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ladyhindsight · 1 year

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🎵 What can I say except 🎵 it’s already the seventh chapter and everything progresses agonizingly slowly.

So the chapter opens with Jordan’s Hazel Eyes. One of the many times they are mentioned. Here also Jace moves away from the window the first time.

It is only temporary but I will take this as a win.

As always, there is no way to talk about people without attaching unnecessary adjectives to them (just so you know that people think Clary is cute and all).

→ The girl who was with you in the garage

Though it serves this function of Jace being insecure enough to accost Jordan over it. We love healthy approach to our significant others being complimented.

YOU SHOULD HAVE SMELLED HIM.

This has nothing to do with sensing when you have the sense of smell that Simon has. Simon knows what werewolves smell like, any other stuff at this point is completely irrelevant. And +2 points for Jordan’s Hazel Eyes. Because icy was not enough and we have pages to fill with worthless drivel.

Here Jace moves away from the window once again though he has already done it. Do you even edit?

The problem with this is two-fold. One, if this was said about anyone of those One Syllable friends of Simon, I would agree, but not with Jordan. Jordan’s character has never given this kind of impression no matter how he loves school of live or works as a bike messenger. Second, I am blinded by hindsight and it may skew my perspective.

And here we go to excuse Maia’s abusive ex. Sure, it is not out of possibility nor outside the scope of rules in this world that lycanthropy can have these side effects. This, however, should be about Maia’s closure, not about how Jordan can justifiably wiggle his way back into her life because, hey, it wasn’t really up to him how he behaved. Thought the writing does recognize this, does not deny what a piece of shit Jordan was to Maia, but it shouldn’t be about how they get romantically back together. Whenever Jordan and Maia are in the same scene together, it is worth a barf every time Clare forces Jordan’s feelings on Maia. It is incredibly uncomfortable, but I am getting ahead of the story.

Jordan doesn’t consider vampires people either if this use of pronouns is anything to go by.

Not hazel ones?

Jordan has left the room, and Jace argues that he will not leave Simon’s side because someone is going to try to kill him again anyway some time or other so he will stay as his bodyguard.

The first part is trying too hard to justify what Jace said without really even needing to.

→ Despite his exasperation, Simon couldn’t bother to argue with Jace.

The dream sequence does not fit there. It’s just a block of pretentiousness, as quickly over as it began.

That’s oddly many words for “Jace had been there.”

→ He wasn’t taking his bodyguard duties all that seriously for having fallen asleep in the middle of it all.

→ I am also wondering why does their problems seep into everyone else’s narratives while it is not a favor that is ever really returned.

We then cut to Clary waking up and lamenting Jace being a rather unavailable boyfriend for no good reason. Que angst.

→ Maybe you never really had someone. Maybe, no matter how much you loved them, they could slip through your fingers like water, and there was nothing you could do about it. Maybe that is why people talked about their hearts “breaking;” hers was as if made of cracked glass....

All the while teenagers were having their personal angstfests, Jocelyn has been calling the Beth Israel hospital and making inquiries about the abandoned demon baby they saw in the news. Catarina Loss now calls to Jocelyn:

Right, I thought. Of course we need yet another clumsy reminder of things that happened in previous books. A personal pet peeve, but still.

Clary and Jocelyn leave for the hospital to meet with Catarina. Cut to Simon meeting Luke at the park.

This is a fucking coloring book for different leaves whenever they are mentioned to be anywhere.

Don’t mix pretentious with a whatever. Then it is not really whatever. You are not playing it cool. Also, if they are magpies, just say so from the beginning. If they are not magpies, why is Simon even counting them then.

→ A mischief of magpies rose, cawing, from the nearby trees. Simon’s mother used to recite a rhyme about them to him. You were supposed to count them and say.... → “Right,” Simon said. Seven, he counted. A secret that’s never been told.

Luke and Simon talk about Camille and how it is her name that the dead Shadowhunter gave when asked about his death. They need to come up with a plan to get to Camille before Simon has to get back to her about his decision to join up with her. After their talk, Simon returns home and to Jace and Jordan being all buddy buddy now. Simon turns, once again, a narrator to Jace’s withered looks that are caused by the Torment.

→ but up close, he looked pale. His eyes were ringed with grey shadows. The bones of his face (facial bones?) seemed to be sticking out...

A thought. Were are the other Nephilim characters that have turned into vampires or werewolves? Were are they? Where!!!

I know Simon is not the most resourceful even as a vampire, but some grocery stores sell pig, cow, or lamb blood for cooking. Also, why doesn’t he ask Isabelle who, while he was held a prisoner in Alicante, brought him blood? It would of course ruin his terrible thirst when he attacks Maureen for plot reasons, but all I’m saying is that Simon isn’t really doing anything at all to find any type of blood to quench his thirst.

Jordan leaves for work again. Simon and Jace are left to discuss the most important of things: Jace and Clary’s relationship troubles.

Love is not a contradiction nor is it to destroy. Get your angsty teenage head out of your ass and stop being a self-fulfilling prophecy in every goddamn book.

This end-all and be-all love is exhausting to read about. It is also exhausting about Jace’s character that, no matter how you slice and dice it, no one matters to him but Clary. If this declaration is not enough to support that idea, the narrative does a good job doing the rest of the heavy lifting. Other characters that should be important to Jace are not treated as such and are not considered. When faced with Jace and Clary’s love they accept it and live for it because Clare wills it so, and that, if anything, is dishonest, cheap, and unfair.

#Clary Fray #Simon Lewis #Jace Herondale #Luke Garroway #Jordan Kyle #City of Fallen Angels #CoFA Chapter 7

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263adder · 4 years

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TUA S2 First Impressions

All right, I’m three episodes in. Will likely watch another three tonight. I already have plot predictions and I’m interested to see how many will turn out to be right so I’m writing them down. I wrote each one after seeing that episode so things progress as I learn more. Spoilers for the first three episodes, obviously!

My word this is a lot of new characters!

Lila is so far the only promising one (and the only one whose name I currently remember) though I’m guessing she’s going to turn out evil, all interesting but mysterious characters usually turn out to be evil.

Solid music choices.

Agnes deserves better than a 5 second montage. They didn’t even play the Hazel & Agnes score from S1 which - find it on the soundtrack, it is delightful! But given his appearance I’m guessing the Commission will return in some form.

I’ve seen too many ‘save Kennedy from assassination’ plots, so I know this ain’t gonna end well!

Ah Carmichael! I’m here for this! And the Handler is alive!

Okay, Luther’s boss seems like a good character too. Not sure how that’ll pan out though, given he’s based on a real person. The other newbies still seem a little flat but early days.

I’ve changed my mind about Lila. I think she’ll be evil but redeem herself so she’s not too much of a Leonard 2.0.

The Swedes (I think that’s what they’re being called in promos) seem weird but in a cool way. Not as interesting as Hazel and Cha Cha but still neat. They don’t strike me as the main villains though, just henchmen.

So Diego is going to have another character crisis after meeting Reginald? What is he up to - the mannequins in the home make me think of nuclear bomb tests. Interesting. Baby Pogo is very cute.

Have I mentioned yet how much I dislike amnesia plots? Why did they do this to my joint favourite character? They just stint actual character development. Also, did the people who ran her over ever you know, take her to a hospital! I was expecting after catching up to the “present” she’d be in a hospital. Are they evil? Are they like the really evil people and Lila and Carmichael are red herrings? Or do they work for the Commission? Did they run her over on purpose and move her into a house in the middle of nowhere for a ploy? Would that be too predictable? Hmm, onto episode 3.

I like Allison’s story line but honestly it’s been 3 episodes, how hasn’t she mentioned her daughter yet? Please, talk about Clare (am I spelling that right, or is it Claire?). Either way, she’s found Klaus now, how has she not mentioned she misses her daughter? She talked about her throughout S1!

Klaus meeting Dave feels like the start to a Back to the Future film and he’s going to make himself disappear by meddling in his own past too much. Honestly there has to be some kind of ramification for changing the timeline so much. Same with Allison’s plot. Does it all get undone at the end?

Loving Five protecting Vanya from the knowledge that she caused the apocalypse. He does care about them all deep, deep down. But I guess she’ll find out it was her eventually and maybe run away from her family and back to the other family (I have got to look up their surname but I’m scared of spoilers)?

I’m liking Allison’s husband more now (that scene with Luther was hilarious), but the people who hit Vanya with a car? (There’s too many side characters, it’s going to take at least 2 more episodes before I get all these names down) “Hey you found your missing family, that’s great! But when are you coming back to work?” Give them a moment! I’m convinced they’re the bad guys now, why don’t they want her to discover her real identity?

Does Lila have powers? Is she one of the other children? That would be so cool - I really want to see more of them! Of everything, I hope this prediction is true.

Looking forward to episode 4. Don’t spoil for me, I want to see how much I get right. It’s like reading a murder mystery, I’m trying to guess who the end of season main bad person is and which one of these side characters is going to die (I’m guessing Allison’s husband? Raymond? You know, I had a distant relative in my family whose name began with R and I would always cycle through every name beginning with an R until I would finally remember it was Raymond, and I seem to be having the same problem here. Why am I so bad at names?).

Until tomorrow!

#tua spoilers #tua speculation #tua season 2 spoilers

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khruseosold · 5 years

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IN — CHARACTER : QUESTIONNAIRE.

Muse: Jace Herondale

1. What does your muse smell like?

Dust, ash, sweat, ichor and/or blood— think I’m exaggerating? Part of me wishes that I was. There’s a certain smell to Jace that encapsulates the aftermath of what he, as a Nephilim, was trained his entire life to do and excel at: demon-hunting. The remnants of all of the aforementioned taint his clothing, skin and hair alike, and they often linger easily for quite some time as a whole, as he’s never exactly in a rush to rid himself of it (taking two showers a day is not exactly a thing he’s drawn to). And as one of his habits definitely include invading personal space (especially when he becomes perfectly aware that it’s much to a person’s dismay) just enough for the act to not be of mutual annoyance, there are plenty of people who’ve likely become far more than well-acquainted with it. Sorry, Alec (even if Jace disagrees with said apology).

2. How often does your muse bathe / shower? Any habits?

Daily if it’s within his capabilities, with a very definite and strong preference to taking one towards the end of the day once he’s returned to the institute. But it’s one, and generally one alone— he’s not exempt to excessive groans if he somehow needs a second one. He is, however, not in much of a rush to take one and is perfectly capable of delaying it until much later on in the evening. On that note, his reasoning to ultimately get up and take one often isn’t even linked to the fact that he’s rather, well, let’s face it, dirty by the end of his ‘escapades’, it’s the fact that it’s a place of peace and quiet, of serenity which is something he’s very adamant about once he retreats to his room at the institute. It’s almost a ritual of cleansing, even if he, himself, wouldn’t personally reference it by any such terminology. But it is, quite literally, the act of water rinsing the weight off his shoulders, even if it never quite manages to do so. But that’s a topic for another day.

3. Does your muse have any tattoos or piercings?

Jace bears numerous runes inked across different parts of his body, these are, in essence, marks that the Nephilim are able to draw upon themselves with aid of their own stele, and these runes work as empowerment and protection of the wearer in question, or various other uses (as there are thousands). When freshly drawn, these runes will appear black, similarly to tattoos, but most fade over-time until they appear as nothing more but silvery-white scars. Jace (if unglamoured) wears two permanent runes in plain sight that retain their dark appearance on one hand and the forearm on the other, and is, at any given time, covered in scars of old-worn runes. Beyond those, there are no proper tattoos nor piercings on him. As he likes to point out, his good looks are all ‘au naturel’.

4. Any body movement quirks (ex: leg shaking)?

Funny one would ask— yes to the question, a lesser yes to the example given and yes to likely numerous other examples you could name. Jace, while not seemingly one of visible nervousness of any kind (nor is he consciously one who’s is agitated) does live up to quirks that stem from both. Though I wouldn’t exactly account either of the terms to him and his mindset, and I’d much rather opt for the terminology of being ‘restless’. He’s rather of a soul who requires physical exertion as to be most comfortable— and this comes out through numerous smaller ticks that many wouldn’t even quite notice unless they surveyed him with scrutiny (as Clary has done to some level). The primary one (and I see this as a bit of a rule of thumb) is that very often, a part of Jace is always active. If it isn’t him physically in one way or another, it’ll be his mind (which is why he’s always so incredibly quick-witted and sarcastic, he’s very quick mentally); but you’ll also find that he’s prone to keeping an object in motion, especially during moments when he’s just standing around and waiting. This can be him pulling at a loose thread in the pockets of his jeans, rotating his stele when he’s holding but not using it, the occasional shake of his leg when he’s sitting somewhere and he has his legs crossed (the foot on knee variant), running his fingers through his hair as to push it back, etc. These decrease substantially however once he meets Clary and especially, as they progress in their relationship and he’s physically around her.

5. What do they sleep in?

Especially before the timeline and the beginning of the Mortal Instruments, he sleeps in his full jammies, as he likes to refer to them as. But it seems it’s not a strict habit by any means, and especially as time progresses, he definitely strays from the custom. It becomes more common for him to sleep, for example, shirtless with long pyjama bottoms.

6. What’s their favourite piece of clothing?

Jace was/is immense about his leather jackets, and he did lose a heavy favourite among favourites during the timeline of City of Ashes, which he was decently/relatively dramatic about no longer having. Beyond that, the guy occasionally has a favourite shirt, but they come and go— usually ones that’re somewhat loose-fitting but not overly so at all. In truth, many of Jace’s ‘favourites’ among his attire often tend to become favourites when they’ve fallen victim to ichor (or similar) or he’s lost them in one way or another.

7. What do they do when they wake up ?

Cassandra Clare likes to point out how Jace is barefoot way more often than he’s not— so I’m going to make this an issue of equal significance. He lazes through the hallways of the Institute, all the way to the kitchen— wholly ignoring Isabelle if she’s in there already with yet another attempt at the furnace; and peeks if the refrigerator if there’s any left-overs from the previous evening/night. If not, then he resorts to candy bars he can find left and right and if one raven-haired Lightwood is, in fact, not in said kitchen, he’ll prepare himself some eggs for the protein and immense nutrients in them; his go-to. Then he’s far from exempt of lazing around some more, primarily in the library before he heads to the training room for numerous hours, if patrols aren’t yet called for. And by then, it’s usually Taki’s. Have I mentioned that despite being in tip-top shape physically, he actually has immensely horrible eating (and such) habits and I wonder how he accomplishes everything he does, with them?

