#identifying the problem

[geopolicraticus]

Friday 11 April 2025

Grand Strategy Newsletter

The View from Oregon – 336

Learning the Wrong Lessons from History

…in which I discuss analogical reasoning, disagglomeration, complex failures, Roman Britain, fallibility, self-deception, identifying the problem, explaining the mechanism, propagandized understanding, and Ravenna…

Substack: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/learning-the-wrong-lessons-from-history

Medium: https://jnnielsen.medium.com/learning-the-wrong-lessons-from-history-ad742a7c0e45

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/The_View_from_Oregon/comments/1k2ja9m/learning_the_wrong_lessons_from_history/

[cryptic-underground]

Please, Not Him

Watched the mirror scene one night and got possessed to draw this. Hehe, enjoy! :))

[last-starry-sky]

Had a dream last night of alpha!141 discovering omega!reader through her small “daily life” youtube channel.

Just the thought of four massive men pressed together, jostling one another to watch you on one phone screen (held in a fucking death grip) as you film yourself setting up your nest or making a smoothie.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

So, I have a big advice post to write, but until I have the spoons, I want to warn everyone now who has legally changed their first name:

Your credit score may be fucked up and you need to:

check *now* that all your financial institutions (credit cards, loans, etc) have your current legal name and update where necessary

check that all 3 credit bureaus, on their respective sites, not via a feed like Credit Karma (so, Trans Union, Equifax, Experian) are collecting that info correctly and generating the right score - you might need to monitor them for a few months if you made any changes in #1

I am about to apply for a mortgage and learned that as of 2 weeks ago:

Experian suddenly thinks I am 2 different people - Legal Name and Dead Name (none of whom have a score)

Equifax has reported my active 25 year old mortgage as closed and deleted one of my older credit cards, hurting my score by 30+ points

Credit scores influence everything from big home/car loans to insurance rates to job and housing applications.

And for whatever reason, the 3 bureaus that have the power to destroy your life are shockingly fragile when it comes to legally changing one's first name.

So, yeah. Once I get this mess cleaned up for myself, I have a big guide in the works if you find yourself in the same predicament. But with the mass trans migration out of oppressive states, odds are there are a lot of newly renamed people who are about to have a nasty shock when applying for new housing.

Take care, folks.

[violent138]

Leslie, glaring suspiciously: "And this is all the medications you're on?"

Batkid: "Well."

Leslie: "You know this doesn't work if you're not honest right?"

Batkid: "No I know, it's just I don't know the names of all of them."

Leslie:

Leslie: "Are you kidding me right now? Where did you get them?"

Batkid: "Some of them are from B's utility belt, in some random pocket."

Leslie:

*moments later*

Bruce: "What was so urgent--" *sees look on Leslie's face* "--how are you doing today Lesl--"

Leslie: "Save it. What are these?" *gestures to assortment of meds*

Bruce: "Well I'm not--"

Leslie: "Do not lie to me."

Bruce: "I wasn't going to, Alfred buys them."

Batkid: "Alfie's buying the drugs?"

Leslie:

Leslie, sighing deeply and reaching for the phone:

[ihaveaweirdidea]

[breelandwalker]

Apropos of nothing and unrelated to anything whatsoever, if you tell a witch something and their response is, "Are you SURE you want to do that?" it really should be taken as a sign that you are tap-dancing on the verge of a catastrophic fuckup.

[choose-your-own-dentistry]

happy (looks at the calendar) pride month

[ofcrowsanddragons]

The next chapter of my Rookanis fic, A Working Relationship:

Secret identities. Demons. A few short weeks to stop a slaughter in Minrathous.

Mags de Riva fucked up while succeeding on a contract. One of the other Talons is out for blood.

Viago finds himself in the unenviable position of needing to send Mags on a contract that's designed to get them killed. And the unenviable position of asking someone that he doesn't fully trust (Lucanis Dellamorte) for help in keeping Mags alive.

Lucanis is only thinking of fulfilling a favour to the Fifth Talon when he agrees not to tell Viago's young Crow that he's the First Talon's grandson. He doesn't know that Mags is hiding a much bigger secret.

The two Crows know they're hunting demons... but which demons are already haunting them?

Latest Chapter Start with Chapter 1

In the latest chapter of A Working Relationship:

“It's not a spell I've seen before,” said Luca. “Not in that particular form.” And he would have seen a lot of them, was the mage-killer’s underlying message. “Here,” I said, gesturing with my hand over the table. “Hold out your hand with the chain.” I was lucky to be working with someone who wasn't particularly afraid of magic, although I had the feeling that to him, being afraid of magic would have been like being afraid of a blade in the dark. There's little purpose in fearing something that defines your life. (link)

[orengejoshi]

Pregnancy as a kink makes me uncomfortable so man am I glad your pregg Flug stuff is explicitly not kink oriented!

yeah I... don't wanna judge anyone... but it's more than that, it's downright terrifying to me. Blame my hormones bc I'm expecting irl but wow... I'm very sensitive and it feels dehumanizing. but ig that is kinda the point of the kink(?)

it's so common in fandoms!

I'm completely vanilla anyway tho, so not surprising.

I've tried to pretend for a super long time that I'm into kink, but most of them are off putting and I consider them intrusive thoughts, not fantasies. I'm kinda fluctuating between sex-repulsed and neutral (aroace) even fictional... ig kink just isn't for me. I tried so hard to get over it. I know some people in my asks/requests are gonna be disappointed but I'm sorry💔

I'm slightly ashamed of how boring I am and I have serious trouble connecting to anyone in fandoms due to this actually🤕 feel like the most NT autistic person ever.

anyway here's a doodle!

[web-of-arachne]

“Burnt out gifted kid”

unknown // unknown // unknown // unknown // beth evans // unknown // @/sancarts on instagram // unknown // unknown // quote by @/_sandraserag_(?), unknown artist

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Is there anything more weak than the attempt to shut down all media analysis and critique by appealing to a "everything is valid and different! Stop making it a pissing match," point of view? Either the stories are "too different" to compare and contrast, or they're "ultimately all fma so why should we fight". Maybe some people can't get it through their heads, but disagreement, venting amongst those who feel similarly, and critique are not inherently a fight.

And I'm sorry, but "breaking the cycle of violence" is a shit trope to tack onto a plot that uses a genocide and ethnic cleansing as its foundation, with heaping layers of "those poor little war criminals, stop being mean to them" to add insult to bad storytelling.

[tofupixel]

i know that i tend to do faces too high contrast. but i really am so into doing high contrast stuff. i cant help but to go crazy with it... its the artists who can control their contrast and saturation and values that are the real deal and im not there yet

[neitomo]

Monobaku friendship is so important to me... they definitely get closer post war but they're still absolutely evil to each other.

I mostly think about the graduation manga panel where they're setting off explosions, jumping over Iida. Bakugou, of course, does not ask for Monoma's help, but Monoma certainly offers it. Bakugou pretends to be annoyed that he's now planning his fireworks display with someone else. He doesn't need help, he doesn't, he doesn't! But, he appreciates it.

He never thanks Monoma after the fact, but he does tell him "two times the explosions made it way more awesome", which is basically the same.

[sleepylothcatbuck]

Well fuck... I'm Eddie Diaz