Life of Nerd

so then i tried "shag birds uk"

Anyway, early on, I do my rounds one day and get back to my office to record the findings. As I'm looking at one of the photos, I think to myself "Hang on. These look different from the others. They have black heads, not blue, and I think maybe they are bigger. Perhaps these are great tits?"

But of course! As they were still moulting, I wasn't sure; and so, with the wisdom of the terminally stupid, I confidently opened up Google, went to an image search, and there on my work computer in my office in my brand new job, I typed in "great tit chicks."

The results I got were not what I expected. But. Should have been.

I had to IMMEDIATELY go and fess up to my new boss and be like HEY I don't know if you monitor our internet use at all but uuuhhhhhh I can explain. Fortunately she just about pissed a kidney laughing, so it was okay.

"Do you have any idea how much suffering would fail to take root if more people were just good parents?" -Helen Parr/Elastigirl, The Incredibles deleted scene

I know it's a joke but I feel like people who (unfairly) compare the Skywalker twins at the beginning of ANH are missing the point. Luke playing with his model ship is a bit ridiculous, but the reason he still has the luxury of enjoying some semblance of innocence is because Owen and Beru did everything in their power to protect him and give him as normal of an upbringing as possible. Yes, it's admirable that Leia becomes so involved in the rebel effort so young, but that aspect of her story is just as tragic as it is heroic. The same goes for characters like Ezra and Sabine, who are also pulled into the conflict before they hit adulthood. Nothing can or should diminish their heroism, but that heroism comes at the cost of their childhoods and their adolescence. None of them have the luxury of growing up shielded from the impact of the Empire, and they will forever be traumatized by it.

That's not to say Luke isn't traumatized af by the end of the OT because it's clear from from his internal conflict in ROTJ that he is. But I think he's better able to grapple with that trauma as an adult in part because his aunt and uncle stepped up and made sure that he could have as normal of a childhood as is possible on Tatooine. They're the reason he isn't thrust into the war too early, and they're the reason he grows up to be far more well-adjusted than he would have been had he left home to train as a Jedi earlier. That influence goes a LONG way when it comes to how maturely he handles his final confrontation with Palpatine.

I was a year above most of them at school so they threw a "goodbye" murder mystery for me just before graduation, and about 2/3 of the way through the game we all realized that everyone had at least attempted to kill the victim. The game then shifted from "whodunnit" to "who succeeded in dunninit" which we all felt was not only super fun but above the usual level of narrative complexity for those games.

Steve reads The Hobbit in the 30s/40s. Maybe Bucky saves up and buys it for him one year for his birthday. Maybe he picks up a copy while on the USO tour. Maybe Peggy lends it to him.

He reads it. He loves it. He goes into the ice.

He wakes up and rereading it crosses his mind but “It’s an old book now, no one’s probably heard of it.” and there are so many new things to read that it gets pushed aside.

(Or maybe he knows that they’re making The Hobbit into a movie and he’s so happy about that but he doesn’t really read into it, you know? It’s going to be a movie, that’s good enough for him. He doesn’t watch interviews, he doesn’t read articles- he hears about The Lord of the Rings, of course, but no one ever makes the connection for him.)

(“I’ll reread The Hobbit before the movies come out,” but there’s still so many new things that it still gets pushed aside.)

Someone (Nat or Sam, in a hotel somewhere while they’re looking for Bucky, or Bruce in the Tower, or whoever) flips through channels and puts on The Lord of the Rings movies and Steve is only half paying attention. Maybe he’s sketching. Maybe he’s reading reports. Who knows.

Then he hears “hobbits” and it catches his attention because wait, is that…? But this isn’t The Hobbit, he doesn’t know this story, but he’s invested now and he’s watching a little bit more.

Gandalf appears, and Bilbo, and wait he definitely knows these characters what’s going on, what’s happening here, what story is this?

“Well, yeah, it’s The Lord of the Rings, it’s the sequel to The Hobbit-”

“He wrote a sequel? There’s a sequel!?”

“…there’s technically a prequel too, mostly put together by his son, but-”

“HOW MANY MORE BOOKS ARE THERE?”

“…three in The Lord of the Rings, plus the Silmarillion, and a lot of history/meta stuff too…”

“I WANT TO READ THEM ALL.”

Steve does read them all. 

