#lots more than just president going on.

[fyrmayj]

I work at a vote center in California and we can register you provisionally, and you can vote same day, even if you're from a different county within the state California! So if you're still in CA but traveling outside your home county during election season, you can still vote in person at a vote center if you didn't already get the chance to vote another way.

I don't think we can help if you're from out of state though since everything would be different on the ballot.

We're excited to have people vote and hope you all get the chance to do so.

Friendly reminder that almost half of the states in the U.S. have same day registration! This means you can go to the polling center for your location, register there, and cast your vote same day. So if you are over 18, are a U.S. citizen, and live in one of the states listed below, it is not too late to register and vote! I’m going to put notes for some of the states where voting is extra important due to the political climate of the state.

California

Colorado

Connecticut

D.C.

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Iowa - recent polls indicate state could flip from red to blue

Maine

Maryland

Michigan

Minnesota

Montana

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina - swing state! Could go red or blue

North Dakota - voter registration not required

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

Wisconsin - swing state! Could go red or blue

Wyoming

You can go here for more info on voter registration

I also have a huge list of voting resources here

[prolibytherium]

There's a LOT of things people do wrong when constructing fantasy beliefs in pantheons of gods, but one of the more specific is having only one god related to fertility and it kind of being just a horny sex thing.

Like you'll have one in the entire bunch whose sphere is listed as fertility and it's basically like Yeah this is the sex one. She's always depicted naked (but not TOO naked because censorship and/or the writer's own skittishness). She's going to have the exact body type epitomized in contemporary western beauty standards and there's usually no chance in hell that she's gonna be fat (unless MAYBE they're referencing 'venus' figurines). Her thing is fertility, which means having sex and making babies. Might be a goddess of beauty or love or marriage too, because these are kinda sex things, but that's probably it. And yeah that sort of thing is virtually nonexistent in real life.

Like the concept of fertility is so fundamentally important to the function of most societies in human history in ways that it is just Not in industrialized imperial core countries. Most people are getting food from stores, and not having to worry about harvesting crops or breeding livestock or foraging for food or having enough animals to hunt, so fertility only really comes up as a concern if you're trying to have kids (and there is certainly societal pressure to have children, but your wellbeing and survival is rarely going to Depend on it). And I think writing only from that perspective and not even trying to learn about WHY fertility is so conceptually important is why you see this trend.

There's no absolute universal statement about how people believe in gods but it's broadly accurate that systems with many deities will Usually have more than one deity associated with fertility, and these associations will certainly include human reproduction but also the fertility of livestock/hunted animals, plants, the land itself.

Some fertility deities may also be heavily associated with seasonal changes or environmental factors that agriculture or foraging is dependent on (spring/summer/fall, seasonal rains, seasonal flooding, rain itself, sunlight, good soil, rivers, wetlands, etc). Some certainly might be related to love, marriage, sex, and beauty, but that's VERY RARELY going to be the sole way the concept of fertility is embodied. And they'll often will have other associations not directly about fertility, or related to fertility in culturally specific ways.

[hella1975]

would you like to talk about how bad the mha ending was hella

as much as i would love to give like. a comprehensive response i genuinely dont think i can get my words together just yet without it being a constant unintelligble stream of 'AND ANOTHER THING-' and bc it's become quite torn in the fandom on if the chapter was good or bad i want like. an actual coherent response here. so i will reblog this if/when i can word it but know IM NOT FUCKING HAPPY

[iguessitsjustme]

Alright friends, I have seen many wonderful posts about Tinn’s mom, but I can’t sleep so I’m writing one of my own. I have many thoughts and feelings about her because I ADORE her.

There are so many things to talk about regarding her relationship with Tinn and her journey on how to accept and best support him BUT I’m not gonna talk about that. I’m barely going to mention Tinn. I need to talk about this because I haven’t seen it mentioned yet: she is damn good at her job. I love that we had a misdirect at the beginning of the show from Gun’s perspective that she would be an antagonist that’s out to get the music club. Then we shifted to Tinn’s POV and we got to see that she isn’t out to get anyone. She’s a high school principal just trying to make sure her school keeps on running. We don’t know the exact details of what scuffle the music club got into the previous year. But as the principal, it makes sense that she is making tough choices. Clubs that cause problems that result in damages that need to be paid during a time where she has to tighten the budget? It makes sense that she would consider disbanding the music club. Tinn and Gun’s worldview is smaller because they are students at the high school. They can’t see the whole picture that Tinn’s mother sees and has to see in order to keep the school running. Does she make things more difficult for the music club? Absolutely she does, but not because she wants to. It’s literally her job. She needs to make sure the rest of the school can still function.

