#Culture Media Market Report

[signalburst]

Shōgun Historical Shallow-Dive: the Final Part - The Samurai Were Assholes, When 'Accuracy' Isn't Accurate, Beautiful Art, and Where to From Here

Final part. There is an enormous cancer attached to the samurai mythos and James Clavell's orientalism that I need to address. Well, I want to, anyway. In acknowledging how great the 2024 adaptation of Shōgun is, it's important to engage with the fact that it's fiction, and that much of its marketed authenticity is fake. That doesn't take away from it being an excellent work of fiction, but it is a very important distinction to me.

If you want to engage with the cool 'honourable men with swords' trope without thinking any deeper, navigate away now. Beyond here, there are monsters - literal and figurative. If you're interested in how different forms of media are used to manufacture consent and shape national identity, please bear with me.

I think the makers of 2024's Shōgun have done a fantastic job. But there is one underlying problem they never fully wrestled with. It's one that Hiroyuki Sanada, the leading man and face of the production team, is enthusiastically supportive of. And with the recent announcement of Season 2, it's likely to return. You may disagree, but to me, ignoring this dishonours the millions of people who were killed or brutalised by either the samurai class, or people in the 20th century inspired by a constructed idea of them.

Why are we drawn to the samurai?

A pretty badly sourced, but wildly popular history podcast contends that 'The Japanese are just like everybody else, only more so.' I saw a post on here that tried to make the assertion that the show's John Blackthorne would have been exposed to as much violence as he saw in Japan, and wouldn't have found it abnormal.

This is incorrect. Obviously 16th and 17th century Europe were violent places, but they contained violence familiar to Europeans through their cultural lens. Why am I confidently asserting this? We have hundreds of letters, journals and reports from Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch and English expressing absolute horror about what they encountered. Testing swords on peasants was becoming so common that it would eventually become the law of the land. Crucifixion was enacted as a punishment for Christians - first by the Taiko, then by the Tokugawa shogunate - for irony's sake.

Before the end of the feudal period, battles would end with the taking of heads for washing and display. Depending on who was viewing them, this was either to honour them, or to gloat: 'I'm alive, you're dead.' These things were ritualised to the point of being codified when real-life Toranaga took control. Seppuku started as a cultural meme and ended up being the enforced punishment for any minor mistake for the 260 years the ruling samurai class acted as the nation's bureaucracy. It got more and more ritualised and flowery the more it got divorced from its origin: men being ordered by other men to kill themselves during a period of chaotic warfare. I've read accounts of samurai 'warriors' during the Edo period committing seppuku for being late for work. Not life-and-death warrior work - after Sekigahara, they were just book-keepers. They had desk jobs.

Since Europe's contact with Japan, the samurai myth has fascinated and appalled in equal measure. As time has gone on, the fascination has gone up and the horror has been dialled down. This is not an accident. This isn't just a change in the rest of the world's perception of the samurai. This is the result of approximately 120 years of Japanese government policies. Successive governments - nationalist, military authoritarian, and post-war democratic - began to lionize the samurai as the perfect warrior ideal, and sanitize the history of their origin and their heydey (the period Shōgun covers). It erases the fact that almost all of the fighting of the glorious samurai Sengoku Jidai was done by peasant ashigaru (levies), who had no choice.

It is important to never forget why this was done initially: to form an imagined-historical ideal of a fighting culture. An imagined fighting culture that Japanese invasion forces could emulate to take colonies and subdue foreign populations in WWI, and, much more brutally, in WWII. James Clavell came into contact with it as a Japanese Prisoner of War.

He just didn't have access to the long view, or he didn't care.

The Original Novel - How One Ayn Rand Fan Introduced Japan to America

There's a reason why 1975's Shogun novel contains so many historical anachronisms. James Clavell bought into a bunch of state-sanctioned lies, unachored in history, about the warring states period, the concept of bushido (manufactured after the samurai had stopped fighting), and the samurai class's role in Japanese history.

For the novel, I could go into great depth, but there are three things that stand out.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. He's a novelist, and he did what he liked. But Clavell's novel was groundbreaking in the 70's because it was sold as a lightly-fictionalised history of Japan. The unfortunate fact is the official version that was being taught at the time (and now) is horseshit, and used for far-right wing authoritarian/nationalist political projects. The Three Unifiers and the 'honour of the samurai' magnates at the time is a neat package to tell kids and adults, but it was manufactured by an early-20th century Japanese Imperial Government trying to harness nationalism for building up a war-ready population. Any slightly critical reading of the primary sources shows the samurai to be just like any ruling class - brutal, venal, self-interested, and horrifically cruel. Even to their contemporary warrior elites in Korea and China.

Fake history as propraganda. Clavell swallowed and regurgitated the 'death before dishonour', 'loyalty to the cause above all else', 'it's all for the Realm' messages that were deployed to justify Imperial Japanese Army Class-A war crimes during the war in the Pacific and the Creation of the Greater East Asian Co-Properity Sphere. This retroactive samurai ethos was used in the late Meiji restoration and early 20th century nationalist-military governments to radicalise young Japanese men into being willing to die for nothing, and kill without restraint. The best book on this is An Introduction to Japanese Society by Sugimoto Yoshio, but there is a vast corpus of scholarship to back it up.

Clavell's orientalism strays into outright racism. Despite the novel Shōgun undercutting John Blackthorne as a white savior in its final pages - showing him as just a pawn in the game - Clavell's politics come into play in every Asia Saga novel. A white man dominates an Asian culture through the power of capitalism. This is orthagonal to points 1 and 2, but Clavell was a devotee of Ayn Rand. There's a reason his protagonists all appear cut from the same cloth. They thrust their way into an unfamiliar society, they use their knowledge of trade and mercantilism to heroically save the day, they are remarked upon by the Asian characters as braver and stronger, and they are irresistible to the - mostly simpering, extremely submissive - caricatures of Asian women in his novels. Call it a product of its times or a product of Clavell's beliefs, I still find it repulsive. Clavell invents (nearly from whole cloth, actually) the idea that samurai find money repulsive and distasteful, and his Blackthorne shows them the power of commerce and markets. Plus there are numerous other stereotypes (Blackthorne's massive dick! Japanese men have tiny penises! Everyone gets naked and bathes together because they're so sexually free! White guys are automatically cool over there!) that have fuelled the fantasies of generations of non-Japanese men, usually white: Clavell's primary audience of 'dad history' buffs.

2024's Shōgun, as a television adaptation, did a far better job in almost every respect

But the show did much better, right? Yes. Unquestionably. It was an incredible achievement in bringing forward a tired, stereotypical story to add new themes of cultural encounter, questioning one's place in the broader world, and killing your ego. In many ways, the show was the antithesis to Clavell's thesis.

It drastically reigned in the anachronistic, ahistorical referencees to 'bushido' and 'samurai honor', and showed the ruling class of Japan in 1600 much more accurately. John Blackthorne (William Adams) was shown to be an extraordinary person, but he wasn't central to the outcome of the Eastern Army-Western Army civil war. There aren't scenes of him being the best lover every woman he encounters in Japan has ever had (if you haven't read the book, this is not an exaggeration). He doesn't teach Japanese warriors how to use matchlock rifles, which they had been doing for two hundred years. He doesn't change the outcome of enormous events with his thrusting, self-confident individualism. In 2024's Shōgun, Blackthorne is much like his historical counterpart. He was there for fascinating events, but not central. He wasn't teaching Japanese people basic concepts like how to make money or how to make war.

On fake history - the manufactured samurai mythos - it improved on the novel, but didn't overcome the central problems. In many ways, I can't blame the showrunners. Many of the central lies (and they are deliberate lies) constructed around the concept of samurai are hallmarks of the genre. But it's still important to me to notice when it's happening - even while enjoying some of the tropes - without passively accepting it.

'Authenticity' to a precisely manufactured story, not to history

There's a core problem surrounding the promotion and manufactured discussion surrounding 2024's Shōgun. I think it's a disconnect between the creative and marketing teams, but it came up again and again in advertising and promotion for the show: 'It's authentic. It's as real as possible.'

I've only seen this brought up in one article, Shōgun Has a Japanese-Superiority Complex, by Ryu Spaeth:

'The show also valorizes a supreme military power that is tempered by the pursuit of beauty and the highest of cultures, as if that might be a formula for peace. Shōgun displays these two extremes of the Japanese self, the savagery and the refinement, but seems wholly unaware that there may be a connection between them, that the exquisite sensibility Japan is famous for may flow from, and be a mask for, its many uses of atrocious domination.'

Here we come to authenticity.

'The publicity surrounding the series has focused on its fidelity to authenticity: multiple rounds of translation to give the dialogue a “classical” feel; fastidious attention to how katana swords should be slung, how women of the nobility should fold their knees when they sit, how kimonos should be colored and styled; and, crucially, a decentralization of the narrative so that it’s not dominated by the character John Blackthorne.'

It's undeniable that the 2024 production spent enormous amounts of energy on authenticity. But authenticity to what? To traditional depictions of samurai in Japanese media, not to history itself. The experts hired for gestures, movement, costumes, buildings, and every other aspect of the show were experts with decades in experience making Japanese historical dramas 'look right', not experts in Japanese history. But this appeal to 'Japanese authenticity' was made in almost every piece of promotional material.

The show had only one historical advisor on staff, and he was Dutch. The numerous Japanese consultants, experts and specialists brought on board (talked about at length in the show's marketing and behind the scenes) were there to assist with making an accurate Japanese jidaigeki. It's the difference between hiring an experienced BBC period drama consultant, and a historian specialising in the Regency. One knows how to make things look 'right' to a British audience. The other knows what actually happened.

That's fine, but a critical viewing of the show needs to engage with this. It's a stylistically accurate Japanese period drama. It is not an accurate telling of Japanese history around the unification of Japan. If it was, the horses would be the size of ponies, there would be far more malnourished and brutalised peasants, the word samurai would have far less importance as it wasn't yet a rigidly enforced caste, seppuku wouldn't yet be ritualised and performed with as much frequency, and Toranaga - Tokugawa - would be a famously corpulently obese man, pounding the saddle of his horse in frustration at minor setbacks, as he was in history.

