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anapologethicc · 2 years

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SONU KI TITU KI SWEETY SOUNDTRACK REVIEW PLS I WANT TO READ YOU RIP IT TO SHREDS IN ALL ITS ENTIRETY AND ABSOLUTELY RUB KALEEKH ALL OVER IT GO GO GO !!!!

oh god. iss album ki toh mein itni dhajiyaan uda ne wali hoon na. just wait and watch. BUT. first of all. can we just. take a moment of silence to reel in the absolute mindfuckery and time waste this movie was. aur secondly. konse zamane ke movie thi yeh. like 21st century hai. aur yeh koi tv serial nahi hai ki bahu ko villain bana do. par yaar tv serial mein bhi kaali bindi wali chachi ya masi nikalti hai real villain. this movie was another level of misogynistic. like luv ranjan needs to CHOKE and DIE asap for the kind of movies he makes. but idk what he wanted to show through this movie. friendship?? like really. that's the way you wanna go? by making the girl the villain...DISGRACE. ok let's get into it. under the cut. because i'm raging.

1. Dil Chori

kya bolu main. ok so i'll be honest. when i first heard it. i was skeptical because of the 'yoyohoneysingh'. and then i heard it and i thought it could be a good wedding dance song either way. regardless of the AUTOTUNE OVERLOAD. pls sb tell whoever sang this shit to give up on a singing career. like saman bando aur niklo please. and then you know what i heard. THE RAP. and then i wanted to throw my phone away. like matlab. song mein kuch nahi hai. wohi gisa pita kachra hai. and you know what's the worst part about this song. is it encourages you to get drunk and then hit on girls. like babe. you're drunk and fucking delusional if you think a girl is coming next to you just cause you tell her she has silky silky baal and a nice chaal. bhenchod woh ek thapaad lagaeyi and will throw her drink in your face. can somebody write a song on that please? also that chittar kayega line. nahi you wait. main aa rahi hoon chittar marne to whoever the fuck sanctioned this song and it's release. t-series is on top of my bollywood hit list.

2. Chhote Chhote Peg

first of all. neha kakkar. pehle koi usko hathao. i will start the petition. personally go door to door until she is permenantly BANNED from singing ever again. kabhi tel mein kuch fry hote ve dekha hai? you know that sizzle wali awaaz. it's like that. but your kaan are the pakoras being fried. and isko batao koi ki whiskey tastes horrific. nobody likes whiskey babygirl. and men only pretend to kyuki masculinity prove karni hai apni. and i know this FOR A FACT because i've drank it. whiskey is disgusting pls. get yourself sth fruity please. also MY MEANING of nashe mein ho jati mein risky means come near me when i'm drunk and i will shoot you between the eyes. until hers which is basically saying that girls become slutty and promiscuous when they drink. girlie. i don't need a drink to be slutty. it's a forever state of mind please. and then please ohmygod the entire fucking RAP again. it's basically judging women for drinking, telling them they should stay home if they can't hold their alcohol and the rest of it is objectifying girls and more of i'm gonna hit on you when you're drunk. just. to whoever wrote this. sweetie i's glad you don't know me personally. i will castrate you. free of charge.

3. Subah Subah

Sooraj Dooba Hai 2.0 ft. Jonas Blue (this one MAYBE i can vibe with if i was at a party or sth. it's brainless and i'll give it brownie points for arijit's voice)

4. Bom Diggy Diggy

thoda bum ke bare mein kam sochke apne brains mein thoda aur diggy diggy kiya hota toh shayad dhangki lyrics likhni aa jaati. this was one of those so-called punjabi song remakes. pehle toh remake karne layak nahi tha yeh gaana. first time kachra dekha aur inko laga "omg let's do our part to save the world" aur recycle kar dala. swach bharat abhiyaan unko sirf studio mein dhyaan aata hai apparently.

5. Kaun Nachdi

once again. i will strangle you with all this sikly sikly baal i have. phir jab jaan niklegi na toh rona mat. what's with so much silky baal yaar. shampoo ads se inpire hoye the kya?? agar shampoo ads mein passion hai toh woh karno na beta. yahan hamara time kyu waste kar rahe ho? second of all. any song that has the word swag in it can go die in the same hole as justin bieber. also even at the end they still haven't found out kudi kaun nachdi. lemme give you the answer. YOUR MOM. kyuki respect deni toh tab hi aati hai na tum logo ko jab khud ki maa behen ka involvement hota hai. i'm so done with these songs about objectifying women. like. i'm abt to riot.

6. Lakk Mera Hit

honestly. hadn't even heard of it. until i saw it was on the album. and not gonna waste my time to listen to it. it's prolly shit.

7. Sweety Slowly Slowy

i've got 2 words : Mika Singh. but i will let the general public know what this disgusting song is about. it's portraying the female character as a car. and then proceeds to talk about how she should be able to go fast in a tedhi-medhi lane. and how she shouldn't slow down. and how she shouldn't have a break. how the world will tease her. and not to run away. give me attention. don't reject me. or else. basically if she does not do said things. it basically says she will get slapped. let's all just agree to the heinous crime that the existence of this atrocious song is. i can't even with mika singh. like. this song. what the fuck man. like what the actual fuck.

8. Tera Yaar Hoon Main.

i saved this for last. because i kinda love it. but also it fills me with so much sadness at the same time. ALSO ARIJIT. so imma do a whole analysis because i wanna cry. and it's in a separate ask in your inbox. because it does not deserve to be in the same vicinity as these other pieces of shit. when you post it. i'll link it here. <3 i hope i was entertaining enough babe.

#this was so fucking fun to do!!!#i had a blast #please send me more of these #like you and everyone else who listens to bollywoo #send me movie albums to badly review #because i'm bored #ahahhaa #adheera thank you for this my love #i hope you enjoy it as much as i enjoyed writing it #adheera💕#inbox

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balkanmermaid · 2 years

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Celestial (3)

Summary: Fast forward to the present, Kamael and his brothers have managed to finish their education, and now each of them has a job they like and are happy. But that doesn't mean Kam’s adventures are over. And having to deal with people certainly isn’t, either - regardless of how bad he’s at it.

2017 AD. KATZ ORANGE, BERLIN

Dammit, what was that dish called again? I’m so exhausted I can barely remember where I’m at. Was it some kind of stew? And was I supposed to be cooking it?... I realise I’m staring at the wall, standing in my corner of the kitchen among my colleagues and all the food. Hah, like I’ll find the answers to these questions written there. I wish...

“Raven, hast du vielleicht die Spaghetti vergessen?” (“Raven, have you maybe forgotten the spaghetti?”)

At least I chose to be a chef, not my parents. So far it’s been fun. It has been five fun years since I graduated from the culinary academy, got liked at this restaurant and started work.

And, well, what do I say? Cooking is an art. It’s my everything, and it always has been.

“Nee. Sind fertig, da oben.” (“Nah. They're ready, up over there.”)

I take the beef off the stove for a moment to add it to the vegetables I chopped earlier. I have carrots, onions, flour and tomato puree frying in a pan. I stir them, cover them and leave them alone until the spaghetti is taken care of. The sauce is in the pan on my left, smelling like heaven – and it’s ready. I take it off the stove and carefully add two spoonfuls of it on top of the warm spaghetti. I thank the colleague who has put them on a plate for me, and he gives me a thumbs-up. Alright, we’re done here. Break time.

Whew. I lean against the counter for a moment. I wish I could try that beef. I love it. But there’s no time to go on trips to fantasyland right now. I had my lunch break three hours ago and have been working since nine. The day isn’t even close to being over just yet.

“Ey Raven, wieder in deine Gedanken verloren?” (“Hey Raven, lost in your thoughts again?”)

I turn around out of sheer surprise. Nobody really cares how you’re feeling – they are all about cooking, dumb jokes and gossip. You’re tired? We don’t give a shit, you have to work. You’re sick? Go home, but you should seriously come back and keep working asap. You’re on your deathbed? Well, too bad for you, you have to work yourself to death. Literally.

Being an adult means you have to work, and having to work is no fun. But it is what it is.

And I’m not even talking about the specific restaurant where I work. I’m talking in general. Humans are like hamsters, running that wheel endlessly and thinking it’s fun. I hate them.

The guy who has spoken to me is Miguel, the tall pale dude from Spain who never really talks to anyone. He does the food decor. Funny, but we often get mistaken for one another, with our black hair and pale skin. I’d say we’re absolutely nothing alike.

