#ketsweird

You are not the only one, if it helps

ketsweird  replied to your post “ ((im supposed to be study…”

And welcome back!

in an odd way, it does help! the guilty feeling is replaced by sheepish acceptance...

and thank you! im trying to be active, but i think i’d be gone again soon, since i have midterms coming up

Congrats guys!

I expect great things from you next year, Sweden. 

Like 2013,

I know Scandinavian countries are not the only ones voting for each other. I did not mean it as an accusation, but just as a joke.

Though since you mentioned it, and since the subject is very interesting indeed, here’s how Dr Derek Gatherer (a geneticist who studied ESC voting patterns for the last 14 years) organised the participating countries into voting blocs which regularly award each other high points in his 2006 academic study, Comparison of Eurovision Song Contest Simulation with Actual Results Reveals Shifting Patterns of Collusive Voting Alliances.

He also gave the blocs interesting names:

“The Balkan Block” (green). Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Greece, Cyprus, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey, Bosnia Herzegovina, Albania and Romania)

“The Warsaw Pact” (red). Poland, Russia and the Ukraine.

“The Viking Empire” (blue). Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania

“The Partial Benelux" (orange).  (Belgium and the Netherlands)

“The Pyrenean Axis” (yellow). Spain and Andorra.

[Countries award points to their neighbours regularly even if they aren’t part of the same bloc. There are also always votes based on the diaspora (Romania, for example, often gets high votes from Italy and Spain and vice versa).]

It is a matter of debate whether bloc voting is a product of conscious political alliances or whether it can be explained by the tendency for culturally close countries to have similar musical tastes. It’s probably a bit of both.

Gatherer found that there were originally just a few voting blocs. For example, he noted Greece-Cyprus voting partnership, which probably originated as an expression of political solidarity and was later copied by voters in other countries as a means of obtaining votes in return. Since 2000, though, Eurovision voting blocs have become bigger and more divisive.

Gatherer said Eurovision bloc voting is “a horizontally spreading cultural behaviour that has progressively colonised the contest”.

But regardless of all of this, the Eurovision Song Contest was created in the 1950s as a “light entertainment programme”, with the aim of bringing the countries of Europe together after WWII.

I personally think we should try to live up to that spirit and just not care so much. I mean, we must *pretend* to care, but not *really* care.

Whoever wins, it’s fine.

The Nature of the Game by leafygirl. —kidcrooner :)

Ty my fic guru! senjju replied to your post: anonymous asked:Im looking for a ...

i second the nature of the game, but i didn’t read far enough to know if kakashi is declared missing

kelzen replied to your post:anonymous asked:Im looking for a ...

Pretty sure it’s Nature of the Game! Such a good fic

ketsweird replied to your post:anonymous asked:Im looking for a ...

uhhh I know this one….. Google sys it’s fanfiction.net/s/19468… Google is always right

Love it! Great potential to write more to it (about their lives before) but still perfect as it is