Xaviers!

"Then don't talk poop about what you just assume is my philosophy just cause I think somebody might have to stand up to the people who do think that way." she frowns.

"I'm just pointing out that the whole "never show your hand until you can cripple" is a bullshit philosophy. Whether that's yours or whether you're just parroting something someone else said..." he trailed off.

"Why would you do something if you don't think it's gonna succeed?"

"Sometimes? Because it's the right thing to do."

"But what good is it if it's gonna fail?"

"You don't know the future. You don't know it'll fail.

And sometimes, the act of brilliant dissent doesn't do anything at the time, but inspires someone else to be successful later."

Shari frowns and doesn't say anything, though she seems to genuinely think it over. Human stuff had been easier to admire when it had just been music.

"Sucks to not have easy answers, don't it?"

"It's not just that. You're all so... different? From each other, I mean."

"I'm not sure I follow," the talking donkey said. "Could you explain that?"

"It's..." she scrunches up her face as she tries to formulate her thoughts. "Like you have so many different ideas and views and concepts and it feels like you disagree on almost anything. Sometimes violently."

"Variety is the spice of life, to quote an aphorism. We've all got the same basic needs and wants and desires; we just go and act on them in different ways. Here more than most other places."

"Right. There's less agreement. And always somebody questioning what conclusions a bunch of others have come to. There were people with signs in the streets a while ago. On Skrullos they wouldn't even think to do that, even if it wouldn't get stomped out."

"That's what eons of subjugation will do to a people. If it's not something that's ever been done in living memory, it's harder for people "back home" to come up with it themselves."

"Maybe... Or you're all just a bunch of weirdo aliens." she tries to joke.

"Yeah, but we really know where our towels are," he nodded.

Shari blinks at him. "What? Why towels?"

"As in the common phrase "he's a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is." All together, got everything under control, is prepared."

"A... hoopy frood. Okay." she nods.

"Exactly," Will nodded, finally shifting back.

"Man, there's so much slang that I'm not up to dates on."

"There's probably plenty of pop culture that doesn't get caught up in Skrull scans."

"Not exactly what they look for, no."

"What DO they look for, then?"

"You know, military stuff. What kindsa weapons you got and such, what kinda things might be worth infiltrating, what factions there are, who you might be at war with already. Natural resources and atmosphere stuff too, but you obviously got a bunch of that and they only really care for the strategic value and what kinda lungs we're gonna need, etc."

"Best to just go without lungs -- better safe than sorry. You never know what your scanners might miss.

And the hundreds of little factions we've got here must have driven you quite mad."

"No, they were real excited, actually. It's much harder to infiltrate a race that's relatively unified."

"Easier to fit in when people think your incorrect eccentricities are just something from a different country, huh?"

"Yeah. And easier to rile people up against their own kind when that's already a thing. Like I said, you're all pretty diverse in a lot of ways and I guess not everything that leads to is good."

"In the long run it is. But no, given a small enough sample, you're dead on the money."