Today’s aesthetic: keeping the same tab open in your browser for three solid weeks because you’re definitely going to get around to reading and/or acting on whatever’s in it any minute now.
The rest of the elves in the undying lands: the fact that any elf can fall in love with a human is sad and somewhat puzzling. We mourn Luthian and Arwen who dared to choose mortal life. That such a union is possible is both wonderous and sorrowful. We solemnly welcome the ringbearers though, the only ones who are not elves welcome in the undying lands due to the great burden they carried for the salvation of the world
Legolas showing up late on a half sunk raft holding up Gimli: HEY EVERYONE I MADE IT! MEET MY DWARF GIMLI! WE TOTALLY GOT MARRIED!
The other elves: (⊙_⊙)
Galadriel: this is hilarious. I love it! I completely and utterly give my full approval!
The other elves: щ(゜ロ゜щ)
“Meet my dwarf,” like there are many dwarves he could have brought but this one is his.
Legolas: I don’t know why everyone’s so shocked I can’t possibly be the first elf to do this.
Other Elves: YOU ARE DEFINITELY THE FIRST ELF TO DO THIS, YES!!!
Legolas: …Oh.
*whispered conversation with Gimli*
Legolas: Well tough beans if you want your own dwarves you’ll have to sail back for them yourselves.
Why does every fucking fantasy story have this canard where what the heroes are really after is “balance”? Like, the idea is not for good to win but for there to be some sort of cosmic balance between good and evil. Why? Why is that good? I mean it’s definitionally not good. I think more good than evil is good. Call me crazy. It’s such a hacky affectation, a lazy stab at some sort of narrative profundity that the supporting material never actually possesses. Why does Yoda want balance with the Dark Side of the Force? What would that even look like? Exactly as many Sith as Jedi? Whose fucking idea was this?
Something I was working on a while ago but never finished:
*****
When you first take the Artifact, you will see a vision of ALPHANION, Demon-Sultan of the Domain of Order, who appears as a grid of spheres connected by luminous lines. Alphanion will urge you to use the Artifact to enforce cosmic order, law at its most fundamental. He will show you visions of all the most brutal and sadistic crimes of history, of all the wars caused by nations that could not live together in harmony, and he will tell you they are all preventable. He will show you dreams of perfectly clean cities with wide open streets, where everyone earns exactly the optimal amount of money and public transportation is accurate to the second. He will tell you it is all attainable.
But if you hesitate even an instant to take Alphanion’s offer, you will see a vision of CTHGHFZXAY, Demon-Shah of the Domain of Chaos, who appears as a shifting multicolored cloud. Cthghfzxay will urge you to use the Artifact to promote cosmic chaos, the ultimate principle of freedom. She will condemn the works of Order as a lie, a dystopia bought at the cost of true human liberty. She will show you visions of primaeval forests, where no two flowers are alike, where each glade holds a new mystery, where people run wild in search of new adventure. She will tell you it can all be yours.
As you weigh these two offers, you will see a vision of ZAMABAMAZ, Demon-Pharaoh of the Domain of Balance, who appears as a man and woman conjoined. They will tell you that neither Order nor Chaos is at the root of human flourishing, but an ability to strike the right balance between the two. That a virtuous life is one spent in moderation between total wild liberty and a stifling concept of rote rule-following. That Alphanion and Cthfhfzxay are the two poles of the universe, and that righteousness exists in the space created by their interaction. They will ask you to devote the Artifact and its power to the Domain of Balance, so all people can better manage the interaction of Order and Chaos in their own lives.
This will seem reasonable to you, but then there will appear a vision of IYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, Demon-Raja of the Domain of Excess, who appears as a blinding violet light. It will tell you that both Order and Chaos present coherent visions of the world, but that for the love of God, choose one or the other instead of being a wishy-washy milquetoast who refuses to commit to anything. It will tell you that blinding white and pitch black are both purer and more compelling than endless pointless grey. It will ask you to give the Artifact to somebody – anybody – other than Zamabamaz.
Just as you think you have figured all this out, there will appear a vision of MLOXO7W, Demon-Kaiser of the Domain of Meta-Balance, who appears as a face twisted into a Moebius strip. It will tell you that sometimes it is right to seek balance, and other times right to seek excess, and that a life well-lived consists of excess when excess is needed, and balance when balance is needed. It will remind you that sometimes you are a sprinter and other times a tightrope walker in the Olympiad of life, and that to commit to either eternal carefulness or eternal zealousness is to needlessly impoverish yourself. It will ask you to devote the Artifact and its power to balancing balance and imbalance, balancedly.
