Acquaintanceship-982 and the Missing Mail Mystery is a written story by Lupan Evezan, illustrated by Aristide Twain. It features Thymon, the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, and specifically the individual Cupids Acquaintanceship-982, Philatel-426, Colonel-028, Marksmanship-522, and, in their debuts, Pessimist-242, Larrikin-1029, Dandy-432 and Ally-1243, (who, with Acquaintanceship, make up the rest of the Blue Feather), Excavator-1642 and Foreman-964. Marmalade-624, Doc-012, Valerius-1497 and Bibliophile-962 are mentioned.
Description[]
The Blue Feather, Acquaintanceship-982's not-so-elite backup taskforce in the Cupid Homeworld, seems on the brink of getting its big break when Philatel-426 of the Department of Postal Services hires them to investigate the disappearance of a mailbag. Chaos and bumbling ensue — but to be fair to the Blue Feather Cupids, the culprit is the last person they'd expect…
References[]
- The Blue Feather's headquarters building is a drafty warehouse with empty crates as furniture.
- Trying to explain Pessimist-242's peculiar disposition, “amateur researchers” from the Department of Cupid Anatomy suggested that Pessimist might have, instead of a positronic brain, have a negatronic brain, a term which “was dismissed by the Department of Physics as ‘ridiculous and entirely unscientific’.”
- Dandy-432 speaks in a “posh, refined, and entirely unplaceable accent”.
- Thymon claims to be able to “show [people] exactly what evil lurks in the Gemstone Hearts of Cupids”.
- Larrikin-1029 always carries a burlap sack on his person.
- The Department of Construction is headed by several Head Construction Cupids, the Prefect being Foreman-964. Excavator-1642 is the newest member of the Department.
- There exists a Department of Permits which must issue permits before the Department of Construction can proceed with the implementation of the blueprints prepared by the Department of Architecture.
- All members of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids possess a Two-Way Communicator which allows any Cupid to contact any other across Time and Space; however, calling a particular Cupid works by slowly going through the entire list on a small dial to pinpoint the intended target, which makes their use impractical.
Continuity[]
- The story references the events of Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race (2019), in which Marksmanship-522 made his debut.
- The end of the story leads into the Blue Feather's encounter with the Faction of the Fooling Fish in Cupid Fact File No. 444 — The Faction of the Fooling Fish (2019). That story dates the pie-stealing incident on which it opens (and on which Acquaintanceship-982 closed) as being April 29th, 2011, suggesting this story took place that year, and, by extension, that the three previous Cupid tales took place around that time.
Behind the scenes[]
This short story was released in May of 2019 on the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids website and later collected in The Quintessential Cupid. It was the fourth fully narrative short story released there and the second by the Cupids' own creator Evezan.