#how did Neanderthals and humans interact

[13thpythagoras]

Humans vs Superhumans | When Monsters Were Real and We Almost Went Extinct

rethinking, re-imagining, revisiting our conceptions of ancient hominids

...Tolkien was less of a fiction writer than you might think, a great writer indeed but so much of it is actually based on stories mirrored by recent scientific discoveries...

and yet also the skin coloration critique remains like, why is it that when we thought neanderthals were like, these gentle giants we depicted them as whiteys, now that we realize neanderthals were just brutal savage destroyers of human lives and hunted humans we’re going to let AI depict neanderthals as dark skinned now? blind spot alert ... 

like fully decoding the fact that neanderthals were pale skinned beasts, quite aggressive compared to humans... does this explain a lot of why honky caucasians seem to be more aggressive generally?... 

I have heard of the “Dravidian Albino” explanation hypothesis for white people, bu problem is, even if you have two Dravidian albinos making babies, three out of four of those babies are going to be dark skinned. It’s a really recessive trait. 

I can definitely say I have the “Neanderthal bump,” or aka the occipital pad, the back-of-head knob that allows my weirdly huge part-neanderthal-mostly-human brain to sit on top of my otherwise-normal human shaped and sized body... I mean I definitely have a larger head than most people. I’m a freak and I’ve had to live with it lol I look like an alien... but still had also my cousin do a DNA test and sure enough we’re a few percent Neanderthal. So while some humans do have the occipital pad, all Neanderthals did, and I’m one human with an occipital pad / neanderthal bump with also the verified neanderthal DNA... does eating meat really drive you crazy like this, into a violent mad being? 

[whencyclopedia]

The Neanderthal-Sapiens Connection

In May 2010, after years of intense discussions surrounding possible fossils of mixed Homo sapiens and Neanderthal descent floating around the scientific community, a team led by Svante Pääbo of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, published the results of their pioneering journey towards retrieving ancient Neanderthal DNA. The study sent out a shock wave: it discovered that our own DNA contains between 1-4% Neanderthal DNA, meaning our early modern human ancestors had indeed not only shaken hands with Neanderthals back in Ice Age Eurasia, but had also definitely shaken other body parts and interbred with them. The team's find not only pushed modern humans and the Neanderthals a lot closer together, but also paved the way for more ancient genetic research, which has since been shedding more light on the Neanderthal-Sapiens connection.

The Neanderthals were relatively short and stocky humans with big brains who gradually developed in chilly Eurasia, with features that become clearly recognisable between c. 200,000-c. 100,000 years ago and the 'classic', full set of features as we identify them settling in around 70,000 years ago. They were well-adapted to the often cold temperatures that held sway across the regions they were found in, all the way from Spain and the Mediterranean to Northern Europe and Russia, as well as throughout the Near East, and as far east as Uzbekistan and Siberia, and were capable of hunting even the biggest Ice Age creatures such as mammoths or woolly rhinoceros.

Genetic research has shown that the Neanderthals are a sister group to us; we share a common ancestor quite a long way back, in Africa, between c. 550,000 and c. 750,000 years ago, but our relation with them does not end there. Although already meeting and interbreeding with their sister species in more localised instances as far back as 100,000 years ago, possibly in the Near East, modern humans first expanded into Neanderthal territory at large from around 55,000 years ago, when a big wave of them left Africa and started spreading across the world, with the Near East as a first pit-stop. It is this location and timeframe that accounts for the biggest visible chunk of Neanderthal DNA entering our modern human systems. On their travels into the rest of Eurasia, modern humans clearly did not find vast, uninhabited lands with unchallenged prey for them to hunt, but had to share or compete. Somehow, after successfully surviving for such a long time in not exactly the breeziest of conditions, Neanderthals then disappeared from the fossil record by around 40,000-30,000 years ago, not long after modern humans encroached on their grounds.

There are still a fair few hiccups in our knowledge of what happened when these two species met. For instance, it is hard to say how we should visualise them actually meeting and sharing certain areas; the options range from excessively violent and competitive to happily exchanging tips and tricks. It is also not entirely clear whether or not Homo sapiens may have had a direct or indirect hand in pushing the Neanderthals into extinction, and which other factors may have been at play.

Another big component to this debate is interbreeding – how exactly does it fit into this story? Under which circumstances and to what extent this may have taken place can radically alter the view we have of how modern humans and Neanderthals interacted over the space of time they shared Eurasia. It certainly impacts on our view of the social side of things; it means that genes were exchanged and our genetic makeup was altered, an effect that was felt not just there and then in Ice Age Eurasia but all the way up until this day. It also means Neanderthals did not die out in the strictest of senses, because part of their DNA still survives in us.

Initial meetings

As mentioned above, there is a family relation; by at least c. 500,000 ago one group of what is generally thought to have been Homo heidelbergensis (or Homo antecessor) upped and left Africa, journeyed all the way to Europe and somewhere in those regions gradually developed into Neanderthals, while the portion of Homo heidelbergensis that was quite alright with Africa and stayed behind became part of the eventual development towards Homo sapiens (who appeared by around 200,000 years ago).

By the time these two sister groups would meet in person, there were some differences. Neanderthals had stockier builds and big skulls with brow ridges, lacking a proper chin, and modern humans had tall, slender skeletons and heads with chiselled chins and faces tucked in under our braincases. However, both hunted and gathered, used well-crafted tools to survive, and show evidence of things like fire usage and burials.

Both genetic evidence and archaeological finds seem to support the Near East as the place of first contact. This area shows (so far) the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens outside of Africa, at the sites of Skhul and Qafzeh in Israel, where burials have been dated to be older than 100,000 years ago – and perhaps even up to a staggering 130,000 years ago. Moreover, Neanderthals are also known to have been present here, at neighbouring sites such as Tabun Cave and Kebara Cave. Evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo envisions a possible scenario where modern humans may have moved into these Near Eastern caves when the climate was warmer and more suited to their needs, whereas Neanderthals could have been pushed that far south in colder periods, likely resulting in these two species meeting at least at some point within the long period of time they weaved in and out of the same region. This Near Eastern setting is also the most logical explanation for the very early presence of Homo sapiens DNA in a set of Neanderthals found in the Altai Mountains in Siberia – a place where Neanderthals are also known to have interbred with another human species, the Denisovans – as the data indicates that ancestors of these Neanderthals must have met and interbred with modern humans around 100,000 years ago.

Continue reading...

[memento-morianon]

Hey Memento Mori I would like to ask you did I can know more about culture and history of each sapient species? And how long each them live , when they hit their equivment of 18,30,35,40,50,60,70,80,90 and 100? Sorry If I made you angry fir so many questions or anwers are arleady here.

I'm never upset about questions! This project is a passion of mine and I could info dump about it all day lol.

Gimme a bit to prep all the info and I'll reblog this with more stuff later, but for a quick answer on ages at least, here are the main people species from shortest lifespan to longest lifespan:

- pixies, which are giant sapient insects in the same family as bees/wasps/ants, individually live around 10-15 years on average. Queen pixies live longer, with an average age of 25 years, and male pixies have the shortest lives at about 6 months from the time they complete pupation into an adult form. Males only biological purpose is to mate and then die, as is common in many eusocial insect species. But their short lives are not used to dismiss or abuse them, as they are considered highly important and given a great deal of honor and ceremony. Pixie hives claim a much longer lifespan as a collective whole, because they are mysteriously able to share memory with each other and this hive memory is passed along through every generation.

- goblins, which are a type of amphibian, on average used to live only 50 years, but since the time of the goblin revolution, they have begun to live longer, reaching 80 and even 90 years at the oldest. This shift in life expectation is attributed to the increase of mutual care between people species, which accelerated the advancement of medical science. It may also be attributed to those goblins that skip winter hibernation by staying in the warm homes of their mammalian friends during the cold months.

- quetzalin, the bird folk, live around 100 years at best, though most die in their 80s or 90s. They are far more physically active and have a high metabolism compared to many other people species, which contributes to their relatively shorter lifespan.

- coastal merfolk, centaurs, gnomes, and orcs all tend to live between 100-150 years of age. The orc who dies at the beginning of my story, He-esh, lived to 150 (subject to change based on other timeline details, but 150 was my original plan). All of them are mammalian species with hardy bodies built to withstand difficult environments and changing seasons. The coastal merfolk are pinnipeds (related to seals and walruses and sea lions) while the centaurs are descended from chalicotheres and the orcs and gnomes are of the same family as pigs.

- dwarves on average live between 200-250 years of age. They are actually the last remaining hominid species, more closely related to Neanderthals than homo sapiens, and they are also built quite sturdy with a more durable metabolism than the modern human.

- elves, stroi, and drow, the primate sylvanid family, all tend to live up to 500 years at best, with the elves often outlasting their cousin species. However, more recent studies have found that the sylvanid lifespan is slowly decreasing. This may be attributed to higher activity in the younger generations which has altered their metabolism, and this change of activity was mostly brought about by an increase of interspecies interaction, as younger sylvanids are spending more and more time in diverse communities. It is now speculated that the most recent generations may only live to 300 years on average.

- one exception to the longer lives of sylvanids are the drow matriarchs, who give birth to every child of their colony. They are a eusocial mammal species, with the majority being infertile and males being less common. Matriarchs tend to have a shorter life expectation due to the physical exertion of giving birth so many times. They're not built for it quite as well as pixie queens are, and frankly the pixie queens only need to lay a lot of tiny eggs, while drow matriarchs give live birth, the majority of which are twins. On average, drow matriarchs undergo their unique secondary puberty at 50 years of age and typically give birth once a year for 100 years, at which point they undergo menopause and face a swift health decline, living to the age of 200-250 at best.

- the ogres, a mountain dwelling species of sapient giant sloths, have the longest lifespan of any people species, living around 800 years on average. This extremely long life expectancy is attributed to their much slower metabolism and relaxed lifestyle. However, many people forget that ogres have such long lives because they are often viewed by others as less intelligent due to their seemingly limited vocabulary and their lack of collective settlements or even large nomadic camps. They tend to live in very small isolated groups that only travel a little to gather with other ogres for holidays or to trade with other people. They interact the most with dwarves, who live in their territory. Ogres will frequently leave their more vulnerable young ones in dwarf caverns for safety.

[nupur26]

Language and Linguistics

Evolution of language and communication

Evolution of Language and Communication

The evolution of language and communication is a complex journey that spans millions of years, reflecting the cognitive and social development of humans. This article explores the origins, development, and transformative nature of language, highlighting key theories and milestones in its evolution.

Origins of Language

1. The Timeline of Language Development Language is believed to have emerged around 150,000 to 200,000 years ago, coinciding with the appearance of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Africa. Evidence suggests that early humans exhibited abstract thinking and symbolic behavior, as seen in archaeological findings like engravings and art from this period[1]. The development of language likely coincided with significant cognitive advancements that allowed for more complex social interactions.

2. The Role of Genetic Factors Genetic studies have identified the FOXP2 gene, associated with speech and language abilities. Variations in this gene between modern humans and Neanderthals suggest a biological basis for language capacity that evolved after the split from our common ancestor with Neanderthals[1]. This genetic insight supports the idea that language is not solely a cultural construct but also has biological underpinnings.

Theoretical Frameworks

1. Continuity vs. Discontinuity Theories Theories regarding the origin of language can be broadly categorized into continuity theories, which propose that language evolved gradually from earlier forms of communication used by primates, and discontinuity theories, which argue that language appeared suddenly as a unique human trait[5]. Most contemporary linguists lean towards continuity theories, suggesting that elements of pre-linguistic communication laid the groundwork for the emergence of structured language.

2. Protolanguage and Early Communication Early forms of communication likely resembled protolanguage, a rudimentary system where sounds were associated with objects or actions but lacked grammatical structure. Research indicates that these early systems would have been limited in vocabulary but capable of conveying essential information through simple signals[2]. As societies grew more complex, so did their communicative needs, leading to the development of more sophisticated linguistic structures.

Evolutionary Mechanisms

1. Natural Selection and Language Change Language evolves similarly to biological species through a process akin to natural selection. Words and grammatical structures that are more effective or easier to use tend to persist over time, while less efficient forms fade away[1]. This dynamic reflects how languages adapt to their speakers' needs, influenced by factors such as social interaction, migration, and technological advancements.

2. Linguistic Evolution Over Time Linguistic evolution encompasses several changes:

Phonological Changes: Shifts in pronunciation patterns over generations.

Grammatical Changes: Modifications in sentence structure and word usage reflecting changes in societal norms.

Lexical Changes: The introduction of new words through borrowing or innovation, leading to shifts in vocabulary[3].

An example is the transition from Old English to Modern English, significantly influenced by historical events like the Norman Conquest, which introduced many French words into English vocabulary[3].

Communication Beyond Language

1. Multimodal Communication Language is not limited to spoken or written forms; it often incorporates gestures, facial expressions, and other non-verbal cues. The interplay between these modalities enriches communication and reflects a broader understanding of linguistic evolution as a complex system influenced by various channels[4].

2. The Impact of Technology Technological advancements continually shape language use and development. New terms emerge to describe innovations (e.g., "internet," "smartphone"), while social media platforms influence linguistic trends through new forms of expression (e.g., emojis, memes) that blend visual and textual communication.

Conclusion

The evolution of language and communication is a multifaceted process shaped by biological, social, and technological factors. Understanding this evolution provides insight into human cognition, culture, and society's adaptive nature. As we continue to explore the complexities of language, we gain a deeper appreciation for its role in shaping human experience and interaction throughout history.

Bilingualism and cognitive benefits

Bilingualism and Cognitive Benefits

Bilingualism, the ability to speak and understand two or more languages, has been shown to confer numerous cognitive benefits that enhance mental processes and overall brain function. This article delves into the cognitive advantages associated with bilingualism, exploring how it influences attention, memory, executive function, and even creativity.