You will not be the least bit surprised when there appears a vision of K!!!111eleven, Demon-Shogun of the Domain of Meta-Excess, who appears as a Toricelli trumpet with eyes and a mouth. She says that seriously, pick a side, all this complicated garbage about the balance between balance and excess is just another layer of intellectualization to defend against having any real values, a trick to make you feel smart and superior for believing in nothing, not even Balance. She will ask you to choose something now, lest you be caught in an endless regress of further options.
As soon as you acknowledge that this makes sense, there will appear a vision of ILO, Demon-Chancellor of the Domain of Infinity, who appears as a deep hole in space whose end you cannot see. They will point out that yes, there is potentially an infinite regress of further levels. But to act to avoid those levels is essentially to unthinkingly side with the principle of Excess over Balance. After all, if you had originally started by siding with Chaos or Order rather than waiting to hear of the existence of Balance, you would have been unknowingly favoring Excess over Balance. And if you had decided to choose either Excess or Balance, you would have been favoring the principle of Meta-Excess over Meta-Balance before even knowing they existed. So choosing at any level of the hierarchy is essentially equivalent to choosing Excess at all higher levels of the hierarchy. When viewed this way, the hierarchy collapses to chaos, order, first-level-balance, second-level-balance, third-level-balance, and so on. They offer a new, better vision: Infinite Balance, a theoretical top of the hierarchy in which you choose to balance all previous levels.
Then you will see a vision of LUMINIEL, Demon-President-Elect of the Domain of Good, who appears as an angel with golden wings. It will tell you it is so glad it got here in time, because everyone else is going about this all wrong. The problem is, “balance” is ambiguous between “being exactly in the middle” and “finding the optimal point in between”. With the latter interpretation, we can accept that the optimal point might be 50% order and 50% chaos, or 99% order and 1% chaos, or even 100% order and 0% chaos. So instead of worrying about which level of the hierarchy to choose Balance or Excess on, you should simply work to find the correct level of each quantity, and go with that. Or instead of figuring that out yourself, you can donate the Artifact to the Domain of Good, which strives towards such a level always.
But hark! Cometh MORDAG, Demon-Taoiseach of the Domain of Evil, who appears as a devil with a forked tail. Ze will inform you that Good is impossibly stifling, a demand to pick a particular value system and let it fix the value of each level of Order and Chaos forever, a world determined entirely by Necessity and absent variety and creativity. Ze asks you to pick some value other than the optimal one for each level of Balance, and devote the Artifact to its service.
With a whoosh and a thud comes TAHAVAHAT, Demon-Pope of the Domain Of Moral Balance, who appears as a luminous mist. He tells you that both Good and Evil are necessary for the proper functioning of the universe. You should strike to find a way to account both for the importance of keeping the level of balance and meta-balance at the optimal level, and for allowing slight deviations in the amount of balance and meta-balance to allow for some creativity and freedom.
To the piping of cosmic flutes arrives OIRGJEIO;J;AEIORG, Demon-Admiral of the Domain Of Randomness, who appears as static. This one tells you that unless you make some decision, any decision, right now, you will spend your entire life dealing with demonic leadership. There will never be any way to balance the infinite number of considerations and counter-considerations, so you might as well just flip a coin and do that instead of see-sawing back and forth forever.
Not with a bang but with a whimper arrives ESHIAIHSE, Demon-Tycoon of the Domain Of The Level Above Yours, who appears as a never-fading smirk. Who says that
Oirgjeio;j;aeiorg
is basically right that you have to stop the endless parade of demons somewhere, but points out that you could do slightly better than random by putting just a little bit of thought into your ethical and axiological system, just five seconds worth. Eshiaihse guesses that this is kind of like balancing the importance of randomness in order to stop infinite progression with the importance of getting the right answer.
