Interstellar Cultural Exchange

So a lot of ‘Humans are weird/space orcs’ posts always say that humans are 'apex predators’, but really we’re not.

We’re a 2.2 on the food chain (highest is 5). To put that into perspective about a pig or an anchovy. Yeah.

So imagine aliens thinking that well obviously humans must be the apex predators of Earth, after all they’re so advanced, use pursuit as a form of attack and have high pain tolerance etc etc.

But they find out that we aren’t. We literally just said “fuck you food chain” and rose above our standing. Imagine how aliens would react to that.

okay so i’ve seen a lot of post about What If Humans Were Weird and stuff about humans and aliens interacting but………….give me some human/alien relationships? where are my complicated courting rituals???? where are my human alien marriages??? Give Me That Shit! what if aliens consider humans the Epitome of Beauty and grace? like yknow how some ostriches prefer presenting to humans instead of other ostriches? and anyone who is lucky enough to be mated to a human is thought of to be like a tier above.

but like the flip side where any human who marries an alien is immediately known as a Kinkster. “i fucking knew david was into weird shit!!! no wonder he got married to an alien from sector 764b4 HE LIKES TENTACLES!!”

or maybe?? aliens who like humans are weird to other aliens? “omg ru'garr stop fetishizing an entire species, u creep.” and ru'garr is trying to hide his weird human porn like “ITS NOT THAT WEIRD GUYS THE GENITALS ARE COMPATIBLE!!!” “fuck off ru'garr”

i just,,, can’t believe i haven’t seen any of this?? @space-australians

Humans Are Weird (Pregnancy and Babies)

“Humans are weird” post! What if all aliens actually hatch from eggs and our planet is the only one in the universe that has mammals on it. For an alien, the shell of their egg is a bit like their birth certificate because it’s the proof that they were born, so it’s extremely important for them. To study the development of certain species, they sometimes have to ask some specimen of that species to show them their shell. But then, they visit Earth and meet humans…

Alien: Good morning Human-Nate. I am Xers, an eggshell specialist. In order to study your species development, I need you to show me the shell of the egg that you hatched from. Don’t worry, I am a professional. I can guarantee that you will have it back in the same state as it was when you entrusted it to me. Human: hummmm, I’m sorry but I don’t have any eggshell to show you….. Alien: Could it be that you lost it? If so, please excuse me for my previous request. I am sorry if you thought that it was a rude of me. Human: Don’t apologize, it’s fine! *nervous hand gesture* I didn’t lose it or anything. It’s just that I never had one in the first place. Humans do not hatch from eggs. Alien: W-what? They don’t?! Then how? Human: Well, to put it short, the baby grows inside of the mother’s uterus for 9 months and then, when they are ready, they just…come out…by another part of the the mother’s reproductive system. Alien: Directly from the uterus? With no shell or protection?! Baby humans actually SURVIVE this?! Human: Yup, and I am the living proof! *laughs* Alien: …..what the hell is wrong with your species.

To learn more about what humans call “pregnancy”, Xers went to see a pregnant woman and asked her questions about the singular gestation process of “mammals”. After a few minutes, the woman chuckled softly and put a hand on her round belly.

Alien: *worried* Human-Kate, are you alright? Human: It’s nothing. I just felt a small kick from her. *chuckles* Alien:….Did your growing organism just ATTACK YOU?!

Humans are Space Orcs

So I’ve been loving the “humans are weird” tag lately and I came up with one myself. Here goes…

Breathe in… Breathe out… The yoga soundtrack on Kenzie’s phone was interrupted by the nervous clicking of a member of the Ghrivak clan. Thnybux, a third-tier member of the clan, approached her on a swirling cloud, as was standard of the Ghrivaks.

“Human Kenzie,” said Thnybux, through the translator in her ear. “Human Kenzie, what are you doing? You will rip your flesh with those movements!”

Kenzie straightened from her yoga position and greeted Thnybux with the series of clicks common in the Ghrivak dialect. “This is called yoga. Humans actually need to move and stretch their bodies. It’s good for us.”

