3 | Video

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

[Hey network, enjoy this small smiley child beaming at you when this post goes up in the wee hours of the morning.]

Hi everyone!! I’m Ripley and I am here to make a public service announcement about friendship!

Having friends is super important. You already knew that, right? Seriously, it’s probably like, the most important thing ever. Of all time! ‘Specially here. So I wanna make sure that all the newbies here have friends! Newbies! Do you have friends yet?

If you don’t, I have good news. I’ll be your friend! In fact, even if you’re not a newbie, I’ll still be your friend! I always like making friend and I’m very good at friendship. Come talk to me if you wanna be friends.

That’s all for now, Ripley out! [Her sign off is accompanied by a tiny salute and her best attempt at a serious face before the video ends.

--OR DOES IT. Soon after, she makes an addition.]

Oh, oh, oh. P.S. Does anybody wanna adopt a hermit crab? Or maybe twenty? I’ve got a lotta hermit crabs. [She looks off camera wide eyed, momentarily overwhelmed by her own vast amount of hermit crabs.

But then she’s back.] Okay, thanks!

Comments

[ voice ]

[disorder_heaven]

...Okay, the thing about friendship is one thing but... How do you end up with twenty-plus hermit crabs?

[ voice ]

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Madonna had a lot of babies.

[Yeaaaaaah, sorry, Ripley's not the best at explaining stuff.]

video

[airshow]

Well, hey, we're already friends, but I wouldn't mind taking a crab or three off your hands. They're pretty easy, right?

video

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Totally! You can handle them no problem. It's kinda some work to set up the crabitat, but after that it's super easy.

voice;

[enigmaestro]

Has this worked for you before? This Public Service Advertisement, as it were, for collecting friends? Honest query.

voice;

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

'Course it has!

Uh. Or it would have if I'd ever done it before. But everyone wants friends so why wouldn't it work?

[illuminescent]

What is a hermit crab?

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Lucy, hi!

They're these tiny adorable little crabs with shells on their backs. Mostly they live on beeches and sometimes try to pinch your toes, but they also make awesome pets!

video;

[helpline]

Hello Ripley, I'm the Doctor. [ said with a smile and a nod. She's so excited, aw yeah ]

I'll take you up on both the friendship and the hermit crabs! I'd like two, well if you have two left, I'd like two. That way they'll have someone to talk to.

video; fourthwalling, activate!

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Nice to meet you Mr. Doctor! That's so weird that that's your name, y'know, cause my parents are really into this one TV show about a guy called the Doctor!

[What a crazy coincidence, right? But there's important crab business to talk about.]

I've got so many crabs, so you can definitely have two! In fact, that's perfect! I'm so glad they'll have another crab to talk crab business with.

video;

[laruetheday]

Why hermit crabs?

video;

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Cause I had two hermit crabs, and they had babies, so now I have more hermit crabs.

video;

[oceanthief]

I'm not really sure it works like that.

[the friendship thing, she means. Lapis' experience has been that unless you're a huge weirdo protag you can't just declare bosom buddies like that. but what does she know, she spent five thousand plus years in a mirror.

there's a pause, long enough to be awkward, and then she continues.]

...but I'll take any of the crabs that no one else does.

video;

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

What? No way, that's totally how it works! [Good thing Ripley is a huge weirdo protag type! Nobody's rejected her forceful attempts at friendship yet!]

[Crabs tho!] Are you sure you want that many crabs? That's a lotta crabs.

[Video]

[kingofthetvworld]

[Wait, that's a thing you can do? Just ask, just like that? It's so easy, why didn't he ever think of this before? Okay, keep it cool, time to put on his best game face. He doesn't want to mess this up.]

I'll be your friend fifty million times over!

[That's like, a lot of friendship.]

[Video]

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

[Evidently, yeah, you can just ask! The only limit to friendship is your imagination!]

That is a lot of friendship! But I am so up for the challenge, I'm a friendship master!

video;

[grouchinleather]

[There's a close-up of Midnighter's amused face.]

Is this how you kids do it these days? Just ask as many people as possible?

video;

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

It's faster this way. [nodnod.]

( audio. )

[aberth]

Why hermit crabs?

[ Do people keep them as pets? What's going on? ]

( audio. )

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Cause Madonna and Albert, my two crabs, had babies and now they need homes.

( video. )

[cupio]

I'll totally sign up for this friendship gig.

Is there paperwork?

( video. )

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

No way! Friendship is supposed to be fun and paperwork is the opposite of that!

video

[rathercommon]

[ Why are you so cute ]

What do you need to take care of a hermit crab?

video

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Just a crabitat, food and water.

Do you want one? Or two? You should take two, crabs get lonely on their own.

voice;

[bestever]

You've talked to Caboose, right? I feel like you should talk to Caboose.

voice;

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Yes, Boose and I are already friends. We did the haunted house at the Halloween thing, and he showed me his helmet and he told me I'm on blue team now!

video;

[bloodpressured]

Okay, that's nice. I already have over one friend, though, so I'm afraid I might be at capacity.

What do you have so many crabs for? The place I work buys a fuckton of crabs, maybe you could sell them there?

video;

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Pfffffft, no way. You can never have too many friends. That's scientific fact, I'm pretty sure.

If I sell 'em to your work, will my crab babies be taken good care of?

voice

[failureisntachoice]

[ Okay, first thing: ] Put the crabs back where you found them. [ There are only so many hermit crabs a kid needs. ]

And you need to be careful who you make friends with. Not everyone plays nice.

voice

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

But I found the crabs in with my other crabs! They are back where I found them. [She wants to do like you said space mom, but!!]

Everyone's played nice so far! [Which is probably just pure luck.] Except maybe that one guy, but he's not not playing nice, he's just kinda weird.

text;

[maime]

I'd help with the crabs but
Oreo would probably eat them

text;

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

in that case please do not take my crabs!! i really don't want them getting eat. oreo can eat other things which are not my babies!

...is oreo a puppy?

PERMAVIDEO;

[worstever]

[Oh my god, she used his catch phrase. Her Blueness is clearly no accident... but FATE.

He's having kind of an emotion???]

Crabs, huh?

Don't think I've seen a network post for adopting them out before. Unique.

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

[:')]

They're not super popular pets. Which is cray, cause they're awesome pets!

video.

[glowsferatu]

Well, it certainly seems as though you have quite a surplus of friendship to offer. But, I'm afraid before I can take any of it off your hands, I'll need to know just what it entails.

video.

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

It can be whatever! Friends to lots of things together, right? Sleepovers or shopping or watching movies or doing crafts or fishing or... or anything else!

[oathkeeping]

Geez, you sound like Sora. [Not that...she should know who that is...] What if someone who's a jerk wants to be your friend?

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

[Well, surprise surprise Roxas.] Hey, I know that guy! Yeah, he was nice.

If a jerk wanted to be my friend then... I'd probably be friends with them anyways cause they're probably only a jerk cause they don't have friends.

video

[buildsfriends]

Hey Ripley! How many friends do you have so far? I'm trying to get to eighty-eight friends myself. I'm probably pretty close.

video

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

I got five new friends from this post, plus, I had a bunch of friends already! Lucy and Adult and Midnighter and you and a bunch of the other space people... I'm probably close to eighty-eight too!

Why eighty-eight though?