#in NYC in the 1920's

[norvicensiandoran]

Combining the three most straightforward posts on this, and my own reminder:

Project 2025 doesn't talk about arresting protestors via cops. It talks about "putting them down" using the military on US citizens. Which means "accidental" deaths from tear gas and rubber bullets won't be the exception, a bullet in the head will be the *plan.* If your kid or grandpa was there too bad; they had terrorist sympathies and were probably under the influence of Satan according to these MAGA Christo-Nationalists.

Both sides are not the same and FDR's corpse would be a better president than Trump.

[new-york-central-official]

Information-dense booklet about our electrification projects made in 1929. By then we had already electrified most of our trackage around New York City with the exception of the now-defunct Putnam Line. Check out the inside, with photographs of our infrastructure and some diagrams of our state-of-the-art electric locomotives, the S and T motors.

[rubythecrimsonwriter]

As someone who has lived in the south where the water trough is anywhere from mildly annoying to actively terrifying, who has lived on a fairly decently sized island where it is indeed absolutely terrifying to be cut off from the mainland suddenly with little to no help from the government for an extended period of time--

After No Man's Land and all the issues that arose then, I'd like to propose the new way of interring their dead would be mausoleums. Possibly especially with Gotham canonically existing on a system of caves. An island made of caves on the East Coast that gets battered by hurricanes almost every year is just asking to get sunk a la Atlantis but its fucking Gotham and i think the Gothamites would raise it from the sea floor again out of sheer spite.

But with mausoleums you:

Dont have your son crawling six feet through packed dirt after inexplicably coming back to life

Dont have long buried coffins and corpses getting flooded/shaken/otherwise disturbed and shunted into the water system/streets/underground reservoirs (or Lazarus Pits, since there's one of those down there too, as if Gotham didn't have enough things wrong with it)

Continues the Gotham aesthetic

Have more places for various characters to have a private mental breakdown in

Have more places for various characters to find ominous warnings etched or graffiti'd on the walls

Have more places for things much older than the mausoleums have been En Vogue™ for to inexplicably appear and send shivers down the spine

The Gothamites are very firm about not really being part of the US. The US kind of looks at the South like we're really fucking strange, and the South looks at New Orleans like they've taken the South and concentrated it, carbonated it, and shook it really hard.

I want the same vibes for Gotham. This is their home. They are weird and stubborn to a fault and everything is on fire and the government is corrupt and the people aren't always good but nobody else understands. No one else ever could. Who else has seen the lights for rescue appear on the horizon only to see the light of death on the waters, ensuring no help would ever come? They are resourceful and violent and resentful but the gods won't help you if you cross one of their own.

[theshatterednotes]

US poet Richard Wilbur

[xaviergalatis]

© Xavier Galatis 2023

[taxi-davis]

New Yorker February 5 1927 by H O Hofman

[cokiemace]

[novakspector]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Allison Fisher at MMFA:

During The New York Times’ “Climate Week NYC” discussion with Heritage Foundation president and Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts, reporter David Gelles outlined the right-wing initiative’s regressive approach to climate change and the environment. Gelles also noted that Project 2025's call to dismantle climate action comes as the world is already experiencing the consequences of a warming climate, pointing out that a record number of people in the Phoenix, Arizona, area were killed by extreme heat this year alone. Roberts responded by pointing to Heritage Foundation research claiming that there has been a “reduction in climate deaths — climate-related deaths — over the last century by 98%.” Not only is this a red herring argument used by climate deniers to downplay the climate crisis, but that reduction is reportedly due in part to improved forecasting, which is done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency Project 2025 has called to dismantling.

As Reuters has reported, the decrease in deaths since 1920 is largely due to “better forecasting and preparedness,” even while “the number, intensity, and cost of climatic and meteorological hazards have all increased over the last hundred years.”

Notably, Project 2025 calls for dismantling NOAA, which houses the National Hurricane Center, the very agency that has improved the forecasting of deadly weather events and is critical to providing life-saving information. 

With Hurricane Helene in the process of making landfall, Project 2025 architect and Heritage head honcho Kevin Roberts told the Climate Week NYC hosted by The New York Times vomited out climate denialist talking points. Project 2025 has called for the dismantling of NOAA and National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the privatization of the NWS.

[queerliblib]

Hi queerliblib! I live in the UK so I can't access your services but I was wondering if you had any recommendations for books about gay or bisexual men in the 20th century? Both fiction and non-fiction would be fine.

hello! first, & potentially most exciting, even if you are not a member & can’t check out any books, you can always browse our collection & gather ideas here!

that said, we do still have some recs;

Fiction

Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin - all time classic for a reason

We Could be So Good by Cat Sebastian - 1950’s NYC romance

Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin - 1980’s Taipei

Self Made Boys by Anna-Marie McLemore - 1920’s Great Gadsby retelling

Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon - 1950’s D.C.

Hither Page by Cat Sebastian - post-war England

Dionysus in Wisconsin by E.H. Lupton - 1969

Non-Fiction

Pulp Friction by Michael Bronski - about gay male pulps from the 1950’s-70’s

Indecent Advances by James Polchin - history of the criminalization of homosexuality post WWI

The Men with the Pink Triangle by Heinz Heger & Sarah Schulman - about Nazi persecution of queer people

The Boys of Fairy Town by Jim Elledge - about Chicago’s queer history, 1st half of the 20th century & earlier

The Deviant’s War by Eric Cervini - Frank Kameny (founder of the Mattachine Society)'s fight against the US gov’s discrimination

[god-syndicate-if]

Care to share some facts about the ROs?

I'll post a bit more about each one when I make their character bios. But just a quick thing:

Riley is from Singapore and came to NYC (where the story takes place) in the late 1920's.

