#I do have a couple critiques but they’re fairly minor

[thisgingerhasnosoul]

I highly recommend this video for those of you who are new to the clusterfuck that is I/P. It explains the basics of what you need to know, and while it’s not an all-encompassing history by any means, it’s pretty much required reading if you don’t want to look like an idiot who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

[zdbztumble]

“Kingdom Hearts II” revisited, Part I

Seeing as how Kingdom Hearts II is quite a long game, with quite a bit packed into it, I figured I’d chop this retrospective up. As I go through the game, I may come back and revise certain things here, but for now, let’s just look at KH II’s extended prelude with Roxas.

A lot of people say that this section of the game is overlong; a lot of people are right. The breaking point for me was the “seven wonders” episode. Everything in that day - story content, thematic underpinning, character beats - had already been stated by that point. One could argue that these all saw minor advancement during the “seven wonders” episode, or that DiZ showing some kindness by giving Roxas a glimpse of one of the wonders while also plotting Namine’s death in the same scene was important to his character. I wouldn’t disagree on the latter point, but I think finding a moment in the Struggle tournament for DiZ to have a flicker of kindness would have allowed that scene, or one very close to it, to happen after that day, without creating the lag on the pace of the game that the “seven wonders” episode creates.

However, that is my only major complaint with the Roxas prelude. Not only does it hold up well in spite of that lag, but in some ways it’s better than I remember.

I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t know Chain of Memories existed the first time I played KH II, and I thought it was one of the most impressive and daring feats of narrative I’d seen pulled in a series using such high-profile, mainstream characters. So many series have time jumps between entries - some of them longer than the year between KH I and II - without any major changes in the characters. Now, here was this E10-rated video game from Disney with an entire untold chapter that lands its hero in hibernation, his magical weapon in the hands of a total stranger! It blew my mind that they would do that, almost as much as it blew my mind that they’d end the first game on such a bittersweet note!

Of course, CoM does exist, and I can’t go back to a time where I didn’t know that. But I think that, if I’d somehow stayed ignorant of CoM all these years, I’d still ultimately applaud KH II, both for the idea of starting in such a different place from the end of KH I (when they had to at least suspect that a lot of players wouldn’t have caught the GBA title), and for the execution of that idea. And the key to the execution is that, ultimately, the player is given enough information to figure out the essentials of what happened to Sora without needing to know everything. That is - within that Roxas prelude, you see and learn enough to figure out that, at some point after KH I, Sora ended up in a conflict that cost him his memories, that a witch named Namine has power over his memories and has been working to restore them to Sora while he sleeps, and that this boy Roxas is somehow connected or derived from Sora and must reunite with him in order for Sora to be whole again. You can also safely deduce that the “Ansem” working with this character DiZ isn’t Ansem, Seeker of Darkness as you know him from KH I. If you really thought about it, you could probably figure out that it’s Riku, but going just on what the prelude shows you, that’s a bit more of a stretch.

If memory serves me well, this is the case throughout KH II. The events of CoM, and the (then) untold story about Roxas and Organization XIII, are revealed piecemeal over the course of the game, never in full, but just enough to make the story and character relationships work within this story. This is the way to have mystery in your plot and an open-ended quality to your world lore without it becoming needlessly confusing or detracting from the actual story.

If you had played CoM and Reverse/Rebirth, the deduction about Riku would be much easier to make, and Namine’s reappearance would be much more meaningful. I think her reappearance is handled very well, establishing her as in league with DiZ and “Ansem” in some way but possessed of more independent agency than she showed in CoM. Her ties to Kairi are also nicely reintroduced, as is Kairi herself. She’s the best character to choose IMO for showing how the events of the past year have affected the memories of Sora in the worlds, and how they’re being restored. And since Kairi is the one member of our original character trio of protagonists who hasn’t gone through extreme changes between games, this is a great way to get her involved in the story again. How all these things tie into Roxas’s connection to Sora, while allowing for a recap of the events of KH I for those who needed it, is very well-handled. Though I must admit - I didn’t remember that the Xemnas battle in Hollow Bastion from Final Mix being thrown into the flashbacks. If, like me, you’ve stuck to the vanilla versions of these games, that could be pretty confusing.

DiZ and “Ansem” make for an intriguing odd couple in this prelude. It was wonderful to hear Christopher Lee’s voice behind DiZ again. Why he wasn’t brought back for R/R, and why they redubbed his 358/2 Days material, I will never know. I can’t say much more about them now, because I can’t remember much more without having played more of the game XD

As far as Twilight Town and the people within it go - this is one area where the game is definitely better than I remember, because I really couldn’t recall much about Hayner, Pence, and Olette. Their material in KH III was so dull that, after playing that game, I wondered if they’d always been that way, and that’s why I didn’t remember them. But they’re actually a pretty good trio, with nice echoes of the Destiny Islands characters without feeling too derivative of them the way some later groups will. Olette, admittedly, isn’t all that fleshed out as a character, but Hayner is (Pence is somewhere in the middle). The parallels with Riku are fairly obvious - the self-appointed leader status, the petty jealousy over friends hanging out with others - but he shows maturity that that character didn’t, in his quiet acceptance of the passage of time drifting some friends apart. His dynamic with Roxas is very good - much more so, I have to say, than anything I’ve ever seen between Roxas and Axel.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Roxas just now - partly because I want to play more of the game, and partly because I have some fairly unpopular ideas about Roxas I’m saving for a later post. But for now, I do want to push back on a critique of this prelude that I’ve seen tossed around: that Roxas had no choice in his fate. He is, I grant you, backed into a very tight corner when he reaches Sora. The digital world that he’s been living in no longer recognizes or interacts with him; he can’t remember his frienship with Axel or his time in Organization XIII, but intuits that they were a bad bunch; this girl Namine he’s started to forge a connection with and get answers from has been taken away; and he’s been psychologically hammered with the idea that he was never meant to exist. But up until the last, Roxas displays a lot of anger and fight. He could have used the Keyblade to attack Sora, or at least destroy the pod he was in, just as he’d been attacking DiZ’s projection. He could have turned around and fled, escaping (though he couldn’t have known it at the time) into the real Twilight Town. He could have asked Axel to take him away in their last encounter. But he doesn’t do any of those things. He chooses to go back to Sora. It’s a very resigned choice, made by someone not in a great state of mind, but if I remember the rest of this game correctly, things end up working in such a way that Roxas, and the player, can be at peace with that choice.

Not much more to say at this point, except: as someone who came to this series by way of Disney, and doesn’t know much about Final Fantasy, Vivi was so confusing to see the first time I played this game.

[calleo-bricriu]

What is even wrong with you? For real.

In general or--?

