thinking about how Humans Are Space Orcs stories always talk about how indestructible humans are, our endurance, our ability to withstand common poisons, etc. and thats all well and good, its really fun to read, but it gets repetitive after a while because we aren't all like that.
And that got me thinking about why this trope is so common in the first place, and the conclusion I came to is actually kind of obvious if you think about it. Not everyone is allowed to go into space. This is true now, with the number of physical restrictions placed on astronauts (including height limits), but I imagine it's just as strict in some imaginary future where humans are first coming into contact with alien species. Because in that case there will definitely be military personnel alongside any possible diplomatic parties.
And I imagine that all interactions aliens have ever had up until this point have been with trained personnel. Even basic military troops conform to this standard, to some degree. So aliens meet us and they're shocked and horrified to discover that we have no obvious weaknesses, we're all either crazy smart or crazy strong (still always a little crazy, academia and war will do that to you), and not only that but we like, literally all the same height so there's no way to tell any of us apart.
And Humans Are Death Worlders stories spread throughout the galaxy. Years or decades or centuries of interspecies suspicion and hostilities preventing any alien from setting foot/claw/limb/appendage/etc. on Earth until slowly more beings are allowed to come through. And not just diplomats who keep to government buildings, but tourists. Exchange students. Temporary visitors granted permission to go wherever they please, so they go out in search of 'real terran culture' and what do they find?
Humans with innate heart defects that prevent them from drinking caffeine. Humans with chronic pain and chronic fatigue who lack the boundless endurance humans are supposedly famous for. Humans too tall or too short or too fat to be allowed into space. Humans who are so scared of the world they need to take pills just to function. Humans with IBS who can't stand spicy foods, capsaicin really is poison to them. Lactose intolerance and celiac disease, my god all the autoimmune disorders out there, humans who struggle to function because their own bodies fight them. Humans who bruise easily and take too long to heal. Humans who sustained one too many concussions and now struggle to talk and read and write. Humans who've had strokes. Humans who were born unable to talk or hear or speak, and humans who through some accident lost that ability later.
Aliens visit Earth, and do you know what they find? Humanity, in all its wholeness.
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TW: discussion of something approximating suicidal tendencies but with the usual crack programming of this blog
“Ah, High General Windu”, says Fox, pleasantly. “So we meet again.”
High General Windu raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him, Fox thinks, though it’s getting hard to tell with all the blood rushing to his head. “If I let you go, will you try to throw yourself out of another window?”
Fox makes a vague shrugging motion - or tries to, anyways. It’s hard to tell where any of his limbs are going, hanging upside down in the air as he is. “I am willing to discuss terms.” A bridge will do just fine.
Impossibly, the High General’s eyebrows climb even further up his forehead. “A compromise, then, esteemed Commander.” And so, he righths Fox the head way up in the air, but leaves him floating just above the ground, at which point several painted shells come skidding around the corner followed by billowing robes and screeches.
“WHAT”, says Kote, calmly, “THE BANTHA-KARKED, FORCE-LOVING KRIFF, FOX.”
“You’ll short out your helmet mic”, Fox advises him, sagely. Fondly, he thinks back to decimating his own on only his second time in the newly-christened official Coruscant Guard Scream Closet. He’d just received the comm about the Zillo Beast being transported to 000, and made sure to take his bucket off thereafter to improve the quality of his closet time.
High General Windu’s face does something complicated between sympathy and constipation.
Because the Galaxy doesn’t hate Fox enough already and Cody wasn’t enough on his own, Wolffe elbows his way through their batch to plant himself in front of him, shoulders squared and shaking with repressed rage. “If you try that again, dickhead”, he begins, in a low growl that quite frankly sounds more cringe that intimidating, “I’m going to resurrect you and then kill you again.”
“Ah, Wolffe”, Plo Koon says, in his deep, shivery timbre, “Remember our conversations about effective conflict resolution and communication of needs?”
Wolffe’s eyes narrow at Fox, because all non-Guard are sweet summer children who walk around buckets off on 000 like absolute lunatics. Fox prays they never have to find out why that’s a bad idea. “I feel”, his ori’vod presses out between clenched teeth, “that if you make me watch you throw yourself out of another window, I’m going to jump after you and strangle you on the way down, you little bitch.”
“That’s fair”, says Fox, and watches High General Kenobi bury his face in his hands. Wolffe twitches in place and makes an aborted groaning noise, the hypocrite.
“Excuse me, High Marshall Commander Fox, but I fail to see what’s so dire about this situation that the Jedi High Council and your brothers cannot help you solve”, says Windu, the only sane one left on this Force-forsaken bloated corpse of a planet. Behind the gaggle of Jedi and ori’vode already gathered in front of Fox, the rest of them come veering around the corner in a commotion that’s quite frankly embarrassing. High General Yoda is mounted on Skywalker’s back like he’s a race-Eopie, which is Fox’ only consolation.
He got up this morning at 0300, bleary-eyed and with a pounding headache as always, and all was right in the world. And then Fox got called into the Jedi High Council’s chambers and was ceremoniously informed that in the wake of Chancellor Palpatine’s unfortunate demise (hah), and through the emergency state of the Senate, as well as several invented promotions foisted on Fox to make the delegation of any and all paperwork less shady, he was now next in the chain of command and-
Well, Fox is the acting Chancellor, in short.
Haha, he had said, and been meet with several seconds of silence, until it got both awkward and exceedingly painful. Wait, he’d said. You’re kriffing serious.
