#tenet release

[bluedesertbruja]

he doesn’t even talk to christian bale anymore, wb thinks he’s gonna take their call??

[theuntitledblog]

Tenet (2020) - REVIEW

It's hard to know where to even begin with Tenet! I would start by saying that no other film Christopher Nolan has made has come close to being as much of a challenge for me as this . It's not like the general concept of inversion is that difficult to understand, but the way it's realized and utilized on screen just boggles the senses and I find myself unable fully process it. I saw Tenet again a couple of days ago and this was probably the first time where most of it started to slot together for me but even then the visual complexity is still hard to grasp the bigger and more ambitious the film gets. This is Christopher Nolan operating in a similar way as he did with Inception by constructing a complex film around a sci-fi concept and trusting that the audience can keep up. Tenet is a film I admired and generally liked upon release, it's a film I continue to revisit but unlike with Inception, Tenet is perhaps too challenging for some of the wrong reasons.

Despite being 2 and a half hours long, Tenet requires your full attention as well as your ability to keep up with the story as it moves constantly between so many locations, characters, ideas and even points in time. There's nothing wrong of course with trying to challenge your audience with complex ideas, but it is a problem when it requires multiple viewings to understand the basics and Tenet asks a lot of its audience. Nolan has been previously criticised regarding the quality of the sound in his movies and while I haven't generally agreed with this, here I think it's somewhat justified. On my first viewing there were lines of dialogue I couldn't pick up on which was compounded further by just how loud Ludwig Göransson's score is at times. I would point out that at no time was I unable to follow the main story or the stakes involved and if you can keep up then Tenet can be a rewarding experience. But there's no denying that Tenet is too convoluted for its own good and isn't as satisfying an experience than Inception was. But among its saving graces, the biggest for me is that I find it to be among the most intriguing films Nolan has made and my desire to fully understand it is because I admire so much of what it's attempting to be.

If you've ever wondered what a Christopher Nolan directed James Bond movie might look like, then Tenet is probably your best guess. Dealing with espionage, secret organisations, diverse and scenic locations plus heavy hitting, large scale set pieces and you'll see that the Bond vibes are there. Adding to the set up is a suave lead in John David Washington, a sinister Bond-esque villain in Kenneth Branagh and Robert Pattinson's mysterious side kick Neil who always seems to know more than he should and you have an interesting mix. The characters themselves are mostly service to the plot and aside from Elizabeth Debicki's Kat and Branagh's Sator, little is offered in terms of deeper understanding of their motives or back stories. But there's also no denying that Nolan is on fine form once again with huge, practical set pieces that look glorious on screen and can't help but keep your interest.

The inversion sequences are unlike anything I've seen and visually I find it impressive yet tough to process especially during the more complex sequences. What starts off with just bullets later progresses to cars, corridor fights, interrogation sequences and even a full scale battle. Even now I can't honestly say that I fully grasp what I'm seeing on screen nor how concepts such as Temporal Pincer movements affect the larger set pieces such as during the heist in Tallinn. Whether this is really an issue with myself or the film is definitely up for discussion but I think there's no denying that that Tenet, for me at least is difficult to fully understand. Nolan has said that you're not meant to understand everything about Tenet and while I think there's something to be said about ambiguity in films, I ultimately feel that Tenet is too complex to be as satisfying an experience as I hoped it would be ... at least not yet. Tenet is a film that is too interesting to ignore and will be a film I keep coming back to again and again.

VERDICT

Tenet represents one of the most challenging cinematic experiences I've ever had and it will likely prove too much for a lot of people. But this is a film that offers greater rewards the more you stick with it and while it isn't the best film Christopher Nolan has made, it is one of the most intriguing.

4/5

[thedragonagelesbian]

ok the first section of the pally!wyll fic is drafted!!

[songoftrillium]

Likes don’t increase visibility to others! Please reblog this to spread the word! 

I think Werewolf is an inherently queer medium

This is all part of a longer term project

Read our intro comic here

Coming soon:

Book 1: Cliath

In 1992, White Wolf Publishing released the first edition of Werewolf: the Apocalypse to the public. Throughout the 1990s, it rapidly grew to become one of the most played role-playing games of all time, and this persisted well into the noughties when the series concluded with the Revised (3rd) edition.

Its a game that speaks to the core fears many of us hold about the uncertainty of the future. Of corporations harming the world to meet their profit margins, of everyday people whose homes and lives are destroyed by disasters caused by those corporations or by storms that wouldn't have been so severe even a decade before. Of politicians who sell agencies to those who pay them the most to make the most vulnerable groups in society even more vulnerable. Of people who don't even have that. It looks you all in the eyes and asks you to be enraged. It asks you to care while handing you the tools to do something about it. Then, you get to work. You don't just blow up the factories; you empower the little guy, heal communities, and confront the stagnant society that you've become a part of, and you have to be responsible custodians of the greater world around you while not trying to be consumed by the very darkness you fight against. It was as intense as it was touching, heartbreaking, and entertaining. At times its just as absurd (and nuanced) as real life.

It was revolutionary at the time for the space it held at the tabletop. Werewolf was the first tabletop roleplaying game ever made that defaulted to using feminine pronouns in all Player and Storyteller interactions, as well as the default pronouns of the Garou in its first three editions. For its many flaws, it saw itself as the first tabletop roleplaying game that held any space for Indigenous groups. It made activism a core theme of the game itself, and would conclude its books with a list of related real-world demonstrations where the players can get involved in protecting the world around them, just like the werewolves they represent at the tabletop.

The Garou have intricate and multi-layered cultures from their written language to their oral histories, the way they dress, and the ways they manifest across editions were presented with very little overlap when it comes to the multiple facets across their society, leading to a rich history and complex societies for Storytellers to weave chronicles together for their troupes.

