#of course I’m human

[fluffernuterfiller]

my personal favorite version of the “humans are special because…” is the idea that humans don’t just pack bond with other species we make other species pack bond with us

the idea that a human will pack bond with something/one and after a period of time that thing/person will begin to care about the human too, even if the species doesn’t typically form pack bonds or are exclusively solitary or only brought the human aboard for its usefulness (only thought of us as a tool to be used and discarded if no longer of use)

the idea that by caring for someone/thing we can make them go against their own nature and care for us too

I like the idea that once the alien’s figure out that it’s a thing™��� they try to study it and the results are frustratingly inconclusive, it’s not some sort of telepathic manipulation, it’s not pheromones, it’s not psychological conditioning, it’s not a method of training. it just is

Humans are Weirdos (ft.  animals)

I know a popular ‘humans are weird to aliens’ topic is how easily humans can bond to animals. But then think the opposite.

We humans are so weird because we are practically bonding magnets to animals.

We have our social hierarchies, so it makes sense that we can fit in with certain groups like dogs and even gorillas if we can understand them enough. We get ourselves acquainted with dogs who have been domesticated and these dogs will leap into our laps and constantly bother us for pets and treats and licking us as a way to show affection. People who can get certain animals to open up to us are super cool. Aliens are in awe of how our understanding of them can get us into a pack so readily that humans who are super close to normally protective dog mothers are allowed to hold their precious babies.

We can even manage to bond with animals like cats, known to be mostly solitary. We care for these cats and when they’re comfortable they will break their isolation and seek us out for affection.

Imagine an alien seeing a dog or cat go to an upset human and try to nuzzle them or snuggle into their lap to let themselves be held for our emotional comfort. These animals which, though currently domesticated, were descended from predators streamlined towards a goal of becoming efficient hunters. Willingly coming to our emotional aid and comforting us because they’ve bonded with us so closely.

Aliens see dogs act as protectors and bark away intruders on the human territory, but instantly turn happy when they know it’s their owner and friend. They see cats utilizing inborn maternal instincts to hunt down and leave ‘gifts’ of dead things in an effort to feed and teach their humans to take care of them since we’re such worthless hunters in their eyes. They’ll even know if something is wrong with humans medically before we do, or know about disturbances in the home like fires or gas leaks, and will uncharacteristically jump us to get us out of danger.

And when humans are in danger by others, and an animal senses it before we do, these animals will immediately jump on the defensive and snarl and warn against any potential enemies  and try to alert us.

You’ve got dogs who will literally jump on intruders and bite them when they’re trying to attack their human owners. Throwing themselves and and intimidating animals many times larger than themselves for our sake. Even cats, the ones people might think aren’t very interested in their humans, will throw themselves into the fray and claw the hell out of something that’s a danger to a precious human of theirs.

And, for an added bonus, imagine if we can get this to apply to bigger, deadlier animals with similar capacity for pack bonding.

After months and months of talking, mimicking, feeding, and caring for a giant predator the rest of the crew refuses to near, it’s sort of relaxed to the human. A sense of loyalty that 'yes, this creature cares for me’. Then, one day, pirates invade the vessel and somehow the animal gets loose. Cue the crew panicking when it comes ambling out of its’ holding bay at the time when a pirate is about to bring a knife or something down on the human. Two seconds later this pirate is running and screaming for its life when it sees it. The creature takes a running start, LEAPS over the human (which was closest to it and already injured) and takes off after it. When that pirate is either captured or dead, the creature returns to the human, nuzzling them and making sounds to see if they’re okay.

The human is smiling and mimicking the sounds back, or just talking to it to say what a 'good boy’ it is.

The aliens of the crew are in shock.  The rest of the humans just smile knowingly.

[humming-fly]

I feel like growing up with someone with some sort of severe autoimmune disorder shadow of all people would be good about wearing masks

(given the sonic movies take place on modern-day earth with all the trappings that entails I kinda wanted to see if you could put a mask on one of these guys and ngl much easier than I expected lol)

also consider: matching

[raplinenthusiasts]

Outro: TEAR

© namuspromised

[yetdevout]

“you’re ruining me… and i’m letting you. god, i’d let you do anything to me,” is a crazy fucking thing to say as a possible fear demon by the way.