“Schneller mit der Torte, ja?“ (“Faster with the cake, yea?”) he says condescendingly. I watch him walk out of the kitchen with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, and my blood boils. I saw him go outside on his likely third smoking break half an hour ago, and I only had one break around lunchtime. Oh they’ll find out about this, and out you’ll fly, you lazy bastard.

I’ve been here longer than you. I know the rules. So don’t you dare boss me around.

If he wants me to have a go at the half-made cake lying a hand’s reach from me on the counter, he can go to hell. It’s his assignment, not mine.

“Sorry, but I ain’t doing someone else’s job. That was yours specifically.” I look him right in the eyes, then raise my eyebrows, turn on my heel and walk away.

Each of us gets assigned a dish to prepare, according to what they specialise in - or at least we often get the cooking done this way. I can prepare desserts, hors d’oeuvres and main courses, but I’m best at savoury meals. And just for that reason, I was assigned a beef bourguignon and spaghetti, and not, say, cake. It’s none of my business even if I love making desserts.

Miguel’s friend Jo Stuart, the American that came around three months ago but still has no idea how to cook, keeps gaping at us as I get dirty work. I shiver with anger. It feels like today everyone has decided to make me hate humans even more than I already do. Idiots.

“Hey, Jo, ist das nicht dein’?” (“Hey Jo, ain’t that yours?”) I say to him, instantly handing him Miguel’s responsibility. I gently push him to where the batter sits, waiting to get spread over the cake. “Bin sicher, dass du schneller bist als ich!“ (“I’m sure you’re faster than me!”) And with a wide, evil grin I leave him stare like it’s his first time.

With the corner of my eye, I notice the waitress, Kami, merrily talking with someone and nodding at me. It looks like I am needed again. I wonder what it’s gonna be this time.

“Dessert. Table three, Raven. Banana muffins. I was lookin’ fer yeh,” the Japanese says in a single breath, then turns around and disappears, leaving me no choice. At least it’s muffins.

I love making muffins.

I just dislike work.

I grab a banana from the fridge and chop it, humming a song, ignoring the wave of gossip from the opposite side of the kitchen. Miguel is gossiping, too? Shame. I thought he was as nice as his sister Sola, one of the female cooks... But first impressions often deceive. And I have known him since the culinary academy. He is here thanks to his parents... not hard work.

Lost in my thoughts, I never notice when I have taken the muffins out. They are ready, and their sweet smell fills my nose. My mouth waters. I’ll try to make more for myself at home.

I whisper to Heide, the woman who reminded me of the spaghetti, to tell Miguel to decorate them. Then I turn back to my thoughts again.

It’s getting darker outside, I notice as I look out the open window. A gust of wind blows in my face. Well, this is the middle of November for you – the rest of Germany is cold and snowy already, and we Berliners have been enjoying autumn.

Until now.

“Oi, Ra-ven!” A female voice sings from behind me. It must be Lou, that short woman who never shuts up and always complains about how I prepare the food. “How’s life?” she smirks at me, and I shrink away from her, further into myself. I like people, but not these people, I think to myself. I know how this chat is going to end. Just like all the others - in a ditch.

I can’t stand her. She’s been walking on my nerves ever since they hired her. And worse, she just can’t cook. I don’t know what they taught her, but it’s all been useless. There are only a few soups she can prepare properly - soups that are too easy to be true, and they are the sole reason she is still around. Oh, and if the gossip I heard earlier this week is to be trusted, she was paid to pass the exams at the academy. So that’s where we’ve sunk to...

“It’s fine, Lou,” I murmur, not even looking at her. I wonder where I got this sauce stain on my sleeve. Gotta do the laundry with this shirt, and the groceries, and go to karate, and...

“Got any plans for tonight?” Lou whispers to me, getting closer. I pull away again. A few laughs reach my ears. I ignore them. I don’t hate working here, I don’t hate working here…

No, really, I don’t. I swear. It’s just some of my colleagues making it harder to enjoy work.

“Yeah, to get the hell outta here,” I reply and laugh along with everyone else. They’ve heard us already. I know that everything you say here in the kitchen is being listened to, so why not make it worth listening to? Plus, if I have time to goof around, I always use it properly.

Lou, however, is far from satisfied. She rolls her eyes and groans, then uselessly tightens the pink ribbon in her hair, clears her throat, and tries again. “I meant, are you free tonight?”

I’ve had no relationships until now, just something that lasted for a few months and consisted of holding hands and eating out every day and talking about things. Eventually, we stopped texting each other, and it all faded away. I haven’t been looking for something new for a while. I haven’t had the time. I work all day, and the rest of my time is booked with hobbies.

“Nope. But I’m expensive.” The other cooks laugh even louder now.

Lou keeps trying to talk with me, as if immune to my sarcasm. Is she pretending not to have heard me, or is she stupid? Just get off my case already, woman. Can’t you see I’m busy here?

“Lou, can ya gimme a hand?” Tom Schwarzbaum, the fellow who does stand-up comedy in his free time, calls out to her over a simmering pot. “I got a new order, but I’m busy!” Too bad he’s about as antisocial as me, so conversations rarely go smoothly enough. But we try.

“It’s an easy peasy chicken lasagna, baby!” I hear Miguel sing to himself from behind, and as Tom busies himself again, Lou groans and leaves me alone.

At last.

“You're a huge help, Tom. I owe you a beer,” I whisper to him as I run around, decorating muffins and cake and whatnot. Tom smiles. He’s a decent guy. But he is way too interested in politics. Not the type of friend I would be looking for, either. Ah. Too good to be true.

Again, I catch myself thinking – this time about my own name. Kamael. Sounds unusual. Interesting. I have never really wondered what it would mean until now. But it’s too late to ask Mum, anyway – we sort of lost touch since she went to live in Montreal after I graduated. I have to go there and persuade her to come back home. She can’t keep closing her eyes to the fact that my father has been missing for years...

But so what if he was killed when I was ten? I can find out what happened, solve the mystery.

Something evil killed him, Ma said. Something she feared would come for me, no, for us as well... No, something she herself allowed to take me – and not only me, but my brothers, too.

“...You have pretty eyes, don’t you, Raven?”

Their dark blue is quite unique, I have been told. They’re darker than ordinary people’s eyes. But so what? I huff angrily and pay the woman no attention. I’ve had enough talking today.

“I think I spotted them in my nightclub last night.” It’s Lou again, and she is teasing me, trying to get a response out of me.

And boy, is she getting one.

I nearly grit my teeth - and then a brilliant idea comes to me.

“So, you were that stripper with the red heels that got shitfaced because nobody wanted to even look at you and you tried to pick a fight with two guys and then almost got kicked out? I see,” I bite back, staring her down. All our co-workers are laughing their faces off. Lou flushes and finally walks away, cussing like a sailor. I may have just said a bunch of crap back to her, but nobody forced her to start with it. 1-0 for me.

Yes, I know this was childish. But I’m getting sick of being made fun of. We’re all adults, for heaven’s sake. Why can’t she just stop?

It all depends on the way you are handling me – I can be both a curse and a blessing. And Lou has been playing tricks on me and bullying me ever since the beginning. I’m not going to put up with this. I don’t wish her no harm. But damn, she has to know when to shut up.

Ich schaue die Uhr, die an der Wand hängt – halb acht. Nur ein paar Minuten habe ich, bis ich gehen kann. Na gut. Ich glaube, dass ich es schaffe. Vielleicht bin ich mit zu viele Sachen besetzt. Aber je mehr tue ich jeden Tag, desto besser fühle ich mich.

Diese Woche beginne ich das Karate ein bisschen später – nicht um 19:45, sondern um 20:00 Uhr. Heute aber werde ich spät – wir sind mit voller Hände hier im Kuche…

“Raven, the sommelier wants a word with you,” Tom says after tapping my shoulder to get my attention. “We got a break.” He wiggles his eyebrows and walks away, a toothpick between his teeth. I chuckle.

The sommelier? Hang on, does he mean that new woman I did not meet last week when I was down with the flu? Maybe. Well, then, I can go say hi, I suppose. I didn’t say a word to anyone these past five hours. Maybe at least she’s nice to talk with.

