Caring for Humans

[@draconis17]

Saying "humans can't instinctively eat food safely, but they *can* instinctively make weapons" might be one of the best arguments for space-orc theory I've seen

[@papahemmy8587]

Why cook when you can krump!

[@samuelmellars7855]

Look, we went theough a whole process of fuguring out cooking, and then became dependant on it for proper digestion. But smacking things with sticks? We started out by doing that, and never saw the need to stop!

[@20tigerpaw20]

@@papahemmy8587 OI! NOW THAZTA GOOD IDEA! THEM BUG-THINGS DONT TASTE GOOD WHEN COOKED ANYWAYS! CMON BOYZ! TIME FOR WWAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!

[@trouty7947]

​@@samuelmellars7855the long pointy stick was the dominant weapon for literal millennia. The only thing to beat it? Pointy stick I can throw *really* far

[@echopool3066]

I’m a zoo keeper, and all of this shit is true of all non domesticated animals. Oh, you tried to raise this animal from birth/hatching? Great, it’s now imprinted on you and will have severe behavioral issues as it doesn’t recognize others of its own species anymore. We’ve got a lemur that’s ostracized from the rest of the troop because it was raised by humans and now spends all its time trying to assert dominance on people rather than interacting with his fellow lemurs. And you can’t separate him because he’ll get depressed, and you can’t keep him around people or he attacks them. It’s an absolute mess.

[@yuvalne]

+++

[@Eidako]

Like that one flightless, critically endangered parrot encountered by the BBC nature documentary crew that only wanted to mate with humans (of the same gender, no less).

[@jaschabull2365]

Didn't Koko never get to be a mother because every other gorilla she was introduced to turned out to not know how to sign, leaving her frustrated? I wonder if she came off as dumb to the other gorillas, not knowing how to communicate the way most gorillas do.

[@arnaldocosta-uh4um]

​@@jaschabull2365sign as in sign language?

[@sunblade704]

​@@jaschabull2365Koko wasn't actually capable of sign language, I'd suggest the video from Soup Emporium about the topic. It's really interesting

[@Yvonne-Bella]

Let's not forget that some pellets, the human body will just... reject and overreact to. This is what they call "al-ar-jeens"

[@Oh-Ho-Hello]

oh, and even better! Some may technically be able to consume these pellets physically, and will have all the right nutrients and ingredients! The problem? Your human doesn't like the texture, the consistency, maybe even the TASTE, causing them to either outright refuse the pellets upon sight or smell, or their body rejects it when they DO try to eat it. Even better: You have the right nutrients, all the right textures and consistencies, it should be PERFECT... ...except feed your human the same pellets for too long, they'll start rejecting it. But why?? Because they ate the same thing for too long. And now their body is rejecting it all over again How did they even survive??? And just as a final cherry on top; they're an intelligent species, they'll likely AWARE their being kept as pets. Best case scenario they're INSULTED by the pellets and will hunger strike until given actual organic ingredients they can turn into meals (avoid the synthetic stuff, sometimes they WILL tell the difference and be very upset), nutrition be damned, OR they just stab you

[@Kahtisemo]

I crack up to imagine the "pour out of the bag human food" is just trail mix. But then it's like Alien: Whaaat? What's wrong now? It's got chocolate, and peanuts, and whatever these little sticks with the salt are. And berries! You love these little dried berries, don't you? Alien Vet: Turns out your human is allergic to most of that stuff. You can buy packages of little dried berries by themselves, but don't get the candy coated ones. It's the chocolate that made them sick. Alien Friend: That's so weird. Mine doesn't have that problem. In fact, he likes to store it in little pouches I gave him and eats it by the mouthful when using the human wheel. It's pretty cute.

[@dodobarthel2249]

Most of these are true for cats as well...

[@zarks-heroes]

@@Oh-Ho-Hello in conclusion they are not worth keeping as pets and would work rather well as a equal instead

[@rodrigoreismarinho9552]

​@@zarks-heroes this feels like a human wrote it.

[@hhjpegg]

“their meat digestion process starts outside the body” like yeah i know what you mean but thats still a horrifying sentence

[@jem5636]

Welcome to life sciences! Describing humans using our terms gets increasingly existential.

[@ckl9390]

Like spiders injecting their victims with digestive enzymes prior to consumption?

[@nullpoint3346]

It applies to spiders, that's why it scares you.

[@Eidako]

The movie The Beastmaster from the 80s had a scene of external meat digestion. It is horrifying and one of the most messed up things I've seen not involving Arabs with machetes or Mexican cartel activities.

[@hhjpegg]

@@Eidako oh.

[@MeloniestNeon]

Humans also KNOW they're being kept as pets/zoo animals, they had those things back on their home world and are intelligent enough to recognize that. They're probably either plotting an escape or some form of revenge _constantly_, or at best they become smug and lazy and know that their alien captor now has an emotional attachment to them and will do everything to keep them alive. Though what I find more interesting is the case where humans who are aware of their own captors equal (or greater) intelligence might actively try to better their living situation by teaching said aliens about them, should the intergalactic language barrier not be too heavy to lift through the power of images and gestures. I mean, if you can somehow convince an alien to get you hooked up to the internet, or heck even just get you a few human books, then you could easily show them everything you want and/or need to survive. I could see a fun comedy series centering around some exhausted alien collectors realizing that Humans are far too intelligent to be kept as pets, and the hijinx that ensue while they slowly start treating the humans more as equals.

[@TheCorty]

They wouldn't know instinctually however, so theyd just be depressed if raised from birth or an extremely young age

[@malcolmdarke5299]

I'm reminded of one of the interludes from Alien Crossfire that you only get if you're playing one of the Progenitor factions - it happens when you research Social Psych, IIRC - where the Progenitor scientists are demonstrating to the faction leader that 1) humans might not be able to manipulate resonance fields like the Progenitors, but they *can* talk by making noise using their mouths and 2) they aren't just smart enough to solve the puzzles, they're smart enough to work out that they're being studied and refuse to participate out of spite.

[@blackbearcj5819]

@@TheCorty Then there'd be drama of "having a wild caught human is more humane! It can tell you what it specifically needs more than one from a breeder! Some of them even prefer being kept, they complain about this 'rent' a lot of humans are happier when caught and kept in captivity when you give them enough enrichment!" vs "No that's terrible! Besides wild caught humans, who knows where they've been or what they have! plus you're taking them out of their natural habitat!"

[@colbyboucher6391]

You get a bit of this in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse V.

[@dyinghope2527]

New Theory: Wild Humans are Cats

[@sampfrost]

tbf, violence is simpler than cooking so instinct only extending to violence not baking makes sense

[@joda7697]

Does it though? Fighting and eating are both pretty basic activities. Us humans use tools for both, yes, but there are plenty of creatures even here on earth who can use tools and use them for food preparation and/or digestion, but not for fighting. Some birds use gastroliths, stones they swallow which help grind down food within their stomach. Otters use stones to crack open molluscs. Corvids use sticks to lever food out of hard to reach places. At the top of my head i can't think of another animal besides humans that instinctually uses tools for fighting, though.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

​@@joda7697 Consider that most of the instinctual violence methods are used against potential food as much as against threats or territorial rivals. A club opens a melon or knocks an apple from a tree as well as it kills a chicken. It's similar to how most play behaviors in mammals are modified hunting or fighting behaviors. But also chimps, a close relative of humans, have been known to use sticks and rocks as weapons against rivals.

