fun with loopholes

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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wirehead-wannabe:

Carson + Paul is obviously the best choice. Heal the world + never worry about being sick or getting STDs + end the drug war. Only downside is spending three hours a day praying, which is honestly the easiest downside to deal with.

Also I think Paul’s running mate bonus is supposed to say “decriminalization” in the last paragraph.

Taken from /u/annextasia at https://www.reddit.com/r/makeyourchoice/comments/4gtu83/2016_gop_nomination_cyoa_oc/

 

psybersecurity:

Kasich is better than Carson I think. If you have a legion of 11 million loyal followers willing to heed your beck and call you could do pretty much anything and it would be a lot more fun than standing around all day touching people and feeling guilty every second that you’re doing anything else

I’m trying to figure out why Ted’s running mate bonus is supposed to be a good thing lol

 

wirehead-wannabe:

I mean you could probably earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a day curing AIDS and cancer if you really just wanted to use it on yourself. Which is arguably just as good if not better than having 11 million loyal followers.

 

socialjusticemunchkin:

Or you could tax the ohioans just a few dollars a day each to earn a hundred times more.

Assuming “Ohio” means the legal state of Ohio, and not “the territory which currently forms the state of Ohio”, Kasich/Paul is totally OP and broken.

First, I legalize individuals and communities choosing which state to belong to democratically. The other states may whine, but governance only with the consent of the governed doesn’t violate basic rights, so with Paul I can totally do it.

Then I end the drug war. In Ohio, because I’ve legalized states setting their own drug laws.

I decriminalize states setting their own immigration rules, and open the borders in Ohio, defining ohioans as “anyone present in Ohio, or who announces their decision to join Ohio, or who has previously fulfilled either condition and has not renounced their ohioanness” (thus, making me immune to assassinations as anyone who would try to do it would have to travel to Ohio, become ohioan, and stop wanting to assassinate me and start wanting to protect me instead).

Then I implement a basic income in Ohio (for those who have been ohioans for a sufficient amount of time, as I have previously suggested). And all the other cool stuff, in Ohio.

Everyone would give anything for the cause, so I ask the people to be excellent to each other, and otherwise be free to do whatever they want as long as they don’t deprive others of the same right (but if they wish to give to charity they really should prioritize EA instead of Make-a-Wish). Crime in Ohio plummets to zero, and so does poverty, deprivation, and coercion. The economy gets an immense boom from the immigrants, and the abolition of zero-sum and negative-sum bullshit games, and all people working together for their prosperity, like a weird libertarian (or, in fact, full-blown anarchist in all but name) version of North Korea’s propaganda films come true.

The obvious consequence is that a lot of people would want to be a part of Ohio. Just as planned. It won’t take long until Ohio has a population of approximately 200 million and covers a vast fractal shape encompassing most of the major cities.

Then I become the president of the US in the most overwhelming election since Washington, seize control of all brances of the government, and turn my Paul powers to international law instead. Rinse repeat with a bit more restraint to not provoke a nuclear war, and I’ll soon have acquired most of the Americas, the major liberal cities of Europe, and vast swathes of territory in Africa as well (I’m deliberately not touching Russia or China because that way lies armageddon), in this only-nominally-stateful community of freedom and dignity.

It’s immune to invasions because open borders mind control magic, it’s immune to terrorism because surely you wouldn’t want to hurt your fellow ohioans, it’s immune to pretty much everything except ICBMs. For ICBMs my policy will be a clear and ruthless MAD if attacked, but otherwise non-interference in the affairs of the other superpower and the little regional Shitholistan with a superiority complex propped up by its ridiculous nuclear arsenal. In fact, I can afford a comparably submissive foreign policy, letting Russia pick the arctic oil and China get whatever gas fields it wants because our anarchist regime is too rich to care about such slim pickings.

We’re going to outer space instead. All the labor and ingenuity currently wasted in pointless things will be redirected in a program of technology and space colonization (and AI research but I’m assuming no FAI because it kind of cuts everything short and turns things boring). We’re going to cure all the diseases, conquer the Moon, Mars, and everywhere. We’re going to win.

