Network - Text

[demaelition]

Who: Mae Borowski
Username: trashmammal
Warnings: Brutal Honesty speciesist discussion, also potential for Mae's specific content warnings

Okay, but real question:
What even are humans or human-like people?
Why don't some of you have fur at all?
Or claws?
Or tails
Or like anything else normal?
Why do you all look the same, smell drastically different, and yet humans can't apparently smell each other super well either, so how do you tell each other apart?

-Signed your resident normal person

Comments

un: supertemp; text

[thedoctorsmate]

You're a rude thing, aren't you?
We're evolved from animals.
Apes.
We don't look the same, by the way.
Pretty sure that's speciesist, or whatever.

[demaelition]

Not always! Besides, I prefer 'blunt'
Also what the hell does evolved mean? I've known apes way better and smarter than
A lot of people here

Follow up question, do you have:
skin (pale to dark)
Hair (pale to dark)
Tiny eyes
Patchy fur or hair
Two legs and two normal ass arms
No tail

[thedoctorsmate]

It means evolution happened.
Dunno where you're from, but where I'm from, apes are wild animals.
They're intelligent, but not to the level of people.

I have skin, and I'm willing to bet you do, too, even if you have hair or fur on top of it.
I have hair.
My eyes aren't tiny. What a question!
My hair isn't patchy, either.
But that's really rude to bald people.
Yes, I have the normal human number of limbs.
No tail.

You can still have WILD variations in all of those things.
Which humans do.

[demaelition]

Wow ok. I mean some apes, yeah, but most of them are just people where I come from.

And sure I have skin under my fur! But it's all just fur over top and no weird breaks like I didn't have enough to go around everywhere.
Coloration and patterning is not WILD, that's like basic stuff.
But I mean if you think I'm wrong, you can tell me what you think stands out most to you.

un: Parkour; text

[heyunderoos]

I mean, every human is pretty different, like every animal or animal like person is really different. It depends on how much exposure you have to different types of people to be able to tell them apart really easy.

I'm guessing you're not strictly human?

[demaelition]

I'm Strictly not human
And there are strictly no humans back home
So I'd say my exposure is pretty nil, sorry you all look the same
Like, it's not personal, if the whole world were cats I'd expect people to get confused, but the world isn't all cats, it's not all one anything.
Which is the point.

[heyunderoos]

That's pretty cool. You must have a really diverse world to have so many species cohabitating it in the way humans at least do here.

I figured, I'm just- guessing it'll take time before you can tell people apart since you're used to something really different. If you need to, feel free to ask people their names if that helps?

Text, un: Chosewell

[failedpromise]

I'm pretty sure Humans don't look all the same to other Humans.
What are you, anyway?

[demaelition]

Good for them, doesn't help those of us who've never seen one before showing up here. I live with two humans who look exactly the same both named John
I'm tired
Also a mammal

[failedpromise]

It is a really common name. (Also the name of her favorite person, who isn't here.)

Also, I'm pretty sure tired mammal describes most humans too. You need to be a little more specific.

text; un: imwithgenius

[energyfieldgood]

[Rodney is not in a good place after the whole Dogtown debacle which is why hibernating and spending his time on the network is all the jazz now.]

By skill and proximity, mostly.
There are the people you are close with. Easy to recognize.
Then there are the people who have assigned roles in your life, divided by usefulness. You get facial patterns down eventually, so sight is an important sense to use here.
And then there are the others.
ID cards help a lot.

[Please don't take human advice from him, Mae, he can't remember the names of some people he worked with for years.]

Let's not get distracted from the real issue here, though.
I KNEW there was something you weren't telling me when you mentioned the fangs.

[Clearly it wasn't the random knife fighting each other in the middle of a Thanksgiving party, that's actually high up on the normal scale. What's much more important though...]

Did you CHEAT?
Admit it.
Half of your points were your secret claws.
Which you clearly have.

[demaelition]

[Oh thank god, the only human she can recognize on sight. She feels a little better already.]

Dude
That's actually super helpful.
I mean it doesn't really solve my John problem, but for everyone else that makes perfect sense.

[She knew he was her favorite for a reason. Although, she quickly goes back to doubting it two seconds later as his next messages come in.]

UH NO?? Look you could have just ASKED about the fangs, but you were too busy being a vampire
Also my claws are not secret and you SAW me curl my hand around the knife!
If I was going to be stabbing anyone with my claws it'd be myself!
Which I didn't because only kittens stab themselves with their own claws.

[energyfieldgood]

Okay, first of all it was TEMPORARY vampirism?
Second, they clearly were a secret that day with you feigning hands. And... not-fur? And human-ness?
And third, if you're able to feign hands, you could totally hide a secret sweep at my knuckles. You could have six claws sprouting all over the place for all I know?

[It's not like he's a sore loser two months later or anything.]

Wait, what John problem?

text; un: dontron3000

[semilethal]

Humans are the dominant species in a lot of dimensions

[demaelition]

Well that's great for their dimensions!
There aren't any humans at all in mine

[semilethal]

Humans just look like that
It gets easier to tell them apart with practice. The first time my brothers and I saw humans we were weirded out

But that was forever ago and now it's easy



Middle aged white men all pretty much look the same though

un: Pegasus

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

[Mae.

Rodney.

This is in public. People can see this. He can see this.

Quietly ignoring all that up there for the moment--]

Some humans can have claws. If they have superpowers or something.

[It's him. He's some humans. Do you have a scratching post he can borrow.]

[demaelition]

[Well, stop being nosy, "Rodney's John!"]

I didn't think people had powers or whatever. Or were supposed to use them, don't they have to worship the evil gods to do that?

[That's usually bad. Cult people who sacrifice innocent lives typically use powers given to them by evil gods too...]

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

[But he can't look away from it]

Well, yeah, but--no, it's not worshipping the evil gods, it's causing fear to power their, uh. Powers. If they had to use them for some reason.

[Wow it sounds so bad when you put it that way.]

text | UN: badgirlcoven

[edalyn]

Well, I can't explain why humans are the way they are, but clearly I'm the most normal person here.

[And she adds a photo of herself taken at arm's length, grinning. She doesn't actually know if she's normal by this person's standards, but she's certainly not human. With her feathers, wings, claws, giant downy ears, slight muzzle and sharp teeth she probably looks more like a mix of animals than anything.]

[demaelition]

[Well!! That's definitely an improvement, if still confusing.]

Yeah, you know what, I don't know what you are exactly, but youi still make more sense than a lot of the faces around here.
Hi, happy to see you.

[And for some likely needed context, she sends a picture of her own very feline face, her bright red Nightmare Eyes on display.]

[edalyn]

I'm a harpy and I'm happy to see another perfectly normal face, too.

You a demon or are cat people something else where you're from?

[Because she'd fit in on the Isles, but she can't actually be from Eda's world or she'd be used to witches.]

not actually here

[conning]

[Neal might not have the bandwidth to reply, but he's heartily amused by the post nonetheless.]

also not actually here

[demaelition]

[Human up, Neal! Offer your opinions on humans and how they smell today!!]

okay he can't help himself; un: johnrobie

[conning]

Honestly, fair questions. We seem to have shed a lot of things during our evolutionary cycle that would have been better kept as backup.