why did i just witness my 13y/o brother trying to bottle flip a gallon of milk

how did it go?

he looks like icarus with his melted wings in a pool around him

IT DOES LOOK LIKE COOKIE MONSTER

just learned that magnolias are so old that they’re pollinated by beetles because they existed before bees

They existed *before beetles*

Why is this sad? Why am I sad?

https://xkcd.com/1259/

This is how I feel about Joshua Trees. They and avocado trees produce fruit meant to be eaten and dispersed by giant ground sloths. Without them, the Joshua Trees' range has shrunk by 90%.

(my own photos)

Not only they, but the entire Mojave ecosystem is still struggling to adapt since the loss of ground sloth dung. their chief fertilizer.

Many, many trees and plants in the Americas have widely-spaced, extremely long thorns that do nothing to discourage deer eating their leaves, but would've penetrated the fur of ground sloths and mammoths. Likewise, if you've observed a tree that drops baseball or softball-sized fruit which lies on the ground and rots, like Osage Oranges, which were great for playing catch at my school, chances are they were ground sloth or mammoth chow.

You can read about various orphaned plants and trees missing their megafauna in this poignant post:



alcohol enjoyers are like i lovee things that taste so so bad

was suddenly moved to draw a toony sort of character design .. but this is a bit too close to 2013 tumblr sexyman for my own comfort

My favorite "humans are space orcs" idea is that trope where aliens kidnap some humans for their zoo, except it ends up like Jurassic Park. And the poor Alien Humanologists who were invited to the park are like:

"You mean you locked up a pack of curious, highly competitive persistence predators with NO enrichment in the enclosure? You FOOLS! If you had bothered to throw a basketball or half a box of Legos in there, KE-X9 would still be alive!

"Well of course they climbed the retaining wall! Did you think to study their evolutionary lineage AT ALL?"

