I worked with toddlers and pre schoolers for three years. Sometimes I accidentally slip and tell a friend to say bye to an inanimate object (“say bye bus!”) & occasionally they unthinkingly just do it.
I’m glad there’s a teacher version of “accidentally called teacher ‘mom’”
when I worked at Medieval Times occasionally I would slip in real life and call people “my lord”
One time during family prayer, dad began: “our father who art in heaven, American Airlines, how can I help you?”
One time my dad went to the White Castle drive-thru and the lady (who was supposed to say ‘Welcome to White Castle, what’s your crave?’) asked, “Welcome to White Castle, what’s your problem?”
She apologized profusely while my dad proceeded to lose his shit laughing.
Yesterday I went to Wendy’s and the girl said “Welcome to McDonalds” and then just sighed
Honestly? Most of them wouldn’t even register it. In TF: Matrix particularly, they literally don’t have sexual organs in any way we’re recognize them, and vice versa. Gender and sex are functionally meaningless to a transformer who hasn’t been living on earth among humans extensively for some time, and they wouldn’t recognize any physical features by function. Not to mention, humans are like…always wearing pants. You wouldn’t ask a truck if they have five connection ports or three, would you? That’s rude af! It’s tucked away under your armor for a reason!
Not to mention that if you were to point at a Cybertronian’s crotch and be like “Okay, but what have you got there?” in most cases it’d be their T-cog (most frametypes have the T-cog stored in the pelvic cradle, where it’s heavily armored and at the base of the spinal chain. They probably assume humans have similarly vital organs in their own skeletal pelvis that need to be protected.
That is, assuming these cybertronians know enough about humans to realize that they’re wearing pants as opposed to just have naturally denium-clad legs.
Most cybertronians default to they/them when talking to humans because gender just isn’t a thing for them. Alternately, they may ask what a human’s pronouns are or if they’re feeling confident- they’ll make a guess based off what they know of social signals. It’s not a perfect science, but they can pick it up fairly quick- even though they often make the initial mistake of assuming that gendered pronouns are linked to profession rather than anything else (IE “All military individuals are He/Him” or “All caretakers of offspring are She/Her” to the chagrin of female soldiers and dads everywhere)
It’s worth noting that, as well, cybertronians interacting with humans will generally just adopt whatever pronouns humans first start using for them, save for a few rare instances- Starscream is initially referred to as “she” by Unit E before realizing that there’s a stigma to being seen as “female” by these particular humans, and only then do they insist that humans refer to them as male, versus Arcee who self-identifies as female in human terms, effectively adopting gender to include her, when otherwise she may be seen as genderless by others.
So, yeah. Cybertronians likely wouldn’t ask unless they were being polite, but 90% of the time they just straight up wouldn’t care or understand, or they’d just ask what to refer to you as. I mean, Cybertronian pronouns are a lot easier, you just gotta be like “yeah, the Red Truck over there.”
[text: It was Brother Francis who threw the first snowball. Three days later, when the bishop, like an ecclesiastical health inspector, dropped by the monastery unexpectedly, he found the monks divided into three camps – The Fathers, The Sons, and The Holy Ghosts – and each was holed away in its own snow fort. The Holy Ghosts had the most elaborate fort.
