#Contrarian way of Trading

[lookinghalfacorpse]

dreamzablade where they get caught in an explosion and cTechno only has a moment grab the nearest bf and shield him bc humans are so, so fragile, and cTechno isn’t sure he’s big enough to protect them both :(

/dsmp /rp tw for descriptions of injury, blood, concussions, explosions, tinnitus

“Well, I guess it depends on what you consider ‘safer.’  Is it safer to be out of sight but crammed in a… in a little space like this?” Dream said, being a bit of a contrarian.  He liked to play devil’s advocate.  “Or is it safer to be out in the open, but able to move freely?  It’s a trade-off.”

“Bruh, I dug this tunnel specifically to keep us hidden, and I’d appreciate a bit of gratefulness, alright?”  Techno joked.

Technoblade, Dream, and Philza had been walking through this tunnel for at least twenty minutes.  It was connected to a mine that Phil started many years ago, so it didn’t look too suspicious for all three of them to enter at once, but its long and winding path eventually led to the Syndicate meeting room.  Despite its tactical advantage, it wasn’t the most comfortable travel.  Techno had to duck his head through some sections, and they had to pass single-file through the support beams.  Not to mention that it was cold, damp, and drafty.

“I’m just saying,” came Dream’s reply, his face briefly illuminated as he walked past a torch, only to be cast in shadow again moments later.

Phil chuckled, casting a glance over his shoulder.  He walked in front, his wings scraping against the walls.  Techno, directly behind him, was slightly hunched.  Dream trailed behind, still bearing a slight limp from his time in the Vault.  This would be Dream’s first time at the Syndicate meeting room, and Techno went all-out to ensure he’d be safe for the journey.

“This cold is brutal,” Phil complained.  “It’ll take a while to warm the meeting room up.  Hope you both dressed well.”

“We still have blankets, right?” Techno asked.

“We should.  So long as Niki didn’t steal them all.”

“I will not be sitting on my first Syndicate meeting with a blanket on,” Dream mused from behind them.

“Right, so lesson number one about the Syndicate is that we’re all friends, and we treat each other like friends,” Techno said, “Now, I know this is kind of a foreign concept to you, but friends normally don’t act like business partners.  If you’re cold, you’re wearin’ a blanket, no matter how–”

Upon Philza’s next footstep, Techno heard an observer click.  Faint and muffled– imbedded somewhere in the tunnel wall, perhaps– following by an even quieter but distinct buzz as a TNT fuse was lit.

“Phil, to me!” Techno bellowed, already turning around and taking Dream into his arms.  He lifted the human easily and pressed him into the bulk of his chest.  Dream’s breath left him on the impact, but with his limp, Techno worried about the boy’s ability to get out of harm’s way quickly.  He extended a hand towards Philza– his lifelong partner, his most trusted friend– and snatched his wrist, pulling him quickly into himself.

Techno remembered feeling the rush of adrenaline through his torso, his muscles seizing and stiffening as he turned himself into a shield for his partners.  He saw a flash of fear on Dream’s delicate, sharp features, his eyes lighting with concern.  He saw Phil’s hair flash like a flag as he rushed to them, and Techno put an arm around his wing to prevent him from wrapping it around them.  He worried about hurting them, but he determined it was worth the risk.  They were both too small, too fragile, too painfully shatterable to survive a blast at this range.  He pressed them into his stomach and prayed his size would be enough.

He remembered feeling an intense pressure at his back, a ringing in his ears, and blackness.

—

When Techno was next aware of himself, he was laying facedown on the muddy floor of the tunnel.  The blast had pushed him a notable distance.

The pain only hit when he tried to move.  His back was torn to shreds; he was grateful he wasn’t able to see it, but the hot pain (like the whips and flogs of the arena– how long has it been since he knew this pain?) gathered where his muscles flexed.  The ringing in his ears persisted as he raised himself from the ground.

Dream was pinned beneath him, eyes open but unseeing.  Philza, only half-tucked beneath Techno’s shoulder and arms, began to writhe.

“No, no no,” Techno started, finding his voice quiet compared to the tinnitus, “Hey.”

With a hand under Dream’s jaw, he discovered that the young human must’ve hit his head when they were flung, and his forearms were scorched and bruised.  He might’ve wrapped his arms around Techno at the last second.  Philza’s shoulder and neck were covered in burns, and his neck was bleeding badly.  Despite his initial writhing, his mumbles were unintelligible and his movements slow.  He was pale.

“No, no.” Techno scrambled for the remains of his cape, his hands searching along the ground for anything he could use to stop the bleeding.  It was burned off his back, but a few scraps of it remained a few feet in front of them.  He grabbed it and pressed it, desperately, into Phil’s neck.

Phil almost appeared to make eye contact, but his eyes held little intelligence.

“Don’t die, okay?  Don’t die,” Techno told him.  The tinnitus blocked out the voices of his Chat– a small blessing.  “Tell Kristin that it’s still my turn with you.”

Dream whined– a high-pitched sound from somewhere in his throat– and began to stir.  Techno placed his open hand flat on the boy’s chest.  “Hey, Dream.  Don’t move too much.”

“Wha–” Dream started.  He’d just began to recover from the head trauma Quackity inflicted on him, and Techno feared long-term repercussions.  “Techno.  Techno.  You’re bleeding.”

“We’re all bleedin’, dude.  You gotta take it easy.”

“No, Techno, you’re bleeding.”  

Technoblade was distantly aware that the blood on his back was seeping forward, drenching his white shirt with a maroon shade.  He was distantly aware that the string at his collar was dripping blood onto Dream.  He could think of nothing besides the fact that his two most beloveds were dying in front of him.

“It’s cool, it’s cool.  I’m fine.”  Techno leaned forward until he could press his forehead against Dream’s, just for a second, hoping to comfort him.  “You have anythin’ in your inventory?  Health pots, gapples?”

“Y.. Yeah, I… I do, I–” Dream tried to sit as he moved into action, and Techno gently pushed him back to the ground.

“Don’t move, dude.”

“Techno…” “Health pots, Dream,” The piglin reminded him, noting that the concussed boy seemed to have already forgotten his request.  Dream pulled up his inventory from his position on his back, clumsily sorting through the many items he carried with him.  Techno watched him, guiltily.  Phil’s hands roamed aimlessly around his own upper body, trying to clutch at the places that hurt him.  He found Techno’s fingers and clawed at them with his fingernails.  “Look, I’m so sorry,” Techno said, addressing both of them but knowing his words may not reach them, or may be forgotten, “I tried to protect both of you and I think I did a pretty bad job of it.  You both gotta live, okay?”

Dream’s head momentarily lulled to the side as he lost consciousness again, but he recovered quickly.  His green eyes wandered fearfully over Philza, lying half-dead beside him, before landing again on the spots of Techno's blood that landed on his shirt.

Techno felt his vision fade, and he was gone before he had the chance to warn them.

—

He’d wake on Philza’s living room floor, laying on his stomach.

