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grabyourluck-blog · 2 years

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9 Ways to Be Certain You'll Fail in Internet Marketing

New Post has been published on https://www.referral-master.com/9-ways-to-be-certain-youll-fail-in-internet-marketing/

9 Ways to Be Certain You'll Fail in Internet Marketing

Success is great, but failure is EASIER! Come on… I know you can do it. Here’s how:

1. Be filled with doubt. Cultivate it at every step, looking for reasons why you will fail, why your business plan won’t work, why effort is fruitless and hopeless. People who are successful want that success, they dream about it, breathe it, live it in their minds over and over before it happens in real life. When successful people feel doubt trying to creep in, they stamp it out faster than a cockroach in their kitchen. No wonder why they succeed. If you’re going to fail and fail big, you’ve got to be sure you’re filled with self-doubt from the time you get up until you fall asleep at night.

Whatever you do, do not listen to or read positive messages, do not become enthusiastic, and try your best not to be happy. Just sit in the corner quietly with your milk and a giant box of cookies (or your beer and burritos) and don’t come out of that corner until you’ve convinced yourself that you’re a big fat failure who will never succeed at anything. Remember, negative self-talk is crucial to your failure. If you let positive self-talk creep in, you may accidentally succeed, and then where would you be?

2. Be a vacillating slick willy. Don’t stick to one plan. Do NOT make any decisions. Do not move in one direction – move in all directions at once. Buy every ebook and program out there on how to be successful online, and then don’t even read them. If you do read them, bounce from one to the next without doing anything. Change your mind every week on your course of action. When you’ve mastered this, begin changing your mind every day. Aim to change your mind hourly, because this is the pinnacle of failure.

Here’s the monkey mind chatter to strive for: “Should you do this or do that or do this and that or that other thing or what about this hey I could do the thing over there but whoa, what’s this? Maybe I should do this – what do you think?”

Go ahead and second, third, fourth and fifth guess yourself silly and until your mind is numb and all you can do is veg out in front of the TV. Above all else, do NOT make one plan and stick to it – that’s the kiss of success and you do not want that.

3. Turn your obstacles into failures. Those stupid successful people are always taking their obstacles and turning them into triumphs. When their new website isn’t cutting it, what do they do? Fix it until it’s making sales, or start over and find a way to make it successful. That’s crazy! And it’s also more work, and who needs that? If you should accidentally actually DO something like build a new website, hope that it just sits there and gets moldy. That way you can heave a big sigh and say that “you tried” as you drown your sorrows in hops at the local pub.

Above all else, when you run into an obstacle do NOT take a step back and decide on your best course of action – this often leads to success. Do not decide that if this way didn’t work, there must be a better way. And do not tell yourself that you just found one way that doesn’t work, and you’re that much closer to finding a way that does work. Instead, throw up your hands, say that Internet Marketing doesn’t work because it’s all just a big scam, and give up.

4. Reinvent the wheel. If there is already a proven method for accomplishing something, ignore that method and go invent a new one. For example, there are all sorts of ways to successfully drive targeted traffic to websites, and these methods are used everyday by millions of online marketers. Do NOT use these methods! Instead, invent an entirely new method. This will take up lots of your time and probably lots of your money, too.

Plus the odds of it working are miniscule to none, so you’re almost guaranteed to fail. See how easy it is to avoid success? Simply thumb your nose at anything that’s proven to work and strike out to find an entirely new method to fail. (I have this traffic idea, by the way, which involves 3 dairy cows, a radial antennae and a photo of a Topeka Taco Stand – I’ll let you know how it works out.)

5. Indulge in plenty of delusions of grandeur. Your product is going to be the biggest thing since the iPod only it’s going to be BIGGER because even the tribesmen of the rainforest will be buying this up faster than blow darts and you’re going to get so much free publicity that Oprah is going to do a 1 hour prime time special just on you and your product and cripes, even your own MOTHER will love it, and she hates everything!

Whew. In your quest for Internet marketing failure, feeding these festering frenzied fantastic feats of glory will take up a major share of your time. After all, if you’re daydreaming you’re not working. You’re also not looking at the real world issues of whether or not there is actually a demand for your new discount concrete billy bob beer and crumpet party statues. One of the fastest ways to fail is to devise a product no one but you desires – and then spend your time daydreaming about the fortune you’re about to make.

Besides, this is all about failure. What are you dreaming about making fortunes anyway?

6. Be careless. Sure your ghostwriter just submitted the new product to you – just go ahead and launch it without reading it, right? Of course! How else are you going to miss the glaring error on page 42, or the fact that she omitted the entire key section people are dying to read?

Look, if you attend to details and make sure everything is in order prior to launch, you might actually be successful. So when your programmer sends you that new software, don’t check it, don’t click any links and do not test it. Just assume it’s good enough and start selling – you may do enough damage to your reputation to ensure future failure on a permanent basis.

7. Be lazy. Go watch TV, stay in bed, play video games, whatever. Just do NOT go to work on your business because you might actually accomplish something. Pity all those successful people who spend hours upon hours working on their business – no wonder why they are confined to making money, getting accolades and being successful. If they only knew how easy it is to fail they would just stop accomplishing stuff.

8. Be sick. That’s right – how can you succeed if you’re sick all the time, right? So go ahead and eat that junk food. Stay up all night. Drink until you puke. And above all, do NOT exercise. Exercise is shown to increase your health in a thousand and one different ways, including making you THINK better.

And if you’re thinking better, you’re probably realizing this entire article has been utterly ridiculous – after all, you already know how to fail. Everyone knows that. And while it does take some effort to fail, it’s well worth it. How else can you lay on your deathbed one day, wishing you’d achieved your goals instead of being a doubt-filled, vacillating, failure seeking, wheel reinventing, delusional, careless, lazy, sick, almost-was Internet marketer?

Yes, there is a #9 – and that’s to go do the OPPOSITE of all the opposites I just wrote about. Success isn’t hard – you just need to get busy NOT doing all the things we’ve just covered here.

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icinch · 2 years

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9 Ways to Be Certain You'll Fail in Internet Marketing

New Post has been published on https://www.cinchhomebiz.com/9-ways-to-be-certain-youll-fail-in-internet-marketing/

9 Ways to Be Certain You'll Fail in Internet Marketing

Success is great, but failure is EASIER! Come on… I know you can do it. Here’s how:

Besides, this is all about failure. What are you dreaming about making fortunes anyway?

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randombubblegum · 2 years

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When do you think awsten really started to change? Like right after Fandom? I haven’t been a fan long enough to see the change, I just know he’s more annoying than ever and he makes fans mad. I’m surprised I’m still here 💀

I also don’t understand why he said in an interview that he’s doing so much better than he was prior to GH, yet I feel like GH has way more references to self-hatred and death than any of their other albums. I get his whole “fake it ‘til you make it” mentality regarding his confidence, but I can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake, and I’m sure other fans feel the same way. I know this is probably old news especially since GH has been out for almost a year now, but I’ve only recently started watching their interviews, recent and old, and I really do see a big difference

its hard to say exactly but id put him Changing For The Worse actually BEFORE fandom, like in early 2019? thats when he fell in with super annoying nasty twitter funnymen™ in la and it made him a JACKASS. like SUCH an asshole holy shit it was awful. hes cut all of them off now (with dog girl being the last to go actually lol) but the very observable change in how he acted online from “funny chaos-loving endearing jokester” to “self-absorbed asshole with mean jokes and cruel clapbacks” happened shortly after he befriended elijah daniel and company.

and then THAT comically self-aggrandizing attitude carried him through fandom and only snowballed from there….. before fandom he used to joke with otto and geoff like “WATERPARKS IS THE RICHEST BAND IN THE WORLD WERE SOOO RICH” and it was funny bc they were clearly an up and coming band so it wasnt like that!! but it was so endearing and funny you couldnt help but root for them!!!! but then when fandom era hit awsten was like…. not kidding anymore about wanting to be rich and famous and the vibe shifted noticeably. the whole “i want a big house i want nice things” motif mixed with the “its the FANS fault i dont have those, they wont let me be successful like i could if i were a rapper” kind of……. like entitlement isnt exactly the right word, but something close to it, started coming through.

fandom was honestly NOT an insightful or good commentary on fandom itself but it rly set the stage for awsten to be a huge self-centered braggart lol….. all this whining about how his fans like him too much or not enough, dont respect the boundaries online he actively rewards them for breaking, how hes not rich enough, etc etc all started there imo. and fandom did better than any album before it, partly because hopeless records put a lot of work into its promotion and partly because they were doing so well touring after entertainment….

