#uniquely human

[alskylark]

👀🦎!

[bookquotesfrombooks]

“Having a diagnosis—and being aware of it—gives an individual a way of understanding many of these difficulties and frees the person from feeling somehow flawed or responsible for his or her own challenges. It also allows a person or family to connect with others with the same diagnosis who may share similar challenges.”

Barry Prizant, PhD

Uniquely Human (Updated and Expanded Edition)

[s-aint-elmo]

part 1 of my pining falin agenda aka it was so tragical that falin got benched for the entirety of marcille's little black dress morally bankrupt baddie era and falin thinks so too

(ID in alt text)

part 2

[communistkenobi]

students in the social sciences can’t explain it either lol. “people in this country see no merit in studying any subject that cannot go on a resume” that’s because they go to school to get a job! I wonder what larger structural factors contribute to this widespread relationship people have to higher education. maybe this guy can use his big beautiful humanities degree to explain it to us

[cogitaeworks]

Its that time of the year again so I rewatched my favourite Barbie christmas movie from my childhood ❤️

[bixels]

This Twitter MLP human redesign drama is a mess, leave me the fuck out of it.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

@ tags: don’t make me tap the sign again

“Saying humans are naturally evil and violent is just another form of anthrocentrism and isn’t any better than saying we’re perfect and better than other organisms”

Humans! Are! Normal!

Not! Evil! Not! Perfect! Just! Normal!

[comradekatara]

sokka hates the fire nation but nonetheless subscribes to their logic through internalizing his own dehumanization, albeit in the name of sacrificing what is necessary to resist imperialism. on the other hand, aang refuses to sacrifice his humanity, which is intrinsically tied to the culture that was deemed deserving of extermination, and by recognizing the fullness of his personhood and his intrinsic right to exist, he defeats the tenets of imperialism on an ideological battleground. that is why it is so crucial that aang’s influence over sokka, as an air nomad, and as someone who did not grow up under the looming shadow of colonialism and genocide, is what helps him regain the childhood he had forsworn in the name of war—his laughter, his joy, and his humanity.

[despazito]

Honestly I think people underestimate the amount of changes cats have undergone thru domestication while also kinda overestimating the social changes in dogs in some regards?

I see the social affinity dogs have for humans kind of framed as a spontaneous development out of nowhere, when in reality most of their social behaviors are nothing new and can still be observed in wolves. Wolves are also silly and goofy and playful with their families, and I think it's silly to call that a dog trait. we just have a habit of characterizing wolves as proud serious animals.

If you wanna talk social changes in dogs, the most intriguing conversation is how they literally learned to read human faces, can conceptualize dogs and people as different entities they socialize with in different ways, and how they evolved eyebrows to communicate with us better

[swamp-cryptids]

to me this line is like, where harry reaches the closest thing to self actualization within the text of the game. he doesn't desire to be a different kind of animal anymore. its such a kind thing to say to himself about a quality that in his line of work could very much be perceived as a flaw. idk i just like it

[thatjewishzionistscout]

@spot-the-antisemtism

Yeah, I don’t even know where to begin.

[alskylark]

Aaaand it's gone, poof! 🙃

[humandisorderincarnatedean]

what I would love is just. acknowledgement that what dean did in hell and the fact he adapted to enjoy it wasn’t something he chose to do in any way. that choosing to do sth is not the same as being tortured into it. i know the show’d never have done that it was too busy doing other stuff. idk i’d just have liked SOMEONE to mention it instead of holding dean responsible for it like it was just... any other bad decision someone made. a mistake, like taking on the mark or trusting gadreel. it’s not a mistake dean made, it was a survival tactic

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Making Humanoids Less Human

I did make a small post on this, but now I've got the art for a much bigger and more detailed post! so here we go.

I had several anonymous asks that all came in quick succession weeks ago. Every single one of them was basically just a variation on "how would you take (typically humanoid) fantasy being, and make them look less human?"

This blog does not exist for me to just give people original designs for free, my goal is to show off my own personal thoughts about fantasy design and help people figure out how to adjust their own designs to fit their vision better. That means when people ask me questions about how to do something, I want to give them things to think about so they can come to their own conclusion. I don't mind making original designs to illustrate concepts, but a whole flood of "show me how to make this specific thing look different" all at once like that was too much. I'm not answering them all individually, it's just not what I want to do.

