#70-ish seems about right

[eddis-not-eeddis]

.

[carcarrot]

does it really matter what the community is like of a place you move to if you plan to live a semi-hermitlike existence

[slvt4em1lyprenti2s]

Hi hi ! I was wondering if you would do Amelia Shepherd x fem reader fic where R is the third twisted sister to Cristina and Mer, Amelia and reader have been in a relationship in secret for a while because they afraid of Mer’s reaction. They finally tell her and she gets protective of R but at the end she is very supportive and protects them against a patient’s hate comment? Xoxo

You’re dating my sister?

Summary: see req above!

Pairings: Amelia Shepherd x fem!reader

fluff, slight angst, homophobia, use of a homophobic slur

Word Count: 1.04k

NOT PROOFREAD

SET WHEN MEREDITH DIDNT LIKE AMELIA MUCH IN THE BEGINNING

Reader pov:

One year. One whole year me and Amelia have been dating for. It’s crazy how fast time feels when you’re in love, I do t know what I’d do without her. The only issue is my best friends, Cristina and Metrdith. Not that I’m afraid of their answer, well. I’m not staid if Cristina’s answer.

Meredith’s husband happens to be my girlfriend brother. It’s a minor detail, and you know, Meredith isn’t the biggest fan of said sister. Me and ames have talked it over and we’re going to tell people soon, but leave Mer till last, what could go wrong right?

Cristina went wrong.

“Hey! Cristina!” I whisper yelled across the nurses station.

“If you have another twisted-sisters-almost-died-or-had-a-traumatic-event drama to tell me save it for after my surgery. Please.” She sighed out.

“No it’s not that I have to tell you something. But you can not, and I mean can not, tell mer.“ I insist

“Dann what did you do screw her sister or something?”

I stay silent at this and her eyes go wide. “Oh. My. God. No you did not.”

I nod my head profusely and respond “We’ve been dating for a year Cristina. Me and Amelia, what am I supposed to tell her?!” I start to panic just thinking about all the different ways this could go wrong.

“Ohh I have no idea! Good luck, you’re gunna need it, oh and tell me when you’re telling her so I can watch.” I rolled my eyes as she walked away from me towards the OR to scrub in.

I walk to my patients room pondering ways to tell mer about me and Amelia, it was going to be a long day.

Amelia pov:

“Derek! Come here!” I call out to him across the neuro floor.

“What do you need I’ve got a surgery with Yang in like, 2 minutes?” He says looking bored before I even start talking.

“Hey you could at least act interest in what I’m about to say, oh and don’t tell mer yet. Please.” His interest was piqued at this so he gave me a look as if to say ‘keep going you’ve got me hooked’ so I continued “Me and y/n have been dating for a year, and we are o my just telling people ad were scared how mer will react because she’s not exactly my biggest fan as of right now and her and y/n/n, and Cristina obviously, are like twisted sisters or whatever.” I took a breather after sayibg all that and my brother just looked like he wanted to laugh in my face.

“Well, good luck!” He smiled and walked off to the OR.

Well shit.

Reader pov:

I walk into my patients room still deep in thought when he speaks up, he’s fairly old, around 70-ish and was in for a broken hip. “You seemed pretty serious with whatever you were talking about back there and now I don’t even get a hello? Something’s gotta be on your mind Doctor.” He gave me a knowing smirk as I open my mouth yet no words come out and let out and exasperated sigh.

“Ah you know, trouble in paradise, well, paradise’s surroundings at least.” I say trying to be as brief as possible.

“Happens to the best of us kid.” He seemed like a genuinely nice guy and to be honest I needed a break so instead of getting a nurse to check his vitals I decided I was going to do them, although it seemed someone else had the same idea.

“Hey y/n/n what are you doing here?” I hear a voice I know all too well say from behind me.

“Hi Ames, just doing Mr Davison’s vitals, are you okay?” I say giving her a smile.

“Funny I was just coming to do the same thing.” she walked beside me and trailed her hand lightly over my lower back which didn’t go unnoticed by Mr Davison.

“Your ‘paradise’ is a she? Ugh just another dyke, exactly what we need!” I stare at him shocked, as does Amelia. His sudden outburst seemed to pull some attention from outside and the one person that I didn’t want to walked in, walked in.

“Is everything okay in here?” Meredith asked.

“No get these people away from me! Horrible people you lgqbt whatever people!” He flailed his arms about like a toddler as he was ranting and raving. Immediately Meredith jumped to our defence.

“Excuse you? Who do you think you’re talking to? I have you know you’ve just made and enemy out of the best neuro, general and ortho (sorry callie) in the state. It’s 2024 in the USA for gods sake, get a grip man!” With this she ushered us out of the room and then into an in call room so she could talk to us.

•

“YOURE WHAT?!” mer practically yelled

“Keep your voice down, yes we’re dating.” Amelia said to mer try help her keep her head on.

“Look Amelia, I love y/n with my whole heart she’s my sister okay? So, if you hurt her, break her heart or do anything to even slightly harm her, I will hurt you twice as much. She’s the best thing that’ll ever happened to you, so don’t screw it up okay?” My heart warmed after hearing just how much mer cared about me and that she would protect me but also slightly concerned she just threatened my girlfriend.

“Yes ma’am.” Amelia murmured clearly slightly intimidated by mer.

“Okay, now that that’s out the way, I’m so happy for you guys!” Me and Ames say thanks and mer’s oager goes off so she has to run so me and amy are left alone in the in-call room.

“I love you Amelia.” I say as I peck her lips and wrap my arms around her neck.

“I love you too y/n/n.” At this she pulled me into a passionate kiss and lowered us both down onto a bed.

When in an unoccupied on-call room…

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Thanks to anesthetizes for sending in this very unusual (weird) home. Note that in the picture above, the real estate used a watercolor painting of the house, b/c it's signed. I suspect that the house started out as a regular ranch style, when it was built in 1930 in San Francisco, CA, and they eventually transitioned to a hacienda style. (I'm thinking it doesn't look as good in a photo as it does in the painting.) 3bds, 2ba, asking $1.195M.

The decorative hardware they added to the front door.

The front door and window have colorful stained glass. As soon as you enter the entrance hall, you can see the decor.

It has a Conquistador vibe and what they used to call "Mediterranean" furniture in the 70s. I think that it was a very short-lived style.

As you can see, it was very heavy, ornate, and featured crushed velvet fabric.

Not sure what this room is supposed to be.

This must be the dining room since it's right outside the kitchen, but they don't it set up as one.

