Menu

Subscribe

Humans Are Weird

A 172-post collection

Challenge #02236-F046: We Always Came Back

Do couples on ships ever sing duets together during their leisure times? That would be adorable. -- Anon Guest

Humans are pack-bonding creatures and thrive in environments where they have ready access to their pack. It is therefore advisable, when hiring Humans, to be sure that you hire Humans who have already established a stable pack bond. -- Douddam's Guide to Surviving the Edge.

The Francetti's were at it again. Human pack-bonding rituals were one thing, but this? This was bizarre, even for Humans. These two, a married couple sharing the name Francetti, had a disturbing habit of exchanging tonal combinations of Human words with each other. Something they called a cappella singing.

"...He got hair... down... to his knee/ Got to be a joker/ He just do what he please," sang one of them as the other provided a bass line. They swapped roles, singer and accompaniment, without skipping a beat. "He wear no shoeshine/ He got... toe jam football/ He got monkey finger..."

Support me on Patreon / Buy me a Ko-fi

Continue Reading

Prompts remaining: 56 Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!

Challenge #02226-F036: Simple Metallurgical Skills

They were doomed. The copper tin alloy for the critical drive component they desperately needed was on a planet weeks away, and even if they had it, they couldn't make the part on the ship.

That's when the human walked into the bridge mopping sweat off hir brow.

"All fixed let's go."

"What do you mean all fixed?"

"Simply, I made a cast of the part with the pieces, then melted down the original and re cast it. It should last to

Read more »

Challenge #02224-F034: The Better Mousetrap Paradox

"Why do you carry a device only for recording your voice?"

"I think too quick to type anything down" -- Anon Guest

"There are auto-dictation programs galore," added Phrel. "Voice to text."

"Except they come with autocorrect and it takes a freaking age to teach them my personal lexicon. I'm a self-confessed weirdo that way. It's much easier for me to record the audio, slow it down, and use an older autodict to take a best guess at all the spelling. Then

Read more »

Challenge #02221-F031: The Wager Motivation

Humans have a way of betting that causes the right people for a particular challenge to attempt what is at the time seemingly impossible.

An Inducement prize Contest like the "Ansari X prize" for making the first reusable private Spacecraft, or a Wager like the story of "Around the world in 80 days", even just friends and the ole "Hold my beer".

Humans strive to do the impossible because they like to win. It's in the DNA -- Adam from Darwin

The

Read more »

Challenge #02216-F026: The Boredom Compulsion

This rumination on Queen's three types of songs, as seen by aliens trying to understand these odd Deathworlders. -- RecklessPrudence

If there is anything to cause the Human brain to skip a few gears, it's listening to The Prophet's Song followed by Fat Bottomed Girls. Both are clearly sung by the same man. Learning that both are written by the same man just makes the disparity more obvious.

One is a philosophical piece about those who foresee doom down the road and

Read more »

Challenge #02212-F022: Companion Ship

A human finally finds a crew member who understands their sarcasm. -- Anon Guest

You have to be careful when you're a human around non-humans. Not all of them understand intonation, and just use your words. Sarcasm may be lost on the slow of mind, but it's also lost on those with different tonal coding to you. Worse - sometimes it's both.

Helpful hint to other humans like me who keep using sarcasm out of habit. Always point out why the sarcastic

Read more »

Challenge #02209-F019: An Unnatural Fascination

Alright, so I have yet to see something about pyromaniacs in any of the posts out there and figured here was a good place to submit the idea.

Could you imagine them finding out about some humans really, really loving fire?

Like sure, they use fire and appreciate it and its many uses, but maybe there aren’t any aliens that actually love or enjoy fire?

Like there are many of us that actively play with fire or are drawn to it

Read more »

Challenge #02151-E322: Easily Entertained

Human: ha, dogs are so easily amused. I just watched this one Chase his tail for 15 minutes straight

Alien: You spent 15 minutes watching a dog chase its tail

Human: yeah, that's what I just said

Alien: and the dog is the one whose easily amused

Human: ...yes?

Alien: (sarcastically) okay, sure that makes sense -- OohLookShiny

The list of dangerous things in the known universe had once, paradoxically, contained entries on both "quiet humans" and "laughing humans". It has since

Read more »

Challenge #02015-E191: Party Time on No-Longer-Tranquil VII

On the wall was posted the human regiment’s code of conduct/safety instructions:

  1. Do not subtract from the population.

  2. Do not add to the population (looking at you Jared).

  3. Do not end up in the hospital, the news, or in jail.

  4. If you do end up in jail, establish dominance quickly. -- Anon Guest

It was a set of rules above the airlock door. Entitled, When Visiting. And could be summarised as, "No killin', no thrillin', just chillin'." Which every squad

Read more »

Challenge #01932-E108: Cute, Fluffy, Dangerous

It looks adorable, acts so very cute, and even smells attractive. Don't go near it with barge pole. There's got to be some huge catch. -- Anon Guest

Humans are bizarre. At any given moment, they will attempt to tame and then ride any beast bigger than one of their domestic canids[1]. They will coo over and attempt to pet any given venomous or aggressive creature. But it was on the planetary system WEP969HU84I, nicknamed Planet Cutiekiller, that another aspect of

Read more »

Challenge #01778-D317: Just Like the Force

Duct tape. Undoubtedly one of humanity’s most useful and versatile inventions. -- TheDragonsFlame

Humanities' inventions preceded humanity throughout the Galactic Alliance. All the useful things go ahead of a species. Especially when that species is the most flakk-off-dangerous band of Deathworlders that the Alliance has ever seen. The humans. And for all that they are dangerous and deadly, the things that come from their disparate societies are amazing.

Bubblegum. Cats. Dogs. Paperclips. Swiss Army Knives. And most useful of all... Ductape.

Read more »

Challenge #01767-D306: The Double Feature Picture Show

Humans watch an alien horror movie featuring the humans as the monster -- TheDragonsFlame

The idea of genre is nothing new. The idea of Horror is something uniquely human that took off in various forms around Galactic Society. An entertainment designed to scare, but not scare badly. Or to be really bad at scaring, depending on your point of view. It was a means by which Havenworlders could toughen up their genes and join larger and larger areas of Galactic Society.

And

Read more »

Challenge #01554-D093: A Rovin' Heart

"Scrounger" Noun, a person or being who collects discarded objects and turns them into (a) ready cash. (b) something useful - often re-purposed. -- Knitnan

Tolerance is a wonderful thing, and more of it happens on the relatively lawless edges of society than it does in the lawful middles. Law likes to build a bubble around itself and eliminate everything that exists outside of it. But edges... edges are where interesting things happen. Sometimes, it's a plummet into destruction, but other times.

Read more »

Challenge #01476-D015: Historical Hysterical First

the madness has begun -- MaxMundan

The Tri'li'ol had heard the news. Having a human aboard a vessel, especially a vessel in uncharted regions of space, was good luck. Even though they were Deathworlders, they were a statistical anomaly. They would pack-bond with the crew, adjust their interactions for the benefit of others, and generally behave themselves. And if one human aboard a vessel was good luck, then more had to be better.

And it worked. For a short time.

Nobody else

Read more »

Challenge #01453-C358: The Urban Human

An alien naturalist, performing a David Attenborough-style documentary on Earth.

Potential sequel: As above, but replace "David Attenborough" with "Steve Irwin". -- Shkspr1048

[AN: Sorry I'm so late, dear readers. Yulemas shopping spree]

"And this... is the average human population density of the planet Terra." The image showed the interior of a shopping mall on a slow hour. Humans populous enough to get in each others' way if they were determined to do so, but not enough to be in each others'

Read more »