There is an essay by "raver anthropologist" Simon Reynolds that has become a kind of cult thing amongst Hardcore Techno aficionados. It got published in The Wire in 1998; it turned into a cult object not only because it was one of the rare cases where Hardcore music was mentioned in a bigger zine during the late 90s (as opposed to the many badly xeroxed Hardcore-fanzines, with a run of ~50 copies, of which most were destined to end up on soaked squat party toilet room floors), but because it also focused on a very specific person: Marc Acardipane, his releases, and his label family. [1]
In it, he called Marc "the forgotten man of Techno", and followed up with the reasons for that: even though he was right there at the proper beginning of "Techno", was hugely influential, and good friends with many people that are now considered to be true pioneers and legends by vox populi, he fell out of favor when Hardcore itself fell out of favor amongst the Techno folk; because he stayed true to his "core roots" and didn't disown them, like so many other producers did on their way up to the place amongst the stars (and on their way down to the sewers again).
But let's move on from Simon, The Wire, and the year 1998. What happened after that date? First, Marc itself was pulled out from the "shadow zones"; because at least the Hardcore and Gabber scene finally remembered its Techno roots, and kept worshiping those roots again; although under different monikers, such as "oldschool", "oldstyle", "early rave", and so on - I guess "the names have been changed to protect the innocent". This meant that "Technoid Hardcore" could be enjoyed at Hardcore parties and festivals once more (often on separate floors), which led to a lot of gigs and exposure for Marc and his Planet Core Productions sound. [Note: PCP aka Planet Core Productions was a label family run by Marc Acardipane and Thorsten Lambart in the 90s.] It also influenced the Hardcore scene as a whole. A succession of genres such as "newstyle", "millennium" and "mainstyle" came into existence; genres that to 98% were built upon PCP and PCP-adjacent tracks: "Stereo Murder" (produced by Acardipane), "Atmos-Fear" (produced by Acardipane), "Poltergeist" (released on his label), "Flesh is the Fever" (released on Things To Come Records, a label with personal ties to PCP and that was inspired by PCP), plus various others.
This was already a good thing. But then, slowly but steadily, the Techno folk re-gained their interest in Hardcore and harder sounds, too; and now that the "millennial dominance" of the Techno scene, together with their favoring of minimalist and dandy-esque sounds, is slowly fading away, a younger generation is taking over the scene, and that new generation is very, very hardcore.
This led to a renewed interest in the works of Marc Acardipane, his crew, and his output again, coming straight from the heart of the Techno world. Marc himself acknowledged this development in some of his interviews, and added that the Techno people are sometimes even more zealous and knowledgeable about this music than the die-hard old-school gabbers!
A very fine evolution indeed; and we hope Marc gets into the spotlight again because of this, and that he finally reaps the respect that he deserves!
But why is the Techno folk favoring him and his sound specifically - in fact, more than a lot of other "Hardcore" players? I think this is because - and now we cycle back to 1998's "The Wire" essay - his sound is *indeed* heavily connected to Techno. It's not just some ultra-aggressive, ultra-noisy Gabber outing. It's real, true, bona fide Techno music. More than that, it represents a "road not taken" in the history of Techno music. Because, when you go back to the advent of Techno, to Detroit, Chicago, Berlin, London, Frankfurt, there was always a Hardcore contingent. Hardcore was always part of the Techno spirit, it helped to shape and mold the Techno sound. Alas, as mentioned above, it got disowned, and it became almost "forbidden" to speak of this type of music within Techno circles.
A liminal space that always lingered next to the scene as time moved on; a place that people did not dare to enter.
All this is changing now again. And while "every boy and his dog" (i.e. zines, webcasts, music academies) had their own Marc Acardipane feature by now, focusing on his more Hardcore and Gabber output, we decided to do the very opposite here, and showcase the Techno tracks from the past days of the PCP oeuvre, released using a cornucopia of aliases.
Bon appetit!
Oh, and by the way: we very dearly love "I like it loud", too!
(This list is in no particular order)
1. The Mover - Over Land and Sea how can one not love this track? great techno beats, rhythms, groove... and then this cosmic, celestial arrangement in the middle... the beats come back in, and the dancefloor erupts into madness. the flip side ("underwater operations") is also very well worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuYMsR1Cae8
2. Cyborg Unknown - The Year 2001 (Deep in Detroit mix) this is going deep into the history of detroit techno indeed. it's not enough to be friends of the jaguar here, this track channels cybotron just as much as it does metroplex. funky!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2q4v8_YxbE
3. Trip Commando - Cross The White Line a techno behemoth of the most epic proportions. has probably one of the most elongated build ups in dance history, until the epic cinematic breakdown unfolds. highly recommended!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGWv1e2hBZk
4. Turbulence - Whurlstorm this was on the second release by Industrial Strength Records - a label that shaped Hardcore history, too. it starts as a nice little nasty techno track, until everything breaks apart in the mid-riff, and turns into a hurricane of bass frequncies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sngue8baqPs
5. The Mover - Nightflight (Nonstop 2 Kaos) and this was on Industrial Strengh Records number one! As Lenny Dee licensed "We Have Arrived" (a fantastic hardcore track, to say the least) for his label, and put that number on the back side. a cold groove, percussion that almost feels like a breakbeat... lots of bass, cyber-synth.... this is just dancefloor heaven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snnHspK1QYI
6. Countdown Part V - Untitled (A1) Countdown FFM is another sub-label to go for if one is looking for some technoid gems. stellar electronic intro, then we get into dance grooves, and things become more deviant as acid sounds sneak in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfIL6OCtN3o
7. Alien Christ - Of Suns and Moons (Phase II) inspired by "Suburban Knights - The Art of Stalking" (a true classic, originally released on Transmat). Marc made this influence his own, and delivered a very detroit-ish underground rave anthem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGmmDrQTyyY
8. The Mover & Lunatic Asylum – Frequency Surfers Lunatic Asylum aka "Dr. Macabre" is another person that was entwined with electronic music history while turning into a global player in the hardcore sector at a later date. this is a joint-venture of these two titans of techno, and the result is a very trippy, very twisted and surreal track.
(Cannot be found on youtube, but here are audio previews: https://www.toolboxrecords.com/en/product/17643/techno-hardtechno/dance-ecstasy-2025/ )
9. The Mover - Astral Demons (Original Mix) you should have realized by now: the mover is a synonym for high quality productions. this is one of my favorite pics from the legendary "frontal sickness" releases; and indeed adds a very demonic vibe to the whole dance thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMT2KdQt5Q
10. Rave Creator - A New Mind (Thai Acid Mix) "Thai" was a pcp sub that focused specifically on techno, acid, even a bit of trance-ish tracks. despite the alias, this was put out on DE 2001 instead. It's a remix of the famous "A New Mind" track.
starting with pure bass drones. it builds up very slowly, until thunderous, reverberated bass drums come in, and then it goes into full-on acid feeding. similar to "cross the white line", this track could be given the title "cinematic techno soundtrack".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGpuMbLicZU
Honorable Mentions:
T-Bone Castro - Return 2 Planet E Reincarnated Regulator - Italian Stallion Craig Tayaffo - Reduction (Back For Acid-The Expanded 0,25 Hrs Mix) Barracuda - Braineaters Two Tonys - Organ Bitch Nasty Django - Ey Loco Cold Rush Records Frontal Sickness 1+2 Reincarnated Regulator - Mindeater Climax - Relax Nasty Django - 3 P Rules! SexDrive Entertainment - No.2 T-Bone Castro / Ace The Space - Ace In The Hole Project Æ - Whales Alive Ultra Spaceman - Ultra-Style
Footnotes: 1: The original Wire essay - http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2015/03/marc-acardipane-mover-pcp-dance-ecstasy.html

There is an essay by "raver anthropologist" Simon Reynolds that has become a kind of cult thing amongst Hardcore Techno aficionados. It got published in The Wire in 1998; it turned into a cult object not only because it was one of the rare cases where Hardcore music was mentioned in a bigger zine during the late 90s (as opposed to the many badly xeroxed Hardcore-fanzines, with a run of ~50 copies, of which most were destined to end up on soaked squat party toilet room floors), but because it also focused on a very specific person: Marc Acardipane, his releases, and his label family. [1]
In it, he called Marc "the forgotten man of Techno", and followed up with the reasons for that: even though he was right there at the proper beginning of "Techno", was hugely influential, and good friends with many people that are now considered to be true pioneers and legends by vox populi, he fell out of favor when Hardcore itself fell out of favor amongst the Techno folk; because he stayed true to his "core roots" and didn't disown them, like so many other producers did on their way up to the place amongst the stars (and on their way down to the sewers again).
But let's move on from Simon, The Wire, and the year 1998. What happened after that date? First, Marc itself was pulled out from the "shadow zones"; because at least the Hardcore and Gabber scene finally remembered its Techno roots, and kept worshiping those roots again; although under different monikers, such as "oldschool", "oldstyle", "early rave", and so on - I guess "the names have been changed to protect the innocent". This meant that "Technoid Hardcore" could be enjoyed at Hardcore parties and festivals once more (often on separate floors), which led to a lot of gigs and exposure for Marc and his Planet Core Productions sound. [Note: PCP aka Planet Core Productions was a label family run by Marc Acardipane and Thorsten Lambart in the 90s.] It also influenced the Hardcore scene as a whole. A succession of genres such as "newstyle", "millennium" and "mainstyle" came into existence; genres that to 98% were built upon PCP and PCP-adjacent tracks: "Stereo Murder" (produced by Acardipane), "Atmos-Fear" (produced by Acardipane), "Poltergeist" (released on his label), "Flesh is the Fever" (released on Things To Come Records, a label with personal ties to PCP and that was inspired by PCP), plus various others.
This was already a good thing. But then, slowly but steadily, the Techno folk re-gained their interest in Hardcore and harder sounds, too; and now that the "millennial dominance" of the Techno scene, together with their favoring of minimalist and dandy-esque sounds, is slowly fading away, a younger generation is taking over the scene, and that new generation is very, very hardcore.
This led to a renewed interest in the works of Marc Acardipane, his crew, and his output again, coming straight from the heart of the Techno world. Marc himself acknowledged this development in some of his interviews, and added that the Techno people are sometimes even more zealous and knowledgeable about this music than the die-hard old-school gabbers!
A very fine evolution indeed; and we hope Marc gets into the spotlight again because of this, and that he finally reaps the respect that he deserves!
But why is the Techno folk favoring him and his sound specifically - in fact, more than a lot of other "Hardcore" players? I think this is because - and now we cycle back to 1998's "The Wire" essay - his sound is *indeed* heavily connected to Techno. It's not just some ultra-aggressive, ultra-noisy Gabber outing. It's real, true, bona fide Techno music. More than that, it represents a "road not taken" in the history of Techno music. Because, when you go back to the advent of Techno, to Detroit, Chicago, Berlin, London, Frankfurt, there was always a Hardcore contingent. Hardcore was always part of the Techno spirit, it helped to shape and mold the Techno sound. Alas, as mentioned above, it got disowned, and it became almost "forbidden" to speak of this type of music within Techno circles.
A liminal space that always lingered next to the scene as time moved on; a place that people did not dare to enter.
All this is changing now again. And while "every boy and his dog" (i.e. zines, webcasts, music academies) had their own Marc Acardipane feature by now, focusing on his more Hardcore and Gabber output, we decided to do the very opposite here, and showcase the Techno tracks from the past days of the PCP oeuvre, released using a cornucopia of aliases.
Bon appetit!
Oh, and by the way: we very dearly love "I like it loud", too!
(This list is in no particular order)
1. The Mover - Over Land and Sea how can one not love this track? great techno beats, rhythms, groove... and then this cosmic, celestial arrangement in the middle... the beats come back in, and the dancefloor erupts into madness. the flip side ("underwater operations") is also very well worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuYMsR1Cae8
2. Cyborg Unknown - The Year 2001 (Deep in Detroit mix) this is going deep into the history of detroit techno indeed. it's not enough to be friends of the jaguar here, this track channels cybotron just as much as it does metroplex. funky!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2q4v8_YxbE
3. Trip Commando - Cross The White Line a techno behemoth of the most epic proportions. has probably one of the most elongated build ups in dance history, until the epic cinematic breakdown unfolds. highly recommended!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGWv1e2hBZk
4. Turbulence - Whurlstorm this was on the second release by Industrial Strength Records - a label that shaped Hardcore history, too. it starts as a nice little nasty techno track, until everything breaks apart in the mid-riff, and turns into a hurricane of bass frequncies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sngue8baqPs
5. The Mover - Nightflight (Nonstop 2 Kaos) and this was on Industrial Strengh Records number one! As Lenny Dee licensed "We Have Arrived" (a fantastic hardcore track, to say the least) for his label, and put that number on the back side. a cold groove, percussion that almost feels like a breakbeat... lots of bass, cyber-synth.... this is just dancefloor heaven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snnHspK1QYI
6. Countdown Part V - Untitled (A1) Countdown FFM is another sub-label to go for if one is looking for some technoid gems. stellar electronic intro, then we get into dance grooves, and things become more deviant as acid sounds sneak in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfIL6OCtN3o
7. Alien Christ - Of Suns and Moons (Phase II) inspired by "Suburban Knights - The Art of Stalking" (a true classic, originally released on Transmat). Marc made this influence his own, and delivered a very detroit-ish underground rave anthem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGmmDrQTyyY
8. The Mover & Lunatic Asylum – Frequency Surfers Lunatic Asylum aka "Dr. Macabre" is another person that was entwined with electronic music history while turning into a global player in the hardcore sector at a later date. this is a joint-venture of these two titans of techno, and the result is a very trippy, very twisted and surreal track.
(Cannot be found on youtube, but here are audio previews: https://www.toolboxrecords.com/en/product/17643/techno-hardtechno/dance-ecstasy-2025/ )
9. The Mover - Astral Demons (Original Mix) you should have realized by now: the mover is a synonym for high quality productions. this is one of my favorite pics from the legendary "frontal sickness" releases; and indeed adds a very demonic vibe to the whole dance thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMT2KdQt5Q
10. Rave Creator - A New Mind (Thai Acid Mix) "Thai" was a pcp sub that focused specifically on techno, acid, even a bit of trance-ish tracks. despite the alias, this was put out on DE 2001 instead. It's a remix of the famous "A New Mind" track.
starting with pure bass drones. it builds up very slowly, until thunderous, reverberated bass drums come in, and then it goes into full-on acid feeding. similar to "cross the white line", this track could be given the title "cinematic techno soundtrack".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGpuMbLicZU
Honorable Mentions:
T-Bone Castro - Return 2 Planet E Reincarnated Regulator - Italian Stallion Craig Tayaffo - Reduction (Back For Acid-The Expanded 0,25 Hrs Mix) Barracuda - Braineaters Two Tonys - Organ Bitch Nasty Django - Ey Loco Cold Rush Records Frontal Sickness 1+2 Reincarnated Regulator - Mindeater Climax - Relax Nasty Django - 3 P Rules! SexDrive Entertainment - No.2 T-Bone Castro / Ace The Space - Ace In The Hole Project Æ - Whales Alive Ultra Spaceman - Ultra-Style
Footnotes: 1: The original Wire essay - http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2015/03/marc-acardipane-mover-pcp-dance-ecstasy.html

