Yay in celebration for finally finishing my fic (Independent Variable, if you wanna read), I decided to draw some post-reconciliation Batfam + Roombie funtimes! [previous Roombie art here]

Some more random Roombie headcanons:

The other day I came up with this extremely derpy idea and chuckled to myself, so now it's an extremely derpy comic

I was pecking away at a fic (as one does when one is in-between binge-reading of fics) when I was taken by the cracktastic idea of Tim Drake having a Roomba as a best friend growing up and then somehow my hand slipped

Edit to add: [more pix of Roombie and Batfam] [fic that spawned this]

2am is when I have thoughts about voting, apparently.

States with reproductive rights on the ballot: https://reproductiverights.org/abortion-on-ballot-2024/

States/candidates that support LGBTQ+ rights: https://www.reckon.news/lgbtq/2024/10/your-pride-your-power-the-essential-lgbtq-voter-guide-for-2024.html

Ballotpedia has a rundown of the major ballot issues, sorted by type and by state: https://ballotpedia.org/2024_ballot_measures (do a search on page for your state name to find what's on your state's ballot!)

And here are the states that allow you to register and vote on the same day (double check your state's election website to confirm what you need to bring, and also whether you can do early register+vote)

Guess who's excited to get their ballot in the mail tomorrow? Me! So I slapped together a quick comic, as well as a map based off of this and this. A list of when same day registration is available is at the bottom of this article.

But also: wow, early voting stuff is so confusing! For example, I get my ballot in the mail tomorrow, and I can immediately mail it back. But if I want to drop it off in person, I need to either go to a special ballot drop box by city hall, or wait for early in-person voting sites to open, which isn't until Oct 22nd for my state.

Or like, early voting in Louisiana is apparently from Oct 16 to Oct 29th? And then there's a week of no voting, and then polls open again on Nov 5th? Or like how the only day you can register and then immediately vote is Oct 26th?

Anyway, best way to figure out the info for your area is to check your state and county's election website. I've found usvotefoundation.org to have clear fact sheets for each state (including ID requirements, polling location finders, as well as direct links to state election websites): https://www.usvotefoundation.org/state-voter-information . You can also jump to each state's election websites via usa.gov, or by searching directly, though some websites are more confusing than others.

Happy voting!

Oh, and here's the voter registration deadlines map from last time, in case you haven't registered and want to register. Oct 7th is the last day for a bunch of states!

I got a bunch of responses to my post that I'll throw up here, although I endeavored to answer in-comment as well.

So firstly, "these people" were usually able to successfully register because at the time, they *were* eligible! But, people move or people die, and that's generally the official target for voter roll purges. And that makes sense!

Unfortunately, the "people who have moved away" category tends to also catch "people who moved in-state and forgot to tell the post office," "people who didn't check their mail in time", "people whose address was mis-entered somewhere in the process", and "people who didn't vote for 4 years". Those people then show up to vote and are told that they aren't on the voter records anymore, with no easy way of redress.

It's hard to estimate how many people that is. Looking at the numbers from Texas, it seems like half of those purged are definitely dead, and the other half are people who were put on a "haven't heard from them in 4 years" list. (And the method of checking is "didn't vote in 2020 and 2022" and "our mailer got bounced back".) That article had the Texas voter roll purge at ~1 million, but it's currently approaching 2 million. Let's say 10% of the people purged were purged erroneously -- that's still ~200,000 votes, which, in a tight election, matters quite a bit.

At the end of the day, voter roll purges end up making it harder for certain types of voters to vote: people who move a lot, and people who might be "once-in-a-while" voters. Sure, the rhetoric tends to be about stopping non-citizens from voting, but the cases of that actually happening is minuscule. As in, ~100 cases in the last major election. This, compared to a potential 200,000 actual legitimate voters being purged, seems ... well, not worth the effort.

I got an email notif for this but couldn't find it on the actual post for some reason? But yeah -- vote.org is a 3rd party website. I find their interface much easier to navigate than the vote.gov website, and their info seems pretty well-researched and up-to-date. At the end of the day, your local state or county voter registration website will be the most reliable.

Ack! You're right! That's what I get for doing this at midnight last night. Basically, there are some states where normal voter registration closes 1-2 weeks before election day, BUT there's also same-day voter registration on Election Day, where you show up with your ID, etc, and you can register and then vote.

For example, here's what it says on the NH website:

(which, I personally find much more clearly articulated on this vote.org webpage)

Anyway, the same-day registration seems to be pretty complicated -- different states allow it for different ranges of dates, often aligned with early voting (you can see a chart when you scroll down this page). New York, for some reason, has one magic day of same-day register+vote that's Oct 26. I'll have to think about how I can update the map -- maybe I'll put a symbol for the states that have election day registration, and then have a separate map that has the more granular info of what ID is needed, and the registration date ranges... clearly a midnight project for tonight. :P

Anyway, thanks for all the comments!

Oh look, it seems like there's a Republican-led movement to purge voter rolls in the lead-up to the election! It's almost as if your vote matters and they don't want you to vote! Anyway, I whipped up a quick map (based on this) that shows when the voter registration deadline is in each state. There are a few deadlines coming up in the next week or so.

If you live in a state that regularly purges voter rolls for infrequent voters (the orange ones in the first map), or if you moved recently, it's good to check if you're still registered to vote.