and then it all fell apart honestly. awsten channeled the same shit but worse for gh and kept getting nastier and nastier with his attitude. like interviews are really the best way to judge this for yourself and i think youll see EXACTLY what im talking about when you do: they went from being cute funny character showcases of all the members, awsten cheerful and friendly and cracking jokes, to like….. awstens the only one talking. awsten going on about how great he is. awsten saying his music is the best in the world with no hint of joking exaggeration. geoff and otto go from being silent in the background to just not being there at all. it fucking sucks and i think its VERY clear why so many fans feel upset and let down when u watch the interviews all together

as for the last part of your ask yeah i think awsten is way worse off mentally and emotionally in the gh era than he was even during fandom. hes always had this self-aggrandizing overly confident abrasive persona he puts on to, yknow, be able to perform while also shielding himself from vulnerability, and thats normal. everyone used to like it even, since it was so clear he was puffing his chest up and faking it till he made it. now its become impossible to determine where the asshole braggart narcissistic persona STOPS and awsten the real person STARTS…… and the absolute worst part of all of this is that, based on how he treats his friends and partners when the cameras are off, it might not end at all. they legit might be one and the same at this point

#LONG answer wow but i hope this clears things up for u abt how and why we feel what ur noticing LOL #ur spot on tho abt the interviews and faking doing well tho for sure #ill never understand why a small subset of okd parx fans gets SOOOO pissed at me/us whenever we mention real valid criticism of awsten lol #even here on tumblr i see ppl getting so so mad that we have valid complaints lol. ok #mail time!#neg

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violetnotez · 4 years

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Hawks x reader

⤷ Genre: Fluff

⤷ Word Count: 5300+

⤷ Warnings: mild cursing

⤷ Synopsis: Hawks is completely head over heels when he meets the new side kick of Mirko, y/n, hero name Angel. After meeting y/n, Hawks begs Mirko to train the young hero himself, and starts a friendly relationship with her. But now Hawks wants to take it to the next level, and what better than a milkshake date to make her his.

This fic is for the @bnhabookclub Bingo Event! Here’s my masterlist to see all my work for this event!

Bingo Slot: Milkshake Date

This is my first time writing for Hawks, so hopefully its not too ooc! Also Im sorry if its kinda wordy? I feel like I just kinda went overboard!

Hawks sighed, his hands cradling his head lazily in boredom.

Another mind numbing meeting to suffocate his precious hours.

It was hard not to be a little annoyed at these weekly hero meetings he was somehow tangled up into. He could be doing so much more with this time, like working on his own missions or even catching up on some very over do paperwork. But With the LOV and other various villain organizations on the rise, the heroes have noticed that now more than ever, citizens are desperate for some stability and reassurance from their beloved heroes. So, with the help of various hero agencies, they had devised a plan to have heroes patrolling the streets frequently, way more frequently than before to promote the image that “the heroes were in control” and “more powerful than ever before.”

What a load of crap that was.

Hawks fought the urge to roll his eyes and interrupt this pompous executive who had the nerve to preach to heroes, and the top rated ones at that. He was amused looking around, seeing how many well known heroes were still attending these obnoxious meetings-every one in the top 20 was in this room, including Endeavor and Mirko. That was typical for these heroes, since approval ratings were so important, but today was a little different. The size of the group had expanded, the seats now occupied with a few lower rank heroes, a couple sidekicks, and a few newbies that were gaining some popularity.

Hawks watched as the stiff looking executive pushed his glasses back to his nose tightly, a small cough clearing his throat.

“Now, I think it would be a wise time for all the newest joining heroes in our mission of peace to stand and say a few words,”

Oh great-now it was show and tell.

Hawks was fighting the urge to outright humiliate this man in front of him for wasting so much of his time- it wasn't quite in his nature to keep his mouth shut. But, he had to admit that this was partially his fault: he had volunteered to be a part of this, and he had to respect the commitment he signed up for.

The man turnd to his right, his eyes trained on the Rabbit Hero herself.

“Miruko, would you like to introduce your sidekick first?” he asked, his voice monotone and serious.

Hawks instantly perked up at the man’s statement- so Miruko did bring along her sidekick?

He had heard a little about the stir Miruko had worked up in the media when she announced she had a new sidekick. Miruko has notoriously built the image of “working alone”, so the fact she had taken on a new partner had thrown everyone in quite a loop. He personally wasn’t quite interested in digging himself too into the dramatic headlines, he was way too busy for that, but from the bits and pieces he heard, you showed promise.

Your quirk was powerful, you were great with civilians, and you were pretty efficient in battle. He was mutually intrigued by you, especially since your introduction was the one thing he found remotely interesting in this whole meeting.

Miruko grinned devilishly, her red eyes gleaming.

“Sure thing,” she answered good naturally, her tough body standing up to introduce the person beside her. “As you all know by now, this is my new side kick-Angel,”

Oh and what a angel you were.

Hawks was completely enraptured by you, his eyes widening as he watched you stand up, your face coated in an incident look of nervousness and your pretty lips formed in a shy smile.

Man, if he knew how drop dead gorgeous you were, he would have made you his sidekick.

He rested his head deeper into his gloved hand, a quiet whistle escaping his lips.

And that hero suit wasn’t too bad either- your hero costume was sexy yet sleek, with a plunging white neckline and metal armor shaped like feathers that protected your shoulders. It was beautiful, elegant, and tantalizing to his eyes, his pupils hovering over each plush curve and indent of your tight body suit.

Something caught Hawk’s eye, though, and he leaned in slightly to see what it was-something white and fluffy was twitching on both sides of you, the curve extremely familiar-until he realized: you had wings.

They weren’t anywhere as large as his, but they were much more, well, angelic than his. His wings were loud and prideful with their overpowering size and rich blood red color. They were durable, tough, and screamed for attention.

Your wings though were silent beauties, barely noticeable yet once seen took your breath away. The feathers were a delicate white like snow, and with careful inspections had a shimmer to them like stained glass in a cathedral. They were absolutely mesmerizing, and Hawks found himself staring at those wings as you began to introduce yourself.

“Hello,” he watched you timidly speak out. It was adorable to watch, your shoulders trying to show strength by being puffed out like a prideful little bird, but oh the way your smile trembled and your digits fidgeted showed just how wracked with nerves you were. “I am the Angelic hero-Angel. My quirk is that I can create a calming effect on people, as well as fly”

Your eyes ghosted over the heroes in front of you, each face more stony and cold than the last. You finally gave a small glance at Hawks, his heart jumping in his chest.

Your eyes were so warm and enticing, wanting to swallow him whole with those pretty irises swimming with pure sweetness. His cheek was pushed up against his hand as he sent you a mischievous wink your way, a grin blossoming against his lips as he watched you become even more flustered than before.

His chest puffed up with pride as you sat down, knowing he had made a small impression on you. Maybe it was the dreariness of this meeting, or the fact he hadn't had any romantic endeavors in ages, but he had already gained a liking to you.

You walked out of the meeting, your head swarming and your heart pacing. Your first real hero meeting! You could practically scream with giddiness, electricity ebbing from your fingertips as you walked alongside your mentor, Miruko.

It was a dream to be working alongside such a skilled and likeable hero as herself, and you couldn't be more thankful for the bunny hero for seeing potential in you. Being a year out of UA, it was expected for you to start interning or even becoming sidekicks in order to get a headstart in the hero business. Even though Mirko was notorious for turning down any and all interns, you had applied to her agency and surprisingly has gotten in.

Now you were working with one of the top dogs of the whole Hero industry, and the pressure of that was both exhilarating and terrifying.

“So, what do ya think of your first hero meeting?” Miruko asked, her red eyes gleaming as she walked alongside you as the rest of the heroes crowded out of the conference room.

“It was-interesting” you spoke carefully, your tongue trying to find the best words. It was exhilarating to be around all these heroes, from up and coming to even the #1, but you had to admit it wasn't as intense as you had imagined it to be.

“Hella boring, huh?” Miruko interjected truthfully, her voice booming and unapologetic. “Eh, don't worry, these aren't every meeting. The team ups are better- alot more interesting things go on in those ones-”

Just then, a man dressed in a simple white shirt and black pants came up to the Bunny hero, a badge connected to his belt.

“Hey detective, what can I do for you?” she asked goodnaturedly, her slim fingers wrapping around her hips.

“Im extremely sorry to bother you on such short notice, but we have a case currently revolving around a few villains you reprimanded last week and needed a testimony from you about their quirks-”

“Sure thing!” she grinned, her red eyes traveling from the detective down to you, ,”You think youll be okay? Ill only be gone for a few minutes,”

“O-of course! Ill be fine,” your smile wavered slightly, a small gulp being emitted from your throat.

Alone? Around all these heroes? You didn’t feel too ready for that- but you had to start somewhere. It was time to rip off that band-aid and be one with the heroes.

You began to feel your hands get clammy all ready as you watched the scene in front of you, feeling like a goldfish in a tank of sharks.

“An actual angel walking on the ground-never thought I’d see the day,” you heard a male voice next to you, the tone nonchalant and mischievous. You turned to your side, the wind getting kicked out of your chest-

No. Damn. Way.