And there she is. Almost as tall as me, slight tan, small, wiry body. Her face has high cheekbones and delicate features, surrounded by wavy dark brown hair. Her eyes are on me, even darker than her hair. With everyone else being tall, dumb and blond, she’s a breath of fresh air.

“Hi,” she says casually and smiles. “Avery Bastien, nice to meet you.” I shake the extended hand, returning the smile. “I, uh, I wanted to tell you I’ll be taking over your karate classes from Herr Kaufmann,” Avery tells me in that calm, sweet voice of hers. I can notice her playing with a silver ring on her right hand, shaped like a cat. “I was told he had broken his leg while skiing in the Alps... grave news indeed.”

She stays silent then. I try to remember Herr Kaufmann, my previous karate trainer. He was one of the nicest people I have ever met; felt like a father to me, in a way, even though he was only twelve years older. I will miss him.

Though Avery is here now, and she will take over. She seems nice and friendly… and man, is she beautiful.

Wait. Am I crushing on her? I just saw her, like, five minutes ago.

Invite her for a bite, a voice instantly hisses in my head, and I follow it blindly without thinking.

Is this how people fall in love?

Or am I just making grabby hands at her like I did at my best friends years ago when we first met? (Because, yeah, that’s how it happened. Long story short, they protected me from an aggressive guy, and we started hanging out.)

“Er, Frau Bastien,” I approach her again, as she seems to be staring up at the sky, and she looks back at me, “I just finished work, so, um... I have an idea. I am going to visit a sushi restaurant before our classes,” I start carefully, trying not to stutter too much. Good Lord, if this works, I will have witnessed a miracle. What am I even doing? Why the hell would she want to have a snack with me? We barely even know each other. What the hell, Kamael.

I don’t even know what’s hit me, but I have to try. “So I was wondering whether you’d, uhm... like to join me for a while, maybe.”

I hope I don’t sound like an enamoured teenager. I just want to spend some time with her and take my thoughts off everything else. I’ve had a horrible day… but after I saw her, I don’t think it will end that badly if she decides to spend time with me.

The woman looks at me, still dreamy, then nods yes. “Sure, why not. I’ll wait for you here. But don’t make it long, please. It’s cold out.”

I leave my “yeah” warm her, hurrying inside and changing into my shirt and my crème-colored pullover and my black trousers and shoes. I fold my working clothes and leave them in the locker, grabbing my satchel with my mobile, wallet, and yoga things.

And I’m outside again.

We have about two hours until the karate class. I lead her to Surf & Sushi, a cozy restaurant about half an hour from Chimosa, the yoga and fitness studio where we have classes. We order some Uramaki sushi and grapefruit juice and watch life buzz outside, people talking and laughing and walking up and down the street. There are some street musicians, and we can hear their guitars and violins and singing, intertwined with the other sounds of the street.

“You missed the first week, Kamael,” Avery says, giving me a serious, solemn look before popping a roll of sushi into her mouth and crunching on it. “I hope you feel okay now and will join us again.” Now she gives me a smile and takes a sip of juice.

It takes me a few seconds to realise I have been staring at her. I stuff my mouth with sushi, my face getting warm. Ah, fuck. I have not been looking at anyone this way since forever... and I have not felt such a connection with someone before, either. It all happened so fast – she rescued me from my colleagues and talked to me, and she even agreed to eat with me. Just... wow. How sweet.

“I am. I’ll do ma best not ta miss ‘ny class,” I manage between bites of sushi.

“Very well, then.” Avery rewards me with an even wider smile now. I smile back. A warm feeling washes over me. Hey, at least this seems like fun. I might have missed out, but karate cannot be too hard, now can it?

Small talk, again. I find out that Avery loves animals but has no pets, likes reading and films and music, and lives alone. I tell her about how I see cooking as a kind of art, too. I am almost tempted to ask her whether she would be fine with meeting me again after karate so we can talk some more... but no. That would be too much. Calm down, Raven, dammit.

And there, in the blink of an eye, we have no more time to spend together. We pay – or, rather, I treat her. And before I notice it, she has said ‘see you later, I have to run’ and is suddenly gone. Without a trace. That leaves me walking to the yoga and fitness center all by myself.

I understand why she ran, though. She is the couch, after all, she needs to take care of everything before we turn up.

Soon, I will get there as well.

We meditate for a while. I do my best to empty my mind, as hard as it is. It has worked before. It should work now, too...

It does. After I open my eyes again, I feel a lot less tense. The stretching we do next suddenly feels as easy as walking – and it relaxes me even further. Ada explains how to breathe properly so that we can relax. We close our eyes and listen, and her voice lulls us into calmness.

I feel in such peace that I never notice how fast the warmup is over. We are done with the squats, the push-ups and the stretching. Time to go in groups of two and practice what we have learned the last time, whatever that is.

I’m not surprised Avery chooses me as a partner. Something is telling me she’s here to stay in my life. Or maybe I’m just lonely and hopeful. We shall never know.

“Now we’re gonna practice the moves from last time, alright?” She takes off her kimono to reveal a black sports bra and olive leggings. Everyone scrambles to find a free tatami, then immediately attacks each other. Graceless and stiff. But not bad.

Avery and I bow to each other. And she attacks with a straight punch.

My body moves as if by instinct. I take a step back and evade her. She tries to hit me again. My elbow stops her. I can feel my heart racing.

What matters here is speed. You have to react immediately.

“Good, Kamael. Keep it up,” Avery says as we spar again. I attack this time after she focuses on me again.

“I thought it would take me one or two more visits to get to the interesting part.”

“Eh… basically, it will. I’d rather call it challenging, though. Even given your abilities. You have to work on this more.”

Then she smiles at me. “You’re doing just fine.”

I spent a few days watching videos of people practicing karate before my sick leave was over so that I get the hang of it. Now I know what to do. Kind of.

I charge at her. She pulls the knife-hand strike on me. I stop her with my elbow, take the cat stance and kick at her. She ducks, only to kick me herself, all too suddenly, into my stomach.

...I get a vivid flashback of a young blond boy, eight or nine years old, getting a kick in the stomach, too. He has been hit with a lot more force than me, however, which sends him crashing onto the ground. He is being yelled at, taunted. The scientists are displeased with him, and this is his punishment. He is not supposed to be anything more than a lab rat... just like the rest of us. But he has set his sights on helping us escape by grabbing their attention so that we can get out unnoticed. And he stayed behind...

So this is what that kick must’ve felt like, Luce...

“Kamael?”

Avery’s face slowly comes back into focus as I come to, then the rest of the room. “You sort of... passed out for a few minutes.” She takes a wet wipe that someone hands her and presses it to my forehead, seeking my eyes.

“I’m fine,” I half-lie as I sit up and ignore the curious looks a handful of people give me. “Really. It didn’t hurt, it was... wasn’t serious.”

“You probably hit a nerve,” she whispers. Then our eyes meet again, but a few seconds have passed, and I have braced myself for it.

“Sorry if I was a bit harsh with you. But what if... Imagine,” she says, now turning away from me, and I notice that everybody has come a little closer, having fallen quiet and listening closely to her, “imagine someone hostile attacked you this way. Doesn’t matter who it is. You gotta know how to protect yourselves. Only if it doesn’t work should you scream for help. It’s the same in life. Don’t let them see you’re weak. Because you’re not.”

Everyone murmurs and whispers in agreement, and we get to change partners for a while. I beat some with ease, others are harder to protect myself from, and some straight-out smack me to the floor. Like Avery said, there is room for improvement, but also progression. What can I say? I expected this, and I’m satisfied with it. This is both healthy and entertaining. It’s perfect.

It feels like I’ve done this before… countless times. Fighting. Again and again and again. But with swords, not just with my bare hands. This might explain why I get confused sometimes.

…The next time I fall down, something feels off. My shoulder blades feel like they have snapped. Everyone is staring at me. For a moment, the hubbub of voices dies out, but for some reason Avery pays no attention to that.

There are feathers tickling my back, my skin. Wings. I have goddamn wings on my back.

How has nobody noticed them?

How can I feel them, actually? I reach out, but to no avail. Everything around me is dark, black, as if I have been thrown into a sea of ink under a stormy sky, lost out in the ocean.

An endless night, and here I am, seeking the light of a day. What a shame, what a shame.

...The next time I open my eyes, Avery is standing right over me.

We’re all alone.

And she looks like she wants to fight.

