>>1125075
Don't panic. First, take a deep breath. Then make a mental list of all the things you need for school. Then start collecting them.

Are you wearing your uniform? If not, that's the first thing.
Don't forget your regulator, of course.
Any other school supplies you need? Do you have an ID badge? A wallet?
Did you think to prepare food in advance? You can collect it to eat later.
You probably don't have time for a shower, but still do a bit of freshening up in the bathroom. Wash your face and all this.

But most importantly, don't panic. You got this.

>>1125074
Look up info about how your friends eyes work.
Visual spectrum and the like
Then youll kn -
>>1125075
- ah, fuck.
Panic!

Good thing you're dressed and found your regulator. Off you go hurry!

Baron 2026/04/20(Mon)03:22 No. 1125640 ID: fd2dfa
File 177665537855.png - (1.73MB , 1965x1261 , 21.png )

>>1125077
Okay, yeah. Deep breath. Check. Uniform? Reg? Mask? Okay, all good. ID-wait, that's covered by the augment, I don't need that.

Right, freshen up. Deo-BO, that's all I can manage for now. I got this I got this...OH SHIT IS THAT THE TIME!?

Baron 2026/04/20(Mon)03:23 No. 1125641 ID: fd2dfa
File 177665539257.png - (1.73MB , 1965x1261 , 22.png )

I'M GONNA MISS MY RIDE! Pleasenotrafficpleasenotrafficpleasenotraffic-

Baron 2026/04/20(Mon)03:23 No. 1125642 ID: fd2dfa
File 177665539772.png - (262.33KB , 1280x1024 , 23.png )

Oh thank fuck. I...I missed my first ride, but it looks like the tramway is pulling double schedule today for the new semester. I lucked out.

>>1125095
You know what? You can ask my Doto'o yourself he's right...there? Oh Doto'o, you fuckin' guy...

Baron 2026/04/20(Mon)03:23 No. 1125643 ID: fd2dfa
File 177665541749.png - (262.77KB , 1280x1024 , 24.png )

"Oy-yo Doto!"

"Draaaa-keeee! Bro-keeee!"

His hab's stop is after mine, which means he rode the tram over here and waited for me. Dammit. Birdbro is so much the bro! It hits me right in the heart. Got stuff to ask him, you can ask now. We're goin' on the same ride. Hang on, I'll just loop him in.

"Doto, hey hey Doto'o."

"Yeah, yeah?"

"Listen, that chat thing? That thing I set up forever ago?"

"Yeah?"

"Got others in there now. I think they're Earthside."

"No way Dra-kee! You getting famous now?"

"Ha, naw, I don't think there's that many."

"Still bigger than zero Dra-kee. Hol' on, lemme join in"

DotoDodo has joined

Hey chaaaaat!

I like your fingerless glove and socks look

>>1125644
Thanks. It's all I'm allowed to wear!

Pleased ta meetcha doto.
Ive been bugging your pal here about how you guys see the world.
Not philosophy wise, i mean like with your eyes.
Avians back here on earth see more colour than our monkey eyes can handle.
Shit that looks grey to us can be bright with colour we cant see.

is bird bro single

Woohoo, space internettttt

Doto'o 2026/05/03(Sun)22:59 No. 1126225 ID: c15a60
File 177784916862.png - (534.61KB , 1280x1024 , 25.png )

Hey hey yeah yeah, you finally found Drake? Cool guy right? Hey-keee, what's this about my eyes? Like, yeah I can see other colors, but it's all kinda dull-keee.
I can see other stuff ya don't, but Marnari don't got lots of it left. I think we could see plenty long ago, but like, we didn't really need it, or mayeb cause we lost lotta color since the homeworld. So now we don't got lotta color and we can't see lotta extra color, you get what I-keeee?

It's why lots of us got these extensions-keee. Extra colors we pin to our foliage, and sometimes gives us hair like humans. It's what I like 'bout humans, all that hair and all the colors they got before they start painting it. They get real pretty-keee.