Hold my beer.

~~~~~~

The monitors flickered to life. Juvo whooped ecstatically, but was was cut off. The others surrounded the camera screens, only staring in horror at the scene before them.

Bodies were strewn everywhere. They could see Gu’lock’a in the observation deck, their throats slit and oozing black blood. The special force guards Daquyr and Havn’ik were outside the human enclosure, purple bruises and gashes ugly on their bodies. And then Kewnapol, the gular who had built this entire place in his horrific greed. Xe hung from the staircases in the dining hall, golden chain from the chandelier wrapped around xis neck, gouging deep into xis yellow skin.

Luva gagged, then turned away from the monitors and ejected her earlier meal. Juvo, Qurola, and Xinjs continued to stare.

“Where are they?” Qurola whispered.

“I don’t know. I don’t see them.” Juvo replied.

“Oh come on, what was the glacking point of the cameras then if you can’t see the beasts?”

“I don’t know!”

“Quiet!” Xinjs hushed them. “It’s possible they know where the cameras are and have found blind spots. It was a fifty percent chance we would see them. But the best we can do right now is make sure the doors are sealed and unbreachable.” Xer ears pinned back. “Terrans are clever, so we have to be smarter.”

“But why?” Qurola cried. “If these creatures are as intelligent as you say, why do they hunt us like monsters?”

“Because,” Luva spoke, spitting out the last bite of vomit. “We are the monsters to them. Kewnapol imprisoned them, forcing them into a cage that barely resembled their home world. Xe misunderstood the kind of species they are.”

“But these are humans!” Juvo warbled. “A primitive race that hasn’t even left their world!”

“You are a fool if you think that is just what humans are.” Xinjs shook xer head. “What’s the point of bringing humanologists if you won’t even listen to us.”

“We have been trying to tell you this entire time.” Luva snapped at Juvo and Qurola. “Humans are not animals in the same sense as padanna-wolves and flying harlecks. Nor are they like us, a complete civilized race. They are the in between.” Xinjs nodded with Luva’s words.

“Humans are the missing link. The link between a primitive species and a civilized one. They have the appearance of civility: a working a society, amazingly diverse cultures, philosophy, ethics, politics. But it is just a mask. Beneath it, they still hold the remnants of primordial instincts. They are still called to survive and fight as strongly as wild animals.” The kobaldi rubbed a paw across xer face. “But that is where their similarities to us end. I will be honest: humans are one of the strangest species yet. There is a reason many research commissions have dedicated themselves to studying them. I am a terrabiologist. I study their bodies. I only know that they are incredible predators that have evolved past the normal constraints of their original ape species.” Xinjs glanced at Luva.

Luva nodded. “They are. They are capable of much more physical feats than their small characteristics made us assume. But I always believed it had more to do with their psyche-“

Juvo shrieked, the sudden outburst making the others jump. “I saw one! I saw one of them!”

They crowded the screens, staring intently where Juvo pointed. There, stalking through the hall outside the electrical room where they hid, was a human.

“Wa’neki ke san nii…” Luva muttered. Without turning away from the screen, she spoke to Xinjs. “Kewnapol said they were all female right?”

“Yes. Female juveniles. To make sure they didn’t populate out of control.”

“And Gu’lock’a said they already had a hierarchy, didn’t they? I think that’s their leader.” Luva’s theory made Xinjs peer closer at the screen. Xe remembered Gu’lock’a surmising about the hierarchy positions. Five humans. All female juveniles. But one had appeared to take control over the group, the largest human with dark skin and thick, curling head fur. divvying food for the group, antagonizing and being overly aggressive towards handlers. Gu’lock’a had even theorized that the larger human was being protective of the smaller ones, inciting another to help antagonize the handlers.

Coming down the hall was that same human. Tall figure, two arms at her sides, dark skin and a wild mane. She moved slowly, continuously glancing back and forth down the hall. Every movement was the stalking guide of a predator hunting its prey. Her eyes eventually lifted to the camera above the door. She seemed to stare through the screen, right into all their beings.

“Kees. Kees, Kees kees…” Jova cursed, the young kyar stiff with fear. “It knows. It knows we’re here.”

“How would it know we’re here?” Qurola whispered.

“It’s a persistence predator. It tracked us here. I don’t know how but it did.” Said Luva.

“Why…” Jova whined. “Why is it hunting us?”

“Because,” Xinjs said. “It’s pissed off.”

“It’s angry? It’s hunting us because it’s angry? It killed the others because it’s angry??” Qurola squeaked.

The human was right underneath the camera, in front of the door. It tried the handle. No give. It touched the pad beside the door, staring intently at the buttons in alien languages. Nothing came of it. The humans lips curled, white teeth bared in a hideous grimace. It lashed out at the pad, hitting it hard.

Frustration, thought Luva. It is very angry.

Then the human glanced up. Her dark, alien eyes stared upwards, seeing something the camera could not. Then she was gone. Ina blink she had moved out of the camera’s visual.

Luva turned to Xinjs. “Are you absolutely sure they’re hunting us out of anger? It’s theorized that humans are capable of spite, but I thought their flight instinct would be stronger?”

