#the ikea staff send them off with like all the meatballs they can carry

[borderlandscast]

the vault hunters go to ikea

takes place during the epilogue. this took a while because i have no idea how normal people behave when going to ikea.

after nanosounds ordered that deep clean crew, arsenal and his wonderful volunteers (i.e., any surviving bandit who didn’t want their stuff thrown out) made a list of everything that could be kept and not kept. they marie kondoed the frigate from top to bottom.

bandit construction is mostly dumpster diving, improvisation, fixing or stealing things from one another. so the vast majority of furniture within the frigate is junk and isn’t space-faring quality (that is, won’t hold together if it accidentally smashes into a wall during ascent or if someone takes a good swing at it).

fun fact: the only objects in vast quantity deemed to pass this test are the bunk beds within the common, shared troop quarters. however, all the mattresses and sheets had to be stripped down and carted off to be deep cleaned as well before anyone felt remotely comfortable using them. in fact, almost all of the mattresses and sheets were donated to the bandits staying behind. after the cleaning, of course.

runner-up objects are lockers, chests and storage containers. for obvious reasons, arsenal let his own troops claim what’s what but they had to do it in a non-violent way or else it goes to him or worse, parvis’ bandits.

when the frigate finally left pandora, the frigate was in short supply of multiple bits and pieces, almost all of them cosmetic. people slept on the floor, in cots or shared beds, even making cardboard box forts.

before undergoing repairs at the planet hecatoncheires, all spacekea furniture was able to be stored in vox’s digistruct system and popped back into place, no big deal. the captains also made another cleaning mandatory so that the repair crews couldn’t be impeded by anyone’s giant stash of snacks kept in a ceiling high locker.

anyway, arsenal gave everyone a thousand dollars (sponsored by sipsco.) and told them to ‘go nuts’ when they finally docked at spacekea. they’d dock for a week or so, and then leave. after that, future visits would have to be by special request.

spacekea is one of the joint markets that’s one of the only places in the galaxy that megacorporations share. all of them manufacture and sell some sort of commodity, not always furniture. for example, jakobs may produce the majority of generators but they also produce the widest range of wooden furniture. maliwan produces the ‘friendliest’ sourced tea and spices. tediore has the monopoly on one dollar items.

everybody bought a new mattress. and sheets, plus sheet covers. there’s a lot of neat designs (all of them owned by one company or other).

arsenal refused to buy a new couch, but he did buy two extendable children’s beds for his kraggons. having two kraggons trying to hog the same space on his bed is exhausting. hence, the beds.

the other reason why the frigate had to make a stop at spacekea is because some of the stuff being sold fills a particular niche called ‘holds plenty, good for tiny spaces’, given that the frigate is big but not exactly spacious in certain places.

martyn (who’s also the safety officer) had to veto a lot of the trophy and wall shelves since they post a safety hazard. he didn’t say no to paintings, holo frames or wall hangings though.

without a doubt, almost the whole frigate’s passengers ate at the cafeteria, every single day. and stocked up in bulk on the snacks and frozen food. this was one of the first stops they made, and everybody loves food that’s not pandoran. in fact, some of the bandits who’d been born on pandora and never left were trying to find their feet via food. they got hooked, very fast.

the frigate’s passengers all became very recognisable, very quickly. everybody has to wear a name tag identifying what ship they’re from for deliveries, troubleshooting, etc. it also meant that parvis’ literacy classes shot up in attendance a week beforehand.

the whole place is divided into multiple sections. first is the docks, which is divided up by ship size and function. thanks to daltos claiming the registration for the blackrock, the frigate enjoyed a cushy space close to the entrance. not many military ships dock at spacekea, so. and they got free parking due to the length of their stay.

sherlock had to give an orientation about spacekea. it‘s one of his best presentations, and his favourite. it was mostly about etiquette, since more than half the crew have never interacted with civilians before (with threats, murder and bloodshed not counting).

the docks are linked to the cafeteria, warehouses, display rooms, hotels and the market. instead of it all being laid out in one direction, the designers went with a much more helpful design: a four way, multi-leveled behemoth of interlocking buildings.

hotels are there to help people who flew smaller ships who intend on staying awhile, or families on vacation, or anybody who wants a bed to sleep in for a day. hotels are divided into classes, which range from five star to one star, even down to rentable capsules.

after the hotels (mostly arranged on the outside perimeter), people enter via main hallway. from here, omnidirectional lifts, elevators, escalators, turbolifts (only for express, staff or richer clientale) can take people to where they want to go.

