I adore one of tropes going around in Star Wars fandom: Obi-Wan knows about Anakin and Padme’s relationship, takes it upon himself to stage a diversion, and because of that he systematically entertains other Councilors with fancy dinners and conversations, lest they could start to search for Anakin.
However, behavior like that is a very direct political statement. Because, while Obi-Wan certainly doesn’t think about it in those terms and probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it (a terrible misstep for a trained negotiator), he cultivates his contacts, courts his potential political cloud, and gathers allies.
For the outsider, it looks like he’s gunning for higher position.
So, I would really like to read something where Obi-Wan ends up as the Master of the Order by accidentally launching a successful political campaign, surprising absolutely no-one except for him and probably Anakin.
PLEASE IMAGINE THE FIRST TIME AN ALIEN HAS ONE OF THEIR HUMAN FRIENDS DIE
‘so hey, that was a great funeral, cool outfits, always glad to learn more about your culture and stuff. So, when is she coming back?’
‘She- she’s not coming back’
‘Yeah, not as Megan, but when is her replacement coming back?’
‘We’re- not hiring anyone new for a couple weeks???’
‘no no no, you’re not getting what I’m saying- I want to ask her about that book she lent me- can I keep it for another week or two, or does her new version want it back?’
The humans stare at the alien and just. slowly start to figure out what the alien is saying. The alien shuffles nervously, their six spindly legs making a skritching noise that echoes in the cold chapel. Finally, the kindest of the humans takes the alien aside and-
‘hey. so. Us humans don’t come back when we die. Not like you do.’
‘what? No, but you clearly talk about reincarnation, and-’
‘Those are just stories, Six. When humans die, we’re gone. We don’t come back.’
The alien laughs ‘No, see, cuz that would mean that- that would mean. That Megan- Megan is-’ The alien cuts off the hissing noise that is their equivalent of a sob. ‘I have to go.’
The alien spends a week in their spaceship, the only place they can send communication to their Mother. When they come back, their carapace is a glistening new shade of red, and they’ve ended up as a different gender. When the lab adviser asks them how they are feeling about Megan-
‘Megan? Oh, yes, my previous version was very fond of Megan.’ The alien cocks their head, like a particularly thoughtful bird. ‘I suppose that I regret her loss. She was a valuable member of the team.’
The lab adviser lets this be- they are aliens after all. But later, when lab hours are done, the adviser notices Six double and triple-checking all the lab equipment, especially- well. The accident that took Megan will never happen again.
The book is never returned.
Now imagine the flip side: Sevan finds out his human friend is due to have a baby in six months. Six months! He asks, and finds that no, there’s no way to delay a human birth. In six months, a new version of his friend will emerge. Will they still like space operas? What about visiting that smoothie place in quadrant 6? Will they even still want to be friends?
His friend asks him to be visit the baby, after it’s born. Of course, of course he will. It’s the least he can do. There’s always that vulnerable phase after birth when you haven’t got the hang of the new motor controls, and everyone needs a helping palp for the first few months.
The night he hears that the new baby has been born, he wails quietly and recites the qualities of his friend that he will miss the most.
Three days later, he gathers his resolve and knocks on the hatch of his friend’s place. Strangely, the access panel hasn’t been lowered - rude. He’ll make sure that’s one of the first things changed. His friends partner opens the door and lets him in and there - there is his friend,looking tired but well, a miniature copy of herself held in her arms. Imagine his joy when he finds out that not only will he get to spend longer with his current friend, but there will be another friend to get to know!
Miscellaneous Batman headcanons as relate to my little fic universe, that may or may not ever come up because who knows:
In general when it comes to Billionaire Playboy Bruce Wayne people go in one of two directions. Either he is the mysterious eccentric always galavanting around and seeing him at a party is like a Bigfoot sighting, or he is obnoxious and spoiled but people let him get away with it because he has money. But then it’s always a plot point that he is surrounded by vapid gold diggers?? I call bullshit, maybe Bruce Wayne is actually a really nice guy and he’s charming and charismatic and people think he is kind of naive, and maybe his smiles don’t always reach his eyes but maybe he just seems kind of lonely and people appreciate that he makes the effort. Maybe the women of Gotham are not all money-grubbing and shallow and actually recognize a good guy when they see one.