[@TlalocTemporal]

Even poorly warmed meat is tastier than raw, so any heat on any meat is engaging our instincts. Dried/smoked food is pretty straightforward, as is basic curing. The non instinctual part is extending that to boiling, grinding, roasting, frying, stewing, and everything around realising grains can be tasty. Our culture is a critical component of our survival, even before we started writing it down.

[@awareqwx]

​@@joda7697 Cooking requires an understanding of how the food will behave when exposed to heat, and it's not hard to either under- or overcook food if you don't know what you're doing. Using weapons and attacking things has a similar problem, but it's much less of a complexity jump.

[@SuperJman1111]

@@joda7697Might be that humans don’t have any natural weapons, so we need to make something to defend ourselves well, while a lot of animals have claws or teeth for attacking

[@tbotalpha8133]

The biggest problem with keeping humans is that they are fundamentally artificial. Which is to say, artifice comes naturally to them. Humans instinctually change their environment to suit their purposes. Humans will _change their own thinking_ to suit their purposes. Humans will find ways to change _you_ to suit their purposes. Coupled with their pattern-recognition and capacity for abstract reasoning, they are an absolute nightmare to keep as pets. Because they _will_ figure out the boundaries of their containment. They _will_ figure out how your locks and doors and windows and leashes work. They _will_ recognise patterns in your behaviour, as their keeper. And they _will_ find a way to escape, or else cause a lot of damage trying.

[@Pikapower7]

We are the raptors.

[@NekoChanSenpai]

Octopus

[@gamenut112]

Humans are honey badgers! "The intelligence is just beyond anything. Train it? Not at all, he outwitted us every time. ...See he lays there, scratched himself, there he's thinking- computers working. Take the rake, up against the wall, grab a rock, bang on the enclosure air vent, remove the vent cover, into the vents and off he goes."

[@samuelmellars7855]

​@@gamenut112 Stoffel!

[@FireyDeath4]

Will we be a bit more chill about it if our owners are superintelligent and way more advanced at everything than we could be in a usual lifetime

[@RaichuWizDom]

"My human can't prepare his own meals, but I gave it all the ingredients! I gave it the fajita, the beans, the cheese, but it won't touch those!" -"Did you check if that food is from its home region?" "What do you mean... *region*? They're a non-homogenous species?" I can imagine there being an alien expert on humans with his own show, the equivalent to Cesar Milan. Instead of the Packmaster, the Primate Buddy. Caller one: "My one human keeps trying to eat all these wriggly, squirmy invertebrates, but this other one just won't touch them! Is one of them sick? How do I even know which one?" -"Well, your first problem is pairing up a Japanese human with a Brit. Their diets are very different. So are their preferences, and language. You didn't mix their graphical enrichments, did you? Because if you did, one of them may die of shock, and the other of boredom." Next call: "My humans are out of control! I tried pacifying one with pretty colours, it used charcoal to make everything black. I tried getting the other one some toys, it keeps skinning them to make a disguise, and the third one? The third one keeps making this weird V-sign with its hands. And I checked all the books on regional differences, my habitats are in perfect order, what's wrong with them?" -"Not regional, but close. You have, in order: a goth, a furry, and a trekkie. My next book will cover those in detail." Next call: "Humans sound like a very difficult pet to keep. What would you recommend for a beginner? Americans, Brits? Belgians, maybe? I hear nobody would miss those." -"Belgians are a newbie trap; much more complicated to keep than the average, too many moving parts. No, I'd start with Fins. Just make sure you snatch a viable reindeer herd while you're at it, that's all they'll need for food besides the pellets, and it'll serve as enrichment on its own. Keep the enclosure refridgerated, they'll feel right at home. Don't worry too much about the artificial light and timing their sleep; this branch of humans is used to having their day-night rhythm messed up. Only thing you need to worry about is them sneaking into the engine room for a... I don't know what it is, they call it a 'saw-nah.' They try to boil themselves alive and then dive into the cooling liquids, it's the weirdest thing. But other than that, the Finnish are perfect for beginner collectors. But don't snatch a Sami; those are endangered, and the fines can be excessive."

[@shanellemurrey9300]

“humans are also usually a social species, you have to have at least groups of 2 together. Some may need more humans around than others, and some might not like being around too many others. You also can’t shove any 2 humans together, you also have to make sure that the 2 humans actually like each other, otherwise they might just constantly fight each other, or avoid each other. If your human group is large enough, they may end up separating into smaller groups too. You also have to hope this doesn’t cause a war in their environment. It’s also recommended to possibly have a few cats/ dogs/ birds whatever domesticated animals they tend to keep. Some like those, some like them more than their own species. But you have to make sure that those animals stay away from the humans that don’t like them/ are scared of them, or have allergies to them. Typically the humans that care for those animals tend to cover that themselves though anyway.”

[@sugarcrystal9390]

“My primate from hell”

[@RaichuWizDom]

@@shanellemurrey9300 "On the flip side, you can keep competing human groups together to enjoy the combat. We suggest getting them from different (checks notes) 'fyuut bawl clubs.' It's a very specific human-only term that loosely translates to 'groups with a schedule for fighting each other.' Highly entertaining to watch, but it may up the insurance bills."

[@9Johnny8]

@@shanellemurrey9300 "humans are also usually a social species" Y'see, that's why you start with a Fin. They're okay with solitude. In fact, don't bother them too much, they'll stab you. Where'd they get a knife from, you ask? I don't know, but _they'll find one._

[@akashasteele8943]

This just sounds like guinea pigs. This is literally what it's like owning a guinea pig

[@gerstein03]

Well preparing food with the correct tools is complex. Making something that is not a weapon into a weapon is usually quite simple. Unless we're working with firearms anyway

[@skywatcher458]

weapons doesn't need any external requirements such as "fire" and "cooking" just swing! if anything have reach and appropriate weight, it is a weapon.

[@crimcloak]

​​​@@skywatcher458 Even those things can be optional so long as the intention remains present! Some things need to be thought about, but the majority of things don't really. Edit: I decided that I like this arrangement of punctiation better

[@DrakonBlake]

@@skywatcher458You can use your arm for reach and weight if you have a small lightweight good enough rock

[@zarks-heroes]

@@skywatcher458especially sharpness

[@jem5636]

Yeah most animals Don't have extremely complex feeding rituals to safely eat the things in their environment (Except for the rare species of maybe ants or such.) And an animal instinctually being able to figure out *any* tool use without an example, but not being able to feed itself, is very weird. Tool use tends to be taught more than food finding is. I like animals.

[@takatacheroki2624]

After watching the video and reading through the comments, I have determined that the closest thing we have to the experience of an alien having a human as a pet is... Octopus. So many different kinds with different needs; some are relatively chill with their tanks, others will nearly kill themselves every other Tuesday by trying to go for "walkies" outside the tank. Thank goodness they can't make weapons and will eat their food raw just fine.

[@seanpeacock4290]

Don't forget that humans will dismantle their enclosures to make tools and weapons. They might even reassemble the enclosure with modifications that might not be desirable to a keeper.

