Why would anyone pick a human race in a fantasy game
I want a fantasy game where human isn’t even an option
Nah man, humans are the coolest
It’s one thing to fight demons if you’re from a species that lives for hundreds of years, is tied to natural magic, and births the best archers on the planet. It’s another thing entirely to do the same when your species is known to be slightly-above-average at farming.
Maybe if you want to ugly cry a little bit because you need a reminder that people are still good check out this Twitter thread about the many people who helped support the Thai cave rescue. They didn’t go in and get the kids out themselves, but it would not have been possible without their help. These people include:
farmers who allowed their rice fields to be flooded so they could pump water out of the cave (and the water pumpers who will stay until they pump the water back out)
people who came just to cook food for the rescue camp, including the noodle vendors who pushed their cart up a steep, muddy road
masseuses for the rescuers
Sophia Thainant, leader of the Muslim women cave volunteers, who sourced and cooked halal food for the Muslim rescuers
the birds nest collectors (who came north on one-way tickets donated by their villages), who climbed into the caves and heard knocking
And last but not least, Saman Gunan, the ex-Thai Navy SEAL who died delivering oxygen tanks to the boys.
okay, so, I love all the posts that run off the assumption that humans are the most ridiculous sapient species in the galaxy
but what if it’s just the other way around
what if humans are notoriously straitlaced and obsessed with protocol. the bureaucrats of the stars.
which is obviously something we would constantly try to complain about and disprove only for some Alpha Centaurian to be like “Captain, your species formalized spirituality, repeatedly, and a recurring theme therein is that the heavens themselves are run as a bureaucracy. Even your rebellions and revolutions are meticulously planned.”
it’s not a bad thing, per se, to have a human on your team — analytical minds, good diplomats (if only because one human etiquette system can be more complex and even contradictory than the vastly varied customs of an entire species) — but be prepared for them to call attention to moral quandaries and loopholes that never would have occurred to you.
and speaking of loopholes, do be careful, because the only thing worse than a human armed with an ironclad system of rules is a human who’s found a gaping hole in them.
“You’re telling me there was a mass movement to name a boat something dumb as a joke?”
“First of all, it wasn’t a mass movement, and second of all, the boat was by no means the first time nor the last.”
“…Exactly how much of Earth comedy is based on incongruous branding?”
Hear me out here: Humans as both.
Like most sapient species assume the above; humans are straitlaced, meticulous, and methodical. They follow strict rules which dictate their social interactions and even a slight variation is considered taboo. They are the quintessential bureaucrats.
Except when they’re not.
We’ve talked about humans method of scientific exploration and advancement involving a ridiculous amount of danger for all parties involved. But, ya know, we write it all down in a very orderly manner and get published and peer reviewed. And then other humans copy the incredibly dangerous experiment to see what happens for themselves.
Humans survived the volatile early years of their species rise through community-bonding. They put the needs of a group of individuals over all else; hunting as a group, eating as a group, raising families as a group, and sometimes dying as a group. This tendency to form strong bonds means that while a human’s signed contract can always be trusted. It also means that a human cannot be trusted to not rip that contract up and say “Fuck it” if an individual with whom they have a community-bond is in danger. Other species are baffled to discover that the individual in question need not be human, or even sapient. Stories of humans who have defended what would normally be considered prey animals by other omnivorous species, of humans who have killed to defend their non-human crew mates, even one story (surely just a story, it can’t be true) of an entire crew of humans who elevated a simple non-sapient cleaning bot to officer’s rank and threatened rebellion if it was decommissioned.
So, sure, humans are logical and awfully organized for such a diverse species. They make phenomenal bureaucrats and politicians. They’re highly sought after as strategists and advisors to royalty the galaxy over.
But, they’re also appear to take great pleasure in looking the rules dead in the eyes and very deliberately thumbing their nose as those rules. Because, the rules (and logic) say you probably shouldn’t jump off a cliff into unknown waters and humans have made multiple sports based entirely off that concept.
this post is just every reason the Vulcans hate us
It gets even better, because he was doing all of this on a pitch black night. This dude swam towards a lure, slapped at it with his glove, and when it got caught; he let himself float and tugged on the line so the fisherman thought he had hooked a 100+ pound salmon. Once he was finally up to the shore, he turned a flashlight on in the guy’s face and walked out of the water, saying “good morning, gentlemen. State fish and game warden, you’re under arrest.“
At this point, the guy who had reeled him in had literally fallen over in shock, and the other people with him were scared shitless. The warden whipped some citations out of a plastic bag in his wetsuit, made the trespassers sign them, asked if they had any questions, and then gathered all of their fishing gear. And he just. Walked back into the river. And quietly swam away, without another word.