A wise man once asked: “Why does everything always end in world domination with you guys?”

The rationalist answered: “Have you ever tried giving us a scenario that did not have world domination built in?”

To the US I came seeking fortune
But they’re making me work til I’m dead
The congressmen have it so easy
The bankers put gold on their bread
The people of the world are so hungry
But think what a feast there could be
If we could create an anarchist state
That cared for the people like me: 

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That descend upon me from up above.
They come down and I spin them around
Til they fit in the ground like hand in glove.
Sometimes it seems that to move blocks is fine
And the lines will be formed as they fall –
Then I see that I have misjudged it!
I should not have nudged it after all.

Can I have a long one please?
Why must these infernal blocks tease?

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That continue to fall from up above.
Come Ohioan! To the every last one!
An individualist regime of peace and love.
I work so hard in arranging the blocks
But the landlord and taxman bleed me dry
But Ohio will rise! We will not compromise
For we know that the old regime must die.

Long live freedom, burn the flags!
We salute the orange and black!

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That continue to fall from up above.
The food on your plate no concern of the state
An individualist regime of peace and love.
I have my choice in arranging the blocks
Under promethean rule, what you say goes.
The rule of the game is our rights are the same
And my blocks can make my own-shaped rows.

Long live Ohio! It loves you!
Sing these words, you know what it’ll do…

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That are made by the men from Shitholistan.
They came two weeks ago and back there they won’t go
Now they’re working to our world conquest plan.
I am the man who arranges the nukes
That will make all the Putin keep away
The hopes have come back, and ‘Murica is Black!
Let us point all our dollars at EA.

We shall live forever more!
We can start an altruism war!

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That are building a highly secret base.
Hip hip hurray for the AS of A!
We are sending our men to outer space.

 

ilzolende:

This is #amazing, you are #amazing, 10/10.

Note to self: Sing this when I have microphone access.

Also, orange-and-black is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory), yes?

 

brin-bellway:

“Every single man, woman, child, and animal in Ohio” (emphasis added)

See the loophole?

That’s right, folks: nonbinary assassins.

(Furthermore, if we’re going to play with definitions as much as “Ohio” has been played with, perhaps the resistance could have elaborate coming-of-age rituals, without which one is not considered to be truly adult, and then deliberately keep binary people in a liminal state where they are old enough not to be children*, but since they haven’t completed the rituals they’re not men/women yet.)

(Might also be able to get some stuff done through gender abolitionism, which I seem to recall Promethea favours? So there could still be some benefit in this from their perspective depending on the resistance’s methods.)

(But nonbinary assassins would still be the quickest and easiest method, because we already have some nonbinary adults readily available and wouldn’t need to spend precious time training people out of old thought patterns regarding the meaning of adulthood and/or gender.)

*For obvious reasons, the definition of “child” should be made as narrow as possible.

Mind you, it never says the mind-control spell breaks upon the death
of the mind-controller, and the word “permanent” implies it doesn’t.

This makes things trickier.

Tags:

#oh look an update #we *might* be able to simply dissolve Ohio once Promethea’s not in the way #but even if we could pull it off it might not be enough

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~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

ilzolende:

socialjusticemunchkin:

wirehead-wannabe:

psybersecurity:

wirehead-wannabe:

Carson + Paul is obviously the best choice. Heal the world + never worry about being sick or getting STDs + end the drug war. Only downside is spending three hours a day praying, which is honestly the easiest downside to deal with.

Also I think Paul’s running mate bonus is supposed to say “decriminalization” in the last paragraph.

Taken from /u/annextasia at https://www.reddit.com/r/makeyourchoice/comments/4gtu83/2016_gop_nomination_cyoa_oc/

Kasich is better than Carson I think. If you have a legion of 11 million loyal followers willing to heed your beck and call you could do pretty much anything and it would be a lot more fun than standing around all day touching people and feeling guilty every second that you’re doing anything else

I’m trying to figure out why Ted’s running mate bonus is supposed to be a good thing lol

I mean you could probably earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a day curing AIDS and cancer if you really just wanted to use it on yourself. Which is arguably just as good if not better than having 11 million loyal followers.