"Hey Drake, bro-keee, why they asking if I'm single-"

"Hey I think our tram's coming."

Drake 2026/05/03(Sun)22:59 No. 1126226 ID: c15a60
File 177784917586.png - (538.03KB , 1280x1024 , 26.png )

"Hang on, save my spot, I got a call."

"Prem?"

"Yeah, it's Prem."

Yeah?

Drake, where are you?

Getting on the tram, I got delayed.

Why the hell are you still on the tram? The Dean's got most of the student body assembled for his welcoming speech.

So?

So every other human on campus is there too. You're the only one missing!

...so?

Cut the act. There's 6 of us enrolled. When there's only 5 around, people start asking questions.

Cut me a break Prem, I got an audience.

Oh you got it working? You did remember to partition a room for us to talk right?

Huh?

They're watching our convo, aren't they?

Yeah.

God dammit Drake...

It's getting kinda boring down here. Withering Backrooms hasn't released yet, and politics is basically 'everyone rap to Hatler'. Listening to two college stoats bleating over broadband social media is the best fix we can get this week.

Let us know if galaxy-conquering magical girls show up in five minutes, I'm going to re-read your chat logs over and over.

>>1126226
Hey prem!
Looking forward to meeting ya!

Thanks for the answers doto.
Your extension colours are looking cool!

No we're not

Also assemblies is just school politics, the students are just a prop for the faculty's egos. Missing it isn't so bad, and nobody will remember it in an hour.

don't panic, we're on the way, just flirting chatting with bird bro

Drake 2026/05/20(Wed)18:43 No. 1127042 ID: fd2dfa
File 177930263430.png - (524.56KB , 1310x1000 , 27.png )

>>1126250
DotoDodo: What's a stoat?

Earth animal, don't worry about it.

DRAKE! Listen to me.

DotoDodo:Hey Prem. Chat says hi.

Doto, get off this call.

DotoDodo: O-keee

DotoDodo has left the chat

Look Drake, this is on all of us. One of us is late or absent, all humans look bad.

>>1126268
Hey yeah, this is just politics, doesn't involve us. How does that make us all look bad?

Again, only 6 of us Drake. If one is missing, people notice. And they might start poking around to see who is missing. And if they poke around, they'll see what I did to our records...

...oh.

>>1126368
Okay, okay, running late is a bad thing. Can't be fixed but it can be salvaged. Just lay low when you get to campus. Don't let anyone see you sneak in and...I dunno, hang out at the canteen and act like you were always there. If you're late that's bad. If you were always there but held up getting coffee or something, that's still bad. Just not as bad.


>>1126267
I never actually met Prem in person. I know he's one of the 5 other guys on campus, but I don't know which one he is.

And I'm never telling!

So Prem is your friend but can't stand to be by you in person and only online? Is Prem autistic? You might be able to figure out which one is him by looking each of the humans in the eye and see who backs away. Ask them about their day and if one starts running you got your man!

Ah well, if you're already late no point in stressing over it now. might look into getting a better alarm

Drake 2026/06/09(Tue)02:07 No. 1127836 ID: c15a60
File 178097083991.png - (1.29MB , 1680x1050 , 28.png )

>>1127049
Prem is a whiz at tech stuff, and I don't wanna wreck a good relationship I got with him. I dunno about the autistic stuff, but...I mean I can guess who it might be, but it's not like he has any reason to say right?


>>1127052
Fuck I know...but it's gonna suck all the same.

AND AS WE LOOK FORWARD, WE MUST ALL REMEMBER HOW FAR WE HAVE COME. I STILL RECALL MY DAYS SERVING AS A MEMBER OF THE VAUNTED ADMIRALTY AS WE SAILED THE STARS...

"Okeeee, Headmaster's into da speech about him bein' in admiralty. We good!"

"Wait hang on, shouldn't we be waiting till the music starts? He's pausing-Doto! Stop! Stooooop!"

"No keep goi-keee!"

"Will you skin-fucks shut up?"