That actually will definitely come up but it’s still on the list because it relates to the next bullet point.
Models! In general models start working at 16 and are done when they’re 23. Modeling is an industry full of very young girls getting chewed up and spit out and sorry but you will never convince me that Batman would take advantage of that even under the guise of Billionaire Bruce Wayne. If you are a model and you meet Bruce Wayne he will be nice and he will be respectful and honestly he will act like a protective older brother and it’s just??? Such a change of pace???? He’s so nice????? And if they aren’t happy with their agency maybe he will direct them to some Wayne Enterprises subsidiary, and maybe when some photographer is being a skeeve they let him know and he never works in that town again, and maybe if they end up needing to go to rehab he pays for it because he can afford it and actually he owns the rehab center and also he is the sweetest man alive. So maybe when they need a plus one to a fashion event, they invite Bruce Wayne because they know he won’t take advantage, and maybe Bruce has a list of women and their interests so if he needs a plus one and he knows Anita loves the ballet he will call her up and they will go and they will mostly talk about her new cat because his name is Chairman Meow and she loves him the most. And when people ask later if she totally banged Bruce Wayne she says yes, it was awesome, his dick was huge, because idk man sometimes when a guy is nice you just tell people that as a courtesy. Then at parties Bruce Wayne is just surrounded by models and everyone shakes their heads and tsks about it while they ask him how he’s been and show him pictures of their cats.
Which is not to suggest that maybe when they are older and in a more stable place in their lives they do not actually bang Bruce Wayne because they probably do. Who wouldn’t???
One day some little girl is worried that Batman might skip her neighborhood and she decides the best way to make sure he shows is to leave some cookies on the roof of her building because if it’s good enough for Santa then why not Batman? But she’s like six so of course they are basically inedible and they’re supposed to look like bats but they kind of just look like poorly drawn distant seagulls and she leaves them out with a note like “For Batman only do not touch!!” and in the morning they are gone and she is satisfied that Batman has been patrolling to keep her safe. And eventually all the kids are doing this in Gotham and it’s just a whole buffet of confusingly-shaped poorly-made attempts at cookies (you have to make them yourself the children decide because when you are a kid it is important to have Rituals). Eventually Batman can tell which neighborhoods are having the most trouble based on density of cookies per block. He doesn’t actually eat them because he does not want to get food poisoning and at least once he’s pretty sure those were made of Play-Doh but he takes them anyway because he knows it helps kids feel safe.
A criminal tries to leave out poison cookies once but not only does he not eat them, it is immediately obvious what’s going on because these actually look like food.
If the cookies are still there in the morning the children all have a crisis because something is wrong with Batman and the religious kids pray and the nonreligious kids do weird superstitious shit that they have convinced themselves is helpful.
Kids love Batman okay especially little girls, as a little girl who loved Batman I can confirm.
Some of them probably leave out drawings and he keeps them in the Batcave sorry these are just Facts.
Bruce Wayne’s doctor is paid a fortune to make housecalls and she is well aware by now that he is Batman, but she lets him claim he was bungee jumping or whatever the fuck it is he thinks is plausible because she knew his father and she remembers when he was a cute kid and honestly who even cares.
Bruce Wayne’s dentist has also figured out that he is Batman because jesus fucking christ we just replaced those crowns what are you even DOING to your TEETH half of these are just implants now you are going to need dentures by forty please god just wear a fucking mouthguard draw some scary fangs on it if you have to like he appreciates how much money he is making replacing this man’s teeth but even he has limits
Bruce Wayne’s personal accountant has also figured him out because his money just falls into a goddamn non-deductible pit and he kept trying to lie about it and then changing the lie around when he realized the answer he was giving impacted his return and I’m sorry Bruce I might not be rich but even I know that you probably did not spend several million dollars this year on cheesecakes covered in gold leaf and you accidentally filed a project cost analysis for a stealth jet in with your receipts but lucky for you I am NICE and I shredded it for you and also those projections were poorly done so hit me up if you want someone who actually knows how regression works buddy
Catwoman never tries to rob Bruce Wayne because cats know that he is a cool guy. Actually it’s Batman that is always nice to cats but they smell the same so the cats don’t know the difference. They’re just like naw girl, that territory belongs to a friend of cats, don’t trespass unless it is for scritches because that guy gives some good scritches.
