Featuring ME!

    TSII, UNFORTUNATELY FOR any poor cats who may be overhearing their conversation, has no way of knowing that the putting candy in noodles was wrong. Was that an Earth recipe or something? She makes a mental note to ask Cookie about that sometime.

❝I guess so! The noodles in them are candy too, though, so I don’t know if it counts as the same thing… They’re tasty, either way, once you find out how to make them right.❞

    Tsii pauses for a moment before adopting a somewhat embarassed expression.

❝Uh, if you do try them, don’t eat the powder by itself. Doesn’t taste as good that way…❞

   “Oh I- I know about uh, the powder yeah!! It’s the same for real noodles. Apphia was making me chicken noodles once and- she said the flavor all came from the little packet of uh, of powder, so... I tried the powder and coughed so bad.”

They had a spare flavor packet, but... Yu typically isn’t allowed in the kitchen much anymore. She’s not stupid, just... impulsive.

    Oh. Tsii sort of scrambles to not drop the candy bar as it’s abruptly handed to her, and she looks at the back of the wrapper as Yu works on folding her map, squinting at the tiny writing that she still can’t read.

“Well, a candy star, then? I’ve seen candies in all sorts of shapes here. I’m sure they could put little stars in these that aren’t thousands of degrees…”

    Tsii quiets for a second before looking back up to Yu.

“Y’know! Talking about sweets… I’ve seen some weird candies around, especially here in the metro. Did you know they’ve got candies you can make down here that look like sushi and noodles? You just add water to the powder stuff in the kit!”

   Oh this is so much more complicated than she’d thought... there are so many little lines, and they all bend both ways, but it doesn’t fit if you bend them the wrong way????? ............ She just. gives up and shoves it into her pocket. It’s. very creased up.

Why do they make maps so hard to fold-

Wait.

Yu glances up from her ruined map, blinking.

    Tsii watches quietly as Yu pulls out item after item, not really concerned about how much she seems to be grabbing (It’s obviously magic, isn’t it?). When the candy bar is presented, Tsii’s brows furrow almost immediately at the writing on the wrapper.

“Is that what that says?”

    Tsii shakes her head. What a weird language… and a really confusing name for a candy. What was even galaxy-like about this thing? It’s not even in a spiral shape! She’d call it disgraceful if she didn’t like chocolate as much as she did. So… she’ll settle on disappointing.

“And they didn’t even put one star in the whole thing? Bummer.”

   “I think so!!! s’what Apphia says, anyway, and uh- and she’s really good at reading!! I think um- a star would be. really yucky to eat though. Cause apparently they get really hot and then the chocolate would melt and! and you’d just be biting into hot!!!!” She hands the bar to Tsii (without... really checking to see if she’d actually taken it), and reaches down to grab the massive map she’d thrown aside, trying to get it folded again. It’s... maybe twice her size.

    Tsii seems a little bit taken off guard at the second question, but she soon shrugs it off. Can’t expect everyone to know everything about space. If anything, at least Yu’s come across one of the best on the subject! Lucky!

“A galaxy is… pretty much a huge field of stars and planets and stuff that’s all held together. Kind of like… a really, really big town where this planet is just one little neighborhood.”

    Tsii could go on and on about how a galaxy is all held together, but she doesn’t really want to confuse Yu anymore than she has to.

“This galaxy that we’re in is called the Milky Way! It’s a pretty cute name. Easier to  pronounce than some others, too.”

   “Milky Way... Oh- oh oh, I know that!! I know that word!!!” Reaching into her pockets, Yu pushes her hands... far deeper than they should reasonably fit into her pockets, and she starts pulling things out - a map of the metro, a few passes, a phone with double its wait in cat charms hanging off it, and- Aha! A squished up Milky Way bar that looks like it’s. probably been in there a few days.

    Tsii spares a smile at Yu’s enthusiasm, the question giving her pause for just a second. A hand is brought to her chin as she thinks.

“Not… as many as it would be if I were giving her a location on planet too. I’m always moving, so sending her those would be a little silly. Still… there’s a good few. So, how about this! This galaxy is pretty easy to recognize. Soooo… What if I worked the name of the galaxy into the conversation? If I do that, I only need to sneak in the planet’s coordinates. Reasonably, that can be done in… three messages. If I’m clever about it.”

   So maybe she gets a little lost in the talk of ‘galaxies’ and such - she’s not that knowledgeable about anything space. Yu only knows cat facts.

Apphia pilots the ship for a reason.

