ten minutes to dawn

Hi, this is me speaking? I like animals, running, drawing, and music. That's about it. Cherry is the best flavor, but we can still be friends if you like lemon.

[a-most-beloved-fool]

Here's your periodic reminder that the reason Kirk (tos-flavor) got a commendation for his solution to the Kobayashi Maru is because his "cheating" was his answer. Kirk's answer to the question of, "What do you do in a no-win scenario?" is "I break the rules until it isn't a no-win scenario. I don't give up on my crew, and I do whatever I can to save as many lives as possible."

[computer-voiced-by-majel-barrett]

And here's your periodic reminder—or first-time FYI, depending—that according to certain apocrypha, Nog similarly "beat" the Kobayashi Maru by relentlessly demanding to barter with the enemy until the simulation crashed. Like a true Ferengi, his answer to "What would you do in a no-win scenario?" is "Renegotiate the terms of the scenario. Rule of Acquisition #98: Everyone has their price."

[capriceandwhimsy]

THIS IS WHY I HATED HOW THE KOBAYASHI MARU TEST WAS PORTRAYED IN STAR TREK 2009.

Kirk cheating on the Kobayashi Maru wasn't him thumbing the nose at the test, it was him giving his answer to the impossible scenario. And unlike Star Trek 2009, which uses it as a way to prove how cool and rebellious Kirk is, the original context for the Kobayashi Maru was so much deeper.

Spoilers for Star Trek II by the way:

We first run into the test when Saavik is taking it. She ends up getting the Enterprise captured by the Klingons. Later on, she complains to Kirk (Vulcan-style) that there was no way to win, at which point Kirk gives the official answer: the scenario is meant to be "No Win," and the point is to determine how the candidate deals with an unwinnable scenario: how to carry on in the face of death and failure.

This is Layer 1.

We run into the test a second time when Kirk is "marooned" on the Genesis asteroid. At this point, Saavik (and the audience) believes that Kirk is stranded and the Enterprise is too badly damaged to fight: a No Win Scenario. She asks Kirk how he handled the test, at which point McCoy amusedly claims that Kirk is the only one to beat the Kobayashi Maru test: Kirk changed the parameters of the test to win (he cheated). At which point he reveals his trick: the Enterprise is NOT badly damaged, he is NOT marooned, the parameters of this situation are NOT a No Win Scenario, and he smirks confidently as he tells Saavik, "I don't like to lose," and bites into an apple.

This is Layer 2.

The test gets mentioned a third time at the end of the film. The Enterprise is unable to escape the Genesis blast, due to damage to the ship's engine core. The radiation level inside Engineering is so high that no human can survive it. As Kirk watches the clock run down, he suddenly gets word that the engines are back online. "Bless you, Scotty!" Because, of course Scotty would get the engines back online! He's Captain Kirk! He doesn't lo-- where's Spock?

Spock replies to Kirk with his answer to the Kobayashi Maru: Failure can't be cheated, but it can be mitigated. Logic dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. In the face of that logic, one's own death is not to be feared.

This is Layer 3.

Later on, while speaking to his son, Kirk admits what he's always known: he's never really taken the Kobayashi Maru test. He's always cheated or outsmarted failure and thought himself clever for it. This is his Kobayashi Maru test, where he has to carry on in the face of death and failure.

And so he does. Despite the loss he has suffered, he carries on. He reconnects with his family. Comes to terms with the loss of his friend. Acknowledges that new life comes in the wake of death. And although sorrowful, he moves on.

This is Layer 4.

And then we reach Star Trek III.

Kirk suddenly has a chance to cheat the Kobayashi Maru test again. He can outsmart the consequences of the No Win Scenario and get Spock back. After all, he's Captain Kirk, he doesn't lose. One quick trip to the Genesis Planet to retrieve Spock, and he can dodge the consequences of his failure again. . .

The end results of that decision make up Layer 5.

[kingarthurscat]

[lumiklovstad]

People also forget that Kirk was a genocide survivor before he ever joined Starfleet Academy.

