#Overvaluation

[usnewsper-business]

Stock Market Soars: Positive Earnings and Oil Prices Boost Investor Confidence #bankstocks #geopoliticaltensions #oilprices #overvaluation #positiveearningsreports #stockmarketmovement #yieldcurve

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Maybe it's because I grew up without much money but every time I go grocery shopping (I do this online) I feel so fucking wealthy. I'm all like "you know I can save myself so much labour... and buy the apple pie THAT'S ALREADY MADE, haha, such an indulgence!" and "with the click of a button, THEY WILL BRING THE FOOD TO MY HOUSE! So luxurious!"

Last week I bought the kind of instant noodles that come in their own disposeable cups instead of the cheaper kind that you have to provide a bowl for and I'm still riding that high.

[bombusbombus]

It's always SO GOOD when Bruce really enjoys the company of the meek little reporter. Like YEAH. That IS Clark's good side. Clark Kent IS more sexy than Superman. Get yourself a man who uses prose to eviscerate corrupt power structures! Get yourself a man whose glasses are never straight! Get yourself a man who's kind when nobody is looking! Romanticise the unglamorous! Fuck!

[unwelcome-ozian]

[decepti-thots]

Minimus for the villain ask meme!

Fun fact: no less than THREE people immediately asked for Minimus, ahaha. I am therefore going to give… well, one option and two bonuses, not really three answers, but yknow.

Option one: so I actually think in some ways, Minimus is one of the easiest main-cast-member in the MTMTE/LL cast to put into this role! That might sound counterintutive. But the crux of Remain in Light revolves around him having had extremely close ties with that arc's main villain this entire time. If you change it so that prior to the big reveal about his ultimate plans, Minimus gets back in touch with Tyrest and is persuaded that Rodimus and his crew are a dangerous liability that need to be prevented from doing further damage… my thought here is that when the LL gets stranded without comms, whatever weird tech Tyrest outfitted the Magnus armour with is powerful enough to make contact, and Minimus reaches out for help. And is told that in lieu of being able to just arrest the lot of them and bring the Lost Light back (since they're stranded), Magnus' role as Enforcer is to do silent damage control, ensure none of Rodimus' big plans come to fruition, and wait for an opportunity to arrange pick-up by Tyrest and his lot for arrest.

Without the very extreme circumstances we see in Remain in Light- the mistreatment of prisoners, the 'built my own army' thing, the abuse, the reveal of Tyrest's eventual plan for mass murder and his overall emotional instability- I think Minimus would squash down basically any uneasiness and Do His Job. He does know how to question authority when it tells him to do things he knows to be immoral… but it takes a loooot to get to that point, and I truly think he'd wave away his doubts for the opportunity to have a defined role and orders to follow as an Enforcer again. Tyrest shows up and Rodimus and the crew get handed over, and THEN you have Minimus trapped in a sunk-cost fallacy where he can't admit Tyrest is in fact clearly acting in the wrong and abusing his power, so he keeps going along with it. Minimus is a character I can very, very easily see taking on a role showcasing how 'good intentions' when it comes to morality can enable very bad things, not because of any particular malice or evil in the person doing them, but just because they hand over the issue of morality to big, impersonal structures they put too much trust in.

Bonus one: Magnus goes along with the mutiny. This was a literal proposed plot at one point, lmao. I maintain that Magnus' insecurity and remaining dissatisfaction with the post-Megatron captaincy situation (both of them!), combined with Getaway's canon ability to play people dealing with feelings of inadequacy like a fiddle, makes this completely plausible. I can a hundred percent imagine him as Getaway's muscle and backing in the mutiny arc, tbh.

Bonus two: not reeeeally a 'villain' take on it in itself, but I'm linking this old post I made about an AU where Minimus originally joined as a Decepticon anyway.

[aprofessionalwithoutstandards]

What do you think about Post-twink death scout? I think he’d look like how Jerma does now or Ellis from left for dead 2 but with stubble, slight hairline recession (like his dad), yellowing teeth and a slight beer gut. That latter two being the consequences of his sugary diet catching up with him. He’d still exercise inconsistently and have his energy though

Jesse Pinkman

[multifairyus]

Hobie Brown Playlist Superiority Complexes

Goodness gracious will y’all shut the FUCK up about playlists people post for fun and to be creative not having “real punk” songs!

