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@mirkwoodsguardian
You drive, I shoot! 😌✊
Day 15: JOMPBPC: Favourite Series
I absolutely love this wonderful series! 💛
There are a few different factors to the One Ring's extended lack of success with hobbit ringbearers (Frodo, Sam, Bilbo, and yes, even and perhaps especially Gollum*), but lately I've been thinking about how the hobbits have... genuinely very little understanding of what the One Ring's powers actually are and how a hobbit could ever hope to wield them.
As opposed to, say, someone like Boromir, who has the education of a prince (including history, military studies, maybe some magical theory?) and grew up on the increasingly apocalyptic front against Mordor. Boromir understands that the One Ring's unmatched ability to influence and dominate could perhaps, if someone with sufficient magical ability could hack it, get the orc armies to back the hell off his home.
And I do think that urgent relief is actually possible on a very TEMPORARY basis before the situation somehow blows up. The One Ring is both a source of power for Sauron and his greatest vulnerability. I don't think either Galadriel or Gandalf would be tempted by it unless you could pull SOME significant benefit from the One Ring; but they also know that the downsides of keeping it are worse in the long run, and also that the short run is likely to be much, MUCH shorter than they'd like.
(I do think Denethor and Boromir are most likely to try to wield the One Ring themselves, but I just remembered that Faramir was tutored by Gandalf once upon a time. Now, I'm imagining a deliciously dark AU scenario in which Denethor makes Faramir try to wield the One Ring for them.)
I'm not necessarily making an "ignorance is bliss" argument. It's just... Okay, supposedly, a rather effective negotiation tactic is to calm the whole process down and to utilize "how" questions as both a soft, unspoken "no" and also move the conversation out of emotional "winning the deal" territory into a more productive "what are the actual logistics of implementing this ideally mutually beneficial agreement" area. I think the hobbits generally just have... a very different "And how am I (a very small hobbit of ALL people) supposed to do that?" questioning mindset.
Smeagol, Bilbo, and Frodo get the One Ring when it's at its relative weakest, for one thing, and they're not under the same overwhelming desperation as someone like Boromir. Sam gets the One Ring at perhaps its most powerful and his most desperate time, but even then, the One Ring tries offering him everything and he's like, "How is that supposed to work? I'm a hobbit. I'm a humble gardener who doesn't know anything about magic. How am I supposed to wield ultimate power or rule the world? Seems unrealistic, honestly." (It helps that he's also just intimately seen the One Ring screw over both Frodo and Gollum pretty badly. Other factors, yes.)
I think the One Ring is most in its element with people who have some power and self-importance already, with kings and princes and sorcerers. Meanwhile, you hand a magical item of unspeakable destruction to a hobbit and the hobbit is like, "How am I even supposed to use this? No, really, how does it work? I don't get it. What is this, again?" Starting with nothing compared to many other characters, Frodo and Sam have perhaps the plainest view that all the potential power and leverage is on the One Ring's side of any arrangement. And you have to first persuade them that this IS a usable tool for anything besides turning briefly invisible, because from their perspective, it's not.
original tags from @tossawary
#*mulling over the idea that Smeagol being mentally ill pre-Ring may have kind of saved or at least preserved the world#*I do not think Smeagol had a good time in those caves; I think it was occasionally active and extreme mental conflict#*with the most dangerous object in the world; and what happened when Smeagol became overwhelmed?#*naughty One Rings get hidden under the Time Out rock on an island in a watery cave UNDER the goblin caves in the Misty Mountains#*arguably Smeagol was kicking that One Ring's ass for centuries keeping it for himself; it was also slowly destroying him but still
oh this is super fun to think about!
I'm also reminded of how Sauron crafted the lesser rings as tempting gifts for elves, dwarves, and men. Hobbits weren't even in the picture. The concept of a magic ring that would potentially and specifically tempt a hobbit seems to be outside the scope of canon? (The One Ring does the job for Bilbo and for Frodo, to at least some extent, but I'd be curious to know whether they're the outliers as hobbits in general are concerned, or whether Sam is.) The window into hobbit society that we get suggests that such a trinket would have a tough row to hoe, needing at minimum to overcome the hobbit cultural concept of "mathoms" -- mildly-interesting but ultimately-useless dust-collecting objects.
Kind of makes me think about that theory that the One Ring's main pathway to interact with its bearer is to both enhance the bearer's existing strengths (e.g. hobbits being naturally stealthy gets bumped up to outright invisibility) AND, in a way, increase the odds of its bearer succumbing to their fatal flaw. The post where I read this idea theorized that as far as actual events (as opposed to what was recorded by in-universe history), maybe the Ring didn't make Isildur turn invisible like it does for hobbits; maybe it enhanced his toughness and ability to survive injuries, and losing the Ring unexpectedly didn't make him visible so that he could be seen and shot - it made him unable to endure injuries that he'd already received.