Xinjs snorted. “That human is an obvious example that they can overcome the flight instinct. She is hunting us, whether out of anger or some other reason, I do not care right now.” Xe glanced around. “We must arm ourselves for the inevitable. She will figure out a way in, and we must be prepared.”

Luva was disgusted by her colleague’s disinterest in the humans motivations. She was a terra-psychiatrist and behavior analyst. Her whole profession revolved around the way humans behaved and the way their mind worked. The way this human acted excited Luva, even if she was on the wrong end of that behavior. A civilized creature using primordial instinct for unknown goals. It was unheard of.

It also made her realize something else. The humans had escaped by attacking one of the handlers. They had stolen the keys to their enclosure and gotten out. They had attacked Gu’lock’a on the observation deck when they tried to lock down the facility. When Daquyr and Havn’ik were found the humans, they had provoked them with their synergy-weapons. The humans had a reason to attack. However, she didn’t know why Kewnapol had been killed. And unlike the others, his death appeared to be rather gruesome and symbolic.

There had to be a reason. These creatures couldn’t enact all of this just out of anger. That human was deliberately hunting them. There had to be a better reason. They were intelligent creature capable of clever tricks and compassion for each other. They were only forced to act as animals when put in a cage.

Luva thought this, watching the others scramble around the room for things to arm themselves. Unconsciously she noticed the jingle of metal, focusing on the ring of keys strapped to Jova’s belt. She frowned at the strange observation.

Something banged above them. The sudden noise made them go still, staring above. The sound happened again, this time louder. Thudding, metal groaning.

“Dak fus, it’s in the glarking air ducts!” Qurola shrieked. They ran to the farthest corner of the room, huddled in a fearful mass. Xinjs held a piece of pipe xe found, but it would only do so much good.

A groan was heard, then a crash. Then the cieling caved, and the human in the hallway earlier crashed to the floor. Qurola screamed and Jova cried out. The human stood, shaking its head, dust and bits of cieling foam stuck to her frizzy mane of hair.

Her eyes landed on the huddled mass in the corner, and narrowed. She didn’t make a sound. She just began to walk toward them. Xinjs held out the pipe threateningly, making the human stop short. She stared for a moment, seeming to take note of the pipe shaking lightly, Xinjs’s fear obvious.

But she didn’t find the display threatening. She began to walk forward again, claw-like fingers splayed menacingly. Her lips curled back, displaying the two rows of teeth that could easily tear flesh from bone.

Then she stopped again, only a few feet from the group. She looked them up and down, surveying. Then she spoke.

Luva’s eyes widened. Her mind was too scared to immediately make sense of the Terran language. Xinjs glanced at her form the corner of xer eyes, confusion added to the fear in them.

The human spoke again, this time harsher and with a growl behind the voice. Luva dug through her head, trying to bring up any coherent verbal word of Terran language. Only one popped up.

“Human.”

The female went still. Her eyes widened in surprise. She spoke again. Luva was able to pick apart the sentence. It was the human common tongue, English, as she’d hoped. “You” and “understand” were what she could decipher somewhat. She racked her brain again for the simplest words.

“Yes.” She said slowly. “Understand. Some.”

The human stepped forward, the menacing energy emanating somewhat gone. Now replaced by wide, alert eyes. She spoke again. Pointed at them with a long claw-finger.

The others had grown still, listening to the broken exchange with rapt attention. Jova leaned forward and whispered to Luva.

“You can understand it? What’s it saying?” She ignored him, trying to understand what the human meant. Jova moved again, and the metal sound of metal sounded again.

At the sound, the human stepped forward again and gestured, pointing. She said the same phrase. Only one word made sense. “Give.”

Give. Give what. The sound. The keys. Luva looked at Jova. “Your keys. Where do they go to?”

Jova gave her a quizzical look. “Basically the entire complex. Why?”

Luva looked back at the human. Their eyes were large, staring down Luva expectantly.

“She wants the keys.”

“The keys?” Jova whispered. “Why? If we give it the keys we might not get out!”

Xinjs stepped in. “A rescue signal was already sent by Gu’lock’a when the humans escaped. A team will be here soon for us. We don’t need to leave.” Xe stared back at the human. “But they do.”

Understanding swept through Luva. The human was angry, but it wasn’t hunting them out of spite, nor did it intend to kill them. It just wanted the keys. It just wanted to get out.

“Give it the keys.” Qurola whispered. “Give it the keys, or it’ll kill us.”

“Do it.” Luva snapped at Jova. Without hesitation, the kobaldi fussed with keys, unlatching them and tossing them at the human. They landed at her feet. She stared for only a moment before bending and snatching them. She stared at the group, eyes narrow and suspicious. Then she turned, looking around the room.

The group watched in awe as the human grabbed a chair from one of the desks and dragged it to the hole in the ceiling. She positioned it then climbed on top, reaching up. Without struggle the Terran grabbed a beam and pulled herself up, crawling back into the ductwork. It was like a scene from a horror story, but in reverse. The sound of thudding faded. The evidence of the human was now the broken ceiling and Jova’s missing keys.

“Vasney kva torlu.” Xinjs muttered.

Hours later the rescue found them. They also found out that there was no sign of the five humans. Nor of Kewnapol’s expensive starship.

