a few days ago i was walkin past a basketball court and a ball Flew at me and i
1) didn’t flinch
2) caught the ball
3) threw it back at the guy
4) responded to his “thanks bro” with a nod
it was like the ghost of some guy named chad took over me so i didn’t like embarrass myself
a bro talked to me today and it caught me v off guard but instead of my voice rising an octave it dropped an octave and i suddenly was effortlessly speaking Bro™ back to him. this resulted in a very positive interaction
thanks, chad
Reblog to be possessed by Good Ghost Chad in your hour of need
All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
I started thinking: how did Telchar make Narsil in the first place? (…
Telchar first wrought it in the deeps of time … )
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fell like ringing bells
Narsil is a first-age sword. It’s a dwarf-sword, not an elf-sword. (Though, potentially, using some Noldorin technology, since it was made by Telchar of Nogrod, presumably during the period when Nogrod, Belegost and Thargelion were at the height of wealth and technology, when Curufin was learning Khuzdul, and Caranthir was trading with the Dwarves.)
It’s probably about six thousand seven hundred years old.
Let me consider that for a bit. 6700 years. 6700 YEARS.
It’s older than Stonehenge is now. It’s older than the Pyramids. It’s far older than the oldest known coins. If we had a sword that was 6700 years old today, it would have to be made of stone, because that’s well before the start of the Bronze Age.
I can’t think of any metal object in the real world that is still in use after 6700 years.
And it’s being remade from Narsil to Anduril in Rivendell, which means, I’m guessing, that those two guys hitting it are smiths escaped from Eregion that Elrond swept up and managed to rescue during his insanely-risky post-fall-of-Eregion attempted rescue mission. Eregion, of the jewelsmiths. Eregion of the Rings that can avert entropy.
And later, Anduril seems to know what it’s hitting, and be able to flash light at just the right moment…? Maybe it can do what Sting does and detect enemies.
…mighty spells…
Maybe you DO remake the damn thing by hitting it with a very carefully tuned hammer while reciting poetry? In the absence of a treatise on the practice of Elven Enchantments and Dwarven Spells And Their Employment in Metalworking it seems as valid a theory as any.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,
Arthur C Clarke’s third law says.
No doubt Galadriel would argue with the use of the word ‘magic’ on the grounds that it isn’t sufficiently distinguished from the deceits of the Enemy, but we don’t all have the advantage of having studied with Aule, Galadriel.
… I love this scene!
I have always wished to read On the Practice of Elven Enchantments and Dwarven Spells And Their Employment in Metalworking. Because this is not how iron-based metals work. Ferrous metals neither work that way in the sense of “function” nor do they work that way in the sense of “to bring to shape by gradual process.”
If I try to consider it as steel, I have the following issues:
If that is a (forge)weld, you are hammering too hard and will break it.
If that is a weld, where is your flux?
It’s not even the right kind of weld for a high-impact tool (i.e. a sword), so even the idea of welding in this way is wrong, but we’ll ignore that since it’s apparently what they are doing. (Re-forging a sword is exactly what it says on the tin, forging again.)
Good temperature-color for shaping, not hot enough for sticking (welding)
Lawsy, someone teach that boy how to aim his hammer
Or maybe give him a proper smithing hammer?
Or some muscles? That ain’t how your swing that (estimated) 3-pound hammer.
The sparks always give me a special shudder because if your steel
comes out of the fire sparking, you’ve burned it and have to REMAKE YOUR
STEEL (or cut off the burned bits)
Never mind how that steel isn’t hot enough to spark white
What are you even doing?
If I try to consider it as a whitesmithing situation (gold, silver, etc) then I have even bigger issues, so that’s a no-go.
Ergo, either “magic metal” or “metal that has had magic applied to it.” A metal we have no access to or steel that has had enchantments applied so that it no longer functions molecularly like steel.
(It’s Tolkien, why not both? I’ve always headcanoned something like a mithril-alloy with magical enhancements.)
In spite of all that, 10/10 for feels. Bonus points for atmosphere and working at night. (Leaving aside ideas that starlight might help with Elven enchantments, a dark forge is properly historic and the still used by many of the best swordmakers.)
And now 11/10 for the idea that those are
Eregion
smiths.
Reblogging because I secretly hoped @ilsa-fireswan would have Thoughts on this!
whoa… it’s fucked up how like….. i have ancestors who lived in the dark ages….. they shat in the street and performed hard labor and they had children who i descended from…. what the fuck… ever think about that guys. don’t think about it it’s weird. i don’t like that. which caveman was i descended from.
we all came from a fish who was like “watch this motherfuckers” and walked on land, every single one of us
I want to write an alternative version of Romeo and Juliet where instead of being a little ponce and trying to work things out for himself, Romeo asks his smarter friends what to do about the whole thing and Benvolio and Mercutio come up with the world’s greatest plan:
Marriage of convenience between Juliet and Mercutio.