Someone must’ve transformed the living room into a giant nest.  He was lying on a mattress that was a little bit too small for him– one of the human mattresses, surely– and his limbs hung ungracefully off its edges, but a few layers of blankets separated his fur from the cold wooden floor.  He noticed a tight weight around his whole torso.  He was wrapped in bandages from naval to collar, with some smaller bandages adhered to his long ears and neck, and the scent of burnt fur filled his nostrils.  The small hand of a human rested, comfortable and limp, in the palm of his hand.

Disoriented, he wondered for a moment why they chose to nap in such an odd spot.  Remembering the blast, he nearly leaped from the mattress, but the pain stopped him.

“Whoa, Techno.  Not so fast, alright?” came Philza’s warm voice.  

Techno never felt so relieved to hear him.  He lifted his head until he could face the direction of the fireplace, and there he found the beautiful sight of Philza and Dream cuddling together, Dream fully asleep with his face resting on Phil’s diaphragm.  It was Dream’s hand that was placed neatly in Techno’s, outstretched towards him as he slept.

Both of them were wrapped in bandages, their hair tousled and messy.  But they were alive.

“You saved us, love,” Phil continued, “I just wish you didn’t hurt yourself so badly in the process.”

“Worth it.”  Techno squeezed his hand around Dream’s.  “How’d we get home?”

“Not sure.  I think Dream did a lot of it.  And he hurt himself doing it, too.  He’s all bruised, and I think he pulled something in his shoulder.”  Phil ran a hand through Dream’s long hair.  “You two have that in common.  Self-sacrifice.”

An ironic statement from a man who lost a wing to protect his son.  Techno didn’t argue with it.  “Who would trap the tunnel?”

“Don’t know.  But I’m worried they know about the meeting room.  When we’re healthy, we should go check on it.”

“Or ask Niki to.  I don’t want either of you near it right now.”

“We could ask Connor.”

Techno snorted.  “We could ask Connor.”

In his sleep, Dream nuzzled into Phil and sighed.  Techno got accustomed to Dream sleeping constantly as he recovered from the last concussion, and he supposed he’d have to prepare himself for a similar recovery.  Techno imagined Dream dragging his giant piglin body through that tiny tunnel while his head injury raged, his thin body straining, his shoulder popping out of place.  But at least they were all alive.  So long as they lived, they would be okay.

But Technoblade has destroyed nations over smaller offenses than this. The moment he healed, he would solve this, and he wouldn't use cowardly tactics like traps.

[itsonlypolite]

Hi!!! I have a question :] If you where to give the voices human names, what would you call them? I like to think the voice of the hero would be named Theodore. Along with that, it’d be awesome if you gave the princess and the players names :]

Hello!! Thanks for such a fun question, @just-a-itty-bitty-kitty and I talked it over so first, big thanks to Kitty for all their help!!!! We have explanations for the names we chose not only for all the voices but the vessels too! (I also took the opportunity to touch up my old human voice designs!!)

First batch:

Hero -> Robin : This was one the simplest to come up with but I really like it! I love robin based designs for Heros, and this name invokes Robin Hood and Christopher Robin vibes which I really like! :)

Base Princess -> Sarah : Literally means "Princess", it's perfect.

Broken -> Will : Its a pun/reference to his "broken will". Fitting since his ch 2 is all about agency or lack thereof!

Tower -> Adeline : Tower has SO many good name options!!!! We went with Adeline because it means "noble", but other options we considered were Maria or Hera.

Paranoid -> Harvey : Though the name was initially suggested for vibes, it ended up sticking for the reference to William Harvey, an English physician and the first person to describe in detail the pulmonary and circulatory system!! And Paranoid's the heart liver nerves guy!!! What a perfect match :D

Nightmare -> Annabelle : Famous haunted doll!

Stubborn -> Brutus : The name I think says it all, it sounds like "brute" and means heavy!

Adversary -> Vicky : A shorter, sharper version of the regal sounding Victoria! And "victory" is in the name!

Next round:

Cheated -> Jack : Another easy to decipher choice. Blackjack is a card game, and the way he brings in all the other voices and their various skills for his ch 2 route makes him a "Jack of all trades"!

Razor -> Jill : As the nursery rhyme goes, "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after" Jack (Cheated, as well as the other voices) get silenced first in Razor's ch 4, but Razor isn't far behind from being silenced herself, so the order of events in the rhyme matches. Jill also means "sweetheart" which is fun since it matches how she initially presents herself. It also rhymes with "kill".

Skeptic -> Cliff : Just as a climber always searches for new heights to reach, Skeptic is always on the hunt for answers! Also you fall in the Cage's route, "falling off a cliff", you get it. Full name is Cliff Grey!

Prisoner -> Cordelia : Regal sounding + Cord-elia, she uses her chains as cords in her new chapter 3! Full name is Cordelia Grey!

Opportunist -> Oliver : if you asked Opportunist what his name was, he'd tell you the name of one of his many aliases (Malcom, Jacob, Trey, Sylvester, Nick) but his real name is Oliver! It's a sweeter name than expected, just hidden behind many, many, layers. And it starts with "O"!

Witch -> Hilda : Perfect name for a witch!!

Smitten -> Romeo : I'm almost tempted to say someone calls Smitten this in-game, the connection is so obvious.

Damsel -> Daisy : It's the name of the same flower traditionally used for games of "he loves me, he loves me not", a game all about true love - that leaves a flower petal-less by the end. Her full name is Daisy Grey (sister of Cordelia!)

Final section!

Cold -> Cain : Cain's the first killer in the Bible, fits with Cold's ch 1 lead-in! We also considered Isaac since the vibes fit him so well.

Spectra -> Mary : Mary's a sweet name, but combine it with the idea of ghosts and you end up with "Bloody Mary". Fitting for the two sides she flips back and forth with in her chapter. (runner-up was Carrie)

Contrarian -> Shena : Short for "Shenanigans"!

Stranger -> Catherine : And Kathy, Catie, Kate, and Kitty. Chosen for all the different ways you can spell it and it's many off shoots!

Hunted -> Wren : Wren is a species of prey animal, specifically very small birds.

Beast -> Messalina : means "she who has an insatiable appetite", which is fitting! Also still sounds regal, which I love for Beast.

And Kitty and I agreed not to do ch 3s because that would be way too many but just as a bonus round for the two we accidentally did do:

HEA -> Theodosia : means "god's gift", something about calling her a "gift" slots right into some HEA analysis

Thorn -> Briar : Essentially just means "thorns", perfect

And that's it!! Thank you again to Kitty for all the help!!!

[mimicschest]

Fallout fans are contrarians

One of the things that I have noticed is that the fallout fandom is contrarian. Whatever is the newest release is awful; that the previous release was actually the best. I began noticing this when FalloutNV came out. It immediately became my favorite. But the internet had different ideas at the time. People ragged on it for how few combat encounters there were. They didn't like how there were much less random encounters and locations to explore that you just stumbled on. They thought the narrative was too preachy, and that a lot of the quests involved too much talking.

I looked into it, and the same thing happened when fallout 3 came out. Old players didn't like how it had been converted into a 3d game with fps gameplay. They didn't like the reused enemies and factions. Thing is? Forums prior to the release of fallout 3 were often fantasizing about it becoming a 3d game, with real time combat.

Fast forward to the fallout 4 release, almost everyone is saying that falloutNV is the best game. They hate the new features; the settlement building, the faction building of the minutemen, how the focus was put more on the locations and gunplay. These are fair criticisms. What isn't is claiming that bethesda wasn't listening to the fans.

