Loca's Confines

welcome to the archive train ride. an ideas dump. (header by @minimoss, pfp by @loserwithanartacc)

[chem-echols]

Hello! I'm Loca and I post random writing shit like headcanons, theories, alternate universes, rambles, and other random ideas!

I use they/them and star/stars. You can find all my text/talking posts under #loca's chatter!

under the cut is fandoms I talk about :)

I'm in many fandoms, so if you like any of these consider checking out my cool ass blog!

Criminal Minds

Spiderman

Spiderverse (ITSV & ATSV)

Stranger Things

Minecraft

Generation Loss

Ranboo

The Owl House

Some DSMP/QSMP

Resident Evil

Humans are Space Orcs/Fae/Deathworlders/etc.

9-1-1

Trolls (movies)

BNHA

[ohcaptains]

[drewthelocalnerd]

Haven’t really seen it yet so here we go, *Humans* have THREAT DISPLAYS! Sure, we seems small in comparison to other creatures both on or off our planet, but when we’re actively trying to make friends with everything we see that’s a good thing. But what if we don’t wanna seem small and friendly, say the vibes are real bad and getting worse, so instincts kick in and we gotta be *dangerous*

Take bears for example, those famous Terran predators. Big furry tanks capable of tearing into cars. We’re supposed to make ourselves look BIGGER to scare them off! Insane, but it works!

Other humans! We’re not *all* super nice, so what do we do when another deathworlder seems sketchy? Crack our knuckles, our necks, even flash our teeth a little for some flare, the literal post up or get done up pose where you invade their space and just in general look threatening. Our second natural language being body language, saying “back off or I’ll mess you up”, of course we have threat displays, and I’ll be the first to say I don’t always consciously know I’m doing them.

So when we finally have outer space friends, they’re gonna lose their shit seeing stuff like this.

[roolsilver]

I think the best part would be that a lot of time we base these things completely on 'the vibes'!

Crew A is used to human crewmate A being laid-back, friendly, and generally nice. Cut to meeting Strange Human #23 and their sweet human A bristles. Their brows lower, their heart rate increases, their shoulders square. Only extremely perceptive or human-acclimated crew mates even know there is even a difference.

OOPS, MY HAND SLIPPED.

The crew of the transport ship Atria is proud to include a small nest of Humans on their roster. Dan, the first human crewmate to join the Atria, is as overly-friendly, curious, and helpful as the rumors had predicted, and his loyalty and resourcefulness with mechanics had saved the ship on more than one occasion. When some of the crew questioned him about the wide variety of human behavior in the rumors, he said that his demeanor was quite common in his home country of Wisconsin. Not everyone enjoyed the human's company, but everyone agreed that he had earned their respect as a crewmate.

He had met and introduced the crew to more humans over the stellar cycles- a tall, dark-skinned navigation system specialist named Gina who had eagerly joined them and was now Dan's mate, a gangly, nervous young Rocky, who had gleefully made his own space in the engineering deck despite rarely being spotted outside that section, and eventually tiny Rebecca, the first human young born on the Atria.

It seemed like every spaceport held at least a few nests of humans, and the humans of the Atria frequently enjoyed socializing during their delivery and resupply stops, so it was normal when Dan and Gina joined a group headed to the nearest spaceport lounge for their size category. Rocky's presence was much rarer, but the young male was known to join the others on outings occasionally. Everything was normal. Until it wasn't. Afterwards, the others would ask Selax, who was both keen-eyed and spent the most time with the humans, what they had missed.

The first strange thing that happened, according to Selax, was that Rocky slowed a pace. Just a fraction of a step, nothing odd in itself, but it was enough for him to fall back from where he had been keeping stride with Gina. At almost the same time, Dan's eyes flicked up, landing on another human who was approaching the lounge gateway from the opposite side of the port.

Selax, despite their multiple eyes and quick mind specialized to catch minute details and changes in their environment, could see no indicators that the unfamiliar human, a male who looked older than Dan if Selax's estimation was correct, was hostile, or even paying attention to their group. But Dan slowed, and Gina moved a step away from him, putting herself more fully in front of Rocky. Both older humans had their eyes locked on the stranger, while the youngest focused his gaze on Gina's back.

Dan's jaw slid forward a fraction of an inch, his brows pinched together and lowered. This was something Selax had seen this before when Dan was tackling a particularly stubborn malfunction. His shoulders raised and separated slightly, chest filling with air, and his relaxed and dangling hands curled their fingers loosely. And then Selax noticed the strangest thing- on both of the adult humans, tiny bumps raised over every bit of exposed skin. The climate of this spaceport was not such that any of the humans should be uncomfortable, even in their light clothing, but these 'goosebumps' were said to be a response to cold temperatures.