“Your Hawks-the Winged Hero,” you breathed out in shock,

The hero smiled at you, his wide grin playful as he gazed at you with those piercing yellow eyes

“The one and only,” he said cockily.

You werent going to lie-Hawks was one of your favorite heroes, probably your all time favorite. He was so successful for his age, being only a few years older than you. His quirk was also extremely powerful, and he was a huge inspiration for you since his quirk was so similar to yours. Also, the fact that he was known to be kind of a flirt, on top of him being incredibly handsome, made you the biggest fangirl for him.

“Gotta say babe, your wings are pretty impressive-surprise you didn't apply to my agency,” the winged hero commented, his voice extremely calm and inviting.

But wait-did he just call you ‘babe’? Oh god-your heart began to pound against your chest, your cheeks feeling warm from the small word.

You grinned slightly at the hero, your expression small and almost shy.

“How do you know I didnt?” You quipped, trying to sound calm as the attractive hero continued to give you that playful smirk.

“Oh believe me-I would have remembered if you did,” his voice almost dropped, sounding way more huskier than before.

Christ-he really was a flirt. You could practically feel your heart banging against your rib cage, your hands feeling clammy and your cheeks quite warm.

He was too teasing for his own good-but it was almost endearing, like he was trying to impress you.

It reminded you of birds during mating Season, the ones who would sing the prettiest songs in order to attract a mate-and really any mate. Hawks was probably just like that-say a few pretty things, and had some fun trying to get a girl hooked under those ruby red wings.

“But I don't blame you for going with Miruko,” he admitted,” she's one hell of a hero, probably the one of the best ones around,”

You cocked your head in confusion, a short wave of shock circling your body. Hawks seemed too cocky to say a positive remark about a hero-most of the time he was preaching about how the heroes played it too safe and the hero world needed a desperate change. He seemed to group all heroes into a category and gave himself a whole one to himself, as if he was different from everyone around him.

So yeah, it was a little strange to hear him congratulate any hero really, but it feels your chest with pride-you definitely had to have made a good decision going with Miruko if the most judgmental hero in Japan seemed to approve. But you still felt a little guilty for making him think you only cared about getting in with Miruko and not any other hero.

“Well, I was planning on applying to more agencies,” you stated, an apologetic smile playing on your lips, “yours was on the list,

The hero chuckled at your remark, not taking you quite seriously. “Oh I bet-”

“It was, I promise!” You smiled at him, your tone trying to be reassuring.

God, why did he have to be so-well-pretty? He was looking at you strangely, as if he was drinking you in as you continued to talk. His lemon yellow eyes were glazed over with adoration, and you couldn’t t help but be flustered by the sight.

“Its just-she took me on so quickly,” you gulped out, trying desperately to calm your beating heart, “ it was kinda shocking. I honestly was so excited I just took her offer and didn't think of going to other agencies,”

“Awww, Not even mind, angel?” He cooed out, his feathers vibrating with the small sound, “It would have been fun having you around-

“I promise, I would have applied to your agency in a heartbeat if she didn't accept me,” you reassured the hero.

He simply nodded, an accepting grin playing on his face as if he finally took your word for it. His gloved hands were hidden into his pant pockets, his Stance calm and comfortable.

“So, angel,” he asked, changing the subject, “how long have you been interning with Mirko?”

Something about this hero calling you “angel” felt different-of course it was your hero name, and of course he would call you by that but-it felt different coming from him. It sounded playful and flirtatious as if he was calling you by a secret little pet name only reserved for you. It may because of his coy antics or his seductive smirk, but it was making you feel warm and comfy inside.

“This will be my 3rd week,” you replied, your blush getting much worse

“Third week, huh?” he said, his voice genuinely curious, “Has she been teaching you alotta things?”

“Oh yeah she's amazing!” you exclaimed.

Mirko was the most amazing mentor and even more. Most sidekicks or interns had the worst time with big time heroes, always left on the back burner to do the heroes paperwork or simply do tedious errands for them without ever learning a single thing. But with Miruko, this wasn’t the case at all.

This was a blessing and a curse-since you were always out on patrol with the hero, the media had seem to take a liking to you. Not only were you always beaten up and tired, you had to now deal with being in the limelight since you were Miruko’s new sidekick, something the media never thought they’d see.

“I’ve been patrolling, working on small cases, even being able to actually stop a few crimes- I think that's why the press is so on me,” you added, a nervous chuckle escaping your lips.

You heard the hero chuckle slightly, his wavy blonde hair shaking as he shook his head

“Aw, you really are a little baby bird-” he cooked at you, your eyebrows cocked in confusion.

A baby bird?

He seemed to notice your confusion, a mischievous smirk playing on his lips.

“Ah don’t worry angel, I don’t mean anything bad by calling you that,” he stated, “You're not used to this whole hero thing. But promise me, you'll get used to it-,”

“Especially when they make dumb scandals about you-”

He added on, his tone more tired. It was true with Hawks being one of the Top 10 heroes and being as young as he is, he had his fair share of conspiracies and allegations revolving around him.

“Oh, like the one about your favorite food being chicken? I thought that one was hilarious”,” you giggled.

Hawks turned to you, his cheeky grin now turn to one coated in seriousness,

““Oh no, babe, that one is completely real,”

You whipped around, your eyes blown out wide with shock

“What? Your joking-“

“Completely serious!” He laughed, his grin wide and mischievous, “Who doesn't love fried chicken! It's the best food in my opinion-ya can't go wrong with it,”

You gave him a playful look of distaste, your noise scrunched up.

“Really? But it’s kinda, well, weird-“

Hawks groaned, but that smile was still plastered on his face.

“Don’t tell me your siding with those tabloid writers,”

“This time-maybe,” you giggled, a smile you were sporting uncontainable.

“Aw, Cmon angel, I was beginning to like you!” He chuckled playfully along with you

Finally as your laughs began to die down, a thought crossed your mind, and you turned to the Wing Hero With the question playing on your tongue.

“Ya know I've always wanted to ask you something,” you said, your eyes meeting the sun yellow orbs of Hawk’s

That smile was still tugging at his lips, making him look adorably young and boyish.

“Lay it on me babe-”

You swallowed thickly, a miix of nervousness and embarrassment filling your stomach.

“How to do you use your wings? In battle-or when you fly?”

It was Hawk’s turn to look confused, his fluffy eyebrows angled softly. He seemed to understand what you meant by how self conscious you look, a hint of sympathy playing in his eyes.

“Wait-” he said slowly, “you mean you don't know how to use your wings?”

You cringed, hating how blunt the sentence sounded. It was true, you never really got the hang of using your wings. It was embarrassing to admit it, but it was something you had to work through. If you wre going to be a high ranking Hero you were going to need to be at 100% of your potential.

“Wll I-I do, I can float but I cant fly very high up-,” you stumbled out,” nowhere near your height though. And I want to be able to carry people and well- I just don’t know how to start,”

Hawk’s nonchalant girn was again on his face, “See, little chickadee, this is why you should have applied to my agency,” he joked.

You sighed exasperatedly

��I know,” you smiled, “you have a good point there,”

The gloved digits of Hawk’s hand wrapped around his chin, his lips pouted slightly in thought.

“Honestly, it took me a little bit to really get the hang of it- Ive been using my wings since I was a kid- so it might be some time for you to get the hang of yours”

“Id be up for helping you with some pointers,” He turned to you, a playful grin plastered on his cheeks. That smile would be the death of you- it somehow made your head feel incredibly cloudy and your legs feel like jelly.

“ but you gotta promise me one thing,”

You cocked your head, your eyebrows stitched in confusion

“Whats that?”

You had never seen a more shit eating grin in your life- Haws gazed up at you, his eyes glinting devilishily

“Don't fly too high up-Can't be having an angel going back up to heaven” he said, making your cheeks incredibly hot as he walked away, knowing full well he had made you too flustered to even talk.

Damn- he really was a flirt

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ

“Great job, chickadee, your really getting the hang of this!” Hawks yelled out, his hands cupped over his mouth.

Your cheeks were red with pride and nervousness, your wings flapping against you as you hovered in the air. You were probably 3 stories high on Hawk’s agency building, your eyes trying to desperately to not look down.

This was exhilarating to be so high up, but- it was terrifying!

Your heart was pacing against your chest, a heavy drum that was painfully raping against your rib age.

Don’t look down, don’t look down….damn it.

You caught a glimpse of your feet in midair, your steel plated boots almost floating over the street below as cars honked at each other and pedestrians walked along the asphalt.

The extremely hard, durable asphalt that could turn you into a human pancake in a matter of seconds.

The image of that terrible idea made your head swarm with panic- your wings flapping haphazardly as you flew backwards back to the safety of the balcony.

This was too much-this height was insane. Hawks was insane- how could he even fly comfortably at this height!