[@gabedoyle5516]

Spike wall spike wall spike wall spike wall spike wall spike wall spike wall spike wall spike wall

[@lilbluridinghood6296]

Why is it that the first thing that came to my head was a bunch of rocks arranged to look like a peen?

[@AnimeSunglasses]

"might"

[@daviddragonheart6798]

Or modify their enclosure to their liking, if they believe something is missing or can be improved to some ends. Humans are strange.

[@Ixarus6713]

LIGHT WOOD LAMINATE, LIGHT WOOD LAMINATE, LIGHT WOOD LAMINATE!

[@B-man69]

Not to mention SOME humans are different, so you go to the vet, and it gets diagnosed with ‘ADHD’ or ‘Autism’

[@TurtleShroom3]

That's even worse. Autists don't instinctively develop social skills or the ability to instinctively bond in any manner except the most primitive, basic behaviors like touch and enjoying company. If the autist is high functioning enough to interact at all, everything must be taught. Every. Single. Thing. Nothing will come naturally except the basic human tool kit like making weapons out of normal stuff.

[@sexygirlmax2019]

Sometimes your human is funky and needs certain enrichment

[@AuntBibby]

what do u mean its not even _choosing_ to bark????? it barks literally all day!!!!! "tourette syndrome"? oh god my human has too red sin drum

[@PWNDON]

the aliens watching in unbridled confusion as i mimic cat sounds and rapidly flap my hands because the shiny rock they gave me is "je alog e" related

[@TearfulZorua]

​@@PWNDON literally me though, wth

[@79bigcat]

Reminded of a short story I came across: _The Care and Feeding of Humans._ Despite the name, it's about an alien crew getting human crewmates with the eponymous book being an in-universe guide to general expectations.

[@TheMoonFlock]

Thanks! I found it on Reddit ^-^

[@wyvernharries4788]

Oh that's a good one.

[@ImieNazwiskoOK]

Also "Humans don't make good pets", which at first is in fact about some alien that got a human as a pet(which isn't simple). But with slight spoiler they realize that the human is effectively what a Superman(although Omni-man could be more accurate) would be to us, and story goes bit brutal and mad.(and is part of a bigger story) Tbh I might check up on the care and feeding of humans, was pretty good but haven't read in a while.

[@widmo206]

Thanks for the rcommendation! Reading it rn

[@WytheA]

Just spent a few hours reading the whole thing. Thank you for leaving this comment

[@memuskhan9976]

Cooking is a learned behavior, violence comes pre installed in most animals

[@takatacheroki2624]

"Violence comes pre-installed" I don't know how to parse how equally absurd and amusing that phrase is to me.

[@nullpoint3346]

​@@takatacheroki2624 Do you know about the Four Fs?

[@Chaosrunepownage]

This is why r/HFY is one of my favorite subreddits. It helps to take a step back and go "damn that's metal" about mundane things. Like how peppers are actively discouraging mammals from eating them and humans went "haha tongue go brrrrrr" and boost the painful chemicals.

[@yaellevi5448]

And then the aliens think we're masochists

[@nullpoint3346]

​@yaellevi5448 Well, they are. Of course, it's not inherently sexual.

[@DoveAlexa]

@yaellevi5448 We might be, you know?

[@Frille512]

Yeah we're all masochists. We're dependant on physical sensation, and pain is just a lot of sensation. Some pain feels good, like taking a steaming bath. Some pain feels bad, like getting your teeth drilled.

[@John_the_Paul]

Noninstinctual human behaviors: determining edibility, proper communication, hygiene, swimming, food preparation, empathy, and basic self-preservation. Instinctual human behaviors: screaming and making weapons

[@yaellevi5448]

Worst pets ever

[@Briskeeen]

"what do you mean I gotta give it HRT??????"

[@Clown_the_Clown]

​@@Briskeeen🤢🤮

[@MySerpentine]

Technically swimming is instinctual, we just inexplicably forget how at like 2 years old. So around the time we're strong enough to actually do it well.

[@Clown_the_Clown]

@@Briskeeen That's the neat part, you don't!

[@MJFallout]

And some of your humans will appreciate you for your sophistication and dedication to human nutrition when you feed them kale, while others will try to stab you with sharpened sticks regarding the kale, no in-betweens.

[@nullpoint3346]

The only time I heard about a stabbing over kale was from vegan activist, and they were lying.

[@notagoat281]

Then there's also the fact that humans are smart enough to recognize when they're being kept as a pet, and there is a very good chance that they will not be happy about that.

[@kitke101]

Idk I think there's decent odds that they'll like it. Smart enough to figure out that they're pets and also smart enough to turn the situation into something more favorable. Like cats.

[@jaschabull2365]

I suspect more than a few would prefer having a hobbyist keeper to having a landlord.

[@ОлексійПоліщук-к5б]

He doesn't know... :3

[@notagoat281]

Everybody here seems to have completely missed the part where I said "very good chance" and not "definitely guaranteed".

[@uncroppedsoop]

those who know

[@idekanymore8361]

Imagine an alien freaking out when their human starts wheezing and coughing aggressively, and when they rush them to the vet they're told it had an 'as-ma' attack and to treat it the human needs to inhale a medicine using a small device.

[@dandyspacedandy]

i feel like this assumes three things 1: despite the complexity of our lifestyles, the aliens do not recognize us as self aware enough to be people with distinct cultures and etiquette that can only really be formed by history of civilization, rather than being driven on instinct. 2: the aliens REALLY want an example of the conventional human lifestyle, rather than kidnapping newborns _specifically_ so that they are unsocialized with lower expectation of standards for living, and probably would eat a slab of meat. 3: the aliens are so foreign to our concept of how living beings survive that theres no way they can be from the same universe as us, like they straight up gotta be from an alternate dimension

[@Fennecfoxesshow]

For the number two i say that they would get confused because their humans are dying too quickly

[@AtanaaTheCurious]

I guess you could imagine a senario where alien criminals kidnap people and animals for whatever perpose and the humans are 'resuced' by the equivelent of an animal rights organisation, which might not know anything about the conditions on Earth, or even where it is, and therefore has to work everything out by trial and error.

[@loviebeest]

​@@AtanaaTheCurious alien zoo by deiri di

[@Soulcrash3]

Given how humans have treated other humans both in the present and in the past 1 isn't difficult to imagine at all. The "discovery" of America is a prime (and relatively uncontroversial) example. Humans own willingness to call each other barbarians and justify the subpar treatment and death of other humans (through literally just moving the goalposts of who is deserving of human treatment and what is acceptable for a human to do purely through means of ideology)... seems more than sufficient burden of proof. Knowing orcas and dolphins have culture has not stopped them from being hunted. Or elephants holding burials. Or crowd literally creating tools, effectively communicating to each other who their enemies are and remembering it. Humans can have someone that lives in the same city try to explain to them that poverty or homelessness isn't a choice and people don't deserve to die because of it and they will negate and disconnect the entire time. The aliens might be smarter than us (in this story) but that doesn't mean they are any more kind. Keeping exotic pets in itself requires a great level of selfishness and cruelty.

[@HappyBuffalo347]

Dude, humans keep other primates as pets. Chimps and orangutans have languages, culture, use tools, make weapons, have complex family relationships and some humans still keep them as pets. We even have the same faces and similar facial expressions! We are so similar to other primates but we view ourselves as vastly superior to them and entirely seperate. Aliens would see humans the way humans see octopus.

