Betty Adams's Blog, page 9

Humans are Weird - Rants

Humans are Weird - Rants Vise adjusted his sunhat and licked his gums thoughtfully. He was fully hydrated, it was just hot out in the middle of the grain field. He heaved a sigh and idly grubbed thought the vines of the ground cover until he found a ripe bean pod to set in the gap where a new tooth was growing in. He idly mashed the bean pod between his gums as he turned his attention back towards the tail-tip width gap between the main drive bar of the tractor and the thresher bars. It was still to far up in the machines for his own, reasonably long forelimbs to reach, and he still had to wait for the humans to lumber their way out across the pasture on foot to fix it. He had just managed to pop the bean pod without using his teeth when the ground began to rhythmically vibrate indicating the presence of two humans and the sound of one voice filled the air.

“...every year of their life. Stole the food out of the refrigeration unit! When Mom would say anything about it Dad would just say that-”
“Is that you Vise?” Aiden’s smoother, younger voice called out.
“Where do you see him?” The rougher voice asked, a new human Vise didn’t know, presumably Adien’s father from context.
Vise rose from the ground where he had been resentfully eyeing the gap between the machine parts and stood on his hind legs. It didn’t get his eyes high enough to see the approaching humans through the tall grass mix, the beige hard grain heads and the red stigmas and anthers of the other species made remarkably good camouflage for the tall mammals, but it allowed them to see him.
“There he is,” Aiden’s voice called, is what was clearly meant to be a cheerful voice but seemed rather strained to Vise.
Vise felt an instinctive stir of unease in his gut. It was hard to forget that these were predators when they spotted him like that. The grass rustled harder and their shadows blocked out the hot sun as the humans hove into view. Aiden waved and stomped towards the tractor.
“This the problem?” the younger human asked quickly instead of stopping to introduce his father.
Vise rather wondered at that, Aiden was somewhat infamous for being unfailingly gregarious, as was his father by reputation. At the other end of his tail it was hot out here and even the famous mammalian endothermy had its limits.
“The pin broke,” Vise explained waving the replacement pin in his claws. “Can’t replace it till the bars are aligned, can’t align the bars with these.”
He waved his forelimbs demonstratively. Aiden grunted and began the slow process of folding his body down, bending at the knees, hips, and tilting his torso and head over to peer under the machine.
“Da’ if you can get down on the other side and brace the bar there?” Aiden asked.
His father gave a grunt of agreement and began a much slower, louder, with far more grunting, popping of joints, and groaning process of folding himself down on the side of the machine with Vise. Vise studies the flushed face of the human and tried to scent the air subtly. Aiden, who he knew fairly well, had a tense look to him. The way the human tended to look when quietly enduring too cold weather in the morning, or drizzling rain. Meanwhile his father’s face was flushed and his face muscles twitched in a way that indicated some strong emotion.
They both reached under the machine and gripping the respective parts used their bare hands to shove them together. Vise slid the pin into its slot and they gave the newly attached joint a few experimental tugs before standing and stepping back so the machine could resume its function. There was a clicking and a whirring as the threshing bars extended, caught the vines that had been compacted by gravity and rain and pulled them up with a flourish sending a dust cloud full of insects scattering.
“Need anything else Vise?” Aiden asked in that same odd tight tone.
“No,” Vise replied, as he sorted the parts of the broken pin into his carry satchel. “May I invite you back to my work-hutch for a cooling drink?”
“That sounds good,” Aiden agreed. “Oh have you met my Da’?”
Vise exchanged greetings with the clearly distracted human and set off on the long walk towards the work-hutch. The humans followed along behind him and almost instantly the older human began what was clearly a continuing conversation.
“Grandpa would take the food out of the refrigeration unit and all Dad would say is that he raised four kids during the hungry times on Beta Five, he couldn’t say anything about it! That sort of thing leave a mark on a family!”
Aiden made a very measured controlled sounds in response. Vise wasn’t quite sure if it was a word and Vise tossed a quick glance back at the humans, unsure if the older one knew what his hearing range was. This was beginning to sound like something a family kept fermenting in their own nest.
“That sounds very distressing,” Vise hazarded, just to let the humans know he could hear them.
Aiden gave him a tight but rueful smile and his father simply nodded vaguely in Vise’s direction, before continuing on what appeared to be a list of the social and moral failing of his parents, aunts, and uncles. Clearly there was no problem if the fumes from this reached other nostrils so Vise listened with interest to tales of unjust reprimand and untoward behavior. He noticed that excessive environmental heat played a remarkable role in this. They reached the work hutch, which had been deliberately built tall to accommodate humans and Vise shared out the lightly fermented fruit drink he had left cooling in the refrigeration unit. The humans complimented the beverage and then the older one cast a glance at the large patch of shade under the tangled branches of a grove of vine-trees.
“Think I’ll go test out the gravity over there before we head back to the house,” the human announced.
Vise gave an amused rumble at the reference to a human’s inability to sleep standing and took a long sip of his drink as he watched the human stroll over to the shady area. Aiden released a sigh that sounded like relief as his father got out of earshot.
“Your father is very free with family conflict,” Vise observed and tried to make his tone neutral.
Aiden gave a low laugh and took a drink.
“A wee bit,” the human finally admitted. “Da’s been going through a rough spot and wants to talk about things.”
“Because of loosing your nest mate?” Vise hazarded, swinging his tail around to lay it comfortingly against Aiden’s back.
“That and other things,” Aiden agreed, staring out into the bright haze on the distant horizon.
Vise wondered if he was seeing something with a human’s remarkable distance vision, or if he was just thinking.
“Your father just began a conversation listing the wrongs committed against him by the previous generation?” Vise asked.
“Not exactly,” Aiden said with a grimace, “he wanted to tell me about the details of the deal he made with my brother, and I made the mistake of not keeping my face shut up.”
“You expressed an opinion about the deal?” Vise asked.
“Not on purpose,” Aiden said, “but apparently he can read my face because when he was about halfway into it he jumped back and asked if I was angry. Somehow I can’t seem to get my face to shut up.”
Vise stared up at the ever moving oval of soft-flexible flesh and eyes that dilated and contracted at the slightest emotion and seemed at times to flicker with internal light, at the lips and nostrils that could flex and bend like a hatchling’s tail tip.
“I can see that that would be an issue,” Vise admitted, lapping up a bit of fluid.
“So he asked what was wrong and I told him,” Aiden said.
Vise politely waited quite some time until it became clear that Aiden had no intent to continue.
“What does that have to do with the rough surfaces of his progenitors?” Vise asked.
Aiden gave a hollow laugh and stared out at the distance.
“I don’t know Vise, I just don’t know.”


Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Sabotage

​ Humans are Weird – Sabotage Tapsgingerly paused his transport at the final hill-crest and shuffeled about half of his mass out of his thermal insulation sheath. Beside him Bindstightly curled even closer in against the riding surface and somehow managed a rude gesture without extending any of his appendages. Tapsgingerly waved an amused appendage at him idly as he drank in the bizarre beauty of the surrounding landscape. Everything glittered in chaotic rainbows of color. Ice, some of it miles thick, caught the light of the local star and refracted it back with the blues dominating. This panorama was cut through with jagged dark gashes that showed the bare bedrock peeking through. At the edges the ice refraction gave way to the constant cloud refraction, a boiling mass of nebulous color.
The thin air carried the sting of ice, the taste of the local diatom and algae cultures that thrived in the top layers of the ice, and the deep resonance of the constantly shifting glaciers, so loud that even the atmosphere carried the sound. Tapsgingerly had the sudden urge to dismount the hovering transport with its advanced stabilization and really get his appendages down on the bedrock so he could hear the ice song properly, carried through solid rock.
“Don’t follow that thought another und,” Bindstightly growled.
“But the ice-song is so muted back in camp,” Tapsgingerly protested, but he was already sliding his appendages back into the individual sleeves of his thermal sheath.
Bindstightly gave a sound he had learned from Human Friend Bruce. The Undulate was quite good a mimicking an abrupt outburst of lung-air through nostrils and it did carry a lot of meaning. Tapsgingerly let his lagging end wriggle in amusement as he guided the transport down the final slop to the valley that sheltered their research station. The Shatar medic was missing from her usual station and they were able to unpack their samples and data records without incident. Bindstightly showed his usual rigid discipline as he carefully sorted the samples and data before turning and shuffling quickly towards the north side of the camp.
“Don’t you want to visit the warming pools?” Tapsgingerly asked in surprise, following his smaller coworker out of curiosity.
“The sauna,” Bindstightly gestured, anticipation showing in every appendage.
Tapsgingerly mused over that as he followed, still curious.
“It is pleasant to have human companionship,” he observed as they rounded the building that blocked their view of the haphazard assortment of shipping container sides and scraps of shuttle insulation that some long-gone human had forced into a roughly cylinder shape with a conical roof. There was smoke coming from the outlet and even at this distance the air already tasted warmer.
“But even with the high vapor content of the air we would still warm more swiftly in the warming pools,” Tapsgingerly said, several of his appendages twisting to get a good look at the Shatar Medic who would have normally greeted them at the entrance bent over something on the side of the sauna.
“Human Friend Bruce keeps the big bowl with him in the sauna and I am free to use it as a warming pool,” Bindstightly explained as they reached the front of the building and started the climb up the wall towards the door. “You will have to get your own.”
“I will be in in a moment,” Tapsgingerly said, his attention drawn by a wave from the Shatar Medic.
He dropped down and shuffled over to where the medic was attempting to repair the environmental monitors to the sauna. The Jerry-rigged sensor array was hanging down from its usual mounting position and from the look of the wall it had been forcibly ripped out. Several wires were loose and it was these that the Shatar was attempting to repair.
“Second Sister,” Tapsgingerly greeted her in audio with a cheerful wave. “May I assist you?”
“Are you going in to socialize with that crusted idiot?” Second Sister demanded without taking her attention off her attempt to strip the insulation off of a wire.
“Bindstightly?” Tappsgingerly asked, nonplussed but the grumpy medic’s rudeness.
Working with humans for a prolonged time tended to make Shatar Medics a bit testy.
“First Brother,” she corrected with an irritated flick of her antenna.
“I was planning on going in and socializing with whatever humans were in the sauna,” Tapsgingerly agreed.
“Stay with them till they are done and monitor their vital signs for life threatening heat stress,” Second Sister snapped out.
“Ah, to replace the sensors,” Tapsgingerly replied understanding. “What happened to them?”
“First Brother,” she said as she shoved a wire repeatedly into a socket, “insists that due to his genetic and cultural heritage he has a far higher tollerance to heat exposure.”
“And how did that damage the sensors?” Tapsgingerly asked.
“The sensors kept triggering the safety alarm while he was ‘just getting warmed up’ in the sauna,” she explained, “so he stepped out of the sauna, with nothing on at all, his pores open to the maximum, and attempted to deactivate the alarms. He someone did this in the process,” she indicated the cables yanked through the exterior insulation of the sauna and Tapsgingerly tried to sound sympathetic and not amused.
“I will get right in there and monitor Human Friend Bruce,” he assured her. “I am sure he is very sorry for the damage and didn’t mean to do it, but he is very thermally robust, even for a mammal.”
Second Sister tilted her triangular head at him and something dangerous glittered in her broad eyes. Tapsgingerly waved a cheerful goodbye and scuttled around the curve of the sauna and in through the flapping door the humans had installed for them. He showered of, tasting Bindstightly and several humans in the moisture around the drain, and shuffled eagerly through the second flap into the heat area. Three humans were sprawled against the thin covering of natural fibers on the wall, bracing their mass on the low benches. Their stripes glowed vibrantly with a mix of heat stress and pleasure and the central heat source, a rough metal barrel positioned to hold fire was indeed heated far past what most previous humans considered the safe level. Bindstightly was sprawled in a large human, multipurpose bowl and held a ladle loosely in on appendage. As Tapsgingerly scrambled up on the bench at the socially mandated distance (mammals got awfully prickly about personal space once the ambient temperature reached a certain level) Bindstightly reached out with the ladle and scooped some heated water from the container set in contact with the flame barrel. He carefully poured some of the heated water into his warming bowl, and then tossed the rest over the rocks that had been set to absorb heat and disperse steam.
“Ey, Taps,” Human Friend Bruce called out after the general sound of pleasure the humans had made in response to the hissing of the steam had died down. “Second Sis didn’t ask you to snitch did she?”
“You didn’t deliberately damage the sensor box did you?” Tapsgingerly countered, spreading out his appendages to better absorb the heat from the moisture that coated the walls and benches.
“Touche,” Human Friend Bruce said with a grin. “She was being annoying about it,” he explained with a gesture towards where a hole in the wall indicated where the damaged sensor had been yanked out. “Wouldn’t take my word that the previous limits were for sissy equatorial humans, not us far north stock.”
“Well if you mind yourself and don’t have some weird organ failure I won’t have anything to snitch about,” Tapsgingerly replied with a leisurely stretch.
The foundations of the sauna went right down to the bedrock and this was a delightful way to listen to the ice song.
​
Author Betty Adams Books
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Transformers Book #4 - Desperate Triage in Blood and Energon - Skybound Energon Universe

