the chicken kitty

When Cyan and Blue confront Green, they reveal what Green had been suspicious of for the past several loops. They remember, and it’s beginning to happen more consistently.

They sit Green down as they need to have a serious talk, all the crewmates agreed they need to address the entire situation and that Cyan and Blue were the best ones to do it. They first ask Green if they had made any progress with figuring out how to leave the time loops. After some hesitation, Green admits that they hadn’t had much success; at first they thought killing everyone effectively would end the loops and then much later on, Green tried getting everyone to Industrial safely hoping that would be the trigger. But of course no luck.

This entire thing is a tense affair and after some pushing, Green discovers the moment where everyone started getting their memories back. The entire crew always had this eerie sense of déjà vu after loop 0 (the canon timeline), but it never really grew stronger than that. Not until the loop where Green drank alcohol, turns out Imposters are very susceptible to it (think of a person’s first time drinking alcohol and going black out drunk). Green didn’t hurt anyone, but they did reveal their true form in front of everyone else. They acted like a very drunk cat, but that didn’t stop the onslaught of horrible memories that Green caused during the earlier loops. The reason why the crew didn’t remember the earlier loops previously was because they were trying to keep the memories down; sort of treating it like a bad dream in a sense. 

After serval loops of Green just being so genuinely sweet to them, the sudden reappearance of their Imposter form was very…jarring…

Bittersweet Ending (True ending)

At the end of the conversation, Green promises to leave the other crewmates alone. During the rest of the Skeld’s trip, they hide from everyone else. Once the Skeld lands on Industria, the last time everyone sees Green is when their walking out of the Skeld with transfer papers that Orange thought they had misplaced. The loops end right there.

After all that, the crew have no choice but to move on themselves. They all keep in contact with one another and their all closely associated with each other. Whenever they have the chance, they all pile in the same ship to do whatever mission has accepted them all together. They all have their respective pairings - Red and Purple, Lime and Blue, Cyan and Black, White and Orange, Yellow and Brown - but there is an ever present rumour that the Skeld crew is just one huge polycule.

(Not that it’s incorrect; paperwork is just easier this way.)

They still go about achieving their own goals, working towards a better life, actively trying to separate themselves away from Mira. But they all have their support from each other, if one makes a step you have at least two others falling back to ensure that everything goes right. One may think of the time Cyan and Black revealed the truth of ore+ to the rest of Mira’s workforce; they had the backing of White’s very influential family to ensure that the discovery wouldn’t be snuffed out. Or the time where Blue kickstarted a charity event for the many that suffered imposter attacks; Orange was there to organise the event while Red helped to bring the many who needed the support in the trusty Skeld (which they had earned the rights to, Lime had spent many sleepless nights making it their own). One may also think of Yellow and Brown’s co-owned restaurant where in the middle is a beautiful tank filled with fishes of all kind; the duo would proudly talk about the the time and passion Purple had devoted into creating the perfect habitat for them, on the occasion if you see Heracles the fish, it means Purple and the rest of the Skeld crew is there too.

There is one interesting quirk that is known about them though, whenever anything related to worm farming is mentioned, all of them seem to tune in the conversation. They all admit that they have no background in the industry, some of them might claim they find it boring as dirt. But there is no denying that all of them can easily spout a random fact on worm farming with some strange melancholy nostalgia. 

(Much later, more astute onlookers would notice that there is consistently a worm farmer who joins in the bigger events of the Skeld crew as often as possible, but they are often found at the sidelines watching on. Unknown to the onlookers - and pointedly not discussed in the rest of the Skeld crew - at the end of the day when the crew are finished with their big events, small gifts are often left in the crew’s beds whenever this worm farmer is present.)

Good Ending (Feel Good Ending)

It starts off similarly to the bittersweet ending, Green promises to leave the rest of the Skeld alone and then hides until they make it back to Industria. But the loops don’t end. It’s awkward and painful and Green makes the effort to hide as quickly as possible whenever this happens. The others take the time to find the best way to make the Skeld more liveable long term. Things are still a little tense. 

The crew is hyperaware of the fact that Green is still on the ship, but no one can find them. Not even Lime who spent several loops checking the vents. Eventually they give up, and focus on ensuring that any baby parasites can’t potentially escape from storage. After sometime, the crew begin to bond after processing everything that’s happened and after several loops of no issues getting to Industria, the crew eventually decide to push what they can do. They keep it simple at first, like taking alternate routes to Industria just to extend the amount of time they have in a loop. Then they start trying out each other’s jobs, once again small things like Orange taking over cams or Lime trying their hand at cooking.

Even White takes to it enthusiastically, though they’re not very good at most of the jobs. Doesn’t help that Red keeps letting them drive the ship. That leads them to a lot more bumps on the Skeld than anyone is happy with, but Red keeps letting White drive and eventually they cause another hull breach. Bam smack on Storage. Again.

(Red and White were officially banned from being in navigation together without supervision after this)

Orange is the first one on the scene, being the closest, but right as they open the doors the box of their huge box of trust balls are already hurtling towards the hole to plug it up. It’s obvious who had done it, but Orange can’t see Green anywhere, they were a little preoccupied with the familiar visage of a parasite flying right at their face. It unfortunately lands and Orange is ready to submit their fate of dying once again until they feel something rip off the parasite before it can burrow into their skin. 

