text ↪ un: dostoevsky

[dissemblance]

Can we all take a moment to admire the fact that 2801 technology still supports emoji functionality? 🤩 👍 🕷 💁 🩰 💫 🍆 🧊 💅 👁‍🗨 🎯 🤡 🔋 🐈 💲 🧙‍♀️ 🐦💋 🐜 👽 🕶 ⚡ 🕵🏻‍♀️ 💦 💦 💦

It seems like they're pretty set on calling us 'Hatchlings', so... hello, fellow Hatchlings, I'd like to play a game.

Two truths and a lie. I'll start.

  ① Starbucks makes the best lattes.
  ② I've never watched All Dogs Go To Heaven all the way through.
  ③ My birthdate is May 21st. What year? Every year. 😉😉😉 But my party in 2018 was 🔥🔥🔥.

Comments

@A.Price

[cryptoherpetology]

1 is the lie since it's objectively untrue.

1. I was born in the Pacific Northwest.
2. My sister is a singer.
3. I was once nearly turned to stone.

@weaverville

[wittingly]

I'm gonna take a crack at it and go with 2 here

You kind of have a pacific northwest energy and 3 is an obvious set-up, I'm not falling for it

Re: @weaverville

[cryptoherpetology]

What exactly is Pacific Northwest energy? [ The "survivalist compound behind 12 foot walls as a childhood home" part is pretty damn Oregon of him, to be fair. ]

But you're right. My artistically inclined sister is a ballroom dancer.

[wittingly]

I was just about to answer that when I realized how much I complain about the traumatic Californian stereotyping I endure constantly.

Turns out they were right, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

[cryptoherpetology]

I'd been living in the Midwest long enough to take it as a compliment. I think.

[wittingly]

Well, for what it's worth the Midwest has done nothing to erase the vibe 'I'm from Seattle and I wear comfortable sweaters'

[cryptoherpetology]

Tweed jackets more than sweaters, really. Harder to hide a gun under knitwear.

[wittingly]

That's quitter talk.

I didn't realize vet science required packing heat, sounds like a stressful career field. Hope the health insurance benefits are good.

[cryptoherpetology]

I tend to be involved in some of the more fringe areas of the field. There's also this whole "family blood feud with a secret organization of genocidal zealots" thing, but that's sometimes hard to work into an introductory conversation.

It definitely made for something of an unorthodox childhood. [ Which may be the mother of all understatements. ]

[wittingly]

how is it that I survived an alien apocalypse and yet I still can't compete with some of you people in the Most Insane Life competition

[cryptoherpetology]

I think maybe surviving an apocolypse means you made up for all that lost time of insanity. My family's been preparing for just about every kind of apocolypse we could think of for as long as I can remember and I was nearly born in a manticore breeding pit.

I'm not sure an un-insane life was ever an option.

[wittingly]

A manticore
breeding
pit

well, I know a guy that was born in a hot tub so unfortunately I think you're gonna need to step your game up

[cryptoherpetology]

Does the pet griffin earn me any points? Turns out he came here with me.

[wittingly]

Nobody likes a Story Topper, Alex










just kidding, yes obviously it earns you points what the fuck are you serious

[cryptoherpetology]

[ He futzes with the smartwatch until he figures out how to take a picture of Crow, who has swapped out the traditional lion/eagle mashup for raven/Maine Coon. The photo was a bit of a struggle because the animal is laying very comfortably on his chest with no desire to move anytime soon.

Turns out Alex is the cryptozoological equivalent to a cat person. ]

His name is Crow. He doesn't seem too inclined to go anywhere without me just yet, but he'll probably wander a bit more around the camp once he's assured himself I'm not going to disappear again.

[dissemblance]

Have you ever tried getting between a girl and her Starbucks? You'd be surprised.

I'm going to go with 3 for you. That's way too out there. And I woke up in an egg a week ago.

（ she assumes it's the truth, actually — which means she's keenly interested in hearing more. ）

[cryptoherpetology]

Nope, met eyes with a cockatrice that someone put in my backyard hoping to kill me.

My sister is a dancer, if you're curious about which one was the lie.

[dissemblance]

I think I speak for all of us when I say 'what's a cockatrice'? 😋

Of all the lies you could have told about your sibling, I feel like that one has to be the most benign. Family guy, huh?

[cryptoherpetology]

That, and both of my sisters are entirely capable of handing my ass to me. They may not be here, but I'm still not taking risks in that department.

A cockatrice is kind of a large feathered lizard-chicken. Technically a saurian that survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs in some small numbers, probably due to the fact that it can turn its prey at least partially to stone to subdue it.

[ This might be why the rats didn't freak him out so much. Or that they're living in a protective rockface made of a dragon corpse. ]

[dissemblance]

Ah, wise. If she ever shows up in one of the eggs, my lips are sealed.

That sounds... exotic.

And this is all on Earth? It sounds like Earth.

（ she's adjusting her presented personality on the fly to dig at information she finds the most interesting. old habits, and all. turns out they die a lot harder than everything else. ）

[cryptoherpetology]

I'm from one of the Earths, yes. It sounds like there are a few of us from variations of it.

I'm a cryptozoologist, so most everything I deal with is fairly exotic.

[dissemblance]

Asimov, eat your heart out...

You recognize anything here? I'm still pretty wound up from tentacle rats, personally.

[cryptoherpetology]

Nothing yet, but evolution likes to repeat itself often enough that you never really know.

Sadly I didn't get the chance for a field dissection of the rats. For as much as they definitely wanted to rend flesh from all our bones, they were biologically fascinating.

[dissemblance]

Nothing stopping you from going back for seconds. I'm sure there's people here who'd do it for science if you asked around?

[cryptoherpetology]

As much as running back into the den of a deadly predator is something that's more or less encoded in my DNA, I'd like to get a slightly better grasp of the area before going back to get a better look.

But I'm not saying I don't want to eventually.

[ Or that he's not jumping in with the first group of reckless young people to trek out there. Damn sense of responsibility. ]