I love how humans have literally not changed throughout history like the graffiti from Pompeii has people from hundreds of years ago writing stuff like “Marcus is gay” “I fucked a girl here” “Julius your mum wishes she was with me” and leonardo da vinci’s assistants drew dicks in their notebooks just for the banter and mozart created a piece called “kiss my ass” so when people wish for ‘today’s generation’ to be like ‘how people used to’ then we’re already there buddy we’ve always been
The Hagia Sophia has inscriptions that were considered sacred for centuries until they were deciphered in the 70s to be Nordic runes saying “Halfdan wrote this”
my old english prof told us that theres a cave in Scandinavia where a viking gratified some runes like 14 feet up on the wall and when they finally reached it all it translated into was “this is very high”
Ancient Shitposting
Now on the History Channel
‘People have literally just always been people’ is genuinely my favorite fact about the world
“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 BC – 43 BC
– human young will turn anything into a weapon to mock battle their peers, broom sticks, straws, even their food
– when in large groups human young will display games of mock hunts against each other. The two most common being “tag” where one young will try to catch the other young acting as prey, and “mob” where all of the young will try to catch a single young who acts as the prey. This suggests an instinctive ability for both pack and solo hunting
– human young will often hone their stalking and hunting skills by hiding or attempting to sneak up on others and pouncing with loud sounds meant to intimidate and frighten. This is considered amusing for the attacker and victim
– adult humans will often mock attack their young with their hands or objects to train the young to protect their vital areas and avoid injury. The young find this amusing and will quickly learn to train each other in this manner
– young humans will often attack and attach themselves to an older human’s legs, arms, or back, hanging on despite being dragged or carried while the adult human walks away. Both humans seems to find the experience entertaining
– young humans are extremely territorial and will attempt to drive off others from food, toys, and areas they have claimed as theirs with physical and verbal attacks. Fortunately, most adult humans actively try to train this behavior out, insisting the young come to an agreement or share resources and territory.
– young humans constantly search for new territory, dens, and resources. They will climb trees, shelving, anything they can reach. They will climb under and behind things. If there are no suitable hiding areas they will construct them out of blankets and cushions or any other available item.
– young humans display a strong pack instinct, quickly forming social groups and defending their group against other groups. Often they will split their own group in order to mock battle each other in contests
– HUMAN YOUNG WILL BITE IF DISTRESSED OR ANGRY AND EMIT LOUD NOISES THAT CALL MATURE HUMANS TO AID THEM
– human young will beg for domesticated carnivores as companions, and if gifted with one will pack bond with it to an extreme point.
– human young will carry a toy and try to protect and nurture it as if the toy was their own young
– human young require constant stimulation in the form of games or information. They will constantly question things and can spend extraordinary amounts of time asking “why”, often while poking the subject in question
– human young will try to eat anything at least once. Anything. If it will fit into their mouth they will attempt to eat it. If it will not fit into their mouth they will lick it.
-human young will voluntarily deprive themselves of oxygen to the point of unconsciousness in an attempt to trigger protective instincts in older humans so they get their way
– human young display great interest in mimicry, often dressing up as different professions, species, and objects. They also display great skill in mimicking the calls and body language of other species. *Example: one human young had me quite concerned there was another Treawalbil in distress and I searched for quite some time before I discovered that the young was mimicking a Treawalbil distress trill with complete accuracy. *Second Example: Human young have begun to wear wear “hats” with artificial crests similar to a Treawalbil and some have begun painting colorful patterns to their arms in imitation of our camouflage.
– human young communicate constantly and spread information quickly not only among their own social group but other social groups as well. *Example: The human young who mimicked a Treawalbil distress trill taught their social group and soon I was surrounded by human young calling out in distress. This caused the Treawalbil researchers much anxiety so the adult humans suggested teaching the young other calls. The human young learned enough for basic communication at an astonishing rate, but then other social groups we had not taught began using the same calls as well. Even adult humans began using the calls to communicate with us without translators.
– Young humans will gift beings and creatures they believe to be in their social group with handmade objects, interesting specimens they have collected, or food. Strangely enough, a being does not have to be human in order to belong to a human’s social group.
Onfim was a child who lived in Novgorod, Russia, in the 13th century. He left his notes and homework exercises scratched in soft birch bark (beresta) which was preserved in the clay soil of Novgorod. Onfim, who archaeologists believe was six or seven at the time, wrote in Old Novgorodian; besides letters and syllables, he
drew battle scenes and drawings of himself, his family, and his teacher.
i’ve seen similar ones from roman children living in what is now england, too. People have ALWAYS been people.
