some white writers & animators from Nickelodeon are really trying to steal the entirety of hair love by Matthew A Cherry a BLACK animator who was already working on a series for his short film with another company. Matthew has confirmed this isn’t his series and it’s making my BLOOD boil. The lack of respect for black creators is insane. It’s due to air on September 13th on nick jr. please don’t support it!

@beckyalbertalli, author of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, inspired in part by her own lead character in Leah on the Offbeat, comes out as #bisexual. 

I’m a long-time adult & my 15yo next-door neighbor & I enjoy reading & discussing her books. 

https://www.advocate.com/people/2020/8/31/simon-author-becky-albertalli-comes-out-bi-essay-critics

 Welcome, Becky!

Trump won Michigan by .3 percent, Wisconsin by 1 percent. Pennsylvania by 1.2 percent. Florida by 1.2 percent. North Carolina by 3.8 percent. And Arizona by 3.9 percent. That's a total of a paltry 491,719 votes. Just four hundred and ninety two thousand votes. And those are only the states that were razor thin in margin.

Yet over 100 million eligible voters didn't vote at all, and 5 million voters voted third party. That's 105 MILLION people who could have made the difference. 492k goes into 105 million 23 times. 492k goes into 5 million, the number of those who voted third party, 10 times. Ten god damn times. That's how many fucking people that is.

If just some of those states had gone to Clinton, she would have won. But they didn't, and it's because millions of people decided voting at all was too much trouble, or they decided that wasting their vote in a protest of ideology was more important than actual human lives.

Here’s the map of the results for New York state in the 2016 presidential election:

Now I know you’re thinking - holy shit balls that’s a lot of red! 

And you’re fucking goddamn right it is! Trump had 36% of the vote in New York in 2016. For reference, although that’s about the percentage that usually goes to the republican candidate, here are the maps for 2008 and 2012 respectively:

Before I get into the main part of this post, wanna know WHY all those areas that were blue in 2008 and 2012 were suddenly red in 2016? In 2008 and 2012, Independents got less than 2% of the total votes. In 2016? Almost 6%. Not a big difference in the grand scheme, but this is a really great example of how even a small number can make a huge difference.

Now, see that teeny, tiny, area of dark blue down at the bottom? That’s New York City. New York City is literally the only reason New York State always goes blue. This ONE FUCKING CITY is the reason people are so sure that New York - which holds 29 electoral votes - will never, ever, go to a republican. And under normal circumstances, while that doesn’t make me comfortable, it does hold a certain amount of weight. It’s also why in the 2016 election I voted in my home county of Schoharie - one of those nice bright red areas up north.

Except here’s the thing about 2020. New York City is fucking empty. 

24,000 people died of coronavirus in New York City alone this summer. 

An additional estimated 500,000 - no you are not reading that number wrong - have either moved out or been evicted. I work as a dog walker, and a full 60% of my client base has left the city and told me they are not planning to come back. They’ve left for places like Connecticut(7 electoral votes), or Massachusetts(11), or Vermont(3) or Florida or Texas or - you get my point. Now that they have been unemployed for six+ months, and the eviction freeze has been lifted, a shit ton of people are being forced to leave, and people with kids are also abandoning the city for somewhere less populated. 

And even further? No one I know has received their requested mail-in ballots yet. No one. Not a single person. The virus is still active(and yeah, we’re down to <1% infection rate, but schools are about to open back up so :) ) Voting takes place in schools. it is likely many people will not be able to risk voting in person - especially if we see an uptick in cases as kids return. Which means if their mail in ballots don’t arrive in time, they may not be able to vote at all. 

Hilary had around 4.5 million votes from New York - 2 million of those came from NYC and the surrounding boroughs. She won the popular vote in this state by 1.8 million votes.

Now, yes, a small number of the people who have left NYC are also Trump Voters. Something like 15% of NYC’s vote went to Trump. But a much higher percentage are democratic - and committedly democratic - votes. Healthcare workers suffered disproportionately from CV deaths. Startups, Small business owners, College and recent college grads, Theatre workers? They’re all gone.

New York State can, honestly, no longer be counted on to go blue no matter who abstains from voting or who votes third party because of the toll the virus has taken on the city. We really do need every single person who is able to vote, to do so. Not because it’s fun, or it makes you happy. Not because you believe 100% in the american democratic system. Because the people you - yes - you, the abstainers - have counted on to uphold your few, dwindling democratic freedoms, can no longer be counted on to do so alone.

Gerrymandering sucks. The electoral college needs to be abolished. But it is specifically because those things are still in place that you need to vote if you are able. We absolutely should be fighting the system. But we cannot abandon it to let it fall to ruin and leave the people affected by that fallout to die because of it while we gather our strength. And yes. People will die. If this summer has taught us anything, let it be that elections fucking matter and in the coming years, our leadership absolutely has the ability to determine how many of us survive.

TL;DR: If you have the ability to vote please fucking use it. This is not a normal election year, and the safeguards that have been in place are no longer to be relied upon.

I think the group felt quite comfortable with the fact that Vanya doesn't remember anything.

True, they tell her about Reginald before they go to see him, and Luther told her she was the responsible one for the apocalypse, but they never tell her anything about how they treated her when they were all kids.

It's easy to say that Reginald was an asshole and a really bad "father" to them, it's easy to say that Vanya was the one who caused the apocalypse, but all of this wouldn't have happened if the sibilings would have treated her with respect from the start. She could have lived a perfectly good life without knowing she had powers and still feel OK about it if she wasn't deemed to be such an outcast not only by Reginald, but also by her sibilings.

I just think they should have told her more. Her amnesia is not something that should be just brushed off so they could focus on saving the world, because just as Five said, Vanya will always be the cause to the apocalypse.