But what I can do is show my own thoughts and ideas about how to take any fantasy design and push it further away from "human", and you all can look at my ideas and figure out your own way to do things!

So here are the main 4 methods I've come up with to make humanoids look less human.

(image description: a simplified drawing of a humanoid face surrounded by four altered versions of the same face. clockwise starting from the top left, they are:

Speculative, drawn as a cat person. Additive, drawn with horns, pointy ears, sharp teeth, and a second pair of eyes. Subtractive, drawn with blank eyes, no nose, and no eyebrows. Exaggerative, drawn with a long face and huge eyes, as well as a wide mouth, narrow nose, and big ears.

end description)

I am personally a fan of the speculative route, which means exploring an alternate root of evolution to create a new design. Through this method, I've created monkey elves, frog goblins, and pig orcs.

the additive option is the most common, I think. adding new feature or doubled features to a humanoid form is a very intuitive way to change the design and make it look less human. you see this in most fantasy and scifi designs, like star trek aliens and the dnd player races.

subtractive and evaggerative are the most common options for people that like the uncanny valley. it's really easy to make uncomfortable designs by removing or exaggerating recognizable features, and they're often used together. Slenderman, for example, removes all facial features and skin color but also exaggerates the limbs and body.

Combining the four methods will give you a really interesting design as well! So for practice I decided to explore an alternate design for Tieflings, the part-demon player race in dnd.

(image description: four examples of differnt tiefling designs using the previously described methods. the additive example is just offical dnd art of a tiefling woman with purple skin, horns, and a long tail.

the subtractive sketch looks very alien, with a bald head, empty eyes, and no other facial featuers aside from a small mouth. it has three fingers per hand and two toe per foot.

the exaggerative sketch shows a hunched humanoid figure with huge eyes and big ears. the neck, limbs, and digits are all long with claws at the ends of the fingers and toes, and the limbs are also quite muscular.

the speculative sketch shows a bipedal figure with features similar to a giraffe, including a long neck, ossicones, and hooves.

end description)

now, because tielflings have such a distinct look to them, obviously my new sketches don't really look like tieflings, do they? the only one that comes close is the giraffe. relying only on one type of alteration to the human form has left the designs rather empty and lacking in the more iconic traits of the original concept. so i tried a sketch that combined my ideas! it came out looking like a completely different creature lol, like it could be a kobold or something, still not really a tiefling.

(image description: a sketch of a creature with a giraffe-like head, long tongue, and sharp teeth. it appears to be roaring at something and stands in a half-crouch. it has long limbs with hoof feet and clawed hands, as well as a long tufted tail curled behind it. end description.)

didn't work out. too far into the animal side of the speculative evolution, I think. so I tried again and got a design I liked much better!

(image description: a digital painting of a tiefling leaping back and casting a glowing orange spell. she is wearing a tunic with a corset and detached sleeves, as well as several pieces of jewelry. Her skin is purple with dark patches like a giraffe's spots, and she has a giraffe's ossicones as well as hoof-like hands and two-toed hoof feet. Her tail is long with a tuft at the end. She has glowing eyes and a flat nose, and there is a single sharp tooth visible poking out of the side of her mouth. end description.)

Brought the face back into slightly more human proportions and that helped a lot. Sometimes designs just take a few tries! that's normal.

and hopefully this is helpful to all of you! there are so many ways to alter humanoid designs to come up with something original and unique to you!

[skorpionegrass]

my ver of human rainbow 😁👍

[uncanny-tranny]

So much love and recognition to the people who don't know how they feel about recovering. To the people whose scars are fading away, and there's a sinking feeling, despite knowing that it's a good thing. To the people who miss when they were "worse," when they felt "broken." To the people who mourn losing their coping mechanisms, even the ones that were destructive, scary, or unpleasant. To those who feel guilty they're healing because their past self wasn't ready.

Whatever it is, there is nothing wrong with any of those feelings. It's a natural reaction, something you don't have ultimate control over. There is nothing shameful about yourself, and I admire the strength it takes to recognize how you feel, even the parts that do feel like the "wrong" reaction to a Good Thing.