Taken from a friend of a friend.
This friend of mine has been very consciously raising her young daughter outside of stereotypical gender norms. They’ve done quite a number on my friend, and she’s like, “Nope, my kid’s life will be different.”
Her daughter is small for her age, and will probably remain small. This has affected her self-confidence. Earlier this year, my friend decided to tell her daughter a slightly sanitized version of Arya Stark’s journey in GoT, to basically demonstrate how a small girl could learn to be badass.
Six months go by, and the daughter turns from 5 to 6. Her mom asks her what she wants for her birthday. The daughter says, “I want to learn how to fight.” So my friend, who has zero martial arts experience, looks up a place, and they go there.
The moment they get there, my friend is thinking, “This may not be the right place.” It’s a Krav Maga/MMA gym. Lots of burly dudes beating the crap out of each other, basically. Not your kid-friendly karate dojo.
But she doesn’t want to tell her daughter that they have to leave because the place is filled with intimidating men – it would pretty much fly in the face of everything she’s trying to teach her. So she says, “Okay. I don’t know if they have a kid’s class here. Why don’t you go ask who the teacher is, and then ask them?”
So her daughter walks up to one dude, asks for the teacher, then gets pointed to this tattooed, musclebound dude with his head shaved and a goatee. As my friend put, “The guy looked like your bigger, meaner younger brother.”
She trails behind her kid a bit, ready to step in, and listens in. Her daughter walks up the guy and says, “Hi! Do you have classes for kids? I want to learn how to fight.”
The guy looks down at this wee little girl, and he says, “Uh, well, no, we don’t really. Maybe I can talk to your mom and suggest some places for you? This isn’t really a place for little girls.”
Her daughter reaches into her jacket pocket, pulls out a nickel, holds it out to the guy and says, “Valar morghulis.”
The guy takes the nickel, looks at it, then says, totally deadpan: “Valar dohaeris. Of course I can teach you.”
The mom comes over and says, “I thought you said you didn’t have kid’s classes?” The guy says, “We do now. Come into the office and we’ll work up a training schedule.” The mom: “Do you have any idea how much it’ll cost?” The guy holds up the nickel. “She’s already paid up.”
A great story about a little girl who wants to learn how to fight.
Check it out……
Train and fight!
WarriorMale
Krav Maga huh… whoever messes with this little girl will go back home screaming and bleeding.
Tag: Story time
“‘No’?” echoed the space emperor. “‘No’?! No one. Ever. Tells me. ‘No’.”
He advanced, close enough that the threads on his rich robes could be counted by the naked eye. After a furtive glance over his shoulder, he dropped his voice to a desperate whisper and said, “Could you… could you do it again? Please?”
“No.”
The space emperor’s eyes shone like embers as he leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of his face. “So this… this ‘democracy’ you speak of. You’re telling me that people might… disobey me? They wouldn’t have to do everything I tell them to?”
“Not if they disagree with you.”
“They can do that?!” He licked his lips, trembling with excitement. “And voting! You say I… you say I could lose?!”
“Yeah, uh. And you probably would.”
“Incredible,” he breathed. “Why, I could kiss you!” With a surprised laugh, he stopped himself mid-step. “But—you wouldn’t like that! Right? You’d have an ‘opinion’? Gosh… do you think other people have those?!”
The space emperor let out a long, melancholy sigh and turned to the hero, his lip trembling with delicate misery. “I’m going to miss you,” he sniffed. “I don’t think I’ll watch, you know, when they… when they do it.” The tear that had been clinging valiantly to his eyelashes finally broke free and rolled down his cheek. “Oh!” he cried, and threw his arms around the hero’s neck with a great, shuddering sob. “Yours will be the only skull I drink from ever again—I promise! I will think of you every time, and I’ll pretend you’re still here with me!”
“Or you could just… not have me executed.”
The space emperor inhaled sharply and took a step back, his face red and puffy from crying. “That’s an option?!”
The serving-woman stood with her back ramrod straight and her eyes fixed firmly on the floor. Every muscle in her body looked tense, and only the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders betrayed her terror.
“You’ve ruined my gown,” said the space emperor, regarding the growing purple stain on his sleeve. “These fibers were harvested on Lutoya-29, a planet that was demolished six units ago. There is no other like it in the galaxy. I could have you harvested for washing-water for this.” He looked up and met the hero’s eyes, his thoughtful expression melting into a delighted grin. “But I don’t have to, do I?”