The noble picture of restraint, patience, refinement and honour presented by Hiroyuki Sanada as Toranaga/Tokugawa is historical sanitation at its most extreme. Despite being Sanada's personal hero, Tokugawa Ieyasu was a brutal warlord (even for the standards of the time), and he committed acts of horrific cruelty. He ordered many more after gaining ultimate power. Think a miniseries about the Founding Fathers of the United States that doesn't touch upon slavery - I'm sure there have been plenty.

The final myth that 2024's Shōgun leaves us with is that it took a man like Toranaga - Tokugawa Ieyasu - to bring peace to a land ripped assunder by chaos. This plays into 19th century notions of Great Man History, and is a neat story, but the consensus amongst historians is if it wasn't Tokugawa, it would have been some other cunt. In many cases, it very nearly was. His success was historical contingency, not 5D chess.

So how did this image get manufactured, to the point where the Japanese populace - by and large - believes it to be true? Very long story short: after a period of rapid modernisation, Japan embraced nationalism in the late 19th century. It was all the rage. Nationalism depends on a glorified past. The samurai (recently the pariahs of Japanese history) were repurposed as Japan's unique warrior heroes, and woven into state education. This was especially heated in the 1920s and 30s in the lead up to the invasion of Manchuria and Japan's war of aggression in the Pacific. Nationalism + militarism = the modern Japanese samurai myth, to prepare men to obey orders unquestioningly from a military dictatorship.

This persists in the postwar period. Every year since 1963, Japan's state broadcaster NHK commissions a historical drama - a Taiga Drama, where many of this show's actors got their starts - that manufactures and re-enforces the idea of samurai as noble, artful, honourable people. Read a book - read a Wikipedia article! - and you'll see that most of it stems from Tokugawa-shogunate era self-propaganda. It's much like the European re-interpretation of chivalry. In Europe's case, chivalry in actual history was a set of guidelines that allowed for the sanctioned mass-rape and murder of civilians, with a side of rules regarding the ransoming of nobles in scorched-earth military campaigns. In Japan's case, historical figures that regularly backstabbed each other, tortured rival warriors and their lessers, and inflicted horrific casualties on the peasants that they owned (we have a term for that) are cast as noble, honourable, dedicated servants of the Empire.

Why does this matter to me? Samurai movies and TV shows are just media, after all. The issue, for me, is that the actors, the producers - including Hiroyuki Sanada - passionately extoll 'accuracy' as if they genuinely believe they're telling history. They talk emotionally about bushido and its special place in Japanese society.

But the entire concept of bushido is a retroactive, post-conflict, samurai construction. Bushio is bullshit. Despite being spoken of as the central tenet of 2024's Shōgun by actors like Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano, and Tokuma Nishioka, it simply didn't exist at the time. It was made up after the advent of modern nationalism.

It was used to justify horrendous acts during the late Edo period, the Meiji restoration, and the years leading up to the conclusion of Japan's war of aggression in the Pacific. It's still used now by Japan's primarily right-wing government to deny war crimes and justify the horrors unleashed on Asia and the Pacific during World War II as some kind of noble warrior crusade. If you ever want your stomach turned, visit the museum attached to Yasukuni Shrine. It's a theme park dedicated to war crimes denial, linked intimately to Japan's imagined warrior past. Whether or not the production staff, cast, and marketing team of 2024's Shōgun knew they were engaging with a long line of ahistorical bullshit is unknown, but it is important.

It's also important to acknowledge that, having listened to many interviews with Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, they were acutely aware that they weren't Japanese, to claim to be telling an authentically Japanese story would be wrong, and that all they could do was do their best to make an engaging work that plays on ideas of cultural encounter and letting go. I think the 'authenticity!' thing is mostly marketing, and judicious editing of what the creators and writers actually said in interviews.

So... you hate the show, then? What the hell is this all about?

No, I love the show. It's beautiful. But it's a beautiful artwork.

Just as the noh theatre in the show was a twisting of events within the show, so are all works of fiction that take inspiration from history. Some do it better than others. And on balance, in the show, Shōgun did it better than most. But so much of the marketing and the discussion of this adaptation has been on its accuracy. This has been by design - it was the strategy Disney adopted to market the show and give it a unique viewing proposition.

'This time, Shōgun is authentic!*

*an authentic Japanese period drama, but we won't mention that part.

And audiences have conflated that with what actually happened, as opposed to accuracy to a particular form of Japanese propaganda that has been honed over a century. This difference is crucial.

It doesn't detract from my enjoyment of it. Where I view James Clavell's novel as a horrid remnant of an orientalist, racist past, I believe the showrunners of 2024's Shōgun have updated that story to put Japanese characters front and centre, to decentralise the white protagonist to a more accurate place of observation and interest, and do their best to make a compelling subversion of the 'stranger in a strange land' tale.

But I don't want anyone who reads my words or has followed this series to think that the samurai were better than the armed thugs of any society. They weren't more noble, they weren't more honourable, they weren't more restrained. They just had 260 years in which they worked desk-jobs while wearing two swords to write stories about how glorious the good old days were, and how great people were.

Well... that's a bleak note to end on. Where to from here?

There are beautiful works of fiction that engage much closer with the actual truth of the samurai class that I'd recommend. One even stars Hiroyuki Sanada, and is (I think) his finest role.

I'd really encourage anyone who enjoyed Shōgun to check out The Twilight Samurai. That was the reality for the vast majority of post-Sekigahara samurai

For something closer to the period that Shogun is set, the best film is Seppuku (Hara-Kiri in English releases). It is a post-war Japanese film that engages both with the reality of samurai rule, and, through its central themes, how that created mythos was used to radicalise millions of Japanese into senseless death during the war. It is the best possible response to a romanticisation of a brutal, hateful period of history, dominated by cruel men who put power first, every single time.

I want to end this series, if I can, with hope. I hope that reading the novel or watching the 1980 show or the 2024 show has ignited in people an interest in Japanese culture, or society, or history. But don't let that be an end. Go further. There are so many things that aren't whitewashed warlords nobly killing - the social history of Japan is amazing, as is the women's history. A great book for getting an introduction to this is The Japanese: A History in 20 Lives.

And outside of that, there are so many beautiful Japanese movies and shows that don't deal with glorified violence and death. In fact, it makes up the vast majority of Japanese media! Who would have thought! Your Name was the first major work of art to bridge some of the cultural animosity between China and Japan stemming from WW2, and is a goofy time travel love story. Perfect Days is a beautiful movie about the simple joy of living, and it's about the most Tokyo story you can get.

Please go out, read more, watch more. If you can, try and find your way to Japan. It's one of the most beautiful places on earth. The people are kind, the food is delicious, and the culture is very welcoming to foreigners.

2024's Shōgun was great, but please don't let that be the end. Let it be the beginning, and I hope it serves as a gateway for you.

And I hope our little fandom on here remembers this show as a special time, where we came together to talk about something we loved. I'll miss you all.

[probablyasocialecologist]

“The ‘war on drugs’ may be understood to a significant extent as a war on people. Its impact has been greatest on those who live in poverty, and it frequently overlaps with discrimination directed at marginalised groups, minoritiesand Indigenous Peoples. In our reporting and experience, we have found that such discriminatory impact is a common element across drug policies with regard to the widest range of human rights, including the right to personal liberty; freedom from torture, ill-treatment and forced labour; fair trial rights; the right to health, including access to essential medicines, palliative care, comprehensive drug prevention and education, drug treatment, and harm reduction; the right to adequate housing; freedom from discrimination and the right to equal treatment before the law; right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; cultural rights and freedoms of expression, religion, assembly and association. Globally, drug control has had massive costs for the dignity, humanity and freedom of people of African descent, with reports showing that people of African descent face disproportionate and unjust law enforcement interventions, arrests and incarceration for drug-related offences. In various countries, the ‘war on drugs’ has been more effective as a system of racial control than as a tool to reduce drug markets. Policing interventions based on racial profiling remain widespread, whilst access to evidence-based treatment and harm reduction for people of African descent remains critically low. Around the world, women who use drugs face significant stigma and discrimination in accessing harm reduction programmes, drug dependence treatment and basic health care. Although one in three people who use drugs are women, women constitute only one in five people in treatment. Women are also disproportionately affected by criminalisation and incarceration, with 35% of women in prison worldwide having been convicted of a drug-related offence compared to 19% of men. The causes of women’s interaction with the criminal justice system in relation to drugs are complex, often linked to other factors such as poverty and coercion, and may reflect systemic gender inequality in society more broadly. Of note, most women in prison for drug related offences have little education. Under international law, States that have not yet abolished the death penalty may only impose capital punishment for the ‘most serious crimes’, meaning crimes of extreme gravity involving intentional killing. Drug offences clearly do not meet this threshold. However, drug-related offences are still punishable by death in over 30 countries, and human rights experts have raised concerns about evidence of its discriminatory impact on individuals belonging to minorities. Everyone without exception has the right to life-saving harm reduction interventions, which are essential for the protection of the right to health of people who use drugs. However, according to UN data, only 1 in 8 people with drug dependence have access to appropriate treatment, and the coverage of harm reduction services remains very low. The situation is particularly critical for women, LGBTIQ+ persons, and other marginalised groups, for whom harm reduction and treatment services may not be adapted or respond to their specific needs. Women and LGBTIQ+ persons also face even higher levels of stigma, including self-stigma, and discrimination than men who use drugs.