8. How do they sleep? Position?

Pre-Clary or? Prior to her in his life, there is no set way or position to how he sleeps. In the midst of a room that is way too organised and clean to a point where it seems no one actually inhabits it— when he sleeps, he’s not the most orderly. He sleeps in a variety of positions, depending on his state of mind at the time, though the periods of lighter sleep are definitely spent on his back. When Clary comes into his life and they form a proper couple in the later half of the series, he tends to default to his side as to be able to wrap his arms around her waist, regardless of whether she’s facing him or not; though they commonly fall asleep facing one another.

9. What do their hands feel like?

While a warrior through and through bone and blood alike, it’s only the texture of them which live up to it. His fingertips are calloused, though not by any means severely, there are some scars on the very top of one in particular, remnants and scarring of the occasional temporary rune. Beyond that, one would not truly be able to tell; he has an artist’s hands; very slender with fingers relatively long and he’s very fluid in the movements of them— they’re described as being much more fitting as the hands of a pianist, rather than of a warrior, which tends to come as a continuous surprise to Clary.

10. If you kissed them, what would they usually taste like?

I don’t know, what does he taste like when you kiss him, Clary? (cough, cough, @freckledsnack)

Tagged by: Good question, believe both @loialte and @murroyilodel tagged me. Ily both. <3 Tagging: @loialte (listen, you can do it for Jace’s parabatai; your turn). @freckledsnack again because well, Jace’s other half, @logiclaire, @marblecarved (Obara), @diguerra (Nym), @tocxmply (come on Fil, give me a novel on Bucky), @hakune (Simon; though if you want, you can also do Steve), @lcdgerbled / @snakedhand, @trickstercaptain / @immobiliter (Pep), @empireburned (Peggy).

#[ tagged in. ] this is probably a bad idea. like a record breakingly bad idea. like a go down in history bad idea.#[ meta. ] artists use lies to tell the truth. yes i created a lie. but because you believed it. you found something true about yourself.#[ jace herondale / meta. ] not everything is about you. / possibly. but you do have to admit that the majority of things are.#[ me: gdi-- emma also tagged me to do this for ezio in the future. hey-o. ]#[ also as always-- can always retag me if you feel curious about any other of my muses! [#[ jace herondale. ] it's me. watching me play scrabble is enough to make most women swoon. imagine if i actually put in some effort.

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

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

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): This is the first debate of 2020 and the last debate before the voting starts in Iowa in less than three weeks. There are six candidates (the smallest debate stage yet), and we’ve finally published our primary forecast (!!!), which shows the field (especially in Iowa) is pretty wide open.

So how are you thinking about tonight’s debate? Do you think it has the potential to really shake things up?

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): I think the big story on Monday — and potentially the big story of the debate — is what’s going on with the rivalry between Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. First, there is the Sanders campaign’s talking points that reportedly had volunteers paint Warren as “the candidate of the elite.” And then a story leaked on Monday that’s pretty damn unflattering to Sanders, claiming he told Warren he didn’t think a woman could win the presidency. So … I would say there’s some jostling on the progressive end of the spectrum that could play out tonight!

ameliatd (Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, senior writer): Definitely. One thing I’ll be watching for is whether some of the tacit alliances we’ve seen between the candidates start to break down. That story really did not reflect well on Sanders. On the other hand, it’s generally risky for women to go on the offensive in debates like these, so it might be a little tricky for Warren to turn that to her advantage.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Yeah, it seems like the theme of this debate is somewhat inevitably going to be SANDERS-WARREN BATTLE. Unless they really do decide to turn the other cheek.

clare.malone: I mean, I do think the Warren people have been savvier about dropping opposition research like this.

natesilver: That’s a pretty serious oppo drop.

clare.malone: Sanders’s defense is generally “the mainstream media is stirring up conflict.”

Which is true, partially, in the sense that the media is the one publishing this stuff, but there are, indeed, real tensions between those two campaigns!

natesilver: Like, 95 percent of these oppo drops are dumb as fuck, concerning things that ordinarily voters couldn’t possibly care about. But this would be a big deal if it’s somehow confirmed or if Warren repeats the accusation herself.

sarahf: Yeah, it’s amazing how fast the news cycle moves, I had thought the situation with Iran would be the dominant thread of conversation tonight, but agree that between the Selzer & Co. Iowa poll that put Sanders in first in Iowa, and now the breakdown of Warren and Sanders’s truce to not attack each other, that will be a big part of tonight’s debate. And going in, it doesn’t seem great for Sanders …

ameliatd: Warren could really benefit from getting some more support from lefty Democrats who might be undecided or mostly seem to be sticking with Sanders. But if this accusation comes off as a cheap shot from Warren, I think that could hurt her. Or at least, not endear her further to those on the left.

clare.malone: Sanders’s support is pretty sticky, though, so it’s hard for me to see her winning over any of his supporters. Honestly, at this point, I think she has to worry about losing her supporters to Sanders or Pete Buttigieg — or even Joe Biden.

natesilver: Part of the dynamic is that Sanders hasn’t really been considered a front-runner. But now the media is covering him like one, even though it’s not really clear how much has actually changed in his candidacy. (If you look at the odds in our primary model — where we ran older forecasts retroactively before we launched — Sanders’s chances of winning the majority of pledged delegates have been pretty steady since November.)

sarahf: So let’s say tonight is the Sanders “wine cave” edition, where he’s at the center of attacks like Buttigieg was in the December debate. That debate seemed to have actually dampened some enthusiasm for Buttigieg — for instance, he fell pretty substantially in that Selzer poll from where he was in November. Do we see Sanders as the candidate tonight who has the most at stake? What about Biden? He is after all, the front-runner in our model even if he’s not the clear favorite to win; i.e., he’s still an underdog relative to the rest of the field.

natesilver: So on the one hand, I agree that Sanders’s support is likely to be pretty sticky, as Clare puts it. There’s evidence from polls that his supporters are the most firmly committed to any one candidate. But on the other hand, he hasn’t really gotten the same front-runner-type scrutiny that Warren DID get at some points this fall. So whether he holds up, once that level of scrutiny is applied, is very much up in the air.

ameliatd: And it’s not a low-stakes debate for Warren either, because she’s been actively trying to revitalize her campaign. When I was in Iowa on a reporting trip a few weeks ago, she was kind of trying to hit the “reset” button by hammering her core message on corruption and the economy. And of course, she’s now campaigning with Julián Castro.

clare.malone: I mean, we’ll just have to wait and see what the attacks are. I’m not entirely sure Warren, for instance, would go for “Bernie is sexist” on stage. That just doesn’t seem like her temperament. I would expect more of an attack on Sanders from Warren to be like, “his plans are implausible and therefore, bad for the general election.” But then again, he could also push back (as he’s been doing on the campaign trail), saying that HE is actually the most electable in a general. And there’s some truth to it, especially in comparison to Warren. Our polling with Ipsos shows the same thing — voters generally rate Sanders next after Biden in terms of his ability to defeat Trump.

Also, Sanders benefits from everyone kinda knowing what his thing is — socialism, baby! — which takes some of the sting out of “he’s too far out there!!” attacks. The brand is strong, as the kids say.

sarahf: Right, but to Amelia’s point, tonight could be a big night for Warren. She was only 3 points behind Sanders in that Selzer poll, which is a good sign for her considering her national numbers had dipped in late November and through December. And you can already see the slightest of upticks already in our national polling average:

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Yeah, that Selzer poll had Sanders in the lead in Iowa as we’ve discussed, but then that Monmouth poll out on Monday showed Biden in the lead with 24 percent in Iowa and Sanders in second at 18 percent, suggesting that Iowa is very wide open and very difficult to predict.

clare.malone: Like the state itself!

sarahf: Right, Biden is either in first or fourth, depending on which poll you look at.

geoffrey.skelley: So far, the debates haven’t seemed to have affected the polls all that much, at least not since Sen. Kamala Harris’s surge after the June debate.

The first Democratic debate shifted polls the most

Average change* in national polls and the candidates who moved the most after the first four Democratic primary debates

Debate Avg. Change Biggest gainer Biggest loser June 26-27 +/- 2.4 Harris +8.3 Biden -6.5 July 30-31 0.9 Warren +3.0 Harris -3.0 Sept. 12 1.1 Warren +4.4 Sanders -2.0 Oct. 15 1.0 Buttigieg +1.6 Warren -3.5

*Average change in national polls evaluates the average absolute change in polling averages before and after each debate across the 10 candidates with the highest post-debate polling average. Polling averages were calculated using national polls conducted during the two weeks before and two weeks after each debate.

Source: Polls

Although I haven’t run the numbers the same way for the November and December debates, one look at the polls suggests there wasn’t a dramatic shakeup after those events, either. Now, tonight’s debate could be different since there are fewer candidates and voting is right around the corner. But then again, maybe not.

clare.malone: My spidey sense is that this debate will matter, especially to Iowans. These people are tuned in to a deranged degree!

natesilver: And polls also find that a high proportion of Iowans haven’t yet made their final decision.

clare.malone: Right.

sarahf: So if many Iowans haven’t made their final decision … how many do you think are actively considering Amy Klobuchar or Tom Steyer?

Klobuchar didn’t do as well in that Selzer poll as I thought she might, given how respondents in our poll with Ipsos rated her December debate performance. Granted, a lot of time has passed since Dec. 19, but there also haven’t been that many polls.

And then Steyer had a kind of weird surge in South Carolina and Nevada? It’s too soon to really make sense of what’s happening there (although he has spent a ton of money on TV ads).

natesilver: Klobuchar is actually in a pretty weird place. She’s at 6.6 percent in our Iowa polling average, but usually candidates either rise up to at least ~15 percent in Iowa — which matters, given how the caucus process itself works — or fall back into the low single digits.

clare.malone: The Steyer stuff is interesting in the sense that yes, he’s doing well in polls, probably because of advertising in those two states that have fewer ads in general than, say, Iowa or New Hampshire. But other candidates are going to start to get into that media-market scrum. Let’s see how much those numbers stick for him.

What I will say, though, is that the ads themselves cannily talk about the economy, not impeachment or climate change, subjects with which Steyer is more closely associated.

ameliatd: Steyer has been kind of defensive, too, about the fact that he made the debate at all — the implication being that he’s only there because he spent a ton of money on ads. That makes him a potential target, particularly for someone like Sanders or Warren. But attacking him also runs the risk of making him look like a more serious threat, so it’s somewhat complicated.

clare.malone: I think he won’t really be a big factor, tbh.

natesilver: I just don’t think Steyer is very interesting.

ameliatd: Right, maybe the other candidates won’t think it’s worth their time to question why he’s even there.

natesilver: So long as he’s at 3 percent in Iowa and New Hampshire, I don’t really care where he is in Nevada and South Carolina.

clare.malone: I mean, I don’t think he’s half bad in debates! I just think the scrum will go a little more the Sanders/Warren and the Buttigieg/Klobuchar.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): We touched on this a bit earlier, but Biden is currently winning the race for the nomination. And I think, as a result, you are seeing blunter criticism of him. Buttigieg and Sanders have both taken Biden to task for his vote for the Iraq War, and Sanders has also criticized Biden’s record on issues of racial justice.

I’m not sure his rivals will attack Biden on Tuesday, but that’s the thing I’m watching most closely: Does anyone decide this is the last real chance to take on the person mostly likely to win? I have been confused by how much Warren’s allies are attacking Buttigieg, and now it seems like Warren is attacking Sanders — but Biden is winning!

It feels like 2016 a bit — Christie attacking Rubio instead of Trump — what is the point?

natesilver: If somehow Biden gets through the debate, and all the focus is on Sanders vs. Warren, Buttigieg, etc. — that seems like a very fortunate outcome for the former vice president.

ameliatd: Yes, Biden clearly benefited from being able to float above the fray in the December debate. And the other candidates mostly let him do that, which was a little weird.

natesilver: Biden does have a tendency to cause trouble for himself, of course.

It’s also probably worth noting that his relatively smooth debate in December has been followed up by quite a few endorsements, etc. Party elites seem to have fewer concerns than they once did about his steadiness as a candidate.

perry: Harris was kind of limited in taking on Biden, in my view, since she will be high on the VP list. But I don’t think Biden is going to pick Buttigieg, Warren or Sanders for VP, so they have very little incentive to hold back. Buttigieg, in particular, has been very good at attacking people — it would be interesting to see if one was the one to push the Iraq issue, because Biden seems, at times, unwilling to concede he voted for the war.

clare.malone: Yeah, I gotta say, that whole thing is really weird.

John Kerry, a Biden surrogate, was trying to say that other candidates were misrepresenting his record, but it’s clear as day that Biden voted for the Iraq War. If you want to complicate the narrative and say it was a mistake, and you were misled — fine. But that whole talking point is weak sauce, in my opinion.

sarahf: OK, this is our last debate before the voting starts in Iowa, and as I said at the outset of the chat — it’s pretty much a four-way race with Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg all projected to get some delegates. Biden is in the lead in our forecast, but as we’ve said in our chat, a lot of Iowans are still on the fence. What will you be keeping a close eye on tonight to see if it moves the needle at all?

perry: Biden seems poised to win the nomination — perhaps even Iowa. I’ll be watching to see whether any of the other top three really take him on — and if they do, on what issues?

ameliatd: I will be interested to see, as Perry mentioned, if Biden’s Iraq war vote — and his strange unwillingness to admit to it — gets turned against him, or if he can turn the general foreign policy conversation/discussion of what’s happening with Iran in his favor. Because in general, that’s an issue where he has a clear advantage over the other candidates.

clare.malone: I mean, it’s trite, but I’ll be curious to see what Warren and Sanders do on stage, given the conflict they’ve had. And I’ll be curious to see if Sanders, in particular, challenges Biden on a general-election electability front.

natesilver: Repeating myself a bit, but it feels to me like Sanders is liable to play a central role in this debate with perceptions that he’s now a front-runner, and those sorts of debates tend to be pretty high stakes.

ameliatd: Basically, tonight comes down to who’s taking the gloves off, and who are they going after?

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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bliphany · 5 years

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For the end of year writing meme: 1, 12, 18 :-)

Thanks for the ask Ara! Sorry this takes me so long. At least we’re still few hours before the end of year? lol. [from this ask]

1. Favorite Fic You Wrote This Year

It’s ’Leave The Lights On’! It’s my longest fic so far, and the fact that I finished it is one of the reasons I love it - honestly, I’d considered giving it up twice during the creating process for real life reasons, and I’m so glad that I didn’t ditch it in the end.