“No, Your Incandecense,” whispered the woman. Her sweat-beaded skin had grown translucent with fear.
“I don’t even have to have you killed at all!” he exclaimed. “I could… I could…” he cast around the chamber, as though searching for inspiration in the lavish furnishings.
“Please, Your Incandecense.” The woman’s voice was low and unsteady, but her gaze remained fixed on the floor. “I’ll do anything, please, forgive—”
“Anything! You’re right!” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together, stamping his feet in a little dance. “I could do anything! In fact—” he reached over the table and clasped the hero’s hand in his own. “Nothing is anything! I could do nothing! Nothing at all!” He giggled merrily and then froze, gingerly releasing the hero’s hand and leaning back. He tapped one bejeweled finger against his temple and gave an exaggerated wink. “Oh, right. Consent.”
The serving-woman’s eyes flickered to the hero’s for a moment, nervous questions burning in them. The hero gave a barely-imperceptible shrug and a very tiny, reassuring smile. The emperor did not seem to notice.
“Is there more wine?” he asked. “Splendid. Please. Do it again.”
“What…?” The woman’s skin flashed an alarming yellow.
The emperor gestured enthusiastically between himself and the crystal pitcher. “The wine. My gown. I think you should reacquaint them.”
“He wants you to spill the wine on him again,” explained the hero. “No, really. He’s, uh… he’s having an interesting day.”
“I am learning so many things,” said the emperor. “Did you know that you have feelings, too? It’s not just me! My new friend has feelings, that man over there has feelings, that… whatever that thing is has feelings!” He stood up and threw his arms wide in a sudden, emphatic motion, flinging droplets of purple liquid from his soiled sleeve. “Maybe everyone has feelings! Maybe robots! Maybe my enemies! Maybe—” he stopped, and the delirious grin vanished from his face. “Maybe the Lutoyans have feelings…” His voice dropped to a whisper, and he stared at the hero with a strange expression. “But… there aren’t any more Lutoyans…”
The space emperor took his breakfast in bed, bathed in sweet oils, allowed his hair to be combed and coiffed and his face painted with rare minerals, and then sighed in delicate frustration.
“None of this seems right,” he confessed to his wardrober, after rejecting the seventh gown he was presented with. It was deep blue silk, studded all over with crystals that glinted and sparkled like a night sky. “It’s just not working for me today.”
“That is one of the finest gowns in the galaxy, Your Incandescence,” said the wardrober. “It is an accurate starmap of the constellations as seen from your boyhood home, rivaled in beauty and quality only by your other raiments. But perhaps this is more to your impeccable tastes–” It offered an eighth gown, a trailing cascade of iridescent blue-green fabric layered with shimmering, diaphanous beetle wings. “A species of rare insect went extinct for the construction of this one,” it said. “It was considered sacred to the inhabitants of that world. Wearing this gown declares your might and majesty to the galaxy.”
The space emperor pursed his lips. “Hmm,” he said. “Not that one, I think.” There was an unfamiliar twisting sensation in his gut when he looked at the gown.
“I hope the feast is to your pleasure, Your Incandescence. We did not have much time to prepare before–”
“It is not to my pleasure!” cried the space emperor, lashing out and knocking the platter to the floor. The attendant winced as the tureen shattered and bent to clean it up. “I want to go back!”
“That would be inadvisable,” said the war magnate, rolling her eyes. “It is not yet safe for you to return planetside; there may be traps or other assassins lying in wait. I’m sure your friend is fine.”
The entire palace was climate-controlled, including the military wing, so there was no reason for the space emperor to feel so cold as he walked through the halls. It was just another concern to bring up with his doctor later that evening, along with the pain in his chest and difficulty swallowing around the tightness in his throat. He so rarely fell ill–even as a child, the diseases of the common rabble had never touched him.
The doctor would have to wait. He had more important business to attend to.
He ran his thumb along the special weapon the General had given him. It was simple in design, as unlike the ornate ceremonial laser he always wore at his hip as it was possible to be. He didn’t understand exactly how it functioned, but he didn’t need to; all that mattered was that it worked. The General assured him that it would be a most fitting punishment.
“What?” said the space emperor. “What just… happened?”