Or you could tax the ohioans just a few dollars a day each to earn a hundred times more.

Assuming “Ohio” means the legal state of Ohio, and not “the territory which currently forms the state of Ohio”, Kasich/Paul is totally OP and broken.

First, I legalize individuals and communities choosing which state to belong to democratically. The other states may whine, but governance only with the consent of the governed doesn’t violate basic rights, so with Paul I can totally do it.

Then I end the drug war. In Ohio, because I’ve legalized states setting their own drug laws.

I decriminalize states setting their own immigration rules, and open the borders in Ohio, defining ohioans as “anyone present in Ohio, or who announces their decision to join Ohio, or who has previously fulfilled either condition and has not renounced their ohioanness” (thus, making me immune to assassinations as anyone who would try to do it would have to travel to Ohio, become ohioan, and stop wanting to assassinate me and start wanting to protect me instead).

Then I implement a basic income in Ohio (for those who have been ohioans for a sufficient amount of time, as I have previously suggested). And all the other cool stuff, in Ohio.

Everyone would give anything for the cause, so I ask the people to be excellent to each other, and otherwise be free to do whatever they want as long as they don’t deprive others of the same right (but if they wish to give to charity they really should prioritize EA instead of Make-a-Wish). Crime in Ohio plummets to zero, and so does poverty, deprivation, and coercion. The economy gets an immense boom from the immigrants, and the abolition of zero-sum and negative-sum bullshit games, and all people working together for their prosperity, like a weird libertarian (or, in fact, full-blown anarchist in all but name) version of North Korea’s propaganda films come true.

The obvious consequence is that a lot of people would want to be a part of Ohio. Just as planned. It won’t take long until Ohio has a population of approximately 200 million and covers a vast fractal shape encompassing most of the major cities.

Then I become the president of the US in the most overwhelming election since Washington, seize control of all brances of the government, and turn my Paul powers to international law instead. Rinse repeat with a bit more restraint to not provoke a nuclear war, and I’ll soon have acquired most of the Americas, the major liberal cities of Europe, and vast swathes of territory in Africa as well (I’m deliberately not touching Russia or China because that way lies armageddon), in this only-nominally-stateful community of freedom and dignity.

It’s immune to invasions because open borders mind control magic, it’s immune to terrorism because surely you wouldn’t want to hurt your fellow ohioans, it’s immune to pretty much everything except ICBMs. For ICBMs my policy will be a clear and ruthless MAD if attacked, but otherwise non-interference in the affairs of the other superpower and the little regional Shitholistan with a superiority complex propped up by its ridiculous nuclear arsenal. In fact, I can afford a comparably submissive foreign policy, letting Russia pick the arctic oil and China get whatever gas fields it wants because our anarchist regime is too rich to care about such slim pickings.

We’re going to outer space instead. All the labor and ingenuity currently wasted in pointless things will be redirected in a program of technology and space colonization (and AI research but I’m assuming no FAI because it kind of cuts everything short and turns things boring). We’re going to cure all the diseases, conquer the Moon, Mars, and everywhere. We’re going to win.

A wise man once asked: “Why does everything always end in world domination with you guys?”

The rationalist answered: “Have you ever tried giving us a scenario that did not have world domination built in?”

To the US I came seeking fortune
But they’re making me work til I’m dead
The congressmen have it so easy
The bankers put gold on their bread
The people of the world are so hungry
But think what a feast there could be
If we could create an anarchist state
That cared for the people like me: 

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That descend upon me from up above.
They come down and I spin them around
Til they fit in the ground like hand in glove.
Sometimes it seems that to move blocks is fine
And the lines will be formed as they fall –
Then I see that I have misjudged it!
I should not have nudged it after all.

Can I have a long one please?
Why must these infernal blocks tease?

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That continue to fall from up above.
Come Ohioan! To the every last one!
An individualist regime of peace and love.
I work so hard in arranging the blocks
But the landlord and taxman bleed me dry
But Ohio will rise! We will not compromise
For we know that the old regime must die.

