#silly token

[wooly-nooly]

Hes so annoying 😭 and iii trying desperately to stay on the ground is hilarious

And vessels SCRAMBLE to get to the mic when he remembers HES THE VOCALS? HAHAHAHAHSHSJ

[tedzyrotten]

vessel air guitar will never not be funny

[fadetodvst]

[blanchebees]

Vessel and his big hands

Tip jar

[moth-nocturna]

dumping south park sketches lol

[ohbaby-here-we-go-again]

In light of recent shenanigans, I remade this post.

Management really went, ‘ok vessel needs on-stage enrichment that doesn’t involve harassing iii or iv… Send in one of the crew.’

[allipob]

[vix2section]

(x)

[beanfish05]

👍

[dozecoin]

SWISS AND VESSEL!! silly doodle inspired by this image

they're so silly they should be besties i think

[cr1ms0nesp3ra-ac3]

Smile!!

[marlynnofmany]

Other Uses for Packaging

I waved goodbye to the customers — other humans this time — then sat back and waited for the trash pickup. I didn’t blame them for not wanting to take all the packing material out into the spaceport. They hadn’t brought a hovercart or forklift, and had been unprepared for the huge crate full of bubble wrap and foam.

Other times, our little courier ship had done deliveries where time was short or regulations were tight, and all we would have been able to do was advise them on where to rent a hovercart or buy a crowbar. Luckily for these customers’ convenience and my conscience, today we could stick around and help them unpack the custom end table or whatever that was.

They’d left happy, with something much easier to carry, and Captain Sunlight had headed for the cockpit to call in the station’s trash crew. (Apparently this was a regular feature at this space dock, which was a nice change from the last few where we’d had to move the ship’s garbage over to the trash area under our own power.)

Zhee looked over the crate that he’d just taken great joy in disassembling. “Wood may be valuable here,” he said with a thoughtful click of a pincher arm. “If not to the station at large, then surely to another ship. I wonder if the captain thought of that.”

I glanced back at the open cargo bay. “Probably?”

“Probably,” Zhee agreed.

We were both silent for a moment while the spaceport bustled around us.

“I’m going to check,” he said, tapping his way up the ramp on his many bug feet. “Make sure none of that blows away.”

“Sure thing.” I looked at the piles. The only breeze in here was the faint wafting of ventilation systems and the occasional gentle landing of other ships at a safe distance, but I understood the impulse to be careful. That one package awhile ago, full of styrofoam beads, had been memorable. And terrible. The darn stuff was almost as bad as glitter, what with the way it stuck to things with static electricity. Nobody wanted a repeat of that.

This set of packaging was much better. The boards made a tidy stack, the foam was in rubbery sheets that didn’t leak bits everywhere, and even the bubble wrap was in long rows instead of individual panels. This was no top-of-the-line cryo suspension or force field generator, but it was respectable.

I organized the mess a bit while I waited. The rest of the crew either had stuff to do on the ship or out in the station, so despite all the ambient noise, things were quiet.

I started rolling up the bubble wrap, thinking someone might want to use it again, but found that many of the bubbles had gotten popped in the disassembly, leaving it only good for one thing.

The first bubble popped with a satisfying snap. By the third I’d pinpointed which direction the sounds were echoing from most, and I enjoyed the different noises I could get by tilting my head. None of the pedestrians were close enough to pay much attention, so I happily worked my way down the roll. I’d seen multiple other types of bubble wrap, some made by different cultures and different materials, and most of them didn’t actually pop. What a simple joy to find the regular old Earth kind again.

Mur’s voice from the cargo bay asked, “What’s making that sound?”

I sighed and turned. “Don’t tell me, this is another swear word in your language.”

Mur waved a tentacle. “No, of course not. I just wanted to know what’s breaking out here. It sounded like a problem.”

Before I could answer, Paint appeared behind him in a rush. “Is there a problem??”