The General bowed his head and held out his arm. The space emperor took it numbly and allowed himself to be led from the room, away from the acrid smoke rising from the dead robot. “You must forgive me, Your Incandescence. I will bear the blame for this… unfortunate oversight. Walk with me, if you please, and I will explain.”
The sprawling facility seemed to become oppressively small. The space emperor sucked in an unsteady breath and discovered that oxygen had suddenly stopped working while he was distracted by the screen. “Air,” he wheezed, stumbling toward the turbolift. “I need air.”Fierce heat rippled across his cheeks and all the way down his spine. The space emperor tore his gaze away from the Lutoyan, gritting his teeth against the unwelcome feeling. He adjusted the circlet furiously until he was sure that his entire head was protected by its energy shield.
“How kind of you to join me,” he forced out, squeezing his eyes shut and trying not to think about the way the muscles in the other man’s arms flexed when he tested his restraints. “I hope you are enjoying our imperial hospitality.” It was not the self-assured and dangerous voice he had planned to use, but something strained and uneven.
“Not really, no. This kind of stuff isn’t my cup of tea,” said the Lutoyan dryly. “Speaking of which… is that a coffee machine?”
“What?” The space emperor’s eyes shot open. “No.”
Different
“You’re…different. I’ve never met a girl like you.”
She stares at him, hands stilling over her sword. “What?”
“All the girls in my village are so boring,” he says. “So focused on finding husbands that they don’t bother learning about the world.”
“Girls in your village aren’t allowed to own property or vote,” she says, somewhat incredulous.
He winces at her tone. Need she be so harsh? “Well…it’s not like they’ve ever needed to, we’re a very progressive village and I always vote in favor of their needs. You’re not like that though, you fight for your rights yourself.”
“They are fighting for their rights,” she says. She sets down her sharpening stone, a frown stretching across her face. “No voting, no property, no wages of their own to purchase necessities. Besides finding a kind husband, what else do you think they can do to find a good future?”
“Th-they could leave,” he says. He did not expect the conversation to go this way. He expected her to blush like she had when he complimented her sword skills. He finds himself oddly defensive. “The men in my village aren’t slavers. The girls can leave any time.”
She snorts. “On foot? Your village is a hard, three day ride from the nearest city and that’s by horseback. And, even if they made it, what skills do they have? What references? The risk is too high for any woman to leave, that’s as good as trapping them. The fact that it takes me holding a sword for your opinion of women to change just shows how small-minded you are.”
He bristles, unable to refute her. “Look, I was just trying to pay you a compliment! There’s no need to attack me.”
“Trust me,” she says, standing when he moves to loom over her. They’re of near equal height and, if he was trying to intimidate her, he fails. “You’ll know it when I’m attacking you. This isn’t it.”
He doesn’t seem to hear her, flustered to be seeing her eye-to-eye. “Furthermore, I think I’d know what sort of girls I grew up with! They’re timid and lack a desire to explore the world.”
“The world you created for them doesn’t take long to explore,” she says. Her sword is bare in her hand. “Marry or descend into poverty. Bear an heir or be cast into poverty. Behave or be thrown into poverty. I was there for a week and figured it out. But,” she continues, looking him up and down, “maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge. After all, you’ve lived there your whole life and you still haven’t figured it out.”
He splutters. “That’s not–there are other options–”
“When the revolution is done,” she says, coldly, “and your people are forced to give women rights, see how many stay and how many leave. See how many suddenly discover their wander-lust. See how many end up like me.”
She leaves him there and stalks off to the edge of camp. She leaves him there with his mouth opening and closing, and heart pounding in his chest.
She leaves him there with the unsettling realization that he doesn’t want the women in his village to end up being like her, so different and strong. Because, if they did, where would he be? Where would his home be?
It’s an upsetting realization to have, mid-revolution. No chance to back out now.
I want a story about a king whose son is prophesied to kill him so the king is like “whatever what am I supposed to do, kill my own kid wtf is wrong with you” so he just raises him as normal, doesn’t even tell him about the prophecy, and instead of some convoluted twist of events that leads to the king’s murder the son grows up and when the king is very old and dying and in excruciating pain the kid is just like alright I’mma put him out of his misery.
