#which isn’t how economy works

[noughticalcrossings]

Dragon Sickness

Inktober day 27. Beast

I will not part with a single coin

[poyopaan]

i did some applications today and gotta say? kill me

[covid-safer-hotties]

To My Unmasked Friend in the Fifth Year of COVID - By: Anna Holmes - Published Aug 17, 2024

I’m going to be honest with you, because I love you, and you deserve nothing but honesty. I’m going to try really hard not to be angry while I do it, but it’s probably going to slip out every now and again. But I need you to hear me out, all right?

By now, we’ve talked about my reality. My personal struggle with long COVID, the isolation I live in, why I am so angry all the time.

But let’s talk about you. You just went to a big convention overseas. You got on a plane, got a little gussied up, talked shop with some insiders, geeked out over awards and merch, ate, drank, were merry, left with your social cup and your heart full.

You’re a good person. We wouldn’t be friends otherwise! You’d never dream of tripping a person with a red and white cane, using the r-word, excluding a disabled person from an event because of something they can’t help.

You might even acknowledge that the COVID response from governments and organizations has been ableist and inadequate.

But you didn’t wear a mask.

For whatever reason — you wanted to show off your makeup, it makes you itchy, you believed the messaging that COVID is endemic (what does that actually mean?), you just don’t think about it anymore — you made a choice that actively excludes people like me from participating not only in an event like a convention, but society at large. And yes, it is a choice. Every time you step out into the world without a mask on your face, you have made a decision that your very good reason, whatever it is, supersedes the right of disabled and at-risk people to exist safely in your orbit.

Well, hold on, you say. It’s not any one individual’s fault, it’s the inadequate public health messaging. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying?

And I have. In the past, I have talked about how it is unconscionable that health authorities have thrown their hands up and rescinded guidance that would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prolonged a pandemic that, to hear them tell it, has been bested. It hasn’t. Worst of all, the financial motivation that we all know is driving this premature victory lap isn’t even being fulfilled. Long COVID and other post-COVID complications are costing the global economy one trillion a year. Meanwhile, article after article handwrings about nobody wanting to work anymore, about the sagging college application scene, about declines in military enlistment, and the strain on our healthcare systems.

All of this is very much the fault of our leaders, who have decided the political ramifications of “normalcy” are more important than the health and lives of the 400 million people living with long COVID across the globe, the immunocompromised folks who are increasingly being shut out of every conceivable public space, and the disabled community which has been screaming into the wind about our marginalization since before the virus even hit US soil.

But I want to be very clear. You are helping them do this.

The reality is that we have been living in this deeply flawed landscape of “personal choice”, and you’ve made yours. You’ve opted not to look into how densely clustered cases are. You’ve stopped listening to your friends who have informed themselves. You’ve given yourself permission to put COVID on the back burner. You’ve earned it, right? Four and a half years of trauma?

COVID doesn’t care if you’re tired of being scared or careful or considerate. COVID is not something you can personally overcome by being smart or virtuous or brave. It is a virus which only seeks to infect and replicate, and it is getting very good at those things. While you’ve looked away, my community has been scrambling to avoid variants that skirt immunity and don’t show up on rapid tests until day five-seven. The constant battle has changed since you were last in it. It’s not sufficient anymore to get your shots and test before a big event. You could well be asymptomatic and infectious, or have symptoms and convinced yourself it can’t be COVID because that second line hasn’t popped up.

You have come to the conclusion sometime between 2022 and now that you just have to decide what level of risk you’re comfortable with and live with it. The problem with that is scale. It’s you and everybody else doing that, and a lot of people have decided they are comfortable with a high level of risk. Despite what you’ve been told, you’re not just making that decision for yourself. You are making it for every person you come in contact with.

Think back to the early tense days of 2020. We were told to select a “bubble.” Those people would be our social lifelines, and through those, we could control our exposure.

My bubble is quite small. It includes my husband, my sister, and two friends I see relatively frequently.

My husband goes to work via the bus, and to the grocery store. Every person he comes in contact with there has the potential to infect him, and then he has the potential to pass it along to me. He mitigates this by wearing a well-fitted respirator at all times.

My sister goes to work at a busy public place. She masks when public facing and takes it off in the back office. She goes to restaurants, bars, concerts, hangs out with friends and her own partner unmasked. About 75% of her interactions have the heightened potential to infect her, which she might then bring into my house when she visits me.

My friends do not mask anywhere except my house when asked. They attend concerts, shows, cons, bars.

Obviously, I am in control of whether I wear a mask around these people. And as we approach one million new cases a day, I will be around everyone but my husband. But science is clear: reciprocal masking is more effective at infection control than a single person masking — especially when that single person is trying to protect themselves, not others.

This is settled science. We’ve known this since 2020. It says clearly that the choice you make is not personal- it has implications for everyone you come in contact with.

And being clear — if I could, I’d make everyone wear a mask for their own health. I don’t want people suffering with what I have. But you’ve been told this lie that you can take your risks for yourself, so you feel comfortable going out without a mask. You’ve been told this lie that it’s possible to completely recover from a COVID infection, so you assume that even if you do catch it, that’s what’ll happen to you, despite evidence showing that every body is indelibly changed by an infection, and that risk only grows with each subsequent infection.

And the greatest lie of all — that only the sick or elderly have anything to fear from COVID — has given you unfounded confidence in your own “good” genes or immune system or fitness. You can get long COVID even if you’re in peak form — in fact, may even be more likely to be hit hard.

So you have decided, individually and collectively, that only the sick or elderly should have to take precautions, and you freewheel through life, only to get surprised and dismayed when you bump into COVID in the wild. It’s back, people declare every summer or winter, as though it ever left.

But I want you to really think about the implications of your choice. Besides yourself. Because let’s be honest here, that’s who you’ve been thinking about, right? Your risk. Your comfort. Never mind your bubble, never mind the bubble of everyone you come into contact with, never mind the people like me who are literally hiding from people like you.

You’re not masking at the doctor’s office. You’re not masking at the airport. You’re not masking at the giant superspreader you just attended, and you’re not masking in the bars and restaurants where we know the virus flourishes. And then you’re bringing that exposure back to your family and friends. Back to the grocery store, where you run across people like my husband, shopping for someone who is unsafe to leave the house, or your elderly neighbors, or an immunocompromised employee.

You’re a good person, or you like to think of yourself that way. That’s why when you’re asked to mask, you dismiss it out of hand — because that changed behavior implies that you’ve been doing something wrong.

And my friend, I’m telling this because I love you: you have been. You might have been doing that on faulty information, but be honest with yourself and with me — you’ve heard me begging people to take this seriously. You’ve seen the information I’ve been sharing. You have had the opportunity to seek out the correct information all along, and you have chosen not to.

It isn’t too late to change your view of the risk you’re imposing on the people around you. It’s not too late to push public health to become more effective. It’s not too late to act in solidarity and be the inclusive person you think you are. It’s not too late to take care of yourself.

Ultimately, that’s what I have been screaming myself hoarse about. I don’t want you to end up with what I have. I don’t want you to inadvertently impose that on someone else. And yes, I’ve been angry, because you’ve been advertising your absolute lack of concern with group shots of your naked faces on social media. It doesn’t seem to bother you that I am stuck at home like it’s 2020, except for doctors’ appointments that I literally have to risk my life to go to. You’ve told yourself that it’s not your problem, because only the sick and elderly have to take precautions.

You know better. You can do better. For your community, yourself, and me, do better.

Please. I love you.

Anna

PS. If you’re feeling upset and embarrassed right now, the best thing you can do is take action. Get yourself good masks (the surgicals and cloth ones don’t cut it anymore), donate to mask blocs so others can access good masks, write to your representatives and the President, comment on upcoming CDC guidance, schedule yourself a booster, and talk to your loved ones about doing better, too. The only way we get out of this is with community care. So care.

[contemplatingoutlander]

It has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to endorse Harris for president

Isn’t this what a newspaper is supposed to do?

