Not A Bad Way To Win An Argument, Especially With Thorin

Should've won the Oscar for best original song (or sth, I don't the exact names of the categories) once The Hobbit was released as a movie.

This one is for my one and only true love

Bilbo Baggins

Bilbo, you're so cool

And with my stone, we're gonna rule

Bilbo, understand

I'm gonna love you 'til the very end

Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo

Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo

I love you, oh

Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo

Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo

I love you, oh

Trolls, humans, and an Elven King too

A thousand troops of orcs couldn't keep me from you

Bilbo Baggins, at the end of the line

I'll make you mine, oh

Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo

Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo, Beebo

I love you, oh

Beebo, Beebo, Bilbo, Bilbo

— Thorin in his head, probably

(Thread on the ex-🐦 here)

I recently watched a rendition of Fëanor's speech to the Noldor on TikTok and I gotta say, hearing it spoken gives it so much more power than just reading it.

While reading the Silmarillion I've always thought that it was a very charismatic speech, even if Fëanor is basically asking his people to leave the only home they've known to literally fight a god. Tolkien wrote an absolute banger of a speech where just reading it already has me going "yeah, yeah that makes sense I get why the Noldor would up and leave after hearing this".

But hearing it being spoken and not only read as part of an audiobook, but actually spoken by a voice actor in an interpretation of how Fëanor would've spoken it really gave it a lot more depth that I wasn't expecting. It was very rousing, it's like your mind was silenced and all you can do is hang onto Fëanor's every word. By the time the voice actor finished the speech, I was ready to pack my bags, cross the ocean to a place I've never been to, and potentially die fighting a god. While my brain still paused at the subtle hints of manipulation (because that speech was manipulative to a degree. But I think that deserves its own post), it was mostly overridden by the 'fuck yeah let's do this' mentality.

The people who stayed back (before the Kinslaying of Alqualondë) during the Flight of the Noldor after hearing that speech are the real deal. It honestly takes strength to not get dragged in by the roaring emotions.

I was thinking about Goose from Captain Marvel/MCU and also about those various "humans are weird" posts, and something occurred to me.

So *every other* sentient race in the Marvel universe can identify a Flerkin as a terrifying Eldritch monster. Humans? Humans have one as a pet. They are utterly oblivious. And even *after* finding out it's an alien monster, Nick Fury has it hanging out in his office and/or house.

What if our obliviousness or, more specifically, our ability to be bored, that is the human superpower?

Humans can be bored by being launched into the air in a fragile tin can powered by extremely volatile fuel. We can be bored by Space in all its infinite terror and majesty.

You can just imagine the "Eldritch Monster Cleanup Crew":

Terror Beast From Beyond the Stars: COWER BEFORE MY POWER, MORTALS! I WILL DEVOUR YOUR WORLDS AND FEAST UPON YOUR SOULS!

Bob the Human: Sure thing, mate. Can you just hold still for a second?

TBfBtS: ...YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FLEEING FROM MY HORRIFYING VISAGE AND ABOMINABLE PRESENCE

Bob: You aren't that impressive. Bit ugly, yeah, but I've seen worse in downtown nightclubs.

TBfBtS: WHAT.

Bob: Just want to get on with the job, mate. My other half has a pot roast in the oven. Hold still another second so the arcane prison can get a proper hold.

TBFBTS: Noooo!!!

Bob: *dusts off hands, picks up arcane prison* Time for a cuppa.

Okay guys i swear this is the last one (it probably won’t be)

True rolemodel

Bilbo 'Not Like Other Hobbits' Baggins

Plot armor but it’s Bruce Wayne’s wealth.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

But by GOD is he trying.

to be fair, he would do that.

Fili: Name one mean thing I’ve ever said or done to you. Kili: You convinced me that eggs weren’t real!

When in doubt, duct it

The prevalence of mass printers means that if the design is functional, anything can be built. Humanity boasts the largest orbital shipyards in the known Galaxy, capable of constructing vessels beyond reasonable scope and complexity, which they need to be able to do due to the sheer number of redundant systems, safety features, and the compartmentalized nature of their space craft.

So why is that half of them begin to look cobbled together after a while? Nearly all civilian craft appear unique, every single small military craft has personal modifications reflecting the pilot's and crew's personalities. We've even seen whole engineering teams rip out large sections of their massive Dreadnoughts and replace them with parts from others. One time we even saw them cut off the propulsion system of a smaller Destroyer and just...

plug it under a Capital ship.

Once again, we desperately are trying to understand the nature behind this odd behavior.

"Well, the architects and designers do a fine job, but when the rubber meats the road, or I should say, when you bump into an asteroid for the first time, only then you begin to understand what each ship is like, you know? A good pilot and crew can feel what their ship wants to really be only after you've been on it for a while.