Drake 2026/06/09(Tue)02:08 No. 1127837 ID: c15a60
File 178097089915.png - (423.05KB , 1024x768 , 29.png )

Whoa. That's something I don't think I heard like ever. Was that-it's a Marnari!

"Chr-chk! Bad enough we let your kind in, you don't even bother to show up on time."

"...what do you mean my kind?"

"You know what I mean featherless fuck chr-chk!"

"Hey, what is your proble-"

"Drake! We need to go-keeee"

I get pulled away, but I can feel that unmarked Marnari glaring at me all the way to the Cantina. What was that all about?

Just some jackass who probably doesn’t want to be here and is taking it out on everyone around him. Just ignore him and let him have his little tantrum.

sounds like a little fool. Do you even know that guy? clearly projecting some personal problem onto you, not worth thinking on.

Stuck Up Birbs convention. Stay on the edges and try to find people who aren't buying into this crap.

>>1127837
Well.
Someones got sand in their cloaca.

Ignore them drake.

Drake 2026/06/22(Mon)01:16 No. 1128356 ID: c15a60
File 178209097139.png - (738.11KB , 1256x918 , 30.png )

>>1127839
>>1127840
>>1127842
>>1127859
If it was some random asshole, yeah it wouldn't be as big a problem. But I know a lot of the students here. And I knew her! That was Tokka, she's one the Marnari that went to the same school as me throughout.

"Hey Drake, so I think our first classes are gonna separate us. What's your first class?"

Like-okay. So the way it worked was students would be added and split apart across Olympia based on student grades and where they were flagging. I...think? And me and Tokka and Doto were close enough to the same braket to go to the same school over and over.

"Drake?"

I saw Tokka a lot. And all that time she was NEVER like this. Most of the time she'd be real quiet, only speaking when called during attendance, and then having a few friends.

"Draaa-aaaake."

Most of the time she'd be studying though. Point being, she never had opinions like that. Or if she did, she never got so angry like that.

"DRAKE!"

"Huh?"

"Askin' what your first class is-ke."

"I dunno. Hey Doto, you live in the same stack as Tokka right? Something happen out there?"

"You're that torn up over Tokka? But she never talked to us!"

"Yeah, I mean. Sometimes she'd say 'excuse me' or stuff though. She always seemed nice."

"Bro-keeeeeeeeee" Doto's using that exasperated tone again. The kind where he wants me to drop something. "You're gettin' worked up over nothing! Just ignore her. Rally's important for a girl like her so just ignore her."

"Wow. Dat was almost convincing." The cantina girl is suddenly next to me.

Drake 2026/06/22(Mon)01:17 No. 1128357 ID: c15a60
File 178209104970.png - (935.62KB , 1280x1024 , 31.png )

"Sorry, who are you?"

She smiles. "Soro'i Naica, and welcome to my lidda patch of heaven. Where det coffee is burnt, de politics are fermented, and everyone pretends dem humans are decoradeev'." she says as she hands me a cup of coffee. "One panic, no sugar for da human everyone pretendin' nodda stare at."

"What...what the fuck do you mean?"

"Hey, hey not makin' fun of ya. It's good what ya do. Rally's buncha drops. Screw dem Egg-heads dat wanna show off-"

"Soro'i-ke!" Doto is talking to her. Doto is talking to her like he knows Soro'i. But I never saw her before. Is-okay she probably does live in the same hab-block. One of the generation ships landed near Olympia and had since been converted into a giant hab-zone, it's got like millions of Marnari in it. Chances are Doto and Soroi live there...still is it weird that Doto knows Marnari that I don't? He usually tells me about everyone. "It's Drake's first day, he shouldn't have to deal with it.

"What? Not dealing with it is how dey got so loud."

"They? Wait, is this thing not some girl getting peeved? This is a whole thing going on?"

Doto rubs his arm. "It's the first time I saw it outside the hab-block."

So this thing is an 'it' now. Tokka's part of something bigger and Doto never said anything about-and why is Soro'i talking about-was this why Prem was pissed about me?the fuck is going on?!