Kriffing serious, we are, had said High General Yoda, and thus Fox launched himself out the first best window with a maniacal cackle of, you’ll have to catch me first!
And catch him, High General Windu sure did.
“The will of the Force this is”, Yoda interrupts Fox’ train of thought. He scans him thoughtfully from beneath his wizened brow, and hems to himself. “Shake things up, this will. Determine the fate of the Galaxy, this shall. A feeling, I have, that a good Chancellor you will make. A better one, hmmm.”
“That’d be high praise, if not for the fact that a dead lemming would make for a better Chancellor than the last one”, says Fox, drawing and indignant gasp from Skywalker. He doesn’t bother with either that or the green goblin’s cackle, lost in the deep sense of resignation that settles over his shoulders like a suffocating blanket.
“Alright, then, get me Thorn on the comm. As my first act in office, I’m firing all the Jedi. No offense, but you’re kind of a disaster. Then, someone get me to the Chancellor’s office, I’m calling Dooku to let him know the war’s off. And please get me Judicial, they’ll be up all night working on my datafolders - I’m having the Senate arrested.”
“Who - is - arresting - “, Bly pants, hands on his knees from where he’s just come sprinting around the corner with his Jedi.
Underneath his bucket, Fox smiles a smile that’s all teeth. “The Senate”, he says, sweetly, wondering if he’s just imagined the shiver that’s gone through the room. “I’m suing the Senate, and taking them all into temporary custody for abuse of sentient rights.”
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Prompt 315
We all know the idea of Danny getting adopted by one of the batfam. But hear me out: Danny gets adopted by Vampire Dick Grayson.
Danny honestly, did not mean to dimension hop, nor did he mean to get this injured in the first place, where his vision is spinning and there’s greenRedGreenGreenGREEN spilling from his body like he’s melting from the inside. He didn’t mean to get caught, he just didn’t want Dan to happen again, not again and the GIW had seen him flying and-
And now he’s here, wherever here is, smoke in his lungs making it even harder to breathe than it was before. And there’s a shadow approaching, a flicker of crimson in his blurry vision, and there’s claws tilting his head and then something burns-
Dick? Call it nostalgia perhaps, seeing this small child, so much like his little wing and baby bird once were, white streak and corpse-pale skin and all.
He just wished for his dear brothers to join him, that’s all he wanted, and perhaps Damian won’t be so bitey if he got a friend…
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He's-a Gone
Luigi time! To suffer, that is.
(CW: character death)
This is obviously a sort of comlementary piece to I Was-a Too Late. But it's more than just that as it also illustrates a certain fun, dark what-if idea I had. Please keep reading if you're intrigued!
Lore:
Luigi's Mansion, the first game. Everything goes the same as in canon until the final boss fight, when Luigi defeats King Boo in his Bowser costume. After King Boo comes out and Luigi intends to suck him in, the villain laughs and reveals the truth: Mario's painting was an illusion, so was everything Madame Clairvoya saw. All just to mess with Luigi. Meanwhile the real Mario wasn't just captured by the Boos, he was immediately killed by them on their King's orders. The only physical thing that's left of him in this realm is the five items Luigi found - hidden by the Boos for Luigi to find, another part of King Boo's sick game.
Luigi is able to finish the fight despite his shock and grief, fueled by the anger King Boo never expected from him. After getting out of the painting the plumber discovers that it is indeed empty, no Mario or anyone else in the portrait.
Heartbroken and guit-ridden, Luigi goes back to Professor E. Gadd's lab and gives him back the Poltergust 3000. He doesn't even want to stay long enough to see what is going to happen to the ghosts. Of course the Professor tries to offer some semblance of comfort, but we all know it's not his forte.
So Luigi leaves, only taking Mario's five items with him. He notices that the mansion has disapeared without a trace. The reality of it all finally hits him, and he practically collapses onto a nearby tree's large root protruding from the ground, putting down the precious items around himself, only leaving the matching red hat and the letter in his hands. He should have known something was off. After all, the Mario he saw in the painting was wearing his hat and both gloves.
Looking at all these items, to his growing horror he can't help but imagine what exactly might have happened to his brother and what his last moments might have been like. He hugs the hat to his chest and rereads Mario's note several times, knowing that the brief warning was his brother's last words to him.
Luigi can do nothing but cry for the beloved brother he couldn't save, desperately wishing it was his warm, living and breathing body pressed to his chest rather than just a couple of his belongings.
But Mario is truly gone, apparently having met such a horrific fate that not even a single part of his body is left in the physical world.
[Good night]
…I'll leave the rest up to your imagination ;) Sorry if I got carried away with my description. Occasionally even I enjoy being a little dramatic, though I'm no writer whatsoever.
Yeah, I'm not apologizing for making this one - I was nicer to Luigi than to his bro, at least here the Mushroom Kingdom and everyone in it (except for Mario lol) is still okay!
But alas,
You can no longer play as Mario
Rest in spaghetti, funny wahoo man.
@federthenotsogreat I'm tagging you because you said you wanted more Mario art like I Was-a Too Late, thought you might like this one too!
@drones-of-innocence Also tagging you because you were interested in my idea.
Edit: Tagging a few more mutuals who might want to see this based on their reaction to my previous angsty work just in case, feel free to ignore. Or ask me to remove the tag if you want, no problem.
@silenzahra (remember, no rush) @c-lavanda @jell-o101 @stripetkattelalala54-gf
@luigixfanxayjay @itsavee4117
And you @giddlygoat just because you have a Luigi's Mansion AU and I thought you might appreciate this... Also because I'm a fan 👉👈
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