#i dont know where the fuck my ballot is

[elytrafemme]

ok obviously i understand why this isnt the rhetoric because people want people to turn out to elections so nobody is going to say this but can we all just agree to cut the shit and acknowledge that voting especially by mail in ballot is insanely difficult. the amount of issues i have had trying to register to vote and now trying to find my fucking ballot is genuinely ridiculous. and nobody tells you what time you have to send anything by so i am trying to find a ballot that i might not even be able to eligibly send by the time of the election because nobody on earth has ever considered that i wasn't just innately born with the knowledge of when to send this by and if you don't explicitly tell me when you want my ballot how am i supposed to know when to send my ballot. i don't know why everyone i know is like number one voter having the easiest time with this maybe i'm just stupid? but this is like. so unfathomably bad. to me. is it really that hard to make the instructions clear and in one place.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Question about Frank! What is his fighting style? I know you mentioned he does hand on hand, but does he do any specific form of martial arts?? Or is it just kind of the basic, punching, kicking, ect. Also, does he have some form of magic, or is he basically like Howdy? (I'm just imagining they all play like.. actual table top DnD and Frank is getting irritated because his rolls are garbage-)

i'm not nearly well versed enough in martial arts to name styles or blend them - though i feel a "i need to know everything i can about this" fixation creeping up... so i might be able to provide a better answer later!

but for now lets just say he's adapted his own stylized form, blended from his childhood training, what he learns on the streets, and what he picks up on his travels / figures out himself. i imagine it would be an efficient, ruthless, and elegant personal style of combat

Frank has no magic! if he rolled for it he'd somehow get a 0! he and Howdy are the only magicless maidens of the group

[ghostlystrangers]

my mom is actually getting mad at me for wanting to vote for kamala instead of third party (shes a republican but she doesnt like trump) like what the fuck i fucking hate her views on this

[txttletale]

youve previously spoken about i was a teenage exocolonist and its confused politics, and i agree, and now im thinking, how would one revise the story so as to improve them?

i think the game would have to either not be so proudly About Colonialism or would have to revise its story so that the theming actually matches the events. like imaginining that my proposed rewrite aims to 1. make the game's politics coherent while 2. changing as little as possible and 3. keeping the game's intended themes, i think the things that are most dissonant and jarring are:

the game not understanding what colonialism is but wanting to very much assure you that It's Bad

the game not understanding what fascism is but wanting to very much assure you that It's Bad

the game not understanding what capitalism is &c. &c. &c.

the bizarre unexamined eugenicist elements

so let's start on the first thing. you would want to lean much more heavily on the colonists as 'refugees' rather than 'colonists' -- the game treats 'colonizing' a place the exact same way as 'living there', and that kind of sucks (a common problem when using 'Space Colonization' as a 1-1 metaphor for actual colonization). so while we want to keep the weird culty aspects of the colony's society we'll ditch most of the colonial intentionality until the Helios arrives. secondly, we need to have the planet's indigenous people, like, actually present and not secretly hiding away as supercomputers.

so, like, let's keep the Gardeners as artificial life forms dedicated to protecting the ecosystem, but let's make them biotech. let's make them giant, imposing trees that reach up into the sky, with root networks that span the whole planet. then, rather than the colony being colonialist because it straight up doesnt know indigenous people exist (because they're secret computer people), we can make a much more interesting conflict by having the colonists be ignorant (and, as the game progresses, willingly ignorant) of the gardeners' sentience. have the raids start after the colony fells one of the trees (killing a Gardener) to make room for their own expansion, maybe really lean into the nasty parts of the colonial metaphor by having the Gardener's wood be the construction material of the new wing of the colony.

then Lum arrives as part of an intentional colonization project from the Earth we fled, assumes military command as in the current story, and immediately ramps up existing exploitation and destructive enviromental practices. his administration deliberately suppresses information of the Gardeners' sentience and spreads propaganda about them being 'monster trees'. have Lum clearly backed by Earthbound corporate interests, seeing the colony as an excercise in extracting value and using fascist dictatorship (usurping elections and the council with a permanent state of emergency and martial law) as a tool to maximize that value.

instead of defeating Lum at the ballot box, you can remove him in a coup. you can keep the getting-the-councilors-on-side minigame, you can even make it a bloodless coup if you don't want to put revolutionary violence in the game (but considering how much other violence there is in there, including terrorism, genocide, and murder, seems like a strange omission tbqh). and dont make him your fucking tiktoker put the guy in Jail. hes killed people sol.

have Sym still have his humanboo interests but also hint at an internal power struggle within the Gardeners, make it clear that there is a real and thriving culture among these indigenous gigantic environmentally networked tree-ecosystem-people, make his motivations for seeking peace more multifaceted.