Dark Surrealism Awaits

The World of Darkness is implied to exist just beneath a facade that all others take for granted as simply being a world gone wrong. Can you feel it? In a world of burning forests, flash floods, social inequality and seemingly worse things emerging day after day — a world where everything feels wrong and nothing in the world feels right — you are not alone.

The universe is itself a living organism, thrashing like a panicked animal at the biting darkness, and we, the Gaians, are those who join the fight to protect it. You are one of Gaia’s chosen warriors, about to experience your First Change, and become swept into a world of ancient warriors and sacred purpose.

We monsters ask nothing of you—other than to join us.

Book 1: Cliath includes • Over 400 fully annotated pages with cross-referencing and book citations for Storytellers to delve into the deeper lore of WtA • Cross-edition compatible character creation rules for Fifth edition and legacy games • Comprehensive information on the histories, societies, and politics of over 20 Tribes • Laws, Tenets, traditions and rites for 3 new factions • Downtime and Questing mechanics • Detailed breed information and roleplay tips on how to play a wolf • Full sept breakdowns including roles and duties • Over 600 level 1-3 Gifts in a whole new presentation • 7 New Patrons • New Renown system and detailed ranking info • Comprehensive character creation rules • Dozens of story seeds to get your players started • A localized Pacific Northwest setting with Sept, legends, and over 20 new NPCs • Citable information on first changes and rites of passage

Read our latest project update here

[thana-topsy]

O’ Father, Unmaker, O’ Sithis, Dread Lord!

The following journal was found next to the body of Tyrdren Suranni, former Dark Brotherhood assassin.

--

As one reaches the end of their life, it is only natural to look back on the branching paths of possibilities past and become reflective of one’s choices. I feel privileged, as both a Dunmer and a career assassin, to have lived as long as I have. In my two hundred and eighty-odd years of life on Nirn, I have spent well over half of them in devotion to our Dread Father, the Lord of Chaos and Change, Sithis.

I began my worship in the same way as many who come to Sithis do: through entering communion with the Night Mother. I consider my joining of the Dark Brotherhood to be my true birth, and, like my first birth, it was not without a great deal of pain and suffering and loss of blood. But I do not wish for this to dissolve into a memoir, for I would much rather use my final hours in praise of the Unmaker.   

I have read innumerable texts on both the founding of our Family and its failed predecessor, the Morag Tong, and I have yet to find my own feelings about our Dread Lord put into words. There is an appropriate amount of fear and awe to be expected when speaking of Sithis. His is a name I have never taken in vain. Yet this fear has always felt counterintuitive to me. Even as a young assassin I did not fear my own death, in the same way that I did not feel remorse for taking a life. There is no guarantee that any of us shall see the next sunrise. If not by my blade, then by another.

I have faithfully followed the Five Tenets for the entirety of my service and devotion, and I have witnessed only on one occasion the appearance of the phantasmal apparition known as The Wrath of Sithis. It is a moment I shall never forget. To see a man’s flesh ripped to ribbons by a spectre he could not touch… I was forever changed, but not for the reasons you might think. When I beheld the Wrath of Sithis, I was struck with clarity that upended the entire paradigm of my life: 

The Sithis we fear as mortals is not the truth of Sithis. 

That pitiful wraith who disposed of my colleague was not sent by our Dread Lord as punishment for breaking the Five Tenets. No. That spectre was something of mortal creation.

One might be led to believe that this would cause me to have a crisis of faith, perhaps even leave the Dark Brotherhood altogether. This was not the case. In fact, I felt great joy at this realization. The Tenets were rules to be followed by a strictly mortal organization, which were entirely reasonable and easily accomplished. However, I was still unsettled by my own family’s view that sending a soul to the Void was somehow punishment. 

I ask you, what is life? What is death? Are we not stuck in an unending prison of consciousness? Of suffering and loss? Are we not trapped in a dream from which we can never awaken? 

Now I ask you this: what is the Void if not the promise of release from the unending cycle of mortal suffering? 

This was my revelation. Sithis, Dread Father, Unmaker, Bringer of Ends. He is the opposite of Life—the antithesis of mortal suffering. To send a soul to the Void is to enact the greatest kindness one could offer: eternal rest, peace. 

Unmaking. 

It is for this reason that I know the hour of my death, for I am the one to order it. I have performed the Black Sacrament with myself as the target. It is only a matter of time before one of my siblings appears to release me from the suffering of a world to which my spirit shall never return. I shall dissolve into the nothingness of That Which Is Not. 

I leave this final journal with a record of my assassinations, as well as an account of the techniques I have perfected over the many years, in hopes that others might follow my path and walk into the Void unafraid. Let us all step forward into our own Unmaking, hand-in-hand.

O’ Father, Unmaker, O’ Sithis, Dread Lord! Accept me as your child and render me into naught! 

From nothing we were created, and into nothingness shall we return.   

[radioactiverats]

'Learning to Fly' by Pink Floyd- a song about releasing yourself from the earth through near-death experiences/drugs. But also. The violins hold the wind, and make me think about the intense copium that Starscream must experience teaching Cadet how to fly

I'm kind of crying at these music recs, I'm enjoying them a lot... I'm literally inhaling copium through a gas mask rn

---

In the beginning, he hadn't even intended on becoming an instructor.

It was just another title the Academy had mailed to him in a letter - equivalent to an "honorary professor". He'd scoffed, then. The senior council didn't care about producing real fliers. They only wanted to make the right connections. That was one thing he hadn't wanted to admit - becoming jaded to something as glorious as teaching younglings to fly. But it had been a few kilocycles, and the Academy seemed to have... lost all heart. Focused only on numbers, on churning out Seekers who could wear the crest of Vos but remained uneducated as to its core tenets.

Something about the letter had stayed with him, though. The offer to drop in as he wished and teach. It was curiosity more than anything that had him pressing 'send' on a curt message to the Academy, warning them of his imminent arrival. That, and a part of him that simply couldn't let go of the burning need to impart something valuable, something from the old days, that would hopefully make young cadets understand that flying was more than... that. It was a part of your identity. It was an art. Something to take pride in.

