#belgium/hungary

[murphyslawyer]

Good morning everyone! Friends in *takes a deep breath* Austria 🇦🇹, Belgium 🇧🇪, Bulgaria 🇧🇬, Croatia 🇭🇷, Cyprus 🇨🇾, Denmark 🇩🇰, Estonia 🇪🇪, Finland 🇫🇮, France 🇫🇷 , Germany 🇩🇪, Greece 🇬🇷, Hungary 🇭🇺, Lithuania 🇱🇹, Luxembourg 🇱🇺, Portugal 🇵🇹, Poland 🇵🇱, Romania 🇷🇴, Slovenia 🇸🇮, Spain 🇪🇸 and Sweden 🇸🇪: kind reminder that today is your day to go out and vote! 🇪🇺

People in Italy 🇮🇹, if you did not go out and vote yesterday you can also do it today.

Edit: no more reblogs because voting is closed everywhere. Even though the outcome is disappointing please never stop fighting in any way you can, fellow progressives. Fuck the far-right.

[theinconvenientlifestyle]

[umseb]

The Day Sebastian Vettel Decided To Retire From F1 — Then Annoyed Aston Bosses With Climate Campaign

Two years ago, Sebastian Vettel decided to bring an end to his glittering F1 career, so picked up the phone to Matt Bishop, then Aston Martin comms boss. He details the ensuing scramble and Vettel's increasing determination to speak out

Just over two years ago, on Wednesday July 27, 2022, I was forced to do something that I really hate doing: at the eleventh hour I had to cancel a long-standing dinner arrangement with my husband and two of our dearest friends, who live in New York and were on holiday in London for a week. The reason was that, at 5 pm that afternoon, I received a phone call from Sebastian Vettel telling me that he had decided to announce his retirement from Formula 1 in the Hungarian Grand Prix paddock the following day. I was Aston Martin's chief communications officer at the time, and, when something as big as that is sprung on a Formula 1 team's most senior comms/PR operative, he or she has to drop everything and focus on briefing colleagues in confidence, writing press releases, planning social media content, arranging press conferences, and formulating comms/PR strategies designed to optimise the management of a tricky news narrative that in this case would surely unfold rapidly, and perhaps also trickily, over the next 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours. I have written above that Vettel had "sprung" his decision on me, but, although the imminence of his announcement was a surprise, its content was not. Four months earlier you will recall that he did not travel to Jeddah for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, since he was recovering from a bout of Covid-19. His place was taken by Nico Hülkenberg, who, despite race-rustiness caused by his not having competed in F1 the previous year, did a typically excellent job.

Seb had made no secret of his disapproval of the Saudi regime when we had all gone there the first time, in December 2021, and, not surprisingly, in March 2022 rumours soon began to spread to the effect that he had invented a Covid-19 diagnosis so as to avoid racing there a second time. The truth was that he had indeed had Covid-19, and that he was indeed still unwell; however, was he disappointed to have had to skip the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix? No, he was not. Two weeks later, in Melbourne, he was back. On the Thursday before the Australian Grand Prix, in the Albert Park paddock, I gave him his comms/PR briefing, as was my habit on the Thursday before every grand prix. We discussed media matters of moment, including his not having raced in Jeddah. "The truth is that I was ill, honestly," he said, "but I admit that I don't like or approve of the country, so if I was going to have to miss a race because of Covid-19 that's probably the one I'd want to miss." He paused, smiled, and added, "I'm pretty sure I'm never going to race there again." Then and there I realised that 2022 would probably be his final season as an F1 driver. Not only was the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix going to be a fixture on the F1 calendar for years to come, but also one of Aston Martin's principal sponsors was Aramco, Saudi Arabia's state-owned national oil company. Missing that particular race without a 24-carat excuse would henceforth therefore be impossible for any Aston Martin driver. So, axiomatically, it followed that the only way he could make sure that he would never have to race there again would be to retire from F1 at the end of the year.

On the morning of Thursday, July 28, 2022, having worked until 3 am the night before, my comms/PR team and I issued a video in which our much loved four-time world champion announced his F1 retirement in his own words, and he posted it on his then brand-new Instagram channel at the same time. It included the following sentences, which he spoke with his usual eloquence: "I love this sport but, as much as there's life on track, there's also life off track. Being a racing driver has never been my sole identity. I want to be a great father and a great husband. I believe in change, and progress, and that every little bit you do can make a difference. We all have the same rights, no matter where we come from, what we look like, or whom we love. I'm an optimist and I believe that people are good, but, in addition, I feel that we live in very difficult times. How we shape the next few years will determine the rest of our lives. Talk is not enough. We can't afford to wait. I believe that there's still a race to win." The race to which he was referring was his growing and accelerating commitment to doing whatever he could to leverage his fame and popularity for the good of the inhabitants of planet Earth. That may sound grandiose, but it is also entirely valid. In the two years during which I worked with him, 2021 and 2022, we won awards for the inspirational way in which he did just that.

