#but this was in the 1920s and you could do that then.

[hst3000]

That blurb up there reads as if tariffs are a uniquely American thing we've just invented in the last year specifically to fuck with other countries.

This is patently untrue. In fact for the majority of the country's history the primary income source for the federal government was tariffs. Goods cross the border, you pay to have the feds let it through (and presumably do the customs on it). Around the 1910s we did the stupidest fucking thing and made income taxes legal, the government discovered they could just siphon off the top of the entire economy, and it's gone downhill from there.

Most countries are also much more aggressive with their tariffs than we were. Most countries have their average at 5-10%, with higher tariffs tending to be towards less post-industrial countries. The US (prior to Trump) and the EU had theirs at 1-3% average. This is difficult to quantify, though, since that rate can be different depending on the good AND depending on where its coming from.

One big one I want to talk about though:

And even with tariffs in place, it’s still cheaper to manufacture a lot of things overseas because of the low cost of living in those countries. So those jobs just aren’t coming back.

This is slave labor with extra steps. You bitch and complain about no one paying a living wage here but it's perfectly fine to manufacture our shit in the Asian-Pacific where they need to hang suicide nets and most working conditions would be compared unfavorably to our factories in the 1920s.

If you want to play Marxist and feign concern for the workers, at least do it honestly and pretend you give a shit about the ones in other countries.

[chiropteracupola]

I wish so desperately that I did not have 78 Train Tracks Pointed In Different Directions brain. this sucks more than anything.

[flying-lustful-box-in-space]

One thing I really liked about Story and The Engine is it was a story informed by its setting. Yes the Doctor goes to places (Alabama, India, Scotland etc.) but a lot of the stories could be set anywhere.

Yes Demons of the Punjab is an important historical event in South Asia but the story of population swaps and hidden identity could have also taken place in 1870s South Carolina, 1920s Greece, or Reformation France.

But The Story and The Engine is a Nigerian story. The barber shop getting, the myth of Anansi, the hair braids, these are not solely native to Nigeria specifically, (moreso the broad African diaspora) but still are drawing from culture that is in Nigeria. Even when a story is set outside of Great Britain it usually doesn’t do that.

Classic Who did this as well as you could expect from a shoestring budget 1960s British show in the Aztecs (gosh i love that story). The only other one i can think of is Daleks in Manhattan which just felt very New York.

Nigeria as a setting for an episode fucking rocks already, DW neglects non western settings imo. I know they did an episode set in India I think with 13 but usually if it's not in the UK, it's Europe or space, and if it's not Europe it's probably America. I kind of get why (easy to make Europe look like Europe or a Welsh quarry look like an alien landscape, harder to make it look like Asia or Africa) but it's cool to see it

[mollysunder]

I recognize there would be a lot of emotional and narrative weight if Jinx ever puts on Silco's jacket.

But wouldn't it be DOPE as hell if Jinx stole Finn's wardrobe!!??!

For all of Finn's faults he had a killer sense of style. Finn's look makes a great contrast to Silco, because Silco's look balances elegance with simplicity and practicality (you can tell he restitches his pant seams), but with Finn you've got this brightly colored intricately detailed look to express this newer brasher generation in Zaun.

And you could argue Jinx is designed as a decent blend of these two different aesthetics, at least in Gilded series.

I've already talked about Gilded universe where Piltover never built the sun gates, Jinx suspiciously dresses like a chembaron.

But if you dive deeper into the concept arts you can see how flexible Riot's artists see Jinx's tastes and style is, especially when elevated with wealth.

You've got classic punk + eccentric cybergoth chemboss.

Then you've got Jinx as an ornate lady with chemtech business vibes. (Jinx with glasses, what a concept.)

I'm not sure what to call this, but it looks like more of a mix between a saboteur and a tinkerer.

The rest are more play around with trying to adapt Piltovan academia into Jinx's aesthetic with varying success.

Long story short, Jinx needs to raid Finn's closet next season. I see Jinx threatening what's left of Finn and Renni's gang into submission for the whole "attempting to kill Silco" thing. One of her demands is all of Finn's clothes for her to customize as she pleases. I'm sure Silco left all her all his coats, cloths, and furs for Jinx in his will (with a clause to ensure she still gets it in case of manslaughter).