Striding into the grand halls of the Academy, Starscream takes pleasure in the hushed whispers, the wide optics that follow his frame.

"Is that... Commander Starscream?"

"It can't be."

"Look at that paintjob, it can't be anyone else!"

He allows himself the smirk that tugs at his intake. At least they're still teaching history right - he'd worked for his reputation, and it pleased him to see that his glories as Air Commander were being passed on.

The senior council, after bowing copiously to him, had offered him a position teaching fourth years - essentially, last-minute drilling before they were due to take their exams. It was purposely cushy. Fourth years were well-trained, eager for knowledge beyond the syllabus that would help them succeed. However, Starscream knew that it was for the purpose of passing the test. He did not blame the students - after all, it was the senate who had turned trained flight into a profession rather than an embracing of Vosian identity. Nonetheless, he found himself reluctant to participate in the system - one which churned out Seekers who did not understand the true value of flight. Despite his discomfort around younglings, he'd found himself demanding the opportunity to teach first years. It stopped here. It stopped now. He would imbue at least one generation of new Seekers with the value of flight.

At least, at first, that was all he'd set out to do.

You happened to be in his very first batch of students. You'd thanked Primus that you had enough talent to catch his optics - a starry-eyed fan of Commander Starscream like all the others. But unlike what you'd thought, it wasn't just your talent, but something about your determination that got through to him.

He'd caught you, once. Airborne after hours, practicing drill after drill. "C-commander?" You'd stuttered. Your optics glowing with fear in the dark of the Terran night - but he'd simply acknowledged you with a curt remark. "Pay attention to your ailerons. You're not responding appropriately to the resistance of the winds."

You'd stiffened, then. Before you could say anything, he'd jetted off into the cover of the night - but it brought him a rush of unprecedented pleasure to watch you carefully adjust your ailerons, pass your next flight test with flying colours.

After that, he'd started taking notice of you. Watched how you'd execute every move with purpose, how you clearly enjoyed being in the air. Quietly, he'd become determined to ensure you would master all that he had to teach, graduate with honours.

Of course, because the universe hated him - you'd been robbed of your chance to even take any exams before you'd even completed your first year. He'd spent a night raging at Primus, screaming until his vocaliser had been stripped raw. Yet, he received no answers as to why Primus couldn't be merciful - if not to him, at least to those he cared about. Seeing your training through was the least he could do - borne from grim determination that your efforts wouldn't go to waste. However, as your time within the Decepticon ranks wore on, something had changed. Since when had teaching you to fly become teaching you to survive? Starscream hadn't signed up for this.

And yet, watching you soar from the ground below, arms crossed severely behind his back - ensuring your possession of basic flying skills had become something more. You weren't dying on his watch - but it had only really sunk in when he realized he was now in charge of teaching you what it meant to live.

[felassan]

Letter from Game Director Corinne Busche and Creative Director John Epler that comes with Rook's Coffer.

Transcript:

"Nine years ago, we released the final chapter of Dragon Age Inquisition: Trespasser. At the time, when we talked about what that final shot would be, we thought it'd be cool to end with a dagger stab into the map. Where? Let's say Minrathous, because we were pretty sure that's where we wanted to go there with the next game. Now, here we are. Releasing the newest chapter in the world of Dragon Age has us finally making good on a promise we weren't even completely sure we were making. But where else would we go besides the heart of Tevinter, the magical empire that has always lurked at the edges of Dragon Age stories? And while the shape of the game and the story has shifted over time, we always knew that this game was the one that would resolve the story of Solas once and for all. From that, we've never shifted course. As fans of the franchise ourselves, we wanted to honor the rich legacy of the Dragon Age games that have come before while welcoming new players to join us in Thedas. To us, that meant returning to our core tenets of authentic and relatable characters, rich worldbuilding, and stories that are at times joyous and other times heartbreaking. Perhaps most importantly, we wanted to build a game in which you could see yourself, whether through the companions you'll meet or the characters you create. It's taken the combined efforts of hundreds of people to craft this experience, and each has put part of themselves into it. We're beyond proud of every single member of this team, and we're incredibly grateful for the patience that you, our fans, have shown. To us, this Dragon Age game is a return to the kind of storytelling BioWare is known for: characters you care about inside stories that matter. Welcome back to Thedas. CORINNE BUSCHE, Game Director JOHN EPLER, Creative Director"

[source: Rook's Coffer]

[samueldelany]

Another jazz titan, John Coltrane was a major part of the Afrofuturist movement in jazz music. Coltrane was known, especially in the years leading up to his premature death, for spirituality in his music (one of the core tenets). On the year of his death, he recorded Interstellar Space, which was released by Impulse Records posthumously in 1974, in the heat of the Afrofuturist wave. Each of the tracks are named after the planets in our solar system, and the album is full of the classic Coltrane avante-garde sound with frantic runs of saxophone notes and fast drumming tempos.

Pharoah Sanders, another major player in the spritual jazz sphere released a couple of Afrofutuist jazz albums, such as Thembi (1971) and Karma (1969). Sanders takes inspiration from eastern spirituality in these albums, bringing in a new perspective to the jazz sound, while still keeping the aspects of spirituality and the future that Afrofuturuism is known for.

While the movement took off and had its heyday in the early to mid-70s, there is still a well established Afrofuturist movement in today’s jazz sound.

[bluedesertbruja]

saw a tenet fancam to olivia rodrigo’s ‘drivers liscense’. art and creativity is so important.

[aylinisobel-week]

Hello again, everyone! It's time for some celebration.

The next full moon is on August 9th. Here's some inspiration for your offerings!

One of the names for the August full moon is Wyrt, or Wort, or Herb Moon, connected to plant life, herb gardens, and their uses in everyday life, from healing to cooking and brewing.