I love that The Washington Post satirist Alexandra Petri took it upon herself to endorse Harris for her paper after Bezos pulled the plug on the editorial board doing so. This is a gift🎁link, so feel free to read the entire article. Below are some excerpts:

The Washington Post is not bothering to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election. (Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin and the founder and executive chairman of Amazon and Amazon Web Services, also owns The Post.) We as a newspaper suddenly remembered, less than two weeks before the election, that we had a robust tradition 50 years ago of not telling anyone what to do with their vote for president. It is time we got back to those “roots,” I’m told! Roots are important, of course. As recently as the 1970s, The Post did not endorse a candidate for president. As recently as centuries ago, there was no Post and the country had a king! [...] But if I were the paper, I would be a little embarrassed that it has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to make our presidential endorsement. I will spare you the suspense: I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them. Let me tell you something. I am having a baby (It’s a boy!), and he is expected on Jan. 6, 2025 (It’s a … Proud Boy?). This is either slightly funny or not at all funny.  [...] Well, that world [the baby will be born into] will look very different, depending on the outcome of November’s election, and I care which world my kid gets born into. I also live here myself. And I happen to care about the people who are already here, in this world. Come to think of it, I have a lot of reasons for caring how the election goes. I think it should be obvious that this is not an election for sitting out. The case for Donald Trump is “I erroneously think the economy used to be better? I know that he has made many ominous-sounding threats about mass deportations, going after his political enemies, shutting down the speech of those who disagree with him (especially media outlets), and that he wants to make things worse for almost every category of person — people with wombs, immigrants, transgender people, journalists, protesters, people of color — but … maybe he’ll forget.” “But maybe he’ll forget” is not enough to hang a country on! [...] I’m just a humor columnist. I only know what’s happening because our actual journalists are out there reporting, knowing that their editors have their backs, that there’s no one too powerful to report on, that we would never pull a punch out of fear. That’s what our readers deserve and expect: that we are saying what we really think, reporting what we really see; that if we think Trump should not return to the White House and Harris would make a fine president, we’re going to be able to say so. That’s why I, the humor columnist, am endorsing Kamala Harris by myself! [color/ emphasis added]

How far The Washington Post has fallen into the "darkness" it used to work so hard to ward off to help keep our democracy alive.

[edited]

[reasonsforhope]

"When politicians unveil a new national park or wilderness area, it’s often accompanied by debates about what effect it will have on the livelihoods of people living nearby. In some places, it can be welcomed as a boon, attracting tourists and their dollars. In others, it’s booed as a job killer, squelching the chance for new mining, grazing, logging or other industries.

As nations promise to nearly double the amount of protected land on the planet, from 17% to 30% of the Earth’s surface, these debates are likely to happen more often. Now there is new evidence that it’s possible to have both land protections and a growing economy. But it’s not guaranteed. “Achieving both aims is more common than we previously expected,” said Binbin Li, an environmental scientist at Duke Kunshan University, a Chinese institution affiliated with Duke University. “But that balance depends on socioeconomic conditions near a protected area.”

It can be hard to tease out causal links between two things as complex as the changing condition of a landscape and the economy of a nearby city. Did a town flourish because of a nearby national park, or because an increase in remote work enabled people to move there? Did another town collapse because a forest reserve contributed to the demise of a sawmill, or was it part of a bigger downturn in the timber industry?

To try to clarify the effects, Li and colleagues at Duke University and Shandong University in China compared the fates of “twin” towns and cities, as well as comparable patches of land. They identified more than 10,000 protected areas in countries around the globe, then examined how economic activity changed in nearby settlements between 2013 and 2020, compared to similar settlements more than 20 kilometers from any protected land. They also matched the protected area to similar nearby unprotected areas, to see if they fared differently.

The scientists used satellite images to track changes on the landscape, such as forest turning to farmland. They also tracked changes in the amount of nighttime artificial light as a surrogate for economic activity.

The satellite images revealed that in many cases, more trees and grasslands stayed standing and the lights shown more brightly at the same time. In about half the protected areas, there was simultaneous progress in both conservation and economic development, the scientists reported on June 20 in Current Biology.

Land protection was broadly successful at reducing the loss of forest and grasslands – more than 90% of the protected areas either lost no natural land cover, or less than their unprotected twins, the researchers found. At the same time, 60% of neighboring communities had as much or more of an increase in nightlights than places further from protected land...

Land protection and economic growth went hand in hand most easily in wealthier countries, around smaller protected areas, and in places with some of the infrastructure critical for economic development, such as roads. In places without these features the ecological fate of the land and the economic fortune of nearby towns was more likely to diverge or decline together the researchers found.

“Conservation does not happen in a silo,” said co-author Stuart Pimm, a Duke University ecologist. “We must consider local development alongside biodiversity conservation to know where and how to protect areas to benefit both the environment and humans.” ...

The results underscore the ways in which poverty and environmental degradation can be bound together. If poverty isn’t dealt with, creating protected areas could set the stage for both loss of biodiversity and economic development, the researchers warned. The flip side is that with careful planning, conservation could help set nearby towns on a path out of poverty. As an example, the scientists pointed to Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Park, which has become a hub for ecotourism on the country’s Pacific coast.

“We need to get to a win-win outcome more often, especially in the most biodiverse regions that can ill-afford losing out on economic development or biodiversity,” said Li. “We cannot address biodiversity loss without addressing local development issues.”

-via Anthropocene Magazine, June 26, 2024

[simply-ivanka]

How the Biden-Harris Economy Left Most Americans Behind

A government spending boom fueled inflation that has crushed real average incomes.

By The Editorial Board -- Wall Street Journal

Kamala Harris plans to roll out her economic priorities in a speech on Friday, though leaks to the press say not to expect much different than the last four years. That’s bad news because the Biden-Harris economic record has left most Americans worse off than they were four years ago. The evidence is indisputable.

President Biden claims that he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, but this isn’t close to true. The economy in January 2021 was fast recovering from the pandemic as vaccines rolled out and state lockdowns eased. GDP grew 34.8% in the third quarter of 2020, 4.2% in the fourth, and 5.2% in the first quarter of 2021. By the end of that first quarter, real GDP had returned to its pre-pandemic high. All Mr. Biden had to do was let the recovery unfold.

Instead, Democrats in March 2021 used Covid relief as a pretext to pass $1.9 trillion in new spending. This was more than double Barack Obama’s 2009 spending bonanza. State and local governments were the biggest beneficiaries, receiving $350 billion in direct aid, $122 billion for K-12 schools and $30 billion for mass transit. Insolvent union pension funds received a $86 billion rescue.

The rest was mostly transfer payments to individuals, including a five-month extension of enhanced unemployment benefits, a $3,600 fully refundable child tax credit, $1,400 stimulus payments per person, sweetened Affordable Care Act subsidies, an increased earned income tax credit including for folks who didn’t work, housing subsidies and so much more.

The handouts discouraged the unemployed from returning to work and fueled consumer spending, which was already primed to surge owing to pent-up savings from the Covid lockdowns and spending under Donald Trump. By mid-2021, Americans had $2.3 trillion in “excess savings” relative to pre-pandemic levels—equivalent to roughly 12.5% of disposable income.

So much money chasing too few goods fueled inflation, which was supercharged by the Federal Reserve’s accommodative policy. Historically low mortgage rates drove up housing prices. The White House blamed “corporate greed” for inflation that peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, even as the spending party in Washington continued.

In November 2021, Congress passed a $1 trillion bill full of green pork and more money for states. Then came the $280 billion Chips Act and Mr. Biden’s Green New Deal—aka the Inflation Reduction Act—which Goldman Sachs estimates will cost $1.2 trillion over a decade. Such heaps of government spending have distorted private investment.

While investment in new factories has grown, spending on research and development and new equipment has slowed. Overall private fixed investment has grown at roughly half the rate under Mr. Biden as it did under Mr. Trump. Manufacturing output remains lower than before the pandemic.

Magnifying market misallocations, the Administration conditioned subsidies on businesses advancing its priorities such as paying union-level wages and providing child care to workers. It also boosted food stamps, expanded eligibility for ObamaCare subsidies and waved away hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt. The result: $5.8 trillion in deficits during Mr. Biden’s first three years—about twice as much as during Donald Trump’s—and the highest inflation in four decades.

Prices have increased by nearly 20% since January 2021, compared to 7.8% during the Trump Presidency. Inflation-adjusted average weekly earnings are down 3.9% since Mr. Biden entered office, compared to an increase of 2.6% during Mr. Trump’s first three years. (Real wages increased much more in 2020, but partly owing to statistical artifacts.)

Higher interest rates are finally bringing inflation under control, which is allowing real wages to rise again. But the Federal Reserve had to raise rates higher than it otherwise would have to offset the monetary and fiscal gusher. The higher rates have pushed up mortgage costs for new home buyers.

