Nothing Yet @little-nightlight - Tumblr Blog

today I had a dream that there was a species of deer called “ice deer” and every winter they’d travel up North and have their babies in a frozen cavern and the babies would be sort of comatose in the cold, and then the deer would leave the babies there and migrate South until spring, and just before the first thaw, they’d go back up North and find their babies and wait for them to thaw out and wake up and they’d nurse them.

But with the Earth getting warmer and spring coming sooner and winters being less harsh up North, the babies were starting to thaw out too early, so when the Ice Deer got to them, they’d been awake already and starved to death.

So there were only like, 300 Ice Deer left. They were bigger than elks, all white with blue antlers that even the females grew, and I realized the only solution would be to somehow lead them North every year when it started thawing. As a human I could check the weather and the ice in the North Pole and when it was time to go to the babies, even if the deer thought it was still winter.

So I had to devise a plan to get the Ice Deer to follow me North to their babies on time every spring, and it just became part of my life. I did other stuff and lived life as usual while keeping track of the weather near the end of winter and I’d be like, welp it’s time to lead the deer North, and I’d set out to find their winter home.

And a lot of people were like “this isn’t a permanent solution. We need to focus on climate change so it’s fixed for good.”

and I was like dang I know but the Ice Deer need us right now so, someone’s gotta do it? And it just became a thing I did.

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

ppl messaging me like “I thought this was real for a minute”:

cynegrim

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

: O !!!!!!!!

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

Everyone asking is absolutely allowed to use the Ice Deer in their fantasy world building and in fact I encourage it bc I love the idea of this one made up animal quietly linking all of your universes.

suprsbg

Aliens: So what was the first thing you launched into space?

Human: Well, we think we might’ve kinda accidentally sent a 4 inch think circular steel plate to space.

Aliens: … how do you accidentally send something to space?

Human: Nuke.

Alien: Why is it always explosions with you?

Inspired by @jpitha and this video: https://youtu.be/NSeL5c65v-g

blurring-ramblimgs

Humans as a species are fundamentally coded to find companionship, form groups, to come together in packs as a way of safety.

As they evolved, however, they met one another, they clashed, and they fought. They found the worst in companionship and found the best in it too.

They shared information, communicated, and spoke. They built towers taller than the clouds and climbed the tallest mountains. They dug into the heart of their earth, filled only with curiosity and the prospect of finding new information about their home's past. They went past where any animal in their world had been, pushed past the limits of evolving featherless, and looked to the stars.

They soon found themselves racing against one another, to push past the limits of their home, a place they'd conquered and charted many years before. They entered Orbit, then set foot on their moon.

Then it was silent.

They'd assumed they had broken all possible goals, they couldn't reach farther than the moon in any visible future.

And the humans went about their lives, still thinking, of course, but forgetting what lied beyond their clouds and silly moon.

They developed their technology, made television that could easily be mistaken for live images, broke the speed of sound, dove into the farthest depths of the ocean, and they did all this, with the help of their creations.

Humans, as a species were made to find companionship.

They found that in these lifeless clumps of wires and servos. They found this.. love and empathy for something that was little more than an empty husk with no soul.

They programmed their creations' first words to be, "Hello, World."

They gave them hearts, empathy, love. They taught them what it meant to be human, to experience boundless curiosity, and to feel the desire to find the answers to their universe.

Robots as a species were made to find companionship.

The humans knew they might not last long. They made time capsules and sent them into the boundless depths of space. They sent satellites to follow after the capsules, then Rovers after the satellites, then nothing.

Their creations were able to find that companionship their species longed for, from within the stars. The robots cheered, celebrated and quickly lead these new companions back to their homeworld, to show what their creators had been able to accomplish in such a long time.

Robots were made to find companionship, yes.

But humans? Humans were meant to destroy themselves.

vividsmashing-exploration

So, I was watching a Youtube video on how Humans came to be Human. It never really clicked that the other species that died out while we survived were... well, Human too. Homo-Erectus, Neanderthal, Denicovin, all humans, but we are the survivors, Homo-Sapiens.

But what if this wasn't the case for alien species? They may have come together in mind, with the same goals, but their biology never homogenized. The multiple species that made up the intelligent life on a planet coexisted, or at least didn't outright murder one another. Would these species find our existence sad? Or maybe they'd be fascinated by that.

Credit where it's due, this is what I was watching: https://youtu.be/wzwXGD_C4P0

In any case, it inspired me to write my first entry to the Humans are Space Orcs Category. Enjoy.

======================================

Field Medic Dana Ortigez was finishing up a report in the crew mess hall of the GFS Tortuga. Her meal had long gone cold as she considered how to write her statement in a way that would be translated favorably for other species to read. A few more agonizing minutes thinking on that sent her off to the Engineering wing. Since she still had difficulty remembering proper grammar for Rhyashaz, perhaps talking through it with one of her nonhuman crewmates could help.