then make the peaceful resolution to the whole colonialism issue to integrate the settlers into Gardener society rather than the weird siloed reservation thing going on in the base game. the head of the settlement or an ambassador (probably Dys) gets to go to the big fancy Gardener meetings where they decide things, the settlement gets permission from the Gardeners to farm and expand sustainably and is integrated into the ecosystem rather than neatly separated from it. the excolonists stop being colonists and become citizens of the planet.

as for the capitalism stuff, you can just drop that from marz' character, honestly. or if you want to make it make more sense without having to get into What Capitalism Is (which i think would be outside the mission statement of these proposals), make her thing wanting opulence and excess (it already kind of us, the game just keeps saying 'Capitalism'), have her excited when Lum starts giving people the opportunity to have that, then have her moment of excitement turn sour when she looks into Earth history and realizes how destructive this kind of extraction is in the long term.

and the eugenics--i think the simplest case here while still keeping all the cool genetic mutant character tics is just to make the genetic mutations a random glitch in an artificial womb system the refugees were using to have kids in space. this lets you keep the weird and wacky stuff going on with tangent and dys without raising questions like 'hey isnt this society insanely fucking dystopian'.

that's my in-a-nutshell rewrite of the game. obvsies an actual rewrite would need to change some more in-depth things, but i think off the top of my head these are the changes to the narrative that would make the heavyhanded attempts at political commentary work for me (that said, you could also go the opposite route, stop trying to draw parallels to colonialism and fascism and keep all the weird shit as is. but i think that's less interesting and more like stuff that already exists)

[mueritos]

been sitting with a half filled mail in ballot in my room for a week now mulling over who tf to vote for. ive got people online claiming that theyre fine with genocide overseas as long as kamala can maintain trans rights, and we're two weeks from the election and she's saying she won't even fight to restore trans bans in any state because we should "follow" the law?? i dont want any fucking person to tell me that voting for this woman will help me or my communities in anyway. if she loses, this isn't the fault of non-voters, this is the fault of a so-called "progressive" party making their case as morally "better" than republicans on the basis that they haven't built their own wall YET, or that at the very least they aren't immediately wiping out an entire ethnic population....you're all fucking freaks. I don't want MY RIGHTS at the cost of palestinian life??? this makes me want to vote third party even more cause there's no way I can sleep at night knowing I voted for someone who gives absolutely no shit about what the majority of the US population agrees on (weapons embargo, gender-affirming care, healthcare expansion, student loan forgiveness, increase in wages). i would rather spend my time ruminating over my ballot with people who make me feel safe and seen and who are working on building tools and supports within our greater community. i have a privilege to be so over this, but myself and other marginalized people deserve to voice our criticisms and concerns without being shamed into making a decision. shaming people to fall in line on an election where they don't feel protected regardless of the outcome will force people to become more disillusioned...and i dont fucking blame them for being more disillusioned either.

[via707]

everything that man stands for is hateful, vile, and ignorant.

he's demented, racist, homophobic, transphobic, felon, rapist, white supremacist, just name a few.

every single person i know voted for kamala.

my childhood best friend and her whole family who lives in canada got absentee ballots to vote in arizona for kamala

record women voter turnout

record young/new voter turn out

trump losing his supporters in droves

how did he still win?

he cant even form coherent sentences, he has "concepts of a plan" and he won????????

its not just the fact that everyone i know and love just woke up with no rights, but the fact that hateful ignorant uneducated rhetoric is what makes our decisions and laws. that men who dont know where the clit is are making laws about our bodies, that women are good enough to raise you but they cant be president

im so fucking embarrassed, disappointed, utterly heartbroken that this is a country that i live in.

a fucking insane cult is controlling us. i mean, like guys, HE FUCKING PARAPHRASES QUOTES FROM HITLER AND HE WAS STILL VOTED INTO OFFICE.

i'm not proud to be a fucking american. i'm completely, fully, wholeheartedly, fucking terrified.

[armagnac-army]

I DEMAND YOU CREATE ANOTHER POLL !! And do not call it a “pity poll” unless you want your house flooded with my vikings

-Bernadotte

MARSHALATE PITY BALLOT

VOTE FOR ONE OF THE LESS POPULAR LES GRANDE CHAPEAUX!!! SOMEHOW BERTHIER THE NERD WON THE FIRST POLLE WITH ME IN SECOND PLACE SO LETS DO THIS SHIT AGAIN

IN CASE YOU DONT KNOW WHO WE ARE WE HAVE A "OUIKIPEDIA PAGE" ALL ABOUT US AND OUR BIG HATS BUT LONG STORY SHORT WERE NAPOLEONS TOP COMMANDERS WHO FUCK SHIT UP FOR HIM

SO ONCE AGAIN VOTE FOR WHOEEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT WHETHER THATS THE BEST OR THE SEXIEST OR THE MOST PATHETIC

YOU CAN EVEN STUFF THE BALLOTS IF YOU WANT THE EMPEROR DID IT SO WHY NOT YOU

This is a public service announcement. Do not engage in vote manipulation. -Maréchal Soult

IVE DEFINITELY NOT FORGOTTEN ANYONE THIS TIME AND THERES NOBODY SNEAKING ONTO THE BALLOT!!!!