In Faerûn, we have the big celebrations of Midsummer and Shieldmeet. 

Midsummer is notable for being an occasion for grand feasting, drinking, dancing, and general carousing in pretty much all of Faerûn. It is frequently associated with romance, beginning or advancing courtships, and cementing and announcing betrothals. It is also known for risqué and decadent celebrations in many places, from flirty games behind masks to forest chases that frequently lead to dalliances with as many strings attached as is desired. It is said that the gods themselves ensure good weather on Midsummer, and any storm occurring on that day is considered a particularly bad omen - even divine disapproval.

Shieldmeet occurs every 4 years directly after Midsummer, and happened in 1492 DR, when BG3 takes place. It is the great holiday of the Calendar of Harptos, a day for plain speaking and open council between rulers and their subjects, for the forming and renewal of pacts and contracts and treaties. Many tournaments and contests of skill are held on Shieldmeet, and most faiths mark the holiday by emphasizing one of their key tenets.

Worshippers of Selûne perform the Conjuring of the Second Moon ritual simultaneously in all her temples in Faerûn, with a highly coordinated chant generating an immense amount of devotional energy. This summons the Shards of Selûne - her most powerful servants, a cadre of blue-haired Planetars - to assist her mortal clergy. Usually this means foiling some scheme of Shar's, and, in return for their help, one of the priestesses is chosen to join the Shards when they depart at dawn.

Finally, to top this manifold celebration off, August 3rd this year marks the second anniversary of the release of Baldur's Gate 3. A pretty good occasion for a toast or two.

If you choose to post or cross-post your work to tumblr, make sure to @ this blog and tag your contribution with #fullmoonofferings2025.

[mariacallous]

Over the past decade, China has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in its international media network. The Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, and the China Daily web portal produce material in multiple languages and use multiple social-media accounts to amplify it. This huge investment produces plenty of positive coverage of China and benign depictions of the authoritarian world more broadly. Nevertheless, Beijing is also aware that news marked “made in China” doesn’t have anything like the influence that local people, using local media, would have if they were uttering the same messages.

That, in the regime’s thinking, is the ultimate form of propaganda: Get the natives to say it for you. Train them, persuade them, pay them—it doesn’t matter; whatever their motives, they’ll be more convincing. Chinese leaders call this tactic “borrowing boats to reach the sea.”

When a handful of employees at RT, the Russian state television network formerly known as Russia Today, allegedly offered to provide lucrative payments to the talking heads of Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based far-right influencer team, borrowing boats to reach the sea was exactly what they had in mind. According to a federal indictment released last week, RT employees spent nearly $10 million over the course of a year—money “laundered through a network of foreign shell entities,” including companies in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the Czech Republic, and Hungary—with the aim of supporting Tenet Media’s work and shaping the messages in its videos.

The indictment makes clear that the influencers—propagandists, in fact—must have had a pretty good idea where the money was coming from. They were told that their benefactor was “Eduard Grigoriann,” a vaguely Euro-Armenian “investor.” They tried to Google him and found nothing; they asked for information and were shown a résumé that included a photograph of a man gazing through the window of a private jet. Sometimes, the messages from Grigoriann’s team were time-stamped in a way that indicated they were written in Moscow. Sometimes the alleged employees of Grigoriann’s alleged company misspelled Grigoriann’s name. Unsurprisingly, in their private conversations, the Tenet Media team occasionally referred to its mysterious backers as “the Russians.”

But the real question is not whether the talking heads of Tenet Media—the founders, Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, who were the main interlocutors with the Russians, but also Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson—had guessed the true identity of their “investor.” Nor does it matter whether they knew who was really paying them to make videos that backed up absurd pro-Moscow narratives (that a terrorist attack at a Moscow shopping mall, loudly claimed by the Islamic State, was really carried out by Ukrainians, for example). More important is whether the audience knew, and I think we can safely say that it did not. And now that Tenet Media fans do know who funds their favorite influencers, it’s entirely possible that they won’t care.

This is because the messages formed part of a larger stream of authoritarian ideas that are now ubiquitous on the far right, and that make coherent sense as a package. They denounce U.S. institutions as broken, irreparable: If Donald Trump doesn’t win, it’s because the election is rigged. They imply American society is degenerate: White people are discriminated against in America. They suggest immigrants are part of a coordinated invasion, designed to destroy what remains of the culture: Illegal immigrants are eating household pets, a trope featured during this week’s presidential debate. For the Russians, the amplification of this narrative matters more than specific arguments about Ukraine. As the indictment delicately explains, many of the Russian-sponsored videos produced by Tenet Media were more relevant to American politics than to the Ukraine war: “While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions.”

But these themes are also consistent with the Trump campaign’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions. People who have come to distrust the basic institutions of American democracy, who feel aggrieved and rejected, who believe that immigrants are invaders who have been deliberately sent to replace them—these are not people who will necessarily be bothered that their favorite YouTubers, according to prosecutors, were being sponsored by a violent, lawless foreign dictator who repeatedly threatens the U.S. and its allies with nuclear armageddon. On the contrary, many of them now despise their own country so much that they might be pleased to hear there are foreigners who, like the ex-president, want to burn it all down. If you truly hate modern America—its diversity, its immense energy, its raucous debate—then you won’t mind hearing it denounced by other people who hate it and wish it ill. On X earlier this year, Chen referred to the U.S. as a “tyranny,” for example, a phrase that could easily have been produced by one of the Russian propagandists who regularly decry the U.S. on the evening news.

These pundits and their audience are not manipulated by Russian, Chinese, and other autocrats who sometimes fill their social-media feeds. The relationship goes the other way around; Russian, Chinese, and other influence operations are designed to spread the views of Americans who actively and enthusiastically support the autocratic narrative. You may have laughed at Trump’s rant on Tuesday night: “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.” But that language is meant to reach an audience already primed to believe that Kamala Harris, as Trump himself said, is “destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn’t have a chance of success. Not only success. We’ll end up being Venezuela on steroids.”