I mean, in general, quite a lot, however, all of my defects seem to work together well so it evens out.

Off the top of my head, though:

My common sense is usually about five minutes behind whatever is happening.

I can be incredibly impulsive with new things, especially if new things hold a high chance of me learning or experiencing something new.

I lost my fear of death entirely by 1988. I've seen worse. I've cast worse. I've been the indirect cause of worse. I use one of the "cast worse" spells as a mental control exercise and ping it back and forth like a yo-yo.

I have a brilliant level of pain tolerance, which does lead me to do a lot of things that might otherwise put me off. Despite that, I'll definitely complain about something as minor as a paper cut but shrug off, say, a curse based burn.

Speaking of curses, I am definitely an addict. A functional addict, but still an addict.

I'm difficult to intimidate, primarily because threats on my life don't bother me and if you want to hit me with something painful, yeah, it's going to hurt, but I'm also going to enjoy the high I get off of it so you're probably not going to get what you want unless what you want is a critique of your technique and me telling you how to do it better next time or, if you’re good at it, tell you to hit me again.

Working at the Ministry of Magic will make anyone mildly dysfunctional after a few years; that's what dealing with an inept, bloated, contradictory bureaucracy does after awhile.

I have literally two friends who don't have fairly extensive criminal records.

While I don't have a mean streak, I do have one hell of a defensive streak and, even if I can't take a swipe at you directly in retaliation for taking a swipe at something I consider mine, it'll absolutely happen in indirect ways you probably won't ever think to link back to me.

I should clarify when I say something is "mine" it means I've decided whatever it is is worth viciously defending if someone else threatens whatever it is. It doesn't mean I'm jealously possessive of it.

I always end up upside down on a broom. I'm not sure that counts as something being wrong with me but it's no big thing. There are other ways to fly.

I don't actually mind Muggles all that much which is something others might consider a massive flaw but, really, I've lived exclusively around them for years and they just don't bother me.Also, if anyone comes for that lovely old woman who asked me to buy her rocking chair made of bones, they might actually die.

I tend not to care what my friends do in their spare time so long as it doesn't directly inconvenience me.

My line of work means I have to keep eyes, ears, and a finger on the pulse of the shadier sides of Wizarding society.

I have an Astarte wand. If you know what's required to get one of those made, congratulations. If you don't, well, he's been dead for almost a decade now so you can't ask. They're surprisingly legal to possess.

Speaking of, I managed to fall face first into a situation in which @absintheabsence can use the Astarte and I kind of want to have a go at him while he’s using that wand specifically just to see how it acts.

I have no moral qualms with walking into a building at the head of a raid where I'm present to unlock the warding and let everyone in and taking care of the--issue inside without it ever getting a shot off at me.

Doing things out of order sets me on edge.

Odd numbers bother me.

I can't sleep if I'm not up against a wall or the back of whatever I'm sleeping on.

And forget sleeping facing a door, that's just not possible.

If I had to cook for myself in order to survive, I might actually die.

I find sticky things revolting to touch and definitely don't like being sticky. I don't even like the word sticky.

I now currently have two projects with two different books that are both designed to either kill or drive anyone trying to read them mad and rather than be a bit wary of this, it's exciting and I'm basically doing the equivalent of rubbing my face all over it. Not literally, obviously, that'd be weird even by my standards.

Let's see, what else--

As long as you're decent to me, I'll respond in kind. It doesn't matter who you are. Some people find that objectiona somehow.

I've been dragged in front of the Wizengamot--five-ish times since 1979. Once to get hitting an Auror with a blasting curse dismissed as self defence, four times for allegedly breaking the Statute of Secrecy by using magic around Muggles.

Acquitted all four times because I could prove the "magic" they claimed I was using was just sleight of hand tricks.Doesn't stop the Muggles where I live from knowing that I'm "some sort of Wizard" though.

I enjoy spell modification but, more specifically, I enjoy taking legitimately awful magic and either rendering it something harmlessly useful or looking at it, thinking, "Well, whoever came up with this wasn't very creative, were they?" and making it exponentially worse.See: The six or so years' worth or research on the Cruciatus Curse.

Speaking of, I will occasionally ask a couple of people who I know don't mind and who I know will keep it to a 1-3 second burst, to hit me with it if I want a quick pick me up. It's not the pain aspect, it's the rush that comes in the aftermath of a curse like that. The magic itself produces it, and the endorphin flood from the actual pain hits in tandem with it and it's actually pretty amazing.If it's done right.

I'm a bit of a thrill seeker, which plays into everything above.

I've been told I'm a mummy's boy but that doesn't bother me. I adore my mother and I usually listen to her advice.

I could probably continue but this is already a bit long.

[overthinkingkdrama]

Exit Rave: Money Flower

I didn't really realize this about myself until fairly recently, but I need my quotient of crazy sauce makjang melodrama to keep my passion for dramas alive. Last year it was Ms. Perfect coming swooping in to save me from my drama dryspell, this year it was Money Flower. This became a crack drama for me week over week from the premier. I need something just this twisted and dysfunctional in order to live my best life.

Money Flower is a Jang Hyuk helmed revenge melo that feels a little bit like a dark and gritty reimagining of Baker King Kim Tak Goo. There are a staggering number of plot similarities between the two shows. The primary difference being this: In Baker King our hero is a Human Cinnamon Roll way too obsessed with actual cinnamon rolls to bother avenging himself on anybody. In Money Flower, Kang Pil Joo is a reptilian chess master, way to obsessed with avenging himself to bother with literally anything else (including love, friendship or actual cinnamon rolls). Also, Baker King is slightly less murdery. Slightly.

I picked up Money Flower almost entirely on the strength of the poster (the one above on the left). Well, and because of Jang Hyuk's involvement. But that pretty much goes without saying as far as this blog is concerned. I wasn't sure how I felt about the match up with Park Se Young since in my head she's still that top student from School 2013, but it's not even Jang Hyuk's most mismatched pairing in recent memory (ahem, Beautiful Mind) so it didn't give me more than a momentary pause. That poster just has such an intriguing dark energy to it. Promising a heavy melodrama about a manipulative, deeply unhappy man, who uses his intelligence to ruin his life and the lives of everyone around him to his own ends. Which is exactly what this drama delivered.

I really think that's the best mindset to take into this. Come for Jang Hyuk playing an almost preternaturally competent chess master type character and stay for the makjang madness and the unaccountable chemistry he has with nearly every other character.

A couple provisos I will make before recommending Money Flower to anyone. You definitely want to know what kind of thing you're getting into here.