The king’s son becomes the new king, and is prophesied to defeat evil and bring an age of prosperity. His generals and knights all crack their knuckles but he pretty much ignores them and focuses on strengthening the infrastructure of his kingdom. Forty years later he is old and sick but still hearing his subjects’ grievances, and a general’s like “how will you defeat the prophesied evil now? You’re old and weak.” Another visitor, a teenager fresh out of the kingdom’s public education system, looks at the general like he is an ignoramus. The king eradicated poverty, housed the homeless, taught the ignorant, ended class exploitation by abolishing the nobility and imprisoning the corrupt, and established a highly respected guild of doctors that recently figured out how to cure the plague. There are no brigands because there is enough wealth for everyone to live comfortably; hiding in the woods and taking trinkets from people simply doesn’t make any sense for anyone but the desperate, and the people are not desperate. Evil is a weed, explains the teenager. It grows in cracked roads and crumbling houses and forgotten corners, rooted in indifference and watered by suffering. But the king demands that broken things be mended and suffering people be made well.
No evil lives in this kingdom, says the teenager. It starved to death before I was born.
Every once in a while, when I’m feeling down, I go and look at the notes on this post and they make me feel a lot better. This is the energy I want to carry into 2018.
For those who need to carry it into 2019.
This is amazing!!!
via reddit.com
Monkey brain: If we pull back this tree, we can use its preserved momentum to hurl ourselves over the dangerous fence.
also monkey brain: heehoo peenut
You know I’d almost managed to forget about the Peanut Butter Keyboard Incident until I just was reminded of my tech lab days.
Surely you’re not gonna just leave it there! An Incident with Capital Letters™ is always intriguing.
So in college I landed a job as a tutor/work study in the computer lab.
I was just supposed to be computer lab tech support/tutoring assistance for students working on stuff, but my boss was lazy as shit, and so my actual job ended up being tech support for most of the campus so that Kathy didn’t have to get off her ass and actually do anything aside from play solitaire in her office.
Literally, she sat me down and told me “I expect you to stop anyone from getting to my office (you had to walk through the computer lab to get to her office) and speaking to me unless you absolutely cannot solve the problem on your own.”
So, whenever the tech line rang, I had to jump up and grab it, and see what was up. If it wasn’t something that I could solve over the phone, I then had to jog down to whatever classroom/office was having problems and sort things out.
Any tech support person can tell you that the overwhelming majority of tech issues are simple fixes. Every once in a while, though, you get a real doozy.
Such was the case with Mr. T. Mr T was a professor who taught a few sociology courses. He was smart as a whip about his course material, but was also Very Bad with technology and proud of it. He was also a hoarder. He had thirty years worth of files, magazines, junk, stuff, and trash crammed into his office.
I got a call one day to say his keyboard wasn’t working. He was Very Upset about this; we’d just installed new keyboards, and he was Very Put Out that we’d taken his old, functioning keyboard and given him a new, broken one. I ran through the normal troubleshooting…is it plugged in, ect. ect…but no luck. So I tell Kathy where I’m going and head on down to see what’s wrong.
When I got there, I took one look at the keyboard and knew what was up.
Mr T. had…among the rest of his stuff…enough food and snacks stashed in his office to eat for a week if he’d been trapped in there somehow. Apparently he’d been making himself peanut butter toast…and don’t get me started on the fire hazard inherent with a toaster surrounded by three decades of teetering paper stacks…and had set the hot toast…thickly covered with very generous spoonfuls of warm, melty creamy peanut butter…on top of one of his stacks of paperwork while he dug for something else.
His elbow bumped the stack. The peanut butter toast and part of the stack of paper went over, landing facedown on his keyboard.
He picked the toast off and ate it anyway, but then realized that his keyboard…which was now filled with a significant amount of peanut butter…didn’t want to work any longer. So he’d called us to complain.
So I replaced the damn thing, explained in a way-too-patient tone that filling electronics with snack spreads tends to void their warranty, and told him not to eat over it any longer.
And then took that fucker back to my boss and just set it quietly in front of her. She looked at it for a couple seconds, and then just quietly shakes her head and tosses it in the dumpster.
You know, the thing that surprises me most about the ‘revelation’ that rich people pay off colleges to get their kids in is that it surprises anybody.
Like I thought we all knew that this was going on? Are people seriously shocked by this?
I think it’s the nature of the scheme (photoshopping kids’ faces onto stock photos of athletes) and the fact that some of the kids apparently weren’t aware that made this one unique.
Maybe you’re right about that. I guess…well, my father is a college professor, and rants about this sort of thing all the time, so perhaps I didn’t realize that the truly brazen stunts wealthy people will pull to get their kids accepted weren’t widely known.