I just realized that the specific reason the 80s and 90s anti-racism preaching in the media failed is because it was entirely focused on emotions and bullying and self esteem, and now everyone thinks the only thing that racism affects is people’s feelings.
but in reality, personal emotions about one’s self are the FINAL, smallest, most individual, personal step in what racism does. it ALSO does so much astronomically more than that, and anyone who’s experienced it knows that on some level. it’s institutional; it’s woven inextricably into the fabric of not only our country, but our global system, too. and people are utterly blind to that.
popular culture still suggests that racism is wrong JUST because saying racist stuff hurts people’s feelings, and not because it’s a cultural attitude that informs every level of how our society operates; there is little awareness that racism is about ACTIONS, actions with no conscious intent behind them, not beliefs, which are intangible.
and now that the alt-right has popularized the idea that feelings are objectively stupid, there’s no longer ANY reason not to say racist things. because who cares about hurting other people’s FEELINGS? that’s the very last, smallest, most individual, personal thing you can possibly care about! 🙄
that’s why people are convinced nowadays that a public figure with wide-reaching influence can say racist things unapologetically without “being” racist. because to them, “being racist” isn’t the same as ACTING RACIST. It’s some internal belief—some character flaw—that only crazy people have, and if you’re ironic enough about it, there’s suddenly no harm in being openly racist for laughs.
when the truth is, ACTIONS MEAN MORE THAN BELIEFS. virulent racists are createdandenabledby an almost unfathomably massive system of laws and conventions and tradition and lies that people tell themselves and each other. on a global scale.
people think racism is a thing people believe but somehow NOT a thing people DO.
Because i NEVER see the famous image of that iridescent white lipped python given credit, this guy is the OP. I included a newer image too because chrisssssssstopher is still uploading WLP if any one wants to follow the owner of these images.
crime show: well we don’t know what time she was taken but as you can see in this convenience store security footage she’s mouthing something and our lip reading technology tells us she’s saying ‘those three wise men they’ve got a semi by the sea’ which are lyrics to James Blunt’s song ‘Wisemen’ which was playing on that store’s favoured radio station at approximately 3:18PM and she disappears from view exactly five minutes later so therefore
crime show: now see usually we’d manage to get a timestamp from the security footage but unfortunately in this case the cameras only record a live feed and while you would think this means we shouldn’t be able to see the footage at all, luckily a famous Twutch streamer happened to be using it as their background footage while recording yesterday so
yes, but can you blow it up and enhance it?
unfortunately this particular footage is extremely low quality and very grainy but as I zoom in on this super blurry pixelated image you can see the details become much clearer and easier to identify
But what about the extremely specific pollen found on the camera lens?
good eye! originally I didn’t even notice it was there but while combing through the footage I noticed three different people sneezed while in view of the camera. I did some research and found that the particles represent the pollen of this obscure plant life that is native to this particular state, which really doesn’t help us, except that it only ever blooms in the opposite season! So I did some digging and found four nurseries within a 50 mile radius, only one of which sell that plant all year round, which of course means
Hold on just one moment! If the twitch streamer was using the cameras live feed as background, then we should know the time of the crime! The twitch archive should mark how long the streamer had been on by the time of the perpetrators presence onscreen, and if we know when they went live, we will know the time the perpetrator was in the building!
DAMNIT JONES THIS ISN’T YOUR CASE
WELL IT’S MY CASE NOW! The Captain thinks your kidnapping is related to my investigation into that cult up state. So, apparently, we’re supposed to work together. I’m not any happier than you are.
but I hate sharing!
TOUGH SHIT MCNAMARA! Your kidnapping case is somehow connected with that cult that’s been sacrificing its members to in the belief that it will appease the elder god Cthulhu. Now, I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m worse at sharing than a toddler with a new favorite toy, but lives may well be on the line here! Are you willing to put aside our differences, and do what needs to be done?!
Alright, but when we catch the perp he’s mine. I don’t care if he’s sacrificed a hundred victims to goddamn Mickey Mouse! That man may know who killed my father, and I won’t let anyone get in my way – not even someone with your develish smile.
Do you think you’re the only one who wants to find Eric’s murderer?! He was my partner! He was my friend! I know we haven’t worked together before, but this case will have us working together for a while, until we eventually find your fathers killer. And I can see this case taking us a long time, and defining both of our lives for the foreseeable future. But don’t worry McNamara, my years of experience on the force, put together with your grit, tenacity, and loose understanding of the rules will make for a great partnership, with plenty of laughs and sexual tension to go around. Until some being from on high decides the precinct isn’t ready for a same sex couple, and I rekindle my relationship with my previously unmentioned ex-wife. But we, and some unknown watchers of our adventures, will always know we were meant to be together, weirdly large age gap be damned!
Yeah, and while Eric was off playing cops and robbers with you, I grew up without a dad! Do you know how many times I stared at my baseball glove, wishing he was there to throw it to me? You may have lost Eric, but I never even got to have him!