#story #original story #oc story #original character story #writing #write #fantasy story #fantasy writing #dystopia writing #dystopia story

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btsqualityy · 4 years

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Idk if it's over, if it is I'm sorry. I'm at work typing this in a closet. Can I get a drabble of Kam introducing her gf to her family, Pooks included? Please and thank you ❤

Anonymous also said: Drabble day request with Kammie coming out to her family officially with Kinsley comforting her. Her gf can make an appearance if you like. Thank you shay 💜

Author’s Note: Kam is like 18 here, so Kins is 21 and Pooks is 6

“Finally, you’re here,” Kamryn huffed after she had opened the front door of her parents house, stepping back and letting Kinsley walked inside.

“What’s so important that I had to leave the studio and rush over here?” Kinsley demanded to know as the two of them walked through the front hall into the living room. Once they got there, Kinsley saw you, Yoongi, and Pooks sitting on the couch.

“I have something really important to tell you guys and I wanted to do it at the same time,” she replied. Kinsley then moved to sit on the couch as well, plopping down next to Pooks.

“Well, make it quick please,” Kinsley said.

“Hi Unnie,” Pooks smiled and Kins held her arms out, giggling when Pooks flew into her arms.

“Hi Pookie,” she smiled. “Hi Mommy, hi Daddy.”

“Hey baby girl,” Yoongi greeted.

“Hey sweetheart. Well, don’t keep us in suspense Kam,” you spoke up. “What do you have to tell us?”

“Sooo, I met someone,” Kamryn announced and an instant smile appeared on your face.

“Really?” Yoongi asked. “Who?”

“Yeah, what’s his name?” Kins smiled knowingly.

“Actually, it’s not a he,” Kamryn replied. “It’s a she.”

“Really?” You smiled. “What’s her name?”

“Her name’s Alicia,” Kamryn started. “She’s 20 and I met her in a class that we had together last semester.”

“So, are you guys just talking, or are you dating?” Yoongi wondered.

“We’re dating Daddy,” Kamryn laughed. “We have been for a few weeks now.”

“So, are you a lesbian?” Kinsley asked. “Or are you bi?”

“What’s a lesbian?” Pooks interjected.

“Um, well, it’s when a girl likes another girl,” you explained to him. “You know how Mommy likes Daddy and Unnie likes Mason hyung?”

“Yeah,” Pooks nodded.

“Well, that’s how sissy likes Alicia,” you told him.

“Is that ok with you bear?” Kamryn asked him and Pooks nodded his head.

“As long as she’s nice, and likes bears!” He stated firmly, making everyone laugh.

“Mommy? Daddy?” Kamryn asked and you smiled at her.

“Kammie, you know I accept you,” you said. “Anyone that makes you happy is good with me.”

“I agree,” Yoongi nodded. “You know your mother and I have always raised you to be your own person, regardless of who that turns out to be and if you decide that this is who you are, then I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks guys,” Kamryn squealed, running over to the couch and quickly hugging the both of them.

“Don’t think that this means that I’m not gonna be as hard on her as I was on Mase,” Yoongi muttered, making you smack his arm. “I still need to make sure that she’s good enough for you.”

“She is Daddy, don’t worry,” Kamryn assured him.

“So, when do we get to meet her?” You questioned. Kamryn’s phone beeped then, and she pulled it out of her pocket to look at the notification.

“In about 5 minutes,” Kamryn said. “She’s about to pull up outside the house.”

....................

“Everyone, this is my girlfriend Alicia,” Kamryn introduced as she motioned to the woman standing next to her. “Licia, this is my mom Y/N, my dad Yoongi, my unnie Kinsley and my baby brother Kobe but we call him Pooks.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Alicia smiled.

“It’s nice to meet you as well sweetie,” you greeted, stepping over to her and hugging her gently. “Oh, you are beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Alicia giggled.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kinsley said, extending her hand to Alicia and letting her shake it.

“Likewise,” Alicia replied. Suddenly, Pooks stepped forward and looked up at Alicia.

“Are you nice?” He asked Alicia, making her raise her eyebrows as she bent down to look at him.

“I think I am,” she nodded.

“Do you like bears?” He questioned and she nodded again.

“I think they’re cool,” she told him. Pooks then looked over at Kamryn, nodding his head firmy.

“She’s good, I can tell,” Pooks announced, making Kamryn laugh.

“I’m glad you think so bear,” Kamryn nodded.

“So, what are your intentions with my daughter?” Yoongi asked and you, Kinsley, and Kamryn call gasped at the same time.

“Yoongs!”

“Daddy” Kinsley and Kamryn exclaimed at the same time.

“I’m just kidding, God,” Yoongi laughed as he stepped forward, shaking Alicia’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Alicia replied.

“I do expect an answer to my question though,” he murmured seriously. “Preferably sometime when I don’t have my wife and daughters breathing down my neck.”

“Sure,” Alicia nodded.

“Well, why don’t you all come in?” You suggested. “I have dinner cooking and it’s almost ready.”

“Yay, food!” Pooks exclaimed, turning and rushing into the kitchen. You, Yoongi, and Alicia followed behind them while Kinsley and Kamryn hung back a little bit.

“Thank you for having my back in there,” Kamryn sighed in relief. “You really acted liked you haven’t met Alicia before.”

“Yeah well, if Mommy and Daddy found out that I knew you were a lesbian and had a girlfriend while they didn’t know, they’d skin us both,” Kinsley laughed.

“I never thought you’d be able to actually pull it off,” Kamryn admitted. “What happened to the whole “no secrets” thing you had with Mommy?”

“Eh, consider this payback for her not telling us about her birth with Pooks at first,” Kinsley smiled evilly, making Kamryn laugh loudly.

#adult kam #btsqualityy drabbles #drabble day

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tumble4rpdr · 3 years

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I guess we getting a Kamjie Sex Ed huh? I mean we all knew this series was coming. I don’t know if I’m excited or just *insert rupaul saying meh* about it. No hate towards them two, they both fierce and great friends. I just personality wise idk bout that lol but u see I’m just biased bc I never really felt well towards Kam since s10. But the series seems cool ig 🤷‍♀️

I guess you’re right nonny though (like you said) we all knew this was coming (since V talking about almost anything is enjoyable and ridiculous but especially having her give opinions on sexual topics…plus we got those pics/videos of her in those latex/leather outfits). But I’m with you about not knowing how to react to it since I love both Vanjie and Kameron and we know how fun V can be and I loved Kameron with Asia in Can Do Queens but I just don’t know how well they’ll work together on a show like this. On the one hand we already know that they don’t have romantic/sexual chemistry which might put a damper on things but on the other hand that might be beneficial and part of the fun of it since then they can tease each other and just be friends playing around. And I’m thinking that Vanjie’s over the top ridiculousness and Kameron’s quiet, shy, grounded demeanor might actually be a good pairing since we know V will be very blunt and upfront and flirty about everything (whether she means to or not🙈) while I feel like Kameron will be more discreet and reserved so we’ll get some cute slightly uncomfortable/embarrassed/surprised reactions from Kam. Ultimately though I really do enjoy both of these queens and I will definitely be watching any and all episodes of this series regardless of how good or meh it turns out to be.

#though i get where you’re coming from nonny #but v’s fun #and i have a soft spot for kam #so who knows what’ll happen

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jennamoran · 3 years

Text

The Art of Glitch (Part 17)

Glitch is available here!

… including, now, print on demand!

Hi! We’re talking about Glitch art direction.

So previously,

we talked about the art in the pre-release;

and then a bit about the general set up for the 1st edition art!

and then covered some ways that example characters can die.

and then a bit about gender/ethnic balancing, plus details on a few pieces in particular!

and then about the first assignment to Elizabeth Sherry.

and then about the first assignment to Beatrice Pelagatti!

and then about the first assignment to Kam Moody!

and then the first assignment to Mel Uran!

and then about void flowers and Alexander Benekos!

and then about the first assignment to Robin Scott!

and then about the first assignment to Maria Guarneri!

and then about the first assignment to Lee Moyer!

and then about the first assignment to ?? and, uh, ??!

and then about the first assignment to Sadia Bies!

and then about the first assignment to Silvia Cucchi!

Let’s move on!

Or, let’s get halfway through the post and then hit an unknown sequence of keys and have it vanish!

OK, give me a moment to recover.

Right, then.