The unfamiliar human had changed his course and was now stopping in front of them with a smile, hands raised palms forward in a human sign of peace. The three human crewmates paused in a cluster, slightly further from him than their normal socializing distance.

"I'm with a human crew, looking for new-"

"Not. Interested."

Dan's voice was louder, deeper than his usual speaking tone. His teeth showed as he spoke, reminding Selax that humans were predators on their home planet. Even Dan's way of speaking, normally fluid and lengthy, had become sharp and clipped. The stranger turned to Gina, spreading his hands and smiling wide in appeal, taking a small step closer.

"We're just-"

"Don't."

Perhaps the repositioning of the jaw caused the deepening of the voice? Selax would ask later. Gina's face had configured itself in the same way as Dan's, and her voice was quieter than Dan's, but firm and strong. The stranger stopped edging forward, but didn't back away. Selax saw the human's hands curl up just the way Dan's and Gina's had.

"But isn't your boy back there old enough to-"

Dan stepped forward, and Gina shifted where she stood to match the posture of her husband. Even Rocky was now curling his hands and matching the jaw adjustment of the other two over Gina's shoulder, although his curled hands moved to grab at the collar of his garment. All three humans had their eyes pinned on the stranger, like a pack of animals hunting prey.

"He's not interested. He already has a crew."

Dan's teeth stayed bared as he spoke now, and Gina's lips opened to flash hers as well. The rest of the crew had stopped by now, finally noticing that this wasn't Dan's customary greeting ritual.

"Your crew's nothing worth joining if you're out here poaching in spaceports. Don't talk to my brother, you're not welcome here."

The stranger stopped trying to make eye contact with the group, raising his hands higher and turning his head to the side.

"All right, all right, his loss."

After backing away a few steps, the odd human turned and hurried away into the crowd, only looking back once. All three humans stared after him until he was out of sight.

Once the stranger was gone, Dan and Gina glanced at eachother, then all three humans seemed to deflate, becoming slightly smaller. Dan led the group into the common lounge, then broke off to speak to the tall, thin Taxon at the security desk. The rest of the crew gathered around Gina and Rocky once they had cleared the path. Selax was the first to ask what they were all wondering.

"What happened, why was Dan hostile to that human?"

Gina sighed, putting her hand on the younger human's shoulder. Rocky ducked his head and his pale ears pinkened.

"He made Rocko as an easy mark, but Rocky made him right back. He's either running illegal goods with a crew young enough to be ignorant, or he's trafficking kids who are determined to be rebellious teenagers. Either way, the port won't want him here. Guys like that are trouble. Dan's taking care of it."

Eyes widened and tentacles curled in surprise. Selax's own palps fluttered. They'd never met a dangerous human before! Then...Dan had known that the stranger was dangerous before he had even approached them? So all those little differences, the odd behaviors of the humans. Selax waved their palps in excitement.

"A display! You made a human threat display to deter the dangerous human, and it worked! You saved Rocky!"

Rocky reddened further, and Gina laughed, shaking the young man by the shoulder she still held.

"We might have saved him from getting in trouble with the port authority. Rocko's too smart to fall for that kind of scheme."

"I didn't do anything!"

Gina tilted her head to look him full in the face, and Rocky's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"I put it away!"

"Uh-huh. Pulling a knife in a port is how you met Dan in the first place, isn't it?"

Rocky groaned, head dropping back as Gina started retelling the story again as Dan rejoined them- it was one of the crew's favorites, and certain parts of it made more sense now that Selax knew of Rocky's ability to sense hostility from afar. This would cement Selax's argument that the humans counted as one nest, despite Rocky's separate quarters! Verbo could stew in his own acid!

[drewthelocalnerd]

Haven’t really seen it yet so here we go, *Humans* have THREAT DISPLAYS! Sure, we seems small in comparison to other creatures both on or off our planet, but when we’re actively trying to make friends with everything we see that’s a good thing. But what if we don’t wanna seem small and friendly, say the vibes are real bad and getting worse, so instincts kick in and we gotta be *dangerous*

Take bears for example, those famous Terran predators. Big furry tanks capable of tearing into cars. We’re supposed to make ourselves look BIGGER to scare them off! Insane, but it works!

Other humans! We’re not *all* super nice, so what do we do when another deathworlder seems sketchy? Crack our knuckles, our necks, even flash our teeth a little for some flare, the literal post up or get done up pose where you invade their space and just in general look threatening. Our second natural language being body language, saying “back off or I’ll mess you up”, of course we have threat displays, and I’ll be the first to say I don’t always consciously know I’m doing them.

So when we finally have outer space friends, they’re gonna lose their shit seeing stuff like this.