Three years of inflation and higher interest rates are stretching American pocketbooks, especially for lower income workers. Seriously delinquent auto loans and credit cards are higher than any time since the immediate aftermath of the 2008-09 recession.

Ms. Harris boasts that the economy has added nearly 16 million jobs during the Biden Presidency—compared to about 6.4 million during Mr. Trump’s first three years. But most of these “new” jobs are backfilling losses from the pandemic lockdowns. The U.S. has fewer jobs than it was on track to add before the pandemic.

What’s more, all the Biden-Harris spending has yielded little economic bang for the taxpayer buck. Washington has borrowed more than $400,000 for every additional job added under Mr. Biden compared to Mr. Trump’s first three years. Most new jobs are concentrated in government, healthcare and social assistance—60% of new jobs in the last year.

Administrative agencies are also creating uncertainty by blitzing businesses with costly regulations—for instance, expanding overtime pay, restricting independent contractors, setting stricter emissions limits on power plants and factories, micro-managing broadband buildout and requiring CO2 emissions calculations in environmental reviews.

The economy is still expanding, but business investment has slowed. And although the affluent are doing relatively well because of buoyant asset prices, surveys show that most Americans feel financially insecure. Thus another political paradox of the Biden-Harris years: Socioeconomic disparities have increased.

Ms. Harris is promising the same economic policies with a shinier countenance. Don’t expect better results.

[grace-williams-xo]

RAMBLING THOUGHTS AFTER FINISHING PART TWO. GONNA ADDRESS MY P1 THOUGHTS FIRST. SPOILER WARNING.

1 & 2: I think Debling could’ve worked in the second half, and I’m kinda sad Cressida didn’t get a happy ending. The Creloise fell of a CLIFF after ep 5 but I think it could still be saved

5: no cishet man has ever loved his wife more than Anthony Bridgerton I’m gonna be ill

6 & 12: kanthony’s absence was felt BAD in the finale, I think their reactions to LW were sorely needed. Also Jonny and Simone have both said they’ll be at every sibling’s wedding and stick around for years but they missed Francesca’s??? Also felt their absence too much then. They’re both booked and busy I think we’ll continue to only get a couple episodes a season from them

8: Francesca did get to thrive happy in pt 2 my baby I love her

9: I think they managed to disconnect the mondrich plot even further like 😭 once again, I don’t mind them their plot just feels very empty

10: Pen and Delacroix CONTINUE to be my fave duo I love them so freaking much and they can never get rid of it

13: Portia’s growth this season continued to be 10/10 I loved her and Penelope’s relationship it really showed what it’s like to be closely related to people you oppose and the process of needing to forgive and understand them for your own peace of mind

14: that was not how I was expecting Colin to find out about Whistledown

15: Marcus felt a little rushed in part two but I think I need to watch the whole season together to fully decide

17: this was indeed the longest 27 days of my life I got Covid day after it dropped lmfao

MY ~NEW~ THOUGHTS:

We finally got character development from Cressida and if they write her out I’ll be inconsolable (as will Jessica Madsen)

I hope they paid Golda Rosheuvel good for her feet exposure. Worth more than titties in this economy

I feel the need to tell everyone that £5000 in 1815 is in the realm of £500,000 today and we cannot brush over the fact Penelope has made herself the equivalent of a literal millionaire

Anthony has two moods ‘I’m obsessed with my wife’ ‘I want to win this game’ like it is comical how drastically different his facial expression is in the game of charades compared to pretty much every other scene

Anthony saying the marriage is perfect and not hard work and Kate being like BOY I will humble you,,,, doing the lord’s work I love her so much

At some points I felt like Francesca was fighting Anthony for ‘Violet’s least favourite child’ award lmao

John saying he’s off to look at the wainscotting was unfairly funny

Cressida in the red dress is even better than I imagined fuck even if she’s not gay then I am

Peneloise back together the universe is healing I love my babies all we need now is creloise lovers and peneloise friendship simultaneously I don’t like it being one or the other sue me

However much Brimsley is getting paid isn’t enough,,,, Hugh Sachs the man that you are

I adored Penelope’s wedding dress so much and as bitter as I am still about no kanthony wedding in s2, it felt kind of right somehow for Polin to be the first wedding we properly see in this show

Most of the costumes and makeup feel like they got worse,,,,, big ‘I hired a 14 year old’ energy. I don’t need historical accuracy but I would like a modicum of care and the costume/hair/makeup dept looking at a single historical reference from before 1850,,,, please

We all got the bi Benedict we’ve been asking for and I appreciate it, and recognise that he needed Tilley to explore that, but I still would’ve preferred if they first main queer experience was not a threesome

If they go straight into benophie in s4 (which idk, I’m so torn bc I feel like F, E and B all could work well next season) then I also feel like bi Benedict was just them throwing a bone for 5 mins but meant nothing

The CONTENTIOUS Michaela Stirling,,,,, I was undecided until I saw it but that was the definition of gay panic from Francesca and it worked so well I am so excited.

As your resident peerage expert, it is much easier for women to inherit titles in Scotland than England so I wonder (not that anyone on this show knows anything) if that was a reason they chose Francesca to be sapphic [general peerage info and female inheritance info if you care]

On the above, if they can canonically end racism with one marriage then they can end homophobia with one marriage as well

We all know Eloise was the easy and obvious choice to be the queer love story but part of me does kind of like them not taking the easy route, and them going something more unexpected, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want Creloise/Sapphic El like they had eight children let’s be honest

Finch’s sneeze and Phillips’s “now Varely! The bugs!” were unfairly funny

Everything Lady Danbury said to Penelope about suspecting her and what not felt very in character and you can fight with the wall idc

Did they tell us the name of Polin’s baby boy???

Hyacinth saying she thinks of Gregory as the family pet,,,,, girl you an icon walking amongst mere mortals

Predictions I got right:

Anthony didn’t kill Colin, but “are you gonna duel your own brother” lmao I was on the right track

I knew Polin would win the Featherington baby race and I love that for them (but why were Prudence and Phillipa pregnant most of the season, barely showing, Kate was showing almost immediately, and then in the epilogue the sisters all had baby’s similar-ish ages???? Give the writers room a calendar please)

I SAID FROM DAY DOT THAT THE FURNITURE THEY BROKE FROM SEX WAS A CHAISE I CANT FIND THE POST BUT I KNEW IT I FUCKING KNEW IT WHERE DO I COLLECT MY PRIZE SOME OF YOUR GUESSES WERE TRULY FUCKING COOKED

Okay that was too long if you made it this far I’ll make you cookie ily

[racefortheironthrone]

TLT World Building: The Nine Houses and the Logistics of Space Empires

Building off my earlier post about stele-and-obelisk travel and the River, I wanted to talk about something that's been rattling around my mind for a while, which is subluminary travel and the logistics of the Nine Houses. One of the things that has been brought up as a criticism of Muir's world-building as far back as Gideon the Ninth is that the Empire seems to have very, very fast non-FTL travel, such that Gideon and Harrow travel the 3.3 billion miles from Pluto to Earth in an hour, without using a stele. How, it was asked, does an Empire whose military relies on swords and whose medical knowledge is incredibly uneven at best, accomplish a technological feat of that magnitude?

I think we got an answer for that in Nona the Ninth:

“That ship’s not big enough for a stele. Don’t know if it’s big enough for subluminary travel, even. How did it get here?” Crown leant back in her chair, staring at the projector screen, head balanced in the crook of one golden arm. Nona noticed that her biceps showed even through her shirt, and that there were rubber bandages wrapped around one palm. She said, “Oh, that’s big enough for subluminary travel, Millie. See the double struts, and the massive exhaust? That’s a Ziz-class.” ...Crown continued, “The Ziz isn’t Cohort standard. And it’s not as big on the inside as you think. Look at the windows—see how there’re none on the back end? It’s mostly engine. Not plated either. It’ll get to sublume without many problems … but it definitely doesn’t have room for a stele. Camilla is right. It can’t travel by obelisk anchor.” Pyrrha said suddenly, “Crown. How’s the fuel consumption on a Ziz-class ship?” “Thirsty,” said Crown, brightening up at being asked. “Its cell would be totally drained after a day in subluminary. It only takes the powerful stuff too—thalergy-enriched, not just hydrogen blend. Hydrogen blend stuffs up the engine.”