“No,” I hurried to say. “Everything’s fine. It’s just bubble wrap. See?” I held up the section I’d been working on and popped another bubble.

Paint winced. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“No, it’s just garbage.” I rolled up the part I’d already flattened, then twisted it to pop the next row all at once.

“Okay, that almost sounded like a swear word,” Mur admitted.

I had to laugh at that. “Of course it did.”

Blip and Blop hurried out to join the growing crowd in the cargo bay. “What keeps breaking?” Blip asked, frills waving anxiously.

“It’s just bubble wrap!” I exclaimed. “See?” I held it up and popped another one.

Instead of nodding and going back to whatever they’d been doing, my alien coworkers remained perplexed. “Why does it keep popping?” Blop asked. “Are you doing that?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

“Why?” asked both Frillians at once. Paint and Mur also looked curious.

“Because it’s fun?” I replied, scrambling for an answer. I hadn’t thought this needed explaining. But apparently it did.

Paint asked, “How is that noise fun?”

“Well, it echoes—”

“You don’t need to worry about condensing materials for the trash pickup, if that’s the concern,” Mur said.

“Yes, I know—”

“Are there food items on your planet that you have to open like this?” Blip asked. “Large fish eggs, maybe?”

“No, ew! It’s just—”

A shadow loomed taller than the Frillian twins. “It is violensssss,” Trrili hissed, making them twitch. (I don’t know how she found a shadow in the cargo bay. Sometimes I think she brings them with her.) “Small-scale, sanctioned violence. These can be destroyed without repurcussionssssss.” She was choosing which words to hiss on, for effect.

“Sure,” I said, spreading my arms and lifting the bubble wrap. “Let’s go with that.”

Trrili wasn’t done. “Each tiny section can be crusssshed individually, with precision, or multiples at once for maximum volume.” She glided forward on quieter feet than Zhee’s, and the others made room for her.

I held out the bubble wrap. “You want a turn?” Her pincher arms didn’t seem suited to it, but I was curious to see where she’d go with this.

“Plasssssse it on the floor.”

“Sure.” I flapped the row out in front of her like a red carpet, and she moved like the predator she was to crush one after the other. With precision. And shiny black bug feet.

It gave me an idea. “Hey, wanna see who’s faster?” I grabbed another section and laid it out to one side. “You’ve got more feet, but my shoes are bigger.”

Trrili spread her mandibles in her favorite creepy smile. “Challenge acssssssepted.” She crouched like a spider and waited for me to be ready.

I glanced back at the others. “Anybody else wanna race?”

Mur spun on his tentacles and scooted back into the ship. “No thanks! I’m going back where it’s quieter.”

“Me too,” Paint said. “But thank you!” She scampered off.

Blip and Blop looked at each other in silence for a moment, fins waving. Then they turned to me. “We’ll judge,” Blip announced.

“All right!” I said. I wrangled my own section of bubble wrap, roughly the same length as Trrili’s, and struck my own ready pose. “Say when!”

The twins chorused, “Start!” and we were off. Pops filled the air along with Trrili’s delighted hisses and my laughter. There were probably people staring, but that didn’t matter.

Maybe I could talk Trrili into a dance-off afterward. On whatever was left when one of us was declared the champion of small-scale, sanctioned violence.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[tedzyrotten]

my arms belong around you.

[changewingwentz]

My First fanart offering 👋👋🙏

looking at manga covers with plots centered around fashion and their official arts on here due to severe art block and thought man I want iii to be put in there cuz I love his fit in the new era wooooo and it’s perfect to me but with a horror twist yknow

So I imagine him being in a cover of a visual novel or manga adaptation for funsies

Other additions below (without filter + texts!)

[politemagic]

the boys are back 🖤 (the shitposts never left, though)

[uruhasbubble-tea]

vessel is so adorable he reminds me of a kid that had too much sugar. also, you just witnessed his form of cute aggression, which involved giving iii silly little push