Robin eats one of the batcookies once and regrets it for the rest of the night. Don’t eat cookies left outside by small children. Just don’t.
Bruce Wayne got a JD/MBA and graduated at the top of his class, I know people like the idea of dropout Bruce Wayne backpacking around and learning to punch people but he also does not want to tank his father’s company or let criminals escape justice through Bat-shaped loopholes?? He probably went to Yale and took max credits every semester and spent all his time studying and working out and then went off in summers to learn new and exciting ways to punch a dude. He had no social life he slept like six hours max every night and he ruined the curve for everyone, what a dick.
Ok so it’s the classic story of a young maiden wants a thing and a witch is like “promise me your first born child” and the maidens like “k” and that should be enough but no the witch keeps coming around like “yo where’s my first born child pls” and the maiden is like “bitch I don’t even have a boyfriend” and the witch keeps coming back and being like “how’s the bf search?” And just being generally annoying. then she just keeps coming round and hanging out and they fall in love and the first born child is already the witches and everyone lives happily ever after
Lay your arm on a flat surface and push
your thumb and pinky together. If you
don’t see a raised band across your
wrist, you are a product of evolution.
If you do, you’ve got a useless extra
muscle in your arm that is slowly being
erased from our genetic code. Source
I just did some research on this and apparently this muscle actually helps you hold a spear (something we as a majority haven’t needed to do much of in recent times, thus it is a mutation that is neither harmful nor helpful to lack this muscle) But I’ll see you all in the post-apocalyptic world with my genetic advantage to hold and throw spears~
Looks like you’re going to have to do all the spear throwing for me.
tag yourself im a spearholder
*walks up to couple*
so which of you is evolved and which is the spearholder
spearholder, both me and my SO.
XD
Is anybody… is… is anybody gonna… No? Okay. I’ll do it then.
Okay, see, this is like 94% bullshit. I mean, it’s about 6% science, yes, but it’s also 94% bullshit.
First things first, “you are a product of evolution”. What. Every organic thing on the face of the planet is a product of evolution. Evolution kicked off somewhere around 3.8 billion years ago with the first appearance of life and it hasn’t really stopped since. Everything that came before you was “a product of evolution”. That phrase doesn’t mean anything special.
But Bear, you say, it means people without the thing are just more highly evolved than those who have it!
Bullshit, I say. There is no such thing as “more highly evolved.” Evolution is not some kind of mad rat-race to see which lineage makes it to the top of Darwin Mountain first. Evolution is about creating an organism that can survive and reproduce as effectively as possible to fill a particular niche or role in its given ecosystem.
How good are you at burrowing in the dirt and eating leaf litter? You probably suck at it. But roly-polies (aka, sowbugs, pillbugs, or terrestrial isopods) are great at this! Is a roly-poly less evolved than you because it doesn’t drive a car and use the internet… or are you less evolved than a roly-poly because you can’t break down leaf litter into small, usable particles? The answer is neither–you’re both beautifully evolved organisms filling different niches in the ecosystem and doing it very well.
Now, so far as this “muscle” (it’s actually a tendon) being “slowly erased from our genetic code”… no.
Let me start out by saying something that really should have been said in the first place, because it’s a cool bit of knowledge to have and it’s fun to say: The tendon shown in the picture is called the palmaris longus. Palmaris longus! Say it out loud!
The palmaris longus is what is known as a vestigial tendon. When something is vestigial, that means that it’s no longer needed by the organism, but isn’t doing enough harm by being there that it impacts the organism’s ability to fill its niche and reproduce. A vestigial organ or body part neither helps nor hinders the organism; it’s just kinda there, a relic of eons past.
(For example, the tail of a bear. A tail is utterly useless to a bear–it is too short to provide any kind of stability while in motion, isn’t prehensile, and doesn’t play a role in body language–but they still have ‘em.)