Not sure what to say about the kitchen. It's not particularly what I'd expect for a $1.195M home.

I don't know what this is, but it looks pretty messed up. I think that the fridge is in another room, the microwave is on the counter, and I don't see a dishwasher. I, personally, wouldn't pay $1.195M for this kitchen.

This must be the guest powder room, so the house really has 1.5ba, not 2, as the description says. Interesting hands coming out of the wall. I wonder if they convey.

Marble-like floor tiles in the primary bedroom. This room looks somewhat Harry Potter-ish, even though it's got Mediterranean style furniture.

Bedroom #2 is a den. I'm still getting Hogwarts vibes.

Bedroom #3 is a sitting room, but it looks spacious.

Bath #2. I'm assuming that the giant pottery is in the tub b/c they don't use it, so they decorated it. Fancy black pedestal sink and there's also a shower with black tile.

It looks like the basement and garage are "open concept" and the laundry area is down here.

Oh, my, the 3,815 sq ft lot doesn't seem to offer anything but a dried out garden.

Ah, so here at the end is an actual photo of the house. The watercolor is a bit more flattering. Maybe $1.195M isn't much to Californians, but it's exorbitant to people like me, and I just don't see that this home is worth the price, especially with the kitchen.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/999-Portola-Dr-San-Francisco-CA-94127/15134670_zpid/

[guardevoir]

Fiber arts update! Featuring handspun and pin loom shenanigans!

Remember this stuff?

Left-to-right: 6-ply 50/50 silk/polwarth, 3-ply 60/20/20 polwarth/silk/yak, 4-ply silk/polwarth (same stuff as the 6-ply) and 4-ply 70/30 merino/silk. Made a scarf out of it.

And, well, I ended up with some leftovers! A very awkward amount of leftovers, not quite enough for anything, but too much to just leave lying about, especially because this is the good stuff.

So I figured I'd weave a bunch of pin loom squares, see if it's enough for something. Picked out a cowl to make halfway through.

I then promptly realized that I was gonna come up short by a decent amount of squares because I didn't have as much blue left as I thought... but I did have the same fiber in a similar colorway on my spindle!

(old photo, I had about 13g of fiber on that thing by that point)

I thusly guesstimated that I must've spun up about half of it, and quickly got the other half done on my wheel. Two-plied it, then cabled it, expecting that to be a pretty decent match to the other 50/50 4-ply silk mix.

It was not a decent match. The other blue shit is somewhere between sport and dk.

But thankfully I'm resourceful:

Most of the white squares have 4-ply warp and 6-ply weft for some texture and a denser weave; I did two of the blue ones with the 4-ply white stuff too to stretch the blue a little further, and for the more purple-ish ones, I ended up doubling the yarn for the weft, which means they had a 4-ply warp and an 8-ply weft. We're not even gonna talk about that gray/white square.

(4-ply/6-ply square in progress):

Sewed it up and felted it a fair bit, for more sturdiness and a more cohesive fabric:

And here's the finished thing, modelled by the resident giant owl plushie:

If you're wondering, the colors are laid out like that because I wanted the softer yak hair mix in the back, where it'd be touching my nape, because I'm super super sensitive to textures there and the merino/silk mix is a bit rougher. In the meantime, this also lets me have all the fun colors at the front. Win/win!

Anyway, this was fun. I always feel kinda dodgy just whipstitching the loops together because it never seems to quite fully come together... but I really enjoyed the process here, the end product is wonderful, and I am eager for more.

[carrotoplyn]

aiden isn’t just a dumb blonde OH MY GOSHHHH. i’ve seen a couple of people say this as like a joke and like haha funny i guess?? I mean it can be fun on the occasion but like ehh idk. but i’ve seen people say it and genuinely mean it and i’m like he’s no though??

it’s currently late at night and i can’t properly express my thoughts on this in such a way it would make sense but, i wanna just point out some simple-ish things. (also apologies for any mistakes you may see, like i said before, it is currently late at night for me when i’m posting this)

so this first one is something my friend noticed. (kinda mad i didn’t notice it myself but not important) which is how in one of the first few episodes (70% sure it’s episode 2) is how aiden was the only one who finished the homework. yes everyone was sleep deprived and tired so they couldn’t do it, but it seems like aiden did it and did it right considering even ashlyn copied off of him

he was smart enough to make a plan for ash to go on the field trip, which was a fully thought out plan that really couldn’t backfire unless she genuinely decided not to go (but she did and now look at where are today)

this next one isn’t talking about how he’s smart but it correlates so idgaf, and it’s how we probably only “plays dumb”. because like i’ve said this whole post, he’s not dumb. but he probably only acts like so people don’t expect him to actually be able to do more complex things. like being so for real when i first read sbg and saw aiden, i had low expectations (but look at me now, writing my second ‘analysis’ or whatever you call this in row on this him)

he beat the world record for how fast a rubix cube can be completed, need i say more? yes, need i say more actually because most people are not good at puzzles. and most puzzles aren’t easy to do either. well yes, for some people rubix cubes are easy, but ain’t no way all he does is those small little rubix cubes that are too easy for him.

hes able to think quick on his feet. first example of this to come to mind is episode 21 when they behead the phantom. and as well as him coming up with an way to save ash from the phantom. like he doesn’t need that much time to think of plans, and his plans are usually foolproof.

FASTPASS SPOLIERS FOR THIS NEXT ONE (the spoilers are under the cut)

he’s always smart enough to negotiate with alex (by negotiate i mean threaten, but same thing, right?) and he literally was about to use a pen as a lethal weapon here guys. A PEN PEOPLE. A PEN. and plus alex was ready to listen to him and make a compromise (to be fair alex already wanted to help anyways but shhh i use whatever crumbs i can for my stupid idiot thoughts)

ok that’s all, please add on if you can i beg i beg 🙏🙏

[tismandrelativedimensionsinspace]

I just caught up with doctor who and I’m really curious what you think about the episodes? Specifically 73 yards, dot and bubble, and rogue were my personal favourites so I’d love to hear your thoughts on them or the others

ooooh ok yes here we go

space babies - i loved it. ok? i get that a lot of people didnt like the cgi baby mouths. but i think it had such series 1 vibes (i.e. ninth doctor). it took me right back to my childhood. loved it tbh

the devils chord - :/ yeah. maestro was the onky redeeming factor of this episode tbh. it was supposed to be about the beatles but like. nothing about the episodes plot felt specifically beatles-relevant? like. you could have had the exact same plot with any 60s/70s band and it would have worked out the same way. i think if you're gonna do an episode surrounding a specific historical figure, the plot has to Only make sense for that historical figure. otherwise whats the point

boom - ugh. yes. 10/10. loved ncutis acting in this one. HE WAS LITERALLY STUCK ON ONE SPOT THE WHOLE TIME. COULD BARELY MOVE. AND HE STILL GAVE A HELL OF A PERFORMANCE. i was so impressed tbh. i love bottle episodes. the side characters were a little lackluster tbh tho. my only qualm with it really