This man is a legend.
warden coming out of his river to shame fishermankind
So I started watching this Japanese dating show on Netflix called Rea(L)ove, where every contestant is looking for love and each has a “dark secret” that they have to reveal to the other contestants at random times, and hope that the others still accept them. Some are addicted to sex, some have a lot of debt, some have a criminal record and so on. So there is this one girl who likes one of the guys despite him being rude at times, and he choosesto go on a solo date with her. Towards the end of their date, the hosts make her share her secret with him, and it goes as follows:
he had an almost speechless and shocked response, he didn’t say anything negative or positive really, just the two hosts kept laughing and saying very rude remarks. The scene just kind of ended with them walking away and then their individual thoughts on the date that pretty much boiled down to:
and
So the next day, the girls, this time, get to choose a guy to go on a date with…
WILL HE????
HE DID!
So now, on the date—–
Sorry for the long post, but this was one of the sweetest things I’ve seen in a long time, and I was literally crying and just needed to share this with someone
SPOILER ALERT: THEY CHOSE EACH OTHER AT THE END!!!!!!!!
I love seeing grown humans setting about little creative tasks out of boredom and then looking quietly pleased with themselves, like maybe a middle-aged woman on her train home from work manages to make a tower out of empty coffee creamers and gazes at it proudly for a few seconds.
I love seeing other people make the overblown OOPS I FORGOT SOMETHING performance for no-one that most of us do when we have to turn around in the middle of the pavement.
I love seeing stony-faced people in queues unable to contain a smile when a baby looking over its mother’s shoulder in front of them locks eyes and does that astonished stare.
– when someone is standing in line and they don’t quite dance to the music playing, but you can SEE their head bop and them mouthing the words
– when someone thinks no one’s paying attention and they sing-talk themselves thru a task
– when they laugh or try to hide a laugh when looking at their phone
– when someone does the thing where they enter another space (such as a supermarket aisle) striding with total purpose, then suddenly forget what they’re doing/looking for, and stop there looking blank for a millisecond while they reboot.
– when people are looking for scissors, in their home or in a store, and they make the scissors gesture with their non-dominant hand as an aid to remind them what they’re doing.
– when automatic social interactions glitch, like when you tell a waiter that you hope he enjoys his food too, or tell the stranger on the phone that you love them.
– the hand gesture people make when they’re thinking at their computer, not typing, and their elbow rests on the table, and they feel the edge of their fingernail with their thumb. This is such a lovely little gesture and to my knowledge I have never seen it in fiction. You’d think it would come up all the time in fic.
– when you’re sharing an experience with a complete stranger (like watching a seagull throw up in public, or waiting for a late train) and you make eye contact, and some comment to each other, and then you guys are, like, ALLIES now. Like you would willingly ride to war to save them. You can’t make eye contact again, but you are very aware of them.
– just evidence of other people’s rich, baffling and complex inner lives.
My law school is in downtown Chicago, and the other day I was headed in to the library to finish up a paper. I pass a daycare every day, it’s normal to see the building, but the weather was so beautiful that the teachers had brought the kidlets outside and lined them up for a walk.
They were all Very Tiny (the oldest couldn’t have been more than four) and holding onto one of those child leads with the handles. I was completely prepared to just walk past them—the teachers were counting them off and making sure everybody had their buddy, they were clearly busy. But one of the teachers spotted me, and without missing a beat said cheerfully, “Say good morning to the nice lady!”
I have never ever been so completely and unexpectedly charmed as when a bunch of tiny children grinned, waved, and chimed in with variations of “good morning.” One of them clearly shrieked “GREEN!” probably because I was wearing a bright green t-shirt.
When I finally got to the library and sat down at the table my friend had staked out, she took one look at me and asked why I was still smiling.
i'll apple your turnover 