Good post for that to happen, a lot of this is content I have in files, or images I still have open on my computer, but, I mean, dang!

...

OK, On To: Elena Albanese!

https://www.artstation.com/elenaalbanese

Elena Albanese was another of Beatrice’s friends, and so once again all I really had to go on was that recommendation and her gallery.

That made things tricky!

A lot of color work, so it wasn’t clear what her black & white would look like. Plus, it was fantasy imagery, but it was strongly themed fantasy work, and the theme wasn’t quite on point for Glitch.

Would that be a problem?

It would not!

It turns out she has a good stylistic range.

... but I didn’t know that at the time, though, so my first assignment would be a careful one. ^_^

Page 363

Piece Style: fantasy

Description: A middle-aged woman—a Strategist, with the Excrucian eyes and clothing sense—shares a campfire with a naga-like creature:

Gleaming eyes, snake-like and smoke-like body, human-like or cat-like head.

The description is loose to give you a fair bit of discretion. This is because the creature itself is not described in the book. Rather, this is for a section of the book that describes a mythical journey. It is the kind of journey where one might, perhaps, chase a riddle-beast that is a bit like the questing beast of Arthurian myth and a bit like the Cheshire Cat and a bit like a dangerous snake ... and yet wind up sharing a campfire with it, pausing the chase for the night, and discussing personal or philosophical things until the dawn.

Basically, in short, you have a fair bit of freedom in the details, because all that matters is that the creature be a suitable mythical encounter for a grail quest kind of thing, and that it give the impression that it can probably talk.

Note: The woman in this picture is middle-aged mostly as a point of representation:

Because fantasy is not just for the young and the occasional crone.

It doesn’t have any more meaning than that, and you can depict her as anywhere from like 40 to 70 and at any level of health.

Elena: I’m giving you this one because your portfolio seems to mostly be women in mythological contexts, and so that seemed like a good place to start in seeing what you can bring to Glitch. ^_^

Commentary

Elena came back to me with three pretty nice sketches:

She also commented that she didn’t think that (3) quite worked, or quite could work, because of the angles necessary to show both faces.

I think she was right.

Regardless, though, I was in love with the creature from (3). The way it was resting on its own body was just so mythic and natural!

As for the other two, they look pretty much the same to me like this, except for the Strategist, but when I plugged them into the page, it was extremely clear that the composition and lighting in (2) was much better.

So I asked for (2) but with the creature from (3), and that’s, in the end, what we got!

Page 310

“Khetta Harmajen, who is dying of Dwarven Hammers, Pounding Deep Below the Earth”

Piece Style: a “Strategist” dying of the thing ...

... It is worth note that this is the only one of these pictures where the thing the character is dying of is more than one or two words. It is intentionally baroque and long, and this is an oddity. It is OK to emphasize that with composition; it is OK to not emphasize that, but let it be a little awkward; it is OK if you need a taller space than the default .75”, so you can put it on two lines.

Most characters are dying of something like “Sunrises,” “Poison,” or “the Sea.”

Note also that the name does not match the ethnicity given below; this is because Strategists come from humanity but take their names from the void. ....

Strategist: African-American, she/her

Bane: Your choice, or “dwarven hammers, pounding deep below the earth.”

Examples:

she is trying to use a computer with a mostly shattered screen;

she is standing at the edge of a hospital parking lot looking at the chasm separating her from her car;

she is trying to have a date with someone while the restaurant is jittering;

she is covering her ears with a pillow while trying desperately to sleep;

she is trying to sweep up a drive-thru parking lot while cracks spread through the earth and a dragon approaches in the distant sky;

she is misshapen as if literally pounded out of shape on an anvil;

she is holding up a lantern in a deep cave, facing no obvious threats but with an eerie shadow behind her.

[Sensitivity Note; you’ve seen this one before, so I’m not reincluding it.]

Elena: I am sending this one to you because I think the generic pieces are probably more fun as assignments, and so I’m trying to bundle one into every starting assignment. This one seemed to potentially fall within your wheelhouse.

If you’d like to switch this to something with a more Celtic feel:

For representational purposes, I’d like to keep Khetta herself African-American, but you are free to change the manner of death to something that’s more Celtic-myth-style than Tolkienian. It’d be nice if it remained a weirdly long phrase, like, “Silver, flung into the sacred well” “magic, woven at the window” or “the Distant Baying of the Wild Hunt’s Hounds” ... but if you can think of a cool way for her to be dying of something like that, feel free. ^_^

Let me know if there’s any issue or if you have any questions!

Commentary

Elena took the time to reassure me that she was not limited to Celtic myth, so I was probably taking the “fit to the artist’s gallery” thing a bit too far. *^_^*;;

I also got sketches, of course!

While there’s a certain delightful hobbit-iness in (2), that didn’t really accord with my goals for the piece, and (1) looked better when plugged into the book anyway. So (1) it would be!

Commentary #2

I missed a trick, I think. The hammers should have been Pounding, Pounding, Deep Below the Earth.

... though, I think I thought that would be too long to fit?

Commentary #3, or, P.S.?

You can see a bit more of Elena’s sketchwork in Part 13-14, and it looks like the final for that piece is up in her gallery!

Go check it out!

(Or just buy the book and savor in it all.)

#patreon-supported posts #glitchrpg #the art of glitch #elena albanese

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stcteofemergency · 3 years

Text

based on a true story but inspired by song goes off by trey songz

FUCK these masks. I’d be able to identify him easily no matter where we were on god’s green earth, in any climate that mother nature threw us in, and any predicament we humans got ourselves into. How anyone could forget the way his eyes seemed to pierce right through you and into your darkest secrets was beyond me. It was also beyond me that my closest friend did not warn me of his presence tonight. I find myself dragging Shalice to the side, ready to chew her out but since her naturally ombre’d lips had an everpresent smirk on them, I allowed her to speak first.

“You not even upset forreal for one, so cut the shit.”

A true statement, but completely besides the point. Seeing Kameron was always nice. The problem I had was that it’s been three years since the last time I’ve seen him in person and here I was, dressed like I didn’t give a damn. Because I didn’t give a damn about Shalice’s going away party where she would now reside an hour and a half away from me. She was my best friend; we’d be linked every weekend anyways or whenever one of our little hearts desired.

“And for two, ain’t no ring on his finger and I did not expect him to show up. We both know he’s here for you.”

I could agree with the first half, the second I wasn’t so sure. That was the thing about sagittarius Kam. He was a sagittarius in every sense of the zodiac; calm, cool, collected, and loved. By everyone. If you had a problem with Kam it was really you in your own feelings cause he never once wasn’t real with somebody. That’s why you couldn’t hate him. He was intelligent, he was tall, dark, and handsome, and damn- those motherfucking lips of his...

“HELLO?”

Oh right.

“Regardless if he here for me or not bitch, I look a mess.” Standing here in my blue haired wig (actually his favorite color on me), old ass yoga pants, crop top that I cut myself, and luckily a new-ish pair of ugg boots. A hot ass mess. I could tell Shalice wasn’t about to go there with me and she didn’t. She always insisted that my “coke bottle” shape made me look good in anything and we both knew the real reason; Kam wasn’t shallow. He’d never given one single fuck what anybody had on and back in the height of our friendship/situationship- whatever you wanna call it- I’d seen him kick it with all kinds of people. I told you, Kam was just that kinda guy.

“Bitch. Get a drink and chill the fuck out.”

And that’s exactly what I did. I got a couple drinks before I even acted like I could see him. Maybe I just fell into routine, or maybe I was just nervous. It’d been three years since the last time I saw the first man I ever fell in love with. So much had happened, so much had changed, but if felt like we were fundamentally still ourselves. Because one thing that sagittarius man hated was to be ignored; so I wasn’t even half way into my second drink before I heard that deep husky voice in my ear saying, “so what you blind now?” It was playful, but I knew he was serious. Whoever I’d been talking to didn’t need another clue, they walked away. The grin that graced my lips was enough.

And of course my piscean ass loved to play stupid. I tilted my head at him in faux confusion before pulling my glossed lips from my straw and smiling at him. “Damn. Hello to you too, Kameron.”

“Kam.”

“Kameron.”

He didn’t push it, just laughed, pushed his glances up, and leaned his 6′2 frame against the wall. “Same ole Jasmine I see.”