Hawks had been training you a few days a week, something you were extremely grateful for- you were know working as a sidekick with one of the top heroes and having private lesson with the #2 hero?! You honestly couldn't be more grateful-

Until he decided to make you fly by yourself on top of an extremely high building. On your 5th lesson! How crazy could this man be?

You weren't even noticing how fast your wings were flying backwards until your feet hit the firm tiles of the balcony. It took you by surprise, another pit slamming your chest as you tried to catch yourself from falling on your face, your feet shuffling backwards in an attempt to find some grounding.

So you chickened out of an exercise (something Hawks was definitely going to joke about) and now you were going to bruise your ass from falling in front of your favorite hero /crush. Just great.

“Whoa there, babe, slow down!”

You felt a pair of gloved hands grab ahold of your waist, the hands firm and tight against your ribcage. You could practically hear the laughter in Hawk’s voice, as if he found your fail incredibly amusing.

Your cheeks were heating up, realizing how close you were to the hero- his chest was pressed up against your back, and you could feel his chin grazing against your windswept hair.

“So,” he asked, his voice taking on a more husky tone, “how’d it feel when you fell from heaven?”

God, that voice- hearing him flirt so close to your ear made his words sound way too intimate, making your back tingle and your cheeks blaze red.

An exasperated groan slipped from your lips, your body pushing away from Hawk’s as he began to chuckle at your flusteredness.

“You were just dying to say that, huh?”

“What, you can't blame a guy!” he said between laughs, “you did set me up for it.”

You rolled your eyes playfully, your back turning away from him in an attempt to hide your obvious blush.

“You're still a little scared to fly high, huh?” Hawks tone was calm and nonchalant, making you feel grateful that he wasn't too mad at you for freaking out so suddenly.

You tucked a piece of hair self consciously behind your ear. It was so frustrating to you- you were gifted with these wonderful wings, yet you could barely use them “Yeah, a little,” you sighed, “its just-I don't know how to get over it, and it feel like I'm not improving fast enough-”

Hawks sent you a sympathetic smirk, his lemon yellow eyes gleaming in the golden rays of sunset.

“Ah dont put too much pressure on yourself Angel, you'll get it eventually!”

“And besides,” he added, “you have been getting better- before we started you could barely flap your wings...now look at you! You flew over a whole street for almost 5 minutes!”

His smile was beaming, his tone so supportive and kind. Times like this you almost wished you had chosen to apply to be Hawk’s sidekick- he was so carefree and positive about everything. he somehow made every situation feel like a milestone, no matter how little you improved, and it made you feel a little better about your progress.

You gave him a meek smile, the cruddy feeling of failure still sinking in your chest.

“Aw, don't give me that sad face, angel,” he cooed, “you're gonna be just fine- you'll see,”

Still- you couldn't seem to get out of your saddened daze, even with his overwhelming positivity.

Hawks seemed to notice, the usually chatty man suddenly quiet. It was strange to see him like that,as he rubbed his pointer finger against his stubbled chin, deep in thought.

“Ya know, I think I know just what you need,” he finally said, his tone warm like honey, “you need a small break- something to take your mind off of all this.”

“There’s a little diner on the West side of town- it's got the best comfort food you've ever tasted, and you can really taste the flavor in their meals,” Hawk sent you a glimmering smile, one that could stop your heart in a matter of seconds.

“What do ya say, angel, down for some grub? It'll be my treat, promise.”

Free food and you get to spend time with your mentor/crush? You sighed, a smile creeping onto your lips.

“Sure, why not,”

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ

And thats how you ended up here, in a little whole in the wall diner near Hawk’s apartment.

The restaurant was decorated to look relatively old, 1950’s memorabilia plastered on the walls and even a jukebox playing dance music from the era playing softly in the background.

The place was quite adorable in your opinions, and you really couldnt understand how Hawks had even found the place.

Until you realized- they had the best fried chicken you ever eaten in your whole life

Hawks wasnt lying when he said the food was good-it was incredible, the flavors and textures so warm and crisp as they dissolved on your tongue.

You two had gobbled up the meal, hungry from a days worth of training. The milkshakes Hawks had ordered for you two after was just was as amazing as the food itself, the creamy dessert cooling against your throat and making your whole body tingle with joy

It also helped that Hawks was the best partner to eat, with his bizarre stories and crazy antics having you giggling between bites, sometimes making you forget to eat as you got sucked in to his crazy retellings.

You two had finally finished, your stomachs full and genuine smiles gracing your cheeks.

You sighed in content, a smile gracing your lips

“The food was amazing Hawks, thank you-”

You had honestly never seen Hawks looks so domestic- he was sporting a simple white tee and dark jeans, a gold watch adorning his wrist. You guessed the hero had to always wear something somewhat flashy but still- it was strange to see him so casual.

But you werent complaining- it made him more approachable and lovable in a way, making your dinner feel less like a meal between colleagues but between close friends.

You watched Hawks wave his hand, stopping your sentence in its tracks.

“Call me Keigo,” he interrupted, a playful grin plastered on his cheeks, “since I took you out to dinner, I think its only right for you to call me by my actual name,”

You gulped, your eyes wide with shock-the Hawks gave you permission to call him by his real name?

The fangrl in you wanted to scream and to jump up and down like an excited 12 year old. Thankfully, the practical side of you pushed those urges deep down, only the shock of his sentence riddling throughout your body

“Right uh- Keigo,” you gulped out, “-I definitely owe you one for showing me this place,”

“Your welcome angel, its my pleasure,”

You smiled softly, your lips pursed slightly from nervousness.

“Ya know,” you said, your tone soft and open. “you dont have to call me by my hero name either if you dont want to,”

If he was being so welcoming with you, shouldn't you do the same? He had taken you to dinner after all, and even paid for you, even after you had insisted he didnt have to. Hawks-Keigo- was being so kind to you, you had to at least do something in return.

“- you can call me by my real name,”

A hum rumbled from Hawk’s chest, his hand stroking his stubble chin.

“Thats true but the thing is- I like calling you angel”

He sent you a flirtatious smirk from across the table, making your heart stop beating in its tracks. Keigo was a piece of work to understand- one minute he was being supportive like a mentor would be to their student, and the next he was flirting with you like he was trying to pick up a girl at a bar. Was this really how he acted with everyone? Or just-you?

You cocked your head in confusion, your cheeks hot from his sentence.

“Why?”

He grinned, his sultry yellow eyes trained on yours.

“Its like Im calling you by a pet name, like ‘babe’ or ‘dove’,” he explained, taking a pause to place his words correctly,” but it's more...personal.”

That shit eating grin was evident on his face again, making him look boyish as he leaned in towards you.

“its also kinda cute when you get all flustered when I say it,”

Well-crap.

“I-I dont get flustered,” you stuttered, making your lie blatantly obvious.

The man chuckled, obviously loving every second of this.

“Then why are you blushing angel?” he taunted sweetly,

“Don't think for a second I didn’t notice your little crush on me,”

Oh no.

This wasnt good.

God, you knew you blushed alot but- how dumb of you to not assume he knew you liked him! You wanted to crawl in a hole, to just dissolve into the ground and disappear.

“I dont have a crush on you- your just my mentor, your just helping me-” you denied his accusation, your voice desperate to prove it to him and yourself.

You didnt have feeling for this Hero, you couldnt, he was just someone who helped you, you shouldnt like him like this-

“Aww lets not lie to ourselves little dove, you dont have to be so defensive,” he was smiling at you so wide, as if he was being reassuring. But something was different about this smile, and the way he looked at you- it was so tender and almost-nervous?

“Why do you think I took you to this place? It wasnt just to get your mind off of training you know,”

You stared at him in complete confusion.

That was why he had taken you here right? To cheer you up-but then again, Keigo didn't have to do this. He could have just patted you on the back and said “Good job.” He didn't have to take you to his favorite restaurant, buy you a meal, and even dessert, and tell you all his most interesting and sometimes embarrassing stories. He didn't have to lend you his jacket that you were wearing right now after you said you were cold, or promise to drive you home once it was got dark. He didn't have to do any of these things-but he did.

“Wait- This-this is a date, isnt it?” you stated bluntly, the revelation hitting you like a ton of bricks.

Keigo smiled timidly at you, the first time you had ever seen him look so nervous

“Only if you want it to be,” he chuckled, trying to sound nonchalant.

He sighed, clearly riddled with nerves as his eyes staring down at his watch, trying to find the best words

“I-I know this is kinda sudden,” he finally said, “ and I should have told you straight before taking you here, but- I like you. Your fun ,and snarky, and so goddamn beautiful it makes my head spin. You make me smile so much, and I-I want to be with you.”

Hawks looked up at you, those bright hazel eyes staring at you with such love it took your breath away. You felt your whole body feel warmth, like honey was now flooding your veins. You honestly never imagined the hero to ever have feelings for you, but with this confession hanging in the air, you couldn’t feel happier.

