thoughts and ponderings

wandering through whimsy, nerdom, and the confusion that is adulting

[ampervadasz]

[transhuman-priestess]

Little dude is havigg the time of his fuckin life

[that-catholic-shinobi]

Thinking of the larger context of LOTR and like, the fellowship swapping old war stories and shit and Sam just says “Yeah I killed a huge spider…Shelob, I think?”

And Gandalf just blinks and is like, “You what now?”

“Yeah, killed it. Had to save Frodo”

Gandalf elects not to tell Sam that he killed the spawn of a primordial demon.

[disgruntledexplainer]

the daughter of the embodiment of darkness which ate the original sun and moon and almost ate the devil.

[matrixdragon]

That's not important. What is important is that it was a danger to Mister Frodo.

[0gl1tch0]

Time for me to info dump about Sam and Shelob.

In lord of the rings lore, there are three tiers of deities. The highest tier and most dangerous includes Morgoth - Sauron’s master, and Ungoliant, Shelob’s master. The middle tier includes Shelob, Sauron. Then there’s the lowest tier, which includes the wizards Gandalf and Saruman as well as the Balrog (this is why Gandalf couldn’t 1v1 the Balrog). It also explains why Gandalf doesn’t take the ring, the magic of a tier 2 deity would absolutely corrupt him. We even see that happen with Saruman and the Palantir.

This leads to the start of the answer to some interesting questions. Why does Sauron tolerate Shelob being in his territory, and why does Sauron tolerate there being a secret back door into Mordor?

On the surface, he does it because he might not be able to beat Shelob in a fight, after all they’re the same tier of deity. And since Shelob’s domain is the secret way into Mordor, he can’t close it off, and he seriously doubts anyone can use it to get in. He doesn’t monitor the path with guards either - Shelob would eat them.

It gets more detailed than that though. Sauron’s boss, Morgoth, and Shelob’s boss, Ungoliant, made a deal. They’d attack the tree of life together. Morgoth would drink the nectar, and Ungoliant would keep all of the jewels and magic they earned along the way. Morgoth broke this deal because there was a particularly powerful gem he wanted (the gem in Sauron’s helmet), and as a result Ungoliant went to war with Morgoth.

Ungoliant won, Morgoth barely escaped with his life.

So not only does Sauron maybe lose if he attacks Shelob. Even if he were to win, it might provoke Ungoliant into attacking Morgoth again, and Ungoliant wins that fight, she’s already done it once.

With all of that established, how the hell does Sam hurt a deity that powerful?

Well, to start, it’s impossible. Shelob’s hide is so tough Sam could never pierce it with all his might. However, Shelob had grown old and arrogant. During the fight, Sam winds up directly underneath Shelob, and Shelob decides to crush Sam with all her strength.

Unfortunately, Sam is pointing sting straight up.

While Sam lacks the strength to hurt Shelob, Shelob herself is plenty strong. She accidentally impales herself on sting, finding herself injured for the first time in thousands of years. Which is the sort of poetry I really appreciate about Tolkien’s writing.

No matter how powerful or evil or ancient or indestructible your foe, if you stand for what is right and hold your sword out, they will impale themselves upon it.

Sam’s backstory in this scene is much simpler. He has to save Frodo.

[that-catholic-shinobi]

I love it when tolkien fans reblog posts with the deep lore receipts. Thank you

[typhlonectes]

[catchymemes]

[teaboot]

[buried-in-stardust]

A bowl of cats

[eng by me]

[bright-eyed]

another random epiphany I had on my drive home from the store was that things that are the most obvious often feel the most profound. I was looking at the sunset through my window. I was like “this is beautiful and it changes all the time so every sunset is a little different and also beautiful.” Which led me to think “if you look at the earth from space, the clouds are never pink or blue or yellow or orange, they are just white and grey all the time. In space perhaps the sunsets are not very different or very beautiful.” Which led me to think “the sunsets are only beautiful because i am so small.” Which led me to think “so many things are only beautiful because i am so small, or if not only then they are at least much more beautiful than they might otherwise be, either because my vantage point of smallness allows me to see details that big things wouldn’t see, like when I see the flash of the sun at sunset with my little eyes on this big planet, or because my briefness finds vastness so incredible cuz it’s so much bigger than me, like when I sit under a very very old and very very tall tree.” And this was all somewhat obvious but it didn’t make the feeling of epiphany go away or diminish at all

[fieldsarebreathing]

Does he mean anything to you

[phoneticmeow]

[flareonfloof]

[hypersensationalism]

the fact that we're in a day and age where you can get dueted by malala. how can you show your face in public after this

[womenintheirwebs-archived]

[nitewrighter]

Big fan of this one as well.