Turns out, Green was hiding out in Storage, more specifically, they were hiding inside the crate of ore+ carefully rationing what small amount of food they would allow themselves to get and eating the parasites when they had nothing else. Orange had barely seen the end of Green’s tendril hiding back inside the ore+ before the rest of the crew burst into Storage ready to help. Orange admitted that it was definitely Green that plugged up the hole, but they hesitated to tell anyone that Green was hiding in the ore+ until dinner.

No one really knew what to do with that information, but they were all pretty relieved. No one had wanted to say anything, but they were getting worried for Green. 

Yellow and Brown had been putting out small plates of food in random places in hopes Green would find it; Yellow focused on making flavourful meals with spices they remember Green liked while Brown focused on making Green’s favourite meals. 

Cyan had put out little crystals that help with loneliness and information on what horoscopes had good or bad luck for the day; Black sometimes joined and left warmed stones or unbroken glow sticks in colours that Cyan said had good vibes. 

Red had been leaving their gaming console on while Orange had the forethought to leave a timetable out for whenever Pink had a chance for calling in next to said console (as well as a trust ball). 

Lime had gotten into the habit of making and leaving little trinkets that Green could fiddle with in the vents, said trinkets were eventually joined with Blue’s poetry and newly laundered bedsheets from Medbay. 

Purple talks about random little stories from their time as an intern near what they are pretty sure is Green’s favourite vent system (the one connecting Security, Electrical, and Medbay; they remember during Green’s drunken escapade loop that they had talked about the comfortable vibrations that is shared between those spaces - Lime seemed to agree). White often joined to regale their own stories of some of the places they had travel to thanks to their parent’s business trips; White sometimes brings two bottles and three glasses, one bottle is wine while the other is grape juice. The third cup is always empty and the grape juice bottle is never opened.

After the incident (currently nominated as “White’s last - I mean it, Red - driving incident”), Orange goes back to Storage. They sit near the ore+ and do nothing expect fiddle with a trust ball for a while. Eventually the rest of the crew starts to walk in, one or two at a time.

White comes in first, joined with Black. Both of them are carrying several bottles of random beverages, none of which are alcoholic (surprisingly), and nine glasses. They carefully place everything next to Orange and sit next to them, White takes the time to open a bottle of grape juice and three of them just chat quietly.

Blue comes in a few minutes later, with a trolley filled with blankets and sheets of paper; some are blank while others are random bits of paperwork that have yet to be filled out. Black helps Blue to layout all the blankets so they're comfortable to sit on while Orange and White take some paper to pass the time.

Lime then shows up from a vent, grumbling as they drag a bag filled with random items they could just tinker with. At this moment, the group hear the pile of ore+ shuffle a bit, but other than a small pause on their part, nothing happens; Lime, however, does douse White with a bit of holy water. There is no way their driving skills are that bad without the intervention of some malicious force.

Yellow and Brown of course come in together, pots of food - none of which with salt - carried on more trollies. Purple is soon trailing after them carrying nine plates and utensils that they set down on the blankets everyone is sitting on. Brown and Yellow are serving food and they are excitedly talking about what exactly they have made - all the crew’s favourites - though Black quickly points  out a very clearly missing tin of flakey salt. Yellow shudders and mutters about worthy sacrifices as Brown pats their back and sets out a box of assorted spices instead (still with no salt).

They’re all chatting when Cyan comes in with their boom box and jewellery making kit. The music that starts playing is cheery but not too fast paced, Purple picks out a few gems with Cyan’s help and starts to bead a necklace. Blue starts to recite their poetry to the beat of the music and of course everyone swoons. Even Green, who had started to sneak away let a small swoon get away from them. Which was just in time for Red to come in with in a fish bowl with Heracles in it (they claim that the fishmate needed to be walked for enrichment and spend time with family) and bring attention to Green’s little escape. 

Green panics a bit because what was going on? They’re about to bolt to the nearest vent when Orange calls out “Trust Ball” and Green catches it on instinct. They kind fumble about with it, a parallel to the very beginning, but this time the rest of the crew can confirm its genuine. Green looks so nervous; they're avoiding eye contact, shuffling limbs (yes, even their imposter ones), stumbling over words, and they’re still looking for the best escape route.

Red, who is now right next to Green, sets Heracles nearby and puts a hand on their shoulder and taking the trust ball from them, chuckling on how they couldn’t have forgotten the purpose of a trust ball. Red leads Green over to the blanketed area and others are shuffling to make a spot just for them. There is already a plate of food and a drink set out for Green. They don’t sit though, even though there were a few others encouraging them to. So Red ‘tosses’ the ball, and says a fun fact.

“Fun Fact; we’ve had a meeting and decided that mandatory bonding is an all crew event, and as Captain it's my job to make sure that everyone participates.” 

There a cheers of agreement and Purple, always there to ensure that Red’s head doesn’t get too big, reminds Red that technically, that’s Orange’s job. That starts off a bit of friendly banter between everyone else and some point, Red tosses the ball again.