#crottled greebs

[cuprohastes]

To kill a human

It was Sqrnix eve and the Thotari Assassins had gathered for crottled greebs, and Karaoke.

Though they didn't feel like their usual darkly cheerful selves: They'd made the mistake of accepting a contract on a human.

First Blade muttered, "They're impossible! I poured so much poison into his drink! It should have ripped the water from his cells, and split his tissues!"

Second Blade added despondently, "I tried poison too! Rakandi dust in his food. At first, I thought it had lost it's potency, but then I saw him shaking more onto his meal! It should have burned him form the inside out!"

Third Blade peeled a tentacle from the crottle greebs off her face. "Pfah, you're telling me! After watching you two, I tried a bitter alkaloid from the creature's own home world, boiled into a foul brew - I didn't even try, I just handed the thing the bowl."

Fourth Blade noted, "I'm kind of seeing a theme here. I tried an acidic compound because at that point I'd just made a bet with Garki that the human would just gobble it down."

The other three looked at her.

"What? It's not like you had any luck!"

Meanwhile Dave the Human was writing a review of his stay:

"Locals very friendly. Last night they made me a pitcher of cocktails, brought me a really interesting curry, and then in the morning got me some coffee and aspirin. Four stars. Minus one star because the crottled greebs snuck into my room and ate my bootlaces."

[thedurvin]

What the hell would a 1956 nerd zine even talk about?

* Various incomprehensible in-jokes (”crottled greebs”)

* Parodies of epic poetry and early Hollywood sci-fi

* If I’m understanding it correctly, they had something very similar to the Angry Video Game Nerd/Game Grumps, except all the commentary was about something called “ghoodminton”

* Fanwank complaining about TV westerns messing up classic characters

* Apparently the word “fandom” was already a thing, established enough to be part of another in-joke: the acronym FIJAGH, which secretly stood for “Fandom Is Just A Goddamn Hobby”

[cuprohastes]

Patterns.

[partially based on this post by @callum-librrry]

Dave The Human, female Tsin by happenstance, and professionally, a male human was dipping one of the Caffeteria's purple bread rolls in different sauces and taste testing.

With her was Garf, a large adult Atrix of the Atrix gender, her Little guy, Un-named Male who was not technically any more male or female than Garf, just smaller, and unusually no Dave the Human, an actual human, discounting the week he'd spent as an Atrix to annoy someone.

Garf was taking notes and Un-named was doing colour commentary.

Dave tried a dab of interspecies-recipe Teriyaki and considered the flavour profile. "Without a doubt, the most horrible thing I have ever tasted." she stated after a moment of consideration and swooshed her mouth with lightly salted elderberry cordial.

"Grak." said Un-Named, witty little guy that he was.Garf made a note. "OK that's the third most horrible thing you have ever eaten, two 'I regret my life choices' and three 'Would be great with Crottled Greebs' and that one where you tried to drink the bottle." she said.

From somewhere there was a crash as someone dropped a tray and everyone looked around.

"Who was it?" asked Dave.

"EVA 43." Garf told him after a quick glance.

"...Really?I thought 43 was Atrix!"

Un-named and garf took another look.

"No... Atrix don't have stripes like that." Garf said casually.

Un-Named said "Grak?" and she shrugged. "You get better distance vision when you get larger." she assured him, and looked up at Dave who was doing an expression she tentatively read as 'bemused' - Hard to tell without a proper patch of display skin on her face like an Atrix would have.

"What?"

Dave leaned back. "Stripes. Humans do not have stripes." she notes.

Garf and Un-named looked at each other and flickered colours and patterns with their faces.

"Uhh... Yeah, they do." she said. "Remind me... on the lights spectrum Tsin vision is...?"

Dave perked up her ears. "Oh? Ohhh! Yes, down near the Squeep! end. So humans stripes are visible in the Squeep!... Um, what do you call it, the super purples and other invisible colours section?"

Garf looked it up on the tablet. "Uh yeah. We call it something different but the humans, yes they call it Ultra-Violet."

"Grak?"

"No... I don't know either. But they do."

Then Dave the Human arrived with tea and a purple bread roll off his own. "'Sup, my social circulars?" he asked cheerily.

"Human stripes." said Tsin Dave. "I had no idea you had them."

"Oh don't worry about it," Dave the Human said, "We can't see them either. Uh I think they're Blascowicz Lines, or something."

There was a pause while Garf looked it up on Humanpedia.

"Blashko's Lines!"

"There you go. Yeah... oh so Tsin can see them?" Dave said.

"Sure... oh that's weird." said Garf.

"Not that weird. Hey, Dave, watch this." Dave the Human said. He held up the purple roll. "What colour is this?"

"Grak." said Un-Named, getting it in one. "Blue" said Garf, and then "ir-tk-tk-tss. Flesh coloured".

"Dave?"

Dave the human looked at the roll. "It's... uh, grey-ish red?"

Dave the Human grinned. "Both. I can see the red and the blue so I get a colour called Purple. It's a few shades off from how Atrix look.

"Atrix are _purple?!_" yelped Garf, startled, almost at the same time as Dave The Human, squeaked, "They're not dark red?"

"Oh hey is that Teriyaki?" said Dave, and dunked his breadroll in it.