As the world grows older, drug use among people over 65 has also increased. The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the health and well-being of older persons, and studies show an increased use of pain relievers, tranquillizers, and sedatives among this age group. Older drug users are also more often using the dark web, social media, and online forums to obtain illicit substances resulting in a rise of drug-related deaths among older populations. The criminalisation of substances traditionally used by Indigenous Peoples such as the coca leaf can also result in the suppression, undermining and marginalization of traditional and indigenous knowledge systems and medicine, which has wide-ranging health impacts and is rooted in discriminatory hierarchies and conceptions. Forced eradication of crops, including through the aerial spraying of highly hazardous pesticides, can cause serious harm to the environment and clean water, as well as to the health and welfare of Indigenous communities. Indigenous Peoples that might be affected by these and other drug control operations must be meaningfully consulted, and guarantees should be given that their lives, cultural practices, lands and natural resources are not violated. Criminal laws and the punitive use of administrative and other sanctions stigmatise already marginalised populations. Criminalisation results in significant barriers to access to health services (including those for HIV and palliative care) and in other human rights violations. As called for by the UN system Common Position on drug-related matters, drug use and possession for personal use should be decriminalised as a matter of urgency. Drug use or dependence are never a sufficient justification for detaining a person. Compulsory drug detention and rehabilitation centres need to be closed and replaced with voluntary, evidence-informed, and rights-based health and social services in the community.

[cruyffista]

Injury is everywhere in sport. Its ubiquity is evident in the lives and bodies of athletes who regularly experience bruises, torn ligaments, broken bones, aches, lacerations and muscle tears. “Injury reports” appear daily in local newspapers and in the analyses of television and radio commentators. Sports Illustrated markets its subscription campaign by giving new subscribers videotaped highlights of football players smashing one another’s bodies. Injury is presented as entertainment, as spectacle. Television cameras regularly frame injured players and slow motion replays are used to allow viewers to see how an injury occurred and commentators to estimate the location or extent of the injury. Commentators sometimes comment on cuts and bleeding as a verbal supplement to depictions of bloodied athletes on the screen. Players who are shown being taped up on the sidelines or led into the locker room to be checked by the team doctor at half time are often praised by commentators upon returning to the action with words such “brave,” “determined,” “courageous,” and “tough.” (...) Sports media valorize the athletes who surmount injury, endure pain, and return to the field of hierarchical endeavor. Ironically, as the athlete’s body is “built up” in order to “move up” the competitive hierarchy, it is increasingly worn down. Many athletes are thus embroiled in a larger set of power relations inside and outside sport that are often exploitative and lead to physical entropy. Within the context of the competitive hierarchies that comprise late twentieth century gender regimes, athletes may be cultural prototypes modeling the behavior of (and for) the toughminded, success-striving but increasingly expendable middle-managers of the post-Fordian economy who drive themselves day after day, only to be “benched” by stress-related illness or corporate downsizing or replaced by cybersystems. These portrayals may also be modeling stoicism and resilience for factory and service workers who must do more for less because they are “lucky enough” to have jobs in an economy that thrives on impermanence and liquidity. In short, we suspect that the media representations of pain and injury among athletes, particularly in televised productions, are ritualized expressions of more subtle relations of power that tap the Pain Principle and hegemonic masculinity for cultural and political legitimacy.

Don Sabo & Sue Curry Jansen, Prometheus Unbound: Constructions of Masculinity in the Sports Media

[syrena-del-mar]

People forget that actors don't owe anybody the knowledge of their sexuality. Whether that be lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, demisexual, asexual, or any other sexuality. That includes their dating history or who they're currently dating. Actors only owe the public one thing: that they do their job and that they do it well.

If that job consists of partaking in CP/ship culture, consume their media knowing that what they show you in public is curated for you as a fan. If they're dating someone who is not their partner, they're not cheating you; they're not making a mockery out of you or of queer relationships. With ship work, they're simply doing their job how their culture expects them to.

Ship work is not queerbaiting. Living, breathing humans do not queerbait. Queerbaiting comes from a marketing tactic for fictional entertainment work to ensure that they don't alienate their straight audience while also ensuring queer interest. You're consuming BLs and GLs, where the shows deliver in the promised relationships. If you're consuming BL/GL, you should know that fanservice generally follows.

Fanservice works because it's understood to be common practice. It's acting, an extension of whatever series they're promoting. Also, realize that fans often find themselves so invested in a couple that a hug or even a tiny brush of their hands will be considered 'evidence' of a relationship. Friends can flirt, 'lovingly' touch each other, and mess around without it meaning anything.

That's still not queerbaiting.

Because of how advanced technology has become, we have so much access to these actors/actresses. Accessibility does not equal entitlement to know how they identify. Claiming an individual is 'queerbaiting' only causes harm in the long term because you might unknowingly force someone to come out of the closet before they were ever ready to be. This only pushes media/reporters to continuously ask for information that isn't anyone's business to drum up engagement, potentially exploiting them for clicks. There's no need to inquire about their personal life, relationships, or sexuality.

But what if they take cryptic 'couple' photos with someone other than their work partner? Stop searching. Take their social media posts at face value. Stop trying to come up with some 'gotcha' moment, whether that be actually dating their work partner or some other individual. It's their personal life (curated, but still their life); you're overstepping, and if what you find out upsets you, then it's time to pull away.

It's really that simple.

Just because you buy into the fantasy a little too much and invest yourself in the pseudo-relationship does not mean the actors are queerbaiters. At the end of the day, fanservice is just that—a service provided for the fans. In other words, it's a job. Finding out that an actor/actress is dating someone of the opposite sex does not make them queerbaiters. (Also, realize that dating someone of the opposite sex does not signify that they're straight; whether they are or not, it's none of your business.)

If an actor/actress's personal relationships make you so mentally unwell because they're not with the onscreen partner, it just means you've genuinely detached yourself from reality. I mean this sincerely, if you're at this point, find help. Try to learn and understand more about why you're putting so much of yourself into a parasocial relationship. It's unhealthy for you to get so worked up that you feel sick because two coworkers aren't together.

If you find out that you're not a fan of CP work because you feel lied to or cheated, just don't consume it. Simply watch the show, look up their artist profile to see what other works they've been in, and log off. Don't follow them on social media, don't look up their fan meets, or watch video compilations that fans have made for shipping.

You're the master curator of your online consumption.

Curate it.

[amageish]

Unpacking Kitty Pryde's Sexuality

Okay, I've done a couple posts like this before... Let's take on a big one, shall we?

In Maruaders #12, released in 2020, Kate "Kitty" Pryde kissed a woman.

This was reported on fairly widely as Kitty Pryde's coming-out moment. Many people across fandom and outside of it were celebrating the queerness of one Katherine Anne Pryde. After decades upon decades of queer-coding, it was official! Kitty Pryde is a bisexual woman! Let's all celebrate!

(I personally would not call queercoding "queerbaiting" when it was done at a time when sodomy laws were still being enforced in America, but whatever.)

And then... uh... nothing really changed?

Since then, she has returned to her usual status quo in terms of queerness and queer-coding. She has had plenty of cheeky moments, wink-nods towards her queer identity, but nothing as explicit as a kiss - and no explicitly romantic relationships of any kind.

Now, this headline-making kiss was, narratively, a foil to an earlier kiss - she got a tattoo and kissed her male tattoo artist, died, came back to life, and then got a new tattoo and kissed her female tattoo artist. The woman didn't really have a purpose in the story beyond tattooing Pryde, being kissed by her, and having a design which is strikingly similar to that of Magik, one of Pryde's gal pals... All that said, it wasn't exactly the type of thing that needed to be followed up on... but it is still odd that Pryde kissed a woman, was hailed as bisexual, and then Marvel corporate went silent on the matter.

For some backstory, Pryde has been queercoded more or less since her debut. She's had three roommate situationships which are widely discussed as her queer encounters, plus a handful of other ones - notably a period where she was manipulated by the seduction of Saturnyne.

One of these relationships, Pryde with Rachel Summers, was confirmed by Pryde's creator Chris Claremont via interview in 2016, which increased discussion of her potential queerness - though that discussion has been going on for a looooong time before then.

Now, personally, when I see queer subtext vanish suddenly, my assumption is typically that corporate got involved... which seemed more likely when she was teased as a potential new character in X-Men 97. Perhaps corporate doesn't want her to be queer in that show and so they don't want her to be queer in the comic books either. Corporations are weird like that sometimes.

HOWEVER. Everything is suddenly changing in June 2024? Four years after Kate Pryde smooched a tattoo artist, Marvel mobile games are suddenly really keen to remind us that Kate Pryde is, in fact, queer???

And look. This probably means nothing. It is likely that the marketing people who worked on these events had heard Pryde was queer and tossed her into their events... but it still feels notable to me!

With these mobile game promotions, the idea of Kate Pryde being a queer character is being put in more people's feeds and in more people's minds then ever before... While the kiss was viral, it was mostly viral in queer spaces (as well as the types of spaces vigilantly opposed to queerness in nerd culture media), while this is putting it in the hands of standard mobile game users... Plus it is using Marvel's marketing budget to promote them - Marvel isn't sponsoring posts to put screenshots of Pryde checking out Dazzler's ass in X-Terminators in people's feeds, but they are to let us know that we should log into Puzzle Quest to claim a gaudy outfit...

So I am happy to see this development happen... It does feel like a (however atypical) step forward and I hope it isn't too long before Pryde can get explicitly queer stories told about her on a regular basis... I mean, her name is Pryde, for crying out loud...

[beatmyfeet]

Are Women the New Dominant Sex?

Investigating the Impact of Feminism on Masculine

Roles and Identity Lauren Boothby

Women are becoming the new dominant sex. Pursuing feminist equality reform results in a trend toward extremes. The trajectory of women’s rights needs to be examined in light of its causal effects on men. The decline of Western patriarchy ironically leads to the progression of matriarchy. This is being achieved through women’s educational advancements, feminist ideological dominance in political and academic discourse, and defamation of men to the benefit of women. This essay is based around these ideas, and more specifically on the following assertions:

I will argue that the end goal of feminism is not equality: it is matriarchy. Women have stepped into the power vacuum created by removing men from positions of privilege, and are now in the process of achieving ideological dominance through victim status. Attempts at creating equality for women lead to inequalities for men who become the weaker sex. Domination is perpetuated by media portrayals of idiotic men which justifies masculine oppression. Oppression is socially approved by politically correct feminist agenda. As a result, men experience identity crises when old masculinities are destroyed, but no socially and politically acceptable alternatives are provided. Men and women should work together, not against each other, to establish true equality. The contributions of both sexes need to be seen as valuable and beneficial to society.