FEEL FREE TO POST PROPAGANDA OR ANTI PROPAGANDA WE WILL SHARE IT IF ITS FUNNY

ALSO DO SHARE THIS SO THAT WE CAN SEE WHO WINS THE PITY VOTE AND MAYBE PIT THEM AGAINST BERTHIER IN A CAGE FIGHT

WHERES GROUCHY

[dreamingalto]

Hey Something Sorta Cool Happened in Nebraska for once.

Real quick background, back in about 2005 Nebraska had gotten rid of the lifetime ban on voting for felons, switching it to where people with felony convictions could be eligible to vote once they had completed their sentence and went through a two year waiting period.

Earlier this year, state legislators voted on and passed a bill (LB20) that would eliminate the waiting period, making it so those with felony convictions would now be eligible to vote as soon as they have completed their sentence. However, the Nebraska Attorney General, Mike Hilgers, had raised constitutional concerns and stated that the state's board of pardons was the only thing that could restore voting rights. This resulted in the Nebraska Secretary of State, Robert Evnen, to tell election officials to stop registering anyone with a previous felony conviction.

As the article states, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled today, Wednesday October 16th, that LB20 was indeed constitutional and ordered the Secretary of State to remove the disqualifications he imposed in order to comply wirh LB20.

This means all Nebraska residents with previous felony convictions are now eligible to vote and have until October 25th to get registered for the 2024 Election.

If you don't know, this election is pretty important everywhere in the US. But in Nebraska, this is an especially big election. Beyond the presidential election, Nebraska also has some competitive US Senate and House races this year along with several really important initiatives that include both abortion and medicial marijuana.

Not only that, but the neat thing when it comes to the Presidential Election is that Nebraska is special when it comes to its electoral votes. Instead of all the electoral votes going to the popular vote winner of the entire state, the votes get split up by district. The only other state that does this is Maine.

While Nebraska is still mostly a red state, District 2 (which mostly includes Omaha and some of the surrounding areas) has been known to go blue, giving its electoral vote to the democratic candidate. An example of this being the 2020 Election where the District Two electoral vote went to Biden.

This ruling from today is so significant for voting rights in the state, especially when disenfranchisement has been on the rise.

I dont have that much reach to be honest and I really don't have many followers who know even one person from Nebraska, but if you happen to know like anyone from Nebraska, let them know especially if they might know more Nebraskan who might potentially be thinking their are ineligible to vote when they are.

DEADLINE TO REGISTER TO VOTE ONLINE IN NE IS THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18TH

DEADLINE TO REGISTER TO VOTE IN-PERSON OR VIA MAIL IN NE IS NEXT FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25TH AT 6PM

Like seriously if you register in person, you could also just get your voting done the same day. I was literally at a Nebraska Election Office yesterday and someone came in and was like "Hey just became a resident rather recently, can I get registered?" And they were like "Yeah, wanna fill out your ballot today too?"

Sorry for the long post, I just saw the story earlier and also was driving past a bunch of billboards in Omaha on my way to my family's house this evening that were directed at getting those with previous felony convictions to register to vote and it gave me just a little bit of good news and hope when it came to the election which is fucking rare.

[yeahiwasintheshit]

WRONG!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT? WE’RE DOING THIS GODDAMN FUCKING SHIT AGAIN??

this is not a normal election where its ok to pick and choose which seats you want to vote for. you have to vote for all blue up and down the ballot. in every election. for every seat.

there is no reality where donald trump is an acceptable alternative, to anyone. for any reason. or any MAGA republican. In the coming general election in nov, there are no leftists, there are no liberals, there are no moderates! ONLY 2 SIDES!

YOU EITHER VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRAT OR YOU VOTE FOR FASCISM!!!!

you want a protest vote, you do that in the primaries. in the general election, the only choice is to vote for all blue up and down the ballot, in november. it has been proven that joe biden can and has been pushed farther left than anyone ever expected him to go. there is no pushing donald trump. he will only go more to the right and more fascist. and more rights will be lost. how is this not fucking clear from every thing he has said and done for the past 8 years.

anyone reblogin this without pushing back is literally endorsing the same fuckin shit that fucked us up before. i dont know if my blood pressure can deal with this kind of shit, lol so if i unfollow, you know why. you fuckin go in, hold your nose and vote for the democrat for the presidency and every other seat available.

