"The first thing. Most people with Yeerks in the first place wouldn't mind the second thing."

"I guess I might as well tell Pete I'm okay myself. Not really okay. I might as well tell him the things that make it sound like I'm okay."

She fills in the section of the form. "It wants to know if you have any valuable skills - examples given are languages you know, a nice singing voice, steady hands, magical powers, various educational attainments..."

"I don't know how good I am at any of my languages. I have steady hands if I haven't just drunk a lot of coffee or just not drunk any coffee for too long. I have the magical power that no matter how bad things get I cannot fucking stop and I, uh, I can... recite the Lord's Prayer in Latin, probably? Unless I'm wrong about that. I'm really educated but I'm not sure that's a good thing."

"What are the languages?"

"It's hard to remember. If you say things I can tell you if I can understand them. There are just... a lot of them. I'm honestly really rusty on half of them."

"Okay, can you name five?"

"Um, I'm not promising I have the names right, but, uh, English, English - the other English - I mean - I don't know, it's just different - it's the one that goes like this - never mind. Uh... Fr...ench? Maybe it's French? Latin. Classic Maya. Cantonese. The one that goes like this. The one that goes like 'I speak more than five languages.'"

"- I can't actually hear the difference because I'm using Allspeak. English French Latin Maya Cantonese and others is probably sufficient for the form."

"Okay."

"Do you have preferences about what sort of Yeerk you'd host - what they'd spend time doing, what they'd be like as a person?"

He stares into the empty cup that once contained coffee and breathes evenly.

"...I don't want them to be cruel about what I've done, even though I've - I was - I don't actually know if it's true that Hell is a place of punishment. Maybe we just go there because God likes it when people suffer. But I don't know that it isn't. And I think - I think I'm not a good person, at all, and I - I just don't want them to be cruel about it. Or - I don't want them to - is there a separate section for telling them how much it sucks to be me or should I talk about that here?"

"I'm mentioning in the 'other information' part that you may be - difficult to take psychological care of - and can add other things in that section."

"Okay. How picky can I be?"

"There are a lot of Yeerks, but there are also a lot of people who want to be hosts. I think you get something of a leg up in matching by not wanting much time to yourself, though. It's a tradeoff between likelihood of getting a match and the match if you get one being very good."

"Is there a way to list things as tiebreakers in case there are two that want me?"

"I can write it in."

"I think I'd like it if they liked spending time around flowers and in areas that have fixed geography instead of changing all the time. I don't know if there are things that are - important? Like, ending Hell is important, but I can't help with that. Ending Angband is also important but apparently that's solved. If there are other things that are important like that and someone needs a pair of hands to work on them, that seems important. Uh. Tautologically. They should definitely have at least one of my languages already, so they can tell about how off I am - I think I had the wrong meaning for 'decent' and I don't know how many other meanings I have wrong and don't know it yet - and it'd be cool if they have other languages that I don't have. I think I'd kind of like to hear myself speaking something I don't know yet. Maybe I'd pick it up and maybe I wouldn't, I don't know. The only thing in my head that doesn't totally suck is math so maybe if they think math is cool they'll like me better than if they don't like literally anything in my head. I don't want them to pick me if they think it sounds horrible, I want them to be happy about it or just turn me down. I don't eat and that's probably a demonic plot somehow but I don't and if they're bothered about that I don't think it will work out. I like the color green and the kinda shit you get on Spotify or YouTube labeled 'three hours of the most relaxing violin' or 'beautiful emotional piano music'." He copies Pete's slightly mocking intonation very well but did not see the jazz hands and therefore cannot include them in his impression. "Oh, you know what, I bet this is the wrong part of the form for it but if they don't like anything about me they can change it, I know the trick for that now and I can be taller or whatever. Or if they really want to find out what it feels like to get injured in some way for some reason and then heal really fast, I guess that might be fine."

"- I'm not sure that will matter since the world the Yeerks are from also has shapeshifting technology but if I see a spot for it I'll put it in."

"...If their shapeshifting is faster or - okay, no shapeshifting until I've talked to Pete. After that, whatever. Just don't turn me into a completely immobile sphere of uniform torment and then abandon me."

"I... don't think I need to specify that."

"It's nice that the Yeerks are nice. It would really suck if they weren't."

"They're not all nice but I don't think they've ever gone for the - immobile sphere thing."

"...Not nice how?"

"They used to just kind of - take people, instead of having applications or even just asking first."