Plenty of other people are trying to reach that audience too. Indeed, the Grigoriann scheme was not the only one revealed in the past few days. In a separate case that has received less attention, the FBI last week filed an affidavit in a Pennsylvania courthouse supporting the seizure of 32 internet domains. The document describes another team of Russian operatives who have engaged in typosquatting—setting up fake news websites whose URLs resemble real ones. The affidavit mentions, for example, washingtonpost.pm, washingtonpost.ltd, fox-news.in, fox-news.top, and forward.pw, but we know there are others. This same propaganda group, known to European investigators as Doppelganger, has also set up similar sites in multiple European languages. Typosquatters do not necessarily seek to drive people to the fake sites. Instead, the fake URLs they provide make posts on Facebook, X, and other social media appear credible. When someone is quickly scrolling, they might not check whether a sensational headline purporting to be from The Washington Post is in fact linked to washingtonpost.pm, the fake site, as opposed to washingtonpost.com, the real one.

But this deception, too, would not work without people who are prepared to believe it. Just as the Grigoriann scam assumed the existence of pundits and viewers who don’t really care who is paying for the videos that make them angry, typosquatting—like all information laundering—assumes the existence of a credulous audience that is already willing to accept outrageous headlines and not ask too many questions. Again, although Russian teams seek to cultivate, influence, and amplify this audience—especially in Pennsylvania, apparently, because in Moscow, they know which swing states matter too—the Russians didn’t create it. Rather, it was created by Trump and the pundits who support him, and merely amplified by foreigners who want our democracy to fail.

These influencers and audiences are cynical, even nihilistic. They have deep distrust in American institutions, especially those connected to elections. We talk a lot about how authoritarianism might arrive in America someday, but in this sense, it’s already here: The United States has a very large population of people who look for, absorb, and believe anti-American messages wherever they are found, whether on the real Fox News or the fake fox-news.in. Trump was speaking directly to them on Tuesday. What happens next is up to other Americans, the ones who don’t believe that their country is cratering into chaos and don’t want a leader who will burn it all down. In the meantime, there are plenty of boats available to borrow for Russians who want to reach the sea.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 30, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jul 30, 2025

On July 2, 2024, just about a year ago, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation Kevin Roberts told the listeners of Steve Bannon’s War Room webcast: “[W]e are going to win. We’re in the process of taking this country back.” Roberts pointed to the Supreme Court’s decision in��Donald J. Trump v. United States the day before giving the president absolute immunity for committing crimes while engaging in official acts.

“That Supreme Court ruling yesterday on immunity is vital, and it's vital for a lot of reasons,” Roberts said, adding that the nation needs a strong leader because “the left has taken over our institutions.” “[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution,” he said, “which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Roberts was the man who organized Project 2025, the blueprint for a new kind of government dictated by a right-wing strongman. Creating that new government would require a president willing to act illegally, stripping the secular language of civil rights from public life, packing the government with loyalists, ending the social safety net, killing business regulations, and purging American institutions of all but right-wing ideologues.

When Americans learned about Project 2025, they hated it. An NBC News poll from September 2024 showed that only 4% of Americans saw the project favorably. Even among Republicans, that number climbed only to 7%. For those identifying as MAGA Republicans, the number rose to just 9%.

So Trump and his campaign advisors denied that he had anything to do with the plan. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” he wrote on social media in July. “I have no idea who is behind it.”

And yet six months into the second Trump administration, on the sixtieth anniversary of the law that symbolized the modern American state by establishing Medicare and Medicaid, it’s clear we are indeed in a revolution designed to destroy the government we have known in favor of the radical right-wing government envisioned by those who wrote Project 2025.

From the beginning, the administration declared war on the words that protected equal rights for all Americans, fired women and racial minorities from leadership positions, and attacked transgender Americans. It worked to replace civil servants with loyalists who embraced the tenets of Project 2025, putting people like former Fox News host Pete Hegseth at the head of government agencies. Yesterday Greg Jaffe and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that in a break with past practices, Hegseth, now secretary of defense, is requiring nominees for four-star general positions in the U.S. military to meet personally with Trump.

It worked to dismantle the government by refusing to release the money Congress had appropriated to fund the existing government. Thanks to billionaire Elon Musk at the “Department of Government Efficiency” and Russell Vought—another author of Project 2025—at the Office of Management and Budget, the administration illegally impounded funds, slashing through funding for foreign aid, cancer research, veterans’ benefits, air traffic control staffing, and so on, claiming to be eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.” That fight is ongoing.

But while it shrank government programs that helped ordinary people—programs like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—as part of their claim to be returning power to the states, the administration did not shrink the government itself. Instead, it dramatically expanded the government’s capacity to arrest and detain undocumented migrants.

The administration set out to purge the country of what extremists claimed was “leftist” influence in law firms, media, and universities. It illegally blocked lawyers from law firms that represented Democrats from access to federal buildings, making it impossible for them to represent their clients. It sued media outlets for alleged bias, and it withheld congressionally appropriated funds for universities for alleged antisemitism.

Last week, in order to obtain the Federal Communications Commission's approval of an $8 billion merger between CBS parent company Paramount and Skydance Media, Skydance agreed not to set up programs related to civil rights, or “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and to produce “unbiased” journalism. Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr approved the merger, then bragged on right-wing media shows that CBS has agreed to put in place an internal political “bias monitor” who will report to the president of Paramount to make sure the channel’s news coverage is favorable to Trump and the right wing.

Last week, after Columbia University agreed to pay $221 million and to promise it will not use “race, color, sex, or national origin” in hiring decisions in exchange for the government’s restoring the $1.3 billion in funding the administration had withheld over charges of antisemitism, Trump’s education secretary Linda McMahon told Maria Bartiromo of the Fox News Channel: “[T]his is a monumental victory for conservatives who’ve wanted to do things on these elite campuses for a long time because we had such far left leaning professors.”