Transformers Book #4 - Desperate Triage in Blood and Energon - Skybound Energon Universe
https://youtu.be/0dytMPPM2Q8?si=285dl4P5qgCkyC22
#TFE #OptimusPrime #SparkplugWitwiky #Ratchet #Starscream

​ Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Boxing

Humans are Weird - Boxing  First Mother gripped the sides of the packing box and wrestled it slowly through the main entrance to the storage cavern. The sides of the box, specifically designed to provide ideal gripping friction for Shatar fingers, were easy to hold, and the total weight could not be more than a fruit collection basket. However the thing was so large, she could have climbed in easily enough, even her largest Sister from the home hive who had sprouted to half again normal height due to some hormonal imbalance, could have stood easily in it. The open top of the box released the off putting chemical scent of some preservation chemical residue and First Mother wondered idly if she was curious enough to investigate what it was exactly that Third Daughter had ordered that required this massive container.
Her thought vine was interrupted by the sound to nearly dancing feet and she felt her frill warm with pleasure as her beautiful mate came around the corner, his broad triangular head tilted to the side and up as he chatted eagerly with a fluttering cloud of membrane and fur that hovered over him. He had some soft cloth draped over one arm he was rapidly gesticulating with the other as if explaining something. The box was almost ready to be lifted into the transport so First Mother paused a moment to admire the gleaming of his green membrane and the bold ultraviolets that danced with the red in his psudo-frill. It was obvious when he spotted her, his antenna curled like a youth just seeing his intended for the first time and he danced up to her with delight in his pheromones.
“Do you need help with that my giantess?” he asked, indicating the box that towered over his head with a flick of his antenna.
“No,” she said, ducking her head to give his antennas a friendly stroke with her own.
By the first vine he still tasted a delightful as the first day they had met.
“It weighs hardly anything,” she explained, “and I don’t want you to dirty that lovely…”
She titled her head thoughtfully at the brilliant white cloth that just barely reflected hints of ultraviolet. She was reasonably sure it had something to do with taking care of newly laid eggs. Her mate clicked in amusement at her confusion and gestured for the Winged who were following him to load into the cab of the transport. She gave the box a firm grip and hefted it up and into the bed. She activated the auto-ties and the slithered out and over the box, securing it firmly to the bed.
“Wouldn’t it be better to collapse the box before disposing of it?” asked a voice that probably belonged to one of the Winged who and lingered outside of the cab.
“I am not disposing of it,” First Mother explained as she gave the auto-ties a testing pull. “That should do it. I am going to gift this to the humans for another use.”
“Don’t the humans have their own disposable shipping containers?” a Winged voice asked as she turned and pulled herself into the cab, basking in the close smell of her mate’s pheromones.
“It’s unusual for them to get ones of this volume,” First Mother explained.
“So we like to share ours when we can,” First Father agreed, from where he was working over the glittering cloth, doing something with a tuning stone that seemed to be making the cloth more ultraviolet.
The Winged took up a continuous chitter that was rather hard to follow over the wind whipping by the transport. First Mother thought she caught questions about the trees, the canopy density, and speculation about what the humans could possibly use the box for once it had been opened and the structural integrity was comprised, but none of them dipped down into her line of sight so she ignored them. They pulled into the open yard of the human hive and into the shade shed that provided proper solar shielding. They were met with a rush of small humans and First Mother smiled down at them. Picking out the Human First Sister whose name she couldn’t quite remember.
“I brought you the box Human Second Cousin Betty was talking about,” First Mother said, patting the item in question.
There was a shout of delight from the humans and First Mother had far more help than was strictly helpful getting it down from the transport. The children carried it off making plans about windows and doors and arguing about who was old enough to use the knife.
“It this quite safe?” First Father clicked, coming up behind First Mother and clutching the cloth nervously between his hands.
“Human First Sister is very sensible,” First Mother said, giving him a soothing pat. “She won’t let them injure themselves.”
First Father gave an unconvinced little click at that but then the Winged visitors swept around the transport and Human First Mother came out the door and boomed out a delighted greeting.
“Time to meet our local humans,” First Mother said waving the Winged forward.
The meeting went very well. The Winged, a security wing traveling to study how outlying agricultural colonies kept dangerous rodents of unusual size at bay, were utterly fascinated by the layered security approach the human farms took. They were rather disturbed at how lethal some of the traps would be for beings of their size, but clearly understood the necessity. They were just discussing sitting down to a meal, an odd human concept, such a rigid synchronizing food consumption time, but a generally pleasant social interaction, when one of the smaller human children attempted to sneak from the front door to some point deeper in the house. Human First Mother instantly detected the subterfuge dispute her narrow field of vision and called the child over. The child, a Brother of some order, instantly cringed, and slunk forward clearly hiding one hand in the opposite sleeve of his garment.
“What happened Bobby?” Human First Mother asked in a stern voice.
Bobby directed his eyes frantically around the room and then his face relaxed when he saw First Father.
“I can’t tell!” Human Brother Bobby said, giving his mother a grin that spoke of pain and satisfaction.
“And why not?” demanded the human.
“I don’t want to trazmarite First Father,” Human Brother Bobby said nodding his head towards the visitor and attempting to walk sideways towards some point further away from his mother.
“Oh really,” Human First Mother said, moving as she spoke and snatching the child, who was still a fraction of her mass, up in her thick arms, “and what pray tell, might be wrong that it would trazmarite First Father?”
Human Brother Bobby wrinkled his face as only a human child could and pouted.
“Just cuz I don’t know the word don’t mean that you gotta say it wrong,” he complained, attempting to wriggle out of her grasp.”
“I see,” Human First Mother said with a laugh. “Well I need to go take care of this, why don’t you go out and see what the children have done?”
The last she directed at First Mother with a glance of her bifocal eyes and First Mother gave an understanding click. First Father waited until they were out of the main house before asking.
“Shouldn’t his father have been taking care of that?”
“You know it’s different with humans,” she pointed out.
“Was the child injured?” came a winged voice.
“We smelled blood!”
First Father flinched and curled his antenna tight to his head.
“He probably was,” First Mother admitted. “However in my experience if a human child is attempting to hide an injury it isn’t serious enough to require intense medical attention.”
“What are they doing?” one of the Winged suddenly demanded.
Multiple large holes had been cut into the box and a human head appeared at one displaying a wide grin. Then the side of the box burst open and several children came tumbling out emitting sounds that were high pitched enough to be mistake for Winged chatter.
“Come vithit our houth!” one of the children called out waving at either the Winged or the tree behind them, before attempting to scramble back into the tightly packed packing box.
“This is some game of pretend!” one of the Winged suddenly declared.
“The human child must have cut himself making the holes!”
“No!” came a shout from inside the box and Human First Sister’s head appeared at one of the holes. “I did that! He just stole the knife when I was done!”
“Should we go in and investigate?” asked one of the Winged.
“I would strongly advise against it,” First Father cautioned them, the set of his antenna stuck between amusement and mild horror. “They do not look as if any of them know what do do with all those limbs, much less what all those limbs are doing.”
As he spoke the box toppled over on one side, uncovering a pile of laughing human children who scrambled to disentangle themselves while the largest set the box up in whatever the proper position was.
First Mother gave a click of contented amusement as she settled back on her legs.
“This is what the humans wanted the packing box for?” A Winged demanded.
“Only the big ones,” First Mother explained tugging First Father closer to her for some antenna grooming. “When it looses all structural integrity they will cut it up and recycle it in a more...traditional way.”
The human children had split into two groups, one taking up a defensive posture inside the box, the others dancing around the outside hooting and smacking the sides of the box with their club like hands.
“That probably won’t take long,” First Mother added.


Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Pets

Humans are Weird - Pets  Rollslanguidly gently thrust up against the deliciously algae covered stones beneath him. The sandstone substrate left a pleasant earthy flavor at the tip of each appendages as he drifted upwards, towards the triply diffused light. Various small crustaceans brushed against him as they darted frantically around at his disturbance, flashing in and out of his awareness as they changed vectors at speeds beyond his ability to track. Larger fish swam languidly past, allowing him to follow their movements with his attention. Rollslanguidly let the force of his upward thrust, the pull of gravity, and the buoyancy of the water argue over his mass and surface area until gravity began to win, and when he could almost taste the earthy bedrock again he swept one firm swimming motion down his body. He rose against gravity once more and in the shallow water of the stream was able to extend two appendages past the water’s surface to soak in the ambiance of the scene.
Afternoon sunlight slanted through the dense upper canopy of trees lighting the forest in cascades of orange and green. The canopy itself offered the illusions of the surface of another body of water far above him. Constant shifting and rippling with no one form distinguished, eerily muted because there was no pressure to bring him haptic feedback of what was happening so far above. The sounds that did reach him were high pitched whispers. He was happily absorbing this all when the water behind him exploded with the introduction of sudden mass.
“Got ‘em!” howled what was something like a human voice, just moments before actually, reasonably sized appendages seized him with a fantastic grip strength. Rollslanguidly was surprised at how normal the diameter of the appendages was. Rather than the thick, trunk-like form most humans showed, this ones had a diameter barely greater than his own and well within the average range for and Undulate.
“Don’t let it go!” another voice called out as Rollslanguidly was pulled entirely out of the water and pressed against the bare chest of the small human.
“I won’t! Stop fussin!” the human holding him insisted as they staggered towards the shore.
Rollslanguidly had let himself go limp, partially in astonishment. It was not an easy thing to go from such a calming meditative state to being captured by what was, after all a predator species.
“What is it?” a second human demanded.
The very small human, clearly a juvenile, was perched on one of the lower branches of a tree that bent over the streams. Both the one in the tree, and the one that held Rollslanguidly, wore what he understood to be the bare minimum of clothing, a sort of cloth wrapping around their largest limb joint. Their stripes glowed vibrantly in the dim light under the canopy in a way that Rollslanguidly had never seen the adults of the species glow.
“It’s a giant nudibranch, duh,” the human holding him said, tossing his head in a physical display of some emotion.
“You sure?” the second human demanded.
It scrambled down from the tree and followed along after them, thrusting its head with all its sensory organs close and examining Rollslanguidly. A process that seemed to require it to contort the skin of its face to comical levels. Rollslanguidly felt the human carrying him begin to sway and carefully shifted his mass to pull them back to center. The carrying human was only marginally more massive than he was Rollslanguidly suspected and it was perhaps not safe for the young one to be carrying so much mass.
“Do be careful,” Rollslanguidly sounded out the human words carefully, suddenly wishing he had spent more time learning the sound language and the thin air absorbed his efforts. “Beware of fall damage.”
The human carrying him only swayed more and burst out laughing.
“What’s funny?” The other human demanded.
“It’s all vibratey in my chest!” the carrying human explained. “It tickles.”
Rollslanguidly decided that as his communication attempts were only distracting the clearly straining human it was best to remain quite until they reached some mature members of the species. To the best of his knowledge human young were no more likely to be far from their parents than Undulate young. The human, sweating profusely now, tasting of delight and physical strain, brought him to a cluster of buildings that he recognized as a standard human family unit dwelling. He was carried into a fairly open structure and both small humans climbed a rather unstable feeling ladder structure and worked together to lift him into a high sided water container. He could have clung to the edge but that might have unbalanced the humans and the container did not taste bad. So he fell with a thump in a few inches of water and onto some reasonably clean sand. Rollslanguidly felt around him with interest, absorbing the space thoughtfully. The bottom of the container, large enough to hold several humans, was covered in a few inches of sand and filled so that that was covered in a few inches of water. Various rocks and logs had been placed to provide places out of the water and various native fauna were perched on these. Small pockets of surface area were growing various shade loving plants.
“A terrarium,” Rollslanguidly mused to himself.
“Nudibranches don’t get that big!” one of the small humans was saying loudly, “and they’re smiley! He’s not slimy!”
“I am an Undulate,” Rollslanguidly said, bracing himself to speak loudly, and hoping his enunciation was clear enough to be understandable.
The two humans stopped talking and tilted their heads to the side, looking down at him in fascination, but not a single light of understanding crossed their faces.
“Neat sound,” one observed and Rollslanguidly slumped a bit, once again regretting his past time prioritization.
A distant roar of human sound echoed in the space and the two mammals positively lit up with a delighted feeding response. The container vibrated strangely as they scrambled down to respond to what was presumably their parent’s summons to the odd combination of time and nutrient absorption that humans called a meal. Rollslanguidly explored the terrarium a bit, making mental notes of what the humans prioritized for both display and species comfort before climbing out with the intention of finding the stream and starting back for the university. The sides of the container were fairly smooth and required no little effort to scale. The pathways the humans favored posed no danger to him but they were annoyingly dry, he was just passing the main dwelling structure when a warm, moist cloud of taste drifted out that brought his attention back to the humans. He lifted up several appendages and watched in fascination as the small humans, blazing brightly with both food-contentment and anticipation picked up small bowls and scrambled up to the larger human who had apparently just opened the steaming container that had released the delicious cloud. Another, even smaller human had appeared and one by one, they walked up to the adult human, and carefully articulated.
“Please may I have some pudding?”
Rollslanguidly suddenly recalled that it was considered very, very rude to leave a human dwelling without partaking in the food rituals. He paid close attention to the sounds, teasing out the thread of commonality in the three very different voices as he quickly scrambled up, over the lip of the raised structure, over to where a stack of the compostable bowls sat at a very easy to reach height, seized one of the bowls and carried it over to where the larger human had finished serving the young and was presumably serving herself. Rollslanguidly held up the bowl braced himself to be as loud as possible, using for floor for added resonance.
“Please may I have some pudding?” He asked.
The large human suddenly gave a wordless scream and spun around, flinging warm droplets of the pudding from the ladle she was holding. The fell mostly across the floor, but several landed on Rollslanguidly. As he suspected it was delicious. He rather thought that had been a startled ‘surprise’ reaction as he belatedly considered the humans’ narrow range of vision. So he tried again.
“Please may I have some pudding?” He thrust the bowl up demonstratively.
The large human stared down at him for several long moments, her stripes registering draining surprise. She directed her eyes at his bowl, at the ladle still clutched in her hand, and then at the bowl again. Finally she laughed, scooped out a ladle of the pudding and poured it into his bowl.
“And you are?” she asked.
“He’s the nudibranch we found in the creek today,” one of the children announced. “We told you.”
“That is not-” the adult human heaved a deep breath and rubbed her eyes with the hand that was not holding the ladle, smearing pudding across some of her skin.
“Do you speak human style basic?” she asked, presumably of him.
“I rather though I did,” Rollslanguidly admitted, trying for a rueful tone.
“And that’s a no,” the human muttered. “Do you understand human style basic?”
Rollslanguidly lifted enough of his leading end out of the pudding to mimic a human ‘nod’ and the largest human smiled.
“Well, Ricardo will be home in a few minutes and he knows Undulate touch basic pretty well and you can tell me how you got here,” she said.
“We told you,” one of the smaller humans insisted, waving a scoop shaped eating utensil in demonstration.
The human looked like she was about to respond when the structure vibrated with the arrival of another mature human. The present human looked at Rollslanguidly a moment and then left the room laughing quietly.
“Do you know what your son’s did today?” her voice drifted faintly back to him.
“Oh, so they are my sons are they?” came the response, presumably from Ricardo.
“Try kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment,” she replied, only to be interrupted by a positive roar of laughter from the other human.
Rollslanguidly pressed his best absorption appendages into the pudding and lifted others at the curious look the small humans were giving him.
“So you are not a nudibranch?” the small human asked.
Rollslanguidly shook enough of himself to indicate a no and the small human made a grunting noise before returning to the pudding.


