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copperbadge:

Dearborn can’t believe it has come to this. Reblog if you, too, can’t believe it has come to this.

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https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/787434524284993536

Oh man that sounds AMAZING. I'll have to keep an eye out for it, even though it sounds like it'll be a minute before it's out. Maybe I'll have a peep at Lavin's previous books to see what they're all about.

I was a hater of Twitter since long before the right got a real beachhead. I think it was lost when my LJ was hacked but years ago, right when it started, I wrote an essay about not liking the way it flattened discourse and turned talk into sound bites. Real red ball of apollo stuff. Of course I can't find it now, but perhaps that's just as well, smug is rarely a good look on me.

I just...never found any use for it other than 1. getting the attention of customer service for companies that wouldn't respond any other way and 2. complaining, in a way that made me not like myself much. Some people are SO good at that short format, like it's not that you can't be both intelligent and entertaining in 160 characters, but I just couldn't. I need more room to breathe.

And also there were the Nazis, eventually.

I'm trying to be better with bluesky, but I mostly use it for yelling trivia at podcasters.

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I’ve been thinking about looking around for a new job. Much as I love my job, I’d like to move into the private sector and earn a little more money. I’m not hurting, but I could be much more comfortable. And it kind of stalled out, I was struggling to get motivated, and I wasn’t sure why; part of it was for sure that it’s hard to find a private sector job with my somewhat niche skills and experience, but I’ve done more with less before.

But today I was researching employee philanthropy initiatives at a couple of companies – some companies match donations, some give paid time off specifically for volunteering, some offer donations to a nonprofit if a staff member volunteers there for X amount of time. And the philanthropy benefits page of one company linked to their “Here are all the benefits we offer” pamphlet PDF, like health insurance, life insurance, 401K plans, etc.

And just scrolling through it, remembering all the times I’d been given something like it at a new job, just gave me this huge whack of anxiety. I remembered that feeling of anxious excitement from having a new job, not knowing what it would be like yet, but only the anxiety came back so viscerally. Because I don’t like changing jobs, I don’t like the uncertainty and having to figure out office politics and social situations all over again. And the last time I changed jobs I only did it because I was working in such a hellishly abusive environment that anything else would be better. It worked out great, but it was an act of desperation to begin with.

So, on the one hand, maybe it’s not time to change jobs. Money isn’t everything. But on the other, money is a lot, and maybe it’s time to sit with that fear a little and figure out how to get round it so I can actually get on with the task of sourcing a bigger paycheck.

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elliegoose:

i’m curious, what’s everyone’s Default Outfit? like what would you be always drawn wearing in a cartoon? mine is concert tee + mid length skirt

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I honestly love when people ask world building questions about the Shivadhverse, and I'm so glad you're enjoying the latest one!

I wasn't even aware the Princess Diaries HAD a book version. I won't lie, I've enjoyed the movie both times I've seen it but neither was like, intentional, I didn't seek it out. I'm not very well-versed in the canon, so yeah if the movies are happier lets go with those!

As for voting, that's an interesting question. I looked up how old ranked choice is as a methodology, and I think probably for royal elections in the Ask it's majority rule, but I have some really detailed reasoning as to why :D

Mainly, it seems that ranked-choice was generally known, but also not very popular, around the time Gregory II was democratizing the country in the early 20th century. That being the case he probably went with majority rule, which mostly matters because a lot hinges on how he chose to structure the elections.

There have, at least at this point in canon, been only five elections since the country went to democracy: Gregory II, Nathan IV, Jason I, Michaelis I, and Gregory III. I might write Jason or Michaelis facing a recall vote at some point but I don't have plans to right now. I find politics stressful :D Anyway, the history goes like this:

Gregory II was a birthright king and took the country to a democracy but then was elected king, which I think probably dismayed him a little but what can you do? He died in office, so parliament ran the next election, and they wouldn't have changed the still very new system.

Nathan IV was both incompetent and dictatorial so he was the first real test of the elected royalty system, where there are no term limits, simply the ability to call an election if people didn't like what the king was doing. A recall election would have been a really ugly time to change the system. Plus the whole thing was engineered by Jason, so he would only have allowed it to change if it benefitted him against Nathan. In theory it would have, since if you're voting for someone running against Nathan your vote would probably go to Jason next, because this was mostly about "get Nathan out of office", but Jason also knew he could win without it and he had to consider optics.

Likewise, Jason wanted his son Michaelis to be king. It's not so much that he wanted power for its own sake, but more that he felt that his family were the right people for the job (Jason was a competent ruler but he was arrogant and also not someone who let ethics get in his way). So again he would only have changed the system if he felt it would benefit Michaelis, who was so clearly going to win that he didn't need the help. That election had a number of people running, but nobody was giving Michaelis a real challenge.

Michaelis would have been willing to change to ranked-choice if the people wanted it, especially since he thinks it's a fairer system. Despite his dad, Michaelis is concerned with ethics and he wants to make sure everyone has the same power in the ballot box. So it's possible he held a referendum about it, perhaps well before he was thinking of retiring. If he had just decided to push it through parliament, there were again optics to consider, like whether he was doing it because it would benefit Gregory, so he put it to a public poll. But while Shivadh are generally very liberal they can also be a little set in their ways, and I think if he did hold a referendum they'd vote to keep things as they are. The system elected them three good kings and only one bad one, and those are decent odds.

And Gregory is open to the idea of changing the voting system, but unless there's a push for it from the voters, he's not going to bother, he has bigger fish to fry. He is concerned about the fact that three generations of his family have held office and now it's looking like they're bucking for a fourth, even if Joan is new to the family, so he's more focused on making sure that other young people who are interested in politics get opportunities similar to Joan's. Both because they deserve it, and so that it doesn't seem like Joan's getting undue favoritism.

I might write a political-themed Shivadh novel one day -- we know very little about Michaelis's election and nothing about Gregory's. I have distant plans for the election after Gregory announces his retirement -- Joan obviously is going to run, but I think Serafina will too, and they won't be the only ones. :D But we'll see. There's enough scary politics in the world right now that it won't be for a while in any case.

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