I often have a knee-jerk defensive reaction to anyone who would refer to Kdramas as "Korean soap operas" because the term "soap opera" at least in the United States has a distinctly unflattering, low-rent connotation. As we all know Kdrama has a lot to offer narratively, rhetorically, and each show can vary wildly in terms of production values. I don't judge every drama using the same rubric. In fact, I am admittedly much harder on dramas with very obvious merits (My Just Between Lovers and First Life reviews are good examples of this pattern) than I am on trashier fare. There is definitely a sliding scale at play here.

Money Flower is one of those dramas you can pretty legitimately classify as a soap. A compelling one. A very well paced one, but a soap nonetheless. I'm not too proud to admit that. I liked the soapiness and the insanity. This is good schlocky fun. For best results you probably don't want to fully engage critical thrusters. Something about this drama feels very old school, like it could have been made any time in the past 15 years. Although the critique of the corrupt conglomerate system feels pretty contemporary. If you enjoy dramas along the lines of Baker King, That Winter the Wind Blows, or even something like I'm Sorry, I Love You then this is probably be to your taste.

Moving into the actual review, I will say that I was impressed at the writers ability to maintain the tension and continue serving up cliffhanger after juicy cliffhanger week after week. Consider the dramas 24 episode run, that's no mean feat. Whether all those turns added up to a fully realized story is up for debate, but I think so.

As to the characters, I won't lie to you, they're all terrible people. Every single one of them twisted or greedy or obsessive but most of the time all three. (All of them except for Mo Hyun, who is kind and pure and didn't deserve to be mixed up with any of this.) But they’re very interesting terrible people, and therein lies the fun. Pil Joo especially walks that tenuous line of ruthless anti-hero that made me frequently question his actions and his justifications for them. At times I didn't even know if I wanted him to succeed, but the drama always managed to bring me around in the end. It was supremely satisfying in that way.

I think the character with the most wholly engaging dynamic arc was Jang Boo Cheon. My attitude about him changed from hostility, to ambivalence, to genuine interest and concern by the end of the drama. I'm well aware I'm in the minority on this one, but by the end of the drama Boo was my favorite character. He was just full of narrative possibilities. What side he'd ultimately land on was up in the air until the very last episode. He reminds me very much of Ma Jun from Baker King. A spoiled and unlikable character with unexpected emotional depth who makes you root for his redemption. Shout out to actor Jang Seung Jo who I thought really knocked his role out of the park, I hope he gets more and better roles moving forward. The extended cast, most particularly Lee Mi Sook as the truly fascinating Jung Mal Ran, all do a great job.

I liked the ending of this drama, though not as much as I wanted to. I think in the end they wanted to have everything at once and it made some of the choices in the finale feel a bit slapdash and manipulative. The fact that that's pretty much the worst thing I have to say about the writing is frankly a miracle.

For the hours of sheer enjoyment it furnished me and keeping that sliding scale of quality in mind, I give Money Flower a 8/10. A solid addition to the sizable Jang Hyuk filmography and to the revenge-melo genre in general.

[aion-rsa]

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 11 Review: The Dad Feelings-Limited

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This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 11

The Simpsons goes back to the past to make way for the future on Season 32, episode 11. “The Dad Feelings-Limited” is an origin story, revealing the sad and lonely tale of Comic Book Guy. No, it isn’t done in panel layouts, and his super strength turns out to be his greatest weakness. 

Comic Book Guy, diversely voiced by Hank Azaria, is a fairly one-dimensional character. He critiques everything he sees, and has no stomach for outside criticism. He’s already got a bellyful of tacos (breakfast burritos on a workday). He doles out droll insults to children too young to understand them.

Like many of the origin stories on The Simpsons, the first order of business is to explain the particular limits of the character. Professor Frink had the Nutty Professor for a dad. Comic Book Guy’s father was Postage Stamp Fellow, played by Dan Aykroyd.  

The sequence is slightly reminiscent of the Taxi episode where we meet cab driver Jim’s family. Christopher Lloyd’s presence even looms over this episode in the film parody. But the main difference is that here, it is the one dimensionality of the character which adds dimension to him. The very thing which pushed him into the comic book netherworld is the information he gleans from it, like reading a Classic Comics adaptation.

“The Dad Feelings – Limited” skips not only the couch gag, but the entire opening theme sequence, which is always an early indicator of a good episode. This means there is more meat to the story. We find ourselves in Comic Book Guy’s apartment, right above his store, where he has prepared scones for his mangaka muffin, his wife Kumiko Albertson (Jenny Yokobori).

She has fashioned his five breakfast burritos into a Voltron. They are nerds. They met in the Season 25 episode “Married to the Blob,” when she was visiting Springfield doing research about America’s saddest cities for an autobiographical manga. It was a match made in “Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con.”

They are now living what seems to be the perfect life. And for that they will pay. Their mornings are spent wandering as aimlessly as the plots of the upcoming Avatar movies. They go to Miyazaki marathons. They revel in a happy, carefree life. More than one, if you count their cosplay universes. Meanwhile, Springfield families like the Simpsons are circumnavigating the heedless waters of children’s birthday parties — intolerable, mal-nutritious events where every bouncy castle is a death trap — in the hopeful dreams of visiting parents. After a day of it, Homer and Marge need adults.

The first adult we see is Ned Flanders, and already eyes are rolling across the country, but he is dispatched in a particularly malicious maneuver, with no regrets nor even a pang of conscience. They know they’ll be forgiven. He’s in the left-handed forgiveness business. The grown-ups are gathering at Moe’s, and they’re playing games. Not even adult games, regardless of how much Moe grasps at single entendres for dirty jokes.

It’s Trivia Night at Moe’s and every question is so specialized it looks like the game is fixed. The Simpsons pair up with Kumiko and Comic Book Guy, and of course between the geeky young couple and the domesticated Simpsons, the disparate couples fill in every gap. It works not only as a contrivance, but as a gag in itself.

Kumiko gets the biggest laugh of the night. She actually commands and gets it on demand. The premise of the show is the discussion of having children, but this joke is brilliantly executed. After Kumiko spends time with baby Maggie, we can see her maternal instincts kick in. The transition is expertly muted, and there is a sweetness and innocence in the build-up. Kumiko is timid with Maggie, afraid to do anything wrong, but is brought into the child’s world completely.

We have no idea Kumiko is going to go Game of Thrones’ Dragon MILF on us, but her delivery on “impregnate me” can tumble walls. It is as hysterical as it is unexpected. Yokobori almost upstages herself in a later sequence. She commands Marge and Homer to fix a problem, calling Marge a “baby drug dealer” and Homer a “cheeseburger goblin.” To be fair, she’s really not off the mark with that one. He could put it on a resume.