I also love it for having many characters from the show during the timeframe I chose. It was so fun to plan! Damn hard to write though. I hated me from the planning stage so much while actually writing it. But it’s rewarding to see them be written, too. I like to think that I managed to make their own stories independent enough (having their suspensions and closures etc,) but also have their share of contribution to the main plot so I can say that I did my best not to waste any of them? (Ask me this again a year later lol)

I tried some things in the fic, too, not planned like “I want this effect” in advance, rather like “hey I think maybe I can put sentences this way” seconds before I wrote the part. As someone who just started to use this language to make up stories, I love those tiny parts and no matter whether someone else finds them nice - or finds them at all - those are certainly something I’ll look at and go “hehe” myself. XD

I love those totally unplanned scenes, too. Those I went “Why am I writing this Why WHY ARE YOU ARGUING? There’s NO TIME FOR THIS I got a posting date okay. Do I or ANYONE need a confession scene That long?” while typing and pulling my hair. I’m glad that they exist. Also, unexpected sentences that just came into my head when all I did was putting one sentence after another wondering if those things actually were appealing to read - it was those sentences that came to me voluntarily that convinced me the fic was worth writing. Here’s one of them: “Harold had never been given a chance to say a proper goodbye to his loved ones.” And I really want to share it here because it’s kind of painful and that’s because it’s true and important? Idk, I really love that sentence. :p

12. Favorite Character To Write About This Year

Jessica!

I counted my fics, including WIPs, and found that I’ve written her in different scenarios and I love them all. My 2018 writing started as Jessica binge-watching and being domestic with Kara in my Jessikara series. It was a fluffy one-shot about how their life would be like after the resolution of their relationship in another WIP where they’d broken up, and I hadn’t reached the resolution part yet back then. I stuck. I was like ‘OMG I might not reach the part where you are happy noooo can I write something after that to make up for now?’ XD

As for their resolution in said WIP, hey, I finished their part in 2018! *pat self* I mean, there’s still one last chapter (for Rinch and the rest of the main plot) to be done, and there are some parts I don’t feel particularly happy about yet fall short to fix (it’s the most-edit-even-after-posting fic I have, btw). However, among those parts I love, Jessica’s role is definitely on the top of the list. We got two ex-CIA assassins and Harold Finch, yet if we take every plot point apart and look into how one leads to another, it’s her actions that connect the thread leading to a possible resolution. She doesn’t know or care about the big picture. She is ordinary like she doesn’t need to obtain extra skills or talents to make that happen. All she needs is being who she is, meaning doing what she’ll do, and taking a proactive role to own the life she wants, like what she’d done at the airport in the show.

I remembered I was so worried at the planning stage of this WIP because there’d be so much happening in the foreground: Ordos, gosh Mark Snow, Kara being Kara, John and Harold would want to solve things…, but letting Jessica fade into the background and only show up again after Kara confronting Harold and John confronting Kara didn’t feel right to me. So you can see why I truly love how Jessica’s role turned out to be.

I also worked on another Jessikara WIP which was a Hang the DJ AU (from Black Mirror). In that, she wonders whether Kara’s affection toward her is more about Kara’s belief in the System and less about her, that gonna cause problems, but as always (always as in worlds I build anyway :p) she’ll be the one who points a way out for both of them. I quite like her character in it, including her flaws. Finger crossed for me to finish it in 2019!

The only not-happy fic for her is an AU project for Halloween based on the SCP Foundation setting, where characters get turned into objects is one possible ending. Zaniida invited me to join the project because she could use someone who wrote Jessica or Kara, how sweet was that.

18. Current Number Of WIPs

Haha this. A guilt trip. But actually, I can really take this chance to make my writing plan for 2019 so thanks for picking this out!

I didn’t count those with only an idea but no actual words in a draft, and here they go:

The Hang the DJ AU for Jessikara I mentioned in the previous question, of course. I’m hoping to finish it, if not in time for Femslash February, no later than the middle of this coming year. But it’ll be a long one, so finger crossed!!!

The final chapter of another WIP I mentioned in the previous question, too. Idk why that Rinch resolution part is so hard for me to write? I can read millions of them but why have so much difficulty in writing them? Like, I wrote… three so far? And I’m grabbing from an empty bag from where I might be able to pull out a rabbit, or maybe it’s just an empty bag. Ahhhh.

And there’s another Jessikara WIP where Jessica hates her heels. It’s a one-shot, and I’ve posted part of it on Tumblr before. So it’s proven to me that I can get stuck in a multiple chapter fic, a chapter, and a supposed to be a 1k one-shot.

Then, a translation Rinch fic that brilliantly merged the setting of POI, Inception, and Escape Plan. Hey, I got no progress even in translating too OMG. Is there a WIP bingo? Is there?

Apart from the above POI ones, I also had one WIP for Clare from the Counterpart. It was a monologue about how she was nothing but a shadow and how she married a man she loathed twice. I drafted it when I finished S1, and now S2 has come, and I still haven’t finished it ahhhhhhhh. Is it like I’ve missed a good timing to finish it?

And… four connected one-shots for Miss Sherlock… There are six as a series, and I’ve posted the first two. It felt like great timing to finish and post them all right after the finale, but I’ve missed that timing too. Sign.

So for the coming year, wish me luck, friend. Wish me luck. XDXD

#long post #asked meme #about my fics #jessikara #rinch

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eileniessacreative · 6 years

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Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

"I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you."

AO3

FF.Net

Why the hell did I have to be so noble…I could be at home with Priscilla…

Dandelion felt he was about to fall apart. He wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball, and slowly cry his life away, drop by drop. But the Bard had run out of tears a long time ago, weeping them all away until they were only a memory of the free life he once had. Indeed, he wasn't even sure he could remember what they truly were anymore and knew only that he wished to shed them again. That it would bring some relief.

Dandelion felt trapped. Dirt and blood hid most of his skin from sight and his face had hardened like a clay sculpture so that his expression rarely changed. He hoped foolishly that he might trip and fall, smashing against the hard, barren earth beneath his dead feet. That he might shatter into pieces, freeing his soul from inside so that this living nightmare could end at last.

How long had they been here? Dandelion could no longer tell nor recall where his body stopped and his pain began. More things hurt than they should. Things beyond his own body. His suffering knew no boundaries, not even the limitations of science posed an obstacle. O'Dimm made his own rules and these were determined by the expanse of his imagination.

He felt like a walking corpse. His weak and pathetic human body shouldn't be able to carry the burden of this immeasurable pain. He should be dead, and by Gods (should they exist or not) he wished more than anything that he was. Even nothingness had to be better than this existence. A lost and weary soul wandering the abyss, neither dead or alive.

Dandelion was at the back of the group, not that it mattered anymore. They were all just as slow as each other now. He kept thinking that maybe…maybe if he stayed at the back then no one would see him disappear if he willed his soul to leave. The door back home, it was just within reach. All any of them had to do was ask, each carried the choice to leave on their shoulders. And yet here they were, all of them, still wandering aimlessly.

Not for the first time, Dandelion questioned himself, asking why he stayed. They weren't getting anywhere, besides, what use was he really? He looked over at Geralt. The Witcher was someway in the distance but this place was so desolate that either one of them could be seen for miles. It was sad to watch his old friends back, still walking on and on and yet making no progress towards the end, because he knew that Geralt was never going to stop. At the end of time, he'd still be wandering this wasteland. He had nowhere else to go and too much to lose if he went back…

The thought had barely formed in his mind when Dandelion stopped dead in his tracks with wide eyes staring unseeingly ahead. With a shaky hand, he opened his pocket and gradually pulled out a worn piece of paper from inside. There was a single line written upon it with curvy, smudged letters. The Bard read it several times over, cementing the riddle in memory as his mind whirled silently behind hopeful eyes.

For the first times since landing in this forsaken place, Dandelion thought that things were looking up.

Geralt kept his sharp eyes focused as far into the distance as his mutations would allow, watching the very edge of the broken road as it grew and grew. He saw nothing else besides it for as far as he was concerned there was nothing else to see but the path ahead. Everything else that might exist outside his field of view was oblivion. He had only the future to look to and didn't turn away even as the sound of approaching footsteps grew louder in his ears. Anyhow, the gentle sound of clinking buckles and padded shoes were enough to tell him that Ciri was moving closer.

When her messy ashen hair stepped into his peripheral vision, Geralt half turned his head towards her so that he both her face and the path were in view. After a few seconds, in which neither of them spoke, he turned his attention back to the road completely but he couldn't ignore her soft footsteps just next to him. It was grating on his nerves, not for any particular reason mind, it just simply was. Perhaps he was simply used to the monotony here. The Witcher grew increasingly frustrated when Ciri offered no reason for her closeness, no question or conversation on her lips. Why else would she have moved?

"What's wrong, Ciri?" he asked quietly, without bothering to look her way. He could hear her fiddling with a buckle, the sound loud enough to wake the dead, at least as he heard it. Geralt could sense that she was uncomfortable and wished she'd made up her mind about what she wanted to say or to ask before she'd come up to him. There was no need for her to hover around.

Annoyed, he was about to ask again when she spoke. "Nothing, it's just…" she paused and Geralt bit back a groan. Her indecisiveness was making him anxious because he doubted that it was of any use here. There was no telling what O'Dimm would send their way but when push came to shove they needed to act fast. Uncertainty could be the death of them. Ciri took a deep breathe and continued. "Have you seen her here, Geralt? Have you seen Yennefer?" he nodded. When he looked at her at last, Ciri was watching him. "How was she, Geralt. Tell me true."

The Witcher studied her face for a few seconds, then turned back to the road. He watched his dirty boots gliding over the cracked earth as the chain around his neck bit into his skin. He pulled it out from his shirt, the smooth ring and medallion hooked together. He slid the ring further up the chain and rested it in the palm of his hand, watching his reflection. The wedding band felt as heavy as stone when he spoke.

"She was…sleeping."

He couldn't sleep no matter how much his body demanded it of him, his brain wasn't being cooperative at the moment. Head facing directly up at the bloody moon, Geralt kept twirling the wedding ring around in his fingers. He held it above his eyes and read the two inscriptions marking the smooth metal, the words already imprinted on his memory, and his heart. To his mind, they told the tale of his most heinous crime. 'I promise that I chose and love the man you are and that I'll love you forever', and 'Forever Your Yen' they read. Geralt read them countless times before finding that he couldn't lie there any longer.

He got up, buckling up his swords and brushing the dust off the cloak he had been sleeping on, fastening it around his shoulders. He walked around the encampment, looking at the horizon. As usual, there was nothing there. Despite his pain and fatigue, Geralt climbed a nearby tree, settling himself on a thick and sturdy branch. He gazed up at the discoloured moon.

He wished - not for the first nor last time - that it had been him who had died that night. Neither of them deserved the fate they had been given, not unless things had been in reverse. He wished he'd never taken that contract, but he'd wanted the money so badly; he needed it. It was all part of his big plan, his desire to take Yennefer far, far away once she'd finished helping Ciri settle into the Empire. All he wanted was to give them some peace and luxury, to rent a secluded cottage by the sea where they could relax and make up for lost time. There was a lot of it, after all.

After the discomfort became unbearable, Geralt made his way to solid ground. Several dead twigs snapped as he landed heavily on the ground and fell to his knees. He punched at the roots before getting a hold of himself. Never in his life had he felt this weak before, he was a bird without wings and he hated it. Legs shaking, Geralt managed to get back onto his feet without clinging to the tree for support, a small victory. He rested his back against the rough trunk, closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. He could taste the death and decay which lingered around them on the tip of his tongue, but he was used to it by now. It had followed him long before this place.

When he'd parted ways with Yennefer, watching her disappear through a portal, he'd set out to make money the only way he knew how: contracts. Using his dreams as a guide, the Witcher has set out on the Path and for a brief moment, he'd lost sight of what was important…and now, he'd lost it. This was what it had cost him. Yennefer's death was on his hands, on the Witcher's hands. She died because of who he was, it was plain to see. He'd tried to make money the only way he knew how, and his better half had died because of it. If he'd been more human, Yennefer would still be alive.

Why had he gone back to the Path? It never gave nought to him, it only took time and time again and yet he could never keep away. The Path had cost him everything because he was too much of a monster to be caged.

Geralt looked down at the others, at their worried and fearful sleeping faces. He knew he'd have to leave them for a while, to stretch his legs. There would be no more sleep for him now, if ever, and he didn't feel comfortable just sitting here and waiting. He'd go as far to say he hated the idea. Instead, he decided to wander just a little way from camp, taking small steps so not to go too far. It was then that he noticed something strange in the distance a little to the side of the stretching road. A trail of smoke. He didn't hesitate to follow it.

After a few minutes, he was close enough to see a glimpse of the small fire from which the smoke had sprung, hidden in amongst a series of large rocks. He could hear nothing but the crackling flames and smell nothing but the oddly overpowering smoke, but Geralt was still cautious in his approach. Keeping low to the ground he inched towards the edge of the rocky enclave, flattening his back against the stone. He edged carefully around it, light flooding into sight as he peered around.

The Witcher stood still as suddenly a sound began to creep out from beneath the sounds of the fire. Soon it was loud enough from him confidently determine what it was. A heartbeat. Though he dared not dream it belonged to the figure prominent in his mind, the long forgotten and abandoned sensation of hope reared its head nevertheless. Sword raised, he stepped out from cover.

A large empty cage stood opposite him, bars encasing the back of an old, horseless cart. The fire was beside it, its flames illuminating the small figure who was huddled by one of the cart's great wheels. Their back was pressed against the wood, hands tied behind her back by what looked like thick, stone shackles. He could see her shaking in the heat of the fire, head bent forwards as something glistened on her face.

He could hardly bring himself to believe it was her. "Yen…"

She quickly turned her head towards him. Yennefer's blurred eyes went wide as he took a step towards her. She shook her head and muttered unintelligible sounds through the piece of white cloth covering her mouth. A split second later something smashed into Geralt's side and lifted him off his feet. He was launched over the small fire and dropped his swords when he smashed into the hard ground, rolling and bouncing along it several times.

"Good to see you again, Master Geralt. Tell me, how are you enjoying your stay so far?" The Witcher's eyes narrowed as O'Dimm stepped out from behind the cart, hands in front of him and his fingers steepled as he walked around it slowly, stopping beside his captive. The man smiled pleasantly at him and Geralt growled in return.

He didn't take his eyes off the merchant as he picked up his fallen sword. The man made no move to stop him but clicked his tongue in disapproval. "There will be no need for that, Master Witcher. Let us not descended into barbarism, I simply wish to talk with you man to man. And with no interruptions," he added, flashing a toothy grin at Yennefer who could do nought but glare. Geralt noticed that her body was covered in ugly bruises which hadn't been there the last time he'd seen her.