Cognitive Advantages of Bilingualism

1. Enhanced Executive Function Bilingual individuals often exhibit superior executive function compared to their monolingual peers. Executive function encompasses a range of cognitive processes including working memory, attentional control, and task-switching abilities. The constant need to manage two languages requires bilinguals to develop skills in inhibitory control, allowing them to suppress one language while using another. This skill translates into better performance on tasks that require focus and flexibility, such as problem-solving and adapting to new situations[1][2][5].

2. Improved Attention and Concentration Research indicates that bilinguals have improved attention spans and concentration levels. The mental effort involved in switching between languages enhances their ability to filter distractions and maintain focus on relevant tasks. This heightened concentration is particularly beneficial in environments filled with potential distractions, such as classrooms or workplaces[2][5].

3. Better Memory Retention Bilingualism has been linked to enhanced memory capabilities. The practice of recalling vocabulary and grammar rules from multiple languages strengthens overall memory function. Studies show that bilingual individuals often perform better on memory tasks, likely due to their experience in managing and organizing linguistic information[1][2].

Creativity and Cognitive Flexibility

1. Increased Creativity Bilingualism is associated with heightened creativity, partly due to the cognitive flexibility it fosters. Bilingual individuals can approach problems from multiple perspectives, leading to innovative solutions. Research has demonstrated that bilinguals often excel in creative tasks requiring both convergent thinking (finding a single solution) and divergent thinking (generating multiple solutions) due to their enhanced cognitive inhibition and flexibility[3][4].

2. Cognitive Flexibility Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability to switch between thinking about different concepts or perspectives. Bilinguals frequently practice this skill when they switch languages, which enhances their overall cognitive adaptability. This flexibility allows them to navigate complex tasks more efficiently and adapt quickly to new information or environments[3][4].

Protection Against Cognitive Decline

1. Delayed Onset of Dementia One of the most significant long-term benefits of bilingualism is its potential protective effect against cognitive decline in older adults. Studies suggest that bilingual individuals may experience a delay in the onset of dementia symptoms compared to monolinguals, attributed to the increased cognitive reserve developed through managing multiple languages throughout life[1][5]. This cognitive reserve helps maintain brain health by promoting neural connections and enhancing overall brain function.

Conclusion

The cognitive benefits of bilingualism extend far beyond mere language skills; they encompass improved executive function, enhanced memory, increased creativity, and protection against age-related cognitive decline. As globalization continues to promote multilingual environments, understanding these benefits becomes increasingly important for educational practices and societal development. Encouraging bilingualism not only enriches individual lives but also fosters a more adaptable and innovative society capable of addressing complex challenges in an interconnected world.

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Language preservation in endangered cultures

Language Preservation in Endangered Cultures

Language is a cornerstone of cultural identity, encapsulating unique worldviews, traditions, and histories. However, many languages are at risk of extinction due to globalization, cultural assimilation, and socio-economic pressures. This article explores the importance of language preservation in endangered cultures, examining methods, challenges, and the role of technology in revitalizing these languages.

The Importance of Language Preservation

1. Cultural Identity and Heritage Languages are not merely tools for communication; they embody the values, beliefs, and histories of their speakers. When a language disappears, it often leads to the erosion of cultural identity and the loss of traditional knowledge. Indigenous languages frequently contain ecological wisdom and practices that are crucial for sustainable living. Thus, preserving these languages is vital for maintaining cultural diversity and heritage[1][4].

2. Knowledge Transmission Language serves as a vehicle for transmitting knowledge across generations. Many endangered languages carry unique insights into local ecosystems, medicinal practices, and social structures. The loss of these languages equates to a loss of invaluable knowledge that has been accumulated over centuries[4][5].

Methods of Language Preservation

1. Documentation Efforts Documenting endangered languages involves recording oral traditions, vocabulary, grammar, and cultural practices. Linguists and anthropologists often collaborate with native speakers to create comprehensive records that can serve as resources for future generations. This documentation can take various forms, including audio recordings, written dictionaries, and grammatical guides[2][3].

2. Revitalization Programs Revitalization initiatives aim to encourage the use of endangered languages in daily life. These programs may include language immersion schools, community classes, and cultural activities that reinforce the importance of the language within its community. Engaging younger generations is crucial for ensuring that these languages continue to be spoken[3][4].

3. Educational Integration Incorporating indigenous languages into formal education systems can significantly enhance preservation efforts. By teaching children their native language alongside other subjects, communities can foster a sense of pride and belonging while ensuring the transmission of linguistic heritage[6].

The Role of Technology

1. Digital Tools for Preservation The advent of technology has opened new avenues for language preservation. Digital platforms enable the creation of online archives, interactive learning resources, and mobile applications that facilitate language learning. These tools help bridge geographical gaps and connect dispersed communities[2][5].

2. Community Engagement through Social Media Social media platforms provide spaces for speakers of endangered languages to connect, share resources, and promote their linguistic heritage. Initiatives such as online language courses or community forums can foster collaboration between linguists and native speakers, making the process inclusive and community-driven[1][2].

Challenges to Language Preservation

Despite ongoing efforts to preserve endangered languages, several challenges remain:

Globalization: The dominance of global languages often marginalizes indigenous tongues, leading younger generations to prioritize widely spoken languages over their native ones[3][4].

Lack of Resources: Many communities lack the financial support or educational resources necessary for effective language preservation initiatives[6].

Cultural Assimilation: As communities merge into dominant cultures due to migration or socio-economic pressures, there is often less value placed on indigenous languages by subsequent generations[5].

Conclusion

Language preservation is a critical endeavor that extends beyond mere linguistic concerns; it encompasses the protection of cultural identity and heritage. Through comprehensive documentation efforts, revitalization programs, educational integration, and innovative use of technology, communities can work towards safeguarding their linguistic legacies for future generations. As we confront the challenges posed by globalization and cultural assimilation, it is essential to recognize that preserving endangered languages is not just about saving words but about maintaining the rich tapestry of human culture that they represent.

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The impact of technology on language

The Impact of Technology on Language

Technology has profoundly transformed the way we communicate, learn, and interact with language. From the invention of the printing press to the rise of social media, technological advancements have continually reshaped linguistic practices and the evolution of languages worldwide. This article explores the multifaceted impact of technology on language, including changes in communication styles, vocabulary, and language learning.

Evolution of Language Through Technology

1. Historical Context The advent of the printing press in the 15th century marked a significant turning point in language evolution, standardizing grammar and vocabulary across regions. This facilitated wider dissemination of literature and ideas, establishing English as a dominant global language. As technology progressed through the ages, each new innovation—such as the telephone, radio, and television—further influenced how language was used and understood.

2. Digital Communication The rise of digital communication platforms has introduced new forms of language use. Text messaging, social media, and instant messaging prioritize brevity and speed, leading to the widespread adoption of acronyms (e.g., LOL for "laugh out loud") and informal grammar. This shift has resulted in a more casual style of writing that permeates both online and offline communication. The informal nature of digital interactions has also given birth to new vocabulary and slang terms specific to online contexts, such as "meme" or "troll" [1][2].

Changes in Vocabulary and Grammar

1. New Lexicon Technology has significantly expanded our vocabulary. Terms related to digital culture—like "selfie," "unfriend," and "hashtag"—have entered everyday language. The internet serves as a breeding ground for new words and phrases that reflect contemporary life, often blending linguistic elements from various cultures due to globalization [1][2].

2. Grammar Evolution The informal communication style fostered by texting and social media has led to relaxed grammar rules. Sentence fragments, emojis, and playful spelling (e.g., "gr8" for "great") are now commonplace in casual writing. While these changes may raise concerns about linguistic degradation, they also reflect the adaptability of language to new modes of communication [1][3].

Technology in Language Learning

1. Accessibility and Flexibility Technological advancements have revolutionized language learning by making it more accessible than ever before. Language learning apps like Duolingo and platforms offering online courses provide learners with flexible options to study at their own pace [4]. These tools often incorporate gamification elements that enhance engagement and retention.

2. Natural Language Processing (NLP) NLP technologies enable computers to understand and generate human language. Applications such as chatbots, translation services (e.g., Google Translate), and voice assistants (e.g., Siri) rely on NLP to facilitate communication across different languages. This technology not only aids in breaking down language barriers but also enriches our understanding of linguistic structures [4].

The Dual Nature of Technology's Impact

While technology enhances communication efficiency and fosters new forms of expression, it also poses challenges:

Dependence on Technology: Excessive reliance on spellcheckers, grammar correction tools, and AI-based writing assistants may inhibit individuals from developing essential writing skills [2][4].

Impact on Academic Writing: The prevalence of text-speak can infiltrate academic contexts, potentially affecting students' performance in formal writing scenarios [3].

Conclusion

The impact of technology on language is profound and multifaceted, influencing how we communicate, learn, and understand one another across cultural boundaries. While it brings about exciting innovations in vocabulary and communication styles, it also presents challenges that require careful consideration. As technology continues to evolve, its relationship with language will remain dynamic, shaping not only how we express ourselves but also how we connect with others in an increasingly globalized world. Embracing this evolution while maintaining an appreciation for linguistic diversity is crucial for fostering effective communication in the future.

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Linguistic diversity and global communication

Linguistic Diversity and Global Communication

Linguistic diversity refers to the multitude of languages spoken across the globe, reflecting the rich tapestry of human culture and identity. As globalization continues to shape our world, the interplay between linguistic diversity and global communication becomes increasingly significant. This article examines the importance of linguistic diversity in facilitating effective communication, the challenges it poses, and strategies for fostering understanding in a multicultural environment.

The Importance of Linguistic Diversity

1. Cultural Identity and Heritage Languages are vital carriers of culture, embodying unique histories, traditions, and worldviews. Each language offers distinct perspectives on life, contributing to a broader understanding of humanity. Linguistic diversity enriches global communication by providing various frameworks through which people can express themselves and understand one another.

2. Knowledge Transmission Languages serve as repositories of knowledge, including traditional ecological wisdom, medicinal practices, and social norms. Maintaining linguistic diversity ensures that this knowledge is preserved and passed down through generations. For instance, many indigenous languages contain insights into local biodiversity that are crucial for sustainable environmental practices.

Challenges of Linguistic Diversity in Global Communication

1. Language Barriers One of the most significant challenges posed by linguistic diversity is the existence of language barriers. Misunderstandings can arise when individuals do not share a common language or when nuances in meaning are lost in translation. This can lead to ineffective communication in international business, diplomacy, and cultural exchanges.

2. Cultural Misinterpretations Different cultures have varying norms regarding communication styles, including levels of formality, directness, and emotional expression. These differences can result in misinterpretations or offense if not navigated carefully. For example, what is considered polite in one culture may be perceived as overly formal or distant in another.

3. Dominance of Major Languages Globalization has led to the dominance of a few major languages—primarily English, Spanish, and Mandarin—in international discourse. This trend often marginalizes smaller languages and dialects, leading to their endangerment or extinction. As communities shift towards more widely spoken languages for economic opportunities, valuable cultural knowledge tied to endangered languages may be lost.

Strategies for Enhancing Global Communication

1. Promoting Multilingualism Encouraging multilingualism is essential for fostering effective global communication. Educational systems should prioritize language learning from an early age, equipping individuals with the skills needed to engage with diverse cultures. Multilingual employees can bridge gaps between different language speakers in business settings.

2. Utilizing Technology for Translation and Learning Advancements in technology have made it easier to overcome language barriers through translation tools and language-learning applications. Machine translation services like Google Translate can facilitate basic communication between speakers of different languages. Furthermore, online platforms offer resources for learning less commonly taught languages, promoting linguistic diversity.

3. Cultural Sensitivity Training Organizations operating on a global scale should implement cultural sensitivity training programs for employees to enhance their understanding of diverse communication styles and cultural norms. Such training can help mitigate misunderstandings and foster a more inclusive environment where all voices are heard.

Conclusion

Linguistic diversity plays a crucial role in shaping global communication by enriching cultural exchange and facilitating knowledge transmission. However, it also presents challenges that require thoughtful navigation to ensure effective interaction across cultures. By promoting multilingualism, leveraging technology for translation and learning, and fostering cultural sensitivity, we can enhance global communication while preserving the rich tapestry of human languages. Embracing linguistic diversity not only strengthens our ability to connect but also enriches our collective understanding of the world we share.

[foggynightdonut]

How and why is Homo sapiens so successful?

svdsmw

Abstract

By 30,000 years ago, Homo sapiens was the only type of hominin and had colonised most environments in the Old World. We argue that this success resulted from its ability to increase its population because more H. sapiens women than their contemporaries were able to have three or more children that survived into adulthood. This increased reproductive rate was accompanied by the development of a rounder brain and a longer childhood. A rounder brain and the accompanying re-organisation of the cerebellum and parietal areas increased our cognitive powers, and when combined with a longer childhood, allowed children to develop their imagination, ingenuity and inventiveness, all of which paid dividends when they became adults – in for example, being able to colonize new habitats or caring for infants and young mothers. Dietary factors may also have been important in ensuring that pregnant females and young children had an adequate diet, especially for women during their first and third trimester. In order to understand better our evolutionary success, we suggest a shift of focus from adult – and often largely male – activities such as big-game hunting towards the diet of infants and young mothers and the development rate of their children.