[@IGSA101]

Some will not only investigate the unfamilliar tools, but dismantle them, put them back together, or make something new out of the parts and use it to escape the enclosure. Not even out of a desire to leave, just from boredom. Oh yeah, you have to entertain your human as well, they will be more destructive to the enclosure than foxes if not provided ever changing entertainment.

[@forgedabauditt9955]

God I need like an actual giant book of studies on human pack bonding, it's just so fascinating to me I mean fuck, I have pack bonded with shit on my table

[@roryandbro1561]

Im pretty sure i pack bonded with a cool green rock at one point

[@dylanm.3692]

I pack bond with the electronics and appliances I repair. Things that are completely abstract and alien compared to anything natural. "Oh, we're taking care of [[thing]]? We're nursing it back to health? This is my son now."🧠

[@TrixterTheFemboy]

I would kill for any and all of the several dozen plushies in my room. Pretty sure that counts too-

[@shanellemurrey9300]

@@dylanm.3692there was a tumblr post of someone comforting a roomba in a thunderstorm because it was acting like it was scared and making little noises I’m pretty sure. Although, roomba lack bonding seems pretty common

[@clintonbehrends4659]

I'm pretty certain there are anthropology books that cover this

[@mozie4258]

There's an original Star Trek episode like this where the aliens thought they were sooo clever to finally get a second human (Captain Pike, if you're curious) to pair with the female they had but they didn't expect him to constantly and violently try to escape and devise ways around their mind control. They finally looked up human history and realized humans do really badly in captivity and *will* escape or die trying and they were have a super violent history, and they wisely let Pike and his crew go. 😂

[@mozie4258]

* that we, curse you autocorrect!

[@Takisan111]

I felt really bad for the woman they tried to pair him with. She didn't have a choice whether to stay or go because of her disability and the limitations of her treatments. At least she did eventually get a happy ending.

[@BasicallyBaconSandvichIV]

Actually, it is THE original Star Trek episode. It's the pilot!

[@Isometrix116]

I love that humans weaponizing things is so instinctual. Like, I know politics is a thing most people don't like to discuss, but every time I see something in the UK about banning stuff like knives in public I have to wonder if they realize that we are biologically hardwired to make ANYTHING into a weapon. Same goes for zombie apocalypse movies.

[@xRAINxOFxBLOODx]

Hell, ACQUIRING the human is going to be a difficult process. If you just grab one out of it's environment, it's probably not going to be happy with you. It's either going to get depressed and probably hurt itself, or it's going to get ANGRY and try to escape and hurt you. And if you try grabbing its friends to keep it happy, they'll ALL get angry. The most ethical and reliable process is a tedious one. First, you have to find a way to communicate CLEARLY with them, either with a translator or learning at least one language yourself. Then, you have to BARGAIN with a human for it's captivity. Bargain with what? It depends. Usually they'll want stimulation and comfort, but that can take many different forms. And I do mean MANY. The best option is to let them bring whatever they want, and that might include other, non-human creatures. If you go with a seller of humans who just grabs them, it will be cheaper, but you get what you pay for. Don't expect that human to last long in your care.

[@toxicbavariankitten]

The easiest way to acquire a human would probably be if the human has such a thing as "depression" with a little bit of "indifference" on the side. Honestly, I'd be happy to be abducted by aliens and kept as a pet if that means I get to be happy. All I really probably need is nutrients, comfy place to sleep, activities to distract myself from whatever, maybe a cat or two and boatloads of mental/physicsl health care :3

[@ohnaliirony8997]

I have an OC who's a human pet for nonhuman canon characters. Not in a kinky way, shes their emotional support dumbass. This is *exactly* the sort of content i want. Edit: this is so embarrassing why is everyone seeing this?? I love the enthusiasm but now I have to admit the oc is a pet for the bad sanses. Like the undertale au mfs. I'm so sorry guys I'm not sharing my undertale self insert "the bad sanses get an emotional support dumbass" fics for everyone to see

[@desertRACER619]

Have you written down any of their interactions?

[@plmko2824]

need me an emotional support dumbass

[@Grima1805]

Wish i was somebodys emotional support dumbass

[@yaellevi5448]

If you wrote this I want to read it

[@Kieran_KIWI]

​@yaellevi5448 Agreed! This sounds like a fun read :D!

[@kevinabiwardani7550]

Bonus point if the alien don't have a concept of always wearing clothing. "Hello, my human always covered their crotch and shivering, is it sick?" "Please, humans have a very thin hair in their body that they need 'clothing' as a replacement for their thin hairs. Some of them also need a head covering since they're completely bald. Different race also need different temperature environment. For example, Nordic only needs 'sert' to survive in cold environment, while Bantu's need a dry and warm environment to thrive, or give them a 'jeket' for warmth in colder environment. Thank you for your calling, hope it helps."

[@ob2kenobi388]

Also picking out random adult humans and throwing them into the same enclosure won't work-they have their own _languages,_ THOUSANDS of them, that can make verbal communication next to impossible with other humans who live less than 100 miles away (or even next door). And that's not even getting into the interactions between their varying _cultures,_ which _can_ bring about a sense of unity and brotherhood in the best of circumstances, but will cause outright hostility and lethal violence in the worst. Not to mention the fact that some of those cultures can affect the human's acceptable diet, thus making it even HARDER to feed them!

[@EternalTheMandarinGoddess]

If an alien tried to keep a human as a pet, i feel like all their fellow aliens would shame them and yell at them like "no, they're too smart to be kept as pets! They NEED to be in their natural habitat! You're just torturing them! Us [insert alien species name]s always feel the need to interfere with the natural order of other planets, It's GROSS 🙄"

[@synderthmc]

"Bro i cant comprehends these hooman things. Jexeriah told me to give them some live prey, that they like the excersice and stuff. I put one of those cows in its enclosure yhinking they would like the meat and it just started PETTIN IT."

[@VanNessy97]

Or guarding it with their life, if the human was raised Hindu

[@Grima1805]

And it did WHAT to the cow?

[@katanah3195]

"I gave mine a bear cub. I thought it would like tender baby meat. It hugged the damn thing and thanked me for the "cute fuzzball" to snuggle!"

[@MichaelRainey]

"My humans escaped their terrarium and formed a feral colony behind the cargo bay. I thought I could clear out the infestation by introducing an apex predator so I locked several of our canids in the bay with the humans. They formed a pack and are now roaming the ship hunting my cr +transmission lost+"

[@azrealducain3123]

Yeah...this is how I'm reminded why Veterinary Science is a sub-category of ARCHAEOLOGY of all things. You REALLY DO need the historical background to figure out, for example, why pandas exclusively a poisonous plant that isn't nutritious to them as food, along with a whole lot of other things that don't make any darned sense without historical context.

[@hanyuukawaiinanodesu]

I don't think bamboo is poisonous for pandas, You're probably thinking of koalas and eucalyptus.

[@kennyholmes5196]

Koalas, not pandas.

[@kennyholmes5196]

@@hanyuukawaiinanodesu It's not. Heck, bamboo shoots and bamboo hearts (think artichoke hearts, but from a bamboo plant) are even edible for humans if cooked right!