[scary-lasagna]

HABIT

“I just wanted flowers.”

It really pained you, that you asked for the simplest thing and didn’t receive it.

After months of asking, and buying your own flowers, you decided to not let this battle slide away from you anymore.

HABIT was always good to you, with constant praise, and date nights, and promises to get you things.

And yet, you always have to drag him out of his work just to remind him that you exist that day.

And deep down, it hurts. Because flowers are so simple, and at the right time of year you can find them in the side of the road.

They’re not expensive, not that money is of any proper value to him.

Your hope was fading, and you’ve realized you have pushed too far, because u like the other times you didn’t want to take, “I’m working on it, my sweet. I have plans for you. Big ones ” for an answer, when he has said that over a year ago.

You cried yourself to sleep that night, knowing he won’t come to bed until the late hours of the morning after hovering over his work for the whole day.

He won’t notice the dried tear stains on your pillow because he was too busy admiring how soft your skin looked in the moonlight.

A hopeless romantic, they call them. Maybe even a little narcissistic.

Too obliviously in love to value what you asked for, and has already decided what you really want.

HABIT didn’t think that you wanted silly old dying flowers. Nooo, you wanted a full garden. A bountiful garden that will last through the cold winters and stormy summers.

But you didn’t want a garden.

You only wished to dust off your vase, even just for a week out of the year.

Just flowers. Just for one week.

[leclerrari]

[thewiglesswonder]

Have been struggling through finals, but I’ve scrounged out a bit of time for art! Here’s a human Shockwave based on the Tuareg people of North Africa.

[netmors]

Very serious and focused Grand Admiral...

Sudden night time sketches. I wanted to preserve the process of working on the admiral's "flying head". Contrasting lighting is always so mesmerizing. Especially when want to create pathos.

And I still can’t decide… Red eyeliners for the eyes or more “alien” eyes???

I really liked the idea of Chiss eyes from @kobadit ✨

[bog-bitch]

Boot and sock containing the foot of Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, who disappeared near the summit of Mount Everest in June of 1924.

Photographs by Jimmy Chin

[nattikay]

after the post from yesterday, thinking more about the folks who claim that the RDA are “actually the good guys” and the more I think about it the more baffled I am that this is an actual take people have.

First, I’m not sure where people are getting the idea that the RDA in A1 is trying to “save humanity” (most of the what arguments I see are regarding A1 so Bridgehead City and Ardmore’s “new home for humanity” thing in A2 are irrelevant and a topic for another day). As I already detailed in the previous post, A1 makes it pretty dang explicitly clear that the RDA is mining unobtainium for the money and the money only. Unobtainium is a convenience for humans, it’s desirable, but it’s not a necessity. They can use it to make some dang fancy technology, but they can survive without it.

But ok, let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment. For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that the RDA’s main goal is to protect humanity and that unobtainium is crucial to humanity’s survival. Does that justify their actions? The bombing of Hometree, the bulldozing of the Tree of Voices, the assault on the Well of Souls?

Starting with Hometree, it may be true that the unobtainium deposit underneath it was the richest in the local area, but that doesn’t mean it was the only possible deposit available anywhere. They’d just have to move their operation somewhere else. “They [the Na'vi] can move!”, Selfridge shouts? You can move too, buddy. Violently forcing the Omatikaya out of their home to take the resources you need (even if you really do need them, not just want them!) is not justified when you can just get said resources somewhere else. Sure, it would be a hassle to pack up and move the operation, but violence is not a proportional response to inconvenience.