FIGHT YOU FUCKERS! FIGHT!

I don’t even care who fucking wins the presidency this year look at this

[crystallineirises]

Emmy 2024 Liveblog

We high, we got snacks, we filled out a physical ballot lets see if i can figure out my mom's tv

heyyyyy a brother for MLK day

I do think about how he marched for me, a black girl, to say "step on me" about white women on the internet *black power fist*

I'm bored already lol

I turned the volume down lower so i can eat my little nosh

Why does the Fox camera never look as good as the other cameras, this has got an American Idol glow on it

I was like "is that Pete Davidson"

MOM

FOLLOWED BY SARAH

CHRISTINA why have not finished Dead To Me oh yeah cause I don't want it to end

ROUND OF APPLAUSE AND TEARS

TWO HITS DISABILITY AND OZEMPIC GO AWF

OH J - no it's not it's comedy

I'm rooting for everybody black actually I'm rooting for everyone this is stacked

AYO GET YR ASS UP HERE

Oooh Padma is looking fine

The energy of this is already better than the whole GG

CAAAAROOOOLLLL

They should just stay standing up

She looks so GOOD and that joke hit PERFECTLY women are better at everything

I don't really know which way this is gonna go

I still need to watch Poker Face I keep forgetting

QUINTAAAAA she looks so sweet

Damn Sarah got that ICE round her neck alright rap star girlfriend

SHERYL LOOKING REGAL

Didn't prepare nothing I love it

I really don't need to annotate the physical ballot and live blog but WHO CARES this is for me

Can these commercials stop the Discord said this is J's category and I know its not gonna be her but what if it *was*

I'm that meme of "Bruh thinks he's on the team" I've been nervous all DAY

Sam Seaborn what's up why are you hosting weird shit

*adds Sopranos to watch list*

Oh they have props money

OMG it's the mom from Rizzoli and Isles!!! OMG HEY

Hoooooo here we go

THESE GAYS

Eighty damn people in this category

GASP if you're gonna lose lose to Jennifer love this for us *CAW*

ALL THE EVIL GAYS

Your arm still broken damn

Someone give us the bleeped version plz but also he nailed that stare

Alan with his rocks and insects speech tho

SARAHHHH LOL TOMGREGS WINNING

DAMN that theme song sounds banging on this soundbar I really should learn how to use this tv

How is Curb still on the air? Not that it's bad, it just seems like it's been a very long time lol

Someone on Discord just said they wondered if they're gonna do a Friends thing for Matthew OH MY HEART in memoriam is gonna be roughhh

I'm not high enough lol

AYEEE EBON

Also that leather jacket is sickkk

I like the lack of commentary as they walk up, can we keep this shit classy

FIRST AD let's shout out the tech TEAMS

BLACKPEOPLEEE

I didn't realize Jeremy was also a small man lol I kinda would have loved for OMITB to win something but it's cool

sweet baby full of LOVE

AMY AND TINA

Smoke break

A pyramid lol

That woman behind him in the navy dress looked hot oh it's in a suburbs kinda way that's a great fucking dress though

OH she's not here? SHE ALWAYS HERE that's how black moms work

BEANS DONT BURN ON THE GRILL

Hannah's face and Kieran's face

BLACK DONT CRACK AND ITS NEVER TOO LATE

This is the blackest show i've ever seen without that many black people nominated

So many babes in this category

MORE BLACK WOMEN BLACK QUEER WOMEN

THIS SPEECH IS GOING OFFFFFFF

AND HER MOM I need to have all the black moms in the audience in a glamour shot together

oh and NOW we are high let's get into it YUH *rock on emoji*

WHERE EVERYBODY KNOW YR NAME

NORM

I love The Bear but I do like when things get spread out a bit? There's so many shows out there

*survivor yell*

YAY FOR THE GAYS AND GWORLS AND KWEENS AND THEYZ

Arsenio looks GOOD

Who is this beautiful woman

ALWAYS SUNNY THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF MY HEART and they look AMAZING

JUNO YOU LOOK SO HOT that hair swoop is STRONG

LOL can we get a full transcript of all bleeped things

shouts to all the negative bank account hoes out here

GREYZ BEBEZ where's Kate Walsh

BARZ

OH GOD GILLIAN i am about to lose it

Just kidding they just threw us off with x files theme that's fucked up

MAD MEN THEME ANOTHER BANGER

NOT THE HUG

*twerk team* also Sarah Snook

omg the boy from 30 rock his face is me

this speech was boring but that shot of J was great

Beef is so good so far but I'm only two episodes in

Not enough people have been chased off the stage honestly

Amy and Tina you look GREAT

ELTON JOHN EGOT GAYS IS WINNING

Ryan is chaotic evil lol but he sure has given us some shit to watch

Secondary Beef sweeeep

That's the thing, you get one good role and then you win all three awards it can get a little boring

you're gonna make it after aaaaaaallllllll

and a HAPPY MLK DAY TO US ALL

Jessica nominated for something in every awards show and every time she's just sitting around being pretty and chill

