Wildseer

AHHH Threshold brainworms!! I adore how in Blackstone Arthur was metaphorically haunted by ghosts from his past, and now he is quite literally being haunted by his ghosts!

(Close up for details)

first of all, I just noticed how werid that name is. Like, youre making it sound like humans enjoy sleeping with dead stuffed animal carcasses. Second, here's how that conversation would go:

Alien: "What is this?" Picks up medium sized purple monkey toy. Squish, squish.

Human: Looks over. "What are you

Human: "Oh my gods give that back right now."

Alien: Confused as the toy is snatched away, trying to reach for it. "But what is it though??"

Human: "It's- it's nothing! S' just Angel. Don't touch her."

Alien: " ' Her? ' "

Alien: "... It looks like a male to me."

Human: "WELL, IT'S NOT. SHE. SHE'S NOT. ahem. I keep Angel next to my pillow at night while I sleep."

Alien: "Why...?"

Human: "For comfort and protection."

Alien: "Oh, can it engage in combat?"

Human: "Of course not."

Alien: "Does she alert you of intruders?"

Human: "No. She doesn't even have a voice box."

Alien: "... Then how could it possibly bring you comfort and protection?"

Alien: (Walks in on their human crewmate while they were at the sink in the public ship bathrooms.)

(Dont ask. It makes sense, it does)

Alien: "Oh, ew!"

Human: (Looks over with their toothbrush dangling out of their mouth, foam dripping.)

Alien: "What are you doing? Is that spit?"

Human: (Simultaneously continues to brush their teeth, laughs, and tries to answer at the same time, ultimately failing.)

Alien: (Waits patiently for the human to finish and explain themselves. They're disgusted, not rude, come on.)

Human: (Wiping the leftover water from their lips.) "I was brushing my teeth."

Alien: "You brush those? Like hair?"

Human: "Ahhh, no. I use a toothbrush, see?" (Holds it out for alien to see.)

Alien: "Respectfully, get it away from me."

Human: "Fair. Anyway. I have to brush my teeth twice a day. I can't believe you didn't know this."

Alien: "But I thought you said teeth were bones."

Human: "Well-"

Alien: "You brush your bones?"

Human: "Yes, but... but no. It's - it's different."

Alien: "Why only your teeth? What happens to the rest of them?"

Human: "I've never really thought about the rest of them. I guess I can't reach those."

Alien: (Whispering) "You have dirty bones."

Human: "Oh, my gods, I'm going back to bed!"

But no, for some odd reason, everyone still feels like humans are different somehow. We're unaware of this, and at first the rest of the galactic civilization is too, but as time passes it becomes clear that something is... off. Literally nobody can figure out what it is. By every metric we're doing the same normal things everyone else is doing, and our biological traits and behavior are unique but in the same way every other species is unique too, with a lot of overlapping concepts with other species and the expected level of cultural differences that everyone else has and naturally expects. Humans aren't special. But any time a human does anything, the aliens can't help but feel this weirdly unsettling subconscious reaction that tells them "Something is happening". It's like there's a weight behind what humans say, what they do, how they act, some form of bizarre importance to it, even though they're literally doing the same thing everyone else is doing. It causes humans to be viewed... weirdly... by the aliens, in a weird indescribable way that they can't quite put their finger on. There's just something about humans that's... something. No one can figure out what, but it does lead to a bunch of weird space superstitions. Is it good luck to have a human on board your ship? Is it bad luck? Is it something else?

Me: Genetically wise, our closest living animal relatives are the the Great Apes Species. Can you guess which of the Great Apes are genetically our closes living relatives?

Alien: Uh...Chimpanzees?

Me: Fuckin chimpanzees! We share nearly 99% of our fuckin DNA with them. Ironically, they're way more violent than us.

One time when I was a kid, I had a science teacher with a snake as a class pet, and said snake was almost done shedding. There was one little bit of dried skin stuck to its face and I was like, “would it hurt him if I pulled that off?” And the teacher said, “yes it actually could, it’s probably still attached to living skin if it hasn’t come off yet” and I was like “oh, sorry,” and he said, “that’s okay, you were just wanting to do the primate thing.” And damn, that’s such an accurate descriptor.

Obviously, every species shows physical affection somehow. Every. It's just the way that 𝙬𝙚, specifically, show it.

Kin (The Alien): *Sighs* "Caleb, I feel bad today. I can't... explain it."

Caleb (The Human): "Oh, Kin." *Sits down next to him* "What happened?"

Kin: "Nothing. Really. I just feel off."

Caleb: "Aw, buddy." *Pulls him into a hug* "It's okay."

Kin: *Takes a moment to process out of confusion for what's happening*

Kin: "Caleb, why are you touching me?"