Now, it’s true that vestigial traits have a tendency to disappear over time, but not because they’re being erased from the genetic code.
Evolution–hell, natural selection–depends on there being inherent variation among the population. If one individual has a variation that gives it an advantage, and said variation is genetically determined, there’s a slight chance their offspring will inherit that useful variation. Slight. Conversely, if one individual’s variation is a disadvantage, it may hinder its chances of reproducing, and thus prevent it from passing that unhelpful trait to the next generation.
But a vestigial trait, which confers no advantage or disadvantage, is sort of stuck in limbo and is only passed along by pure chance.
I’ve heard people say, for example, that wisdom teeth are “evolving out” of the human species, and it makes me want to throw mine–which were surgically removed when I was 18–at their faces. That’s not how evolution works. In order for a trait to “evolve out” of a species, it has to be selected against. It has to be obvious so that other members of the species can notice it and find it unsexy enough that they won’t mate with the individual displaying it.
Do you only date people who never developed wisdom teeth, in the hopes that any offspring you have with them will also never develop wisdom teeth? I’m thinking not. There’s no active selection against the wisdom tooth trait. If anything, there’s selection for the more refined, narrow jaw structure that separates our skulls from those of like every other ape on the planet (which coincidentally is why most people don’t have space in their jaws for a third set of molars to properly develop and erupt, and need their–frequently deformed–wisdom teeth extracted), and that may in turn be linked to whether or not wisdom teeth form.
Wisdom teeth, like the palmaris longus, are a vestigial trait that is being passed along purely by chance.
Oh but Bear! you say. The spear-holder argument! Our ancient cavemen ancestors who had this palmaris longus tendon could better grip and throw their spears. Wouldn’t being a better hunter make them a more desirable mate for cavewomen?
No. No it wouldn’t. And let me tell you why.
The palmaris longus is a vestigial tendon, has been for eons, and hasn’t conferred an evolutionary advantage on those who have it since we lived in trees.
Yeah. A well-developed (aka, not vestigial) palmaris longus tendon is really only found in arboreal animals, like monkeys. Found there, it does give an advantage by augmenting grip strength, and thus making those tree-dwelling monkeys a little less likely to fall out of the tree. But among humans, who are terrestrial apes? The palmaris longus is not needed and is nothing but a relic. It’s been a relic since, like, Australopithecus.
Studies show that there is no difference in grip strength between those who have the palmaris longus and those who do not. Which should surprise no one because, again, the tendon is vestigial.
Now, to make up for me crushing your hopes of being a better spear-holder, let me share with you some great facts about the palmaris longus tendon!
It’s found in roughly a quarter of the population.
It has a ridiculous amount of variety in how it presents. In some people, it’s just a tendon running from A to B along the forearm with no associated muscle. In others, the muscle (which is also poorly-developed and vestigial) is found in the middle of the tendon. In others, the muscle is at one end of the tendon. Also, in some people, it’s only present in one arm and not the other–so if you see it in one wrist, check if it’s on the other side as well. I have it on both arms.
Because it’s vestigial and is not “needed”, it is the number one choice for use in reconstructive work. Surgeons will use it to repair or replace tendons just about anywhere in the body, because they can remove it without any ill effect!
This has been your daily dose of science. Bear, out.
omg this explains it so much more and better than me
My high school Environmental Science teacher summed up evolution in 4 words: dead things don’t breed. If a trait gets a critter killed before it breeds, it doesn’t get passed on. Fewer of the next generation will be descended from parents who have the thing, meaning the thing will become rarer until its gone altogether. It’s…really a simple concept, at its core.
I keep reblogging this with a note to talk about the evolution thing in detail and how this is wrong but I haven’t had time and also now I don’t have to, so BOOM.
why all the merdudes gotta have the cool ass shark fins? why can’t some merladies have cool sharkfins and the merdudes have some sparkly ass beautiful scales that you need metaphors about rainbows to describe
i wanna see a cute merlady with a fucking killer whale for half her body chatting up some cute merdude with a rainbowfish tail ok
