So True. I Was Just Changing My Feelings From One To The Other From Time To Time.

Continuing my quest of headcanoning the lotr races to be as inhuman as possible, hobbits are immune to so much shit.

They're covered in fur that keep them warm in any climate (Up on the mountain pass every other member of the fellowship would have frozen to death three times over before any of the hobbits started to feel something), but their fur also know how to air out properly, so they aren't affected by hot climates either (The heat of mount doom was a cake walk for Sam and Frodo. Everything else, not so much), and they have surprisingly thick skin that protects them against a lot of injuries, especially around their feet meaning they never get worn out. The same goes with food and drinks, it takes a lot to get a hobbit intoxicated (The alcohol concentration in their ale is insane), and no poison affects them. Like, when Shelob stabbed Frodo, man's was fucking fine. The stab was the problem, not her venom. In fact, headcanon time, Shelob's venom is an insta kill, but since Hobbits are practically immune and Orcs are resilient as heck, the most it causes is like a temporary paralysis. Poor Shelob is very confused as to why her stings ain't killing these people but just kinda knocking them out for a few hours.

In conclusion, Hobbits are the perfect specimen, made to survive in any climate and in any situation, and they could have easily taken over Middle Earth if they wanted to. They don't want to tho, so we're good

The elves being carnivores makes the dinner scene in the hobbit so much funnier actually

“Lindir what the fuck do dwarves eat?!”

“I’m not entirely sure my lord, I-“

“Do they eat meat?! Should we serve them meat?! We still have some human flesh over from that hunting party last week!”

“Well, I’m not sure my lord. Their teeth are fairly round”

“Fuck you’re right, they probably don’t eat meat. What about that other stuff? The green things that grow from the ground that’s edible?”

“I believe it’s called Wedge Table”

“Right. Do we have any of that?!”

“No”

“Fuck it, just throw some leaves on a plate, it’s probably the same thing”

Humans are symbiotes

When we met humans we were naïve enough to assume they were like us. We thought each of them was a single entity until our ships systems completed their routine scans.

Of course we offered to rid them of the parasites they carried, it was politeness or so we thought. It took some careful explaining, we expected they would be horrified by the realisation there were microscopic creatures living within them. Instead they were horrified at the thought of losing them.

Humans are each a chorum. Do not be fooled by their use of the singular, the body you see is a vehicle carrying a population of billions.

All the bacteria and viruses we worked so hard to eradicate, humans instead invited in and made a part of them. The relationship is so profound they will deliberately cultivate and ingest the species they prefer to have inside them, and their digestion of food (another horror with their definition of food including a lengthy list of poisons) relies on of having the right population mix.

They create and alter viruses at whim to do many chores, and easily tolerate micro-organisms deadly to us.

They are each a walking army, deadly in the most terrifying way imaginable.

How do I know this?

We thought our systems isolated everything, we thought we were safe and their protective suits were sterilised. Somehow, we missed it. One of the suits had clinging to it a tiny virus colony.

When the Captain realised what was happening they closed every airlock and isolated each section to halt the spread. I got stuck on the lower storage deck for almost two cycles.

The humans did all they could to reassure me from a distance, sharing their knowledge to cleanse the ship for the rescue party. They knew they could not come in, but they would speak to me, make sure I knew what was happening and that they had called for rescue on my behalf, and how long it would be until I could be released.

They were mortified by the actions of one of the feral viruses they consider little more than an irritating pest.

I think they were sad to realise they can never safely interact with us or fully join our union. They can watch from a distance, but never walk on our worlds or share our ships. For a symbiotic ensemble that isolation must be painful even knowing it is vital for life.

I am one of the only members of the union to have met humans in person.

I alone survived the plague the humans later identified as ‘the common cold’.

Humans are weird: Not what I expected

Human Security officer: First day on the job?

Alien Trainee: Yeah, bit nervous.

Human Security officer: Don’t be.

Human Security officer: Sure we see a bunch of strange things here on the station, but working security isn’t so bad.

*Over the radio*: Hey Sarge, it’s happening again.

Human Security officer: Gods damnit.

*Answers radio*

Human Security officer: Where are they this time?

*Over radio*: Deck three.

Human Security officer: *to Trainee* Right, I got to go handle this so you might as well come along to. ----------------------

*Several decks later*

Human Security officer: Now whatever happens, I need you to be calm.

Alien Trainee: Saying that makes me less calm.

Human Security officer: Just shut the hell up then and watch.

*turns corner and sees gathering of people. Many of them look like miners who had just returned from outer system asteroid mining*

Alien Trainee: *Looks confused as to what they are all looking at until they tilt their head up and see a monstrous being of pink flesh and tentacles clogging up one of the hallways leading to the docking bay*

*The creature is easily three to four times the size of any of the gathered humans and ooze drips from its tentacles*

Alien Trainee: *Begins to panic and rest their hand on their sidearm holster before realizing they haven’t been issued a weapon yet*

Alien Trainee: *Turns to look at human sarge only to find him casually walking towards the monster*

*Only now does the trainee realize that none of the humans appear to be panicking or freaking out*

*Crowd parts to let the human sarge stand before the creature that now turns its full attention to the security officer*

Human Security officer: Marvin?