Just before the 2021 Styrian Grand Prix, helped by local schoolchildren, he created an F1 car-shaped 'bee hotel' at the Red Bull Ring. Three weeks later, straight after the British Grand Prix, in which he had raced hard for forty laps until his Aston Martin's Mercedes engine had terminally overheated, he led a group of volunteer litter-pickers to clear the Silverstone grandstands of the trash that irresponsible spectators had left behind. A month after that, in Hungary, infuriated by that country's new anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, he wore rainbow-coloured sneakers in the F1 paddock, and he donned a similarly hued T-shirt bearing the legend #SameLove as he took the knee on the grid before the race. Throughout the weekend he had talked to journalists and TV crews intelligently, thoughtfully, and compassionately on the subject of LGBTQ+ rights, equality, and inclusion. In May 2022 he visited and spoke inspirationally at HMP (Her, or now His, Majesty's Prison) Feltham, a young offenders institution in a suburb of west London, formally opening a new workshop in which the teenage inmates could learn how to become car mechanics as part of their rehabilitation. Immediately afterwards he and I took a South Western Railways train to London's Waterloo Station, sitting among regular commuters, so that he could spend time with the pupils of Oasis Johanna Primary School, which is in a disadvantaged part of inner London, and after that we went by Uber taxi to a church in Hackney, in the East End, where the BBC's prestigious political television talk show Question Time would be filmed. As the TV cameras rolled, he conversed fluently on the subjects of Brexit, the UK's cost of living crisis, the then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson's 'partygate' shenanigans, and even Finland's desire to join NATO, consummately out-arguing one of his fellow panellists, Suella Braverman, who was then the Attorney General for England and Wales and the Advocate General for Northern Ireland.

In addition, as the months went by, he continued to speak out in support of what he saw as humankind's collective global responsibility to address the climate crisis, doing so with increasing regularity, vehemence, and fearlessness, with the result that he began to irritate the very most senior people at Aston Martin, even though what he said tended to please most journalists and fans. "I don’t care," he said when he learned of his big bosses' disquiet. "I must do what's right." Behind the scenes what he did was perhaps even more admirable. F1 teams receive communications from troubled people all the time. You try to do what you can to help them, but sometimes their difficulties are of the type that human kindness alone cannot resolve. I am thinking of recently bereaved people, terminally ill people, profoundly disabled people, people with debilitating mental health issues, etc. Sometimes all you can do is send them a team cap signed by a driver. It is not much, and it breaks your heart that you cannot do more, but it is better than nothing.

Yet Vettel always tried to do more. On one occasion, I had been contacted by a young man who was deeply depressed. I told Seb about him, and he said, "Let's do a Zoom call with him." So I arranged it. I had thought that Seb might speak for five minutes or so, but no. He chatted animatedly for more than twenty minutes, with touching humility and heart-warming empathy, and I feel confident when I say that those twenty-odd minutes were significant in expediting the lad's mental and emotional recovery. A few months later, Seb hand-wrote the boy a four page letter. He gave it to me at a grand prix-I cannot remember which one-and he instructed me to post it on when I returned to the UK. I read it before I did so, and the tenderness and beauty of Seb's prose brought me to tears. There are many other examples of his remarkable generosity and sensitivity: too many to mention, in fact. This column has been about Vettel the man, not Vettel the driver. He was fast and clever in the cockpit, and I may well write about that side of him one day. I could write much more about Vettel the man, too, for I have dozens of stories that I could tell on that subject, because I worked very closely with him for two years and, more importantly, because he is a truly great man. In my long career I am lucky enough to have spent time in F1 teams with four world champions-Seb, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, and Jenson Button-and they are all fantastic guys in their own, very different, ways. But, in my 61 years on this planet, I can state with confident and emphatic certainty that Sebastian Vettel, from the small town of Heppenheim, south-west Germany, is one of the most impressive people whom I have ever had the pleasure and honour to know, whether that be inside or outside F1. As he is fond of saying, "You can't always be the best, but you can always do your best." As a maxim to live by, it is hard to beat.

article by matt bishop

[romatito]

finally sat down and cranked this shit Out on my day off lmfao CAST LIST GO!!

new additions: francis as hermes, and feliks and natalya joining emma as the two other fates! plus the. chorus of olya, elise, alfred, matthew, and arthur.

i didnt draw the orchestra but we have: roderich on piano, tolys on trombone, heracles on guitar, vash on bass, joão (portugal) on cello, henri (luxembourg) on violin, and abel on percussion! ludwig isnt playing anyone, he's in charge of backstage and making sure everyone is ready for their cues 👍👍

[cawe-sama]

And right before 0:00 on July 1st...

Satone's yearly pride drawing!

I made it to look like candy on purpose

[ummick]

"Uniting the family in style. 🤩" - july 25, 2024 📷 @.mercedesamgmotorsport / instagram

[hetalianhistoriart]

I keep forgetting to post this on its own! My apologies. Have the chibi commission example I've made as well! I'm quite proud of the flowers on this one. Also an alternative version under the cut with a different type of shading.