[@Gl137I4tch]

Not to mention we will also sometimes pack bond with plants if we have knowledge to keep it alive in some situations

[@NicNacNooNic]

Almost definitely due to humans developing agriculture

[@thescholarsjourney661]

There's also the fact that, if they do not get skin-to-skin contact with other humans, they will also slowly get more and more depressed and borderline insane.

[@JonBrase]

Let's not forget that some large packs of wild humans have been known to construct and detonate nuclear weapons, and are known to become hostile if an attempted or actual abduction of their pack members occurs.

[@zUJ7EjVD]

On the plus side they're one of the easier creatures to toilet-train. However that too, they need a whole complex facility to feel comfortable. Complete with a whole plumbing system, a whole separate room, and a security system. The cost of keeping a human is in the hundreds of thousands of earth-dollars.

[@solaris9426]

Even if the alien species in question has a life span of hundreds of earth years, humans can't be domesticated by another species because they live too long and take too long to be able to safely breed in captivity. A human in captivity can live at least 70 earth years and upwards of 100+ if treated well. And while they can start breeding around 8-13 earth years of age (known as puberty by the humans), it is not considered safe or ethical to do so until at least 18 earth years old. Besides that, the gestation period of a human is ~10 months long, though the upside is that humans don't have a dedicated breeding period and can even breed again immediately after giving birth. The downside is that females of the species stop being able to breed entirely around 50-60 earth years old (called menopause by the humans, a phenomenon otherwise only seen in specific aquatic mammals).

[@pinkdarkman]

Plus with our big ass heads and comparatively small pelvises, birth is one of the most dangerous things a human can do. You're gonna have a 50/50 chance of your human dying, if they have a miscarriage that turns septic or if they bleed out due to a hemmorhage during labor or get preeclampsia or one of the other millions of things that can go wrong that an alien veterinarian has probably never heard of before unless they're a human expert.

[@solaris9426]

@@pinkdarkman Humans have devised a way around this dilemma by literally cutting down into the womb and removing the baby before sewing the mother back up, leaving the womb inside to heal. If you decide to go this route, be advised to administer a nonlethal amount of anesthesia, to prevent undue distress in the mother and their unborn child, as well as sterilizing yourself and your equipment before the operation, so as to prevent infection.

[@52flyingbicycles]

To be fair, highly intelligent specialist species are usually nightmare pets. Humans, being the most intelligent and so specialized we looped around to become generalists, are the nightmare’s nightmare

[@dtotheawesome8182]

Also a thing we do way better than other animals is throw stuff. We are able to be incredibly accurate and incredibly effective with simple thrown weapons

[@Tallame_Longstory]

I mean it makes sense that weapons are instinctual, if you can't manage to kill anything, you'll never get to the cooking part in the first place 😆

[@spindash64]

0:40 I'd argue the opposite: you can basically just chuck whatever nontoxic things at them, and they'll sort out what they're actually hungry for

[@kennyholmes5196]

And therein lies the problem: What is toxic for one of them could be harmless for or even enjoyed by another. And even worse, _vice versa is also true._

[@yjlom]

​@@kennyholmes5196even worse, it could be toxic to and enjoyed by the same individual

[@AlixL96]

"non-toxic" includes things like pine needles and beeswax. Not to mention your average person won't automatically know the difference between a berry they can eat and a berry that will kill them. Most people don't even want to eat the rind of a watermelon. There is no world where you can just give people "whatever non-toxic things" and expect them to survive.

[@isaacm1929]

Milk or milk based food or food with some quantity of milk, technically isnt toxic, but you would not just chuck it at em.

[@Ariento]

​@@isaacm1929Dairy can be plenty unpleasant if you've got yourself a pet human with lactose intolerance. Worse, many of them enjoy the taste of dairy so much that they'll eat it despite the consequences.

[@darrennew8211]

This is some real HFY stuff. "Humans can make anything a weapon." "Well, put them in an empty room." "Let me show you the video of a human killing an attacker with the floor."

[@takatacheroki2624]

Oh hey, I saw that story! lol

[@gabedoyle5516]

By throwing them, I'm guessing?

[@gamenut112]

@@takatacheroki2624 do you have the link?

[@nullpoint3346]

Humans can and will weaponize the very air they breathe, sometimes intentionally.

[@takatacheroki2624]

@@gamenut112 I found it here on youtube actually; NetNarrator "Everything is a Weapon; Even the Floor". I can give the link but youtube may or may not delete the comment if I do.

[@bub1444]

humans being instinctively aware as to how to make a chair into multiple weapons of various different damage types (piercing, cutting, bludgeoning, burning, etc etc):

[@Nyperold018]

2:23 Also true of basically anything with teeth that hasn't cleaned the inside of its mouth very recently. If a snake bites you? Even if it didn't envenomate you, that's an infection waiting to happen.

[@champagnesupernova1839]

also true of most open wounds in general, though to a notably lesser degree

[@Ikajo]

Humans also have some crazy jaw strength. We can bite a finger off if we wanted.

[@zelousfoxtrot3390]

Eh, my snake has bit me a few times. Drew blood, etc. It's usually ok with a good wash and a little ointment. I've heard that human bites almost always get infected. But it could be a matter of size. My snake's bite is a bunch of needle teeth in a circle about 1 inch, 3 cm across.

[@champagnesupernova1839]

@@zelousfoxtrot3390 human bites tend to tear through things a lot more than just puncture them, creating a rougher and more open wound in some cases. also, human mouths are ass as natural cleaning, and many animals' mouths self-clean much better than ours do

[@kilo3989]

Don't forget to look up the short story "They're Made Out Of Meat" if you like this kind of creative alien-POV writing!

[@greenhydra10]

I actually read that back in... middle school(?) I think. It was... weird.

[@selardohr7697]

"The meat....THINKS?" I love that story.

[@NekoChanSenpai]

That story made humans sound so gross lol! "They communicate by squirting air through their meat!"

[@MichaelRainey]

There's a really good adaptation of it here on KZbin.

[@leafsafe-y7u]

@@MichaelRainey share it share it share it

[@sagacious03]

Fun analysis video! So let's see.... Learns via mimicry, most essential skills (Such as language.) must be learned early on or not at all. Highly intelligent & hypersocial otherwise. Requires varied diet of fruit, starch, all meats & most vegetables cooked. Can't prepare food without specific tools & preparation it learned use of via mimicry. Adapted to tool-using endurance predation; If unhappy, liable to study you & improvise tools to attack. Do I have all that about right?

[@zachelkins1229]

Just about. Don't forget their weird durability scale. Many injuries can just be shaken off and healed with minimal treatment. Other times they'll just trip and fall and never wake up, or their body will reject something random and cook itself alive. Likewise, they have a weird affinity for toxins. Many things that are toxic, but not outright leathal to them, will be consumed for pleasure entertainment or other more esoteric reasons. More worryingly the "non-leathal" dosage on these toxins is not something the humans have any good way of measuring. They will kill themselves in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment.

[@georgetrevor2621]

Not to mention some humans can't eat certain foods that other humans can

[@NicNacNooNic]

Pretty much

[@StefKomGeekru]

It was the “we throw another creature for the human to eat, but the human bonded with the creature and now they are like family.” that got me.