~~~~~~

I keep finding amazing prompts and choosing to write them instead of finishing the drafts I’ve started. Hope you guys enjoy this take on humans being absolute terrors to alien kind. Serves them right for fucking around with nature.

We “knew” humans were weak as they avoided every war with diplomacy. We never imagined they’d be this ruthless & how seemingly overnight they went from peaceful beings to a state they call “TOTAL WAR”. War is in their blood & soul. They thrive on it, mostly when the odds are against them

Human wrath was not to be taken lightly.

How often shall our histories be ignored, our reckless nature and willingness to do what others fear.

Compared to the rest of the universe, humans are small. Soft. Weak. Brittle bones and breakable fingers. But the fragility of our bodies have made our minds sharper than steel. Stronger than orb weaver webbing.

We have thrived upon our own bloodshed for so long… we have crept from the ashes of our destruction only to repeat it all, because it is our nature. The song of violence, the desire for survival, the call to arms lives so much deeper than in blood.

It is who we are.

It is what being human means. Our compassion ignites our anger. Our love drives us further. Whether for ourselves or who we call our own, we will never stop fighting.

Why it took so long for the outer races to realize this, it’s obvious. It is the same reason we often bickered among ourselves until we realized the universe literally didn’t revolve around us. Prejudice. Disgust. Indifference.

We learned long ago from ourselves not to judge others to quickly, not to assume things because of one’s appearance and habits. We took these lessons to heart when we became part of the outer coalitions. They welcomed us. Many were friendly, some standoffish. A few…obsessively hateful.

Eventually it came down to war. What was the universe without war. And our response to it was what had been agreed on by our Terran governments when we joined the rest of outer society. Our vast experience in war made us realize that we could not take place in a galactic war until we understood their ways. And understand we did.

It honestly astounded us. Their lack of fury. Or perhaps their lack of restraint. Their openness to fight for the smallest strip of land and resources. But we learned our restraint. We had once been the same when living underneath the control of greedy companies and government paranoia.

We eventually realized we had become an inside joke among the more hateful races. Coincidentally they were the same ones so willing to fight. They boasted their strength and iron weapons, sneered at the smallest disagreement. We were a joke because of our preference for diplomacy. They attributed our strategies to our smaller appearances and weaker forms, our young race being one of fear and apprehension.

And silently, we laughed as well.

Then it came. We knew it would, but it still irritated us. One of the more brutal races of the coalition, the Archeons, breached an agreement between us and the coalition by attacking one of our resource settlements. A mining colony on Luna-B14, moon to the planet Neocarz of star system 8-45G. They specialized in mining the rare metal Giradium, one that we used to build our space-faring ships and protect from the void’s radiation. A very precious metal in this day and age.

They attacked. Took the colonists prisoner. Killed many that tried to fight back. A settlement of over 15,000, and 6,483 were killed, 8,387 injured. Few made it to safety.

That was the last straw. We endured the jeering. The insults. The disrespect. We endured it because we knew better. But they had finally crossed the line, and we would not use diplomacy this time. Our superiors decided to retaliate before any meetings were called.

The rumor is we had an advantage because the Archeons considered us weak, with a small military that couldn’t put a dent in their smallest warship.

How wrong they were.

I’m sure you realize that we still followed many of our old ways. The government put much of its effort into our military, but now no one disputed it. We no longer used it to defend petty rivalries back home. Now we had a reason to create an advanced military force. And that reason just exploded across every galactic media in the communium.

