quack quack

[idealistic]

Who: The crew of and anyone visiting the Wonderduck!
Broadcast: idk maybe??
Action: SS Wonderduckduckgoose
When: All of May!

[ goodness gracious! new games, new upgrades, new crew-- what better way to enjoy all of these than with a month-long mingle!! ]

Comments

[forsometimenow]

[Jennifer knew she shouldn't be this disappointed about the beer- it's not like she's a huge drinker, after all- but still. She went to the kitchen to get something to put on her stomach to find a boy she assumed was the ship's newest crewmate poking at the food supply.]

... I'd like to say you get used to it, but. It's still protein blocks at the end of the day.

[feathery]

[Davesprite looks up and turns from where he has just dispensed one solid glob and one gel glob of protein.]

Oh, uh, hey. [Said with a semi-awkward half-wave, like maybe he was just caught trying to figure out how this machine worked without breaking it by accident.]

These are some of the saddest and floppiest excuses I seen for a chicken yet. [He gives the "food" a prod with one finger. It jiggles.] The peanut butter's not looking much better.

[forsometimenow]

[Jennifer returns the wave, seemingly not bothered by the awkwardness. She could understand the need to explore things- it wasn't every day most people came across food in cube form, after all.]

There are some ways you can mix and combine stuff to make it more palatable taste-wise, but yeah... it's meant for sustenance over taste or beauty. It keeps on long space trips, which is the only good thing that can be said.

[feathery]

[The food in cube form makes him so sad.]

What do you do about the texture. Isn't that like, half the point of food. [He's talking out his ass here; Davesprite has next to no culinary expertise, but this seems wrong.] What if I've got a delicate palate.

[A beat.] Pretend I'm not part crow in this hypothetical scenario, ok.

[forsometimenow]

[That's- definitely new.] ... uh. Let me just make sure I heard you correctly- you're part crow?

[feathery]

Yeah, kind of a long story as to why, but that's why I've got the wings.

[Said with a light tug on the black feathers, wings flicking halfway open. Indisputably part of him, instead of a weird fashion statement or something.]

[forsometimenow]

Right, the wings should have been my first clue. [She smiled sheepishly.] I'm not familiar with bird psysiology, unfortunately- and really, even for humans there's only so much you can do with protein cubes. Can you at least digest this stuff?

[feathery]

About to find out.

[He drops the plate on the table. Yes, time to psych himself up to eat this slop. He can do it.]

If not...well, I dunno. I might not have to eat in the first place. But it'll probably be fine. Crows eat out of dumpsters.

[forsometimenow]

And I doubt Atroma would have brought you here if you couldn't eat something. Watching someone go hungry probably wouldn't make for good ratings.

[feathery]

Oh, yeah, you're probably right. Starvation sounds like shitty entertainment.

[Even if he's not 100% sure he's ready to trust their faceless abductors over it.]

But I was kind of a ghostly spirit guide for a while, along with being part crow. So if that holds over, I don't know if I've got to eat at all. [His canon is really weird...]

[forsometimenow]

Exactly. I mean, we're not exactly sunshine and happiness 100 percent of the time, but putting us in mortal danger would upset the audience. ... and I never in my life thought I'd have to consider that angle.

[She nods, surprised at the back of her mind to be taking that idea in stride.]

In that case, I'd say go ahead and try the protein cubes. There's a list of recipes around here somewhere... like, you can combine wheat and cheddar cubes to make macaroni and cheese. Or a distant fascimile thereof.

[feathery]

[His nose wrinkles a little at that.]

Distant facsimile it is. A hella tragic one. [He looks suspiciously at the blocks on his plate, before sighing and working out how to wrangle them with a fork.]

Who is the audience, anyway. I heard about Atroma and them being a mysterious hands-off organization, but not who they're broadcasting to.

[forsometimenow]

It is. When we make stops at waystations and the like, there will usually be restaurants and places you can buy real food. Sometimes a sponsor will send you a crate of stuff, too. Until then...

[She smiled quietly.]

Our audience is another mystery, unfortunately. I've always assumed they were humans, but then again, that's probably because I am one. For all we know they could be a species we've never heard of. We know they're there, though- sometimes they'll send money or gifts to their favorite Fleet members.

[feathery]

Maybe that'd all sound more ideal to me if they didn't snatch us up without permission.

[He looks up at her, head slanted with curiosity.]

But there's really no other reason for guessing they're humans besides being one?

[It's not that he's inclined to disagree—he's skipped between calling the fleet "futuristic" and "alien" (sometimes in the same conversation), depending how he's feeling at the moment—but it still seems very specific to him. He's new enough he hasn't seen anything to indicate the showrunners are one thing more than any other, after all.]

[forsometimenow]

Yeah, I understand. The perks don't really make up for the whole "kidnapped to be a reality TV star" thing.

[Jennifer looked thoughtful at his question.]

I think it's because I don't recognize the area of space we're in at all- and while we've met other humans, there are non-humans around, too, even on the Fleet itself. So while I assume the audience is human, it's also quite possible they aren't.

[feathery]

So I'm guessing you've been doing the space travel thing for a while, then, huh.

[The phrasing of it makes it sound more like it was part of her life before she wound up with the fleet. Belatedly, however, he remembers—]

Oh, yeah, and I'm Davesprite. [Not that there's anyway to audibly tell it's one word as opposed to two.]

[forsometimenow]

Glad to meet you, Dave- I'm Dr. Keller. I'm the medical officer here on the Wonderduck, so... I'll try my best to help if you ever get sick or injured.

[She then switched gears to space.]

A little bit- I actually lived in another galaxy for a while before I was brought here. By "another galaxy" I mean "one that's not the Milky Way", if that means anything to you.

[feathery]

Oh, yeah. We didn't have space travel, though, on the iteration of Earth I'm from. At least nothing that went past landing on the moon.

[He finally gets around to eating some of his protein block and makes a face.]

Ew. [It tastes like chicken, but the texture is decidedly not chicken.]

[forsometimenow]

Oh, good- I mean, that you know what I'm talking about. Explaining space travel to someone who has no context for it is harder than it sounds. Of course, intergalactic travel was still a secret back home to most of the populace- I only talk about it frankly here because it's not like I have to worry about non-disclosure agreements.

[She smiles sympathetically.]

Yeah, pretty much.

[feathery]

[He pokes half-heartedly at the peanut butter gel. Why did he get peanut butter with chicken, of all things? The world may never know.]

Why was it a secret?

[Movie tropes point towards military secrets, probably, he thinks. Or. Something.]

[forsometimenow]

I worked for the military. They didn't want civilians knowing about this technology... mostly because we were still learning about it, and because the people we found at our destinations weren't always friendly.

[feathery]

Called it. Well, partially. Didn't call the alien part. I've met aliens before, but they were never from the same universe as me.

[forsometimenow]

So this universe-hopping thing is old hat, huh? I'm still pretty new to it- I've heard plenty of stories from my friends who have been in the Stargate program for a long time, though. Hostile aliens sounds like such a cliche, but it's been proven true.

[feathery]

Probably better than the aliens that barreled ass-first into trolling me and my friends. They were pretty lame. And murderous, but mostly lame. [God does Davesprite hate trolls.]

But yeah, I was part of a kidnapping program before this. Only we were supposed to save the multiverse instead of starring in a reality TV show.

[forsometimenow]

I don't know what would be worse, honestly- annoying ones or outright hostile ones. At least the hostile ones give you a good reason to fight back.

[She nods.]

Wow, the multiverse... no pressure, huh?