JOAN AND TARAJI DREAM BLUNT ROTATION

invited everyone you kneewwwooooooowww you would SEE the biggest gift would be from ME and the caaaardd attached would SAY thank U for being a friiiiieeeeeennnddddddEEEEENNDDDDD *dah*

How is there another 50 minutes of this I'm pretty much over it

Also this new show with Diane Lane *gay panic*

not a compilation video of TV lol

WAG THEME

*we ARE welcome*

GOD look at her why am I always in the room with my mother when she's on stage lol

Yay gay people winning again

YES THEY DID BABY TRENT DID HIS THANG

Looking at her titties looking at her nails looking at her ass looking at her dress i am so femme and so gay and also so femme

I love that *this* is why they had the WAG theme that didn't register at first lol

Is RuPaul singing this song in the background wait maybe thats Titus or Billie who IS that lol which black gay is that

What up Sarah Kate that's a very gay outfit lol

Okay we have another 40 minutes though so like...unless we're gonna have Sarah speak for like seventeen minutes

They also keep panning to Jessica Chastain because she just looks beautiful at all times at all angles in all and it doesn't make any sense

LOL they found Bella like quick where's an enby quick, lol panning to Jenna holding a girl's hand

OMG Babette from GG love her guitar jacket that's camp

"Why is this always so fuckin SAD" - crystallineirses on in memoriam segments

LESLIE

PAUL

IRENE

I am gonna CRY how dare they

not the collage like it's top model

I came back to some random dance sequence lol what up Calista

oh LORD it's Kieran's time *MANIFEST*

MY MAN MY MAN MY MAN

SO MUCH KISSING BRIAN WHAT

SHIRTS OFF SHIT

MO GAYS

THE DEEP SIGH

MANIFEST

TEAM SHIV

SHIV BABIES WE DID IT

THIS IS OUR TIME

EMMY WINNERS SARAH AND KIERAN

"MLK allowed me to celebrate a bunch of white people depicting even worse white people" - crystallineirses on the Succession wins

MEN KISSING ON TV

FX IS TIGHT

GO J GO

get your way to him lol

Why are they off screen lol

Not me just watching J and Kieran shuffling around

DAMN Hannah

it's been real yall

Just more hugs for all the boys

MLK IN THE CREDITS

[megismorallysunny]

25/09/23

i might upload 2 today bc i have a lot, not from today just in general, so much so that i wrote it down. i had science first, turns out the school wanted every teacher for their first class to show their classes the new one way system because they felt it was clogged up. its really fucking stupid and we were supposed to follow it as soon as we left first class.. spoiler alert no one did, absolutely no one, i didnt see any teachers not following but no students are. I feel like using that system its only a matter of time before a 1st year gets hit by a car, your supposed to go outside to get to some classes that would have only been a few metres away now, and the way you go sometimes has cars on it, i seen one going pretty fast just a minute after class started.

i had irish after science and turns out that irish hw i was doing wasnt even the hw, and i had already done the hw a week ago, omg i just cant but it was a-ok. after that was maths, everyone was in for once so there wasnt enough seats for everyone, hopefully 4k4 and his other friend 5k5 dont steal my seat, i worked my ass off for that. a student who came 2 weeks ago, nickname -bluebird, is just annoying, its not that shes done anything wrong its that shes a complete loner, wont talk to anyone, not like ive tried but more in the sense, you wont hear even a squeak. in business she doesnt take down notes, in maths she doesnt do questions (not that i can say much) and in french she doesnt even know ça va and wont do her french hw. so yeah plain infuriating. i did my english hw wrong after i spent an hour carefully constructing only a third of my answer for an hour last night. my friends went to the shop but i didnt bc i wanted to stay in the cspe classroom and eat my lunch and maybe also read trollhunter fanfics, hard enough to find good ones involving a very cute and fluffy relationship between jim and walter. anyways we had to have a fake election in cspe, to try out ballot box voting, in first year for student council i tied with another girl for top votes. guess how many i got this time? yeah thats right a solid one, thinking about it makes me sad, does no one like me anymore??? but i laughed at the time even tho every1 looked back at me, it felt really dehumanising, the only way i deal with bad situations is by laughing and joking, and that situation made me feel a little shit.