[fitzrove]

Hate when someone online vents about not liking traditionally feminine things - and ESPECIALLY not liking the fact that society forces them to do it - and every response is

a) pick me accusation

b) "i used to be like you too but now i love my 294050 step skin care routine and playing with makeup and skinny jeans and gilmore girls teehee :) you'll grow out of it <3 anyway you should like it more because it's really good for you and helps your confidence!! Don't you want to have something to talk about with other girls :3"

c) "it's not valid to say you hate those things that's misogynist :("

d) "those things are not gendered, everyone should have a 294050 step skin care routine and wear makeup <3 especially queer people regardless of gender because everyone knows queer = femininity and if you don't do this you're ugly and boring and also queerphobic"

The worst thing is that some queer women do this, like bestie I thought living outside a pretty major societal norm meant we all had to reflect on the ways in which society (and the people it consists of) tries to put everyone in a box and, you know, fight it when we see it....... Even some lesbians do this and if you call it out they say "just because i'm a lesbian doesn't mean i'm not hot and conventionally attractively feminine!!" which I find terrible

[seacavepuzzle]

Die Benefiz-Vorstellung der vier Teufel (1920)

[homely-ghost]

If I had a nickel for every time I made a made up fanfic in my head and got so attached that I wanted to make it its own story, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but fuck do I need to stop.

[symbioticsimplicity]

I have a theory that someone else has probably already put out but I haven't seen it so here we go.

I don't think Alastor is actually all that powerful.

Propaganda under the cut.

There are a lot of things that make me think this but we'll start with the first and frankly most obvious to me.

His methodology. Alastor's main thing is making contracts and deals. When we're first introduced to him in the pilot, its with a warning to never make a deal with him. While plenty of other Overlords obviously wheel and deal, I think Alastor's are different. They're more binding and more dangerous because they're his modus operandi.

Another thing is his seeming lack of territory. Every Overlord has actual terf that we see them in, except for Alastor. This could be from lack of interest, or due to having been gone so long, or what have you but it seemed like a strange thing to have not mentioned. In addition, Carmilla, who was leading a meeting on the property and interests of all the represented Overlords and how to protect it, was utterly dismissive of his sudden return. Which to me implies that whatever he controls is likely minimal at best. Meaning him being there is pretty inconsequential to the larger picture. Dude was able to disappear for seven years and it was mostly fine? So what does he actually have?? (My only thought honestly is that maybe the air is his space since radio waves and all. That would honestly be broke as hell but there's no real evidence for this, is would just be really cool.) As much as Vox as making a dig at him, he did have a good point that the reach of radio has certainly died down over the years. While that alone doesn't mean Alastor's power has waned, its not really a *good* sign for him. He still has speakers all over but that and one really rundown store front with a single radio are really the only traces we see of him outside of the hotel.

This bit is conjecture, but when talking about his past, not only does no one ever mention HOW he killed so many powerful Overlords, they don't go into detail about much at all. There's every chance that he could have contracted them the same way he did with Husk and either forced or waited for them to break their end of their deals and THEN used them as fodder to terrorize the masses. Most of his power comes from fear and word of mouth. Most people don't even bother fucking with him because they've heard the stories, or the broadcast.

Which brings me to my next point: The Broadcasts. There are a LOT of ways that Alastor and Vox parallel each other and I can't help but wonder if using their medium to deceive people isn't one of them. So far a lot of the magic we see Alastor use is largely illusionary. Phantoms and shadows and temporary changes of environment. So what if his broadcasts are the same? What if he DOESN'T kill the Overlords he claims to have and instead used his broadcast to simulate it instead. Like War of the Worlds, but on purpose. Honestly it would be smart of him, especially if he's NOT as strong as he seems. This is also conjecture but if he made deals with those Overlords instead, he could still have them stashed away somewhere and just be calling on them and their power as needed. (Also: Husk. This man is a constant pain in the ass and usually disrespectful at best. The only time he pops off on him about it though is when Husk mentions his deal which is really just a big No-No. But he still only *threatens him* which to me implies that he actually does need him. If not for his services, even if only for the power granted by his contract. In the same way that Val doesn't actually kill Angel or anything because he can't REALLY afford to, so he controls him in other ways. If Al isn't this super strong demon, he can't really afford to just go wasting the contracts hes got due to momentary irritation when he can bring them back to heel with some light terror.)