If an alien had visited Earth between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago (and had an improbable interest in human evolution), it might have concluded that Homo sapiens was simply one of many types of the genus Homo. In Africa, for example, there was H. naledi, dated to ca. 250 ka and hominins known as H. heidelbergensis or H. rudolfensis; in Europe, Neanderthals; and in Asia, at least seven types: Neanderthals in Southwest Asia and Siberia; Denisovans in Siberia and the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau; H. floresiensis on the island of Flores, H. luzonensis in the Philippines, a group best described as late archaic Homo in China and possibly another type in South Asia (Table 1). If our alien had paid a return visit 30,000 years ago, it might well have been surprised to find that all these had become extinct and H. sapiens was the only type of hominin on the planet. If it had probed deeper, four points would have emerged. First, by 30,000 years ago, H. sapiens had colonised all regions already occupied by hominins. Second, it had colonised regions that had never been inhabited by the genus Homo, notably the Arctic parts of Siberia, the hinterland of the Tibetan Plateau, the rainforests of South and Southeast Asia, the islands of Wallacea and the continent of Sahul – the conjoined landmass of New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania – as well as the Japanese archipelago, including some of the Ryukus Islands such as Okinawa. Third, it was the only hominin to inhabit all biological realms of Africa, Asia and Europe – the Afro-tropical and Afro-Saharan, the Oriental, Australian and the Palearctic as well as the Arctic Sub-Realm. The fourth and most obvious point is that all other types of hominins were now extinct (see Dennell, 2020). As John Shea (2011:28) wittily and perceptively wrote, the end of term report on our species might have read “does not play well with others”. Although we don’t know how H. sapiens interacted with all its contemporaries, we know that it did interbreed with Neanderthals and Denisovans, as all non-Africans (and many Africans [see Lu Chen et al. 2020]) carry some of their genes today, and we may safely assume that it did not successfully interbreed with the small-bodied H. naledi, H. floresiensis and H. luzonensis.

[sastrugie]

i totally get what you're saying about the beatles. when i was around eight i had listened to them a lot on my aunt's computer and quickly learned all of the lyrics to let it be and yesterday and hey jude. when i listen to those today i suddenly return to her apartment in 2004, feeling like it's eternally 5 in the morning and i am watching the snow melt outside whilst drinking tea.

i really like the cultural aspects of human species in the paleolithic. how neanderthals and very early homo sapiens behaved. i like to study their every day activities, how they interacted. there is this sight called krapina cave in croatia with a lot of skeletal remains of neanderthals and the anthropological analysis tells the story of how a few of them suffered huge injuries that healed, someone had to help them move and eat. piecing a story of how early humans took care of each other is what i am very interested in.

how is your day going? do you have any traditions or habits this year around?⚘️

hiii sorry for the late reply! I hope you enjoyed terror camp :) i did! made me very emotional :')

awnnn yes the beatles influenced so many of our childhoods! i also have friend who listened to the beatles since shes a child and recently we just read and listened to the 1 album (she listens to rap otherwise fghjk) so it was kind of a band where out musical styles overlapped and it was so beautiful :')

are you excited for christmas? i am not really in a christmas mood this year tbh but well! i dont have any real traditions except for doing nothing but chilling on christmas day and eating alot hahahah

YES the archaeology of care is so interesting! my friend is doing that too and she told me about shanidar 1 and 3 (is this form the same site?) so moving how the urge to help and care was always there <3

[yasmeensh]

Time to make a post about my project! I wrote a little on it before (in the tags lol), but here is the idea: stone age/early neolithic period in a fantasy genre. I want to explore the stories and myths of ancient civilizations (which possibly trace back to this period) + homo sapien & Neanderthal interaction!

It’s fun to think of this time period with fantastical creatures like dragons, mermaids, and sea monsters in them. Couple that with ancient megafauna!

Art historians often speculate that cave art & stone age sculptures had a spiritual function. It had me thinking about how magic and curses were an important element in ancient civilizations' stories (think even in biblical text). So where did this all originate from, so much that people would have great experience with them? It must be a very very ancient unknown past, probably the stone age period of humanity. This time period has huge potential for fantasy exploration! I want to explore all these ideas and make a story out of them. Here are some illustrations I made, with more under the cut, featuring the so far only OC (placeholder name for now is Tam. Short and simple) and his father-figure Neanderthal friend! I have a bit of a story in mind and other characters, but nothing concrete while I continue world-building. I will share more as I continue developing!

(hand painting... but with the rarest pigment of all. magggiiccc)

also a Neanderthal kid and grandma

[madaboutmunson]

Cryptic Cupid - Part 3 (Eddie's POV)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4

This one is a bit angsty towards the end and it's roughly 4.8K words

Sequel to Raspberry Riddle

So this is set in a government-operated hospital after the events of season 4 but everyone is alive.

Each part has a different POV, Robin, Steve, or Eddie.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So that just fucking happened. Steve Harrington just kissed Eddie on the forehead and thanked the gods he'd left when he did. Eddie looks under his covers for a second. That could have been infinitely more awkward, but good to know that it was all still in working order. He snorts out a quiet laugh to himself.

Eddie felt like he'd given Steve all the green lights, but it is entirely possible that Steve didn't feel that way anymore, or perhaps Eddie hadn't been as obvious as he thought.

Eddie sits up and picks up his little paper list again, only to lie down with it on his pillow, trace his finger over it, and read it in the moonlight. He had to wonder if Steve knew how he had entirely ensnared Eddie. Had he meant to, who knows? 

To be fair, Steve was never not an attractive specimen of human. He was handsome, he always looked well put together, and he had that non-neanderthal jock build. That's why all the girls liked him. He was just the right level of threat. Big and tough enough to take charge, but capable of romantic gestures and being invited for dinner with the parents without them sending out for an exorcist.

But honestly, for most of high school, Eddie had loathed him. No, that wasn't quite right. He had a distaste for him. Steve became a bit of an asshole. He wasn't a bully as such, just like someone flipped a switch on him, and he started making snarky comments for the reactions of his friends. On top of which, he had everything Eddie wanted. He never had to 

Worry about money. He was popular. Chicks loved him and his hair, gods, what Eddie wouldn't give for a good hair day like that, just once.

But in the last couple of years, something had changed in Steve again. He wasn't so much of a prick. He worked, he was dating a lot, but nothing stuck, and he was usually ferrying around some of the hellfire kids. Knowing what he knew now about that hell dimension and all the things that Dustin had told him about what Steve had been through with them made perfect sense. He really was a good dude.

Team that with their interaction last summer and how he'd taken care of him here. How could Eddie possibly put up a fight against any of that?

Eddie leans down and retrieves the sign language book the nurse gave him from his bedside cupboard. He opens it up where he left off by finding his bookmark. Steve's riddle was still written on the mini scroll Steve had made for him last summer.

When he'd heard Steve's hearing was worse, he'd asked if Steve was learning to sign, and the nurse had advised Steve wasn't interested and said he could hear well enough. But Eddie suspected differently. 

Just as Eddie had refused a walking frame because that was his struggle, Steve thought having something to rely on would hinder him from trying harder. Eddie didn't know Steve well enough to see if he was right, but he knew that this was a perfect time for them both to learn to sign before it became necessary. 

Eddie learns the signs for eat, drink, more, please, sorry, and sleep.

A wave of guilt creeps over Eddie. He felt like he was tricking Steve. More than just about making the sign language look like it was something Eddie needed. He knew that Steve wouldn't do something just for himself, but he might do it for someone else. He might learn it for Eddie, and he had, much to Eddie's delight. It was the other thing that was a lot more selfish. Yes, it might hurt a little, but Eddie had been able to sit himself up and lie down unaided since yesterday. He'd even been able to stand up for a while in his physio session. Today he'd taken a few steps. He was absolutely desperate for his body to catch up with his brain. Let him at least be able to take himself to the bathroom when he needs to.

These injuries were so weird. Structurally there was nothing wrong with Eddie other than the surface wounds. All his muscles and bones were fine. It was almost like they were taking their time waking up. Sure he was weaker because of being out for so long, but his progress was rapid. Eddie knew that wasn't because he was some wonder kid. 

He closes his book briefly and looks over at the bathroom door. It was pretty close. He could try, but if he fell and Steve found him first, he'd know Eddie had been faking the whole needing his help thing.

Begrudgingly Eddie resolves that he will admit he can do those things just fine without Steve's help tomorrow after physio, even though he would miss having the perfect excuse for getting Steve's arms wrapped around him several times a day.

 His head swam again with what just happened, how his heart was thundering in his chest, his lips an inch from Steve's, whose eyes had been shining like distant planets in the night sky, and how he felt under Eddie's touch was incredible.  All that working out was absolutely making a difference. Eddie had no idea whether it was better or not, but it felt good. What a fucking show, every morning, right through his doorway. Jesus Christ. 

He must know, right? He must know he's putting temptation in Eddie's way. 

That one day when Eddie's at full strength, he's gonna march straight over there, pick Steve off his fucking pull-up bar and close the door behind them for good. 

That goddamn pull-up bar. Hail fucking Satan and whichever of his minions had whispered in the ear of Steve or the people that work here that day when it got installed. 

The rest of the workout was partial viewing because he used the entire room. A glimpse of push-ups, sit-ups, tricep presses, or those goddamn squats. The people of Hawkins were sure Eddie was going to Hell for a fantasy game or the music he liked, but if he was going to hell for anything, it was because of what Steve was doing to his brain daily! The way sweat made his skin shimmer in the morning light. He'd never hear It's Raining Men the same way again. God bless Robin Buckley. At first, he had cursed this tape, but now it was the soundtrack to his favourite morning TV show—callisthenics with Steve Harrington.

Eddie throws himself back onto his pillow. Was this gonna happen? Was there a deity out there that could save him from his complete mess of thoughts? Would he ever stop thinking about Steve tearing the flesh off of one of those fucking bat creatures and beating it to death like it was his own personal memory peep show? Would it never happen between them, resulting in Eddie praying for a deity to turn up and end his misery? He screws up his face in frustration. He wishes he could be more patient, his thoughts more innocent, that he hadn't started down this path of deception with Steve. Wasn't going after a guy dangerous enough? Wayne had told him to be careful, and fucking hell Eddie had tried. Eddie had willpower, but his was built for sprints of resistance, not a marathon. Enough to get him out of harm's way and live to fight another day. But when Steve was around all the time, looking like that, taking care of him, flirting with him, and saying things he always wanted to hear from someone he liked, it was challenging to keep Steve solely under the category of friend. He wanted that and then some. No. So much more. He just couldn't get enough.

Still looking up to an imaginary council of gods of all denominations and mythologies, Eddie hopes that one of them can see how very good he's been and that they might bestow him with what he craves so profoundly.

Steve must know for sure after tonight. Eddie had done everything except explicitly ask for Steve to kiss him, and he guessed he did get a kiss, just not the one he had in mind, but it felt like magic nonetheless. Eddie puts his book away again and smiles as he lays back down. He probably should be grateful he'd got this far without getting outed, ridiculed or punched in the face. He didn't have forever. He had to do something, but carefully. Even though Steve was a guy, he deserved the same respect as any girl Eddie had pursued before, the same patience, the same gentleness, the same honesty, do not be pushy. That is for scumbags, be a gentleman. Starting tomorrow, Eddie was gonna tell the truth and be the best version of himself, not to bend Steve to his will, but to see if Steve actually liked him.

The following day, when Eddie opens his eyes, his door is already open, as usual, but he can't hear any music. Was he awake before Steve called him to wake him up? Eddie tries to see through the doorway without sitting up and catches a glimpse of a Steve he hasn't seen before. Pyjama-wearing, still-yawning, shuffling like a zombie with his hands clamped around a coffee mug, Steve. His hair is sticking up in many different directions. His eyes are barely open until he notices Eddie is awake. Then they ping open, and his mouth parts a little in surprise.

One hand is quickly peeled from the warmth of the coffee mug and goes straight into his hair, combing his fingers through it. Is he preening? Hmmm.

"Er….morning Eddie, you're up early," Steve says pleasantly with a hint of awkwardness. Eddie smiles and waves back, and Steve instantly looks more relaxed, "Do you want some coffee?" He offers, but Eddie shakes his head in happy decline. "Ok, well…um, I normally have breakfast and then come to wake you up, but you're already awake, so um…do you want me to help you sit up?"

The devil on Eddie's shoulder whispers a long hissing yes in his ear, but he manages to ignore it, and with a little effort, he manages to sit himself up, then reaches for the extra pillow and puts it behind him, and gives Steve a big smile and some jazz hands. For a second, Eddie thinks he sees disappointment flash across Steve's face, but rapidly it turns to celebration, and he's dumped his coffee and is already in Eddie's room. So far, so good, Eddie thinks to himself.

"Dude, that's amazing!! Have you been practising all night?? I know it's one step at a time, but did you try anything else?" Eddie feels the eagerness to impress Steve, too tasty a morsel to swim past, and soon he's taken the bait.

He shuffles himself forward as Steve's eyes scan him in awe like some kind of church miracle or futuristic gadget, then turns, so his legs hang over the edge of the bed. He begins untangling some of his wires, and Steve is right in front of him with the same look of amazement plastered all over his face.

"Have you tried to stand?!" Steve says so excitedly he's almost shouting.

Eddie nods.

"Can you walk?" Steve blurts out a follow-up question, and Eddie sticks up three fingers. "3 whole steps???!! That's incredible!!" Eddie feels himself blush because of Steve's enthusiasm over three tiny steps.

"You wanna try again now? With me?" Steve offers exuberantly. Eddie had yet to think this far ahead and felt a little unsure. "If anything goes wrong, I'll catch you. I'm fast. I won't let you fall" bit late for that, Eddie muses to himself, "I'll call the nurse straight away, promise". 

Eddie thinks about it. Maybe Steve could help him to the bathroom, so he wouldn't have to use that awful bedpan again. Eddie signs, help me and then points to the bathroom.

Steve helps Eddie detach the many wires from himself and then steps back, giving Eddie some room, "Just let me know if you need my help", Steve says finally, "You got this"

Eddie presses his lips together, holding back the groan that threatens to escape his mouth every time he attempts to stand up. Once he's standing, he's ok pain-wise. It must be the moving of the wounded skin or scars, where most of it comes from. He takes a deep breath, and when he looks over at Steve is biting the lips of his big smile together as his eyes are focused on Eddie's legs, and a few tears fall from them. He must feel Eddie staring at him. Without looking up, he manages, "Ignore me. Just didn't know when I'd see this again, is all. It's good. You're doing great, Eddie."

Eddie isn’t sure how it's even possible, but he feels stronger than he did moments ago, but there is something else. A swirling in his wounds, like he gets when Wayne or the band hug him too hard, a sort of mini headrush that forces him to blink the light spots from his eyes. He takes a step. Not sliding his foot forward. Not a shuffle. A whole step and Eddie can’t believe it himself. He laughs loudly with excitement and clenches his fists in victory. He looks up, and Steve is still holding the same position, “You got one more in ya?”