Long live freedom, burn the flags!
We salute the orange and black!

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That continue to fall from up above.
The food on your plate no concern of the state
An individualist regime of peace and love.
I have my choice in arranging the blocks
Under promethean rule, what you say goes.
The rule of the game is our rights are the same
And my blocks can make my own-shaped rows.

Long live Ohio! It loves you!
Sing these words, you know what it’ll do…

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That are made by the men from Shitholistan.
They came two weeks ago and back there they won’t go
Now they’re working to our world conquest plan.
I am the man who arranges the nukes
That will make all the Putin keep away
The hopes have come back, and ‘Murica is Black!
Let us point all our dollars at EA.

We shall live forever more!
We can start an altruism war!

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That are building a highly secret base.
Hip hip hurray for the AS of A!
We are sending our men to outer space.

This is #amazing, you are #amazing, 10/10.

Note to self: Sing this when I have microphone access.

Also, orange-and-black is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory), yes?

“Every single man, woman, child, and animal in Ohio” (emphasis added)

See the loophole?

That’s right, folks: nonbinary assassins.

(Furthermore, if we’re going to play with definitions as much as “Ohio” has been played with, perhaps the resistance could have elaborate coming-of-age rituals, without which one is not considered to be truly adult, and then deliberately keep binary people in a liminal state where they are old enough not to be children*, but since they haven’t completed the rituals they’re not men/women yet.)

(Might also be able to get some stuff done through gender abolitionism, which I seem to recall Promethea favours? So there could still be some benefit in this from their perspective depending on the resistance’s methods.)

(But nonbinary assassins would still be the quickest and easiest method, because we already have some nonbinary adults readily available and wouldn’t need to spend precious time training people out of old thought patterns regarding the meaning of adulthood and/or gender.)

*For obvious reasons, the definition of “child” should be made as narrow as possible.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #fun with loopholes #choice games

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Things I’ve always wondered

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

zionistsaturnoutpost:

manyspirks:

swanjolras:

eshusplayground:

  1. A gentile vampire turns a promising Torah scholar into a vampire. Is the scholar still permitted to study Torah? Are they still under the yoke of the mitzvot? How does vampirism impact observant Jewish practice? Are they still Jewish, or are they apostates? Would it be permissible for the scholar to turn other people into vampires to cure them of terminal illnesses?
  2. To what degree are Jewish werewolves morally responsible for their actions while under the influence of the full moon? What must they do if they eat treyf in their wolf form?
  3. If, for some reason, we must leave earth for another inhabitable planet on the other side of the galaxy, what do we do about holidays and observing Shabbat? Would we go by earth time or local time? What if this planet has no moon or more than one moon? How would we face Jerusalem to pray?
  4. Can aliens convert to Judaism? If so, does it only apply to humanoid aliens like the greys, or would reptilian aliens and ilithids be able to convert too?
  5. Can sentient machines like the Terminator convert to Judaism? What about Agents from The Matrix?
  6. Speaking of The Matrix, are we still obligated to obey the mitzvot even if we are literally brains in jars or living in a simulated reality created by computer programs? What happens if we’re freed and whatever basis for our Jewish identity we had is no longer present or certain. Are we still Jews? Do we still have a covenant?

speaking with my minimal scholarly experience but also opening this up for all jews to contribute:

1. i don’t see any reason why such a promising torah scholar shouldn’t be allowed to continue to study torah, but practicing judaism would be difficult: blood of all animals is probably treyf, and blood of humans is definitely treyf, so a jewish vampire would have to break mitzvot on a nearly constant basis to survive. however under pikuach nefesh i feel like were the vampire literally about to die, they could consume human or animal blood. therefore a jewish vampire would have to live in a state of starvation at all times, which would probably have a fascinating impact on his torah study.

2. a shoteh is not held responsible for their actions by human or divine courts. maimonides defines a shoteh as any mentally unstable person – for our purposes, a jewish werewolf in wolf form can probably be seen as under the influence of mental instability, and is not responsible for their actions under the law.