Franco Valerio is his stage name, not his real name.

Verne is the oldest of the cast, born in 1750 in England.

Mitch is the only member of the cast to know what Roblox is (He plays it with Claudia. He doesn't know what he's doing but he's trying.)

Sigourney is a surgeon and spends a lot of her free time stressing, but she hides it well.

Dame chose their own name when they found out they were Aphrodite.

Rebel is wanted in 4 states and has more weapons on them than a gun/knife convention.

[margareturtle]

The Bane Chronicles are so underrated

I think it’s bc the first few stories are Pre TID and so we don’t get to see as many favs

BUT STILL

What Really Happened in Peru — Magnus & Ragnor in Peru ICONIC. Magnus not really knowing what to do with his life REAL

The Runaway Queen — MARIE ANTOINETTE + MAGNUS ARE YOU KIDDING ME !! The hot air balloon. The vampires. I have no choice but to stan.

Vampires, Scones, & Edmund Herondale — early days of Camille. Shadowhunters being icky as usual. Will’s parents <3 Edmund left the shadowhunters for her 😫😫 (imagine if Jace lost his runes 💔💔)

The Midnight Heir — JAMES AND GRACE IN THE MIDNIGHT HEIR >>> I WILL MOURN YOU ALWAYSSS 😫😫

The Rise of the Hotel Dumort — the vibes. Just the vibes !! 1920’s NYC. Speakeasies. Camille & the vamps.

Saving Raphael Santiago — RAPHAEL MY BBG <33

The Fall of the Hotel Dumort — more RAPHAEL !! Plus a super old crazy warlock !! Magnus is so done lmaoo and the drama hasn’t even started

What to Get a Shadowhunter Who has Everything — Elyaas my bestie it’s been a while lmaoo also Ragnor + Catarina my besties. Alec’s bday !!

The Last Stand of the New York Institute — Followed by a flashaback of Magnus to a pregnant Maryse “i have no interest in the world you want or your doubtless repellent brat” LMAOO COMEDIC GOLD (Also seeing circle dynamics with Luke & Valentine, + Robert & Michael !! ) + Tessa & Magnus being besties ft baby clary

The Course of True Love (and first dates) — Malec first date <33

The voicemail of Magnus Bane — don’t do this to the cats Magnus !! Church and Chairman are in love 🥹😭

[mah-o-daryaa]

ATLA Modern AU: Avatar Edition

This is going to be a slightly different post. I don't think people ever consider the past Avatars in an AU set in a modern setting. Where do you think they would come from, if they had IRL nationalities?

For sake of simplicity, let's say the AU takes place in the United States, since most ATLA Modern AU fics I've read take place there, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area. We could also use NYC as the setting, since Republic City is roughly based on 1920's Manhattan. I think this task would be much easier if we consider the real-life influences for each of the four nations. I'll be using this post as a reference for these influences.

For example, the Air Nomads are based off of Tibetan Buddhists with some Nepalese and Bhutanese influences, so it would be pretty obvious to make Aang Tibetan in a Modern AU. The same would also go for Yangchen, although I would personally prefer Bhutanese or Sikkimese Yangchen because the Western Air Temple (I'm not talking about the episode) is inspired by Bhutanese cliffside temples. Another option would be making both Aang and Yangchen part of a Tibetan diaspora living in India. Kyoshi, being half-Air Nomad, would also be of Tibetan ancestry.

The Fire Nation is inspired by a combination of Chinese and Japanese cultures, while Ember Island being inspired by Southeast Asian, mostly Thai and Cambodian culture. In a Modern AU, I can see Roku being Thai, while Wan and Szeto would most likely be Chinese, Szeto is from Hong Kong/Macau. I also have a particular desire for Korean Wan, for no other reason than the fact that his VA, Steven Yeun, is Korean. I also wouldn't mind Wan being part of a Chinese diaspora from Malaysia or Singapore.

The Earth Kingdom, being the largest and most diverse of the four nations, is inspired by many Chinese dynasties, various ethnic minority groups in China, and even other Asian cultures altogether. However, we'll be paying attention to one specific cultural influence in Kyoshi's appearance: Heian/Edo Japan. She wears samurai gear and kabuki makeup. How in the name of the Moon Spirit am I not supposed to make Kyoshi Japanese (half-Japanese, anyway)? Kyoshi Island, formerly known as Yokoya, is literally ATLA's equivalent to Japan in the real world. There are even Ainu influences in Kyoshi Island, what with the clothing of the people in Suki's village.

The last nation is the Water Tribes, and the last two Avatars left are Kuruk and Korra. Now, the Water Tribes actually have a more diverse range of cultural influences than what we might expect. According to both @atlaculture and @kkachi95, the SWT is based on Inuit, Yupik and other First Nation peoples, with some Polynesian influences as well. The NWT, in addition to these influences, is also influenced by Mongolian and Siberian peoples. Since Kuruk is from the NWT, in a Modern AU, he would probably be Siberian, mostly Yakut, but I wouldn't mind Mongolian Kuruk either. For Korra, since she is half-NWT and half-SWT, I think she would be mixed like Kyoshi, except Korra would probably be half-Inuit, half-Yupik. I also want Kuruk and Korra to be part of a Mongolian or Central Asian diaspora living in Russia (I'll admit, I'm only saying this because I really want them to speak Russian), but that probably wouldn't work due to the differences in their cultures in-universe.

I have an idea for a Modern AU involving the Avatars, as well as their backstories for said AU, but that's for another time. For now, I turn this question over to you guys, and I want to know your thoughts on my nationality headcanons.

[theshatterednotes]

American poet Elinor Wylie

[xaviergalatis]

[taxi-davis]

New Yorker April 2 1927 by Matias Santoyo