Eddie does the same again, this one not as strong as the first and a little less balanced, and he glances back to his safe place.

“Hey!” Steve barks for Eddie’s attention, “You’re further from the bed, but you're closer to me, ok? So you’ve got nothing to be scared of. I told you, I got you, man.”

Another wave of whatever that fucking was, this time, it stings a little in his sides and chest. Eddie hisses at its intensity.

“It's just a wall. Push past it!” Steve urges him on.

Eddie looks down and takes two more steps in succession. Four, he’s done one more. He raises his eyes to look at Steve again, who is the same distance away as when they started, but Eddie is definitely further from the bed. This sonofabitch has been moving away every time he moves forward.

Eddie points at Steve in annoyance, indicating with his hands the difference in distance.

Steve raises his head and looks at him curiously, “I thought the point of this was to get to the bathroom?” A self-assured grin creeps across Steve’s face, and Eddie immediately realises what he’s implied he’s aiming for was, in fact, not the bathroom. Eddie tries to remain annoyed, but he’s pretty sure he’s blushing at the very least because parts of his face are heating up. “You wanna move the goalposts, Munson?” Steve’s hands go to his hips, his chin tips up confidently, and Eddie’s heart races like it’s trying to mosh its way out of his body in response.

Steve lifts his arms and stretches them out towards Eddie with a confident smirk, “Well? I’m waiting.” Eddie has no idea how he stays upright because he’s sure one of his knees just threatened to buckle underneath him. Jesus fucking christ. He’s gonna have to go for it, isn’t he?

Eddie puts a finger out in front of him and indicates the distance between them again.

“I won't move a muscle,” Steve says, and Eddie isn't sure if the wording was intentional, but now he had a slideshow of doorway workouts flipping through his mind and was deeply regretting saying anything. He forces Mrs O’Donnell into his mind to ensure this situation doesn't get any more embarrassing than it already is.

Eddie looks back to his legs, willing them on. The next few steps were smaller and more painful, but he was doing it. He was walking. As he looks up, he takes his last step towards Steve, whose hands grip Eddie’s shoulders in excitement for a few seconds, and then he lessens his grip but doesn't remove his hands. Instead, they stay on Eddie, making small soothing circles.

Mrs O’Donnell, Mrs O’Donnell, Mrs O’Donnell, Mrs O’Fuckin-Donnell.

Eddie exhales and raises his head to see Steve gazing at him, “You did so good, Eddie!”

Steve physically turns Eddie around, putting his hands back on Eddie’s arms, but he’s behind him now, and he leans his chin on Eddie’s shoulder, pointing back at the bed, “Look how far you’ve come” Steve says in almost a whisper in his ear.

He isn't sure if it's the achievement, the words, how they are said, who they are said by, how close they were, but he feels a surge of boldness, that stab of now or never. Eddie turns his head towards Steve. He knows it's dangerous how close their lips will be to one another, but he doesn't care. He’s tired of fighting, and his willpower is sat, on the ground,  by the side of the track, coughing its lungs out, as Eddie has gone off-roading without it.

He rasps back gently, “I wonder how much further I could go.” He waits for Steve’s eyes to meet his, and then, just like last night, there is that paused moment, precariously balanced on the edge of a samurai blade. One false move, Eddie thinks to himself, keeps incredibly still and waits for Steve to make the next move. 

And boy, does he! Not the move Eddie was expecting, but he was pretty sure he would never forget it. 

The only sounds in the room were their breathing. Steve's eyes examined Eddie’s face as his hands moved slowly, softly down his arms from where they had rested on his shoulders until they found their way around his torso, encapsulating Eddie in an embrace from behind.

“That ok?” Steve asks shakily.

Eddie nods in reply. His mind is a complete whirlwind. Wasn't he only thinking last night he should offer Steve the same respect and space that he’d shown any of his female romantic interests before, and here he is, but it's Steve using his own line on him?

“Morning Eddie, any idea where Steve is?!” The nurse chirps, and Steve immediately releases Eddie from his arms before the nurse looks their way, “Oh, there you are! You getting some more practice in, Eddie?”

Eddie takes a small step forward away from Steve and nods.

“Practising so he can get to the bathroom on his own. I think he could make it”.

The nurse looks between the bed and the bathroom. Then between the bed and where Eddie is. “Eddie, you can’t go in there by yourself, ok? You've got the pan, or you can call one of us, and we’ll help. What if you fell in there?.”

“I was here. I wouldn't have let him fall.” Steve says firmly. To Eddie’s ear, he almost sounded a little insulted.

The nurse raises his hands submissively, “Hey now, I wasn't suggesting that. I was talking about if Eddie went in there alone. Besides, we’re medical professionals, and Eddie might be embarrassed about having you in there. So leave that to us. We all want what is best for Eddie.”

Steve is moving around Eddie now. He looks annoyed, “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s my friend. He’s got no reason to feel embarrassed around me. Eddie wonders if Steve is so angry because of what just happened or that he almost got caught or something?

The nurse approaches and offers his arm to Eddie. Eddie takes it to diffuse the rapidly unfolding in here and is guided back towards his bed, “Stay here, ok buddy? I’ll be right back to do your tests” then he lets go of Eddie and starts walking out of the room. “Steve, please. Can I speak to you for a second?” He waves Steve over towards the door to the hallway

Eddie hated this. The nurse and Steve continue to bicker over what is best for him, like he wasn't there,  over something so stupid and basic as him being able to use the bathroom alone. He can hear snippets when Steve raises his voice, “Yes, he can!” “After everything, this is trivial”, but the nurse’s voice is calm and quiet. He can’t make it out. Steve seems angry they are stunting Eddie’s progress. Until the nurse finally loses his cool, “IT’S NOT NOTHING TO HIM! He can’t take it, ok? Now listen to me,” it's back to quiet again. Steve isn't raising his voice any more.

Eddie eyes the doorway to the bathroom, and with a defiant grunt, he stands up and starts walking towards it. He could show them he could do this, and maybe they wouldn't coddle him so much. He gets there just fine, locks the door behind him and manages to lower himself to sit on the toilet just fine with the assistance of the handrail. Piece of cake. He actually had no idea how fucking blissful taking a piss by himself could be. Once done, he gets up to flush and can hear Steve and the nurse calling after him, and then he can hear one of them trying the door. He shakes his head as he makes his way to the sink and unlocks it.

“Eddie, everything ok?” The nurse says, out of breath, and he almost looks a little scared, as they grab Eddie’s arms and try to pull him away from the sink and back out of the bathroom.

Eddie feels totally confused and instinctively pulls his arms away from being grabbed. 

“Why don't you come and wash your hands out here, huh?” The nurse asks, and Eddie just feels even more confused and gestures at the sink right next to him and turns on the tap. What was wrong with this guy? It's a fucking sink. What does it matter? Eddie shoos him away with his hand. 

Eddie looked around the bathroom. There were no sharp objects in here. Sure, if he slipped, it could be a nasty fall, but he hadn’t slipped, and washing his hands wasn't going to increase his chances of slipping over. Eddie continues to wash his hands. There is no extra pain when he does, so it wasn't that. They must be worried about him going home before they've had a chance to conduct all their experiments or something.

“Eddie, come on, man, just listen to the nurse, ok? I was wrong. You shouldn't be in there by yourself yet.” Now Steve’s switched teams. What the fuck was going on. Eddie looks at him in confusion.

“Eddie, please listen.” The nurse tries again, softer this time.

Eddie looks between the two of them for a clue about this madness. Then he catches a glimpse of Steve’s eyes darting in the direction of above the sink for a split second. Eddie dries his hands, raises them with a smile, and shoos them away from the door as he walks towards it to leave. They both sigh with relief, and Eddie smiles at them as he quickly slams and locks the door to rush and look into the mirror above the sink.

At first, Eddie grins at his mischief, Smiling and shaking his head with a small laugh, but his playfulness is quickly ripped out of him as he turns to focus on his reflection. Finally, he lets out an exhale of disbelief.

Hand trembling, swallowing down the lump in his throat, he reaches his hand to his face. It’s only now occurred to him this is the first time he’s looked in a mirror since he woke up, and now he can see why. He’d never thought of himself as vain before, but as his fingertips danced over the new discoloured textures of his face, he felt the sadness wash over him.

He felt he looked like a disfigured horror movie villain. So was he to lurk in the shadows forever or wear a mask to avoid scaring the beautiful?

Eddie can hear muffled voices and pounding at the door, but it's all underwater noise. Nothing is shouting so loud as the wounds on his face and the voice in his head. FREAK. 

Eddie feels his knees buckle, and he slides to the floor. His tears are on the precipice of falling, but the shock holds them back until he blinks, and they tumble out with a sob. 

This is why Steve didn't kiss him last night, because he’s a hideous monstrosity, like the fucking elephant man. Oh my god, he’d been throwing himself at poor Steve, and he’d been kind in playing along because he didn't want to be an asshole. Eddie felt so unbelievably stupid. That's why someone always stands here if they let me use the bathroom. They didn't want him to see the deep crevasses forming on his face where surface flesh no longer existed, almost talking up a third of his face.

Why had no one told him? Surely the sooner to know, the better? Steve saw him every day, as did his Uncle. Not even Uncle Wayne thought to mention his face was destroyed? The band hadn't. None of the kids did. No one. What were they just hoping he’d never look in a mirror again for the rest of his life? Were they gonna push him out of the way of every reflective surface forever? What were they thinking? Why would they hide this from him? WHY?!

Eddie gets back to his feet and glances at the scarred side of his face. FREAK, he hears in his mind again. He roughly wipes the tears from his face and opens the door to Steve and the nurse, looking at him wide-eyed with bated breath.

Eddies top lip curls into a snarl as he says through gritted teeth lowly, “Get. Out.”

They both try to open their mouths to speak, and Eddie clenches his fists and feels the rage of betrayal drown him completely. “I said get out!” He says louder.

They try again, hands reaching for him this time. Eddie pulls himself away from them sharply, and the match of pain drops gently into the lake of Eddie’s gasoline-filled lake of a temper. “GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!” Eddie screams at them over and over again. The insides of his throat feel like they are being torn to shreds.

“Eddie, please calm down. I really need you to calm down. It will alert other people in here if you don't calm down, ok?” The nurse backs away from the door and into Eddie's room, hands out in front of him.

“CALM DOWN?! WHY SHOULD I FUCKING CALM DOWN?! YOU ASSHOLES AND ALL THE OTHER ASSHOLES THAT HAVE SEEN ME SAID NOTHING! NOT A THING” he notices Steve look away when he says that.

“Oh, that's right. You don't have to pretend anymore, pretty boy. Now I know I’m hard to look at. You don't have to, right? So you can stop your little secret meetings about how I look..” Eddie sneers at Steve.

Steve looks at Eddie, eyes full of hurt, but he deserves it. Eddie needed him to hurt, just like him. “It's not like that, Eddie, honestly! I swear! No one said anything because no one cared about it.”

“Oh, stop lying!!” Eddie’s words are doused in spite as he narrows his eyes at Steve, “That’s why they come in here to me and then trot on over to you, isn’t it? So you can have your fucking secret gossip session about the Phantom of the fucking opera across the way from you.” Eddie wraps an arm around himself for comfort, his other arm pointing accusingly at Steve, “And I don’t give a shit what you and all the other judas’ care about. I CARE ABOUT IT! I DO! And if this”, he strides up to Steve, so he’s inches away from him, face contorted in a fury, pointing at his scarred face with venom, “happened to you, you’d fucking care about it too! You fucking asshole! Now get the fuck out of my room, both of you!!”

Steve looks into his eyes, moving from one to the other. Eddie just knows he’s trying to pull that false crap again on him, “Please-” Steve starts, and Eddie cuts him off with a yell.

“NOW!”

Steve’s head drops, and he walks out of the room. Eddie walks to his bed and picks up his sign language book, “Probably won't be needing this shit anymore!” and turns his flaming glare to the nurse, thrusting the book towards them. “Get someone else. I don't wanna see your fucking face right now!” They take the book and leave, Eddie tries to slam the door after them, but it got one of those things at the top that stops it from shutting suddenly.

Eddie wants to put his fist through it, but it wouldn't change anything. 

He walks back to his bed and hides himself and his sobs under the covers.

[isawken]

thing that keeps me up at night #44

neanderthals existed from about 130,000 to 40,000 years ago

homo sapiens have existed for 3000,000 years

that's 90k years of potential intermingling

that's almost an entire third of our existence, another species running parallel to us. but what were the differences? how different were their faces? their language? i was reading something that said they had less sophisticated language capabilities than us. when we interacted with them, what was it like? were our languages similar enough to get by? or as foreign as english and sumerian? the first evidence of the written word we have is from 3400 BCE. as we all know, that doesn't mean that's the first time we wrote anything down. it's just the first time we wrote something down on a tablet that survived for 5k years. the same is true for other arts. we have cave paintings as old as 45k years. that doesn't mean that's the first art ever. just the first that lasted so long.

did homo sapiens and neanderthals ever fall in love?

did they ever sit in a cave together, painting bulls and elk on the walls? did they tell each other stories? could they?

did a homo sapien and a human ever hold hands? did a homo sapien ever see a neanderthal from across the river and feel their heart thump in their chest? did a neanderthal ever caress the face of a homo sapien? did they ever look in each other's eyes and smile?

did love exist back then like it does now? when was the first time one human looked at another and thought,

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and only you."

we'll never know! and it fucking kills me.

we can trace language and history and biology so far back, hundreds of thousands and millions and billions of years. we know what beings 65 millions years ago looked like. we can guess when the fucking universe started.

but we can't know when the first human loved another.

i know this is saccharine and cheesy and corny but it really does keep me up at night. the indefinable aspects that make up the core human experience. how inherently unknowable they are. how inextricable they are. we can never know how our ancestors loved. but, at the end of the day, i also know that doesn't really matter, because we love how we love now, and that's more than enough.

still.

wouldn't it be nice to know where it came from?