Caleb: "I'm hugging you, dummy." *Small forehead kiss*

Kin: *Is this what having a present father is like??*

Caleb: "Feeling any be-"

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

Alien: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen a human do?

Alien 2: Get angry at a train.

Alien: Well that doesn’t sound so-

Alien 2: And then flip said train over.

Alien: ………..

Alien: Run that by me again?

Alien 2: This one train upset a bunch of humans so they flipped it over.

Alien: You can’t just start a story by only explaining the bare minimum.

Alien 2: Right, so back when I was going to classes on Dreka III I would take the transportation network railway to and from classes to my home.

Alien: Why not just teleport?

Alien 2: My human friend Sharen back then showed me some clips from a human documentary series called “Star Trek” that informed me of the dangers of teleportation; and since then I’ve never done it.

Alien: I feel like this is an entirely separate story we need to get into later.

Alien 2: Fusing with walls and multiple people joining together.

Alien: A much shorter story it seems but continue….

Alien 2: So I was waiting at the station one day and it was well above the overcrowded limit.

Alien 2: This little hatchling and her drone mother come up next to me and wait for the next train to arrive.

Alien 2: The people behind them kept coming and jut as the train was pulling into the station the hatchling was pushed onto the tracks.

Alien: By the gods…..

Alien: So it was the hatchling’s death that upset the human’s?

Alien 2: No, but it was close.

Alien 2: You see the hatchling was still alive despite everything, but they were wedged underneath the train and trapped.

Alien: I still am failing to see how the human’s got involved.

Alien 2: Well when the drone mother called for help the train master came and told them that the train would be going again shortly.

Alien: *gasps

Alien: No.

Alien 2: Yes.

Alien 2: They said they were on a tight schedule and that they could not avoid a delay.

Alien 2: They also stipulated that by entering the train station they absolved them of any wrong doing and that a single death here and there was not only to be expected but was calculated into quarterly projections.

Alien: Sounds pretty standard for Dreka III.

Alien: It’s a mass population world right?

Alien 2: About 10.6 Billion by last count.

Alien: Yeah; most of those worlds have very little regard for individual lives.

Alien 2: True, but humans don’t see things like that.

Alien 2: In fact, the hundred or so humans at the station were offended that the train master was perfectly fine with killing a hatchling.

Alien: Strange people it must be said.

Alien 2: Indeed.

Alien 2: So after the train master finished their explanation the humans went over to the train section that had the hatchling underneath it.

Alien 2: They all used their meat grabbers to grab the underside of the train section and began to lift.

Alien: There’s no way a human could lift a train section.

Alien 2: There was a hundred of them, remember?

Alien: I mean, still……

Alien 2: They had that thing teetering to the side within ten minutes and the drone mother was able to safely grab the hatchling.

Alien: If they rescued the hatchling how did the train get damaged?

Alien 2: It seems they humans were still upset at the train master for what they had said about wanton child murder, so they continued lifting the train section until it tipped over and collided with the tunnel wall.  

Alien 2: The resulting damage took over three weeks to repair to both the train section and tunnel wall, which resulted in the train master being sent to a penal military force along the western fringe.  

Alien: So the humans were arrested?

Alien 2: Not quite.

Alien 2: Majority of them claimed they were lifting the train to save the hatchling and that in their haste they lost control of the train.

Alien: No one would believe that.

Alien 2: The local law enforcers did and looked the other way.

Alien: How in the six hells did that happen?

Humans are space gnomes: wired

Look for humor in everything

Smart despite our silliness

Have remained hidden from view for millennia despite constant scouring of our woods (the universe)

Will just do whatever absurd thing we can "for the bit"

Form pack bonds with everything, including stuff that could outright kill us

Go out of our way to help animals when we see them injured

Comparably underdeveloped, but wise beyond our years

Enjoys parties and festivals

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

Sure. Humans fight each other all the time, aliens would probably think we’re the worst, right?

But what if we’re not?

What if the aliens come, and the first thing they say is, “Hello! We are so glad we found you! We are so pleased to meet you!” Similar to how humans greet puppies that we really want to meet and not scare, except it’s aliens that have been following radio messages across light years to find us.

We’ve spent so long wondering about what’s out there, and we see ourselves almost as a blight on our own planet, when we’re probably just fine. We’re trying. Maybe, just maybe, we’re okay. Maybe an outsider would look at us and think, “Look at them! They’re trying to be good! They name rocks and waters and cleaning robots! I love them for it!”

We tend to think that we must be the worst, the most backward, the blandest, least interesting or intelligent creatures in the galaxy.

I wonder how aliens would actually look at us.

We play whale noises into the black. We send greetings. We send probes with videos and audio tracks out explaining who we are and what we do on earth, just in case there’s someone else out there wondering if they’re alone in the universe. We tame predators to be companions because we are compassionate and we want to be friends with anything that will have us.

Maybe we’re not so bad.