73 yards - ANOTHER BANGER. i love love love when they get a bit horror with it. i loved that we got to focus on ruby and get to know her and her character a lot better. i very nearly cried when she was sitting outside her mums door on the phone. loved the mystery and the lack of a coherant solution, really added to the spookiness and fae vibes of it all.

dot and bubble - ok. im gonna be honest. this episode was boring to me. nothing really happened for the first 30 minutes. lindy was annoying as fuck. and i know that was supposed to be the point but like. if you're gonna do a doctor-lite-ish episode you've gotta make the focal character interesting. give me sally sparrow any day. i get what they were going for, i see the vision, i just think it could have been executed a bit better

rogue - yessssss!!! yesssssss!!!! loved the gay of it all, obviously, but i feel like that has kinda. taken over literally everything else about the episode??? i love the idea of larping aliens thats so silly and fun. i loved the fight mode scene with ruby holding her own. i loved the bridgerton-esque drama and ruby trying to comfort emily. i loved seeing ncuti get his "fury of the timelord" moment when he thought ruby was dead. the doctors dark side is so important!!! hes not all sunshine and rainbows!!! family of blood anyone!!!!

legend of ruby sunday - hm. the pacing was a little off. i felt like a lot of the time i was like. ok can we get to the point now. they mentioned the anagram thing So Many Times. and probability of trap. like ok girl we get it!!!! but. im very excited about sutekh!! he seems like a fun villain and very high stakes. and im so intruiged and compelled by rubys story. i Need to know who she is and who her mum is so so bad.

ANYWAY SORRY FOR RAMBLING BUT. YOU ASKED LMAO. AUTISM MOMENT

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR ASKING BTW ILY!!!!

[miss-midnightt]

I just watched an absolutely incredible video about Rufus Shinra and why he can see the whispers (Link) and wanted to add on to it. It's quite long, so I'll provide a summary(ish):

Essentially, the creator of the video had three theories as to why Rufus could see them: I want to dive into the last two, which hypothesize he is Cetra or had Jenova cells injected into him (more so about the Cetra).

About the Cetra theory:

Essentially, it states that he is part Cetra because he a) can see the whispers and b) seems to possess some level of precognition, much like Aerith.

Firstly, I'd like to discuss how his mother is only mentioned to have died when he was young; this doesn't necessarily mean that Ifalna is his mother, as she can't be the only pureblooded Cetra alive after two thousand years (unless she's the product of a lot of inbreeding).

He seems to show up at pivotal moments by almost pure coincidence (or so it seems) without having any explanations offered. This sense for important moments and appearance of precognition becomes more interesting when you take a look at the Diamond Weapon's attack on Shinra Tower.

Rufus ended up having his life saved during the Diamond Weapon's attack from the very escape route he had suggested as a child, which just so happened to have the entrance exactly where he was taking shelter. keep in mind that Rufus was only five years old when he made the suggestion; President Shinra had no reason (unless you consider the humiliation aspect) to include this in the plans. However, if the President somehow knew that Rufus was special/Cetra, then the inclusion (his office is 70 floors up, mind you; installing that seems a little silly if only based off of the ramblings of a kindergartener) makes a hell of a lot more sense.

The President has also maintained that he doesn't believe in sentiment or attachment; if he had known Rufus was Cetra, it would have been a legitimate reason to include the escape route. Shinra scientists thought the scribblings of young Aerith were important, so why not the seemingly logical ramblings of a five year old who was also Cetra be just as crucial? Also, Rufus did not only say an escape route should be built, he said why; if an enemy attacked from the top their would be no way to escape...which is exactly where the Diamond Weapon attacked from.

Rufus also seems to have these...gut feelings, let's say. Sounds similar to Aerith, right? How she feels pulls to places, to things, suchlike Rufus. This also ties into the Jenova Cells theory, so let's dive into that...

Jenova Cells:

I'd like to start right off of the bat by saying this is purely speculation. I find this interesting nonetheless. This also will probably jump around and seems a bit more headcanon-y and random than the stuff about the Cetra, considering I am wayyy more interested in the Cetra theory. Anyway, let's dive in!

The theory that Rufus was the first (before even Genesis) to receive Jenova cells is plausible for several reasons. First, I'd like to discuss the year in which he was born. In the OG, his age was stated to be 25, which was changed to 30 in the remake--pretty random and unnecessary, at a glance. But it gets a lot more interesting once you realize that that would mean that Rufus was born in 1977...the year Jenova was discovered at the North Crater.

President Sinra has done some awful stuff, and I honestly don't think he'd be totally above injecting unknown substances into his unborn child (especially if Rufus was actually a bastard child that he decided to use in experiments then keep.) Anyway...

While some may argue that his eyes are blue, not glowy green, the glow and green come from mako, not Jenova. Even if there is a correlation between eye/hair color and Jenova cells, he does have light, bright blue eyes (like Genesis) and silvery blond hair. It could be a design choice, it could mean something more.

Then there are the physical strength aspects. He was able to go toe to toe with Cloud, not even showing visible signs of fatigue. Heck, he even parried a blow from the Buster Sword! While Cloud is not a true SOLDIER, he is strong enough that people think so anyway when he tells him that, and also beat Reno, Rude, and other powerful enemies. Meanwhile, Rufus soloed Cloud (with the help of Darkstar/Dark Nation) and didn't seem to be seriously injured.

Furthermore, when Rufus is infected with Geostigma in On the way to a Smile, he says something along the lines of "it felt like it [the Geostigma] was calling to me..." Now, this sounds suspiciously like the pull receivers of J cells feel to Jenova (which could help explain Rufus' presence at the Northern Crater).

I'd really recommend watching at least some of the video, as it explains things way better than I did (it's very long though, so be warned).

Lastly, I'd like to discuss something not touched upon in the video: his coins, more specifically the side of the coin with Darkstar/Dark Nation on it. This coin depicts Darkstar/Dark Nation and flowers, specifically mandragora/mandrake flowers. Why is this important? There are several reasons.