A non-hobbit (Sauron or Saruman, but also someone like Gandalf or Elrond too) might consider the biggest "flaw" of hobbits as a people to be that they're perfectly content to be background NPCs. Unexpectedly Becoming Important At Work is much more likely to be a pure nightmare scenario for a hobbit than it would be for anyone else. An outsider might view this trait as the one stumbling block that prevents hobbits from exerting any significant influence on history and world events; any outsider, whether their motivation is benign or malicious, has to first get past the hobbit tendency to refuse the call-to-adventure before they can even begin putting that hobbit to use in some plan or scheme.
So when the Ring fell into Smeagol's hands, it got stuck. Its 'programming' told it to give its bearer what they think they want, playing into the bearer's existing strengths... while also doing the psychological-manipulation equivalent of that one parasite that makes fish swim near the water's surface so that birds can eat the fish and perpetuate the parasite's life cycle. The Ring was built on the assumption that ANYONE who has an extremely powerful magical artifact and who's being tempted to give in to all their worst impulses is going to show up on Middle Earth's radar in a BIG way, so Sauron would then be able to swoop in and take the Ring right back.
But Smeagol's towering ambitions amount to getting a nice fish dinner every day, and probably "not having to face any direct negative social consequences from having murdered Deagol over a piece of jewelry". And Smeagol's worst impulses by the Ring's definition are, likely, "just live your life, Do A Little Discreet Murder once in a while if you feel like it, and don't ever do anything that would Make History". And Smeagol's worst impulses by Smeagol's definition (as shaped by proto-hobbit culture) are probably "give in to all your mentally-unwell urges to totally isolate yourself from the rest of your people, by disappearing under a bunch of mountains and never coming out. And also Do A Little Discreet Murder once in a while if you feel like it."
The Ring is rummaging through Smeagol's brain and just going "Shit. Shit. Shit. There is NOTHING useful to me in here, what the absolute shitting hell. I didn't realize people like this EXISTED. What the fuck?"
This is a fucking new one
Padawans on crèche duty playing with the younglings, throwing them in the air and catching them with the Force. The giggling attracts the attention of the masters who have varying reactions
“Stop throwing the younglings!”
[picking up the youngling] “We do not use the Force to throw initiates.”
“That is not what I meant by ‘practice levitation with them’”
“How many times do I have to tell you not to throw the younglings?”
[Resigned sigh] “Stop throwing your siblings with the Force.”
[catches the youngling themselves] “I’m confiscating this.”
Some of the masters secretly throw them in the air again when the padawans aren’t looking and tell the younglings to keep their secret.
So, which Jedi would be the one to see a youngling get yeeted, distract the yeeter Padawan, quickly Force-remove a ceiling tile, levitate the youngling into the ceiling, replace the tile, and watch the Padawan panic?
*repentent and hysterical Padawan goes wailing to the créchemaster* “Master! Master I don’t know what happened! I used the Force to toss her up and then she just didn’t come down! Did the Force eat her?!”
@irainia4 Why hide these gems in the tags, friend? I thought Obi-Wan would do it to mess with Anakin but this is way better.
So every year, my aquarium does a captive lobster hatchery project (hence all the loblings). The reason we’re doing it is because in the wild, loblings only have a 1 in 25,000 chance of surviving their larval phase. They’re plankton as babies and everything eats them. Additionally, as the Gulf of Maine warms, they are having even lower survival rates because the blooms of copepods they feed on as babies are happening earlier in the year, and they’re missing it.
Obviously, the goal of this experiment is to grow the lobsters until they’re big enough to settle to the seabed and then release them, because they have a much higher likelihood of surviving to adulthood when they’re able to hide. Ideally, captive lobster hatcheries can boost the wild population and keep things stable, so we don’t have a major crash in a decade or two.
The first year we tried this was pretty bad. We had a lot of eggs, but very few babies. It turned out that the CO2 levels in the building spiked as more guests visited throughout the summer, and that settled into the water and threw off the pH and caused a chemical reaction that prevented a lot of the eggs from hatching. I think we ended up releasing three baby lobsters (which is still better than their wild survival rate but not great).
The second year was a little better. We added a de-gasser to the aquarium and got a ton of larval lobsters, but right as they were settling to the bottom we had a disease outbreak that killed most of them. We ended up releasing four babies at the end of the season.
But this year? Oh boy. We have so many lobsters that we had to release the first round early (usually we wait till September or October so guests can see them). We just released a total of FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE baby lobsters, and we still have over a hundred who haven’t settled to the bottom yet. I genuinely don’t even have words to explain how cool this is. OVER FIVE HUNDRED. We just added hundreds of lobsters to the wild population that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.
Conservation is so fucken sick
We're doing the same in Whitby, England, and there's a little aquarium attached and it ROCKS. Huge recommend to anyone in England looking for a little fun in the town that made Dracula.
They have a bunch of very happy "berried hens" (i.e. mother lobsters covered in eggs), a set of (essentially) aquatic centrifuges that rock the baby lobsters around to help build their strength against the currents, and a GIANT 35-year-old blue lobster named MELVIN who wanders around in a big tank living his best life, with a couple of sharks for room-mates.
It's a MARVELLOUS time and they're on course to release 100,000 lobster babies a year!