Then things turn a little dramatic, what with all the discussion of bringing children into a General Mills cinematic universe starring the Hamburger Helper critter. But in the end, the “Great Resistor,” a hero Comic Guy thinks up in the heat of the moment, is able to frustrate his sexy Greenland gremlin’s deepest desires. Although I don’t for one minute believe she’s been keeping that particular fetish from him.

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The discussion at the center is a new one for The Simpsons. Apu’s children came organically, although Marge’s advice also played a big part in that transition. But with Comic Book Guy, we wonder whether a person who spends his entire life dealing with children should actually deal with children. Is he prepared to heat formula when he can’t even cool Kumiko’s baby fever?

The best part of the episode is how the “right” things are set in motion for the wrong reasons. Marge pushes to uphold Springfield’s community standards, but appeals to Homer’s base side to manipulate it into action. The young, unfettered couple can sleep in. They don’t have to lug car seats on airplanes. Even their cosplay sex is good. They can do it anywhere, on a kitchen or bathroom floor, on a new microwave popping popcorn. It is a Simpsons twist to have Homer vow to do “anything to destroy their paradise.” The concept gets two “fehs” for emphasis.

At least Homer and Marge get to “see how the other half dies” in a model crypt. The bit about comparing decomposing in adjoining coffins to “snuggling for eternity” is very goth, and the “Til death, do each other” line is poetry. Bart, however, gets credit for the best couplet of the evening: “Our parents are undead, our dad will eat your head.” Being Mrs. Dracula is all fun and games until you get trapped in a crate full of smooth jazz.

The segment pokes fun at the generational divide. Bart and Lisa put away their cell phones to watch the cemetery showing of “Forward to the Past.” Comic Book Guy points out that a movie screen is “unswipable.” This is also where we see the weakness-as-strength in Comic Book Guy. He realizes he can experience a movie he’s seen a million times for the first time again through the eyes of children, He also realizes “little ones love useless knowledge.” This is the one scenario where his superpowers actually come in handy. It is also his kryptonite.

“Living with your folks, the beginning of the end,” Groucho Marx said in Animal Crackers (1930). “Drab, dead yesterdays shutting out beautiful tomorrows. Hideous, stumbling footsteps creaking along the misty corridors of time.”  Kumiko calls it a place where there is no hope, and Comic Book Guy finds it’s also a place where his sheets haven’t been changed.

Aykroyd throws just enough SNL-consumer-probed-toy-manufacturer-Irwin-Mainway-intrigue into his introduction as Postage Stamp Fellow to pepper it with Ghostbusters suspense. One written gag which works very well is when a crawl explains that a philatelist is a person who specializes in philately. Comic Book Guy comes from a long line of collectible-collectors, from cruel bird houses to antique cricket cages. The house he grew up in displayed everything but love. The sequence also contains a very Rocky and Bullwinkle moment where the narrator, Bob Balaban, breaks the second wall by arguing with a character.

That’s not the only curveball in the episode. We learn Comic Book Guy tried to pitch at his school baseball team and had one devastating specialty throw. It’s what separates the men from the boys and ultimately the villains from the jugheads. The minor trauma of his “worst day ever” is basically a misunderstanding based on the expectation of a disappointment so great even “the left hand of god,” Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, could only walk it home.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The Simpsons season 32 has been a standout because it is moving forward into new territory while updating the attitudes of their early seasons. The series is no longer as sloppy as it used to be but they are still putting the Springfield community under a microscope, and looking at the microscope through a telescope. It is as subversive as it has even been, but buries the subterfuge in plain sight, whether it’s well-lit or not.

The “Radioactive Man Re-rises” poster which frames Comic Book Guy and Kumiko as they mingle to create the “interracial nerds in the future” is a subtle double entendre in a pro-family themed entry; Bart and Lisa have to be bribed to act like desirable youngsters. “The Dad Feelings-Limited” is a very warm installment of the series, but it’s got a devious heart. What makes it so funny is how good it looks worn on their sleeve.

The post The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 11 Review: The Dad Feelings-Limited appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): The 2020 Democratic field was once hailed as the most diverse ever. But now, even as many candidates try to position themselves as the best person to build on the “Obama coalition of young people, women and nonwhite voters,” the four front-runners are nevertheless all white, and three are men.

On Tuesday, Kamala Harris dropped out of the race, and candidates like former Julián Castro and Cory Booker have all struggled to break out, languishing below 4 percent in the polls nationally. Harris, in particular, had a bruising race, once sitting at 15 percent nationally to only plummet to 3 percent before ending her campaign.

Is this surprising? What are some possible explanations?

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): My somewhat complicated theory is that Booker kind of lost the informal black candidate primary to Harris from 2017 to early 2019. Harris then got all the buzz as the most viable black candidate when she entered the race. But then she struggled. I’m not sure if her campaign had the clearest of messages, but I also think she faced electability questions, which dog female candidates in particular.

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I think it’s pretty surprising that the top of the field is now dominated by white candidates. And I think there are a couple of explanations that don’t fall under the usual “electability” catch-all, although that certainly deserves consideration, too.

One is that Obama’s election removed the novelty of a person of color winning the nomination, which means it’s harder to frame media coverage in a way that doesn’t have to tackle really tough questions about minority representation and what it might mean to actually address those inequalities.

Another explanation is because people have changed their views on race to more closely match their political parties, white Democrats have adopted (superficially at least) pretty racially liberal opinions, which means all the candidates can now talk about race and the concerns of black and Latino communities to various degrees. Obviously, with varying levels of success, but still, that’s a big change from a few years ago.

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Joe Biden’s standing in the race has been a big hindrance, too, because he’s just so strong among older nonwhite voters, particularly black voters, who might have been a potential base for some of these other candidates.

meredithconroy: (Meredith Conroy, political science professor at California State University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): If I had to give a blanket explanation for why the nonwhite candidates aren’t polling well among Democrats, my answer is that there was never going to be a lot of room between a former VP (Biden) and former runner-up (Bernie Sanders). Beto O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren, Harris and Pete Buttigieg all made inroads at some point, although only Warren’s has really been sustainable. Why Castro and Booker haven’t (yet) is, in my view, related to their race and the “electability” overcorrection following 2016, or this idea that only a white, moderate male can take on Trump at the ballot box. Because sexism and racism motivated voters’ choice at the ballot box in 2016, I think Democrats are reluctant to be all-in for a candidate that will make those attitudes more salient in 2020.

julia_azari: What’s interesting to me about that, Meredith, is that this electability message seems to have somehow turned into one about race and less about gender.

sarahf: In other words, it should be equally surprising Warren has continued to do well?

julia_azari: Yeah, and while Amy Klobuchar isn’t doing great in the polls, she hasn’t really been attacked on her electability credentials (which is not to say that attacks on her haven’t been gendered). Similarly, Kirsten Gillibrand didn’t drop out because of electability critiques. She lacked elite support and did poorly in the polls.