[@mjjoe76]

Movies and literature that portray aliens as harvesting humans for food are ridiculous. We are violent, resistant to captivity, resourceful and frustratingly stubborn.

[@mailcs06]

Also we a horrible choice for livestock because we don’t have a lot of meat but need a large amount of energy for our size because our brains use up like 20% of the body’s energy despite only being like 2% of the body’s mass, and grow really slowly As cliché as it is, if aliens were gonna abduct something on earth for food, it would probably be cows.

[@yjlom]

yeah, but we do harvest shark fins and rhino horns

[@gabedoyle5516]

Not to mention really hard to actually keep alive even if we're cooperating.

[@leahnzastrzelecki5217]

Not to mention all of our common domesticated farm animals--chickens, cows, pigs, sheep, goats--are all faster breeding, faster growing, more or less docile with specialized breeds for temperament, and meatier than our boney frames. Gets even easier and faster meat production if you add in less common meat animals like rabbits and guinea pigs. Only reason we'd remotely make sense over any of those is if something REALLY had an appetite for bones and tendons.

[@nullpoint3346]

​@@yjlom Sharks are toddlers with massive bite forces. (Huh, an explanation for Gurandma's childishness.)

[@dootanator_]

Humans are the space orcs of the universe

[@NicNacNooNic]

Nah, Humans are wild animals that haven't been domesticated yet so they do poorly in captivity and Especially as pets. You really need a Zoo team who knows what they're doing

[@thejunecooperative]

If I recall, we likely would have had weapons in our evolutionary tree before fire, especially given how early we have flint tools iirc. Whereas cooking I think is actually more specific to Homo Sapiens, therefore arguably the reason one is an instinct and not the other is tool use for hunting was developed before fire for cooking.

[@aromanticfranziskavonkarma]

Wait until they find out about our pack bonding habits, last night I nearly started crying because I was watching a video of a car getting tortured with Pepsi and I felt bad for it

[@NolanLaw]

A video of WHAT

[@idekanymore8361]

How do you torture a car with pepsi??

[@lilylohmann614]

Source??? I need to see that

[@kalebmontgomery1361]

​@@idekanymore8361If it's the video I'm thinking of, they replaced the coolant with pepsi

[@kalebmontgomery1361]

@@idekanymore8361 By replacing its coolant with pepsi

[@corpsehandler5321]

"i've TRIED to make the enclosure escape proof, you have no IDEA how hard that is! if they see one human do it, they'll just copy that behavior!" aka, the lockpicking lawyer condition

[@corpsehandler5321]

you also have to keep multiple humans in a group because they will actually die without contact with their own species.

[@JonathonDixon-bn7xe]

Not to mention even understanding them. There are around 7000 human languages. Imagine having to try and understand or translate all of those.

[@kennyholmes5196]

Luckily there's two to ten really widespread ones... Aaand then the aliens discover that there are _dialects and sub-dialects_ to manage. Pop an American down in Australia, they'd be absolutely lost in basic conversation despite sharing a language.

[@FireyDeath4]

⁠​⁠@@kennyholmes5196 Well, I might just be chronically-online and used to various ways of talking, but I kinda doubt that lol

[@Type_blazenil]

Also remember that for no reason, onceoever, when you have a pair of humans that have been interacting for a long time, they might just suddenly start trying to murder each other. The chances of this happening are drastically reduced if you have more than four of them, but are increased if you have three.

[@abriannaaguilera2123]

Okay. Some tools are instinctive, limb extension, blades, blunt instruments, harder blunt instruments, containers, projectiles, to an extent leavers, those are things even crows know but how are you supposed to instinctively know how to set things on fire? If you've seen some camping videos the stuff you need to start a fire requires at least one previous tool, and the preparation of the material, AND the right technique, AND correctly identifying the material with the desired properties, you can use a piece of rebar or piece of vine instead of a stick to reach something far away, but you can't do the same with fire, and even if you used a stick, not just any stick will do. It's like your mum yelling at you for using her fabric scissors for something else or your dad giving you a crash course on metallurgy so you won't destroy his wood drill bits on concrete. Forr someone who doesn't know a lot about those things, can't see past the tool being the same.

[@Shadowtiger2564]

That just sounds like taking care of a husky

[@phictionofgrandeur2387]

Isn't Caring for Humans a book in Deltarune?

[@Rustylorde]

yes. yes it is.

[@GoodWitchKirby]

The aliens could really use that book.

[@wrathofnerds]

Probably

[@whygosh3217]

Yeah

[@TrixterTheFemboy]

Yeah, but isn't it as an adopted child, not a pet?

[@bonnietelocole6777]

I've said it before and I'll say it a thousand more times until it comes true: I've always wanted to be an aliens cat

[@amystern123]

We do have instinctual behaviors for determining what foods are safe. Newborns only suck. When they begin eating solids, they’ll eat anything - corresponding to the period when they don’t move around very independently. In the next stage, they become very picky and hesitant to eat anything they’re unfamiliar with. This gives them some protection during the period when they’re exploring more freely. The issue, as you hinted at, is that our instincts are designed to work as part of an infancy where our family or tribe is taking care of us.

[@BasicallyBaconSandvichIV]

I'm now imaging a regular non-pet space faring human biologist be called up as an Terrain Biosphere expert. The human doesn't know it's about human pets and the pet collector doesn't know the expert is a human. Both are very confused and stressed due to this when they find out. And they have to put in a lot of effort not to make this a diplomatic incident risking war.

[@ghostkitten9264]

Hominculus-argument is a delight to follow btw, they're in a lot of these videos and not really given credit for it aside from their username being visible

[@Vinemaple]

--homunculus-argument is gone. His last message was, "I'm blocking everyone, including myself." It's tragic. Save your screenshots.-- incorrect, see reply below

[@aishidove]

why did he do that!?

[@MrHack4never]

That sounds like a shitpost Dril_ would make before he left Twitter

[@cryptologicalMystic]

I literally follow him on Tumblr, he posted just an hour ago. I think you mixed up his blog title with an actual post.

[@Vinemaple]

@@cryptologicalMystic Yes and no, it's because I got myself personally blocked, by not thinking through how something would sound to him, and all I can see now is that blog title.

[@aishidove]

@@Vinemaple oh! sad you got blocked, but im glad the person isnt gone

[@thedeadguy466]

Reminds me of winter from wings of fire keeping a pet human (in the wof world called scavengers) named Bandit.

[@stardustpie1992]

Not only is the already existing language barrier between humans from different places on the planet also a problem, but sometimes humans who have the same native language STILL can’t understand each other because they have completely different variants of their country’s accent. Put someone from one of the northern U.S. states in the same room as someone from Houston, Texas, and chances are the northerner will have no idea what the southerner is saying until the southerner purposely enunciates.

[@hummussapien7.6billion68]

And this doesn't even apply to all types of humans. Some humans are perfectly willing to eat not processed meat, but only specific kinds.

[@King-n00bi3]

Although luckily the humans already made some pellets that most will enjoy, they’re called cheese puffs, just make sure your human isn’t vegan, lactose intolerant or just don’t like them, they don’t eat them, and cheese puffs aren’t that healthy and humans need variety in their food and there are lots of other things they need that are unrelated to food. Cheese puffs were just the first human food pellets I thought of, I hope KZbin doesn’t revert the edit again. Nvm my original comment just got posted twice.