She also never stops the music club from trying. In fact, I’d say she encourages it, even though they might not realize it. She signs off on letting them compete but only once they’ve improved their grades. It feels unfair and impossible to the band but it is completely reasonable. “Keep up your schoolwork and your academics and you’ll be allowed to participate in this extracurricular activity with the school’s blessing.” That was a rule at my high school. It isn’t her job to just give students what they want willy nilly. It’s her job to make sure the students are set up for success in the future. Once their grades improve, she signs off on it. She might be skeptical and it might not be her thing, but never once does she stop a student from exploring their own interests.

Then we get to the homophobic teacher. She listens to his story while he demands punishment. She asks Tinn if what he said is correct. And she’s asking him because he’s involved, because he’s her son, but also because he’s the school president. Tinn has proven he is responsible and she takes that into consideration. She looks at the situation as a whole. She wants to make sure she hears both sides of the story. So many principals of people in authority will take the teacher’s side and not once ask for the student’s side of the story. But she is fair and she sees her students as people who deserve to be heard. And that entire scene I wasn’t worried about Kajorn’s punishment because I knew she would be fair because she is good at her job. Kajorn needed to be disciplined for using violence, but not for standing up to the homophobic teacher. And she punished accordingly. Then she moved on to tell the teacher what she would do regarding his role in the situation. She was being pressured by the other teacher’s regarding Tinn’s sexuality but she remained professional the entire time and did her job to support her students. And at the prom, standing right next to two of the homophobic teachers, who I’m sure texted her, she loudly told the students to cheer for Tinn and Gun.

She is doing everything in her power to make that school a safe place for students even if that means she has to face backlash. She does that because it’s her job. It’s not her job to judge students. It’s not her job to make life more difficult for students. It is her job to make sure each and every student in that school has the best chance for success when they eventually leave.

[froggierboy]

i think a lot of americans ought to grapple with the fact that there is no level of engaging or disengaging with our electoral system that will absolve us of benefiting from the oppression and violence our government wreaks on other nations

[fictionadventurer]

&

[alfhildr-the-word-weaver]

The other night I had a dream that there was a hot new parody of the song Lump by Presidents of the United States of America. Tragically, I don't remember any of the parody lyrics beyond the chorus of "she's Lump, she's Lump, she's Lump" being replaced with "he's Trump, he's Trump, he's Trump".

[softquietsteadylove]

We definitely need more Thenamesh presidency AU!

Would you write more? Maybe Thena has to do an interview and the interviewer is a bit too friendly and asks her some subtile weird questions and basically undresses her with his eyes? Let Gil step in and protect his girlfriend in the most professional way? 😄

Thank you! Keep up your amazing work! ❤️

"Thank you for joining me, Madam President."

Thena smiled, nodding courteously but quiet thus far. Not only did she have to be careful of every single word she said these days, but she couldn't afford to get tired and run low on energy part way through the possibly lengthy interview.

"The rumours are true," her interviewer smiled, and that was always a dangerous start to a sentence. He tilted his head at her, "you are as beautiful as you are intimidating."

Gil looked up from Thena's schedule in his hand.

Thena tilted her head, though, "is that part of the question."

Eros laughed, "no, you're right it's off the record. Call it an attempt to get to know you?"

"I believe that is what the interview will be for."

Again, Eros took no offense to what would be a dry response to some and a defensive remark to most. He laughed, letting it roll off of him. He was renowned for his good nature, as well as being so young for the field of very serious televised journalism. He was popular with younger viewers for his looks.

They needed this interview to secure the young vote--the key to real, effective positive change.

"Yes ma'am, I am very honoured to have the opportunity, let it be said," Eros sat up a little straighter, almost like a professional interviewing the president. He had a dry kind of tone, his words somewhat running together.