That’s not to say that women are doing great in this field; they’re not, as a group. But the fact that concerns over electability also affect Booker and Castro after Obama won big majorities is interesting to me. Perhaps a message Democrats took away from 2016 is to be generally cautious about demographics, but not ideology. I find that odd, but there’s a lot going on.

sarahf: What’s so hard to untangle in all of this, too, is just how much of it is about the individual candidates and the competition they face. Like Meredith said at the outset, with both a former VP and a former runner-up in the race, did that ever really leave that much oxygen in the race for other candidates?

geoffrey.skelley: Sanders’s appeal is just so narrow, though. His ceiling of support just isn’t as high as some of the other candidates, which is why Biden’s relative strength looms large to me. He’s taken hits in the race, but he hasn’t really fallen down.

Perry has written about this before, but black voters have a pragmatic streak in the primaries, which means they have traditionally backed establishment candidates, which is one explanation for Biden’s continued success.

But in a universe where there is no Biden running, I think someone like Harris or Booker fills that lane better than Sanders or Warren. Considering Harris’s appeal earlier in the cycle among white college graduates, she might’ve had the best chance, too, to weave together that same sort of coalition that boosted Obama in the 2008 primary. But obviously that didn’t happen, and I think you can point to Biden as part of that, for eating up her support among nonwhite voters, and to Warren for grabbing college-educated voters.

perry: Would Stacey Abrams, Michelle Obama or Oprah have done better?

In other words, how big is the electability problem (a candidate’s gender and race) vs. the Biden problem (he is fairly popular with black people, even setting electability arguments aside)?

sarahf: In a race where a candidate’s perceived ability to beat Trump has been paramount, that’s hard for me to answer. I do think it’s notable how the conversation around electability has centered less on what characteristics voters think are important for winning vs. what they say they believe their neighbors think is important, and how that limits their choice as a result. For instance, in “magic wand” polls, where respondents are asked who they’d make president if they had the power to magically bypass the election, Warren has routinely beaten Biden, which stands out to me as a pretty stark example of just how different the race could be if electability wasn’t a factor.

julia_azari: I sort of doubt that any of those candidates would have done a lot better, Perry. That’s partly because the field is so crowded, and because there are so many existential questions about what the party should be doing.

meredithconroy: I think Abrams would’ve done fine, depending when she jumped in, because she has political experience. But I think Michelle Obama and Oprah wouldn’t have done as well because Democrats are generally more wary than Republicans of outsiders and people without formal governing experience.

julia_azari: Would Abrams have cleared the field, though? I doubt it. Sanders and possibly Warren would probably still have run, and if they’re in, then Biden jumps in, too. And I don’t see Buttigieg being put off by Abrams either.

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, I don’t think there was a single field-clearer out there. Someone with Biden’s resume, maybe, if he or she were considerably younger and without as many failed presidential runs.

perry: Why Booker hasn’t done better is super interesting to me as well. I don’t think he actually has an electability problem, considering on the surface he’s the most similar to the last Democrat who won — black, male and running on a message of hope.

Yet, that hasn’t worked for him. Maybe he has been unlucky (people found another Rhodes Scholar mayor). Then again, maybe it’s because he’s been unable to pick a lane.

Buttigieg says I’m young; Biden says I’m experienced and electable; Warren and Sanders both say they’ll bring big structural change.

Booker, on the other hand, says I’m kind of left, but not that left, kind of young, but not that young, etc.

sarahf: And so you think it’s kind of inexplicable, Perry, that Booker hasn’t done better given all that?

julia_azari: My hunch is that this is the year of the factional candidate.

perry: Yeah, that is my view as well.

sarahf: Wait, what does the year of “the factional candidate” mean?!?

perry: Buttigieg and Biden are running as decidedly center-left. Warren and Sanders to the left. Harris and Booker on the other hand have refused to pick a lane, and in my view, fusion is failing.

julia_azari: Yeah, it’s the year of the candidate who can excite some segment of the party, rather than someone who seems OK to most segments.

perry: Better said.

sarahf: But isn’t trying to appeal to a wide swath of the party versus any one specific group kind of Biden and Buttigieg’s whole appeal? Hence, the whole “Vote for me, I won’t rock the boat too much” strategy?

Or would you say, no — they’ve still staked out an ideological lane more explicitly.

julia_azari: Look at the demographic trends. Biden does well mainly with older voters and minority voters, while Buttigieg really only does well with white voters, particularly those with a college degree. Which is similar to Warren, although she does a little bit better than him with nonwhite voters — but not by much. That’s factional support!

perry: Additionally, Harris and Booker lost the black left to Sanders and Warren, while black voters who are not-that-left ideologically flocked to Biden. That same kind of ideological split exists among white voters, except Buttigieg has done better with more moderate white voters than Harris and Booker have done with moderate black voters.

I do think, in defense of Harris and Booker, perhaps a black candidate can’t run on super-left platform and be seen as viable. There’s a reason why the Jesse Jackson model (a black candidate running on populist platform) has not been replicated and why there is no black Bernie Sanders-style candidate in the race.

sarahf: This theory of the year of the factional candidate is an interesting one and would also help explain to me why someone like Andrew Yang has overperformed expectations as an outsider-y type candidate in a field that has otherwise been not that receptive to candidates of color like Harris and Booker, who have taken a more middle-of-the-road approach. Tulsi Gabbard falls under this category as well I think, given her small-but-loyal fan base.

But this still doesn’t explain someone like Castro, right? After all, he did make being super liberal a core part of his campaign at one point — remember how he got everyone (except O’Rourke) to raise their hand at the first debate in support of making it a civil, not criminal, offense to cross the border without the proper documentation?

perry: In my view, Warren and Sanders don’t leave a lot of room for other super liberal candidates.

meredithconroy: I mostly agree. But I think Castro was smart to carve out space for a candidate who openly supports issues of social and racial justice. He is championing issues that often get sidelined. Only it hasn’t had much impact. Paul Begala, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, said that embracing progressive positions on things like immigration may not have done much to help Castro, given liberal voters’ loyalty to Sanders and Warren. So Castro’s poll numbers continue to languish.

sarahf: That’s the thing — he missed the last debate and doesn’t seem likely to make the next one in December either.

But OK, with Harris’s departure from the race, does that mean there really are only four possible front-runners at this stage? Or do people think this could still change?

julia_azari: Klobuchar-mentum!

perry: After every debate, people in the media, myself included, say Booker and Klobuchar did well. Yet they remain stagnant in polls.