Also I’m surprised that it’s illegal! Like, we all knew that those ‘so and so’ libraries were buying the families some nice perks, but I honestly thought that it was just part of the whole process
Yeah! Like I just assumed that everyone knew that a college having a sports field or a library or a science lab or whatever named after a family meant “This family bribed us with a real fat check to get their uninterested child admitted”
And also that people who completely didn’t deserve admission got in because they were good at sports. Like, everyone knows that. I’m just shocked that people are actually getting in trouble for it
Right?
That’s literally the only thing that surprises me about this whole thing.
And I just had someone come into my inbox and try to shame me for saying people don’t deserve a college education just for being good at sports. Like. I was a TA/tutor for the first two years that my college had a football team. Do you know the people who were the rudest about needing help, or the whiniest about having bad grades, despite me having a pretty generous grading policy? The football players.
If they canget the grades and scores to get in on their own, and then maintain them, cool. Awesome. Our nationally ranked soccer teams did. But if they get in purely because they’re good at a sport, and expect to coast through school on that? Fuck ‘em, and I hope they fail out
YEP.
I worked in the computer lab in college, and one of my jobs was helping students who needed it…we had little signs that we put on the door saying “Hi! ____ is in the lab today, they have passed (list of classes I’d taken and passed). If you need help with any of these, please ask!”
And a lot of students did ask for help and I always liked helping them. Usually it was just normal study help or going over a particular concept or breaking down problems in a way that made it easier for the student to solve. You know, normal tutoring stuff.
Now, the volleyball, basketball, and tennis teams. A bunch of kids had sports scholarships. Most of them were perfectly nice and normal students who worked hard both in sports and in class.
But then there were the few who would come stomping in and expect me to do all their work and assignments and papers for them, because they were there on a Sports Scholarship and therefore thought that they did not have to actually do anything else. A couple had the absolute gall to complain to my boss that I ‘wouldn’t help them’. I almost got written up, until I explained that their version of ‘help’ meant ‘write their entire midterm lit paper for them’.
The athletes who took their classes seriously? I hope they did well, and I did everything I could to help them when they needed it. But the entitled assholes that thought throwing a ball real good meant that they were too special to learn algebra like the rest of us?
Fuck ‘em.
To contribute to the discussion of student athletes, there were a lot of them that were rude and didn’t want to do the work. However, there were also a fair few who had no idea how to even start an essay. I worked as a writing tutor and I had some students that came from very poor areas and the only way they were even able to get into college was through sports. Thing is, they could barely read at a 6th grade level because their school system was so broken that no one cared to help them and just kept passing them along. I did everything I could to help them just be able to catch up to their peers. That being said, yeah there’s a bunch of stuck up athletes that honestly probably don’t want to go to college, but know that it’s the next step for sports.
We had a few kids like that too, and they were honestly eager to learn! I liked helping them. I compiled a list of web tutorials for stuff like starting essays and how to format papers in APA style and how to do proper citations at one point that I emailed to kids who were desperately trying to get their skills up to college level but who had never really had any help.
I think the issue with this current situation is that the schools themselves weren’t bribed. Like y’all said before, Rich parents can buy nice, fancy buildings for the school and their kid would get in. But apparently… these parents didn’t do that. These kids were such bad students that these parents had to fake data. I was reading (and people are talking about) how the kids cheated on entrance exams and records were falsified. A big joke is that kid’s faces were photoshopped onto athletic bodies. All of this money also went to a single “company”; a guy who had the access and resources to pull this stunt. At least with some “legal” cases, mommy and daddy bought a nice computer lab and you could actually see that the kid had shitty/average grades, but in this instance, the schools were also scammed.
I think that’s the other reason; I feel like if the schools got the money, they wouldn’t care, but some random dude got it, so they’re upset. On top of that, the schools know when a kid is there because of money, but not even the schools knew. This also makes the schools look bad because they didn’t know either. Because let’s be real, students represent a university. shitty students= shitty university. It’s putting all of these school’s legitimacy on the line and that’s what’s making it such a big deal
I think you hit the nail on the head there.
I like haunted houses in theory BUT I have no idea how to react when the actors speak to you. They ask me a question and I just… answer it…
The scariest part of a haunted house is the unscripted social interaction.
Scary nurse in a creepy voice: “Do you have an appointment to see the doctor?”