There is an essay by "raver anthropologist" Simon Reynolds that has become a kind of cult thing amongst Hardcore Techno aficionados. It got published in The Wire in 1998; it turned into a cult object not only because it was one of the rare cases where Hardcore music was mentioned in a bigger zine during the late 90s (as opposed to the many badly xeroxed Hardcore-fanzines, with a run of ~50 copies, of which most were destined to end up on soaked squat party toilet room floors), but because it also focused on a very specific person: Marc Acardipane, his releases, and his label family. [1]
In it, he called Marc "the forgotten man of Techno", and followed up with the reasons for that: even though he was right there at the proper beginning of "Techno", was hugely influential, and good friends with many people that are now considered to be true pioneers and legends by vox populi, he fell out of favor when Hardcore itself fell out of favor amongst the Techno folk; because he stayed true to his "core roots" and didn't disown them, like so many other producers did on their way up to the place amongst the stars (and on their way down to the sewers again).
But let's move on from Simon, The Wire, and the year 1998. What happened after that date? First, Marc itself was pulled out from the "shadow zones"; because at least the Hardcore and Gabber scene finally remembered its Techno roots, and kept worshiping those roots again; although under different monikers, such as "oldschool", "oldstyle", "early rave", and so on - I guess "the names have been changed to protect the innocent". This meant that "Technoid Hardcore" could be enjoyed at Hardcore parties and festivals once more (often on separate floors), which led to a lot of gigs and exposure for Marc and his Planet Core Productions sound. [Note: PCP aka Planet Core Productions was a label family run by Marc Acardipane and Thorsten Lambart in the 90s.] It also influenced the Hardcore scene as a whole. A succession of genres such as "newstyle", "millennium" and "mainstyle" came into existence; genres that to 98% were built upon PCP and PCP-adjacent tracks: "Stereo Murder" (produced by Acardipane), "Atmos-Fear" (produced by Acardipane), "Poltergeist" (released on his label), "Flesh is the Fever" (released on Things To Come Records, a label with personal ties to PCP and that was inspired by PCP), plus various others.
This was already a good thing. But then, slowly but steadily, the Techno folk re-gained their interest in Hardcore and harder sounds, too; and now that the "millennial dominance" of the Techno scene, together with their favoring of minimalist and dandy-esque sounds, is slowly fading away, a younger generation is taking over the scene, and that new generation is very, very hardcore.
This led to a renewed interest in the works of Marc Acardipane, his crew, and his output again, coming straight from the heart of the Techno world. Marc himself acknowledged this development in some of his interviews, and added that the Techno people are sometimes even more zealous and knowledgeable about this music than the die-hard old-school gabbers!
A very fine evolution indeed; and we hope Marc gets into the spotlight again because of this, and that he finally reaps the respect that he deserves!
But why is the Techno folk favoring him and his sound specifically - in fact, more than a lot of other "Hardcore" players? I think this is because - and now we cycle back to 1998's "The Wire" essay - his sound is *indeed* heavily connected to Techno. It's not just some ultra-aggressive, ultra-noisy Gabber outing. It's real, true, bona fide Techno music. More than that, it represents a "road not taken" in the history of Techno music. Because, when you go back to the advent of Techno, to Detroit, Chicago, Berlin, London, Frankfurt, there was always a Hardcore contingent. Hardcore was always part of the Techno spirit, it helped to shape and mold the Techno sound. Alas, as mentioned above, it got disowned, and it became almost "forbidden" to speak of this type of music within Techno circles.
A liminal space that always lingered next to the scene as time moved on; a place that people did not dare to enter.
All this is changing now again. And while "every boy and his dog" (i.e. zines, webcasts, music academies) had their own Marc Acardipane feature by now, focusing on his more Hardcore and Gabber output, we decided to do the very opposite here, and showcase the Techno tracks from the past days of the PCP oeuvre, released using a cornucopia of aliases.
Bon appetit!
Oh, and by the way: we very dearly love "I like it loud", too!
(This list is in no particular order)
1. The Mover - Over Land and Sea how can one not love this track? great techno beats, rhythms, groove... and then this cosmic, celestial arrangement in the middle... the beats come back in, and the dancefloor erupts into madness. the flip side ("underwater operations") is also very well worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuYMsR1Cae8
2. Cyborg Unknown - The Year 2001 (Deep in Detroit mix) this is going deep into the history of detroit techno indeed. it's not enough to be friends of the jaguar here, this track channels cybotron just as much as it does metroplex. funky!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2q4v8_YxbE
3. Trip Commando - Cross The White Line a techno behemoth of the most epic proportions. has probably one of the most elongated build ups in dance history, until the epic cinematic breakdown unfolds. highly recommended!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGWv1e2hBZk
4. Turbulence - Whurlstorm this was on the second release by Industrial Strength Records - a label that shaped Hardcore history, too. it starts as a nice little nasty techno track, until everything breaks apart in the mid-riff, and turns into a hurricane of bass frequncies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sngue8baqPs
5. The Mover - Nightflight (Nonstop 2 Kaos) and this was on Industrial Strengh Records number one! As Lenny Dee licensed "We Have Arrived" (a fantastic hardcore track, to say the least) for his label, and put that number on the back side. a cold groove, percussion that almost feels like a breakbeat... lots of bass, cyber-synth.... this is just dancefloor heaven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snnHspK1QYI
6. Countdown Part V - Untitled (A1) Countdown FFM is another sub-label to go for if one is looking for some technoid gems. stellar electronic intro, then we get into dance grooves, and things become more deviant as acid sounds sneak in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfIL6OCtN3o
7. Alien Christ - Of Suns and Moons (Phase II) inspired by "Suburban Knights - The Art of Stalking" (a true classic, originally released on Transmat). Marc made this influence his own, and delivered a very detroit-ish underground rave anthem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGmmDrQTyyY
8. The Mover & Lunatic Asylum – Frequency Surfers Lunatic Asylum aka "Dr. Macabre" is another person that was entwined with electronic music history while turning into a global player in the hardcore sector at a later date. this is a joint-venture of these two titans of techno, and the result is a very trippy, very twisted and surreal track.
(Cannot be found on youtube, but here are audio previews: https://www.toolboxrecords.com/en/product/17643/techno-hardtechno/dance-ecstasy-2025/ )
9. The Mover - Astral Demons (Original Mix) you should have realized by now: the mover is a synonym for high quality productions. this is one of my favorite pics from the legendary "frontal sickness" releases; and indeed adds a very demonic vibe to the whole dance thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMT2KdQt5Q
10. Rave Creator - A New Mind (Thai Acid Mix) "Thai" was a pcp sub that focused specifically on techno, acid, even a bit of trance-ish tracks. despite the alias, this was put out on DE 2001 instead. It's a remix of the famous "A New Mind" track.
starting with pure bass drones. it builds up very slowly, until thunderous, reverberated bass drums come in, and then it goes into full-on acid feeding. similar to "cross the white line", this track could be given the title "cinematic techno soundtrack".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGpuMbLicZU
Honorable Mentions:
T-Bone Castro - Return 2 Planet E Reincarnated Regulator - Italian Stallion Craig Tayaffo - Reduction (Back For Acid-The Expanded 0,25 Hrs Mix) Barracuda - Braineaters Two Tonys - Organ Bitch Nasty Django - Ey Loco Cold Rush Records Frontal Sickness 1+2 Reincarnated Regulator - Mindeater Climax - Relax Nasty Django - 3 P Rules! SexDrive Entertainment - No.2 T-Bone Castro / Ace The Space - Ace In The Hole Project Æ - Whales Alive Ultra Spaceman - Ultra-Style
Footnotes: 1: The original Wire essay - http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2015/03/marc-acardipane-mover-pcp-dance-ecstasy.html

There is an essay by "raver anthropologist" Simon Reynolds that has become a kind of cult thing amongst Hardcore Techno aficionados. It got published in The Wire in 1998; it turned into a cult object not only because it was one of the rare cases where Hardcore music was mentioned in a bigger zine during the late 90s (as opposed to the many badly xeroxed Hardcore-fanzines, with a run of ~50 copies, of which most were destined to end up on soaked squat party toilet room floors), but because it also focused on a very specific person: Marc Acardipane, his releases, and his label family. [1]
In it, he called Marc "the forgotten man of Techno", and followed up with the reasons for that: even though he was right there at the proper beginning of "Techno", was hugely influential, and good friends with many people that are now considered to be true pioneers and legends by vox populi, he fell out of favor when Hardcore itself fell out of favor amongst the Techno folk; because he stayed true to his "core roots" and didn't disown them, like so many other producers did on their way up to the place amongst the stars (and on their way down to the sewers again).
But let's move on from Simon, The Wire, and the year 1998. What happened after that date? First, Marc itself was pulled out from the "shadow zones"; because at least the Hardcore and Gabber scene finally remembered its Techno roots, and kept worshiping those roots again; although under different monikers, such as "oldschool", "oldstyle", "early rave", and so on - I guess "the names have been changed to protect the innocent". This meant that "Technoid Hardcore" could be enjoyed at Hardcore parties and festivals once more (often on separate floors), which led to a lot of gigs and exposure for Marc and his Planet Core Productions sound. [Note: PCP aka Planet Core Productions was a label family run by Marc Acardipane and Thorsten Lambart in the 90s.] It also influenced the Hardcore scene as a whole. A succession of genres such as "newstyle", "millennium" and "mainstyle" came into existence; genres that to 98% were built upon PCP and PCP-adjacent tracks: "Stereo Murder" (produced by Acardipane), "Atmos-Fear" (produced by Acardipane), "Poltergeist" (released on his label), "Flesh is the Fever" (released on Things To Come Records, a label with personal ties to PCP and that was inspired by PCP), plus various others.
This was already a good thing. But then, slowly but steadily, the Techno folk re-gained their interest in Hardcore and harder sounds, too; and now that the "millennial dominance" of the Techno scene, together with their favoring of minimalist and dandy-esque sounds, is slowly fading away, a younger generation is taking over the scene, and that new generation is very, very hardcore.
This led to a renewed interest in the works of Marc Acardipane, his crew, and his output again, coming straight from the heart of the Techno world. Marc himself acknowledged this development in some of his interviews, and added that the Techno people are sometimes even more zealous and knowledgeable about this music than the die-hard old-school gabbers!
A very fine evolution indeed; and we hope Marc gets into the spotlight again because of this, and that he finally reaps the respect that he deserves!
But why is the Techno folk favoring him and his sound specifically - in fact, more than a lot of other "Hardcore" players? I think this is because - and now we cycle back to 1998's "The Wire" essay - his sound is *indeed* heavily connected to Techno. It's not just some ultra-aggressive, ultra-noisy Gabber outing. It's real, true, bona fide Techno music. More than that, it represents a "road not taken" in the history of Techno music. Because, when you go back to the advent of Techno, to Detroit, Chicago, Berlin, London, Frankfurt, there was always a Hardcore contingent. Hardcore was always part of the Techno spirit, it helped to shape and mold the Techno sound. Alas, as mentioned above, it got disowned, and it became almost "forbidden" to speak of this type of music within Techno circles.
A liminal space that always lingered next to the scene as time moved on; a place that people did not dare to enter.
All this is changing now again. And while "every boy and his dog" (i.e. zines, webcasts, music academies) had their own Marc Acardipane feature by now, focusing on his more Hardcore and Gabber output, we decided to do the very opposite here, and showcase the Techno tracks from the past days of the PCP oeuvre, released using a cornucopia of aliases.
Bon appetit!
Oh, and by the way: we very dearly love "I like it loud", too!
(This list is in no particular order)
1. The Mover - Over Land and Sea how can one not love this track? great techno beats, rhythms, groove... and then this cosmic, celestial arrangement in the middle... the beats come back in, and the dancefloor erupts into madness. the flip side ("underwater operations") is also very well worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuYMsR1Cae8
2. Cyborg Unknown - The Year 2001 (Deep in Detroit mix) this is going deep into the history of detroit techno indeed. it's not enough to be friends of the jaguar here, this track channels cybotron just as much as it does metroplex. funky!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2q4v8_YxbE
3. Trip Commando - Cross The White Line a techno behemoth of the most epic proportions. has probably one of the most elongated build ups in dance history, until the epic cinematic breakdown unfolds. highly recommended!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGWv1e2hBZk
4. Turbulence - Whurlstorm this was on the second release by Industrial Strength Records - a label that shaped Hardcore history, too. it starts as a nice little nasty techno track, until everything breaks apart in the mid-riff, and turns into a hurricane of bass frequncies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sngue8baqPs
5. The Mover - Nightflight (Nonstop 2 Kaos) and this was on Industrial Strengh Records number one! As Lenny Dee licensed "We Have Arrived" (a fantastic hardcore track, to say the least) for his label, and put that number on the back side. a cold groove, percussion that almost feels like a breakbeat... lots of bass, cyber-synth.... this is just dancefloor heaven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snnHspK1QYI
6. Countdown Part V - Untitled (A1) Countdown FFM is another sub-label to go for if one is looking for some technoid gems. stellar electronic intro, then we get into dance grooves, and things become more deviant as acid sounds sneak in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfIL6OCtN3o
7. Alien Christ - Of Suns and Moons (Phase II) inspired by "Suburban Knights - The Art of Stalking" (a true classic, originally released on Transmat). Marc made this influence his own, and delivered a very detroit-ish underground rave anthem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGmmDrQTyyY
8. The Mover & Lunatic Asylum – Frequency Surfers Lunatic Asylum aka "Dr. Macabre" is another person that was entwined with electronic music history while turning into a global player in the hardcore sector at a later date. this is a joint-venture of these two titans of techno, and the result is a very trippy, very twisted and surreal track.
(Cannot be found on youtube, but here are audio previews: https://www.toolboxrecords.com/en/product/17643/techno-hardtechno/dance-ecstasy-2025/ )
9. The Mover - Astral Demons (Original Mix) you should have realized by now: the mover is a synonym for high quality productions. this is one of my favorite pics from the legendary "frontal sickness" releases; and indeed adds a very demonic vibe to the whole dance thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMT2KdQt5Q
10. Rave Creator - A New Mind (Thai Acid Mix) "Thai" was a pcp sub that focused specifically on techno, acid, even a bit of trance-ish tracks. despite the alias, this was put out on DE 2001 instead. It's a remix of the famous "A New Mind" track.
starting with pure bass drones. it builds up very slowly, until thunderous, reverberated bass drums come in, and then it goes into full-on acid feeding. similar to "cross the white line", this track could be given the title "cinematic techno soundtrack".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGpuMbLicZU
Honorable Mentions:
T-Bone Castro - Return 2 Planet E Reincarnated Regulator - Italian Stallion Craig Tayaffo - Reduction (Back For Acid-The Expanded 0,25 Hrs Mix) Barracuda - Braineaters Two Tonys - Organ Bitch Nasty Django - Ey Loco Cold Rush Records Frontal Sickness 1+2 Reincarnated Regulator - Mindeater Climax - Relax Nasty Django - 3 P Rules! SexDrive Entertainment - No.2 T-Bone Castro / Ace The Space - Ace In The Hole Project Æ - Whales Alive Ultra Spaceman - Ultra-Style
Footnotes: 1: The original Wire essay - http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2015/03/marc-acardipane-mover-pcp-dance-ecstasy.html

There is an essay by "raver anthropologist" Simon Reynolds that has become a kind of cult thing amongst Hardcore Techno aficionados. It got published in The Wire in 1998; it turned into a cult object not only because it was one of the rare cases where Hardcore music was mentioned in a bigger zine during the late 90s (as opposed to the many badly xeroxed Hardcore-fanzines, with a run of ~50 copies, of which most were destined to end up on soaked squat party toilet room floors), but because it also focused on a very specific person: Marc Acardipane, his releases, and his label family. [1]
In it, he called Marc "the forgotten man of Techno", and followed up with the reasons for that: even though he was right there at the proper beginning of "Techno", was hugely influential, and good friends with many people that are now considered to be true pioneers and legends by vox populi, he fell out of favor when Hardcore itself fell out of favor amongst the Techno folk; because he stayed true to his "core roots" and didn't disown them, like so many other producers did on their way up to the place amongst the stars (and on their way down to the sewers again).
But let's move on from Simon, The Wire, and the year 1998. What happened after that date? First, Marc itself was pulled out from the "shadow zones"; because at least the Hardcore and Gabber scene finally remembered its Techno roots, and kept worshiping those roots again; although under different monikers, such as "oldschool", "oldstyle", "early rave", and so on - I guess "the names have been changed to protect the innocent". This meant that "Technoid Hardcore" could be enjoyed at Hardcore parties and festivals once more (often on separate floors), which led to a lot of gigs and exposure for Marc and his Planet Core Productions sound. [Note: PCP aka Planet Core Productions was a label family run by Marc Acardipane and Thorsten Lambart in the 90s.] It also influenced the Hardcore scene as a whole. A succession of genres such as "newstyle", "millennium" and "mainstyle" came into existence; genres that to 98% were built upon PCP and PCP-adjacent tracks: "Stereo Murder" (produced by Acardipane), "Atmos-Fear" (produced by Acardipane), "Poltergeist" (released on his label), "Flesh is the Fever" (released on Things To Come Records, a label with personal ties to PCP and that was inspired by PCP), plus various others.
This was already a good thing. But then, slowly but steadily, the Techno folk re-gained their interest in Hardcore and harder sounds, too; and now that the "millennial dominance" of the Techno scene, together with their favoring of minimalist and dandy-esque sounds, is slowly fading away, a younger generation is taking over the scene, and that new generation is very, very hardcore.
This led to a renewed interest in the works of Marc Acardipane, his crew, and his output again, coming straight from the heart of the Techno world. Marc himself acknowledged this development in some of his interviews, and added that the Techno people are sometimes even more zealous and knowledgeable about this music than the die-hard old-school gabbers!
A very fine evolution indeed; and we hope Marc gets into the spotlight again because of this, and that he finally reaps the respect that he deserves!
But why is the Techno folk favoring him and his sound specifically - in fact, more than a lot of other "Hardcore" players? I think this is because - and now we cycle back to 1998's "The Wire" essay - his sound is *indeed* heavily connected to Techno. It's not just some ultra-aggressive, ultra-noisy Gabber outing. It's real, true, bona fide Techno music. More than that, it represents a "road not taken" in the history of Techno music. Because, when you go back to the advent of Techno, to Detroit, Chicago, Berlin, London, Frankfurt, there was always a Hardcore contingent. Hardcore was always part of the Techno spirit, it helped to shape and mold the Techno sound. Alas, as mentioned above, it got disowned, and it became almost "forbidden" to speak of this type of music within Techno circles.
A liminal space that always lingered next to the scene as time moved on; a place that people did not dare to enter.
All this is changing now again. And while "every boy and his dog" (i.e. zines, webcasts, music academies) had their own Marc Acardipane feature by now, focusing on his more Hardcore and Gabber output, we decided to do the very opposite here, and showcase the Techno tracks from the past days of the PCP oeuvre, released using a cornucopia of aliases.
Bon appetit!
Oh, and by the way: we very dearly love "I like it loud", too!
(This list is in no particular order)
1. The Mover - Over Land and Sea how can one not love this track? great techno beats, rhythms, groove... and then this cosmic, celestial arrangement in the middle... the beats come back in, and the dancefloor erupts into madness. the flip side ("underwater operations") is also very well worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuYMsR1Cae8
2. Cyborg Unknown - The Year 2001 (Deep in Detroit mix) this is going deep into the history of detroit techno indeed. it's not enough to be friends of the jaguar here, this track channels cybotron just as much as it does metroplex. funky!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2q4v8_YxbE
3. Trip Commando - Cross The White Line a techno behemoth of the most epic proportions. has probably one of the most elongated build ups in dance history, until the epic cinematic breakdown unfolds. highly recommended!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGWv1e2hBZk
4. Turbulence - Whurlstorm this was on the second release by Industrial Strength Records - a label that shaped Hardcore history, too. it starts as a nice little nasty techno track, until everything breaks apart in the mid-riff, and turns into a hurricane of bass frequncies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sngue8baqPs
5. The Mover - Nightflight (Nonstop 2 Kaos) and this was on Industrial Strengh Records number one! As Lenny Dee licensed "We Have Arrived" (a fantastic hardcore track, to say the least) for his label, and put that number on the back side. a cold groove, percussion that almost feels like a breakbeat... lots of bass, cyber-synth.... this is just dancefloor heaven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snnHspK1QYI
6. Countdown Part V - Untitled (A1) Countdown FFM is another sub-label to go for if one is looking for some technoid gems. stellar electronic intro, then we get into dance grooves, and things become more deviant as acid sounds sneak in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfIL6OCtN3o
7. Alien Christ - Of Suns and Moons (Phase II) inspired by "Suburban Knights - The Art of Stalking" (a true classic, originally released on Transmat). Marc made this influence his own, and delivered a very detroit-ish underground rave anthem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGmmDrQTyyY
8. The Mover & Lunatic Asylum – Frequency Surfers Lunatic Asylum aka "Dr. Macabre" is another person that was entwined with electronic music history while turning into a global player in the hardcore sector at a later date. this is a joint-venture of these two titans of techno, and the result is a very trippy, very twisted and surreal track.
(Cannot be found on youtube, but here are audio previews: https://www.toolboxrecords.com/en/product/17643/techno-hardtechno/dance-ecstasy-2025/ )
9. The Mover - Astral Demons (Original Mix) you should have realized by now: the mover is a synonym for high quality productions. this is one of my favorite pics from the legendary "frontal sickness" releases; and indeed adds a very demonic vibe to the whole dance thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMT2KdQt5Q
10. Rave Creator - A New Mind (Thai Acid Mix) "Thai" was a pcp sub that focused specifically on techno, acid, even a bit of trance-ish tracks. despite the alias, this was put out on DE 2001 instead. It's a remix of the famous "A New Mind" track.
starting with pure bass drones. it builds up very slowly, until thunderous, reverberated bass drums come in, and then it goes into full-on acid feeding. similar to "cross the white line", this track could be given the title "cinematic techno soundtrack".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGpuMbLicZU
Honorable Mentions:
T-Bone Castro - Return 2 Planet E Reincarnated Regulator - Italian Stallion Craig Tayaffo - Reduction (Back For Acid-The Expanded 0,25 Hrs Mix) Barracuda - Braineaters Two Tonys - Organ Bitch Nasty Django - Ey Loco Cold Rush Records Frontal Sickness 1+2 Reincarnated Regulator - Mindeater Climax - Relax Nasty Django - 3 P Rules! SexDrive Entertainment - No.2 T-Bone Castro / Ace The Space - Ace In The Hole Project Æ - Whales Alive Ultra Spaceman - Ultra-Style
Footnotes: 1: The original Wire essay - http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2015/03/marc-acardipane-mover-pcp-dance-ecstasy.html

