7 | Video

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

[Boy oh boy, has Ripley got some news she's excited to share.]

Hi folks! Soooo, you might not know this but yesterday as my birthday! Exiting, right? Last year I didn’t celebrate it cause I’d only just celebrated like four months before at home. But since it was March, I think, when I got here and July back home things were all wibbly and I wasn't sure when a year had passed...

Anyways I’m definitely 13 now! And then some! So I got myself a birthday present. You wanna see her? [“her”] I know you doooo!

[Ripley turns the camera away from herself to show her usual companion, Jackson the wolf, cuddled up on the sofa of Heropa #7, with this little cutie tucked up under a paw, sleeping. She gets up real close so the kitten can be well seen in all its fluffy glory.]

[After a moment Ripley turns the camera back to herself and plops herself onto the ground in front of the sofa so the animals can be seen above her head. The kitten’s start twitching in her sleep, probably dreaming of chasing mice, or some other kitty activity.]

Her name is Jones 2.0! But I’m probably just gonna call her Jones. I saw her in an adoption catalog at the swear-in/pet expo thing last week: the shelter said the last people she was with didn’t treat her so well and I knew I had to give her the best home possible! That’s why she’s with me now.

--Everyone say hi to Jones! [Then in a stage whisper:] But do it quietly cause she’s sleeping!

Comments

video

[virusbusting]

Aa, she's cute!

[Hi kitty kitty, Lan can't touch you, but he can make chk chk noises at the phone's screen and curl his fingers at it in an attempt to.]

And happy birthday too!

video

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Right!? Isn't she so squishable looking! [That's not a question. she is.]

Also thank you! I'm officially a teenager now.

[virusbusting]

A little...

[Please don't squish the kitten, Ripley.]

Me too! My birthday was a couple weeks ago.

[And with that there are several too many 13-year-old superheroes living in the States right now.]

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Oh yeah, I remember hearing that over the network. Happy very belated birthday!

I feel like we should do something teenager-y to prove our teenagehood.

[virusbusting]

What? You did? I didn't post anything...

[Who else knew his birthday besides Megaman? It must've been him that sent the message over the network, but Lan never saw it. Hmm.]

But thanks!

Teenager-y? What do you mean by that?

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Um... I don't know. Just stuff that teenagers do, like... Oh! I know, loitering! Or being super moody for no reason.

[video]

[ohshutup]

[A cat! Clara loves cats!]

Oh, she's adorable! [Face-clutching is definitely happening.] Where'd you get the name from?

[video]

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

From Ripley's cat on the Nostromo. [She means Ellen Ripley, from Alien, not her herself. But she doesn't explain that, assuming everyone knows the Alien series.]

That's why my first cat was a Jones too.

[ohshutup]

[Clara definitely knows the Alien series, seeing as how her best friend often goes on rants about how offensive it is to actual aliens. She beams.]

I bet you and your Jones are even braver than the originals.

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

I don't know about that, Ripley's a tough act to top. We're probably at least tied though.

[ohshutup]

Oh, at least. [A broad smile.] Have you ever met any aliens?

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Yeah, I have! Not back home, we haven't made first contact yet, but here I have.

[ohshutup]

You're ahead of me - I didn't meet my first alien until I was twenty-six.

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Your first? So you've met a bunch of aliens?

[ohshutup]

Oh, loads. I'm a space traveler.

[fastballspeciaaaaal]

Right! You told me about hermit crab people once but I thought maybe they were the only aliens you'd met.

--but now that I think about it that would be pretty boring space travel if the only aliens were hermit crab people. And the Doctor. But he's hardly an alien, more like just a really weird human.