[@yjlom]

I'm not lactose intolerant but from what I've heard and seen it doesn't stop those that are

[@blackbearcj5819]

Nah you'd have to warn the lactose intolerant one will likely get sick in it's enclosure and wl lcontinute to eat said pellets despite it.

[@hutao1950]

I'm not lactose intolerant or anything but I just genuinely do not like cheese puffs alongsid most of my family so idk if it's that universal

[@King-n00bi3]

@@hutao1950 I thought I edited this comment to include people who just don’t like them and explain that they were just the first human food pellets I thought of, why was the edit reverted.

[@Alkavi_Ch]

Humans being obligate tool users and its consequences is hilarious and I'd change it for nothing.

[@zarks-heroes]

I’m pretty sure humans are enough smart to not be pets because one im sure that the vast majority of them will not appreciate it, especially the bad ones and having humans as a pet is a too big of a risk to be a pet so for now I would prefer the less Intelligent life forms like crabs or cats they seem to be good pets

[@crimcloak]

...speak for yourself

[@Kartoffelkamm]

Sure, but also, this could be a really fun plot in a sci-fi story where rich fucks take species from other planets to keep as pets, and some cop decides to bust them from the inside by making humans appear to be easy to keep, so the rich fucks get like a whole small village of them. And then the humans decide they don't like being some rich alien fuck's pets, and break out.

[@yjlom]

"less intelligent life forms like […] cats" -- that's what they want you to think

[@zarks-heroes]

@@yjlomwhat?

[@LilyM.C.Almondton]

Cats think they’re smarter than humans.

[@pendragon71037]

I just… Did they forget about taste? Like humans do in fact have a very complex and instinctive sense of what things are good to eat and what are not. We in fact have two entire senses dedicated to knowing what things are good to eat and what aren’t, and they’re called taste and smell. Generally speaking, things that taste good are good for you, and things that taste bad are bad for you. There are exceptions to this rule, sure, especially in the modern day when we’ve started making bad food that tastes good, but broadly speaking, if it tastes good, odds are high that it’s good for you, or at least not poisonous. I will grant them the cooking thing, though. Cooking is hard to get right if you have no knowledge, equipment, or experience.

[@goobzze]

*Alien*: “What do you MEAN Toni has a.. “min-tuh ill-nes??” *Alien 2*: “Basically, he’s insane.” *Alien*: “…” *Alien 2*: “…” *Alien*: “Yeah that checks out.” *Alien 2*: “I told you!”

[@seanmcfadden3712]

"Okay. So, when I adopted my human, I also adopted an Vella to keep her company, because of the whole pack bond thing." "I heard male Vella can be aggressive." "I know, mine's definitely female. I checked. Here's the thing. They've both gotten to reproductive age, and my human is getting amorous towards my Vella." "Have you tried introducing your human to a male human? I might know someone who would be willing to..." "That's the weird thing! I tried that, and while she's friendly, she turns down their advances. So I talked in the chat, found someone else with a female human who's behaving similar, we met up to let them socialise, and the two of them got amorous!" "But don't they need a male to breed?" "Yes, but it turns out that not all humans have a desire to breed, but desire to mate with others of the same gender. And the same is true of Vella. ... So I ended up adopting the new female human, and I apparently have a sapphic throuple. They're well behaved, but some people give me odd looks." "As long as they're happy and healthy, I guess."

[@genericperson360]

oh to be in a lesbian polycule in a sci-fi setting where humans are weird exotic pets aliens have and know a lot about (also just as a completely unrelated question, what the heck are vella? i’m not super into sci-fi alien stuff and google isn’t helping me, please explain I need to know how pretty one would be)

[@seanmcfadden3712]

@genericperson360 It was the first alien species sounding name I could think of. I'm picturing something along the lines of the Turian race from Mass Effect, but I wanted a softer name. (Additional information to clear something up. Yes, I did romance Garrus in Mass Effect 2/3 and enjoyed the experience. I almost tried romancing the female Turian squad member in Mass Effect Andromeda, but the Irish science officer got my interest first.)

[@loviebeest]

There is actually a book where someone gets kidnapped by aliens and mistakely is being kept in a zoo as a non-sentient being.

[@kennyholmes5196]

IIRC, there's even a reddit story that goes by the name of "humans don't make good pets".

[@ForgottenPixelz]

And if you get a neurodivergent human then they might just refuse certain eating tools because they’re wrong but they also cant tell you what is wrong with the tools.

[@fgvcosmic6752]

I mean this makes a number of pessimistic assumptions. Humans are _incredible_ at learning. They can be taught, with surprising ease.

[@chimarajigsawlord]

This makes me curious when it comes to fashion in alien captivity. After a while we’re going to come up with new social norms right?

[@YellowMageGaming]

"Have you tried looking after humans? They're monsters! As they grow in number, so does their capacity for evil, and they won't even notice as they do it." -Mad Cat-lon

[@d4n737]

Let's not even mention the fact that humans are... REALLY diverse in their behavior. Introducing one to a group, ESPECIALLY if it has been taken from the wild, is risky. They may be just scared for a while, sure. But more often than not, you will end up with a human that's unpredictable and dangerous. Either they will have self-harm tendencies as a result of being taken from the wild, or they will take out their frustrations on other specimen. Some humans even start out as aggressive, or selectively aggressive and there have been known cases of one human slaughtering their entire enclosure because the rest were weaker Turns out... Humans can have a host of behavioral problems that they naturally try to correct in one another in their packs, but in a captive setting, they're about as unpredictable as the weather

[@PlatinumAltaria]

I wish I could enjoy this trope but the real history gets in the way.

[@beansworth5694]

Yeah, same. The concept just has me think about all of the inhumanities inherent to the reality of a sapient creature assuming another to be lesser and worthy of confinement for the sake of their pleasure.

[@blackbearcj5819]

"What do you mean some will start rejectingt their physical sex and you'll need to take them to the vet and otherwise help them or else they'll get depressed and possibly harm themselves? What do you mean not all of them respond to the same treatment for the same thing? They can experience this but can't change their physical sex at will? But there's plenty of species on Earth that can?"

[@XFD42069]

Okay no why is tumblr so creative

[@cottoncandiez8872]

😂 home slice it's been the creative hub for decades

[@wurtknurte7283]

They shipped The Onceler with himself, Tumblr is the best and worst of the human mind because there's no consequence to posting, no monetisation to chase, only an abyss to scream into and receive a reaction gif in response.

[@kimberlyramin]

It's home to all the weird kids. Someone made the website, lots of different people made accounts, uncreative people that liked interacting with others directly moved on to Twitter, creative people that didn't want to interact with their fan bases moved on to Deviantart and AO3, and the weirdos that didn't like any of those stayed with Tumblr and fermented. Their unique traits and ideas interact and combine in ways that simply aren't possible on other sites, spawning new and strange possibilities that attract more weirdos in this strange little perpetual motion website and keep the cycle going.

[@eddie-roo]

It is a blogging website with social features rather than a microblogging or image posting website like twitter or instagram. Long posts are not only allowed, but encouraged, which makes it easier to share creative writing.

