#and then actually go vote on election day!

[scrollypoly]

Ok, so with all these posts going around aboht election interference and calling for a recount, i wanted to find evidence that weren't twitter screenshots

Tl;dr - bomb threats yes, 3 fires at ballot boxes (1 had damaged ballots and theyre fixing it), 20 million unaccounted votes is FALSE, this shit takes time to count so be patient, cuz they are STILL COUNTING

Bomb threats at polling places:

This claim is legit, as well as the source being from russian email domains. No actual bombs were placed or set off.

Burning ballot boxes:

3 incidents of burning ballot boxes have been confirmed for this election in Portland, Oregon and one in Vancouver, Washington, both of which are suspected to be from the same individual. Republican and Democrat officials have spoken out against this, ballot boxes were guarded after the incidents started, and fire suppression systems inside the ballot boxes saved the majority of the ballots, except for one box where 488 ballots were damaged due to a malfunction of the fire suppression system.

Fires were also confirmed in Arizona by a man who apparently just wanted to be arrested and had no political motivations.

No fires were confirmed in Georgia, despite repeated claims that most of the fires were in Georgia. Georgia changed their election laws in 2021 in regards to absentee votes. Ballot boxes have been notably targetted for election conspiracy and mistrust. Take this into account when you see outcry about ballot boxes in any way.

Votes not being counted:

The screenshots im seeing particularly note California, which is the state with the largest amount of registered voters. California is also dealing with massive wildfires rn. Its gonna take a couple days, and the election isnt officially over yet. Calm down

20 million unaccounted votes:

Yall . . .

This shit takes time. Theyre not "throwing your ballots out" or "deliberately not counting votes". Be so for real

Some of this shit is valid, and should probably be known. Some of this shit is making yall sound like trumpers in 2020. Be smart. Have critical thinking.

If youre gonna reblog or comment with claims i better see credible evidence to back your claims up or youre getting blocked

Edited to add a TL;DR, no other changes

[qqueenofhades]

I don’t have any words right now for what’s happened. Where in the fuck do we go from here?

I don't know. I really, truly don't know. We can't sugarcoat how bad things are going to get, and we can't pre-emptively give into it anyway. This is going to be an unprecedented time in American history (if, sadly, not world history) and the forces conspiring to make you obey will gain much of their power from you doing so in advance, without a struggle. It seems fair to say that America as it has always been historically constituted is over, and may not return in our lifetimes, but we also do not know that for a fact. If nothing else, the fascists will find it very hard to cancel competitive elections, and we cannot sit back, throw up our hands, conclude that voting is clearly meaningless, and let them do that. There are a lot of other things that we need to do, but that's one.

There are various postmortems to be written and nits to pick, but Harris was thrown into an impossible situation and did the best she could in 100 days. Even her critics agree she ran a pretty much flawless campaign. But this country simply decided that a well-qualified black woman could not be preferred over the most manifestly and flagrantly unfit degenerate to ever occupy the office. They decided this for many reasons, not least because large swathes of the country now live in curated misinformation bubbles that, under Government Czar Musk, will only get much, much worse. They were helped by the cowardice and complicity of the "mainstream media" that could have ended Trump's career exactly like they did to Biden after the first debate, but chose to preserve the profits of their billionaire oligarch owners and did not do so, giving Trump the benefit of the doubt and normalization at every turn. They also hounded Biden relentlessly over the four years of his presidency, never reported on the good things he did, and drove him to the historically bad approval ratings lows for a president who was by any metric, quite successful (and will quite possibly be our last ordinary American president for a very long time). Along with the searingly ingrained racism and misogyny and misinformation, Harris could not overcome that.

Democrats clearly had a messaging problem, but it's also true that the country, quite simply, does not care about "democracy" when the economy is perceived to be at stake. Not to over-egg the Hitler parallels, but yeah. This is how Hitler returned to power in 1933 -- on the backs of widespread economic collapse of the Weimar Republic; voters decided they just didn't care about the overtly fascist stuff, which he then proceeded to you know, do with genocidal vigor. Except the American economy in this case was actually doing well, which makes it even more baffling and indefensible. Enough people simply memory-holed Trump's crimes (aided at every turn by SCOTUS, Mitch McConnell not convicting him after January 6, Merrick Garland being far too slow and timid, the corporate media), liked the racist fascist behavior or felt that it wasn't a dealbreaker, and decided that in this election, he was the "change" candidate. It's insane by any metric, but that's what happened.

The country is deeply sick. We do not know what will happen. It's going to get bad. Barring a miracle, we will not have federalized abortion rights again in my lifetime, and there will be widespread attacks on public health, women's rights, immigrants, transgender people, and other vulnerable people. Even and especially the ones who voted for Trump. Never Thought Leopard Would Eat My Face, etc. Alito and Thomas will swiftly step down and allow their seats to be replaced by 40-year old wingnuts hand-selected from the worst the Federalist Society has to offer. SCOTUS is gone for the next generation at least. There is very little prospect of it being ever fixed in the foreseeable future.

Trump will never face a scintilla of consequences for his previous crimes; all the open federal cases will be closed as soon as he takes office and fires Jack Smith. The best we can hope for is that he dies in office, but then we get Vance and the cadre of alt-right techno billionaires ruled directly from the Kremlin. Putin is celebrating this morning and with good reason; he's gotten everything he wants. Trump will egg on Netanyahu in Gaza and abandon Ukraine. Democracy across the world will remain even more fragile and badly under threat. Authoritarians will be empowered and American withdrawal from international systems will percolate in very dangerous ways that cannot and will not be fixed in the short run. I really hope all the leftists who celebrate this as the "defeat of the genocide candidate" will enjoy all the genocide and suffering that's about to come. And yes, I do think the Israel-Palestine war fucked us in a large way. Jewish voters perceived the Democrats as insufficiently pro-Israel due to the presence of far-left antisemitism, even as the far left attacked the Democrats relentlessly and never targeted the Republicans. Arab voters abandoned them, possibly deservedly. What would have happened without the war? We don't know. You get the historical period that you get. Netanyahu and Trump can now do anything they want. Hope it was worth it.

As I said, I can't sugarcoat it. We are going to be paying for this in some form for the next decade, and probably longer. I'm not as absolutely shattered as I was in 2016, but I am much, much angrier. We all thought, we all hoped, America was better than this. It isn't. That, however, is something that has also happened before. What we decide to do next will shape how the next chapter unfolds.

This would be a great time to stock up on needed medicines, renew your passport online, and anything else you need to do in preparation for next year. Many of us simply do not have the wherewithal, whether financial or otherwise, to leave the country. I don't know what will happen with me. I don't know what will happen to any of us. This was utterly avoidable and yet, America didn't want to avoid it. At some point, there's nothing else you can do. You can point to media cronyism, Russian influence, etc etc., but the fact that two of the most qualified presidential candidates who happened to be women have now lost to Trump twice makes it unavoidable. The virulent rightward shift of young men (of all races) in particular paints a grim picture as to how the reactionary misogyny of the 21st century is going to essentially undo most of the progress for social and gender equality in the 20th. The patriarchy has been a problem for most of human history. Doesn't really seem like it's going to change.

The end result of this, however grim: we're still here. We are still living within our communities. If (and this is a big if) Democrats can retake the House, they can put some checks on the process for the next two years. At this point, we are in full-out buying-time, trying-to-prevent-the worst mode. We could have continued fixing things, but we won't be doing that. We will only be trying to preserve ourselves and our friends and our smaller spheres of influence. It sounds very trite to say that we have to have courage, but we do. There's not much else.

It's going to be an awful winter. We have two and a half months to see this coming and know how bad it's going to be, and... yeah. I don't know how soon the buyer's remorse will inevitably set in, but it will. Tough luck, people. You voted for him. You get the country that you decide to have. But the rest of us are also here, and what Gandalf says is still true. We wish the Ring had never come to us, we wish none of this had happened, but we still have to decide what to do with the time that is given to us.

I don't have a lot more. I'll probably be logging off for a while. I don't need to look at the internet for.... yeah, a long time. (Will I do it anyway? Probably.) I don't know what else to leave you with, aside from again:

Do not obey in advance. Do not act as if everything is foreordained and set in stone. Fascist regimes end. They always do. We are going to have to figure out how, and it will suck shit, but the alternative is worse.

Take care of yourselves. I love you.