i love this so much, history with real people in it
see also -archeologists at hadrians wall dig up a letter from a roman soldier to his family tanking them for sending him a new pair of underwear in the mail -norse runes scattered around constantanople and several cathedrals turn out to be viking graffiti, including “this is very high” over two stories up -the oldest known joke (egyptian) and the oldest known english joke are both lowbrow sex jokes -roman gladiators had equivalents to sponsorship deals, some murals found were basically ‘gladiator brad pitt rubs himself with capelli brand olive oil, try some today’ and action figures were also found of prominent fighters for chidlren to play with -flat stone fragments left at egyptian construction sites were used as post it notes by workers, some included variations of ‘the foreman is a jerkface’ and a crude drawing of the pharoh with a comically large donger -we have an embarrassing wealth of 4,000 year old receipts referring to one specific merchant being an ass. WE KNOW HIM BY NAME, he wasnt even a king or anything,
Ea-nasir will be known through history for being a dick about refunds
I love how children, even in the 13th century, can never remember how many fingers someone has.
Oh no Ea-Nasir strikes again.
You left out the best part about the Ea-Nesir receipts! From the original post about this historic jackass:
The majority of the surviving correspondences regarding Ea-nasir
were recovered from one particular room in a building that is believed
to have been Ea-nasir’s own house.
Like, these are clay
tablets. They’re bulky, fragile, and difficult to store. They typically
weren’t kept long-term unless they contained financial records or other
vital information (which is why we have huge reams of financial data
about ancient Babylon in spite of how little we know about the actual
culture: most of the surviving tablets are commercial inventories, bills
of sale, etc.).
But this guy, this Ea-nasir, he kept all
of his angry letters – hundreds of them – and meticulously filed and
preserved them in a dedicated room in his house. What kind of guy does that?
Ea-nasir, the FUCKING LEGEND
Departing from Ea-nasir, reportedly there are surviving thirteenth century letters to students at the University of Paris saying things like “I’ve heard it’s cold, wear your scarf” or “I will not send you any money because I have been informed you never study but just sit around playing your guitar”.
what cracks me up about ea nasir is that despite all this, despite constant complaints, a clearly terrible reputation, not only did he keep all his angry letters, HE KEPT USING HIS NAME. HE DIDN’T GO TO A NEW TOWN WITH A NEW NAME, NO, HE STAYED PUT AND KEPT ON BEING EA NASIR
Why do grown ass adults want to eat Tide pods so much?
Because a ton of the visual/olfactory/textural sensory information these pods give me the match nutritionally-dense fruit. It’s got the oleic gleam of something high-fat like an avocado, but bright carotenoid-rich coloration like a berry that wants to be eaten by red-seeing primates and birds. It tends to smell sweet and slightly floral, enhancing that effect. Similarly, when you hold it, it is quite dense (denser than water), but very soft and liquid, once again reaffirming that this “fruit” has either high sugar or high fat content and almost no cellulose to it.
As a result, within me is a less-clever monkey just screaming to eat this delicious fruit in my hand about to go into the laundry, and it does in fact take willpower to tell him he’s a stupid monkey and this is a bubble of foul-tasting poison. But every time I do laundry, this fucking limbic monstrosity rises again and assures me it’s basically like a cherry but Even Better. I have legitimately debated just biting down on one in the hopes of inducing a deterrent memory to forestall this urge in the future, but that’s what my goddamn mammal-brain wants me to fucking do and I refuse to let it win.
Human Brain: Don’t eat the posion pod its fucking posion Monkey Brain: Eat the fruit pod its fruit Lizard Brain: The Washing Machine Is Vibrating Give It The Sex Fish Brain: Climb inside the washing machine it is safe.
“well, that’s not ideal” whenever something is going wrong
“we are in the timeline that god abandoned” whenever i’m mildly inconvenienced
“can’t you see that your fighting is tearing this family apart?” whenever two or more coworkers are arguing
referring to taking medication as “eating medicine”
“time to go back to prison!” when putting animals back in their cages
referring to inanimate objects as (s)he, particularly when i break something and say “oh no, he’s dead.” this concerns them especially when i follow it up with “that’s not ideal”
“what are they gonna do, fire me?”
I work in a blood bank, and constantly refer to blood types as flavors, such as “Oh, you need two units? What flavor is he?” And my older coworkers just look at me confused but my coworker that’s my age doesn’t miss a beat and responds “A Pos”
this is probably my favorite comment on this post so far
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