Me: “Uh. Do you accept walk-ins?”
Scary farmer: “I like to kill people!”
My friend, brightly: “I like to die!”
Zombie : “AARRRGH”
Me : “Do you get dental insurance?”
Zombie : “TEETH!!”
This happened to me.
Scary prison dude: HELLO
Me: Nice to meet you!
Him: (pause) No it’s noooooot
My worst horror house experience was when I couldn’t find the (rather obvious) exit and the guy chasing me with a chainsaw stopped, sighed and pointed me to the exit, saying “please scream as loud as you can when you run out there” and just left. I disappointed the horror house chainsaw dude and I will never get over that
Guy: They are all my friends.. (motioning to hanging corpses; then grabs a noose) Will you be my friend?
Me: Sure totally, you made me a friendship necklace? Oh my god your so sweet?
Guy: … Yes.. Please, let me.. I cant I cant just go (laughing).– Got to walk a second time through–
Same guy: My friends -wailing-
Me: I came back I just really wanted to be friends so bad
Guy: (laughing more) Please, Im not allowed to laugh.I went to a Haunted House and literally befriended every actor there.
Specifically, I remember;
There were zombies walking around in the waiting room. I said “Hi!” and he gave me a high five. Every time he passed from then on, I got a high five.
Near the end, there were these twin little girls. “Come play with us.” They said. “Okay!” I said. “Forever.” They said. “Oh, sorry, can’t do that. I’m busy.”
I could hear them giggling.
Guy playing Freddie Kruger: Remember, you are all my children!
Me: thanks dad
A small chorus of teenagers: thanks dad
I went to a haunted corn maze once. Someone ran at me with a chainsaw. I just stared at him. He hung his head and walked away. I left.
The Real Horror Is The People We Dissapointed Along The Way
IM CRYING
One time in a haunted house I shouted “oh my god” and the guy playing the Victorian-esque mad doctor replied “you can just call me doctor” or something like that and a) it was the smoothest fucking thing but b) holy shit I cracked up so hard I wish I could have told him later that that experience will sit with me for life
I have never been in a haunted house and I’m sad now.
Once there was a man who hated the world, and sought to withdraw from it. And being gifted in sculpture, he carved a woman from a block of marble. And on the morning after his work was complete, the gods, being merciful, awoke her…
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, kept her close and loved her well all of her days.
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, sought to keep her close and love her well. But as she was his creation, she could not love him; for we do not love those who have ever held us in their power. And thus, in time, she departed from his side.
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, sought to keep her close and love her well. But as she was his creation, he could not love her, for we do not love that which is only an extension of ourselves. And thus, in time, she departed from his side.
…and the sculptor, though pleased with his handiwork, found that he could not love her, for we do not love that which we have once compelled. But nevertheless she loved him dearly, and remained ever by his side and served him well, and perhaps there was some grace in that.
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, sought to keep her close and love her well. But there are flaws in the earth and sky, and flaws in the gods’ wisdom and in mortal hearts, and as all the world knows, there are ever flaws in stone.
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, offered her a chisel, for he greatly desired to know what she would make.
A lot of ‘humans are weird’ posts play with the idea that humans are one of the few species that actually evolved as a predator and, as such, we are unusually strong and fast— but what if we’re not.
What if we’re tiny?
What if, to the majority of species in the galaxy, ten feet tall is unusually short— it basically only happens due to rare genetic conditions— and the average human is basically cat sized or smaller?
Instead of being terrified by our strength, the aliens’ most pressing concern is how exactly they’re going to communicate with us when we’re all the way down on the ground.
There are experiments, with aliens crouching low or humans standing on high platforms— but it usually ends up being either uncomfortable for the alien or dangerous for the human, or both, and just generally impractical for everyone.
But, while the diplomats and politicians are trying to figure out a dignified and simple solution, the ordinary people who actually have to work with the aliens have found one. Humans are, generally, pretty good climbers, and most species have conveniently places scales, feathers, fur or clothing that can act as a hand or foothold. Sure, some humans have a fear of heights, but those aren’t typically the ones going into space. Besides, climbing on a living alien often feels safer than climbing up a rock or something— at least you know you’ve got somebody to catch you.
Soon it becomes accepted that that’s the way humans travel with aliens— up high, easy to see and hard to tread on (there were quite a few… near misses, in the first few meetings between humans and aliens), balanced on somebody’s shoulder like the overgrown monkeys that we are.