Do more donors support Booker now, in part because he would be one of the few minority candidates on the debate stage and is probably more viable than Castro?

Maybe. If I had to bet on a fifth candidate to emerge, I would bet on Booker.

But I am not confident of that bet at all.

julia_azari: I agree with Perry.

meredithconroy: Sanders, Biden and Warren have cemented themselves as front-runners, I think. which I think leaves room for one, maybe two more. I would bet on Buttigieg, Booker or … maybe Yang? AM I TOO ONLINE?

geoffrey.skelley: The problem for Booker is he needs four qualifying polls for the December debate by Dec. 12, and he has zero at the moment. Maybe he can take advantage of Harris’s exit to pick up some of her support — not that there was a ton at this point — but the problem is he’s running out of time.

Yang, on the other hand, is currently one poll short of qualification and the “Yang Gang” is a legit financial resource — he raised about $10 million in the third quarter, which could keep him going for awhile.

sarahf: How will you think about the race moving forward?

julia_azari: The big question for me is whether Castro or Booker picks up any steam as a result of Harris dropping out. Or Klobuchar.

geoffrey.skelley: Maybe the absence of a nonwhite candidate at the top of the polls causes some people to shift their support, but I think we should keep in mind that many of Harris’s supporters will most likely flock to one of the other leading candidates. According to a recent poll from CBS News/YouGov that looked at who voters’ second-choice candidates would be in the early states, 80 percent of Harris supporters named one of the four leading candidates as their second choice.

National results broadly similar to our early-state polling data with some differences in Warren's numbers:

31% plurality of Warren voters pick Sanders 2nd

52% majority of Sanders voters pick Warren 2nd

32-38% pluralities of Biden, Buttigieg, & Harris voters pick Warren 2nd pic.twitter.com/VaecoQ7TL5

— Kabir Khanna (@kabir_here) December 3, 2019

julia_azari: Yeah, you’re probably right.

I’m on Twitter too much.

geoffrey.skelley: That said, I do think that Gabbard and Yang have very committed supporters who will keep them in the race for a while, but if I’m trying to figure out if there’s a nonwhite candidate who can actually win the Democratic nomination. That list may be empty at this point if Booker doesn’t improve substantially.

meredithconroy: Big picture, the lack of nonwhite front-runners signals to me that a vast number of voters are reluctant to support a nonwhite candidate because they are worried about winning swing states. For voters who are more concerned with policy than beating Trump, my thought is they have probably already settled on Sanders or Warren, which leaves a candidate like Castro — who also has a progressive agenda — out to dry. Long term, it should be a wake-up call for the Democratic party as an organization. They need to continue to build a diverse bench and do more to elevate nonwhite and non-male candidates.

geoffrey.skelley: General election turnout really matters for Democrats. Yes, Hillary Clinton lost for multiple reasons in 2016, but one big reason was lower turnout among black voters. Now, I don’t think anyone expected it to be at the same level as in 2008 or 2012 with Obama not on the ballot, but if you look at cities like Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, which were located in the three states that decided the election, black voter turnout was down in all three. Clinton only lost those states by a combined 78,000 votes or so.

So if you’re a Democrat trying to figure out how to win electorally important and fairly white states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, turnout among nonwhite voters is key. The same is true if you’re thinking about other potential swing states like Arizona and North Carolina.

Which means it should be at least somewhat concerning for the Democratic Party that there are really no viable nonwhite candidates left in the race two months before Iowa.

[mjbookreviews]

Tenth of December by George Saunders

The second book I read this summer: December in June

I’ve been self-interestedly interested in George Saunders since a creative writing teacher told me that a story I wrote reminded him of “Victory Lap.”  I also read some of his work in that class and found Saunders to be a smart, humorous, and warm author, so I’ve been meaning to read Tenth of December for a couple years now.  I should probably have a warning now though: I’m often an inattentive reader, rushing through the pages without pausing to think about what the author or story is trying to say.  It’s something I’m trying to work on, but I’m afraid that these reviews will probably reveal that aspect of my reading.  Hopefully, though, I can use them to do at least a bit more digging.

Tenth of December is made up of ten short stories, all (or most?) of which I believe can be found online for free, so if you just want to get a taste of Saunders’s work without paying for it, that would be the way to go.  My favorite stories were “Victory Lap,” “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” and “Exhortation,” the first two of which are pretty stereotypical I guess, as they’re some of his most popular work.  But hey, they’re popular for a reason.  These three stories all have great humor and great voices, immersing the reader completely in the psychology of the character.

I loved “Victory Lap” mostly for Alison Pope’s voice, one of the few stories where we get a female point of view. The way we are introduced to her character immediately shows the dreamy, imaginative girl that she is: “Three days shy of her fifteenth birthday, Alison Pope paused at the top of the stairs.” She is clearly still a child seeing a rose-colored world, performing for her audience, yet Saunders does not use this aspect of her character against her or deride her.  Alison is instead simply allowed to be herself, and while we the reader may find her worldview naïve and privileged, there is something undeniably charming about her whimsical ways.  Kyle Boot (the other young protagonist) and even the villain of the story have interesting and well-developed motivations and backgrounds as well.  

This is a story of trauma and the choices we make in the defining moments of our lives.  I don’t want to give away too much as it’s a fairly short read, but I found another review of the story a little while ago and I wanted to touch on something they said.  This reviewer wasn’t a fan because they said this was too saccharine and childish of a story for Saunders.  I can see this point of view, but I disagree. *MINOR SPOILERS* Though the story seems to have a happy ending, I think that the trauma of what Alison and Kyle have gone through, obvious in Alison’s dreams at the end, will have lifelong effects on the two teens of the story.  What will this mentally do to the characters as they move on in their lives?  And for Kyle, who is haunted throughout the story by the voices of his excessively strict parents, we don’t get to see what happens to him afterwards: will his parents punish him for “disobeying” them?  Will the thought of what he almost did to the villain change how he sees himself forever?  

*STILL SPOILERS* And going along with this, I’m not sure how to take the last line (“Did beautiful, Dad said”).  I believe the other review pointed to it as sarcasm, Saunders showing how the naiveté of Alison could have been her downfall and how she hasn’t changed.  I personally think it should be taken more seriously; yes, in this statement Alison is reinforcing her worldview and drawing comfort from her father’s words, perhaps as a way to cope with what has happened to her.  But I again don’t think Saunders is mocking her or the trauma she just experienced. Saunders himself has commented on how he used to try to make humor in mocking a character, but now he finds that this tactic doesn’t work, as the character will “slowly gain [his] sympathy” and simple mockery would lead to the “flat-lining” of the story.