From Oppressed to Oppressor

The beginning of the end of the Western male-dominated era is perhaps most apparent in job losses in previously male-dominated sectors. Postmodern society has shifted away from manufacturing and factory jobs created during the modern and industrial periods. These sectors were hard-hit in the recession of the late 2000s, and a large majority of the six million cutbacks were men (Rosin, 2010). The recession revealed an economic pattern in creation for decades (Rosin, 2010). Male trade jobs are being phased out (Rosin, 2010). On the other hand, careers that are projected to grow in the next ten years are sectors dominated primarily by women (Rosin, 2010). These jobs are not necessarily the most sought-after, but this trend suggests that men who previously earned a living in one sector, now do not possess the marketable skills necessary for available jobs.

Sociologist Kathryn Edin argues that matriarchies are replacing patriarchies (Rosin, 2010). In her interview for The Atlantic, she states that the power of the Western male was destroyed in the 1990s recession (Rosin, 2010). Men have no social power; it is now in the hands of women (Rosin, 2010). Additionally, the historical desire for sons is being replaced with a desire for daughters in much of America, and even South Korea (Rosin, 2010).

Data from a Statistics Canada report (2012) showed that Canadian women earn more undergraduate and master’s degrees than men, and the disparity has been increasing since 1992. While both men and women are earning more degrees than in the past, the growing number of educated women is symptomatic of a power transition in society. In both the lower and middle classes, women are dominant. At the present time, the majority of politicians and high-ranking business officials continue to be men, but the number of women is increasing. In the lower and middle classes, however, it is clear that the result of feminism is not equality. Where feminism has taken the greatest hold, women have replaced men as the dominant sex. First attempts at equality have overreaching effects where men become the ones that are socially disadvantaged.

The Idiot Man

Popular media reflects these trends. Several sitcoms, whether intentionally or satirically, reinforce cultural stereotypes that devalue masculinity. Intellectually inferior men plague television sitcoms. The idiot man generally holds all or most of the following characteristics. He has a low I.Q., is a borderline alcoholic, and an avid sports lover. He is sexist, clumsy, physically useless, socially awkward, an uninvolved father, and a sincere idiot. Where the idiot man lacks intelligence and general domestic and social usefulness, his wife satisfies the deficit. The intelligent woman has specific characteristics in stark contrast to the idiot man. She has a high I.Q. and is educated. She is either a housewife, or she works part-time while simultaneously managing her home. Additionally, she has high social intelligence, engages with her children, and is brilliant when compared to her husband.

While I acknowledge that the wives discussed below are far from ideal portrayals of women, these issues are beyond the scope of this paper. The present essay examines the neglected stereotype of intellectually inferior men in relation to their female counterparts, and I have chosen three recent, popular sitcoms that display this negative male stereotype.

Home Improvement was the first television show I considered. Tim Allen’s character is amusing, although quite stupid. If the reader performs but a quick video search of virtually any episode of this show, she should not be surprised to find an instance of Tim playing a fool. His character is inept at correctly performing virtually any task without failing miserably. He is clumsy, arrogant, and sexist. Tim’s wife Jill works in addition to performing most of the housework. She often speaks to Tim in a condescending manner and displays her superior intelligence when she corrects his foolish mistakes. In one of the later seasons, Jill leaves her job to pursue a Master’s degree in psychology. Tim is the primary breadwinner, but he exemplifies all the characteristics of the idiot man. Jill juggles home and work responsibilities, has good social skills, and is tolerant of Tim’s idiocy and blatant sexism. While I acknowledge she is not devoid of female stereotypes, she exemplifies the intelligent woman character, and overall she displays superior intelligence in both practical and academic matters. Any sexism on Tim’s behalf is understood by the audience to be unjustified.

Family Guy and The Simpsons are two animated television programs presently airing. The husbands in both series – Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson, respectively – exemplify the idiot man character. Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin share the following endearing qualities; they are: middle-aged, fat, borderline alcoholics, blue-collar workers, stupid, violent, often sexist, clumsy, childish, naïve, generally terrible fathers, and absolutely hilarious idiots. Marge Simpson is a housewife, and although not always a moral compass, she is generally the voice of reason among chaos. Homer’s daughter Lisa Simpson is by far the most intelligent member of the family. She demonstrates competence in the areas Marge neglects. In this series, Homer is the idiot man, and together Marge and Lisa play the character of the intelligent woman. Lois Griffin has less moral integrity than the Simpsons women. Her character is far from the image of an ‘ideal’ wife and mother, as she cheats on her husband, is often emotionally unavailable, but is importantly far more intelligent than her husband Peter. This interestingly defies normative stereotypes of women and housewives, but establishes Lois’ intelligence as one of her consistent qualities. Therefore, although neither portrayal is wholly flattering to women, Lois Griffin is consistently portrayed as the intelligent woman with Peter, her incompetent husband, playing the idiot man.

This section included three examples of popular television programs that demonstrate negative male stereotypes. While I do not deny the presence of irony and sexist undertones toward women, the prevalence of idiotic male characters demands attention. As women have begun to attain positions of power, many sitcoms contrast the high intelligence of women with the idiocy of men. In each of these programs, women are justified in believing men to be sexist pigs and fools that are hopeless without their brilliant wives.

New Masculinity

Feminist movements have created new work and social opportunities for women. When women joined the workforce and increased their education, normative social roles were destroyed, and new acceptable roles created. Western women are no longer confined to the home, and it is now acceptable to be a highly educated career woman with or without children, married or unmarried. Many men are supportive of women’s achievements, including those of their girlfriends, wives, daughters, sisters, and friends. This change in women’s roles constitutes an enormous social shift that is not without an effect on men. Feminism clearly defined new roles available to women, but fails to address roles for men. The subversion of ‘traditional’ gender roles altered the nuclear family structure. The men who previously benefited from this arrangement now ask themselves, “What is my role?” No comprehensive answer is given. The changing nature of masculine roles is in need of further sociological examination.

[mariacallous]

X today filed a lawsuit against a group of major advertisers for allegedly conspiring to withhold advertising dollars from the social media platform, which, since Elon Musk’s takeover, has been seen as more amenable to hosting controversial content.

The suit, filed in federal court in Texas, says dozens of advertisers followed the recommendation of a key advertising coalition, Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), to boycott buying ads on X since Musk bought the company. The suit says this turn of events cost the company billions of dollars in revenue. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for violation of US antitrust law.

The right-wing video site Rumble, founded more than 10 years ago as an alternative to YouTube and positioned as a platform “immune to cancel culture,” announced on Tuesday that it had filed a similar lawsuit. “GARM was a conspiracy to perpetrate an advertiser boycott of Rumble and others, and that's illegal,” the company posted on its X account.

The US House Judiciary Committee, which is controlled by Republicans and has expressed concern about censorship of right-wing views on social media, has been investigating GARM. In a preliminary report in July, the committee found that “the extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms.” X’s lawsuit draws heavily from internal GARM emails reviewed by the congressional panel.

In a video shared to X, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said she was “shocked” by the evidence uncovered by the House Judiciary Committee that there had been a “systematic illegal boycott against X.” Yaccarino attempted to rally X users with references to free speech in her statement. While pointing directly at the camera, she alleged that the advertisers were “targeting our company, and you, our users,” and “threatening your global town square.”

“People are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is constricted,” Yaccarino said.

The Brussels-based World Federation of Advertisers, which oversees GARM, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuits. X’s lawsuit also names Unilever, Mars, CVS, and a Danish energy company as defendants, while Rumble’s suit additionally targets the ad agency WPP. None of the companies immediately responded to requests for comment.

X’s lawsuit contends that advertisers in the past had to individually strike deals with social media companies to set boundaries around what types of content they would sponsor. Through GARM, advertisers have been able to aggregate their power, establish industry standards for content moderation, and enforce them. In X’s view, GARM now has too much say over the content social media platforms may allow.

“In a competitive market, each social media platform would set the brand safety standards that are optimal for that platform and for its users, and advertisers would unilaterally select the platforms on which they advertise,” the complaint states. “But collective action among competing advertisers to dictate brand safety standards to be applied by social media platforms shortcuts the competitive process and allows the collective views of a group of advertisers with market power to override the interests of consumers.”

X’s fraught relationship with advertisers dates back as far as Musk’s buyout of the company formerly known as Twitter. The new lawsuit alleges that GARM, via a public letter to Musk, triggered a boycott of Twitter ads immediately following his purchase of the company in October 2022. Over the next two months, at least 18 GARM-member advertisers, including Mars and Unilever, stopped buying Twitter ads, according to the lawsuit. Dozens more members cut back their spending.

In November 2023, the nonprofit media watchdog Media Matters published a report that showed how pro-Nazi content on X had been appearing alongside advertising from reputable brands. As a result, entities like IBM, Disney, Lionsgate, the European Union, and, reportedly, Apple, pulled their ads from X. Later that month, speaking at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk told those brands “Go fuck yourself,” and aimed some of his remarks specifically at “Bob,” Disney’s chief executive, Bob Iger.

X alleges that GARM has yet to rescind its boycott. “By refraining from purchasing advertising from X, boycotting advertisers are forgoing a valuable opportunity to purchase low-priced advertising inventory on a platform with brand safety that meets or exceeds industry standards,” the complaint states.

In a preview of advertisers’ potential defense to the new lawsuits, Sarah Kay Wiley, director of policy at the advertising watchdog group Check My Ads, says in an emailed statement that advertisers have a right under the First Amendment to choose with whom and what they want to associate.

“Advertisers should not have to subsidize viewpoints they don’t agree with—in fact requiring so would be un-American and unconstitutional,” Wiley writes. “Elon Musk and X executives have the right, protected by the First Amendment, to say what they want online, even when it's inaccurate, and advertisers have the right to keep their ads away from it. It’s as simple as that.”

Alleging unfair competition isn’t a new tactic for smaller social media companies. In May, Rumble sued Google’s advertising business also alleging antitrust violations. Google last week filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the basis that Rumble lacked standing to sue because it wasn’t using or competing with Google’s offerings. “Rumble does not belong in the current melee over Google’s advertising technology,” Google’s attorneys wrote. A hearing is scheduled for January.