“What do ya say, angel,” he asked, his hand stretching across the table and encasing yours, “ wanna give this a go?”

You stared down at that hand, seeing his digits wrap so effortlessly around yours. It felt natural, yet exhilarating , a low, pleasant buzz forming from the small touch. It just felt-right.

“Sure,” you smiled, your fingers now curling around his, “ lets do it,”

Taggings (if you want to be added to the tag list, just shoot me an ask! Im also trying to work on an official tag list post, so you might see that soon! )

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svtegg · 4 years

Text

sebongies and the taeyeon songs they remind me of:

seungcheol: gravity. gravity is about finding solace, finding something to hold on to even through the hardest of storms. i firmly believe seungcheol has had to learn this the hard way, and because of this gravity reminds me so much of him. ive also personally found such a warm and safe place in the group he has lead and fronted to where they are today. he will never know how much strength i’ve gained from him, how much he has been the gravity pulling me back down to earth in those especially hard times. the song also has this hopeful and nostalgic feel, which i feels fits him. it sounds sort of like an anthem for us hopeless introverted romantics that find solace in the small gestures of affection and love. just saying i would also die for seungkwan to cover this song.

jeonghan: i am all ears. i feel like jeonghan is definitely seventeens anchor. he grounds them and guides them, in a way much different from how seungcheol does. cheol is their leader, their frontman and main man. jeonghan works the sidelines. he knows all the members inside out, easily knows all the little details about the other 12 boys, what their favorite food is or what snacks they like, what their habits are and what gets them the most frustrated. it’s a silent type of support, almost like a parent or an older sibling or relative. that silent looking out for your friends that’s almost not noticed. just like this song he’s a comforting presence in svt that always offers a hand to hold, a ear to listen or a shoulder to lean on anytime of day or night while still keeping everything lighthearted and honest. this song is actually one of my most beloved songs, the lyrics and the melody is just so comforting and i feel so safe when i listen to it and i feel that’s the kind of feeling jeonghan gives off too..

joshua: 11:11. now this song is probably my all time favorite kpop songs. period. the whole vibe of the song just screams joshua to me. the simple guitar instrumental, the plucking line, the soft percussion in the background and the effortless yet beautiful vocals that softly blends in with all the other elements. it’s a simple and beautiful song, the lyrics reflecting sadness for missing and happiness for experiencing the past, which i feel is such a joshua thing to say.. i might be over analyzing him with this though, and to be honest most of the reason why i chose this song for josh is because i want to hear him sing it, it just fits him so perfectly. a slow, simple and soft track with some sweet guitar and bittersweet lyrics sung in a soft and breathy voice. it’s just so him!!

jun: time lapse. time lapse is easily one of my favorite taeyeon songs. it holds this childish and naive undertone with such serious and beautiful lyrics about growing up and realizing life maybe isn’t what you once thought, yet still seeing the beauty in everything you’ve experienced throughout your life, and despite the hardships and the traumas you’re still able to move forward and try again. i feel like it reflects junhuis personality very well. he’s a very reflective, thoughtful, headstrong, stubborn and smart person, yet he manages to keep this amazing and childish happiness and naiveness to him that i hope he never ever looses.

soonyoung: find me. find me is such a strong song, conveying a message of making your own path, flyging as high as your wings will take you and youll find what youre looking for. it’s a little ambitious, very headstrong and fierce. even though soonyoung may not be precieved as the most fierce or ambitious member, i feel like he’s definitely one of the few in seventeen who has the most self discipline, the most ambitious ideas, the most headstrong mindset and definitely a fierce working ethic. he definitely has his insecurities, as we all do, and this song is almost like a self reassuring anthem telling yourself that no matter what you’ll be fine as long as you keep going forward. which i feel very much reflects him and his values as a person.

wonwoo: city love. i feel like wonwoo is 100% a hopeless romantic at heart. at the same time he’s very simplistic and almost brutally realistic, and i feel like i could definitely connect with him on that..despite this i still imagine that he has this very special ability to see beauty in ordinary everyday objects and things. like the reflections of lights in a puddle or the way the morning fog wraps along the tallest skyscrapers. which is exactly what city love is about. the line; “To me, the things that were meaningless before meeting you, Become new every day” gives me major wonu energy.

jihoon: feel so fine. this song i picked out just because of the lyrics. it’s obviously a beautiful song in itself, but i feel the lyrics hit especially as a song that maybe reflects a bit of the inner conflicts jihoon has endured and learned from. it starts out a little helpless, wondering how you got to this place, what happened, why can’t i be the way i wish i was and then later realizing you’re okay, you’re fine and realizing you’re living in the world you once only dreamed of. i feel especially because of how jihoon opened up about how he felt responsible for seventeens success, he felt accountable for whether or not seventeen would be a hit, if they would make it or not. and now he’s produced a three times platinum, critically acclaimed, award winning, bonsang awarded album. look at you now jihoon, look how high you’re flying. (he also mentioned in hit the road that he no longer feels this obligation and i think that is because of the growth he and the rest for the guys have experienced through these 5 years)

minghao: wine. minghao has this quality about him. he just seems like he’s experienced the world before. he’s an old soul, poetic to an extent yet such a realist. and this song is about loving the memories of a painful love and despite the hardships realizing the beauty of heartbreak. it’s poetically and beautifully heartbreaking, which i feel reflects minghao very well. especially the way taeyeon sings ‘my vintage love’ over and over and the entire feeling in the track..it’s just very minghao. idk how to explain it

mingyu: do you love me. this pick has nothing to do with lyrics, which is kinda funny because this is one of the first kind of cliche love songs on the list i think. the biggest reason why i picked this is because i feel like mingyu would actually enjoy listening to this song, i feel like it’s very mingyu-esque. a soft jazzy ballad with sweet lyrics and gorgeous backup vocals. the lyrics of course coincidentally also convey a message of a newly fallen in love person who hopes the other also feels the same way. which is such a puppylove type song, so much to the point that it makes chills run down my back in excitement. just the feeling you get when you’re newly in love i guess....

seokmin: fire. this may get some of the sonecarats out there confused. because fire is such a heartbreakingly sad song. it’s mostly about a love that’s not good for you. a fire eating you up from the inside and leaving nothing but ash. about feeling alone. but i honestly believe seokmin is one of the boys in seventeen with the most worries, the most internal pushes and pulls. i definitely feel like seokmin is a person who feels his emotions very strongly no matter if they’re happy or sad. i also honestly believe he is his own worst critic, and i wish for nothing else than for him to realize the immense talent and charisma he holds, how much of a fire he is on the outside. how much he shines and how far his warmth reaches. he’s such a star.

vernon: curtain call. this is probably one of taeyeons songs i feel is the most neutral in the feeling it gives me. it has a sort of happy yet sad quality that is kinda hard to come across. i feel like this song is mostly about being okay with how things have turned out, to say goodbye with a smile and remember the good times. and then when we meet again we’ll prepare to smile again. it’s a very calm, reflected and reasonable song which i feel is some of the core personality traits vernon possesses. i don’t think he’s neutral in the sense that he doesn’t feel things, he’s just a person who makes every situation the best it can be, which i think is in all honestly a great way to live.

seungkwan: here i am. this song is so incredibly heartbreaking. it explains the difficulty in showing your true self, masking your real feelings with happiness, smiles and laughs. being afraid of being vulnerable, yet knowing your true raw unfiltered self is just as beautiful and strong as the ideal self you show to everyone. i think seungkwan has definitely had some inner conflict with being labeled the funny one, the mood maker and the jokester of the group. there’s no way that’s not been a chip on his shoulder sometimes, and i think he’s definitely fallen more comfortably now as he’s started to grow to be more secure of himself. i hope he knows just how much carats love every side of him, not just the funny mood maker but also the seungkwan that talks about his mom and cries and the seungkwan that explains his feelings and gets angry and frustrated, the insecure and the tired. everything.

chan: i’m ok. this song is about fighting back, not taking any bullshit. giving back exactly what you got. just ignoring all the people wasting your time and following your dreams and believing in yourself to the fullest. i feel especially this line is full of lee chan energy:

“This ambiguous and lukewarm something. I don’t like playing games of push and pull. No thanks baby”..

it’s also a very sexy and powerful song, i feel like despite this technically being a pop ballad, if jihoon just remixed it slightly and chan maybe wrote a little rap verse for one of the verses it could easily have been a chan solo song, with such a strong and stand-alone type message it fits his personality perfectly. i definitely feel like chan is one of the people in the group who has full awareness of his abilities and how far he can push said abilities. he doesn’t bullshit when it really comes down to it.

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onionjulius · 4 years

Link

[...]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[...]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[...]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[...]

