Hey guys I just found out in this class that during the Black Death, aka The Great Mortality, the gravediggers guild in Florence negotiated themselves a higher salary and political power because they were suddenly the unexpendable laborers supporting society….Just An Idea from 700 years ago
Was walking through my mom’s house to borrow my dad’s drill when I saw my 11yo niece watching me with an odd expression.
“You wanna help me build the catio?”
Her eyes lit up, then she looked disappointed. “But I’m a girl…”
I rolled my eyes. “Do I look like I care?”
That must have been the right response because she jumped up and chattered excitedly as I showed her how to use a tape measure, a drill, etc. We spent all day building and she had a brilliant smile the whole time. After the tenth declaration of this being the best day in her life, I said,
“Gotta love that sweet sweet serotonin!”
She immediately started giggling, “What does that meeeeaan??”
Anyway, she had an amazing time building with me and acted like I had given her a solstice gift when I said she could paint it and that I’d take her to the hardware store to pick out hardware. She’s never been to a hardware store before and I love being the weird knowledgeable uncle who has weird pets always keeps fruit and pistachios in the house.
Update: While I was at the store I found a 53 piece around the house tool kit in bright purple, so of course I bought it for her. Her face when I gave it to her was priceless and she actually gasped. She’s going to “make all the stuff”
Are we going to talk about the “but I’m a girl.”? Where did she get that? Did someone teach her that? Who is it? I’m ready to kill for that cutie.
She learned it from her dead father
I’m just gonna assume you killed him for his blatant sexism
I was across state lines and in the presence of three witnesses at the time of his death. I have receipts timestamped. My alibi is solid.
It occurs to me that as much as “humans are the scary ones” fits sometimes, if you look at it another way, humans might seem like the absurdly friendly or curious ones.
I mean, who looked at an elephant, gigantic creature thoroughly capable of killing someone if it has to, and thought “I’m gonna ride on that thing!”?
And put a human near any canine predator and there’s a strong chance of said human yelling “PUPPY!” and initiating playful interaction with it.
And what about the people who look at whales, bigger than basically everything else, and decide “I’m gonna swim with our splashy danger friends!”
Heck, for all we know, humans might run into the scariest, toughest aliens out there and say “Heck with it. I’m gonna hug ‘em.”
“Why?!”
“I dunno. I gotta hug ‘em.”
And it’s like the first friendly interaction the species has had in forever so suddenly humanity has a bunch of big scary friends.
“Commander, we must update the code of conduct to include the humans.”
“Why? Are they more aggressive than we anticipated?”
“It seems to be the opposite Commander. Just this morning a crewman nearly lost their hand when attempting to stroke an unidentified feline on an unknown world. Their reaction to the attack was to call the creature a “mean kitty” and vow to win it over. Upon inquiry it seems they bond so readily with creatures outside their species that they have the capacity to feel sympathy for an alien creature they have never seen before simply because it appears distressed. I hate to say this commander but we must install a rule to prevent them from endangering their own lives when interacting with the galaxy’s fauna.”
“I see what you mean. So be it, from now on no crewman is allowed to touch unknown animals without permission from a superior officer. And send a message to supplies about acquiring one of these “puppies” so that their desire to touch furred predators can be safely sated.
Ehehehe I love this! Every time someone adds a short story to my post it gets like 90% cuter and more epic
Lets be honest, the humans would ignore the hell outta that rule whenever alone.
“So I hear that you’ve just recruited a human for your ship.”
“Yes, it’s the first time that I’ve worked with these species,
but they come highly recommended. Say, you’ve worked with a few, what tips can
you give me? I’d hate to have some kind of cultural misunderstanding if it’s
avoidable.”
“The
first rule of working with humans is never leave them unsupervised.”
“Wait, what?”
“I’m serious. Don’t do it. Things. Happen.”
“But wait, I thought that I heard you highly recommended that
every crew should have at least one on board?”
“Absolutely, and I stand by that. Humans are excellent
innovators, and are psychologically very resilient. If you have a crisis, then
a human that has bonded wth your crew properly can be invaluable. Treat your
human well and you should get the best out of them as a crew member. Their
ability to get on with almost any species is legendary.”
“But Toks, didn’t you just say…”
“The
trouble is that they will potentially try to bond with anything. If you leave them
unsupervised, you have no idea what kind of trouble they can get themselves into. It was
sheer luck that the Fanzorians thought that it was funny that the human picked
up the Crown Prince to coo at him.”
“Crown Prince Horram, Scourge of Pixia?”
“The
very same. Surprisingly good sense of humour. But don’t even get me started on
that one time with the Dunlip. Al-Human wanted to know if they could keep it.