O'Dimm walked over to the fire and sat upon a fallen log, gesturing for Geralt to join him. He hesitated, then reluctantly sheathed his sword and accepted the traveler's 'hospitality', sitting at the edge of the light. Despite his claim that he wanted to talk, Master Mirror seemed content to sit in silence. He stoked the fire and moulded the smoke into swirling patterns and shapes, but Geralt wasn't playing him much mind. While he kept half an eye on the man at all times, his gaze could not help but wander to the woman by the cart who was watching him with an expression he couldn't quite explain. O'Dimm chuckled.

Geralt leant over, resting his arms on his legs and clasping his hands together tightly, making his knuckles go white. "What do you want?" he shot. Geralt knew, of course, that the man was trying to bait him, but he couldn't help but bite all the same.

The merchant shook his head. "Where are your manners, Geralt? You are a guest in my home, after all." He paused and Geralt let the silence grow. O'Dimm opened one of his satchels and pulled out a small glass flask filled with thick, red liquid. When he threw it in the fire, Yennefer started to scream. "Apologise."

"Please forgive me, Master Mirror, for my rudeness," Geralt said, his voice strained.

O'Dimm inclined his head, and the fire went out. Yennefer went silent, but the Witcher could hear her heart hammering against her chest. Geralt felt blood trickle down his skin as his nails dug into the back of his hand.

O'Dimm smiled. "Apology accepted. Now, to business. I have a deal for you, Master Geralt. Something which will make this game of cat and mouse even more interesting." The Witcher's stomach plummeted like a rock cast into the sea. He could see all too well his worry manifested in Yennefer's face, but he didn't have the will to leave. For whatever reason, he couldn't just walk away. Geralt felt he was cursed. "You want your fiancé to be safe and happy, I want you out of my hair once and for all so I can enjoy her…company. So, it seems we're at an impasse. Unless we compromise."

A small cloud of dust rose into the air as O'Dimm got to his feet, pacing in front of the fire, occasionally blocking Yennefer from view. "Every now and then, should you move deeper into my home, I will visit you, Master Witcher. Each time I will come with an offering, a deal to make your beloved's life easier here and perhaps even enjoyable at times…if you promise to leave my realm immediately, that is."

He turned on his heels and moved towards the cart. Geralt's hand twitched but he kept it at his side with great difficulty. O'Dimm looked over his shoulder and tilted his head. "Come, Geralt." Obeying Master Mirror went against every instinct he had, but he did so all the same. Anything to be close to her again.

As he was walking, the Man of Glass stooped over and hung something in front of Yennefer's face. A long piece of string with a black opal, or something of the like, hanging at the end. He slowly moved it back and forth and Geralt watched as her eyes slid shut. O'Dimm stepped back, moving out of the Witcher's way when he went to kneel beside her carefully touching her face. She looked...peaceful.

"If you and your companions agree to leave now, then I promise you, Geralt of Rivia, that Yennefer will once again find peace in the confines of her slumber. As it was before, sleep will be a place of freedom, safety…and sweet dreams."

He heard something click and the shackles around her wrists dropped into the withered grass. Geralt pulled down her gag and carefully picked her up, cradling her body. He remembered a time before they'd settled down, a time when the Hunt was still on Ciri's trail. When Yennefer had fallen asleep beside him, wrapped in his arms, he had known then that he would never forget how peaceful she looked in her sleep… How peaceful she looked now. How beautiful.

He stroked her cheek, the touch of her skin sending tingles up his fingers. There was still a small trace of perfume mixing with her natural aroma, he smelt it as he ran his fingers through her hair gently, brushing it away from her face. The calm rhythm of her heart, a melody like none other. He held her close, wishing the moment could last for an eternity.

"I need no answer now, Master Geralt. Speak it when you are ready and I shall know, but for now, it's time for you to leave us. To wake." Geralt nodded.

Lowering her onto the grass, he felt as though he was about to bury a piece of himself. It was only the thought of what might happen to Yennefer if he disobeyed that made him comply without argument. Geralt took his time, however, making sure that she was comfortable. Her skin was cold and her hair standing on end, so he took off his cloak and placed it over her. Geralt took one last look. There was a tiny smile on her face.

"Sweet dreams, Yen."

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist: Chapter 19, What We Fear

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.

#witcher #witcher fanfiction #fanfiction #yennefer #Yennefer of Vengerberg #geralt #geralt of rivia #geralt x yennefer #ciri #Dandelion #gaunter o'dimm #writing #the realm of glass #eileniessa #hell

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mermaidsirennikita · 6 years

Text

October 2017 Book Roundup

As much as I tried to stick with ~spooky~ books, I found that a lot of the horror novels I looked at (especially those written by men, to be honest) seemed incredibly cliche or just... grimdark. You have to have a good story, you know? So I drifted into more familiar territory with fantasy quite often--though I did read one really good horror novel at the end of the month--and threw in a thriller. But my favorite book of the month was An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson, a darkly whimsical, romantic fairy tale. Another YA fantasy standout, if you’re looking for diverse reads written by Own Voices authors was Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao, the origin story of Snow White’s evil queen with a dose of East Asian mythology. But all in all, it was a good month, especially after a couple months with rather meh ratings.

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson. 5/5. Isobel has built a reputation as a portrait painter of the fair folk. Fairies from far and wide come to the town of Whimsy to have their portraits done by her, and so it’s no surprise that Rook, the autumn prince, wants the same. But after Isobel paints mortal sorrow in Rook’s eyes, his authority is questioned and he spirits her away to stand trial for the crime--but their journey is treacherous, and even their attraction toward each other presents a challenge. For if a fairy and a mortal fall in love, they break the Good Law--and are condemned to death. Okay, so this is definitely a whimsical “girl gets whisked off to fairy land by hot fairy, romance ensues” story but a) what the fuck is wrong with that and b) I??? Loved??? It??? This is no Sarah J. Maas bullshit. Rook is not only a bit scary but hilariously inhuman, making him a totally lovable character, not all rapey and weird like most hot dude fairies in recent YA. His feelings for Isobel seem completely real, and aren’t presented in an over the top way. The book maintains the sense of a fairy tale, but it’s also funny and Isobel has a sense of practicality that’s juxtaposed to the world she lives in. If you want to get swept away, this is a book for you.

Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. 1/5. A small town is haunted by an actual witch (not the ghost of the witch, or at least not from what I could tell) who, after being unjustly executed centuries before, wanders about with her arms bound to her sides and her eyes and mouth sewn shut. In order to keep everyone safe, the townspeople--who are unable to leave after moving there and encountering the witch--use surveillance systems to monitor the Black Rock Witch. But, unable to abide by the strict regulations, teenagers make her presence go viral, causing a downward spiral in their society. Basically, I wanted to read more horror this month and going onward, and this sounded cool... It isn’t. It’s basically a rundown of the various ways in which the Black Rock Witch and the other women of the town are lesser than the men, caricatures of themselves, or punching bags. When teen boys started talking shit about the witch getting “wet” for them, I was... kind of getting over the book. By the end, I was rolling my eyes. And it is incredibly slow, so be warned--cool concept, shittiest of executions.

From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty. 4/5. Progressive mortician and proponent of erasing the fear of death Caitlin Doughty traveled the world “in search of the good death”, observing various rituals surrounding death and grieving. This is basically her memoir of that time, divided from place to place. Caitlin also hosts the web series “Ask a Mortician” and wrote the great “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” about her time as a crematorium employee, and honestly... she seems like a super cool person, and it shows through her writing. She’s frank without being unsympathetic, and even when she disagrees with people (she doesn’t only discuss cultures of whose practices she approves, which I appreciated) there’s a ton of respect and understanding on her end. But she also expects respect in return, and is very frank regarding her own views. The book is part death, part travel, and it’s also incredibly interesting and human. The only critique I can make is that I wish Caitlin had been able to go to other countries just to cover even more, but I understand the limitations there.

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh. 3/5. Following the hit and run killing of five year old Jacob, Jenna Gray runs off a small Welsh town to hide from the death of her child and everything that preceded it. As her story unfolds, the parallel narrative of the cops struggling to figure out what happened during that hit and run is detailed. I was promised Gone Girl fuckery, but while this was a good and entertaining thriller, it wasn’t anywhere near as subversive as Gone Girl. It’s not paint by numbers either, and is definitely interesting. But don’t expect something out there.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik. 4/5. In Agnieszka’s small village home, a girl is chosen every ten years by the Dragon, their wizard protector in the cursed Wood. Agnieszka is sure that her best friend, the beautiful Kasia, will be the next girl chosen--so imagine her shock when the Dragon selects her. This is one of those stories that feels very classically fairy tale-ish, with lovely writing and tons of magic. It gets points for focusing on the friendship between Kasia and Agnieszka and going places I didn’t expect--but I do wish more page-time had been given to the romance. It didn’t have to be central, but what we got was good and I wanted more.

Forest of A Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao. 4/5. The beautiful and poor Xifeng lives in a small village, constantly tormented by her controlling aunt Guma while stealing away to meet her lover Wei in secret. Guma has great plans for Xifeng, seeing the throne of Feng Lu in her future. But there will also be a price to pay for that throne. Running away with Wei, Xifeng arrives at the palace, only to find a caring empress--who she believes that she’s destined to replace--and enemies on every side. This is a reimagining of Snow White’s Evil Queen, drawing from Chinese mythology. It takes a while to get going, but once it grabbed my attention--specifically, when Xifeng arrived at the palace--I was gripped. Xifeng is a compelling and ruthless protagonist, who I’d hesitate to call a heroine. The book doesn’t have a lot of black and white good and evil. A few characters fell somewhat flat, but as the book went along it became stronger and stronger, and by the end I was dying for the sequel.

Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore. 3/5. For generations, the Nomeolvides women have been the caretakers of La Pradera, a famous garden estate. But they have a secret: if a Nomeolvides woman falls in love, her lover will disappear. Five girls of the current generation--cousins--are in love with the same girl, and terrified of her disappearing. But suddenly a boy appears, rather than disappearing, and the girls are thrown into disarray, questioning his origins and what it means for their family. McLemore is a beautiful writer; I’m so jealous of her ability to craft sentences. This is a true magical realism book, which makes sense as McLemore is Latina, and the genre was crafted by Latinx writers (and thanks to a certain hugely popular white writer dabbling in magical realism lately, it’s been a hot topic). I will say that for all that the book was beautifully written, I didn’t connect to the characters as I have with past books, and the plot was a little hard to grasp at times. But it was still lovely.

The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. 4/5. The book is set up as the final manuscript of Jack Sparks, annoying atheist and shock-value journalist. The book was meant to be Sparks’s attempt to take down the supernatural, following his previous publishing success/personal disaster, in which he tried “every drug” and ended up with a cocaine addiction. Sparks’s journey takes on exorcisms and combat magicians, and--as we know from the foreword by his brother--ends in his death. But as for what happens between then and the beginning--that’s where things get interesting. The book is creepy; actually, the creepiest parts are that Jack’s an unreliable narrator, and you’re never sure what is real, what his his intentional embellishment, and what is something he literally forgot due to the supernatural events occurring. Jack is a dick, which is kind of good because the shit that happens to him happening to a good person would be hard to read. But he’s a good character, and certainly grows and unveils his true self throughout the book. It’s a super entertaining, sometimes spooky ride through a man’s descent into the paranormal, and maybe madness too.

#book roundup #books #book recommendations

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ladyhindsight · 2 years

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I didn’t realize how exhausting the incest plot line with Clary and Jace was until it was finally over. Or over in the sense that at least Clary knows now. Just have to wait and read the exact same revelation in a later chapter so Jace will be on track as well.

In the chapter 15 “Things Fall Apart”:

Luke had spent most of the night watching the moon’s progress across the translucent roof of the Hall of Accords like a silver coin rolling across the clear surface of a glass table.

It seems redundant to tell how the moon had come up earlier when we already know and have been told this.

→ “The moon was just visible over the roofs of the houses.”

→ “The demon towers reflected back its silver-white light.”

Or combine these with “and”.

I’d like to note that there is no rule about using semicolons and em dashes in the same sentence. Both create a different kind of pause. Semicolon combines two ideas and em dash separates the following idea.

The entirety works better without this sentence. Whether Clary knows or not is irrelevant. It doesn’t change the meaning of the following paragraph rather than makes unnecessary pause in the narrative. ↓

“I was hoping I could see the North Gate from here, but I’m not high enough.”

Messengers had been dispatched there to ask the Downworlders to wait while the Clave deliberated, and Clary could only hope they were willing to do it.

Nay. Take it away.

This was incredibly sweet on Jocelyn’s part. Not so much on Alec’s because he sees Magnus, which isn’t even barely plausible. They’ve known for few weeks and already Magnus has superseded everyone else in Alec’s life, and just after Alec has been extremely conflicted with his feelings about Jace as well.

Sound manipulative more like. There’s nothing vulnerable about that when you know the kind of man Valentine is and was. Even if his love for Jocelyn was deep and real, it doesn’t take away the fact that Valentine also could’ve manipulated her.

And I’ve yet to be presented these brilliant ideas. Let’s reform the Clave, it sucks. How revolutionary.

Compared to “The Werewolf’s Tale” in City of Bones, I have to commend that the writing in this chapter isn’t nearly as ridiculous. Most of the time you can imagine someone telling a story, but then these touches of more “elaborate” prose sneak in.

“She thought” is the same kind of pause Clare writes in normal dialogue. For example: “You,” Alec said, “googled it.”

It’s just unnecessary here. We know it’s Clary’s thoughts. It delivers no effect other than add to my annoyance.

Serious postpartum depression going on but leeet’s brush past it. Maybe pause there and let character react? Maybe? Also, pick one:

→ “then I got a message from Ragnor Fell.” (getting the message is important) → “then I got a fire-letter from Ragnor Fell.” (it being a fire-letter is important)

Both say essentially the same thing, the other just adds a detail that says the same thing but in the in-world lingo.

“I clawed at the pages, my fingers trembling, my mind racing, seeing the mixtures Valentine had given...” Also doesn’t sound like someone talking or telling a story. Participle phrases sort of have that effect, whereas people usually tell things past tense.

→ “I clawed at the pages. My fingers trembled, my mind raced back..” etc.

What is the thing about demon blood that it doesn’t effect the adults at all? In the sense that Jocelyn saw nightmares but didn’t suffer physically. Jocelyn doesn’t have demon blood but Jonathan does. I get how anything dangerous to a fetus/baby a mother takes affects the baby, but it also affects the mother too. Alcohol, drugs, different kinds of medications, different food substances, excessive amounts of some vitamins and so on. So how does the demon blood just affect Jonathan and not Jocelyn? Is it because the baby doesn’t have the same protection wards as the adult Shadowhunters do?

Again, warlocks are born with demon blood and they aren’t evil. What would happen if a pregnant Shadowhunter was infused with warlock blood? So many questions because the bOOK DOESN’T TELL ME.