When he was thirteen years old, he was living on Tarsus IV when a fungal plague wiped out most of the food supply, prompting the planetary administrator, Kodos, to try and pull an MCU Thanos by murdering a huge chunk of the population to make supplies last. James Tiberius Kirk was one of the ones who survived, but he witnessed friends, neighbors, and people close enough to be family be murdered by the regime. When Starfleet relief ships arrived a month later, Kodos was horrified (he genuinely didn't know help was coming). He faked his own death and took up a fake identity, but bore the guilt for the rest of his life. And so did Kirk, who would eventually catch up with Kodos as Captain of the Enterprise.

But this is hugely important because Kirk HAS faced death. He HAS faced a no-win scenario at least as big as anything a Starfleet Captain might, and only survived because random chance put him in the survivor's pool that day.

This is why he can't stand losing. This is why he refused to accept the test's condition. This is why his policy is to damn what's possible and change the rules until he can win.

That's why Starfleet Academy gave him the Commendation for Original Thinking.

Because he lost once, in a bigger way than he will ever fully accept. In a way nobody ever should lose. And he resolved to never let it happen again. He even died twice making sure it wouldn't.

[lovely-v]

Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”

[busket]

at the rose city comic con panel this month a fan asked them (sean and elijah) if sam and frodo were in love and they said

Sean: .....yes. absolutely

Elijah: 100 percent.

Sean: dont tell rosie

[explorerrowan]

Rosie: "This is my husband Sam, and that's his husband, Frodo. Frodo is my husband-in-law. I'm not into him, he's he's a bit too 'elfy' for my taste, but Sam likes him, and that's fine with me. As far as I know, Frodo can't give Sam children, but Frodo looks after ours all the same, so I don't mind sharing Sam if it means another pair of eyes on the wee ones. In all honesty, our family tree is right simple compared to some hobbits. Yes, I'm referrin' to you Lobelia, over there pretendin' you ain't eavesdroppin'. Still bitter you ain't got either of my boys or their house, eh?"

[arcaniumagi2]

[ms-katonic-of-tamriel]

Tbh it's canon that Frodo invited Sam and Rosie to move in to Bag End after their wedding and they all lived there for a couple of years until Frodo went to Valinor, so yeah. Running with it.

And once Rosie dies, Sam says his goodbyes and disappears after him.

[roach-works]

what’s funny is people assuming that rosie would somehow be too dim or naive to KNOW that sam loved frodo, instead of looking at a guy who would loyally follow a beloved friend to hell and then help carry him home again, and not be like ‘oh i can’t not fuck that.’

[elodieunderglass]

Polyamory, specifically polyandry, would be an interesting solution to the oddball population of the Shire.

The Shire is excellent farming country, with consistently good weather, and only one tough winter in living memory; hobbits like to produce large families; they’re resistant to disease, rarely violent, and encounter few dangers. It is usual for hobbits to produce many children, so that (for example) Bilbo and Frodo are unusual in both being only children, with no siblings, and not having children of their own. All of this should point to a population that increases every generation if not doubling outright. Young people (and their ideologies!) should rapidly outnumber the old with an ever-increasing effect and impact on society. However, the Shire has a surprisingly stable history; it never seems to increase or decrease greatly in population, and the bell curve of age seems… demographically balanced? There certainly isn’t a conflict from rising young bloods challenging the middle-aged reactionaries; there’s no unemployment; there are no housing crises or waves of emigration, or even a tendency for young people leaving home to marry. Meanwhile, not only does the Shire not suffer from internal pressures, but it remains obscure and hardly noticed in global politics.

What makes sense here is that adult hobbits form a loose group. Four parents in a polycule, between them all, may produce four children. All four parents claim to have four children. An outsider would assume this meant the adults had eight children.