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

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

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

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

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

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

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

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

STEPHEN MATUREN / GETTY IMAGES

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

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

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

MARK FELIX / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

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

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

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

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

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

JEREMY HOGAN / ECHOES WIRE / BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

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

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

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

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

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

JEREMY HOGAN / ECHOES WIRE / BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

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

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

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

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

SCOTT EISEN / GETTY IMAGES

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

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

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angrylizardjacket · 5 years

Text

when i said it i thought it was true [4] {Ben Hardy}

A/N: 2973 words. Listen, I massaged the timeline a little bit, just suspend your disbelief, perhaps it only takes 4 months to be in post production. Also yes I know X-Men didn’t actually film in Egypt, but I didn’t know that at the start of this fic and now I’m sticking with my mistakes because momma didn’t raise a quitter but she did raise a fool.

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

“You’re not proposing to me in a sheer shirt.” The moment the makeup team leaves, you turn on Ben, amusement tugging at your lips as you cross your arms, cocking your hip.

“You don’t like it?” He asked, the picture of innocence as he fiddles with the cuff of his jacket. You raise a singular eyebrow. “I think you do like it.” He hummed, a mischievous sparkle in his eye. When you refuse to break eye contact, your silence is answer enough. “I think you like it a lot.”

It’s been almost a four months since shooting officially wrapped, two since you’d filmed the last of the pick up shots they’d needed, and a full month since you and Ben seen each other in person; you’d been busy with a Netflix series, and Ben had been in talks about a new project, and you’d been messaging every day but seeing each other in person is... well there’s something different. Playful. Easy. Somehow neither of you seem worried about the looming proposal, and are just making up for lost time.

“Love, you’ve gotta take it up with the stylist, not me.” He shrugged, as if helpless, and turned, making his way to the door, knowing without even looking that you’ll be following behind him. He’s chipper, brimming with excitement and looking damn good, and once he gets to the elevator and pushes the button, he offers you his arm while he waits.

“Marry me.” He says it suddenly, watching the numbers of the elevator tick up to your floor. There’s no-one around, and the ring is still in his pocket.

“What?” With a frown, you step into the elevator, and press the button for the lobby, still tucked up against him.

“What if we just show up engaged?” He asks, hand in his pocket where he’s fiddling with the ring box. He’s not nervous, just contemplative.

“And deprive Swarovski of their moment?” You scoffed, and he tipped his head to look at you, eyebrows raised in exasperated amusement.

“I know you hate the ring, ‘too gaudy, too ostentatious by half’, isn’t that what you said?” He snickers after doing as half decent imitation of you. Giving him a shove, you duck your head to hide your embarrassed smile.

“It’s so ‘look at me! Look at me!’” You huff, and he can’t help but laugh at that. The sound of it, in person rather than over Skype, made you feel, for lack of a better phrase, like you were home. Not that there really was a better phrase, you just didn’t want to think about or admit how much you’d missed him.

“Sorry to say, dude, but there’s nothing more ‘look at me! Look at me!’ than a red carpet proposal.” And yeah, okay, maybe he had a point, but that was one night, you had to wear that ring until... they hadn’t told you the DVD release date, but you’re pretty sure it was some time in the New Year. When you bring this up, he just rolls his eyes. “You’re not the one getting down on one knee for a fake proposal; I’m gonna look like an idiot when this is all over.”

“Well fine, if you’re so worried, I’ll propose.” Instead of dwelling on his words, you step away, holding your hand out expectantly. When he just stares at you, bewildered, you motion for him to hand the ring box over, and he finally cracks a grin, shaking his head.

“If you think I’m gonna be caught dead in that ring you’re wrong.” He spluttered, and you can’t help but laugh at that.

“Fine, I won’t take your first proposal away from you.” You hum with a smile, tucking yourself back against him. He goes very quiet. It takes you a few moments, but you look up at him, brow furrowed. He seems lost in his own thoughts. “It- Ben you’ve never been engaged before, I feel like I’d know if you had been.” Your words snap him out of his trance and he looks at you with wide, bright eyes, and an unconvincing smile.

“Yeah, no, I would have told you by now otherwise.” The silence that falls around you in not a comfortable one, and you’re glad when the elevator comes to a stop. “I got close once, though.” He admits, quietly. You don’t know how to respond to that; you hadn’t considered how much those words would hurt. You want to ask with who, but you already felt an unreasonable rush of jealousy at the thought of someone else stealing his heart enough for him to want to be with them forever. Unreasonable jealousy.

Filming for X-Men started a week ago and he’s only called you once; he’s on a film lot somewhere in Canada and his hair is curly and god he looks cute but the apartment feels so empty. He’s bright eyed and excited. He’s rambling about how busy he is, and he’s still wearing his makeup. The call lasts five minutes; the cast are going out for dinner. You tell him to have fun, but you’re heart’s not in it; he can sense it, and promises to call you tomorrow, before he hangs up.

He doesn’t call, part of you isn’t surprised.

“Marry me.” He asks again, voice low in your ear. The others in the car can’t hear him, but part of you is afraid they might. They don’t technically know it’s not a real relationship, though part of you thinks Gwilym has his doubts, not that he’d ever voice them.

“Not the time.” You shoot him a warning look, and he just slings an arm around you, leaning back in his seat.

“You’ll regret not letting me be low-key about it.” He warns in return, giving you a blithe smile, and you narrow your eyes at him.

“Low-key about what?” Lucy asks, and you elbow Ben in the ribs. He keeps smiling, though his mischievousness slides to something more fond as he actually looks at you.

“About anything.” You say by way of explanation, and though she, along with the rest of the car, still look confused, they don’t push it. There’s reporters everywhere when you get out of the car, and you and Ben are the last ones out.

“Last chance before this becomes a spectacle.” He murmurs when he steps out after you, straightening the back of your dress just a little, and he sounds amused, but there’s something genuine in his voice, and you take a moment to pause, turning back to him. His hands land on your hips, his touch light, and his expression is so familiar it hurts, and you realise he is a little nervous; it’s a very public setting for what should be a very private matter. With cameras going off all around you, you pull him in for a kiss, and he relaxes somewhat, kissing you back with his grip tightening on your hips.

“We’re being paid to be a spectacle.” You remind him, and he nods, smiling softly, and the two of you make your way down the red purple carpet together. You have to stop every few feet to do interviews, and soon enough you had pulled ahead of Ben; he had a much larger part in the film that you did, it wasn’t surprising the reporters wanted to monopolise him. It still felt strange, to turn and not have him there. Sometimes you’d do interviews with the other boys, sometimes he’ll be there, and as the main photo area loomed, you could finally feel the butterflies in your stomach.

Soon.

Perhaps too soon.

“What do you mean you’re going to Egypt?” You snapped, wishing your internet connection was better so he could see you glaring clearly.

“I told you about it ages ago.” Ben sighs, clearly tired. It’s there in his eyes, how drained he is, how hard he’s been working, and your expression softens.

“That’s exciting,” you force yourself to take a breath, it was the first time you two had spoken that fortnight, neither of you needed this to be hostile. The days had started feeling so long when you don’t hear from him; all you want is a damn hug and he’s on the other side of the world. “What if I come visit you?”

“In Egypt?” He asks, eyebrows raised.

“In Egypt.” You confirm, a weak smile on your face, he doesn’t look thrilled by the process.

“Don’t bother.” He sighs, and the moment he sees your expression fall, he realises how his words had sounded, and he’s sitting up straight, panicked look on his face, spluttering his way through an apology. “I didn’t mean it like that, I’m just busy and it’s going to be hot and-”

“No, I get it.” Your dejected sigh was followed by a yawn, and you hovered over the end call button. “When you’re less tired I think we should talk.” You tell him, and you see the confusion, fear, and resignation pass over his face in quick succession.

He agrees quietly, and neither of you really say goodbye before hanging up.

He was tapping on your shoulder as you were halfway through talking to E! News, and you’ve never been more anxious and excited in your life, and never so thankful to not be at the main photo area on a red carpet. His timing was perfect.

“So sorry, could I borrow Y/N for a minute?” He smiles charmingly at the reporter, and his expression softens when he sees the relief in your eyes.

Before he even starts, it feels off, feels wrong, feels like a performance for the cameras more than anything else.

“Don’t get teary on me, I know how hard your makeup artists worked.” He begins, and you make sure the cameras catch your surprised confusion. He’s takes one of your hands in his, linking your finger together, and the other holds your face. There’s a moment that passes between you two, his expression softens as he looks in your eyes and it’s as if he’s looking past everything that had happened, the whole setup you’d found yourself in; he was seeing you.

“This is probably the biggest night of my life,” he starts, taking a deep breath, “for more than one reason; you’re my best friend, you’ve been there for some of the highest points in my life, and some of the lowest. I know you, Y/N, I feel like I’ve known you my whole life, and I want to. I want you there by my side for the rest of it,” it sounds... so much more planned out than you’d expected, so much more heartfelt, and you’d be damned if there weren’t tears in your eyes. Despite the fact that this very private moment had a huge audience, which included a reporter muttering ‘holy shit, is this what I think it is?’, you could only see him. Damn if it didn’t feel real.