These flowers have been involved in stories and superstitions about magical powers and other tales of the like. It was said in some tales that they could only be harvested in moonlight by a black dog attached to a cord (Darkstar/Dark Nation, anyone? She does appear on that side of the coin, hmm....) after proper rituals had been conducted. Some tales said that they were tied to dark powers, that, get this, drove men mad if they heard their roots shriek. The roots are also highly poisonous.

Now, I'd like to look at color theory and the symbolism of colors in FFVII. In this game, the color yellow seems to symbolize life, hope, and rebirth, whereas purple seems to symbolize desolation, corruption, and death. Yellow is associated with Aerith through her flowers, and purple with Sephiroth for his shadowy magic. They are also contrasting colors; two sides of the same coin (pun absolutely intended). How does this connect to the coins and flowers, you ask? Well, the mandragora/mandrake flowers have a color range of...purple to yellow. Interesting, because Rufus is easily one of the most morally grey characters in the game.

Again, all of this is wild ramblings and pure speculation, so take it with a grain of salt.

[littlelord]

the ASOIAF / HotD / GoT fandom does not talk about the Velaryons enough, (and i know y’all know why. work on that.) so let’s talk about them. I present:

Velaryon Appreciation Day 1:

Corlys Velaryon

The lack of recognition for Corlys is DISGRACEFUL in this fandom.. I genuinely didn’t know he was a main character until I watched the show this week.

So here are some reasons you should appreciate or at least recognize Corlys:

1. He loves his wife more than anyone on that show. Easily the best husband out of the lot.

2. Literally Rhaenys’ #1 fan

3. Puts aside his long-held ambition to have his blood on the throne when Rhaenys asks

4. Is one of the biggest supporters of Team Black

5. ..I’m not kidding, do y’all remember how he kept vying for Rhaenyra’s claim long after her death? Yeah

6. Dude got arrested and sentenced to death for plotting to unseat Aegon AFTER RHAENYRA WAS DEAD

7. Like instrumental to Team Black and Rhaenyra’s line succeeding the throne, especially post-dance

8. Some of the best hair in the series i mean COME. ON. :

the gold bands? that length??? outdid.

9. Some of the best outfits, especially among the men of HotD

10. He is THE Sea Snake, ruler of the seas!!!!!! Lord of the Tides, Master of Driftmark, Head of House Velaryon, and Princess Rhaenys’ husband (the final is obviously his best and most important title).

11. My dude is HARDY. Recovered from a near-fatal stab wound and intense fever at 70(ish) years old.

12. He is so sweet to Luke. Fights for him as heir to Driftmark despite knowing they are not blood related (“it was just so the Velaryon name stays on the throne!” so? he could’ve supported Vaemond’s claim but he chose to support Rhaenyra’s child, his grandchild)

(look at little Luke and his grandsire😞)

13. Driftmark is cool as fuck and he’s the Master of it so that’s another point to Corlys.

14. I said it once I’ll say it again: GILF.

15. (extra credit): Steve Toussaint (Corlys’ actor) seems to be a great guy. He’s funny, v entertaining in interviews, comes across so genuine, bffs with Eve Best (Rhaenys’ actress), and is a huge GoT nerd (seriously. he is the only one who can answer any questions about GoT in the interviews i’ve seen him in). And fun fact- as I was looking to see if he’s overtly problematic, I discovered that all of his twitter likes are just “human kindness” and funny animal videos.

And the worst thing is that if he looked like his pre-HotD fancast/fanon version, people would not shut up about him.

“He’s soo fine”

“I need a husband like him”

“We need to talk about him more.”

..and you know i’m right!

FINALLY:

I am not saying you have to like Corlys (especially if you do not fw any asoiaf men, which i deeply respect), but free him and House Velaryon from this double standard you hold them to.

Like I better not see anyone who appreciates, recognizes, or likes Daemon or Aemond or Criston or even Alicent talking about how Corlys is “too prideful,” “too ambitious,” because look the fuck around!!!!!!! who isn’t in this goddamn verse!!?!??!!! and also you know what?? if my beautiful amazing badass wife was denied her rightful throne, i’d be mad about it too!!!!! even after she said she was over it!!!

if you made it this far, i’m thoroughly impressed and even more grateful that you have heard me out in this Corlys Velaryon rant!

[littleeyesofpallas]

Bleach’s Issue with Queer characters (2/3)

[1][2][3]

Dordonii might seem like a weird one to point out here, compared to some of the more overt examples, but I think he had a fairly evident queer codedness to him.  His more overwhelming quality was his kind of Spanish flair, what with the tap shoes and Flamenco-esque poses and gestures, the devil horns in his greased hair and on his mask shard, and his little Mephistopheles mustache and beard.  But the ear ring, and Flamenco adjacent sex appeal mixed with the way he kind of baby talks Ichigo strikes me as contributing to a certain daddy-ish gay character type.  Also, I’ve never been 100% sure that it’s not just crosshatching, but I’ve always read it as some chest hair peaking out from his low v-neck.  But I feel like that assessment needs some qualifying context...

Western sensibilities tend to read effeminate features on men as a chief indicator of homosexuality, Japan has never been quite as narrowly focused with its own gay stereotypes.  There is definitely a particular character type in anime and manga that pins the preening vanity of smooth faced and long haired effeminate men on homosexuality, but it’s not really the go-to.  Tracing back to media trends of the 1970s the long haired, smooth chested pretty boy (even the gay ones) very much became the domain of female audiences and creators, where as the prevailing trends of gay portrayals by and for men actually settled more firmly on the hairy and muscular image that bara is associated with now.  I'm not about to do a whole big breakdown of the japanese gay subculture behind the bara thing, because that deserves more time and attentio that i can give it here, but you've got a keyword to work with now, so I encourage you to do a little googling yourself.

Also he has his right ear is pierced?  I don't know if this was ever a thing in Japan, but in America it became kind of a wide spread myth(?)  Originally it actually was a functioning kind of code within the queer community in the 1960s and 70s, but after it became somewhat more generally well known the practice more or less stopped, for pretty obvious practical reasons... but weirdly enough by the sheer power of stupid homophobia, straight people continued to scrutinize and be paranoid of men with pierced ears for decades following.  Again, though, I have no idea if either the original intent or the misinformation of that trend was ever anything that had any kind of Japanese presence...