“That…”

    Tsii pauses, seeming a bit dumbfounded for a moment before her eyes somewhat literally light up.

“That’s!! Actually a really smart idea! It’d take ages for anyone unwanted to translate and pick out the numbers in each message… but for her, it’d be a breeze!”

     Tsii finds herself actually getting visibly excited at the prospect. What if she did get her messages across and her old friend came over? Gosh, what would she show her first? What would she want to see first? Not to mention, there’s a handful of decent people she’d like for her friend to meet…

    Tsii begins to comment on Yu’s first comment, but it’s quickly buried by her following proposition. Truthfully… Tsii hadn’t really given much thought about the possibility of her old friend showing up on Earth of all places. The idea gives her pause, and her tail sways thoughtfully as she considers.

“If she ended up all the way out here… I wonder how that’d play out? If I can get ahold of her, maybe I should send her the coordinates…? Mm, but that’s intercepted so easily… Maybe I could code them somehow…”

    Tsii shakes her head.

“Well, either way! If she ends up flying down this way, I’ll let you know!”

   “Ooh, I know how to do super secret codes!!! Like um- like writing it backwards, so you- so you have to uh, look at it in a mirror to see what it says!!” Apphia got her one of those ‘magic codes’ books, but Yu can barely read, so she just ended up writing her name backwards a lot. Sometimes she does it by mistake.

    That… elicits a little smile from Tsii, and she can’t help but snort a bit at the notion. 

“Pshh, I mean, sure. I’ll put that in there, but I don’t know if anyone could read it anyway. I haven’t met anyone who can actually read my language that hasn’t been… y’know. Like me?” 

    Which, to be fair, went both ways. Tsii couldn’t really understand anything written on this planet either. The only reason she’d been able to speak it okay was because it was similar enough to what she knew (if not a little backwards).

   “I can’t read my own language either!! Or- I can, but not much cause it’s hard!! And so is this planet’s language!!” She knows how to write her name in both, and how to look up cats in both, but other than that, she struggles. Apphia is a terrible teacher, so. that’s probably why that’s such an issue.

    Phone…? Oh, right. Those were the dinky little communication devices folks carried around on this planet, right? They’re very cute, despite their relative ineffectiveness in range… Maybe she should look into getting one? Surely her computers could upgrade the thing to use a language she can read.

    Ah, but that’s not an answer to the question.

“I have her contact information… and she has mine. But… I’m not really sure what system she’s even in right now. I’m sure she’d get the message quick and all, but who knows if it’s safe to try…? I dunno. I can… try to be stealthy about it. Couldn’t hurt.”

   Yu had only gotten a phone on this planet, but with how protective of it she was, you’d think she’d had it her whole life. The very moment she found out she could search up cat pictures and videos anywhere she’d vowed to keep it safe.

The Inkwell Isles weren’t all that big. You could make a whole sightseeing trip of ‘em in a single day, and the Kettle brothers knew almost everybody living there — but neither of them had ever seen this girl around, before. She was probably around their age, Mugman figured, and while he didn’t have a clue about why she’d been so surprised to see a pair of ‘cup people,’ one thing was for sure: as much as he’d had his heart set on giving that hourglass to Elder Kettle, he was much happier to return it to its rightful owner, instead. Besides! Meeting a new friend sure beat finding some ol’ hourglass, no matter how fancy it looked. “I ain’t gonna make ya’ trade for it, pal! It’s yours, anyhow. I’m just happy ta’ help!”

“Though I s’pose I’d be up for hearin’ about cats, if ya’ still wanted ta’ share.” Cuphead’s gaze lingered on that hourglass as Mugman held it out to the girl… but he didn’t argue, even if he still looked like he wanted to sell it. Knowing him, he’d find something else to pawn off to Porkrind in its place, or think up some new get-rich-quick scheme to pull. (He had an awful lot of those.)

“Forget the cat facts! What’s all that time piece stuff about? That’s a funny name for an hourglass, ain’t it?”

   There’s a moment of confused hesitance as the time piece is held out, tiny hands reaching out to take it from the friendly mug fellow - Yu blinks, staring down at the time piece, before glancing back up, head tilted a little. “Aaaare you sure? Normally people make my sister fight them to get these back and um- and they have like a bunch of loud and scary attacks!!!” She throws her arms out to her sides, nearly tossing the hourglass away with her dramatics.

“Oh- the time piece? That- it does um, magic time stuff!! Like if you break it, it rewinds time around it and stuff! But it’s really dangerous cause sometimes you can open a um. a.... a- a time rift I think!! And you can get stuck forever!!” The hour glass is stuffed into her coat, which absolutely does not have the room to carry something that big, but. it just vanished.

