to add to this “humans are weird” thing did you know that humans are the only species on earth with the ability to throw things with any significant degree of accuracy and force (apes can throw with about the force of a human ten year old, but cant lock their wrists well enough for accuracy)
and we just never really think about it bc its so easy and simple to us that pretty much all of our sports are based around the concept of throwing things accurately
so what if the concept of projectile weapons takes most species FOREVER to get the hang of, or even come up with in the first place. a human goes onto a ship and throws some trash into the nearest reclaimer, shouts “kobe!” and all the other aliens on board absolutely LOSE THEIR MINDS
I definitely didn’t know this about humans but it’s actually really neat
‘This place needs a dartboard.’ *darts is explained* ‘You… throw sharp objects at a tiny point on a circle with the expectation of hitting it and mock those who do not achieve this amazing feat.’ ‘It’s better if you’ve had a couple of beers.’ ‘You insist that you’re more accurate when partially intoxicated. I have seen you intoxicated. Fine motor control is not something I associate with intoxication.’ ‘The one sport where doping is actually encouraged.’ ‘Humans. How. Just how. ’ ‘You think this is hard, try throwing cards.’
I’m now super enchanted with the idea that there are all these alien racs out there that basically didn’t do projectiles until at least they had geometry and aerodynamics worked out– no throwing stones or slings and arrows, nothing range until catapults with some heavy maths calculations behind them because they couldn’t eyeball it. And some of them not even having that– going from hand-to-hand to computer-targetted bombs, pretty much. And then coming to earth and finding out about spears and bows and arrows and slings and skipping stones– and suddenly there’s a rush on their homeworlds of all these really bad pop-xenopyschoanthropology books about the effect of being able to kill at a distance on our pyschocultural development, how it effects our perception of ourselves and the universe – all these bad science, lurid explanations about how this has effected our strange alien minds to give us warped senses of territoriality or death or social-unit-bonding.
Of all the humans are weird I like this one the most. Feels mundane enough yet just weird enough without making us out to be supersoldiers because I dunno I guess aliens have weak constitutions now or something..
Most ‘humans are weird’ things try to focus on the things humans can do that most animals can’t, but like, they kinda blow it out of proportion. Like sure humans are sturdier than most animals but not by THAT much.
Personally, I’ve always like the combination of facts that A) We’re obscenely flexible compared to anything with else with bones B) We have crazy endurance and C) We’re DTF pretty much whenever. And whatever, for that matter.
Super soldiers nothing, I’m pretty sure Humans would be the Weird Sex Alien.
Those ones are also decent and reasonable “humans can be cool space alien planet of hat biological archetypes too!”
humans:
internal organs are full of acid
eats poison for fun
can throw things like woah
can run for a long time even when normally you would get tired
-”Now I’ll take attendance in the order in which I don’t like you”
-Made us say ‘may I use the potty?’ in a British accent when we need to use the washroom
-”Good morning, how’s my favourite class doing-they just left you would’ve passed them in the hallway”
-Had names for all of the variables: a is for apple pie, b is for brownie, c is for cookie, and D IS FOR DOUGHNUT
-”This is beautiful. Just like if you were in front of a mirror-with me standing in front of you”
-He spent like 10 minutes making sure we understood the difference between cannoli and cannelloni
– “You should join the geek protection squad, we would beat up kids like you”
-On the first day of class he drew an x in the corner of the whiteboard with a box around it and it???? somehow stayed there???? all year?????
-”you should all take French just in case you meet a pretty French lady on a plane like I did”
-We had this closet in the corner of the room, and then it just became a thing to talk about the body in the closet (especially when people not in the class would come in)
-Answered the phone in one of two ways “greetings human” or “Pizza Pizza”
-While we’re talking about phones if someone was being looked for he’d tell them that they were out in the smoking area handing out anti-smoking pamphlets
-”You guys are so loud! People would think you’re Italian or something”
-Once turned the lights on using ‘the force’, a.k.a a lightsaber he kept on his desk, and a student standing under the light switch
-”BIG LIKE HOUSE”
-He told us this story about how a few years ago if a kid was particularly annoying/disruptive he’d send them to a certain teacher to ask for a ‘long stand’ that teacher would take a loooong time looking for this item before sending the kid along to the next teacher (I think there were 4?) anyway, once the kid would get back and be like ‘there is no long stand’ he’d say ‘well weren’t you standing for a long time?’