Hobbits therefore are not especially fertile or fecund. They simply have large families. Much of their interest in genealogy is due to the complex relationships of blood-kin, hearth-kin, love-kin and pledge-kin, who must all be carefully tracked and measured - not just because you need to make sure that you don’t climb into bed with an un-permitted degree of blood-kin, but to track family alliances and carefully quantify the precise level of thoughtfulness to put into the proper present to gift your father’s lover’s lover (too much implies a degree of intimacy that might upset the polycule.)

Thus, while a hobbit matron may tell a startled dwarf that she has seven sons, she might only have borne five of them herself, and have one hearth-son by her wife, and a pledge-son of her first husband’s. There are between three and four fathers involved at various stages of production, from conception to pledge-duty, but there is debate about the precise number of fathers, as one child was festival-conceived and therefore provisionally pledged to the Brandybucks until more distinctive paternal traits should materialise. It’s expected that four of the sons will be uninterested in women, and their contribution to family life will be in raising hearth-children and pledge-duty. However, this level of detail is normally negotiated later in conversation, as a mutual overture of friendship. So she’s just clear and simple: yes, certainly, she has seven sons. Yes, they’re all hers. Yes, that’s fairly normal - yes, hobbits like big families. How big? That’s really hard to say! Well, about thirteen hobbits live in her house… er, she has forty-three nieces and nephews. Yes! She has nine siblings, that’s correct, but some of them are still babies themselves..

In this way, a bewildered dwarf might assume that hobbits are absurdly fertile, producing an average of seven children per couple, at an absurd pace.

When in fact, with about half of hobbits never bearing biological children, the population of hobbits is pretty much always the same.

Tl:dr, hobbit population works perfectly well, both internally and in the perceptions of outsiders, if the majority of the Shire is gay, they’re all polyamorous, and they all firmly claim to be parents of high numbers of children. Of course Frodo fathered Sam’s kids - he named them! They were pledge-kin but not hearth-kin, as Frodo needed a lot of quiet and stability in the home.

No outsider ever parses hobbit genealogy well enough to understand this except for Gandalf, who never explains anything either.

[dancingspirals]

are you kidding? Gandalf would WEAPONIZE his knowledge of Hobbit genealogy against outsiders

[elodieunderglass]

Since “pledge” kinships are multidimensional and can occur in different directions, hobbits can form - and formalise - family bonds simply because they choose to. Gandalf doesn’t tell anyone that the formation of Thorin’s Company, the Fellowship of the Ring, and Belladonna Took’s Accidental Troop of Mercenaries* are legal formations of pledge-siblings, a hobbit family structure usually claimed to increase social class and prestige (as high numbers of pledge-kin confer distinction on a hobbit, being a sort of popularity vote/endorsement that adds greatly to their social power. Incidentally, this is partly why Bilbo was both controversial and successful in his pledge-claim of Frodo; outsiders mistook his “bachelor” status as someone living outside of heteronormativity, while the Shire was bewildered and increasingly annoyed by his rejection of pledge and hearth commitments. By rights Bilbo had too few pledge-kin, and too little parenting experience, to claim rights to an orphan, especially one from Brandybuck hearth; but conversely, his social status was high enough that his belated bid for his very first pledge-son couldn’t reasonably be denied by anybody.)

In short, all of the hobbits enjoyed achieving even larger families on their adventures, legally and without argument or debate. It’s free real estate. If nobody else is going to sibling these losers, we will. (The condensation of so many entanglements at once also legally made Pippin his own father-in-law.)

Gandalf never explained.

* see the post about the Old Took’s “enchanted diamond cufflinks” that obeyed the wearer’s commands; which were probably, given the general state of things, two lost silmarils recovered by his Remarkable Daughters and gifted to him because things stay small and safe in the shire

[chaosaccountant]

@elodieunderglass wouldn't that make pippin both denethor's pledge-son-in-law, and (as pledge-brother to the king) probably outrank him?