[multiversal-madness]

Night at the Museum Wing Au

…With a twist.

Okay so I’ve been obsessed with NatM over the past few weeks and I’ve been having thoughts, so Wing Au!

First, some world building:

In this au, wings started appearing around 1900. Those born in and later than 1900 have wings while some born 1890 to 1900 might have wings. In the current era, all humans have wings. Your wings’ colour and shape are generally genetic and look like any other bird’s wings with the exception of more colour combinations. However, sometimes wings can change colours.

This happens when the person does something significant, like something very good or very bad or just rather very, or if they interact with some magic/cursed item. You can end up with a highlight or different coloured tips or anything really.

Now for the NatM part:

Larry’s wings are black and navy at first, then they get gold tips when he fully becomes the night guard (from the tablet). Nick also has dark wings, though he has the addition of red as well as navy.

The thing is though, none of the exhibits have wings (to my knowledge, feel free to correct me) Everyone was modelled without wings because in their era, they were born without them. Most of them (aka everyone except Ahkmenrah, who hasn’t been out of his sarcophagus in a while) are aware of wings.

Some are fascinated by wings, some are indifferent, some are so annoyed that they don’t get wings and want a pair of their own. They all struggle with wing body language though, since the only exposure they’ve had to it is the three night guards before Larry that would lock them away at night.

Now for some random info:

A few exhibits like Ahkmenrah, Atilla and the Neanderthals are all fascinated by the wings, Larry can easily entertain/distract them by performing the same movements he did for Nick when he was younger (parents ‘dance’ with their wings for their children to amuse/teach them)

Teddy is indifferent to the wings, if not slightly interested. To him, a person is a person, wings or not

Jedadiah wants wings so bad and he’s very annoyed that he was so close to the needed date to have them but missed it

Children will normally hide under their parent’s wings like how baby birds will hide under their parents wings. Larry has had almost every exhibit that can fit hide under his wings at one point or another. The Huns and the civil war guys tried to all fit at once (the two groups separately) but it didn’t quite work out and they had to take turns

Wings definitely make the job easier, since he uses them to easily entertain the exhibits and get around over large crowds

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “An Analysis of Humans.”

Guess my brain wanted to write a partial scholarly paper today, so I guess this is what we got. Added in text sources to make it seem more legit. Lol

An Aggregated Summary of Human and Alien Comparisons

By Dr. Krill, Dr. Katie Quinn, and Dr. Adric Dracondi 

It has long been known, since humans were first introduced onto the galactic stage, that humans are, arguably, the most powerful sentient alien species in the known universe.  These are not simply popular conjectures by nonscientific minds, but the scientific community itself has conducted multiple studies regarding the adaptability and prowess of the human in comparison to other species. Many of these studies have examined, intelligence, hunting prowess, strength, and adaptability as their primary focus, (Diss, A., Wallin, G., and Millard; Wix and Veen). Based on these prior studies, this paper will attempt to summarize the overall strength of a human based on their homeworld evolution, comparison to other species, and their technological interplay.

Humans have existed on their home planet of earth for roughly 200,000 years. In comparison to other alien species, they are rather young, and still within the historical memory of the Rundi, who have existed through two major technology jumps, leaving much of their older historical records lost to time (Keple, J., et, all). Humanity began its life in the Miocene Epoch climbing through trees in the African savanna using both their feet and hands as tools for climbing. During this time they developed the ability to stand upright in order to use their hands for foraging. This gave them an increased ability to forage, and allowed them to share their food between pack members creating, what we now understand to be, the human’s social bonds (Keller, A., Winzer, C, V., and Pellar, Q). Of course, this wasn’t the only reason for human’s increased social bonds. Sometime during this period, the African Savanna went through a period of natural deforestation, reducing the number of trees humans could climb. For this reason, they were forced to turn to the ground where larger predators lurked (Huntsman, J,. Et. Al). At this point in time humans did not have many advantages against large predators, and even as of now, an unarmed human against most mid sized predators is going to lose. Compared to their own planetary predators, humans are not very fast, not very strong and not particularly dangerous when viewed alone. However, one of the human’s greatest advantages was originally their pack sizes encouraging cooperation among members to both protect each other and watch for predators. Predators would be much less likely to hunt a human in a large pack, sut as they are less likely to hunt other animals if they are in large groups preferring to attack those who are alone, weak or sick (Keller, A., Winzer, C, V., and Pellar, Q). 

Why then, were humans able to survive at all as they have some serious strategic disadvantages. Humans are slow, have no trees to climb, poor smell , arguably por hearing, and dismal strength in comparison to savannah predators. Furthermore, the transition into humans walking upright caused the narrowing of the pelvic bone, which would become an issue as humans continued to evolve. The answer to this question comes with later iterations of the evolved humans. After thor descent from the trees, humans gained a few important abilities: first of all they lost all of their fur giving them the ability to sweat, their legs were lengthened and their arms were shortened giving them a superior sense of balance for throwing, and their cranial size increased giving them the ability to use and create tools for cracking bone which would aid them in foraging: the increased brain size would later give them the unique ability to speak. These two distinctions being important precursors for sentient life (Wheeler., R, Winter, F., And Nix., L). 

The human ability to sweat, coupled with their upright walk gave humans the natural ability to run while carrying tools, such as spears and weapons. Early humans evolved for running long distances. The arches of their feet act as springs which depress and spring back as they run. Tendons in the back of the ankle do the same, while powerful muscles in their lower backs and butts keep them standing upright and provide power. Humans keep their balance using muscles in their shoulders, and the swinging of their arms gives extra momentum and balance. The head is held in place by special tendons on the sides of their necks, while their eyes and brains correct for the bouncing of their gait. Furthermore, while other animals require panting and shade to cool off, human sweat rolls into the skin and then evaporates, cooling them off as they move. In this way , humans are superior at long distance running and often used pursuit predation to run their prey to death before spearing them with tools they made (Dillinger, F., and Walker, P). While many animals on their planet are capable of throwing, humanity’s long legs and short arms gives them the superior balance required to throw hard without losing their balance giving them the advantage of long distance weapons. Coupled with tool making,, humans did not have to directly interact with much of the prey they were hunting.

During this time humans grew more socialized and pack oriented  As their brains got bigger, childbirth became more dangerous, and their offspring were forced to be born earlier and more underdeveloped than ever before. Packs grew in size as did family groups. Their ability to speak was probably one of their greatest accomplishments, though ironically, the drop of their larynx into their neck, which supported the transition to speaking, also made them more prone to choking (Huntsman, J,. Et. Al). As the climate on earth gradually began to change, humans moved north using their tools and abilities to survive in colder and colder climates. Different iterations of humanity formed, the Neanderthals VS the Sapiens for a time before the Neanderthals eventually merged with the Sapiens or died out. Humans gained the ability to bond with other animals -- a trick which only the Rundi have separately managed. In turn this sparked the rapid evolution of technology which eventually led them to space travel.

Humans may appear impressive to most outside alien species, but on their planet, domination came about only because of luck, and adaptability. Their evolution to walking on two feet was the catalyst for them being smart enough to out maneuver heavier and more dangerous species.

Now as we examine sentient species today, we can examine a few commonalities between the groups. The first being the ability to speak. No sentient species has evolved without some sort of communicatory language. The starborn can speak telepathically, and most other species vocally.  The lumens and the Mikes also communicate based on light frequencies, though these are still translatable into structural sentences if one knows what they are doing. Even the Adaptids have a very base and rudimentary speech which requires the use of smell (Krill, 4020).  Another common trait is hands or other limbs used for the manipulation of objects. While some aliens also developed the ability to stand upright on two legs: Drev, Tvek, Finnari, Gnark,lak, some retain that ability only partially: Rundi, Kree, while the vast majority require at least three or more limbs to stay upright using tails to balance or adding extra legs for stability: Tesraki, Vrul, Iotins Burg etc..Regardless of walking upright all of these creatures have the ability to manipulate objects to use tools.

The question now remains. Where do humans and other aliens stack up? The answer seems clear in that humans are not powerful because of their dominance in one specific area, but because humans are generalists where others are specialists. There is a human saying that goes along well with this research. Jack of all trades, the master of none, but better than the master of one. A general knowledge of everything seems to be the precursor for being the best survivalists. Let us examine intelligence first, as we know Rundi, Tesraki, burg and Drev are comparable to humans, which are all well behind Vrul and Gibb in average intelligence, though intelligence is one of the more difficult factors as intelligence is an important prerequisite to space travel (Kisk., Gana., Fuller., and Millward).  Humans are not the fastest, that goes to the Rundi, though they are the second fastest, and can arguably outdistance a Rundi in a footrace. Human hearing isn’t as good as a Tesraki, but better than most others just as their eyesight isn’t nearly as good as a Drev, but still much more powerful than others. Drev also take the main spot as being one of the strongest with humans closely behind. Smell is a relatively rare ability among nonhuman species, though the Drev have it to some degree. The Adaptids are known for their superior smelling ability, though it is arguable if they count as sentient just yet. Starborn can survive in space, which is an ability that no other nonhuman species has, accept for humans who can survive for about 15 seconds in the vacuum of space with damage: the only known case of this being of course Admiral Vir, who is as of now, the only human to have attempted this maneuver at all.

The argument we make here is not based primarily on human abilities, which seem second to all, but based primarily about how these interacted with their technological advances. Humans are the youngest species EVER to reach space, and that includes the Drev. In fact most humans still possess instincts which are often lacking in older sentient species, replaced by thought and logic. A human is still said to be able to sense danger before it comes, and can read body language better than any other sentient species currently known, which has much to do with the juvenile nature of their species. Furthermore, human durability is one of the greatest factors. 

The average human can stand about 5gs of force without passing out while trained humans can reach up to sustained 12gs. Most alien species on the other hand had to find ways to keep their craft below 4gs at all times in order to avoid passing out. Nonhumans spent much longer developing their technology before reaching space, while humans were busy strapping rockets to tin cans. A similar situation can be noted with the Drev, who can sustain 7 to 8gs if trained. Both of their species were allowed to leave their planet before fully developing out of their more primitive natures, as was common with other nonhuman or Drev species. In general, human and Drev durability have allowed them to operate machinery which would be too dangerous for other species, giving them a time advantage in the race to the stars.

At this point one might wonder if Drev are comparable to humans, after all Drev are stronger, more durable and just as intelligent as humans. This is true of course, but humans do have some strategic advantages, long distance running ability, pack bonding, and superior technology development, which might have been negated if it weren’t for the Drev religion which calls into question the nature of technology as dishonorable. Furthermore, though they can distinguish less colors than Drev, human sense of smell and hearing is stronger, giving them a distinct battlefield advantage in at least once sense as they are able to pinpoint the direction and height of sounds where Drev have trouble.

A discussion about the abilities of humans can go on all day, though the conclusion scientists have agreed upon focuses primarily on human adaptability and generalization skills as the primary function of their abilities, and seeming power over other species. It seems good then that human pack bonding instincts easly travels across species making them relatively easy to make alliances with compared to some other, more stubborn species. 

[cadmar]

The Memory Pill

Riches and successes come our way from the level of our mastery of our memory process.  This is so obvious in the academic world that at a young age entering kindergarten the child who can recite from memory gets promoted to the next grade.  We happily take this memory pill without understanding and realising what is being neglected and discarded.

Memory is a system.  Taking the memory pill is that we are held captive within this system.  But, how did this system ever come about?

From the brain’s point of view, in the molecular world, one cell does not sense, nor interact with all the cells in the body, only its neighbours.  This is the same with each neuron.  The neuron exchange chemical signals  to its neighbour and does not sense, nor interact with the entire brain, not even its neural network that it is a part of.

The sensory signals excite a neuron in which the signal is passed along, or is stopped with that one neuron.  The neuron does not sense, nor interact with the memory that it has created, or reactivated. It is ignorant to what is going on.  Like a runner who is ignorant to the race and competition that is going on and only senses and interacts in a relay race by just passing on the baton to the next runner, or happens to be the last runner reaching the finishing line.  Totally oblivious to what is actually happening, only to the immediate and direct sensation that the individual experiences.

No self-cognitive memory is created.  Only humans (Neanderthals, Denisovans, etc,) seem to be the only animal that has a self-memory.  What about all the animals that communicate with each other, such as whales, dolphins, gorillas, monkeys, and so on?  When we see a strong storm wind blowing the branches of a tree and the tree responds (grows stronger), do we call that communication?  The tree reacts to the physical stimulus.  Evolution is all about this: physical organisms reacting to its physical environment.  There is no self-awareness to what is going on in which a life form senses  the entirety.

When animals communicate, their interactions are on the same level as the wind against a tree.  In the physical world, there is no need for any “higher cognitive” to “understand” what is going on.  It works perfectly without the need for any higher “intelligence” and “self-awareness”.

So, humans have physically evolved naturally for this advantage?  This advantage is our self-cognitive memory process.  It is found in a certain physical region of our brain.  Again, there is no evolutionary pressure for this to occur.

So, where and what started this memory self-cognitive process which we loosely call our consciousness, our mind, our soul, and our higher intelligence? 

[inthiswhisper]

on dean’s perception of cas’s feelings in 7x21.

hello, it only felt natural to analyze 7x21 with 6x20 in mind because both were written / directed by ben edlund and i haven’t known peace since this man entered my life.

what’s been eating away at me from 6x20 is this exchange—

dean: cas, we can fix this.

cas: dean, it’s not broken.

—after dean realized cas betrayed him. obviously, dean was giving cas a chance to correct his mistake despite cas not seeing it as a mistake. however, “broken” indicated cas wasn’t just talking about the situation. he was speaking about himself — an angel’s operating system, loyalty to heaven, and obligation to prioritize it. none of that was “broken” to cas because it was ingrained in him.

so, when dean gave him another opportunity to change his mind—

cas: you’re the one who taught me that freedom and free will—

dean: just because you can do what you want doesn’t mean that you get to do whatever you want.

cas: i know what i'm doing, dean.

dean: i'm not gonna logic you, okay? i'm asking you not to. that's it.

cas: i don’t understand.

dean: next to sam, you and bobby are the closest things i have to family, so if i am asking you not to do something, you gotta trust me.

cas: or what? you can’t [stop me], dean. you’re just a man. i’m an angel. 

