Those of you reading this on Tumblr have probably already seen my initial drabbles on this topic, but I wanted to flesh things out a little more here. This year for Camp Nanowrimo (at least, the one in April), I'm planning on taking some of the various writing prompts related to the "humans are weird" trope.
The general idea is that, if alien cultures were to look on human beings, they would find us decidedly odd. Humans do weird things like try to pet nearly every animal that comes within reach, or collecting worthless objects, or laughing when we're scared or nervous. We talk to ourselves and make up songs and give inanimate objects names. The way we're built, we can do things like throw objects accurately and with force, or continue fighting or running even while injured, or break down and cry at the sight of that cursed Sarah McLachlan sad puppy commercial. From an outside perspective, we are just strange.
It's a bit of fun, and it definitely gives me something to think about. How would a species that never developed sight interact with a species that uses sight as one of its primary senses? How would a species of risk-averse creatures (think the Vulcans from Star Trek) handle a species whose first response to most challenges is something along the lines of "here, hold my beer"?
That's what I intend to find out.