[elodieunderglass]

Only through Boromir while Boromir was alive! Pippin’s familial claim through Boromir technically dissolved on Boromir’s death, as Denethor hadn’t been privy to it, and those bonds rarely stretch to a stranger when the person in the middle has died before introducing them; although Pippin, who was well-brought-up, perfectly and politely rectified the problem at once by simply swearing himself as Denethor’s pledge-son. but through his blood-cousinship to Frodo, who was older than Boromir, his status as the Took double-primarc (don’t ask) and the proximity-enhanced status-doubling effects of having a five-way cousin in Merry, Pippin was demonstrably higher status as a pledge-sibling and was also his own father-in-law and approved of himself. As such, he would have significantly raised Boromir’s social status and marital prospects in the Shire.

Inheritance follows parent-child pledge as the primary consideration, with matrilineal descent as the secondary. Pippin would have been bewildered to gradually understand that Denethor held his two sons in such odd and different standing :-/ hobbits don’t recognise kingship so it would’ve been very upsetting and disappointing to Pippin to understand how Denethor stood in position of sworn-father to a whole city of people without even being slightly fair to his younger hearth-son. Aragorn is demonstrably much better dad-material and therefore had Pippin’s vote. Pippin, by virtue of being an excellent father-in-law to a spectacularly promising young son-in-law, also considered himself a better candidate for king of Gondor than Denethor, by outranking him in Dad Competence - but was too busy by the time he realized this to point this out .

Ironically, the events in which Pippin realized this made Faramir his own hearth-son - so Pippin won in the end and took a great interest in ceremonially approving of Eowyn. Gandalf never explained

[elodieunderglass]

[tkingfisher]

I will buy that for a dollar, yup.

[deafmangoes]

It crossed my dash again! The Hobbit Polyamory Post!

[ilovedthestars]

"how do you feel about labels as a queer person?"

[395nm]

道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。

[bob-artist]

Brotherhood of The Orb

[bob-artist]

[chirasul]

we got a full redbox and now we're playing go fish with the redbox movies

[chirasul]

I would never pay money for a redbox. if you ask politely and are very very persistent (i.e. annoying) they will let you take it away

here's my dad and i taking it away

a redbox makes a wonderful addition to your patio

[fishmech]

for those wondering why they're free to take now, it's because the company that made those "chicken soup for the soul" books bought them a few years ago and then completely collapsed so bad they couldn't afford to dispose of or even take the blu rays and dvds out of their kiosks all over.

so any of them is free game because they're all located on other business' property and they usually don't want to have to pay to get rid of them either. so asking the store manager usually gets you the ok to pull it out and keep it.

[chirasul]

there was a period of time right after their bankruptcy where you could put in any debit or credit card and it would spit out movies without charging you. you could even put in like an expired or deactivated card, or a visa gift card with a $0 balance, didnt matter, they'd just start spitting discs out. a lotta people raided redboxes for movies for a couple months, with some people doing what me and my brother and my dad did here, taking the whole box and signs and marquees as well. because managers sure as hell don't want a big abandoned piece of trash on their sidewalk disappointing customers. BUT they're also often too cheap to pay someone to remove it. so they just sit there.

luckily there are no shortage of freaks like us who will just take them away on our own volition. we did it all "by the book", too: we set up cones and caution tape, disconnected electricity properly, used an angle grinder to grind down the bolts in the concrete so nobody would trip on them, then cleaned everything up afterward and sealed off the electrical panel so the store would know everything is safe and tidy. though they were hesitant when we were first contacting them, they were honestly very relieved and grateful when we finally took it away, especially once they saw that we "knew what we were doing" (we don't) and look like we've "done this before" (we haven't).

the fun part: the reason why this redbox, in particular, was completely full and unraided is because the computer hardware inside had failed some months before the bankruptcy, and a failing company sure as hell wasn't gonna send a tech out to our podunk dipshit city to fix it, so it was impossible to rent movies or take any discs out. plus, for who knows how long, people were returning old redbox discs to this machine and not taking any out, leading to a much higher variety of movies than your average redbox.