“Oh but of course.” I was feeling more like me too. I was successfully ignoring the butterflies going fucking nuts in my stomach. And as if he could sense that, he reached back and pulled his now extra long locs as opposed to just long right out of its ponytail; freshly twisted of course. I rolled my eyes because he knew what he was doing. “Same ole Kam.”

I didn’t realize it at first, but the rest of the night we spent it kicking it and catching up. He was in fact, not married, but recently single and working now as a legal aide which we both laughed about for at least ten whole minutes. I found out he’d done a little time, got his record expunged, and still read The Four Agreements like it was his religion. I’d told him about how I was also single, owned and operated a one stop shop beauty salon like I told him I would so many years ago, and he immediately pulled out $100.

“I mean I never say no to money but why you giving it to me?”

“I bet you a $100 that you wouldn’t get it started before twenty five. We both know your head wasn’t screwed on right.”

“First of all, boy fuck you. Second of all, you ain’t lying though.” And he truly wasn’t. The bet was kinda fucked up and if I was being honest, my trash ass memory didn’t warrant a permanent space in my mind, but I could hear him doing it. My time spent in college was...questionable. Imma just leave it at that.

“So what, you staying here tonight or you coming with me?” Did I ever say he was cocky as all fuck?

“You got some nerve.”

“Don’t front, shorty. Look over at Shalice and tell me right na you staying here tonight.” I do as he says and low and behold, Shalice finally talking to Kam’s homeboy from back in the day, somebody I admittedly had more contact with at one point more than Kam, Dino. Kam and I both had been rooting for Shalice and Dino to fuck with each other but Shalice mean ass was never having it. Granted Dino was taken at the time...we all knew what was up the moment he was single. But the way they was talking, clearly the past was the past and they was about to explore the future...soon.

“Well...I guess we out then.”

#part one #drabble #totally forgot this happened and welp #ya only get a taste tonight lol #the song deadass reminded me on the way home from work tonight and i HAD to write this

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onionjulius · 4 years

Link

[...]

For all the hands we’ve wrung dry over it in recent elections, electability isn’t a thing you can measure. It’s subjective, not objective — which is why Sanders isn’t the only candidate whose persona can be twisted one way to fit a narrative of unelectability, and another to tell a story of certain success. (Sen. Elizabeth Warren can attest to that.)

Political scientists study electability, but electability ain’t no science. Instead, researchers say, it’s basically a layer of ex post facto rationalization that we slather over a stack of psychological biases, media influence and self-fulfilling poll prophecies. It’s not bullshit, exactly; some people really are more likely to be elected than others. But the reasons behind it, and the ability to make assumptions based on it, well …

“[Electability] is this vague, floppy concept,” said Nichole Bauer, a professor of political communication at Louisiana State University. “We don’t know who is electable until someone is elected.”

“I’m not sure I’m who you want to talk to,” said Julie Brown of West Des Moines, arching her eyebrows and flashing the Elizabeth Warren button hidden under the flap of her canvas purse. She came to the Sanders rally with her teenage daughter, curious to understand why he was polling better than her favored candidate. As Sanders proxies worked the crowd, we huddled against a wall, talking about the ways electability and psychological biases overlap. “I think he is electable and that frustrates me,” she said. “It frustrates the female inside me. If Elizabeth Warren had had a heart attack, they would have put her six feet under.”

Determining who is electable inevitably pits candidates against each other, especially in an election year when the top priority for primary voters — by a long shot — is nominating someone who can take down the sitting president. Brown is a voter who sees “electability” as basically a reflection of whether a candidate can clear the hurdles presented by the electorate’s prejudices.

Months of talking about the primary — and wondering whether candidates will eventually win the general election — has made electability a hot buzzword of the 2020 election. But, scientists say, we’ve not put as much work into clearly establishing what it is.

When physicists suspect a thing exists, but can’t observe it directly, they start studying the stuff around it. You can’t see the particles, you can’t look at the black hole, but you can see what happens when they crash into something else. And that’s basically what political scientists have ended up doing with electability. To understand it better, researchers have looked at a couple of different kinds of social collisions: What voters like in a politician, and what those voters think other people like.

And, in that way, Julie Brown isn’t wrong about electability and bias, Bauer told me. Social scientists do use voters’ biases to understand what electability is and what it might look like.

[...]

So it’s fair to say that our notion of electability is, at some level, related to our individual knee-jerk social biases — things like the color of a person’s skin, or the way they present their gender to the world. We take those ingredients and we make assumptions about that person. We make assumptions about what other people might think about that person. We make assumptions about what researchers want us to say when they ask about our biases. We make a stew — reactions and reactions to reactions. It’s virtually impossible to avoid bias in perceptions of electability, said Alan Abramowitz, professor of political science at Emory University. “Just about anything that affects how you feel about a candidate could affect assessment of electability,” he said.

Media narratives, in turn, often prey on these biases, which only makes them stronger. In lifting up electability as a marker of fitness, we’ve inadvertently created a system that caters to whatever our imagined lowest common denominator might be. You might want to vote for a black, female candidate, goes the narrative … but other voters are racist and sexist and so you can’t.

Because, of course, electability isn’t just about individual feelings.

When voters like Julie Brown and Brooks Vander Kopsa talk about whether Bernie Sanders is electable, they aren’t really talking about their own feelings. They’re talking about what they think other people feel, which is where polls come in.

“The average person knows a little about politics, but not a ton,” Stephen Utych, a professor of political science at Boise State University, said. And voters use polls as a source of information to fill in the gaps. “If I’m a Republican and other Republicans don’t like this person, I don’t know what it is, but there must be something wrong with them,” Utych said. We American voters really like to believe we’re independent, Kam agreed, but the reality is that we take a lot of cues from the herd.

But polls can become a bit of an ouroboros. Kam and Utych’s 2014 study found that candidates who were behind in the polls were rated less favorably by voters — and voters were less interested in seeking out information about those candidates.

The interaction of polls and media becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy, Abramowitz and Utych both said. And candidates can shift the perception of how electable they are by striking back at the media and crafting their own narratives. In a 2018 study, the share of voters who, after reading a candidate’s defense of their own electability, were willing to think the candidate could win the election more than doubled, rising from 15 percent to nearly 34 percent.

This early in the election season, there’s still an opportunity to change the narrative – to grasp electability out of the jaws of defeat. And that’s the paradox that leads candidates like Sanders to spend months traversing the early primary states – breakfast to breakfast, handshake to handshake. Winning Iowa allowed Barack Obama to craft a narrative of electability around himself in 2008. Conversely, Bill Clinton lost Iowa and took second place in New Hampshire in 1992. But, from that, his campaign was able to spin a narrative of being the “comeback kid”, said Seth McKee, a professor of political science at Texas Tech University. “I think Iowa and New Hampshire matter so much in how the media portray the horse race after the votes have been cast,” he told me.

But building those narratives and harnessing those horses are dependent on the idea that voters have a good idea of what other voters want, or what other people’s deal breakers might be. And the psychology gets very tricky here. Frankly, experts said, voters aren’t great at knowing what’s going on in their own heads, let alone those of strangers.

[...]

Then there’s the issue that electability is not a fixed idea. What makes a candidate likable to the nation, as a whole, is in flux — tracking, experts say, with hardening partisan lines.

And voters see it, too. James Muhammad, a Californian visiting Iowa, was one of the other people I spoke to at the Sanders rally. When I asked him about electability, he just laughed. “Was Trump electable?” he said.

That’s a question academics are also asking. And it’s one that’s deeply tied up in attempts to understand what electability looks like to Democrats now. From what we can see in research on congressional races, which are more numerous, there’s something about electability that is shifting. Something fundamental.

“I think there is an idea in the media of a centrist, usually white, not necessarily college educated voter who is the one at play and that probably has influenced the way the media is covering it,” said Joshua Darr, a FiveThirtyEight contributor and professor of political science at Louisiana State University. That assumption of the power of the centrist voter is, to some extent, evidence based. Historically, being moderate and appealing to centrist voters was a great way to win congressional elections, Utych and Abramowitz both told me. But that’s been changing. Abramowitz’s analysis of the 2018 House elections turned up evidence that an incumbent candidate’s past voting record — whether they were more moderate or not — didn’t really make much of a difference in whether they won or lost, regardless of party. What’s more, he told me, the number of moderate members in Congress has been falling for decades. Forty-eight percent of the 95th Congress (1977-79) fell within the moderate range of ideology,1 compared to just 16 percent of the 115th Congress (2017-19), Abramowitz found.