But you’re right. This case will definitely take at least a full year, especially with the fact that we will be constantly interrupted with other, smaller cases, one of which will be halloween themed. We’re working together for the forseeable future, and my playful countenance and morbid wit will very quickly mesh with your hardened attitude and tendency to keep secrets.
And while you go back to your unhappy, stiff relationship with your ex wife, I will be shown having constant meaningless sex with a multitude of beautiful women so that the writers can really get across how Not Gay I am.
It’s gonna be a wild ride, Jones. And there had better be stakeouts.
executive producer dick wolf
This is the best demonstration of the principle of “yes, and” that I have ever seen. They should put this in textbooks.
This is honestly better than most crime shows I have seen 😀
This is from the forecast discussion of Major Hurricane Florence from this afternoon. As a meteorologist, when I saw this, my heart sank. They don’t use wording like this for every storm.
Florence is going to be a devastating. There will be huge amounts of flooding, both from inland rain and from costal storm surge. Winds are going to be some of the strongest you can get from a hurricane. People within the path of this storm could lose everything.
If you know anyone who lives on the North or South Carolina coast, tell them that if there’s an evacuation ordered, they need to get the hell out. Do not take chances with this one.
Reblogging again to add a list of things/essentials from a friend who lives on the NC coast and has weathered hurricanes and other bad weather:
– toiletries (paper towels, toilet paper, baby wipes for “bathing” in case power & water go out)
– water, 1 gallon per person for at least 7 days (err on the side of caution if possible); more if you have animals!!
– non perishable food items, if you get canned food make sure you have a can OPENER
– pet food & supplies, if you’re really worried about flooding it may be beneficial to get life vests for your pets, also find a way to put identification information on them!
– batteries
– flashlights
– battery packs for cell phones charged up in case of loss of power
– filled cars with gas & filled gas can(s)
– get all essentials like passports, important docs, and cherished items together & ready to go
– just in case, determine a way to get onto your roof safely
– fill bathtubs with water so if water isn’t available you can refill the toilets to keep flushing and keep waste to a minimum
– if you have dogs look up how to make a makeshift potty, you can use a hard baby pool and some sod potentially
– check your prescriptions and get them refilled now if necessary
– if you’re taking insulin and lose power, fill a separate cooler for your insulin than the one you would use for food. Insulin > food
If your place begins to flood get the hell OUT of the water!!! There is no telling if you have a live electrical charge in there!
Do not cross any water you cannot see the bottom of the ground in. I’m serious.
Read up on flash floods and common safety tips.
The last two paragraphs can be ignored
Zello is great but do not rely on it as your only form of communication during an emergency. It’s as useful as messenger/discord/slack/line/hangouts. It’s VOIP not magic.
A dishwasher is waterproof on the inside only! It’s better to stick valuables higher up than close to the ground! For phones that aren’t water resistant get one of those waterproof beach bags/containers.
If you are going to be anywhere near this thing and plan on staying put, buy a large Anker Portable Battery. In Florida during every hurricane we have some people who are lucky and stay with power but 70+% of houses tend to lose power; some for weeks. Obv other brands work fine too, but personally I’ve never had an Anker battery fail on me and I’ve owned many for years. Ingress/Pokemon Go players swear by it.
If you have any chairs/pots/trash bins outside and plan on leaving, bring all that inside and leave it in your living room. It keeps it from flying into your windows or left-behind cars.
If you don’t have shutters and are leaving your house, lean your mattress against any large windows or windows that are close to important objects. It can potentially protect your things from a single brick or large object that flies through your window. There will still be rain and wind coming through if this happens, but a brick smashing through a window and a TV is worse than a brick flying through a window and then pushing your bed against a TV.
Once again if you plan on staying, get yourself an extra tank of gas a few days before the hurricane hits. In FL, the entire week before one hits, the gas stations have lines down the road at all hours of the day AND night. My dad has waited two hours for gas after getting in line at 2AM.
If you plan on staying, clean and fill up your bathtub with boiled water and leave it plugged. If the water pipes get contaminated from damage or something, you have a bit of drinkable water at your disposal.
I can’t think of any more at the moment but definitely flee if you’re too close guys. Y’all don’t know how often I get to see pictures of my parents house before and after hurricane Andrew. We’re used to hurricanes and we know that even the lower Category ones can leave us without power for weeks. Don’t let yourself get caught unaware!
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