We responded immediately. Before the Archeons even tried to make their terms or claim the colony for their own, we were on top of them. Their warships were no match for ours. We had spent years advancing our technology, using our skills in innovation and invention to match our galactic friends. Now we could show off.

We came from around the planet, from the darker side of the moon. They didn’t see us in the shadow, didn’t sense us on the waves. We took out their flagships one by one. As soon as the space support was gone, we descended from the clouds. We didn’t give them a chance to surrender. Our soldiers fell from the skies, dispatching any enemy Archeon they came across. Archeons were bug-like, resembling a pill bug with a long head and snout like face. They prided themselves in having tough, natural armor within their exoskeleton.

We taught them how easily we could break it.

Greenish-yellow blood, the color of human snot, soaked the battlefield. Little red stained it. Within a span of two Terran hours, we had taken back our Luna colony and had begun the process of aiding the colonists. By then, high above, the Archeon leaders had called a meeting of the high council representatives of each race.

They raved about their ships and soldiers, proving to all that they had no care for their own actions and consequences. They claimed the humans had hidden our military prowess from the galactum, and that we should be purged for hiding such weaponry.

Our leaders only laughed when they finished. They made it clear that when the Archeons had attacked the Luna colony, they had basically declared war. And the humans responded in kind.

All there took a step back. It surprised everyone how the usually diplomatic humans had swooped down and obliterated a single threat over a landmass when they had made it clear that they thought such disputes petty.

The humans leaders shook their heads. “We were not defending the moon and it’s resources, as much as we require them. We were defending our people. You killed and hurt thousands over resources that, had you brought the matter to us first, would have been settled without violence. But you didn’t. And we will not tolerate that.”

The Archeons were advised to step back. And they did.

It was from there that the outer races began to understand our human nature. We did not rely on diplomacy because of our physical traits. We used it because we knew what war had done to us. We understood what it would do if it became out of control. Because war is in our blood. Violence is the air we breathe. It is an art to us.

Eventually they will realize we do not do this for us.