(There’s a moment of loud indignation when he reads about the riddle game because “It didn’t happen like that!” He has to have the changes explained, and then it’s the funniest thing in the world to him.)

Steve reading about Frodo and Sam nearly dying on the slopes of Mount Doom, saving the world by the skin of their teeth, and it’s exactly the epic fantasy ending he was expecting. Aragorn marries Arwen, and the hobbits are heroes, and everything is right in the world.

And then they go back to the Shire.

They go through literal war, and they try to go home… but it’s not home. It’s been ravaged by the war, by technology, and “in your heart you begin to understand: there is no going back.”

And Frodo sails. Frodo sails, and even though you know that Sam still has Merry and Pippin, look at what he’s lost. He lost Frodo, he lost Gandalf, he lost the innocence of the Shire. And Sam is left behind, left to return home to his wife and family alone, and its an awful, terrible moment, that moment when you’re confronted with the reality that “We set out to save the Shire, Sam. And it has been saved, but not for me,” that winning the war can mean losing in other ways, that sometimes you don’t get your happy ending-

But that’s not the ending you’re left with. Because the last line of the book is “Well, I’m back.” and Steve, sitting in his apartment, surrounding by a future that never expected to see, that he understands and embraces but still sometimes doesn’t feel like his own world- Steve sits back, and sets the book down, and innately understands Sam’s feeling of pushing forward and finding happiness even in the light of a great personal loss. Steve has literally lived through his own Scouring of the Shire, has tried to go home only to realize that there is no going back, Steve would have every reason in the world to be Frodo and to decide to step back and find his own peace because damnit, he deserves that.

Second poll will remain open until 50 years from publishing

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Previously, a vote in the first poll counted for both options in the second

Because while Eridians are incredibly strong and tough on the outside, on the inside they are actually quite fragile:

They have no immune system, so anything that makes it past their enclosed carapace and internal heating will pretty much kill them

They have no natural defenses to radiation of any kind

In general they have very little organic matter so anything that targets their cells directly is quickly lethal

They are partially cold-blooded and live at a very narrow temperature range (about 20 degrees C)

They rely almost entirely on one, highly developed sense and are helpless if deafened (can't even remember the layout of a room)

They are completely helpless while asleep and can't control when that happens

They will forcibly become dormant after eating AND when badly hurt enough (their equivalent of going into shock)

They require more energy to function than humans do, and have very little organic matter to burn in the case of starvation

In contrast, humans:

Have an aggressive immune system and internal mechanisms for dealing with cell damage

Have adrenaline which allows them to temporarily ignore injuries and perform abnormal feats of strength

Are persistence hunters built for economy of movement and capable of extreme levels of endurance

Exist in a very wide range of habitats and on a diverse diet

Are very hardy in general, able to survive massive injuries, lack of sleep, prolonged starvation, and intense environmental conditions if given proper care

The quintessential example of this dichotomy between strength and endurance is the Going Fishing incident in the book: Rocky is able to survive and move in G forces that are killing Grace and to physically wrestle off the chair crushing him, but he collapses from his injuries almost immediately after. Despite being injured himself Grace then carries his 400lb friend up a ladder, is badly burned returning him to his atmosphere, and then proceeds to get some basic medical care, hype himself up on pain meds and keep working (albeit rather badly, lol) while Rocky forcibly sleeps.

Drinking horn with gilded copper mounts, Europe, 15th century

Contact established with the Iron Lung.

Is he deadass, question?

Legolas: The heck was that?

Aragorn: He said good morning.

Legolas: He did?

Frodo: I thought you would… understand that?

Legolas: I’ve never heard someone speak like that before…it was strange, and stilted, and you used full words the whole time.

Aragorn: Elves may sound fancy to us, Frodo, but they speak slang, and almost exclusively in metaphors.

Frodo: Oh.

Legolas: Aragorn has described it as ‘a monstrosity of a language’.

Gimli: Dwarves have a better language.

Legolas: You do.

Gimli: Ha! You admit- wait, you admit it?

Legolas: Elves curse by using the names of trees. Tree names! You have actually cusses. Do you know what I would give to cuss, just once in my life, Gimli? Do you know what I would give to tell someone to f- f- f- I can’t even say it.

Gimli: You can’t say fuck?

Legolas: …I have an idea.

-

Legolas: The-

Gimli: Fuck.

Legolas: -are you talking about?

Boromir: Why did we let the dwarf start swearing for the elf?