The answer is necromancy. (Because of course it is.) The Empire infuses shuttle fuel with thalergy - and we know that the necromantic specialty of the Second House is to "drain thalergy from any living source and use it," so the Empire can treat thalergy as a fungible resource that they can extract, store, and then use somewhere else. Moreover, we know that the necromantic specialty of the Fourth House is "exciting thanergy into a state of fission" in order to produce explosions.

Since necromancy can easily convert thalergy into thanergy, I think that the Empire's higher-end shuttles are powered by necromantic pulse propulsion, such that shuttle fuel is burned to produce thrust, but then at the same time the thanergy is turned into a massive fission explosion behind the shuttle, producing even more thrust.

I think this also explains why the Second and Fourth are so disproportionately represented in the Cohort, because in addition to producing soldiers for the front lines, they're heavily involved with making the Cohort Fleets move. (I'm going to further speculate that the Fourth make up a lot of the Fleets' pilots, since that would fit their necromantic specialties, the nature of their planet, and their image as gung-ho "go fast" types.) This leads me to a few conclusions:

it explains why the Empire is so focused on short-term extraction; it's essentially stripping the thalergy for fuel to power subluminary transportation in the Dominicus system and beyond, in the same way that we're burning fossil fuels to power our economies today. There is a profound irony in that Mr. Environmentalist John Gaius has so precisely recreated the dynamics of the carbon economy through necromancy.

it explains how logistics in the Nine Houses work. If you can use necromantic fission drives to get from the outer edge of the Dominicus system to the core that quickly, than most of the logistical complexities of running a multiplanetary economy fall away. All you have to do is get your transport shuttle full of goods from the colonies to a stele at the edge of the Dominicus system, and then necromantic fission solves the "last mile problem" of getting your Necro-Amazon "just-in-time" deliveries to the hungry markets of the Third or the Fifth. You don't need to worry about the fact that you can't produce a lot of organic resources on thanergetic planets (especially ones that are space stations and the like rather than fully terraformed), because you just have everything delivered.

it similarly explains how logistics out in the colonies work. Even if you're at the edge of the stele network, necromantic fission shuttles can transport goods between planets in the same solar system with relative ease. It only becomes an issue when you're a ways out from the edge of the network, because that involves burning more thalergy-enriched fuel. Hence why Corona talks about "the Cohort movements didn’t make sense to her...shepherd planets got more costly the further the Houses extended themselves."

This makes me think of necromancy in a different way than I had before. Rather than just being about magic and warfare, necromancy is essentially the technology of the Nine Houses (aside from some legacy technologies that they have left over from pre-Resurrection), the tool that they use to solve all of their problems and make their society and economy and government function.

[yikimiki]

Can I please request;

King eren who's been lusting after his personal maid for the longest time. Smut when he has her clean every inch of him during a bath and tells her to clean his cock with her mouth.

I LOVE fantasy aus, this was heaven-sent. Note! Eren is older here, around his early 30s, and I imagined reader to be around early/mid 20’s (though age isn’t specified). Also this is LONG! I don’t know WC Bc I wrote on tumblr but i guess around 4-5K!! 🪦

>> of marble and gold

⚠️ warnings: smut, obvious power imbalance/abuse (so dub-con), dark content because Eren is… obsessive, heavy objectification/degradation of reader (“whore” and such), oral, creampie, bruising/marking

—

The brown leaves twirl to the ground as a new season begins, and King Eren’s patience — and self-control — has reached its limit. After almost fifty years of the Jaeger family negotiating with the neighboring kingdom, the new ruler broke tradition like it was nothing more than a frail wax seal. The message is clear: no more commercial settlements, no more food trade, until they returned with the treasure they had stolen nearly a century ago. Until the vaults are full, and his people are once again able to enjoy their own crops, friendly conversations are off the table.

Surprisingly, it works. After panic has subsided and a tense meeting is scheduled, the threat of an upcoming war is larger than the power of negotiation — with that, a new system is at play, and the table dips a little more towards Eren’s kingdom.

It’s one of the easiest years in a long, long time — plates are full, the people are happy, and the small economy is finally blossoming into something more substancial. Eren is constantly surrounded by all types of people who seek to impress him (or take his newly found riches), little annoying flies buzzing around him during the day, then trying to enter his chambers at night.

But Eren is difficult to impress. He’s a serious man with serious goals, and a short dress skit or an inviting deal isn’t enough to make him pay attention. However, amidst all that calamity, you manage to make him double take.

The influx of people to his lands came with the news of a fruitful economy, so it isn’t a surprise that he doesn’t immediately recognize you. There are countless new servants in the castle, some of which are constantly out of his sight, so your random appearance is, in a way, expected. And, yet, amongst so many faces, his gaze stills in yours.

Once again, Eren is a serious man with serious goals — and with even more serious needs and desires. The switch of your position (from a kitchen servant to his personal maid) is swift and direct, leaving no room for objection. It’s not typical for women to assist royal men in such personal affairs such as bathing or clothing — not officially, at least — so he expects that the change with cause a little fuss. But no one has the guts to go against him.

The first time you see King Eren, he is a giant in front of you, watching closely as you kneel in front of his throne. There are dark shadows over his face and his green eyes shine with amusement, long brown hair falling like a cascade over his features. There’s a hint of a smile on his lips as he tells you to stand, and countless scars on his hand as he holds yours and orders you to be at his chamber at nightfall, so you can help him bathe. You agree and leave hurriedly, heartbeat booming in your ears.

Eren is a handsome man, that much you knew. But what you didn’t know is how massive and overtaking his very presence is — well, you suppose that is expected of any monarch, but it’s different when you witness it yourself. He is the center of the galaxy and everyone else, yourself included, is simply gravitating around him, moving aimlessly through life until he, even if briefly, gives meaning to it. To have someone so great, so respected, to personally chose you amongst so many to serve him… is strange.

You’re not naive — the years being both a commoner and a woman have taught you more than most maids in the castle would’ve dreamt of living. You know what men want, especially powerful ones like Eren, and you know your position is extremely delicate. Even if, now, you don’t wish to deny any of his advances, you know that the mere possibility would mean death to you. So you accept, even knowing you’re placing a noose around your neck. Even knowing you’re only getting out of this if he loses interest or, somberly, dead.

The first night you spend in Eren’s chambers you know that the first option is nearly impossible. He looks at you like you’re a mythical being, the finest piece of art, watching your movements closely as you help him bathe — your hands moving up and down on the water, keeping the circle of wetting the rag, cleaning his skin, and wetting it again. You’re strictly professional, never staring at his body, especially the parts beneath the water. From your peripheral vision, you see his defined muscles and deep battle scars, but don’t dare to look at it directly.

“Where did you come from?” He asks eventually, scaring you and making you drop the piece of soap in your hands. Eren’s voice is deep and commanding even in such intimate situation, and you feel yourself shrinking. “You’re not from here.”

The second part isn’t a question. “I came from the East, my king.”

Eren isn’t satisfied by your answer. “Why did you come?”

“My family’s farm was burnt down and I needed to work, my king,” you tell him, placing the dirty rag aside as you move to reach for the soap. Thankfully there is a layer of bubbles on the water now, and there is nothing else to see. “So I came here.”

He hums, laying back against the cool material. “Look at your king,” he orders. You blink, overwhelmed, and do as he says. His eyes are looking directly at your soul, one wet strand of hair glued to his forehead, and you squeeze the bar of soap so tightly that your nails dig to the surface. “Better. What is your name?”

You tell him.

“You’re beautiful,” he says. You gulp and sit back against your heels, watching as his hand moves closer to you, pushing your hair behind your ear. Shadows and candlelight reflects on his face like a dream. “It’s quite obvious you’re a foreigner. We don’t have women as beautiful as you.”

“T-Thank you, my king.” You look down. Your heart hammers like a caged bird against your ribcage, your lungs fight against expectation. His touch lingers. “I believe your bath is finished, your highness, do you wish for me to help you into—“

“Finished?” He raises one eyebrow, and you feel the noose around your neck tighten. “It is not. You forgot a place.”

You lower your head. “My deepest apologies, your highness.”

He hums, then startles you as he abruptly rises from the water. You use all your force not to look up at him. “Come. Dry me.”

You blink. “My king, what about…”

“Don’t argue, sweet girl. Your king commands you,” Eren says. There is poison dripping from his lips and you nod, getting up to your feet. “Dry me.”

You swallow. “Yes, my king.”