But ok, let’s add another stipulation, let’s say that the deposit under Hometree was THE only one available absolutely anywhere. Combined with the idea that humanity needs unobtainium to survive (which again is not actually true, but for the sake of the argument), this is the closest you can come to possibly justifying the attack. Even with all these stipulations, though…bombing a village and killing innocent people in the process is still…not good. You can certainly argue that it’s a necessary evil in these specific circumstances—a desperate “either they die or we die, we can’t both live, so of course we’re gonna fight for ourselves to be the survivors” kind of thing—but still an evil nonetheless.

But even if you can kinda-sorta justify Hometree IF you pretend that 1.) humanity needs unobtainium for their survival and 2.) the unobtainium deposit under Hometree is the only one available on the whole moon, what about their other attacks?

What about bulldozing the Tree of Voices? That place didn’t have a special unobtainium deposit. What could bulldozing that area possibly do to “save humanity”? What would the point of that be?

Well, they tell you in the movie. Grace comments on the situation, “they bulldozed a sacred place on purpose to trigger a response”. Jake concurs, “when people are sitting on s*** that you want, you make them your enemy, and then you’re justified in taking it.”

The RDA bulldozed the Tree of Voices specifically to anger the Na'vi, to provoke them into retaliation so that the RDA has a better excuse to attack Hometree. I’m sorry but you cannot justify that with “but they’re just trying to save humanity guys!!1!”

And the attack on the Well of Souls? Even worse. Bombing the Well of Souls was not meant to “help humanity”, it was meant explicitly to harm the Na'vi. Quaritch says during his briefing, “we will blast a crater in their racial memory so deep that they will never come within a thousand klicks of this place ever again”. I cannot fathom how anyone can hear a brief like that and not recognize it as straight-up literal terrorism.

…and then, of course, you remember that canonically the RDA is not doing any of this to “save humanity”, they’re doing it for MONEY. They’re doing it to protect their bottom line. Any shred of justification they might have been able to scrape as “defenders of humanity” evaporates there.

And that’s only the stuff they do in A1! They have a plethora of other sins under their belt, such as the massacre of the Sarentu clan in AFoP. I don’t even wanna know how the RDA defenders attempt to justify that.

so um. Yeah. Believe it or not the very clear and very obvious bad guys are in fact the bad guys. Again it absolutely baffles me that this has to be stated but apparently it does.

[emerald-grove]

Just had a realization-

Gale cooking for the camp.

Gale desperate to prove he can help, he’s useful, he’s worth keeping around and protecting.

But also!

Gale who, after a year with the orb and loneliness, both haunting him in his tower with little reprieve, knows the feeling of hunger better than most. A hunger that isn’t satiated by food, but a hunger nonetheless.

Gale who, despite a year of isolation, doesn’t want his new companions to suffer the same hunger he does.

So he cooks.

He can keep their bellies full, even as they sate the hole in his heart and satisfy his bone deep hunger for companionship.

A meal shared with friends fills more than your belly, after all.

[firethekitty]

very unpopular trigun fandom opinion but. i really Don’t like when people write/draw wolfwood as being genuinely religious. like wearing rosary and praying every night and saying grace before eating and shit. HE SHOOTS PEOPLE AND KILLS THEM and smokes and drinks and curses and wears his collar as wide open as possible and is a Literal Hitman who was kidnapped by a religious cult as a child. do you guys sincerely believe he’s a good christian boy or something

[somedudewithantlers]

what if Ford got gender envy from Bill. Is this anything

[spooksicl-e]

he stabs it.

[the-woman-upstairs]

It’s just…so painful to watch Armand readily submit in order to obtain the love he so desperately craves. And while it’s most assuredly a manipulative tactic, it’s still one borne out of fear and desperation. He cannot lose this person he’s come to love and so will become whatever they want, do whatever they want just so they’ll stay with him. But it won’t be enough. No matter how much he acquiesces or seeks to control (himself, others, the environment), he won’t be able to make Louis stay with him in the perfect life, perfect self he built in the hopes of finally being loved. It will all crumble with Armand left alone in the rubble of what he created, the author of his own abandonment.

[skyblueartt]

You ever just sit back and realize. Damn. I’m really writing freddy fazbear fanficiton