there is a thriving community of redbox hackers and modders out there, as well, creating open-source software for repurposing the machines and not letting their very interesting and robust disc-management hardware go to waste. this one belongs to my brother (who was very annoying persistent and did all the legwork of contacting managers and securing permission) who is a programmer by trade and will be hacking it into a family-access movie library, with whatever discs we want. i mean the machine is completely weatherproof and has a built-in AC unit, it would be such a waste to not try to turn it into something cool.

if we get another one, i'm gonna try to mod it into some sort of art or zine vending machine. the disc boxes are just the right size for small print art or stickers. would make a great "little free library" too.

remember: the rules are made up. act like you belong there and you can get away with anything. this applies to your own life

[nociceptrix]

How goated it is to be anything at all

[uncleromeo]

if you don't do anything else today,

Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.

have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.

and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.

black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.

if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.

This is Juneteenth.

white people CAN interact with this post. share it, spread it.

[lamaenthel]

shoutout to paris hilton for not abandoning her ‘micropig’ 

when it turned out that it was a normal piggy who grew up to be a big fat fatty piggu

[chupicronian]

Actually that’s pretty standard size for a micro pig. Pigs are ENORMOUS, dude. The average pig on a farm is 7 feet long and over 700 lbs. A normal pig would be much bigger than Hilton.

EDIT: This is a photo of the world’s smallest recognized breed of pig, the kune kune. I’m sorry cartoons lied to you all.

This is the pot bellied pig, another famous “small” breed.

This is your average adult pig.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

My phone sometimes does this "1 year ago" thing where it plays a reel of old photos to jazzy music, but I don't take all that many photos, so in practice my phone just sometimes offers me jazzy music over a series of context-free nearly identical photos of the neighbour's cat.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Occasionally I am reminded that I went somewhere a year ago when the music plays over context-free nearly identical photos of a different cat.

[hunkybeans]

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Help I'm choking on my toast

[maddie-grove]

I really like this website because somebody will be like “there’s nothing wrong with darting out from behind a parked car into traffic, bootlicker” and you can be like okay this clearly evolved from a valid point about how the US is too car-centric. But something happened to it.

[jamiemccrimmon]

[just-deer-things]

there’s nothing wrong with darting out from behind a parked car into traffic

[planet4546b]

i mean this so seriously if you have any sort of creative project you can and should be a little obsessed with it. you should reread your own writing and look at your own art and brag about your ocs its literally good for your health

[kananeski]

This recently came across my timeline on Twitter ala @coelasquid and it’s too good not to include.

[thesanityclause]

Kelly Turnbull is so fucking wise

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

“Intense NPC energy” is the best possible description for this phenomenon. They’re right. The characters all have NPC energy in these movies.

[anistarrose]

when taking in a redeemed villain, it's important to give them lots of monologuing opportunities. a few will eventually settle out of that habit, but for the vast majority, it continues to be their most important social behavior, and even a major form of stress relief. it's also completely harmless, unlike some other behaviors that they may struggle to drop, so be sure to encourage them by presenting them with either large audiences (digital is ok — they love to be on screens), or potentially, a more intimate, one-on-one monologuing opportunity with a trusted confidant, depending on their prior villainous preferences. they may show signs of aggression during their monologue, but remember that it's just a performance — and if you play along in kind, your redeemed villain will develop a burning desire to protect you at any cost before you know it <3

[thesevenumbrellas]

Lawyer: How would you like to handle the custody agreement?

Parent: I want my wife to take one of my infant daughters to the UK and I’ll take the other one and we will never see each other again.

Lawyer: You want to fucking what?

[rabbiteclair]

auto immune disorders happen when the immune system ignores regulatory factors and begins attacking healthy bodily tissues, due to what scientists refer to as "sheer love of the game"

[diasdelfuego]

the thing about art is that sometimes you'll be moved to tears by stuff that is not very good

[my-tardis-sense-is-tingling]

[diasdelfuego]

the thing about art is that sometimes you'll be moved to tears by stuff that is not very good

[my-tardis-sense-is-tingling]