—dean tried to appeal to cas’s emotions. cas was moved, but he favored his own plan again. dean wanted to believe cas was more human than angel, like anna. but he’s not human, he’s meant to be a machine, which fate basically calls cas in 6x17 — a war machine. angels are preoccupied by the bigger picture, even if they’ve rebelled, like anna again when she tried to kill sam. cas was aware of “family” and “love” — he even said so — but the nuances of love didn’t affect him like dean. cas couldn’t yet choose family over duty. embracing free will through dean was easy because defeating fate aligned with his mission. he just happened to stumble upon friendship / family along the way. so, regardless, the mission overrode his humanity. cas wanted to choose dean, but he knew he should protect heaven.

this brings me to cas’s behavior throughout 7x21. three separate bits of dialogue stand out to me—

cas: we weren’t sure at first which monkeys were gonna make it. i was backing the neanderthals, but in the end, it was you – the homo sapiens sapiens.

-

cas: we were assigned to watch the earth. often, it was boring.

-

sam: you’re in our corner, right, cas?

cas: no, i don’t fight anymore. i watch the bees.

—and they touch on cas’s original relationship with humanity. he never interfered, only looked from the outside at the Great Plan / Natural Order run its course. it wasn’t until cas saved dean that he even entertained his doubts—

hester: the very touch of you corrupts. when castiel first laid a hand on you in hell, he was lost.

—because that’s when the first domino fell. that’s when he truly bonded with humanity. i don’t believe the “corruption” line refers to queerness, by the way. i think it simply means dean convinced cas to continue doubting. he kept caring, because of dean, which to angels meant having a “broken” system. dean was the reason cas fell—

hester: you have fallen in every way imaginable.

—as an angel against god’s mission, and then just happened to fall in love with him too. but the issue in 7x21 is the default setting angels have. anna got punished for straying, cas himself got reprimanded, and hester even uses cas’s pursuit of free will to mock him—

hester: you wanted free will. now i’m making the choices.

—by almost destroying him. (side note: the beauty in that moment is a demon saving an angel, which was clearly unnatural and leaned heavily into going against the natural order.)

so, when sam and cas have this interaction—

sam: it says we need to start with the blood of a fallen angel.

cas: well, you know me. i’m always happy to bleed for the winchesters.

—cas is referring to the consequences of choosing free will because of them and the first time cas truly rebelled, using his own blood to create the sigil and help them stop zachariah.

but cas bleeding for them again doesn’t change the fact that, like in 6x20 when his default was to protect heaven, cas’s default in 7x21 was originally to regress and not interfere. dean’s issue is that, either way, cas has a non-human default he falls back on. an “operating system” dean wishes was more human than angel.

it was clear earlier, during a game of sorry!, when cas believed consequences of messing with the natural order could not be escaped. death warned dean about this and dean even believed in it before getting cas back. now that cas was back, dean believed in him and wanted cas to help correct his mistakes—

dean: i want you to button up your coat and help us take down leviathans. 

cas: i’m sorry, i think you have to go back to [the] start [of the game].

dean: this is important. i think metatron could stop a lot of bad.

cas: we live in a “sorry” universe. it’s engineered to create conflict. why should i prosper from your misfortune? but these are the rules. i didn’t make ‘em.

dean: you made some of them — when you tried to become god.

—but dean had to fight for cas to do it here as much as he did in 6x20. cas either believed in doing the most (godstiel) or playing by the rules of the game (as angels should), where actions had consequences. he tried to fix problems as god, but was guilt-ridden when he learned about the people he hurt. dean could only throw the entire sorry! board game away—

dean: forget the game, cas.

cas: i’m sorry, dean.

dean: no. you’re playing sorry.

—and beg cas to feel instead of fall into a routine of apology or non-interference with no real resolution. cas wouldn’t, so—

dean: the angels — they don’t care. i think maybe they just don’t have the equipment to care. seems like when they try, it just... breaks them apart.

—dean was later convinced (and continues to be convinced) that no matter how hard he tried to humanize cas, the result would not be what dean wanted. despite what was said in 4x10—

dean: you’re some heartless sons of bitches, you know that?

cas: as a matter of fact, we are.

—the capacity to love and experience emotion is there, but too much will ultimately destroy him. even during this exchange, cas implied to sam—

cas: what do you mean “better”?

—that there was nothing broken to fix, or to make better. guilt over what cas did was so overwhelming that sam’s trauma from hell alleviated his pain. in cas’s eyes, to “fix” him would be to “break” him again. obviously he’ll get better, but i’m interested in how this push and pull continues regarding dean’s struggle with cas’s humanization, or lack there of.

i’ve heard jensen say in panels and interviews that dean believes the way cas understands human emotion is different than how dean does. i see why he believes that, but i also think it’s less about “having the equipment” and more about cas learning to feel without self-destructing, like how dean has self-destructive habits as a result of feeling his own emotions.

externally fighting fate with free will is deeply embedded in them and it’s easy for both to do because they’re soldiers. when push comes to shove, they can take it. now, they’re learning something harder — to internally fight. to overcome the instinct to suppress or cast aside feelings by opening up to another form of free will, love, without a fear of consequence. like i said, cas didn’t see dean as family on purpose — he, like dean, saw hope and followed it, then happened to stumble upon something more. i think they’re both navigating what that means and pushing the other to continue fighting for the external, but coming to terms with the internal. it’s only when they lose each other that either man begins to unravel, regress, and / or lose his way, so their fight is as much about each other as it is about heaven / the world. the latter is simply chosen out of instinct, duty, or as a mask for the former — what they really want. what neither thinks they can have.

[redhawtriot]

kiri n the reader have a platonic relationship, but every once in a while they'll get together in secret n watch movies together? its their little thing, bcuz when they watch romcoms (which is smn i definitely see kiri secretly liking) they both get a bit sappy during it n only trust each other to be that emotionally vulnerable around? kiri doesn't want to look weak n the reader is usually reserved they both feel comfortable ugly sobbing n huggin it out together b4 swearing not to tell a soul

Tip Jar ☕- Not expected but always appreciated💞

This was so much fun to write😂 I added a lil twist and made the reader BAKUGOU’s TWIN SISTER!!

I feel like you probably wanted this to be really cute, but I don’t think I translated into that well…. 😅 but I really I laughed a lot though, so I hope you enjoy it half as much as I did! ❤️

Thanks for the great request!

HnM💕

Tectonic Plates and Platonic Dates.  (Kirishima x Reader (friendship))

You could honestly never get over how absolutely pathetic you probably looked as you sat a sobbing, wet mess in Kirishima’s bed. 

The two of you had seen your fair share of these kinds of things since your friendship began not too long ago; however, no matter how many times you witnessed it, it would still bring tears to your eyes when the girl towards the end of a rom/com would almost loose hope in her significant other, just to be swept off her feet in the end. 

Like, how many goddamn fight scenes and heartbreak soundtracks would it take before you had a heart of steel? The world may just find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop first. 

“Sally totally deserves better than this man, but I want them to find happiness so bad, bro,” Kiri whispered as he scooted closer to you in his bed to hand you a tissue, “Why did he give me such a tough ultimatum? Not manly at all, dude,” he finished as he shook his head and solemnly retreated deeper into his covers for comfort.

“Yeah, fuck Harry for making my eyes hurt,” you quietly replied with a choked sob before blowing your nose into the towel. 

God, if only Bakugou could see you now. How would your brother think of you, his tough-as-nails, older twin– reduced to a ball of tears next to his best friend by corny cinematography. 

Damn good corny cinematography. 

But that’s beside the point. Damn good or not, it was absolutely dire that the two of you kept your scandalous rom/com meetings a secret. Kirishima being the human embodiment of manliness would never dare bruise his masculinity by watching the “About Time”, and the mature, big sister of the all-mighty Bakugou twins would never forsake feminist movements of the last 70 years and watch crap like “Hitch” or “Love Actually.”

So why did you two have to catch each other at the premier of Mama Mia 2 a few months ago?

Little did you know that that day would only be the beginning to many secret meetings between you two closeted cornballs. What had started out as an accidental (and awkward) interaction at the movie theaters turned out to birth a series of the most classified operational meetings of the century. 

A secret tradition that was about to bust wide the fuck open.

Both you and Kirishima nearly jumped out of your skin as three loud knocks were heard at the door, 

“Kirishima, bro, I know you’re up!” Kaminari’s voice sounded on the other side of the door,  “Nobody, goes to sleep this early on a Friday night unless you’re Bakugou. You gotta look at this tiktok Sero and I just made!”

You immediately threw the laptop off of your lap and jumped out of the bed. You threw a frantic glance at the door and your heart dropped even further when you noticed that it was unlocked.

You two had been so damn discreet— you had staggered your departures from the common area, you alternated rooms frequently, you made sure that you both had palpable alibis for your absences.

All that work, and you were about to be foiled because you forgot to lock the damn door. 

“Bro, Iida walked in the middle of it!” Kaminari continued with a laugh before you heard the door knob shift.

Your heart violently thudded against your chest as the metal knob began to turn. You painfully whipped your head back to Kirishima, before spastically grabbing him and desperately throwing him off of the bed toward the door, “Do something!” you harshly whispered as you threw him a pleading glance.

“I- uh… NO!” Kirishima yelled toward the door, halting the movement on the other side. His eyes darted between you and the knob, “DON’T COME IN I’M…” the boy’s eyebrows rose to the top of his forehead as he tried to find his next words, “… Naked?” his voice trailed off in a high pitch and his shoulders came up for a shrug as he searched your expression for approval. 

He found nothing of the sort.

“Oh my fucking God,” you quietly exclaimed as you threw your hand to your forehead with a loud smack. 

“Wait, was that… Y/N’s voice?” Kaminari quietly questioned to himself on the other side of the door. Your soul just about escaped from your being as those words reached you. 

Oh, my god. There is no god. 

You snapped yourself from the utter horror of the situation and snatched your soul from its attempted escape before storming up to the door– lightly swatting Kirishima on the back of his hard head as you passed him, “No one is naked, Kaminari!” you whispered as you swung the door wide open to reveal to room’s contents. Kirishima nervously waved to the flabbergasted Kaminari with a slight chuckle from the ground where you had thrown him, “Take a look for yourself,” you gestured behind you with your lips awkwardly pressed against each other.

Kaminari reluctantly waved back to Kiri before his eyes settled onto your face. He stared at you for a moment with his head tilted, as if he were intrigued be something. Right when you were about to open your mouth and ask, “What?” he spoke up again,

“Are you okay, Y/N? Your face is really flushed and your eyes are red,” your mouth fumbled over itself as you tried to find an explanation, but suddenly, Kaminari got a look in his eye. The blond practically giggled to himself as his mouth tilted up into a mischievous smirk, “Just what were you two kids doing in there? huh, Y/N?” he said a bit too loudly, igniting your jaw to fly wide open,

“No, no, no! Denki!”You composed yourself almost instantaneously as you heard rustling from the room next to Kirishima’s. You waved your hands frantically in front of the blond in front of you. You tried to hush him as he continued, “Shhhhh! No!” you pleaded in a whisper as your face shriveled in terror.

He continued regardless of your impending doom, “Was I interrupting something, Kirishima?” He wiggled his eyebrows as he called out passed your distressed form and toward the redhead who was just then beginning to stand to his feet, “Does Bakubro know about you and his sister?” You could have killed his wanna-be Pikachu headass right then and there,

“Be quiet you idiot! He’s gonna hear y–”

Your words were interrupted as the door next to Kirishima’s violently swung open and banged harshly against the wall, “THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY ABOUT MY SISTER?!”

Your hands moved to rub your temples in preparation for the oncoming headache that was heading your way as your twin brother furiously marched out of his room. 

As soon as you made contact with your brother’s familiar fiery eyes, your entire body tensed up as if to prepare for fight or flight. You never stood down from an altercation with your little brother, but in this moment as you watched disgust and horror flash across his expression at the idea of you and his best friend sneaking around, you wanted nothing more than to shrivel into nothingness in the corner of the room like a dead spider. 

So yeah, it seemed as if flight might just be the best option. 

Your twin seemed to be at a loss for words as he tried to absorb the scene in front of him, but he quickly snapped out of his trance and re-immersed himself in his usual rage, “What the hell is going on here, shitty hair?!” he growled as he stormed up to Kirishima and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. 

“You fucking neanderthal, get the hell off of him!” you squeaked as you tried to peel Bakugou off of poor Kirishima. 

“Bakugou, man, it’s not what it looks like,” Kiri nervously laughed as you continued to futility attempt to free him from your brothers clutches. 

Kaminari could be heard laughing in the background off all of this madness, “Oh yeah,” he mused, “because by the looks of that messed up bed, it looked like you were getting all cuddly and snugly with Y/N.”

“WHAT?!” Bakugou screeched, causing Kirishima’s ears to slightly rattle.A guttural growl tore it’s way from his throat as his grips on Kirishima’s collar became tighter and he began violently shaking the boy– a steady stream of curses and death threats flooding out of him as he did so. 

Bakugou was straight up about to shake the last three brain cells that he had right out of his skull, “BAKUGOU CUT IT OUT RIGHT NOW!” You screeched as your face began tingling, “I AM ABOUT 3 SECONDS AWAY FROM KICKING YOUR ASS!”

Kaminari pracctically fell to the ground in laugher, only pausing when you threw him a very heated glare, “Don’t you laugh! You’re gonna catch these fists too, assdick!” Kaminari’s fits of laughter only intensified with your words.

Ass dick. What the fuck did you just say….?

Things literally couldn’t get any worse.

“What going on?” Sero’s approaching voice sounded from down the hall, “What’s with all of the commotion?”

Fucking great.