The pace in which you dry Eren’s body is torturous, your gaze glued to your own hands as you move the dry towel over his skin. First his face and hair, where he stares at you intently, then moving down to his chest, his arms.

Eren himself is enthralled, unable to cut his thoughts of you. Up close, you’re flawless, divine. Every movement you make is perfect, even the way you bite your lip and blink at him makes him dizzy with desire. He has never seen someone as beautiful as you, a young maiden with plump breasts and a delicate face; someone who listens to him so closely yet keeps their distance, respectful and fearful of their king — as all should be. He must have you. More than this, more than as a worker, he must have you, body and soul.

Your body arches as you move closer to his abdomen, touches becoming clearly more clumsy as your hands approach his private parts. The mere anticipation of having you so close makes Eren’s cock grow, thick and heavy, until it’s almost fully erect and you pause, startled.

“There, love. That’s where you missed a spot,” Eren says. You gulp and look up at him, wide eyes searching for something in his expression. He signals towards his erection with a movement of his head. “Clean it.”

“M-My king,” you speak, nervous. “Do you wish me to… clean you? There?”

He nods. “With your mouth. Be a good girl and clean it all up.,” he says. You lick your lips and look down at his large member — you knew it would come down to this and, yet, you are taken off guard. You didn’t think it would be this way. “And it’s Eren. These titles are making me mad with rage.”

You kneel in front of him — Eren realizes he is quite fond of that position. “Yes, my- Eren.” 

Your hand seems so small against his cock, now fully erect, barely taking him halfway before your lips touch his crown. Eren is both long and thick, throbbing in your hand as you suck on his head, humming around him before daring to go a little deeper. The size makes you choke up slightly, but you prevail. You want to pleasure your king, and if this is the way, so be it.

“Don’t be afraid to put it all inside, love.” He sighs. You do as you’re told, fighting against the tears as you push more of his size inside your mouth. It touches your throat and you gag, but you don’t stop. When Eren starts to moan, a deep groan in his throat, you start to set a rhythm. “There it is, there’s my obedient whore. Just as perfect as I had imagined.”

There’s wetness building between your thighs at his filthy words, a growing desire inside you as you look up at him. Eren is a god above you, made of marble and gold, looking down at you like you’re nothing but a hole for him to use. The defined muscles of his abdomen are contracting as you suck him harder, his eyes focused on your stretched-out lips as you struggle to take him.

“Fuck… what a perfect little mouth you have,” he breathes out. You close your eyes and take him even deeper, making a string of curses and threats fall from his mouth. His large hand meets the back of your head and pulls a handful of your hair, moving your face as he likes on his cock. “Good fucking whore,” Eren moans. “My fucking whore from now on. No one will fuck you. Only me.” You gag around his cock, but he doesn’t stop. Eren fucks your mouth until you’re sobbing, until he’s about to spill inside it — and then he pushes your head away. “Get on the fucking bed. I’m going to make you mine forever.”

You’re so overwhelmed that you barely process the walk between his bathroom and the large bed — in fact, you don’t even have time to think about how that is the single largest piece of furniture you’ve ever seen before you’re thrown on the bouncy mattress. One second you’re standing next to your king, and the next Eren is looming over you, kissing you like you’re the air that he breathes, like your mouth is made of honey. His hands are all over your body, literally tearing and ripping your dress in a desperate, animalistic attempt to get you undressed.

“Fuckin’ perfect,” he mumbles before he latches onto one of your breasts, sucking as his hand squeezes the other one. You’re fully naked now, lying in a bed of rags — rags that used to be your dress.

Eren marks you up with his hickeys, spanks the skin of your thighs until it’s bruised and you’re whining for him to stop. You sob and cry, but he shuts you up with another kiss just so he can tear those pretty sounds from you again.

“M-My king, please,” you beg. The wetness between your legs is embarrassing, and your body is all marked up by the time Eren is done with exploring it. He is lost in the mission of making — of marking — you his, barely even hears what you say. “I need…”

Then something clicks. He holds your face in his hand and pushes it closer to his, squeezing your cheeks together. There is fire burning at the bottom of his eyes, and you know you’ve said something wrong. “You don’t need anything, you don’t request anything. Understand? I’m your king, and you’re my whore. Act like it.”

You swallow — your throat hurts. “I’m sorry.”

“You will be.”

Eren is a serious man and a man of his word. You can’t even think about what to say to redeem yourself before he starts pushing his cock against your pussy, rubbing the tip against your folds once, twice, before slamming himself deep inside you. You sob at the feeling, walls fighting to adjust to his size, but he doesn’t even let the burning sensation subside before he starts fucking you.

“What is it? Did you not need this?” He coos. You half-nod half-shake your head, not even sure of it yourself. Eren sneers at your pathetic situation — all teary eyes and messy hair, holding onto his arms as he drills his cock in and out of your tight hole. And, yet, he still thinks you’re the most heavenly thing he has ever seen. “Your pussy feels so fucking… so fucking good.” He moans. “I’m going to fill it up every night. Get you all full with cock and cum every chance I get.”

Your eyes roll back at his words, as promise feels like a dream. You’d like that — after so many years of struggle and hard work, you would love to be a brainless little hole for your king to use and abuse whenever he wishes. You’d love to be dressed in the finest of silk and kissed with fervor, be treated like royalty, even if it isn’t true. You would love it with all your heart.

“Look at me when I fuck you, whore. Look at your king,” Eren brings you back to reality. You do as he says, meeting the savage look in his eyes as he fucks you harder, deeper, hitting all the sweet spots you didn’t even know you had. “Who do you belong to?” He asks, frowning. “Tell me.”

“Eren— I belong to you, Eren, my king,” you answer without hesitation. Your cunt squeezes him tightly as you cum hard, moaning loud and unashamed. You’d regret it in the morning but now… now you’re made of gold and marble too.

“You’re your king’s. Remember that,” he says. You nod, barely aware of the world around you as you dive deeper into pleasure. “Going to cum,” Eren strains. Forget that — now he looks like a god. Muscles tensing and jaw clenching as he uses your body however he pleases, plunging his cock inside you again and again until your wet pussy milks him dry; cock throbbing as he cums inside you. “Fuck, fuck,” he moans, hips faltering as his cock releases inside you again and again. “God, that’s so much fucking cum.”

A whine escapes your mouth as you feel it soak the sheets beneath you, but you say nothing. You dive into the moment like it’s your last one on earth: a moment in which you’re monarchy, loved and fucked into bliss, not a care in the world but the feeling dripping between your thighs. Though, the illusion never lasts long — you watch as Eren finishes and then rolls around next to you, staring at the ceiling with a sigh.

Even after everything, it feels wrong. Like you shouldn’t be here. “M-My king,” you speak after a second of silence, “should I go?”

He turns to you, somber as always. You can’t decipher his tone as he answers. “Not yet,” Eren speaks. “Only when the sun comes up. If I’m done with you by then.”

[specialagentartemis]

Inspired by @clonerightsagenda’s thoughts about the Ambiguously Brown Spacefuture trope, I kinda want to see more creativity with how Earth is treated in spacefuture sci-fi.

There are plenty of examples where Earth is the center of everything. Star Trek is the obvious one: it’s a bustling interstellar multispecies space society, and Earth is where Starfleet is headquartered and it’s often reflexively and unthinkingly treated by the narrative like it’s the most important planet in the Federation. (Most of our main viewpoint characters are Human, so it’s the most important planet to THEM because it’s their home, but even beyond that, Earth is treated as critically key to the Federation in a way that, say, Betazed is not.)

More recently, the common trope is that the centers of society and culture and economy and politics are elsewhere. Other planets are important, and Earth is either an unimportant backwater that no one really cares about, or galactic humanity has nearly forgotten about it entirely. This is explicit in Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers, strongly implied in The Murderbot Diaries, and one line in Ancillary Justice suggests that too. Ofc this isn’t entirely new—from what I understand it’s what’s going on in Dune too.

And they do this for obvious reasons: the authors are all interested in social and political worldbuilding that is not tethered to real Earth nations, politics, prejudices, and general baggage. Second-world fantasy authors are allowed to do this with no strings attached, but sci-fi authors who want to do social worldbuilding from the ground up have to justify why people don’t appear to identify as Chinese or Latino or Hopi or American anymore (and more often than not, not Jewish or Catholic or Muslim or Hindu or Baha’i or whatever either), why those identities don’t come into conflict with the new planetary identities and spacefuture religions the author wants to write about. It’s been so long that the origin of humanity is forgotten or irrelevant.