[hyenabeanz]

immediate thoughts on new PWHL MN GM are:

someone has a modicrum of sense and realized they needed to be sure to hire a) a woman and b) someone from Minnesota or there would have been zero chance of acceptance.

I notice they picked someone with what looks like no coaching or playing experience. Spit balling here, but that reads to me as someone who will defer to coaching staff for things like draft picks and actual hockey vs. administrative stuff. I imagine that was on purpose and am annoyed, because Ken Klee (and kcs of the reporting was accurate but who knows) getting their way on that is kind of icky. On the other hand, I do wonder if we had the opposite with Darwitz where she did all the hockey stuff and the admin lagged (Darwitz clearly did an amazing job leveraging her connections to get Tria Rink and the Xcel and things like good medical staff, but I feel marketing things like MN's social media has lagged hard compared to other teams. I guess it's possible our team just has zero personality to draw from, but the existence of Maggie Flaherty, Amanda Leveille, and Taylor Heise says otherwise. And that stuff is important too for success.)

I do notice though she's from St. Paul, her actual Minnesota hockey connections seem light (Minnesota doesn't have an AHL team; the Wild's AHL affiliate is in Iowa.) I would bet this is also on purpose/they couldn't get anyone, and may hamstring the team a bit. If Sydney Brodt isn't re-signed (which I think is certainly fair and possible; I don't think she's *that* good; not bad but this league is so cutthroat,) their connections to longstanding Minnesota hockey royalty will be largely gone. Stecklein and Pannek are still there, but those names don't have the weight/legacy/history of Darwitz and Brodt.

A lot of this is idle speculation based on what I know of my state culturally and contextually. It's not fact. Is also possible there's other things about Caruso that make this analysis off.

Either way, I truly wish her luck cuz I like when hockey is fun and not filled with shitty drama. I just wanna watch hot awesome women chase a stupid rubber thing on ice while shoving each other brutally onto boards. 😤

[alpaca-clouds]

How to get DnD to make money

As you might have noticed through the ramblings on how Hasbro is not really making money from DnD, how the DnD Lore is not accessible, and also lacks modern stories, I am thinking a lot on how Hasbro is mismanaging the franchise. And make no mistake: No, DnD is right now not really making money. In the earning reports for Hasbro DnD is listed under "other franchises", because it makes so little money, that it does not even earn its own little listing with a detailed breakdown. In fact, I would not be surprised if in 2023 Hasbro made more DnD-related money through the bit they got from the license on BG3, than they got from everything else.

So, yeah. No. DnD isn't really making money. Which is ironic. Because it is by far the most recognisable TTRPG franchise, the TTRPG with the most players, and close to something like mainstream in recent years. At least among younger folks: When I ask them on the street, a lot of them will at least be able to name me some playable races and classes. Even if they never have played before. Just because it is just everywhere in pop culture.

And the thing is: I have a master's degree in economics. I do know a bit about economics and about marketing and to be honest... I have no fucking clue what Hasbro and WotC are doing there.

I get, that they are planning on getting most money through DnD Beyond, which I do not think is that bad of an idea, given that yes, digital media usually makes more money than physical media. (Due to you not having to pay for printing and what not.) But DnD has one giant problem: It is a great platform. I love the character creation thing in there. But... also for everything else Roll20 is better. Because everything that DnD Beyond offers for money, Roll20 offers for free.

So, let me get out my economics hat and go a bit about what WotC could do to make DnD Beyond more viable - and to just make a bit more money with the franchise.

Please keep in mind: I am doing this from my economics point of view. There are going to be some things in there, that I would personally hate (like Rainbow Capitalism). But economically speaking... I think that they could make more money for WotC. And that without the kind of totally shady business practices they are using right now.

Why am I writing this on tumblr? Well, because I do not know where else to share those thougths.

The Issues with DnD Beyond

Alright. I think there are three major problems with DnD Beyond right now:

It puts certain things behind paywalls that Roll20 offers me for free.

It has no fucking information on the world and reasons to engage with it.

All things considered, the amount of stuff you can actually buy is very little - and most of it is fairly expensive.

First things first: I actually think that the subscripe prices are absolutely fair. It is not really that expensive and having played in campaigns with a DM who had the subscription, I would absolutely say: Those $3-6 are kinda fair, because what there is, is actually nice and nice looking.

However... Roll 20 offers most of the same functions (like the ability to use maps and stuff) for free. And there is just nothing WotC can do about this. Hence... They kinda need to up their game. Yeah, sure, their platform looks and plays better, but... a lot of people won't care.

Bonus is that all this information on items, monsters and what not that Roll 20 has for free, DnD Beyond wants your money for. And that is just... Look, I don't get why. That information is just out there. I am not going to pay for it.

On the lack of lore I already wrote a whole own essay, so I will spare you here.

And then there is the fact that... Actually even for the content you can pay for, there is a suprisingly small amount of stuff with little variety. Which is not good if you want to get it to make money.

So, let me go over DnD Beyond - and how you can make money with it.

DnD Beyond - The Content that should be Free

Let me start with the stuff that whoever makes the decisions at WotC/Hasbro will not like to hear: The stuff that should mostly be free.

Here I will say it once again: DnD Beyond needs a free wiki!

Gives players some basic information on the world. That is information on:

The physical world (that is landscapes, cities, different realms/planes)

How the magic world

A timeline with the major events

Important characters in the world

The gods and their worship

And what you would want to do is then on each of the pages put a "If you are interested in this, you might wanna buy X" and sell them adventures, one shots, shortstories and the like (more on this a bit further down). Get people hooked on events, cities, locations, NPCs and then offer them stuff on that. For the love of god, do not just expect players to do their own legwork to decide on what module they might wanna buy.

Additionally to this, I would take a page out of how the German publisher for Shadowrun does their marketing there: Have a monthly in-universe "newsletter" styled as a part of an in-universe newspaper to just introduce some in-universe events, which at times could also be used as a jumping off point for one shots and the like. (Look folks, there is a reason why the German publisher for Shadowrun is beloved even in the English fandom. How much they give on worldbuilding is part of it.)

And as much as whatever directors responsible will hate this: Yeah, fuck, make all the species and classes accessible for everyone. (With one caviat - but I will go into that later as well.) Because what you want is players to use DnD Beyond over Roll20.

This also means: Items and monster stats should be accessible over DnD Beyond without buying three different books. Because they are accessible on Roll20 and even outside of that... Look, it is not that hard to find. And given that it is fairly clear that they want DnD Beyond to be the main source of income in terms of DnD, they need to get people hooked on DnD Beyond over Roll20.

The Stuff that should come with Subscriptions

Alright, so let's talk about what I would put into the subscription model. I will not go what I would put under each tear. Because honestly, I have no clue.

For once, yes, I have complicated feelings on the map tool. Because the DnD Beyond tool is a lot better than the tool that Roll20 offers and as they are still working on it, I have no doubt that it will get even better in the future. So, yeah, it is... complicated. I get why it is behind the subscription, I do. But I am not entirely certain whether it is the right decision - for a reason I will get to shortly.

So, what I would put behind the Subscription - even though I would also offer everything of this in a short for one-time payment. Monthly content. (And yes, I am using the content word here, forgive me Patrick H. Williams.) That could be:

Little One-Shot adventures

Short stories and short comics

Maps

Like, technically they already have those "monthly perks", but... You know, right now it is mostly pretty pictures and other aesthetic. Give the people just a bit more stuff that would actually get them to play a more and interact with the world more.

Bonus points is, that in short stories, one shots and concepts you can easily test out ideas. (Like, heck, make a lot of more different genres within the setting. You can tell a crime mystery, a slice of life story, all sorts of stuff.)

Right now they are publishing some free one shots from time to time. Just do a bit more with that. It is a roleplaying game. Give people more reasons to interact with the world.

Because again, here is the thing: The world is the stuff you can actually sell. The simple game mechanics are not. For once game mechanics cannot be licensed, but also... Again, I know were to find it all for free!

In this I would also put something that is a bit more controversial: Use this to digitally distribute some of the older stuff from older editions. I know that Hasbro is like 100% against it. But here is the thing: They keep saying: "Oh yeah, not all of that is canon anymore." But they also do not bother to give us an idea what is canon and what not. So, great moment to clear this up, don't you think?

And given that I doubt that 20 years old books are the big sellers, they could just easily give away the e-books in the subscription as a little bonus.

How to actually fill up the Marketplace - Original Stuff

Alright, let's face another thing: All the lore books and adventures together in the DnD Beyond Marketplace together add up to a total worth of about $1200. Which, sure, if you are a fan wanting to buy it all, is a lot. But from a company perspective actually is not that much. Because here is the thing: Actually the production of those books is fairly expensive. Even if you only market them digitally.

Like, I do think that they would do better and go with the prices that Catalyst does with Shadowrun of $20-25, rather than the $29, but knowing how much financial overhead is there for those books, I can understand where the price comes from. Again, I am talking from an economic decision.

So, I say... Fill it up.

For example: Right now there is one set of maps sold in the market place. Which is a 20 maps strong collection. But it is literally the only maps-thing sold in that section of the market place. And maps are the one thing that literally every group will use in some place.

Which brings me back to why I think the use of the Map Tool should be free: Because then you can actually sell more maps. Sell single maps. Sell small collections of maps. Go with a low price of $1-2 per map, maybe $4-5 for the bigger or fancier maps. $10 for a collection of five maps.

Bonus: You can use those maps to also throw in fun little lore things.

And just... you know. Make a map for a temple each of each of the gods. Make some premade dungeon maps. Maps of certain canonical locations. City maps. You name it. Compared to other sorts of illustrations, maps can actually be fairly cheap.

Additionally: Just throw in little dungeon crawls as one shots. Depending on the amount of content in there, put in $3-8 per one dungeon crawl. Theme it nicely.