Anyway... What I’m getting at is Dordonii feels very queer coded to me, just not in ways that everyone picks up on.  But speaking of muscular hairy gays...  Let’s talk about an elephant in the room:

Charlotte Chuhlhourne:

Obviously, Kubo doesn’t quite have the tact to make use of queer identities in a totally respectful way, so it’s hard to tell how much is attributable to Kubo making a character exactly as they appear, and what could be argued to be a character’s theoretical self-identifying terms filtered through Kubo’s limited vernacular.  But the word to know here is Okama[オカマ], which has traditionally referred to gay, AMAB transvestites.  Obvious stumbling point here is that prior to more widely codified and accepted trans identities this term applied to both transwoman and drag queens.

Granted until fairly recently(by which I mean within the relatively short spand my own lifetime) even the queer community at large didn’t always differentiate the two very well; presentation was presentation, the circumstances for it and the specificities of achieving it were personal choices, not taxonomical crossroads; some moonlit as queens and that was it, others would’ve lived as women and never walked a show in their life if that had been a practical option, others still were happily gender fluid, but the scene had one look and one label.  We made due with what we had.

Anyway...  point being that Charlotte’s character is specifically a play into an Okama stereotype.  That is to say, the archetypal look of Okama in Japanese media for many years has been a middle aged, square jawed, often broad or even muscular, drag queen.  Although Charlotte doesn’t actually have one, they are also frequently shown with a muzzle of stubble growing in.  Despite what you might think about jabs at the beard as a masculine feature betraying their feminine presentation, it’s actually not (usually) the reason...

The image comes out of Japan’s gay bar scene --in Tokyo, Shinjuku-Nichoume in particular-- which has long been a cultural centerpiece of Japan’s gay culture.  The larger Shinjuku ward as as whole is itself a commercial district.  So, to the general public who didn’t have any interaction with gay culture itself, the small glimpse they had was from the crossing paths of salarymen commuting into work as straggler okama headed home from the bars the morning after, still in drag and makeup but with unshaven stubble growing in after a long night.

(Also, just a side note on this, but if you’ve ever seen an older (usually bigger) woman with a deep, brassy voice in kind of sultry night attire at a bar referred to as “Mama,” it’s because that’s the owner of a okama bar.  She’s not literally anyone’s mother, she’s the defacto den-mother of sorts for the patrons of her bar.)

It’s still definitely not a flattering portrayal, but it’s one with a very specific history that doesn’t communicate to Western audiences at all.  But there is a certain strangeness to how the Japanese handle this, comparatively.  While Western rhetoric has its hangups with moralist preaching and bitching and moaning about “degeneracy” and “deviancy,” those judgments just aren’t baked into Japanese culture in quite the same way.  In fact, while most of these okama caricatures by and for cishetero creators/audiences are definitely not what anyone would call “good” representation, they do lack a certain expected malice.  Sure, flamboyant bafoonery is a constant in exploitation of gay culture on either side of the Pacific, but where as the West uses this as a means to disarm gay men --to make them non threatening, or to rationalize not taking them seriously-- anime manga and even videogames tend to fixate on the curiosity of it.

(although one enduring, generally positive case of this that actually seems to fly super under western audience’s radars are the great fairys in Zelda. which have maintained their extremely obvious dragqueen inspired look since OoT)

One of the first encounters with the okama charactertype that I only learned to identify looooong after the fact is the Magypsies (haha oh boy that localized choice of slur...) in Earthbound. On the one hand they were treated as a bizarre spectacle and literally not human, but they were magical and benevolent and a little comical but not in the way where they were relegated to being the punchline of a joke and nothing else. And I've found over the years that that tends to be the tone of these kinds of characters.

Another very similar case of this is Ivankov in One Piece, the Kamabakka kingdom Okama and Newkama, including Bonclay/Mr.2. (His "okama way" gimmick being a play on the hardboiled gritty actionhero cliche of a "man's way.")  Where on the one hand, it’s a disgusting, tacky use of the familiar okama cliches, but also their very existence as okama is painted as the basis of their unique form of super power?  Really, it’s just so wildly divorced from reality that it’s hard to even call it “representation,” harmful or otherwise...  Still, in impossibly poor taste based on optics alone, though.

This all is not to try and sweep under the rug that these are still ultimately problematic stereotypes and caricatures to have to debrief each new generation of viewer on just to avoid the slippery slope of total misinterpretation, but I've noticed that there is a distinct difference in how that tone is read. The overwhelming attitude I see from these creators is that these long standing cliches are how okama look and act, but that it makes them interesting or funny, and yes “other,” but rarely lesser.  Obviously that's still rooted deeply in ignorance on part of these non-queer creators, but you can see how it lacks the teeth that the western equivalent has, where such caricatures are explicitly there to defame and demonize, and I think that’s an important distinction to make.

(And let’s not even get into the issue of fake “woke” white people struggling to wrap their tiny brains around the idea of another culture by framing it as that culture’s unique idiosyncrasies as if they’re just failed attempts at conforming to white anglo-centric western values, because THAT is a whole other can of worms...)

To maybe put this into some better perspective here, Tier Harribel has blond hair and tan skin, and given what the Arrancar are and how they live she is presumably naturally dark skinned, and naturally blonde.  But her design is clearly based on gyaru/gal (or possibly ganguro) fashion, which makes use of fake tans and bleached hair.  She looks the way she does because she's made to look like that aesthetic, but looking the way she doesn't doesn't imply she bleaches and tans(presumably those colors are both natural on her in-world). 

That same relationship of image inspiring image while being divorced from meaning is just kind of how Kubo makes these kinds of aesthetic decisions, all across the board, problematic or not.  But of course no one really cares about it when it’s a weird recontextualization of the gal aesthetic because no one’s offended on their behalf.

And in general, I think a lot of these things are just so outside the Western perspective that even when they definitely are problematic, some people can’t even begin to grasp what about it is, and end up fabricating just nonsense arguments against it to rationalize a kneejerk kind of discomfort and confusion over the subject...

Anyway...  having said all that, the next one actually IS a huge problem...

[1][2][3]

[implausiblyjosh]

Did The DVD Drive Help Sell PS2s?

This is a repost of a cohost post from AUG 13, 2024:

Someone made a weird claim on twitter about the PS2 and how important DVD playback was in late 2000, claiming that DVD players were under $100 by the end of 2000. It didn't smell right, but this screenshot they kept posting didn't make sense to me. Where was it coming from, who was saying this about DVD players?

I went to try and find where this screenshot comes from, and it's the Wikipedia page for "DVD player". I went and skimmed the 5 refs included in that article, and as far as I can tell, of the 1 webpage, 1 service manual, and 3 articles, none of them say this about pricing. Here's the specific version of the article I was looking at.