“I love you; I’ve loved your since-” his voice catches in his throat, and you see a hint of pain flash across his face before he’s smiling again, “since I first saw you in that damn wig they put you in,” it sounds like an addendum, like he doesn’t really mean it, or like it’s not the whole truth, but it’s enough to make you laugh, and when you look down to hide your embarrassed smile, your tears fall from your eyes, “since you agreed to all of this,” he gestures to himself with a self-deprecating grin, though his double meaning is not lost on you, though his expression turns serious after a moment, “since I first kissed you on set, though that feels like a long time ago.” Your breath catches in your throat, and he sounds like he hadn’t mean to say that last part, his voice too raw, his heart too honest for it to be a truly fake statement. You can do little more than whisper his name in reverence. Gently, so gently, he lifts your head, his thumb wiping the tear track from your cheek.

“Marry me?” It’s a question this time, and when you look at him with confusion, disbelief written on your face at the way he chose to word it, he laughs softly, sinking to one knee and pulling out the ring box, and revealing the single most frivolous ring you’d ever had the displeasure of seeing. “Will you marry me?” He corrects softly.

The crowd behind you is going absolutely mad behind you, and cameras are going off at an almost blinding rate, but his eyes don’t leave yours. Nodding, you can’t even form words, so caught up in the moment, and he stands, pulling you into a kiss. The flash of cameras surround you like a sea of stars and Ben’s the only thing keeping you on solid ground. His grip is tight enough that he almost lifts you off the ground, and you’re on your tiptoes with his arms around you before his grip loosens, his hands sliding down the small of your back, and for the first time since this whole fake relationship began, he doesn’t hesitate before he deepens the kiss. He tastes like mint and you’re so glad you’re wearing that twenty-four hour lipstick or you know you’d be a mess, and when you pull back, you’re both out of breath, looking at each other with a something akin to awe in your eyes.

You’re pretty sure, in this moment, you love him; nothing fake about it. And you can see it in his eyes that he loves you too. This is dangerous territory for you both.

Stepping back, he takes your hands again.

“I told you not to cry, love.” He laughs gently, voice so soft as you dab at your eyes with your right hand, watching as he slides the ring onto the ring finger of your left hand.

“What can I say, you have a way with words; how long were you working on that speech.” You sniffle, grinning brightly as you examine the ring, still holding his hand. After a beat too long of silence, you look up to see him smiling softly at you.

“A while.” He admits, and something about the way he says it makes your chest ache. The moment passes and he looks down at your joined hands. “That’s fucking hideous.” He whispers, shaking his head at the sight of the ring, and you giggle, preferring to throw your arms around him, kissing him again.

The two of you are the last two to arrive at the formal photo area, with the logo backdrop, and Joe’s grin is confused where he greets you both at the edge of where everyone was in a line getting a group shot.

“What was all the commotion over there?” He asked quietly, and Ben stepped into position easily, slipping an arm around Joe’s shoulders and pulling you in. You were still beaming, you couldn’t help yourself.

“We got engaged.” Ben murmurs to Joe, careful not to draw attention to them, which was immediately counteracted by Joe’s loud ‘What the fuck?!’ “Calm down, man, we didn’t want to take all the focus off of the premiere, you know?”

As soon as the big group shot was taken, you stepped off to the side as the four boys had their photos taken, and you could see Joe murmuring to the others, while Ben just smiled for the cameras and tried not to blush.

Photos were taken with Brian and Roger, of Rami and Lucy, and even some of you and Ben, and when you posed, you both had an arm around each other, and you leaned into him, resting your hand on his chest with your ring on clear display.

There’s congratulations all around as you’re heading into the theatre, but the biggest shock of the night comes in the form of Roger Taylor wrapping you up in a hug while you’re still glowing with pride.

“Before we go in, I want you to know you did an incredible job, dear. You’re a stunning performer and I never had any doubts about you.” As he says it, you can feel Ben give your hand a gentle squeeze. You’re pretty sure you’ve got shock written all over your face. “I’m very proud of you both.” He claps Ben on the shoulder, and Ben thanks him quietly. It looks as though he’s about to head in, but he turns back. “Be good to her, you hear?” He says to Ben sternly, but there’s a glimmer of fondness in his eyes, and Ben rolls his eyes good-naturedly. He’s still holding your hand.

“What was that?” You breathed as soon as Roger had left; you feel like you’ve been doused in cold water, though you can’t help but smile.

“Well I think he definitely approves of you playing Amanda.” Ben moves to wrap an arm around you as the two of you head into the theatre, searching for your seats. “And I think... I think he gave us his blessing?” That sounds more confused than anything else, and you don’t know how to respond one way or the other, apart from softly laughing as you sit down next to Lucy. Part of you, the largest part that had stayed sane and not drunk on this fake engagement, is pretty sure Roger’s going to be the hardest to break it to, when everything’s over; part of you worries that without Ben, you’ll lose his approval, which you didn’t realise you’d been craving until you’d received it. There’s an anxiety that builds in your chest as the lights go down, but Ben’s hand is in yours and you lean your head on his shoulder, and you can ignore that little worry for now.

the rat pack: @hotspacedeacon @strangeandwonderfulconcepts @itssaje @d-r-e-a-m-catchme @callumidiot @rockandrollandshit @bohorap @pietrorunsforme @sweetfierceimagines @itsjackothy @mhftrs @sherlockiantheatrenerd @softbenhardy @multifandomgirlrandomstuff @virtualsheepeat @smile-nine @i-padfootblack-things @deaconsroger @spookyfrances @holyurlbatman @your-idiotic-excellency @cosmicsskies @chlobo6 @screaminggalileochickenwrites

(crossed out means it wouldn’t tag; i’ll try again for the next part, lemme know if you wanna be tagged xx)

#ben hardy #ben hardy imagine #ben hardy x reader #bohemian rhapsody #borhap #bo rhap #borhap imagine #borhap cast #borhap cast imagine #bohemian rhapsody imagine #the angry lizard writes

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ariesrps · 5 years

Text

in honor of a recent rise in roleplays set in the uk, coinciding with the recent global success of the new british netflix show sex education, i was inspired to create this guide to roleplaying british characters. as a british kid myself i love seeing these characters in rps, but have often had friends in the rpc tell me that they struggle to write them due to the differences in popular culture, dialect, slang, media etc.

of course, accuracy isn’t TOO important when it comes to this, since british people generally aren’t a marginalized or oppressed group. however i do think this is a guide a lot of people will find valuable. in a poll with 43 respondents, the highest percentage of roleplayers were from north america (72.1%) compared to only 9.3% coming from the united kingdom (all info correct at time of posting). with the assumption that people mostly write characters that are from the country they’re most familiar with, there aren’t a lot of british characters in tumblr rp. if this guide can provide non-UK-based rpers with the info they’re seeking to pen a british muse, then my job here is done!

DISCLAIMER: if you were looking for a guide written like an essay or report, this ain’t it! this is mostly a collection of external resources you may find useful when writing your characters, as opposed to written instructions.

PLEASE, LIKE OR REBLOG THIS IF YOU FOUND IT USEFUL IN ANY WAY!

GEOGRAPHY — where will your character be from?

as a british person who isn’t exactly the most well-traveled, there are definitely inaccuracies in my knowledge of other countries’ geography. i wouldn’t be surprised if some people struggle with the same issue, but regarding the united kingdom. if your character is from the UK, it’s important to know that their characterization should differ depending on which part they’re from.

map of the british isles

map of england

map of scotland

map of wales

map of northern island

the difference between the UK, great britain, and england: explained

why is the republic of ireland not a part of the united kingdom?

NOTE: this guide will not include info on how to write characters from the republic of ireland, as that identity is one of its own and is not classified as part of the uk!

SOCIAL CLASS — what kind of socio-economic background will your character have?

class is an important issue in the UK, in some ways more-so than the US. the first bullet point of this section is an interesting article which explains why this is, but to summarize: the american dream – though flawed, is a reality to an extent. there is no such concept in the UK, making the class situation and socio-economic divide a little different.

“in the uk, i’m working class, but said goodbye to that title in america” article

the seven social classes of 21st century britain — where do you fit in?

POLITICS — what kind of stance will your character take?

just like in any country, politics is extremely important in the UK. just like in america, the country is extremely divided between left and right. if political views is something your character views as important, or you think that their politics defines their characterization in any way, this section should be helpful!

parliamentary (UK) vs. presidential (US) democracy, explained

the uk’s many political parties, explained ( NOTE: this video is slightly outdated. the prime minister, and leader of the conservative party, is now theresa may, not david cameron. but you probably already knew that. )

uk political spectrum

2017 uk general election map

brexit, explained

to summarize the two main parties: labour = left-wing = good. conservative = right-wing = bad.