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Humans are Weird - Repression

Humans are Weird - Repression First Sister critically examined the edge of the spearhead and gave a dissatisfied click. She set the head down by it’s long socket and carefully loosened her work glove. She flexed her fingers to work air under the material, when her hand felt dry enough she retied the wrist of the glove and picked the whetstone back up, bracing the spearhead she continued to hone the edge. The rasping of the work was making her antenna twitch but the repetitive, productive nature of the task was soothing, and she was nicely focused when the floor of her hive-chamber began to vibrate with the approach of an agitated human. First Sister paused to tilt her head at the large ‘beanbag’ she kept on her floor for just such emergencies. She set the spearhead down, picked up one end of the shaft and used the other end to knock a stack of various digging tools in need of sharpening off the bean bag onto the floor, that done she turned back to her work.
Human Second Cousin Betty paused at the entrance to her hive-chamber to pound twice at the wall with her fist, some human tradition meant to announce their intent to enter closed rooms, and stumbled into the hive-chamber before casting her narrow focus around the space and then flinging herself full length onto the beanbag with a muffled scream of frustration. First Sister felt her antenna curl in slight amusement but kept her focus angled on the edge of the spear. Human Second Cousin Betty heaved a sigh and spent several long moments staring glumly at the pile of work blunted digging tools on the floor beside the beanbag. By the time First Sister was satisfied with the spear edges and was sliding the socket over the shaft, Human Second Cousin Betty had snatched up a three pronged tool and an extra whetstone and was honing the tines, without safety gloves, but with reasonable skill.
“Use your freakish human hand strength to fit this spearhead?” First Sister asked absently, handing over the tool to her.
Human Second Cousin Betty gave one of those explosive, and expressive outbursts of air, a ‘snort’ First Sister thought it was called and tool the shaft and socket, easily forcing them together with a flick of her wrists before tossing it back onto the table in front of the Shatar. They continued working in companionable silence as Human Second Cousin Betty’s pheromones grew steadily more intense. First Sister was in no way surprised when Human Second Cousin Betty finally growled and tossed her head.
“It is just going to be such a pain!” she burst out, giving a trowel a particularly strong stroke with the whet stone.
“I am sure it will,” First Sister observed into the expectant silence.
“It’s, like a sacred, or not really, but almost a sacred – I mean it’s not that important. It’s just fandom after all, not anything religious, except how we are supposed to take other’s needs, and like their wants, into account as a religious duty, but more than that, I mean it would be cruel to, no, not cruel exactly, unfair?” Human Second Cousin Betty scowled down at the textured surface of the whetstone, and her bare fingers holding it, for a moment before continuing. “But, yeah, see even if it’s not sacred exactly, it’s still a duty, and it is going to be such a pain!”
The human turned her eyes, glistening like opals, on First Sister and the Shatar sensed that she was required to make a reply.
“What duty exactly?” She asked, opting for the obvious question over the obvious ignorance.
Human Second Cousin Betty sat up suddenly and her face flexed with surprise, then amusement, then concentration as she set the tools aside to bring her hands into the conversation for vague emphatic context.
“Right,” she said slowly, “You don’t, but I told you, hold on...okay. So you remember that still image media that started coming in from the homeworld a few years back?”
“The one about defending your gardens from the statistically impossible megafauna?” First Sister asked, giving a few test stabs with the spear. “Or the one about the Battle Sisters with masculine features who dressed in flamboyant colors to fight miscreants?”
“The second one,” Human Second Cousin Betty said nodding eagerly. “Well they just released the animated form and Susie is really getting into it.”
“And this imposes some important social duty on you?” First Sister asked.
“I can’t say a word!” Human Second Cousin Betty nearly howled, throwing herself back on the beanbag.
First Sister clicked in concern and tilted her head.
“You are experiencing conflict with Human First Sister Susan?” She asked uneasily. An intrahive conflict sufficient to stop the gregarious Fist Sister from communicating would be a deep concern indeed.
“What, no!” Human Second Cousin Betty exclaimed, shoving her long hair back over her shoulder. “But I’ve read the still form so I know how the story goes, my hair is full of spoilers! And if I let even one slip before the animated form reaches the current story point Susie would be like, fully justified in stabbing me!”
First Sister titled her head to the side and stared for a long quiet moment at the human sprawled there, staring back at her so intently. She knew very well that the human cousins would never deliberately stab each other, not after the accidental incident had traumatized them so badly. Clearly there was some context about discussing the story in some way that would ‘spoil’ the experience for Human First Sister Susie. The verb spoil, First Sister clearly understood, that is what happened when fermentation proceeded too quickly to result in a satisfactory end product, how the coiling vine of a story could ‘spoil’ was beyond her however. She took in the earnest look Human Second Cousin Betty was fixing on her and settled for a sympathetic click in response.
“Not talking about it must be very stressful for you,” First Sister observed, setting the spear aside and picking up another tool.
“I know! Right?” Human Second Cousin Betty burst out, likewise reaching for the next item to be prepared for work.
Clearly the human was in the mood to talk and simply needed someone to listen to fulfill her social needs. If the concept of ‘spoiling’ a story was explained in the process that would be quite the bonus.  Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Defensive