Think about it.
Juliet’s parents want her to marry into the Prince’s family. Mercutio is a good compromise between no marriage and Paris.
Mercutio probably won’t get his inheritance if he keeps being HELLA FUCKING GAY ALL OVER THE PLACE so a beard is only a benefit to him.
They would probably get along great rolling their eyes at how adorably stupid Romeo is.
Romeo and Benvolio could get a “bachelor pad” right next to Juliet and Mercutio’s house. Every night, Romeo and Mercutio high five as they hop the fence to go bang their one true love.
The second half of the play is just all of them trying to keep up the charade and being “THIS CLOSE” to getting caught all the time. But everything ends nicely because true love conquers all.
Everybody wins. Nobody dies.
THE SHAKESPERE AU I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED
DUDE DID YOU JUST FIX ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC PLAYS EVER CREATED?!
ONCE AGAIN EVERYTHING IS SOLVED BY THE QUEER LENS.
*makes a perfect 90º bow*
i mean i definitely see the value in a play whose message is “parents being hateful asshats get their kids killed so don’t do that” but i am more than ready for a play about “kids outsmart warring parents and party while the old gangsters fight”
I love Alexander the Great because if he was a fictional character you would yell “THAT’S JUST NOT REALISTIC WTF MAN YOU CAN’T WIN A BATTLE AFTER BEING ATTACKED FROM BEHIND AND HAVE TO WHEEL YOUR WHOLE FUCKIN ARMY AND FIGHT YOUR WAY ACROSS A RIVER AND UPHILL AGAINST A LARGER ARMY"
But
“Look conquering an island by making it not an island any more is ridiculous that’s never going to be believable.”
But
He just fuckin did that shit.
I actually got the inspiration for the protagonist of Lady of Ice and Iron from him, and when/if it’s ever published and people inevitably yell “YOUR PROTAGONIST IS JUST NOT REALISTIC” I’m just going to make unblinking eye contact while folding a printout of Alexander’s troop movements at Gaugamela into a paper airplane and then lob it at their face.
And if they give me shit for her being queer, I’m going to print out historical accounts of Alexander’s lover Hephaestion, tape them to Nerf darts, and shoot them at people.
Wait he un-islanded an island?
Tyre is now an isthmus. Before Alexander, it was an island.
He offered to let them surrender peacefully. They told him to get fucked, secure in their place on a fucking island in a fortified city.
“Fine.” Said Alexander, cracking his knuckles. “Get me my engineers, we’re building the land out to this island.”
“Holy shit”, his generals presumably said. “Holy fuckin shit, man.”
And so, at Alexander’s command, his engineers constructed a causeway to connect the island of Tyre to the mainland. It took eight months. Tyre hurled everything they could against the workers, so Alexander rolled siege engines out there to protect them.
Anyway, long story short, the causeway was completed, Tyre fell and was burned and sacked (unusually, as Alexander normally did not allow his army to pillage and plunder and destroy, but he was, apparently, mega peeved).
And the causeway stands to this day. Tyre remains an isthmus.
[Further proof to verify you guys’ info]
Ancient History Encyclopedia says:
“
Negotiations having failed, Alexander began his operations in January 332 BCE. After occupying old Tyre, he began to construct a causeway (or mole) across the channel toward the walls of Tyre, using rocks, timbers, and rubble taken from the buildings of the old city. Initially, work progressed well: the water near the mainland was shallow and the bottom muddy, but, as the causeway lengthened, the Macedonians and Greeks began to run into trouble. The seafloor shelved sharply near the city, to a depth of 18 ft (5.5m). Work slowed to snail-pace, and the work gangs found themselves increasingly harassed by missile fire from the city walls.
Alexander constructed two siege towers from timber covered with rawhide and positioned them at the end of the causeway. Artillery engines at the top of these towers were able to return fire at the walls, and the work gangs erected timber palisades as an added measure of protection. Work proceeded, and Alexander spent much of his time on the mole, dispensing small gifts of money to his sweating labourers and leading by personal example.”
fun fact – the human uterus automatically rejects and flushes out/kills around 70% of all fertilized eggs, so defining life as beginning at conception essentially makes it illegal to have functional reproductive organs.
The human uterus is one of the most hostile places for an embryo to implant. Guess all of our uteruses are potential serial killers.
And it’s hostile because human pregnancy is incredibly dangerous by all accounts compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, so bear that in mind whenever someone says “Just go through with the pregnancy and give it up for adoption”
And not only is pregnancy in the US Particularly Dangerous, it’s even more so for the Poor and Rural, and even more for Black Women, most often as a result of stress-related illnesses and lack of prenatal care.
Oddly enough, the self-professed “pro-life” don’t seem to give a damn about any of this, and actively support a political party whose policies have 1)created this problem, 2)actively prevent fixing it, and 3)frequently deny it even exists.
just moving along like everyone else 