[withnofreetime]

HETALIA ☆ WORLD STARS (521)

Is there a problem/error? Please say so! And thank you for your support!

Spanish version ↓ and T/N.

T/N:

P.1.

"Cazzo", "f*ck!"

"Bastardo", "Bastard"

About Cost. (GDP; millions, aprox.)

Austria -> € 447 - $ 526 182

Netherlands -> € 941* - $ 1,092,748

Hungary -> € 188,443* - $ 203 829

Romania -> € 278,005* - $ 300,691

Bulgaria --> € 83,529 - $ 90,346

*not official, conversion ($ -> €)

P.2.

"Schengen Agreement" Overview, a kind of timeline.

"Conflict Bulgaria & Romania and Austria". Due to the increase in illegal inmigration and corruption in both countries, Austria had refused Bulgaria's entry many times.

"Schengen Area" because it was signed in Schengen, Luxembourg.

Another timeline! (2023)

Extract from Wikipedia: "On 8 December 2022 the Justice and Home Affairs Council voted to admit Croatia to the Schengen Area, but rejected Bulgaria and Romania. Austria and the Netherlands voted against the inclusion of Bulgaria and Romania, with Austria claiming that there had been a rapid increase in the number of migrants using the West Balkan route to enter the EU illegally. 20 On 30 December 2023 the EU agreed to include Bulgaria and Romania in the Schengen Area, with Austria no longer vetoing the enlargement of the area. Air and sea ports no longer conduct border checks from 31 March 2024, while the end of land border checks require further discussions."

"About Hungary & Bulgaria". If the information is correct, there was a "threat" from the Hungarian government to vote against Bulgaria's entry into the agreement if they didn't solve the Russian gas problem, yeah, taxes.

But they did it! Press realese, European Comission.

"Romanian Industry". Talks more about Poland and Romania's future struggles in the industry.

"Bulgaria, and 'rich kid' allegations" Probably talking about the Golden Age of Bulgaria, first Empire in the mid 19-century. Or the Second Golden Age. The Bizantine Empire and the Italian Kingdom had economic relationships with the first Bulgarian Empire.

P.3.

"Netherlands & Bulgaria". The Netherlands government was against Bulgaria and Romania's entry. And then not.

P.4.

"yправител" in Bulgarian. It might mean "general", "manager" or "administrator".

SPANISH VERSION

Italia habla de Bulgaria y Romania como si tuviera 80 años. Me saqué un 85% en mi examen de C2 de Español... no es una parodia por COMPLETO, pero tampoco lo tomen en serio.

¿Hay un problema y/o error? Por favor de comunicar, ¡y gracias por su apoyo!

[ladybrainrot]

Sketching up some female rage for my soul

Hws girls are braver than anyone. I cannot imagine what they have gone through

[hwsfemmephenomenon]

Contributor applications are now OPEN!

Applications will remain open through July. If you have any questions, drop them in our ask box!

Applications: here

Carrd: here

Infodoc: here

Acceptances will go out in early August!

[sunnylolli]

Liz won the poll and I couldn't have been any happier - I've been wanting to draw her for literally so long, I just had no reason to :,)

I like to think she's such a huge fan of colors and wears them always and forever now that they're so readily available to her

Also what she has on her phone:

I did make them a group chat and I did also make memes that they have "made" and sent to each other

[moody-skyz]

Hetalia Siblings Week Interest Check

I was thinking of making a week to celebrate all the sibling relations in Hetalia!

You wouldn't be just limited to Canon sibling relations too:

Canon: It's confirmed in canon that they are siblings (Veneziano and Romano; America and Canada; Germany and Prussia, etc)

Historical/Cultural: Interpreting cultural or historical relations as a sibling dynamic (Slovakia, Czechia, and Poland being siblings due to their shared Western Slavic origin; Estonia, Finland, and Hungary being siblings due to their shared Uralic origin; The Germanics; etc)

Fanon: You've seen characters interact with each other and interpret their relationship as sibling like (Such as France claiming to be the big brother of Europe, The Baltics; Germany and Austria, England and America/Canada, etc)

Purely Aesthetics: You've never seen these characters interact in canon but you think it would be cool to see them with a sibling type bond (found family if you will)

*Of course, there is overlap among these four categories

If enough people are interested, I'll create a separate blog, poll for the prompts, and select a week. Please reblog for a wider outreach <3

Thank you so much for reading all this!

[igasom]

Some whiteboard doodles 💜

[umseb]

"Michael Schumacher - Sebastian Vettel Mick Schumacher - Sebastian Vettel Love to see this" - january 26, 2024 📷 @.jerryandrephotography / instagram

[romatito]

i would like it 👉👈 if they kissed ....

[mada-jpeg]

hetalia hs au : senior class