The Tortuga was a human designed research vessel, made for deep space exploration and experimentation. As one of the newest races, the humans had no end of alien coworkers to help man the ship. Conversation was still spotty at times, but there was a certain harmony that overcame these obstacles. The alien Dana was looking for now was a Cryys-Tretchan, a bipedal insectoid species that had also come from a Death World.

Arriving in the center of the ship, Dana confidently strode through an automated door and bumped into a small group of Engineers she had wanted to find.

"Oh- Hi, sorry. Do you um... know where Tchyyk is?"

They were all Cryys, but each one had a tweaked morphology, beyond small changes like height or build. The clicking and chattering coming from their mandibles forced Dana's translator to take a moment, but after a few seconds, the conversation began flowing.

"Xey are... nearby. Xe can tell you, but xe have a question that must be answered." The statement had come from the smallest of the Cryys, a ladybug-adjacent creature with a vibrant, metallic purple carapace. Dana looked down at the Cryys, internally panicking, trying to remember a name. Nothing was coming. She smiled awkwardly, a tight-lipped, toothless affair as she nodded.

"Alright, I guess I have time for that. What do you want to know?"

The chittering comes through, and the translation follows close behind. "Where are the rest of you?"

Dana blinks slowly. "I don't think I understand."

"We were told much of humans, like that they were different shapes and sizes and colors. But all of you look the same. Some different color, all the same."

Dana's confusion only grew, until it dawned on her. Her Medical briefing had touched on how the Cryys were a multispecies spacefaring part of the Federation. Her heart sank.

"You mean, why aren't there more kinds of humans?"

The bug's clacking mandibles clearly signaled confirmation of her statement. "Yes. Do they have special roles in Human colonies?"

Dana shook her head. "No. We don't have them anymore. We're the only species of human."

"Anymore? What happened to them?"

Dana could feel her cheeks redden in shame as she considered the best answer.

"We don't know. There were many different kinds of humans once, before farming was ever an idea in our mind. Neanderthals are the most well known, but there were at least four other species. We have theories on how they disappeared. Everything from natural selection, to our species murdering them. We just... don't know."

The translation took a few seconds. The curious chirping and chittering gave way to cryys noises of shock and awe... as well as disgust.

"How did you come this far?"

To that, Dana smiled sadly.

"Because we're too stubborn to die. Because we overtook everything. Because war. There are so many possible factors, and there could be things that we don't know about today. What we do know is that we were close enough biologically to reproduce. We still have a large percentage of their DNA swimming around inside us. That's all that's left of our sibling species."

The chittering had long gone quiet, allowing Dana to finish to a silent hallway. Clearing her throat, she nodded to the smallest Cryys.

"So, uh, where's Taaniks?"

----

When human-Dana finally walked away, Dres-Gryyk clicked Xer mandibles together slowly, indicating xer sadness.

The smallest Cryys, Roniks-Maar, looked back to Dres with a confused posture.

"What is wrong, Dres-gryyk? Biologist Dana answered your questions."

"She did. It makes me wonder if we had the kinder death world... to think they killed their sister species."

"Humans are odd. She was likely making her kind sound more ferocious, it is nothing to worry about."

In truth, though, it worried Roniks greatly. Xey would be writing a report to Xer superior about it soon.

localtech

Aliens but with minimal knowledge about human flirting

Alien 1: *Reading human dating manuals/tips/wiki how/...* "It says that humans like when you compliment them." Alien 2: "An example?" Alien 1: "Their physical appearance, personality, subtle 'endaring' things they do subconsciously, and many more!" ("Those manuals are very helpful, I must say...") Alien 2: "Okay... how should I approach them first, though?" Alien 1: "Show confidence! Or at least pretend you know what you're doing. It's considered attractive in human culture." --- Alien 2: *Strides towards a human woman with long, exaggerated steps* "Hey, nice t#ts. Did you grow those yourself?

bringmethepeculiar

YOU COME INTO MY HOME-

(About this post)

bringmethepeculiar

Humans being Space Orcs by having food that is highly toxic to alien species BUT aliens also having food that is equally toxic to US.

Like a Tailean can’t have chocolate the same way dogs can’t, and a Maitou can’t eat most of what we consider edible because of the spices we add, but similarly, humans can’t eat most of the flora that a Khak’CThrax can because the flora is basically space eucalyptus and will kill us.

Human stomachs are hardy (I heard that a man once ate a plane in the 1970s) but also incredibly sensitive. The water in a different country is often enough to send a human to Clutching-the-Porcelain City for several days simply due to it not being what our gut biome is used to.

Intergalactic Culinary Exchanges must be fun.

bringmethepeculiar

Loving the idea that humans are Very Small compared to the galactic community.