We do it for them.

~~~~~~

Late night post. Found this prompt and went wild. I apologize if it’s not the best, I kinda just let my fingers type and barely read over it. Also sorry for not posting for a while. School started back up and I’m about to start a really busy semester. Hope you all enjoyed reading this snippet!

Not Deer Phenomenon

Humanity has many "powers"—yet again, I fail to bring myself to explain the quotation marks. As the humans would say, figure that shit out yourself—, and to me their uneasiness is one of the most fascinating.

Maybe it's a result of their Paranoia, but humans just know when something isn't what it looks like. They can absolutely be deceived, of course, and the ability to detect deceit varies greatly from human to human. But when something doesn't look, doesn't sound, doesn't taste, doesn't feel right, then you can count on it not being right.

"Something wrong is not right" they joke

Deathworlders instincts, most likely. Many have explained to me they just feel it "in their guts". They have also explained to me about the "uncanny valley", and how they're wired to recognize not-humans, which usually tend to be corpses or people who have lost their minds to diseases like rabies.

But that "power" goes well beyond recognizing "not-humans". They call that the "not deer phenomenon", and bring forth many tales—as they do, yet another "power"—of such.

"It'll look like a deer, sound like a deer and act like a deer. But then you keep looking, you keep listening, you keep watching, and..." they always pause here to make sure I'm following "... Well, something is not right. It's going to be something minimal at first, something you only notice when you're really looking"

"and then?" I ask, no matter how many times I've heard some variation of the exact same words

"When you see one thing, suddenly you're seeing all. What starts with you noticing that the legs are a bit too tin, ends with your hair standing up and your heart speeding up because you can see it now"

"The not deer"

"The not deer"

"And do you know what it is?" I ask, knowing the answer

"Nope. No idea. Could be a shapeshifter, could be a skin walker, or an illusion. Whatever it is, what's left to do is to leave without looking back and pray it didn't notice you saw."

Needless to say, many shifters have complained about being found out by humans.

I see many posts in the Space Orcs tag depicting humans as super strong, oafish, barbarian types:

But consider: The Neanderthals spec'd into strength, but couldn't throw stuff. Homo Sapiens can throw stuff, but are not as strong. Since learning how to throw stuff, our warfare has essentially been a contest to see how far we can throw stuff at the enemy. From rocks, to spears, to bullets, to missiles, to one day lasers. Just about all cultures in the world hold accuracy in high regard. Some do appreciate raw strength, yes, but the weapons that ties us together are the spear and bow.

What if instead of giant hulking brutes, we are expert hunters/rangers? Rumor amongst the galaxy is that a Human can shoot the wings off a fly at one hundred meters. In the dark. With minimal training. What if that were uncommon for other species who evolved to rely on their strength, speed, or other senses, rather than the plain ability to hit something with a projectile?

XxX

Meet the Human. They are damn near impossible to kill. They can outlast just about anyone stamina-wise. They're not the strongest, nor the fastest, but don't ever corner one lest you witness the terror of adrenaline.

They can eat anything, adapt to just about any environment, speak just about any language.

When they pick their prey, it can try running, but it will only die out of breath.

It can try hiding, but the human will use clues left behind to track it to its hole.

And besides all that, they'll probably just ice you from a couple hundred yards and call it a day.

Meet the Human. Not a hulking barbarian, but a crafty, scrappy wastelander. The galaxy's most feared marksman.

(Now that we have that out of the way, I like to imagine that there's a hulking race of canines out there *cough*lycans*cough* that we're going to hit it off with the instant we show up on the galactic scene. They'll love us because we're not as breakable as the other species, and we give the best scritches. But also, we're stupidly aggressive for our size and they'll feel the need to protect us and absorb us into their packs. Then one day they'll read the history of earth dogs and just be like "oh.")

ok i just had a humans-are-space-orcs thought

i grew up in bear country. like, the “you can’t leave food in your car because the bears will break your car and eat it” kind of bear country. so up there people make sure to teach their kids how to avoid getting eaten by bears. and you know the number one thing you do to avoid encountering a bear in the first place?

you make sure it hears you coming

if you’re hiking with a friend, you talk loudly the whole time. if you don’t want to do that, or you’re alone, you wear bells or something else that makes noise. because bears aren’t stupid, they know humans are trouble, and they don’t wanna fuck with you any more than you wanna fuck with them

like. think about that. bears are walking tanks. they can cave in the door to a house or move around a 500 pound dumpster like its nothing. you can shoot a bear with a gun and not do much more than piss it off. a bear could absolutely pick off one lone human on a hike for a free meal. but bears never hunt humans, and they rarely attack humans