"Your show is quite popular," Thena began her part of the battle (Sersi had advised her not to call it that). She had to meet him toe to toe so he didn't twist anything out of her, nor get the chance to misrepresent anything. "My people were happy to arrange the interview."

Kingo had told her that they had to do well with Eros if they wanted any relevance with young people beyond being known as the era of betrayal.

"Careful not to flatter me, ma'am," Eros continued to schmooze as if they were having drinks at a work conference as opposed to meeting in a secure location for journalistic purposes. He ran a hand through his hair. "I am prone to ego."

"A privilege few can afford."

"I believe you could be afforded anything," he tilted his head, his eyes drifting over her for just a second.

Thena shifted in her chair. Her hands were clasped together, because it was safer than having them loose enough to fidget and betray micro-expressions for her.

Gil cleared his throat off to the side, motioning for things to keep moving for the sake of time. He was frowning.

"So, Madam President," Eros began a proper question as if he hadn't been blatantly flirting with her - the most powerful woman in the country - seconds ago. "You have arrived to a rather precarious position."

Finally the interview began in earnest. Gil drifted around the edges of it, of course asked to keep his presence to a minimum, but permitted to stay in Thena's proximity, as was her security.

A few things were off limits--the direct mention of Ikaris' vacated position, the status of the staff investigations after his betrayal, suspects, that kind of thing. Although the ramifications of such things were technically fair game.

There were two cameras set up strategically on tripods. Eros' show would use edited footage of the interview, which would be subject to their review for security reasons. Gil mostly stayed behind Thena's shoulder, out of the frame, keeping his eyes on the popular show host.

"Now, I would like to ask," Eros looked up from his dossier of questions and points to bring up. He had done so a few times already and every time he did, the tone of the interview would...shift. "And this can be off the record, if you like."

Gil rolled his eyes.

"But it must be said that this is the first time an unmarried woman has come to power as you have." There it was. Gil shook his head faintly, although it seemed Eros was done taking his silent direction. "Does this affect the office you keep, in any way?"

"Why would it?" Thena asked flatly, not only not dignifying his question but also answering the real point of it. "No one in the cabinet minds if I am married or not, only if I can do the job of serving our country."

"So would you say you're on the market?"

Gil snapped Thena's schedule closed, as loudly as he could but not nearly as loudly as he would like. Eros looked up at him; he swiped his hand across his throat, telling him to cut it.

Eros barely acknowledged being told to back off but leaned back in his chair again. Of course doing so gave him another opportunity to run his eyes over Thena.

She was wearing a light grey pantsuit, but the way he was looking at her certainly seemed as if she were half dressed.

"Perhaps we should take five," Eros suggested in a much more - and perhaps falsely - amiable tone. He uncrossed his legs and stood with his dossier in hand. "I am happy to fetch you some water, ma'am."

Gil held out his hand for Thena to hold as she stood. "No outside food or drink--thank you."

The 'thank you' really was an afterthought.

"Of course," Eros nodded, giving his most charming smile. "I shall return in a moment, then."

Security both let him out and followed him as an escort. Such was the requirement of being alone in a room with Madam President herself.

Thena sighed, accepting the water bottle Gil himself was holding, "how long is this?"

"Probably another hour," he chuckled, speaking quietly as they hovered together. "You're doing great so far. You haven't even told him to go fuck himself."

Thena let out a quiet laugh against her hand, but it was certainly real. A few of the security team laughed too (those close enough to them to hear it).

Gil angled his shoulder for her, getting as close as they could afford when not totally alone. Although it didn't stop his eyes from being a little too soft when he looked at her. "Just a little more. I'm right here if you need me."

Thena's eyes weren't much better at keeping their monumental secret. "Thank you, as always."

Gil chuckled, taking the water bottle from her, "you know there's no need."

Her hand brushed against his on the way, "still."

A knock on the door signalled that their guest was back.

Thena sighed but let Gil hold her hand as she sat down again. He leaned down to her ear, "I'm gonna kill him if he asks you about being single again."

Thena laughed, although she couldn't reply. She gave his hand one more little squeeze, prepared to delve back into their work.