3. this is fascinating because when we face jerusalem in america, we face east – even though, physically speaking, jerusalem is somewhere under us, on the other side of the globe. for this reason i’m inclined to avoid the obvious answer, “face earth”. perhaps it would be possible to face, in general, the stars? going by “earth time” seems logistically impossible, since earth has 24 separate times. i think this will be a separate issue for every planet.

4. we are already a reptilian alien race, this question is moot.

5. if robots cannot convert to judaism i am quitting. more seriously: this seems like a good place for the analogy of the four children: the simple robot asks, “what is all this”, i.e., judaism, and you download information about it into his database; the wicked robot asks, “what does all this mean to you,” i.e., humans, and you reply, “we are doing a human thing; if you were a human, you would not be part of it, either”; the wise robot asks, “can you please explain the laws and customs of judaism to me, fellow sentients” and you do so and allow him to convert if he wishes it; and the robot who does not know enough to ask a question does not pass the turing test, so the point is moot.

6. oh yeah, we’d totally still be jews! it’s like finding out for sure there’s no god – maybe it’s gonna stop some people from practicing judaism, but not most of us.

@jewishrey this is relevant to your interests i believe

In re question #3, we have developed an app that calculates the relative location of Yerushalayim for all zmanim for our residents depending on their location. Occasionally this results in prayer being conducted facing downward or upward. Zmanim are determined by LST (local Saturn time).

Tags:

#Judaism #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(”we are already a reptilian alien race. this question is moot.”)

Anonymous asked: How much to spend a day lying in bed.

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

theunitofcaring:

Well, as a Responsible Human who definitely wears clothing, consumes food at least twice in every twenty four hours, attends all her lectures, and has never spent a solid week in bed just because, I would be highly inconvenienced by this and would demand lots of money for it.

Define “lying in bed”, though. Are you allowed toilet breaks in this scenario? Will water and Internet be supplied? If any of these are “no”, I think you’d want to find that out first and charge accordingly.

Tags:

#obviously if Internet is a no you start asking about other forms of entertainment #reply via reblog #how much for ask meme

Baptism

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

comparativelysuperlative:

comparativelysuperlative:

The way the metaphor works, you’re being lowered into the water (symbolizing a grave) and being raised (resurrected) as a new creation free of sin. (Symbolically. More literally, the “free of sin” bit lasts about 0.4 seconds until you have your first conscious thought, and then you probably need more sanctification.) The question nobody ever seems to ask is, what happens to the sin afterward?

I mean, that water ought to be downright toxic. Original sin is a big deal, and in most denominations they don’t even try to dispose of the waste safely. In fact, the pastor is often standing in it the whole time.

If you haven’t seen the sort of baptism service I’m familiar with, it involves a bathtublike container maybe a third the size of a Jacuzzi, with a church leader doing serial baptizing.  Any Christian can baptize someone, but usually it’s one of the ranking people in the church. Catholics probably bless the water first (it’d be weird if their religion includes holy water and they don’t use it for this) but in most denominations holy water isn’t really a thing. So there’s no confounding variable from that direction; it’s just water plus enough of humankind’s innately fallen sin nature to damn someone to Hell a couple dozen times over. And the pastor, along with whoever goes last, is standing in it.

But that very fact tells us it’s not all that dangerous. Concentrated evil sounds scary, but apparently a normal mustard-seed-sized amount of faith can protect people from it. 

image

There’s a ritual described in Leviticus 16. On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest places all the sins of the Israelites onto a goat (hence our word “scapegoat”), and then sets it loose in the wilderness. The population at the time was a bit over 600,000 (source: the for once incredibly convenient Book of Numbers). So we just have to find that goat (we can use my time machine), make it more intelligent until it’s capable of becoming a Christian, and baptize it. From a safe distance. Because seriously, that much concentrated evil is probably radioactive or something. We’re talking the sins of a nation here; this is a decent fraction of the stuff that motivates prophecies of Armageddon.

image

Sacrifices aren’t really a thing anymore. If I remember right, the branch of Judaism that eventually became the current one hasn’t done animal sacrifices since the destruction of the Temple back in ‘70. (The apostrophe stands for “A.D. ”) I don’t know how many Jews have lived in the last 1945 years, but it’s a lot. That many person-years worth of sin is going to mean one seriously scaped goat.