They brought in the polished companions that were in falloutNV and experimented with in skyrim (Serana). The settlement system? It was based on one of the most popular fallout mods, called Real Time Settler, by Arkoola. They added in the survival mechanics, though they botched it at first, that were popular in both modding and in fallout nv. The Automotron DLC was clearly based on the Robco Certified mod for fallout3. Additionally, one of the most popular mods for fallout 3 was Mothership Zeta Crew. A dlc sized mod based entirely around building a new faction from the ground up. What do you do with the minutemen? Build a faction from the ground up.

I think a lot of the criticism is valid. But a lot also comes from the simple fact that the fanbase is simply contrarian. They ask for features, create mods, and then they are integrated into the next release. Then the fans rebel. What was once hated becomes beloved, and what was once loved is now vilified.

For my part; I do love fallout 4. It is a fun game, and IS a proper rpg. There are a lot of ways to express your character through gameplay. I don't love the voiced protagonist, and I think the simplification of the dialogue structure was a mistake. (I dont have any problem reading dialogue. I love morrowind after all). The survival mode adds a lot of tension and fixes a lot of the narrative pacing issues by introducing a need to take things slower and more carefully. I like how you unlock in-world fast travel options by engaging in the main quest, which actually is useful since you cant do the normal fast-travel during survival mode. I like building and decorating a house. If you build up the settlements, you can take the minutemen from a footnote, to a major faction that you can call on almost anywhere on the map. I like building settlements; It can be a city, a small trading post, an industrial center, a farm, or just a small port-of-call for you to rest and recuperate from your adventures. The perk system allows you to define your character with a lot of unique builds that play extremely differently. The dialogue system supports using perks... Though it is vastly underutilized in the vanilla game.

Do I think it is a perfect game? Of course not. I have plenty of criticism for it. However, it gets shit on a lot, and often in a way that is unfair or is laser focused on a very specific part. This lacks nuance.

Also, I am not a Bethesda Fanboy. This is explicitly not about Bethesda, but on one of their games. Death of the Author and all that.

[morlock-holmes]

I guess I need to read Veblen now, having some disconnected thoughts about conspicuous consumption.

The term, as widely used in pop culture, brings to mind the purchase of expensive things to demonstrate wealth.

And, of course, as advertising became more advanced in the 20th century brands realized that you could signal all kinds of things through consumption, they could associate themselves with a "lifestyle" that is more particularly defined than just "rich", such as "rugged outdoorsman".

Feel like nowadays there is a certain kind of conspicuous consumption that is primarily about expressing grievance, or even more specifically "You can't tell me what to do".

By purchasing a product you can signal that someone else, who you don't like, has been unable to stop you from purchasing it.

Primarily thinking of GameStop stock here, which kind of went from "Rational Contrarian investment gamble" to "Frightening cult" in a way that seems very new for, you know, a publicly traded stock.

[whining-ylthin]

"Thousand Sons are unfortunately written in a very one-note way, they're either Comically Evil Wizards for the brave Imperial boys to beat up and/or something-something Rubric, and half their content is actually Space Wolves novels with varying amount of TSons bits stuck in.

Anyway, I'm off to obsess over my Thousand Sons OC who is comprised of 75% concentrated Rubric angst and 25% contrarian Space Wolf shagging. Moral compass? Traded that shit for a meal and a roof over the head 9,5 thousand years ago. Compassion? Surgically removed. Victory rate? Uh, does 'surviving despite the odds' count as a victory?"

[lemonhemlock]

“Viserys made rhaenyra his heir and his word is law” “the team black kids were accepted by viserys and laenor so their legitimate” “the team black kids are half targaryen so that’s all that matters”

I will throw you off of a damn roof

None these people understand that we’re watching a show set in the medieval era where the laws and rules were different compared to now but they still try to use modern logic to explain it. We learned this in history goddamn it

Not only are the laws, rules, customs and beliefs different, but the entire political structure is fashioned so as to uphold them! Going against them or trying to change them is notoriously difficult!

Kings only started to consolidate more power slowly as feudalism gave way to centralized bureaucracies due to a variety of socio-economical factors that are very obviously lacking in the world of ASOIAF: the development of urban centres, of the merchant class / townspeople capitalists, expansion of trade, momentous events that lead to a decline in population (like plagues or disastrous wars) -> causing a reduction in the number of peasants, meaning that the peasants who did survive were precious human resources that were not so easily replaceable and demanded more rights for themselves, crusades that impoverished a lot of nobles etc etc - all of these which eroded the power of the feudal lord and allowed kings to absorb that power for themselves.

What these people don't understand is that noble lords held a tremendous amount of power over their own lands and, in an era where travel was difficult, the "king's will" was what they made of it. Sure, the king could THEORETICALLY go to war if a vassal was being too contrarian, but he'd have to convince his other vassals to join him and provide him with an army and wars were expensive. So it was much more advantageous to negotiate with these people and compromise rather than impose oneself via violence, although that did also happen, of course.

Another important catalyst for monarchs gaining more power at the expense of nobles is the introduction of gunpowder and CANONS. Previously, castles were incredibly effective at keeping the enemy out since they were nigh impenetrable. You could only take a castle either by sacrificing a ridiculous amount of fighters, rendering it not worth it, OR by starving it out, which could take MONTHS, was expensive AF and was also not worth it. Now, with canons, if you disobeyed the king, it became a lot easier to get fucked.

Aegon V has this very problem when the nobles opposed his smallfolk policies. So what does he decide to do?? He tries to come up with his own canons, which in-universe, means bringing dragons back. And we all know how that ended.

The difference, of course, is canons are not weapons of mass destruction, whereas dragons most definitely are. So the nobles are kind of in the right here to oppose a monarch that can unleash such a devastating level of death and destruction with no checks and balances imposed on their power.

Viserys can yap all he likes how Rhaenyra is his "rightful" heir, the nobles will only say yeah right and crown Aegon after he dies. "The King's word is law" - how is it law if you do not exercise the monopoly on violence? How is it law if you cannot enforce it? The only way you could make it law in these circumstances is if you convince enough people to abide by it somehow via negotiation and debate. The "law" you're talking about remains a laughable suggestion otherwise.

[mommyashtoreth]

not aboit cro&azi but: opinion on the shallowness and frankly odd pacing of nina and maggies relationship? like one day theyre having stilted conversation, the next maggie is crying over how in love she is.