[andhumanslovedstories]

I am not closely following the election results tonight, but I am occasionally seeing flashes of them out of the corner of my eye. The most obvious sign that things aren’t going well right now is the complete lack of celebrating on my dash. I know what tumblr looks like when it’s happy. Maybe I’ll go to bed tonight and see something different in the morning. I hope to god that is the case. But I’m thinking about the way I’m thinking right now, and I want to get some stuff down before the future kicks in.

In 2016 I was in a period of my life I affectionately refer to as as my fuckup era. I wasn’t even fucking up really. More just chilling out and falling short of the vague expectations I’d had about what I was supposed to be doing after I graduated college. While my friends from college rented apartments in the city and got jobs that didn’t supply you with a uniform shirt, I lived at home and worked as a barista at a fancy movie theater. That’s a real job you can do for almost five years. I didn’t have a clue what the back half of my twenties should look like. The only long term plan I had in my life was moving out west with my best friend, and my plan for finding a job once I was out there was basically to cross my fingers and hope.

Those days weren’t bad on the whole, but it felt like I was not actually living a life so much as I was goofing off in the waiting room. Sometimes that felt embarrassing, sometimes it felt fun, and sometimes it felt like I was completely pointless to the world.

On 2016’s Election Day, I went to bed early. After watching the votes come in, I needed the night to be over. I woke in a world that felt different than it had been the night before—not just in the actuality of who would be president but down to its foundations. I realized for the first time how much hope I’d had in human nature because now I didn’t feel it anymore. It’s almost silly when I think about it—so many horrible things had already happened that year, people had done horrible things as long as there have been people, and I didn’t think I was naive to that—but something clicked into place that morning.

It felt the same way my world had changed a year earlier, in 2015 during my last semester of college. My college victory lap felt like a prolonged downward spiral. Very early in the morning on a Monday, after pulling an all-nighter and overwhelmed by self-loathing that I could not just motivate myself to work on a paper that had been my only thought all weekend, I self-harmed for the first time in a way that was impossible to pretend it was anything else. Earlier that weekend, I’d tried staving off the urges drawing or writing on my arm, something that did (and does) usually work. I’d written this quote in silver sharpie on my forearm: “Good is not a thing you are. It's a thing you do.”

I picked that quote from the Ms. Marvel comics and liked the words so much, I thought that I wouldn’t be willing to purposefully mess it up by hurting myself there. Didn’t work. They just made me feel more ashamed of myself as I did it.

That was the worst I had ever felt. Then, on the Friday of that week, a friend of mine was senselessly, brutally murdered.

It doesn’t feel now like there was ever a time before her death. My memoir class is now where I wrote about her. My favorite professor is now the one who held me as I cried. My final thesis, the culmination of my history degree, never got finished and certainly never got polished. I turned it what I had and got an A minus. Sometimes I think of rereading that paper to see if that’s the grade it actually deserved. We hadn’t been the closest friends, but my name was still on the email admin sent to professors, listing students who might be emotionally affected by this tragic event. Grace’s murder hangs over every memory I have with her and everything she ever touched. It feels like its own type of obliteration to leave her reduced to her death.

Grace wanted to be a lawyer because she believed in justice and also liked arguing. She could be rude when she wasn’t interested in what you were saying. When you caught her attention, you felt like the most fascinating person in the room. She was so proud of being Jewish. I watched her become proud of being gay. She was so universally friendly that it took me a year to realize that she actually liked specifically me. She had a somewhat silly laugh and an astonishingly luminous smile.

I thought less of the world and the people in it because of how she died. Trump’s election in 2016 felt like that.

After he won, I left stasis. From November through December, I thought harder about my future than I ever had before. Who did I want to be? What did I most value? What did I think was worth protecting? What work wouldn’t kill me to do? At one point, in presumably a fit of madness, I thought, “what if I got into politics.” Epiphany eventually hit me. By the time of Trump’s inauguration, I was already enrolled at community college, getting my pre-reqs for nursing school.

Now it’s election night again, eight years later. I live on the west coast with my best friend, in a house that we bought together. I work as a nurse in a hospital in a city where there are homeless encampments off every highway and someone begging for change on every corner. Meanwhile, there’s Palestine. Meanwhile there’s Sudan. Meanwhile refugees drown in the sea and border patrol shoots jugs of water. Even hurricanes have human cruelty now.

I don’t think people are inherently good or the universe inherently kind. But I am very good at tricking myself into thinking it for a little while, and when I do, I can remember the a specific feeling from Friday of my senior year, from that morning in November— how fucking hard the disappointment hit me because I had expected people to be better than this. It makes me want to be better than that.

I believe, and hope that I always will, that we can make a better world. I don’t know what it looks like, but I think I will see it in my lifetime. Those of us who can believe such things owe a bit of that naïveté to the world—not to excuse atrocities or think them impossible but to believe that we can stop them at all. You have to have a couple people sprinkled around who are genuinely shocked when people do bad things. It’s not that the pessimists are wrong, but you need the occasional counterbalance. I want to be a reasonable cynic’s pleasant surprise.

Every shift, I interact with people at their lowest and worst. I see the direct pipeline from pain to anger to violence, and how fragile that pipeline can be. So many situations can be changed by things as small as a warm blanket or a kind word. Violence can be quite easy to avert. Crises can be quite simply to resolve. Even when I know that whatever I do that shift will not change the circumstances of a person’s life, I think that what I do that shift still matters.

I’m lying in bed, writing this post instead of looking at the news. I wonder how tonight will change me. Been thinking about what I’ll do if Trump wins. Been thinking about how whatever I think I need to do under Trump will still need to be done if Harris clutches out a victory. I guess this is a pessimist’s optimism: to a degree the election doesn’t matter. Good is not a thing you are. It is a thing you do. Our better world will always take a lot of work.

But please god please, why can’t it be just a little easier to do it?

[we-fucked-up-evolution]

being european today is its own kind of hell because it's 2pm and i've already checked us election results 25 times, despite the fact that it's only like 8am in new york and we won't know anything until like 4am my time

some part of my brain is raging against the fact that i know more about us politics than the politics of the country i actually live in, like it's not normal that so many of us not only know what swing states are, but how many there are this election and which states they are when most of us have never set foot in the usa, but that's the way the world rolls i guess

anyway, americans who are just starting their days and those of you still sleeping, i'm not gonna tell you to go out and vote because everyone in the world has been telling you that for days. but i hope that you vote for harris today, and that when i wake up tomorrow morning i won't experience the same feeling i and so many others felt in 2016. the disbelief, the dread, the horror, the sadness and the powerlessness, there's enough of that to go around these days. i hope that i wake up tomorrow to see that your country has elected a woman who is deeply flawed but mostly sane and rational, someone who won't threaten to wage war on countries they couldn't even place on a map just because they can.

[theknightlywolfe]

THE ELECTION RESULTS ARE GOING TO TAKE A FEW DAYS.

Exit polls are not the official count. Georgia just had a major fight about not being forced to do a 24hr count certification.

Because people in line to vote at polls close are required by law to be allowed to vote many poll places didn't actually stop taking voters until 10PM.

IGNORE the news for a couple days, they *love* Trump, he is their darling and they *want* him to win.

take my hand for a moment

your objective from this point on is to survive

the election results are going to take a few days. The world is going to be very tense. I want you to take all the things you like to do to distract yourself and splurge on them. I want you to go eat your favroite foods and spend time with friends. I want you to do what you gotta do to make sure you can make it through the week.

There are people out there who want you to survive. There are people out there who are just as scared as you are.

