You Know A Little Detail I Love In The Martian Book? That Mark Is Obviously Smart, But To Different Degrees

You know a little detail I love in The Martian book? That Mark is obviously smart, but to different degrees depending on the subject.

He’s a mechanical engineer and a botanist. This makes him especially good at math, biology, food science, physics, and techy stuff that involves building things or taking stuff apart and making it do something else and general problem solving

He’s also generally good at chemistry. He knows that to make water he can breakdown hydrazine, but doesn’t think about the fact that it would cause the place to fill with hydrogen and almost blow up until it does. He also knows you exhale some oxygen each time you breathe, but doesn’t know how much.

He knows that solar panels are held at a 14 degree angle but doesn’t know why, and only knows the angle because he was in charge of setting them up

When he gets injured he doesn’t say what muscles, just that his back hurts. He fixes most of his muscle injuries with pain killers and warm baths while thinking about how the medic would have more detailed instructions

He has no idea how the pilot is so good at pilot stuff, and never differentiates different kinds of rocks like the geologist would

It’s just cool to have a smart character who is smart at things that make sense for their degrees and experience. So many characters get the Sherlock Holmes treatment where they’re good at whatever the plot needs, but in this case the book uses his blind spots as part of the plot. He knows enough chemistry to solve problems but not enough to anticipate the problems the chemistry would cause as well. It’s refreshing to have a book where what a character is bad at, or just not super good at, works with the story rather than just getting glossed over or having the character magically good at everything because if you know botany obviously you also know anatomy and geology and meteorology, etc

an AO3 reminder

there's been an uptick in "Help me find this fic" posts on AO3 and here's a reminder that posting these is in fact a breach of the Archive's Terms of Service (TOS)—and let's face it: it's annoying.

i know we've all been in that same boat of losing a fic, searching it for hours and even days which is a nightmare but please don't do this (and please don't encourage anyone by replying either) because:

it clogs the tags and works on AO3

posting it as a work is unnecessary since AO3 has a brilliant filtering system

it is against the AO3 TOS because its NOT a social media site (side note: please read the FAQ page) and if you keep doing it there's a consequence for breaking the rules okay? (getting your account suspended probably)

what can you do instead?

1. learn how to use the AO3 search function

Searching and Browsing on Ao3

Hidden Search Operators Cheat Sheet

2. if you hate reading something that is not fanfic, then you can watch a tutorial

3. if you cant remember any significant tags or titles or even the author's name for a search, then it's time to reach out to your community—IN AN APPROPRIATE SPACE. Reddit, Tumblr and Discord are all excellent choices to ramble off those random details, snippets and vague scenes you can remember.

4. make use of the bookmark, mark for later and download options on AO3 when you find a perfect fic to read (instead of keeping 5000 tabs on your browser)

5. a physical notebook where you can write a fic title and author name, a google sheet where you can organize a list and even add links, list them on a notepad app on your phone—there are so many ways buddy

what if i still lose the fic?

please refer to numbers 1 to 5 above

what if i decide to still post a "HELP ME FIND THIS FIC PLEASE I PROMISE TO DELETE THIS AFTER"

(i know you wont delete it or forget to, ive seen it all, also please dont make another post, did you immediately forget the TOS in the last five seconds?)

then my dear AO3 user, your fellow AO3 users or even regular readers without an account can REPORT your posted "work"

how to submit a report when you find a LOOKING FOR A FIC work posted on AO3

‘boy i sure wish i was asleep,’ i whisper, clicking Next Chapter fourteen fucking times

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