Thnybux regarded her with some confusion. “Do you know why the Ghrivak move only on clouds, Human Kenzie? It is because if we move our bodies too much, our bones will disintegrate from the forces of gravity on this planet. I do not understand this theory of movement. How exactly is it beneficial to your species?”

“Human muscles are connected to hard, quasi-living rods in our bodies called bones. These bones are created by specialized cells, and are both very lightweight and very strong. Our muscles are made of specialized cells, and when they are very minimally damaged, repair themselves so that they are stronger. If a human does not exercise, the muscles will die off, and the human will no longer be able to move.”

“Surely the force of these…muscles…on these living rods will shatter the rods?”

“No, our muscles are not that strong,” Kenzie laughed. “Our bones are much stronger than that. And humans break bones fairly frequently. It hurts but the bone just heals stronger. That’s kind of a theme in humans actually, when we get hurt we just heal stronger.” She returned to her yoga.

Thnybux hid xie’s fear from the human Kenzie, and took note of this new information. What kind of creature becomes stronger when it is hurt? Lesson number one: Do not anger the humans.

What if humans are the only species that gets "mystery" bruises? How weird would it be to aliens that we can sustain an injury that leaves a mark lasting days or sometimes weeks but don't remember how we got it?

I love it!

Humans are already terrifying enough, but then it gets injuries like contusions (which is deadly to several species mind you!) and it doESN’T EVEN KNOW WHY?!?!?!?

At first the interspecies council thinks it’s a joke. Yes, it has already been established that a human just plain won’t die (with very few exceptions, like decapitation) and contusions aren’t that dangerous for most species. That it’d be unsuccessful at killing a human wasn’t surprising, but that they some times don’t even know how they’ve gotten the contusion? No that has to be a joke.

It’s ruled as another myth until a member of the council travels with a ship with a few human crew-members. Trofaxiq the Elder had taken a stroll around the ship a few days into the voyage when he heard two humans talking.

“Maybe you walked into something?” The tall, highly pigmented one said, inspecting something on the slightly shorter, less pigmented one.

“Yeah, you know I’m clumsy, but the position’s weird, isn’t it?” The shorter one said, looking down at their own appendage.

“So maybe you got it in your sleep?” The tall one suggested as the short one spotted Trofaxiq the Elder and jabbed its appendage into their fellow human’s sternum. A less experienced Froentir would have mistaken it for an attack, but Trofaxiq the Elder knew enough about human behaviour to know it was called a ‘nudge’ and was socially acceptable. 

After the normal exchange of greetings and pleasantries, Trofaxiq the Elder eventually asked the humans what they had been discussing. The tall one, Fatima, said the short one, Lucíahad gotten a bruise, but couldn’t remember how. Unsure what a bruise was, Trofaxiq the Elder asked, but quickly came to wish they hadn’t as they saw the large contusion on the humans appendage.

Less than one rotation later, the human guide had been updated, and a suggestion had been made to add a classification so they could mark humans down as more dangerous than the previous  “extremely dangerous, do not approach in the wild”

The only problem was how useful humans could be to expeditions. In the end, the suggestion wasn’t passed, to the worry of many council members.

OKAYOKAYOKAY B U T Aliens that only have mates to reproduce. Once every couple of moons they find their partner, do the do, then find a completely different one the next cycle. Imagine these aliens being confused about the human concept of marriage - “you stay with them for life?“ - and not understanding that while yes, Intaquk, you are very attractive I am married so no I will not be your mate this season. Imagine Valentines Day rolling around and one of a crews humans is feeling sad and the aliens are like “yo r u okay should we feed u or something is this natrual” and the human “just kinda bummed i dont have a valentines” and after a bit of research of the holiday one of the aliens gets down on one knee and offers the human a small rock like “I heard these..proposals are common in human culture?” AND THE HUMAN JUST STARTS SMILING AND TAKES THE PEBBLE LIKE ‘thank you fruiyo’ AND THE OTHER HUMANS AROUND START GUSHING OVER HOW ADORABLE THE SCENE WAS. THE ALIENS PICK UP ON HOW THESE PROPOSALS MAKE THE HUMANS ELATED, THEREFORE SEVERAL OTHER PEOPLE ARE PROPOSED TO WITHIN THE MONTH A N D

Self-Healing

            In addition to multiple posts I’ve seen about humans surviving injuries against all odds, we also tend to ignore injuries, letting our bodies take care of the damage. Got a broken nose? Eh, it heals itself. Cut your leg open? Slap on some ointment and some gauze; it’ll be fine. Got a concussion? A little ice and time and you’ll be fine. So many of us will suffer through pain and fevers and awful physical problems and assume the body will heal itself.

