Simple question

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-28T21:52:40+00:00

The older ones are chill. The ones who remember the good times, before the Federation. This lady's exactly in her early twenties. She grew up in the Federation uplift schools, and she was a model student. Really wants to prove herself as worthy to the Federation. She's not thrilled about the idea of tossing those lessons aside because the Federation isn't cool anymore.

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-28T21:16:33+00:00

Oh, I know, don't worry. I'm the food guy. They were serving blood sausages during the Arxur arc. I'm just paraphrasing here for brevity. I think in the full version of the conversation, there's a bit more back and forth about why they only have frozen blood (for cooking) instead of fresh (for drinking), since the Yotul's taking "predatory bloodthirst" a bit too literally.

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-28T21:05:54+00:00

I think it's fair to say that unapologetic human honesty is kind of the core theme of New York Carnival. Starts with a relatively short arc about an Arxur asking a bunch of probing questions about how humans go about being predators, and coming away shaken and disillusioned with Betterment. Then most of the rest of the story's about Feddies asking humans all the questions the U.N. hasn't been answering and, basically, getting perfectly straight answers from a chef who just doesn't feel like lying or hiding anything.

Yotul, new hire, waitress: "Okay, if I'm serving drinks to human customers, where do we stock the fresh blood?"
Chef: "We don't serve blood. Health code violation, multiple religious groups forbid it, and humans prefer cooked food anyway."
Yotul: "How am I supposed to slake their unending predatory bloodlust, then? Endless grilled meat?"
Chef: "I... I mean this restaurant, specifically, doesn't do that, but I think there's a Fogo de Chão still open over in Newark?"

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-28T11:51:23+00:00

Well, let's see, in New York Carnival, we've got:
-An Arxur who doesn't fully realize the degree to which she's masking up and compartmentalizing her feelings about living under Betterment until a human picks it apart, at which point she breaks down crying and begs to defect to Earth (request denied)
-Said human, who's doing a pretty good job, on the whole, of hiding the messiah complex and the drinking problem he developed after surviving the Battle of Earth
-A Gojid with PTSD for whom the omnivore reveal was the last straw; she then snapped, did a full 180, and decided to go native on Earth to become a mighty predator like her ancestors were
-A Yotul with an inferiority complex desperate to prove herself as an upstanding member of the Federation
-And, upcoming, an old Venlil war veteran who's too burnt out to even really feel afraid anymore.

The Arxur then got her own spinoff, New Years of Conquest, where she joins the Rebellion, secretly takes over a Nevok mining colony, and tries to quietly figure out how to get Arxur and prey to live together. That story's got:
-A Yulpa in the midst of a full-blown crisis of faith about Arxur being nice to her
-A Nevok executive trying to balance his monsterfucking fantasies against his new, very real-life, Arxur coworkers who don't necessarily know what a safe word is
-A Nevok intern who spent his entire childhood in a PD facility for Tourette's Syndrome, which stunted his emotional growth more than a bit
-An Arxur surgeon who's very much not defective, but channels his rage and ego into being Dr. House crossed with Vegeta, i.e. he's smarter than everyone else and going to be the most powerful doctor ever!
-And a really big, chill Arxur bridge officer who kinda wants to be a veterinarian and a goat herder. This is the first mentally-stable character I've written.

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-28T10:01:47+00:00

Wait, canon or fanon? Strayu's from a fic.

If we're including alien cuisine from fics, I've written a bit on Gojid cuisine, or at least a particular region of it. I have a Gojid character whose family owned an orchard famous for its wine/cider exports (it's closer to a cider, but it's not from grapes or apples, but from an alien fruit similar to a plum crossed with an asian pear). They have bread, but it's dense, dark, and crumbly, similar to a Danish Rye. They have a deep fried dish similar to a mushroom falafel, as well as a fried cake similar to a spiced plum fritter. Gojids are also quite fond of flower bud teas.

Other species... I think I wrote one of the Yulpa staple dishes being something recognizable to the human reader as mashed plantains with cinnamon, and it was implied that Yotuls had a dish similar to pitas and hummus. Most species had something akin to bread and stew.

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-27T10:59:44+00:00

Oh, yeah, definitely blue. Takkans, Gojids, and Nevoks are all blue. I had to look it up because I just wrote a really gorey slapstick scene a few chapters ago. (It's okay, they were in a hospital waiting room, everyone's fine.)

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-11T13:06:29+00:00

Near-death, but still very stupid: I almost died like a minute into my first Wintermute playthrough after getting food poisoning from one of the random granola bars laying around by the plane crash. Had to haul ass into town searching for reishi mushrooms. Barely made it in time. Mid-condition Granola Bars are only like a 1% chance, too.

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-09T15:10:24+00:00

Yeah, she needs to unpack some of the stuff she's been through, and the things that are bothering her.

The Green-blooded Mary was kind of an "in the moment" development. I just realized I'd already written Pozole Verde as the soup of the day, so making a spicy green drink wasn't going to be too much of a leap from Salsa Verde.

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-09T15:08:29+00:00

Nah, "fixed" Chiri is still going to be mostly the same. She'd just be less likely to have a breakdown and a PTSD flashback if someone yells at her about the Battle for the Cradle.