[chem-echols]

okay so this is off topic of threat displays, but i was thinking, we know cracking our knuckles and popping our joints is a common trope in HASO works, but I thought, hey, do animals also do this?

the answer is yes!! some do! and it's called pandiculation. but at the very least, lots of animals stretch like we do, which is accompanied by yawning; like lions, elephants, cats, and dogs.

here's what I've seen from McTimony Animal Therapy and this section from The Conversation (i couldn't find many scholarly articles or news sources about animals popping their joints)

imagine aliens thinking how it's just a freaky human thing, but no, other species on Earth also do this. this is a Freaky Earth Thing™

[chem-echols]

im sure this has been answered already, but why hasn't ao3 made Humans are Weird/Humans are Space Orcs one of those searchable/filtered tags?

we know this is what comes up when clicking on that tag:

yet the oldest fic using it dates back to 2012, and fics are still actively uploading to this tag! I love reading in any fandom that touches upon this topic, but why hasn't this tag worked like other Additional Tags? (like Crack Treated Seriously, Missing Scene, No Beta we die like [character] are searchable tags across fandoms, why not HASO?)

[tenderwatches]

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

[ultrafacts]

For any writers: http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/SFTerms.html

For more facts, follow Ultrafacts

[greatfulldedd]

.

[smashwolfen]

@space-australians Feels like this would kinda fit your blog, specially for writers who want to make up weird human space shenanigans involving a ship and alien crew and what not.  Maybe someone can write about how a person fixed a specific part in the dumbest way possible using the right words XD

[space-australians]

Guys, NASA is cool.

[emperorsfoot]

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, they have a whole list of articles and pages to help sci-fi writers. NASA is the best! 

[starlightnecromancer]

So I was thinking about music earlier in a Earth is Space Austraila/Humans Are Space Orcs kind of way

Humans have a way of singing that if you are not careful can permanently damage your vocal cords 

Humans are incredible mimics 

Whenever we hear “This song can’t be sung by humans” we Immediately go “lol” and do it anyway

Humans have a wide variety in which they can pitch their voices naturally, Freddie Mercury being a shining example of this (even though he is an outlier)

Likewise some people’s voices are naturally super high pitched or super fucking deep, there’s a lot of factors in human vocals 

Which got me thinking about how varied music would be in some Galactic Federation type of thing. How interpersonal relationships may be affected by a human hearing a song that is from a species that maybe descended from birds and a human is dancing and singing in the breakroom to some Avian Boy Band just nailing the lyrics. 

A alien crewmate walking in to find that one of their human crewmates are trying extremely hard to sing this song that, as far as anyone could tell, isn’t possible for them to do but What would you Know they’re getting better and better and might just be able to Do It

People who are singers have to have amazing breath control because of famously long notes in various songs and are able hold them and keep on going where as a human who doesn’t have that same kind of practice or an alien that just might not be able to do it it would be really impressed at this. 

idk man just, intergalactic music 

[strangehumansbafflealiens]

I love the "humans are weird" posts, but I haven't seen anything about how weird music is, and what if aliens don't have it? They can hear, they just never developed this strange art that can communicate with or without words and is intensely emotional and yet also mathematical and it permeates so much of our life. Without music, they have no opera or musicals, no movie or tv soundtracks, no dance. Just the different kinds of dance we have is staggering. Do you have any thoughts on this?

That’s a great idea! Music is an amazing thing, I’m disappointed in myself for not thinking of it sooner.

The concept of music existed even in prehistoric times, thought to have been used to represent animals in religious ceremonies. How strange is it that one of the things humans did when they were still struggling to survive was spend time and energy making instruments that didn’t really help them survive?

In addition, music, which humans think of as a universal language, is incredibly diverse across the globe. Some songs that sound really depressing in the US may be catchy pop beats in Europe. Songs that sound happy in some places may actually be funeral songs in another. How strange is it that the same tune can elicit completely different responses depending on the human you present it to? Even more, music can reflect language. If a language alternates between long and short vowels, music may alternate between long and short notes to accompany them.

Even more amazing is the incredible diversity in the use of music. Sea shanties, for example, were used to keep the beat as sailors did labor that required coordination, such as hoisting sails. Music isn't just for work, though. how weird is it that humans pay to sit in a room and listen to a large group of people playing several instruments as a form of entertainment? Sometimes they’re used not to entertain but to enhance a movie scene or a story. Sometimes they’re used to gain mates. Sometimes they’re used to convey a story rather than accompany it. Nowadays they’re used as alarms, as reminders, even just as background noise.

And you’re right, music is mathematical. People use math to figure out intervals between notes, or what pitches go well together. Classical music used to follow a formula. Heck, music today follows a formula (intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, end) that uses a careful use of certain notes to attract the most people.

On the topic of pop music, isn't it amazing, too, that there are so many types of music? Isn’t it amazing that these types can be so different? Classical music is nothing like rock or screamo. Rap is nothing like pop. 

