NYPD are like uuuuh we still haven’t found the killer but we did find footage of a different, equally mysterious man with rogueish charisma and a dazzling smile. If that helps
>Japan bombs Pearl Harbor which brings America into World War II
>The draft for WWII creates a labor shortage in the US
>Because of the labor shortage, companies start significantly raising wages.
>FDR is worried that if wages go up too fast it could create runaway inflation, so he signs an executive order creating the National War Labor Board, which standardized salaries during the war in order to stabilize prices.
>Companies wanted a way to compete for talent in a limited labor pool despite not being able to offer higher salaries, so they started offering benefits packages to attract workers, the cornerstone of which was health insurance
>After the war, companies didn’t want to give up their role in providing health insurance because it served them well in terms of both recruiting and retention (i.e. you’re less likely to quit your job if it means losing your health insurance)
>This model becomes increasingly common across the US to the point where private health insurance companies are paying for the majority of healthcare expenses in the US
>Because the majority of healthcare costs were being paid by insurance companies rather than the people receiving care, hospitals began massively inflating the sticker price of their services with the expectation that the insurance company would negotiate those numbers down (as private insurance companies are want to do)
>Insurance companies take advantage of the increase in sticker prices by increasing premiums and passing off more of their costs to the consumer while continuing to negotiate down the actual price paid to hospitals
>This cycle repeats until the average hospital bill is completely divorced from any of the actual costs of the service
>In 2024 the average cost of giving birth in America is over $18,000
If you made lore for a character you’ve had since you were 16, and you’re in your 20s now and have a better grasp of narrative structure and power creep, you can just retcon the dumb stuff. Like you can do that for free. You’re not beholden to the junk you wrote 5 years ago, and you don’t need to justify removing it if it sucks.
This is actually really valuable. Every writer should keep this in mind.
That’s also part of the reason you shouldn’t look back at your old writing and label it as pure trash. You didn’t know what you were doing back then. You do now.
Bro do you know what I’d fucking give to move to a new town and someone immediately offers me a free house and says “yeah just pay me back eventually, you can come work in my store if you want, pick your own hours. I’ll also do renovations on the house but yea it’s your house, no rent, no interest” like dont you realize how utopian that is. And its implied he does this for everyone in the town? Tom nook is so generous he is a hero. You wish rich people could be like that irl
This right here is exactly why I’ve always loved Tom Nook.
As someone who was aware from an early age just how expensive living was in real life, I really appreciated the almost never-ending generosity of his character. It’s even right there in the canon that Tom Nook became so disheartened by how greedy and unfair some people in the city were that when he made it big himself, he wanted to do things differently.
“your [disability/disorder/mental illness] doesnt make you weak !!!”
okay, but… what if it does?
mentally, i’m not always strong. i have a lot of moments of weakness. i cry a lot, i overreact, i spend days isolating myself because socializing is so exhausting. my anxiety gets so bad that it physically exhausts me, it makes me sick to my stomach i have to sleep for hours to recover. physically, im weaker. i cant carry heavy things for long periods, i have to rest FREQUENTLY, im constantly exhausted.
so what, so why is being weak bad? does it make you a bad person? does it make you unworthy of love, of respect, of compassion? of course not.
your “strength” does not determine your worth. your value is not determined by what you can (physically or mentally) do for others or for society. you have value just by being.
take care of yourself. dont push yourself just because you feel like you need to be seen as “strong.”