Many humans see this as kind of an insult and absolutely refuse to go along with it, but they aren’t the ones who end up spending a lot of time with aliens— it’s just too inconvenient to talk to somebody all the way down on the ground. The ones that do best are the ones who just treat it like it’s normal, allowing themselves to be carried (at least, it’s ‘carrying’ when the aliens are within earshot. Among themselves, most humans jokingly refer to it as ‘riding’), and passing on tips to their friends about the best ways to ride on different species without damaging feathers, or stepping on sensitive spots (or, in at least one case, ending up with a foot full of poisonous spines…).
The reason they don’t feel patronised by this is that they know, and they know that nearly everyone else in the galaxy knows, that humans are not just pets.
After all, you’d be surprised when a small size comes in handy.
Need somebody to look at the wiring in a small and fairly inaccessible area of the ship? Ask a human.
Need somebody to fix this fairly small and very detailed piece of machinery? Ask a human, they’re so small that their eyes naturally pick up smaller details.
Trapped under rubble and need somebody to crawl through a small gap and get help? Ask a human— most can wriggle through any gap that they can fit their head and shoulders through.
If you’re a friend, humans can be very useful. If, on the other hand, you’re an enemy…
Rumours spread all around the galaxy, of ships that threatened humans or human allies and started experiencing technical problems. Lights going off, wires being cut— in some cases, the cases where the threats were more than just words and humans or friends of humans were killed, life support lines have been severed, or airlocks have mysteriously malfunctioned and whole crews have been sucked out into space.
If the subject comes up, most humans will blame it on “gremlins” and exchange grim smiles when they’re other species friends aren’t looking.
By this point, most ships have a crew of humans, whether they like it or not. Lots of humans, young ones generally, the ones who want to see a bit of the universe but don’t have the money or connections to make it happen any other way, like to stowaway on ships. They’ll hang around the space ports, wait for a ship’s door to open and dart on in. The average human can have quite a nice time scurrying around in the walls of an alien ship, so long as they’re careful not to dislodge anything important.
Normally nobody notices them, and the ones that do tend not to say anything— it’s generally recognised that having humans on your ship is good luck.
If there are humans on your ship, they say, then anything you lose will be found within a matter of days, sometimes even in your quarters; any minor task you leave out— some dishes that need to be cleaned, a report that needs to be spellchecked, some calculations that need to be done— will be quickly and quietly completed during the night; any small children on the ship, who are still young enough to start to cry in the night, will be soothed almost before their parents even wake, sometimes even by words in their own tongue, spoken clumsily through human vocal chords. If any of the human are engineers (and a lot of them are, and still more of them aren’t, but have picked up quite a few tricks on their travels from humans who are) then minor malfunctions will be fixed before you even notice them, and your ship is significantly less likely to experience any major problems.
The humans are eager to earn their keep, especially when the more grateful aliens start leaving out dishes of human-safe foods for them.
This, again, is considered good luck— especially since the aliens who aren’t kind to the humans often end up losing things, or waking up to find that their fur has been cut, or the report they spent hours on yesterday has mysteriously been deleted.
To human crew members, who work on alien ships out in the open, and have their names on the crew manifest and everything, these small groups of humans are colloquially referred to as ‘ship’s rats’. There’s a sort of uneasy relationship between the two groups. On the one hand, the crew members regard the ship’s rats as spongers and potential nuisances— on the other hand, most human crew members started out as ship’s rats themselves, and now benefit from the respect (and more than a little awe) that the ship’s rats have made most aliens feel for humans. The general arrangement is that ship’s rats try to avoid ships with human crew members and, when they can’t, then they make sure to stay out of the crew members’ way, and the crew members who do see one make sure not to mention them to any alien crew members.
The aliens who know, on the other hand, have gotten into the habit of not calling them by name— mainly because they’re shaky as the legality of this arrangement, and don’t want to admit that anything’s going on. Instead they talk about “the little people” or “the ones in the walls” or, more vaguely, “Them”.
Their human friends— balancing on their shoulders, occasionally scurrying down and arm so as to get to a table, or jumping from one person’s shoulder to another, in order to better follow the conversation— laugh quietly to themselves when they hear this.
Back before the first first contact, lot of people on Earth thought that humans would become space orcs. Little did they know, they’d actually end up as space fae.
Oh yeah