"Come in," Gil announced, although he stayed at the edge of Thena's chair. Eros nodded to him as he walked back into the room and to his own seat. Gil kept his eye on him, "limit personal questions going forward."

It was a very straightforward statement, and one that could be expected from her personal attache. No one would necessarily suspect it was her boyfriend telling this clown to stop hitting on her in front of him.

[vibinglikethat]

it's mind boggling to me that there are people on this site (and other sites too but i'm talking about this site specifically) who are so adamant about the democrats being better than republicans, that republicans and trump are worse for our country, that we need to vote blue if we want to survive. when reality shows us that democrats are actually not any better. reality shows us that biden is just as bad as trump but it's not AS obvious i guess???? it's plenty obvious to me but whatever.

reality shows that people are dying PREVENTABLE DEATHS EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN DAY UNDER BIDEN'S ADMINISTRATION AND YOU THINK IT'S A GOOD IDEA TO VOTE FOR BIDEN AGAIN EVEN THOUGH HE'S ACTIVELY CONTRIBUTING TO THE GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINIANS? AND DECIDED THAT COVID WAS OVER EVEN THOUGH IT VERY MUCH WAS NOT OVER (AND STILL ISN'T) AND PEOPLE ARE DYING FROM IT EVERY SINGLE DAY AND YOU THINK PEOPLE DON'T SEE THAT HE DOESN'T GIVE A SINGLE FUCK ABOUT US? AND YOU HAVE THE FUCKING AUDACITY TO DEMAND US TO VOTE FOR BIDEN BECAUSE WE MIGHT GET TRUMP AGAIN? AS IF BIDEN IS ANY BETTER? WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FUCKING LIVING ON

anyway

[daddy-ul]

AND NOW YOU OPEN WITH FUCKIN KTHULU????

What's next, SUICIDE AND REDEPTION?

Are you gonna look me in the eye and open a damn Metallica concert with suicide and redemption without me present?

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

i kinda wanna make a critical post about Some Notable People not speaking up and outright endorsing anyone this election but i also know that it probably wouldn't've changed very much and therefore 'doesn't matter' but actually, yes, it does matter because it sets a good precedent. and besides. why would they be out there hyping obama or even biden the fuck up but then talking about voting harris in hushed voices. like it's probably a mix of misogyny and just plain old liberal democrat cowardice. because i KNOW these People probably don't care that much about any differences in their policies, at least not significantly enough for it to seem unreasonable to hype up harris as the better choice.

[audiovisualrecall]

Oh...I did some research and I guess I was wrong? It looks like if I got on a plan thru the open market, even if the ACA gets cut later down the road I would get to keep the plan. So maybe MY plans aren't ruined...

[traegorn]

while i completely agree with your assessment of realistically what a trump vs harris presidency will look like, i think the issue me and a lot of other leftists have is that there is no need to tell people (and effectively tell harris) that oh ofc we are gna vote for her despite these issues because trump is THAT bad and if you say you don't want to vote for her because her party is pro-war, pro-genocide, then you are condemning americans to a trump presidency. we know trump is worse! i don't want him to win AT ALL, but why would harris even consider even changing the language she is using (i'm looking at the absolutely stupid speech she was giving in michigan, given the large arab & muslim-american population there and given its a battleground state) if she thinks she is going to win on a not-trump basis? i know who i'm voting for on nov 5th if it comes down to it, but we need the democrats to THINK they are going to lose until the very last minute, we need them to feel like they can't just rely on being the lesser of two evils if we want any chance of a shift on palestine. because they very well might lose, for this exact reason (and i'm speaking again more to the votes of the arab & muslim-american population which is far more demographically meaningful than the votes of leftists) and if that happens, they have no one to blame but themselves.

So I'm going to tell you something important: You don't have the leverage you think you have.

Political campaigns are a machine that's been operating the same way for a long time on the Democratic side. The Republicans may have abandoned a lot of the old ways of doing things, but the Democratic party hasn't. And you've got people running these campaigns who are steeped in the "wisdom" of how you win.

And when a block of voters says they're not going to vote for their candidate, they tend to believe them. So they decide to go court the people who they think will vote for them. That's why you've seen the Harris campaign trying to court moderate Republicans who might be iffy on voting for Trump a third time.