So that means, you just have to find the Ark of the Covenant, reconstruct the Most Holy Place, and get whoever’s in charge of the tribe of Levi these days to do the ritual. No time machine required. Then kidnap the goat, convert it to Christianity, and do the other ritual. The new convert rises as a new creation free of sin (in the process thoroughly messing up the parable of the sheep and the goats) and you’ve got a bathtub metaphorically full of more evil than has been seen in one place since the Crucifixion. Use it wisely.

And by “wisely” I do not mean point a squirt gun at the Pope.

WHEN LAST WE LEFT we were storing every sin committed since A.D. 70 by any Jew who was not also Christian inside a large bucket. It’s time to try more.

When you have an almost unprecedented amount of a thing, obviously you look for bonuses that stack. Several places in the Bible confirm that it’s possible to multiply sin (e.g., Isaiah here), but infuriatingly there’s no actual procedure stated for this.

The best I can find is a handful of lines from the Apocrypha, which is not canon depending on your denomination but is at least a really cool word. Sirach 3:11 says “they multiply sin who demean their mother,” which is nice and direct, but the person in question didn’t really have a mother. She was a literal goat, and probably not covered by any commands about respect for one’s elders. 23:11 says how to double a particular sin, but it only applies to oaths and doesn’t look very retroactive.

I think our best chance is in 23:16:
“Two sorts of men multiply sin, and the third will bring wrath: a hot mind is as a burning fire, it will never be quenched till it be consumed…” The first one is more interesting than the second, so let’s stop there. I don’t actually know what it means by a “hot mind” but actively trying to increase the amount of extant sin had better qualify.

So after you kidnap/rescue the scapegoat and uplift it to human intelligence, convert them to Discordianism or something first instead of Christianity. Something that’ll want to go along with this. Allow the multiplication to do its thing. (The Book of Ecclesiasticus didn’t say what the sin gets multiplied by, but it’s large enough that it matters when it’s an individual doing the sinning, let alone a civilization.) Then you convert them, get them saved by grace through faith, and steal the water after their baptism. Put it in the chemtrails of jets flying over your least favorite nation or something. Have fun!

If you’re wondering what was that verse’s second sort of man who multiplies sin: “a fornicator in the body of his flesh will never cease till he hath kindled a fire.”

In other words, it is actually an available option to start with an apocalypse-causing amount of violations of the law of God—

—which has to be one of the most horrible, terrifying, EVIL things you could possibly think of—

and MULTIPLY it

by SEX.

Tags:

#puns #overly literal interpretations #I don’t think I reblogged the first part of this #I’m rectifying that now

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Frozen AU Snippets

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

luminousalicorn:

“Our daughter seems to have been born with magical ice powers,” said the King of Arendelle.

“Looks like it,” said the queen. “I don’t know very much about how magical ice powers work, so unless you do, it’s probably time to do some research so we can go into this child-rearing project with a knowledge of what to teach her so she can wield them safely.”

“Good idea,” said the king. “I’ll go visit the trolls and see what they know, back in a few hours.”

~~~

“I recommend,” said the troll, examining the injured child while her sister and parents looked on, “we remove all magic, even memories of magic, to be safe. But don’t worry, I’ll leave the fun.”

“After this – procedure,” said the queen, “will seeing magic or hearing about it cause a relapse?”

“A relapse?” inquired the troll, finishing his work and looking up at the queen.

“For example, if she sees Elsa performing magic again in the future, will she pass out, or -”

“Oh. No, that won’t affect anything,” said the troll.

“Thank you very much,” the king said, and the family went home, where it was summarily explained to Anna exactly what treatment she had just undergone and why.

~~~

“We’ll lock the gates. We’ll reduce the staff. We will limit her contact with people and keep her powers hidden from everyone… including Anna,” said the king.