We'll get through this. We will find a way

[adumbdemon]

okay so there's a fuck ton of things wrong in this election that it's hard to believe he actually fairly won:

1- the 32 weird fake bomb threats called into democratic leanings poll places. which made them have to close fir over an hour

2-destroying ballot boxes again in dem leaning places. losing alot of votes

3- alot of people coming out and saying that their ballots were not counted because of weird reasons eg. invalid signatures, information that the vote counter couldn't have had all that from people giving evidence and it all leads to their ballots not being counted

4- all this happened after months of hinting from the Republicans of foul play

5- this all happened in swing states that have been won by Biden in 2020 aka democratic leanings places which is weird why would the errors only be on places where there is no granted win for Trump

6- trump has never won the public vote and then suddenly boom he does out of no where he has them, his polls before 5/10 were comically low compared to the end results and now he's somehow gaining every swing state not to mention that all his swing state numbers are at 50 and 51% why is this the only numbers repeated

7- the support shown for kamala in the rallies and online was huge even more than Obama himself how could she have lost this badly the math isn't mathing it wouldn't be weird if the support wasn't alot for her but it was astronomical she raised millions in only 100 days you can't tell me it isn't sus that she loses almost all swing states

8- Latino and poc votes for Trump. bro the number of poc people voting for Trump is crazy especially after all the racist remarks and comments you're telling me that most poc voted for him?? there is no fucking way

9- Elon musk giving 1 million$ to a voters in Pennsylvania which is according to federal law is illegal and nothing has been done about it

in conclusion this entire this is weird af it's all contradicting each other nothing makes sense and alot of these couldn't be just coincidences. CBS is currently accusing trump of cheating. I think a recount should happen at the very least, and there are way too many irregularities and anomalies to not investigate. this could be what gets him out of the race. there is a link being used to order the president for a recount :

please use the link. it is your right to question things use it. don't go thinking 'oh they aren't going to do anything it's hopeless why even try' no every voice matters we need as much as we can even if it doesn't work at least we tried, for the people that will have their rights stripped away for the suicide rates that skyrocketed in the past 24 hours do your best and let your voice be heard.

[hippieghost]

Important reminders for those following the election:

Most states won't start reporting votes until after polls close. Earliest we'll start seeing any results will likely be around 6 or 7pm est

Rural countries have far fewer votes to count than urban ones. This means the map is going to look very red at the start and will gradually get more blue as cities start reporting.

This means we'll probably see a "red mirage" which will look like a Republican land slide at first, but don't expect accurate results until late tonight at the earliest

Despite that, Trump will probably try to declare victory prematurely like he did last go around.

Right now the biggest races to watch are Georgia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, but with turnout already looking to break records anything can happen.

Either way, we probably won't get results tonight unless it's a complete blowout. Expect this to drag on for a few days if it's close.

Finally, like the "red wave" of 2022 that never manifested, there's been a lot of poll herding that suggests a tighter race than may actual happen.

Until all is decided, the best way to have any impact today is to vote, especially in down-ballot elections. Otherwise, keep supporting causes that matter to you, and try not to fixate on polls as much as you can.

[deadpresidents]

I just hope these next 4 years go by fast

This election isn't just about the next four years. With Trump in the White House and a Republican Senate at his side, the MAGA movement can pick up where they left off when it comes to packing the federal judiciary with right-wing judges who will control the Supreme Court and appellate courts throughout the country potentially for the rest of the lives of everyone reading this right now. It's the perfect recipe for them to continue stripping reproductive rights away from women nationwide and gives them the opportunity to turn their attention to the other issues that they have been dying to attack, from voting rights to gay marriage and every other extension of personal freedom that has been won by minorities and marginalized people in hard-fought battles over the past 60 years. This is the nightmare scenario that people have been warning folks about for the past few elections. It's here. And there isn't going to be a way to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

The consequences of this election will have a direct, negative impact on your life -- possibly on the entire remainder of your life. This country just re-elected a President with authoritarian tendencies who is the willing puppet of a dangerous Christian nationalist movement that figured out exactly how to manipulate him (through flattery) for their aims. They have created the perfect vehicle for a genuine cult of personality that they can use to achieve the goals they have been very clear about striving for over the past few years. And you can't blame anybody other than the American voters because they not only elected Trump, but they gave him a fucking mandate, with a Republican Senate and potentially a Republican House. They already have a right-wing dominated Supreme Court for the next few decades, and now they are going to ensure that the entire federal judiciary is in their control for years to come. And don't forget the fact that a few months ago, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that gave Presidents sweeping immunity for a broad (and conveniently undefined) range of "official" acts, so Trump is going to go into this second term knowing that not only does he not have to deal with the "guardrails" of responsible adults he had around him in his first term (Mattis, Tillerson, Kelly, General Milley, etc), but he knows he can get away with virtually anything and everything that he wants to do this time around. If you thought that Trump's first term was bad, just understand that they are prepared this time and now he's surrounded himself with people who will do his bidding -- people who are perfectly willing to let Trump be Donald Trump.

I wish there was a reason to cry foul, lodge protests, and challenge the election's results. But this wasn't a rigged election. There isn't any confusion about what the voters really wanted. The American people did this. People you know and care about and who say they care about you are the people who did this. We need to recognize that these elections aren't outliers anymore. Trump's supporters aren't simply chaos agents who got lucky on a bad day for the Democrats. That's the country we live in now and we have to find a way to resist it that actually makes a difference because now they have the keys to all the doors and all of the alarm codes. This country has normalized the conspiracy theories and nativism and racism that has powered the MAGA movement since the moment Trump came down the elevator at Trump Tower in 2015. He's given those people permission to be open with their hatred towards people who aren't like them, and it's actually become surprising to see how many Americans have been eager to take advantage of that. I didn't think I had any misconceptions about this country before Donald Trump because I recognized this nation's history, but I clearly had some misconceptions about people I thought I knew until I saw them wearing a red MAGA hat or noticed they had a gigantic flag with Trump's name hanging where their U.S. flag used to hang. Once that happened, it was like a switch went off with them and they started saying things in ways that I'd never heard them speak. I feel like that's happened to the entire country. It breaks my heart and it pisses me off.

For the past few years, I've been warning everybody about how elections have consequences. I imagine that there are hundreds of posts on this blog with that phrase in all caps listed with the tags. Now the elections have happened, and we have to live with real fucking consequences. And we're going to pass these consequences on to other generations because this is the one that you can't get a do-over on. When you give a movement like this the power and the mandate that this country just gave them, there is no easily rolling back the things that they end up doing. They are going to fundamentally change the lives of people in this nation and especially change the way the younger generations of Americans live and love and learn for years to come. And you have people in your life who made that happen. It's another disgusting day in America -- a prelude to another reprehensible four years (at the very least) -- and I'm ashamed of tens of millions of my fellow Americans because this one is on them. They know exactly who the man is that they voted for, and now we know exactly who they are, too.

[sirfrogsworth]

Early voting to beat the lines... the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.

So... yesterday was quite the day.

After being stuck in bed for the past 6 weeks with some mystery slump, I was finally feeling better. So I decided I would try to cram as many errands into my day as possible. That works better for me when I drive out into the world because I end up only having to do one big recovery instead of a bunch of little recoveries.

My to-do list...

Go to the doctor

Vote early

Return oxygen machine to FedEx store for scammy eBay guy

Return Amazon package to the UPS store

Get gasoline for my whip

Go to Discount Tire to get my tires filled for free

Drop a check off for my lawn guy

Mail a secret package to Katrina at the US Post Office

It would have been nice if I could have gone to just one shipping place instead of all three, but the universe has a sense of humor and likes to do shit like that to me on a regular basis.

So, I get my checkup, it goes quick, no long wait, I'm feeling good.

As I get in my car, it starts to rain. It was an ugly day and it actually has not stopped raining to this very moment a day later. Just gray, windy, chilly, and wet. I look up the voting place and start the GPS.

Wipers and music on full blast, it's time to get my vote on.

When I reach my destination, I realize early voting is at some kind of private golf club. And at the center is a recreation center—which is a public building.

So it's like this private/public turducken situation.

I was expecting this errand to take 20 minutes. Because early voting always seemed like a way to get in before the crowds of election day for a more convenient voting experience.

But the parking lot was packed and I feared my expectations were about to be subverted.

As I walk through the parking lot I see a bunch of signs in the ground.

And a particular one caught my eye.

This is bullshit.

Like, just a straight up lie. No truth to it whatsoever.

Amendment 3 in Missouri basically restores abortion rights in the state. And Republicans have taken issue with the following language...

"The Government shall not deny or infringe upon a person's fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which is the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions."

They claim the phrasing "but not limited to" means you can give an 8-year-old kid "sex change surgery."

This is how their online flyer puts it...

It could also include a free puppy.

Or a zillion bucks.

Or a clown will come to your house after the abortion and honk your nose.

It's ridiculous and desperate. I honestly don't know how it is legal for them to put a lie like that outside of a polling location, but here we are.

The organization "Missouri Stands with Women" is run by... a man.

It was set up by a lawyer named "Edward Greim" on behalf of the Federalist Society.

His law firm has a lovely biography about him. And a bunch of publicly available contact information. I say that for no reason whatsoever.