Hello, I’ve been compiling a list of places to go out that are easy on a bad back. Any price range, any sort of place. The number one criteria is comfortable seating. Thanks!
Here’s my list so far: LOWER HAIGHT: Palmyra -casual Syrian food https://palmyrasanfrancisco.bestcafes.online/#location 700 Haight St, San Francisco, CA 94117
THE MISSION: https://jims-restaurant.business.site/ Jim’s Restaurant-old school diner 2420 Mission St San Francisco, CA 94110
Puerto Algren -casual Mexican -looks great, full bar 546 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110 https://www.puertoalegresf.net/menu
Pork Store Mission
La Traviata 2854 Mission St San Francisco, CA https://www.latraviatasf.com/ Looks great
The Front Porch 65 29th St Ste A San Francisco, CA
The Beehive 842 Valencia St San Francisco, CA https://www.thebeehivesf.com/
BAYVIEW
https://www.oldskoolcafe.org/ 1429 Mendell St, San Francisco, CA 94124
UPPER HAIGHT: Cha Cha Cha
Mad Dog In The Fog -possibly
NOE VALLEY: Dash Dash Japanese Tapas &Sushi 737 Diamond ST. San Francisco, Ca, 94114 (415) 655-9197 Cushioned high back seats
Valley Bar 4054 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94114 https://www.valleytavern.us/
CASTRO: Santeria 2251 Market St San Francisco, CA https://santeria-sf.com/ Looks interesting
Wasabi Sushi -used to be the sushi place we always went to https://www.wasabisf.com/contact-reservations 524 Castro St. San Francisco, CA, 94114
TARAVAL: Best Kept Secret Looks good https://www.bks-sf.com/home 1055 Taraval St San Francisco, CA 94116
COLE VALLEY: Cole Valley Tavern 900 Cole StreetSan Francisco, CA 94117415-681-7678 https://www.colevalleytavern.com/
http://beitrimasf.com/menu/ Beitrima -Arabic food 86 Carl
INNER SUNSET: Fireside Bar 603 Irving St San Francisco, CA 94122
OUTER SUNSET Pitts Pub 4207 Judah St, San Francisco, CA 94122
JAPAN TOWN: Doobu-Korean food in Japantown 1723 Buchanan St San Francisco, CA 94115
OUTER RICHMOND: Tommy's Mexican Restaurant -looks really great 5929 Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94121 https://www.tommysmexican.com/
PRESIDIO Presidio Social Club 563 Ruger St San Francisco, CA 94129
NORTH BEACH: https://toscacafesf.com/ Tosca Cafe SF 242 Columbus Ave San Francisco, CA 94133-4509
good article on locals North Beach https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/10/north-beach-san-francisco-date-itinerary-ideas/?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2nIEVhqGMjIw1CLl3vNNTeqfuMl-BhJcVI3P_ZB3Wdy9svkIx5kBgKe-c
DALY CITY: https://www.originaljoes.com/westlake 11 Glenwood AvenueDaly City, CA 94015westlake@originaljoes.comphone (650) 755-7400
DOWNTOWN: https://www.piedpipersf.com/photos AKA Maxfield’s Palace Hotel
House Of Shields 39 New Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94105 Fancy bar http://www.thehouseofshields.com/
FISHERMAN’S WHARF: https://scomas.com/#reservations Scomas - Looks GREAT and special occasion place
https://www.franciscancrabrestaurant.com/photos.html Franciscan Crab Restaurant Where we went with Elan and Ben
LOWER PACIFIC HEIGHTS: https://www.harrisrestaurant.com/ HARRIS' RESTAURANT2100 Van Ness AvenueSan Francisco, CA 94109Phone: (415) 673-1888info@harrisrestaurant.com
https://www.pearl6101.com/photos Pearl 6101 6101 California Street San Francisco, CA 94121 415-592-9777
House Of Prime Rib https://www.houseofprimerib.net/#gallery

This was long overdue since I'm supposed to finish this before April ends, better late than never I guess.
I. San Juan - Rosario jeepney
Route: A.Lake-N.Domingo > N.Domingo-Pinaglabanan > Pinaglabanan-Col.Bonny Serrano-P.Guevarra > Col.Bonny Serrano-Ortigas Ave > Ortigas Ave-EDSA > Ortigas Ave-C5(E.Rodriguez Jr) > Ortigas Ave-Cainta Junction. Vice Versa is mostly the same, but after arriving at INC Church in San Juan, they'll turn right to F.Roman, then right to R.Lagmay, then right to A.Lake before returning to A.Lake-N.Domingo. Some e-jeeps may end their trip at De Castro area in Rosario, so ask first if you plan to commute to SM East using the e-jeeps.
Notable landmarks:

• San Juan City Hall/Pinaglabanan Shrine
  
• FilOil Eco CenteSantolan Town Center
  
• Ronac Art Center
  
• Greenhills Shopping Center (Ortigas side)
  
• Cardinal Santos Medical Center (go down at Wilson street then walk)
  
• Robinsons Galleria/MRT Ortigas/Eton Cyberpod
  
• Meralco Main Office/Meralco Ave/The Medical City
  
• IPI (aka Ortigas-C5)/CCF CenteBridgetowne
  
• Eastwood, Libis and Bagumbayan area. Ride the Cubao-Rosario jeep at IPI.
  
• Ugong area including SM Center Pasig and Tiendesitas, you may wait for Pasig-Ugong jeep at the U Turn slot across CCF, though they have seldom trips during off hours.
  
• Rosario Church/Jenny's
  
• Choice Market/Luckygold Plaza/East Bank road/Deca Mall Ortigas/De Castro
  
• SM East Ortigas/Robinsons Cainta/Cainta Junction
  

II. San Juan-Crame jeepneys
Route: A.Luna-N.Domingo (Jollibee corner) > N.Domingo-Pinaglabanan > Pinaglabanan-Col.Bonny Serrano-P.Guevarra > Col.Bonny Serrano-Ortigas Ave > Col.Bonny Serrano-C.Benitez > Col.Bonny Serrano-2nd Ave (across Camp Crame gate). The jeeps are waiting at Col.Bonny Serrano-1st Ave going back to San Juan. After reaching INC church, they'll enter F.Roman then turn left to R.Lagmay, then turn left to A.Luna before stopping beside Jollibee at A.Luna.
Notable Landmarks:

• San Juan City Hall/Pinaglabanan Shrine
  
• FilOil Eco CenteSantolan Town Center
  
• short walk to Ronac Art Center
  
• St.John Memorial Park
  
• Camp Crame gate
  
• beside the terminal for Cubao-Crame jeeps (usually beside Veteran's bank) which passes by Col.Bonny Serrano (Cubao side), Murphy Market, then to Alimall/SM Cubao.
  

III. San Juan-Cubao jeepneys*
Route: F.Blumentritt-D.Santiago > F.Blumentritt-N.Domingo > N.Domingo-Gilmore Ave/Granada > N.Domingo-Dona Hemady > N.Domingo-Mayor Ignacia Diaz > Mayor Ignacia Diaz-C.Benitez > C.Benitez-P.A.Bernardo > C.Benitez-Matulin (endpoint) > Matulin-Malabito > Malabito-P.A.Bernardo (Terminal, Nice Hotel). Vice Versa is mostly the same, after arriving near Puregold Agora, they will enter D.Santiago then exit to F.Blumentritt.
Notable Landmarks:

• Gilmore computer center (from Gilmore-N.Domingo)
  
• Robinsons Magnolia (from Dona Hemady-N.Domingo)
  
• Muhlach Bakery
  
• Cubao Arayat/Arayat market/short walk to Aurora blvd and MRT Cubao
  

IV. San Juan-Divisoria jeepneys
Route: N.Domingo-M.Paterno (Petron M.Paterno) > N.Domingo-F.Blumentritt > N.Domingo-F.Manalo > San Juan Bridge > Old Sta.Mesa-V.Mapa > V.Mapa-Magsaysay blvd > Magsaysay blvd-Vicente Cruz > Nagtahan Flyover > Legarda-J.Figueras (LRT2 Legarda) > Legarda-Recto-Mendiola > Recto-Quezon Blvd > Recto-Rizal Ave aka Avenida > Recto-Abad Santos/Reina Regente > Recto-Juan Luna > Recto-Asuncion street. Vice Versa is the same route.
Notable Landmarks:

• INC Church/Puregold Agora/Araneta Ave intersection
  
• V.Mapa-Magsaysay blvd (SM Sta.Mesa and LRT2 V.Mapa station)
  
• Stop & Shop area/Altura Market/Puregold Sta.Mesa/Boni-Stop&Shop jeep terminal
  
• Pureza(to PUP)/Magsaysay-M.Dela Fuente (near Tayuman-Lardizabal jeep terminal)
  
• Arellano University/LRT2 Legarda/Bustillos
  
• Mendiola/UE/Loyola/Morayta
  
• Quezon blvd/Isetan(terminal of jeeps to Gasak and Navotas)/LRT2 Recto/Rizal Ave
  
• Reina Regente-Abad Santos (near Lucky Chinatown)/999 mall/Tutuban Centeterminal of Divisoria jeeps to MCU, Blumentritt, and Retiro
  
• D8 Mall/Recto-Juan Luna (near terminal of jeeps to Velasquez, Sangandaan, Don Bosco, Navotas, Gasak at Padre Rada; Divisoria-Baclaran jeep near McDo)
  
• Recto-Asuncion, close to terminal of Delpan jeeps leading to Pier 4
  

V. San Juan-Kalentong jeepneys
Route: F.Blumentritt-D.Santiago > F.Blumentritt-F.Manalo > Kalentong Bridge > Kalentong-Haig > Haig-Romualdez > Kalentong-Romualdez. Vice Versa is the same.
Notable Landmarks:

• Santuario Del Santo Cristo Parish/Aquinas School
  
• Dominican College/Kabayanan Brgy Hall
  
• Kalentong, Mandaluyong (at jeepney terminal of Vergara and EDSA Crossing)
  
• walking distance to Shaw blvd
  

VI. San Juan-Little Baguio jeepneys
Route: I'm just gonna copypaste sir SavingCaptainRyan's comment from before: Puregold Agora - N.Domingo - R to D.Ssntiago Rd (dito ko nakikita yung pila pa L.Baguio) - L to F.Blumentritt - R to Haig - L to Romualdez (nagbababa ng mga pasahero sa Kalentong) - L to Kalentong - R to F.Manalo - R to P.Parada - V.P.Ibanez - R to J.Abad Santos - L to Lopez Jaena - R to Barasoain - R to Wilson - R to J.AbadSantos - L to V.P.Ibanez - P.Parada - R to F.Blumentritt hanggang Puregold Agora
Notable Landarks:

• Santuario Del Santo Cristo Parish/Aquinas School
  
• Dominican College/Kabayanan Brgy Hall
  
• Reyes Barbeque
  
• Chen Kuang High School
  
• Wilson street (walking distance to The Corner House, PUP San Juan)
  
• popular establishments in Little Baguio area including Gianetto Pizzeria, UniKu, McLaren, Emperor's Dimsum and Teahouse, etc
  

VII. Greenhills-MRT3 Annapolis EDSA jeepneys
Route: EDSA-Annapolis > Annapolis-Eisenhower > Eisenhower-Club Filipino > Club Filipino-N.Western street > Gate 5/Greenhills Mall (terminal) > N.Western street-Connecticut > Connecticut-Missouri > Missouri-Annapolis (loading area) > Annapolis-EDSA
------PUVs that passes by San Juan area-------
VIII. Parang/SSS Village/Calumpang-Stop&Shop and Cubao-Divisoria jeepneys
These jeeps travels along Aurora blvd, which also passes by the San Juan territory and LRT2 J.Ruiz station. You may go down at A.Luna, A.Lake or at J.Ruiz and walk to N.Domingo.
IX: Quiapo-Taytay buses (GLiner, RRCG, Rizal Metrolink, Greenstar)
Initially starting from Quezon Blvd in Quiapo (but their usual waiting area is beside Hotel Sogo Recto), the buses will enter San Juan via G.Araneta Ave, turning left to N.Domingo, then will travel along N.Domingo up to Gilmore/Granada. Granada street will become Ortigas Ave at Col.Bonny Serrano intersection. And will travel through the entire Ortigas Ave up to Taytay Tikling/Taytay Tiangge.
X. Train stations/Ferry Stations in San Juan
LRT2 J.Ruiz station is on San Juan, along Aurora blvd. It can be accessed from LRT1 by switching at D.Jose station to Recto station, meanwhile, it can be accessed from MRT3 by switching at MRT3 Cubao station near Farmer's to LRT2 Cubao station beside Gateway mall.
No Ferry station is available in San Juan, but the closest station would be the Sta.Ana/Lambingan station, which is 2 rides away to San Juan using the Vergara-Kalentong and then the Kalentong-San Juan jeep.
As always, I hope you find this guide helpful when planning to commute to San Juan, or find ways to commute outside of San Juan. I'm planning to use this kind of format once I made a guide for Makati. Leave a comment if there's anything I got it wrong or suggestions for improvement.

Hi all. Just in case there’s any interest, I’m going to do a final 2k23 stream for my all CAW WCW Universe around 6:15 Eastern. I use several of the CAWS you guys have posted. I want to say thank you guys for the CAWS, I’ve enjoyed having them come to life in my Universe. I’m sure you guys have more to do on a Saturday night than watch a, honestly quite boring stream but just wanted to give it a shot.
The Card:
WCW PRESENTS: HALLOWEEN HAVOC 2
WCW Men’s Ladder to Heaven (MitB) TLC Match - Dog of Darkness (Ro Davis) vs Jacob Troy (c)
Men’s World Tag Team Championship - Havoc vs The Order (c)
Falls Count Anywhere Submission Match - Ace Walker vs Buck Burnstorm
Women’s LTH (MitB) Ladder Match - Brianna Fenwicks vs Taylor Simmons vs Belle Trung vs Olivia Castro vs Aster Huynh
Women’s United States Tag Team Championship Tournament Finals: The Thrillseekers vs The Psycho Sisters
Men’s Television Championship Match - “The Unpredictable” Nick Hale vs Michael Draven (c)
Men’s United States Championship Match - Mai Kaiva vs “The Monster of Darkness” Lex Sparks (c)
Women’s United States Championship Match - Rachel Palmer vs Blair Truong (c)
Women’s Television Championship Match - Angel Payne vs Becca Andrea (c)
Women’s World Tag Team Championship Match - Ace’s High vs The Pack (c)
Women’s World Championship Match- Jet vs Cali Stone (c)
Men’s World Championship Match - 2 out of 3 Falls “DEATHCAGE” - Adam Blood vs AKA Aaron Kirk (c)
Here’s the channel link: https://youtube.com/@jayward3967?si=EyQg3Q9yxJH2ZX8N

J. Cobb, orchestrated the October Surprise when the campaign put out an “unapproved” statement about overthrowing Castro, then drafted a speech that turned into JFK’s hawkish Cuba white paper released in April 1961.
Cobb was controlling phase 1, keeping the closest tabs on the internal policy debate and shaping the messaging that won JFK the election. CIA expected him to follow through, but he always danced just on the far side of the line. Did Kennedy know her? Or was he being pushed through his staff?
By Nov. 61 her influence was still there but the Bay of Pigs had put everything on the fast track to having Kennedy swear off an invasion in any case. At that point they tried to instigate it with phase 2, the missile crisis.
When that didn’t work the CI staff decision was made to go to the last resort, phase 3, and use ZRIFLE, Cobb, aka QJ/WIN to execute the DIA’s Northwoods plan and treat JFK like Castro, Lamumba, Trujillo and any other common subversive leader.