Emphasizing the horribleness of the story sounds almost inauthentic.

Yeah, I don’t know. In the previous chapter Clary says that Jocelyn did a terrible job. Though morally and ethically wrong, it did work for almost 16 years.

Jocelyn knows about Ithuriel:

Jocelyn looked straight into her daughter’s eyes. “The night Céline Herondale died, she was eight months pregnant. Valentine had been giving her potions, powders—he was trying on her what he’d tried on himself, with Ithuriel’s blood, hoping that Stephen’s child would be as strong and powerful as he suspected Jonathan would be, but without Jonathan’s worse qualities. He couldn’t bear that his experiment would go to waste, so with Hodge’s help he cut the baby out of Céline’s stomach. She’d only been dead a short time—”

Then why does she say here “He’d somehow gotten hold of angel blood” when Valentine clearly summoned Ithuriel and used Ithuriel’s blood on everyone?

Again, Hodge knew about the Herondale baby, had seen the baby, CARVED THE BABY OUT OF ITS DEAD MOTHER, knew what the baby’s parents looked like, and still you dare to tell me that Hodge didn’t now which boy he was raising? Jonathan with his black demon eyes or Jace with his golden ones? Jace with no resemblance to either Jocelyn or Valentine??

The only thing making Clary and Jace more powerful than any other Nephilim is because Valentine cheated biology. It’s not for their own accord or acquired skills.

Are you also explicitly telling the juxtaposition here so no one would miss it?

Again, Clary’s leaps in intuition are used as rather forward clues in the story. She’s always so on point just so readers know what is going on but not enough for herself to realize anything.

... No one saw Sebastian without the dyed hair. How do they know he is fair-haired?

And again, great, but what stops warlocks who’ve gained entrance from doing exactly that? Again, LOOP HOLE.

Show, don’t tell. Also, no comma, same subject.

#Clary Fray #Jocelyn Fray #Valentine Morgenstern #Jace Herondale #Hodge Starkweather #Luke Garroway #City of Glass #CoG Chapter 17

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isadomna · 7 years

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4 July 1336

Isabella of Aragon, Queen consort of Portugal and a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, died in the castle of Estremoz. She earned the title of Peacemaker on account of her efficacy in solving disputes.

Born in 1271 at the Aljaferia Palace in Zaragoza, Isabella was daughter of King Peter III of Aragon and his wife Constance of Sicily. She was named for her great-aunt St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and grew up with five siblings. Her childhood days were regularly divided between her studies, her sewing, her prayers and recreation. Isabella was deemed a great beauty, very early in life. Her marriage to King Denis of Portugal was arranged in 1281 when she was 10 years old, receiving the towns of Óbidos, Abrantes and Porto de Mós as part of her dowry. It was only in 1288 that the wedding was celebrated, when Denis was 26 years old, while Isabella was 17.

The Portuguese king was a gifted poet and good ruler, but an unfaithful husband. Isabella had only two children by her young and virile husband, who fathered an additional seven children —one chronicler says nine— by a number of other women. Queen Isabella tried to be a loving mother to her children, Afonso and Constance. There is not record of her showing jealousy or condemning her husband’s behavior. Isabella remained Dinis’ tender and loyal wife, and she obediently acceded to his will, even when he asked of her the utmost that any man could request of his wife: that she take into her care, and tutor, his illegitimate children. He admired her intellect, and rightly judged that no one better could be found to teach his children.

Queen Isabella dedicated her life to charitable works. While Isabella’s mastery of languages, and singing, may be explained by the careful education she received as a young child, more difficult to explain is her remarkable understanding of engineering and architecture. A number of buildings were erected under her direct supervision: a convent to house the Poor Clare nuns, a house for herself next to the convent, a hospice for the aged poor, a hospital, an orphanage for foundlings and other needy newborns, and churches. She drafted the sketches herself, and managed the day-to-day progress of the projects. Twentieth-century scholars have identified the buildings that date back to Isabella by their common architectural features, and have concluded that she developed her own style. It has been given a name, the “isabeline” style of architecture.

Isabella took an active interest in Portuguese politics and was a decisive conciliator during the negotiations concerning the Treaty of Alcañices, signed by Denis and Sancho IV of Castile in 1297 (which fixed the borders between the two countries). In 1304, Isabella and Denis returned to Spain to arbitrate between Fernando IV of Castile and James II of Aragon, the Queen of Portugal’ s brother. Known for settling disputes, Isabella was called the Peacemaker. She kept the peace within her family and within Portugal.

When her son Afonso declared war on his father, jealous of the attention being paid by Denis to his illegitimate son, Afonso Sanches, the Queen, mounted on a mule, positioned herself between both opposing armies on the field of Alvalade in order to prevent the combat. Her biographers have dubbed her the "Angel of Peace." When he was on his deathbed, King Dinis called Afonso to his side, and entrusted Isabella to his care: "Look after your mother and my lady, the queen, for she remains alone. Stand by her, as is your duty.... Think that having given you life, and for the many tears you have cost her, she is twice your mother." In his peculiar way, Dinis held his queen in the highest esteem.

Upon Dinis’ death, Isabella removed her court dress and thereafter refused to wear anything but the habit of the Franciscan Tertiary order. She took up residence next to the convent of the Poor Clares, which she had founded and subsidized. It was then that the widowed Queen founded a hospital near the convent, and named it after St. Elizabeth of Hungary. On a daily basis, Isabella worked in caring for the sick, often choosing for herself the most distasteful tasks.

Queen Isabella outlived her husband by 12 years. On another occasion, her son Afonso IV, angry at the mistreatment his daughter Maria was suffering at the hands of her husband, Alfonso XI of Castile, had ordered an attack. Isabella stopped the fighting, but the exertion proved to be too much for her and she fell ill, dying shortly thereafter. Queen Isabella was canonized in 1625 by Pope Urban VIII. Reposing in the Church of St. Clare at Coimbra, her elaborate coffin has been opened several times through the centuries as recently as 1912. The teams of examiners, invariably composed of doctors and Church officials, consistently reported that St. Isabella of Portugal remains intact, as beautiful and serene as if she merely slept. (X)(X)

#St.Isabella of Portugal #Isabella of Aragon #Portuguese history #Women in History

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annabethisterrified · 7 years

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Book Review: LORD OF SHADOWS by Cassandra Clare (The Dark Artifices #2)

“Break my heart,” he said. “Break it in pieces. I give you permission.”

No spoilers until you press ‘Keep Reading’.

Never before have death and life intermingled so closely for the Blackthorn family. Emma Carstairs finally avenged her parents’ murder by killing Malcolm, but it seems even his death was not the end. Something darker was triggered by his blood, and now the Los Angeles Institute must reckon with forces beyond anything the Nephilim have ever dealt with before.

Underlying everything is Emma’s love for Julian. As her parabatai, any romantic attraction is forbidden on the harshest terms, lest a maddening curse be set into motion. Despite her best efforts to make him hate her—even dating his brother, Mark—the situation worsens with every passing second, and the only option that might save them also brings devastating consequences.

Meanwhile, Kit deals with his new life as the lost Herondale, and navigates a blossoming relationship with the Blackthorn twins, the vivacious Livvy and mesmerizing Ty. Dru is given a secret to keep. Mark must deal with Kieran’s dramatic return into his life, and what it means for him and Cristina.

The second installment of The Dark Artifices trilogy explodes with heart, emotion, and action with every word. This is an exemplary novel that maintains intense levels of motivation, characterization, and consequences throughout. Again, I realize just how far Clare has come in terms of her writing. As someone who couldn’t even get through the first few chapters of The Mortal Instruments, it’s a pleasant surprise to feel so entirely enveloped in the Shadowhunter world with TDA. If you were on the same boat with TMI, consider this my plea—just start at Lady Midnight. Or even The Infernal Devices! It gets so, so much better.

While Lord of Shadows was 700 whole pages long, all the events that unfold feel important, justified, and engaging. Nothing is a waste of paper and ink. Every sentence positively pulsates with fascinating revelations, discoveries, and development. This series manages to have insanely high stakes on large-scale conflicts involving politics, war and prejudice; some of the political metaphors are a bit tongue-in-cheek, but meaningful nonetheless. At the same time, comparatively smaller issues drive the whole cast of characters in compelling ways. The friendships, family ties, and romances all create exquisitely painful tension that makes the battles and council meetings rife with important personal relevance.

I’m going to go more in-depth about specific things that occurred below the cut, so consider yourself warned for spoilers!

Hello there!

Okay, oh my god. WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

This book just broke me. Like, legit, I was reading the last few chapters in a Starbucks in Athens, Greece, trying to look composed on the outside, while madly blinking away tears. I got lost trying to find my apartment on the way back because I was so distraught.

I think the main conflict we’re all reckoning with right now is the murder of Livia Blackthorn. (Wow, that sentence hurt to type.) Livvy’s always been one of my favorites, so I’m pretty devastated. Her death was gruesome, painful and ugly; it also provided a harsh insight. Now, we see the worst nightmare Julian’s mind could concoct, in full color and detail. We see him lose his baby girl, effectively. We see Ty absolutely crumble apart, all the siblings reconcile the impossible reality before them. We see Emma try so hard to slaughter Annabel.

Then the bells ring, and the ‘gates to heaven’ open, as Livvy ironically noted earlier in the book. And she’s gone.

The book ends.

WITH THE THIRD AND FINAL INSTALLMENT, QUEEN OF AIR AND LIGHT, NOT COMING OUT UNTIL 20-FREAKING-19????????!

This might be the most painful cliffhanger of my life, and that’s saying a lot.

I really fell in love with Livvy throughout this book, and honestly didn’t expect this. Looking back, I see how and why Clare made this decision. In fact, she wrote a pretty cool essay explaining her decision here.

The last installment will be something far darker and more dangerous than the Shadowhunter World has ever had. Julian will have survived the most terrible thing that could possibly happen to him. Ty will have lost his twin, best friend, and almost-parabatai. Emma and Julian will still face an impossible relationship, and Annabel’s wrath is far from over.

But, uh, maybe we can talk about some fluffier things now?

Like, how about Ty and Kit!? They’re so adorable. I love how positively and accurately Ty’s autism is portrayed, and Kit’s relentless patience and efforts are super admirable. Their friendship is amazing, and its parallels to Sherlock and Watson give me a lot of good feelings. Of course, I think we all know it won’t be a ‘friendship’ for long; their feelings for one another are quite obviously romantic, and they’re definitely in the early stages of figuring that out. I don’t mind though. They have a good slow-burn thing going on, and I’m super excited to see how they progress in book three, and in their own trilogy, The Wicked Powers, coming out in a few years.

I’m so happy Cristina and Kieran ended up forming a cool and interesting friendship rather than being at each other’s throats over Mark. The three of them have very fascinating chemistry, and I look forward to reading more about them!

As always, Julian and Emma’s situation is so heartbreaking to read. Their dilemma seems doomed to end in tragedy, but I sincerely hope it won’t. (Side note: That Cornwall cottage scene—you know the one—was so. HOT.)

We’ve got tons of character and plot conflicts to wrap up in the next book, and WAY TOO MUCH TIME to go until then. In the meantime, we’ll be receiving the first installment of The Last Hours next year, which follows the lives of Tessa and Will’s children in London, which should be lots of fun to read.

Aaaaaand now we buckle up for a long two years of waiting for the finale of the incredible trilogy, The Dark Artifices.

#next up: beware the wild #review #lord of shadows #the dark artifices #cassandra clare

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theliberaltony · 6 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

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

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Hey, everybody! It’s Slack chat time!

We’re in the middle of another media cycle involving questions about the positioning of congressional Republicans vis-a-vis Trump. Basically, after his press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, people are asking why the GOP doesn’t do more to restrain Trump. So … here’s the question for today:

If you’re an elected Republican serving in Congress, is the Trump presidency worth it to you? You get wins on policy right now but you’re staring down likely losses in 2018 and maybe beyond. OR would you rather we have a President Hillary Clinton right now? You’re presumably not getting the policy outcomes you want but would likely be looking forward to gains in 2018 and perhaps 2020.

(We’re also asking this from the Democrats’ POV, but let’s start with Republicans.)

FWIW, I’ve gone back and forth on this in my head since we decided on this topic yesterday. At first I thought the answer was obvious. Now …

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): I would rather have a President Hillary Clinton.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): #actually

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): I’d rather have Trump.

natesilver: I don’t have enough information to answer the question.

micah: OMG

natesilver: Am I in a swing district?

micah: You’re the collective congressional GOP.

clare.malone: Hmm.

Now I’m waffling.

micah: So, my first thought was that the answer was OBVIOUSLY Trump.

natesilver: Just to complicate things … for me, the answer to this question is narrower if you’re asking me as a member of Congress as opposed to, say, a Democratic or Republican voter.

clare.malone: It depends on what you think the ultimate goal of Congress is.

To get elected again, to live another day?

Or, to accomplish something ideological?

natesilver: If you’re a member of Congress, you’re probably very concerned about re-election. And clearly you have much safer chances of re-election as a swing-seat Republican under Clinton than under Trump.

clare.malone: So. What’s the ultimate goal of a party’s caucus in Congress?

micah: OK, if it’s ideological/policy, it’s 100 percent Trump, right? The Supreme Court alone suggests that. Or, look at Trump’s effect on the judiciary more generally:

clare.malone: Right.

But if it’s about getting re-elected, then they want Clinton.

So I guess I don’t know the answer because I don’t know the goal of the Republican congressional caucus.

nrakich: You guys aren’t looking at the big picture! It’s not just Congress. State governments are important too — maybe even more important than the federal government, since it’s where much of the policy that affects people’s lives is made.

As you’ve written, Clare, the Obama years really weren’t too shabby for Republicans. They earned a stranglehold on 26 state-government trifectas (full control of the governorship and state legislature) and have used them to pass stricter laws on abortion, labor, etc. than they would have in Congress.

And if we’re focusing on Congress, that state government control is going to let the GOP continue to draw congressional district lines in 2021 unless something changes.

The Trump presidency threatens to effect that change.

natesilver: Can I ask for a redirect, Micah? Maybe we should be saying, “Are Republicans better off with Trump than with Clinton?”

And obviously there are a lot of subheadings under “Republican.”

micah: Yeah, but I don’t want to pick one subheading because then the answer is obvious.

Let’s disentangle all the subheadings!

natesilver: Ezra Klein argued recently that it was obvious that Republicans had made a good bet to stand behind Trump in 2016, because it had paid off with the SCOTUS picks. But I think it’s way too early to conclude that.

nrakich: I agree.

micah: This is actually kinda making my brain hurt …

I think Ezra is right …

natesilver: CONTRARIAN NATE SAYS RAWWWWWR

micah: In the short term, it’s paid off huge. And likely in the long term with the Supreme Court.