Hmm. Strokes my wizard's beard. Good question. Good Omens fans have caught on to how much I love the sound of my own voice but not on to the other facet of my deeply annoying yet hilarious and charming personality, which is that I love being contrarian. So, in that fashion, I must disagree with this assessment. As we discovered last night it's been a while since I've watched goomer (I may rewatch it soon, I may not, who knows) but I still think it's abundantly clear that Maggie has a huge crush on Nina from afar, and uh. this is gonna sound crazy but when you have huge unrequited crushes on people it can make you nervous and awkward when you talk to them. Idk I come from an Az-and-Crowley school of relationships myself, where you hang out with someone for eight kajillion years as Totally Platonic Girl Best Friends until one day you just fucking snap you NEED to fuck them so badly, but lots of people experience relationships the way Maggie does, it's a suuuuper common romance trope, and that doesn't make it bad writing! I think we're just so used to seeing this kind of trope be applied to straight relationships and the "platonic gal pals for eight kajillion years until one day you just fucking snap" thing be applied to gay relationships that people aren't ready for this "awkward stuttering and blushing because he looked at me! He let me borrow his pencil!" sort of trope being applied to a wlw relationship. I don't really think their relationship is oddly paced at all, it feels "awkward" because it IS awkward. Nina is someone who, like, barely knows Maggie exists, was in a presumably-monogamous relationship up until very recently, and got a bunch of water dumped on her and then had a trade meeting turned into a Regency ball because these two freaks who are her and Maggie's narrative foils can't just talk to each other normal. And she reacts normally to that I think! I don't think their relationship is badly written (it's probably paced better than, like, Newt and Anathema's, for instance, but I understand the difference in tone between s1 and s2 making those feel like two different cases), it's just yknow, under weird circumstances. Idk I just think it's funny how many goomenheads are completely convinced that Crowley is somehow in total unrequited gay love with Aziraphale (who literally wants him back so badly it makes me sick), and yet I'm here talking about how Maggie is kind of in semi-unrequited gay love with Nina and that's Fine. It's a good character thing. They parallel Az and Crowley in a lot of ways (a romantic obsessed with something near-obsolete who Doesn't Drink and a fast-living cynic who deals with bad shit by instantly initiating Wine Drunk With No Man To Feel Up Wednesday; they're even cast to kind of Look similar which I think is funny), but the structure and context of their relationship is not the same and thus cannot be compared. It's not a Writing Flaw or a Plot Hole or anything to me, it's just the simple difference between "crush before friends" and "friends before crush"

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Rowe

* * * *

Trump's Project 2025 Nominees

November 23, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Nov 23, 2024

Trump released a flurry of nominations on Friday evening—apparently hoping that Americans would not notice that several of the nominees share a connection to Project 2025 and Fox “news” programs.

The most significant nomination is Russell T. Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB is part of the Executive Office of the President and is charged with (a) creating the budget and (b) oversight of federal agencies to ensure compliance with the president’s policies and spending authority. Although the job sounds like it is “in the weeds,” OMB is where the hard work of implementing the president’s policies takes place.

Russel T. Vought served as acting director of OMB for two years during the first Trump administration. That’s good and reassuring in the sense that one of the most important jobs in Washington will be filled with someone actually qualified to perform the job.

But Vought is also an ��architect” of Project 2025. Per the NYTimes,

Mr. Vought was a leading figure in Project 2025, the effort by conservative organizations to build a governing blueprint for Mr. Trump should he take office once again. Mr. Trump tried to distance himself from the effort during his campaign, but he has put forward people with ties to the project for his administration since the election.

Mr. Vought’s role in Project 2025 was to oversee executive orders and other unilateral actions that Mr. Trump could take during his first six months in office, with the goal of tearing down and rebuilding executive branch institutions in a way that would enhance presidential power.

To the surprise of no one, Trump's claim during the election that he knew nothing about Project 2025 was a lie. There is almost no one better positioned to advocate for the goals of Project 2025 than Vought—both because of his key role in drafting the agenda and because of the powerful position he will assume at OMB.

Vought has been a vocal advocate for eliminating the “independence” of certain federal agencies—such as the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve.

Removing the independence of those regulatory agencies would put the president in the position to reward friends and punish enemies through the power of federal agencies.

For example, the SEC has charged Elon Musk with violating securities laws in his takeover of Twitter. Under the current operating protocols for the SEC, the president would not interfere in decisions by the SEC to initiate prosecutions or enforcement actions. But if Trump is successful in eliminating the independence of the SEC, Trump could order the SEC commissioners to drop the case against Musk.

Other nominations that deserve scrutiny include:

Sebastian Gorka as the senior director for counterterrorism. Gorka was forced out of the White House during Trump's first administration because he frequently clashed with senior intelligence leaders who saw Gorka as an ideologue with little real-world experience.

Marty Makary, has been nominated to lead the FDA. Per The Hill, Makary is a Johns Hopkins’s oncology surgeon who espoused contrarian views about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In early 2021, Makary published an op-ed in the WSJ asserting that “herd immunity” would end the pandemic by April 2021. In fact, cases of Covid in the US increased substantially after Makary’s op-ed, with nearly half of the total deaths occurring after his claim that “herd immunity” would end the pandemic.

Scott Bessent has been nominated as Secretary of Treasury. Bessent is a hedge fund manager and may have the experience to serve in the position. However, he is a deficit hawk who also wants to extend the costly Trump tax cuts from 2017. Per HuffPo,

Even as he pushes to lower the national debt by stopping spending, Bessent has backed extending provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which Trump signed into law in his first year in office. Estimates from different economic analyses of the costs of the various tax cuts range between nearly $6 trillion and $10 trillion over 10 years. Nearly all of the law’s provisions are set to expire at the end of 2025.

To put a finer point on Bessent’s nomination, extending tax cuts for the wealthy while reducing deficits likely means that deficit reduction will be borne by the middle class and working poor.

And to put an even finer point on the nominations—and to paraphrase Bill Clinton’s campaign motto— “It’s Project 2025, stupid!” We were right all along—and Trump was lying all along. Somehow that storyline is missing from the media on Friday . . . .

Trump voters suddenly feel better about the economy

Readers send me dozens of copies of articles each day that explain “why Democrats lost the 2024 election.” Most of the analyses are subterfuges for attacking either (a) the progressive wing of the party for being too liberal or (b) the centrist wing of the party for not being liberal enough.

I will say again that the last thing Democrats should be doing at this moment is assigning blame for the loss. One op-ed published in legacy media today effectively advocated abandoning support for unions and LGBTQ people. That is both wrong and a horrible idea. We can’t change who we are as a party to chase elusive Trump voters who are likely not being honest about their reasons for supporting Trump.

Most of the analysts who are scolding Democrats start with the patently false notion that Democrats have “abandoned the working class.” They then pile on with the corollary that Democrats lost because they failed to address concerns about the economy and inflation.

The commentators assume that exit polling accurately reflects why voters supported Trump. There is good reason to believe that Trump supporters are offering post-facto rationalizations to justify their support for Trump's divisive and hateful platform.

A new survey suggests that Trump supporters weren’t being honest about their reasons for supporting Trump. See MSN, Poll: Republicans reverse views on economy and election fraud after Trump’s win; much smaller shifts among Democrats

Per the article, a significant portion of Republicans suddenly changed their mind about how good they felt about the economy after Trump won. Per MSN,

The survey of 1,612 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Nov. 14 to Nov. 18, found that fewer than half of Republicans (48%) now say the economy is getting worse. But immediately before the Nov. 5 election, nearly three-quarters of Republicans (74%) said the economy was going downhill.

That’s a sudden 26-point shift.

A 26-point shift is significant. To state the obvious, the economy did not make sudden improvements in the ten days after the election. Rather, when complaining about the economy no longer justifies voting for Trump, more Republicans acknowledge that the economy is doing well.