The Federalist Society funds all kinds of shit like this. Their main thing is installing conservative judges all over the country who will reinterpret or negate legislation. And they do it all to "stand with women" by taking away their reproductive rights.

Here is the board of directors of the Federalist Society.

Ya know, before I looked this up, I said to myself, "I bet it's going to be a sausage fest." I am psychic.

I think it would be more accurate to say they stand with A woman.

Just one.

And she sucks.

Nicole is a law professor at Notre Dame. She chose her Catholicism over her right to choose. The Catholic Church will fuck your rights and your children and Nicole will help them do it.

Anyway... back to my quick and easy voting experience...

So as I'm walking in to vote I keep passing a ton of these awful signs. I notice an older woman standing next to the aforementioned "child sex change" sign and she says, "Can I talk to you about Amendment 3?"

At this point, I'm pretty angry. I look her dead in the eyes and say with my most assholish tone, "NO." as I walk past her.

And then she finishes her sentence...

"...to protect the reproductive rights of women."

Ah, dammit.

I thought she was an old Karen but she was cool as heck. Standing out in the rain telling people the sign is bullshit. I wanted to turn around and apologize but I was stuck in full social anxiety mode so I just kept walking.

If that old lady happens to have a Tumblr and follows me and is willing to read this giant story... I just want to say I am sorry. I thought you were awful and I should have let you finish your sentence. You're super cool and I'm happy there are folks like you fighting for what is right.

I get inside and a young woman greets me. She tells me the line is in the next room and points. I still wasn't quite sure what the situation was. The parking lot being full gave me pause, but I was still hopeful I could have a swift early voting experience.

But I walk through the doors and into a huge gymnasium and my heart sinks.

It's hard to represent in pictures how long this line is.

It goes all the way to the end of the gym, loops around, and comes back. At first I was not too discouraged, because there was a nice gentle ramp at the start of the line.

But then I notice several sets of stairs at different stages of the line. And I'm just thinking how hard it would be to stand in this line and then also having to go up and down several sets of stairs.

So I go back to the young woman working there and ask what their accessible voting options are. And she told me I could do curbside voting and points outside. I then notice a line of cars wrapped around the parking lot. I don't know how I didn't see them walking in, but I guess I was too busy being a jerk to elderly progressive women.

My biggest concern was time.

The longer this takes, the more energy I use up, the longer my eventual recovery will be.

They tell me the car option is the slowest. And I could be in line for 2 to 3 hours. And then an old man who seemed to be in charge walks over and tells me the fastest option is to stand in line.

So I walk back out to my car and grab my cane and decide to try the long serpentine gynasium line.

I start walking up the ramp and some of the other folks see how slow and labored I'm walking and they start encouraging me. "You can do it! You got this!" Which I suppose was meant to be a positive helpful thing. But I found it to be embarrassing.

I get to the end of the line and notice most of the line has bleachers directly next to it. So I decide to sit down and rest and figure out how I am going to survive this experience.

It took me a while to recover from the long walk to this spot. I watched a bunch of people pass me by and the line was actually getting much longer as I rested. I was not really sure what to do. I was trying to problem-solve this situation but the answer that kept popping up in my mind was just... "go home."

But I felt this was too important and that wasn't really an option.

My best idea was to ask someone if they would hold my spot in line. Perhaps I could just sit in the bleachers and follow them around in the line, staying as close to them as I could. But my social anxiety was set to maximum and I was not finding the courage to ask someone.

After about 10 minutes of sitting, resting, and thinking, I basically say, "Fuck it, I'll try to stand in line."

I get up and start walking to the end of the line.

Then I hear a voice yell out to me.

"Hey, man! Come over here! This is your spot!"

A young man was waving at me. He was accompanied by his wife. Both of them were dressed in black and they had a sort of goth skater aesthetic going on. He had a competitively bushy beard, but with less gray. And she had very vivid purple hair.

I was a little confused and still processing what was happening. Then they both started waving at me to join them in line. They remembered I got there just before and told me I should be in front of them. I walk over and thank them. Then he suggests...

"Hey, why don't you just sit in the bleachers and follow us around the line."

He suggested my idea!

Without me asking!

I felt like he read my mind or something.

Can bearded people read each others' minds? Was this some beard skill I was unaware of?

"I got you, man. You just sit and we'll keep your place."

And his violet hair'd significant other agreed. "Yeah, we got you."

The kindness of strangers was more accessible than my polling place and I was just so thankful in that moment.

So I sat in the bleachers and watched them traverse the line. In the middle of the gym there were some teenagers playing basketball. And so I just rested and watched them play.

That young man in the red pants was like a goddamn Harlem Globetrotter. He was just embarrassing the others. He was bouncing the ball behind his back and through his legs and then he just danced around his opponents like a figure skater. It was such an unbalanced matchup. He might as well have been playing 4th graders. Not only was he significantly faster and more maneuverable, but he was consistently hitting 3-pointers.

And then during a break, he ran towards the hoop, jumped from the free throw line, flew all the way to the net, grabbed onto the rim, and proceeded to do several pull ups as if they were the easiest thing in the world. I don't think I've seen anyone jump that far and that high in real life and it was just a bonkers display of athleticism.

I spent the entire wait watching him humiliate the others—hoping he would get a full ride scholarship to some prestigious university.

And I hoped the other boys paid attention in school and got straight As, because basketball was not going to work out for them.

As my new goth skater friends progressed through the line, I would make sure to keep sight of them. Every once in a while I'd give them a head nod to acknowledge we were in this together. After an hour and a half they were at the final segment of the line, so I sat next to the wheelchair folks.

I probably could have argued to sit with them in the first place. But I really did not feel like making the case that I was just as disabled as them and needed that level of consideration. The old man running things seemed quite stressed and was putting out 8 fires at once. And my anxiety wasn't really cooperating enough to be assertive in my needs.

But it worked out in the end, so I'm not going to dwell on the lack of accommodation for people who weren't *visually* disabled.

My new bearded friend neared the end and waved me over. I thanked him and his wife profusely.

I joked, "Thank you for adopting a voter."

They seemed confused by my joke.

"No problem, man. Happy to help."

I told him and his wife they truly saved me. "I honestly don't think I would have made it through the line." And then I looked back...

I said, "As crazy as this is, I do find this kind of turnout encouraging." His wife agreed and said, "We were saying the same thing!" And then I thought, "Can the wives of bearded people absorb the mind reading ability? I hope she can't read my mind right now. Although, I'm mostly thinking that her hair is a really cool shade of purple, so she'd probably find that complimentary."

As I waited to get my ballot I could hear the happy couple behind me. They were very cute. They were making fun of each other in a very lovey-dovey fashion. I had high hopes they were going to grow old and gray and purple together based on their chemistry. And I was just so thankful they were able to recognize that I needed help without me asking. Because I probably would have just caved to my anxiety and not asked for help otherwise.

I got my ballot and sat down to fill in all of the appropriate squares. Thankfully I had prepared a cheat sheet on my phone.

It was an exact replica so I was able to copy it and finish quite rapidly.

Then I fed my votes into the vote-eating monster and they gave me a sticker.

My quick 20 minute adventure to vote early only took 2.5 hours!

And because I didn't want to buck tradition, I stood outside in the wind and the rain and took a voting selfie.

Yep, that seems about right.

Ah, crap... that was only the second thing on my to-do list.

Let's speedrun the rest of this story, shall we?

I drove to FedEx. I hauled a 40 pound box inside. I plopped it on the counter and said, "Man, this thing is heavy!" as I tried to catch my breath. The 20 year old working there then lifted it like it was a feather and I felt great about that.

I drove to the gas station because I was nearly on empty—that is both a metaphor and not a metaphor. I filled my ride with go juice.

I noticed I was a mile from the tire store and they fill up tires for free. So I did that and the guy was super nice and complimented my tires. I felt both weird and proud about having my tires complimented. Like, I had nothing to do with my tires being nice. But I accepted the praise on their behalf.

I drove to the UPS store. The last time I was there I made a scene. They refused to box up a return and I got upset and wasn't feeling well and they had to find a chair for me to sit in because I was going to faint. So I was hoping the same woman wasn't there, but she was. She didn't recognize me, so it was fine.

I drove to my lawn guy's house. He wasn't home. I dropped a check in his mailbox. My checks have corgis on them. My checks are cute.

