drei
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Post by drei on Sept 6, 2018 15:30:53 GMT
[ Lt. Squawk McCall | Main Thoroughfare | Public Area | Augustus Station ]
"Oh London!" Squawk said, excitedly, "Great place! Stayed there with a friend there once. Counted swans, said hello to some ravens. The ravens said they wanted a raise. Had to break the news. The swans were wondering if we could please eat Gary. Apparently, Gary's really annoying. Alas, we had just had swan the night before."
Of course, Squawk was only joking about literally talking to the birds.
"I apologize, Doctor. I thought you only looked human." Squawk said. It had not escaped his attention that he kept putting his talon in his beak near the doctor. His Maytalon senses had made him conclude the Doctor was in fact, not human. While to the naked eye, she usually appeared so, so did many other species. He had not met any other members of the doctor's second contributing species, so he had no point of reference for their general 'aura' for lack of a better word. He took note that what he sensed was of a half-human and compared it with what he remembered humans generally felt like and concluded that he might need his protective eyelids if he ever met a member of this other species.
"You just seem very... bright." he said.
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Post by Absinthe on Sept 7, 2018 6:54:36 GMT
[ Fred Rodgers | Main Thoroughfare | Public Area | Augustus Station ] attn: Triage drei As the two of them spoke Fred quickly thumbed through his notebook to a mostly empty page, or rather one that had some empty spaces he could fit more notes in, and took several quick notes. Fred's notebooks were always packed with information, whether it was notes or quick sketches he filled almost every square inch of the page with something and even was known to put in clippings from news articles and other sources to add to his notes. The result was a tangled mess of notes that no one but him could really understand. " When I visited London I found it very wet, but nice. One of those Earth cities that seems to have a bit of everywhere woven into it, but still it's own unique flavor," Fred commented idly. " I didn't stay too long, I try to avoid the big cities of Earth if I can get away with it, things tend to be more and more interesting the more rural you get. The people tend to form more intricate social networks and it seems like everyone knows each other there." He smiled remembering the month or so he spent in a small farming town, working with the locals and learning all about sheep. It had been a truly interesting time. He had not known humans consumed that amount of fermented beverages, but it had seemed they had been in the local pub every night. |
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drei
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Post by drei on Sept 7, 2018 17:11:58 GMT
[ Lt. Squawk McCall | Main Thoroughfare | Public Area | Augustus Station ]
"Oh, absolutely, I visited Bodmin just to see if it bore any resemblance to the Old Earth television program 'Doc Martin.'" Squawk said "Unfortunately, or fortunately, there were no sudden medical emergencies! I didn't even get to say 'Go Away!' to any well-meaning townsfolk!"
Squawk remembered fondly the Cornish pasties he did manage to sample while there.
"Have you watched any Old Earth television programs? There are such a variety. I think there is some information to be gleaned from them, how humanity saw itself in ways good and bad and used it to entertain each other. I gather they weren't always accurate, but I know I found Professor Booker's paper on how the inaccuracies and even the shallowness of the shows are just as telling as any historical document." Squawk said "I mostly watch them because, you know, humans seem to have produced way more entertainment than all the other species. And they look so bland, they hardly ever hit what they call the uncanny valley! You can almost pretend they're just regular people with weird make-up! Like, hello, they added external ears to some people! They look almost universal!"
As a young child, Squawk had initially been awestruck that these people who look so very much like his generally left their face bare, almost immodestly uncovered by any beak and in front of more than just close family and friends! But he had come to learn that many cultures, in fact, do that. But humans - they were the most generic and so, the easiest to identify with. Additionally, their planet seemed to have the very birds his own society seemed to build itself upon. So, the strong reaction to humankind was to be expected.
"I like the 22nd-23rd century oeuvres, but they do have a lot of classics from earlier." Squawk said "So many cooking programs! Did Xelaya ever develop the amount of entertainment humans have? Because I know Maytalon has not. Sure, we reached the stars sooner and expanded and stuff, but what about TV shows, right?"
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Post by Triage on Sept 9, 2018 23:06:50 GMT
[ Dr. Saranya Davenport | Main Thoroughfare | Public Area | Augustus Station ] Attn: Absinthe & drei
Fixing Squawk with a look, the Drazalyte seemed perplexed or amazed, or both. She had been about to ask aloud if he truly could speak to avian lifeforms, which would be quite the discovery in and of itself, but as usual, the man went past the subject before she could ask anything, and when he pointed out that he thought she only looked human, her eyes widened ever so slightly. Nobody she'd met would guess she was not human on sight, unless they were holding a bioscanner on her or...they had some innate ability to tell her inhuman nature by visual inspection alone.
Clearly Squawk had the latter.
“I'm a Drazalyte,” said Saranya, “my father is human. My mother is born of a human too.”
She returned her attention to Fred, who mentioned a stay on Earth, and she smiled, “I find that quite understandable. The big city life can be hectic and overwhelming. I was fortunate, in that I was born and raised in the countrysides. It's more relaxed there, and as you say, everyone knows each other, and life goes at a very relaxed pace.”
To Squawk, she added, “Twenty-first century films are my favourite era to watch. They even had a lot of science fiction films. It was funny to see how far off the mark they were on what aliens really were like.”