Marine conservation charity in Northeast England. Aiming to conserve, educate and research. Home to Whitby Lobster Hatchery. Releasing 100,0
My version of "doomscrolling" nowadays is just going to iNaturalist, browsing pictures of animals and fantasizing about where I would introduce them outside of their natural range if I was some kind of ecology-focused evil scientist. I do this when I'm depressed. I don't know if it helps.
Bring hyena to Texas put Texas in hyena paws humans can trust Texas to hyena pack yesss
How could I disagree with such a trustworthy source
animals i really want to introduce to the USA:
-red pandas in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. they can live in those you-pick orchards and delight tourists, and in the winter the big ones can be harvested by the farmers for food and fur. america also has native bamboo, as well as plenty of escaped invasives.
-koalas in southern california. we already have a lot of feral eucalpytus in the state and it makes our wildfires way worse. let's put koalas in there too. coyotes can hunt them like dingos do.
-cheetahs in colorodo, wyoming, nebraska, and oklahoma. we had cheetahs here once, that's why pronghorns are so fast. let's give them something to really haul ass about.
-spotted hyenas in texas and new mexico. did you know there's actually a shit ton of oryx already roaming around new mexico? they were brought in for a game preserve. oryx can fight off lions, but spotted hyenas are actually superior pack hunters with some of the highest kill rates of large cooperative predators in the world. we might have a problem with ranchers, but like: fuck ranchers. they already decimated the mexican wolf populations. they deserve hyenas.
-pangolins. i would drop these guys in arizona honestly. everyone in arizona hates and fears fire ants. i think entire neighborhoods would throw ecstatic parades for pangolins (which smell much better than giant anteaters) at least until a pangolin dug straight through their pasteboard condo.
-new zealand's little penguin in louisiana. they burrow into mud and sand banks during the day and tolerate quite hot temperatures! i think they'd do fine, and louisiana is sliding into the gulf anyway. let's have penguins there. i'd also try them out in new england in case lousiana is just too swampy for them. i feel like new yorkers would go insane with pride over having penguins around. they would act like they invented the whole concept of penguins. we should let them.
-water buffalo. georgia and the carolinas. i just think it would give everyone there some interesting new problems.
-i firmly believe that asiatic elephants would do great in the southeastern united states. it's a subtropical climate that's only going to get swampier as things heat up, and there's plenty of kudzu and tall grass species for them to munch on. they're also smart enough to learn to navigate and negotiate with people, and to follow set routes around human farms rather than tromp through them, so disruption to existing human infrastructure would be minimal but occasionally hilarious. i think it would be so cool to have an american subspecies of elephant. if i ever win the lottery this IS what i am going to be doing with my millions.
your month, your mini bird wearing a hat!
Smallville Clois!!!
Business as usual :b
Some Supergirl fanart (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)
YAGA Teaser Trailer from San Diego Comic Con - 25.07.2026
the problem is i really do love staying up until one billion o'clock. it just cant be helped
#i feel like this is also the stance of the movies#because lando spends approximately zero seconds redeeming himself#think of how black characters are usually treated for betrayals#even if it is an airquote betrayal#lando helps at the end of esb and is officially one of the heroes no redemption necessary#the whole choking thing is a misunderstanding really tags via cadesama
#also note how Leia forgave him #real fast#this is a woman who does not do forgiveness easily #but she knew he was right#she was fully aware of that #she was angry because she loves Han#but she moved past it #because she knew he was right#the movie knows he’s right #the characters know he’s right#it isn’t even a question
Lando is 100% right to do what he did. He was Responsible for everyone on Cloud City. Leia, who grew up as the Princess of an entire planet, 100% understood that. Lando is completely validated by the story, the characters, and everyone for what he did.
And we see that he did try to shoo off the “hero crew” when they arrived in Cloud City in such a way that a) they’d have a decent chance of escaping, and b) he’d have plausible deniability. We see him ribbing Han a lot, for example, in such a way that it would be entirely possible that Han, who’s very touchy, might well just … go off in a huff. Lando could then easily go “haha, sorry Darth Vader sir, didn’t realize that Han couldn’t take a joke.” Win-win.
I also really appreciate that Lando is depicted as a solid person. He’s in a position of trust and authority, and he acts like it. He might have a bit of a checkered past, but he’s trying his best to do the right thing - and he’s doing a better job than Han, who’s still in trouble with the law.
When you meet Edward Elric he gives off the impression that he's the short-tempered hot-headed "violence is the answer to all life's questions" kind of protagonist, and it's in fact incredible character craft that he's actually the character who ends the series with a negative-3 kill count.
people killed: 0
direct orders of "you really really need to kill this guy" ignored: 1
ongoing murders being committed by Ed's own friends/colleagues that Ed got in the way of to specifically stop that murder from happening: 2
God's worst soldier Edward Elric. Showed up as the youngest member of the Amestrian army, took millions of dollars from them, never followed a single order, helped dismantle their fascist regime, left with a lower kill count than he arrived with, then fucked off to go be a house-husband. Character of all time.
You know, when you said "negative-3 kill count," I, who haven't seen the anime, thought, "He resurrected 3 people?????" But I'm seeing here on the wiki that apparently resurrection in this anime is a terrible idea.
Official addition to this post.