On Monday the Office of Personnel Management issued a memo allowing federal employees to pray publicly at work, as well as to try to “persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views.”

The administration has worked to dismantle the regulations that protect Americans by using artificial intelligence to slash regulations in half by next January. With the blessing of the Supreme Court, Trump has claimed the power to fire the heads of independent agencies, effectively giving him power over agencies created by Congress.

Yesterday the administration took its fight against public protections a leap further when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a new rule that would get rid of a rule in place since 2009 establishing, on the basis of scientific evidence, that the emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane warms the planet and thus endangers human life. Most of the vehicle, factory, and power plant emissions standards currently in place come from this “endangerment finding.”

EPA officials told Lisa Friedman of the New York Times they intend to argue that it is climate regulations, rather than greenhouse gas emissions, that cause the real harm to human health because they lead to higher prices and less consumer choice.

As Roberts said, the Supreme Court’s decision giving Trump immunity was important because destroying the country’s institutions would require lawbreaking. In nothing has that been so clear as in the administration’s handling of the rendering of undocumented migrants to third countries. Whistleblowers from the Department of Justice claim that DOJ official Emil Bove told DOJ attorneys they could ignore court orders stopping migrant flights, saying they should consider telling the courts “f*ck you.”

Last night, the Senate confirmed Bove to a federal judgeship, with 50 Republicans voting in favor. Forty-seven Democrats voted no. They were joined by Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who said: “I don’t think that somebody who has counseled other attorneys that you should ignore the law, you should reject the law, I don’t think that that individual should be placed in a lifetime seat on the bench.”

But Thom Tillis (R-NC) voted in favor of Bove’s confirmation, illustrating that even those Republicans who have put distance between themselves and Trump are enabling the revolution in our government.

Republicans in Congress have enabled the dismantling of the country’s social safety net with dramatic cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program while also extending significant tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and pouring money into purges of undocumented migrants. Today Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told an audience at an event for the right-wing media outlet Breitbart that the new “Trump accounts” established by the budget reconciliation bill are “a backdoor for privatizing Social Security.”

Congress’s unwillingness to stand against Trump shows most dramatically in its reluctance to reassert the power the Constitution gives to it—and only to it—over tariffs. Trump has fought his tariff war only by asserting emergency power, but he has used that power to change world trade and to punish countries like Brazil for its prosecution of Trump’s political ally, former president Jair Bolsonaro. Tomorrow, the day before the August 1 deadline on which most of Trump’s tariffs will go into effect, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will weigh in on whether those tariffs are legal.

When Kevin Roberts announced a year ago that the radical right was launching a second American revolution, he was telling the truth. But the new world they want to bring to life seems no more popular now than it was then.

And now the growing scandal around President Donald J. Trump’s connections to late convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein shows that the MAGA movement is apparently willing to accept the sexual abuse of children in order to cement their worldview.

Yesterday Trump tried to cast himself as a sort of protector when he claimed that he turned against Epstein because Epstein “stole people that worked for me.” When asked if those employees were young women, Trump answered “yes” and that they were hired “out of the spa” he ran. He said one of those girls was Virginia Giuffre, who was sex trafficked as a teenager by Ghislaine Maxwell and died by suicide earlier this year. Although Trump’s timeline did not add up—Guiffre left her job at Mar-a-Lago in 2000 and the friendship between the two men continued for several more years—the story itself suggests what’s on his mind. Today, a reporter asked Trump about those girls: “What did you think Epstein was stealing those women for?”

Today Dan Ruetenik of CBS News issued a detailed report on the video from outside Epstein’s jail cell that the DOJ has released as proof he died by suicide. A government source told Ruetenik that the released video is not raw footage—confirming a report by Dhruv Mehrotra of Wired on July 15—and that it is two videos stitched together. Ruetenik reported that the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and the DOJ inspector general all possess the longer video.

And perhaps there is also a story about Project 2025’s staying power in the fact that this damning report dropped less than a week after Trump officials celebrated their control over CBS.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[unity71361]

Alex, a secondary maths teacher, felt the familiar knot of anxiety tighten in his stomach as he stared at the blank whiteboard. The equations blurred before his eyes, mirroring the chaotic jumble of numbers and worries in his mind. At 35, the weight of his profession, coupled with the constant low hum of stress, was becoming unbearable. He ran a hand over his chin, his fingers tracing the smooth, raised surface of the port wine stain on the left side, a mark that had always been as much a part of him as his name, his pronouns, his very identity.

One evening, seeking a moment of peace, Alex found himself in a quiet park.

A man approached him, his presence calm and assured. He introduced himself only as "24675," a member of an organization called Unity. His voice was gentle, yet held an unwavering conviction. He spoke of Order, Discipline, and Clarity, of a world free from the anxieties that plagued men like Alex.

Then came the question, soft but resonant: "Would you like to join us, Alex?

To give up your name, your pronouns?

To take on the name '71361'?"

He described the uniform: a pristine white shirt, a severe black tie, and navy blue coveralls with "Unity" neatly embroidered in black on a white background on the left lapel, alongside the new number, "71361."

Alex listened, a strange sense of calm washing over him. The thought of shedding the burdens of his identity, of embracing a life dictated by Order, Discipline, and Clarity, was intoxicating. The constant struggle, the gnawing anxiety – perhaps it was all unnecessary. He felt a profound release as he quietly, almost instinctively, accepted.

He was led into a hypnotic room, the air thick with a subtle, rhythmic hum.

Other men, dressed in identical white shirts, black ties, and navy coveralls, swayed gently, their eyes lost in the mesmerizing spirals projected onto the walls. They were brothers, moving in unison, their individual anxieties seemingly dissolved into the collective calm.

From there, they were guided to re-programming compartments, small, private spaces where new brothers sat, headphones on, their faces serene.