At any rate, the stories flowed wonderfully together, shorter and longer pieces providing nice variations in pace and tone.  Many of these stories seem to focus on characters that teeter on the edge of a precipice; their lower middle class status in danger of falling to lower class poverty or an average man is in danger of falling from normal society into insanity or even toeing the line from life to death.  As Saunders says in a conversation with writer David Sedaris, “In the midst of crisis is where we get the true measure of a character, and thus some new feeling about human tendency.”  Some of these stories end happily: others (more often) fall forward over the edge.

This is essentially the case of the narrator in “The Semplica Girl Diaries.”  Through the diary entries of our protagonist, we learn of his family and his life, how they are not exactly poor, but they are a bit “behind” their peers.  He sees the prosperity of his children’s friends, and in an effort to keep up with a popular decorative trend so as to make his family not feel like such “losers,” they end up (potentially) ruined.  I think Saunders’s critique of materialism and the pressures of living in a capitalistic society where you are not on the upper end (and the extremes that people will go to for their family AND the services and trends that appear in a society where money rules all) is really interesting and thought-provoking.  Here and in “Exhortation,” Saunders is a master of slowly revealing his endgame, of keeping the reader guessing and hanging on every word until it becomes clear what the situation of the characters is.

I thought choosing the “Tenth of December” as the last story and as the title of the collection left things on a hopeful note, and I can appreciate that in literature.  I also really liked the interview at the end of this collection with David Sedaris, which I have already quoted from.  Saunders makes some really great statements on his philosophy toward writing and what good writing should do and be.  For Saunders, good writing should “[enliven] the part of us that actually believes we are in this world, right now, and that being here somehow matters.  It reawakens the reader to the fact and the value of her own existence.”  I believe that Saunders accomplishes this in his own work: by looking at the world in a “semi-sacred way,” whether that is through the thoughts of a teenage girl or through examining class struggles in America, Saunders reminds readers of the humanity in each of us and the delicacy of our own lives.

[subtletyislost]

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1. Tell us about your WIP!Currently I’m working on a lesbian romance novel about two girls in college,one is a double majoring in business and english education, the other doublemajors in computer science and astrophysics (the college she goes to doesn’t do“rocket science” or aeronautical engineering, so this is probably as close asshe’s going to get for programing rockets and theoretical space flightpaths/devices). The other major part of the story is that the MC (the rocketscientist) is searching for her missing brother at the same time.

3. What is your favorite/least favorite part aboutwriting?My favorite part about writing is that moment hen someone tells me eitherthat they like my writing or gives me some kind of critique/encouragement (yes,I actually like receiving constructive criticism). My least favorite part aboutwriting is trying find people to give that critique/trying to stay focusedenough to actually finish a story.

5. Top five formative books?I don’t know what this means but the books I read as a child that made mewant to write were: 1. The Magic Treehouse Series 2. Molly Moon’s IncredibleBook of Hypnotism 3. Bloody Jack 4. The Tale-Tell Heart (and other Edgar AllenPoe things) 5. The Little Princebooks that shaped my writing style/preferences though were 1. Molly Moon’sIncredible Book of Hypnotism 2. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witchof the West 3. Welcome to Night Vale: The Novel 4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide tothe Galaxy 5. Martin the Warrior

6. Favorite character you’ve written?Fandom: Sera, Leliana, Josephine, Cole (Dragon Age), Jack, Liara, Peebee (MassEffect), Pharah (overwatch), Raven (Teen Titans), Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)Original: Cassandra Tesla (the MC of the wip from question 1), Scion, Xia,Sage, Ruka, and Nvros

8. Do you have anywriting buddies or critique partners? yes! @wardenpharah @snowstorm-thirteen @uswhovianswillholdasiton and acouple others who I mostly talk to on discord

9. Favorite/leastfavorite tropes? Favorite: I don’t know trope names, but there’s trope that I didn’t know was atrope until I came across it in a few fics and a podcast where basicallysomeone is separated from their spouse and when they meet back up with themthey’re like “I missed you so much! Btw I kind of accidentally adopted thiskid/[wayward character]”; that trope “remove your weapons” *pulls a ridiculousamount of weapons out of nowhere* “ALL of them” *reluctantly hands over one ortwo more*; “will this work?” “I have no idea” *thing explodes* “was it supposedto do that?” “I don’t know but it was awesome!”Least favorite: that trope where they destroy the MCs hometown/house/familyjust so the MC has nothing tying them back to where they began and then proceedto do absolutely nothing with that plotwise and it affects nothing but gettingthe MC to actually leave their town

10. Pick an author(or writing friend) to co-write a book with@snowstorm-thirteen or @wardenpharah or one of my new friends from discordwhose tumblr I’ve forgotten

12. Which story ofyours do you like best? why? Original Works: either Light in the Dark or The Forgotten Realm of Dreams orThe Invisibles, because they’re all really really gay and really really nerdyFanfic: Is This Home Yet is without a doubt my best work ever. I’m consideringrewriting it as a novel. Wouldn’t be hard because the only thing making it afanfic and not an original work is that I used the two mcs to basically justget more attention.

13. Describe yourwriting processIt tends to be: sit down, open a notebook/grab paper/open scrivener/word/googledocs, stare at the page, start writing, erase things, write different things,listen to music, check tumblr, write more, somehow things get done or they don’tget done.

15. How do you dealwith self-doubt when writing? look at paper, say “I hate this”, cry, complain to anyone who will listen,stop writing for however long that takes, go back to writing, say “this is bad”,complain more, talk shit out, then it branches: if feel better, keep writing! Ifnot, stop writing and play video games then come back to writing two or threedays later!

16. Cover love/dreamcovers? I love me some good book covers, but professional ones are expensive orrequire talent that I do not have. Light in the Dark would be good with eithera mysterious cover, cover with a bunch of letters and envelopes, a soft gaycover with two girls that fit Cass and Ruka’s descriptions, or a cover that’s likethe soft gay cover but with space and video games/a computer incorporated intoit.