Besides the canon ones of course
I spared:
Willy from Love Fist Lenny Avery Chip Peterson aka the architect Chad Mulligan Sasquatch dude Tracey's stalker (only because Tracey doesn't want Michael to kill him)
I took all of Maude's suspects to her instead of killing them I also helped Walter with killing those bikers who were messing with his niece, instead of getting himself killed by those bikers
I killed:
Josh Bernstein Alonzo Peter Dreyfuss Abigail Mathers Beverly Felton Blake Freddy Slade Ortega in Trevor's 1st mission They all fucking deserved it!
I also killed Al Di Napoli too. Although he doesn't deserve it, he very well might could snitch Trevor and those 2 fucking old ass English fruitcakes
I took to Altruist camp: Castro Hitchhiking bitch Drunk driver Ursula They deserved it the most for me
What about you tho?

Frauditing seems to be dying, and this is one of the biggest indications it's headed the way of the dodo and roller disco:
It's been about four months since David Shuster has done a video featuring Gimbal Jesus, aka Long Island Audit, gushing over him the way Tiger Beat featured Donny Osmond circa 1971. It's been three months since he's posted a video related to "auditing" at all, a repost of a five year old video from a dormant channel in which David falsely claimed the YouTuber in the video was a "lawyer". Not that I'm complaining at all - let me repeat that, in case David Shuster might read this: I'M NOT COMPLAINING -but Shuster has gone on to do almost exclusively political videos. Meanwhile, Dave's onetime BFF Seanpaul "Gimbal Jesus" Reyes continues to regularly do his performance art in DMVs and libraries, and he even had a federal judge rule that his 1A argument didn't hold water.
No less than the Washington Post did an article last August that featured LIA along with some copwatchers, and it wrongly conflating frauditing and copwatching. To be fair, the section dealing with LIA mentions his conviction for armed robbery, but it's mostly positive. On low rated CNN clone NewsNation, former CNN personality Chris Cuomo interviewed LIA in an interview that was bordering on gushing, with the interview ending with Cuomo telling a smiling Reyes, "I appreciate what you do, brother" and saying along with Reyes that "the power is in the people's hands". As with the Post, Cuomo conflated "auditing" with copwatching, and Cuomo's interview was even less critical than the WaPo article.
Since then, nothing.
It's true that some major stories have hit the news since Cuomo and WaPo did their pieces and have pushed frauditors out of what limelight they might have had. It's also true that the election year is a big deal, and that's motivated Shuster and others to move on to political coverage. But frauditing seems to be yesterday's news, if it ever was news. It's the chewing gum that lost its flavor on the bedpost overnight.
So, who are we left with as booster outlets? I can only think of three: Audit the Audit, LIA's partner in the Attorney Shield nonsense Lackluster Media, and snide egomaniac who thinks he's smarter than all Harvard, Yale and Stanford Law School faculties Merb. I should note a couple of things about Merb: yes, the guy's a practicing attorney, though his area of practice is family law and has nothing to do with 1A law, and that to his credit he hates Chille De Castro. Still, he's got an ego the size of Gondawanaland and is as obnoxious as a drunk uncle at a holiday dinner.
The cult is still out there, as any comment section in an LIA video shows. But the novelty's gone, the media's moved on to other stuff, and the court losses and embarrassments are racking up. People are wise to how to fight them too (copyright and privacy strikes, for example). That the boostepromoter base is drying up is an indicator that frauditing's probably in its last phase.
​

This is a long one but extremely important (see pretty profound finding at the end, I won't put spoilers.)
Part 2 is in the comments
Written out of concern for u/Fun-Original5187. Wish I had something like this available to me when still living with my parents.

1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-020-01193-3

Crossposting audience: This is a new subreddit at zeronarcissists, the first anti-narcissism subreddit based on scientific evidence as far as I can tell. Please give us a follow at the original sub! We are new and growing.
Previous Studies

1. In Study 1 (n = 329), male collective narcissism was associated with sexism.
2. Catholic collective narcissism predicted tolerance of violence against women (among men and women) over and above religious fundamentalism and in contrast to intrinsic religiosity
3. National collective narcissism was associated with hostile sexism among men and women and with benevolent sexism more strongly among women than among men.

In group satisfaction vs. collective narcissism

1. In contrast, national in-group satisfaction—a belief that the nation is of a high value—predicted rejection of benevolent and hostile sexism among women but was positively associated with hostile and benevolent sexism among men.

Tolerance of domestic violence was not affected by gender among those enmeshed in collective narcissism

1. Among men and women collective narcissism was associated with tolerance of domestic violence against women, whereas national in-group satisfaction was associated with rejection of violence against women.

Mr. Rodger, the perfect gentleman (benevolent sexism very quickly turns to hostile sexism and shows no core difference, showing benevolence in narcissism is often just a vain mask for torture/hostility/hate crime)

1. The mass-shooting that took place at the University of California in 2014 was explicitly motivated by hatred of women (BBC News 2018). Unlike interpersonal violence against women (Bushman et al. 2003; Fowler and Westen 2011; Mouilso and Calhoun 2016; Zeigler-Hill et al. 2013),

Hate crimes against women are almost always a symptom of a narcissistic surrounding area which installs beliefs about what the perpetrator is entitled to, and then the perpetrator grows enraged when the promises of his narcissistic environment are not delivered

1. hate crimes against women and sexism (prejudice toward and discriminatory treatment of women as a social group; Glick and Fiske 1997, 2001) are unlikely to be motivated by individual narcissism (a personality trait defined by self-importance and need for admiration; Morf et al. 2011). Instead, they may be driven by frustrated narcissistic entitlement elevated to a group level, which takes a form of collective narcissism that is, a belief that one’s own group’s (the in-group’s) exaggerated exceptionality is not sufficiently recognized by others (Golec de Zavala et al. 2009, 2019; Golec de Zavala and Lantos 2020).

Incels have sex-based entitlement, characteristic of the narcissist. They attack voluntary association law out of entitlement similar to how narcissists view blocking as abusive.

1. Entitlement: Indeed, the University of California shooter spoke for “Incels” (i.e., self-proclaimed “involuntary celibates”), an online community of sexually frustrated men preaching hate and vengeance toward women for not recognizing their entitlement to have sex with the women they choose (Beauchamp 2019; Williams 2018).

Male collective narcissism leads to empathetic disability toward women who they perceive as out-groups (despite just being the other-sexed 50% of their population required for the survival of their population, showing the failing analytical skill often found in the narcissistic society), and thus other out-groups

1. Research has also suggested that male collective narcissism thwarts empathy toward and solidarity with women who are perceived as a threatening out-group (Górska et al. 2019).
2. The present studies extend the previous research by examining, for the first time known, the associations among collective narcissism and hostile (derogatory and antagonistic beliefs about women as a social group rooted in intergroup-level competition of men with women) and benevolent sexism (paternalistic prejudice based on the belief that women are passive and incompetent and should be protected). Although positive in tone, benevolent sexism is positively associated with hostile sexism and has multiple negative consequences (Glick and Fiske 1997, 2001).

Anti-abortion in Poland is often (horrifically, in my opinion) enforced by other women

1. We test these predictions in Poland, where women face the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in Europe, and their access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and information is limited. The ultra-conservative Polish government systematically harasses women activists.

Poland in particular stigmatizing women who go into activism, suggesting they do not want women to have voices or self-defense

1. Supported by the Polish Catholic Church, it stigmatizes women activists, along with all men and women who refuse to conform to traditional gender roles (Amnesty International 2019; Human Rights Watch 2019). Studies and analyses indicate that ultraconservative populists in Poland see gender equality as a threat to and a foreign “colonization” of traditional national identity (Korolczuk and Graff 2018, p. 797). In this vision of national identity, which attributes national prototypically to ethnically Polish, Catholic, heterosexual men, gender hierarchy is moralized and women are relegated to second-class citizenship (Graff 2010; Kościańska 2014a, b; Mole et al. 2020).

As usual, the superiority of the in-group is premised on the inferiority of the out-group

1. More generally, national collective narcissism is associated with derogation of those disadvantaged in-group members whose emancipation threatens traditional societal hierarchies (Golec de Zavala and Keenan 2020).
2. This suggests that men and women who hold collective narcissistic belief about Polish national or religious in-group may endorse sexism.

Male collective narcissism is associated with perceived threat from women

1. studies showed that male collective narcissism (but not non-narcissistic positive gender identification) was associated with perceived threat from women (Górska et al. 2019). Previous research has also shown that collective narcissism is associated with intergroup hostility because of the perception of the in-group as threatened (Golec de Zavala et al. 2009; Golec de Zavala and Cichocka 2012).

“Let me be a man” syndrome when that doesn’t mean anything specifically at all, and shows reliance on the grandiose narcissist’s general all-encompassing “self” based enhancements, versus the healthy achievement based enhancements

1. Given this evidence, we argue that male collective narcissism is likely to be associated with sexism. Moreover, this association is likely to be driven by men perceiving their gender identity to be threatened.

The volatility of manhood in collective narcissism in its sexist instantiation is exactly the same as the volatility of self-exteem in the narcissist’s disorder. Instead of “success is the rent you pay every day”, it’s “maleness is the gender you prove every day”.

1. We expect that the relationship between male collective narcissism and sexism will be mediated by precarious manhood, the belief in manhood is a form of social status that needs to be earned through repeated demonstrations of masculinity (Bosson and Vandello 2011, 2013; Vandello et al. 2008). Men may endorse sexism because they attempt to ground the volatile status of their manhood in traditional beliefs about gender roles that sanction the privileged status of men over women.
2. Precarious manhood predicts
   1. lower willingness to confront sexual prejudice (Kroeper et al. 2014),
   2. expressing amusement at sexist jokes (O’Connor et al. 2017), and
   3. feeling threatened by women superiors at work (Netchaeva et al. 2015). In addition, when their gender prototypicality is threatened, men are
   4. more likely to harass women (Maass et al. 2003).
   5. In Poland, men believe more strongly than women that the definition of gender roles should be grounded in national and religious traditions (Mole et al. 2020).

Manhood and positive mood incentivize grandiose narcissism in men in collectively narcissistic societies

1. “It feels good to be the man.”
2. False associations of depression with femininity.
3. Indeed, men who perceive their gender status as precarious feel motivated to restore it by engaging in stereotypically male behaviours (Bosson and Vandello 2011; Vandello et al. 2008), which help them to down-regulate negative mood when their manhood is threatened (Bosson et al. 2009).

Belief systems justify sexism in collective narcissism

1. This belief system justifies sexism. It is supported by the dominant populist narrative about national identity in Poland rooted in associations with traditional Catholic values (Graff 2010; Mole et al. 2020). Thus, we expected that Catholic and national collective narcissism also may be linked to sexism in Poland.

Collective Narcissism and Sexism

Catholic religiosity linked to sexism

1. Psychological studies have linked Catholic religiosity to sexism (Glick, Lameiras, & Rodriguez Castro, 2002; in Poland, Mikołajczak and Pietrzak 2014) and showed that priming Catholic religious identity increased benevolent sexism and acceptance of gender inequality among men and women (Haggard et al. 2019). However, studies also suggest that Catholic religiosity may be related to egalitarian values and tolerance (Hansen et al. 2018). We propose that the dual function of religion needs to be taken into account for a better understanding of the association between religiosity and sexism.

“My religion’s God and way is the only God and way.”

1. Religious fundamentalism (i.e., a belief that literally understood religious teachings are infallible and the sole repository of fundamental truths that must be obeyed in accordance with tradition; Kirkpatrick and Locke 1991; Altemeyer and Hunsberger 1992) is linked to sexism regardless of the type of religion (Hannover et al. 2018).

“There are some parts of life that must be treated as holy, because they are holy.”

1. However, intrinsic religiosity (i.e., treating religious faith as an intrinsic end in itself) is negatively associated with hostile sexism (Burn and Busso 2005). More generally, intrinsic religiosity is negatively associated with prejudice

“I’m a family man/woman and part of that is going to church.”

1. extrinsic religious orientation (treating religious faith as instrumental to ends such as social identity, belonging or social status) is positively associated with prejudice (Batson et al. 1986).

Racism is different in extrinsic vs. intrinsic religiosity as well, but not homophobia

1. For example, some studies indicate that intrinsic religious orientation is associated with tolerance toward minorities, unlike religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religious orientation which predict racism, sexism or homophobia (Kirkpatrick 1993).
2. However, other studies suggest that extrinsic and intrinsic religious orientations predict prejudice toward gay men and lesbians because rejection of those groups is prescribed by religious teaching (Herek 1987).
3. The institution of marriage is the “holy” thing that is put above the existence of love without institution.
   1. Ironically, many people in the gay community still are pro-institution despite this.

“Other people are sexist, therefore it must be valid to enforce sexism” is the same logic as “Other people are sick, therefore it must be valid to enforce the factors that make people this sick.”

1. Both men and women are more likely to endorse sexism when they perceive it as normative and gender inequality as desirable (Sibley et al. 2007a). More generally, people are more likely to adhere to normative beliefs of groups they identify with and treat this adherence as an expression of positively valued social identity (Ellemers et al. 2013).
2. Studies also suggest that positive identification with a common, superordinate identity increases acceptance of beliefs justifying normative group-based inequalities among advantaged (Lowery et al. 2006) and disadvantaged sub-groups (Dovidio et al. 2007, 2009;).
   1. “I’ll take the club membership and just go with the rules. The club membership is more important.”

Equality and tolerance has a deleterious effect on sexism whereas righteousness and holy wars have an exacerbating effect on sexism

1. Beliefs conveying the prescription of equality and tolerance are more likely to be associated with rejection of sexism, whereas beliefs conveying intergroup antagonism and hierarchy are likely to be positively associated with sexism.

Nationalism is not the same as in group satisfaction

1. “America is the best nation on earth” is not the same as “I am lucky to born American, we have a lot of great opportunities and infrastructure other countries do not have.”
2. National collective narcissism and national in-group satisfaction are alternative positive beliefs about the same nation. National in-group satisfaction is a belief that membership in the nation is good and a reason to be proud (Leach et al. 2008; it has also been named private collective self-esteem, Crocker and Luhtanen (1990) or, with reference to a national in-group, genuine or constructive patriotism (Adorno et al. 1950; Kosterman and Feshbach 1989; Schatz et al. 1999; Staub 1997).
3. Studies suggest that national collective narcissism and national in-group satisfaction convey different prescriptions regarding intergroup attitudes and attitudes toward minorities within the nation (for review see, Golec de Zavala et al. 2019; Golec de Zavala and Lantos 2020).

“You are not American, therefore you should not benefit.” vs. “You are not American so you don’t know how much better life could be; come try our infrastructure out.”

1. Collective narcissism prescribes distrust and hostility as normative in intergroup relations, whereas national in-group satisfaction prescribes equality and intergroup tolerance, especially after its overlap with collective narcissism is partialled out (Golec de Zavala et al. 2016, 2020). Whereas collective narcissism predicts intergroup hostility in response to perceived threat to the in-group’s positive image, in-group satisfaction does not (Golec de Zavala et al. 2013b).
2. Whereas collective narcissism is associated with prejudice toward minorities (ethnic, Lyons et al. 2010; sexual, Mole et al. 2020), national in-group satisfaction is not (Golec de Zavala et al. 2013a, 2020).

“If you don’t like it, leave!” (collective narcissism, inerrancy) vs. “Let’s get that on the ballot.” (in-group satisfaction, interest in increasing across the board possible satisfaction)

1. Collective narcissism is associated with hypersensitivity to national image threat (Golec de Zavala et al. 2016), whereas national in-group satisfaction is associated with acceptance of criticism and the possibility that the national in-group can be improved (not currently threatened, doing well) (Golec de Zavala et al. 2013a, b)

“Feminism is a cancer” vs. “Women birth us, we have sisters and daughters; why are they consistently coming to us with accounts of abuse? This is a great country, let’s get this on the ballot.”

1. In addition, in Poland, the belief that nontraditional women and gender equality threaten the national identity is positively associated with national collective narcissism and negatively associated with national in-group satisfaction (Mole et al. 2020).

Hostile sexism: “Hitting your girl keeps her in check”

1. Going beyond the previous findings, we expect that unlike national in-group satisfaction, national collective narcissism may be positively associated with hostile sexism including tolerance of domestic violence against women.

“Don’t bother your pretty little head with it” (benevolent sexism) vs. “A woman’s place is in the kitchen and you should hit her if she thinks otherwise!” (hostile sexism) are the same thing, sexism, just one is more stomachable.

1. This is a good example of benevolence covering up for torture/hate crime out of vanity.
2. Additionally, we expect that gender may moderate the specific association between beliefs about national identity (collective narcissism vs. in-group satisfaction) and benevolent sexism because men and women find benevolent sexism more acceptable than hostile sexism due to its superficial positivity (Glick and Fiske 2001).

“As long as I benefit, I’m used to be treated this way” (in-group tolerance of benevolent sexism by women) vs. “I don’t benefit, and this is condescending and sick. I enjoy proving these people wrong. They never saw it coming from a woman.” (out-group rejection of benevolent sexism by women)

1. Men who reject hostile sexism may endorse benevolent sexism because it gives them advantage in access to power and status. They may be more likely to endorse benevolent sexism the more they uphold either positive belief about national identity.
2. On the other hand, women may endorse benevolent sexism to protect the positive image of their national in-group when they are psychologically invested in this image, but reject benevolent sexism when they are not.
3. Like other members of disadvantaged groups who internalize beliefs that maintain inequality, women internalize benevolent sexism to protect self-esteem (Jost and Kay 2005).
4. By strengthening their sense of self-worth, national in-group satisfaction may motivate women to reject beliefs that justify their disadvantaged position in gender hierarchy.
5. In addition, in-group satisfaction is associated with a need to use personal strengths toward the betterment of the in-group (Amiot and Sansfaçon 2011). Thus, women with high national in-group satisfaction may also act in support of gender equality to advance and improve their national in-group.

Collective narcissism is an attempt to compensate for low self-esteem (Golec de Zavala et al. 2020) and frustrated expectations regarding self-importance (Golec de Zavala and Keenan 2020; Golec de Zavala et al. in press), aka the collective is not actually succeeding among its mutually checking peers. Thus the narcissism is defensive.