Humans are Weird - Defensive Fourth Trill was swooping down one of the air vents enjoying how almost normal it felt. Most human forged air vent systems were all horribly unnatural, echoing angles, usually made of some material that shrieked and moaned constantly under the pressure of the very atmosphere it carried. Fortunately this base was fairly new and the humans had been experimenting with a more ‘natural’ airflow dynamic based off of observed patterns in some Terrestrial insect species. Something with a venomous sting that human entomologists where very passionate about insisting were not the primary reason Winged were still banned from the human homeworld and most of the oldest colonies. Fourth Trill had made the mistake of flying into the conversational air zone of the ‘those are not bees’ debate once, and while he was not adverse to a nice argument about technical accuracy vs the merits of common usage he really didn’t want to ride that thermal any time soon.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury! I ask you to consider this-”
The voice, warped and distorted, but comfortably so to sensitive sensory horns, suddenly cut off, the passionate tone, a strange mix of command and entreaty leaving a sensation of a suddenly stopped thermal in Fourth Trill’s chest and he turned with delight to follow the voice to its source. Technically Winged were not supposed to travel through the air vents, for a wing’s spread of safety and privacy reasons, but as they could, and quite frankly because they would, there were safety latches installed on every vent panel. Because these vent panels were designed to both human and Shatar asthetic standards, who both had very plant like tastes, that meant that the seam was invisible and the holes mimicked the stomata of broad-leaf plants, incidentally making the vents all but invisible unless, say a human was looking deliberately for the panel, and as this human was being quite loud there was no way for Fourth Trill, not practically anyway, to signal his intent to enter the room loudly enough for the human to hear him. So, balancing social interaction protocols it was perfectly morally acceptable that Fourth Trill’s nose tendrils were wriggling with delighted mischief as he triggered the latching mechanism and entered the hardly private study room where the human was currently pacing back and fourth, bent over a handful of papers.
Forth Trill swung the vent panel to the side and stepped into clear sight of the human, or what would have been clear sight if the human were not making eye contact with the empty air approximately sitting-human-eye-level above a double row of six chairs each. Fourth Trill studied the situation critically even as his fur puffed and smoothed with barely contained amusement. The human, new to this small outpost college, had gone to some effort to arrange the furniture of this room, and several other rooms by the looks of it. Moving that much mass alone was impressive. Following the ‘natural’ aesthetic the furniture had been carved from the native wood of the planet and had been left the raw color. Several tables that must have weighed kilograms each were upended, providing one raised seat against the far wall. The human was currently speaking towards what must be twelve envisioned humans in the twelve isolated chairs (humans seemed to like the number twelve for some reason) and the rest of the space had been sectioned off into what must be spectator seating. From the sound of it the human was guiding the envisioned humans through one side of an argument concerning a contract referencing some extreme body modification and if it the terms of the contract were binding or not.
Fourth Trill waited until every motion of the human showed him to be reaching the emotional height of his argument and the Winged felt his mouth open in a grin. He took off and hovered in the air at human eye level for the distance. No one could claim that he was trying to sneak up on the human, and swept slowly, grandly down to rest on the back of one of the chairs that the human had gestured at before. Fourth Trill stood up and flared his wings out in a way that would be easy to defend as being just for balance, because he was perched on the back of a chair that was not designed for a Winged’s comfort. If it also made him look bigger than usual to a human, there was no way to prove that effect was anything but incidental. He then carefully arranged his lips and the angle of his jaw to show as many of his needle thin, razor sharp teeth as possible. It was well known that Winged tried to mimic human body language to comfort them when they were stressed. He was debating if he should flare or relax his nose frills when the sweep of the human’s gaze swept over him.
“And furthermore! This minor -”
The low, rumbling mammalian r sound dissolved into a much more soothing range as the human interrupted his presentation with a shriek that reached impressively high pitches for such a large mammal. The sweeping gesture of his arm transformed into a flail even as his feet and legs lost their ever precarious balance and he stumbled several steps along the vector his arm pulled his center of mass. The human managed to counterbalance and then stabilize his mass, his eyes blinking slackly as he stared at Fourth Trill, who was very much not (visibly) vibrating with amusement. That would have been undignified. When the silence grew boring Fourth Trill, somewhat regretfully, it was a good grin and a shame to disturb it, opened his mouth to speak.
“Greetings! Were you practicing your legal defense style?” Fourth Trill asked, fluffing his fur out in a perfectly innocent fashion.
The human, now standing tall and relatively stable, glared at him suspiciously for a moment, but they both knew that he could never prove intent in the circumstances and the glare faded into a sigh as the human started to quickly gather his papers, presumably legal notes, and shove them into his massive carry satchel.
“Yes,” he muttered.
“It sounds like a very interesting case,” Fourth Trill observed. “A mature individual coercing a child into an illegal contract. What species does this involve? I am not aware of any aquatic sapient species?”
Blood rushed to the surface of the human’s bare skin dying it a bright red, giving the mammal an almost natural looking color and the human shoved the papers in more quickly. Forth Trill felt a little thrill of excitement. The human was embarrassed by this case. If he could tease the details out of him this should be very amusing.
“Tricky defense,” the human muttered, in low difficult to hear tones. “The young one was mature by her own cultural standards.”
Fourth Trill took to wing and just managed to catch a look at the title of one of the documents.
“How odd!” he exclaimed. “Most legal cases are referred to by at least two names on Earth aren’t they? So-and-so verses so-and-so if I remember correctly?”
The human nodded uneasily and began walking towards the door briskly.
“Why is there only one party named in the title of the case?” Fourth Trill pressed, taking to wing and circling the human.
“It’s not,” the human muttered, deliberately avoiding eye contact and blushing again as he tried to angle towards the door while avoiding Fourth Trill’s flight path.
“What was the title of the case?” Fourth Trill demanded, guessing at the meaning of the human’s vague statement.
The human stopped walking and fixed his eyes on the far wall. Fourth Trill could see when he made a decision, the broad face smoothing and tightening in grim focus.
“There was no case,” the human said with forced calmness in his tones. “The events were fictional and the contract dispute was never taken to a court of law. For the purposes of practice I hypothesized a scenario where it was.”
“That sounds very interesting,” Fourth Trill pressed, feeling a shift in the conversational wind that favored him. “I would like to research this, who was the other claimant in the process?”
The human’s face flushed again and his thick jaw worked convulsively. Fourth Trill gleefully counted that as a win as the human with forced deliberation drew a deep breath.
“The sea witch Ursula,” he said in tones laced with irritation. “The contract was between the little mermaid Ariel and the sea witch Ursula.”
The confession over the human relaxed with a gust of air that seemed to let all the tension out of him and his face twisted into a rueful smile.
“Though in older versions the sea witch had no name,” he said, “but as she was far less nefarious in the older versions it is less fun to take to trial. There is no way to attack her for lack of due diligence in those stories, and no way to attack her for interference.”
“I look forward to researching this,” Fourth Trill declared.
The human smiled, with real amusement this time, and nodded before sweeping his mass out of the room. Fourth Trill gave a delighted chitter. From the human’s reactions he had mined as much amusement out of this situation as possible. It might however be worth investigating why a legal focus human academic would feel so initially embarrassed to be caught using this little mermaid and sea witch for dramatic legal practice.  
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Humans are Weird - Semi-Aquatic Mammals