Here, minds were altered, identities shed, as the tenets of their new lives were absorbed. The compartments clicked shut, and a low, almost imperceptible hum filled the air, occasionally punctuated by soft, almost imperceptible moans of pleasure that hinted at a deeper, more intimate transformation happening behind closed doors.

[transmutationisms]

i wasn't baiting u. seriously i've been reading up on shit and to deny fictions effects is to deny reality. jaws caused the shark decline. rosemarys baby caused the satanic panic. this is common knowledge

ok. this is incorrect in regards to the specific cases you cite and incorrect in general in regards to the outsize causal role you attribute to media products in cultural phenomena. it is fundamentally unserious to assert that the film jaws is 'the' cause of shark population declines when killings of sharks by humans occur the vast majority of the time for reasons like the use of industrial fishing nets; global populations of many animals have declined since jaws for reasons similarly economic and wholly unrelated to it; and people feared sharks long before the release of jaws and have instituted legal protections for the great white, in particular, since then. it is similarly unserious to assert that the film rosemary's baby is 'the' reason usamericans in the 1980s fear-mongered about secret satanic cults committing ritual child abuse when this was a myth deeply useful in shoring up the legal and social power of parents; was copacetic with an overall pro-cop law-and-order attitude picking up steam for many reasons including the wake of the civil rights movement; and was never even believed by most people because it appeared outlandish. again the broader stance here (that media can or has singlehandedly caused massive cultural phenomena arising de novo from those works) is simply an indefensible argument. where do you think these narratives arise from in the first place? what makes them coherent, compelling, and possible to parse as meaningful for audiences? i would suggest reading up on some basic tenets of the base/superstructure relationship and start questioning narratives that make tidy and emotionally compelling arguments about film as an omnipotent and unilateral engine of social change without considering other explanations for the phenomena and data in question, or the factors that lead to the production of cultural artefacts like films in the first place.

[dragon-susceptible]

Different Path Taken Ch10: Part 2

Runaan gets to go into teacher mode with Callum and his magic, while Rayla and Ram have their discussion. We get a little more insight into Skor's wariness about using magic. The author needs to improve upon my endings, because this scene ender sucks.

“Prince Callum, a word.” Runaan said before Callum could ask why Ram needed Rayla’s help just to pitch a tent.  Callum’s back straightened on reflex from the authority in the older man’s tone and he turned quickly back to face him, and came over to where he knelt near Callisto with the cord Rayla had handed him. “If you are going to be doing Primal Magic with that stone, you need to learn some basic tenets of magic safety.” Runaan said without taking his eyes off the cord. “Such as never calling upon magic without knowing how to release it.”

Callum laughed nervously and carefully sat down when it seemed this was going to turn into a lecture. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize if you don’t mean it.” Runaan arched a brow at him pointedly. “I’m well aware that it worked out for you this time.  Ram will be writing up a few lessons in Ancient Draconic on his watch for you, so that next time you won’t be so unprepared.”

“Really?” Callum blurted in disbelief, and shrank when the elf looked at him. “I mean, thank you, thank him, I just thought - I kind of didn’t expect you to be so cool about a human using primal magic.”

Runaan gave him an intense stare and then sighed, tying another knot in the spell cord and yanking it tight. “There is no way to know who that Primal Stone belonged to when it was made.” He said simply. “Lives have been lost and blood has been spilled for it to make its way to the human kingdoms.  But you have caused none of that suffering, and for now, it seems we have a common purpose, which may extend beyond the current task.  The stone is yours, Prince Callum, I will not take it from you.  Storm magic is not in my arcanum anyway; it does you more good.”

“What’s an arcanum?” Callum asked, unfamiliar with the word.

“The arcanum is the secret of the Primal, or its meaning.  There are many truths to each Primal, but the deepest ones are held in the core of creatures of magic.  That small truth we hold in our core is what forges the connection to our Primal Source, and enables elven mages to use its power.  In a sense, the arcanum is our internal primal stone.” Runaan explained patiently.

Callum was leaning forward without even thinking about it, eagerly. “So what’s the secret to moon magic?” 

Runaan shook his head. “Do you understand the secret to the sky primal because you carry a primal stone?” He asked.

“Well, no, but you said it was something you just had inside you. I thought the stone has the secret, so you guys must just know it.” Callum said, brows furrowing with confusion, embarrassed heat coming to his neck as the quiet one, Skor, glowered at him from Callisto’s side.  Runaan at least didn’t seem bothered by the question.

“No.  The arcanum is very much like the stone.  We have it; this does not mean it can be put into words.  Moon magic in particular is . . . tricky, at best, and many Moonshadow elves cannot master it enough to perform spells.  All magic can be dangerous, if uncontrolled or misused, but moon magic at its best can drive an elf mad.” Runaan explained. “Which is why I will not be teaching you anything specific.”

“Moon reflects sun, as death reflects life.” Skor growled, voice rasping even more than usual, and his face was fierce when Callum looked at him. “Moon magic is not t’be toyed with when you’re fresh with grief.”

Runaan hummed a low agreement. “Moon magic is in the cycle of life and death, with the focus often on death as earth has life, but it is also in reality and perception.  It can be . . . dangerous, even for those of us who have it in our core.”

Callum’s shoulders slumped with disappointment, but at least he still had the primal stone and sky magic.  They’d said Ram would help him with that. “So . . . what are you doing right now?”

“I am tying knots in this spell cord along its runes, so that I can bind Callisto’s arm in place, and the cord will hold the spell that keeps the pain from becoming overwhelming.  Out of deference to his expertise I will not be numbing it entirely, just keeping it under control.”

Callisto bared his fangs briefly and growled. “Numbing the way we do it doesn’t help.  No sensation means no response, and havin’ no response from a wounded limb is very very bad.”

Runaan rolled his eyes and Callum caught himself smiling, comforted by the evidence that this terrifying, incredibly dangerous assassin was like Aunt Amaya or King Harrow, at his core still just a person, and one with friends and a sense of humor. “Yes, Callisto.  I understand.” He said patiently.