“None of your damned business!” both you and Bakugou sounded simultaneously- his being much more aggressive than your own. 

“Kirishima and Y/N were having a moment,” Kaminari gave a half-assed whisper to Sero.

“Kiri, you sly dog,” the second half to the same idiot replied causing Bakugou to shake the Kiri even harder. 

“I swear it’s not like that at all, you guys! Honestly!” Kirshima blurted out, gaining a glare from Bakugou as he quit shaking him– a sign to continue speaking and explain himself, 

“Y/N and I were just chilling out. I guess it’s kinda ridiculous that we have hid this for so long but…” he anxiously scratched the back of his neck.

Oh god, you were about to be outted. Revealed. Exposed. Fuck, you weren’t ready for this. There were still so many good movies out there to watch, but you would never get the chance to do so with your twerp of a brother breathing down your neck— ridiculing you for being such a sissy.

Kirishima what the hell are you doing?! They can’t handle the truth!

You stared at Kiri with wide eyes as he continued with a goofy smile plastered onto his face, “We have this… thing where we meet up and watch–”

“PORN.” you blurted out without thinking. As soon as the words flew of your mouth you could feel your face become red-hot with embarrassment.

Kirishima’s face heated up as well as he struggled to find words, “…what…?”

“what?!” Kaminari and Sero simultaneously cried out.

“hWHAT?!!” an unholy screech erupted from Bakugou’s throat as he disgustedly snatched himself away from Kirishima. 

You were so embarrased that you didnt even notice your face was literally burning up as smoke began to steam from your cheeks. It seemed as of the five of you gawked at each other for years before a sudden shift within your skin clicked in place and a loud explosion enveloped the room as you literally blew your top. 

Your quirk was similar to your brothers, except you couldn’t control your oxidation as spontaneously as Bakugou could, and you could also oxidize sweat from anywhere on your body. This meant that you were basically the human equivalent of a match wherever you rubbed your skin. 

It also meant that when you got extremely flustered or overwhelmed, sometimes your quirk would activate, much like Bakugou’s, and oxidize the massive amount of facial sweat you tended to grossly compile in anxious moments and effectively explode your own fucking head.

The four men stared in shock as the smoke cleared from your skull, revealing your seriously pissed off face “GET. THE FUCK. OUUUT!!” you growled wildly. 

The three stooges looked at your enraged being in terror as your brother just scoffed and sent you a irritated glance. You just wanted to wipe the stupid look off his bratty little face, “ALL OF YOU!” you commanded as you violently shoved Bakugou out of the room onto his butt.

“WHAT THE FUCK,” he screeched.

“Yes, ma’am.” dumb, dumber and dumbest all three replied as they tried to hurriedly flee away from the crime scene. 

You quickly grabbed dumber by the arm, “Not you, Kirishima,” you groaned in annoyance before swiftly yanking the boy back into the room and closing the door to lock it. Bakugou barely missed catching the door.

“Y/N!!! FUCKING LET ME IN!” Bakugou snarled as he banged against the door, “NOW! you idiot! I’ll blast this door straight to hell! Shitty hair, if you wanna keep this door I suggest you let me in right the FUCK now! Don’t you touch my shitty sister!”

You ignored all of his psychotic rantings as you tried to find the comfortable position that you had been in in bed before shit had hit the fan. You calmly opened the laptop up and pressed play on the movie.

Kirishima whippped his head back and forth from you calmly on the bed to the raging shadow of a wild creature just under his door, “Are you… sure this is okay? I don’t think that door will hold much longer,” he couldn’t help but smile a little at the ridiculousness of the situation.

“Good thing the movie only has 10 minutes left,” you tried to shrug off the embarrassment and return to the bliss of rom/com, “Now. I am gonna finish the damn thing. If you wanna leave be my guest.”

Kirishima gave one last glance toward the booming door before walking over to settle down into the bed next to you, “I think I’ll stay here,” he laughed.

“Good choice,” you replied as you looked up to him with a smile.

And you finished the movie even with your feral twin brother making furious, animal-like noises just on the other side of the door. 

[voluptuarian]

Things I want to drum into my students when I finally start teaching

Chinese Dynasties (general familiarity)

Wild migrations of esp. early and prehistoric humans (i.e. the people living here now aren’t always who started out living here)

The existence of Bronze Age and Archaic Greece

The positive effects of humanity’s interactions with nature (i.e. pretty much nothing you eat or consume would be here without it)

Accurate depictions of early human history and pre-agricultural culture (i.e. no dominate carnivore Neanderthal alpha-male rhetoric)

Difference between Baroque/Rococo/Victorian/Renaissance art/fashion (which I shouldn’t have to be teaching, but hey)

The existence of Latins, Etruscans, etc.

Pre-Columbian history of the Americas (esp. South and Central America)

Introduce the concept of regions pre-cultural unification (i.e. Africa did not see itself as a monolith, Germany was not “Germany” until the 1870s, etc.)

Indo-European culture and spread

Understanding of how Empires work

The EXTREME interconnectedness of pre-Ottoman Europe and Asia

The Byzantine Empire

Basics of pre-colonial African history (i.e. have some ideas what cultures/countries are where, name a powerful culture that’s not Egypt, understand racial diversity, familiarity with historical figures)

Basics of world religions (particularly before Christianity and Islam mega-spread i.e. what are Manicheans?)

Drum the noble savage bullshit out of them if it kills me (can’t believe that’s something I’ll have to be fighting off in the 2020s)

General familiarity with rise of civilization in Fertile Crescent

Christianity spread and legacy in Europe/Islamic spread and legacy in Asia

Chinese history and Empire in Asia

Basic ability to tell Chinese/Japanese/Korean art/fashion/architecture apart

Western and Eastern influence/damage in Africa

Extreme environmental damage/over production, socially cannibalistic economic structures, slavery/conquest based economies, spread and fall of Empires outside of Early Modern/European-centric model

Existence of Southeast Asian cultures/history

Causes of the Europe/Asia divide

Overturn Roman “mud-dwelling Barbarian” propaganda once and for all

The rise of Islam and Christianity and the resulting beginning of modern racial concepts

The mere existence of Eastern Europe/Central Asia

[aperfecttimeforscreaming]

AN EXCHANGE OF MEAT

Late valentines day ZADR drabble, extremely nsfw, takes place in the #izspacetrash universe NSFW 18+ Warning: Petplay, Zussy, Choking, Power play, Power theft, Over-stimulation, flirtatious bullying 

Back on Irk, coupling is illegal. It’s a big deal for humans because they can’t name a rock without forming an emotional attachment, for Irkens however, there’s no reason for the law to even be in place. As a species we have evolved past the need to interact with others. Every individual in the empire has the potential to be a sturdy, self sustaining island unto themselves. We’re built better than every sentient stain in all the known everything!! We have YET to encounter anything that even compares to our size and MIGHT. The last fertile cluster of Irkens died out a thousand decades ago. Every irken is cloned and easily replaced if not functioning at maximum capacity.

So, the desire to do more than indulge yourself is...low. There’s no reason to involve another irken in the matters of ones…..self congratulation.The practice of an EMOTIONAL and spiritual coupling fell out of favor long before we learned to control our natural impulses. 

If this is all true (and it is), how can I feel so much for the vicious neanderthal that calls me his? Dib was working on one of his drones as I sat in the dark pocket of the lower bunk bed, the bed itself built into the wall of a home on wheels. Dibs white rectangular fat assed Arr Vee was parked behind a dunky doughnuts so that we could stay out of the sightline of main roads and siphon power to recharge the vehicles battery. See, the outside of Dibs roaming home looks like any other shitty old caravan. In fact, it is more like Dib’s own mobile base. The battered shell outside the chrome and black and blue innards of the crisp sterile mobile lab are no more than a clever disguise. An infuriatingly smart trick. It’s a trick wrapped around stolen Irken technology and it’s to our collective benefit that everything stays hidden. It’s more comfortable being a prisoner, knowing that Dib has become secretive of his most prized belongings. Legs crossed, back pressed to the wall, chin in hand I was thinking my thoughts. 

My hand drifted down my neck to trace the soft top edge of the lined matte black metal collar locked around my neck. I felt at the difference in texture between the soft barely there fuzz on my skin and the smooth cool metal. It had been locked there for thirty one days, ten hours, six minuets and eleven seconds. It’s some fluke of nature that Dib is as smart as he is. At one point in my career as an invader I theorized that as  humans grew taller, their brain shrunk to make up for the increase in body mass. With Dibs lineage, this is less so. As an adult he is only more cunning, more dangerous, more cloyingly obsessive, more driven. He neglects his sleep to work. He works with the single minded diligence of an Irken researcher. His drive to excel in his field transcends the greasy smelly differences between our kinds. The efficiency he commands my own technology with rivals that of a practiced PAK technician. He’s studied the things I left behind on earth for 14 of his years, and it shows. With a single steady bare claw I traced the shape of the emblem embossed onto my collar tag. Dibs skull shaped symbol, displayed in shiny silver across the front of my neck at all times. An unnecessary humiliation that marks me as one of many stolen treasures. I feel its shape on the bare pad of my finger and silently kiss my teeth, stung by the reality that Dib thought of it first. If the world was just, if things made sense, things would have been flipped, things should have been different. If I really am the more advanced life form, I have no excuse for his subjugation. Thirty one days, ten hours, seven minutes and forty fucking seconds.

From my dark hideaway I could see him, hunched over his desk with the posture of a scoliosis king. A bright white desk light illuminates the front of him and reflects off the cobalt blue shine of his protective eyewear. The blue strips of emergency LED light that mark out the floor area catch the underside of his form, and stripe the wrinkles of his sloppy mechanics smock in toxic blue slivers. Through the gap in the curtains in front of him, I could make out a flickering yellow street light. Dibs sigh broke through the silence. He set down his tool and leaned back in his chair, away from the open shell of the drone he’d been repairing. I watched him drag a long fingered skeletal hand back through his greasy weird hair, and watched the unruly sprig of bone and black people fur spring back up as his hand passed it. “You’re quiet.” The human announced, obviously. Before he could twist the rotating chair around to face me I let my hand fall into my lap and folded both hands neatly together. “My brain is loud.” It needed no explanation, but Dib had demanded the cause. Slouched back in his chair, I watched him copy how I had my fingers folded into each other. His eyebrows arched high on his forehead and crinkled his sweaty brow. “You’re thinking? You’re capable of thought?” He’d lick his loathsome incisors and grin. “Damn, I’ll have to correct my notes. I thought the metal parasite on your back did all that for you.” “IT’S NOT A PARASITE! I TOLD YOU! It’s as ME as the rest of ME!” The corners of Dibs eyes crinkled with delight as he watched me retrace the fact. “MY PAK stores the thoughts of my brain jelly- it’s not responsible for my depthy, nuanced original thoughts. It’s all to my benefit. Your simple animal mind can’t BEGIN to perceive the archives of information, understanding and theorizing, locked away between my two magnificent thought centers.” On my knees at the side of the bed, I pointed to my skull, illustrating the thing Dib wished to understand but could never fully unravel. He reached up to peel the lenses of the goggles from the hollows of his eye sockets. As Dib deftly replaced them with the large circular frames of his glasses, he spat noise at me. “You’ve beaten that dead horse to a pulp, Zim. I don’t think your PAK is any different than a circuit board hardwired to the brain of a roach. You’re just as animal as I am. Only, your issues stem from being part evil cyborg, and mine stem from trauma.” Sunny as a blistering summers day, he grinned at me. Smugness radiates from him like pulsar blips, and my innards are assaulted by tight gripping trembles. I tense my core muscles to keep my tymbal from rattling at the slightest provocation. With my antenna pitched slightly forwards, I can smell the pheromones on his sweat. I crossed my arms over my chest, raised my chin, curled my lip at him to flash fangs. “Tch. Zim is no creature. You’re the animal here. You have the technology to advance yourselves into a race of space faring monstrosities, and yet all you want to occupy yourselves with is the pursuit of earthly pleasure. Your kind construct elaborate rituals just to try and rutt against each other. It could be so much simpler!!!” Dib scratched his chin, nonplussed. “Yeah, I never really got all that either. We do have dating apps and that can simplify things if you don’t account for catfishing, and people who straight up lie about themselves just to get their dick wet.” I grimaced at the mental image of a wet human phallus. I re-contextualized the image in my head and imagined the organ as Dibs. I bit the inside of my cheek. “Sooooo… what? As you get older you stop exchanging meats, and instead swap false personal information?” Dib laughed, quick and dry, brimming with unearned superiority. “Oh, fuck- what you mean like what we did back in grade school?” He sat up, leaned in closer to me. Elbows folded on his knees he hunched closer. I could smell his breath on my antenna. Coffee and sugar and bacteria filled my senses and the stalks flicked quickly backwards at the olfactory intrusion. “Yeah I don’t really know why we did that. I have a theory it’s all metaphorical, some kind of mind manipulation game the government was playing with kids to get them to associate “love” with “flesh”. I mean, you know what “meat” alludes to, right?” My face screwed up as I searched my brain for obvious answers. “MMHhn. HHHMN. Pain? Obviously, pain. Emotional...badness.Maybe hormone tampering. Disease?” Dib was already getting out his phone, snickering to himself as he does when he knows something I do not. I kept going. “Death? Blood? Salt? Disgust? The inevitability of the cycle of consumption? How you’re all doomed to be slaughtered by a greater predatory force?” “No. No- what?” He cocked an eyebrow as he looked back up at me. I wanted to rip the piercing out of it. “No. Shut up and look at these.” Dib held out his portable telephone slab to me and on it I saw a digital gallery of meat related memes. The phrase “beat my meat” was prevalent. There were photos of hammers pounding sickly off grey slabs of deceased pig muscle, and a man dusting a sprinkling of salt or spice over a carved rib of bovine corpse.

My head pulled back, giving me the appearance of multiple chins of disgust. My gut churned as I turned my head away. “Why would you show me those??! THEY’RE REVOLTING!!”  