I love DMing DnD. I do. But I am frank with you: I hate designing dungeons. So, if I could buy a premade dungeon for $4, I would go: "Shut up and take my money!" Heck, I would probably also use it as a writing ressource and all of that.

In generally you can also sell some one shots here. Like, a one shot or two shot is actually not that expensive to produce. Which is why so many are given away for free. Sell them for again $3-8 depending on how much content there is.

Which brings me to short stories and comics.

I know what some might say: "But didn't that already kinda fail with League of Legends, like you spoke about last week?" Which, yeah. It did. But... I am also going to assume that in general the playerbase of DnD is way more interested in the lore, than the LoL crowd is interested in their respective lore. Because one game is all about storytelling, while the other is all about the gameplay.

And again: Short stories and one shot comics could be a good way to get people hooked onto the lore, which again might get them to invest into stuff like the adventures set in the world. And you can use them to try out ideas for what ends up to be fairly little in comparison to bigger stuff. Also, you can get more diverse writers and artist to do stuff for you, which looks good and might actually interest the wide diverse audience of your game.

How to actually fill up the Marketplace - Licensed stuff

Okay, let me talk about the no-brainer where by the love of all the gods I cannot figure out why the fuck WotC is not doing this. It is boggling my mind. I do not understand.

You remember the fucking drama with the OGL last year and how it bit them in the fucking ass? Yeah. Here is the thing, they did it the entire wrong way around. And honestly, I am not even sure whether now they can pull the intelligent version of this off, even though it is so fucking obvious. I mean, again. I do not understand. It is so stupid. If you know anything about the fucking internet.

Allow big content creators to sell supplementary material over your webshop and then take a cut from that. They do some of that with Critical Role, where they do sell some adventures from that franchise in their webshop. And from one other group too, I think.

But like... There are so many Actual Play groups and even other content creators (the entire Fool's Gold Campaign comes to mind with their millions of views on Youtube), that even have like their own self-produced lore books, adventures, one shots and other content.

And then there are of course just people who create additional rules, that currently can partly be shared over the homebrew system on DnD Beyond - but not be monetized, which sucks for the creators and for DnD Beyond.

I... I just do not get it. Rather than going: "Oh, you used DnD for this, now we change the OGL, so you'll have to give us money!", which went over as well as expected, they could have gone: "Hey, content creators. Great opportunity! You created additional moduls/adventures for DnD? Now you can officially sell it in our webshop at the page we want everyone to use! Of course we are gonna use a small cut for the hosting, marketing and moderation. But in return, you have access to a much wider audience!"

Like, it is so simple it is plain stupid that they didn't do that. I cannot fathom why they have never done this. I just cannot. I am sorry.

It would allow them to get a cut of the stuff they kinda want a cut from - while doing it in a way that is a lot more pro-community building.

And that is without mentioning that the entire OGL disaster has now several big Actual Play groups go and play with different systems. I heard that people are blaming Matt Mercer for it and like... No, this is entirely WotC's fault.

Speaking of Actual Plays

Okay, this leads me to the thingie where I also do not understand why they do not do it. Because they could license the living hell out of this. Do a fucking official Actual Play. Not on DnD Beyond, of course. Just... Somewhere. I do not really care where. Youtube, I guess.

While they host some one shots on their official twitch, so far they did not a big campaign thing officially as far as I am aware. And the concept is fairly simple: Follow the Critical Role formular. Get some voice actors on there. Bonus if you get a more diverse group than they have on Critical Role, that I also call "Critical Whiteness". (Note please: I do not actually like Critical Role for that reason among others. It is way too white for my taste. However, I cannot argue with success.)

And most importantly: Set that campaign in the official world, and do create and understanding with the DM that there is actually some meta-story progression with the lore. Again: The world is what they can license, so LICENSE THE FUCK OUT OF THAT!!!

With that you would also have some more characters that can work as access points into the world and the lore. You also can sell those campaigns, you can sell short stories and books, you can sell merchandise for this. Because as soon as that is the official group, yeah... You are the producers, you can get to make the money of it.

This is also something that falls under: "Why the hell are they not doing this?"

I mean, again, I am not the biggest fan of Critical Role, but technically WotC could also go: "Hey, do you wanna cooperate on the next campaign?" And jump off from that.

Or have the voice actors from BG3 cameo as their characters from that game. Folks would EAT THAT UP.

Some other assorted things

One, or two more things that I actually think they could do a bit more with... well, events and community stuff. And by using social media better, because... Look, the way WotC is kinda marketing the stuff is so 2000s in many regards. Like, use new media. Heck, use fucking TikTok. Which also might I note: They so desperately want to reach Gen Alpha. And I am honest with you, I have no fucking idea how to reach Gen Alpha. I don't. But a gut feelings tells me that TikTok might be a start.

See, I am following other franchises as well, and one thing that some do well is just got throw out some event related stuff. Make some pride month stuff. Sure, I hate Rainbow Capitalism, but sadly it works. And again, I am writing this under the idea of: "How to turn DnD Profitable."

Bring out some stuff to some other events. Like a Christmas thingie or something along those lines. Again, be it short stories, be it one shots, be it an Actual Play one shot on the Actual Play podcast THEY DESPERATELY SHOULD DO.

Also... They cannot learn the wrong lessons from BG3. Just because this one game they licensed out was lightning in a bottle, they cannot go and be: "Let's just rely on CRPGs to make us money." Because that can backfire really quickly.

[healthcaremarketanalysis]

Cell Culture Media Market worth $13.0 billion by 2028

The global cell culture media market in terms of revenue was estimated to be worth $6.2 billion in 2023 and is poised to reach $13.0 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 16.0% from 2023 to 2028. 

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Browse in-depth TOC on "Cell Culture Media Market"

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In 2022, the serum-free media segment accounted for the largest share of the type segment in the cell culture media market.

On the basis of type, the cell culture media market is divided into serum-free media, classical media & salts, stem cell culture media, specialty media, chemically defined media, and other cell culture media. In 2022, the serum-free media segment holds for the bigest share of the market. Factors responsible for the growth of this segment includes various advantages or benefits of serum-free media over other types of cell culture media.

In 2022, the biopharmaceutical production segment accounted for the largest share of the application segment in the cell culture media market.

On the basis of application, the cell culture media market is categorized into biopharmaceutical production, diagnostics, drug discovery & development, tissue engineering & regenerative medicine, and other applications. The biopharmaceutical production segment is estimated to grow at the highest growth rate during the forecast period. Factors responsible for the growth include, the growing production of cell culture-based vaccines, and expansion of pharmaceutical industry. The biopharmaceutical production applications of cell culture media include the manufacturing of biologic-based products such as vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and other therapeutic proteins (such as anticoagulants, enzymes, blood factors, hormones, interferons, growth factors, interleukins, engineered proteins, and thrombolytics, among others).

In 2022, the Asia Pacific region is the fastest-growing region of the cell culture media market.

On the basis of the region, the global cell culture media market has been segmented into North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. During the forecast period, the Asia Pacific market is estimated to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Increased focus of key market players on geographical expansion in emerging markets, favorable government policies and support for cell-based vaccines in the region and less manufacturing cost are some of the major factors anticipated to have positive impact on the market growth of Asia Pacific region.

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Key Market Players:

Key players in the cell culture media market include Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (US), Merck KGaA (Germany), Danaher Corporation (US), Sartorius AG (Germany), Corning Incorporated (US), FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific, Inc. (Japan), Lonza Group AG (Switzerland), Becton, Dickinson and Company (US), Miltenyi Biotec (Germany), and among others.

Recent Developments:

In June 2023, Thermo fisher launched Tumoroid Culture Medium to accelerate development of novel cancer therapies.

In April 2023, FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific launched BalanCD CHO Media Platform Portfolio for Bioprocessing.

In March 2022, FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific acquired Shenandoah Biotechnology. The deal would help the company to provide customers with a single point of access for their life science research, discovery, and cell and gene therapy needs.

In January 2022, Cytiva and Nucleus Biologics LLC collaborated to enhance custom cell media development for cell and gene therapies.

Cell Culture Media Market Advantages:

Versatility: Cell culture media provide a versatile platform for the growth and maintenance of various types of cells, including primary cells, stem cells, and cell lines derived from different tissues and species. This versatility allows researchers to study and manipulate diverse cell populations, facilitating a wide range of applications in basic research, drug discovery, and regenerative medicine.

Reproducibility: High-quality cell culture media formulations are standardized and extensively tested, ensuring consistent and reproducible results across different experiments and laboratories. This reliability is essential for generating meaningful and reliable data, which is critical for the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Customizability: The cell culture media market offers customizable formulations to cater to specific cell types and experimental requirements. Researchers can optimize media components to suit the unique needs of their cells, enhancing cell growth, proliferation, and differentiation, ultimately leading to more accurate and reliable experimental outcomes.

Scalability: Cell culture media have been developed to support large-scale production of cells, making them integral to biopharmaceutical manufacturing. With the increasing demand for cell-based therapies and biologics, scalable media solutions play a vital role in ensuring the efficient and cost-effective production of therapeutic cells and products.

Safety and Purity: High-quality cell culture media are manufactured under stringent quality control standards to ensure the absence of contaminants that may compromise cell viability or introduce experimental artifacts. These safety measures are essential to maintain the integrity of research findings and the safety of biopharmaceutical products.

Reduced Dependency on Animal Models: Advanced cell culture media formulations have contributed to reducing reliance on animal models in research, as they allow scientists to conduct more relevant experiments using human or cell-based models. This ethical advantage aligns with the growing focus on reducing animal testing while still advancing scientific progress.

Technological Advancements: The cell culture media market continually evolves, incorporating technological advancements, such as serum-free or xeno-free formulations, to improve cell culture systems' efficiency and reproducibility. These innovations empower researchers to work with more physiologically relevant and defined conditions, yielding results that better translate to clinical applications.

Accelerated Drug Discovery: Robust cell culture media accelerate drug discovery processes by enabling high-throughput screening of potential drug candidates on various cell models. This expedites the identification of promising compounds, shortens development timelines, and reduces drug development costs.