[@Spec7rejay]

@@kimberlyraminactually Ao3 authors adore interaction, idk why you thought otherwise

[@alansmithee419]

Cool Exotic Pet That's Actually a Nightmare to Keep Or CEPTANK for short. I'd like to approve this with no notes.

[@Grima1805]

Approved

[@lilylohmann614]

… septic tank…

[@Sewblon]

There is no such thing as an instinct in humans. Humans have certain involuntary reflexes, like breathing, and making their heart beat. But everything else has to be learned cognitively.

[@hannahschrenk7981]

Making meat edible is not instinctual. Violence, however, is. Because we can always choose to just not eat the meat in order to keep it from hurting us. But we can't always just avoid the alive thing we don't recognize and trust that it won't try to harm us, so we have the instinct to harm it first.

[@BasicallyBaconSandvichIV]

This is why Trazyn the Infinite keeps his collection in time stasis.

[@ashardalondragnipurake]

if there where cheap pellets with all the nutrition i needed, without side effects you can be damn sure i would be eating them sure i would have an extra steak or ribs as a treat now and then but the only reason im not munching on pellets is because they dont exist

[@EvelynSaungikar]

There are many foods that we joke in our family, must have been created by aliens for their human zoo. Things which taste sort of like food, but just miss the mark. E.g. protein bars.

[@user-hf8gu1yn5j]

This is now my favorite video for ANY alien au ever like holy shit

[@ulfjohnsen6203]

How are these things different from other pets? My dog started to refuse the pellets she had been using for 2 years, and I was forced to switch to a different type. Giving her live prey would be a bad idea. When she is in heat, I need to change her pads so she doesn’t bleed everywhere, Her attraction to larger partners would likely kill her if she could mate with any partner. She had to be trained to stay out of trafic during walks, and she never prepares her own meals.

[@stilltoomanyhats]

I keep mine in a tiny box with a screen with blinking lights most of the time it's awake, just like they live in their natural environment, but it somehow still doesn't look happy. Does it need more petroleum? I read that on their home planet, packs of humans engage in complex social rituals or even fight other packs over petroleum, so I figure it's important to them.

[@irishuisman1450]

Humans don't like being confined! Even if they don't leave the box very often, they like to know they have the option, so adding a slightly larger area around the box with a door between them should help. Blinking lights are also not a constant part of every human's day. Research shows that humans still do activities other than looking at the lights. Your human might need some different enrichment (trial and error is the only reliable way to find out what your human likes, but starting with a puzzle toy is usually a good idea). Don't give your human petroleum btw. It turns out only very few actually enjoy it as much as is said, most don't really care for it. On top of that, if they end up consuming it for whatever reason, it can be very unhealthy for them. Lastly, humans are pack animals! They don't like being alone! I don't know how old your human is, but if it's still a juvenile or adolescent it might be a good idea to introduce a friend. Picking one of a similar age or maybe a bit younger (to avoid your human feeling threatened) would be the best idea in that case. If your human is too old to be socialized, they might still pack-bond with a small feline or canine. Humans have been known to do that, and even unsocialized humans tend to not mind felines or canines that much.

[@Xahnel]

The thing you need to understand about your pet human is that it does not think like you, and if it hasn't pack bonded with you, it is _thinking._ it is watching, and observing, and plotting to escape, or kill you, or both. A pack bonded human generally enjoys touch, though there are certain mental disabilities that make it cringe from touch. Your human could be born uncomfortable with touch, with some forms of autism. Or they could develop a dislike due to past trauma. Or even just because they are maturing and wish to show independence. Do not group up humans who are not pack bonded with you. They _will_ plot, even through a language barrier. Be warned, a human may, at any point, become disillusioned with their life with you and become resentful. If you have not taught your human communication with you, you will have no way of telling beyond a general lack of enthusiasm.

[@sahar1213]

I feel like aliens with technology advanced enough to keep humans as pets would also be able to make objects into unconventional weapons though

[@austinclements8010]

As a Space Orc, i endorse this basic course on keeping a human as a pet

[@someoddusername5677]

Ok but you can 100% teach a new group of humans to yo use new tools, you just need some patience

[@Ixarus6713]

So basically just Deathworlders? (For anyone unaware, Deathworlders is a hilarious and intelligently written collection of writing online with a series about humans being the most dangerous species to aliens as they evolved on a "Deathworld" and literally breathe poison, which should be theoretically impossible.)

[@dragonic4239]

Tbh with humans it’s less that you are adopting a pet and more like you are adopting a family member we are smart(except when we aren’t), we don’t like being forced to do things(except when we do), and we will make your life so much worse(except when we don’t.)

[@AmadeusK626]

I gave my human all the hyper specific objects, yet when I entered the enclosure and gave the objects to it, it appraised them and then looked at me yelled, "Weed!" I looked up a translation and from what I can tell all that means is a plant which grows where it isn't wanted. I tried giving the human a "bramble" as that is what I find most commonly referred to as a weed in the human encyclopedia. However, the human pricked itself on one of the bramble's thorns and drew a diagram of a peculiar leaf segmented into 7 parts in its own blood. I do not know what it is, and the human appears to be getting increasingly ravenous despite it's sufficient supply of adequate nutrition, please help.

[@td335]

Oh! Mine had a similar problem. I'm not sure, but at least for mine, leaving it alone with a bunch of toys for a few days led to it getting better. I had to take it to the vet, but he just said something about "with-draw-els"... Hope this helps!

[@King-n00bi3]

Although luckily the humans already made some pellets that most will enjoy, they’re called cheese puffs, just make sure your human isn’t vegan, lactose intolerant or just don’t like cheese puffs they don’t eat them, and cheese puffs aren’t that healthy and humans need variety in their food and there are lots of other things they need that are unrelated to food. Btw cheese puffs were just the first pellet like food which humans eat that i thought of, there probably are other food pellets people eat.

[@sofija642]

Well which humans? Humans from my country don't eat nor like most US snacks including cheese pufs, they prefer the taste of locally produced food

[@King-n00bi3]

@ changed it.

[@Kikkatar.]

What is bread but bigger fancier pellets?

[@kitty_love_world]

Not to mention thier mood swings and emotional diseases that occur at least during adolescents plus female periods and pregnancys. Imagen having to explain to a highly atatched alian that thier human is SUPOSED to bleed once a month.

[@cealvan8941]

i think you are underestimating a humans ability to try new stuff out and figure out how to make tools work properly of course useing baking implements someone in the pack knows helps a lot, and some individuals will refuse to learn a new system even if activity taught by a pack mate and their lives depended on it, but i would be willing to bet on most packs of ten there are a couple in there who are more than willing to figure out how baking implements they are unfamiliar with.

[@syahran1518]

today i found myself humming to your intro. very demure

[@eve_squared]

Humans kind of do have ways to tell whats poisonous in the wild. It doesn't always work, but we can taste bitterness for this reason. Smell will also help. But generally eating a small bite of something to see if it made you feel sick was how we figured out things were poisonous in the past. We were smart enough to usually not eat the whole thing before knowing if it would kill or not. But we can also eat raw meat, we just get more nutrients from cooking it and greatly reduce the chance of illness. People often forget how close they actually are to animals. Like when people say "It's a dog it can eat whatever" that's abusive, because the only reason they eat things is because they don't know any better and it will still make them very sick even if it's hard to see.