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drei
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Post by drei on Sept 10, 2018 18:13:50 GMT
[ Lt. Squawk McCall | Main Thoroughfare | Public Area | Augustus Station ]
"Drazalyte, I see." Squawk said. He had never seen one before. But they sounded familiar. It must have been in a lesson at some point. "They seem to have very strong genes. Whereabouts is the Drazalyte homeworld? I'm Maytalon."
"We're quite a ways away from Earth and the Union member planets." Squawk explained "But near enough that we're considering adding our planets to this Union. I'm sort of on an exchange program. Remembering where all the Union worlds are is... why I'm not a navigator. More of a pilot, really. I've remembered enough stars and planets, thanks. It's what the ol' computer is for, right? I mean, it's more important we memorize where different species have their liver, eh?"
Like humans, Squawk often thought about the liver. For example, he had been horrified to learn about how foie gras used to be made. He didn't hold it against humanity as even Maytalon had a period where they did not consider how livestock and game and other animals were treated. After all, meat was delicious. But it was nice to learn that humans had developed new liver technologies. However, Squawk thought it was nice of some species to not even have livers. Some of the tree-like species he'd met were his favorite Aquilan subjects. They were very hospitable.
"But speaking of anatomy, you're right about humans!" Squawk said "Can you imagine, they speculated mostly pointy ears or forehead ridges! No offense Dr. Rodgers, but the universe is so much more variable than that! I mean, I don't even have forehead ridges or earlobes!"
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Post by Absinthe on Sept 13, 2018 5:14:13 GMT
[ Fred Rodgers | Main Thoroughfare | Public Area | Augustus Station ] attn: Triage drei " I can't say I've spent a lot of time watching Earth entertainment. As a child, I mostly watched the one show my parents had gotten me and when I was old enough to go there I was more focused on exploring the place," Fred said with a bright smile. " I might have to watch some of these shows. I would love to see how humans imagined aliens, I mean we look a lot alike so it wouldn't be too hard to imagine them being able to dress up and use make-up easy enough." Again Fred spoke with a real enthusiasm and passion. To him, the whole subject matter was beyond fascinating. He'd only seen limited shows on Earth and at the time he was more watching the people around him watching the show than really watching the show. He remembered watching a game show while he was staying with a family in the midwestern area of North America and he had found the reactions of the family far more entertaining than the show, or at least he found listening to them talk about the show to be more enthralling. " Might be worth watching some of those, if you'd like to give me some recommendations?" |
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drei
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Post by drei on Sept 13, 2018 15:54:23 GMT
[ Lt. Squawk McCall | Main Thoroughfare | Public Area | Augustus Station ]
"Gogglebox." Squawk McCall said "If you like watching humans reacting to human television shows, they have a show entirely based around that called Gogglebox. Of course, a caveat for these 'reality' or 'factual' television programs is that the very act of observing them changes the way they act. You'd be very familiar with this as an anthropologist studying the living, I am sure!"
When it came to reality television, Squawk's preference was in food related ones. He was especially fond of someone called Julia Child, who did not seem to be a child at all.
"Of course, humanity's imagination of life outside their planet is quite vast." Squawk said "I will forward you a list. There is one where a wandering annoying alien joins a crew of people who are lost in space and appoints himself cook and diplomat. He is a personal nightmare of mine."
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Post by Triage on Sept 19, 2018 19:26:21 GMT
[ Dr. Saranya Davenport | Main Thoroughfare | Public Area | Augustus Station ] Attn: Absinthe & drei
Saranya allowed the two to exchange words before she chimed in herself, fascinated by the outlook of the two men, seeing as despite being an alien herself, she essentially possessed the outlook of a human strictly. At Squawk's last remark she frowned, “I think I've seen that show,” said Saranya thoughtfully. “It's a series, isn't it? From a rather well known franchise.”
She turned to look at Fred, “I have some personal collections that I enjoy watching. I could also send you my lists. Are you interested only in humans, their culture and the like, or do you also enjoy the planet's various environments? I have documentaries too.”
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Post by Absinthe on Sept 22, 2018 8:15:34 GMT
[ Fred Rodgers | Main Thoroughfare | Public Area | Augustus Station ] attn: Triage drei His hand moved in a flurry as he took notes, making a note of the show and adding a note as the nature of it. It sounded like something just up his stream and like it would be a mistake to miss it. " I am definitely going to have to check that out," he said in response to Squawk, before quickly turning his attention to Saranya. " Honestly I am a fan of all things Earth and how Humans have learned to live and exist on such an intense planet. Like the wildlife there is insane and yet humans are still practically the apex predator of the planet and yet seem to refuse to acknowledge it. It's kinda silly if you ask me, but then again that's just like humans, kinda silly." He smiled and let out a soft chuckle at that. " If you want I can loan you the digital copy of my collection of Mister Fred Rodger Neighborhood, the Xelayan translation that I first got. It is a little odd because the translation is not one to one so some concepts get lost in the translation and it can be a little silly at times as to how hard the translators worked to make the show work for Xeleyan children, especially given it was not very popular with Xeleyan children." |
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