Humans are Weird - Semi-Aquatic Mammals A general detritus pile the humans had stacked up in the northwest corner of the meadow when preparing the area for occupation had suddenly sprung into frantic movement; the crumpled bodies of last year’s leaves lifting into the air and then drifting down again, sticks and logs heaving up on their ends and then toppling over with soft, muted thumps. Notes the Passing Changes turned local attention away from the delighted squealing of the human young in the main channel of the stream and calculated whether it would be better to use the trees eyes or send up dedicated photo receptors. One of the human’s non-sapient pets cut through the duff with it’s sharp hooves and that decided the question. Notes the Passing Changes eased fibers into the fungal network, well below the level that the non-sapient mammals could reach and distributed enough so that even if a human took it in mind to start digging with a shovel not much mass would be lost, and peered through the many eyes of the tree.
In the heat of the afternoon the tree was alert and keenly aware. The vision from their eyes was as clear as it got. The detritus pile was writhing with activity, and when Notes the Passing Changes attuned to the local sound profile the thin voice of an Undulate out of water explained the situation. It looked as if nearly half a dozen Undulates of various sizes were vigorously rearranging the detritus pile and Notes the Passing Changes grew more interested and curious. The interest only intensified when the Undulate version of Notes the Passing Changes own name became clear. However it took several moments to extend fibers, and test the trees to determine how to best generate sound.
“Are you attempting to contact me?” Notes the Passing Changes asked of the pile in general.
The movement paused suddenly, and then resumed as the six Undulates scrambled their way to the surface of the pile and popped out of the leaves and sticks one at a time, their leading gripping appendages, identifiable by being slightly rougher and more work damaged than the rest of their mass, waving gently as they absorbed the light and sound to orientate themselves. Notes the Passing Changes gave a directional hum to aid the process and the Undulates broke into excited chatter for a moment. Before the largest one waved vigorously, seeming to quite the tumult.
“Greetings Gathering Acquaintance Notes the Passing Changes,” the Undulate said with the precise articulation of one who has only recently squired the sound profiles of a new language and isn’t quite sure of them. “I am Waveseagerly.”
“Greetings Undulate Acquaintance Waveseagerly,” Notes the Passing Changes replied, testing and refining the sounds as they came out.
“This isn’t you?” Waveseagerly asked, patting the detritus pile around him curiously.
“If you are seeking a communications node cluster,” Note the Passing Changes said, “I find it counterproductive to generate them where human livestock and children congregate. Nodes formed under those conditions are too liable to damage. My memory is distributed deep in the soil in these recreation areas, or in the protection of the larger trees. There is a proper communications node in a sheltered area near the more permanent human dwellings if you wish to interact with one.”
There was a general shuffle of soil colored appendages as they consulted each other before the largest one gestured them silent again.
“No, no, this will do quite nicely,” Waveseagerly said. “We have a question about humans you see, and you have been on this planet observing them for generations and we thought you would know.”
“There is a human psychology database in the library,” Notes the Passing Changes observed.
“We don’t really trust it you see!” Waveseagerly interjected, wriggling so hard in excitement that he slipped a few bodylengths down the detritus pile. “Not that we think the humans are lying of course, but every species does have their own numb areas and we wanted to touch an outside observer’s perspective.”
“I will try to answer you question,” Notes the Passing Changes said.
The Undulates wriggled in delight sending the detritus pile tumbling this way and that for several minutes before Waveseagerly managed to calm himself enough to speak.
“Are you quite sure that the immature stages of human development is terrestrial and not semi-aquatic or even aquatic?” Waveseagerly demanded.
“My specialty is managing optimum plant output. I have very little expertise in mammal taxonomy,” Notes the Passing Changes observed after some thought. “May I ask what observations have led to this question?”
“Look at them!” Waveseagerly burst out with a broad gesture towards the main stream.
Frolicing in the water like, like fish! The humans have been bringing their young here in waves, week after week, and as soon as they arrive the human children leap into the water and stay there except to eat! They only come out to sleep. Isn’t that at least semi-aquatic behavior?”
Notes the Passing Changes mulled over the memories of the summer, and let attention drift back to the shouting and, yes, frolicking human young in the water. The most obvious thing apparent from a perspective in the trees was their darting predatory behavior that sent a passive wash of pleasure through the forest’s awareness. The humans seemed focused on hunting the small crustaceans that lived under the rocks in the river bed. The small human bodies swarmed through the shallow water, pausing to lift flat rocks or logs while others darted after the tiny organisms that fled the direct light. Notes the Passing Changes ran recent memories over current attention and mulled over the Undulates’ question.
“I see no objection to classifying these human young as semi-aquatic if it serves your understanding of the situation,” Notes the Passing Changes finally observed.
The Undulates fell into a pile of wriggling delight that most likely contained conversation and scrambled out of the detritus pile towards the main stream.


