אני גרה ביישוב עם אופציה אחת. וזאת לא אופציה טובה. בשביל

How The Nocturnal Bottleneck and Nipples Make Us Human

Almost every post here considers what humans do have, really. It’s a little tiring; realistically every world has its harsh environments and vicious species and a sophont to match. We probably wouldn’t be unique for our adaptability or our persistence or even adrenaline

But our evolution is fucked up as hell, to put it lightly.

Mammals went through what’s been dubbed the nocturnal bottleneck essentially since the start of the mesozoic right up until the Cretaceous ended the archosaur’s exclusive hold over the daylight. We lost a lot of things from every mammal spending most of its time in either a cramped, suffocating burrow or scrounging around in the faint hours of nighttime. Our blood cells lost their nuclei to hold more oxygen while we spent time deep underground, we lost protections against ultraviolet rays in our skin and eyes, we can’t even repair our own DNA using the light of the sun. Most aliens probably wouldn’t have such traits unless their evolution followed a very similar path to ours. They’d be able to see ultraviolet and wouldn’t have to worry about sunburn and all the wonderful privileges essentially all fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles enjoy as we speak. 

There’s also what we gained from spending so much time in the dark.

Brown fat is only found in mammals, it’s a special type of fat which bear cells with several oil droplets and are utterly jammed with mitochondria. This lets it make heat, a lot of it, fast. We don’t even need to shiver to induce this heat generation from brown adipose tissue - factor in our downright hyperactive mitochondria, and we can warm up quickly. Sure, it doesn’t have too much use in adult humans, but it keeps our infants warm and still provides a little boost the whole run we have in this universe.

Unless aliens also went through a time where their small ancestors had to face cold nights, they’d have to produce heat the old fashioned way when chilled. Aliens might have to shiver the whole time they’re in a cold room while the human watches in confusion, quite literally unshaken, and wonders if the room is a lot colder than the thermostat set to 60 says. The aliens stare at their companion in confusion, it’s just a normal temperature to shiver at after all, how is the human sitting so still?

Our small ancestors spending all their time out foraging at night is also why we have such a good sense of touch, smell, and hearing. They were more important senses than vision (we’re lucky to have even redeveloped basic color vision, frankly) at the time and place and simply ended up continuing to serve us well. Birds and reptiles rarely have acute senses of smell and the latter especially are lucky to have acute hearing, and birds rarely have impeccable hearing themselves either. Our skin is free of scales and honed to sensitivity, and our external ears and complicated ear bones provide an immense range of hearing (from 20 all the way to 17,000 hertz!).

Aliens might not be able to pin down the chirp of a cricket or the light click of a lock being picked. The human might be the only one on board a ship that can pick out the finer sounds of the engine’s constant thrum and know the critical difference between when everything is fine and when something is wrong. The human could probably pick out the sounds of an approaching enemy’s careless footsteps - they’re only as light enough for *them* to stop hearing them, after all - and be the one to see the horrified expression (well, more on that later) on their face when we get the drop on them in spite of their perceived stealth. 

But perhaps the most versatile, convoluted, amazing, and utterly unique trait we have is right on your face this instant. Lips.

Lips in most animals are a simple seal to hold in the mouth’s moisture and protect the teeth, even if they’re supple they’re NEVER muscular except in mammals, and we have only one thing to thank for it; milk and nipples. Lips evolved exclusively to allow babies to suckle, it required a vacuum to be created in the mouth, and with no other animal having anything like a nipple it never happened in other animals. Many animals make milk, to be frank, but no other animal has nipples.

Your cheeks and lips are a marvel among tetrapods, no other animal can suck like mammals can. Aliens wouldn’t have straws or even be able to sip from the edge of a glass, they’d have to have a proboscis or simply tilt the whole thing back. Aliens likely won’t have woodwind instruments or balloons you can blow into. We take so much about our lips for granted. Hell, our muscular faces are vital for expressions, we’re probably absolute facial contortionists among a cast of creatures with mandibles and beaks and expressionless scaly maws. Aliens might find us ridiculously easy to read, if anything, compared to their own kind (all the better to deceive them) - or perhaps they’d find us hard to decipher anyways, with our lack of color-changing skin or erectable crests of bright feathers. Baring teeth might not be seen as a sign of aggression in most of the universe, smiling would be all too distinctly human. 

Perhaps with how infectious we are sometimes, that’s what we’d contribute to the universe; others might have to make do with opening their mouths just enough to show their teeth or splaying their innumerable mouthparts with just the right curve, but perhaps we’d teach the galaxy to smile, one ally at a time. 

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Are you telling me there are other types of can openers??? What? I only ever saw these:

They last forever or until they rust and you decide you don't want to contaminate your food with metal anymore. I have one that is extremely rusty and is at least 15 years old

"I don't need a shopping list; with effort, I will remember that I need this item"

Okay but will you be able to remember that you already bought it? Because apparently I can't.

Yes, you have to except what's happening now, but not what will happen in the future. You can ask the wind to blow your way tomorrow, and sometimes it will agree. You can make plans, prepare stuff for your task and hope it will let you do things. You can also prepare to the future. Tomorrow you will go north, so do some things in the north. Maybe you can't work, but you can go for a walk. You don't have to suffer because you can't do the thing you wanted to do. Tomorrow the wind will blow in your direction, but today you can enjoy the view.

Having ADHD is a lot like being only able to travel with a hot air balloon. When the wind is right and the weather conditions are ideal, you can effortlessly go wherever you could possibly want, with almost no energy seemingly spent. And when the weather just Will Not Do That, there's nothing you can really do about it. Advice from people telling you to just fucking Grow Up And Learn To Steer don't believe you when you say you've got no steering wheel. Your explanations of navigating different wind directions at different altitudes make no sense to them.