I drove to the post office. I sent a secret package to my bestie, Katrina. I'd tell you what is in it, but it is an inside joke and you wouldn't get it. The woman noticed my voting sticker and I couldn't help thinking about what I just accomplished to get that sticker.

On my way out I noticed a miracle.

2 of the 4 doors were fixed!

I mean, I don't know why they couldn't fix all 4, but now the employees won't freeze in the winter. So I take that as a win. It only took a year and a half to accomplish and I'm sure all of my phone calls and emails did not help at all. But I'm going to pretend I saved the day regardless.

And then... I drove home.

5 hours of errands.

I was so fucking tired. My back was on fire with pain. I immediately collapsed into my bed. I passed out. And I slept for 14 hours.

The End

[millersfinest]

the thing in your chest that beats ² | e.w

santa barbara!ellie williams & ex-firefly!reader

wc: 4.5k

mini-series: california | oregon (you’re here) | idaho | wyoming

blurb: you put up a good fight with those rattlers, but it wasn’t good enough—all it got you was strung up near a beach where the sun scorched you dry. abruptly, their set-up gets fucked by their own prisoners, saving your life by only a thread. but the wrath that lingered under your skin was immense, and you’re not the only one to experience that phenomenon. when another damaged soul encounters your brittle state; the dreams that put you in a tough position manifest into reality. along with a few extra miscellaneous things…

cw: angry!r, slow-burn romance, eventual smut, proximity trope, both reader and ellie on a path of redemption, afab body parts mentioned, vulgar language, reader being complicated, mentions of attraction, inner guilt, use of ‘y/n’ and ‘woman’.

note: honestly i just can’t wait for them to kiss (spoiler: not this chapter). but they’re learning to trust each other. just know in the idaho ch we’re gonna be UP! please, enjoy this for now!! (also: i hope the lot of you voted for the presidential election. these are very very important times #harriswaltz2024)

Oregon

Several days and nights were spent on a boat, cruising up the coast of California. It was one of those livable boats, where you could hide from the sun in a room with stable furniture to eat on, and a bed to sleep on. You spent a lot of your time inside the hatch, analyzing a map that Ellie had labeled with a marker. Hoping that you’d maintain your luck enough to actually see Wyoming for yourself.

Ellie had confessed that she came from Jackson, but she still hadn’t told you the why. Instead of asking about it, you refrained, in turn, asking about the settlement. Were the people kind? Did they have horses? Because you heard they had horses.

Those were the questions she could answer easily, with little to no hesitation. Until your questioning began to irritate her—which, in turn, irritated you.

The two of you bickered over the smallest of things in those days on the water. It could’ve been the heat, or the rationed food, or even your similar personalities. You couldn’t help but clash every chance you got. By the time the two of you drifted onto the coastline of Oregon, the conversations had diminished—because of your stubborn attitudes.

Leaving behind the boat was a drag, but there’s wasn’t much of a choice. The rest of the journey toward Wyoming was going to be on foot. Over cracked pavements and between dewey trees. If only the trip could be simplified by the use of a boat—it would be less extraneous.

The weather had gotten significantly cooler the more north you traveled. The mornings were the coolest, and the days were chilled with a gentle breeze. It would rain eighty percent of the time, which made it harder for you and Ellie to continue the trek. But both of you were resilient.

Somewhere between Salem and Portland, you found yourselves looking for a place to stay for the night. You had run across some nefarious people when you first arrived at the coast; and you’ve been recovering ever since. Trying to collect as many things as possible on the road to make up for the lost ammo and supplies. Which is what led to you looking for a place to crash in, basically, pitch black darkness. Navigating the dewey wood with nothing but the lights attached to your bags.

Droplets of water slipped off the waxy green leaves of the trees above. Splashing onto you—and it was shocking every time. The climate sent a gentle chill up your spine, so the water was even colder. Ellie walked ahead of you, mumbling under her breath from the lack of shelter. Her agitation was ruminating off her skin like a furnace. “We should’ve never gone this way— there’s nothing out here!”

Her agitation was obviously laced with panic. Ellie was exhausted from all the traveling and worries about conflict. “We entered a campsite a few miles back. At the very least there should be a cabin out here.” You surmised, squinting your eyes trying to defy the darkness. The auburn-haired woman scoffed under her breath, adjusting the hood of her raincoat. “If you wanna take a break, just say that.” You reached for her wrist, pulling gently. “It’s been a long day…”

“Absolutely not. We need a place to sleep tonight— with a roof.” Ellie pulled her arm away, placing her hands onto her hips. Her head hung low, clearly fatigued.

“How about this: you park it by this tree for a little bit, while I walk around to see if I can find somethin’ for us.” You offer, shrugging your shoulders, casually. The both of you were exhausted, but it seemed that Ellie was suffering a bit more than you were. Was that not that point of a team? To tap in someone else when you need it. Plus, you really felt that there was a cabin nearby. There had to be one. Most campsites had cabins that hikers and campers would go to before they began their adventures. For supplies or even important notices about wild animals.

Or, maybe, you watched too much tv at the firefly base.

She shook her head. “No chance. Separating in the dark doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. What? So, you can get lost and give us another problem to deal with?”

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you press your lips into an irritated line. “Are you seriously insulting my intelligence, right now?” You raised an eyebrow, glaring at the woman in front of you. “I was a firefly for six years of my life—“

“Oh, my God! The whole world knows that you were a fucking firefly, y/n. No need for the reminder.”

Ellie began to walk in another direction, sternly. You scoffed, following after her like confused duckling—which was an embarrassing thought. “You’re so insufferable. All I was trying to do was help you out— because to be honest, you’re not handling this well.” You quip, walking by her side with your hands shoved into your pockets.

She scoffed. “How could I handle this well? Please, tell me.” Stopping in her tracks, she glares at you. Olive irises blown out from the darkness around her, boring into your aggressive frame.

Taking a step closer to her, the corners of your lips curled, mischievously. “You could start by taking a fucking break and letting me take the lead.” There was something that differed between you and Ellie’s versions of frustration and anger. She took it up a level, while you brought it down. It could fool an idiot into thinking you weren’t mad at all, when really you were fuming. The pace of your voice was slow, almost menacing. True fire remained behind your eyes, in your posture—the way your lip twitched as you spoke.

“I’m not some damsel in distress you pull everywhere then blame when shit goes wrong.” You added, taking in her battered features. The scar in her eyebrow and her top lip. The freckles under her peeling skin from the days aboard. “I have a great sense of direction; I’ll have you know.” As you spoke, she examined your features the same way you did. “Stop arguing with me, sit your ass down, drink some water— and i’ll be back in twenty minutes tops!”

Ellie rolled her tongue in her mouth, averting her eyes from you. She was too stubborn to admit her own exhaustion to you—she’d rather be in control of the situation than someone she barely knew. Someone, who at the start of this trip, was, in fact, a damsel in distress. Your body had healed in the days since departing Santa Barbara. Not completely, but in progress. You were walking better, even though you still had a bit of a limp.

Her focus on you made it easy to forget her own ailments. The missing fingers on her left hand, the wound on her abdomen. They were healing, surprisingly. However, her attention still remained on your well-being.

She sighed, itching her nose with her index finger. “Fine. Whatever.” Ellie shrugged her backpack off, leaning against the tree. “Just come back in one piece, yeah?” Somehow, she managed to sound insulting with her hidden words of weariness.

You snickered, narrowing your eyes. “Is that worry I’m sensing or…?”

“Don’t make me change my mind.”

With that, you backed toward the path, chuckling under your breath. Adjusting the hood over your head, you focused to begin looking for the cabin that you just knew was close by. Feet crunching over dead leaves and sticks that were imbedded in the mud.

The light attached to the strap of your bag began to flicker as you pushed between the trees. “Come on…” You hit the light to stabilize it. “Now is not the time.”

When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.

Your past affiliations haunted you like a ghost. Somehow, you always found yourself looking for that light. Perhaps, in this case, it’s Jackson, Wyoming—a place far from what you know. That was more of a long-term goal, though. The light you were currently looking for was a building made of wood, preferably insulated.

Ahead of you, you weren’t sure if you were seeing things, but what you were hoping for was coming into view. The brightness of the moon illuminating the starry sky outlined the top of the cabin, exposing its silhouette. In excitement, you rushed toward the building, peaking through the foggy windows. From what you could see, there was nothing inside but old furniture. Thankfully, no infected. You were beat; the last thing you wanted to do was fight that damn virus.