Right now one of the reasons Netanyahu is refusing to commit to a cease fire is because he thinks Trump can win. If Trump wins, he has no reason to ever agree to one. One of the reasons he thinks Trump can win is because the polling is so close.

If you want to know why they've gone to the right recently, it's because they think they've lost the left. And since a lot of those leftists are claiming there's a line in the sand that they don't have the power to appease (because -- again -- they can't get Netanyahu to do shit right now), they're going to go for the centrist Republicans.

Also, there seems to be this weird notion that the only way to move the Democrats is during the election. That's not how you move people. You keep pressuring them during their term and it works. Like Biden is continuing to work on forgiving student debt even though he doesn't have an election ahead of him. Because they know that what he does reflects on the future of the party. Voting doesn't end this game, it's the start of it.

But none of it will matter if Trump wins.

[inkskinned]

when i wrote this 2 years ago, i put in the tags the other thing that was happening: right before covid, i had changed my tune. instead of telling my students here is what you can't write, i asked them to please choose something that brought them joy. choose something beautiful. in college, i am not looking for a specific topic, there is no "winning" the essay, i am just making sure that you know how to format an essay and accurately cite your sources.

the world is pretty bleak right now, and many of my 19 year old kids are full of anger. my brother and i are teachers at the same time, but he is a professor in engineering. our colleges are owned by the same person. he calls me, frustrated, because he just got a student out of crisis, and now the financial aid office has sent the student right back into hell again. we talk about the administration being useless. we talk about feeling useless. we both say: i wish there was more i could do, but -

the world is pretty bleak right now, and i asked my kids to write about joy, because i couldn't stomach what is unsaid in the above post: kids were writing too much about gun violence. they were writing about blood smeared across the hallways of their middle schools. i would get essays about how they huddled under a desk while the bell rang around them, this strange and eerie tune. one of the only times i told my siblings out loud i love you was while we had an active shooter. i was locked in a friend's room up in a dorm while we all huddled around unwashed pastel dollar-store bowls. we called our families and loved ones. what else was there to do.

i couldn't read any more of those accounts. how cowardly.

i wish i could say i was braver, that i heard the weight of what they were handling and was able to bear it, but it adds up. i had 50 to 100 students. every semester, at least 3 of them would have visceral memories of a school shooting. their friends and neighbors and loved ones. their hands shaking around their phone as they type out this message might be my last one. i couldn't read that and stay calm. i had to call my mom. sob to my therapist - how the fuck do i resolve that. how do i help them? we both still have to go to school in the morning - me and my students. how am i supposed to just read that and then go on and teach them about prepositions? i can't even promise they won't ever have to experience that again. i feel like we're just waiting for trauma and instead i'm showing them how to keep their commas in the right place. how the fuck do either of us navigate that space?

i forget it can be different. a few years ago, a series of roof tiles fell off our building and made a loud scattered popping noise when they met the ground. i remember the strange accidental culture shock: most of my students went quiet and flattened to the floor; i leapt up and & turned off the lights & shoved my desk against the door. there were three kids who hadn't been raised in america. i remember the look on their faces; shocked and confused, nervously laughing because they hadn't assumed a threat. the gentle hands of their american friends helping them get down; shushing in a way i can only describe as kind, sympathetic. one of my students whispered you get used to it.

how can i see how they are suffering and then still ask them such an incredibly selfish request: please just write something about love, about joy, about something that reminds you of passion.

i get novels in return. technically, i have a page limit, but i never enforce it. every semester, students are delighted by the prospect. i get essays about being a dog show judge and about the history of the throw rug and about how prismacolor chooses certain paints. about glitter controversies and about their favorite albums and their role models who helped them come out as gay. students came in with visuals and little movies they made. they would go above and beyond just to ask their heroes i have this assignment. will you tell me about what joy means to you? i have records of interviews from writers and tv producers and youtube stars. i hear stories about tracking down the recipe for their grandmother's soup and making bread with their uncle and learning about dance from other cultures. they put their whole heart into it.

i said: this is just for your freshman english class! you do not have to try this hard! i am just one teacher in a million!