Any ship or station starts off as a blank slate, but after a while it starts to develop a personality. And like any good friend, they take care of you, so you take care of them. Sometimes the lights just aren't right, so you replace them with a different model. Other times the recoil tilts it a little bit to where it makes the life support hiccup, so you gotta add a counterweight, but not just anything, it has to fit the vibe. Then that has it's own little complaints, and it just goes on like that.

As a matter of fact, the oldest ship in the Fleet started off as a Carrier, but over time the crew, without saying a word, just knew it was meant to be a Battleship. A few "surgeries" later and the Jubilant Axolotl added six extra generators and now can't hold a single fighter craft, is always leaking something, and has two of the biggest Rail Cannons we've ever built. She could probably punch a hole through Mars if she overloaded all her generators, but the crew think that that would be the last thing she, and everything within a few hundred thousand kilometers, ever does."

mutuals do you have any resources for when your image is shared online without consent?

so my friend and i were pulled into one of these "pranks" done in public and filmed without our consent or rather after i specifically said i didn't want to be filmed. now the video of both of our faces in close up is going viral on tiktok, as it's been published (again, without our consent) on this 15 year old's prank channel. it now has over 4 mil views and as someone who's extremely guarded about my privacy and has never posted my image online, ever, i find this very upsetting. the dutch/european law isn't really protecting us at the moment as it is "filmed in a public space" but i know people have resources for finding/deleting things like leaked explicit images or images stolen by companies so i'm wondering if anyone has any insight on similiar situations. i hate this. as much as i am filled with resentment and would love to teach that kid a lesson, i know i should just get him to take the video down and not draw more attention to myself online. pls advise

Tactic to earn a degree? Unfortunately only possible.

Tactic to stay alive during those period?Toxic af, but still useful and that should be considered insane.

The alien should be alarming others to lower our sick standards of memorizing unbelievable amount of information that will no longer be valid in the next five years.

What would be alien's reactions to battery acid. Y'know that thing with red bull marinated sour strips, energy drink plus coffee and a minimum of five beers. Read more at your own risk.

Alien: Human, I can't find the-

Human: *currently stoned*

Alien: ... What. Are you doing?

Human: seeing God.

Alien: how many?

Human: *raises one finger.*

Alien: ... Human. If my memory serves correct. It takes twenty.

Human: try a strip.

Alien: ... *processing, before taking a sour strip.*

Human: *still stoned*

Alien: *starts coughing.* WHAT IS IN THIS?

Human: that's battery acid. Marinated in red bull, put red bull into coffee. Uhm, ooh, had a gummy. And about. Hic. Five beers?

Alien: ... How did you make the marinade?

Human: fourth book, red leather.

Alien: ... it's called uni recipes.

Human: yep.

Alien: stoner pizza?

Human: fries on pizza.

Alien: ... reduce five cans of red bull, leave to cool before marinating for a minimum of three hours. Five days at maximum, because the caffeine will break down the glucose bonds?

Human: yep. Chem students are smart!

Alien: ... That's your battery acid?

Human: I'm on car acid.

Alien: ... Two cans of reduced Red Bull, 125ml per can. Reduced to 25ml put into your choice of coffee, reduce the coffee to 10ml.... Take one edible, one battery acid and the coffee concoction. Then down five beers reduced to... Half a bottle of beer. Or around one shot of tequila.

Human: *proud of themselves.*

Alien: ... I'd be horrified if I wasn't impressed.

Human: yeah, that's how I got my degree in uhh, neurology, bio chemistry and a few more Celciuses.

Alien: ... You made a recipe book and got an associates?

Human: I actually have. 27? bachelors, just from that shelf.

Alien: ... How are you-

Human: remember when I mentioned I'd figured out a way to be high and speak somewhat normally?

Alien: ... *glances at the bookshelf*

Human: give it a minute.

Alien: these are all acedemic papers. Aren't they?

Human: 1387 recipes. Times that by the number of java files on the USB that's labelled the same as the eight number of pie.

Alien: ...

Human: there's 40567 academic papers, not including the top and bottom shelves which are dictionaries, explanations and half of them have paper which explode upon contact with oxygen.

Alien: ... Most of this case is behind glass.

Human: mhm.

Alien: How did you even do this?

Human: mixture of car acid, ADHD, tunnel vision and crunching for two months.

Alien: crunching like.

Human: forgot to sleep for two months.

Alien: ...

Human: I went to hospital for about a year because of that.

Alien: I have so many questions, but I get the feeling this ain't common?

Human: my level of insane, no. Cramming for a stupid period and doing something wonderful somehow. Yes.

Alien: you're less high now huh?

Human: *making a hangover cure.* Mhmm, woke up around the time you noticed the glass.

Alien: how are you alive?

Human: good question. I don't know.