As you peeked through every window you could find, jiggling door handles to try and find a way in, you realized it was a home. Not some hiking administration building you surmised would be around the trail. Spending enough time circling the cabin, you pick up a rock from the ground to crack a window. You were getting in that house one way or another.

The rectangular shape was rather high for your reach. Huffing, you dug your fingers into the divots of the logs. It wasn’t the best grip, but it was enough to get you into that window. After throwing your body through the hole, you landed on the ground with a thud. A shallow pain throbbed in your thigh—the one that Ellie had stitched for you back in Santa Barbara. Shutting your eyes, you took in a breath from the slight pain. You weren’t one hundred percent just yet.

Exhaling, you stood tall on your feet to get a look at the interior. A long plaid couch was placed in front of what used to be a fireplace. Burned logs was still lying in the pit, but they burned to a crisp. You were certain that if you touched them, they would fall apart under the weight of your hand. The dirt shapes on the walls symbolized that picture use to fill this space—the cabin was drained of life.

It’s only source of existence was the fact that you were standing in it.

Before leaving to retrieve Ellie, you jogged up the steep stairs of the cabin. To check the upstairs rooms for any infected or people. You must’ve been one lucky woman, because there was nothing but dust occupying those rooms. Quickly, you went through the front door to grab your partner.

Crunching on leaves and sticks, you startled her. Ellie was spotted sat in front of the tree, leaning her back with her eyes closed—which was the least smart thing to do, but she was tired. The sound of your boots crushing the elements of the forest jolted her from her light sleep. She gripped her switchblade in a fist, looking at you with determination. “Fuck,” She sighed, rubbing her hands over her face. “I thought you were someone else…”

“Nope. Just me.” You breathed, watching her as she stood to her feet. “There’s a cabin about ten minutes from this spot.” Crossing your arms, a slight smile rested on your lips. A smile screaming I-told-you-so.

Ellie slung her bag around her shoulders, dusting off her jeans; doing everything to ignore your antics. “Are we just gonna stand here, or are you gonna show me where it’s at?”

Sucking your teeth, you pivoted, rolling your eyes. She was such a sore loser. It felt good to be right, and for her to be wrong. You didn’t get lost like she thought—instead, you carried out exactly what you planned: finding shelter for the night.

The two of you approached the cabin, Ellie releasing a sigh of relief. Hallow sounds of your shoes walking up the steps of the wooden porch sounded. You opened the door, allowing her to walk through. Staring her down with same smile you had a few minutes ago. “Nice place, huh?” You asked, shutting the door behind you, turning the lock.

She meandered inside, surveying the interior. Her fingers slide along the dusty bannister above the fireplace, pursing her lips. “Not bad…” Ellie lifted an eyebrow, peering over her shoulder at you. Lifting her finger, she eyed the dust that stuck to her skin.

“Told you there was a cabin around here somewhere.”

“I knew you were gonna say that.” Ellie chuckled, dryly. Taking moderate steps toward the kitchen. Every time you stopped, she insisted that inventory was taken of all of your supplies. She achingly tugged her backpack off, sighing. You followed behind her, leaning your arms against the counter—watching her tired movements.

“Why are you looking at me?” She dropped her hands onto the counter, with that familiar irritated glint in her eyes.

You purse your lips. “You know I could do this, right?” Shrugging off your bag, you swing it onto the counter. There was a slight sway to Ellie—the only reason being her exhaustion. “We’ve done this a number of times; you can go rest up. There are three bedrooms upstairs— take your pick.”

Ellie scoffed, continuing the work in front of her. Counting under her breath. You grit your jaw, glaring at her. She was truly insufferable—moments like these really highlighted that. Her stubbornness and pride amounted about the same to yours; causing you to wonder… Were you just as bad? You pity the friends you had in your youth if that was the case. Releasing a meditative breath, you placed a hand over hers. “Seriously, Ellie, I got it. Go get some sleep.”

She looks at you through her eyelashes, allowing your skin to remain on hers. “Aren’t you tired, too?”

“Yeah, but not as much as you… I could stand to be up for a little while longer. You on the other hand…”

She pulled her hand from under yours, pushing off her wet hood. Her auburn strands were damp, sticking to her freckled skin. “All right. Make sure to write down the things we don’t have that we need.”

“I know.”

“And mark the items that we’re running low on.”

“Again, I know.” You motion with her hand to run along with amused eyes. Waiting to begin, you watch as she hesitantly walks toward the steep wooden stairs around the corner.

It was like pulling teeth for Ellie to willingly hand over responsibility to you. In her mind, she was still doing you a favor—she was working for you. But being that she was extremely tired, her inhibitions loosened. The touch of your skin to hers, surprisingly, comforted her concerns; made her sleepier. She heavily stepped up the stairs, leaning on the railing for support.

She walked into the first bedroom she saw. The light from the moon cascaded through the window that the queen-sized bed was pushed against. Shedding her damp clothing, she spread them out onto a dresser before getting into the bed. Before nodding off, she peered out the window with a burdened mind. Remembering the bulk of her actions leading up to Santa Barbara. With the added misfortune of Santa Barbara. Then… You.

The moon reflected over a sparkling pier, that was down a hill behind the cabin. The lake was completely in her view, rippling subtly from the fish beneath the surface. She cracked a smile, peering at the beautiful sight. Rolling up a pillow, she propped it up enough to let that be the final thing she sees before sleeping. Using the elements of the earth as a night cap.

She’d woken up many times throughout the night, but she was used to that habit. When the sun peaked through her window, Ellie had gotten as much sleep as she could have. The smell of cooked fish had wafted into her nostrils, pulling her from the old mattress. With a groan, she swung her legs over, rubbing her eyes.

In a blur, from the corner of her eyes, she saw a figure walking toward the pier. Blinking, she leaned on the pillows against the window, watching as the figure began to remove their clothes—it was you. Ellie watched as you dropped your items, carelessly, before jumping into the water. For the first time in awhile, her mind went blank. Completely empty.

Well… Not that empty.

She checked the clothes she had on from the night before, and for some reason, they still were damp. Enough moisture resided in her jeans that she didn’t feel comfortable putting them back on. Sighing, she began searching through the drawers for anything she could put on in the meantime.

Finding a pair of plaid pajama pants, she slid those on, throwing her holed band t-shirt over her sports bra. “What time is it?” She patted her jeans for the watch she carried with her. Cursing under her breath, she realized it was left in her backpack.

Quickly, Ellie found herself navigating to the first floor. Her eyes widened at the organized sight of all of your supplies. You had grouped similar items together and left a piece of paper with the amounts in each group. At the bottom of the page, you had written a list of the items you needed more of. Ellie’s watch was sitting on the end of the counter, properly placed. “You have outdone yourself…” She muttered, picking up the paper you scribbled on.

When she flipped it over, the subtle grin her lips faded. Seeing the sorrowful words written on the page. Since leaving Santa Barbara, she noticed you pulling out this letter a lot. The one you fetched from under that infected woman. You had never gone into what this letter or note meant to you—probably, because she never asked. That didn’t mean she wasn’t curious about it, though. Ellie never would’ve expected that you’d write on it over something as silly as taking inventory.

There were so many things she didn’t understand about you.

The aroma of fish filled her nostrils again, leading her to slab of rock placed on the counter. A coverage of cloth was placed over the fish to ward off flies. She peeked under it, seeing a perfectly scaled and grilled fish. Hunger got the best of her, and she began to eat the fish with her hands. Humming at the satisfaction of filling her stomach.

After, she grabbed the cracked watch to check the time. It was ten in the morning, the both of you should’ve been back on the road.

Pressing her lips into a line, she walked out the back door to alert you. Her fingers fiddling with the plaid cotton on her legs.

The air was fairly cool, but the sun warmed you up. Basking in the lake was like splashing your face with cold water in the morning—it was a wake-up call. Something that you needed after the night you had. In the room across from Ellie’s, the bed was too firm, and the sheets were too prickly. Your mind kept you up with the image of Honey’s infected body. And, whenever you did shut your eyes, you were back on those pillars again.

You had no choice but to get up early and occupy yourself. So, you fished for a little while, then cooked what you caught—for yourself and the sleeping woman upstairs. After that, you thought you could use a bath. And there was nothing more satisfying than cool lake water—nature’s finest.