Human Security officer: Marvin you need to go back home.

*Creature lets out a loud gurgling noise from beneath its tentacles that sends shivers down the alien trainee’s spines*

Human Security officer: Marvin! I know you don’t like it when your friends leave but they need to go back to work.

*More loud grumbling and the creature retreats further into the tunnel, fully blocking passage*

Human Security officer: MARVIN! Get out of the tunnel!

*Softer gurgling but the creature only uses their tentacles to cover their eyes*

Human Security officer: Marvin I can still see you; covering your eyes does nothing.

*No response*

Human Security officer: Marvin. Maaaaaaaaarvin. MARVIN!

*Still no response*

Human Security officer: *Sighs loudly*

Human Security officer: *Points to random worker* Where’s Mitch? Why isn’t he here dealing with this?

Human Miner: He got offered double shifts on the belt and took it for the extra money.

Human Security officer: Of course he did.

Alien Trainee: *Finally working courage up to speak* Who is this “Mitch”?

Human Security officer: *Turns remembering that the trainee was there* Ah, right; he’s Marvin’s owner and the only one he’ll listen to.

Alien Trainee: Is this, Marvin, a sentient being?

Human Security officer: More like a pet Mitch found a few years back and took with him.

Human Security officer: Don’t think he counted it on being the size of a bus.

*Sees Alien Trainee looking nervous*

Human Security officer: Don’t worry; despite his size Marvin’s a goofball with a heart of gold.

Alien Trainee: Can we not just stun it and drag it out of the way then?

*All humans nearby stop and look at Alien trainee, anger and shock on their faces*

Human Miner: Is that some sort of fucked up joke?

Human Miner 2: Yeah!

Human Miner 3: You heard Marvin has a heart of gold and you just want to stun it? What kind of monster are you?

*Loud rowdy humans increase in volume before Human Security officer waves them down*

Human Security officer: It’s his first day, go easy on him.

*Rowdiness decreases in volume but the humans still look upset*

Human Security officer: *Whispers* You can’t just go around saying you want to stun someone’s pet.

Alien Trainee: *Looks more confused*

Human Security officer: *Turns to miners* Alright, go through duct C90 and you should be able to get around him.

Human Miner: Fine, but so help us if Marvin’s still in that tunnel when we get back.

Human Security officer: What the hell are you arguing with me over that? Get Mitch to bring his ass back here so Marvin will calm down!

*Conversation devolves into argument as human miners begin pulling off a grill plate and shimmying through a duct around Marvin* (AI image provided by @myecandy )

I swear to Eru, bitch, if you stole our fucking jewel

Technically speaking, I am terrified of that...

Bro wait till the aliens learn about humans who can hyperextend their limbs

Alien: human Alex are you ok?! Your arm is broken!

Human Alex: my arms? Oh I’m double jointed

Alien: ????

The thing where you can pull your thumb backwards and touch your wrist, an alien would be traumatized from that

someone told thorin to whenever he's lost in the darkness he should look for the light and then he found bilbo

What comes down, must go up

For the vast majority of tools, specialization is the way to go. From the smallest cooking utensils to intergalactic habitation stations, when it is designed from the core out with a specific purpose in mind, it will perform exceptionally well if you stick with the plan.

Most of Humanity does not appear to agree. Now, they certainly do have and use plenty of highly advanced tools that can only function in one way (their dinosaur research space station that recently oriented itself around a Deathworld being a prime example), but a surprising number of seemingly precision tools are used in a myriad of unconventional ways.

Like, we've seen a fork used as a makeshift holder for yarn spinning, as a fishing tool after some minor modifications (bending and tying to some string), as well as in a performance after adding these things they call googly eyes. Or the infinitely complex subatomic splitter whose sole purpose is to reduce an atom from one element to a smaller one in a non-explosive way - it uses concentrated light emitters to achieve this. One Human configured it into a tattoo device.

In fact, we suspect Humans deliberately attempt to find as many uses for a single tool as possible, even when, and sometimes because (out of spite, perhaps?), another tool that does that thing already exists.

Their spacecraft are no exception. Those behemoths might even be the focus of maximizing adaptability for as many scenarios as they can possibly think of.

For starters - ALL of them are rated for atmosphere entry and capable of FOUR TIMES Earth standard gravity lift off. Including their largest planned vessels yet - the Colony Ships. The SMALLEST design will be TWENTY EIGHT KILOMETERS LONG and average height/width of SIX KILOMETERS. And they themselves don't even know how big their biggest will be, they just said:

"Eh, whatever will feel right at the time."

As for why everything HAS to be able to land AND take off even though it literally at least triples the mass of each ship, necessitating what we view as a massive waste of resources:

"If the planet turns out to be kinda... meh, the colonists will be able to pack up and try again with the same ship. C'mon, gotta think ahead with these things."

Not only that, but we also learned most are able to SUBMERGE AND WITHSTAND A KPA OF 142'000! The military grade ones are even tougher than that! They could dip inside gas giants and not be torn apart!

Wait...

[scanning Jupiter]

Please no...

[confirmation beep]

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE! THEY'RE HIDING INSIDE A STORM!