made me also feel real great when aprciot turned back at me and said i put you 5, its like he constantly tries to talk to me and be my friend and when i ignore him he gets mad, its not great that i was standing beside granite today and apricot started pushing granite and while he did that his hand touched my tit. great. made me feel just great, it wasnt on purpose he wouldnt even try.. well he did say consent didnt matter today if it was me. he was obvi joking but considering he tried to sa someone before and this day a year ago, "mango" his friend and apples friend sent diorite a voice message saying apricot said he was gonna do a thing to her. idk im sorry i feel uncomfortable typing out the word rape. but yeah thats what he said apparently. doesnt make it better he could walk to her house and he knows where that is. but unfortunately it is what it is no matter how cruel it can be.

anyways, after cspe i fucking raced through the classroom to get to another because it had a door to the outside which was closer to the door to the other outside door to get to or religion classroom, we had a proper sound sub, she was rly nice and i thought she was a bitch because of her hairstyle but she really wasnt, AND I GOT MY FAVOURITE SEAT!!!! mission acomplished, my friend was happy bc i always run to get good seats and i actually did unlike last time where some people were unfortunately quicker.

idk if i mentioned this but i learned about shifting maybe early 2021 and it didnt really go anywhere, id tell you where i have planned out for me to go but it would be embarassing, i have one for the embarassing one and one for a library, filled with extensive knowledge and characters from shows i watch. anyways my body felt like it was floating last night, just like my first shifting attempt nearly 2 years ago now, i nearly did it but i chickened out, opened my eyes and couldnt ever do it again or get those symptoms. when i woke up at 4 in the morning i was half stuck in a dream, and was trying to do my tasks to meet my goal, i dont even remember what my tasks or goal was.

i skimmed the entirety of sex education, it was my first time watching it, it was pretty good, i really liked ruby she was definitely my favourite i also really loved roman but cmon ruby, she was so good also aimee. i redownloaded farmville2 so its time to relive my farmer life whoop whoop. ill do another blog post later. anyways goodbye have a good morning, good day and good night

[ayeforscotland]

Heya, feel free to ignore this if you dont feel like it!

Council elections are coming (in my city? All of Scotland? Im an immigrant and very confused) and i keep receiving political flyers in the mail. I want to vote, i tried doing my research, but i can't really make sense of everything (i also have adhd :/ )

Is there a resource detailing what every party has done or failed to do? It's all very convoluted and i dont know what to do :(((

Hey!

Local/Council elections are coming on the 5th of May. The Scottish council elections are seen as their own thing, but the elections are happening across the whole of the UK.

First I’ll give a rough overview of how council elections work.

Scottish councils are split into ‘wards’ - so multiple wards act as mini constituencies in a town or city.

The number varies depending on the size of the ward but each ward tends to elect at least two councillors. These councillors can be from the same party or different parties.

In Council elections we use a voting system called Single Transferable Vote, or STV. So instead of crossing a box next to who you want to vote for, you instead write a numbered list of preferences.

So your ballot paper might end up with something like:

SNP 1

Scottish Greens 2

Labour 3

LibDem 4

Tory 5

Etc

Of course, there might be several candidates for each partner and you should rank them all (just make sure parties you absolutely don’t want are at the bottom)

Depending on your Council area, it’s worth looking at each party’s manifesto specifically for that area.

And you’ve got to be aware that some parties talk about national initiatives during the council elections - which is a pain in the arse because “We’ll create new green space” is absolutely a council decision while “We’ll build several nuclear powerplants” is absolutely not a council decision.

Yes, I’m looking at you Labour, you fucking morons.

Unfortunately like all things politics, there’s not gonna be one singular resource that doesn’t lean one way or the other.

My advice would be to not to rank Tory, Labour or LibDem highly at all.

In Falkirk where I am, Labour and Tories joined together and have prevented the leading party (SNP) from actually making positive changes to the high street - and they’re now complaining about the lack of change…which they blocked.

It’s also worth having a look at independent Council candidates as well. There will be some non-party affiliated people standing for election. Just be careful though as a bunch of Tories sometimes sneak in by pretending they’re not Tories.

Hope that gives a rough guide, and sorry I can’t provide one single resource. But if you let me know your council area I can have a look at what is going on.

[neil-neil-orange-peel]

The thing I find funny about some of Rik's characters is there's moments the studio audience dont know whether to laugh at him or feel bad and you can hear their confusing. Like Richie in his birthday episode singing happy birthday to himself cause he has no friends and Alan crying in prison. The audience is all 'hahaha fuck you you little slimy shit....wait....wait...oh no he's making us feel bad, the fucker!'

I love it when comedy does that. Because comedy by its very nature makes people laugh, when the rug is suddenly pulled out from under the audience's feet, it's so much more effective.