So, it is a mistake to base “What went wrong?” analyses on the unquestioning acceptance of what voters are saying in exit polls. It is also a mistake to talk about “what went wrong” by ignoring the fact that Trump's campaign platform had three culture-war pillars: racism, sexism, and white supremacy.

Those policy pillars are manifesting themselves in Trump's nominees for senior positions in his administration. To publish an analysis of “why Democrats lost” while ignoring Trump's campaign themes is a recipe for delusion.

But I digress. We must use caution when publishing, reading, or sharing analyses about why Democrats lost. And no part of that analysis should be used to blame or banish any part of the Democratic coalition. We must stick together to increase our chances of victory in the short term.

Concluding Thoughts

I will hold a Substack Livestream on Saturday morning, November 23 at 8:00 a.m. Pacific / 11:00 a.m. Eastern. If you have the Substack app on your phone, you will receive a notice when I go live. You will not receive a link in advance. To download the Substack app, go to these links: Substack on the App Store and Substack - Apps on Google Play.

I was chatting with a reader about their feelings of exhaustion “in the face of four more years of Trump.” I understand those feelings but believe we should be thinking about resisting Trump in a series of discrete, shorter time periods. Thinking about our resistance in “phases” can help us be more strategic and relieve artificial pressure from our shoulders.

Between today and the Inauguration (January 20, 2025), Joe Biden is still president and can take steps to appoint judges and implement policies in a way that will delay or defeat efforts to undo Biden’s accomplishments.

After the Inauguration, Trump and his enablers will face the daunting task of embedding themselves in a massive federal government while they undertake their promised deportation of 10 million immigrants. That period will last eighteen months and will be a daily challenge. But then, the 2026 midterms will get underway. Trump's congressional supporters will be concerned about re-election—a concern that may cause them to re-think their loyalty to Trump. Our leverage and messaging opportunities will increase.

In the last two years of his presidency, Trump will be a lame duck.  The internal GOP struggle to replace Trump will be in full swing and Trump will be fighting with his party as much as he will be fighting with Democrats.

Here’s my point: While we cannot relent, the period of maximal effort will be the next twenty months (Dec and January, plus eighteen months before the 2026 midterms). What happens after that depends on whether Democrats retake the House in 2026.

So, rather than thinking about Trump's tenure as a four-year unbroken battle, break up the periods of resistance into smaller periods. Doing so is realistic, smart, and healthy. We are in this battle for the long term. We can’t burn ourselves out with outrage and freneticism. We have a job to do. Let’s do it in a measured but passionate way. That will increase our chances for success.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[visxionaries]

who: @gael-hightower where: the bustling great hall of the red keep, in which the court of thorns and roses is in attendance of one of the later wedding festivities of king jaehaerys targaryen; in which a hightower page arrives, taking the lord gael hightower from the room. another enters, offering cedric a letter - the news from oldtown.

the words etched upon the parchment were immediately in a hand he recognised was not the hand of his master of coin; a cerulean gaze sweeping briefly over the parchment before noting the correspondence from the hightower was from another, another that was not the ruling lord. the sounds of the celebrations continued, a celebratory flute that seemed to fill the room with a sense of mirth, a flurry of colours upon the dance floor with each spin that was taken.

and if one looked closely within the coloured spins, they would have seen the hightower page speaking with the thirdborn son of the hightower, before both ventured towards one of the quieter exits of the hall.

on the other end, one would have saw the way in which cedric tyrell remained comfortably within his chair, a hand resting upon his jaw as it always done when he was deep in thought: and he read. and he continued to read. cedric tyrell felt no sense of loss to hear the ruling lord of oldtown had been murdered within his own tower; there was no sense of harrowing numbness that seemed to creep from the depths of his gut and engulf each vein in his body, until the blood itself ran deathly cold.

where else would garland hightower have died, if not in the tower that burned green; in the tower the man chose to make his prison, rather than his seat of power. a cunt, whose core memory to cedric tyrell would be dying the edgy contrarian. screaming about chamberpots.

and yet, despite literally being so high above the entirety of the realm, garland hightower had ended on his knees: as bad as the one was. a failure, in more ways than one: and he thought not of the morality of the man in question, but in regards to his essence of duty. his practicality. what it meant to have such immense influence over not just the rolling fields of the reach, but each corner of the realm if the cards were dealt with well. garland hightower did not know how to truly play cards.

keeping alicent hightower alive, in his attic of all places: as though he had made it his life's mission to continue the shame she had brought upon her own house. if he were alone, he would have found his expression changing to one of disbelief: and yet, the strings remained loose. he read the words. he read them again. the lady herself was being held by the guards of the hightower, who now needed an heir. omer florent and lucrezia redwyne had the heir. the heir's braavosi mother was no longer a subject in his realm.

cedric had never needed braavos. he had never need the trade of the braavosi. and as he moved to rip the paper over the sound of laughter and singing casually, he turned towards the queen, muttering something about them needing to return home soon. before their could be any further questions asked, the king had taken to his feet, climbing down from the steps to make his way through the marble floor towards the master of arts. house hightower had definitely mastered the art of pointless cunning. of dealing the wrong hand. of not knowing how to play cards. the doors opened, and lord gael hightower found himself approached by the king.

"with me." cedric spoke, his tone detached; it was clear to see gael had just received the news of the death of his brother. his mother too. cedric tyrell found his patience had run out with the hightowers some weeks prior, when three brothers seemed unable to do the task allocated to them. now, he found himself distrusting them. what position was more dangerous? the beacon had burned green too long, and if he needed to snuff it out and scald himself in the process, let it be done.

the men left the hall entirely, and he knew not to try to talk within the halls of the keep. they walked in deathly silence back towards the private audience quarters of the king of thorns and roses, and by the time the door closed behind them, cedric found himself looking upon the hightower with a pair of deadset orbs. "it would be in your benefit, lord hightower, to persuade me you did not know."

[lobstermatriarch]

Writer interview game!

Tagged by @eraserspiral, thank you for thinking of me!!

When did you start writing? oh it was young. i remember trading some truly godawful poetry with my friends at recess. buuuut i have never been particularly consistent in keeping up with it.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write? Plenty of them! Mystery and satire are two standouts that i adore but don’t really write well.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often? In terms of pulling inspiration, Tamsyn Muir takes up too much space in my brain (I made Gale read a heavily altered version of Harrow the Ninth out loud in a semi-recent chapter of Come Down whoops :/). outside of her I've probably intentionally taken the most influence from David Mitchell and Nnedi Okorafor

(definitely not been compared to any of them though. )

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space? ohohohoh this implies that i have a dedicated writing space and don’t just bust out my laptop when the mood strikes

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse? if i'm working on a long project i force it sometimes, sit there and write nonsense until something seems usable and then build off that. if i was rich i’d travel more since i always seem to get the best inspiration on trains or at airports

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you? Survival and loneliness vs connection tend to pop up pretty often. Definitely not surprising, but a little frustrating. anytime i finally think i've written something new, i'll go back, read it again, and say "shit this is about That again isn't it."