Ideologues are elected more often than they used to be. Outsiders are elected more often, too. And the percentage of true swing voters is shrinking, Utych said. So does that mean someone like Sanders is more electable and someone like former Vice President Joe Biden is less electable? Electability here becomes a game of divining which group is more important to winning — swing voters or the partisan base. But that’s no more accurate than trying to estimate how sexist your neighbors are. “Which segment is bigger … there’s not great information on that,” Utych said. “Anything you say is just guessing.”

Even attempts to pin electability down subjectively leave you chasing your own tail, said Elizabeth Simas, a professor of political science at the University of Houston. We know from decades of research that voters have a tendency to line up their assumptions about who is electable line with the person they want to be elected. Maybe that means people just want to maintain some kind of cognitive consistency. “But it’s just always going to be impossible to parse out whether someone supports a candidate because of electability, or if a candidate is perceived as electable because they are the preferred candidate,” Simas said.

[...]

Maggie Koerth is a senior science writer for FiveThirtyEight. @maggiekb1

#fivethirtyeight #u.s. politics #u.s. election 2020 #maggie koerth #long post

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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don't make me wait another day, chapter 1: let's stop running from love (kamasia) - holtzmanns, writworm42

A/N: Holtz: Can you all believe that Writ and I’s first collab wasn’t a Branjie one? Highkey though, they’re so wonderful and so easy to write with and are hilarious and this was so much fun. I really do love them so much and am so glad to have found such a lovely friend and fellow writer.

Writ: Holtz & I decided to finally put our shared brain cell to use and try something different! We really hope you guys enjoy this, we both love Kamasia so we’re really excited to share this :) Plus, have I mentioned how amazing Holtz is? In every author’s note? Okay. Cause she’s an amazing person to write with and I can’t wait to continue this story with her.

This was based off a tumblr post Holtz saw about a trainer & gym rat falling in love, and we thought we’d add just a dash of useless lesbian to it. Title from My My My by Troye Sivan.

Asia requires her fair share of persuasion to actually get herself to the gym. She rolls her eyes when Monet first suggests it, retorting that she’d rather poke her eyes out with her own makeup brush than look all sweaty in front of a million strangers.

“But girl, all the other strangers are gonna be sweaty too! That’s the whole point of gym, you go be nasty with other people.” Monet rolls her eyes, dropping her gym bag in the front foyer of their apartment and ignoring the dirty look that Asia gives her for it.

“Girl please, you just like that you finally the prettiest one in the room.” Asia huffs, but Monet’s already walking into the bathroom to take a shower.

“Well if I already outshine you, then you don’t have anything to lose, right? Besides,” she pokes her head out from the bathroom door, “I got plenty of sponges with me if you want to mop all that nasty up.”

She disappears behind the door again before a couch cushion can hit her in the face.

It’s not that Asia doesn’t want to go to the gym, necessarily. She has been meaning to exercise more, become more fit. And it is true that running by herself has become quite boring, what with the same bland trails every time.

It’s just that the thought of going in front of people who look so good and are so much more experienced than her is intimidating. The idea of having them all watch her make an ugly fool of herself on equipment that she barely knows the names of makes her sick to her stomach.

Unfortunately, Monet’s girlfriend Monique is a lot more persuasive than Monet is. By persuasive, Asia means that when she’s having a lovely day off to do nothing but laze around in the apartment, thank you very much, Monique barges in with Monet in tow, announcing that they’re going to work out. She doesn’t leave until Asia is behind her carrying a duffel bag full of towels, running shoes, and a change of clothes.

“Trust me, it’s gonna be brown cow stunning.” Monique practically squeals in glee as they walk into the changing room, Asia deciding to keep her skepticism to herself.

She’s already here, after all. Might as well make the most of it.

There’s only one word that pops into Asia’s mind once they enter the gym…smelly. Smelly as hell, as if none of the gym goers have ever washed their workout clothes in their lives.

Monet waves her hand in front of Asia’s wrinkled nose. “No different from your nasty ass socks when you come back from your runs.”

“Rude.”

Monet snickers, ignoring the shove that Asia gives her and following Monique towards the elliptical machines.

“The hell is this?” The machine looks like a death trap, like it’s gonna fling her off should she try and step onto it.

Monique waltzes past her, gracefully climbing onto the machine. “ This,” Monique starts with a flourish, “is an elliptical. Your fat ass never been on one before?”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sakes.” Asia mutters, climbing onto the one next to Monique as Monet snickers. She can beat these ridiculous death machines easily.

It turns out, in fact, that Asia cannot.

Monet pats her arm sympathetically as she leads Asia towards the treadmills. “Maybe you won’t fall off of this one as fast.”

Asia huffs. She’s tired of this stinky, sweaty, idiotic-

Well.

Asia was.

But beside the row of treadmills is a squat rack, and standing by that squat rack is a woman in a muscle top that’s hugging her visible abs and leggings that show off her…assets. Asia isn’t one to stare or objectify, but the woman and her damn high ponytail that cascades down her back are making it incrediblydifficult to be nice and respectful.

The woman is spotting a rather sweaty looking guy who looks like he’s about to pass out any minute. Asia wrinkles her nose. Probably the source of the damn smell of this joint. The woman takes his spot next, demonstrating the move that she wants him to do and the way she squats and sticks her ass out (an ass that’s perhaps facing the treadmill that Asia is on), Asia nearly misses a step and falls off.

“Shit!”

She catches herself with her arms against the railings of the treadmill, a string of swear words leaving her mouth that she hopes aren’t audible to the dreamboat woman a couple meters away from her. Who, to her credit, is still doing squat reps with a weighted bar resting along her back and shoulders.

Okay, so she’s safe; the woman probably didn’t hear, or see. Good.

Only then, Asia looks up again, looks back one more time ( why did she look back one more time?), and notices the woman looking in her direction. Staring. Quickly gliding her eyes away when she sees Asia looking back. Aww.

Asia’s nerves disappear, and she does what anyone else would do when they catch a shy, pretty girl staring at them.

She waits for the girl to look again, and then she smiles.

Kameron is the epitome of smooth. She really is, as evidenced by the way that she completely misses Dave’s (or is it Steve’s?) question. They’re reaching the end of the hour, anyway. His training session is going to be done any minute as it is.

“Pardon?” She puts on the most polite voice she can, because Dave/Steve is all tired and sweaty and not in a good mood after Kameron made him do entirely more burpees than necessary. Along with the fact that he pays at the register after the session is over, so she wants to keep him happy.

“I said,” the man huffs in between sips of his water, “can we do these next week with lighter weights?”

“You want to go lighter?” Kameron raises an eyebrow. It’s not that she’s surprised, per se. It’s just that most men that she trains always feel like they have something to prove with her once they see her muscles.

Dave/Steve (she really needs to figure out his name) tries to get up, but falls back against the seat of the leg press machine. “I think you nearly killed me this time, Miss.”

“Told you, my name’s Kameron, not ‘Miss’.” Kameron can’t help her snippy tone. Screw keeping him happy.

She helps him up regardless, though, keeping him from falling on his shaky legs as he hobbles towards the changing rooms. It’s only then that she allows herself to peek back up at the woman by the treadmills.

Who is smiling at her.

Kameron nearly drops her clipboard, catches it with a slew of curse words that leave her mouth. She looks back up and the woman looks like she’s trying not to laugh, and Kameron can’t help the blood rushing to her cheeks.

She’s smooth. Real smooth. Incredibly smooth.

Kameron watches as the woman hops off her treadmill, looking like she’s glistening rather than breaking a sweat. Who actually looks good at the gym? The woman strides closer to her, and Kameron has to resist the urge to step backwards, because talking to pretty girls for the first time is not her forte. The woman, however, has other ideas.

Oh God. She’s walking towards her. The pretty woman is walking towards her.

She’s smooth. Real smooth. She can do this.

“Hi there!” The woman smiles again, her dimples and white teeth ( God , she has white teeth, how does she have such white teeth?) even more stunning up close.

Kameron can do this. She can do this.

“You a trainer here?”

She can’t do this.

“Um…uh…Hi. Yes. Trainer. I’m a trainer, yes.” Kam watches the other woman’s smile grow even wider at her stumbling, and has to stifle another stream of curses from spilling out of her mouth. She coughs, taking the opportunity to hide her face in her elbow and regain composure.