Star Wars is honestly underappreciated for the bold, creative, unique choice to have a bustling interstellar multispecies space society with lot of humans… and no Earth. At all. Where do humans come from? Irrelevant. Not Earth though.

And honestly I wish more sci-fi that wants to write in this space took more of a cue form Star Wars to just own it. (I actually thought the Imperial Radch HAD done the same thing—functionally a second-world fantasy, but in a spacefaring setting—until Kat pointed out the reference to arguing over which planet was the real origin of humanity.) If you posit your space future as our future, but Earth is no longer relevant and is generally forgotten… I guess it depends on how far out it is, but it strains my credulity that no one remembers or cares! The Jews in the spacefuture don’t know/remember/care where Jerusalem is? Muslims in the spacefuture decided that going to Mecca just kinda isn’t worth it? The spacefuture Papal seat is no longer in Rome and the future Catholics don’t know or care that it was ever anywhere else? All the Hopis left the Three Mesas and all the Navajos left Dinétah and all the Māori left Aotearoa and then just… forgot about it? Really? That isn’t true after hundreds and even thousands of years today; why would it be true hundreds or even thousands of years in The Spacefuture?

There are some works that do a little more complexity with spacefuture planetary societies and cultures vs. memory of Earth—the Vorkosigan Saga positions Old Earth as a culturally important memory even if it’s not a politically important planet, and The Locked Tomb makes Earth a holy center place that is mythicized more than it’s known or inhabited, for magic necromancy reasons.

I’d like to see more of that, Earth holding some sort of unique place in spacefuture humans’ culture in a historically informed way, even if you actually want to write about other things. Or go the Star Wars route and proudly proclaim that this takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, don’t worry about it.

[windvexer]

hey, chicken! based on your last post (the morality of witchcraft), how would you defend the idea that witchcraft ISN’T cheating/immoral?

We are in reference to this post

So I'm not like, a philosophy guy. And I don't have an answer at all. But by God I'll write an essay.

I believe the problem that causes some people to view magic as immoral/cheating, is that magic is viewed as being a force which, by default, causes harm. So if you're using it to benefit yourself, then that's always unfair/cheating.

This is mitigated if you use magic to help others, because it's immoral to help yourself (?) but okay to help others, which is just then net neutral, so magic is rarely allowed to be good. It's either neutral or bad.

However, if you don't get explicit permission to cast beneficial magic on others, then you're for sure evil. So most magic, most of the time, is always unethical to some degree. Because most magic, most of the time, is harmful and self-serving.

Right.

"Job spells manipulate hiring managers, and take away their free will. You are compelling someone else's mind to make a choice they wouldn't have otherwise made."

Well, why do we think that is true? Why would any generic "bippity boppity basil brings the jobbity" spell default to harmful mind-control?

I think what people are seeing is: a hiring manager makes a choice they wouldn't have otherwise made. And because they view witchcraft as inherently harmful and self-serving, this means that the hiring manager must have been the victim of unethical action.

Let's use a little hyperbole to engage in a thought exercise. What if the default view was that witchcraft was helpful and community-serving?:

When workers can't find jobs, that is an indicator of sickness in the spiritual body of local commerce. If you cast a job spell on yourself to find employment, you are healing one strand of that sickness. This healing is always good, just as relaxing one strand of a muscle spasm is always good.

Job spells would never ""steal"" a job from somebody else, that's just not how they work. Can you imagine thinking that sending beneficial employment energy into a community would somehow result in stealing jobs? That's literally the opposite intent. That would be like casting a protection spell that automatically puts people in danger because you are "stealing" their protection!

When you cast a job spell, what's actually happening is that you are bringing healing and support to companies who tend to be under-staffed. You are also unblocking and banishing policies that tend to turn away great candidates just because they don't have a buzzword on their resume. Companies, employees, and managers always benefit when job spells are cast on their company.

You might be pointing out that well, sure - but that's not how job spells work. The actual mechanisms depend on the type of spell you cast.

Which brings me back to the earlier point: then why is the bippity boppity basil brings jobbity spell assumed to work with an unethical mechanism?

Why is the common defense for this, "well, somebody has got to get the job and witchcraft is nothing but an advantage, just like Excel is an advantage on the resume, so if doing witchcraft is unethical, so is learning Excel, so there." ?

Why isn't the defense, "no, it's not unethical. Is pouring water into a drought-stricken pond unethical? Casting a job spell literally means generating energies of beneficial employment. When you release that into your community, you are pouring water into the evaporating pond. Those energies of beneficial employment would not have existed if you did not cast the spell, and they are fundamentally healing and restorative to your local economy, no matter whom they benefit. A job spell, by definition, challenges energies of unemployment and poverty. How could you think that's a bad thing?"

Do you see what I mean, Anon?

Why is a popular default assumption that magic is thieving, manipulative, and ruinous?

Why isn't the assumption rather that magic is generative, restorative, and healing?

Look, I'm not saying that I think all witchcraft actually is healing or restorative. My point is just to provide contrast. Having to prove that witchcraft isn't cheating is the wrong stance. You're already two steps in the wrong direction.

At the core of it all, I think it takes stepping back and asking: How did I get to a place where I have to convince myself I'm not a bad person for engaging in my faith?

I think the idea of 'the path of least resistance' has caused brainrot to the point where people actually think that it takes the same amount of magical force to kill your grandma as it does to get an Etsy sale.

I'm not saying that witches have never accidentally fucked stuff up with a badly planned spell. It happens all the time.

But I think it's pertinent to ask. If you live in a reality where you believe you don't need spiritual protection because nobody is targeting you, is that mutually exclusive with the belief that magic can easily cause awful things to happen to innocent, untargeted bystanders?

So like, if the universe is such that the behaviors of spirits and practitioners just trying to achieve their own goals is stealing, cheating, and harmful, would that not mean that the magical ecosystem we live in is indeed very dangerous, much more dangerous than mundane reality?

How can we say, "protection is almost never necessary because nobody is going to target you; but you'd better be careful, because any magical action can accidentally steal from or harm untargeted innocent bystanders."?

I don't think we get to have it both ways.

But I think both of these things stem from the same source: a worldview that colors perception of witchcraft. It doesn't come from witchcraft, but was rather applied to it.

So that's why I don't have an answer for you, Anon. How can I argue that witchcraft isn't cheating or immoral? If a witch believes that helping themselves is sinful, then any time they do that, I expect they will always feel like they are cheating or being self-centered. That's not witchcraft's fault.

If a witch believes that magic tends to maim, mind-control, and harm, I suppose that's either from personal experience and they are walking the most metal of paths, or that's because they just believe that magic is just kinda wicked.

And all I can say is, no. It's not.

But that's not a very good argument.

[taradactyls]

The full Bennet Family Finances endnote from Ch33

I’ve been doing some more maths (ch26 has the initial discussion) on the savings that our characters might do/should’ve done since it’s fascinating to me and some of the comments I’ve been getting have been making me think more about it. One of the common themes is surprise at just how negligent the Bennets were at saving, instead of merely being stretched thin by expenses. I understand this completely, as it isn’t something that’s explicit in an easily recognisable way for modern audiences.

So, where could they have been more economical? They don’t go to London, no one has a gambling addiction, all travelling (which was EXPENSIVE) is done cost effectively, and they certainly didn’t spend all the money on tutors and the like for their daughters. I’m sure there’s actual academic papers by historians on this (I miss my uni access to those so much) but I can take some educated guesses.

We know Mrs Bennet is just bad with household management. Part of which might mean ordering too much food (it’s mentioned she keeps a good table, so this is as close to canon as we can get) and perhaps not being efficient with what she does order, ie wanting different meats from night to night, instead of having the leftovers served as stews or whatnot, not keeping an eye on the prices of sugar, salt, etc to buy when they’re cheap, making special orders instead of purchasing what’s readily available, etc. We know none of the Bennet women assist in the kitchen (as the Lucases do) so that’s more work for servants and thus likely to contribute to the need of an extra servant or higher wages. Household management could also be more innocuous things like always buying the expensive bees-wax candles, instead of using tallow when guests aren’t around or in out-of-the-way rooms. And being inefficient with candle usage (this is likely a Mr Bennet flaw too, if he enjoys reading in his library at night) in order to have a room better lit than strictly necessary. There was a reason families all tended to gather in one room after dark, and the Bennets notably don’t. Also having fires in all the principal rooms instead of just the ones likely to be used that day. If there’s ways to be inefficient with funds when it comes to cleaning, I’m sure they found a way there, too. Basically, anything that requires forward planning to help with economy would be lacking.