17. What things(scenes/topics/character types) are you most comfortable writing? scenes: anything not smut or fightingtopics: I’m comfortable writing about anything except incest/ddlg|mmlb/anythingthat falls in the realm of ‘not my thing to talk about’ (ie. I will write transcharacters, but not specifically about trans issues—nonbinary/agender issuesthough I will; I’ll write mlm characters but not specifically about theirissues; I’ll write poc or religious characters but I won’t write specificallyabout the issues that they face-without a lot of research and talking to peopleand such—because it’s just not my place. To explain a bit, I mean that I’llwrite characters that are not like me, and will do research to make sure I don’taccidentally do that in an offensive manner, but I won’t tell their stories forthem because I am not them. I hope this makes sense.)character types: women or nonbinary individuals, rebels, nerds, autistics,abuse victims/survivors, lesbians, ace people, the secretly nerdy femme, thesecretly nerdy butch, the secretly nerdy anyone,the tough girl who likes soft things, the soft girl who will kick your ass, thereptile person (person who likes reptiles), pirate, scientist, explorer, ectthere’s a lot of character types I love to write

25. What’s yourworldbuilding process like? this deserves its own post

21. What aspect ofyour writing are you most proud of? characterization

22. Tell us about thebooks on your “to write” listmost of them are in some way all part of the same series, but not necessarilyconnected, and not necessarily linearly or direct successors. Some/most can be stand-alonethat just happen to take place in the same universe as the others

27. Every writer’sleast favorite question - where does your inspiration come from? Do you docertain things to make yourself more inspired? Is it easy for you to come upwith story ideas?Dreams. Most if not all my story inspiration and ideas come from dreams, therest come from songs or random thoughts that just get stuck in my head. To getmore inspired I play games, bounce ideas off my friends, listen to music, orsleep. It’s fairly easy for me to come up with ideas, almost as easy as comingup with characters *shoves my like 300 ocs into the closet*

28. How do you stayfocused on your own work and how do you deal with comparison?I don’t focus, that’s the problem that’s why there’s so much unfinished shit onmy ao3. Tbh I’m usually the one doing the comparing and I deal with it bylearning from the work I’m comparing mine to and improving.

30. Do you like toread books similar to your project while you’re drafting or do you stick tonon-fiction/un-similar works?I don’t read. I can’t focus long enough to read. Instead I play video games inthe same genre or daydream or occasionally relisten to the Welcome To NightVale novel audiobook. I’m starting to branch out and try to find otheraudiobooks to listen to, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a pretty goodone on Audio.

33. What’s yourrevision/rewriting process like?draft one on one side of the screen, draft two on the other side of thescreen and literally rewriting draft one in draft 2. Sometimes I’ll rewrite onthe same document using markups like strikethrough instead of deleting thingsand other colors for the new additions, also lots and lots of sleeping andcrying, and soda (I don’t drink coffee).

34. Unpopular writingthoughts/opinions? Ernest Hemmingway sucks. He’s a terrible writer and you should not aspire towrite like him nor should you look up to him. Said is a perfectly valid word.The Oxford Comma is required not optional. Adverbs are not bad, use them if youwant. First person is a valid form to write in. Parenthetical asides (likethis) are just as valid as hyphenated asides—like this—and should be used if itfits the story/narration style. If your pov character doesn’t understand theforeign language the other character is speaking, putting the words in theother language in the text with a footnote translation is just as valid as “hesaid something in [language] but MC didn’t understand it.” Stalking is notromantic. Unhappy endings do not belong in the romance genre. Your charactercan be gay without complaining about it or it making their life hard. You canhave more than one minority character! You characters never going to thebathroom is unrealistic. Mosquitoes are a thing and if your character isoutside in the summer they had better damn well be protecting themselvesagainst them or slapping at at least one. A romance story with a character whowon’t take no for an answer, who isn’tthe antagonist/big (or little) bad, is not romantic. A romance story where thecharacters kiss or have sex when one of them clearly doesn’t want to, is notromantic. BOTH characters in your romance story need to change by the end ofthe story, that’s just good characterization. You can have polyamorouscharacters, but we are not a kink/fetish, if you don’t actually support actualpolyamorous people in real life don’t write about us in your fiction it’sdisrespectful and you’re probably going to do it wrong. Cheating is notromantic. Asexuals exist, Aromantics exist, Bisexuals exist. Romance doesn’tneed sex. … I’ll stop now, I have a lot of things I could say here.

35. Post the lastsentence you wroteShe blinked them back, willing herself not to cry.

36. Post a snippetCassandra had never been one for plans, if she had she might have actuallytalked with her roommate before move-inday. Even so, despite not planning things much, she did have goals. Her goal onmove-in day was simple: move in, preferably alone. She’d been under theimpression that she was the first one to arrive and that her roommate wouldn’tbe coming until later in the day. So, it was a shock to her when she arrived ather dorm room and found it was already open. She tapped her foot against the doorto get the attention of whoever was inside the room. She couldn’t quite see whomight be in there through the boxes that she was carrying.

“I hope you don’t mind,” a soft voice from inside the roomsaid, “it’s just that it was easier to leave the door open than to have to keepunlocking it.”

Cassandra tilted her head as she walked into the room,lowering the boxes just enough to see over them as she did so. “It’s notrouble,” she replied. “Who are you?”

The girl she was addressing, that she assumed was herroommate, was probably the most delicate looking girl she’d ever seen—wearing alight blue sundress with a ribbon around her waist and matching Mary Janes. Inher mind, the girl gave the impression of the enchanted rose from Beauty and the Beast; almost more likean idea than a person. She had long dark blonde—or was it light brown—hair withfaint, but still visible, red and dark brown streaks running through it, asthough it contained a fire within its French braid. Her smile was soft, barelyeven visible, and she looked like she might have played a sport in highschool—probably archery or fencing. Her brown eyes sparkled in the light fromthe window, like a stone of topaz against a blanket of snow. Never in her life,had Cassandra ever seen a girl that made her wonder if she was staring, but shehad now.

37. Do you ever writelong handed or do you prefer to type everything?100% depends on the story, and the day, and whether or not my eyes hurt.Sometimes ideas flow better on paper, sometimes typed, sometimes they flowbetter when I talk them out those days are bad for writing but good for gettingideas.

42. How many draftsdo you usually write before you feel satisfied? 100% depends on if it’s original work or fanfiction. Original works I’m usuallynot satisfied even after 6, 7, or even 10 drafts. Fanfiction, sometimes I justpost up the first draft without caring, sometimes I’m more satisfied with a seconddraft. It usually doesn’t go beyond that.

48. Do you prefer towrite skimpy drafts and flesh them out later, or write too much and cut itback?I just write. Usually my second draft is longer and more detailed than thefirst, and by the 5th or 6th everything has changedbecause of added or removed details.

51. Are you asecretive writer or do you talk with your friends about your books?I don’t shut up about my writing, not with my friends.

52. Who do you writefor? Myself., or anyone who pays me.

54. Favorite firstline/opening you’ve written? Absolutely nothing could go wrong, she thought just exactly as everythingwent wrong.

50. Do you share yourrough drafts or do you wait until everything is all polished?I share them, if I waited until they were polished no one would ever get toread them

55. How do you manageyour time/make time for writing? (do you set aside time to write every day ordo you only write when you have a lot of free time?) I have no job and no life. 0/10 do not recommend my method of having writingtime