Vote.org makes it super easy to check your registration: https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/

Just put in your address and DOB and they'll tell you whether you're registered. (And they give you a quick link to register online if it turns out that you're not! Only the 9 states in white on my map don't have online registration, and for those they provide instructions on how to do it via mail or in person.) If you want an extra verification, find your state's election website and double-check there.

So yeah, give yourself peace of mind -- do a quick check. :)

Hihi! Thank you for reading and enjoying my July 4th comics every year! I am in a non-US airport en route to a month-long trip in a place with sketchy internet, so sorry in advance for sloppiness in my response (and potentially going radio silent).

But:

So, to come to your question #1: "Can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands"?

For me, it's a resounding YES. Guyz, he has passed so much good domestic policies. My spouse works in green energy and the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act halved his anxiety and gave him legitimate hope. The tumblr post I linked to in my comic has links to many of the other great things that Biden has done. Tbh I voted for him in 2020 because "a moldy onion is still better than Trump", and I've been pleasantly surprised. Like how he tried to cancel student loans, the Supreme Court overturned it, and then he came back 6 months later with a different way to do it that didn't lead to a court challenge.

Is he perfect? Hell no. There's tons of stuff that I wish he did more about, or he went further on, but also he's just one guy heading one branch of government who is heading into an election year. (Just like FDR promising not joining WWII, while behind the scenes doing all the Lend-Lease Act stuff). And "the people" have lots of demands, many of them conflicting.

I'd also like to push at the unspoken part of your question... "Can he really be trusted to do the right thing..." compared to whom? Because right now the answer is "compared to Trump." And compared to Trump... I don't even trust Trump to respect the results of a legitimate election. Heck, he might just take his favorite state secrets, sell them to the highest bidder (or just show them off to someone for funzies), and then claim Presidential immunity. A decent Democrat who got stuff done vs someone who probably wants to pardon himself and all his friends and do Project 2025 stuff is not even on the same level. (Do I wish that there was a viable Democratic alternative to Biden? Sure! But who?) Heck, at this point -- imagine if it's Kamala Harris vs. Trump. Who would you vote for?

As for your question #2: "How do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?"

We don't. But also what can we do besides showing up to vote?

Actually, I need bullet points for this:

Finally, let's be real here: I'm braced for a 2nd Trump term. That said:

So at the end of the day, it's "Vote AND". Vote and keep living your best life. Vote and tell others about Project 2025. Vote and have hope. Even if Trump wins, at least you'll have voted against him. Vote and stay to build up a progressive wave for the next election.

Happy July 4th, everyone, and good luck to the UK voters out there!

Wow it's Year 11 of doing these!! Here's the AO3 link to the past 10 years, and here's the tumblr link.

Reminder that this is a long game -- some of the judges making decisions were appointed back in the 80s. Many of the cases that were decided this round were from Trump's term. So it's going to take long-term, consistent voting over a decade to start tipping things in the other direction. (Which I talked about in 2018 re: Trump shenanigans and 2022 re: Dobbs).

A lot has been done by the Biden administration (I'm assuming most folks have seen this post by boreal-sea with their very helpful sources), and much of that will be overturned by Trump, especially if he gets the Senate, and especially now that he would have a blank check for anything "official". So let's make sure that doesn't happen.

And even if Trump does get elected, your decisions down-ballot might effect control of the House or Senate, or might make it easier to vote next time, plus the whole plethora of state and local issues. It's Republican state attorney generals who are challenging climate regulations, for example.

Plus, when you really get down to it, only one of the candidates plans on pardoning himself and all his friends if he wins, and attacking the government if he loses. Maybe that guy shouldn't be the President.

If you're new to voting, remember to check voter registration deadlines! I'm a permanent vote-by-mail voter and it's so nice. :)

Transcript under the readmore

So.... I kind of accidentally fell into a Batfam fic hole for the past 3+ months and ... ::checks:: read >1000 fics??? Ooops?

Anyway, a fic rec list below the cut -- don't think anything is particularly surprising for anyone who is actually in the batfam fandom, since I stuck to the greatest hits, but in case you're like "Soup, how did you fall into a hole this deep for this long", under the cut are ~20 fics, organized by length. Mostly Tim-centric hurt/comfort because I'm basic like that. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

potofsoup discord server

Hi everyone,

Seems like things are being a bit wonky at tumblr recently. Also I miss posting ad hoc things but I'm too busy to properly engage with tumblr. So: I've set up a discord server where I'll post random stuff of what I'm currently working on, both fannish and not-fannish.

Don't know if it's something of interest, but here's the Discord invite link: https://discord.gg/fK3Sca8eZT

Also, in case tumblr spontaneously combusts, reminder that I do post all my fan stuff to AO3 under "potofsoup" and my original stuff to AO3 under "sushux", so you can always follow me that way.

(I'm hoping that tumblr won't combust. If it does, though, please tell me where you're going so that I can join the exodus.)

Heyhey, here are some fanzines that I made in the Cap heyday of 2014-2016 that I don't want to keep in stock anymore. (Whenever I put them up at a con, people are like "awww, Stucky! I was so into that when I was 12!" and I'm like "eh heh yes the good old days" and internally feel like a desiccated corpse.)

Anyway, I'm selling the fanzines for $1 + shipping on my storenvy: https://potofsoup.storenvy.com/collections/2007395-clearance . The Stucky one there's only 3 copies left, the others are ~10 copies left. More info on the individual zines in each product description.

Probably by Aug 1 I'll recycle the rest?

Anyway, grab them now if you want them, I guess?

(sorry that shipping remains pricey as fuck ($3 US, $6 international))