brought here, and if they weren't addressed by Atroma... well, that'd be a disaster. Maybe they want us to rely on cooperation, make us ask for help.

Has that worked for anyone yet? Asking for help?

Asking Atroma for help? Not that I've seen. But asking over the network, people are more than willing to lend a hand. It's nice.

Well, that is something, at least! If we are willing to help one another, then that is all we need.

Yeah, I like being able to talk to the network. It's like having a bunch of friends in your pocket.

Mais qui! It's very interesting. We have nothing like that back home. If you want to speak to a friend, it is in person or via a letter. This is very convenient.

I had telephones back home, but never anything this fancy. ... and I didn't have that many people to call, come to think of it. My brother and sister are my best friends, so I could just talk to them while they were there...