The closest we get is the EETimes reference in that wikipedia article, an article from May 2002 which has "With DVD player prices on track to drop to about $70 by year's end". That's not super helpful because it doesn't tell us where the prices are in May 2002.

The remaining four sources aren't very helpful either. The service manual PDF is lots of circuit boards, no prices. The webpage and and the other two articles are talking about the first year of the DVD player & format, which is about 1997. So that doesn't help us. Where'd this number even come from?

I checked the Talk page for the article, I'm seeing someone point out in 2008 that there were 0 sources on this article, and I'm not digging in the edit logs of the article itself to see when/where the references came from. So we know sometime between 2008 and 2024 these five sources were added, but none of the sources back the claim.

Trying to find articles about pricing from the time, I google "dvd player price in 2000" and get an IGN article from August 2000 that lists prices ranging from $270 to $3,000. To confirm my knowledge of the PS2 launch (because now I'm doubting what I know lol) I find a GameSpot article from May 2000 announcing the price and launch of the PS2, which is October 26, 2000 for $299 USD.

If your entry level DVD player is $300 in August 2000, I don't know how easy it was to find players "under $100" by the end of the year, and definitely not by the PS2's launch date of late October 2000. Based on looking through some articles at the time, we're looking at something that cost the same as a budget Sony DVD player at the time, but also played video games. It's hard to say how much that drove sales, but I did a quick search for "ps2 launch sales", looking for articles before 2001. I found a CNN article from the PS2's launch day that says:

Perhaps the most important perk, the PS2 can play digital versatile disc (DVD) movies, a feature that Sony hopes will make the $299 console a standard appliance in North American homes. The game pad controls the DVD functions with a relatively rudimentary interface, allowing users to skip ahead, pause or view special features.

In Japan, the presence of the movie player has reportedly driven up sales of DVD movies.

Based on quick searches from articles at the time, T\the evidence that the DVD feature helped PS2 sales is way more evidenced than the idea of $100 DVD players by the end of 2000. Hell, trying to find something that gets me close to that pricing claim is a CNET article from 2002 which says:

The cost of DVD players fell more than $200 within two years of their introduction in 1997 for nearly $500, according to Peddie Research. And the price slide hasn't stopped. Although the Consumer Electronics Association says the average price of a DVD player was $193 last year, consumers can now find players for less than $100.

Looking at it all, it seems like the DVD functionality was a selling point according to Sony and articles at the time of the launch, so. Idk, seems like the DVD feature was important to sales of the PS2!

The above was adapted from a thread I made on Twitter. I'm adding the following new thoughts!

I woulda been 6-ish when the PS2 launched, so what I know first-hand of the era is skewed. Listening to people I trust talk about games has given me the impression the DVD drive and playback was important to the PS2's sales and initial success, making for a solid foundation for people to develop a shit ton of amazing, system-seller titles for the platform. It's a hand-in-hand situation, not an either-or situation. Based on what I remember growing up, the PS2 was a good investment for a video game household that loved movies but didn't have the funds to get a DVD player and get a game console. For us, the PS2 was a best of both worlds situation.

But that's kinda... not the point? It wasn't difficult to find these sources talking about price, but it shoulda been easier. Articles talking about DVD player prices should have been in the Wikipedia article, but weren't. That's super strange to me, a wikipedia article about a large and important type of media player has only 5 sources, and more than half of them are talking about it's first year. Google search should have been a lot better to allow me to find more sources from the time, because it was hard to find any coverage of the launch day vibes of the PS2. Thinking about this more after the fact, I think I need to learn how to search magazine scans because I know gaming print magazines at the time would have said something about DVD playback and how important it may or may not have been!

Idk where to end this. Seems like there's a weird bit of misinfo on the DVD player Wikipedia page, which seems hard to correct because I'm not sure where to look for better sourcing. Someone should do something about this I think!

[kirk]

Hello! I just saw your meet the fob artist drawing and noticed you have the deaf flag on there, so I was just curious, if you don’t mind me asking, is your hearing worse than the average person’s but you can still hear some? or are you completely deaf? I’m just really curious seeing as the fob fandom is like. band-centered? and I’m wondering how that affects you listening to their music, or if it doesn’t affect it at all,, idk sorry if this seems rude or anything at all I’m genuinely just very curious about it! ^ ^’ and if you don’t want to answer that’s completely fine, absolutely don’t feel the need to!

this is totally fine to ask and honestly really sweet of you i love people that are just genuinely curious but to answer your question yeah i’m technically hard of hearing !!! my right ear has about 80% hearing loss and my left has about 20%ish!!! so Technically i’d fall under HoH but because i have to wear hearing aids, know (scottish) sign language and my mother is deaf it’s kinda just. more fitting for me personally to say deaf and i like it more tbh :-3 and to answer the Second part yeah it does affect my experience as A Music Enjoyer(tm) but in particular i’m just gonna say fob. for example for years really before phones had wifi and real time lyrics like spotify does now i honestly couldn’t hear much of what patrick sang if i didn’t already know the lyrics, and if i knew the lyrics i would less hear what he was singing fully and instead kinda? feel? half hear? know/feel the beat the word came on? and then place the known lyric there and it’d make sense in my brain then and id “hear” it? but also i wouldn’t necessarily Hear it and more know it was there. it’s weird to explain sorry BFKSBDJ but !!! hearing is so weird because Now that i’ve wore my hearing aids often, thats gotten my brain used to deciphering esp words easier and thanks to some surgeries, i Can hear and decipher way better than i could when i was younger and tbh just like. audio clarity and tech advancing definitely Helped. but i can now hear the music Fully but way quieter (my volumes are usually never below 70% volume) than your average person and i Do still miss some intricacies that others may find obvious, like another example would be i didn’t at first hear the slight echo on the final chorus of the kids aren’t alright when patrick sings “i’ll be yours (yours) when it rains it pours (pours)” that sorta thing until Very recently cause i got new audiophile headphones!!! so honestly even tho it does suck that i have to have my brain and ears work on overdrive to listen to fob/music in general it also is kinda cool to almost constantly experience songs i’ve listened to for years anew because i finally hear smth i havent before or got new headphones that let me hear an instrument i had no idea was even in the arrangement

[macaroni-rascal]

Montreal Worlds Day 1!

What a lovely day, it was so exciting, I kept turning to my friend who's here with me (shoutout Jillian I adore you) and going: "Holy shit! We are actually here!" I just kept having realizations over and over that a dream I'd had for a while has come true. So damn wonderful!

