Alien: You’re telling me that in times of great distress humans have been known to suddenly gain the strength necessary to lift objects more than a dozen times their own weight?!
Human: Yeah, it’s called “hysterical strength” and it usually happens in life-or-death situations, like when someone gets stuck under a car or something and someone lifts the car to get them out. We can’t really test it though, ‘cause it only happens spontaneously.
Alien: Humans have the ability to tap into untold strength and power and you don’t even know how you do it?
Human: Pretty much, yeah. We think it has something to do with temporary analgesia, so we just don’t feel the pain we should when we pick up a 3000-pound car.
Alien: YOUR PAIN RESPONSE JUST SHUTS OFF?
Human: Yeah, it’s like an adrenaline thing? Do you not have that?
Alien: Fuck you and your entire species of tiny juggernauts.
Did this post just use a dialogue format to trick me into learning science
Had to check this out on wikipedia at least and boy was that a ride
Just so you guys know. Hysterical strength is basically your body not holding back and going %100 though there is a great danger of you hurting yourself or breaking something since your ignoring pain and going %100. There was a case where a kid deadlifted a car to save a sibling but,cracked 8 of his teeth during it because he was clenching his jaw so hard. So whilst you can lift a car or fight off polar bears. Your probably going to break something. Because most of the time when we are “giving our all” we are only giving a fraction of what we could give and this is because if we truly give our all we can seriously injure ourselves.
This is literally an explanation of Deku and his abilities with One For All.
Humans naturally hold back because our muscles have enough strength to rip themselves apart
STOP GIVING THE ALIENS REASONS NOT TO VISIT.
@celestial-naiad the whole one million percent smash was actually hysterical strength, according to horikoshi.
on an unrelated note, did you know that if all the muscles in your back clenched at once your spine would shatter? have fun!!
Thats a horrifying and empowering thought at the same time.
Also: when you are sufficiently electrocuted and “thrown back” what is actually happening is your muscles contracting so hard and fast you essentially fling yourself away from the dangerous thing.
This is the same stuff that stops you from biting off your own fingers and whatnot. Our brains just say ‘no, don’t,’ whenever we try to do some dumbass shit, until we reach the point where it’s either do the dumbass shit or die/watch someone else die. I think it’s really cool though that we can shut off this function for others than ourselves. It shows a lot how we truly are social creatures at our core, that we don’t just do this when it’s our own body that might die, but for others in our community as well.
This is why a zombie would be extremely terrifying for a short period, and then neutralize itself. No fear and no pain means it could rip apart the gates to your fortress with its bare hands, but it would tear its arms or break its back in the process and never do anything very dangerous again.
This also means that anybody with a magical super-healing power would essentially get super strength out of the mix for free if they could get past the psychological limitations. That’s probably what makes vampires so strong; they don’t actually put out any more force than a normal human but they repair any damage they take in the process almost instantly.
@krunchy-tuna why would you hide this hilarious comment in the tags
Aight I know I’m OP but I gotta reblog for appreciation of that comment
the funniest thing about zim is that in many ways, hes exactly what irkens idealize: hes driven by the mission, worshipful of the tallest, unable to accept failure, and an absolutely ruthless and vengeful little dude. hes exactly what they want from a soldier and its probably why he made invader at all in impending doom 1.
and yet… hes so goddamn incompetent, and almost entirely because hes so eager to please and unwilling to accept failure (and dont forget that petty streak). he has to lie and reframe his failures, because the irken empire doesnt fail. he has to take revenge on those who hurt him because the irken empire does not let insolence go unpunished and is quick to make an example of those who do not perfectly fall in line (remember when the tallest threw the wrong guy out an airlock for saying he didnt remember what a fuck-up zim was? and then theyre just like ehhh you all get the message)
hes like gods funny little joke on the irken empire for their massive hubris and war crimes. he internalized alllllll their ideals perfectly, and then he went and fucking set his own planet on fire. even sending him off to earth on a fruitless “invasion” couldnt save them from the empire’s most loyal servant
irk absolutely deserves all the chaos zim brings them, and i hope one day he serves them to death
all of this is double funny when you realize that the cure for all their zim ills is for the tallest to disband the empire and stop invading other planets. thats it! zim would go along with whatever they said because the only reason he wants to be an invader is because its what his tallest say the best irken are meant to be. if they said only the best of irkens learn to tap dance hed break his legs learning how to please them
god i love this little green punishment to his people
The idea that Invader Zim is some perfect Greek tragedy was not the take I expected to hear today