Stop being mean to people for putting artists they like in their songs because you think Hobie himself wouldn’t listen to them! Stop calling people cringe when they’re just having fun!! We are ALL on this hellsite obsessing over a fictional man from a children’s movie?! Get a scooby doo, touch some grass and shut up!!!

Ykw that’s not all I wanna say cuz I’m beyond sick and tired of this nonsense lemme get organized with these points chile—

1. One of the creators of Spider-Punk has made a playlist that features all punk music. It’s over 6 hours long and has an excellent spread of artists that are true punk with diverse production and vocal performance. I PROMISE y’all are not doing anything *that* different with your playlists compared to the actual creator’s playlist to be sitting so comfy on that high horse like come off it!

2. Y’all’s “real punk” playlists are WHITE AS HELL!!! Like PLEASE….a playlist with the Ramones and Sex Pistols heavily featured? Groundbreaking, florals for spring. Of course Hobie loves the classics but y’all are so fake concerned about “accuracy” that you white wash the genre you supposedly care so damn much about!!!

3. We know damn well those animators were not paid enough and that the 2024 release is unlikely. You think people are trying to only listen to one VERY specific genre of rock music be reminded of their favorite character for however long that takes?? You don’t think there’s a need for variety in music to convey they character? You don’t think anything but The Queen’s Proper Punk music is good enough to even be ASSOCIATED with him, let alone *gasp* headcannon him listening to it? That’s unrealistic, limiting, and boring as hell.

4. Did you know that a “character playlist” can mean a lot of different things? Y’all jump to reading the intent behind every playlist as “this is something that Hobie Brown in-universe would listen to on his Spotify”…when there’s a lot of ways to interpret a character into a playlist? Different contexts and situations and purposes? Playlist curation is a type of fanwork just as valid as fanart and fanfiction but doesn’t get nearly as much grace for people to take creative liberties and that’s so unfair!

Tl;dr: I don’t care for the dogmatic, gatekeepy, mean-spirited attitude people have towards people making playlists about a fictional character that YOU feel is inaccurate. Maybe it is. Or maybe, just maybe, you centering your preference/perspective as the Right and Only Way isn’t really in the spirit of a young Black man who spends his free time punching Nahtzees in the face and organizing his community to fight fascism.

Moral absolutism about MUSIC? Spider-Punk Hobart “Hobie” Brown would never. Y’all can die mad about it idc.

[hell-heron]

Sometimes the fact that GRRM has, amid all his efforts to have nuance and a wide spectrum in his female characters and to deconstruct certain tropes, played the daddy's girl tomboy in contrast to the hostility or complete elimination of the female figures in her life trope completely straight over and over again, with basically every female warrior he wrote, from his female lead to two whole secondary POVs to one note extras (with the exception of the Mormont ladies yeah at least, maybe when we get more Alysane content I will be less grumpy about this), leaves me kind of bitterly shocked tbh

[kkorechika]

My cousins: you should come to Austin, we have x y and z

And it sounds like the worst thing on earth

[galerymod]

Humans have the power to create illusions that transport us all to another world. This is what makes humanity unconditionally unique compared to the much-vaunted and overvalued A.I. Machines do not dream and cannot imagine anything that has not yet existed. Ultimately, it's just a new old business model. Check out AI Winter for more.

mod

The interesting thing is that the danger of A.I. is once again not really weighted, as is so often the case with risk technologies.

We just say those words, drones, A.I. and weapons systems and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[orlissa]

Okay, I have given in to the shoulder-devil. One of these bits was written by me, two of them by internationally published authors. All the names and such have been blurred out. Guess.

(Also, @stargazerdaisy is an enabler)

1,

Strong hands closed around her legs. A moment later they were on her yoke, lifting her. Still she couldn’t see or breathe. [He] had found her. Only [he] could lift her and the yoke with such ease. She might still die but at least she wouldn’t be by herself. Her body began to convulse, air escaping her in bursts; the terror held at bay for so long flooded through her, blowing reason from its path.