my students looked up to me, coated in the viscera and insincerity of their lives; this harrowing space so slick with their own mortality, their childhoods never awarded to them. they do not have the same promise of future. they have never assumed they would live forever. love is not in an arrow-speared heart for them; it has always been too fleeting to tattoo. if they catch it, they release it back into the wild, horrified by how little territory it has left. they wish it well but do not keep it for long. they have always been aware of the cost of their own body.

and they said: it brings me joy, which means it's time well spent.

something about that. something about the fact they can find it anyway: i wish i could write each of them my own essay, and it will be full of all the words you're not supposed to use. ribs and teeth and middle fingers. i wish they related to that, that in their heart were only poems about falling asleep and soft blankets and galaxies. every rainbow peony cliche. i wish i could hold their hand and push the desk in front of the door and say: i got you now. it's gonna be okay.

i wasn't supposed to write about roses or blood or silver, about hearts or wings or galaxies; my teacher used to press her hands, firmly, to the top of our poetry stacks and beg us - love different. she was bored of it. i'd go home and write something with each of her off-limits words, emboldened by spite.

for a stint of time, i was a reader for a poetry magazine, shifting through thousands of submitted writings, each hopefully printed onto my tiny laptop screen for next-submission-viewing. one editor had a pile where we would put all the poems with parsnips or cauliflower, one pile for long-thin emergency rants that devolved into a blank scream, one pile for mentions of belladonna and chartreuse - for a whole year, i'd go to bed hearing chartreuse and silver and cities playing in my head in calligraphy. every three months, the beautiful public eye would become just-fascinated by pretty things. unusual, beautiful monstrosities. one winter, all about daises. the next, a fascination with posies. i watched the world spin from catching love in language to the same five phrases - help, it's ending, i'm alone, help, it's dark here, come home, help -

later, as an english teacher, i saw patterns. every semester, one million essays about four specific things. it wasn't pretty enough to be a teachable moment: the content they wanted to discuss was all extremely violent; a broken anthem of climate change and constantly being videoed is destroying us. i would wake up shaking, worried their visions were prophetic, soon-to-be-true. selfish, i couldn't handle the constant semester-to-semester panic they scribbled into six paragraphs, MLA-formatted text. read the world is ending fifty times every month; sob to your therapist i'm not doing enough, tell your students: please, no more violence, i don't have the right stomach.

each one seemed the same poem: we're dying, and nobody is coming to save us.

there are very few celebration poems these days. i want to rest my hand on a stack of poems about love in big red wings. love in a jacket, standing under an open galaxy. love written on the bicep, in an anatomically correct heart, with an arrow shot through the center so you can see the pink viscera of surviving a wound - so you know that even permanent tattoos are permeable. blood on the snout of a newborn lamb. silver rings around the pink scales of a pigeon's leg, and love with her hand around the ribs of a bird. i want to read boring essays about lunch. about which video games run the best graphics. about carnivals. about love in big cliche terms: standing in a garden of parsnips, clutching daises to her chest, eating raw meat over the body of a rich man.

i want to open the poetry magazine and have pages of sonnets about bluebells. about survival. about a mundane, beautiful spring. about sitting with your dog on a front porch, writing without spite, happily toying with the idea of ice cream.

my student sends me an email. i know you said to write about what brings you joy. but nothing really makes me happy these days. i don't know what i'm doing.

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[reasonsforhope]

Kamala Harris just announced that her vice president will be Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Based on the coverage so far I'm really reassured by this decision.

The Washington Post did an obviously great job of making a prepared article for each option, considering how long an article they had up 7 minutes after the announcement.

((Okay technically it's not an official announcement yet it's "according to three people familiar with the pick, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that is not yet public." But listen. I am 99% sure this is a weather balloon. (Meaning: a deliberate leak to gauge reaction.) Because the sheer weakness or incompetence on the part of the Harris campaign that it would take for three people to all confirm that within a few hours hours of each other and the planned announcement it is massive.))

-via The Washington Post, August 6, 2024

Honestly this decision, from everything I've read and can tell, looks like it's brilliant politics.