You allowed the water to engulf you, embracing your body like a chilled hug. Breaking the surface, you swam comfortable laps around the lake. As you lazily backstroked, you noticed Ellie walking down the steps that led to the dock.

Her auburn hair was spiked all across her head—she must’ve slept well. You chuckled, swimming up the edge of the dock. Placing your hands against it, to pull yourself up a little. Bare shoulders glistening from the sunlight reflecting off your wet skin. “You have a bad case of bedhead, my friend.”

“What?” She immediately became self-conscious, running her hands through her hair. Shaking her head, she adjusted her features, trying to uphold her naturally irritated persona; scrunching her eyebrows and clenching her jaw. “You let me sleep too late; it’s ten. We should start packing up.” Her eyes avoided you, instead, focusing on the plants surrounding the lake. Or your pruned fingers holding onto the dock.

Looking up at her with squinted eyes, you dramatically sniffed. “Why don’t you hop in? You smell like shit.” You ignored her small jabs of blame, coating your lips with a smile. Perhaps, you’ve been spending too much time with her, but her little irritations were beginning to amuse you more than bother you. Or, from the angle that you were peering up at her, she looked really… Pretty. Bedhead and all.

“Excuse me?” She questioned, raising her eyebrows, finally meeting your eyes.

“I’m serious. Let’s resume the trip smelling better than a sewer.” You began to paddle backwards, almost forgetting about your own nakedness. “Take off your clothes… I‘ll give you privacy. Unless you’re too… Chicken.”

She hesitated, watching you swim backwards. Catching an accidental glimpse of your breasts as you turned around. It was true that she didn’t smell the greatest. Before she could formulate her thoughts properly, Ellie spoke. “Chicken? Really, y/n?” She sighed, punching the bridge of her nose. “Fine. But not for long— I wanna make it to Idaho within the next two days…”

Ellie shed her clothes, dropping them close to yours. She jumped into the water, keeping her head from going under, loudly reacting to the coldness of the lake. “Shit!” She exclaimed, treading water.

You turned around, chuckling, noticing her hair still disheveled. “You’ll feel better if you dunk yourself under water.”

“Hell, no! It’s too cold.”

“This doesn’t have to be another I-told-you-so moment…”

She rolled her eyes, clenching her nostrils with her fingers, lowering herself under water. Allowing the cold, earthy, lake water to encapsulate her. The first few seconds were chilling, but her body began to adapt. It became rather comforting—easing her sore muscles and healing wounds.

The lake did the same for you, which was why you were still inside of it. Time stopped at the pier; at least it felt like it did. Existing felt normal, for once. There weren’t any violent rogue people, or hungry infected. Just you and Ellie bathing in a lake.

Ellie broke the surface, running her hands over her saturated strands. Her pale skin was flushed, from what you could only assume, was the briskness in the air and the chillness of water. However, that may not have completely been the case. “Feel better?” You ask, waving your arms under the water to keep yourself afloat.

The corners of her lips curled, subtly. You had to squint to really notice her amusement. She rolled her eyes in a way to avert her gaze. “Yeah, a little.” Ellie finally peered at you, pointing a dripping finger. “Don’t say it.”

“Say what?” A grin plastered on your lips. “I told you so?”

“Do you realize how annoying you are, or just me?”

You pursed your lips, feigning thought. “Just you, I think.”

Honestly, you’re proud of yourself. A lot of the relationship blossoming between your traveling partner and yourself had been developing under the pressure of your attitudes and circumstances. The fact that you could get her to crack a smile, even if it was faint, felt good. It was either the dock’s magic, or your own.

A beat passed while the two of you circled each other. Barely looking at the exposed skin above the water, trying to be distracted by the world around you.

Surprisingly, Ellie was the first to speak—or the first to question you. She rarely every asked you anything. “That letter you carry with you…” The woman awkwardly began. “I saw it on the counter— who wrote it?”

Her voice grabbed your attention immediately at the mention of the note. You held onto it like a totem, a piece of memorabilia from your past. Hesitating, you moved your eyes from left to right in thought. “I know that it came from Santa Barbara. From that house…”

“It’s from an old friend.” You started, lips parting slowly as you spoke. Mouth going dry at the question she asked. You’ve yet to physically get the chance to talk about Honey. From the days aboard the boat, you’ve been trying to forget what you saw. Maybe, you could convince yourself that she was off living the life she wanted—instead of spending her last days suffering under the hammer of infection. “Some girl I met at that God-forsaken resort…” You attempted to casually respond.

“She got infected?”

“Yeah…” You nodded with avoidance, shutting your eyes and moving your head with a cadence of I-don’t-wanna-talk-about-it.

Ellie pursed her lips, nodding. “Why’d you write on the letter? I don’t know… It looks like it means a lot to you— I don’t understand why you would write on it?” She spoke, thoughtfully, as if she didn’t want to say the wrong thing. That was certainly the first time.

You shrug, wanting to hide somewhere, even though there was nowhere to do so. “I just want to forget about it… I guess.”

“If you cared about her, why would you wanna forget about it?”

The muscles in your forehead twitched, bunching your eyebrows together. Your face burned, lips scowling. Ellie’s voice evolved from a soft curiosity, to a judgmental version of it. You sensed the difference the moment it fell from her lips. The intention of her words didn’t matter—it was what she said that bothered you. Did she think you were cruel for wanting to forget about seeing her in that state?

“If I cared about her?” You started, evenly, but with warning. “I did care about her— I do care about her! If I choose not to remember her as a fucking corpse, that makes me a bad person?” Your voice raised, for the first time in awhile, rasping.

Ellie sighed, shaking her head with pleading eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

You scoff, swimming toward the dock. “Well, I’m sure that’s what you meant, right?” Pulling yourself out of the water, you don’t think twice about the exposing of your naked body. Cold air pricking at your wet skin. “I’m the asshole for wanting to remember Honey alive rather than dead…” You wrapped the towel you brought with you around your body, balling your clothes into your arms.

Lamely, Ellie called for you from her place in the water as you left her behind. Before you covered up, she eyed the scars and bruises on your body—maps of what your vessel has been through. Perhaps, she should have entered the conversation with more caution.

Watching you stalk back into the cabin, wiping at your eyes felt like a punishment. A worse punishment than the fact that she didn’t have a towel to dry off with.

“Nice work, Ellie.”

[its-grape-juice-i-swear]

Her whole campaign was just so Centrist Liberal bullshit. "Hey Kamala, will you support trans rights as president?" "Well I think it's important to follow the law 😊" "Ok well you'll be president so you'd obv have some say in the law. Would you use that say to support trans people." "It's just so important to follow the law 😙"

My friend got a text on election day from Kamala saying "oh, just in case you didn't know, I 100% support Israel's right to eradicate Palestinians. 👍"

Im not entirely sure how the voter math actually broke down, whether a more Left campaign platform would've galvanized more young voters to go vote, but it's very disheartening to see that the only reasonable opposition to the Republican party has decided that the only way to combat the conservative move further and further right, is to move more right themselves in hopes to, I guess take the conservative moderates?

AP is saying she lost by 5 million votes. which means even if all 2 million third party voters had voted for kamala harris (which would never have happened because of the libertarian party & RFK to be clear), she still would have lost.

instead of blaming leftists and palestinians for voting third party, you should be blaming the democrats for running a trash campaign. a campaign based in genocide, ethnic cleansing, cracking down on the border, children in cages, endless war with russia, endless war in korea, endless war in SWANA, the promise of war with china, refusing to actually defend (let alone protect) trans and queer people, and the list goes on. the democratic party is actively contributing to the rise of fascism in the united states, and they have been for 50 years.

[harmofud]

Brief notice for everyone who is doomscrolling bc they're freaking out about the election

I hear you. I understand. It's like a rock sitting in my stomach, and it is genuinely scary to see this initial outpour. But in 2020, the race wasn't called in Pennsylvania until November 10th. The electoral college votes from Georgia didn't come in until November 19th. Both Michigan and Wisconsin were red at first too, then turned to blue on November 6th.

Listen. Remember that thing Trump tweeted out that got everyone so riled up? "Stop the count" I think it was. That was because he had won according to the exit polls at the end of Nov. 5. If you're unsure what exit polls are, that's what the initial count at the end of tonight is. It is, and I mean this genuinely, sensationalized media to call the election now. It won't be done for at least a few more days, at max a week or so.