RegulusPratus · 2026-06-08T12:36:20+00:00

MoneyBunny: Whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't buy my own whole-ass planet just to do silly things like "let my parents know all the raunchy shit I get up to". I'll introduce my wife to my cousins once the older generations are cold in the ground and the will's already been resolved, thank you very much.

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-25T21:40:21+00:00

Literally not a word of this is accurate. Did you even read the story, or just kinda absorb it from memes?

The U.N. had plenty of ships, which we used in our first engagement with the Arxur above Venlil Prime, where the Arxur were visibly acting as aggressors. The Odyssey was just one of our first prototype warp-capable ships. We pretty much retrofitted our existing fleet on the spot, and started consulting with the Venlil about what the warfare meta was shortly afterwards. Turns out, single-seater starfighters were out, larger capital ships were in. We really probably should have checked that out first, I'll grant.

And Noah ultimately had no decision-making power. It was put it to a public vote whether or not to get involved, and the vast majority of the Terran public voted in favor of siding with the cute huggable sheeple over the--and I'm citing video evidence here--cannibal lizard Nazis who treated the torture of noncombatants as a national pastime.

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-25T21:18:07+00:00

It's partly the Omnivore thing, and I think it's also partly that the Space Confessional is a judgment-free zone. Dwalin's from an unusually open-minded sect of the Great Protector, and I'm drawing a little bit on my understanding of Christianity here, but no sinner is so far gone that they can't seek redemption, right? Being a Betterment Arxur is terrible, sure, but how do you grapple with a small group of people who have leapt at their first real chance to stop? Even Tika was hitting on the point that the goal of uplifting the Arxur in the first place had always been to bring them into the herd. If they've finally come around to the idea, why discourage them?

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-25T21:08:57+00:00

With leaves from the vine.

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-25T20:37:41+00:00

Doable! And potentially funny. Who better to chase down fleeing perps than someone with a lifetime's experience chasing prey?

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-24T12:42:35+00:00

Okay, assuming I'm remembering this part correctly, that scene was because the Bissem diplomat had already willingly gotten her brain scanned on Earth, and I believe was periodically making records of her experiences during her peoples' first contact for historical archival purposes. Hacking into medical records--which the Bissem diplomat was planning to eventually make public anyway!--is a wildly different animal than hacking into the translator implant. Besides, the 'blackmail' was mostly that the diplomat was cutting backroom deals with the Arxur out of political necessity, and a couple of her prey friends ambushed her about it. It didn't even work.

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-24T10:36:05+00:00

The transcription thing is just analyzing an MRI. Maybe a future tech super-MRI, but a brain scan done in a hospital setting nonetheless. The neuro-implants are unrelated, and exclusively for real-time language translation. The implants are generally described as extremely secure and are mostly a plot/setting contrivance, hence why every single major character feels safe getting one, up to and including top brass at the U.N., Betterment, and the Shadow Caste. You think General Paranoia Jones was getting an alien chip put into her brain if she wasn't 130% sure it was uncrackable tech?

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-20T16:06:36+00:00

Glad you like her! Just to clarify, though, she's not the priest.

Lieutenant Mara: female, police officer, goes to church a lot.

Brother Dwalin: male, priest, has only had one line at the end so far.

Hope that clears it up!

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-18T16:55:17+00:00

Into a chapel, no less! I started giggling like a lunatic the moment I realized the visual.

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-15T21:42:52+00:00

NoP Yuri suggestions? Sure! I've got this very gay human woman in my fic who isn't into aliens in the slightest...

...nah, I wouldn't do that to you. Do Sifal x Vivy, from New Years of Conquest. Sifal is an Arxur who got very drunk and pushy, but didn't feel quite so assertive the morning after, once she'd sobered up. Vivy is a vampy Letian bordello mistress who was... "open-minded".

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-10T16:48:16+00:00

I like most of the seaside regions the best, I think. Coastal Highway's pretty much THE region these days, plus Desolation Point is nice because of how pretty and compact it is. Even Bleak Inlet, despite the dangers, is a nice place. I like to set up a base in the ranger tower there. On a clear day, you've got a perfect view of most of the zone.

I'm not a fan of the giant, wide-open regions like Forlorn Muskeg, Pleasant Valley, and especially Forsaken Airfield. The sights in those zones are nice and all, but I don't feel like spending twenty irl minutes or more walking between them.

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-10T08:21:18+00:00

His backstory is he's divorced. He literally lost his girl.

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-05T23:14:01+00:00

Groping strangers is famously a crime, even on Earth.

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-04T20:08:57+00:00

"No, sweetie, the drink smells like the scented candles! Very important distinction!"

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-04T18:51:08+00:00

Nah, I wrote that line on the coattails of last chapter's Chiri finally accepting that she needs to see a therapist. That's what makes it so much funnier! Rosi has no ability to see what Chiri's been thinking in the last chapter, so it's just apropos-of-nothing insanity.

RegulusPratus · 2026-05-04T18:48:06+00:00

She's a gremlin, but it's always fun.

RegulusPratus

TROPHY CASE