It’s also strange that different humans have such radically different music tastes. Some people love pop. Some think pop is trash. Some only listen to death metal. Some don't care as long as it’s music of some sort. (I was once listening to some of my favorite artists shuffled. One minute there was soft piano, the next there was screamo, followed by K-pop.)

How strange would music be to aliens who consider sound a thing used only to convey information? How shocked would they be to find out that humans put so much time and effort into making music? What would they think of music being such a large parts of our lives?

[k009]

[thefreshprinceofevangelion]

this gets funnier every year 

[itstooch]

The year is 2042. Your daughter is awkwardly silent as she eats her dinner. “Something wrong sweetie?” She sighs and puts down her fork. “I was digging really deep in AO3 last night…Why didn’t you finish that coffee shop au?” It happened. Your past has come back to haunt you. Nay, it never truly left.

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

U CANNOT OUTRUN UR CRIME

[leafquake23-deactivated20191022]

OKAY BUT WAIT. This has happened to me. Recently. Because I am old and I have things out there from previous fandoms with previous pseuds and one day my teenager begins a rant at me about people never finishing any WIPs on the pit of voles (which he does not call the pit of voles because he has No Knowledge of such a thing but yet he still reads on which I didn’t think anyone did any longer) and he points out an example to me of something I WROTE AND LEFT WIPing for ages and he has NO IDEA #1 that his mom wrote this and #2 How much it still haunts me to this day that it will. sit. there. for. eternity. because I am too lazy to pull it down.

[sadieb798]

oh my god

[azriona]

#why didn’t you finish cleaning your room?#IDK MOM WHY DIDN’T YOU FINISH THE RON/DRACO MERMAID AU? 

( @mrv3000 )

[thefringeperson]

Every year, this becomes both more funny, and more painful, and for both of those reasons, it should never be lost or forgotten.

[willgrahamscock]

horrible news: you have to practice to level up your skills because it's unrealistic to think you'll be good at everything first try

[willgrahamscock]

this applies to unlearning things like shame and creating better coping mechanisms and forming new habits

[homunculus-argument]

Hey btw, if you're doing worldbuilding on something, and you're scared of writing ~unrealistic~ things into it out of fear that it'll sound lazy and ripped-out-of-your-ass, but you also don't want to do all the back-breaking research on coming up with depressingly boring, but practical and ~realistic~ solutions, have a rule:

Just give the thing two layers of explanation. One to explain the specific problem, and another one explaining the explanation. Have an example:

Plot hole 1: If the vampires can't stand daylight, why couldn't they just move around underground?

Solution 1: They can't go underground, the sewer system of the city is full of giant alligators who would eat them.

Well, that's a very quick and simple explanation, which sure opens up additional questions.

Plot hole 2: How and why the fuck are there alligators in the sewers? How do they survive, what do they eat down there when there's no vampires?

Solution 2: The nuns of the Underground Monastery feed and take care of them as a part of their sacred duties.

It takes exactly two layers to create an illusion that every question has an answer - that it's just turtles all the way down. And if you're lucky, you might even find that the second question's answer loops right back into the first one, filling up the plot hole entirely:

Plot hole 3: Who the fuck are the sewer nuns and what's their point and purpose?

Solution 3: The sewer nuns live underground in order to feed the alligators, in order to make sure that the vampires don't try to move around via the sewer system.

When you're just making things up, you don't need to have an answer for everything - just two layers is enough to create the illusion of infinite depth. Answer the question that looms behind the answer of the first question, and a normal reader won't bother to dig around for a 3rd question.

[bfleuter]

This is good advice on worldbuilding.

And also. 

I would really like to play a vampire-hunting sewer-nun and her pet alligator in a ttrpg.

[bfleuter]

Woops uh oh oops woops.

[chem-echols]

complete out of the blue brain thought, but what if static electricity was an Earth-only thing.

what if in space, only our ships are affected by static electricity as well because it's Earth materials, but Alien planets and materials just... Don't have that.

[chem-echols]

I finally revisited my old bnha aus and holy FUCK there's so many, atp I'll just post revised versions of what I wrote bc I don't think I'll work on them 😭

the world may see my cringe

[animentality]

[fox-moblin]

Wouldn’t leave my mind sorry

[jesterbots]

genuinely one of the saddest parts of this new era of the internet is how hard it is to rick roll someone now. with people's attention spans shortening so much, they wouldn't even get through the first few bait seconds before clicking off the video. like i saw a comment that ended with "btw i made all of this up" and the replies kept treating it so seriously because none of them finished the entire 4 sentence comment. and We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I (do I) A full commitment's what I'm thinking of You wouldn't get this from any other guy I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

[cannibalchicken]