As a pet.”
“A Dunlip? You
mean the 3 metre tall apex predators from Jowun?”
“Yup. Don’t
leave your humans unsupervised.”
“I’ll uh, take that under advisement.”
“Seriously. Get a supply of safe animals for the humans to bond with or they will make their own. I mean, they will try to befriend anything they come across anyway, but without any permanent pets they can get… creative. Don’t even get me started on the time one of them taped a knife to one of our auto-cleaners and named it Stabby.
Three weeks in and when we finally caught the wretched thing, half the humans on crew tried to revolt about us “killing” Stabby by removing the knife.
“How… how did you resolve that sir?”
“Glaxcol made a toy knife out of insulation rubber and strapped that on instead. Quite a creative solution, I suppose.”
“And that sated the humans?
“Worse.”
“Worse?”
“They thought it was so funny they made a second one, strapped false eyes on springs to both and held mock battles. Then decided Stabby and Knifey were in love and now none of them will allow the others to stage fights between them any more.”
“So, if I supply my Humans with safe bonding pets they will behave better when on other planets? Where do I get safe bonding pets?”
“Realizing the havoc their species created with their bonding needs, Earth has been kind enough to create an inter galactic ‘pet’ shop as they call it, the order forms are on the bridge.”
“If they get a pet this should prevent any knife welding auto-cleaners?”
“Yes…”
“You don’t sound very reassuring.”
“Well… You have to understand that some of what humans find attractive about their ‘pets’ is actually what makes them dangerous. Not all of what they consider ‘safe’ is what we would consider ‘safe’.”
“OK… I am getting a little nervous about this.”
“No, no, it’s fine, I’m just saying you should maybe keep an eye on what they order. Ask them to describe the creature before they get it. For example, the first time I had a human on board I let them order a pet without checking what it was.”
“What happened?”
Well, when it arrived it was a 25 pound fanged and clawed feline creature called a Savannah Cat. My entire crew was terrified of it, it was agile and could easily have seriously injured someone, but the human had no fear of it. They insisted on carrying it around like a child, and they would squeeze it’s ‘beans’ as they said, forcing the creatures claws out, and then they would show people it’s deadly claws while saying, and I quote, ‘look at its adorable claws, this is what it uses to kills things, isn’t it cute?’“
“Seriously?”
“I have also heard stories from other crews that their humans ordered canines that weigh as much or more then they do, and they sleep next to the giant creature.”
“You are not making me feel better with these stories…”
A good chunk of this post is focusing on the fact that humans do ridiculous things like bond with canines and felines that could very well kill us, but at least these ones are easy to humanize. Try to explain why certain people find SNAKES adorable.
Awww, their little tongues flicking out and they look like they’d be slimy, but really they’re all smooth and pretty. And they just laze about like 23 hours a day. So chill. Not to mention they’re flamboyant! Those colors! Hot damn man
I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.
They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.
Imagine coming to a hostile alien world and being attacked by a horde of creatures that can weigh up to 3 tons, run at 30 km/h (19 mph), and bite with a force of 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf).
By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.
You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.
The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.
“Hippopotamus.”
This is giving me the biggest, creepiest grin I might have ever grinned
Imagine being the next crew to go down to earth and thinking “it’s fine, we got this. We have the weapons and equipment necessary to deal with bears and *shudders* hippopotamuses. We’ll be fine.”
And at first you are, you’ve learned how to dodge. You’ve learned where their territories are. You know how to defend yourself.
But then one night you are sleeping in your shelter. You’re in a tree covered temperate part of earth. It seems benign. There are been no sightings of the dreaded “hippos” around. Not even any bears. But there is a slight rustle of the undergrowth. You try and ignore it telling yourself it is just the wind.
Then you hear the rustle again. closer this time.
You peer out into the darkness but see nothing amongst the trees.
The rustle again and now you realise you can smell something. It’s musky and slightly foul. It’s the smell of an omen, a warning. But what of? Where is this smell coming from.
You sit up, but it’s too late. The foul smelling creature is on you. You are hit with 17kg of coarse fur and vicious bites. Long dark claws tear in to you and you are pinned down white the striped creature tries to bite your throat.
It takes some doing but you manage to wrestle free. Blood drips from your wounds and already they itch with the sign of infection. The creature has a bloodied snout, rust rad, mingling with the black and white hairs. It lets out a terrifying growl from the back of its throat and looks to attack again. It’s between you and your knife, so your only choice is to back away.
Eventually the creature gives up and snuffles off in to the undergrowth, down a hole near your shelter you hadn’t noticed before.