Overall, the cell culture media market's advantages have revolutionized modern biomedical research, playing a pivotal role in advancing scientific knowledge, drug development, and regenerative medicine, while contributing to the growth of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

[killed-by-choice]

“Sadie Roe,” 24 (USA 2013)

“Sadie” died after undergoing a chemical abortion. Her death was counted in the FDA Adverse Event Summary for the mifepristone/misoprostol abortion regimen, but despite investigation, it is still unknown which of her complications caused her death.

Sadie was 24 and had no known health problems. On or about August 15, 2013, she underwent the abortion. She began to feel sick afterwards and went to a doctor, who prescribed an antibiotic. It is unknown what kind of infection the doctor had diagnosed.

On August 20, someone found Sadie’s dead body. An autopsy was conducted to try to find out how a young woman went from healthy to dead in five days.

The autopsy results came back with a mystery. Although traces of cannabinoids and ibuprofen (most likely Sadie’s attempt to treat her pain) were detected, both were so inconsequential that the toxicology report cleared her as negative. Neither drug was in a concentration that could have killed her. Many people had already died of sepsis caused by Clostridium bacteria, so tissue samples were sent to the CDC for testing. The samples came back negative for the species tested.

However, several life-threatening problems were found at Sadie’s autopsy. She had retained part of the placenta from the abortion, which is a serious complication that risks infection. Her organs were damaged; she suffered “acute visceral and pulmonary congestion and edema.” Microbiology testing had come back negative for the Clostridium strain that had been investigated, but after less than a day the cultures grew streptococcus viridans.

So which of these killed Sadie? The coroner initially listed “unspecified natural causes,” but the CDC analyzed her case and tried to determine what the cause of death was. They finally concluded that the cause of death was undetermined, but included her in the count of pregnant people who died after chemical abortion.

Years later, six doctors reviewed Sadie’s case. They found the confirmation of retained placenta, her symptoms and the Streptococcal species in her lab cultures to be indicative of sepsis and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Viridans group streptococci can cause life-threatening infections and had been reported to have antibiotic-resistant strains, so this is also consistent with the Azithromycin prescription.

While we still do not have a definite answer on the precise cause of Sadie’s death (and sadly, we may never be sure), it can be assumed beyond reasonable doubt that side effects of the abortion played a highly significant role.

Individual Case Safety Report number 9587011-03-00-01, Danco Laboratories, LLC. Office of Post-marketing Drug Risk Assessment, Food and Drug Administration.

https://www.fda.gov/media/154941/download

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ilana Berger at MMFA:

In a new analysis of electric vehicle-related content on Facebook, Media Matters found that negative stories made up the vast majority of content, particularly on right-leaning and politically nonaligned U.S. news and political pages, a trend which does not align with the optimistic outlook of EV adoption and technological advancements. Since 2021, the Biden administration has allocated billions of dollars toward meeting the ambitious goal of making half of all new cars sold electric or hybrid over the next few years. Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS Act have provided tax credits and other incentives to jump start electric vehicle sales and infrastructure such as charging stations, domestic battery manufacturing, critical mineral acquisition, in addition to preparing the automotive industry workforce for the transition. 

In March, an Environmental Protection Agency rule setting strict limits on pollution from new gas-powered cars primed automakers for success in meeting these goals.  Biden’s EV push will continue to play an important role in the upcoming presidential election. Former president and current GOP candidate Donald Trump has insisted that Biden’s policies benefit China, which makes up the largest share of the global EV market. In March, while talking about the current state of the auto industry, Trump declared, “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” Economists disagree. 

The comment tracks with years of outrage and opposition from Republican politicians, right-wing media, and fossil fuel industry surrogates, who have often disparaged the new technology and related policy and misleadingly framed the EV push as a threat to American jobs and national security. Constant attacks on EVs from the right have helped fuel a politically divided market, where people who identify as Democrats are now much more likely to buy them or consider buying them, while nearly 70% of Republican respondents to a recent poll said they “would not buy” an EV. So far in 2024, headline after headline announced EV sales slumps and proclaimed that “EV euphoria is dead,'' despite reports of “robust” growth. In February, CNN changed a headline about EV sales on its website from a success story to a failure. Despite the positive long term outlook for EVs based on indicators like sales and government investments, the discourse around electric vehicles is often pessimistic.

[...] Right-wing media have been driving anti-EV sentiment (with help from fossil fuel industry allies) since the start of Biden’s term. This trend was clearly reflected in Media Matters’ analysis. Out of the top 100 posts related to EVs on right-leaning pages, 95% were negative, earning over a million interactions in 2024 so far.  But on Facebook, politically nonaligned pages fed into this trend as well. Nearly three quarters (74%) of EV related top posts on nonaligned pages had a negative framing. These posts generated 83% of all interactions on EV-related top posts from nonaligned pages. 

On non-aligned and right-wing Facebook pages, anti-electric vehicle content-- likely fueled by a mix of climate crisis denial and culture war resentments-- draws lots of reliable engagement, in contrast to the reality of increased EV adoption in recent years.

[she-is-ovarit]

Trans History (long post sorry)

This post uses "transsexual" in place of "transgender" as this was the widespread accepted terminology until fairly recently and is what was used in the original source for this information.

In 1885 the Criminal Law Act was passed which made homosexual behavior illegal in the UK. Transvestites within the gay movement were easier to identify publicly and became easy targets.

Ernest "Stella" Boulton and Fred "Franny" Park were arrested in 1870 for indecent behavior and attempted to be persecuted on the grounds of cross dressing instead of sodomy. They were let go.

Because of these laws, homosexual transvestites began to seek out doctors to "cure" them. These doctors and researchers were called sexologists. Krafft-Ebbing (1840-1902), professor of psychiatry at Vienna was one of the first to be interested in transvestitic behavior.

Magnus Hirschfeld was another, a Germon sexologist, and his works were considered groundbreaking during the times.

At Hirschfeld's clinic, Dr. Felix Abraham performed the first transsexual operations in 1926 on an unnamed trans man, penectomy on his domestic servant Dora in 1930, and vaginoplasty on Lili Elbe who would die from complications from the procedure.

Christine Jorgeson, former American GI, underwent several transsexual operations and drew attention from the media. The media immediately focused on the appearance of Christine, "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty". This essentially was effective marketing and brought transsexualism into the public eye. Jorgeson's psychiatrist, Dr. Hamburger (yes really) began to receive a ton of letters from people wanting to change their sex because they wanted to escape homophobia or live in/be associated with the gender roles associated with the other sex.

This caused a bunch of doctors to start their own clinics because they smelled money, such as endocrinologist Harry Benjamin (who trained at Hirschfield's clinic). He went on to publish the first medical textbook on transsexuality called the Transsexual Phenomenon in 1966 and personally began training a bunch of other doctors in the subject. His clinic was based in New York. Dr. Elmer Belt opened up clinics in Los Angeles. Dr. Georges Burou specialized in penicile skin inversion vaginoplasty in Casablanca.

Janice Irvine wrote of transsexualism's "widespread public and professional acceptance" as early as the 1970s. While gay men and women practicing transvestitism were originally criticized (because it was essentially homosexual people defying gender norms associated with their sex), transsexuality on the other hand was almost immediately accepted. Transsexualist origins lie in doctors attempting to "correct" the genitalia of people with disorders of sex development, homosexual people fearing for their lives and attempting to escape incarceration for being homosexual, and (mostly homosexual) people feeling wrong for not conforming to the mannerisms, expressions, and style associated with their sex, culturally.

While the beginnings of transsexual medicine began in the 1950s, with interest in the subject by psychiatrists dating back since the early 1900s, most "treatment facilities" for homosexuality, paraphilias, and gender nonconformity transsexuals became widespread in the 1960s and 1970s. Ira Pauly in 1965 who was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Oregon counted a total of 603 "male to female" transsexuals and 162 "female to male" transsexuals. He then reported on post-operative adjustment of 121 of these people, describing it as successful. He voiced a cautious psychiatric support for transsexualism based on this, stating that since psychology seems to have failures in reverting it and until alternative procedures or treatments are discovered, it was the best approach society had for this demographic.

I mentioned disorders of sex development (DSDs, commonly called "intersex conditions") above. Transsexualism has been closely associated with people with DSDs. In the 1950s, protocols were established for doctors to determine the sex of infants with DSDs, which was a rare anomaly. These infants bodies would then be modified to "correctly" correspond with whatever sex they were assigned by doctors. Transsexualism and the correction of "intersexualism" overlapped because doctors studying transsexualism borrowed procedures used to "correct" infants with DSDs.

Robert Stoller, a professor of psychiatry in California and considered to be a famous transsexual expert by the 1970s, began to focus on badly constructed genetalia. John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore became a headquarters for "treating" both "intersexuality" and "transsexuality". More texts were published: Transsexual Sex Reassignment (1969) by Richard Green and John Money, and The Transsexual Experiment (1975) by Robert Stoller. French psychoanalyst Catherine Millot commented, "there was a sense in which there was no transsexuality before experts like Benjamin and Stoller 'invented it'." There was rare support for transsexuality in 1965, but by 1975 about twenty major medical centers were offering treatment to thousands of transsexual people.

It took until 1977 for transsexual surgeries to be presented to the American Psychiatric Association. By that time "normalization of sex reassignment" was institutionalized and thus "assumed" by John K. Meyer and Donna J. Reter of the APA.

However, when Reter and Meyer by their very forced hands assumed the "normalization" of sex reassignment, they at the same time cast public doubt on it and it's "almost routine acceptance".

While medical doctors and psychiatrists pushed sex reassignment surgery, psycho-analysts almost always remained doubtful of it. A well-known psychoanalyst from New York, Lawrence S. Kubie, publicly rejected and renounced the term "transsexual" completely, suggesting "genital transmutation" was a more accurate fit. He criticized the term "transsexual" stating that the word was too simple for such a complex phenomenon, and falsely alluded that problems had been solved when in reality, they weren't. He illuminated that there were many men at this time that wish to appear as women but to consider themselves and be considered as men who "simulate women", but needed to present themselves as "textbook transsexuals" in order for physicians to agree to alter them. So, these transvestites fell under pressure to conform as transsexuals.