the cafeteria serves up a massive menu that’s uniform to every spacekea. the menu boasts that there’s always something for someone. the hot dogs, soft serve, meatballs and desserts, to name a few, proved especially popular with the blackrock’s crew. rythian enjoyed the dairy free soft serve.

the display rooms are dioramas that are filled with sample living spaces designed to inspire ideas from those passing through the hallways. they all come with holographic clipboards, a catalogue and a pen. the pens are all chained to the clipboards to discourage theft.

how it works in theory is that if there’s a piece someone fancies, they jot down the item number, price, quantity and name so that they can pick it up at the warehouse or the market.

in reality, sherlock had to lead groups and track every single one of these clipboards since not every bandit could write legibly or in a decipherable manner. he’s never been so well-acquainted before with so many bandits until this moment. don’t worry, minty, hollie sparkles, parvis, ravs, daltos and arsenal helped him out, in shifts.

you can go into the dioramas and display rooms. this the crew did, in varying ways.

rythian wanted a king size bed since he’s tall. and he’s tired of having to make himself fit. also, ravs is buying for him. he also bought the highest grade book storage unit available, and a miniature hammock for junior.

ravs spent an hour testing the display bar, fermenting and barrel rooms, and had five different salespeople attending to him at once, owing to his manners and charming personality. he ended up buying a deluxe suite, and wrangled a fitting service for free since he’s buying so much in one go. he also bought a spacesaving bird loft/avairy for the pigeons and quails.

lalna and xephos spent three days alone in the tech section, pressure testing the hardware and systems in that area. people kept mistaking them for salespeople and customer service. they eventually got paid by spacekea because of their EFFICIENCY. both turned down offers of employment.

honeydew and nilesy performed an impressive interpretative dance within the kitchen and cat rooms. both are no pushovers when it comes to cooking and cat care, and nilesy has about fifty cats to house and entertain. nilesy also brought along lyndon (his own diamond kitten) to test items, and had to have honeydew with him to fend off people who wanted to interact with the kitten.

minty almost got kicked out because people thought thought she was a part of the displays since she kept putting her feet up on the desks. she found a desk she liked, and even bought the display one since she ‘felt a connection with it’, which didn’t impress sherlock when he had to sort it all out.

honeydew also took his gardening team on a serious quest to maintain the grass room and hydroponics (i.e., veggie patch). this took four days to complete from start to finish, involving picking out new turf, chairs, trees, benches, fences, pots and seedlings. the grass room looks like a proper grass room now, and not just a lone field of grass with a sad looking tree in the middle.

lomadia bought a small bed for her still to hatch egg. it was doll-sized, and a lot of people gave her strange looks for buying a bed specially for it, until she pulled out the incubator capsule to prove that she was serious about it.

zylus bought a chef grade bread machine. this daltos tried to prevent since he had deja vu about too much dough being made, and which zylus rebuffed. his premonition proved correct since the crew ended up eating bread for whole two weeks, and didn’t even mind.

daltos bought a portable, handheld hologram kit intended for engineering projects. it’s the one he carries around with him in the epilogue, used for tracking a ship’s condition and status. vox sends him stuff through it. he also secretly uses it to watch movies and a n i m e.

since parvis is staying with will, he tried to buy a water bed to replace his own shoddy bed/cot. will couldn’t stand all the wobbling and sloshing, and had to convince parvis to buy a different bed. parvis bought a fancy bed with hangings and velvet trim. will facepalmed. will also bought a handcrafted tie rack. parvis made fun of him. will bought five more just to own it.

saberial strongarmed panda into buying a lot more organisational stuff since their ship and room is obnoxious to hang out in, given their habit of leaving stuff lying about. panda sticks to organisation for about a month and then goes back to their own haphazard system.

hatfilms act out wine or cheese within the display rooms, which leads to security being called on them twice, one casting call by an agency and many applauds by passerbys. all of them end up in an advertisement, and get a buttload of free goods, mostly food.

lalnable kits out his medical office with an adjustable standing desk. lalna also buys one to be a copycat. lalna also buys one of those stuffed toy sharks. lalnable hates it because it’s so obtrusive to see.

sherlock buys a whole kit of stationary, shelves, boards and office goods. he spends the next month slowly integrating them into the offices. he’s the happiest he’s ever been. bandits dub him the best nerd.

nanosounds decides to renovate the home office in her mother’s place as a sign that she’s a good daughter, but decks the wallpaper and carpet in varying hues of purple. her mother is secretly thrilled by her independence and modern thinking.

teep just buys one of the best mattresses available, and nothing else. this drives all their friends nuts, who then spent the whole trip trying to convince teep to splurge. teep eventually buys...one black coffee from the cafeteria.

#borderlandscast: extras #borderlandscast: more like memescast