But if Trump sparks a wave of progressive activism — that’s obviously bad for the GOP.

But but politics always goes in cycles — back and forth, back and forth. From Clare’s piece:

So if your argument is that a backlash makes winning not worth it, then winning would never be worth it.

clare.malone: Why is it too early to conclude that, Nate? Because he might fuck up the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation?

natesilver: Because what if Republicans lose elections for the next 20 years as a result of a backlash to Trump? And, also, the public turns against every policy Trump once liked? ICE is abolished and single-payer medicine is established.

nrakich: That ^^

I also think Supreme Court picks are overrated. In the long run, they balance out — the next Democratic president will probably get a couple too. And it’s unpredictable what a justice does once he or she joins the court. Plenty of Republican-appointed justices have turned more liberal over the years.

micah: If there’s a backlash to Trump, eventually there will be a backlash to that backlash, no?

nrakich: If I were congressional Republicans/Republican voters/Republican squirrels/whatever, I would also be worried about Trump’s long-term effect on Hispanic voters.

clare.malone: I don’t know if I agree on that Supreme Court point, Nathaniel. This conservative majority could be a pretty powerful influence on judicial policy for decades. But yes, I do think it’s right to look at how growing demographic groups react to a political party.

But what are our parameters now?

micah: Republican squirrels.

clare.malone: jek;atw’ljrt

micah: Inequality these days is nuts.

nrakich:

(Yes, I know that’s a chipmunk)

natesilver: Here’s how I’d put it: There is almost always a backlash, which the party pays in the form of (1) tending to lose seats in Congress, and (1b) in state government and (2) some degree of thermostatic movement of public opinion against them, e.g. the public actually becomes more liberal when conservatives have been in power for a while and vice versa.

Those are BIG consequences so the question is — how much do you get out of it?

micah: A lot. I hate to keep going back to the Supreme Court, but …

nrakich: Probably not as much as they’d be able to with a different Republican president.

Marco Rubio could still win the primary, guys.

micah: #2020

natesilver: Hmm. So far, the GOP has gotten (i) a tax bill; (ii) 2 Supreme Court picks; (iii) lots of aggressive enforcement actions on immigration; (iv) lots of actions to sabotage Obamacare; (v) lots of … eccentric foreign policy behavior that they might not like; (vi) a trade war that they probably don’t want.

clare.malone: So they got three things they wanted, on average (if you say they wanted half measures on a couple things Trump went full throttle on).

That’s not so bad.

nrakich: But they also got some not-so-great stuff, even on policy.

micah: If you think Trump has been a mixed bag in terms of delivering on policy and ideological goals, then the answer is clearly President Clinton?

nrakich: Right.

micah: IDK, I can’t get past SCOTUS.

natesilver: I’m not saying it’s nothing. It’s quite a bit! But part of it is that they aren’t necessarily likely to get a whole lot more — or at least not a lot more of the stuff they like.

Democrats may or may not win a chamber of Congress — but even if they don’t, the GOP majorities are likely to be reduced down to a bare minimum.

micah: Republicans control all three branches of government, most states, etc. — I’m just very resistant to any argument that they’d rather the world look any other way than it currently does.

nrakich: I do think this question is incomplete without knowing how 2018 turns out.

natesilver: And 2020.

micah: Guys.

natesilver: And 2022.

micah: You are all basically saying, “We can’t answer this question until it’s answered for us.”

natesilver: I’M NOT THE ONE WHO ASKED THE QUESTION, MICAH!

micah: You agreed to the topic!

clare.malone: I’m stressssssed.

nrakich: I’m so sorry, guys. (I was the one who had the idea for this Slack chat topic, dear reader.)

clare.malone: lol, it’s fine. But now I know Rakich is a chaos monkey.

nrakich: Chaos squirrel.

clare.malone: I mean muppet.

natesilver: Let’s take what’s maybe an easier case. Let’s say Republicans lose in a wave election in November — they lose, say, 45 House seats, plus lose the Senate. Then Trump also loses in 2020 and they lose another 5 Senate seats or so.

Is it worth it then?

micah: I think the answer to that question is … yes.

natesilver: Yeah, I think that’s wrong, Micah.

clare.malone: Yeah, that would be bad.

The Senate loss is a little far out, though.

natesilver: Democrats will just undo the GOP’s tax policy.

nrakich: Micah, you think Republicans would take a teensy list of policy priorities in exchange for undoing all the electoral progress they’ve made for the last eight years?

micah: First, I don’t think it’s a given that the Democrats reverse that tax bill.

Second, I think that GOP progress was always fleeting, Nathaniel. See thermostatic point above.

You’re basically telling me that we return to a 2009ish-type government, but that the Supreme Court is conservative for at least a generation or so.

If I’m subscribing to the false idea that these elected officials and their voters want to win elections to achieve policy/ideological outcomes — which I am for this convo even though it’s not really right — then that last conservative majority on the Supreme Court is incredibly valuable because it’s really the only branch of government that doesn’t sorta inherently swing back and forth.

Control of the White House and Congress is always temporary, so I’m not super fussed about losing the gains I’ve made.

nrakich: But the alternative under President Clinton is that you lock in Republican control of the House for probably 10 more years and the Senate for perhaps a generation.

micah: I don’t think we know that.

natesilver: Are you reading too many liberal hot takes about the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court has already been conservative for many years. What would give the Democrats the best chance to make it not conservative is to have a majority of senators *and* the presidency.

micah: I haven’t been reading any takes — I just got back from vacation.

Now it’ll be MORE conservative!

natesilver: Would Clinton have gotten her justice appointed in a 52-48 Republican Senate?

micah: Probably not?

clare.malone: A more moderate one, yes.

micah: Wouldn’t she have nominated Merrick Garland?

clare.malone: Maybe, but maybe not.

micah: I have a hard time imagining Republicans confirming any Clinton nominee.

clare.malone: Clinton was never going to be able to nominate a Ginsburg type from the start.

natesilver: In FiveThirtyEight canon, she would have gotten Garland appointed on Earth 2, but in exchange for a bunch of Republicans being appointed to the cabinet.

But here’s the thing. With Trump in power, Democrats are probably going to end up with somewhere between 47-52 Senate seats after this year. Obviously a reasonably wide range there and I think they’re underdogs to take the Senate, although it’s competitive.

By comparison, though, if Clinton were president, where would Democrats end up? I haven’t done the math in detail, but I’d guess somewhere in the range of like 39-45 senators. They’d be in a lot of trouble, as Nathaniel said.

And they wouldn’t have had Doug Jones win that race in Alabama (in part because there would have been nothing to appoint Jeff Sessions to.)

nrakich: Yeah, in the Senate, Democrats are way overexposed in 2018 — a bad cycle for them could lead to the loss of 8+ Senate seats. There are 31 red states and 19 blue states in the U.S. — that means that the GOP “should” have 62 senators. If that scenario comes to pass, partisan gravity is going to make it very hard for Democrats to get back to a majority until party coalitions change, which can take decades.

natesilver: If you’re down to, say, 42 senators, you’re going to have a lot of trouble getting a liberal Supreme Court nominee for the foreseeable future, no matter who is president.

micah: OK, so yeah, let’s take this full on from the Democrats’ perspective: Would you rather have a President Clinton?

clare.malone: I think yes, you’d rather have Clinton. micah: Couldn’t Clinton have locked in a moderate court, though?

clare.malone: Not necessarily, Micah.

nrakich: I’ve been an electoral hipster on this topic for a while. Back in 2015, I wrote a semi-tongue-in-cheek article arguing that Democrats should cede the 2016 election to Republicans because Democrats need to rebuild their bench on the state level.

I mean, this is all hypothetical. But under a President Clinton, Republicans would win most of the governorships and state legislatures this year and in 2020. That would allow them to draw Republican-friendly House maps for all of the 2020s.

clare.malone: What if she wins two terms and Ginsburg retires when Democrats are in a better place in the Senate?

nrakich: It’s very hard for a party to hold the White House for four consecutive terms.

natesilver: There’s probably no universe in which Democrats would ever have had both a Senate majority and a President Hillary Clinton.

She’d have started out at 48, lost a bunch this year.

Then maybe you gain a couple back in 2020, which isn’t a bad map for Democrats.

But then you’re back in 2022 and midterms don’t usually go well for the president’s party.

nrakich: What do we think Clinton’s approval numbers would look like if she had won? My guess is they’d be pretty close to Trump’s right now. She’d have no policy wins to show off (since Republicans would control Congress), and those Republicans in Congress would be stirring the pot over her emails and other stuff, presumably.

micah: My first thought on this was … If you’re a progressive, and you care about an equitable society, the environment, health outcomes, etc. — I’m not sure there’s any argument that you’d prefer President Trump to President Clinton.

The only counter to that is if Trump sparks a generational counterswing — in which the next 5-8 years are bad for you, but the next 30 are good as a result.

natesilver: But presidencies always spark a backlash. That’s a given, or at least pretty close to it. The questions are (i) how soon the backlash comes, (ii) how big it is, and (iii) what Republicans accomplish before the backlash.

micah: That’s my point, Nate. I think it’s only “worth it” for Democrats if the backlash is historically huge.

natesilver: See, I disagree, because I think Trump’s accomplishments have been on the modest side.

clare.malone: One good thing for Democrats under Trump is the new bench that they seem to be developing.

natesilver: I mean, the party was sort of running on fumes.

clare.malone: In the long run, improving their prospects on the state level might serve them well. I’m not sure that would have happened under Clinton. They might have continued to paper over the state losses under Obama.

nrakich: Exactly, Clare. After a President Clinton, what would have come next? They’d be out of gas, and then you’d have a President Trump (or similar) in 2020/2024 anyway, plus you’d have missed your window to affect redistricting.

natesilver: Although — one thing we’re neglecting to mention here is that there’s a lot of damage Trump could do, e.g. to America’s international image, that isn’t really a *partisan* concern per se.

micah: That’s what I was typing!

It’s not just “accomplishments.”

It’s the whole Trump effect.

The illiberal stuff.

natesilver: But again, that, too, could spark a long-term backlash.

clare.malone: Yeah, the Trump reflection on the country in the eyes of the world is sort of a known unknown.

How much is it going to screw the country long term?

natesilver: And also, having a President Clinton (as Rakich was getting at) may have led to a Trump-type Republican getting elected in 2020, only with much bigger majorities in Congress.

clare.malone: Other countries might not trust our word on international treaties we want to make, etc., etc.

nrakich: America’s image bounced back pretty well from the Bush years, right? Although I think this is another level than that.

clare.malone: I dunno re Bush.

micah: Yeah, opinion of the U.S. (and the American president) shot up after Bush — and has dropped back down under Trump:

natesilver: Yeah, I don’t think this is comparable to Bush.

micah: OK, what if Trump leaves America 20 percent less democratic (small d)?

natesilver: Although, I also wonder if our allies sort of recognize that Trump’s an outlier instead of the permanent state of affairs.

nrakich: True, but I also wonder if he confirms what they secretly thought about the U.S.

clare.malone: Why would they not assume that another Republican president would now take policy positions more like Trump’s because that’s what Republican voters want?

nrakich: But then again, European allies are also dealing with their own Trump-like, anti-immigrant, populist figures.

micah: Yeah, it would be a mistake to think of Trump as an outlier.

natesilver: What if Trump sparks a backlash to populism in Western Europe because people associate populism with Trump?

micah: I sorta buy that.

Well, no … I don’t.

natesilver: There’s already a little bit of evidence of that. Populist candidates generally underperformed their polls in Western Europe in 2017. Eastern/Central Europe is a different story, it’s very important to say.

micah: To start to wrap this up … clearly most congressional Republicans are still happy with the tradeoff, no? (To shift the convo from what we think to what they think.)

nrakich: … are they?

Not to be a broken record, but you keep hearing about how, off the record, lots of Republicans say they’re fed up with Trump.

natesilver: Given how many congressional Republicans retired, the prima-facie evidence might be “no.”

nrakich: I bet plenty of them would take a President Clinton right now so they could try over again in 2020 with Mike Pence or someone more palatable to them. Plus, congressional Republicans were good at being the opposition party under Obama. They could have kept going with that. It was once they started needing to govern (i.e., with health care) that they sorta fell apart.

micah: If that were true, wouldn’t they be more forcefully rebuking/restraining Trump?

clare.malone: Maybe they’re waiting for the midterms to be over.

nrakich: I don’t think they would be, because they’re afraid of getting Sanforded.

If they’re ever going to break with Trump publicly (barring a major Mueller development), it would be in the time between this year’s primaries and this year’s general election. So I guess it’s too early to tell.

natesilver: Micah, I don’t think that necessarily follows. One thing about being a Republican in Congress is that it’s politically hard to oppose Trump, even if you think he’s terrible for your party and the country in the long term. Maybe that’s why so many of them are retiring.

micah: That’s partly true, but I also think much of the media is projecting when they imagine all congressional Republicans hate Trump.

They didn’t all retire, after all.

natesilver: And you know what really wouldn’t be fun? Having the same dilemma if you’d lost control of Congress anyway, which is probably more likely than not this fall.

(Of course, this is a bit self-fulfilling; one reason the GOP is favored to lose the House is because of all the retirements.)

micah: OK, final thoughts?

nrakich: This is how I see it:

Under President Trump, Democrats have a good chance to win back the House in the short term and be competitive in it throughout the 2020s (because of redistricting). In the Senate, they will probably maintain their small deficit in the short term but remain competitive in the long term. State governments are likewise competitive again for a decade or so. In the Supreme Court, a conservative majority is achieved and lasts an indeterminate amount of time.

Under President Clinton, Republicans would have kept/augmented their House majorities this year and drawn district lines to make it very hard for Democrats to win the House again until 2032. In the Senate, they would blow Democrats into oblivion with the bad Senate map in 2018, and the Senate wouldn’t be competitive again for several years either. In the states, Republicans likewise lock in control for another 10 years. And in the Supreme Court, Democrats get a liberal-to-moderate court for an indeterminate amount of time.

Your mileage may vary, quite a bit, for how to weight those. But I personally think the Clinton presidency one is the better scenario for Republicans, and the Trump presidency is the better scenario for Democrats.