1. When their self-esteem and self-importance needs are invested in a national in-group, women may find it difficult to dissociate from this group and may be particularly motivated to adhere to its normative gender hierarchy and endorse benevolent sexism and their place in the gender hierarchy even more strongly than men.

Overlap between individual and collective narcissism

1. Narcissistic societies hit and abused into becoming more like the narcissist by administrations/leaders that should not be in power often generate more narcissists.
2. Given that collective and individual narcissism positively overlap (Golec de Zavala et al. 2019), it is crucial to specify that collective, rather than individual, narcissism is independently associated with sexism.
3. Collective male narcissism create individual male sexists, and these male sexists identify more strongly with these beliefs among themselves.

​

Introduction

H.P Lovecraft and his works, often called the "Cthulhu Mythos" is a series that's notorious for it's power and while I do hold firm that it's one of the strongest pieces of fiction to exist, that doesn't excuse some of the absurd wank I've seen the verse getting in this particular sub. When I say "wank", I'm talking out there stuff even for this verse. I'm talking things like somehow even humans being "Immeasurable Layers Into Boundless" or the prospect that Cthulhu scales to anything remotely cosmic in the verse, despite the fact feats indicate otherwise
A bulk of these claims from this and this. Truth be told, I have no ill will towards the creators of these posts but I want to say that I fundamentally disagree with the interpretations presented and I want to use this post as a means to dispel some misconceptions about the verse that essentially don't align with the original stories or the information conveyed in them.
With that being said, let's start with what might be the most controversial aspect of this whole post, which is:

Cthulhu Didn't Destroy The Stars...

For as powerful as Cthulhu Mythos is, the irony to it is that Cthulhu himself isn't actually all that powerful in relation. This isn't to say that Cthulhu is a weak character as he isn't by any stretch of the means but it's just that people have this misconception he has cosmic scale powers or scales to Tier 1 sufficient portion of the verse does
Whenever one brings up Cthulhu, one of the most common feats they'll bring up is him flaring stars and apparently causing destruction to them. The original "feat" for this originates from The Whisperer in Darkness, a short story in which Cthulhu is a very central figure to it. The passage that specifically implies that Cthulhu destroyed stars is

"I learned whence Cthulhu first came, and why half the great temporary stars of history had flared forth."

Now, that sounds pretty neat and impressive but you have to re-contextualize this statement with how it's written and account for the literary device used to convey said information, which was fairly popular during the time of Lovecraft. What do I mean ? Well, simply put Cthulhu wasn't the one who caused the stares to flare, this was just basic literary parallelism and I can prove this using both the context and other works of Lovecraft

"I guessed—from hints which made even my informant pause timidly—the secret behind the Magellanic Clouds and globular nebulae, and the black truth veiled by the immemorial allegory of Tao"

This is an important passage because Lovecraft brings up things that ultimately have no correlation to one another. This is line with the initial context of the statement in which supposedly claims Cthulhu destroyed stars, that context being Henry Wentworth Akeley repeatedly mentioning unrelated things he's learned to Albert N. Wilmarth
This mentioning of two or more things that don't correlate to one another is also compounded by another passage which goes on about Tao but still has fundamentally nothing to do with magellanic clouds or globular nebulae and really is only correlated to grander cosmos

"He rose and strode to the mantel. When he faced me again he was holding a small square box in the palm of his hand. "I have here five pellets of the drug Liao. It was used by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tze, and while under its influence he visioned Tao. Tao is the most mysterious force in the world; it surrounds and pervades all things; it contains the visible universe and everything that we call reality. He who apprehends the mysteries of Tao sees clearly all that was and will be." "Rubbish!" I retorted. "Tao resembles a great animal, recumbent, motionless, containing in its enormous body all the worlds of our universe, the past, the present and the future. We see portions of this great monster through a slit, which we call time. With the aid of this drug I shall enlarge the slit. I shall behold the great figure of life, the great recumbent beast in its entirety." "And what do you wish me to do?" "Watch, my friend. Watch and take notes. And if I go back too far you must recall me to reality. You can recall me by shaking me violently. If I appear to be suffering acute physical pain you must recall me at once."

So that's just an example within this story. This already kind of throws a wrench at the idea that one is supposed to interpret that passage about Cthulhu as him literally destroying stars as opposed to Cthulhu arriving and the stars flaring being two unrelated events that people seem to just believe correlate despite nothing suggesting so
If you don't think that's enough to argue that parallelism was the intent, there's more examples of this even outside of this particular story. In Whispher of Darkness, both Azathoth and Yig are mentioned despite the fact they've never had any connection to one another, not in the the family tree, in thematic or even position and canon

"The legend of Yig, Father of Serpents, remained figurative no longer, and I started with loathing when told of the monstrous nuclear chaos beyond angled space which the Necronomicon had mercifully cloaked under the name of Azathoth."

How about the fact that the Doels are mentioned with the Hounds of Tindalos despite neither having any real correlation to one another, with the former appearing in the Space Eaters, which isn't relevant to the Hounds of Tindalos beyond the fact both exist beyond space-time
At the end of the day, the thing that H.P Lovecraft meant to do when he mentioned Cthulhu and flaring stars in the same breath is to convey a sense of Parallelism, in other words, bringing two elements to create a sense of equal importance between two or more things
What's interesting is even if we assumed the statement was in a literal sense, there's still two fundamental issues that come with saying it scales to Cthulhu

1. We don't know how Cthulhu was exactly able to cause the stares to flare and not enough details are given to provide an Occam's Razor scenario for what is most likely to have been the method in which Cthulhu effected these stars
2. It's highly likely that a cosmic calendrical ritual was the cause behind it, as indicated by the references to stars always being related to such events in Call of Cthulhu

To expand on the second point, here's a passage from Call of Cthulhu that highlights what I was conveying and is essentially what I was referring to:

"Old Castro remembered bits of hideous legend that paled the speculations of theosophists and made man and the world seem recent and transient indeed. There had been aeons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still to be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before men came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity. They had, indeed, come themselves from the stars, and brought Their images with Them. These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape—for did not this star-fashioned image prove it?—but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them."

As you can see here, whenever stars are mentioned, it's usually a buzzword for some cosmic ritual that relates to the summoning or resurrection of beings beyond our understanding. In this particular case, when the stars and the planet align in the right positions, mystical arts could be used to summon or resurrect them
This once more is important because the flaring of the stars and the arrival of Cthulhu could be just that, an event that happened at the same time as Cthulhu's summoning that was essentially a calendrical event caused by rituals. Either way, nothing supports Cthulhu destroying stars, the contexts behind it is indicated to be more akin to parallelism as opposed to a literal event that Cthulhu caused and even in the case we assert Cthulhu was the caused, we don't know how he did it, meaning it shouldn't scale to Cthulhu

"Doesn't Cthulhu Control The Universe ?"

Well no, he doesn't, at least not in any significant way that's relevant to scaling. The extend in which Cthulhu and the other Old Ones control the universe is through knowing all things in it and influencing what happens across it, which doesn't really tell us much of anything in terms of whether The Great Old Ones can significant effect the universe in terms of alteration, destruction, creation and anything meaningful to scaling purposes
At most this would give Cthulhu and The Great Old Ones High 1-B range as the universe in Cthulhu Mythos is an infinite-dimensional structure. That aside though, this doesn't mean anything for scaling and thus we can just disregard this for any indication that Cthulhu holds cosmic destructive power

"Aren't Atoms In Cthulhu Mythos Immeasurable Layers Into Boundless ?"

This is got to be the most ridiculous claim among the ones I've seen in this sub. This is going to be less of knack on Cthulhu Mythos and more so an attack on the stupidity known as "Atom Scaling" because I genuinely can't believe people use these type of arguments but don't think for like 2 seconds as to what the major problem with them
Let's first address one thing. In Cthulhu Mythos, whenever "atoms" are mentioned, it's meant to be in a metaphorical context and often times is in reference to the fractal nature of the multiverse and it's dimensions. One of the most basic examples of this is in The Whisperer in Darkness, where the following is stated:

"I have said that there were things in some of Akeley’s letters—especially the second and most voluminous one—which I would not dare to quote or even form into words on paper. This hesitancy applies with still greater force to the things I heard whispered that evening in the darkened room among the lonely haunted hills. Of the extent of the cosmic horrors unfolded by that raucous voice I cannot even hint. He had known hideous things before, but what he had learned since making his pact with the Outside Things was almost too much for sanity to bear. Even now I absolutely refuse to believe what he implied about the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organisation."

As you can say, the mention of "atoms" here is meant to be a metaphor for how the unending chain of universes are pieces of a "super-cosmos" that holds these space-times as atoms within itself. This isn't saying that they are contained in atoms as opposed to that just being a basic comparison to highlight how small these seemingly large universes are in the grand scheme of things
This would align perfectly with the fact the statement of all things infinity just being essentially infinitesimal cross-sections that lead to "archetype infinity", in reference to The Ultimate Mystery (or Yog-Sothoth basically), the only genuine infinity in Cthulhu Mythos

"Then the waves increased in strength, and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part. They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension—as a square is cut from a cube or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions that men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity. The world of men and of the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing—the three-dimensional phase of that small wholeness reached by the First Gate, where ’Umr at-Tawil dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones. Though men hail it as reality and brand thoughts of its many-dimensioned original as unreality, it is in truth the very opposite. That which we call substance and reality is shadow and illusion, and that which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality."

So with that being said, there's nothing that states that the basic atoms that exist in the verse contain universes or any cosmological structure within them. The mention of "atoms" have always been metaphorically speaking to denote the small scale of the cosmos that is known by humanity and was never meant to be in a literal sense
Bare in mind, this doesn't even get into the fact that atom scaling in itself is inherently an anti-feat as it denotes that these structures are small as opposed to the atoms being big themselves. There has to be evidence of the inverse otherwise the most logical and default assumption is that the atoms are small and thus the structures are small
Again, obviously atoms in Cthulhu Mythos aren't some large structure and to interpret it that way would be kinda against the work itself, as in straight up headcanon that isn't even remotely applicable to the verse at hand

"If Cthulhu Isn't Some Cosmic Destroyer, How Strong Is He ?"

Even though Cthulhu lacks feats or statements that indicates any type of cosmic destructive powers, this isn't to say Cthulhu doesn't have feats or statements that scale him somewhere. For example, one casual feat that Cthulhu has is causing an earthquake as he slept in the city of R'lyeh, which got 427.82 Teratons of TNT (Country Level)
This was a feat done in Cthulhu's sleeping state, aka when blud wasn't even trying. Obviously this is a lowball for his strength and on top of that, the fact that Cthulhu can be "Miles high", would also put Cthulhu at Large Mountain Level via Sheer Size, which again is another casual feat for Cthulhu and indicates that he's not capped at this level or could be potentially higher
So when it comes to physical strength, the minimum Cthulhu would be at is Country Level although to be fair, AP kinda doesn't even matter because that's not why Cthulhu is a force to be reckoned with as opposed to his insanely stupid hax that a lot of characters can't do anything about.
Let's put it this way...

• Cthulhu has Dream Manipulation, Telepathy, and Mind Manipulation that literally can work on a 1-A scale considering The Great Old Ones can effect dreams through their telepathic powers, which in Cthulhu Mythos, is related to The Dreamlands, a realm that exists beyond the multiverse and it's already large size due to a Low 1-A set of universes
• We already mentioned that Cthulhu's knowledge and ability to influence beings can also span the universe, which is an High 1-B structure
• The Great Old Ones are fundamentally outside of the concept of life and death, with their "death" only being temporary things and their reemergence coming at the command of the stars (meaning they have Type 4 & 5 Immortality)
• Cthulhu and his kin flew to earth from Xoth, a distant binary star and can consistently travel interstellar distances, alongside traveled from one universe to another (meaning he's very easily Massively FTL+, which for his tier is still insane lol)
  • I didn't even get into how Cthulhu scales to The Flying Polp, the same beings who can travel to "immeasurably distant universes" at unknown but implied to be short timeframes
• How about the fact the mere presence of The Great Old Ones can make individuals go insane due to their immense psychic powers, with Cthulhu being able to induce nightmares and extreme fear in his sleep

I can go on and on here. Cthulhu may not be strong but he's not anything to play with and I haven't even went in depth to the amount of stupid shit he has that makes him a force to be reckoned with (and yes, most versions of Godzilla stand no chance against him)

Conclusions

Cthulhu isn't really that strong when it comes to sheer AP and a lot of his strength lies purely in his hax. He's not Large Star Level as that feat is based on a misinterpretation, he's not High Hyperversal because he has no evidence of effecting the universe to a degree that's scalable and he certainly isn't Immeasurable Layers Into Boundless because nothing in Cthulhu even gets to Boundless outside of The Ultimate Void (possibly) and The Supreme Archetype, much less because of some vague interpretation of the passages that somehow indicate that atoms are this big...

This is the second part of the theory. For the first one please check: https://www.reddit.com/asoiaf/comments/194kguu/from_the_winds_of_winter_to_the_call_of_cthulhu/
A Note for Readers
I am tempted to say there has been almost 0 tinfoil so far:

1. The existence of the Deep Ones is given by GRRM himself
2. The parallelism with the Dance of the Dragons is given by GRRM himself
3. It was GRRM who tied the Long Night and the Lovecraftian cult together and encouraged our speculation. There is no way it is just "A Lovecraftian reference" out of respect. It is the Long Night, the most important event to happen, there is nothing random here!

You can however claim that other references to Lovecraft are just references. And some of them indeed used to be. But no longer. I will address this further.
In essence, all I did was to put it all together. For now, we made our assumptions based more or less on facts, references, and parallels. But the following Part IV will require a temporal leap of faith because the hard enough evidence for this part will appear closer to the end of this text.
​
An Interlude: The Metaphysics of ASOIAF
Throughout all the books we notice the dualism of Ice and Fire, as the name of ASOIAF itself suggests. I will not and can not state all the examples there, but I think that you know what I am talking about.
But the point is, Ice and Fire are not actually the opposite things. According to the classification of 4 classical elements widely used in Ancient and Medieval philosophy water and fire are the opposite things. And indeed, ice is just water made solid. So, the main fight in ASOIAF is between fire and solid water.
What conditions are needed for the water to become solid ice? Low temperature. And all things equal the temperature drops if the sun stops shining. It is understood by the followers of R'hllor who don't fight ice and snow but fight darkness. They fight the fundamental reason water becomes ice.
With these things in mind let's continue
​
Part IV: When The Hell Freezes Over
So, we have the Bloodstone Emperor who continuously sacrifices his own subjects to prolong his life and feeds his men to the sea monsters he struck a deal with. His queen - the Amethyst Empress - urges him to stop. In response, he likely begins a civil war.
Now, he has his new powerful allies - the Great Old Ones - and of course, he wants to use them for battle. The Great Old Ones have an army of Deep Ones (in the Lovecraftian sense, sons of the Great Old Ones) and perhaps another army of Deep Ones Hybrids (Deep Ones in the ASOAIF sense, hybrid children of sea creatures and human women). But all these guys live in the ocean and can't be summoned to conquer the GEotD because they can't walk the Earth for long. I also think that the BSE's reputation may have caused some of his human allies to dump him and turn to the Amethyst Empress. So, the BSE really needed some extra help
The BSE needed a way to make water (Deep Ones) fight fire (Dragons of the GEotD). And we have a solution: Ice. I believe he made a deal with some deity of the pantheon of the Old Ones responsible for the time/space/fabric of the reality/whatever to create a Long Night to make the world freeze and to enable him to create new ice armies out of his water armies.
So, what the climate situation might have looked like?

1. There used to be a change of day/night in the GEotD (associated with the corresponding deities), but no winter present
2. The idea of a future without winters is very popular among the smallfolk. I believe it can be traced to the pre-Long Night times when it was true. The winters are regarded as something that should disappear, something unnatural, disrupting the order of things. At the same time, in many cultures that have winters regularly, it is considered natural, and the legends don't wait for winters to end.
3. The Lion of Night was responsible for maintaining the darkness from day to day. If he created the Long Night to punish the sins of men, why didn't he go back to normal when the Long Night passed? Instead, he retained the practice of shortening days for years to create the effect of Westerosi winter.
4. So, I believe the change of seasons began with the Old Ones arriving. And the winters still occurred afterward, because the Old Ones never left the planet.