Some highlights and general thoughts:

Pairs is so much more exciting in person than on TV, and it's already incredibly exciting on TV. We were seated in a place where several teams did their sbs jumps and a good amount of their throws, and it was just fucking exhilarating.

Some teams who I never found that interesting on TV/streams were so fun to watch in person, which I wasn't expecting.

The difference in speed between teams is so hilariously glaring when you're in person, one team looks like a high speed train, the next is skating through molasses.

DEANNA DEANNA DEANNA DEANNA DEANNA.

ALSO DEANNA.

AND DEANNA.

THEN ALSO DEANNA.

That entire moment of Deanna and Max, from the moment they were announced to the about 45 minutes after they got their scores, I was on such a high. The energy in the building was just unbelievable. I'll never forget that. Sending them all the love for the free today!

(Break for a nice lunch, had fish sandwich and fries, and it hit the fucking spot.)

The women were a similar but also different story, some skaters I thought I liked a lot were a little less exciting in person, while other skaters who I'd not been that into captivated me completely, Young You was one such skater. I always thought she was pretty solid, but she's got an energy in person that had me transfixed. I loved her program.

Loena turned the fucking party, what a moment that was.

Isabeau is worse in person, jesus christ those jumps are heinous.

Unsurprisingly, Kaori's speed and ease across the ice was completely unmatched, it's a shame her was a little messy in the SP, glad she's still in it though, she can get it back in the free.

Amber's fall on her loop made me deflate like a sad balloon, it was right in front of me and I nearly cried.

Josefin Taljegard I adore you so much, such a cool skater to watch, her step sequence was so amazing.

Gubanova just not having a combo made people around me making the funniest sounds, and I had to laugh quietly to myself cause it was very comical.

So much fun!

Some general happening and thoughts on the venue:

Had to get my tickets printed and picked up when I thought they were on my phone, didn't bring a photo ID with me, nearly cried thinking I'd have to back to my airb&b and then all the way back to the venue, but alas, two pieces of government ID did the trick, and all was well. We laughed so hard about it later, but what a wild start to the whole event.

FUCK THE TINY ASS SEATS IN THE VENUE. Fuck them so hard, so uncomfortable, so awful, thank god I'm on the end of a row or I would have died, maybe?! Had trouble getting to sleep last night cause my right hip and back hurt so much from those seats. They were not created for 70% of the population who are not stick thin and/or children. That's my one gripe, and that's my rant.

Why must they take the caps off the bottles of all drinks people purchase? What is that? What is the point of that? My friend brought me a water, I didn't realize it had no cap, nearly poured water all over the people in front of me. Just so confusing to me. I'm sure there's a good(ish) reason, but wowza not my favourite. (Okay, that's my second small gripe, but it's more a confusion than an annoyance.)

My friend and I came back from lunch, and people were just full sitting in our seats with a big sign for a skater?????? We asked them to move, and an old lady in the row behind us got angry at us cause it was in the middle of a skater's program and she felt we should have waited to have the people move, which seemed wild to me. I could never be that person, you have a seat, go sit in that seat????????? The audacity????

GET TO THE BATHROOM EARLY! DON'T WAIT FOR THE LAST SKATER'S SCORE BEFORE THE ICE FLOOD, YOU WILL BE WAITING 8 YEARS TO PEE. We got there early every time, and when we left the bathroom, the line was maybe 100 people long.

God, one more thing about the seats, they truly made us both (me and my friend) so unhappy and uncomfy, we are full missing the first three groups of men today because it is not worth being in pain for those early groups. Four groups is our cut off for how long we can be in the venue without a significant break. Amen.

HAVING TO MUCH FUN, DREAM COME TRUE, DEANNA WORLD CHAMPION TONIGHT THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

[muse-rising]

How to Name Your Dragon

AKA: How I spent the last hour and a half of my life on something that should be simple and straight-forward. Specifically, this dragon (who is not finished yet):

My new(ish), Solstice-hatched gen 1 with all gem genes and eyes (cries in that's all my current funds).

1. Stare at your dragon in their final state. Try to figure out the vibes they give you. Tip: Use their hatchdate for inspiration. 2. Websearch for names that mean things the dragon makes you think of: names that mean something relevant to the dragon's appearance, theme, or hatchdate. Check out a few of the resulting (usually baby naming) sites that pop up. 3. Write down possibilities as you come across them. I do this in the dragon's bio. 4. Play with some of the names and sounds to try a few of your own creation too. Or combinations of meaningful names. 5. Stare at the dragon's picture some more while trying each name out loud. Pit them against each other to the death. Last name standing wins. 5a. This sometimes involves cross-referencing the meaning of each name because some of these sites are literally just making it up rather than giving you the actual meaning from the actual origin. 6. Do a little spot research on the name source (ie language, fictional work, mythology, and or country of origin. 6a. This sometimes provides inspiration to plop down for creating some lore later. Either way it just makes sense to at least learn a little about the source before you use it. 7. Remember that there was a thematically appropriate pendant or something Galadriel gave Frodo on the whole "Light in the darkness" theme your Solstice dragon has going on.

8. Research Galadriel looking for the name of the thing. 9. Find pretty names and words in that research you might use, research those to see if they're appropriate. 10. Increase your in-depth knowledge of Galadriel and Tolkien's possible folk and myth inspirations on elves as angels. 11. Find what you're looking for and realize that name's not right. 12. End up researching Luthien/Tinuviel (forgot how I got here lol) to learn a little more about her than just the basics. 13. Realize while you like the meaning of "nightingale" for your dragon, Tinuviel doesn't seem to really suit them. 14. Check Silmarils just in case they might yield a gem or two and because you're only aware of the basics. 15. Go back to nightingale. Look up more names that mean nightingale. 16. Cross reference those in case the source is making things up. 17. Highlight the Latin "Luscinia" from nightingale wikipedia. It's a good one. 18. Research the symbolism of nightingale for both lore inspiration and verification it suits the dragon meaning-wise. 19. Read a pretty line by a poet named Percy Shelley. 20. Look him up before officially quoting it in the bio to make sure he's not a horrible creep. 21. Discover he was into political justice and free love way before the US went wild for it in the 60s and 70s and was an atheist in a time that got him shunned for it. 22. Read about his love affair and eventual marriage to Mary Godwin - wait...wouldn't that make her Mary Shelley. 23. Realize this poet is the same poet you knew Mary Shelley had married. 24. Read more about Mary Shelley while you're at it because while you know some of it, it's from an episode of Dr. Who primarily and you're curious about some of the things brought up in Percy Shelley's wikipedia. 25. Write a post about how it took you WAY too much of your life to pick a name. In my defense, I learned a whole lot tonight about a lot of random things. Even more if you count the hour and a half before that where I spent naming a different dragon and learning a bunch of stuff about Azerbaijani, Iran, Persia. + their modern and historical views of queer people. and the Ghost Busters universe/timeline.