-There was a girl who had a broken arm, who got moved out of the class when her schedule got rearranged. During attendance he’d call ‘broken arm girl’ first, and she would come into the room before we got there to write stuff like ‘broken arm girl was here’ on the board
-The day before christmas break we just talked about star wars the whole class
-called us all sunshine and when one girl asked why he called her stormy clouds for the rest of the year
-If someone came to borrow something, before he’d give it to them he’d ask if they would like to know where they could get one, and then the whole class would all be like ‘staples’ ‘best buy’ ‘dollar store’ etc
I sincerely believe that by 7th year Ravenclaws would just tell the door to their common room to fuck off and it would open for them
Q “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” A “You shouldn’t shove either up your arse.” “…Technically, yes.”
Imagine it, a poor First Year is waiting outside the common room, they can’t answer the riddle in a way to appease the eagle and must wait until someone else to answer it for them. It’s getting late, they’re starting to resign themselves to having to spend the night here.
Suddenly, their saviour comes! It’s a seventh year! Back from a night finishing off their Araithmancy essay in the Library. They look angry, but our poor little first year squares their shoulders, waiting to see what will happen, and hope that they’ll keep the door open for them.
The Seventh Year bangs the handle against the wall, and a slightly disgruntled voice asks the question again: “What is the truth?”
The Student Replies, “The Truth is that I am so fucking sick of all these mother fucking questions about stupid fucking topics like this you bloody fuck-witted bastard. Who in the name of Merlin’s saggy left testicle gives a fucking damn about all this shit anyway? I’ve been working my arse off in the library for the last seven hours now let me the fuck in or, truthfully, I’ll blast my way in and take you with me.”
The eagle knocker tutts, but allows the student entry anyway, and our little first year enters, eyes wide and in shock. They watch the seventh year go up to their bedroom, awe all over their face at their new hero. They did, indeed, learn something that day by waiting for someone to arrive, they learnt that swearing has a magic all of it’s fucking own, and that sometimes it is big and clever to use it.
The only head canon I will ever accept. Its both perfectly witty and fantastically assholish
witty and fantastically assholish… pretty much quintessential ravenclaw traits right there
My favorite version of this headcanon is that there is one Ravenclaw who went all seven years by answering the riddles with some variation of “not a potato” and was only ever wrong once.
no but seriously I still get chills thinking about turning off my headlamp in the cave and The Hand That I Did Not Actually See, and it’s been twelve years since it happened
it’s such an unreal experience
like
you turn off your light in a cave and wave your hand in front of your face
and
you can see this shadowy thing moving in the black space where your hand is
it looks like the same shadowy thing you would see in your room at night if you waved your hand in front of your face, it’s there and vaguely hand-shaped, and your brain recognizes it as your hand because your brain is aware of where your hand is and what it is doing
But You Are Not Seeing Anything
Inside a cave, there is No Light. No matter how far your pupils spread, there is no light for them to draw in, no light to put an image on your retina.
But your brain just Fucking Assumes that because it knows where your hand is and what it is doing, clearly it can see it.
So it creates a shadowy thing for your eyes to be seeing.
Brain is like “there’s a hand there”
Eyes are like “yup sure thing brain I can totally see it”
Brain is like “nice”
but there is no hand, you cannot see the hand, you are seeing a literal actual hallucination in the cave because your brain thinks it knows best
Caves are awesome, but also terrifying. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
we once went spelunking, and a our guide said that once he was in a cave with a stream, so he could hear running water, and his brain was like ‘oh, running water? that means there must be Ducks out there’. and he saw like…low light shadows of ducks. that his brain just Put There.
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