It was the BSE who asked the Great Old Ones to make him a Long Night so that he could marshall his armies:

1. He turned the Deep Ones into the White Walkers
2. He turned the Sea Dragons into the Ice Dragons

Yes, the existence of both Sea Dragons and the Ice Dragons is not supported by anything (except, perhaps for Nagga Bones) but the last time they might have been seen was during the Long Night. So, the scientists didn't have much time to describe them. And their bones might be the same as those of ordinary dragons. The Ice Dragons are said to actually melt when slain, so you can't really prove their existence with material evidence anyway.
Conclusion 7: The BSE with the help of the Great Old Ones turned the sea creatures they commanded into the Ice creatures the Bloodstone Emperor led to battle for the throne.
The Others - the former Deep Ones - didn't give up their old habits. As the Deep Ones sired Deep Ones Hybrids on human women, so the Others lay with human women as Bran was told:

"And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children" [AGOT]

All to replenish their own ranks apparently
In the end, the BSE prevailed and claimed the throne in Asshai and several other regions. Why not the whole empire? Because he never truly conquered it.
Do you remember the oily black stone some of the pre-Valyrian structures are built from and our conclusion that some catastrophe caused it? Well, consider their description:

"On the Isle of Toads can be found an ancient idol, a greasy black stone crudely carved into the semblance of a gigantic toad of malignant aspect, some forty feet high" [on the Isle of Toads]
"Some say as well that the stone of Asshai has a greasy, unpleasant feel to it, that it seems to drink the light, dimming tapers and torches and hearth fires alike" [on Asshai]
"A ruin older than time, built of oily black stone, in massive blocks so heavy that it would require a dozen elephants to move them" [on Yeen]
"...the Seastone Chair, carved in the shape of a great kraken from an immense block of oily black stone. Legend said that the First Men had found it standing on the shore of Old Wyk when they came to the Iron Islands." [ACOK on Seastone Chair]
"The throne of the Greyjoys, carved into the shape of a kraken from an oily black stone"

And now this:

"...some terrible Cyclopean vista of dark and dripping stone..."
"...yet centuries and even thousands of years seemed recorded in its dim and greenish surface of unplaceable stone..."
"...its very material was a mystery; for the soapy, greenish-black stone..."
"Upon retiring, he had had an unprecedented dream of great Cyclopean cities of titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror."
"The great stone city R’lyeh, with its monoliths and sepulchres, had sunk beneath the waves..."
"...making me see with terrible vividness the damp Cyclopean city of slimy green stone—whose geometry, he oddly said, was all wrong..."
"...the men sight a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47° 9′, W. Longitude 126° 43′ come upon a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror—the nightmare corpse-city of R’lyeh..."
"Awe at the unbelievable size of the greenish stone blocks..."
"...the mountainous monstrosity flopped down the slimy stones..."
[The Call of Cthulhu: the descriptions of the material the city of R’lyeh was built from]

ASOAIF stones are greasy and oily as if the oil oozes from them, they are dark... I think you can perfectly see that the descriptions are similar, especially in the uneasiness and even terror they evoke. Oily black ASOIAF stone must have smth to do with the local Great Old Ones
The fact that there are clearly the Lovecraftian Old Ones' marks upon the ASOIAF materials further fortifies the idea of the Great Old Ones' presence in ASOIAF.
And of course, we can suggest that the oily black stone was corrupted by the powers of the Great Old Ones when certain regions were conquered by their now icy armies. Asshai and Yeen - big cities - were surely conquered, while I believe the Toad Idol and the Seastone Chair were created specifically for worshipping.
By the way, the Toad Idol fits perfectly with how the Deep Ones looked like in The Shadow Over Innsmouth:

fish-like frogs or frog-like fishes [The Shadow Over Innsmouth]

Conclusion 8: The oily black stone structures were originally the fused stone structures corrupted by the Great Old Ones and the Bloodstone Emperor
Now, how did the Long Night end?
​
Part V: The Night That Ended?
The Long Night allegedly ended after the Battle for the Dawn, when the Others were defeated. But were they?

1. The change of seasons didn't disappear, so the origin of it all - the Great Old Ones and the BSE - was not destroyed
2. The Wall was raised, so the humans knew they were not ultimately victorious.

Looks like a draw: the Others withdrew in order and the humans lacked the resources to finish them off. But if the origin of the Long Night - The Great Old Ones - were not destroyed (else there wouldn't be any winters), why did the Long Night end? Why were the Others defeated? The BSE and his alien friends could have produced the Others in hundreds.
The only conclusion plausible enough is that the source of new Others - The Great Old Ones - went dormant. Consider the Call of Cthulhu again:

"These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape—for did not this star-fashioned image prove it?—but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them."
"When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by moulding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals."

In the Lovecraftian novel, the Great Old Ones entered their dormant stance but were able to influence the outside world (by sending humans dreams). In the same way, ASOIAF Great Old Ones might have influenced the change of seasons
So, I believe the following happened:

1. The BSE and his newly created icy servants were unstoppable: they swept through the Empire like an ice storm. Their ranks were constantly replenished by new Others made from the Deep Ones and the Deep Ones, in their turn, were produced by the mating Great Old Ones (In Lovecraftian Universe the Deep Ones were supposedly sired by Dagon and Mother Hydra).
2. The mankind as we know it was doomed
3. Then all of a sudden the stars changed and became not right - hence the Great Old Ones went to sleep and the BSE lost his unlimited source of new troops. The Long Night also ended, but the Great Old Ones still influenced the seasons to some degree even from their dormant stance - thus the phenomenon of winters remained.
4. The BSE was either killed or withdrew to the Lands of Always Winter with the remnants of his army - to the places, where his Others would be preserved.
5. The City of the Great Old Ones likely sank deep into the ocean - you will see later why it is plausible.
6. The armies of the Light knew their victory was NOT THEIRS to claim, so they raised the Wall to protect themselves from future invasions.

Conclusion 9: The only reason the BSE and the Others lost was the change in the stars that made the Great Old Ones inactive. To preserve themselves the Others withdrew to the Lands of Always Winter and the humans raised the Wall to keep them there forever.
Basically, the Lands of Always Winter are filled with Lovecraftian sea-like monsters that walk the Earth. And it has very strong vibes of the Mountains of Madness: the Eldritch Horror on the snow.
And now we are ready to speculate on the Long Night yet to come
​
Part VI: The Shadow Over Oldtown
I will not attempt to cover what Poor Quentyn's Eldritch Apocalypse theory already perfectly did: Euron has a lot of Lovecraftian aura around him and he might well blow the Horn of Winter from the top of the Hightower. I will incorporate the Lovecraftian Euron into my theory and show another previously overlooked (or so I believe) but important Lovecraftian reference about him.
So, we borrow the assumption of Poor Quentyn that Euron is the one who is going to start the Long Night. Supposedly with the Horn of Winter that Sam has. Sam is currently in Oldtown. What is Euron up to?
This question is further complicated by the situation Euron found himself in:
He faces this:

"We are going back to sea. The Redwyne fleet creeps toward us. The winds have been against them rounding Dorne, but they're finally near enough to have emboldened the old women in Oldtown, so now Leyton Hightower's sons move down the Whispering Sound in hopes of catching us in the rear."

The Ironborn are greatly outnumbered and still Euron seems rather optimistic about it. This fact and his new Lovecraftian identity from the Forsaken made a large part of the community believe he is going to perform some kind of magical ritual to crush his enemies. The sea of blood from Moqorro's quote is also considered a part of this ritual.

“Only their shadows,” Moqorro said. “One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.”

I hold to this idea too and here is what I think is going to happen: Euron is a new Bloodstone Emperor who is going to wake the Great Old Ones from their sleep, strike a deal with them, and thus usher another Long Night the same way the BSE did it.
But to do that he needs to know about the Great Old Ones, right?
First, let us quickly recap what is the source of mysteries in Lovecraftian The Shadow Over Innsmouth:

1. Captain Obed sailed to the distant islands where he learned the locals made human sacrifices to the Deep Ones and mated with them to get plenty of fish, some gold, and immortality for the children sired by those sea creatures.
2. He established a trade with them and learned how they made contacts with the Deep Ones
3. When the hard times hit his town Innsmouth he started making human sacrifices and struck a deal with the Deep Ones. The town's population soon turned into a half-fish one.
4. The Esoteric Order of Dagon was founded that worshipped the Great Old Ones

What about Euron?
He sailed to the distant lands where in port cities he likely learned about the Church of Starry Wisdom and its lore (Much like Obed did). One of the details supporting this idea is his mongrel crue. Why all of them are mongrels? Why this particular detail?

Legrasse had one point in advance of Professor Webb, for several among his mongrel prisoners had repeated to him what older celebrants had told them the words meant. This text, as given, ran something like this: “In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”
He fell on a narrow hill street leading up from an ancient waterfront swarming with foreign mongrels, after a careless push from a negro sailor
Waterfront scum was far too common for special mention; though there was vague talk about one inland trip these mongrels had made, during which faint drumming and red flame were noted on the distant hills. [The Call of Cthulhu]

Mongrels are a prominent feature of any Cthulhian cult situated near the sea and it is made quite clear by Lovecraft: he repeatedly mentions them. Now Euron recruits only them. And they are feverishly loyal to him. Well, it may be well that he manipulates them as a greenseer, but I believe they followed Euron because they saw him as a potentially powerful cultist in the first place (and later he started to control them by other means).
So, I believe that Euron learned about the Cult, saw unlimited potential in it, and recruited some of its members for himself. Next:

1. The cultists must have told him about the Great Old Ones and the Deep Ones, how to find them, and how to befriend them (much like they told Obed)
2. And now, when Euron needs additional assistance, he is going to summon the Deep Ones (as Obed did when he thought his town needed them)

Euron's story may have parallels with the Obed's story if we make several assumptions. How exactly is he planning to summon the Deep Ones then?

1. Tribes Obed encountered did blood sacrifices
2. Obed did blood sacrifices
3. Euron does blood sacrifices

"The Crow's Eye has fed your Drowned God well, and he has grown fat with sacrifice. Words are wind, but blood is power. We have given thousands to the sea, and he has given us victories!"

Of course, Euron does not feed the Drowned God. But he sacrifices thousands to the Deep Ones. And these sacrifices cost him nothing as he constantly slaughters his enemies. These sacrifices are a by-product of his military campaign.
Conclusion 10: Euron is going to summon the Deep Ones to help him fight the Redwyne fleet. But the Deep Ones are not the only creatures he is going to summon.
Why? Because we have a matter of priests. One of the most mysterious actions of Euron is his prospective usage of priests in his magical ritual. What do priests have to do with it?

1. The Bloodstone Emperor was the first High Priest of the Church of Starry Wisdom. I believe if not his story then his interactions with the Great Old Ones are well known to the cultists.
2. Euron has parallels to the BSE if not in his actions (yet), then in his symbolism. "He showed the world his blood eye now, dark and terrible" - Euron's hidden eye is bloody with a dark pupil. Red and black colours - the colours of the bloodstone. Moreover, he is seen sitting on the Iron Throne as an emperor with the Gods inferior to him as if he is a God himself. And the BSE was a descendant of the God-on-Earth that wanted to match his ancestor's power.
3. The BSE cast down the true gods to worship a black stone. He probably sacrificed the priests in some ritual to strike a deal with the Great Old Ones. And Euron is going to do the same
4. Euron knows the last time the priests were sacrificed. He does not know whether or not they are really needed, but he has them just in case.

The priests are the key there. The only time they are mentioned earlier in anything regarding a great magical ritual is the activity of the BSE
But the Great Old Ones are sleeping, supposedly under the sea, why is Euron sure he will succeed in waking them up and striking a bargain with them?

1. Because the stars are right again!
2. And we even saw a symbol of their right order: the bleeding star from AGOT
3. Now, of course, back in 1996, GRRM had no idea about the Great Old Ones and Lovecraftian staff in his books, but now he can respectfully claim he planned it all along with his comet

So, what is Euron's masterplan?

1. Locate the place where the Great Old Ones are sleeping under the sea. It may well be somewhere he is now: near Oldtown.
2. Use the Deep Ones to tear apart the Redwyne fleet and sacrifice a lot of humans to the sea
3. Perform the proper actions needed to wake the Great Old Ones, perhaps murdering the priests in the process. The Great Old Ones trigger an eternal night
4. Strike a deal with the Great Old Ones and take command of the powers of both water and ice as a new Bloodstone Emperor

In the next chapter you will see how it all makes sense from the writer's point of view
​
Part VII: Why This Theory Is Right: The Narrative Logic
Before I begin the narrative analysis of ASOIAF, I will just state more Lovecraftian references there are:

1. The book "The Death of Dragons" is a local "Necronomicon": a secret tome, the only surviving copy of which is locked up in a university
2. Ironborn's "what is dead may never die" alludes to the “That is not dead which can eternal lie,And with strange aeons even death may die.” by Abdul Alhazred
3. The aetheric reptiles encountered by the protagonist in "The Nameless City" resemble the ghostly aetheric Danny's ancestors from the ghost city of Asshai (it most surely is a coincidence, but this coincidence caught my attention and all this theory emerged from it)

Now let's dive into ASOIAF as a text
We already agreed that the apocalyptic narrative is going to crown the plot of ASOIAF and that all political bickering will be insignificant in the face of an apocalyptic threat:

1. It means that all political plotlines should be gradually finished or halted. The original draft of ASOIAF makes that intention clear: in the Third Book all resources are dedicated to fighting the Others. And of course, it seems logical to the reader.
2. It also means that the "armies of the light" should draw near the probable "front": to the Wall. In the series, Daenerys came to the Wall with her army. In ASOIAF Stannis came to the Wall to help fight the wildlings. If not to the Wall, human armies should at least come closer to it
3. That's where the first problem arises: Westeros is now divided and every ruler cares only for his territory. The Lannisters are not going to care about the White Walkers until they turn up in the Riverlands and the Reach is not going to care until the Others defeat the Lannisters
4. Even if the Lannister-Highgarden dominion rallies to fight in the Riverlands there is no way they are going to recognize Jon Snow's authority and his apparent leadership in fighting the Others. Jon's mission is apocalyptic from the first book. He is the one to fight and defeat the Others (perhaps together with Danny), his whole path as a character is dedicated to it. It is the second problem
5. So, for now, the only force that can supposedly help Jon (if we don't take into account Stannis's 20k mercenaries) is Daenerys. And hopefully, she is finally ready to leave Mereen.
6. But even if she reaches the Wall in time, the fight for the Dawn is not going to be "the final battle for the Light", because the majority of the known world, the majority of Westeros taken separately is not going to participate. It spoils the culmination of the story that should be apocalyptical and that GRRM prepared us all for 5 books.

So, we have the first major difficulty: ASOIAF as it is now is not going to have a final battle of the united Westeros vs the Others. And the reader greatly anticipates exactly that. Yes, we know the Lannisters might be not the best guys, but we hope they are not going to be stupid enough to sit and wait like "Now the Others are busy with the North, we will fight them when they arrive. Maybe they will just conquer the North and stop there".
So, to solve this issue GRRM should have begun moving the armies of humans towards the Neck or at least finish all major confrontations in the South. Instead, we got:

1. Euron. A new archenemy pillages the South
2. An elite army 10k strong with a dragon prince (f)Aegon takes over the Storm's End and is going to fight the Highgarden forces
3. Dorn stirring from its sleep and getting ready to pledge 70k man to literally anyone remotely resembling a Targaryen.

So, instead of moving existing characters and armies closer to the future apocalyptic events in the North, GRRM is actually moving them South. He even has his brand new character - (f)Aegon - moving South with all his army. He deliberately prevents the Southern armies from even hypothetically participating in the saving of the world and leaves the North truly alone.
Why would GRRM betray his own narrative and arch plot he had been building for years?
Because he has a new apocalyptic threat: Euron
And Euron, whether or not you believe my theory, is described as much apocalyptic as it is possible. And whether or not you believe my reasoning about the Great Old Ones and the Deep Ones, Euron as an apocalyptic threat is the one who commands the water
What is the problem with such a twist?
The problem is that there can't be 2 different but equally important apocalyptic plots because they will effectively devalue each other. The readers may consider the Others a minor issue compared to the deep Ones, which is improbable, as the Others have too much lore about them already. Or they may consider the Deep Ones a minor distraction compared to the Others and the South will still be absent from the apocalyptic plot. Or, most probably, the readers will just cringe out, because it won't fit at all.
Imagine learning at the beginning of the Return of the King that there is Sauron 2.0. that sails to Middle Earth from the West. Would it still make the story that great? I doubt it
That is why many, starting with Poor Quentyn, made Euron a part of the Others' movement: they assigned him as a future leader of the Others. It makes the most sense: that way both North and South would be fighting the same great apocalyptic enemy to end the Long Night
But that way Euron does need an army of the Others with him in the South. And he can't get it, because the Others are all stuck in the North.
Moreover, Euron is not surrounded by any "icy" lore associated with the Others:

1. He has a Lovecraftian image, a sea image
2. In no way is he relatable to the Others, snow, ice, winter, etc

Conclusion 11: Euron can't be the leader of the Others in the original meaning of that "title" because he has nothing whatsoever connecting him to the symbolism of the Others. He is a "sea guy", not a "snow guy".
To sum up:

1. To finish ASOIAF with an apocalyptic final battle GRRM prepared his writers for, he needs to engage the Southern armies in a fight with an apocalyptic threat.
2. To make the Northern (The Others) and the Southern (Euron) Apocalyptic threats equal in their significance GRRM needs to relate ICE (the Others) and WATER (Euron) and make them part of the same force

And an extremely important notion: in the first 5 books the Long Night is NOT associated with water in any sense.
So, if in TWOW GRRM suddenly declares that Euron commands an army of sea creatures (the Deep Ones if you believe me) and that they are related to Others - well, it would look cringy at the least, because the readers are completely unprepared for it. And such an approach doesn't fit much into Martin's style as we have seen while reading his books: he likes to build the foundations of every major event in advance.
Conclusion 12: And here we remember our "Conclusion 0.5": in 2014 GRRM publishes a lore book, in which he adds loads of new information on the Long Night and directly ties the Long Night to water and sea creatures via the Bloodstone Emperor and his Cthulhu-like Cult!
This book screams that GRRM decided to somehow edit the original idea about the Long Night! In advance, to have the lore gradually built and have the reader prepared for the reveal just like he likes!
If you are still not persuaded by this literature staff, let's quickly see how the major Lovecraftian references are distributed among the books:

1. The first 3 books (1996, 1998, 2000) feature The Drowned God, "What is dead can never die", Patchface, the Seastone Chair
2. AFFC (2005): Euron appears, the Ironborn culture is more elaborated on
3. ADWD (2011): Patchface is considered dangerous by Melisandre ( “That creature is dangerous. Many a time I have glimpsed him in my flames. Sometimes there are skulls about him, and his lips are red with blood.” ), we learn of the influence the merlings have on the port cultures, "The Death of Dragons" book (ASOIAF Necronomicon), Euron sailing a sea of blood
4. TWOIAF (2014): 3 other oily stone structures, the Thousand Islands' sacrifices to the fish-like race, the Church of Starry Wisdom, the Deep Ones and their parents from the sea, the disappearance of Lorathi mazemakers.
5. The Forsaken (2016): basically a whole chapter is a series of Lovecraftian Horrors