Final name for the pictured dragon: Luscinia (Latin name for nightingale - which etymologically could mean "Little seen (as in the twilight) singer" or even "famous singer." Might also be "Little understood singer" referring to the mystery of their nightsong. Oh! 26. Remember that somewhere in there included research into the Greek language for many other names and in what order they tend to use adjectives+nouns. Also Circe, Callisto, and Kalliope research. My brain is full of learning. Azerbaijani/Ghost Busters research-prompting dragon was named Zulejxa. A day later: 27. Remember you also did a bunch of reading up on Amaryllis flowers both in general and according to flower language.

[aviculor]

The House By the Cemetery (1981). A family moves into a house which once belonged to a mad scientist named..."Dr. Freudstein". Right. So I'm not exactly expecting a highbrow masterpiece here, but it sounds camp.

Right off the bat, we got boobs and poor English dubbing.

So the child has psychic powers and talks to a ghost, the mom is having a case of The Vapours at any given moment, and everyone they meet seems to thinks the dad was here a year ago. Italy's most coherent horror film.

The problem here is that it's taking itself seriously despite doing dumb shit like random dramatic close-ups on people's eyes and having the mom start screaming and sobbing in the corner because she heard noises and nobody answered when she called out.

There's uh...there's a tomb embedded right in the hallway's floorboards, huh?

That sure was a decision they made to turn the fake bat jumpscare into a whole scene, huh?

You know, since the voices are all dubbed in, it seemed a lot like the crying was coming from Freudstein and not Bobby.

Oh, the tense background music just stops.

There were some nice visuals, but overall it was genuinely not very good. True to the giallo inspiration, there were a lot of red herrings about what was really going on which only gets revealed in the last 15-ish minutes. But the thing is, that doesn't translate well when removed from that context. There's no whodunnit murder mystery here, the synopsis tells us there's a monster in the basement. Ergo, what we ended up with was a story where random shit happens that has no actual significance. The babysitter being asocial, the librarian being suspicious, the graveyard caretaker getting pissed off at the mention of Dr. Freudstein, the fucking bat mauling scene, at least two people thinking Norman had previously been to the house before...there was no point to any of that. Bobby having a ghost friend only made sense at the last possible moment and that was still pretty out-there. Another thing is that the pacing was atrocious where we were still doing the "mom doesn't believe the son about the monster" thing almost 70 minutes into the 86 minute runtime.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

2024 Presidential Election by the numbers

1972 was the first presidential election following the peak of the civil rights movement which guaranteed black men and women the right to vote nationally, as well as the first after the ratification of the 26th amendment which guaranteed 18 year olds the right to vote. Many states still suppress black and young voters, but on paper the current overall makeup of eligible voters has been the same since 1972; ostensibly all American citizens over the age of 18 (whether or not they are registered, they are still considered eligible)

If you take a trend of voter eligibility since 1972, it has gone up an average of 8.3 million voters every election year as the overall population has grown. In 1972 there were 138.3 million eligible voters, and in 2020 there were 238.0 million. Putting all the values into a graph and plotting the line of best fit, we would expect around 244.1 million eligible voters this year.

The actual number of voters is never even close to full eligibility. Since 1972, it has fluctuated from 51.7% in 1996 to 66.6% in 2020. It has averaged 57.2%, and the line of best fit trend for 2024 predicts 62.5%, so let's call that 60%. I would expect 60% voter turnout this year; from 244 million voters, that leaves us with 146.4 million votes cast. Both of these numbers are, as expected, way down from the high water mark set by the extenuating circumstances of 2020 (158.5 million votes cast, 66.6% turnout)

Since 1972, the two major party candidates have earned an average of 95.5% of the vote (in other words, third party candidates have received an average of 4.5% nationally). This fluctuates wildly, with the median at 98.1% and the mode at 99.0%. Third party candidates do well (IE earn more than 5% of the vote) every third-ish cycle; 1980, 1992, 1996, 2016. RFK Jr. is consistently polling around 5% - 7% nationally, but he's been bleeding support since Kamala Harris entered the race in July. I couldn't tell whether his support will continue to dry up or plateau where it is, but the trend line says the Democrats and Republicans will win 96.3% of the vote in 2024 (96.9% if we ignored "elections georg" in 1992, where Ross Perot won nearly 20% nationally). 96.3% of 146.4 million votes cast, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will win ~141 million votes combined, ballpark ~70 million each.

Joe Biden won 81 million votes in 2020, and Donald trump won 75 million, the two highest vote totals ever, so again we would expect both parties to be way down this year. On average, the popular vote winner has received 48.3% of votes cast since 1972, and the loser 48.0%. Because Democrats have won 7 of the last 8 popular votes, it is very likely that Kamala Harris will outperform Donald Trump this year, but because it all comes down to the electoral college the numbers become pretty much meaningless. If you plot the percentage of votes won by the winners of the electoral college (IE, the winners of the presidency), then the trend suggests that the 2024 winner will receive 47.6% of the vote while the loser would receive 48.3%...

Ignoring this discrepancy, looking only at popular vote totals, this is about what we can expect this November, all else being equal:

Eligible voters: 244,071,189.8 Voter turnout: 146,446,713.9 (~60% of eligible) Kamala Harris: 70,731,830.8 (~48.3% of turnout) Donald Trump: 69,706,731.8 (~47.6% of turnout) Kennedy et al: 6,004,151.3 (~4.1% of turnout)

This may represent the average election on paper, but it seems unlikely in practice. While voter turnout has experienced larger drops than 6.6%, the popular vote has never dropped by over 10 million between cycles; while I don't expect anyone to break Biden's 81 million anytime soon, I don't think Harris will receive less than 75 million because the winners of the current election have always received more votes than the loser of the previous. That's not mathematically modeled, that's just a vibe, so don't take these numbers 100% seriously.

I'll try to model the electoral college sometime next week by looking at voter trends across the current swing states. Georgia flipped blue in 2020 after years of trending towards the center, but it probably won't continue on that leftward trajectory due to increased suppression of black voters in the Atlanta area following Republican losses in the Senate in 2020 and 2022.