"Uh-oh, human looks ready to blow."

How the fuck did I fall so far out of the loop?!

It's probably not that you're out of the loop and more that you were never in it. Hard to tell your human friend about the mounting anti-human sentiment that's starting to become popular.
Oh wait, that means none of your friends wanted to be the one to break it to you, which means they don't actually care about you that much. That's rough, buddy.

The real problem is that you got spotted by an anti-human student, and thus can't even ask them to keep quiet about it. Which means if you don't want this to cause trouble for you then you're gonna need to rely on those friends.

> Most of the time she'd be studying though. Point being, she never had opinions like that. Or if she did, she never got so angry like that.
yeah see, like I said personal problem projection. At a guess, she's putting in the effort at school, but not seeing the success she feels she should be. And when she sees you, not putting in as much effort but still doing okay, she gets mad.

And if other people looking for scapegoats to blame their problems on are grumbling about humans then no wonder she would pick up on that.

But hey, Soro'i seems like she gets it. Ask her for more details, she'll give it to you straight.

Sounds like someone is going for a power play. As in someone is trying to stir shit up to create a problem and then offer a “solution” to get people to join them. In this case start up anti-human movement so they can present themselves as a strong so and so who will stand up to human oppression. You know the humans, the ones who helped them found a new planet to live on after be lost in space for who knows how long and helped them build up said new planet. You know the humans, who have been forcing their way of life on these people despite the fact that they’re basically nonexistent on the planet and outside of some franchises trying to set up shop to get money I can’t really see having any real impact on the local culture as not enough humans live here to have any real impact.

Basically what I’m saying is someone is starting shit since not enough time has passed for any real bad blood to form between the apes and the birds so this is either a phase that has popped up like goths or greasers or some jackass causing problems to gain attention or power if they’re involved with politics.

Sounds like something your dad should know about...

>>1128357
Theres a lot to consider man, an a ton of important stuff, but piorities.

Thank her.
Tell her shes got a cool look and she is rocking that choker.
Shes cute!

Balzhemund 2026/07/08(Wed)19:50 No. 1129127 ID: c15a60
File 178354024114.png - (775.01KB , 1280x1024 , 32.png )

>>1128369
No, Doto doesn't think that. We're bros! Bros for life don't pull that stuff with each other.

"Doto, why didn't you tell me any of this?"

Doto shuffles his feet and looks down at them, at his tablet, I never seen him look so nervous. "It-it wasn't supposed to be a big thing."

"But it was happening."

Doto chirps and pecks at his fingers. "I-I. I live a block away from Tokka. O-keeeeee?"

"What?"

"Her family shops where mine does! Her brother was my second during my Taking of the Watch! That's like huge for us!"

Oh...damn. In case you Earthers don't get it, Taking Watch is their coming of age thing. It's like super important for them, but I didn't know it was THIS big. Big enough to keep me out of the loop I guess...

"But like that's her brother. Why cover for her?"

"I didn't think it'd be this bad..."

I sigh, that doesn't seem to answer anything. Soro'i plops herself o>>1128373
n the table. "Oooh drama" she laughs softly. "go on then. Tell him why you didn't want him to know."

Doto makes the saddest chirp I've ever heard. "Keeee...I live with them. You listen to em long enough, you kinda forget it's happening. I-I mean I didn't! Most don't care no more, but I- I just..." he looks back at me. "I didn’t want you looking at me and seeing… that stuff keee."

"Aw come on, Dotoooo. You think that low of me? You're my bro, I know whatever sand's up her craw doesn't mean that's you too!"

"Aw bro-keeeeee!"

Balzhemund 2026/07/08(Wed)19:53 No. 1129128 ID: c15a60
File 178354038862.png - (1.12MB , 1280x1024 , 33.png )

>>1128373
Good point, sounds like Doto's been pretending this wasn't a thing, and Soro'i knows more.

"Hey, Soro, you called em eggheads before. You know what's up?"