If you are US American and you voted mail-in, check the status of your ballot here. If you are watching the election from somewhere else and panicking, I know that the US election process can be really really confusing and miserable to navigate. It is entirely understandable to think that the race is over tonight, but it's not. The electoral college (that funny little institution that grants votes based on population of a state and not based on the voters themselves) hasn't called anything yet. Until they do, this election is up in the air. Google is calling things based on predictions and predictions only, but the actual electing committee has done nothing yet.

Beyond that, keeping track of everything is going to be stressful. For tonight and tomorrow, I kindly advise you avoid social media (as I should be doing). Nothing is set in stone yet, and nobody should be claiming victory even over the next few days based on tonight. The mail-ins and the early votes have not been counted yet. Just breathe and keep on keepin' on.

[seancurry1]

Remember, Thou Art Barnacle

A serenity prayer for election day.

Originally posted on my website.

The Ann Selzer Iowa poll, regarded as the gold standard in all of political polling, shows Harris is up +3 in a state that Trump won by +8 in 2016 and by +9 in 2020. 

And you are a barnacle. 

The election better markets have Trump up by +19 (as of noon EST, 11/5/24), and bettors don’t care if people are ashamed to admit who they’re voting for—they’re in it for the money and only the money.

And you are a barnacle. 

Mainstream pollsters have admitted to weighting their polls heavily in favor of Trump, to ensure they don’t end up with egg on their face like they did in 2016 and 2020 again. International whales are taking out huge bets in favor of Trump, swinging the markets, and right wing think tanks are flooding the zone with bullshit polls to artificially inflate Trump’s odds in the aggregate. And even if the popular vote is overwhelmingly for Harris, Trump’s team is already laying the narrative groundwork to support a Stop the Steal campaign that, by the time you read this, will likely already have started. 

All of that is true. 

And you are still a barnacle. 

You are not piloting the ship. You are not the captain of the ship. You are not laying out the potential courses the ship could take, you are not deciding which course the ship will take, you are not scouting ahead. 

You aren’t even a paying, ticket-holding passenger on the ship. You are a barnacle on the hull, deep underwater, and unfortunately, there isn’t really anything you can individually do to affect where this ship goes. Sorry! 

This isn’t an invitation to check out, or become apathetic, or (heaven forbid) embrace doomerism. Quite the opposite: this is a reminder of who you actually are in this entire scenario, of the power you do not have, and of the power you definitely do. 

After the 2016 election, some small part of myself was convinced I could change the outcome if I just posted hard enough. If I fought enough of my friends on Facebook, texted angrily, and tweeted from enough protests and rallies, somehow Trump would no longer be President-elect. 

All it did was, literally, give me a rash. I got so angry for so long that my skin started to break out in hives. A doctor friend more-than-half seriously prescribed that I “get the fuck off Facebook” until my skin returned to normal. Trump was still President-elect, the next 8 years happened the way they did, and here we are today. 

You’re going to hear a lot today: polls are tightening! Votes still aren’t in from this critical precinct! If these trends hold, then we can expect to know something by such-and-such a time! The race is as tight as can be! White supremacists are threatening violence to avenge a dead squirrel! 

(The squirrel thing is 100% real, and my god, I really wish I was joking.) 

Remember, through all of it, that you are not the captain of the ship. You are a barnacle on its hull, and there is very little you can personally do to change it at this point. You’ve already done all you can do—or maybe you haven’t, but even then, you’ve already done all you’re going to do. 

And as you stress, and consider how inebriated you’re going to get, and decide on which web pages you’ll be refreshing every thirty seconds, and stress out some more, remember too that Donald Trump hasn’t ever won the popular vote in his entire miserable life. He only won the electoral college, a racist system explicitly designed to empower slaveholders in southern states, one time, and ever since then, he has lost every election he’s declared for. 

More people did vote for the woman candidate the last time one ran for President, and more people have voted for the candidate of color than their opponent every single time a person of color has run for President on a major party ticket. 

And women have already made up a larger share of early voting than men in this, the first general election post-Dobbs, than ever before in American history. (53% women to 44% men.) 

So as you stress and consider your inebriates and say to yourself, “How can it possibly be this close?!” for the umpteenth time today, remember too that Donald Trump is a fascistic, deeply unpopular person (let alone President) backed by an even more deeply weird party, and that almost the entirety of your experience of this election is being filtered through the lens of a national, for-profit media that doesn’t care who wins, so long as you keep watching. 

Remember, you are not the captain of the ship, you are not the helmsman, you are not the map-maker. 

You are a barnacle. 

Vote for Harris, vote Democrat in your local and state races, and trust your other barnacles.

If you like this, consider signing up for my newsletter to get more writing from me right in your inbox the second it posts: sean-curry.com/signup

[probablygayattorneys]

keep cool down in the quiet of the morning sweat blood when the sun comes through thick mist on the pond before the temple headed down for the final rendezvous

(training montage, the mountain goats)

[random-thought-depository]

I just checked vote totals for 2020 vs. 2024:

2020: Trump 74.2 million, Biden 81.2 million.

2024: Trump 71.9 million, Harris 67.1 million.

The 2024 vote isn't all counted yet so this might change, but so far, yeah, you're right, so far it looks consistent with Harris losing because of diminished liberal enthusiasm, not increased right-wing enthusiasm.

This is actually reassuring in a way. When I voted this year the polling place line was extremely long, like it looked hundreds long, I can't remember ever seeing anything like it, and before election day I was hearing about unprecedentedly huge mail-in counts, based on lived experience it seemed like a high turn-out election, so I was getting worried that we might be just seeing a huge surge of enthusiasm for right-wing politics. Looking at these numbers it looks more like, yeah, Harris might have lost because of liberal disengagement, i.e. if liberals were as fired up this time as in 2020 we'd have won, which is a lot less depressing in its implications. That does fit with my observation going into 2024 that the primary mood in this election was exhaustion.

I'll keep an eye on the popular vote to see if it remains consistent with this hypothesis as more votes are counted. Does anyone know what the Trump vs. Biden counts were on November 4th 2020 (i.e. equivalent of today)?

trump didn't even get more votes this time! he got less! the democrats just ran on a platform of "complete and open contempt for our base" and for mysterious reasons unbeknownst to man this did not lead to a highly energised turnout

[dog-park-dissidents]

i don't know what to do

First of all, stay alive.

Second of all, be fucking obnoxious. Do not let this unqueer you. Hiding and moderating didn't do shit so go absolutely feral. They think you shouldn't even exist? Fuck it, fisting is SFW now and rotate through a new unpronounceable neopronoun every time someone even slightly misgenders you. They want you to fucking die so live each day like it's your last and stop giving a shit.

Third of all, STAY ALIVE, DO NOT ACTUALLY DIE, specifically do not do it to yourself, ever. You will be okay. And if they want to murder you let them do it with their own shitty little hands, not yours.

Anyway. Take a deep breath and realize that we don't know how bad things are actually going to get. These people are terrifying but they are NOT smart. They have spent the past four years brooding and scheming and making it look like they were coming up with some kind of evil master plan that will actually be effective christofascism this time, but they're still monstrously incompetent. Everyone who was present during the first Trump regime who actually knew how to run anything at all has defected and left. True, they were also the people telling this fuckin nutcase not to nuke North Korea, but that is a level of apocalypse completely beyond any of our control like the fuckin sun exploding randomly, and always has been. Barring random armageddon, it is entirely possible these losers will trip over their own shoelaces trying to actually legislate you out of existence.

Honestly their first priority is probably blowing up the entire economy by putting tariffs on China and closing the border with Mexico. The price of eggs and smartphones are about to get ridiculous, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs, and all of this is going to suck but it very well may suck so much that they'll just forget to ban HRT.

Keep in mind the incoherence of what happened on election night. Trump won and so did a bunch of red state abortion protections. The first trans person made it into Congress. The people voting for the Leopards Eating Faces Party also voted for minimum wage increases, so when the leopards start actually eating their faces it's not going to go over very well. This is probably less America's Hitler and more America's Brexit, where life is going to get noticeably shittier and everyone who voted for it is going to be very shocked and confused about why everything is shittier, but we also won't all die.

Whatever happens it is not above your ability to survive. Hold your friends close. Connect to your local community. If you don't have a local community or you're legitimately stuck someplace where you're the only queer person, then it's okay to run away and never look back, but find yourself your friends, your chosen family. Stick by each other.

Our love will help us break through.