What is your reason for writing? I am plagued by demons that haunt me until i exorcise them via word vomit

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating? honestly any feedback is motivating, but i do love hearing that someone’s had a strong emotional response to what i’ve written.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers? Hopefully as an enjoyable little freak writing enjoyable little freak things (enjoyable is a relative word here i know)

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer? in general, i want to believe i’m decent at keeping a consistent perspective/point of view. specific to fanfic i like to believe that i’m pretty good at staying within the “he would, in fact, fucking say that” boundary.

How do you feel about your own writing? i am trying to hate it less

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both? it's a mix. i can be a little contrarian so sometimes i'm more influenced by what's popular via trying to avoid it. that said i'm not out to torture anyone reading either so i do try to consider certain writing choices carefully

some very very optional tags: @antimonyantigone @anosrepasi @sweetmalice26 and any other writing followers who would like to try, please do and tag me so I can seeeee

[another-corpo-rat]

and the wheel keeps turning

told myself i was gonna sit and get at least the beats for Victoria's storyline in place. instead i wrote what could ultimately be its epilogue \o/

Adam Smasher/OC Summary: With Yorinobu’s blood on her hands, there’s a significant target on Victoria’s back. Michiko has a solution.

.

“Power suits you,” Victoria offers in greeting. It’s not a lie this time – there’s something to the set of Michiko’s shoulders, a tightness in her core that straightens her spine and pulls her chin up into the slightest tilt. The image is no doubt helped by Smasher’s lingering just by the doorway, an obsidian sentinel against the brighter golds and blues of their new CEO.

But it’s ruined, partially, by that serene and genuine smile that softens the woman’s features; warming her into a real person and not an untouchable empress.

“I find it quite ill fitting. It’s been tailored to my grandfather and uncle.” And then ruined entirely as she fidgets, picking at where chrome gives way to flesh on one of her hands. Victoria has to give her some credit; even that is a gracefully subtle motion. “I’m almost drowning in it.”

There’s an opportunity here to be sharp again. To drive a knife, metaphorically this time, into her confidence, or to gently pry and twist, coaxing her focus from the throne Victoria had a hand in setting her on.

The netrunner considers it while looking over the woman in front of her, pointedly ignoring the cyborg’s presence and how his attention hasn’t slipped from her since the moment he entered.

“Then cut off what you don’t need. Or, restyle it – you have the means to do whatever you chose now.”

“I do.” The fidgeting stops with a practiced intake. One that strikes her as too purposeful and has a tension roll down her own spine. “But…”

Victoria’s own calming breath is much subtler as white eyes focus on her. Searching for…something. “That’s talk for another time.”

“And perhaps with a better choice of conversational partner.”

“I’m certain Hanako would agree with you there.”

“Mhm, I’ll have to retract that statement then,” she says, baring her teeth in a smile, “simply to be contrarian.” Michiko’s lips twitch but she foregoes smiling to instead glance about the apartment.

There’s an odd pressure that rises with that, an active fight not to look around her own space with new eyes, noting oddities and imperfections that denote it as lived in. A fight she’s sure she’d lose if she didn’t distract herself with a sip of too-sweet wine.

She knows well what will be seen; the small shelf of physical books – all nonfiction aside from the thinnest, tucked away out of sight, a still smoking cigarette propped against an ashtray on the kitchen counter, the sheer dressing gown she had traded for one that wasn’t see-through the moment her sensors alerted her to a visitor tossed over the back of a chair.

 “How have you been?”

“Fine.” An honest answer, with its wide variety of meanings.

She’s fine, but she’s clawing at the walls. She’s fine, but she hasn’t slept properly since well before the coup. She’s fine, but she’s wary of everyone who steps through her door.

She’s just fine.

And Michiko has been at this for longer than she’s been alive, giving her a scolding look that’s all the worse for how gentle it is. Piercing enough to have her shift in her chair and look away, sorely regretting that she left the cigarette across the room. “All things considered. This…punishment has been rather cosy.”

“It’s not a punishment, Victoria. This is—”

“‘For my safety,’ I’m well aware.” She bares her teeth in tone, the venom spitting before she has a chance to swallow it down. Behind Michiko, Adam shifts ever so slightly and she bites to squeeze the poison from her tongue. Without it she sounds more defeated than intended, tired. Honest. “But it feels like one.”

Her fingers twitch again, but unlike so many times before Michiko doesn’t keep herself from reaching across. Her hand is warm as it takes Victoria’s, firm in its grounding squeeze and fond in how her thumb rubs a comforting circle.

“Then you’ll be happy on several accounts.” She says, soft and warm like honey in its sweet appeal. The sort she wouldn’t mind getting trapped by if she wasn’t caught in it already, reliant in a way she doesn’t have the energy to mind.

When she opens her eyes again, Michiko’s smile meets her, less wolfish than her usual company, crinkling the crow’s feet at the corner of her eyes. “Zaburo has finalized your security, and I’ve taken efforts to ensure they will not be disruptive to your routines.”

“An unnecessary effort. You have enough on your shoulders.”

“I do, and the sooner I have you working the less I’ll have to carry.” Ah. She can’t help but smile at that, and Michiko’s own grin takes on something conspiratorial.  

“Oh, am I getting your cut-offs?”

“I’m sure you’d fashion something suitable with them.” The CEO sits back, her hand slowly trailing away as she does. That searching to her eyes comes back again, the plotting smile still there. “There’s a party in a week’s time and your attendance is mandatory. I expect you to look your best.” Spoken like an order, with no room for argument. A reminder of the cloth this woman was cut from.

“In the meantime,” Michiko glances over her shoulder, smile slipping into a downright devious thing as she motions with two fingers, “I’ll leave you and your new bodyguard to get acquainted.”

She narrows her gaze as Adam steps forward, pressing down on the urge to crane her neck and see if there’s someone standing behind him, if this was all an elaborate joke. A quick jump to a camera with an angle assures her that no, there wasn’t.  Her vision settles back through her eyes, fixed squarely on him until Michiko stands, still smiling as she asks: “I trust you have no objections?”

No, she wants to admit. None. But heaven forbid she makes it easy for anyone, including herself.

“Isn’t he better suited to guarding you? It seems a waste—”

“No.” Spoken sharply to cut through her sentence, not in Michiko’s warm cadence but Adam’s mechanised bass. He’s staring down at her, the weight of his gaze near unbearable. The dressing gown feels too heavy, bare as she is beneath it. “She has Kenny.”

“Kenichi.” Michiko presses, too amused for it the correction to hold any weight.

“Kenny.” He repeats after a brief pause and passing glance at his ex. “And she’s not the one loyalists are gunning for.”

Simplest explanation, but not the right one.

The right one is a messy thing, a labyrinth. As ensnared as she is, longing for his attention and affection no matter how sparsely they’re given, he’s likewise caught in one of her own design.

And neither of them have made any true effort to tear free, instead settling in and becoming familiar with the surrounding walls; knowing it was built for them and finding traces of the other in decorative murals and toothed traps. A terrifying thought, but of everyone that could know her so well she’s glad it’s him.

That in itself is a problem.

“Then I have no other objections. He’s—” a pause as she catches the words between her teeth, dangerous things in their blatancy and apparent expectation as Michiko raises an eyebrow with a too-knowing look. “Suitable. Despite the mar on his record.”