When you make it back to your base you once again consult the captive human.
“Badger.” they say, with a solemn nod.
One word: Moose
“Our vehicles are far superior to the local human models, in range, speed, armament, and any other metric you care to name! Nothing could possibly-”
BAMrumblerumblethumpcrash!!!
“That’s called a moose.”
Wolverines.
Also.. dolphins.
The invasion is going slowly. The humans have caught on and are actively destroying information on the planet’s flora and fauna before Intelligence can capture and process it. All that they have are survivors’ accounts. Bears. Hippos. Badgers. Moose. It is becoming obvious this mudball planet is a full-on Death World to the unprepared, and you are so very unprepared.
You lost Jaxurn to a plant. Not even a mobile or carnivorous plant, just one that caused a vicious allergic reaction on contact that killed him in less than a rai'kor. Commander Vura'ko died to an insect bite, a tiny local pest that sucked a tiny bit of her blood and apparently replaced it with a bit of its last meal, which was full of disease. Backwash. She died to bug backwash. And yet you honestly envy them after that… thing you encountered…
When you got back to base the quarantine officer refused to let you inside. They had to roll a containment tank outside to put you in, because you all knew there would be no chance of eliminating the smell if it got into the ship’s air ducts. Smell. You wonder if your nasal slit will ever recover from this stench.
And the smell would. Not. Leave. After incinerating your gear the Q.O. had you use every cleansing agent they could think of, including a few janitorial ones, and still everyone fled the stench if they were downwind of your tank. Desperate to protect everyone’s nasal slits from the smell the quarantine officer interrogated the humans. From them, a glimmer of hope: there was a cure. Somehow the juice of a certain fruit on this mudball was the only thing that could break up the chemicals in the little horror’s spray. Immediately the Q.O. sent a team to recover buckets of the stuff and made you bathe in it. That was hours ago and it didn’t seem to be working, though. All it was doing was turning your blue skin an interesting shade of purple.
Sighing in frustration you wave the med-assist on duty over, who only approaches after checking the wind direction. Annoyed, you flip on the tank`s vox speaker.
“The humans did say it was “grape” juice that removed “skunk” stench, right?“
Every night.
It came for someone almost every night.
Any soldier alone was a viable target for this native monster that moved unseen by any but the security viewers, usually only spotted in hindsight. They were taken as silently as this earth-monster moved. Sometimes they’d find the remains in the morning taken up a tree and hung there, mostly eaten, as if it were a grisly reminder that the monster was still there, waiting unseen, to strike again.
What little they saw of the monster on the vidfeed showed true horror. Yellow eyes that shone with all the light it could gather. It had fangs as long as his grasping digits. Claws half that size formed curved hooks that allowed it to climb up their fortifications with impunity. And in the underbrush, its spots made it almost impossible to see clearly in the undergrowth, if it could be seen at all.
Even the native sentients, the humans, had a healthy respect and fear for it.
The earth natives called the monster a leopard.
It was a constant fear that muddied the senses, and let the monster hunt even more effectively as the soldiers were always on edge. Sleep deprived with fear, it made them even better targets for the monster.
But rumor was that there was worse on this planet. Rumors of a monster like a leopard but larger, and bigger in every imaginable sense. Stripped instead of spotted, which leaped from the underbrush with a sound.
A sound that burst eardrums, paralyzed entire units, and let the monster kill with impunity. While the Leopard wrestled soldiers down and ripped their throats out. This other monster, the Tiger, killed with its pounce alone.
“We’ve been through this,” Group Leader 455 snapped. “The dissection of an Earth life form will help the scientists make weapons to combat the rest of this planet’s hellbeasts. And these are domesticated. Harmless.”
The troops were not-quite-looking at her in the way troops do when they don’t want to be seen to contradict a ranking officer, but can’t quite muster a correct Expression of Enthusiastic Assent. “The name of this species,” she pointed out, “is synonymous with dullness and slowness in the language of the Earth barbarians.” Well, one language out of several thousand—these creatures needed Imperial guidance more than any other world on record—but there was no point in confusing the rank and file.
More not-quite-looking. 455 bubbled a sigh and consulted her scanner. “That one,” she decided. “Alone in the separate pasture. Scans suggest that it’s a male, which means it’s probably weaker. Possibly it’s kept isolated so that the females don’t eat it before mating season. And yes, I know some of you are here on punishment detail, but you’re still soldiers of the Imperium. This squad is perfectly capable of handling a lone, helpless, pathetic male cow.”
I’m enjoying this immensely. Wait until the aliens try Australia for size…
It was a strange creature Tar'van glimpsed at on the vast island known to the humans as ‘Australia’.