2,

Two gymnasts are training at the far end, and my stomach has not been too happy as they blatantly ogle him. They watched him when he was jumping rope. Then, they watched, their eyes almost popping out of their heads, when he was doing his pull overs, mountain climbers, and his upside-down ab work. My beast looks so sexy when he trains, those two have been gaping all morning and afternoon. One even fell on her butt for all the staring she was doing.

3,

A man approached her from the nave, wearing the clergy’s simple cassock. At first she could only see the tall frame, the slightly stooped shoulders, and the cane held in his right hand, but as he came closer and the candlelight enveloped him, she could make out the finer details as well—he must have been in his late forties, his hair slightly thinning but stubbornly dark, the skin around his eyes prematurely lined. His face was pleasant in the most ordinary way, not handsome, but trustworthy, completely unremarkable save the pronounced crescent-shaped scar that started on his forehead, and, curling over his left eye, stretched to his temple.

[realrogerhours]

Rattlesnake lamia, gift for the client who owns the design

[tropylium]

I am probably unnecessarily proud of the fact I have never consumed an "energy drink"

[patricida]

i wont you.

[deadendtracks]

the thing is a lot of the "i could make that/a child could make that" is not at all about the industry, it is about regressive political impulses and lack of art education. it's just knee-jerk conservative bullshit that people parrot because they haven't been exposed to art.

i get the critiques of the industry, i do, i have worked in a contemporary art museum and i studied art. but when my 19 year old nephew sees a Rothko and says "i could do that" he's not talking about the problems with the art industry, he's repeating what he's heard somebody else say. and responding to him "yeah, you could, you should give it a go" is a way of trying to reach him, because he *is* interested in art, he's just repeating shit he's heard about it.

[facelessxchurch]

I suppose the reason Skulduggery might not have anything of his family is because he was dead for a few years. Whatever house or property they had probably got looted or burned, but hey I don’t want to make excuses for Landy.

One thing that always bothered me was when Skulduggery was resurrected, and when he came back from his time as Vile, Landy made it seem like everyone was just okay with it…? If my best friend was murdered by the enemy and his body put on display (which guaranteed Ghastly and the other Dead Men saw) and then comes back years later as a skeleton, thats just not something anybody would automatically fine with.

And then Skul disappears AGAIN with no reason or warning for another like 5 years and then just reappear one day with little to no plausible explanation

I find it hard to believe that their friends and family didn't save some stuff from their ransacked home, or if it was destroyed completely, didn't have something of theirs in their own home. Like, Skul's wife's side of the family would probably have a portrait of at least their daughter and grandchild (all SP mages are rich, so they could afford it) and some other keepsakes. For example, a drawing or a bracelet the grandchild made or whatever kids were making in 17th/18th century Ireland.

Like, my grandparents kept my first shoes and then gifted them back to me when I turned 18. I find it hard to believe that there wasn't something.

Imagine Ghastly took it upon himself to sew clothes for the still always-growing Skul-Child and when Skul returned from the dead he gifted him the last outfit he sewed for the child, a gift the child never actually received this time.

Imagine Skul had a pocket watch with his wife and child engraved into the lid or maybe it simply was a gift from his wife with a phrase that meant something to them engraved into it. Serpine took the watch off him when he captured Skul and kept it in the same case he kept the dagger he used to poison him in. He had a nagging feeling it could still be of use to him. Imagine when Skul returned from the dead, Nef carried the watch with him at all times until one day Skul had him cornered. He taunted him with what a sweet gift from the wife the watch was before throwing it as far as he could, sending Skul scrambling for it just long enough to escape.

____

Only Ghastly was friends with him before he died. And honestly, Ghastly takes more shit from Skul than he should. He's like the Baron of the Dead Men. The Dead Men only formed AFTER Skul's death. I think it was Dexter who said he joined bc he wanted to fight side by side with the 'miracle soldier'. But fact-check me on that bc I don't really care about the DM.

As for the 5 Vile years: yeah, it's so stupid that that didn't make them figure out Skul is Vile. Especially since phase 2, they shared the same GF of which everybody knew she was a bad influence on him. He really said "hoes over bros" :/