“Excellent.” There’s a soft, pleasant clink as Michiko gently claps her hands together. “Then as I said, I’ll leave you to it.” And she does, with nary a look back and a haste to her step that doesn’t quite hide the self-content bounce.

Girlish, she would’ve called her once, naïve even. She’s since decided that was an unfair assessment; someone naïve and girlish could not have managed a nearly bloodless coup as Michiko did. Whatever joys the woman had she was more than entitled to; and Victoria would protect them, tooth and nail.

“What fucking mar on my record, Blondie?”

Even if she’d rather curse her timing and approach to certain matters at the moment.

“The one left by Yorinobu.” It’s easier to look into the red of the wine than his optics, softer on the eyes. “Or his death, to be more accurate.”

A stain by her own hand, splattered onto his reputation.

A beat of silence answers her. Then another.

And another.

She looks over the wineglass to meet his stare, her lips pulling with a smug smile. Adjusting herself, she lounges into the chair and curls her finger in a ‘come here’ motion. The thrill of his obedience mixes nicely with the familiarity of his looming, with the cool of metal hands against warming skin. “I trust you’ll be more…attentive with me, Smasher.”

“I’ll consider it,” a pause, and she can see the wheels in his head turning just as easily as she sees the pull on his maw, that mockery of a smile he can manage, “cunt.”

“Prick.”

[warsofasoiaf]

When it comes to Joe Rogan, I’m of two minds. On the one hand, he doesn’t really take responsibility for having a large platform that clearly reaches and influences a lot of people.

On the other, if you’re primarily getting your medical and political information from Joe Rogan podcasts, isn’t there a bit of personal responsibility that needs to be taken from the individual?

I would love for people to take personal responsibility to vet the information that they consume and are exposed to. Not only would that weed out the cranks, but it would improve the quality of genuine sources and prevent filter bubbles. Contrarians and freedom to question are an essential part of the information ecosystem and avoiding groupthink, which creates a much healthier population overall. That's not going to happen though.

One problem is quantity, there is simply too much information for the average Joe or Jane to fact-check. If you've ever heard the term "big data" and know what that industry is all about, you'll know that there's simply an enormous amount of data out there that needs to be made sense of that simply can't be done by the normal human brain. We've not only been making algorithms to filter out the noise and get only the parts of data that are useful, but we've been designing machine learning to be able to automate that, to train computers by programming to recognize these things simply so we can produce useful knowledge out of massive data sets. We only have so much attention span and so much time to spend researching to find out what is true and what isn't.

The other problem is qualitative, you need expertise to be able to determine what's real and what's pseudo-realistic bunk. Charlatans from throughout history have used the seeming appearance of knowledge to grift people that don't have the specialized knowledge to know better, and I know this from personal experience. These days, disinformation is carefully curated for maximum psychological validation that causes the listener to self-curate and automatically tune out any evidence to the contrary. Just look at any of Putin's or Medvedev's speeches at how they are carefully tailored for everyone from tankies to alt-right tradcons to pick and choose a line to run with to further their grandiose delusion of reality. Rogan might just be engaging any sort of contrarian on his podcast to appeal to his target audience, but if you don't know anything about the subject, you might believe whatever bogus study was commissioned because it sounds authoritative and you don't have the knowledge to correct it. This comes from a guy who is highly critical of some of what academia does - particularly history departments - you do need experts and they do need credibility.

In an ideal world, we'd have trusted sources of information, institutions with the weight of validity behind them, but unfortunately we simply don't have that these days. Part of it is the institutions' fault, they are reluctant to admit when they're wrong and the idea of promoting healthy debate has long gone out of style in favor of a quick serotonin high castigating any dissent as immoral. Technology these days has only contributed to the information overload which curates filter bubbles and groupthink for maximum engagement. But a lot of it isn't, there's plenty of malicious actors who use every trick of the trade to prey on people because they don't know and are too busy to be able to figure it out. Click-based algorithms, short attention spans cultivated by TikTok and Twitter, and highly sophisticated disinformation programs have done a lot of harm to the information space.

What I'm at a loss to do, however, is find a way to fix it in a practical sense. A truth and information board would simply become co-opted and corrupted and anyone who doesn't believe that is either a damn fool or hoping for the power to be the arbiter of truth. Letting the information space lie has not produced a sort of self-correction. Sorry to end it on a downer, but that's just how it is.

Thanks for the contribution, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 819: Nomeansno Live + Cuddly

I liked Nomeansno as a teenager. They checked off enough of the punk boxes: they were loud, they were angry, they could play fast, and there was a contrarian angle to what they were doing. But I didn't LOVE Nomeansno until a college friend came by my house with a stack of LPs he'd swiped from our college radio station.

I should maybe back up a bit. Sometime around 1999, I started making music with my friend Andrew down in Olympia. I played bass. Andrew played keyboards and programmed the drum machine. We were called The Sexual. I wanted it to sound like a more pop-oriented, up-tempo version of Thrones, but I wasn't used to taking a strong songwriting role in a band capacity. Andrew was more musically adventurous than I was back then and he was much better at bringing all kinds of sounds and styles into the fold. But it was still a bit of a struggle to find a middle ground between our interests. We had both been excited by the more chaotic and flamboyant brand of DIY hardcore that had proliferated in Olympia back in the '90s, but it felt like that scene had run its course and now we were branching off from that world in different directions.

At some point Andrew mentioned he had just bought the latest Nomeansno album, Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie. This struck me as a little strange as Andrew didn't seem like the kind of person who'd be a Nomeansno fan. And I hadn't even revisited their records in several years. Maybe it was Andrew's way of nudging me as a songwriter... like, "hey, here's a band where the bassist leads the charge... take some notes." I remember digging up my Small Parts cassette and playing it in the Botch van on our way up to play a show in Bellingham (where most of the live footage from the "St Matthew" video was shot). By the end of the '90s, my interest in hardcore had eclipsed my interest in the weird skronky brand of punk that I loved in the earlier part of the decade (see also: My Name, Victim's Family, etc), so Nomeansno had fallen out of my personal rotation, but now that Botch was veering into math-rock territories, I was hearing some of the parallels between this band I'd loved as a young teenager and the music I was currently making with my friends.

The Sexual dissolved sometime around 2001 and Botch would be done a year later. But my interest in Nomeansno was rekindled. I had already graduated from college so I no longer had my radio show and the accompanying access to their neglected storage room full of vinyl. But I mentioned to a younger friend who still had a show that I would trade him some hardcore records for any Nomeansno LPs he could liberate from that sad, dusty, basement closet. A few weeks later he showed up with six Nomeansno records.

That was a lot of Nomeansno to absorb all at once. I gave 'em all a cursory listen, but it was the double live album Live + Cuddly that immediately grabbed my interest. The performances were locked in, but it still felt frenzied. The air-tight production of their studio albums was replaced by the room sound and scuzzy audio bleed of the show environment. And this was essentially a greatest hits collection of their '80s output, which meant we were hearing Nomeansno at their peak.

Here was a band that could balance hardcore aggression with prog-rock musicianship while retaining a post-punk sense of austerity. They captured the angst and power that drew me to punk as a teenager while displaying a level of nuance and sophistication that could keep me interested as an adult.