I will now go collect my contrarian card at the front desk.

natesilver: I wouldn’t go that far. I mean — the default, certainly, is that you’d rather win the presidency than lose it. I do think, though, that it’s far from obvious that Republicans are better off with Trump and that people who think it’s obvious don’t have enough of a long-term view.

micah: I think it’s obvious.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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shadowtearling · 7 years

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January is over! I’m both glad and surprised it came and went so quickly. I feel proud of myself for reading as much as I did this month!!!! I think the new year is always a good motivator to read read read. I love it. I’m doing a better job so far this year of reading whenever I can and taking advantage of my spare time in between and before classes. PLUS the long commute helps. Last year, I constantly found reason to NOT read, and this year, it’s like I can’t get enough! I also apparently can’t get enough of the exclamation point. Is it too much? Also! Do you all like this new banner? Any font suggestions? I’m clearly terrible at picking fonts; too indecisive. :( Anyway! On to the books!!!

Rating system: 2017 is the year of reading critically if I want to add diversity to my list of priorities for the kind books to be reading. This means also being a little more stingy with my ratings. (I don’t feel bad about this actually. I found I feel guiltier giving out five stars willy nilly, so this is an improvement!). This rating system is still arbitrary, so three star ratings don’t always have the same weight to them. As always, I rate based on my own thoughts and feelings, and as always, these are my opinions (unless I’m speaking about my marginalization(s). Don’t argue lmao).

Rating Scale: 🌟 - 1 whole star ⭐️ - ½ star

Nichijou: My ordinary life (Vol. 1 & 2) by Keiichi Arawi - 🌟 🌟 🌟 = 3/5 (for both) This is a manga series about high school everyday life, but with a twist! (she said with sarcasm) There are a bunch of girls in high school and one of them happens to be a robot who just wants to fit in and be human (and her child scientist companion). One of the girls also happens to love making puns, one of them is the typical deadpan-type of characters, and the others are the normal ones. Some jokes were funny, most of them were not. I love puns, but this just had really terrible ones. The characters were supremely uninteresting, and I really don’t care about any of them. That said, while I was reading this, I guess I was entertained for the time being. This helps pass time quickly, but not the greatest manga I’ve ever encountered.

Sweetness and Lightning (Vol. 1) by Gido Amagakure - 🌟 🌟 🌟 = 3/5 What’s better than food-related manga? Nothing! Except, I can find better food-related manga out there than this lmao. This was fun to read, but I found all of the characters were bland. I couldn’t find myself too invested in their stories. I also feel like this is going in the direction of student-teacher relationship (younger me would have loved that, but me now is absolutely creeped out by the idea of it). The child is adorable, though. I also do really love the positive relationship between the child and the dad, so that’s one redeeming quality. I don’t think I’ll continue with this series, though, unless I find copies of this for cheaps.

Orange (Omnibus Vol. 1 & 2) by Ichigo Takano - 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 = 5/5 (for both) Out of all 12 books I’ve read this month, these are the only two five-star reads! I’m stingy lmao. Anyway, this was soooooooo good! Basically, this series is about this girl, Naho, who on the first day of her junior year (I THINK... don’t hold me to this), she receives a letter from future her telling her what will happen on those days and what she needs to do versus what she should avoid doing. She dismisses that letter until the contents come true! So this series then entails what happens with those letters and Naho & her friends. I cried so many tears and felt so many feelings. I related so hard to Kakeru even though our struggles were not the same. I also really loved the ending (even though I know a lot of people didn’t like how open-ended it was). I appreciated that aspect of the story because it feels true to the kind of tale it’s telling. It perfectly depicts how friends first react versus how they should react to other friends’ struggles. I really love the dynamics between every person, and I can only wish this series was longer to explore the different friendships we were introduced to. I HIGHLY recommend this series. Please go read it! (And then tell me so we can binge-watch the anime together!)

Something in Between by Melissa de la Cruz - 🌟 🌟 🌟 ⭐️ = 3.5/5 A story with a Filipina lead?! Sign me up! This tells the story of Jasmine who is the perfect student and is set to kick ass in college until she learns that her and her entire family have been illegal immigrants the entire time, and this super awesome scholarship she was supposed to get can no longer help her. I really loved getting to see my own culture reflected in this story (this is an #ownvoices ;) so go check it out). I didn’t appreciate the little jabs at other cultures though I do understand where it comes from. I also think there was so much happening? I feel like Jasmine and her fam were trying to tackle so much all at once (it’s realistic bc what POC doesn’t go thru so much in so little time), but also it made for a messy story. OH! I hated the writing lmao. It was tacky and not my style. I also think I’m just hella tired of YA contemporaries, but as of right now, they’re the biggest source for diversity in any YA category. Fantasy is still far too white lol. I still would recommend this because it is an important story that helps humanize immigrants, but beware lmao.

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli- 🌟 🌟 🌟 = 3/5 I really enjoyed this story, but I was expecting so much more than what I was given. I hear everyone always raving about how fantastic this book was, but I think this was way too overhyped for me, which is why I didn’t like it as much as everyone else. I feel like the tension between friends was either unnecessary or done poorly (I’m talking about Leah here). HOWEVER, I still do like it. Simon was a fun character, and Blue was also really interesting. I also really love the discussion around consent and identity, and I think it was done well.

Welcome to the Shadowhunter Academy (#1) by Cassandra Clare - 🌟 🌟 🌟 = 3/5 Simon felt reaaaaaally out of character in this novella. Maybe that’s bc of what happened at the end of TMI and that’s a valid excuse, but it makes me uncomfortable. Simon was one of the better characters in that series, and I really feel like he got butchered here. With that said, however, I do think that this novella shows improvement in CC’s writing because I still surprisingly enjoyed it. I just don’t think I’ll continue on with CC’s works? I think this is me breaking up with the Shadowhunter chronicles. She’s also highly problematic, so there’s that.

The Star Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi - 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 = 4/5 LOVE This! An #Ownvoices fantasy about Mayavati whose horoscope entails a marriage with death and destruction. I buddy read this one with one of my really close friends (she doesn’t read too often), and we both really enjoyed it. Maya is this really dynamic character that, as the story progresses, really matures in a realistic way. The writing was phenomenal but I do think it was a bit out of place? Idk I always have problems whenever the writing is sophisticated but then it’s first person POV. Like.... I’m pretty positive that my brain cannot conceive even half of those words to describe what’s happening around me. I’d see a tree and I’d describe it as “green and really tall...” So there’s that. I also think that the writing kind of made it difficult to fall in love with the couple. I didn’t totally buy the romance, despite me loving both characters individually. I love the incorporation of different aspects of Indian culture as part of the fantasy elements of the world. I would love more from this story, but as it stands, this is where Maya’s story ends (the next book is actually a companion........). I highly recommend it! (Even though it sounds like I didn’t like it lmao I promise I did).

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake - 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 = 4/5 I absolutely loved this. First of all, I appreciate that I can tell each sister apart from one another because they have such distinct personalities (Arisonoe is my fave as it turns out even if she has a dumb ass name). It’s a super slow book that basically builds up to the fight to the death (it doesn’t actually happen in this book). I knew that going in which is why I wasn’t salty when it didn’t happen. Basically, we get introduced to the sisters in this book, find out that there are some hella issues going on with their missing powers, and it gave us time to get used to the world all while introducing us to the characters. My number one biggest giant complaint is that I realllllly fucking hate Joseph. He’s an asshat and I hope he dies in book two. Katharine please kill him. There was an unnecessary love triangle lmao like fuck off with that shit maybe. I also hated Pietyr. So basically, the dudes are assholes and the girls are fantastic. Maybe that was the point? This is a matriarchal society so I guess it worked. Highly recommend if you really like politically-driven books and a large cast of characters.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seannan McGuire - 🌟 🌟 🌟 ⭐️ = 3.5/5 The writing is quite calming. Also confusing. This is another one of those far too hyped for me to love in the same way everyone else does. i appreciate the amazing concept and the wonderful conversations taking place in this book about identity, sexuality, gender, and mental illness. However, it was too short for me to really love any of the characters. I certainly failed to connect with the MC and didn’t feel for her anguish. It also left a bad taste in my mouth that the first person to be killed off in the murder mystery aspect happens to be POC when there were like 20 other white kids lmao........ NOT THAT I CONDONE MURDER but why we gotta kill POC for....... Idk. Proceed with caution I guess.

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe- 🌟 🌟 🌟 = 3/5 This was funny as hell. Basically, it’s about this lady whose name we never really know because she keeps changing it to suit her needs. She was born in a prison, so she’s set up to fail in every aspect of her life bc poor and no family. HOWEVER, this is the story of how she eventually says fuck you to everyone and succeeds anyway bc why not. I read this for class, and I highly enjoyed it. Problems: there were literally zero chapter breaks, random ass capitalization (why must 17/18th century authors do this to me), too many much cataloging of goods (though that was literally the point is to be excessive... I get it... pls stop), and the author basically just said to the plot “GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO” without taking a break. If you like classics similar to Jane Austen (but without the romance part bc she just basically scams all her husbands lmao), I think this is a really good one to check out.

Thank you, lovely, for reading through this mess of a post. I love you and I hope you have a wonderful February reading month!

#wrap up #2017 #january 2017 #january #books #book #bookish #booklr #book reviews #read #reading #readingwu #readingwu 2017

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newseveryhourly · 4 years

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WASHINGTON -- For decades the vice-presidential selection process has had an air of cloak-and-dagger to it. The party's nominees would say little about their thinking, the would-be running mates would reveal even less, and an elaborate game of subterfuge would unfold that mostly captivated political insiders and usually had little bearing on the election.But a convergence of forces has transformed Joe Biden's search for a running mate on the Democratic ticket. His pledge to pick a woman immediately limited the pool of potential candidates and intensified the competition; that decision, coupled with Biden's garrulous tendency to think aloud about his options, have remade the tryout period into an unusually public audition, and the coronavirus outbreak ensured that it is taking place entirely online and on TV.And Biden himself has increasingly pushed into the political foreground the overwhelming reason that his choice may be the most consequential in decades: the expectation, downplayed but not exactly denied by the Biden campaign, that the 77-year-old would be a one-term president. If that turns out to be the case, his running mate now could well be leading the Democratic ticket in four years."I view myself as a transition candidate," Biden said during an online fundraiser last week, likening his would-be presidential appointments to an athletic team stocking its roster with promising talent: "You got to get more people on the bench that are ready to go in -- 'Put me in coach, I'm ready to play.' Well, there's a lot of people that are ready to play, women and men."The ramifications of Biden's choice will be profound. Even if he loses in November, his decision will all but anoint a woman as the party's next front-runner, and potentially shape its agenda for the next decade, depending on if she is a centrist or someone more progressive."Joe being 77, I think people are going to look to see who is the person who could be the next president," said Harry Reid, the Democratic former Senate majority leader, calling Biden's decision the most significant "in any election cycle I've seen."Former Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri was even blunter about what is at stake: "You're writing your ticket to be the first woman president."There are other factors that have made Biden's decision so momentous. Tara Reade's allegation of sexual assault against Biden has ensured that whichever woman he selects will be his principal surrogate battling those claims, while leaving many Democrats, men and women, convinced the party must put forward a female nominee in 2024.And given President Donald Trump's penchant for race-baiting, the disproportionate impact the virus is having on communities of color and the political loyalty of black women, many leading Democrats believe Biden will select a black or Latina running mate."It boils down to whether he has a Hispanic woman or a black woman," Reid said.Biden has been careful to avoid providing a definitive signal on whether he would seek reelection should he win this year. But his references to serving as a transitional figure in the party, and the yearslong public health and economic recovery that the virus may require, have left many Democrats with the belief that, at age 82 in 2024, he would pass the party's torch to his vice president."I don't want to wish ill on anyone, and I love Joe Biden, but we'd be electing somebody in his late 70s," said former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, referring to the November election. She said of the vice-presidential competition: "This is really auditioning to be the next leader of the Democratic Party."Many Democrats believe a gut politician like the former vice president will pick somebody whose measure he has taken. But that is not to say that Biden, who in recent weeks has reaffirmed his commitment to picking a woman, is immune to political considerations: He will weigh the turnout lift he might get from picking a woman of color alongside the potential regional upside from selecting a Midwesterner.Privately, Biden's aides have started to reach out to Democrats who know the contenders to solicit their views. They have also had some party leaders talk directly with the former vice president about how he ought to be thinking about his decision, according to Democrats familiar with the conversations.Biden himself has talked publicly about potential candidates to an unusual degree. He has chatted with Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and held personal phone calls with Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who answered bluntly "yes" when asked on MSNBC if she would accept an offer to be Biden's running mate. Advisers to all four women acknowledge privately that they are keenly interested in the vice presidency.At the same time, the former vice president and his top advisers are being heavily lobbied.Stan Greenberg, a longtime Democratic pollster, has laid out a case to Biden's inner circle that he should choose Warren to consolidate support across the Democratic coalition and drive up turnout among younger people and liberals, according to people familiar with Greenberg's overtures.A polling presentation Greenberg shared with the Biden campaign cautioned that as of early April, supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders were "dangerously not" united behind Biden's candidacy. Greenberg suggested that a strongly progressive message on the economy would resonate with those people.Sara Nelson, the head of the Association of Flight Attendants and an increasingly prominent leader in the labor movement, said she and other progressive union leaders had communicated a strong preference for Warren to the Biden campaign."She brings more progressives to the ticket than anyone else," Nelson said.While Warren remains in close touch with progressives, she is also engaged in outreach beyond the left and has been contacting numerous lawmakers to discuss coronavirus legislation in recent weeks. Those contacted include Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, Biden's most influential supporter in the chamber.Warren last week also called a number of Democratic lawmakers designated by the party as "front-line" members -- those facing the toughest races in 2020 -- to offer help with their reelection campaigns. Both she and Klobuchar have issued a number of endorsements for vulnerable lawmakers in recent days.The three senators Biden competed against in the primary have vocal advocates in and around his orbit.But they also have their detractors. Some Democrats worry Warren is too liberal for Biden and point out that choosing her could disrupt the party's prospects to control the Senate given that Massachusetts has a Republican governor who could temporarily appoint her successor. A number of progressives are uneasy about the moderate Klobuchar. And Biden's wife, Jill, has been open about how angry she was over Harris' biting attack on him in the first debate last year.A number of Biden allies are advocating lesser-known Democratic women. One of his top supporters has made the case to him for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, a Latina who served in Congress and as the state's health secretary, experience that could prove invaluable during a pandemic. Lujan Grisham's sister died of the same cancer that claimed the life of Biden's son, Beau.Another close friend of Biden has urged the campaign to consider the former national security adviser Susan Rice, a black woman who has never run for office but who has deep governing experience.Lujan Grisham and Rice have done nothing publicly to pursue the post. In contrast, Stacey Abrams, the former candidate for governor of Georgia, has recently embarked on a sustained media tour to pursue the vice presidency, openly encouraging Biden to choose her in a manner that has startled even some of her admirers.Heitkamp said Biden's age and the seriousness of the times all but demanded he make "a governing pick," rather than select somebody for a perceived political lift this year."Given Joe's age, this has to be someone capable of stepping in and being president of the United States," she said, alluding to "the lesson John McCain learned" when he picked the lightly experienced Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008.For the contenders, this is a competition for the vice-presidential nomination very much worth having.Should Biden win and not seek reelection, the Democratic nomination might not be up for grabs for another 12 years -- an eternity for the party's many ambitious up-and-comers. Then there is simple probability: Fourteen of the country's 45 presidents previously served as vice president: (In 1961, Lyndon Johnson, who had his staff research how many vice presidents ended up in the Oval Office, explained to Clare Boothe Luce: "I'm a gambling man, darlin', and this is the only chance I got.")Whoever gets the nod, Biden officials say, it will not be until this summer. Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a chairman of the campaign, said he hoped Biden would wait to make his selection until after both the candidate and the vetting committee he appointed had the chance to interview potential running mates in person."I would not want him to make a decision like that without meeting and having some real face-to-face conversations," Richmond said. Asked about the very public nature of the competition, he said: "The trying-out on TV, I think, is normal. The actual campaigning for it is a little different, but we're in different times and people make their own decisions."Indeed, beyond the lack of in-person meetings with the prospects, Biden's deliberations have been constrained in other ways. Lawmakers who might ordinarily be pressuring him on behalf of their colleagues -- or, for that matter, against them -- say the selection of a future vice president remains a distant concern compared with the virus crisis.Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida said that Democratic lawmakers from her pivotal state had been floating one of their own as a contender: Rep. Val Demings, a former Orlando police chief who served as an impeachment manager.But more proactive lobbying had mostly been on hold, Castor said. Demings paused plans for a ramped-up national travel schedule when the pandemic set in."Val Demings would make an outstanding vice president," Castor said, adding of her Florida colleagues, "We've had those discussions, but it's all emergency response right now."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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claremal-one · 4 years