While originally the Lovecraftian references can be considered as "just references", they grow more numerous in ADWD, more and more actions happen at sea, and the sea cultures are elaborated on. TWOIAF is stuffed with a great amount of Lovecraftian Lore and the Long Night is tied to it. Finally, the Forsaken looks like it was written by Lovecraft himself.
The references are not "normally distributed" throughout the books. It is additional proof they are not just random references.
Conclusion 13: From the writer's perspective the existence of the Great Old Ones, their strong connections to the Others and Euron becoming the new BSE is the only good way to finish ASOIAF as it is in its current state.
​
Conclusion
This text appeared to be a bit lengthy, so if you are reading these words - thank you for reading it all up to this point. I hope you don't feel you wasted your time on this. And if you do - forgive me.
Now that I finally put my theory into words, I think its main conclusion is that somewhen around 2010 GRRM decided to add a full Lovecraftian narrative into ASOIAF. I think his intention was further fortified by the way the TV series turned out to finish. And I attempted to formally prove that the Lovecraftian narrative played a major role in the Long Night and that it is going to greatly influence the Long Night yet to come. I believe this theory may look like a madman's diary, the wildest and not-so-smart speculation, the thing that should not be - a tinfoiled tinfoil in short. But I also believe it will look plausible if you put on your Lovecraftian glasses and imagine that the Lovecraftian beings may truly live in ASOIAF. Well, TWOW will judge this theory if they ever come out.
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TLDR: In the Great Dragonlords Empire of the Dawn the future Bloodstone Emperor found the Lovecraftian Great Old Ones that arrived in the ASOIAF world. He struck a deal with them: he received immortality, and they received human sacrifices. His sister - The Amethyst Empress - asked him to stop, but he refused, and the war began. His sister had a lot of dragons, so he asked the Great Old Ones to create the Long Night to turn their sea servants into the icy White Walkers. Having almost prevailed, the BSE found out the stars had changed and the Great Old Ones went to sleep. He lost the source of his armies and their remnants withdrew to the Lands of Always Winter. Humans built the Wall to keep them there.
Euron aka the Bloodstone Emperor 2.0. is going to sacrifice a lot of priests and men to wake up the Great Old Ones (the stars are right again) and summon the Deep Ones. Then he is going to strike a deal with them to begin the Long Night 2.0. and start producing the Others out of the Deep Ones. To defeat him the source of his powers - the Great Old Ones should be destroyed.
Cthulhu fhtagn
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P.S. This stuff is longer than my Thesis
P.P.S. Upon finishing this text I felt a strange apathy and a longing for the sea. The sea depth with its unthinkable horrors and wonders waits for me and I hear a sad call as if from afar. I went to sleep and beheld a distant mismatched island rising from the depth, whose geometry was not right somehow, though I couldn't tell why. A man was sitting there on the monstrous black stone of ancient masonry, on a monolith that oozed greenish oil and that was unnaturally leaning to both left and right at the same time. He winked at me with his blood eye and smiled, beckoning me forward. I woke up with a ringing in my ears and spent all day planning my coming journey to the sea. I will hear the waves soon

Dans le cas où vous ne vous en souvenez pas, l'invocation est un dessin animé qui a été téléchargé sur YouTube Channel, Cartoon Hangover AKA Channel Frederator et créé par Elyse Castro. Quelle partie d'un programme appelé, Go Cartoons. Une série a également été téléchargée. parle d'une fille de chat nommée Claire qui a fait une sorcellerie avec son amie, Edgar. Maintenant, la vidéo elle-même a bien fait les deux vues sages autour de 5 millions, mais une autre que nous n'en avons plus jamais entendu parler, à part Claire, il obtient beaucoup de dessins et d'animations NFSW. Je suis curieux de savoir l'invocation et ce qui lui est arrivé. Le créateur a-t-il dit quelque chose ces derniers temps? ou du tout?
Traduit et reposté à partir de la publication qh5ijj de la communauté cartoons. Pour retrouver la publication originale, insérez l'id de la publication après "reddit.com/"

https://youtu.be/x6TYaNVn5Vs
The Cuban Missile Crisis is one of the defining moments of the cold war that had a huge impact on the world order. This video will explain the buildup to the crisis alongside the moves and countermoves that took place and the lessons learned from it.
The crisis officially started when the US intelligence spotted soviet nuclear presence in Cuba. But the buildup to the crisis started from 1959 when Fidel Castro came in power. He quickly gave his support to USSR and was cutting ties with the USA. Because of this, USA planned the "Bay of Pigs" invasion where the goal was to overthrow Castro and establish a puppet government in Cuba.
The attack failed and Castro quickly made a deal with Nikita Khrushchev, where USSR will deploy it's nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba so that they can avoid any further US invasions.
During the 13 days of the crisis there were many moves and countermoves, 27th October 1962 aka BLACK SATURDAY, is the day when the world came closet to a full blown nuclear war between two superpowers. But thankfully the crisis ended when Nikita Khrushchev and John F Kennedy agreed on a deal and the world was saved from a nuclear war.

Hello! This is the 3rd post out of 4 in this series and today we're going to go over infielders, specifically 3rd base because the non-3rd basemen in this FA class are complete and utter buns (I do have a small piece on the non-3B infielders at the end of this post). Initially I had planned on doing infielders & DHs in this installment, but it got a little long so now I'll include them in the outfielders post. Just a disclaimer before we jump in: I talk a lot more about hitting peripherals like exit velocity and spray distribution than I do WAR or any of the other results-based stats. The current results are still really important, but I feel that when we're looking at trying to predict future results and find value on the margins, it's more important to understand the process of how the current results came to be rather than the current results themselves.
The Chapman / Candelario Contention: The internet has played host to some legendary debates over its time: Goku vs Superman (Supes clears), Edward vs Jacob (that one was settled when Jacob basically set up an arranged marriage with Bella's baby, HOW did they think that was a good idea??), and that one bodybuilding.com thread where the guys argue over how many days are in a week. However, none of these arguments have taken over torontobluejays like Chapman vs Candelario. Let's dive in:
Matt Chapman: The Chapman argument basically boils down to 2 key points: Hitting Peripherals & Defense. The defense hasn't been "This is the best defender in the league" level since 2021, but 12 Defensive Runs Saved & 4 Outs Above Average in 2023 are both still excellent. On the offensive side of the ball, his exit velocities (one of the best predictors of in-game power we have) and hard-hit rate (the rate at which you hit batted balls 95+ MPH) were off the charts (98th & 100th percentile respectively). He also did a really excellent job of getting the ball in the air where you can make the most of those high exit velocities to really do damage. His Barrel %, defined by Statcast as "the % of batted balls with the perfect combination of exit velocity and launch angle" was also in the 98th percentile of the league.
So what gives? If he's elevating the ball with power better than anyone in baseball, why did he only hit 17 HRs in 2023? The answer lies in the distribution of where those batted balls were hit. Here's a chart of all the Matt Chapman flyballs in 2023 that had an exit velocity over 95 MPH and a launch angle between 20 and 40 degrees (aka Juicy Flyballs). There's almost nothing on the pull side of the diamond! It's insane! Compare that to his 2022 and 2021 data. There's still a clustering of outs in CF in 2022, but he's still pulled the majority of these flyballs. I think that it's safe to assume that he has some positive regression coming for him in terms of power production. Chapman does still have some additional red flags: he's been a streaky hitter for almost his entire career, & he's more vulnerable than most to getting beat in the strike zone (78.1% zone contact rate last year, anything below 80% is pretty rough).
Jeimer Candelario: The arguments that I've seen around Candelario are that he'll give you equal production with the bat for less money, while also being less of a commitment long-term so one of the Barger / Martinez / Palmegiani contingent can take over when the time is right. Outs Above Average thinks Candelario is about an average defender for his career, while Defensive Runs Saved think he's one of the worst 3B in the game today (defensive metrics are weird). Interestingly, with the bat he's kind of the polar opposite of Chapman. He doesn't hit the ball terribly hard, but he's pretty consistent and difficult to beat in the zone (87% zone contact rate). He also elevates the ball at a fair rate, and Candelario makes the most out of these flyballs by pulling nearly all of them (here's his spray chart in 2023 using the same metrics that I used for Chapman's) which is primarily what allowed him to overperform his xWOBA last season (.346 vs .319). On these Juicy Flyballs, his WOBA was over 1.200 whereas Chapman's was .781 which is absolutely massive. There's a lot to like about Candelario and I think it's more likely that his -0.1 WAR 2022 was the outlier rather than his 3.3 WAR 2023.
Ultimately however, I land on the side that not bringing back Chapman will make the team worse. The money on his new deal might not look good in year 5 but the Jays are currently in their compete window and not bringing back the best player available on the market at his position is a mistake, especially when everything points to positive regression in the near future. Candelario is a fine player, but I just think that his bat is more susceptible to negative regression if his batted ball distribution changes, and his glove isn't going to make up any of that value if he does struggle. I also don't think Barger, Martinez or Palmegiani are long term fits at 3rd or going to make a real impact in 2024. They all seem as though they're destined for the other side of the diamond or a corner outfield spot (out of the 3, I'm probably the highest on Martinez. I'm a big fan of the walk rate, raw power, & batted ball profile) so in my opinion, inking Chapman long term doesn't block anyone. Candelario is miles better than any of the non-Chapman options though, and if Chapman decides to go to San Francisco or Seattle, I would welcome him with open arms.
Of course there is a Doomer scenario where the Jays don't end up with EITHER of these guys, so in order to prematurely stop torontobluejays from collectively throwing themselves off a bridge, let's look at the other options at 3rd base. DISCLAIMER: THESE ARE ALL BAD OPTIONS!!! I've committed myself to writing about this awful hitter class and trying to find the best value for next year, but if the Jays don't land either of the top 2 guys they should try and make a move for a real guy (Ezequiel Duran, J.D Davis, Jared Triolo, Kyle Farmer, etc). I don't really believe in the Jean Segura revival either!! But it's a hell of a lot better than trying to convince myself that Josh Harrison has still got that dog in him. That being said, let's plug our noses and rummage through the bargain bin:
Gio Urshela: Does the name Gio Urshela do anything for you in 2023? If not then you're really going to have a hard time with the rest of this list because he's clearly the 3rd best player who can man the hot corner in this class. Urshela is coming off of his worst season since his 2019 breakout: he only played 62 games due to a fractured pelvis and posted his lowest wRC+ (92) since 2019. His walk rate was down, his chase rate was up, and he was already someone that didn't walk much and chased a lot. His hard hit rate and exit velocities were both down as well, which severely limited his SLG.
Ok, so what's the upside here? How is he still clearly the 3rd best option despite all of these flaws? Well, even with everything that went wrong, his wRC+ was within sniffing distance of league average and he's only a year removed from a 2022 where he played 144 games and carried a 119 wRC+. The exit velocities dropping are the most concering aspect to me considering how sticky those numbers are, but he still hits a lot of line drives and the 3.6% HFB ratio definitely isn't sustainable over a full season with what his exit velocities were in 2023. He's like the bathroom at a Gas Station in the middle of nowhere of 3B options: you should have planned ahead and gone before you got in the car or before you left the city, but it still provides you the relief you need in a pinch.
Jean Segura: Segura & Urshela are actually pretty similar players but if Urshela had a bad year, then Segura had the Year From Hell. After posting a 105 wRC+ in 98 games with the Phillies in 2022, he accumulated -1.3 WAR, 52 wRC+ and was released by the Marlins on August 1st in 2023. That's probably as close as you can get to achieving the polar opposite of winning the triple crown. For someone to get so bad so quickly, surely his peripheral hitting stats matched the decline of his counting stats. Walks & Ks are one of the easiest ways to see if someone's declining, and so it makes sense that his walk rate went... up (6.5 -> 6.7) and his K rate went... down (15.0 -> 14.4). Hmm that's weird, well then clearly when he actually hit the ball he was just making worse contact. His average exit velocity went from 87.6 all the way down to... 88 and his hard-hit rate declined from 38.4 down to... 38.8. Ok, well what does the batted ball distribution look like, did he just start hitting easy flyballs and pop-ups that had no chance of becoming hits? His Line Drive rate dropped 1.4% and his flyball rate hasn't really changed, so other than a 5% increase in infield pop-ups (which wouldn'd drop his wRC+ by 50 points), the distribution looks the same as it was his entire career when he averaged nearly 3 WAR per season. I think Segura just had an extremely weird season, I don't expect him to be an All-Star again, but I think he's the most obvious candidate for positive regression out of all of these guys.
Josh Donaldson: Ok this one isn't going to happen because of all of the baggage with the Blue Jays (and because he's an asshole), but speaking of weird seasons, Donaldson had an all-timer and I really want to write about it: .115 BABIP? Not what you want! Becoming the most hated Yankee since Jacoby Ellsbury? Kinda based if you think about it. Not introducing himself to his teammates in Milwaukee because he thought "Everybody knows who I am"? Hilarious, but in a "laughing at you, not with you" kind of way. Unforunately, the sneaky truth is that despite all of this, the not-so-young man can still play. He walks at an above average clip, still has upper tier exit velocities and is an above average defender at the hot corner. He's not going to be a high batting average guy going forward because of his diminished contact %s and flyball-heavy approach, but he's also not going to be Old Joey Gallo and live below the Mendoza line (his 8.5% line drive rate in 2023 is the primary culprit and that isn't sustainable over a full season). I think whoever picks him up for his final season will be pleasantly surprised on the field (maybe not so much off of it) as a Gallo-esque-except-better-contact-skills type hitter, especially compared to what's out there in the FA market.
The Other 3rd Basemen: Evan Longoria, Brian Anderson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Kevin Newman, Adalberto Mondesi, Eduardo Escobar, Joey Wendle, Jonathan Schoop, Josh Harrison, Hanser Alberto, Tommy La Stella, Nick Senzel, Garret Hampson, Matt Duffy, Harold Castro, Luis Guillorme, Michael Chavis, Ehire Adrianza, Hunter Dozier
All of these guys are either old (I still love you Longo), can't hit (don't worry guys, this is the IKF breakout year), have glaring red flags in their peripherals (sorry Garret Hampson, he of the .379 BABIP), or are all of the above (Adrianza didn't deserve this stray, I hope he has a good life). Some of them might get picked up, but it's hard to see them as anything more than an extra bench bat, a pseudo-bench coach or a 2024 KBO All-Star.
The Non-3rd Basemen: Tim Anderson, Adam Frazier, Amed Rosario, Enrique Hernandez, Tony Kemp, Brandon Crawford, Elvis Andrus, Whit Merrifield, Kolten Wong, Roughned Odor, Jose Iglesias, Nick Ahmed, Harold Castro, Jake Lamb, Leury Garcia, Eric Hosmer, Wil Myers, Brad Miller, Jesus Aguilar, Jared Walsh, Mike Moustakas
The Jays are pretty set around the diamond other than the hot corner so I wasn't planning on dwelling to much on these additional infielders. Then I looked at some of the names that are available up the middle and at 1B and realized: I don't think I could write about these guys even if the Jays had a positional need here. Honestly I'm just happy for Whit, if anyone has a need for a 2nd baseman (Boston) they almost have to pay him over market, there's just nobody good that's available. He's the only one other than Crawford, Hernandez & Rosario who's even been somewhat good since 2021. There is one name that intrigues me though, so I'll do a quick blurb since he seems to be getting some traction in the sub.
Amed Rosario: Rosario is one of the youngest players in this FA class and had back to back above average offensive seasons (102 & 105 wRC+ at Shortstop) before faltering in 2023. He's never been one to get his steps in (4.5% career walk rate), but there aren't really any red flags in any of the other peripherals. His exit velocities were consistent & hard hit rate actually improved compared to his previous seasons and he even began elevating more. Despite this, his HFB rate dropped below 5% for the first time in his career, so you can probably expect some positive offensive regression.
The issue is that Rosario is a Shortstop, not a Third Basemen. Luckily, Rosario is not a particularly good Shortstop (-53 OAA in 7 seasons!!) so it made sense to me that he would likely have to move to either 2nd or 3rd in order to find his long-term defensive home. Even below average defenders at Short often move to other positions and become plus defenders, so it seemed as though the Jays might be able to scoop him up and move him over to 3rd. That is until I looked at said list of FA middle infielders. I urge you not to go over the list again because it might hurt your eyes but trust me when I say that it is dire. So because of that, I'm confident that SOMEONE who has a need in the middle of their infield will pay him to play Shortstop, no matter how below average he is, just because of the age and the regression potential of the bat. If I'm wrong then he would vault into 3rd place on this list pretty quickly.
I hope you enjoyed this post, I feel like I need a shower after looking at Tim Anderson's Fangraphs page. I'll try and bring back a fun gimmick for the outfielders, there was just so much to cover here that I felt like I needed to dive right in. The next post will be the last one in the series and I hope to have it out by the end of the week!
All info was taken from Fangraphs, Baseball Reference, & Baseball Savant