Humans as a species are actually quite short by galactic standards. They’re by no means THE shortest, but they’re below the average of 7’2.

Other species rest their equivalent of elbows on us while conveniently ignoring the fact that humans have killed people over lesser offences.

Alien: Humans are so small, how could they pose a threat to us??

Human: Just means we’re closer to hell and it’s wrath-

bringmethepeculiar

An Alien soldier telling his platoon mates about an encounter with a monster he had while on a navigational exercise in his youth.

He’s following the map points when he finds a massive hunk of twisted metal a little ways away from his designated path, like a downed terrestrial rover but mangled and made of a metal alloy he’s never seen before. There’s shattered glass on the ground around it and small, oddly shaped footprints leading away from it. Too small and too thin to be someone else from the platoon.

Cautiously, he returns to his designated path because he can’t turn around just because he got spooked by what could very well have been an animal walking away from some old rover model he didn’t recognise. As he’s walking forward through a wooded area near a clearing, he hears a hissing noise out in the grass of the clearing in front of him and he’s quick to flick on his headlamp. It lands on something small hunched over in the grass.

It’s not an animal.

Not one he had ever seen. It’s wearing cloth with concerning red splotches all over it. It seems to know it’s been spotted because it freezes mid movement and seems to be breathing very slowly and quietly even as its body shakes. Why is it shaking? The soldier draws his weapon and freezes, expecting it to bolt away or turn to attack him, but it just sits there, it’s back exposed.

Suddenly, it twitches and its limbs start to rise above the sea of grass around it. Its limbs are long and stringy, and sit at right angles from its body, both ending in flat, square…paws…feet? Both with five long, thin, fleshy digits protruding from the palm.

Still trapped in the spotlight from the soldier’s headlamp, it begins to stand and the soldier fires a warning shot into the ground close to it in hopes of scaring it away, but it just jolts, freezes and then continues to stand, much more slowly.

Up and up it stands on two legs far too long for its body, balancing precariously between one good leg and one that seems bent at an odd angle. And it’s still shaking at him.

Why is it shaking at him?!

An intimidation tactic?

Slowly, almost cautiously, the creature begins to turn around, its upper limbs still raised. It seems to pivot on one foot and the soldier wonders how the hell it’s still upright until it turns to face the light completely and he sees it’s face.

Flat, white and almost featureless, it’s eyes pressed deep into its ovoid skull, it’s mouth a flat red line beneath the two black holes at the base of a small boney protrusion in the middle of its face. It’s looks almost embryonic, underdeveloped, all pink and fleshy and boney. The eyes are small and white and blue with two minuscule black spots in their centres, both pinned on him.

Predator’s eyes.

It doesn’t blink. At least, not until the same red liquid on its clothes trickles down its white face from a welt and into one of its eyes, making it wince and scrunch up its face, finally allowing the soldier to see that the bloody thing has teeth.

Lots of them.

He finally brings himself to move while it can’t see and turns to book it back the way he came, hearing the thing behind him shuffle through the grass just as quick. Is it chasing him?!

He doesn’t stop running at full sprint until he’s back on the hard concrete of the platoon base, and even then he only stops to draw his weapon again at the space behind him, his headlamp shining up into the nearby trees. He doesn’t budge even as his platoon mates ask him what the hell he’s looking at. He just waits. Nothing.

His sergeant is none too pleased with him for abandoning his exercise and running back to base like a coward until the soldier shows him his bodycam footage.

All rookies are ordered to stay inside for the night as senior soldiers scout out in groups to potentially find the thing from the footage.

No such luck.

The only thing they find is the mangled metal pile, the footprints and a trail of browned liquid leading to a tree that suddenly smells like rotting flesh.

The officials guess that the creature got hunted by one of the bigger predators in the area and dragged up the tree to be saved for later, but the soldiers are never truly convinced. No matter how much trouble they get in for deliberately missing a navigation point during exercises, no one dares to go near that tree again. The ones who do venture near it by the behest of jeering mates often claim to have seen a flat, white face among the branches, staring down at them. Some claim to have felt long, thin limbs that they almost mistake for part of the tree drift over their shoulders before they look and it’s suddenly gone.

They never go back in fear for their lives.

bringmethepeculiar

Humans getting crazy protective about Earth

Not in a military way, but in the way you get when someone insults your best friend or sibling.

Sure, Earth is a bit of a shitpit and tries to kill everything on its surface all the time and is slap bang in the middle of the Space Boonies with fuck all else around except MORE deadly stuff, BUT THAT’S OUR HOME. YOU KEEP HER NAME OUTTA YOUR FUCKIN’ MOUTH.

Human: Yeah, Earth’s just a massive dumpster fire, but once you look past the wonky axis and viruses and terrible people and numerous crises going on all at once, it’s a pretty decent place to set up shop.