Dib frowned, irritated, and put his phone away. “The “meat” those memes are talking about? It references human JUNK- y’know, genitalia? The memes aren’t talking about actual dead farm animals. And, that’s what I’m saying.” He put his large warm hand on my shoulder and continued, sure to hold my eye contact as he put the curl of his thick broad thumb against my cloth covered collar bone. I tensed my guts to keep my tymbal from rattling. “The government has skool children trade literal meat, so we get the idea early on that we’re supposed to exchange our "meat" with people we're attracted to. So that way, we learn to breed, and the men in power get more workers and soldiers and grease for the wheels of their self destructing machine.” My eyes flicked to look at his hand- the long pale olive fingers, the beaten fight scarred knuckles. My gaze then returned to Dibs humorless expression. “That’s a… problem?” Dib groaned, he rolled his eyes, he took his hand off my shoulder. 

It slid down to my hip, his free hand mirrored the motion  and I was lifted up from the bed and onto my humans lap. He held me there and growled at me in frustration. “YEAh! Zim! It’s a problem! If people are going to have sex it should be their own choice to do so, it isn’t something we should be culturally brainwashed into accepting! And we don’t NEED to do it! Some people are asexual- some people don’t want children and-” Dib rambled, on and on, laying out the injustices of an archaic capitalist system reliant on the breeding whims of its workers. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of the argument was fueled by Dibs xenophilic leanings and revulsion towards his own kind. I gave less than a quarter of a shit about the very political tangent my human was going off on, but I did like how Dibs lap made for a nice sitting surface, and how the heat of his angry body felt against my skin. As Dib spoke I smoothed out the front of his damp black wife beater absentmindedly, my expression unmoved. As my hand rested in the center of Dibs chest, I patted him, I then mock pouted at him. “Poor Dib, how he’s been rejected by his own kind at every turn. How hard it must’ve been for you! Brainwashed into needing the fuck, harassed by the need for fuck with noooo options for how to obtain it!!”

That got him to glare at me, and my spine tingled for it. I grinned as he countered; “You’re missing the point.” And I kept going. “Addicted to the unknown feeling he can never hope to attain, his vile monster meat might have shriveled up without the wetness- like an unwatered flower! Like a rotting length of carrot! Like a bundle of seaweed on a beach, growing drier and nastier the longer it’s left alone, collecting nothing but mold and botfly eggs and-” Dib grabbed me by the throat. His hand closed around my throat. He gave a warning squeeze as he told me to shut up and I peeped in response. 

Lowly, my tymbal rattled. 

Dibs narrowed angry eyes softened as he caught the surprised chirp of arousal. 

The words on my tongue stalled at the tight curling of his long fingers as they overlapped my neck.

“Even if that was how things worked, I’m not at risk of that anymore, am I?” 

Dib looked at me with a gaze that implored an answer, and I shrugged coyly. As he frowned and squeezed harder I gagged, my stomach fluttered and a chirp rattled out of me far clearer than the first. 

"Mhhn. That's what I thought."

Dib hummed, his human purr was deep and infuriating. He used his free hand to shift my placement on his long thigh, so that I straddled his thigh as he choked me. My eyes began to water as he raised up his knee and gently bounced my vent against his leg. 

There is nothing playmates can do for eachother that a squidgyblit cannot also achieve the end goal of. However, being choked while your nemesis grinds your pleasure center against his leg hits differently. 

I moaned with a grimace. I scowled at him as he drew another choked out squirm from my body. Unpleasant as the sensation of constriction around my throat was, we both knew the short term strangulation wouldn't kill me. It was a comfortable routine and Dib continued his gloating games. 

"You think you can resist all this? You think you can resist the urge to get absolutely wrecked- by someone who's going to lovingly put all your pieces back together when he's done? You need me as bad as I need you, you fucking moron."

He’s wrong. I don’t need him. But, his games are so amusing, they’re so entertaining. It’s such a thrill to be obsessed over. If he ever knew that, it would all go to his head. As bad as he already was, there was ample room for things to get worse. Dib pressed his fingers up underneath my jaw and held my mouth shut. My growl came out as a choking sound, I tried to open my mouth wider and he put his free hand on my shoulder as a threat. “Shhh. You don’t need to talk right now. Why don’t you show me what you want?” I glared, I tried to hack out a rebuttal, but he didn’t want that. Pink heat spread across the skin of my face plate, I chirped and ground my slick vent slowly against the black jean fabric of his thigh.  In doing so, I inspired an unhinged smile to pull across his gaunt snout.

He released my throat and my posture bent, towards him as I gasped. My throat opened back up, and my PAK hummed softly as it began to replenish its oxygen reserves.

Dib patted my warm cheek with his hand. “That’s a good boy.” He mocked softly. I was well within my right to bite him. His hands settled on the bone of my hips, I watched his eyes pass over my head and point towards the bunk behind me. The curious gentle twitching of my antenna caught the heat of his words as they stood on end, and I lifted my chin to glare up at him. “Is that really what your brain was being so “loud” over? You’re still angry about our arrangement?” My lip twitched, it’s downwards arch could not have been more dramatic. “HOW could I not be mad about it? You know better than ANYONE what a powerful beacon of mayhem my existence is- that I can be controlled by someone as misshapen and weasley as you is a blistering amount of shame for Zim- full offense.” As I spoke his fingers laid over the small of my back, he rubbed along my tense lower spine and his gentle ministrations forced my aggressively postured antenna to lower. “Oh, full offense taken. But I know you’re happy about it. Deep down, somewhere in your cold blooded brain, there’s a tiny Zim just glowing over how it feels to be fully appreciated. You’re a hideously evil space terror, I can’t take that away from you by loving you. And I wouldn’t want to.” The heat in my face wouldn’t stop, the fluttering sickly feeling in my guts wouldn’t go away. Like knotted strings being unwound or spider web being gently tugged by a trapped fruit fly, the vibrations of his words unwound my nerves. I had to look away from him to speak, the weight of his useless human affection was too heavy to bare the brunt of head on. It was blasphemy that something a horny ugly alien said to me could mean more than the approval of any tallest. “MMMhhNNG. Stop making words.” I growled politely. Dib chuckled without malice, he curled in over me to press his lips to the crest of my skull. “You love serving me.” “Phheh. Zim loves nothing.” “You love what I’ve done to you, Zim. And I can prove it.” Dib lifted me up to move us onto the bunk bed, and bumped the front of his proportionally massive head against the shelf of the top bunk. “Fuck-ow,” “HAH!”

I reached up to hit the button on the bottom of the shelf, and the top bunk folded up against the wall behind it. As the mechanical components hissed, Dib rubbed his five head. “Yeah? That’s funny? You think your master getting brain damage is just hilarious don’t you?”

“If my “master” (I used my fingers to make mock air quotes) is dumb enough to turn his brain to garbage when we aren’t even under attack, he’s not showing mastery over anything, is he?” Dib dropped me out of his arms and onto the bed, I landed with a yelp of surprise though the impact came painlessly. “HEY!”

With his teeth clenched and his eyes narrowed Dibs hands flew over my body, grabbing and groping, pulling off boots and leggings, striping me of the new uniform I’d been given, replacing dark blue cloth with an expanse of green skin. There was ample evidence to suggest Dibs need was as urgent as my own, from his feverish actions to the telltale tenting at the front of his tight emo boy pants. He needed me. I gave a quick shiver twitch at the feeling of air on my exposed skin, and hissed at him. He pinned my chest down with one hand, and sneered at me as the other cupped over my pelvis. “Your standards are way too fucking high for someone who screws up constantly.” I grinned at him with challenging eyes as my legs folded up and opened. “Where would your challenge be if I lowered them, Dib?” His middle finger split the wet slit of my vent open. He traced the sensitive pink interior and I had no choice but to draw in an afflicted breath. The finger slid deeper, he brushed the base of my wriggling dwarf ovipositor, and the distraction sent my antenna fully back. “You, crave conquest.” I crooned, distracted. Sensations continued. I felt the shivers of pleasure in the back of my teeth, my tymbal rattled with quick twitching clicks each time his middle finger teased the inch length of my pink wiggly hot button. “You don’t know what I crave, Zim.” I cackled, light and airy and I gripped the blankets beside my face. I bit my lip and looked at him. His thumb slid into my slit and he gently pinched his fingers around my “dick”. I gasped sharply. I kicked out a heel as he pressed firmly enough to make me whine. I could not help how my eyes wanted to roll back into my skull at the continued friction, but I swear I caught the reddening of his cheeks before vision became meaningless. I do know. I chirped, I moaned, I rubbed my cheek into the soft blankets stained with floral detergent as the tingling feeling of goodness rolled from my loins up the rest of my body. I felt good, and I made it LOOK good. Dib likes to watch me writhe, and in return he  rubbed over and over, again and again he rubbed, till it seemed I was breaching a new level of tingly bliss with every passing second. “But, I know what you want, don’t I?” I groaned in disagreement, his fingers stalled on my sex, then his thumb rubbed small twitching strokes at it’s base. I trembled all over at the teasing agitation, and breathed out hard. “MHn, you’ve… got AN idea, of it.” Dibs motions were less practiced as he set out to release his tube steak from it’s denim cage, but he didn’t move his hand from the source of my sultry keening sounds. He wouldn’t, I had been so SO fucking good to him. Letting him work uninterrupted without a single complaint of boredom. I hadn’t tried to attack him in DAYS. It was a personal best record at the time. I was overdue for a reward.

“UHM, EXCUSE YOU??” Dib took his hand out of my vent and I sat bolt upright on my elbows, glaring at him in a sex flushed daze as I watched him inch the clothing down his nearly non-existent ass. “I WAS BUSY. Who said you could STOP?”

He pushed me back down, grabbed my leg and sharply fixed himself between my open thighs. “I’m not stopping, you know I’m not stopping you shrill shitty bedbug.” It spiraled into more routine. In the act of copulation I could always count on the sensation of his fingers sliding into my orifice to pull it’s tight walls steadily open. I could feel all the bumps and ridges, the rough calluses, the finger pad curling around my core and pulling delicious sensation from the thing inside me that made my guts twitch and tremble and rattle like a sack of angry crickets. It didn’t take much. I didn’t need long, and he wasn’t willing to hold off from indulging in the ambrosial clutch of a wanting Irken tunnel. I groaned as he withdrew three of his fingers from me, pulling with them a thin strand of pinkish slick that broke and collapsed over my cleft. I trembled, I hissed in disgust with myself as Dib aligned the head of his extraterrestrial shaft with it’s destination. As he looked down on me, he commanded. “Beg.” “What?” My head cocked, one antenna lifted while the other lowered, my hand reached up to wipe the pearling sweat from my brow. “Really???” He ground his length into the gooey mess he’d left my vent in, I grit my teeth as my tymbal rumbled. “Yeah. Really Zim.” “Mhgghh.” Eyes closed I tensed as the friction of dick on dick action swayed my compliance. “ Plleeeeeaaaase.” “Please what?~” I tried to scowl at Dibs goading, but his grinding made me bite my own tongue. “You have to say it, pet. I won’t give it to you unless you ask properly.” The nickname is a scorning stinging wound that burbles and pops like a pollution born wound, it feels like a hot sudden burn, it catches me the way his fingers do when they clamp around my most intimate points. In the most pathetic of tones and volumes, I answer my mate; “Please, please fill me with your cum, master Dib.” I was rewarded by a hand coming to stroke across my skull. He cradled the dome of my head and caught one of my antenna stalks between his fingers. With the same care he gave my cock, he gently strokes the black hairs to reward me. “Good boy. Good bug.” When the rutting commences sense tumbles out the window in a broken screeching fury, like an escaped chimp on meth, like a rat on fire making a break for water. I lose my fucking mind to the reactions of my body. The vehicle rocks under us with the power of Dibs mighty  thrusts.He fills me so deeply with his oversized ovipositor, I can feel his pulsing want bulging against the skin of my stomach at full hilt. When he finally spills in me I am so wound up that I have already hit my climax twice over. I snarl, I lean into him and the lips I have put to his salty skin part so I can taste his sweat on my tongue. My jaws open wider, and as Dib grunts, at the height of his peak, I bite hard enough to puncture his fragile skin on the edge of my teeth. The red taste of metal is smeared over my lips, on my tongue, over the pasty tan palette of his shoulder muscle. Dib hisses air in through his teeth. “You couldn’t- you couldn’t help yourself, could you?” His panting breath stalls his words, a red tinted smile spread across my fuck drunk face. I licked my lips as I replied, and watched a thin trail of human red meet up with the black fabric of his shirt and diffuse into it. 

“No, no I couldn’t.” I hummed back at him. In the state of high endorphine swing I am not fully myself. Everything was brighter, lighter, more exciting. A hazy happy drugged exisence takes hold of me and sways me to Dibs whims. As he pulls out of me, he sighs with a shivering buzz. “Then, you’re not done yet.” In a matter of minutes Dib is redressed while I remain naked, wrists and ankles shackled to the four rectangular points of the bunk via metal shackles that the walls of the Arr Vee spat out. I was only just beginning to come out of my fogy mental state when my human retrieved a black blunt vibration wand from a drawer of tormenting devices. Over the following hour I grew more and more delirious as Dib wrung my body out for increasingly mind crushing orgasms. Things stopped having meaning, Dibs taunting words lost their sense, and I rattled straight through to my bones. That I could not pull my limbs in towards myself and protect my body from the assault of sensation had at one point been disquieting, but then and there, it encouraged me to let go of my resistance. I had let go of my fruitless delusions, I had given myself up to Dib, and Dib did not stop till I was crying with the intensity of multiple peaks.

It made up for everything else that had happened. The blinding beacon of his smothering affections absorbed me in it’s garish embrace as he unshackled me from the walls. He cleaned me, he held me in a folded blanket  till the shaking of my overwhelmed body stopped. My prickly insults bounced off him like harmless pebbles of sand.  The Dib stroked over my antenna, groomed them with the sex scented oils of his fingers, the Arr Vee reaked of the smell of our sins. Accepting Dibs terms of affection is illegal, but I’m defective anyways, aren’t I?