So what if we acquire three pitchers, an outfielder, and a utility plug-in-play guy. Surely there’s no room for the best player on the planet, right?
(Warning: This post will be longer than the other one. I learned my lesson and will leave a TLDR way at the bottom.)
As mentioned in the previous post, I will try to stay under the luxury tax this offseason, mostly because I like the challenge. The point of this exercise is to see how much value we can extract with reasonable resources. It doesn’t and shouldn’t preclude them from going after Ohtani, but I believe you have to tackle your true needs first. Or at least have them on the forefront.
We first need to know how much money we’re working with, plus the 40-man roster crunch. As it currently stands, we have 35 players on the 40-man roster. With the Muncy deal official, the options and buyouts finalized, and arbitration projections taken it account, our luxury tax payroll currently sits at about $162 million.
Now, the luxury tax numbers get a little wonky with the Mookie and Freddie deferrals. The estimated AAV varies a bit depending on what site and calculations you’re using.
For this exercise, I used Cot’s Contracts for two reasons . 1.) They had a higher luxury tax number for Mookie and Freddie. In the interest of being conservative, I thought working with these figures was best. 2.) I liked their Excel sheet.
For full transparency, you should know that the only figures I changed were the arbitration projections. I compared Baseball Prospectus’s projections with MLBTR’s arb projections and took the higher number, to stay conservative.
The most important number for our purposes is $75 million, as in $75 million we have to work with before we reach the $237 million luxury tax threshold.
The good news is on the pitching front, it literally is as easy as just throwing some money around.
A Yamamoto here. An innings eater or two. And of course, it wouldn’t be a Dodger offseason without a Friedman special high-risk, high-reward guy.
Let’s start with the Friedman special and work from there. The guy I’m really looking at is Luis Severino. And if he sounds like Noah Syndergaard, well, he ain’t. At least I hope he ain’t.
(Warning: This is about to get very nerdish for like the next 10 paragraphs).
Syndergaard had no real bite to his pitches. Anyone who saw him pitch the year prior could see that. Severino, on the other hand, actually threw slightly harder in 2023 than 2022, with an average fastball velo of 96.5 MPH.
Of course, it’s a fastball that got absolutely hammered around, like most of his other pitches. But it’s also a fastball that is one year removed from a .186 BA and .377 SLG allowed in 2022 .
So what changed? For one, his 4-seam fastball dropped more in 2023 than 2022 (13.4 inches of vertical movement in 2023 vs only 12.2 inches in 2022).
Additionally, the actual spin-based movement and observed movement on his fastball were exactly the same. There used to be some slight deviation in this area for Severino . But this year’s fastball had none of that late bite. It was flatter and left more over the middle of the plate, obviously a horrible combination.
But it’s hard to believe that these changes turned Severino’s fastball from one of the best pitches in 2022 to one of the worst pitches in 2022. A bad fastball? Sure? But all the way down to the 7th (tied) worst pitch in baseball, by run value ? There’s gotta be more to this.
And if you look at Severino’s pitch mix, it wasn’t just his fastball. He had his struggles with virtually every pitch (fastball, slider, cutter, changeup). I think there’s three main reasons behind this. One, his pitches aren’t the same as peak Severino. This is probably the most important one. There’s no getting past it.
Two, if you look at film in 2022 vs 2023, his glove position starts off way higher this year than in 2022. And it really is something that seems to have started with the 2022 ALCS against the Astros.
If you compare 2022 to 2023, hitters were making a LOT more contact on pitches out of the zone against Severino in 2023. And they were swinging-and-missing way less against pitches in the zone. Hitters simply weren’t getting fooled, which leads me to believe they picked up his pitches as pretty similar.
Lastly, I’ve theorized that all the injuries he’s dealt with, especially similar lat injuries in back-to-back seasons, have lessened his physical strength. Severino’s delivery just seems “weaker” to the naked eye. His follow-through is not as pronounced anymore and as one Yankee fan observed, his arm seemed to drop more from his usual arm slot .
These all seem like major red flags and I don’t blame you for thinking that way. But I do believe that being further removed from these injuries could help him regain some of that physical strength back. He doesn’t even need to start on the Opening Day roster if it means giving him a bit more time to heal.
(Severino analysis over)
This isn’t the Luis Severino post. But I’ve spent quite some real estate on him because I do believe he is a risk worth taking. Even if it is a physically weaker version of him. At least, I believe the Dodgers can get more out of Severino than the poverty Jankees.
He should probably get close to $5 million, but there also a fair number of teams who will want a shot at fixing Severino. He could get into 8 figures, AAV-wise. I’ll give him $20 million for 2 years with an opt-out after year 1 plus incentives.
Instead of Severino, someone like a Tyler Mahle or old friend Kenta Maeda could get a similar contract with $10 million AAV. Hell, you could probably even throw in old friend and noted DAWG Alex Wood into here.
That leaves us with about $65 million.
Next, let’s look at a pitcher that may not necessarily garner as many headlines, but can still be a valuable innings eater and possibly much more. The guy I’m looking at is a Japanese pitcher, but probably not the one that automatically comes to mind. Of course, I’m talking about the 30-year-old southpaw, Shota Imanaga.
Imanaga doesn’t have the upside of a Yamamoto, or even a Kodai Senga . But he does have a really, really good fastball.
He can throw his fastball at around 94 MPH with supposedly high spin rates and little drop (remember, the less drop, the better for a fastball to give the “rising effect”). He also has a sweeping slider and nasty split-change .
Imanaga’s delivery kinda reminds me of Tyler Anderson. And I think he actually profiles most similarly to Dodger Tyler Anderson: flyball pitcher, low walk rate, could possibly bounce between the rotation and bullpen.
The difference is Imanaga has way, way better swing-and-miss stuff than Anderson could ever dream of. Really, Imanaga’s only drawback is a bit of a home run issue. He sounds like a Dodger already.
If you want to know more about Imanaga (and Yoshi Yamamoto), Dodgers Digest recently did an incredible analysis on the two, so I would definitely check it out .
For Imanaga, $15 million annually is a number that I keep coming across. I think we could sign him for $45-$60 million across 3-4 years, respectively. It might be a bit of an overpay, but it’s similar to the Rich Hill contract, which was much riskier. And it’s also similar to the amount of money they were ready to spend on Eduardo Rodríguez at the deadline.
I’m also putting $15 million down on the ledger because that’s about what Corbin Burnes is projected to make in his final year of arbitration ($16 million by BP , $15 million by MLBTR). Instead of Imanaga, the Dodgers could pursue a trade of Burnes (or Tyler Glasnow , who will make $25 million in 2024 but $15 million for luxury tax purposes) and it will have the same effect on payroll (though obviously Burnes is much more than just an “effective innings eater”).
With the $15 million spent on Imanaga/Burnes/insert arm, we now have $50 million left before we reach the first luxury tax threshold.
It’s time to look for an ace. I don’t know about you folks, but I think we should get this Yoshi guy.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto is what they look like. He’s got a mid-90s fastball, filthy splitter, the righty equivalent of Public Enemy #1, a cutter, sinker, and a nasty sweeper that he’ll probably use more stateside. He’s entering his age-25 season coming off three straight Japanese Cy Young awards. His only real weakness seems to be Mexicans.
There’s a slight knock on Yamamoto due to his size and frame but I don’t believe it’ll be a big issue. If the Dodgers believe he needs to bulk up, then he will bulk up.
We need him. We can afford him. And he will be a Los Angeles Dodger in 2024 (manifesting it into existence). A contract around $200 million for 8 years ($25 million AAV) with an opt-out or two will more than likely get it done. Hell, if you land Yamamoto, that might even entice Shohei to sign with us just a bit more.
It’s a bit of a risky contract, but again, he’s 25 years old. He’s this polished and would be going to one of the better all-around pitching organizations in baseball. And plus, did I mention he’s 25 years old? Pitchers as young and talented as Yamamoto do land on the open market that often.
I don’t really see L.A. pursuing some of the other options in free agency. They are not signing a Montgomery or Rodríguez to market value. Someone is going to pay close to $200 million for Aaron Nola and I guarantee you it will not be the Andrew Friedman Dodgers. If it smells like an Anaheim Angels move, then it probably is an Anaheim Angels move.
There is a world where I could see Snell being a Dodger, because of his swing-and-miss stuff and AF connection. But the high walk rate, career inconsistency, and Boras stigma pretty much negate all that.
They could go after Sonny Gray. And I think he would be a fantastic get. But I don’t see the Dodgers giving up another draft pick for 2-3 years of Gray.
A Dylan Cease could be available via trade. The White Sox are under new leadership so I do expect AF to inquire about Cease. But I feel Cease is probably more of a ’24 trade deadline option instead of a move for this offseason.
Other pitchers I could see the Dodgers going after are Nick Pivetta of the Red Sox or Brady Singer of the Royals.
Pivetta has the high spin rates and an elite fastball . He’s entering his final year before free agency and is on a dirt-cheap contract . He can bounce around between the bullpen and rotation. And he definitely wouldn’t cost as much prospect capital as Cease or even Corbin Burnes. And let’s be real. Who actually expects the Red Sox to compete?
The Dodgers have been connected to Singer in the past . I’m not exactly in love with this idea, but Singer would have led the 2023 Dodgers in innings pitched by almost 30 innings. Plus he’s got 3 more years of club control . They probably wouldn’t give up too much in a Singer trade because it is the Royals.
I think that does it on the pitching side. A $25 million AAV to Yamamoto leaves us with about $25 million in our budget.
Let’s look at the offense. Remember. The issue isn’t as major as the starting pitching. We know the Dodgers are going to score a lot of runs in 2024. It’s about trying to insure ourselves against small-sample variance, namely the postseason.
There’s two key moves I’m looking at to deepen the lineup. One. We need another outfielder. We could definitely look at re-signing Jason Heyward, but I actually have my eye on old friend/current Judas-figure Joc Pederson.
At first glance, Heyward outperformed Joc, no doubt. By OPS, WRC+, WAR, of course $/WAR, you name it. Hell, Heyward even hit the same number of home runs as Joc in less plate appearances.
But you look at the underlying hard-hit metrics, I’m really bullish about Joc heading into 2024.
Joc also posted his lowest strikeout rate since 2018 while posting his highest walk rate since his rookie season in 2015. And he slugged way better on the road (.442) than at home (.390). Just another excuse to get to say

FUCK SAN FRAN!!!

And we can’t forget the most important reason to sign Joc: he is a DAWG!
I think we can sign him to a contract similar to Muncy: $24 million over 2 years + incentives for an AAV of $12 million.
So we now have about $13 million left to play with.
I know a lot of people want Kike back. But I think we can look at a similar player that’s younger and a bit more athletic.
A player I really like is Tommy Edman of the Cardinals. Edman is an elite runner and defender who can play shortstop, 2nd base, 3rd base, and the outfield. He swung and missed at a lowly 16.1% rate , which was the 13th best mark in all of baseball, just slightly better than Mookie. Edman is a local kid with ties to the Korean market. And he loves Jesus. Probably ‘Murica too.
I expect Lux to be handed the shortstop position. But we don’t know how much the lost year will affect Lux. I think Edman is a good option to have around as a backup shortstop (and utility guy) who can hit closer to league average than Rojas.
Edman is under club control for 2 more seasons , and is projected to make between $6 million to $7 million in 2024. The Cardinals are a perfect trade partner because they need a ton of young, controllable pitching, which we have a surplus of both on the 40-man roster and in the organization in general.
Instead of Edman, we could also take a look at another speedy utility player: the Twins’ Willi Castro. He’s not as elite a defender as Edman but Castro does have a cannon of an arm and guess what, folks? He put up +3 DRS and +2 OAA at 3rd base in 2023. It sounds like we just found our 3rd baseman .
Castro’s hardest hit ball last season left the bat at 114.2 MPH , harder than phenoms like Bobby Witt Jr., Corbin Carroll, and Luis Robert Jr., and just behind stars like Mike Trout and Dodgers Stan Man himself, Corey Seager. While Castro did strike out a fair amount (24%), he also walked more than Edman (8%), which could mean a higher offensive ceiling.
Also, if you trade for Castro, you can probably get Max Kepler in the same deal, who is a Statcast darling. He is in the final year of his contract and there is a lot of speculation the Twins will deal him after picking up his team option. He’s making $10 million in 2024 and comes with an AAV of $7 million .
Kepler is generally an above-average to elite defensive corner outfielder who hits the ball hard, has an elite eye, limits the swing-and-miss, and demolishes righties. If you get Castro and Kepler, that’s less money you have to spend on an outfielder, and more money left for other extravagant resources.
The Twins could probably use some pitching and someone on the offensive side to balance out the strikeouts (aka someone like Jorbit Vivas).
As you can see, the Dodgers have a LOT of options and different paths they could take this offseason. Taking the Joc/Tommy Edman route, we constructed a full 40-man roster and avoided the luxury tax with just under $6 million to spare.
Before we take a look at our final roster, there’s one last thing we need to account for. As far as the 40-man roster crunch goes, the Dodgers have Nick Frasso, Landon Knack, José Ramos, Yeiner Fernández, and Hunter Feduccia eligible for the Rule-5 draft .
I expect L.A. to protect Frasso and Knack. And maybe, maybe Yeiner. But he is very young and raw. I don’t know of many clubs that want a 21-year-old catcher who hasn’t played above A-ball on their big league roster for the entire year.
I believe that Feduccia gets protected if the Dodgers do indeed believe it’s time to move on from Austin Barnes, which there hasn’t been any indication that they intend to do so. So I expect Feduccia to go unprotected, but crazier things have happened.
Let’s say the Dodgers add the two pitchers and one catcher to the 40-man roster. Via free agency/trade, we’ve added 5 new players to the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers, upping our roster from 35 players to an even 40-man roster.
That means we have to get rid of three players. Assuming we pull off the Tommy Edman trade (or a similar trade), I imagine we give up at least one young, controllable pitcher from the 40-man roster (like a Sheehan, Grove, or Stone).
I don’t expect Michael Busch to be on the 2024 Dodgers. For some reason, the Dodgers just don’t seem committed to giving Busch the playing time he deserves. He’s already pretty old for a prospect and his stock is only dropping the further he stays in the minors. He deserves a real shot at competing for a major league spot and unfortunately, I just don’t think that will be with the Dodgers.
If we trade away Busch, that means we have one more player to get rid of. The guy who makes the most sense to release is Yency Almonte, because of performance, because he’s out of options, and because we have a relative surplus of bullpen arms.
So what does our final 40 man roster look like?
The lineup:

1. Mookie Betts RF
   
2. Freddie Freeman 1B
   
3. Will Smith C
   
4. Max Muncy DH
   
5. Tommy Edman 3B
   
6. Joc Pederson LF
   
7. Chris Taylor 2B
   
8. James Outman CF
   
9. Gavin Lux SS
   

Bench:

1. Johnny DeLuca OF
   
2. Miguel Rojas SS/IF
   
3. Miguel Vargas 3B/IF/LF ?
   
4. Austin Barnes C
   

Starting Rotation:

1. Yoshinobu Yamamoto RHP
   
2. Bobby Miller RHP
   
3. Shota Imanaga LHP
   
4. Ryan Pepiot RHP
   
5. Luis Severino RHP
   

Bullpen/Extended Rotation:

1. Gus Varland RHP
   
2. Emmet Sheehan RHP
   
3. Michael Grove RHP
   
4. Ryan Yarbrough LHP
   
5. Caleb Ferugson LHP
   
6. Brusdar Graterol RHP
   
7. Alex Vesia LHP
   
8. Evan Phillips RHP
   

Injuries

1. Walker Buehler RHP
   
2. Dustin May RHP
   
3. Tony Gonsolin RHP
   
4. Blake Treinen RHP
   
5. J.P. Feyereisen RHP
   

Farm System/Depth

1. Víctor González
   
2. Diego Cartaya C
   
3. Bryan Hudson LHP
   
4. Kyle Hurt RHP
   
5. Andy Pages OF
   
6. Jorbit Vivas 2B
   
7. Nick Frasso RHP
   
8. Landon Knack RHP
   
9. Hunter Feduccia C
   

I put Walker in the injury category as merely a clerical move. He should be ready to go by Spring Training. If he is even like 80% back of the pitcher he used to be, that’s a big boost to this rotation.
But the Dodgers shouldn’t approach the offseason as building around Buehler. It could be a nice surprise, but rationally, they should temper their expectations. Although I personally think he could be comeback player of the year.
Stone is the guy who gets traded in the Edman deal in this scenario, but it could be any of the other young pitchers we have.
As you can probably tell, even with all the moves we made, our offense still ends up lacking a bit of depth, in the lineup, on the bench, and even on the margins of the 40-man roster.
In theory, we got better in LF and have a slight boost at SS and 3B. But it’s all theory, which the Dodgers have seemed to be way too comfortable with lately. Is this the offseason that they step out of their comfort zone? It’s looking more and more like they might have to.
Ngl, I’m not in love with this lineup. But the point of this exercise is to show you what can be done by imposing certain budgetary restrictions. And the truth is, we can accomplish a lot.
But for the Los Angeles Dodgers, “a lot” is not enough. This is one of the most valuable franchises in all of sports. The world-renowned Dodgers. They should make all these moves AND more.
We should definitely extend a $10 million contract to Jason Heyward, even if it might be a slight overpay. He might not play as much as he did in 2023, but he’s certainly a better depth option than Miguel Vargas right now.
I would like to see our prospects get more of a runway. Whether that be a Busch or Jonny DeLuca, they should have more opportunities to be involved, especially DeLuca, who can contribute in a way we haven’t really seen from this Dodger ballclub.
I don’t know if Vargas gets the same leash as last season, but I don’t think having him as merely a bench piece is the best option, for him or for the Dodgers.
Are there any other options for L.A.? Well, there is this Shohei Ohtani character, who is by far the best bat on the market, and it’s not even close.
So unless Friedman can get both really creative and really aggressive on the trade market (something which he’s shown the ability to do, but not necessarily the willingness to do at times), he’s going to need to pony up for someone like Shohei.
And you know what? The Dodgers can afford to. And no. They don’t need non-tender Ryan Yarbrough to save a few pennies.
There is a world where the Dodgers could sign Shohei and make most of the aforementioned moves (or similar transactions) and get under the 2nd luxury tax threshold, which is the only one that really matters because of its impact on the amateur draft. It would probably require a trade of CT3 or another creative trade, but if it’s something the Dodgers are really worried about, it can be done.
You may have noticed I’ve spent all this time babbling on without even once mentioning the GOAT. Here’s where we talk about Clayton Edward Kershaw. I don’t know if he’ll pitch in 2024. I do know if he’s able to work his way back and step onto a major league mound next season, it will be for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
If Kersh is able to come back next season, he’d probably do so in the middle of the season, July-August ish. I don’t think he’d sign for much more than $10 million or so. So even if we say luxury tax be damned, Kershaw will still save us a decent chunk of change for what should be a very valuable arm, if healthy.
If Kersh comes back late, it’ll be a blessing in disguise. Kersh would be as fresh as ever for the postseason and hopefully he has one last ounce of DAWG left in him to take us to the promised land and go out a champion.
With a much-improved rotation, a deeper lineup and bench, and maybe, just maybe even a Shohei Ohtani batting in between Mookie and Freddie, maybe we can actually get past the NLDS in 2024.

TLDR: Get Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, and Luis Severino. Sign Joc. Trade for Tommy Edman (or someone similar). Screw the luxury tax. Re-sign Heyward (or someone similar). And maybe get Shohei Ohtani!