“I would warn you not to fuck with us, mate.” Their forced guide, a prisioner, had warned with a chilling grin upon capture. “If you think a moose is bad, wait until you tango with a red back.” To this day Tar'van fears the creature known as the red back, and what horrors it would bring.
The prisioner turned out to be of little help,the stubboness of his people causing them to refuse the danger that the captured human warned of. Tar'van recalls a moment when one of his squad members approached a creature know as a dingo, insistent they had seen these creatures before and they were tame. They barely escaped with 5 of the original 7 members of his squad.
Another moment Tar'van recalls was the brutal mauling they witnessed by the hands of a creature called an ‘Emu’
“Don’t feel too bad,” the prisioner mocked. “We lost a war to the Emu’s as well.”
Now with only 4 members of their squad left, including themself, Tar'van had learned to listen to the prisoner, to be wary of the simplest of creatures. This human was of the sub-species of ‘Zookeeper’ after all.
The ‘Zookeeper’ looks off to the distance, where the creature is.
“It’s a kangaroo, leave it be and you’ll be fine.” Tar'van nods, a human signal of acknowledgement if they are correct. The human smiles a bit.
“That creature cannot possibly harm us.” Tar'van’s squadleader protests. “It is so docile. I will aproach it and bring back it’s head to show this human is a fearmongering liar.”
The human reels back, a look of disgust crosses their face and anger passes through their eyes.
“Fucking do it mate, I dare ya.” The human hisses. The squad leader puffs up their hoinn gland, a sign of pride to their species, and aproached the so called ‘Kangaroo’.
“This will be unpleasant.” A squadmate mutters as they watch their leader raise their fist and bring it down on the creature. The ‘Kangaroo’ looks a little stunned by the impact, before it raises itself upon its strong tail and uses its powerful heind legs to launch their squadleader backwards through the air.
Their squadleader lands upon the ground, unmoving with black blooded oozeing from them. It appears Tar'van is the squads leader now.
“I don’t know what they expected.” the human says, smugness filling their tone. “Kangaroos are fucking shreaded. 8-pack and all.”
Tar'van steps forward to the human, whom inches back in a sign of fear as Tar'van pulls their blade from its holster, and in their first act as leader, frees the human of the bonds around their hands.
“Please,” Tar'van bags. “Get us back safely.”
@kryallaorchid, you guys really lost a war to emus? Why was it necessary?
oh, mate, you never mess with the emus.
(Jesus christ. Dont get us started on kangaroos)
They had faced Emu’s. They had lost one in the battle but had experienced them. But this was no emu.
Looking to their guide, they all stare in horror as his face changes from calculating to fear. Pure, heart consuming horror as he stares at the large bird. “Cassowary…” They mimic him in fear. Squawking the horrific name as another joins the first in the mad run towards them.
The only ones to survive was the native guide and Tar'van. The guide was carrying the soldier over his shoulder as they made their way back to the settlement. Tar'van was a wreck. Periodically alternating between rocking in complete silence and whispering broken words in horror. When they consulted the native all he said was “Its spring…. Magpie season…”
“Listen up, troops. This armour upgrade has been tested both in the laboratories of the best Imperial military scientists and in the field. We are impervious to the stings of any insect on this hellhole of a planet, striped or not! We can brave the perils of its wildlife, and conquer it at long last! Revenge for our fallen companions! Glory to the Emperor!”
“Excuse me,” the native Terran guide speaks up in a tired tone, and the squad’s cheers die on their lips. “This is Japan. You haven’t seen what–”
“Silence, worm! No sting can penetrate this plating!”
The guide tries to warn them once again, merely earning a blow that throws them to their knees. The troops set out, morale high, certain in their ability to brave the wildlife now and thirsting for vengeance against the non-sentient native species. One soldier thumps his fist against a tree. A hollow sound follows.
In an instant, the soldier is the centre of a storm of the striped insects. At first, no one pays it any mind. Their little stings cannot penetrate the new plating, after all.
But then the soldier falls to his knees, and the squad stares in horror as the insects enclose him in layer upon layer of their own bodies, all moving. The squad’s medic yells a warning at everyone to stay back, watching the readouts of the unfortunate soldier’s armour on their diagnostic screen with undisguised horror. The insects aren’t even stinging. They simply keep moving, one atop the other, and the soldier’s body temperature is slowly rising until he drops to the ground, quite literally cooked alive. The insect swarm takes off, unharmed save for the ones that were crushed when the trooper fell.
Finally asked about what happened, the human sighs. “Japanese honeybees. They do this to wasps, too.”