Important Context: The vice president(ial candidates)'s job in an election is not to be similar to the president. The vice president's job on the ballot is very, very much specifically to be different from the president. Why? So they can cover each others' weaknesses. Especially regionally.

(Sidenote: I feel a bit ridiculous saying this. But genuinely if you want to get a stronger understanding of how US elections really work. Go watch seasons 6 and 7 of The West Wing. Genuinely, a lot of politicians have said - especially back in its day - that that was the most accurate depiction of an election they'd ever seen. Also specifically features an entire arc about a contested Democratic primary convention, so also very good if you're interested in understanding weird nominating convention shenanigans.)

From the article:

"Harris’s choice for a running mate was among the most closely watched decisions of her fledgling campaign, as she sought to bolster the ticket’s prospects for victory in November and rapidly find someone who could be a governing partner. In picking Walz, she has selected a seasoned politician with executive governing experience and signaled the importance of Midwestern battleground states such as Wisconsin and Michigan.

Walz’s foray into politics came later in life: He spent more than two decades as a public school teacher and football coach, and as a member of the Army National Guard, before running for Congress in his 40s. In 2006, he defeated a Republican to win Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District--a rural, conservative area--and won reelection five times before leaving Congress to run for governor.

Walz was first elected governor in 2018 and handily won reelection in 2022. Though little-known outside his state, Walz emerged publicly as one of the earliest names mentioned as a possible running mate for Harris, and in the ensuing days he made the rounds on television as an outspoken surrogate for the vice president...

“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room. … They are bad on foreign policy, they are bad on the environment, they certainly have no health care plan, and they keep talking about the middle-class,” Walz told MSNBC in July. “As I said, a robber baron real estate guy and a venture capitalist trying to tell us they understand who we are? They don’t know who we are.”

Walz also has faced criticism from Republicans that his policies as governor were too liberal, including legalizing recreational marijuana for adults, protecting abortion rights, expanding LGBTQ protections, implementing tuition-free college for low-income Minnesotans and providing free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren in the state.

But many of those initiatives are broadly popular. Walz also signed an executive order removing the college-degree requirement for 75 percent of Minnesota’s state jobs, a move that garnered bipartisan support and that several other states have also adopted.

“What a monster. Kids are eating and having full bellies, so they can go learn, and women are making their own health-care decisions,” Walz said sarcastically in a July 28 interview with CNN when questioned whether such policies would be fodder for conservative attacks, later adding: “If that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the [liberal] label.”

Walz also spoke at a kickoff event in St. Paul for a Democratic canvassing effort, casting Trump as a “bully.”

“Don’t lift these guys up like they’re some kind of heroes. Everybody in this room knows--I know it as a teacher--a bully has no self-confidence. A bully has no strength. They have nothing,” Walz said at the event, sporting a camouflage hunting hat and T-shirt.

Walz has explained that he felt some Democrats’ practice of calling Trump an existential threat to democracy was giving him too much credit, which prompted his decision to denounce the GOP nominee instead as being “weird.”

“I do believe all those things are a real possibility, but it gives him way too much power," Walz said on CNN’s “State of the Union” regarding the Democrats’ rhetoric. “Listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter, shocking sharks, and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind.”

If Walz is elected vice president, under state law, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) would assume the governorship for the rest of his term. Minnesota Senate president Bobby Joe Champion, a Democrat, would become lieutenant governor."

-via The Washington Post, August 6, 2024

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This guy. Sounds like. fucking Moderate swing-state/rural/Midwestern/southern/"heartland"/working class white voter catnip. He sounds like he's also a very smart politician and strong campaigner. And he's apparently genuinely a good guy with a good record, too.

He sounds like he's going to do a really good job of appealing to voters in several of the big deal swing states without being from any of them specifically. Which means it doesn't feel like pandering to one of the states involved (and thereby spurning the others), which is also great.

(Also he was the one who started "weird" @ conservatives and I think we should take that seriously as a very good political instinct/move. Judging in large part by how it has so clearly hit an actual nerve with conservatives like so little else. Also hugely relevant: that post going around about how part of why conservatives are so upset about "weird" is because in the Midwest, "weird" specifically also implies anti-social or harmful behavior.)

Officially feeling more optimistic about Trump not winning in November