Kubie and his co-author James B. Mackie argued that the concept of transsexualism was a combination of both false diagnoses and lack of clarity on patients, with "emotionally charged" and "dramatic" medical intervention.

Even Robert Stoller in 1973 voiced his own unease in an article he wrote for the American Journal of Psychiatry, describing a "carnival atmosphere that prevails in the management of male transsexualism". Just the patient's request for sex reassignment brought immediate acceptance. By this point, many homosexual transvestites were educating themselves on SRS and HRT to have their sex modified to avoid homophobic persecution, and many even knew more about these procedures than their doctors. Stoller went on to write:

The conservative view among medical professionals at this time was to convince transsexual people/transvestites that they were really the other sex.

Homosexual sociologist Edward Sagarin wrote in a book on "deviants" in 1969 that male-to-female transsexuals suffered from "doubly unacceptable" self-imagery in being both homosexual and feminine, and that the solution was to convince them that they were really women and not men.

Additionally, there were striking observations made of the behaviors of a subset of people seeking sex-reassignment surgeries and hormone treatments:

John Money, the sexologist who infamously forcibly transitioned an intersex child by the name of David Reimer, also described transsexual male people as "devious, demanding, and manipulative"

Meanwhile, L.M. Lothstein who pioneered a study on female-to-male transsexuals in the 1970s and 1980s diagnosed FTM transsexuality as a "profound psychological disorder", describing most as having personality disorders and while not psychotic, having thought disorders that affect their ability to relate to others and sense their reality. Lothstein felt that the solution to help transsexual people didn't lie in surgeries or hormone treatments, but in psychotherapy. He hesitantly felt that it was possible SRS and HRT was needed before psychotherapy to "disrupt their rigid defensive structure".

I'm writing a lot so I'll stop here. Sorry for the abrupt end. I might add more later as a reblog. But here is the primary source that I essentially heavily paraphrased.

[darkmaga-retard]

https://www.globalresearch.ca/artificial-constructions-incubated-specimens-mrna-products-pfizer-moderna/5865727

“Observable Real-time Injuries at the Cellular Level in Recipients of the “Safe and Effective” COVID-19 injectables”

Real-Time Self-Assembly of Stereomicroscopically Visible Artificial Constructions in Incubated Specimens of mRNA Products Mainly from Pfizer and Moderna. A Comprehensive Longitudinal Study

By Dr. Young Mi Lee and Prof. Daniel Broudy

Global Research, August 20, 2024

International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research 18 July 2024

We bring to the attention of our readers this important study

Abstract

Observable real-time injuries at the cellular level in recipients of the “safe and effective” COVID-19 injectables are documented here for the first time with the presentation of a comprehensive description and analysis of observed phenomena.

The global administration of these often-mandated products from late 2020 triggered a plethora of independent research studies of the modified RNA injectable gene therapies, most notably those manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna.

Analyses reported here consist of precise laboratory “bench science” aiming to understand why serious debilitating, prolonged injuries (and many deaths) occurred increasingly without any measurable protective effect from the aggressively, marketed products. The contents of COVID-19 injectables were examined under a stereomicroscope at up to 400X magnification. Carefully preserved specimens were cultured in a range of distinct media to observe immediate and long-term cause-and-effect relationships between the injectables and living cells under carefully controlled conditions.

From such research, reasonable inferences can be drawn about observed injuries worldwide that have occurred since the injectables were pressed upon billions of individuals. In addition to cellular toxicity, our findings reveal numerous — on the order of 3~4 x 106 per milliliter of the injectable — visible artificial self-assembling entities ranging from about 1 to 100 µm, or greater, of many different shapes. There were animated worm-like entities, discs, chains, spirals, tubes, right-angle structures containing other artificial entities within them, and so forth. All these are exceedingly beyond any expected and acceptable levels of contamination of the COVID-19 injectables, and incubation studies revealed the progressive self-assembly of many artifactual structures.

As time progressed during incubation, simple one- and two-dimensional structures over two or three weeks became more complex in shape and size developing into stereoscopically visible entities in three-dimensions. They resembled carbon nanotube filaments, ribbons, and tapes, some appearing as transparent, thin, flat membranes, and others as three-dimensional spirals, and beaded chains. Some of these seemed to appear and then disappear over time.

Our observations suggest the presence of some kind of nanotechnology in the COVID-19 injectables.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

A few stories about the Tangerine Tyrant caught my eye today, and they all point to his increasing desperation - so I figured I’d go around the horn and celebrate his continuing dissipation.

First: Criminal Defendant and Adjudicated Rapist Donald Trump yesterday predicted a “bloodbath” if he didn’t get reelected, and the media quickly devolved into outlets condemning his use of violent rhetoric and others - Fox and Newsmax - concern trolling over how he was talking specifically about the automobile industry. So, whatever. If you’re interested in parsing the event along those lines, have at it - but I think there’s a more interesting, deeply indicative phenomenon just below the surface that speaks not just to Trump’s mentality but that of his whole bonkers cult.

If you’re looking for the atavistic pull of Donald Trump on his followers, it’s in his power to do whatever the hell he wants and face no consequences. NO ONE can tell him what to do. NO ONE can keep him from attacking whomever he wants. NO ONE can prevent him from sating his desires. NO ONE.

Now, we know that’s not true - as evidenced by his exile to Mar-a-Lago for the past three years, but it’s part of the mystique. In a lot of ways, it makes sense if you look at his cult following - people who are, by and large, deeply disempowered and enraged at a culture that is stripping away their traditional privileges and social entitlements. They WANT Trump to keep shitting the punch bowl as a sort of wish fulfillment of their own stifled rage. Maybe they can’t rape the woman they want to rape or kill the immigrants they hate for speaking Spanish or Hindi at the Gas-n-Sip – but they sure as hell can dream about it when Trump gives a cross-burner of a speech. That’s all standard form.

But what we saw last night - and in the fascist outrage-trolling today - was something new. It’s been creeping into the 2024 election cycle here and there, but yesterday, it entirely broke through, and it’s this: NOT EVEN TRUMP’S BRAIN IS ALLOWED TO CENSOR TRUMP’S MOUTH WHEN IT COMES TO RAGE AND ANGER.

Look, Trump KNOWS that using words like “bloodbath” is going to cost him non-MAGA voters. He knows that calling people “vermin” is going to hurt his chances of navigating the very narrow path ahead if he hopes to return to the White House. Yet, he can’t stop himself. Trump is unable to act in his own easily achieved best interest if it means not being a monster, and while it’s lamentable that he’s bringing such hatred to our national debate, I encourage him to keep it up.

You be you, Donald!

Every single time you let your id out of its box, it’s like sending America an unsolicited, mushroom-shaped dick-pic. Sure, your fans are going to love it, but the rest of us grossed the fuck out.

So, please! Rage on!

-----

Second:

Trump’s lawyers in the NYS civil fraud case settlement submitted a filing today that it is “a practical impossibility” for Trump to post a bond for the half-billion dollars he needs to cough up in order to appeal the decision. According to reports, he approached 30 different surety companies, and they all turned him down. Why they would do that might indicate what’s got him tuned to “bloodbath” and “vermin” levels of rage.

It might be a simple point, but it bears a paragraph of explanation.

Most folks who don’t work in the NYC real estate market – or any real estate market – might think, “Hey, he’s a rich guy. Why not just sell a few of those buildings he owns? They’ve gotta be worth a pretty penny.”

Or, alternatively, “Why won’t anyone take Trump Tower as collateral for a loan?”

The simple answer is he doesn’t really OWN any of that shit outright. It’s ALL mortgaged to the hilt. To get a clearer picture of this, let’s look at 40 Wall Street – one of Trump’s “prestige” properties.

The numbers are a bit hard to come by, but an hour of reading suggests that the building is presently worth about $200 million. Mind you, part of the fraud charges – now proven – included his valuation of the building in 2015 at over $750 million, but it’s just not worth that at all.

So, take the $200 million as a starting point and note that Trump’s mortgage on the property, according to a Bloomberg report in November of 2023, stands at $122 million. So, if Trump were to liquidate his stake in the property fully, he’d only net about $78 million – and that is BEFORE the capital gains taxes, NYS taxes, and NYC taxes on the sale. According to a few articles I’ve scanned this evening, that would be up to about 40% of his earnings. That means, even if he drops one of his most precious assets, he would only raise about $50 million.

He owes TEN TIMES that number by next week.

Play that out another round, and realize that if Trump tried to sell ten or twenty office buildings in NYC all at once, the price of ALL of them would plummet to fire-sale prices.

He’s fucked. Moreover, he knows it and is desperate to find a way out.

-----

This brings us to news item number three: The Return of Paul Manafort.

News leaked today that Trump is considering bringing convicted felon and former campaign manager Paul Manafort back into his 2024 bid for the White House. Manafort, primarily due to his complete lack of a moral center, would be a tremendous asset for Trump. He’s a solid political operative, but what he REALLY brings to the table is a direct line back to the Russian oligarchy and their money. That, obviously, is an enormous threat to national security, and I’ve got to hope that the intelligence services in DC and around the world will be on heightened alert for any covert – or overt – entreaties to Putin or his cronies for a loan. I’ve got to hope there are ways of making such entreaties known to the public through selective leaks if nothing else.

But that brings us back to observation number one.

Trump knows that going to Putin for help with his financial difficulties if it becomes known, would be a dagger to the heart for his chances of returning to the White House. Yet, if I’m right, he will be unable to stop himself when it comes to finding a fix for his hemorrhaging empire. His brain will tell him this is a terrible idea, but it won’t matter. NO ONE is allowed to stop Donald Trump from doing whatever the hell he wants to do – not even Donald Trump.

In 1776, James Otis, a thoughtful supporter of the Revolutionary War, noted about politics, “When the pot boils, the scum will rise.”

Trump is proving that to be true, even when there’s only one evil, arrogant, rapist bastard in the soup. He’s so screwed.

Love to you all.

Michael J. Tallon