“How?” You ask. “How has your species dominated this planet?”
The human bares its teeth. A smile, they call it. Something humans do when they are happy. Yet you can’t help but think of all the creatures with the their large fangs and sharp teeth. (What kind of species uses a threat signal as a sign of happiness?)
“Persistence and ingenuity.” The human answers, still smiling.
It doesn’t matter that this one is your prisoner. Humans, you decide, are as terrifying as their planet.
“And scattered about it … were the Martians–dead!–slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, had put upon this earth.”
– HG Wells, The War of the Worlds,1898
I’m picturing aliens going up against a hoard of Canadian geese, or a swan.
I think at that point they’d just give up.
Or fire ants
No one even MENTIONED snakes yet…
This thing gets better EVERY FUCKING TIME I SEE IT.
“Let us try the creatures that the humans keep for domestic companionship”
“Is that a miniature tiger?”
“Why does this human own a small pack of wolves?”
The aliens ask their human captive why small wolves live with them.
“Oh, you mean dogs? Yeah, they’re the only animals that can keep up with us.”
The aliens look at each other in fear. “What do you mean?”
“Oh well that’s why you guys ‘won’ is because humans aren’t super fast or strong. I think my middle school biology teacher called us pursuit predators? It means we evolved to hunt things by following them at walking pace until they had to stop to sleep and then catching up to them then. Dogs are the only animals that can keep up with us. Did you know one time a pack of wolves tailed a herd of caribou for three days straight?”
“Uh… okay, what about these small round things with big teeth?”
“Omg dude no if you give a hamster enought time that little fucker can chew through concrete :)”
The aliens wonder if the surrender of humanity was a trap.
I have to reblog it again because additions and because this sort of posts actually make me grin really really nasty. And i LOVE.
“Are you really sure this creature is not dangerous?”
The aliens eyed the weird looking animal the human was holding in its hands like it was a deadly weapon. So far this damn planet had been one huge death trap at every corner. How humans had managed to not only survive but even thrive in such a dangerous place was beyond logic.
“Dude it’s just a regular toad. Do you think I would be holding it if it was the poisonous one?”
The aliens immediately squirmed in unison at the mention of poison, but the human shrugged it off. By this point they were afraid of pretty much everything on Earth, so in order to keep them guessing and blur the lines which was safe and unsafe even more, some humans would handle some animals directly.
Like in this case, where a confused toad miscalculated a jump and landed on top of one of the aliens, sending them all screaming like banshees. The human however just picked the poor animal up before they decided to blast it, before it had a chance to attack them again.
“I swear, the worst it can do to you is just miss a jump and flop on you again before if runs away.”
Before anyone else could say or do anything, the toad inflated its vocal pouch in an attempt to do an intimidating croak and get the human to release it, since struggling wasn’t working.
Rather than be scared by this new feature the squad leader approached in fascination. “Wow, I didn’t know there were creatures here who possess a
hoinn glan….”
At that very exact moment the toad’s tongue flew out and hit the alien nearly in the eye. But the speed and sticky saliva were more than enough to make it scream so loud, it was like the alien had been hit with acid instead. The rest of the squad was soon to follow in the panic, thinking their leader had been the next victim of Earth’s cruel wildlife.
“Ups. Forgot to mention these guys also have a huge tongue they can shoot out without warning.” the human said in a not very sincere apologetic tone, while enjoying the chaos cause by a single amphibian.
Today I learned that Van Halen have that rider in their contract about “a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed” in order to know at a glance if the promoter read the entire contract. And the reason they do THAT is because they once had a stage collapse because a promoter hadn’t read the proper way to set up all the specific technical stuff.
So if the band goes in the dressing room or catering and sees brown M&Ms, they know they have to double-check the stage setup for safety.
I heard about this on Freakonomics Radio. Turns out the bit about no brown M&Ms is HUGE, in BIG font, bold, underlined and quotated like they’re on the Group W Bench.
The band was all, “We have fifty-pound lights hanging over our heads and fire being shot out of cannons. We had to know whether they read our safety regs so we didn’t flamebroil any roadies.”
interesting how this has become a meme in the music industry about divas. i’ve always heard jokes that amount to “this stuck up celebrity hates the green gummy bears!! they’re refusing to perform just for that???” and its reading stuff like this that i realise how that joke might have come about. people get grumpy that the band refuses to play but cant admit its because THEY’RE incompetent, so they make it all about the M&Ms. another example of artists using a creative method to ensure they have a perfectly reasonable request fulfilled that is then bastardised by lazy people who wanna make money off them.
…this is like the music industry version of hearing the truth behind the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit
