A list of theories as to why Martha Wayne’s Pearls scattered Like That, despite the fact that real pearls are knotted individually on the strand to prevent Precisely That Sort Of Thing from happening [incomplete]:
One: Martha chose not to wear her real pearls to the theatre that night, as it was a night where there was no one to impress. The string snapped because the pearls were not real, and Martha died for a $100 set you could pick up at Macy’s.
Two: The Pearls, upon understanding this was a symbolic moment in at least one Wayne’s future [and two Wayne’s end], chose to disregard their quality for the sake of a Dramatic Tableau.
Three: no more then three pearls ever snapped off the strand, but to a boy watching his mother choke on her own blood, gasping his name into the suddenly silent night, three pearls was enough.
Four: an opportunistic officer slipped the pearls off Marthas neck as she was loaded into the morgue van, figuring Bruce would not have the wherewithal to miss them. The pearls were subsequently reported as lost, having probably rolled down the drain in the following chaos. Only three were ever recovered, having become stuck in the puddle of blood that was under Martha Wayne’s head.
Five: the pearls, a set Thomas Wayne picked up as an engagement gift and a promise when Wayne industries was collapsing and his fortune nonexistent, were fake, and Martha adored them far more then any of the expensive jewels he was eventually able to afford. She made a habit of wearing them on family outings. Martha died for the sentimental value of a $100 set you could pick up at Macy’s.
Six: the pearls where not real. Martha was wearing diamonds that night. Bone, when exposed to moonlight and the horrified tears of an eight year old, shines like pearls.
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So Venus is my favorite planet in the solar system - everything about it is just so weird.
It has this extraordinarily dense atmosphere that by all accounts shouldn't exist - Venus is close enough to the sun (and therefore hot enough) that the atmosphere should have literally evaporated away, just like Mercury's. We think Earth manages to keep its atmosphere by virtue of our magnetic field, but Venus doesn't even have that going for it. While Venus is probably volcanically active, it definitely doesn't have an internal magnetic dynamo, so whatever form of volcanism it has going on is very different from ours. And, it spins backwards! For some reason!!
But, for as many mysteries as Venus has, the United States really hasn't spent much time investigating it. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, sent no less than 16 probes to Venus between 1961 and 1984 as part of the Venera program - most of them looked like this!
The Soviet Union had a very different approach to space than the United States. NASA missions are typically extremely risk averse, and the spacecraft we launch are generally very expensive one-offs that have only one chance to succeed or fail.
It's lead to some really amazing science, but to put it into perspective, the Mars Opportunity rover only had to survive on Mars for 90 days for the mission to be declared a complete success. That thing lasted 15 years. I love the Opportunity rover as much as any self-respecting NASA engineer, but how much extra time and money did we spend that we didn't technically "need" to for it to last 60x longer than required?
Anyway, all to say, the Soviet Union took a more incremental approach, where failures were far less devastating. The Venera 9 through 14 probes were designed to land on the surface of Venus, and survive long enough to take a picture with two cameras - not an easy task, but a fairly straightforward goal compared to NASA standards. They had…mixed results.
Venera 9 managed to take a picture with one camera, but the other one's lens cap didn't deploy.
Venera 10 also managed to take a picture with one camera, but again the other lens cap didn't deploy.
Venera 11 took no pictures - neither lens cap deployed this time.
Venera 12 also took no pictures - because again, neither lens cap deployed.
Lotta problems with lens caps.
For Venera 13 and 14, in addition to the cameras they sent a device to sample the Venusian "soil". Upon landing, the arm was supposed to swing down and analyze the surface it touched - it was a simple mechanism that couldn't be re-deployed or adjusted after the first go.
This time, both lens caps FINALLY ejected perfectly, and we were treated to these marvelous, eerie pictures of the Venus landscape:
However, when the Venera 14 soil sampler arm deployed, instead of sampling the Venus surface, it managed to swing down and land perfectly on….an ejected lens cap.
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gets in charge of the bookshop for 1 (one) day: shows up in a cardigan vest and metal sleeve garters, keeps the shop CLOSED, avoids selling a single book... iconic, truly did THE MOST, 10/10 😩👌🏻
(also, the way he was this 🤏🏻 close to finally achieving the status of house husband he's been dreaming about for MILLENIA just to have the rug pulled out from under him last minute... truly DEVASTATING 😩 my girl really can't catch a break 🤧)
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its really wild how many movies and tv shows are just like, obscenely skinny. how many casts are representative of the average population, if you sampled a crowd in a normal store or on a train? how many actually “average” bodies do you see on screen? how often are the stomachs shown flat or concave, how often are the thighs all muscle no fat, how often are the jawlines and cheekbones totally sharp and not covered by even a hint of softness? its bizarre and offputting whenever you start looking at media with that in mind
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