The best example of this is and will always be the last episode of Blackadder, which completely broke my heart at 12 years old. 💔

I know it's trendy these days to despise laugh tracks or audience laughter, but I don't mind them. Obviously imposed laugh tracks are a little more grating, but studio audiences I don't have a problem with. I don't like the smug, self-satisfied view of "well actually no old comedies were funny at all, that's why they used a laugh track, to trick everyone into laughing in the right places". First of all, most British sitcoms had a live audience, so that's what we're hearing. In fact, The Young Ones deliberately takes the piss out of laugh tracks in the Dicky and Deano skit from Bomb. If real people who were actually there laughed as the events unfolded, that would suggest what was going on was funny. Also, suggesting it's only now in our 21st century wisdom that we've suddenly realised the pinnacle of humour, something our poor 20th century brethren were simply too easily swayed to ever discover, is so arrogant actually. Can people just appreciate different eras in comedy have different conventions!

Sorry to get on my high horse about it, that's just something that always niggles at me. A very middle class, wishy-washy teacher I had recited the view that old comedies weren't actually funny because of the presence of laughter, while looking directly at me, because he knew I liked Rik Mayall. Bastard. 😂

The only major downside to live audiences or laugh tracks in my opinion is when they block out some of the dialogue. Usually the actors work around this, but sometimes they're caught out. I mean, can you imagine how much more bleak Bottom would be without its studio audience? Red Dwarf, which started in 1988 and had its most recent outing in 2020, still uses a live studio audience (if I'm ever extraordinarily lucky, I'll win the ballot and get tickets to watch them film) because that's the right format for Red Dwarf. It wouldn't work in modern sitcoms with modern formats, but it worked for older, more theatrical sitcoms, and that's fine.

Anyway yeah, The New Statesman is especially good at making its audience uncomfortable at points. In s4e4 (the second episode about Nazis) there comes a point where Alan is doing his best imitation of Hitler, speech and stance wise, to get the Fourth Reich onside so he can steal their jewels. There is a moment (it's starts when he says: "For make no mistake, our entire civilisation is under assault!") when the audience just... Stops laughing. Because it's getting a bit real now; this is some of the worst stuff Alan says and it's deliberately reminiscent of Hitler. In 1992, people who'd lived through and remembered WW2 were still about. This tense moment is cleverly deflated - and the audience starts laughing again - when Alan accidentally says "the cream of mushroom soup" instead of "the cream of right wing youth".

The audience also doesn't quite know how to react to Alan crying the night before his hanging, because Rik was so bloody good at playing distressed. I remember first watching that scene and being shocked in an "oooh" kind of way, because even though it's all for the lols, I don't think the way the public in TNS react to a live hanging is a million miles away from how people would in real life. I mean, all sorts used to go on at public hangings in centuries past. And it's horrifying, but you can't look away.

Richie gets "aww"ed at, at various points in Bottom. So does Neil in TYO. When this happens onstage as opposed to onscreen, Rik and Nigel (in character as Neil) heckle back at the audience. 😂 Because they know this will actually make them laugh even more. There's a reason a lot of people's favourite bits from the Bottom Lives are when they fuck up (or pretend to fuck up, either way it's funny).

Thanks for the ask!

[bigmammallama5]

I dropped my ballot in the drop box at the Municipal Building. After it took THREE WEEKS to get to me I wasn't going to trust USPS to get it in on time. As to the long fucking wait, apparently Georgia has some weird contract bullshit where they approve requests then send those approvals to a company in Arizona who then makes and sends out the ballots. [www(.)ajc(.)com/politics/wheres-my-absentee-ballot-some-georgia-voters-await-ballot-delivery/BU3OARAXHRDTRLJJT5OXMGTKFY/] Fucking Georgia, man.

I dont even know dude. NC is LUCKY to have a dem governor right now for many reasons including voting. Absentee ballots are usually reserved for students or the ill and elderly, but this year everyone could request one. They were on the ball too. Started mailing them out after Labor day in September and I got mine a week later, filled it out, sent it back, and got it confirmed accepted at the end of the month. We still might run into an issue if they revoke the “postmarked by nov3 can deliver until (i think) the 9th” sort of like what just happened in Wisconsin. Makes me real nervous.