like imagine an alien visiting earth and their human friend hands them a bell and says “when we go through here we gotta make sure the local apex predators know exactly where we are at all times”

and they’re like “…oh, yes, of course. the other predators on earth must have learned that they can’t kill a human, and it’s better to avoid a fight if you can”

and the human says “no, if a bear attacked us we’d die”

and they’re like, wait, what?? you want to give our exact location to something that could easily kill us? do you have a death wish??? and their friend is like, no, look, bears don’t fuck with humans if they can help it

not because they can’t, but because they know better

"This should do it." It looked down at itself, pleased.

The two - rather long - legs jut out under it's torso. It used it's new - ew - five fingers to feel along it's skin, feeling the bumps of a ribcage underneath. A heartbeat too.

In front of it was a mirror, and staring back at itself was a human. Well, an illusion of one.

Time and time again, the newly star bound aliens, humans, had infiltrated it's species ranks through elaborate disguises. They got better at it every time.

Not only were humans great with what they call "make up" but they had a way of mimicking their behaviors. It's species tried to replicate this. Failed to. In the end, they had something better.

A team of highly immoral scientists who were given boundless permission to try whatever the hell they wanted. And they went with genetic mutation.

It was a painful change, and slow. Agonizingly slow. But now, it was a super solider with one superpower. A shape-shifter.

And it was time to test it out.

It strolled out of the bathroom and into the eating area where various alien species were seated. Only one human - the unwitting test subject - was present.

If this could pass for normal conversation, this could pass for war.

It strolled right up to the other creature - a man who had not yet seen him - and sat down.

"I'm glad to see one other human on this station," it said.

The human non-committedly looked up. Only to jump with a start after taking it in.

"What are you?" he said.

"A human?" it said. If it's species could sweat, it would do so by now.

The man stared at it a moment. He turned to the alien on his right and pointed to his left.

"Forgive me if this question is batshit insane, but what do you see?"

"Two humans?" The alien had three eyes.

Her species' third eye was famous for detecting the most miniscule details and then committing it to subconscious memory. The rise and fall of a chest. The careful rythem of a human heart. How often - or little - a human blinks. Even human's make-up tricks couldn't bypass her species' extra form of security.

"So it is," said the man. She turned away and it found itself blinking quickly in relief. It cut that out when the human turned to it. "Sorry, I guess you're just real ugly."

"Ugh, rude." All humans are ugly.

He scooted in closer on the bench and leaned in towards it. It found itself leaning away, but couldn't help but notice the bead of sweat on the human's forehead and how the pupils were shrunken as far as they could.

"Wanna hear an old Earth tale?"

"I'm sure I know it." Was this a test?

"I doubt you know this one. My grandfather experienced it himself." He leaned away. It had stop itself from blinking too rapidly again. "This is about an Earth cryptid."

"Bigfoot?" it said, but nodded as if it already knew.

"Everyone knows Bigfoot," he laughed. "No, he was driving down a dark country road unlit by street lights. He didn't have his brights on - that's important to the story, you see - but heaven knows why."

Brights??? What are brights???

"Down the road an animal was crossing. A simple male deer with antlers. He couldn't see its body yet, but he was familiar with the eyes. They glowed as his car sped closer."

"He slowed as the deer became more apparent, and eventually came to a stop when the creature wouldn't move. By now, he could see the antlers, the four legs, the neck. Not in detail, mind you, but he could see it "

Other aliens in the room- not hearing this conversation - were trickling out of the room. There was no dramatic reason for this, they simply finished their lunch. The human, not paying any attention to his own lunch, continued the story.

"It's not uncommon for deer to freeze, especially when lights flood their eyes. So my grandfather gave it a moment to realize it should run. When seconds ticked by, he honked at it."

"There was something... off... about the deer. It looked every way like a deer, but the longer he stared, the longer that just didn't seem right."

"Was it a deer?" it said.

"It was not."

"What was it?"

"Not a deer."

The alien found itself frown at this in a perfectly human way.

"Time went on, and my grandfather decided to turn on the brights to try and see the creature better. And it was still... a deer... but not..."

It found its frown deepening.

"What's worse was it began to move. Similar to a deer, but all wrong. Like maybe its legs bent the wrong way. Or perhaps the legs were too long. It was every way like a deer, but it just was not."

"He drove home as soon as that not deer was out of his path. And yes, he found himself alive the next morning. But that encounter disturbed him, so he recounted it to everyone. And many people - especially in that town - could tell him their own stories."

