Polin merë?

Hi again, Code Geass fandom!

The Valentine’s Day fanwork exchange will be back this Valentine’s (2017). As before, the exchange will follow a pattern familiar from Secret Santa events; you fill out a form, we assign you a person to draw/write/make a fanwork gift for and someone to make yours.

You can already find the sign-up form here. We’re still trying to get a feel for how busy people are this year, but the tentative deadline for sign-ups is January 1, and February 14 for submissions.

So this is important: if you are thinking of participating, would these dates work for you? We opened the form already to avoid the last-minute rush of last year, but we’re still in the polling stage.

I’m usually terribly bad at drawing characters from books, but I tried my best for my pal who got me into Inda. Inda turned out to be a really great series! I’m in the middle of book 3 atm.

The presidency is set up in such a way that, during a crisis, the president is able to launch nuclear weapons without argument. Military officers directly under his command are sworn to do as he asks in these scenarios, and cannot decline. That would be a criminal offense. Treason.

The likelihood that Donald Trump will start a nuclear war if elected is fucking staggering and we AS A SPECIES cannot afford to let it happen. The Cold War only ended 25 years ago, we can’t go back to living in that state of fear. We can’t elect a literal, actual fascist who wants to do away with the Geneva Conventions, would forcibly seize land in the Middle East, has quoted Benito Mussolini along with his #MakeAmericaGreatAgain hashtag, has proposed numerous policies that go against the United States Constitution and threaten rule of law (and here’s a list), consistently encourages his supporters to commit violence (and EACH WORD of that is a separate link, and it’s not even the bulk of stories on the matter), and wants the world to prepare for nuclear war. I could list PLENTY MORE of these, but it’s making me feel physically ill to keep looking over these.

Let me explain why they say a vote for a 3rd candidate or not voting for Hillary is voting for Trump:

The United States does not have a direct democratic voting system. We have an indirect system called the electoral college.The electoral college is  a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

To win the Presidency you do not need a popular majority; you need the majority of votes of the electoral college. 

The way the college works is that the two parties select the delegates that will serve as electors, and the electors pledge to vote for the candidates, depending on their party affiliation, of either the democratic or republican party. So, when people go vote, they are actually going to vote for electors that have pledged to vote for a specific party/candidate. 

Each state is allocated a different number of electoral seats, and so not every state is truly worth the same given that every candidate is racing to secure 270 seats (minimum required to win the election). 

What’s important to note is that the electoral college is a winner take all vote in 48 of the 50 states, meaning that the candidate with the higher number of votes in a given state will get ALL of the seats. This is one of the reasons why third party candidates are a wasted vote. 

Based on our country’s history, most States around the country have already been defined as either red or blue, because the majority of the people that go and vote in said states tend to stick to either one or the other no matter who is on the ballot. It becomes a bit of loyalism to a party or, more accurately, just a strong distaste towards the ideals of the other party. However, there are a few swing states that really define the elections, for each election cycle they tend to change depending on who is on the ballot. 

Now, third party candidates, which is often used as a protest vote, have never worked because a) they are not written into every state ballot, meaning that there are states that don’t offer these candidates given that they did not qualify b) have rarely gotten enough votes to even be up for electoral seats c) ALWAYS end up hurting one of the two candidates, for, in close runs, they can make one of the other two candidates lose a SWING STATE.

This is what happened with Ralph Nader in 2000. The votes that he received hurt Gore in certain states, particularly florida, which led to Bush winning as he had the majority of electoral seats even though he did not have the majority in popular vote. 

Now, in the latest poll, it shows that the race between Hillary and trump is very close, and, when third party candidates are involved, it actually HURTS Hillary’s chances. 

Now, if it hurts her enough, Trump can obtain the much needed swing states. If he gets over 270 seats (and thus more than hillary) he WILL win the goddamn election. 

This is not a year to vote for a third party candidate. This is not a man you want in the oval office of the most powerful country in the world. 

There is nothing NOTHING you can pull out that will make Trump the lesser of two evils. 

A lot of people have no clue why Europe is currently in a state of uproar and the only word people seem to be saying is “Brexit” so here’s a not-so-quick and easy-breezy explanation on the past 24 hours of CHAOS that has ensued:

The European Union (EU): an organisation of European countries that follows similar laws, allows for freedom of movement/labour, easy travelling (@people who planned on doing Eurotrips, not sure if you can count the UK in that anymore!) and trade with each other. The EU is important because before it was formed, the European continent was ravaged by 2 world wars, and a division because of the Cold War. This organisation has provided all the stability we’ve seen in the past 40-odd years.

So what the heck is a “Brexit”? Basically, the UK has just voted to leave the EU. Now this doesn’t seem like a TERRIBLE thing, but there are some serious political and economic consequences.