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Did Sexism — And Fear of Sexism — Keep Warren From Winning The Nomination?

cwick: To mark the end of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, I’ve gathered some of FiveThirtyEight’s finest thinkers on the topic that has dogged the Democratic primary for months: electability. Warren’s campaign had a slow and steady rise last summer, but seemed to peak when her opponents took issue with her support for Medicare for All. From there, her support dropped as Sen. Bernie Sanders’s rose, and now Sanders is again the standard-bearer for the progressive wing of the party.

Clare, Amelia, Maggie: Much will be written about how Democrats didn’t think Warren was electable. But if needed, let’s dispense with euphemisms right away. In this case, were voters’ “electability concerns” really just sexist concerns?

clare.malone: Let’s talk about sex(ism), baby.

I think we should define “electability” first.

maggie: Basically, for the 2020 cycle, we’re talking about “can this person beat President Trump.”

clare.malone: There’s a political science definition of it where you can say, “Oh, women are actually really electable when they run for office.” And then there’s the 2020 pundit definition that makes it a shorthand for “Who will appeal to white male swing voters in six states?” That brought us to a lot of national handwringing over what these voters like, don’t like, and on and on. By the way, voters probably aren’t wrong at all to assume some sexism is in play.

ameliatd: Right, Maggie, which is just voters making a lot of guesses and assumptions about what will make someone a strong opponent for Trump. I think voters’ concerns about “electability” were largely — but not entirely — about sexism. Some people thought Warren was too liberal to get elected. Which isn’t unrelated to her gender — there’s research showing that voters generally think women are more liberal than they actually are. But it seemed like a different bucket of worries than “Will sexism doom a woman against Trump?” which is also something I heard a lot on the campaign trail.

cwick: Maggie, you wrote about whether electability is real. What was the verdict?

maggie: The basic gist is that some people are more likely to be elected than others. But if you’re trying to mentally strategize which of several candidates will be able to win a general election months down the road … you’re probably playing yourself.

ameliatd: And then there’s the question of whether “electability” is just a polite cover for a voters’ personal unwillingness to vote for a woman, or their genuine concern about whether other people would vote for a woman. (Or a little bit of both!)

clare.malone: That’s the most interesting part to me. On Super Tuesday, TONS of liberal voters decided to cede to the electability argument. Thereby bolstering … sexism!

maggie: I kind of love the fact that you get these polls where people say, “Well, I have no problem voting for a woman, but I know all my neighbors would.” They remind me of the surveys of doctors that are like, “I can take a sandwich from a pharma rep and not be compromised. But all the other doctors would be.”

cwick: And we know — or at least some data shows — that many Democratic primary voters are sexist themselves, and that may have held Warren back.

ameliatd: Is “electability” the “likability” of 2020? I think people have mostly figured out that “likability” is a pretty sexist conceit.

cwick: “You’re electable enough, Eizabeth.”

ameliatd: I think we can say pretty confidently that outright sexism did hurt Warren with some voters. Whether it doomed her candidacy, though … that’s the million-dollar question.

clare.malone: From my inbox just now:

People are fascinatingly, stubbornly against entertaining the idea that societal sexism trickles down into voter preferences.

ameliatd: And also, based on what I’ve heard on the campaign trail, getting people to understand that sexism is a factor could inadvertently make them less willing to vote for a woman. It’s a weird, self-defeating conundrum. You get people to accept that sexism in politics is real and it shakes their confidence in whether women can win.

cwick: Delaney definitely did not lose because he was bald.

maggie: Well, I mean, given what we know about people’s preferences for who they think “looks presidential,” all those things could actually be true. Including Delaney and his vote-losing pate.

Amelia, I’m curious about the dichotomy between the data that shows women who run for congressional office do just as well as men in elections and these big, executive elections where the pattern from congressional races doesn’t seem to hold.

ameliatd: Yeah, that’s such an interesting question, Maggie. Part of the issue is that with presidential elections, we’re kind of flying blind because there have been so few. But there is evidence that gender stereotypes align better with legislative races (people tend to be more comfortable with women in collaborative roles, for example) than executive races. The presidency is kind of the last frontier — it’s much harder to get people used to the idea that a woman could inhabit that role.

Also, I think what people don’t understand is that 1) there is sexism in politics, but 2) women candidates have gotten pretty darn good at responding to voters’ sexism, to the point where they do mostly win at the same rates as men. The sexism is there. It’s harder for women to run a campaign. But that doesn’t mean they can’t win.

maggie: I think that’s a pretty good encapsulation of some of our oversimplified ideas of what sexism (and racism) must look like. It doesn’t have to be blocking someone out completely. It just means making it harder.

cwick: Amelia, how much of this is also about Trump, since Democrats have seen how Trump runs against a woman?

ameliatd: I think a lot of it has to do with Trump, and Democrats’ sense that Trump somehow managed to tap into the country’s sexist id during the 2016 election, and that he’ll do it again this year. Which isn’t wrong — there’s plenty of research showing that Trump appears to have motivated more sexist voters in that election. But it also makes the assumption that all female candidates are the same, and that with Warren you’re just getting Clinton 2.0.

clare.malone: Right, this is where I throw in the “Clinton and Trump were each historically disliked candidates” line.

ameliatd: It’s not even clear that Clinton lost because of sexism! It was a weird election, and there’s evidence that some Democrats were motivated to vote because of Trump’s sexist attacks.

But I think it’s hard for a lot of Democrats to shake the visceral feeling that Trump did something akin to sexist black magic to defeat her, and that he can do it again to another woman.

cwick: Sexist black magic conjured up Comey’s letter.

clare.malone: I think it was also the demonstrated capacity of GOP or independent, conservative-leaning women to still vote for Trump despite the sexism and the “Access Hollywood” tape. That also jarred Democratic voters.

maggie: Which comes back to the inherent mystery of who is electable. If former Vice President Joe Biden wins in November, that doesn’t prove he was more electable than Sanders or Warren. It just proves he was more electable than Hillary Clinton.

cwick: And maybe not even that, Maggie! Given this is a whole different cycle.

maggie: True!

cwick: How much does Sanders’s treatment tell us about Warren? Take, for example, that he was not punished at the polls — at least noticeably — for his support for Medicare for All. Does that tell us something about whether a woman running for president has to be “just right?” Not too liberal, not too impractical, not too shrill.

ameliatd: I have heard many a Warren supporter complain about Sanders’s yelling. Why should he get to yell when Warren can’t?

clare.malone: Well, lemme start with this fact: Biden tends to do better with women voters than men (or about the same between groups), whereas Sanders does better with men, according to the exit polls.

ameliatd: That’s right, Clare — Sanders consistently gets more support from men than women. Including in states where he did well (like New Hampshire) and states where he lost (like Minnesota).

clare.malone: And I think some of that has to do with the perception that Sanders’s campaign and its supporters — not necessarily the man himself — are sexist and are critical of Warren in particular in a gendered way.

ameliatd: I think it might go back even further than that to the way some of his supporters refused to coalesce behind Clinton back in 2016.

And I’ve also seen some signs that women are especially likely to prioritize beating Trump over choosing a candidate they align with on the issues, which could also help explain why they’re moving toward Biden.

maggie: I think issues like Medicare for All really get into the subtle ways that unconscious bias can affect how you view the candidates. We know people assume female candidates are more liberal than male counterparts, even when that isn’t true on a policy basis. Was Warren punished because voters didn’t like women, because she seemed waffly on Medicare for All, or because people assumed she’d be to the left of Sanders and were then even more pissed off when she was a little waffly?

clare.malone: A great point to bring up. I do think Warren had the electoral baggage of being actually pretty damn liberal. And generally we see more centrist people elected as president.

So she was pushing the envelope on a couple of fronts.

maggie: She was! And yet I kept hearing anecdotally people complain that she wasn’t lefty enough. Which, once I found out about the “women are more liberal” assumption, seemed more about what people thought she should be.

ameliatd: What I will say is, a lot of people consistently liked Warren. And continue to like her. That’s very different from Clinton. And I was actually surprised by how few voters compared her to Clinton in my conversations with them. Or when they did, it was to say how different she was. So even though I’ve seen a lot of depressed Warren supporters talking about sexism in my Twitter feed today, I think Warren probably did expand voters’ views of what a woman candidate can be.

clare.malone: She styled herself as a candidate — and like, literally styled herself — as a person who wasn’t “of the elite,” which was the big Clinton critique. Target runs, sweaters, not the power suit. “Look at my cute dog!” Her persona was all about accessibility.

ameliatd: Warren was always wearing sneakers on the campaign trail! That made me happy every time I went to one of her events.

cwick: We’ve been focusing on what Warren didn’t win, but what did she earn through this campaign? What power has she now amassed? And how can she potentially use it for the rest of the campaign or a new administration?

ameliatd: I think she still has a lot of power, even though she’s out of the running for the nomination. The wealth tax is her baby, and it’s extremely popular. She’s got a zillion plans for the taking. I will also be interested to see how Biden and Sanders try to appeal to her voters. Because, as we were discussing earlier, I don’t think it’s obvious at all that her supporters will automatically flock to Sanders.

clare.malone: I think her voters tend to be more establishment-leaning, so Biden voters more than Sanders ones.

maggie: Which is interesting, given that the policy positions between her and Sanders are much closer.

cwick: It’s clear what Sanders needs from her (her voters). But what does Biden need from her, given his coalition and momentum?

clare.malone: Right, Maggie. But I guess if this primary is turning into a pragmatic one — beat Trump above all else — voters whose preferred candidates have already dropped out might just turn to the “electability” metric once more.

ameliatd: And now it might be Sanders’s turn to get burned by “electability” as Warren’s supporters look for an alternative. It would be ironic if Warren supporters who were upset about how the “electability” narrative hurt their candidate rejected Sanders for similar reasons.

maggie: I think it’s really interesting that both Sanders supporters and Biden supporters right now seem to think the other side is making an obvious and idiotic mistake in choosing a clearly unelectable candidate. At least if my Facebook feed is any indication.

clare.malone: Intraparty polarization.

maggie: And also goes back to what the scientists told me about electability. When figuring out who’s electable, people first figure out who they like more, then say they like them because they’re more electable.

cwick: If only there was a third candidate to split the difference, Maggie.

maggie: TULSI GABBARD

cwick: Now there’s a good electability chat.

clare.malone: I would most like to get a beer with Tulsi … to ask her what’s going on???

maggie: Out of all the candidates, a night drinking with Tulsi feels like it has the most potential to be memorable. I mean, now that Marianne Williamson is out.

ameliatd: This gets back to what we were discussing earlier, Maggie — how much of the “electability” worry for Warren was really just a socially acceptable cloak for sexism? Maybe even an unconscious cloak?

maggie: Exactly, Amelia. And there’s just no way to quantify that. Because even the people who did have sexist reasons for not liking her, most of them probably feel like it was just, “Well I don’t like her as much.”

clare.malone: Here’s my theory of sexism and the presidency and why it’s different from women running for office at lower levels: When you vote for your female member of Congress, you don’t actually ever see her that much. She probably doesn’t have enough money to do tons and tons of TV ads, etc. You probably don’t watch her debate. But with the presidency, you’re CONSTANTLY exposed to the woman candidate. You analyze her every move in debates, what she looks like, what she wears, how she talks to other people. And either you relate to her and like her or she just brings out every sexist pet peeve that’s been ingrained in you societally. She becomes home to all your projections, “likeability” tropes about librarians and teachers and on and on. She becomes every woman in your life you’ve liked and disliked.

ameliatd: I also really do think that growing awareness of sexism in politics — because of Clinton, because of #MeToo, because there are more women in politics talking about their experiences — spooked some voters this year, and those fears had a lot of power because many people are extremely risk-averse. So I wonder what the next presidential race will look like, hard as it is to imagine life after 2020. Do voters put less emphasis on their fears and awareness of sexism?

That is, assuming a woman runs of course.

maggie: Does whoever gets the nomination have to choose a woman for vice president at this point?

ameliatd: I would think yes?

clare.malone: I mean … Biden probably will.

ameliatd: A female VP would be interesting for your theory of sexism in politics, Clare — would four years of exposure to a woman almost at the top of the government make people less inclined to judge and analyze her? I’m genuinely not sure. In some ways the presidency feels kind of sui generis.

clare.malone: Yes, totally, an interesting thought experiment, Amelia.

cwick: Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state suggests people are OK when women are in high-profile positions of power for several years, it’s just different when they seek those positions of power.

OK, I think we can wrap it there. Anything else, everybody?

clare.malone: Nada

maggie: Nope

ameliatd: We have solved electability.

maggie: I just checked twitter to find a video of Bailey the dog stealing someone’s burrito. Vote Bailey.

ameliatd: Ugh, yes, pets for president. No more people. Too unelectable.

from Clare Malone – FiveThirtyEight https://ift.tt/2PUaCRJ via https://ift.tt/1B8lJZR

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