    Yu… talkativeness aside, she really had a nice sort of aura, huh? Friendly and somewhat… naive. All this talk about cats when she’s pretty much a kitten herself. Huh… leaves Tsii wondering if the other girl has claws (metaphorical or otherwise).

“Bows and ribbons were her thing too, yeah. To be honest, I think she had more bows than I have hats. And that’s a lot! I dunno if she knew a lot about cats, but I know she loved them.”

    Tsii pauses at the last question, biting her lip. It had been years since she’d heard from her, and seeing as there were hunters on her trail last they spoke…?

“… I really hope so.”

   Unlike Apphia’s terrible gremlin energies, Yu was definitely a lot softer - where her sister fought pretty much everyone, Yu did her best to befriend them, and... it worked. A lot.

“Bows and ribbons are a very good thing to have.” She nods sagely, as though offering a great advice to a weary traveler. Advice about bows. They are a very cute accessory.

    Tsii nods, tracing her gaze along the many trains that pass by. It had been a good few years since she’d so much as heard a word from her old friend… Tsii really hopes she’s doing alright…

“Mm. She was good. We traveled together for… a little over a year. We had to split up after we run into some trouble. So, uh. No worries? You just… really look like her.”

   “So we both know someone that looks a lot like the other!! Did your friend wear bows too? Do you think she liked cats? I know a lot about cats.” Obviously she hasn’t really picked up on the ‘trouble’ part of that, more focused on the idea that there’s another bow kid out there - that’s so cool!!

CUPHEAD (AND HIS PAL, MUGMAN) IN : LOST TIME ! ( with @time-pieced​​ ! )

“Golly, that hourglass sure is fancy…”

“How much do ya’ think Porkrind would pay for it?”

Cuphead’s reaction was about what Mugman expected. Always looking for some easy gold, his older brother… but, as much as Mugman wouldn’t have minded some extra spending money, that hourglass in his hands looked too nice to sell. In fact…

“I was thinkin’ about keepin’ it! It’d make a real swell gift for Elder Kettle!”

Elder Kettle would love it, he’d bet! It would definitely keep track of time better than the Kettle household’s current hourglass — a nice enough fella’, but usually too busy hopping around and dancing to tell you how many minutes had gone by.

“I tried lookin’ for the owner, but no dice. Sal couldn’t get to the root of it, Chauncey said he’d keep an eye out. I tried askin’ Hilda Berg, but she’s always got her head up in the clouds. Cagney — ”

Mugman stopped.

“Say, Cup? Do ya’ hear somethin’?”

   This was bad. Not- not losing every single time piece levels of bad, but still bad. Yu had meant to use the time piece to just play around on this new planet, but she’d ended up leaving it somewhere, and then when she went back - it was gone!!

This place was super weird - all the talking objects, and everything dancing and singing and generally being quite odd? Yu had assumed it was another situation like the Mafia Boss and his funny jar body, but nobody here seemed to have been mashed into a paste and poured into whatever their strange bodies were. The talking animals made sense, though - Bow knew a lot of talking cats! Like that scary Empress lady, or that nice Cooking Cat!

She hadn’t really taken the time to stop and ask anyone if they’d seen her time piece, because normally it was really glowy and flashy and made like- this huge bubble, but she couldn’t see that either. ... Maybe Apphia took it back.

But of course, she still has to look! Because if Yu went back empty handed, and Apphia hadn’t found it, Yu might get in trouble!!

So she’s crawling through a bush. Because the time piece. might be in a bush? The finer details are something only Yu would understand - but eventually she pops out of the bush, standing up to pull a few leaves out of her hair, and-

    Bows? Oh… Oh, now Tsii’s starting to remember why Yu seems to be so familiar. That’s uncanny, but it wasn’t as if meeting herself hadn’t been. This is nothing she can’t shake off! 

    So, in rolling with the overall positive atmosphere, Tsii offers a little wag of her tail and a makeshift smile before shaking Yu’s outstretched hand (that was what the gesture was for, right?). After a second or two of hesitation, Tsii speaks up again… though she’s more than a little embarrassed about it.

“You… remind me of someone I knew.”

   Once she has her hand back, both hands are stuffed into her pockets, fiddling with one of the many, many things she’s managed to stuff in there. She’s quiet during Tsii’s hesitation, not wanting to interrupt her thoughts - losing your train of thought is just the worst!