“What about the staff?” asked the queen. “We weren’t keeping Elsa’s powers a particular secret before today. They probably already know. If we dismiss them, word will certainly get out, even if it hasn’t already. Anyway, we can’t fire everyone. A household this size takes a lot of work unless you want to start washing your own socks.”

“…Good point,” said the king. “We’ll keep the full staff. I suppose having servants around might help keep Anna company when Elsa’s quarantined and we’re both busy with matters of state, anyway.”

“That too. Just imagine how neglectful it would be to shut Anna up in a house with nobody to talk to.”

~~~

“We’ll lock the gates. We’ll reduce the staff. We will limit her contact with people and keep her powers hidden from everyone… including Anna,” said the king.

“Lock the gates?” asked the queen. “You mean, keep Anna inside the palace? Why?”

“To keep the secret.”

“To keep a secret that Anna does not know, we lock her up? Elsa is a safety concern, but she’s obviously willing to stay in her room. Letting Anna go into town regularly endangers nothing.”

“That’s true,” acknowledged the king. “All right, we increase the guard around the corridor for Elsa’s room in case someone wanders by, under the pretense that we’re paranoid about protecting our heir; but there’s no reason to do anything about the actual gates.”

~~~

“Mom,” whined Anna, “why won’t Elsa play with me anymore?”

“It’s hard to say,” the queen hedged. “Why don’t you write her a letter and slip it under her door?”

“Okay,” said Anna, brightening, and thus began the long correspondence between the sisters. Mere paper, however water-damaged, did not pose Anna any threat.

~~~

“I know it’s not fair, Elsa,” said the king to his daughter, “but you have to work on controlling your powers, and sitting in your room all day, every day isn’t helping. Let’s pack you some camping gear and you can go up into Arendelle’s large quantities of easily accessible mountain wilderness to try using your abilities deliberately while there’s no one nearby to be in harm’s way. I’ll show you where the trolls live in case they have any help to offer.”

“Maybe,” said Elsa optimistically, “they’ll have useful things to say about how fear is my enemy or how love is the key!”

~~~

“Do you have to go?” Elsa asked her parents.

“Well, yes. I wonder if you should come,” mused the king. “After all, you’ll be queen, one day, and building relationships with other countries is important. The gloves have been helping, you don’t have to come out of your cabin on the boat, and if you’re not feeling up to it on the day of the wedding we can just say you’re sick.”

Elsa joined her parents on their way to her cousin’s wedding. There was some turbulence on the way home, calmed by Elsa’s ability to freeze and then telekinetically control arbitrary amounts of water, and the ship escaped with only minor cosmetic damage.

~~~

“Excuse me,” said Anna to the guard. “Open the gates for me.”

“But… but Princess,” said the guard. “They are to remain closed at all times.”

“The key word here,” said Anna, “is Princess. Royalty? Heir presumptive? Recently orphaned – did Elsa personally tell you to keep them closed? She’s the only person who outranks me.”

“Er,” stammered the guard, “not personally, as such.”

“Open. The. Gates.”

Out Anna went.

~~~

“Excuse me,” said Anna to the guard. “Open the gates for me.”

“But… but Princess,” said the guard. “They are to remain closed at all times.”

“…Okay,” Anna said, “where does our food and so on come from if they remain closed at all times?”

“Servant’s entrance and delivery gate ‘round back.”

“Okay!” said Anna cheerfully, and ‘round back and out she went.

Tags:

#Frozen #fanfic #yes good

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

michaelblume:

thorodinsonsblog:

I STILL DO NOT HAVE THE HEART TO TELL THE MAN OF IRON THAT WITH ALL HIS MIDGARDIAN RICHES THE CURRENCY EXCHANGE TO ASGARDIAN COIN WOULD NARROWLY AMOUNT TO THE WORTH OF MAYBE TWO SACKS OF POTATOES

…So if Tony starts exporting potatoes to Asgard he’ll be vastly richer than he already is? =)

Tags:

#Avengers #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #got a point there