"...okay?"

"Well, that story is funny. Probably a figment of his imagination, but it does reflect a very real human instinct."

This was another test. "Would this be something I know of?"

"It's called uncanny valley. It occurs to us when something looks human... but is not."

"Why?"

"Well, rumor has it that it was a instinct formed from a predator. Something that looked human but was not. A not human."

"A not human? Is this true?"

"No," he said. He laughed. "No, we most likely developed it for something a lot more practical. Corpses, you see. They carry a lot of bacteria, so we have a fear of them."

"...interesting."

"I have that very same feeling of you," he said. The room was empty besides the two. He reached for his bottle above his lunch tray.

"But I'm not a corpse?"

"You're about to be."

The human tossed down the bottle, effectively cracking off the bottom half and forming his weapon.

It shape-shifted as it scurried away to retreat from the very much human.

Humans are Weird- Free Diving

When I was a kid, was taught the rule of 3, which is meant to be a general survivalist guide rule of thumb for necessities in extreme circumstances. If you haven’t heard it the rule of three is as follows:

The point being that without these things at this frequency that’s probably about when you’d die without them, so prioritize them in the reverse order.

And this is fairly consistent with most medical information I could find, these guidelines are a little under the ‘official’ times. Without oxygen is four to six minutes before brain damage, which that’s fair to be conservative for potentially life saving information.

Then, I learned about free diving.

You know how we have a Frenchman who invented a self contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA) because he wanted to keep looking at the fish down in the ocean. Yeah so free diving is that… without SCUBA gear.

Free divers just hold their breath, and dive, down to 20 to 40 feet under water, which by the way means that they are under two atmospheres of pressure (2 atm is 33 feet for those keeping score) and then hang out and surface. Like it didn’t take a Frenchman obsessed with fish to come up with a pressurized air tank apparatus for normal people to do it.

The normal average human can hold their breath between 30 to 90 seconds.

That’s normal, and then most people after three to four minutes will have passed out and start to have their brain cells begin being damaged from lack of oxygen.

Do you know how long average free divers can hold their breath? Upwards of 10 minutes. That is a TEN TIMES longer breath hold than the 'average’ human, with NO adverse effects!

The record breath hold is almost 25 minutes. 25 MINUTES.

That discrepancy is entirely unreasonable!

That’s like saying, oh yeah, the average human can move 100 pounds (~45 Kg) with serious effort, which is like the size of a large dog, but some of them can lift 1000 pounds, which is like a fully grown moose. Keeping with this analogy for the record breath hold if it was a weight  would be the equivalent of someone saying they could lift an Elephant!

Then, and then, I looked further into it because surely these people have to have some kind of genetic quirk that allows them to be able to hold their breath PAST the, 'yeah you’re probably dead zone’ three times over.

But no… not really. There are some exceptions of people that have larger or more effecient spleens that let them stay down closer to twenty to twenty five minutes, but mostly, it’s just getting the body used to having high C02 and low 02 levels over an extended period of time. The average person can probably reach about 5 minute breath holds within a month of training, and have no adverse effects from this. Remember that the 'average human’ could only hold their breath for 30 to 90 seconds. Remember that rule of three? Remember that four minutes was 'hey the human might get brain damage’ you know their most important and vital organ that their evolution invested so heavily in that it literally changed the way they breath as a species? Yeah. We’re just going to break that right down by just choosing to not listen to it. And within a month, BAM literally defying death, because some people just felt like it and figured out how to do it with training instead of equipment.

Because people wanted to go into a place that is VERY MUCH NOT MEANT FOR AIR BREATHING HUMANS to either look at stuff in the NOT FOR HUMANS zone, or to eat said stuff in the again HUMANS LITERALLY SHOULDN’T BE ABLE TO BE ALIVE HERE FOR MORE THAN A COUPLE OF MINUTES ZONE.

Humans are insane, and utterly terrifying.

I’ve literally seen Riker do all of these

The man is just tall enough that he doesn't have to move chairs.

Fun fact! He did this because Jonathan Frakes had a back problem. It was easier for him to do this

Fascinating! I did not know that!

it's why he's always doing the riker lean, too! where he puts one foot up on something and rests an arm on his own leg! he fucked up his back moving furniture when he was younger.

Disability accommodations do not have to be made into a big deal.  He just... did that.  And it became part of the physicality of the character.  And we all joked about it, because without the context of the actor’s physical discomfort/pain, that is an objectively funny way to approach a chair.  But Jonathan Frakes has the raw charisma to make it work, and by Gd he worked the hell out of it.