Alien: Yeah, like I’d ever want to visit your shithole of a planet.

Human: *deathly serious* Call my home a shithole again and I will cook and eat your organs...

Alien: *genuinely shook* Stars above…

bringmethepeculiar

Humans being such a social species that, to aliens, it sometimes comes across as a hivemind.

Humans are attention seeking by nature. Attention is sought after because there is historically safety in numbers, so humans are naturally inclined to mimic the behaviours of others in order to subconsciously identify ‘hey, look! I do as you do just like the rest of your group so you can trust that I am not dangerous. Can I be a part of this group??’ and the other human sees this and says ‘Ah yes, another one who does as we do so they must be safe, come sit with us’.

Aliens see humans copying each other’s behaviour so fluidly that it almost comes off as creepy. It’s even creepier when humans mimic THEIR actions, too. Like, no, do not rope me into your mind melding species cult, please and thank you.

Even to the modern day, this intensely social instinct is still alive and well, as humans will unconsciously mimic positive actions of others even when they don’t understand the context. For example, clapping.

An alien and a human are sitting having a conversation when suddenly hoots and hollers and the clapping of hands erupt from across the room. Immediately, much to the alien’s surprise, the human starts clapping too as they look around trying to see what is happening.

The reaction was so immediate that the alien is taken aback by it before remembering that humans were known to be strangely in tune with each other compared to other species so they just wait it out.

Once it dies down, the alien asks

“So, what was that about?”

“No idea.”

“But you…joined in. You didn’t know what you were celebrating??”

“Well, no, but I don’t explicitly have to know what’s going on to guess that it’s something good and join in. It would feel a bit rude if I didn’t clap.”

And the alien just sits there like ‘It’s NOT a hivemind???’ strangely, that’s somehow worse than if it was.

bringmethepeculiar

Human brains being the envy of the musicians of the Galaxy due to the fact that music of all things comes to us so easily.

Human brains pick up rhythm and patterns so quickly compared to other species and alien musicians are heinously jealous. That’s not to say alien species don’t have music in any capacity, of course they do, but it’s less omnipresent in their cultures compared to ours. Music and singing to aliens are held to the same standard as sculpting marble. It’s a very difficult and precise art form that takes years of practice to get ‘right’.

And then there’s human children singing with each other as they jump a skipping rope. Using the beat to keep perfect time.

Humans sing to show each other every emotion under the sun. They sing to show reverence to their gods or ancestors or spirits. Humans will sing to anything that will listen and even things that won’t. Hell, Humans sing to pass the time. They sing when they can’t get a song out of their head.

That’s right, humans are so perfectly wired to understand music that their brains get hooked on musical stimulus and continually loop it. Involuntarily. Sometimes for days at a time. To the point of annoyance of the human.

Humans use music and rhythm to help them remember things because remembering something with a beat is easier than remembering something without one.

That’s like solving rocket science equations for fun to aliens.

singetailsaremyfav

The gang not trusting Viggo at all to be around Hiccup after he starts living on the Edge, like no matter how much Hiccup tells them he’s changed and he’s not gonna hurt him non of them trust him

Which leads to Hiccup never being alone, Snotlout will sit in silence for hours as Hiccup invents because Viggo is there too ‘helping’ Hiccup with something, the twins will join Hiccup on patrols around the island because Viggo also insisted on coming along, Fishlegs will pull Hiccup into a conversation about dragon because Viggo wanted to talk to him alone, Astrid will either ask Hiccup to train with her or just tell Viggo to fuck off because she can.

Even the dragons get in on it, they all openly show their displeasure with him being around, Hookfang has pushed Viggo off the walkways many times, Stormfly has shot her spines at Viggo if he gets to close to Hiccup, Meatlug just carries Hiccup off if Viggo so much as looks in his direction, Barf & Belch have tried to explode him more times they anyone can keep track of, Toothless is more mellow around him but he won’t hesitate to blast Viggo if he makes a wrong move.

And Viggo doesn’t blame any of them, he has tried to kill Hiccup multiple times and has a long way to go to earn their trust . . . But it gets kinda frustrating after the fifth time Hiccup’s been whisk away when all he wants to ask is if he can build his own hut, sleeping in the stables has done a number on his back :(

tallowandport

Humans are pretty prone to mimicking noises. like even subconsciously. sometimes we even unintentionally pick up entirely different accents. and you literally can't tell me you've never meowed or woofed or chirped back at a cat/dog/bird at least once in your life (unless you are physically/audibly unable to do so).

So Grace 1000% starts picking up and mimicking Eridian noises.

One day, Rocky will be working on something, only to freeze as he hears Grace behind him suddenly exclaim in fluent Eridian "SHIT!"

Turns out Eridian swear words are usually expressed in the same decibel that humans can whistle in.