The next thing that makes me think he's probably not super powerful is his fight with Adam. Not because he lost (I firmly believe he only actually lost because he was fucking around most of the time/ wasn't fighting for loved ones) but because of the form he took to do it. He was in a life or death fight with an ostensibly high ranking angel, and yet he didn't pull out anything more than he would have used to fight other sinners. Sure, that could be him being prideful, but I just don't think so. Home boy was being recorded and presumably knew that, if he was being prideful shouldn't he have gone balls to the wall??

In relation to that, he also made a deal himself. Not that we know what it was for or who its with, but would someone as control oriented as Alastor really make a deal if he didn't HAVE to? Overlords don't just DO that, there had to have been a compelling reason and honestly assuming Alastor isn't as strong as he makes himself out to be gives a very good opening for it.

Smaller detail, but it still matters, the smiling. He very clearly uses it as both a shield and a tool to help him maintain control of a situation. Thats not really the kind of thing you think of and commit to if you're the strongest person in the room. Covering up weaknesses obsessively is the sort of thing someone who's fronting does so their secret stays exactly that.

In the same vein, the way he reacted to Lucifer. He was threatened, which is understandable given that Luci is leagues above even the strongest Overlords, but I think it was slightly more than that. Having Lucifer around would make it drastically obvious very quickly that Al isn't as strong as he claims. So of course he tries to unbalance the situation and put focus somewhere else, the same as he always does. (Its actually the same thing he does in his duet with Vox. I'm almost certain Vox IS actually stronger than Alastor but hes so wrapped up in Al's head games he might never notice.)

It's honestly unclear if this has always been the case with him, or if its a result of his deal or his time away or something else entirely, but to me it seems incredibly likely. Alastor mostly keeps order and power through fear, not through enormous shows of power. And even those when he does them are strategic and mostly against opponents he knows are weaker than him. He's clever as all fuck, and still very dangerous for it but I don't think hes actually all that physically powerful.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

an archival old-timey barkeep macamoment of yore in anticipation of this weekend's xmas return

"whoops! sorry. didn't mean to be a nosey nelson, it's just...your story, joe, it got me all sad! your whole family was killed because of your damned ambition! even the little furry ones! it's a real yuletide tragedy. condolences. take care—can i get you anything else"

[invisiblearsonist]

tom hiddleston as f. scott fitzgerald let me talk to you 💕

[agdab]

maybe its the edible talking but its so surreal to me that there are people getting into fandom arguments on the internet and duking it out and theyre like anywhere between the ages of 13 to 35, just really wasting their time over stuff that isnt really that important

like damn dude i got taxes to do. make a car payment maybe idk. i think we do really gotta go outside an touch grass more. good god.

[dragonunsleeping]

#some things rats won't do     #here is the nasty awful truth anon. going to tell you here in the tags because it's horrible.     #no one can tell you this. the fairy you're waiting for? the one who's supposed to pop out of a bubble and tell you     #''yes my child you will be happiest in IP litigation!'' and wave her wand?     #she's always late. always. by the time she shows up you've graduated and been practicing and maybe even changed jobs     #and she appears out of breath and hungover and will beg cash to pay for the taxi she took from the airport.     #and after you guys talk she'll look away and mutter ''well it was supposed to be m&a''     #and it will take every fiber of your being not to scream I TOOK THE BAR EXAM 4 YEARS AGO FUCK OFF TINKERBELL     #so just pick something that you find interesting and challenging and hope. and if it doesn't work out?     #look for opportunities to cross-train. get a certification of some kind. start publishing articles in all the lawyer magazines we have.     #nothing is forever. certainly not jobs.

sir why would leave this gold in the tags - it's the nasty awful truth but it's the truth

hello! longtime follower and current 1L - am starting the rounds of the law firms and there's always the "so what practice area are you interested in?" bit. i was curious what that is for you + what you do/don't like about it? iirc, you mentioned something abt being in-house, healthcare related, regulatory side of things? i'm interested in regulatory stuff but not sure if that takes the shape of litigation or an explicitly regulatory-focused practice. found your blog back in the star wars days, then got into silmarillion and the silt verses after seeing your posts abt it haha - hope you're doing well and staying warm!

Congrats! 1L summer is a fun, anxiety-ridden time that mostly involves telling people over and over, who you are and what you're interested in---which can be tricky if you're not sure what you're interested in.

Personally, I went in knowing that I liked healthcare (the field I worked in prior to law school) and that wanted to stay healthcare-adjacent.....but not much else.