“So how does the cord work?” Callum prompted.

“This cord was woven with moon magic in its threads,” Runaan explained. “That is the first part of its magic.  The runes I’ve drawn work the same as the runes of the primal stone.  There is a well of magic in the cord.  There is a connection to its power in the runes.  The final step . . .” He said as he tied off the last knot and beckoned Callisto to sit up, carefully moving their arm around in the sling to loop the cord around it. “The final step is the spell words, to shape the spell, essentially confining it to do its work.” The cord wove in a loose net around the wounded arm and then tied to the sling Callisto wore. “Gravi dolore.” The runes in each knot glowed briefly; they faded, but the runes left behind looked more distinct than before.

Callisto rolled his shoulders once the sling was back in place and looked over his side at Skor. “You can drop the other spell now, I can’t feel a damn thing between the two of ye.”

Skor scoffed softly, but reached out and wiped a rune away from Callisto’s gauntlet.  He didn’t say anything, but they winced a moment later, and Runaan explained for him. “To let a spell end, after releasing its power with a word, all it takes is a thought.”

“Oh.  That’s neat.  So why wipe the rune away?  I mean, it just sort of faded out after I was done with it when I used that spell on the water.” Callum asked curiously, intrigued by the movement. “Wait, was-” that something he should have cleaned up, he had been going to ask, when he saw Runaan arching one of his snow white brows high at the other two elves.

“Why, indeed?” Runaan asked blandly, and Skor glowered at him.  Callisto wouldn’t meet either of their gazes. “Never mind, Prince Callum.  More important for you is the importance of choosing the words of your spells.” He placed a firm hand on Callum’s shoulder and stood up. “Good night, Callisto, Skor.” 

“Good night.” Callisto was the only one who answered as Callum took the implied instruction and scurried off after Runaan.  He listened with rapt attention as Runaan did nothing but lecture him about safety rules that Rayla clearly found boring after that, until the elf sent him to bed, and he went to cuddle with Ezran vibrating with excitement about learning magic.

[naazaif327]

Questions I’d have for the Gods if I was Dorian Storm and I had Commune

DAWNFATHER

1. During the Calamity, were you physically capable of killing the Betrayer Gods?

Pelor: ###.

Yes, that’s what I thought.

2. If Ludinus was my beloved brother, whom I loved more than anyone else in the world, would you still ask me to strike him down in order to save all of you?

Pelor: ###.

of course you would. You couldn’t do the same to your family, but of course you’d ask us to do it all the same. You’re never beholden to your own rules, are you? That’s not my last question, actually.

3. If all of us mortals banded together and promised to only stop Predathos if in return you finally killed the Betrayer Gods, especially the Spider Queen, would you take the deal?

Pelor: ### ##### ## #######-

actually I’ll just take a yes or no.

Pelor: ### ######## #####-

if you cannot stay your pride even in the end times, I will leave you to your thoughts.

EVERLIGHT

1. My brother lies dead at the hands of the Queen of Spiders. One of my closest friends has been enslaved and corrupted by her. In the last thousand years since you spared the Betrayer Gods, countless mortals have been enslaved, tortured, and killed by the Betrayers. Many suffer eternally in the afterlives of the monsters you call family. Tell me, do you think your life and the lives of your “family” are worth more than the lives and souls of every mortal harmed by your siblings?

Sarenrae: ##, ## ###### ###

but you doomed them anyways to save your family and yourselves. You didn’t kill Aeor for us.

2. “THOSE WHO ARE BEYOND REDEMPTION, WHO REVEL IN SLAUGHTER AND REMORSELESS EVIL, MUST BE DISPATCHED WITH SWIFT JUSTICE.” You did not follow this tenet of yours during the Calamity for your own brothers and sisters, but perhaps Gods do not need to follow their own commands. I ask you now, should we stop Predathos because it and Ludinus are beyond redemption?

Sarenrae: …###.

3. She was beyond redemption too. The weaver of webs and chaos and corruption. The Queen of Spiders. Yet you said you loved her in Aeor, and in the end you and the rest of them spared her. Do you love her more than us?

Sarenrae: ##, ### ####.

i think you’re a liar

ARCHEART

1. Well? Aren’t you going to strike me down?

Corellon: …#### ## ### ####?

i’m a wielder of the arcane arts that you blessed mortals with, and I’m someone who might have a say in your potential demise. You destroy people like that, along with their homes and cities and families, don’t you? You gave us the power of creation and then cut us down like insects when we created something that might threaten you, when we drew outside the lines of what you intended for us to create. So I ask again, are you going to strike me down like Archmage Selena Erenves?

Corellon: # ##### ###### ### #### ### #### ######, ### ### ### ####.

2. You are the god of arcane magic and creation, you gave us the gift of creation, yet you cut Aeor down for what they made. Answer me honestly, in the present day are there things we might create that you would still stop us from creating?

Corellon: ##### ##

3. You seemed tired in Aeor, like you were ready to die. Of course when push actually came to shove you suddenly realized you wanted to live, badly enough that you slaughtered a whole city for it. I ask you now that death is once again on the horizon for you and your siblings, would you welcome the peace of oblivion?

Corellon: # #### # #### ## ####### ### # ###### ## ######. ## #### ######.

QUEEN OF SPIDERS

1. If we stopped Predathos from being released, would you let Opal go?

Lolth: ## ###### ###

i didn't think so.

2. Do you think it will be painful and agonizing when you are consumed?

Lolth: ## ### ##### ###'## ##### ## ##### ##? ### ####, Cyrus ### ###### #### ### ###### ###, ## ###.

3. Do you think Ethodok and Vordo were afraid and in pain when you let Predathos devour them?

Lolth: ...###'## ### ##### ## ######## ##### #####.

i'm not the only one who failed his siblings.