#it was fun watching this on tv though!!!

[sugarcoatednightshade]

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.

[ashleyeveerson]

Haven't been able to think about anything other than the victorian/edwardian/WW1 twink and his 80's punk almost-boyfriend for a week, send help

[westanovencleaner]

percy looking off to the side at annabeth right before he's about to sing the consensus song 'cause he's a twelve-year-old trying to see how the girl he likes is going to react to some dumb shit he's about to do yeah I see you man

[judyalvqrez]

there was something really jim henson-esque and campy about how some of the non-human races were portrayed in the new dnd movie that i really enjoyed. they could’ve easily gone the shitty cgi route or just not shown those races up close at all, but no, they said you want a bird man? we’re gonna get you a bird man

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

TFA Blitzwing

[quatregats]

Something I've been thinking about is how Patrick O'Brian manages so skillfully to write characters whose actions contradict their beliefs, which I think is honestly a big part of why his characters feel so real. Mostly with Stephen and Jack—e.g., and perhaps most notably, Stephen has notably leftist sympathies (honestly I have no idea how to characterize his politics in period terms) who nonetheless becomes very comfortable with his rise to the landed gentry, while Jack is a card-carrying Tory who much of the time sympathizes far more with working class sailors and farmers than with the upper classes—but I'm sure he does it to a lesser degree with some of his minor characters (James Dillon, while perhaps not precisely minor, comes to mind), and I love that he's able to do that, especially the way in which he embeds it in the narrative. We see how they're all unreliable narrators of themselves; we understand how they want to be seen and how that does and doesn't coincide with the reality, but most importantly, this isn't presented as something reprehensible, just as a part of their own humanity. They are not their expectations for themselves, but they don't need to be those expectations to be beloved.

[uwudonoodle]

My partner went to watch the new episode of Tower of God on Crunchyroll today, and found the subtitles had been mixed up with either a different episode or show.

This big tough bad guy seemed to be arrogantly monologing before starting a fight with the protagonists. He was also very concerned about his love life.

These two, standing off to the side, weapons in hand, had a heartfelt conversation about romantic girls who wear red dresses.

This guy was very concerned about his manicure after blowing up a mountainside with a fireball.

[mikimeiko]

Dash & Lily | Season 1 (2020), Joe Tracz

[eugeniedanglars]

with the hiatus and the discourse and the annoying fans it becomes so easy to lose sight of the simple fact that buck and tommy are incredibly fun to watch onscreen together

[jenna-louise-jamie]

oh my god. a detail i just noticed trying to search for screen grabs during episode 8 season 2 of alex rider: yassen, after shooting damian cray, his right hand was trembling as he was holding the gun up because he'd just been shot. he offers up the gun to alex. alex takes it, points it at back at yassen, but his hand is also trembling. not as noticeable at first but as soon as yassen starts explaining alex's hand shakes as bad as yassen's did and he throws the gun down, then gets on the floor to try and help yassen.

[slashingdisneypasta]

Multiple F/O's Question

What F/O's media would you realistically watch/play/read/listen to with which other F/O?

[fictionadventurer]

I thought that it was stupid that Brandon Sanderson had the narrator of Tress of the Emerald Sea call all the unnamed sailors "Dougs" when he could have just called them, you know, sailors. But then I started using the term. Turns out having a word for "yes, we know that realistically all these individuals have unique identities and personalities, but they're not the focus of this story so we're going to treat them as faceless background characters" is surprisingly useful.

[dandyshucks]

i am freeeeeeeee [collapses into a pile of dust]

[daily-lightbulbii]

(//i don't normally do text but cw in the tags erm. i went a little off track)

[ilkkawhat]

7.21 Ending Happy

[oh-meow-swirls]

it's kind of weird to me that they didn't bother releasing sushi and tempura internationally at all but at the same time i'm kinda glad they didn't cuz like. yo-kai watch was financially failing in the west by the time 3 released. i feel like if they had released sushi and tempura the franchise would've completely tanked before we got sukiyaki which would've sucked. honestly if anything i feel like it's more surprising that we got all three versions of 2 instead of them just releasing psychic specters but tbf i think yo-kai watch was doing well in the west when 2 released. 2 is just inexplicably what killed the franchise despite being a masterpiece-