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, I’m looking for a trainer, and I just saw you working with that guy, so I thought I might inquire about you, ah…”

She’s looking for her name. The pretty woman is looking for her name.

“Oh! Um…Kam. Everyone just calls me Kam.” As she says it, she realizes that her name is literally sewn into her shirt, and she reddens.

God damn, this woman knows what she’s doing.

“Well hi, Kam! I’m Asia.” The woman extends a hand, and Kameron takes it, once again reddening when she feels how fucking soft the woman’s hands are, even slick with sweat.

Kam doesn’t even wipe her hand on her shorts.

“Nice to meet you, Asia.” Kam smiles, knowing her own plain, regular teeth don’t measure up, hoping that Asia won’t mind too much. Thankfully, Asia doesn’t seem to–instead, she just nods.

“Pleasure’s all mine, baby.”

Oh God. She called her baby.

“So… Can I schedule a session with you some time?”

“Oh, yes please.”

Oh, for Lord’s sake.

“Um, I mean… I’m free next week on Thursday at 3?”

“Well, that’s a coincidence!” Asia giggles, flipping her hair a little. Jesus fucking Christ. “So am I. So see you Thursday at 3?”

Against her better judgment, Kameron nods. “See you then.”

It’s only when Asia walks away that reality truly hits Kameron. She is completely, utterly fucked, and somehow, she doesn’t mind.

#rpdr fanfiction #kameron michaels #asia o'hara #asia x kameron #monet x change #monique heart #lesbian au #dont make me wait another day #dmmwad #holtzmanns #writworm42 #s10

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

In a beige reception hall in a Des Moines suburb, over paper plates piled with the remains of a Monday morning continental breakfast, Sen. Bernie Sanders urged a packed house of Iowans to manifest their dreams. Imagine an America where cancer only kills you, rather than also rifling through your wallet. Visualize a future where no American child has to pay off her grandmother’s student loans. Cynicism is high and more than a quarter of us believe the American Dream is unattainable, but Sanders’s stump speech offered hope. “Everything is impossible until it’s not,” he said. The crowd went wild.

This speech was about issues but it was also a pitch for the semi-improbable Sanders campaign, itself. Before you stands a 78-year-old Jewish man, a self-described democratic socialist and an independent interloper in the Democratic Party, who is making his second try at the presidency after 30 years as a professional gadfly.

Yet here we are, five weeks later, and that same old People’s Grandpa is the candidate most likely to win a majority of delegates in the Democratic primary. Everything is impossible, after all, until it’s not. But the pundits say Sanders is risky, and the pundits are honorable men. Already, you can find headlines full of concern that even if he was viable in Iowa, Sanders won’t be able to win when it really counts. In other words: Sanders isn’t electable.

This whole concept of electability is frustrating to voters like Brooks Vander Kopsa of Granger, Iowa. Standing in the back of the crowd, he told me who is and isn’t electable makes no sense to him — but he’s not even sure it matters. “There’s all this talk about electability. ‘Oh, this person is so much more electable than that person.’ But when I look at policy and I look at track record, I don’t know who is more electable than Bernie,” he said. “So, electability. I guess I don’t know what that is.”

Is Sen. Bernie Sanders the most electable candidate? There’s no way to know.

STEPHEN MATUREN / GETTY IMAGES

Truth is, nobody does. For all the hands we’ve wrung dry over it in recent elections, electability isn’t a thing you can measure. It’s subjective, not objective — which is why Sanders isn’t the only candidate whose persona can be twisted one way to fit a narrative of unelectability, and another to tell a story of certain success. (Sen. Elizabeth Warren can attest to that.)

And, in that way, Julie Brown isn’t wrong about electability and bias, Bauer told me. Social scientists do use voters’ biases to understand what electability is and what it might look like.

Is former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg the most electable candidate? There’s no way to know.

MARK FELIX / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

A lot of this comes from experimental studies — contrived situations where researchers present participants with information about hypothetical candidates and ask them questions about how likeable that imaginary person is, or how much leadership ability they assume the candidate would possess. It’s not the real world, but it does tell us something. Specifically, Bauer told me, voters’ conception of who can get elected appears to be based on who has been elected in the past. “And we always think about men,” Bauer said.

For example, men generally have lower pitched voices than women — and there’s a lot of research suggesting that people are more willing to vote for somebody whose voice pitch is more, well, manly. In a 2016 paper, researchers made recordings of five men and five women speaking the same sentence: “I urge you to vote for me this November.” They played these recordings for 393 men and 411 women, all of whom were participants in the Cooperative Congressional Election Study — a nationally representative survey that’s used to track all kinds of voter behavior and opinions.

Participants were randomly assigned to listen to either five pairs of male voices or five pairs of female voices, and were asked which of each pair they’d prefer to vote for. Across the board, participants preferred to vote for the candidate with the lower-pitched voice, regardless of if that candidate was male or female. And the effect was clearer for participants over 40 — you know, the people most likely to turn out to vote.

But it’s not like someone’s voice means much when it comes to actually governing. The people who did this study of voice pitch later went back and analyzed whether the voice pitch of sitting members of Congress correlated with their legislative activity, the holding of leadership positions or their influence in setting legislative priorities. Lo and behold, having a deeper voice does not make you a better politician. Voters just apparently sorta think it does.

Is Sen. Elizabeth Warren the most electable candidate? There’s no way to know.

JEREMY HOGAN / ECHOES WIRE / BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

Studies like this run somewhat counter to actual electoral outcomes, though, said Cindy Kam, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. Yes, studies suggest that voters hold female candidates to higher standards than their male counterparts — women who get elected to public office tend to be more qualified for the jobs they hold than men who get elected, for example. And women are significantly underrepresented in public office. But that’s not the whole story because, while biases exist, women who do run seem to do about as well as men when it comes to getting elected.

Racial bias, on the other hand, more clearly factors into outcomes of who actually wins elections, Kam and other experts said. Studies have found that white voters see black and Latino candidates as more ideologically extreme and less competent. There’s also evidence white voters resist coming out to vote for black candidates even when they share an ideology with that candidate. And black women still rely on the black electorate to win their races.

Even Barack Obama, who won the presidency, probably didn’t get the votes a similarly positioned white candidate would have. In their 2012 book “The End of Race?” political scientists Donald Kinder and Allison Dale-Riddle analyzed voter data from the 2008 presidential election. Based on party identification, you’d have expected any candidate put forth by the Democratic party that year to pull in 55.5 percent of white voters. Instead, Obama got 43.3 percent of the white vote. He won the presidency, but with lower enthusiasm and turnout among whites than a similar white candidate would likely have had, Kam said.

Because, of course, electability isn’t just about individual feelings.

Is former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg the most electable candidate? There’s no way to know.

JEREMY HOGAN / ECHOES WIRE / BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

A June 2019 Ipsos poll, for example, found that 74 percent of Democrats and Independents said they’d be comfortable voting for a female president, but only 33 percent of those same people believed their neighbors would be as open-minded.

The effect captured in that Ipsos poll is so common, social scientists use it in their research to make sure participants aren’t just blowing some woke-sounding smoke. “People aren’t stupid,” Bauer told me. If you just ask who they like as a candidate, they’ll figure out that you’re trying to see if they’re sexist. “But asking if you think they’ll win is asking if you think other people will vote for that candidate. It takes social desirability pressure off the individual.” But when polls turn up results like that, are they showing that Democrats are secretly more sexist than they let on? Are they showing Democrats are unfairly contemptuous of their fellow Americans? Maybe a little of both? It’s hard to say, but it does demonstrate how hard it is to predict electability based on what you think other people think.

Then there’s the issue that electability is not a fixed idea. What makes a candidate likable to the nation, as a whole, is in flux — tracking, experts say, with hardening partisan lines.

Is former Vice President Joe Biden the most electable candidate? There’s no way to know.

SCOTT EISEN / GETTY IMAGES

And there’s no better place to see that ambiguity than at a primary campaign rally. Skirting the edges of a cheering crowd, Brown and Vander Kopsa basically both want the same things — a candidate who cares about average people, a candidate who will be a game-changer and think outside the box. They both suspect other voters aren’t engaged or doing the research necessary to know who meets those criteria. What they don’t agree on is whether Bernie Sanders is inside the box, or out of it.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Maggie Koerth

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