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Humans are Weird - Stripping

Humans are Weird - Stripping  Flume dragged his aching paws into the recreation room, sniffed the traces of human salt and the more familiar traces of his own species, contrasted the desirability of excessive mammalian warmth against the desirability of actually lying on a nice firm surface, and decided on the rock. He scrambled towards the lounging rock, a local stone that had been artfully shaped by a doctor with unusual craft skills, and heave his tired body up onto the surface. His paws began kneading the delightfully rough texture, pure luxury after writing around on grain piles all day, and his scutes wrapped around the warm rock with a delighted sigh.

From there direction of the human smells there came a series of quiet grunts that indicated that one of the giant mammals was restraining laughter and Flume felt his own jaw relax. It would be rather amusing to see a full adult writing around like a well fed hatchling. He felt a yawn coming and indulged it so intensely that it curled all the way down to his tail. He let the relaxation ferment into his bones for long enough to get a little bored and opened his eyes for the first time. Flume gave a happy little grunt. The amused human was Victor, the tech he had been working with that day, and, if Flume was reading the social cues correctly Victor was up to some nonsense.
“What is that thing on your face?” Flume cried in delight, flexing his paws over the rock to catch the texture on his smallest scales.
Victor shot a look at him and his fleshy face, what was visible of it under the fragment of black sacking, contorted through unease, amusement, and then settled on what Flume understood to be a look of deliberate, hatchling style innocence. Oh, this was going to be good! Flume decided with delight as he wriggled around to get a better look at Victor.
“What is what?” Victor asked, in his most innocent voice.
“If you are trying to achieve deception make sure that your fingers don’t twitch towards that...thing.” Victor advised him. “Those long spindly digits broadcast your every thought.”
Victor shot him a grateful grin before smoothing his face again and deliberately picking up a drawing stylus in one hand.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Victor said in tones of human perplexity.
“Why do you have a fragment of grain sack material, and used grain sack material wrapped around the upper half of your face,” Flume demanded, the intensity of his question rather undercut but the rumbles of amusement boiling out of his gut.
“Oh this?” Victor, the absolute picture of surprise, indicated the black sacking.
“Yes,” Flume pressed when Victor didn’t go on. “Tell me why you have sacking on your face.”
“I am simply practicing my-” Victor’s face contorted in frustration and he reached down to a notepad he had apparently been writing on, “socially indicated craft skills, necessary to participate in formalized recreational activities.”
Victor put the paper down and smiled hopefully at Flume. Flume angled his head to the side dramatically and then gave a negative cluck, which on second thought he transformed into slow swings of his head.
“It won’t grind,” he said in a rueful tone.
“Why not?” Victor asked his face drooping in disappointment. “I’ll have the notes memorized by then.”
“There is not one true grain of a chance that Second Sister is going to believe that you have such a clear, scientific understanding of your behavior ready to deploy at your tail tip,” Flume explained. “It’s far to erudite to be natural to your mouth.”
“Thanks a fermenting lot,” Victor muttered, dipping his head back over the notepad while Flume chuckeled.
After a moment of scribbling, and consulting other note pads Victor waved his spindly arm in the air like a tail for Flume’s attention.
“How’s this?” Victor asked, “this? This is just a party mask. I need to figure out how to wear them without one falling off my face.”
Flume mulled that over. “A little more explanation on the front end,” he suggested.
Victor scribbled some more and tried again.
“This?” his face was the picture of innocence. “Oh! I’d nearly forgot I had it on. We humans wear this kind of thing at parties. I am not good at keeping it on my face-”
“Who would be with a tiny nose like that?” Victor asked.
“-so I am practicing now.”
“That would convince Second Sister,” Flume said, he made an attempt to bob his head in a ‘nod’ but stopped that quickly enough when his neck twinged. “Can I get a rub Vic?” he asked.
Victor instantly rose from the desk he had been working at and came over to sit beside Flume on the rock. His wide hands gripped Flume’s neck where Flume indicated with his tail and those deceptively fragile looking fingers began kneading the tense muscle groups.
“Why exactly,” Flume asked, pausing with a grunt. “Are you actually wearing the mask?”
“Promise not to rat me out to Second Sister?” Victor asked.
“You keep working my neck like that and I’ll promise anything,” Flume agreed with a delighted rumble.
“So you know we ran out of the human rated personal air filters?” Victor asked.
“Yes, you said ours worked just as well for you,” Flume answered.
“They do!” Victor replied a little too quickly. “It’s just that the main unit adheres to the nose-”
“Halfway between the nostril tip and the eyes for best functioning,” Flume interjected and Victor nodded vigorously, displacing the ‘party mask’ a bit.
“Just so! But its a chemical adhesive you know,” Victor went on, “and it absolutely doesn’t react chemically with my skin, but…”
“But?” Flume pressed into the pause.
Victor paused his massage and swiveled his head around, his eyeballs twisting this way and that in their sockets. He then turned his full attention of Flume and frowned.
“You won’t tell Second Sister?” He asked.
“It won’t bubble out of me,” Flume agreed, now itching with curiosity.
Victor wrapped an arm behind his head and undid the tie that was holding the black sacking on his face. It fell off and Victor pointed to the spot on his nose where the main unit of the air filter adhered. Flume instantly saw the bright red patch of course but it took a little mental grinding to identify it and then he clicked in mild concern.
“You are missing some scales!” Flume stated, feeling that the words were wrong even as he said them.
“Don’t tell Second Sister,” Victor insisted as he began massaging Flume’s neck again.
“I have agreed not to,” Flume reminded him with a half-offended huff as he eyed the mark. “You don’t have scales of course. The adhesive is stripping off you outer layer of skin.”
“Only in little patches,” Victor assured him taking a moment to re-secure the improvised party mask, “and I’ve found a work around for the problem-my skin is healing just fine now-and reported it to the manufacturer so they can note it in the use specs. It’s just, you know how Shatar get about any membrane disruption!”
“They do get overly concerned if your scales start dropping,” Flume agreed. “How do you fleshy mammals say it? My lips are sealed, now finish up on my neck and I’ll walk on your lower back. The workday is done and we bony species have some joints that need resetting.”


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Transformers Book #1 - Skybound Energon Universe - Critical Damage to the Feels Captain!

Transformers Book #1 - Skybound Energon Universe - Critical Damage to the Feels Captain!
Critical damage taken to the feels commander, I repeat critical damage taken to the feels!


Hello my wonderful viewers and welcome to another episode of Betty Adams overanalyzes! Today we are going to take a look at Transfomers, the Energon Universe book 1. There will be a short spoiler free section where I go over the book in general, and then I will get into a fully spoilery section.
First things first, art style, this is not my favorite art style.  
(Rest of transcript avaliable on Patron)

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