This doesn't actually happen when you're typing

[frameacloud]

Theri There page number 4, originally posted on September 19, 2005.

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If the picture above looks distorted, click on it to see it full size.






Image description:
A person is working at a desktop computer. Narration: "Sometimes when you're typing..."
Narration: "...With phantom claws..." The person is now shown as a gryphon, with their claws punched through the keyboard.
In exasperation, the gryphon struggles to get their claws out of the keyboard.
End description.

I'm not satisfied with this one, since therianthropes' phantom sensations don't work like this! A therianthrope can feel like their claws were passing through a keyboard, but it wouldn't make anything happen like this. I was trying to work with old (1997-ish) slang from the dragon community on alt.fan.dragons. They had a running joke that they'd hired a typist due to their claws, blaming them for typing mistakes. Then they called their human, physical body their "typist."


[Edit October 21, 2023: Added local images, links, and transcript.]

Comments

Another idea belched out of my brain at 5:45 AM

[kistaro]

Studying for over 14 hours in one day (total) can actually be inspiring to me. My brain starts to make weird connections, and that's where weird ideas come from!

Something that's been happening to me continuously for the last two years of college class: abrupt xenoawareness in Psychology class. (I'm laying claim to the word "xenoawareness" right now.) That's when something abruptly brings one's differences into the forefront of one's mind; you can see how a Psych class would inspire that. My most general moments of that are describing emotional systems. Did you know that apparently, human emotions are assigned with a subconscious system that makes a guess as to what the cause of physiological arousal is? That's completely different from me- I'm aware of the emotion long before I'm experiencing any physical signs of it, rapid heart rate or otherwise. (That and there's only one emotional "arousal" system- same physical response for grief, anger, sexuality, etc. That also varies from me.) However, that's not terribly interesting to illustrate, although the phenomenon is; how about to something a little more visual, like an in-class experiment? That's happened for me as well. Ignoring the fact that I presently hold the record for training a virtual rat to press a lever to get food (both records- speed record to 15 bar presses at 14 minutes, hit record to 50 bar presses under the time limit of 20 minutes, from an untrained virtual rat), it's more something like Dr. Lambert describing a puzzle in class, waiting for people to solve it, and then stepping through "the exact process you used to solve it", expressing this with great certainty and then observing that personal variation in that simply didn't happen. 197 people in the 198-person class were amazed; there was much discussion afterwards of how it perfectly matched. The thought process described was completely alien to me. I could dig out my notes, but I'm not sure you need that...

I've got an idea how it would be fun to illustrate, but stop reading this comment if you've already thought of something and are interested in this because your idea is probably better than mine. Generic lecture hall full of students, with Dr. Whoever describing this puzzle-experiment in the front. (No therianthropic illustration.) Next panel: Lecture hall full of thought bubbles, most of which are nearly identical except for one throughly different one. Third panel: Dr. Whoever's speech bubble, with a short explanation of problem-solving processes and then the exact content of the mass thought bubbles. (Preferably text giving way to pseudo-abstract visuals.) Final panel: Everything simplified and abstract, except for one ornately-illustrated therianthrope in the middle, suddenly feeling distinctly inhuman and very aware of (and possibly uncomfortable with) this...

I go sleep now. *thud*

Re: Another idea belched out of my brain at 5:45 AM

[slupine.livejournal.com]

That emotional thing, do you suppose that could be equated with knowing a panic attack is going to happen that night, early in the afternoon it is going to happen? I used to have that quite a bit, though I'm sure it can be argued that it was the other way round and I was causing myself to have one.

Sorry, I'm rather interested in psychology myself.

Re: Another idea belched out of my brain at 5:45 AM

[kistaro]

It seems to be a different phenomenon to me- it's simple awareness of "I am in this condition right now and have full freedom of choice to act upon it or not", rather than "I will lose control of my responses in X amount of time"...

I'm minoring in Psychology, a bit of a strange combination to my major in Computer Science. It sort of makes sense. I understand computers inside-out; their cold, logical determinism makes perfect sense to me. It's something that's fun for me to learn that I can easily build a career off of- for some vague definition of "easy" that's currently playing hell with my sleep schedule and homework load. People, conversely, make no sense to me and I could use a class or six about them...

Re: Another idea belched out of my brain at 5:45 AM

[slupine.livejournal.com]

"I'm minoring in Psychology, a bit of a strange combination to my major in Computer Science." Hm, makes sense to me. My boyfriend is a CS major survivor. Psychology fits because, by the time you graduate, you'll need mental help. Saves on the therapy. :P