            Zork'ak was in the dining hall when the humans returned from their “cliff diving.” Several of them were laughing, but a few were clutching their head or their nose. Zork'ak rose to meet them, xer eyes cutting to the hurt members of the pack.

            “Did your trip go well?” Xe asked.

            Adam smiled. “Yeah, yeah really fun.”

            “Yeah, my broken nose was definitely really fun.” Wren muttered. Her hand was indeed covering her face with thin material catching what looked to be blood.

            “Shouldn’t you go to the medical wing?” Zork'ak asked.

            Wren shrugged. “It’ll stop and heal itself.”

            “Your body just regenerates broken extremities?” Zork'ak was more and more afraid of this species every time xe interacted with them.

            “Not regenerate, per say,” Carrie answered to Zork'ak’s right. “It’ll just heal broken bones and cartilage. Once I got in a wicked fight, got two or three broken ribs. Hurt like a bitch.”

            “And these bones? Do they also heal themselves?”

            “Oh, yeah. All of our bones heal themselves. You just have to make sure you get it set right. Usually ribs and noses they can’t do anything about.”

            Zork'ak was shocked, unsure of what to say, when xe noticed Jessica standing behind Carrie clutching her head. “Is Jessica well?”

            Jessica looked up then, squinting at the light. “Concussion,” she said.

            “What is a ‘concussion?’” Xe were almost afraid of the answer.

            “It’s when you hit your head real hard and it hurts pretty bad. It can make things disorienting.” Carrie was looking at Jessica.

            “Our medical staff should assess the damage from Jessica’s brain injury.”

            Carrie shook her head. “We gave her some pain reliever, and I’m taking her to her room. She just needs it to be dark and to rest.”

            With that, Carrie took Jessica down the corridor, and Zork'ak returned to xer seat.  

The humans sat around xem at xer empty table.

            “Hurts like hell, man. Not cool,” Steve was muttering.

            “Oh, he was being nice. I would’ve hit you real hard.” Reese smirked.

            “Are you all having a disagreement? A physical fight?” Zork'ak was alarmed. These humans could inflict extreme damage.

            “Oh, no.” Adam was laughing. “Steve got a sunburn, and I hit him on the back. It was pretty fun.”

            “You’re an asshole,” Steve said as he took a bite of his stew.

            “A ‘sunburn?’” Clearly the Klyl’s did not know anything about humans.

            “Yeah. We have to put on a layer of sunscreen, like a protective lotion, or it’ll burn our skin. Kill the top layer.”

            Zork'ak was gaping. “Our sun harms your skin?”

            “Well, it’ not as strong as our sun, but yes. We can still get burned.”

            “We must take you to the burn unit at once. We cannot allow you all to go outside if the sun is killing your skin layers.” Zork'ak started to rise from the bench.

            Steve shook his head. “Give it a few days. It goes way. The body replaces those cells with new ones.”

            Xe sank back onto xer seat. “Is there anything your body cannot heal?”

            “Oh, yeah. Some infections and diseases, heart problems, cancer. Things like that.”

            “But normal, everyday things,” Adam said, “We heal ourselves.”

            Zork'ak wondered how the scorching of one’s skin or the breaking of a bone was an 'everyday’ thing, but xe was unsure of everything xe had learned before these humans arrived. Xe needed to see the commander.

submitted by: @nonbinarygaymergirl

I have only once contained this much terror and confusion at a time,.and that encounter involved a Quag'snartian Fleshchanger.

how would aliens react to tattoos? like, some humans undergo large amounts of pain to have an image permanetly inked on their skin and sometimes the reason is no more than "eh, it looks cool"

“Human Tyler, you seem to have acquired pigmented particles under your skin.” Rytrinq began, trying to gain their attention at the same time as xe remained polite and considerate. “Do you wish time to cleanse yourself?” Xe asked, quite pleased with xemself for remembering the appropriate question.

“Fuck off, don’t be rude.” Human Tyler repeated, looking enraged for some reason. Granted, Rytrinq didn’t have the longest experience deciphering human mannerisms, but the wording didn’t leave much room for ambiguity. “This took a loot of time, and I’ll have you know I’m really happy with how it turned out.” They added, baffling Rytrinq further.

“You got dirt under your skin on purpose?” Xe asked, getting more confused each time Tyler spoke. Fortunately, it seemed they realised xe genuinely didn’t understand. Or at least they were willing to indulge him. 

“It’s not dirt. It’s ink, and yes. It’s called a tattoo. It’s art.” They said, clearly still angry, though they did look slightly less terrifying, which xe decided to count as progress. Xe had heard that human art came in many forms, but xe had never heard of one involving the human body itself.

“Human Tyler, that is immensely intriguing. How is it made?” Xe asked, relieved when they seemed to realise it was a case of cultural confusion rather than xem being purposefully rude.

“Well, you go to a tattoo artist, and they make the design and then make a sort of template, I guess you could call it. Anyway, they put that on the place you want the tattoo, and it transfers a bit of ink so the artist’s got something to guide them. And then they have this machine, which is basically a bunch of needles that pierce the skin with ink. Which the artist use to sort of draw on the skin, leaving cool art like this.” Human Tyler said, adding a pointed look for the last part while showing off the art. Rytrinq was however too worried - and quite frankly terrified - to think too much about it.

“It pierces your skin and drags the ink machine through your skin? Is that not painful?” Xe asked

“What? No, no it goes up and down into the skin. If you drag it without the needles getting up you’ll end up with big scars. It does kind of hurt, but it’s not that bad.” They answered, clearly believing that to sound better. As if getting stabbed multiple times was no big deal.

“What purpose does it serve? Is it a hierarchical or sociological requirement?”

“No, some people don’t even like them. Think they look unprofessional or whatever bullshit like that. But it doesn’t really have a purpose.” Human Tyler answered with a brief elevation of their shoulder area.

“Then why do you put yourself through the pain?” Xe wondered. They had to have some reason after all, right?

“Eh, it looks cool. I mean, I just really like daffodils, always have. They’re cool.” They said, once again reminding Rytrinq that xe would never fully understand humans.

Humans are weird...

I love all these humans are weird posts so I’m trying my hand at one. I’ve been thinking, humans are like, ridiculous specialists. Our brains is so big we’re born prematurely so as not to tear our mothers apart. And we’re born crazy weak and we have super long childhoods to compensate. We pack bond and bond with bigger creatures to deal with this (this is why we think babies of all species are cute, it’s basically a drive to take care of this weak little thing because our own children are so weak). So what if alien species evolved so there was one, super weak but really brilliant species, has fine motor skills, huge language skills etc, and one that evolved as a symbiote that was basically huge protective dog/ox type to do the heavy lifting. And it’s really bizarre that we don’t have this symbiosis. Like the fact that humans are a stand alone species is weird. We seem huge and bulky to the tiny intelligent species (in my head it’s basically an otter/raven hybrid) and small and delicate to the other. And they don’t get how we function alone, until they see us spilling our pack bonding instincts all over everything, hostile predators, teddy bears, roombas, even cups with little chips in them. And then it’s like, oh I see, you don’t bond really strongly to one thing you bond just a little bit to everything and wait to see what sticks.

Humans are odd

To jump into the whole humans are space oddities, imagine an aliens reaction to contacts.

Human Kayla had recently joined the ships crew, who all felt rather prepared. They got her a hamster and everything. And so, they go on for a good two weeks until Human Kayla says her contacts were irritating her.

So, of course, everyone is super freaked out because, “Human Kayla! What are these contacts you speak of? Are they part of your body?” and etc.

But then they watch her reach to her face and shove her finger onto her eye. And peel a bit of it off.

And now, of course, the aliens are terrified, because humans can casually peel the top part of their eye off if it hurt them, and it was once again time to update the intergalactic human manual.