I learned I was not destined for litigation pretty much the first time my Legal Writing professor handed back our appellate briefs. (Mine did not have the grade I wanted at the top.) This was compounded by our final project, where we presented in front of real live attorneys and I was a nervous, sweaty wreck. After that, I decided that becoming Atticus Finch was not in my future.

But there are still lots of other kinds of law to practice! I live in the healthcare regulatory space---and I work for a pretty under-resourced company, which means I have lots of contact with other areas like R&D, clinical research, data privacy, marketing and adtech, direct patient care, healthcare compliance, and negotiating between various international laws. Not to mention my scope is always expanding, which is...challenging, but I'm also the kind of person who enjoys spending a weekend reading about Brazilian law.

(One of my guiding stars through the whole law school/job search process was "I don't want to be bored." I am never, ever bored.)

And this wasn't even my first stop! When I was in law school, I spent my semesters interning/clerking at firms, consulting boutiques and government agencies; policy-focused clinics and hospitals and giant corporate behemoths. I've said before that observing all these different settings was valuable, that it gave me a better understanding of myself, how I work, and the kind of work I was looking for. While I won't ever claim that every experience I had was amazing (it was not) it did give me the opportunity to explore, in a way that most adult professionals simply can't.

I mean---look. If you're committed to the brass ring of OCR and a high-profile law firm, then you might have to make this decision now. (Or at least come up with a good answer for interviewers...) But I highly encourage you and everyone choosing that path to keep the other doors open, just a crack. There are interesting things that sneak through when you aren't looking.

[magnusraydar]

Idea that the Batfam all have a weird talent that isn't really vigilante stuff.

Bruce- is oddly good at remembering dates (hey, Bruce, what's today? "Todays September 27, the day where New York first passed a bill for housing reforms in 1920" ...how do you know that?)

Dick- Really, really good at crocheting, specifically birds, he randomly gifts them out to everyone.

Jason- Can identify any car just by looking at it, doesn't even need to see the logo, he just knows.

Tim- knows at least 13 languages, his parents decided he needed to know them for family and chose other languages so he could take over Drake Industries.

Steph- Speaks perfect pig latin, the one thing Tim can not correctly speak. She's also weirdly good at naming types of random items correctly.

Cass- She's awesome at naming different types of dancing. ( That's a dance from Poland called Oberek. " Have you seen it before Cass?" No.)

Damian- really good at identifying different animals. (No, Todd, that's a borzoi, not a greyhound, you fool.)

Duke- He's really, really good at riddles, puzzles, and overall mind games, and it freaks people out. He's able to solve a rubiks cube in under 15 seconds.

[emilicious0]

lucifer x f!reader who's like a mother figure to charlie

(pls tell me if you want me to write more of this or more for this man)

□ you died in 1920 after avenging your son's murder and then taking your own life

□ you stumbled across the hotel by accident and decided to step inside out of pure curiosity. you heard that this hotel "rehabilitated sinners" but never really thought of going in because all the hope you had was lost a long time ago

□ at that time, only charlie and vaggie were there, and they were very welcoming

□ despite you being a powerful sinner with the ability to control minds, you avoided using it due to your personal beliefs, which is why you never became an overlord even though you could have

□ you never felt like hell was your place to stay, feeling alone with no one to trust or call a friend

□ when you met charlie and heard her ideas, you started to believe in a much brighter future and even hoped to rehabilitate yourself

□ over time, you and charlie grew closer, and as a former mother, you began to think of her as your daughter.

□ charlie also started to see you as a mother figure, though she still loved lilith

□ you became a mother figure to the whole crew, earning respect even from alastor to some extent, angel dust really missed a parent-like figure in his life

□ when Charlie invited her father over, you were a bit worried about whether he would notice your mother-daughter relationship with charlie and how he might react, given that she still had a mother

◇◇◇

□ after lucifer excitedly greeted his daughter, he noticed you immediately (after the strange red deer demon he didn't like but still).

□ you had a strong yet soft aura, with a beautifu smile on your face (which was rather nervous, but he didn't notice cause he is smitten)

□ everything about you made him feel butterflies in his stomach again, and the strange tingly feeling started to creep up in his chest

□ after charlie's introduction, you held out your hand: "it's an honor to meet you, sir."

□ lucifer began stumbling over his words, his face red all of a sudden "o-oh, yeah! ha-ha! thank you, beautiful! I mean, not beautiful! wait, no, ha-ha, you are beautiful, but that is not what I meant, ha-ha."