"Oh, remember I'm here?" she grins. "Nah, I pullin yer craw, yeah. Home and Hatch dey call 'emselves, you know who dey are cause dey got an egg inna nest fer a patch." she scoffs. "Cuz ye know. Keepin' da egg of da homeworld clean wit no cracks n' stuff."

>>1128381
>>1128390
"So...what. This a power play? Getting students angry at me?"

"I dunno. Maybe?" she shrugs.

>>1128388
He could, but more likely he doesn't. Dad calls regularly, but usually to tell me when he's coming home or someplace that's dangerous. This would be the first time he missed something. God, this is the worst thing I could be showing your guys huh? You think this is some sort of underground movement happening?

Balzhemund 2026/07/08(Wed)19:54 No. 1129129 ID: c15a60
File 178354046156.png - (1.23MB , 1280x1024 , 34.png )

>>1128390
"Well, thanks anyway Soro'i. Cute makeup by the way."

"What?"

"What?"

"Hey, not everyday I see a goth Marnyarni."

"Cute huh?"

she seems cool, you should hang out

Yep, cute. Or gnarly, if you'd prefer. Perhaps even tubular.

So... what do Marnari keep as pets?
I'm also wondering if they contacted other aliens but rewrote the history books on that.

>>1129129
Oh hells yeah.
She a cutie.

Sorry youve got all this heavy stuff orbiting you baron.

yeah, she's pretty cute, in a different way than bro is cute. makes for a nice contrast

should probably get your coffee or whatever you came in here for and try not to dwell on the seething undercurrent of antihuman hatred that's seemingly simmering just under the surface of society and threatening to boil over, the barista and your bro don't hate you, and that's what really matters

Well shits happening, nothing really new there. Something is always going done somewhere you just happen to been caught in the crossfire this time. Grab your coffe, thank the cute one for said coffee, and I guess get to that thing you’re late for.

Drake 2026/07/27(Mon)16:36 No. 1130022 ID: c15a60
File 178517021536.png - (290.73KB , 1280x1024 , 35.png )

>>1129137
They do got this chicken-dog thing, I think it's called a Kcrika? I'm not super sure cause like I hear a bunch of different names for it. It's like what would happen if you shrank an emu and gave it teeth and the personality of a retriever.

>>1129132
>>1129133
>>1129165

“Oh shit right, I gotta get going to my first class. Conditioning!”

“Oh bro-ke, you better go! I think Master Kafa'ui is a hardass! Ruuuun!”

“Shit. Shit shit shit! Thanks Soro, we should hang out sometime!"

“Better keep dat promise earthy-boy!”

…

I snuck into the gym with everyone else.

Oh for anyone that doesn't know, I think you guys on Earth call this PE? Yeah, out here it's Conditioning. Never know when green zones turn yellow or red, and they want us to be ready to handle sudden survival scenarios and being fit enough to do what we will probably gotta do..

Thankfully I haven't seen Kafa'ui, so if I act like everyone else I should be fine.

Drake 2026/07/27(Mon)16:37 No. 1130023 ID: c15a60
File 178517023815.png - (278.96KB , 1280x1024 , 36.png )

>>1130022
Just wished everyone would stop staring at me. Like come on, they know humans are in the school, why do they gotta keep staring?

Drake 2026/07/27(Mon)16:38 No. 1130024 ID: c15a60
File 178517030197.png - (357.38KB , 1000x1000 , 37.png )

>>1130023
“Ah Laloooka! Is that Drake?!”

“Who is?”

Drake 2026/07/27(Mon)16:39 No. 1130025 ID: c15a60
File 178517035150.png - (433.36KB , 1278x887 , 38.png )

>>1130024
“Wait is that…Pikke?!”


“Yah-yah it’s Pikke! I knew I was gonna see you on campus, didn’t think you’d be in my first class. Now I get to kick your butt like I did in MercWars.”

“Oh you wish!”

well, introduce us to your friend.

ooh, who's this?

>>1130025
Hi pikke!
Nice hair!