This was the point where I started to LOVE Nomeansno.

[grandhotelabyss]

Thoughts on the Lynch Dune adaption? Maybe I will be called contrarian or some crypto fascist, but I kinda vibed with the whole thing of actually subverting the subversion and making Dale Cooper be some ubermensch power fantasy that brings back the wrath of God, like some space King David - maybe because I'm tired of the now prelevant pop nihilism, especially the historic one as the chinese comunist party calls it "wow actually even in the future all religion will be used is for self destructive aims" - then its funnier to see nah it actually does pay off by them accidentally creating something sincere and not plagued by self-terminating doubt

I haven't seen it in years. I watched it before I read the book and remember being pretty lost because of how much plot and concept they were trying to compress into such a short span of screen time. The novel trades in the "pop nihilism" you mention: the libertarian author intended the saga as a warning against the centralization of temporal and spiritual power into one paradoxically anti-imperial empire, as has been, I assume he would further argue, the shared fate of Christianity, Islam, and perhaps also America. On the other hand, our whole cultural attraction to Dune depends on the glamor of what it depicts—the warring feudal houses, the immemorial order of witches, the desert psychedelia, the dream of collective emancipatory violence in a primal horde—which no merely rational critique can dispel. Therefore, Lynch, whatever his own politics[*], understood this impotence of critique well enough to create a phantasmagoric spectacle of Dune superior on its surface to Villeneuve's later version, despite the narrative's not making much sense. I respect Villeneuve's ambition, and I respect Blade Runner 2049 in particular, but he is undoubtedly a symptom of "stuck culture," since all his works subsist on what little can still be scavenged from those ruins of Jodorowsky's abortive Dune that gave us Alien and Blade Runner in the first place. (And Villeneuve's Dune fantasizes, by cannily or cynically manipulating American racial signifiers, of fusing anti-imperialism with empire into a single regime that will boast such monumental artworks as his cinema as its ornament. This kind of thing, not libertarian populism, is probably the real fascist ideology of our age.) Which is all a long way of saying that I agree with the common consensus on Lynch's Dune: perhaps the worst movie to have the best mise-en-scène ever.

__________________________________

[*] Lynch makes face-saving left-friendly remarks from time to time, but I suspect his politics are closer to Herbert's than not. He gingerly dared to say something nice about Trump back in 2018, got pilloried, and had to walk it back. Anyway, I'm a bad Lynchian. When he's good, he's good, but I never got all the way into Twin Peaks (probably my fault), and I turned off Inland Empire after an hour (definitely his fault).

[greysfic]

Random Darkening Skies Setting Drabbles

The most commonly used counting of days in the current era is the Throne Calendar. As implied by the name, it originates with the city of Throne and Dragon-Emperor Imperus. As with most of Imperus' influence over the Known World, it's not enforced; Throne was simply the most stable political centre after the Bellum Draconum and so other polities adopted their calendar for ease of trade and diplomacy. It is divided into the Antebellum years, counting down to the war where Imperus was forced to slay Their eldest daughters, and Postbellum years, counting up following the conclusion of the war.

Trollhaven still keeps their own calendar based on the tides and ice sheets, flexible in a way which serves their way of life.

The City-Engine internally uses an atomic clock to define their calendar, rigid and not quite so precise as they insist.

Kroms uses a lunar calendar. Kaer, ever contrarian, uses a solar calendar derived in part from the Throne Calendar but with absolute refusal to fully adopt.

The Crantiré calendar is based around the lifecycles of the heart trees and the Worldcap.

[starseedfxofficial]

Fed Talk, EUR Drama, and JPY’s Rebound: Forex Insights The Fed’s Curtain Call, EUR’s Comeback, and JPY’s Resilience: The Forex Chronicles When it comes to Forex trading, timing is everything—like snagging concert tickets before they sell out. The same precision applies to navigating the news and trends in the Forex market. Today’s stage? A blend of hawkish Fed talk, volatile currency moves, and some good old geopolitical drama. Let’s break it down with insights you won’t find elsewhere. USD’s Sky-High Moment: Has the Greenback Peaked? Last night, the US Dollar Index (DXY) topped 108.48, barely surpassing its November 2022 peak. But is the USD’s rally starting to fizzle out? With a string of Fed speakers set to take the mic—including Williams, Daly, and the ever-hawkish Hammack—traders are bracing for some serious market-moving commentary. Hammack, known for dissenting at the last meeting, could shake things up if she doubles down on hawkish rhetoric. EUR/USD: Can the Euro Hold the Line? The euro is making modest gains against the dollar, sitting at the 1.03 handle. But don’t let the calm fool you. Earlier this month, EUR/USD hit a fresh low of 1.0344 following a bold statement from the US President-elect: “The EU must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by purchasing our oil and gas. Otherwise, it’s tariffs all the way!” Add to this some massive option activity slated for today’s NY cut, and the euro’s path forward looks anything but predictable. Pro Tip: Keep an eye on those options. Large flows often serve as a roadmap for near-term price action. JPY: A Resilient Underdog? The yen has been on a rollercoaster. After plunging to a multi-month low of 157.92, it’s clawing back ground thanks to hotter-than-expected Japanese CPI data. Meanwhile, Japanese officials have stepped in with some currency jawboning, expressing "concerns over recent yen movements." While intervention remains a distant possibility, traders should prepare for further volatility. Elite Tactic: Use divergence in CPI data as an early warning system for JPY pair movements. Hotter inflation often signals a shift in monetary policy or intervention probabilities. GBP: Licking Its Wounds The British pound is treading water against the dollar, hovering near 1.2476 after weak UK retail sales data and a dovish hold from the Bank of England (BoE). It’s been a rough week for GBP, and traders are left wondering whether the currency can muster a comeback. Contrarian Insight: Weak data often means traders overreact. Look for short-term oversold conditions as a potential buy-the-dip opportunity. AUD and NZD: The Bruised and the Battered Both the Aussie and Kiwi dollars have seen better days. AUD/USD hit a fresh YTD low of 0.6200, while NZD/USD slid to 0.5609, marking their lowest levels since October 2022. Despite a softer USD, these currencies are struggling to gain traction. Hidden Opportunity: Commodity prices—especially metals—could provide a tailwind for these currencies. Monitor iron ore and gold for clues on when AUD and NZD might stage a rebound. CNY: A Subtle Move Amid the Noise China’s PBoC set the USD/CNY midpoint at 7.1901, slightly tighter than expected (7.3086). While the adjustment seems minor, it signals that Chinese authorities are keeping a close eye on FX volatility. Stability remains their top priority as the economy recalibrates post-pandemic. Elite Tactics for Today’s Trader - Fed Watch: Focus on Hammack’s comments. Her hawkish tone could trigger significant USD volatility. - Option Flows: Track EUR/USD’s large option expiries today. They’re likely to dictate price action. - CPI Clues: Use inflation data as a predictive tool for JPY movements and potential BoJ policy shifts. - Commodity Correlation: Keep an eye on resource prices to gauge AUD and NZD’s recovery potential. - China’s Moves: Watch for subtle shifts in PBoC policy to anticipate USD/CNY trends. —————– Image Credits: Cover image at the top is AI-generated   Read the full article