□ you smiled, noticing the resemblance between him and charlie and how genuienly sweet the ruler of hell seems

□ meanwhile lucifer is facepalming himself trying to figure out what to do with his new found crush

(gif not mine)

[makingqueerhistory]

I'm from the USA and am trying to take hope and inspiration from our queer predecessors who faced dark times in the past. How did they keep going even when it felt like the world was ending?Do you have any recommendations for queer historical essays, poems, books, anything to find comfort and hope for these dark times?

Yes, I have a couple of stories for this.

Claude Cahun

A queer surrealist photographer from 1920's paris, Claude was Jewish and recognized the rise of antisemitism in their home country and watched it become fascism. Here is a quote from their article:

"In 1937 Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore cut off many connections because of the war and ran to Jersey to avoid anti-Semitic violence. Upon arrival, they went back to using their birth names and laid low until the Germans took Jersey. Moore and Cahun set to work. They used their experience with art and disguising their genders to create works that spread misinformation, seeds of rebellion and implied that there was a large-scale resistance happening when in reality, it was just the two of them. Though some of their work was based on confusing the soldiers, they also translated and transcribed BBC transmissions into German, detailing the war crimes that were being committed. They would have these translations on pieces of paper that they would slip into soldier's pockets, matchboxes, and anywhere a soldier may stumble across it and possibly read it. An investigation was started, and Nazi authorities believed there to be a group of people doing this. When the two were discovered to be behind the actions, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore were sentenced to death. Fortunately, the sentence was never carried out because the island of Jersey was liberated from German rule only a year later. Claude took a picture upon their release in front of the camps with a Nazi eagle pin between their teeth."

And Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz

who wrote:

"Poetry readings and concert attendance—and often a chat over vodka—were not only forms

of escapism, but also a search for better, more substantive aspects of human beings, a search

which would end, more often than not, in complete disillusionment. If it could be possible, to

discern, in these notes even if only for a moment a measure of humanity in that time of

inhumanity, the goal of this publication would be fulfilled.”

I think his whole article is worth reading.

Also here are some books to read:

Your Art Will Save Your Life

Beth Pickens

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies

Ben MacIntyre

Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color

Christopher Soto

The New Queer Conscience

Adam Eli

(Some of the links are affiliate links)

[flowersandfashion]

I have very similar thoughts about his plotline with Jimmy. it's out of character and just very stupid writing. what was Thomas hoping to achieve by kissing him in his sleep? even if Jimmy did like him back, there's nothing romantic about that

it's like Julian Fellowes just wanted to punish him for being gay without even giving him a chance at a happy relationship

I think that sexually assaulting Jimmy is one of the only genuinely bad things that Thomas does and yet it's the only thing framed sympathetically. it's conflated with being gay generally and we're meant to pity him

you know what would have been a sympathetic narrative? if they were actually in a relationship and punished for an innocent love. if you still want all the angst, then you could have Thomas take the blame for it to protect Jimmy. then he would go to prison and Jimmy would have to live with that guilt while being separated from him, which also would have been way more interesting than the bullshit Anna and Bates prison plot that dragged on way too long

sorry let me rant about downton abbey 10 years later

Thomas's conversion therapy plot pisses me off so much. firstly, it's incredibly out of character. he never wanted to change to conform to society, he wanted the world to change to accomodate him. the man who said "it's not against the law to hope is it" and "I'm not foul, Mr Carson, I'm not like you, but I'm not foul" would NEVER

secondly, from a storytelling perspective, the only 'problem' is that he used infected needles. did we forget that Thomas was a sergeant in the RAMC? he knows how to sterilise needles and how to recognise and treat infection. this also shifts the blame to Thomas himself for getting sick and implies that the conversion therapy itself is harmless (Dr Clarkson says it's just saline solution)

thirdly, it's not historically accurate. I'm not an expert but conversion therapy was not at all common in the 1920s, even Sigmund Freud was against it. hormone therapy and chemical castration were barely developing let alone available to the public (I can't imagine what else the 'treatment' was supposed to be). the only practices that I can find evidence of were psychoanalysis and electric shock therapy

Thomas also mentions that he did electric shock treatment - if you really want to make a point about homophobia in the 1920s (and make Thomas suffer as much as possible), show that instead. watching him be literally tortured for his sexuality would have been far more impactful than him just... looking sweaty for a few episodes