Economic implications:

- The British pound crashed from 1.5 to 1.3 in 6 hours, the lowest value in 30 years, which in turn affected the US dollar which affects all other global currencies. I wish I was joking but I’m not: South Africa, Poland, Norway, Mexico. Hungary, Australia, Switzerland all saw their currencies plummet. Countries that don’t rely on exports as their means of production cannot have a devalued currency. IT’s not good. The Japanese Yen which has been strengthening reached an all-time high which is terrible because Japan is trying to reverse its deflationary state. The Bank of Japan is now out of options and Japan literally STOPPED TRADING IN BRITISH STOCKS/INVESTMENTS.

- A devalued GBP means that the Bank of England is going to have to hike interest rates to prevent inflation (domestic prices going up even further) whicH WILL CAUSE A RECESSION. SOUND FAMILIAR ANYONE? YEAH. FINANCIAL CRISES.

- The UK leaving the EU means its market has gone down a LOT in size making them a less attractive destination for trade partners/investors. They’re going to have to draw up new trade agreements with basically the whole world since all their trade was previously tied to the EU. This will be tricky because countries liked having a market with a population of ~500 million compared to the UK’s size of ~50 million.

- GDP will go down. Retirement income will go down. The British economy is in a state of panic. The global economy is basically, fucked. For now at least.

The thing is, given the precarious nature of the economy right now with markets out of control and stagnant growth practically everywhere, it was a really really bad time to have this referendum - a lot of countries have been banking on a “Bremain” before making their next move when it comes to monetary/fiscal policy. The IMF has predicted that 2016/2017 will see the worst years for growth, but we might see upward growth trends from 2018 onwards.

So how does it still get worse?

- Scotland showed an overwhelming majority of votes to remain in the EU. It’s likely that they’re going to call for a referendum (again) to leave the UK so that they can join the EU as an independent country.

- Northern Ireland also wanted to stay in the EU. It’s likely they’re going to join the Republic and join the EU.

- Not sure about Wales. They could go “haha fuck it mate” and potentially leave the UK too.

- David Cameron has just announced that he will be resigning in 3 months which means that extreme conservatives who managed to sway the vote in favour of Leave could come to power. That’s right. We’ll be stuck to suffer with the likes of Farage and Johnson. 

- Brexit triggered a lot of nationalist/extreme right-wing movements in the rest of Europe. Some leaders already calling for “Frexit” (France), “Itexit” (Italy) and..”Dexit” (Netherlands)? We may see more in the next few days.. A disintegration of Europe is risky business because Europe has not been able to remain stable until the EU was formed. This could give way for an aggressive Russia too, who would want to take advantage of weak/vulnerable European states. An aggressive Russia will trigger US skepticism and we all know how that goes. 

SO HOW DID THE GOVERNMENT LET THIS HAPPEN?

Basically David Cameron came up with the idea for the referendum because he was desperate to gain support from anti-EU parties like UKIP during the general elections last year. Except now he’s resigning. So. 

During the campaign, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson (conservatives) and Nigel Farage (UKIP) stressed on immigration laws if the UK leaves the EU because immigration/refugees have been a big problem for the UK as its reducing jobs being given to UK locals/residents and they think the UK is becoming “overcrowded” so the Leave campaign was like WE WILL TIGHTEN OUR BORDERS! YEAH! Except now they’ve displaced millions of UK citizens living/working in the rest of the EU. Let’s see how they figure that one out.

Additionally, they talked about the economic benefits because if the UK were to leave, they would be able to allot the money that goes to the EU to other things like the NHS (national healthcare) etc. The Leave campaign went on about how the UK spends 350 million pounds a week on the EU but actually it spends less than half of that, so really, their campaign was built on scaremongering and lies. 

Article 50, aka the means of exiting will be triggered in 3 months when the new Prime Minister is announced (most likely one of the extreme conservatives/Farage who are riding high on their “Independence Day” fuckery which is even more proof of xenophobic, colonialist bullshit) after which the UK will have 2 years to complete its official withdrawal so hopefully that will provide short-term stability.

But the world is in a dark place right now and everything is terrible. 

clampspiracy, part #460

This is so gross and awful. Let me count the ways. 

Conflating a lesbian identity with “loving pussy”

The weird internalized biphobia

Reassuring a cishet partner that it’s totally okay to use hate speech towards wlw at Pride

Street harassing and objectifying lesbians on the street with her male partner, reducing them to sex objects they can fantasize about

“my love of pussy is just another thing we share” 

Erika Moen is awful, but also this doesn’t exist in isolation either. Whether you’re a wlw or not, fetishizing and objectifying wlw is wrong. Encouraging male partners to fetishize, objectify, and use violent slurs towards wlw is extremely wrong. If you do this, stop it. 

Session with Nardia of The Washington Ballet.

star-anise

I love the new tumblr use of the word “salty” because it’s like. I don’t trust people who self-identify as assholes, I want to be fundamentally kind and compassionate

But I can admit that along the way, I’ve kind of picked up this COATING

avocadamnit

a coating oh my god

i’m just imagining you describing yourself as, like, breaded

star-anise

Things by the seashore that have acquired a FROST of salt from the spray

avocadamnit

hello nice to meet you i am Slightly Mineralised

star-anise