🌸👽

Alien: "What. What..?"

Human: *HUNTING down a mosquito it saw*

Alien: ".... yeah I am really uncomfortable...."

Human: *quiet footsteps, pupils dialated, intense focus,*

Alien: *WAR FLASHBACKS*

Human: "Found you." *absolutely desimates the mosquito, squashing it into a million pieces as it's guts and various body parts liquidize into blood of the bloodthirsty, now stained on the palm of the human. A living being now reduced to a useless corpse as the human wipes the remains on their pants*

All she had to do was say the words "there's a chicken" and her as well as my own body language immediately shifted. We were out the door and in the yard already sorta hunched over and walking on the balls of our feet, fucking flanking this chicken. No words were exchanged. We just slowly circled this chicken like a couple of rabid dogs. totally single-mindedly focused on capturing the prey.

The chicken could feel it, it immediately began counter maneuvers to avoid us and it was faster. But there were two of us and we knew the land better, we knew how to herd it into a corner, carefully watching it's body language and lurching to counter it's escape attempts. And it was fucking thrilling.

Of course, when we both closed in on it and finally got our hands on the poor thing we simply took it into the back patio away from the cats and the vultures that wanted to actually finish the job. No harm came to the bird. We located its owner and returned him to his flock but still. From an outside perspective, it was a bit unnerving. And for the chicken, it was no different than being hunted. He was just lucky enough that we were predators who appreciated the companionship of pets and were more concerned with returning him to his humans than eating him.

Now imagine any fucking alien species watching a pair of humans, who literally rehabilitate animals in their free time, who are not soldiers and seem to be totally domesticated, just absolutely flip a switch and turn into pack-hunting pursuit predators? On a single word.

Photography.

Ball games.

I Spy.

Playing hunting games with the fellow predators we keep as pets.

Hide and seek.

Many hobbies that involve prolonged seeking behaviour or watching something to make sure it’s moving right.

When someone is...

Sad

Face/Body:

Avoidant/reduced eye contact

Drooping eyelids

Downcast eyes

Frowning

Raised inner ends of eyebrows

Dropped or furrowed eyebrows

Quivering lip/biting lip

Wrinkled nose

Voice:

Soft pitch

Low lone

Pauses/hesitant speech

Quiet/breathy

Slow speech

Voice cracks/breaking voice

Gestures/Posture:

Slouching/lowered head

Rigid/tense posture

Half formed/slow movement

Fidgeting or clasped hands

Sniffing or heavy swallows

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

Can you imagine being an alien and this thing just broke its bones at you?????

I'd be scared tbh

Why did it make that noise

That's a bone breaking noise

Alien: "What. What..?"

Human: *HUNTING down a mosquito it saw*

Alien: ".... yeah I am really uncomfortable...."

Human: *quiet footsteps, pupils dialated, intense focus,*

Alien: *WAR FLASHBACKS*

Human: "Found you." *absolutely desimates the mosquito, squashing it into a million pieces as it's guts and various body parts liquidize into blood of the bloodthirsty, now stained on the palm of the human. A living being now reduced to a useless corpse as the human wipes the remains on their pants*

******

Kriin watched as Human Adriana stalked the small creature. It buzzed and jumped from one point to another.

"Adreana, what are you doing?"

"Shhhh I'm hunting." She whispered softly.

"..hunting?" He asked, looking between the bug and her.

"Surely that won't sustain you. It is a Critna." Xir said, stepping forward to stand next to Kriin.

"Not gonna eat it, I'm gonna kill it. It's annoying." She said before pouncing. One of the fastest known insects on B136 crunched between her hands. "Ugh!" She cried, wiping the blue blood on her jeans.

"Humans are terrifying." Kriin whispered, mandates clicking.

"H-how did you catch it? Those are incredibly fast."

"Huh? It's the same speed as a mole cricket. Those things are everywhere on earth."

Why is it that everything always seems like it is trying to end us? Our world seems designed to work against us and I doubt that we would be better of on any others...

Human *wincing*: Ow man! Why would you do that?

Other human *having just hit friend on the back*: Because it was funny.

Alien: physical violence is funny?

Human: No-

Other human: Yes! But that's not why I hit him.

Alien: ...do I want to ask?

Other human: He's got a bad sunburn. I knew it would be funny if I hit him.

Alien *already dreading the answer*: sun...burn?

Human *moving shirt to show alien*: Yeah, the sun burnt my skin.

Alien *in horror*: our heat source kills your skin layers?

Human *shrugging*: it'll regenerate in a few days

Alien *staring at humans who are too casual about this*: ...what?

Alien1: hey, when did you hire a human?

Alien 2: we didn't. They just wandered aboard one day, saying they wanted to "hitch a ride." Then they never left. I think they like it here.

Alien 1: the human distribution system has chosen.

***

Alien stares at the human, who has climbed up a very high shelving unit.

Alien: Human, get down before you hurt yourself.

The humans response is to climb higher.

***

Alien is secretly filming their human, who is spaced out and just staring at nothing.

Alien 1: "Captain, I assure you, our ships can't be breached by anything weaker than a concentrated proton beam. They barely have lasers. We'll be fine."

and also real life railguns. fun fact the only reason we haven't built tanks with rail cannons is because the gun literally fucking blows itself up.

LITERALLY.

though railguns are non-chemical (as in there is nothing exploding), our firepower has surpassed what we can achieve physically. the projectile is going so fast with so much power it shreds the inside of the gun.

the "explosion" you can see when a railgun fires? thats not any type of explosion, thats the innards (used to launch projectile) of this thing being ripped out with such force it ignites mid-air.

our earliest ventures into railguns ended up with the inside of the barrel being shredded and the rails themselves worn to unusability.

full-power shots can destroy a railgun within tens of firings—that's PITIFUL when compared to essentially all other weapon systems.

this is the larger U.S. Navy railgun (planned for warships). the white particles? thats the railgun being turned into plasma.

humans are space orcs. deathworlders. space fae, oddities, all of the above.

The tragedy of needing to grieve and not knowing what or who you lost or why. The angst of having trauma and being denied the awareness that it's trauma. The suspense of being different somehow and left to wonder how and when. The tension of knowing that something is off and you can't find where it hurts. The Adventure Zone gets it. Kingdom Hearts gets it.

I am a deeply introspective person and I love psychology so much. Not knowing my history, and not having control of my reaction when I feel the way this post describes is not only terrifying but demoralizing.

I cannot pick those memories apart with a fine tooth comb, because I do not have them and it's something that has kept me up at night.

And that's why these series and character with similar* problems is so so so important because I know what that feels like and empathy is such a huge skill. If you can have empathy for some made up guys you can have empathy for anyone.