 But that’s all ‘essentials’ just done inefficiently, what luxuries might they have had? They have the income to warrant their carriage, horses, and it seems Mr Bennet does hunt, but that’s also a standard expense for his wealth, so let’s focus on what might be pushing them to their limits. Other than the over-provisioned dining table, which we’ve mentioned, nothing about their socialising habits seems excessive. Mrs Bennet’s love of fashion could be pushing her wardrobe bill up, Mr Bennet’s love of books could be a VERY expensive hobby, and of course – five daughters out at once. Having five daughters out (especially unnecessarily as Lydia and even Kitty were quite young to be out) cost a LOT of money. Lady Catherine was rude as anything, but her surprise at the fact was warranted. Other than money, it also meant the daughters were in direct ‘competition’ for the same limited amount of suitors, which theoretically might hurt the elder girls’ chances. Five distinct wardrobes for young women which needed gowns for all occasions, going through dance shoes and gloves very quickly, bonnets, etc, all added up. At the start of the book multiple hundreds of pounds a year would be going to keeping their daughters looking the part while mixing in society.

But Jane’s only twenty-one or twenty-two at the start of the novel, and came out at fifteen at the earliest. Yet the Bennets still never saved money, and never overspent their income, so there were other expenses they were able to drop which had been preventing them from saving money for the first sixteen or so years of their marriage. I think it’s fair to assume there’s random, one-time bigger expenses that were undertaken with any substantial spare money: perhaps the hermitage Mrs Bennet mentions is a newer addition, was the coach (which are normally ordered around the start of a marriage) refitted more recently, how often is the décor of Longbourn updated (and on that note, are things like the sofa reupholstered or completely replaced), do they impulse buy vases and sculptures, make sure whatever alcohol they do buy (which appears to be a reasonable amount for their class) is the expensive stuff, etc. Whatever it is, it’s a both parent problem. Mrs Bennet is bad at money management and instead of changing her habits or preparing her daughters for financial hardship puts pressure on them to marry (preferably rich, but she doesn’t seem to have a complaint about Wickham in that regard). Mr Bennet is smart enough to see that there is a problem and how to fix it, but after his first idea fails (have a son to break the entail and thus provide for his widow and other children – which doesn’t even necessarily mean the girls would get a dowry, just that they would never live in poverty) does nothing to reassess the issue or find a solution. He essentially shrugs his shoulders and lets his daughters shift for themselves. One parent is too stressed about money and only addresses it negatively, and the other isn’t stressed enough and doesn’t address it seriously at all. Neither do anything productive, even though changing their habits would be enough to fix it. I love them, but MASSIVE parenting failure on their end; and hinted to occur because the parents were too used to comforts and different themselves to be able to work together and act on a solution.

Now for some actual MATHS! Which, yes, I realise I am strangely excited about.

The idea that most of the Bennets’ money is spent by having so many daughters out at once seems to keep popping up in my time on the internet. So, I thought it would be interesting to see what their dowries could be if that five-daughters-out-at-once money wasn’t spent on other things before any daughters were out. Costs of this could vary a bit between families, and though we know Lydia’s expenses were almost £100 per annum that includes board and food as well as little gifts from Mrs Bennet, so we can’t simply multiply that by five and be done with it. But, given Mrs Bennet’s desire for fashion and the poor financial management we see from her and some of her daughters, it’s quite possible clothes were being bought new rather than pulled apart and remade more than they ought to be, so spending £50 to £60 a year on each daughter being ‘out’ seems reasonable. For the purposes of this, let’s look at a total of £250 and £300 a year for all five, and in the 4%s because that’s where the money settled on Mrs Bennet apparently is. After sixteen years of marriage (when we will assume Jane comes out) that’s £5,456 or £6,547. Meaning that just doubled their dowry, even if they save nothing else after that. If the interest is left alone, that’s more than £1,000 that’s added to it before the novel even begins. Suddenly Mr Bennet dying at the start of the novel would leave his widow and daughters with between £11,500-£13,000 instead of the meagre £5,000 they actually have.

And the girls didn’t all come out at once, so just to put some numbers to it for math purposes, let’s say Elizabeth came out one year after Jane, Mary two years after her, Kitty another two years later, and Lydia the following year. For simplicity, each girl coming out is going to remove the same amount of money (when realistically it’s likely Jane, who needs everything new, and Lydia, who’s spoilt, would have cost the most). With the lower estimates of expenses, that’s £8,062 saved at the time of the novel, taking the total for Mrs Bennet and the girls to £13,602 or £2,612 each, assuming nothing else is saved. At the higher cost for the girls being out, that’s £9,676 saved and £14,676 that they’ll eventually inherit a share of. Still below what they should have as dowries, but a vast improvement, and proof of why having five daughters out at once was an additional strain but not THE strain. It was just another element in a mountain of problems.

“But what if it was in the 5%s?” asks no one but me. I think they would stick to the more stable bonds Mrs Bennet’s dowry is in, but if they didn’t, the same situation as above would save £9,243 (or £14,243 total) or £11,090 (£16,090 to share or £3,218 each).

For pure funsies, the numbers if Mr and Mrs Bennet had also saved the interest of the £5,000 settled upon her (which by itself would grow to £12,324 in the 4%s) in addition to these savings are:

£20,387 (£4,077 each at the start of the novel) with the £250 expenses estimate. At £300 for all five daughters out, we get to £21,998. Both of these numbers suddenly mean the Miss Bennets would never have to fear poverty when Mr Bennet died and they would individually each be as rich as their mother was, and though they wouldn’t be counted as rich themselves, would at least have something respectable. They might not cost their husbands money to marry.

AND THEN if everything is in the 5%s but that original £5,000, and the interest it gains is also moved to the higher interest account, the grand total would be either £22,528, again assuming the £250 expenses, and £24,376 at the £300 estimate.

I’ve been doing some equations for Darcy, too. So, let’s talk about that next chapter, to give me time to really figure it out.

[tanadrin]

I think Democratic complaints about the media are in some sense correct. Even the Democratic media ran endless stories casting every positive economic indicator under Biden in a negative light, and I think that helped fuel discourse about how the economy was Bad, Actually, which helped fuel anti-Biden sentiment, even long after the economy started to improve in a substantial way for most people. I think the “liberal” media has been harangued for decades into doing this weird both-sidesism that, even while they explicitly endorse and support Democrats on their editorial pages, forces them to try to symmetrically cover people like Harris and Trump, though they are not symmetric candidates (e.g. “sanewashing”). It is indeed possible to report on somebody like Trump in ways which are substantively not totally incorrect but which are tonally deeply misleading, you know?

And yet I don’t know about the viability of trying to build Liberal Fox News to counter this; the liberal/Democratic coalition in the US just isn’t constructed in the same way as the conservative one. Fearmongering and paranoia, which have made conservative media commercially successful, are inherently activating of conservative politics, not liberal politics. Democratic messaging just doesn’t function in the same way as Republican messaging, especially these days. There may be things the Democrats can do to improve their media game—and I think Stancil is right that they have not sufficiently grappled with the implications of the fragmented media environment and social media in particular!—but it can’t be to try to make a mirror image of conservative media. I’m not sure that will work.