So you just gotta accept that some days the wind goes your way, some days it won't. You can either exhaust yourself fighting the wind, accept that you're going nowhere at all today, or that the direction you are currently going is not the way you planned to go. Why am I in Uruguay.

You know those anime meta posts along the lines of “I was born with pink hair. The doctors told my parents I was a Main Character and ever since my life has not known peace from demons/spirits/sports competitions/harems who find me”

Well I see that, and I raise you this:

An anime boy whose appearance is, by absolutely anyone’s account, completely and utterly average. Mundane hair. Mundane eyes. Not even glasses to set him the tiniest bit apart. A simple, unmemorable, unrecognizable civilian among a backdrop of millions.

And he has a lot of passions, and a lot of ambitions, which he hones every chance he gets. He’s dabbled in sports and archery and cooking and just about anything you could wrap a competition around. And he’s competed in many of these. Every chance he gets. With all of his passion and all of his might.

He’s crushed by the competition every single time.

Until one day–one day something clicks for him. Something that should have seemed obvious from the start and yet never was–as though everyone, including himself, was unwittingly blind to it. It clicks, when he realizes every kid who’s beaten him in competition, every kid who’s gone on to fame and glory and acclaim, has been some candy-haired gel-spiked ridiculously-dressed fucker. 

There’s some trend there that this Main Character boy can’t explain and can’t understand but he decides, this one time, fuck it. He’ll play along too. He’s got a model train competition in four days, and he’s got nothing more to lose. He hits up the department store, buys the pinkest, noxious-est, fruitiest hair dye he can find, the spikiest hair gel available, and the gaudiest clothes on the thrift rack. He enters the model train competition looking like a bubble gum gijinka.

And he wins.

Suddenly, the other candy-haired contestants notice him. They talk to him. They pledge rivalries. Girls notice him. Judges applaud him. Acclaimed model train aficionados offer him internships across the world. He’s hit on something. 

The main cast expands to cover just about every candy-hair cliche in the book: from the mostly-normal-looking demure school girl with the blue hair to the Naruto-est, yelling-est boy with the red-and-green spiked hair. The cool megane senpais, the purple haired tsunderes, suddenly everyone is interested in him. They’re prodigies and upstarts and underdogs and they truly believe that this main character boy is one of them.

So the main character boy maintains his ruse. He touches up his roots at dawn every morning and carefully attends to his gelled spikes and tells absolutely no one about this great, uncanny, unfathomable secret he’s stumbled upon. He wins his competitions left and right. He racks up the acclaim. He’s hailed as a prodigy of all trades, just now bursting onto the scene, and boils to the top of all his candy-haired peers.

He’s rising up, his every dream within his grasp. Until one day he gets a note under his door, taped to an old picture of his Normal Boring self from middle school, that says “You don’t belong”

Is is just me or is the #unitislying thing REALLY sounds like the free palestine movement?

Fucking conspiracy theorists. Mmm HAmaS AreN'T TerRoriSts THeY'rE FReEdOm FigHtERs

Yeah okay. Just close your eyes then

And if anyone wants to tell me in the dms about how I'm wrong, I can send you all sorts of academic papers about the Israeli-palastinian conflict. So hit me up! My dms are open to anyone who genuinely wants to listen and talk :)

I was in an archeological dig from 12,000 years ago in one of the hottest places I have ever been in. The ground was so bright you couldn't look anywhere without blinding yourself. You would get heatstroke in the blink of an eye. The archeologists on site told me that 12,000 years ago, this place had snow. SNOW! I couldn't even imagine that, but the climate had changes since then.

starting an elite paramilitary black ops group who sneak into the homes of authors and cut one to three zeroes off any number of years given in a fantasy or sci-fi novel

I know I've talked about this before, but I love the idea of the doctor and the master regenerating together in mysterious circumstances, and having the audience be kept in the dark about which one's which for an episode or three

You basically have four options:

1. What most of my non binary friends do, change. One sentence uncle, one sentence aunt. דוד/דודה if you prefer Hebrew

2. Use plural. That sounds unnatural, but I guess works. דודים in Hebrew

3. Use the male version. The male version is always the default one, so you can you that. דוד

4. I have heard some people use things that are in-between, like דודֶה (dode) but the can only refer to you as aunt/uncle in a gender neutral way, and of you say "my aunt/uncle is great!" The great part will be gendered

Question for nonbinary jumblr:

I’m nonbinary & need a gender neutral alternative to aunt/uncle for my nieces & nephews to call me. I know English has “auncle” & “pibling” but both sound uncomfortable to my ear. My instinct to construct an at least natural-sounding equivalent would be to go back to the etymological root for aunt & uncle to reconstruct a version that isn’t gendered. The problem is, aunt & uncle don’t share an etymological root, so this isn’t really possible.

On the other hand, דודה & דוד in Hebrew clearly do share etymology & seem like they would relatively easy to make gender neutral (besides the obvious that “gender neutral” isn’t how Hebrew typically works lol). However, I’m aware that there’s a project/movement to Queer Hebrew / introduce non-binary gender to it, and I’m curious if anyone knows what would be a way to make דודה / דוד gender-neutral?

אם אני רוצה להתאבד, אני מכינה פסטה עם חמאה ואולי גבינה. ב90% מהמקרים אני לא רוצה להתאבד יותר אחרי שאכלתי את הפסטה

אולי אני לא אובדנית כמו שחשבתי. אולי אני סתם רעבה.