[biglawbear]

Honestly the prospect that Malala could judge me at any time would make me want to BEHAVE

[please-dontmakemedecide]

This made me CACKLE

The BOO omg

[everythingfox]

Sky puppies

[socialistexan]

[theyellowbrickroad]

i had the best human interaction of all time last night. i was sitting at a bar eating an appetizer and this guy comes up to order a drink and stares at my food and comments how good it looks. when i am drunk i use the word bitch like it is a comma, i plug it into any space in a sentence possible. so naturally the first thing i say to this stranger is, “go ahead and take one, bitch.”

he looks SO shocked and taken aback and goes “what did you just say? how do you know my name?” so i sit there for a moment trying to figure out what the fuck he is talking about, and then go, “…. bitch?” and he looks so relieved and tells me his name is mitch.

i cannot stop thinking about this. oh my god. imagine going into a bar and someone you know for a fact youve never met approaches you and says “go ahead and take one, mitch.” im cracking the fuck up. he looked like he thought this was the fucking truman show

[ben-yatta]

i keep seeing the gif set so here’s the video clip

[ytp-clips]

[source]

[rhythmic-idealist]

LeFou: Oop! Gaston: Everyone knows her father’s a lunatic. He was in here tonight, raving— [EDM plays] Gaston: Whoo! Slow down, Maurice. Maurice: [exclaims]

[celtic-pyro-deactivated20230725]

What gets me is they throw the glowsticks out with him.

[alexisdrawsetc]

One of my earlier embroidery animations, this was my second one. I made sure that the designs were very simple, since I wanted this to be fairly long. The tangled thread is just purposefully messed up French knots.

[algorrmortiss]

[VD: A siamese cat plays with a blue ball of yarn. It tumbles around in the jumbled mess of the yarn, until the two split back apart - the yarn mimicking the silhouette of the cat. end VD]

[only-tiktoks]

[destinationtoast]

[sandersstudies]

So excited to work as a scare actor for the second year in a row

[sandersstudies]

Last year I was a zombie and chased people around the trail.

This year I’m walking backwards along the trail until I meet a group, saying “hey my friends ran on ahead, can I walk with you?” And then getting kidnapped.

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

About 10 years ago my sister attended a zombie survival paintball experience in an abandoned derelict shopping centre

There was a nervous guy at the meeting point who explained that his friends got food poisoning from dinner last night, but this was the whole point of the trip and he didn't want to hang about in a hotel room with sick people, but he was considering just going back home

The entire group immediately took him under their wing and adopted him into their friends and inside jokes and sharing snacks

He was dragged off and eaten by zombies in the first 15 minutes, complete with blood packs, and returned in the final room as a sort of final boss

10/10 long lasting emotional scarring

[iratetreasure-deactivated202310]

[humblegrub]

have you ever seen a swallowtail caterpillar defend itself?

[scarletpiano]

I can't get over how it has Instant Eyebrows

[onenicebugperday]

This is called an osmeterium! It’s a defensive organ found in all swallowtails caterpillars. They evert it when disturbed, as you saw above, to either startle their foe or gross them out with the foul-smelling secretions the organ emits :)

[cipheramnesia]

What you call given em the ol' stink eye.

[amaronith]

WHO'S THAT POKEMON?!

Literally tho, Caterpie was based on the swallowtail caterpillar.

[tarrkin]

PETER CUSHING on playing Grand Moff Tarkin in carpet slippers

They hadn’t got time to have my boots made for me, which is usually the case, because of my large feet, so I had to do with a pair out of stock. Now there I was, on the first day of shooting, this very, very cross, unpleasant gentleman, Grand Moff Tarkin, stomping around, and it was agony, it really was.

So the next day I said to dear George Lucas, the director, I said, “George, I am not asking for close ups, but do you think you could shoot me from the waist upwards from now on?” And he said “Why,” and I explained the reasons, so he said “Oh, all right,” and he gave me a pair of carpet slippers.

So for the rest of the film I stomped around looking extremely angry, very cross, with that dear little Carrie Fisher, as Grand Moff Tarkin in carpet slippers!

[adi-fitri]