[shaunashipman]

what gets me is that date scene was a literally under a minute long which isn’t a whole loft of time exactly of dissect the inner workings of their daddy issues. the minute they had, they used it to its full potential because we had:

- buck and tommy being casually domestic together on their date night in, which while nice, wasn’t like a super fancy thing and shows that this is probably a common occurrence for them. (especially when you see episode 9 and Bobby’s mention of buck going to visit tommy after the shift)

- buck telling tommy about his day, tommy making a joke about the dedicated hospital wing but recognizes that buck is not okay so he ASKS him pointedly how HE is

- buck shares the close relationship he has with bobby and this seems to be the first time they’re delving into that and so of course tommy wants to understand better, hence why he says “your dads alive”, buck replies exactly and tommy gets an understanding buck doesn’t have a great relationship with his father (also I have to add buck sharing how he sees bobby as a father with tommy is a big deal esp considering the buck bobby scene last episode where bobby tells buck tommys good for him soooo)

- tommy then shares his OWN experience after that, bounces off of what buck says to add to the conversation and open up to his boyfriend about his own past so he can get to know him better too. it was a moment where they were both vulnerable (the Gerard mention in particular i 100% believe is to set up an arc with tommy in season 8)

Now at this point there isn’t a whole lot of time left in the scene like maybe 20-25 seconds? they can exactly like I said sit there and examine and analyze their childhoods and their fathers so the tone switches to a more light hearted vibe because it would be weird to end it on a heavy note AND simultaneously it gives us more insight into their relationship

- buck suggestively says the daddy issues line which again, how anyone interpreted that as him wanting to continue a serious discussion is beyond me when again, the scene has hardly any time remaining

- tommy picks up the vibe he’s putting down and tells him he doesn’t have them (he clearly does have daddy issues so again, we know this isn’t about the actual trauma but about sex and what they both like/dislike )

- buck once again responds suggestively with the “you think I do”

- and then tommy with his infamous “God I hope so” - leaving buck giddy and smiling because he got exactly what he wanted

tdlr; We got domestic bucktommy, tommy backstory, both of them being vulnerable with each other, Tommy recognising he was not a good person in the past under Gerard, a set up for a tommy storyline with Gerard in some way for seaosn 8, bucktommy flirting, bucktommy matching each others freak and both very much enjoying it, bucktommy showing they can read each others moods like??? all for his in a scene that was under a minute

that scene was such a masterclass of Show Don't Tell. they had 55 seconds to get across how they're doing and where they are in the relationship and they did it. we can see that they're comfortable with each other; that they're okay with opening up about vulnerable topics but haven't had in-depth conversations on some, like buck and his parents; we can even see some of how they communicate, with tommy relating to buck's admission with similar thoughts of his own father and father-figure (something we've seen tommy do before, and is a lovely subtle showing of his personality); and then we get confirmation that yes, these two have fucked already, and are clearly compatible in that department too.

plus another sprinkle of foreshadowing with gerrard.

in 55 seconds.

that is called economy of time/space/whatever the rule is i can't remember rn. the show doesn't always get it, but when they do it is golden

[qqueenofhades]

Hoping you can explain this because you’re smart but why in the world are the same people who scream about a labor shortage worried about the border and immigration? Isn’t more people coming to our country a good thing if we train them properly to fill vacant positions (a lot of which are service jobs anyway)?

Alas, you are forgetting what is quite possibly the chief shibboleth of Western white supremacy/far-right nationalism: that all people from other countries, especially *gasp* the brown ones, are invaders, murderers, job-stealers, polluters of the (white) body politic, etc, and that under no circumstances should they be invited or allowed to stay. This isn't just an American thing; witness the Tories in the UK salivating over the idea of torturing migrants, trying to shut down any legal migration routes even with the employment black hole caused by Brexit, steadfastly denying that their workforce problems have anything to do with Brexit, steadfastly denying that they need to loosen immigration rules, etc. This is also the case with the European right/far right, the Australian far right, and anywhere else in the world that has historically been built on systems of white colonization, white supremacy, and other racial and legal scaffolds of privilege and exclusion. The white people who come to a country and settle it are bringing "civilization" and therefore should be welcomed and encouraged, but the non-white people who already lived there are "savages" and need to be exterminated for the good of the "master race." If they try to come back to the (white) nation state after their homelands were colonized, moreover, they are "invaders" who just want to "soak up the money of hard-working citizens" and etc etc.

The core fascist hatred of immigrants is also why Trump is directly echoing Hitler's anti-immigrant rhetoric with his "poisoning the blood of America" screeds, his promise to round up and deport migrants en masse, and otherwise be as massive of a dick as possible. The fact that there's no economic benefit and indeed a lot of economic pain is entirely beside the point. Trump and his deranged followers like the cruelty and the idea of torturing brown people for daring to come to "their" (white) America, and think that if they can be outrageously monstrous enough, this will finally deter all the other ones from coming. It won't, and no globalized economy will run without immigrants, but again, this isn't the point. Reality or pragmatic calculations have nothing to do with it. It's only about what can cause the maximum amount of cruelty and chaos to everyone who doesn't wholeheartedly worship and fit the (white) fascist model. That's why the Republicans yelled about wanting a border bill before they'd fund Ukraine; the Democrats obligingly gave them one with some of the toughest restrictions in years, and the Republicans yelled and threw it away because Dear Leader Trump told them to trash it. In some sense this is a good thing, because it meant that Ukraine got funded without being beholden to performative partisan cruelty at the border, but it also shows that they don't actually care about any of this. They have bluntly stated in so many words that they want a manufactured crisis at the border so Trump will have it as a campaign issue. Then he can take office and implement all his terrible concentration camps and all the other genocidal fascist bullshit of Project 2025 (bUt bIdEn iZ thE wOrsE oPtiOn!!!!!)

So: yeah. There's no point looking for any actual consistency or logic in the modern far right, because that is so far from the actual aim. No matter if migrants are essential, no matter if Americans literally won't take many of the jobs they do, etc. I live in a big city that has had a ton of migrants coming here and have read many, many news articles about how all they want to do is get a work permit, make their own money, learn English, and integrate into American culture; they are often far more positive about the prospects of America than actual Americans. But because the entire project of a (white) fascist ethnostate as advocated by Trump and co. in America, the Tories/Reform in the UK, and the far-right European parties, Russia, and other places (this is all connected worldwide -- again, it's not limited to one country or region), rests on demonizing (brown) immigrants as subhuman scroungers who come to rape, murder, steal jobs, and otherwise threaten (white) law-abiding citizens, that will always win out above every single other consideration.

[reasonsforhope]

The Surucuá community in the state of Pará is the first to receive an Amazonian Creative Laboratory, a compact mobile biofactory designed to help kick-start the Amazon’s bioeconomy.

Instead of simply harvesting forest-grown crops, traditional communities in the Amazon Rainforest can use the biofactories to process, package and sell bean-to-bar chocolate and similar products at premium prices.

Having a livelihood coming directly from the forest encourages communities to stay there and protect it rather than engaging in harmful economic activities in the Amazon.

The project is in its early stages, but it demonstrates what the Amazon’s bioeconomy could look like: an economic engine that experts estimate could generate at least $8 billion per year.

In a tent in the Surucuá community in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Pará, Jhanne Franco teaches 15 local adults how to make chocolate from scratch using small-scale machines instead of grinding the cacao beans by hand. As a chocolatier from another Amazonian state, Rondônia, Franco isn’t just an expert in cocoa production, but proof that the bean-to-bar concept can work in the Amazon Rainforest.

“[Here] is where we develop students’ ideas,” she says, gesturing to the classroom set up in a clearing in the world’s greatest rainforest. “I’m not here to give them a prescription. I want to teach them why things happen in chocolate making, so they can create their own recipes,” Franco tells Mongabay.

The training program is part of a concept developed by the nonprofit Amazônia 4.0 Institute, designed to protect the Amazon Rainforest. It was conceived in 2017 when two Brazilian scientists, brothers Carlos and Ismael Nobre, started thinking of ways to prevent the Amazon from reaching its impending “tipping point,” when deforestation turns the rainforest into a dry savanna.

Their solution is to build a decentralized bioeconomy rather than seeing the Amazon as a commodity provider for industries elsewhere. Investments would be made in sustainable, forest-grown crops such as cacao, cupuaçu and açaí, rather than cattle and soy, for which vast swaths of the forest have already been cleared. The profits would stay within local communities.

A study by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the New Climate Economy, published in June 2023, analyzed 13 primary products from the Amazon, including cacao and cupuaçu, and concluded that even this small sample of products could grow the bioeconomy’s GDP by at least $8 billion per year.

To add value to these forest-grown raw materials requires some industrialization, leading to the creation of the Amazonian Creative Laboratories (LCA). These are compact, mobile and sustainable biofactories that incorporate industrial automation and artificial intelligence into the chocolate production process, allowing traditional communities to not only harvest crops, but also process, package and sell the finished products at premium prices.

The logic is simple: without an attractive income, people may be forced to sell or use their land for cattle ranching, soy plantations, or mining. On the other hand, if they can make a living from the forest, they have an incentive to stay there and protect it, becoming the Amazon’s guardians.

“The idea is to translate this biological and cultural wealth into economic activity that’s not exploitative or harmful,” Ismael Nobre tells Mongabay."

-via Mongabay News, January 2, 2024