[trickstarbrave]

something i havent seen on here yet which is driving me into a minor panic as the reality of the election has been pushed to the far recesses of my mind for my own sanity has finally come crashing down on me in full:

the question isn’t if donald trump is gonna win or lose. it doesn’t matter. im not saying this as a “dont go out and vote” because at the very least fucking do that at this point but pay attention when i say this: even if you vote him out of office we’re going to have more problems on our hands. because if he loses, he will not concede. if its a landslide victory for biden he will refuse to leave. he will obfuscate it. he can say all mail in ballots are fraudulent or shouldnt be counted. electoral voters can butt heads and the supreme court can say that entire state’s votes do not count this election. he can declare he wins on election night and when told its not clear yet at all incite violence in the form of mobs. 

it can come to it where it where both biden and trump show up to be sworn in and the republicans demand trump go in. it can be so obfuscated there is no clear winner in which case pelosy would need to be sworn in and the republicans outright refuse. most of the rest of the line of succession is up for reelection. 

our election system doesnt say anything about if someone refuses to graciously lose and concede, it assumes it. we are in the situation where that assumption is wrong and now the whole system is fucked. there are weeks between election night and the swearing in where everything can and will go to shit and nothing is for fucking certain except that its going to be a shit show. whats going to happen if the republicans refuse to accept the people’s votes AT ALL? what if they just declare biden wont be president, every mail in ballot is fraud, swear in trump or pence (if trump dies to covid we wont be safe) or just fucking refuses any leadership bc all the next in line ones are dems? they dont CARE about the rules and the military has stated they will not help, they just accept whatever answer the other government branches figure out so bidens plan for the military to kick trump out wont happen. 

not to say “these are unprecedented times” but this is legitimately an election that has never happened before. this isn’t a threat to our democracy, our democracy is a dead husk that is already actively crumbling to dust in front of our eyes as we speak. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT TO DO IN THIS SITUATION THAT VERY WELL CAN BE A REALITY. if trump refuses (which lets be real, he fucking will, he’s admitted he will refuse, this isn’t a debate, if he graciously accepts not under threat of death, i will fucking throw my hat out of the ring and quit everything) it hinges upon the republicans to go “okay come on we lost please leave” to get him out, when they have made it very clear they don’t play by the rules. respect for the system and democracy itself doesn’t matter. they will back up trump with all they have and its a toss up now to how hard the democratic politicians will fight and how much that will really be able to counter the damage they do. 

i dont know what happens. if he wins or loses everything is going to get much worse. everything is like beyond fucked and the only thing i can hope for is that communities are prepared and ready for this. this is going to be a fucking disaster and im not saying “dont vote” i am saying if you are under the impression that if enough people come out and vote against trump he will be forced to leave office and we can just clean up the mess he made you are dead fucking wrong and need to pull your head out of the ground. this could be fucking horrific. the question isnt if it’ll be bad the question is how bad will it be and no experts who have spent years and years studying elections and law have a FUCKING clue. dont doomsday prep, don’t sit here in despair and panic, if you can find a way to ensure the most vulnerable around you are protected. be prepared that if youre in a swing state your entire STATE’S votes may not count. 

[corvid-420]

you dont vote???

Fuck no and there’s two main reasons why:

1. Last time I voted was in 2009, some special election in the summer. I was just entering my first period of prolonged housing instability, and had much more important priorities than re-re-registering to vote, when I even had an address. At the time I was also being hounded by debt collectors for about 20,000 in medical debt, and noticed that after I stopped registering to vote, I was no longer being sent letters (and since I ended up with a whole new phone number, the calls stopped, too). Then I learn that your voter registration info is accessible to the public, so an enterprising debt collector knows the first place to look to find someone is voter registration records. It’s why I’m pretty sure that voting is, at its most cynical, a plot to keep track on the poor to more easily hound them.

2. It doesn’t matter who you think you are, I know more about politics than you do both in theory and from practice. I’ve worked as a reporter; and as a PR lackey, I’ve worked for political campaigns (electoral as well as issues-based) at the local, state, and national level for organizations large and small.

One of my sources when i was a reporter was an oil heiress. Her dad had been an exec for a Very Large oil company, and when he died, she inherited everything. But here’s the thing about inheritances among the bourgeoisie: you don’t just get some money, a car, maybe a house. She also inherited the networks of influence her dad established, giving her instant access to movers and shakers in Houston, DC, Riyadh and beyond.

She used this influence to become “a political consultant,” working for local city school boards, state reps, congressional reps, etc. Her job was to, in her words, “vet candidates and issues and make sure they work for the best interests of everybody.

 I’ll never forget this, she said, “Of course we’re a democratic country, but it’s important that we have the best people for the job and only the most pressing issues get priority on the ballot.”

She once advised me to ditch city council meetings and instead go to the Chamber of Commerce, where such candidates and issues are vetted so by the time they reach a city council or a board of supervisors or a legislature, all the key decisions have already been made.

Now I already knew all this in theory, but to hear it said openly was staggering. That said, it was communicated in the most sterile, HR speak with the intent of convincing me, a naive young reporter of color trying to make it and being coached by a white woman savior, that I was part of this group helping vet the issues, the candidates, etc.

tl;dr - if you don’t have shit tons of money or access, you’ve already ceded your voice to the rich and powerful so your time/energy is better spent outside the electoral process.

Again, this doesn’t apply if you have tens of thousands of dollars to burn per election cycle..