ETHNIC DIVERSITY — what kind of ethnic background will your character have?

similarly to the US, the UK (though dominated by caucasian people aka white british) encompasses many different cultures. according to the UK gov “87% of people in the uk are white, and 13% belong to a black, asian, mixed or [from] other ethnic group[s], according to the combined 2011 censuses.” while non-white ethnicities are a definite minority, it’s so important not to erase their existence.

a chart illustrating the uk’s race / ethnicity breakdown

britain’s most racially diverse areas

2011 census reveals most ethnically diverse city

IDENTITY — what kind of cultural identity will your character have?

ask a scotsman for a handful of reasons he’s different from an englishman, and he’ll talk for hours. within england alone, ask a londoner how they’re different from a mancunian and they’ll talk for even longer. different parts of the uk have different identities, and it’s important. something we want to avoid is the “posh”, well-spoken, crumpet-eating stereotype or, on the other end of the spectrum, the modern-day oliver twist. expand your horizons!

stereotypes americans have about british people that aren’t actually true

10 differences between brits and americans

what does it mean to be british?

ENGLAND

how is the south of england different to the north? (spoiler: very)

north-south divide wikipedia

culture of england wikipedia

SCOTLAND

our scottish culture: so much more than kilts and bagpipes

scottish culture and traditions guide

culture of scotland wikipedia

WALES

wales history, language and culture

welsh culture: facts and traditions

culture of wales wikipedia

NORTHERN IRELAND

northern ireland – cultural life

northern ireland history and culture

culture of northern ireland wikipedia

LANGUAGE, DIALECT, ACCENT, SLANG — how will your character speak?

here’s where the fun parts start! there are so many different variations of accents, regional dialects, area-specific slang and colloquialisms throughout the uk. sometimes i see british characters being written with little to no use of any of these, nothing at all differentiating them from american characters and it’s such a waste in my opinion. even if you don’t like writing with a an accent (some people don’t!) the dialect and slang words along can make your character so much more authentic.

how are british english & american english different?

everyday american words we don’t use the same in the UK

america vs british english – 50 differences

NOTE: resources for the north of england are higher in quantity than the midlands and south of england due to wider variations of accents within the region.

ENGLAND (NORTH)

a tour of northern english accents

a - z of northern slang (GENERAL NORTHERN)

northern slang with blossoms (GENERAL NORTHERN)

a - z of mancunian slang (MANCHESTER)

mancunian: english like a native (MANCHESTER)

scouse: english like a native (LIVERPOOL)

scouse slang (LIVERPOOL)

geordie slang (NEWCASTLE)

mackem slang (SUNDERLAND)

yorkshire slang (YORKSHIRE)

the yorkshire accent (YORKSHIRE)

sheffield slang (SHEFFIELD)

arctic monkeys slang lessons (SHEFFIELD / YORKSHIRE / GEN. NORTHERN)

ENGLAND (MIDLANDS)

how to speak birmingham (BIRMINGHAM)

a brummie accent (BIRMINGHAM)

7 things said in nottingham (NOTTINGHAM)

black country dialect (BLACK COUNTRY)

ENGLAND (SOUTH)

10 common british/english slang expressions & phrases (NON-SPECIFIC)

cockney (LONDON)

cockney rhyming slang: english like a native (LONDON)

roadman slang vs cockney slang (LONDON)

london street slang, translated (LONDON)

west country: english like a native (WEST COUNTRY / SOUTH WEST)

essex slang (ESSEX)

mark watson on bristol slang (BRISTOL)

slang of the south - portsmouth (PORTSMOUTH)

WALES

welsh people on welsh slang (GENERAL WELSH)

taron egerton talks welsh slang (GENERAL WELSH)

common welsh sayings (GENERAL WELSH)

luke evans on welsh slang (GENERAL WELSH)

25 words and phrases you’ll always hear in cardiff (CARDIFF)

swansea slang (SWANSEA)

20 welsh colloquialisms (GENERAL WELSH)

29 words that have a totally different meaning in wales (GENERAL WELSH)

welsh language wikipedia

SCOTLAND

how to speak & understand glaswegian (GLASGOW)

gerard butler teachers you scottish slang (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

glasgow slang words (GLASGOW)

most used scottish slang words & phrases (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

doric from around aberdeen (ABERDEEN) note: definitions in description

edinburgh dialect words (EDINBURGH)

trainspotting slang explained (GLASGOW / GENERAL SCOTTISH)

scottish words glossary (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

glossary of scottish slang & jargon wikipedia (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

handy scottish words to know (EDINBURGH / GENERAL SCOTTISH)

28 great scottish sayings and slang phrases (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

use of gaelic in scotland wikipedia

NORTHERN IRELAND

jamie dornan teaches you northern irish slang – vanity fair (GENERAL N. IRISH)

jamie dornan does northern irish slang – bbc (GENERAL N. IRISH)

28 sayings from northern ireland (GENERAL N. IRISH)

northern irish words (GENERAL N. IRISH)

16 slang phrases you’ll need to know in northern ireland (GENERAL N. IRISH)

17 words and phrases you’ll always get in belfast (BELFAST)

a list of belfast sayings (BELFAST)

derry slang words 1 (DERRY)

derry slang words 2 (DERRY)

use of gaelic in northern ireland wikipedia

SURROUNDINGS — what’s it like where your character grew up, or where they live now?

whether your character comes from one of these places OR lives there now (or both!) it might be interesting to incorporate some of their surroundings into their characterization. this section isn’t classified by country/region, because if i were to start going into that much detail here, this guide would go on forever!

10 incredible historical towns in the uk

where are the largest cities in britain?

a guide to the english countryside

the 15 most stunning places in the uk outside of london

top 50 areas for quality of life in the uk

10 best party cities in the uk

10 best student cities in the uk

10 of the uk’s most creative towns & cities to live, work & play

cities with the youngest vs oldest age population

map of stereotypes in the uk

google autocomplete map of the uk “why is [city]...”

POP CULTURE / MEDIA — what does your character like? what are they consuming?

us brits are very proud of our own british-made media. our television, our music, our cinema, etc. if you’re somebody who is interested in including the things a character likes in their characterization, it would be unrealistic not to give a british character some favourites from the place they’re from.

uk map showing where tv shows are set and filmed

uk map showing the origins of famous bands/musicians

the uk’s most popular tv shows according to IMBD

10 best british rock bands of the 21st century

the ultimate reference guide to british pop culture

LASTLY, HERE ARE SOME RESOURCES ON WRITING BRITISH CHARACTERS:

making british characters realistic as an american writer

tips from a brit for writing british fictional characters

another ‘writing british characters’ guide by @thewritershelpers

another ‘writing british characters’ guide by @writeworld

another ‘writing british characters’ guide by @rphelper

how to write dialogue for british characters

writing black british characters by talkthepoc on wattpad

of course, this is overkill. there’s no way on earth you’ll ever need all of these resources, but they’re here and i hope you find some use out of this guide! please forgive any inaccuracies or mistakes, this is my first time writing a guide. you’re welcome to leave me feedback on this here. last but not least, HAPPY WRITING!

#rpc #rph #rpt #rpa #rp guide #guide #mine

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lilylovessev · 5 years

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enough for you || snily

To say that Lily Evans was ambitious was an understatement.

To have earned a place on a course that only selected twenty of the very best graduates, taught by the most knowledgeable and celebrated experts across the magical field, felt very good. The course wasn’t necessarily focused on a particular career path but would set them up for success across a range of areas, especially given the contacts that they would make.

She had spent the last few years on one of the Ministry undergraduate programmes. It hadn’t been a typical, muggle-type university degree. There had been a lot of learning on the job, working alongside Potioneers and the like. She had worked hard and had clearly made an impression on them all. She wanted her own apothecary style business one day; although, she had yet to figure out what her speciality would be. She wanted to prove that a muggleborn witch could successfully run a magical business with a hell of a lot of knowledge and skills backing her up.

“Oh, the life of an eternal student. I am so jealous,” Marlene McKinnon groaned, before turning and enveloping her best friend in a hug. “Good luck, Evans. You’ll be fine. You’ll knock ‘em dead.”

Marlene was already in work at the Ministry, as a legal assistant within the Department of Law Enforcement. Their fellow best friend, Dorcas Meadows was also working at the Ministry, but as an assistant for the Minister. She had all of the good gossip. They made quite the trio; blonde, brunette and a redhead. They couldn’t be more different from one another. Yet at the same time, they were everything to each other.

They were currently living altogether, in a large flat above a shop in Diagon Alley. It was safe to say that with the help of a little magic, they had created a lovely living space. However, she definitely had ambitions of owning her own big house one day. She couldn’t live like that forever! However, for the moment, it would do. It was that or go back to live with her parents, and she just couldn’t be apparating back and forth every day. That and she had a very active social life. They’d definitely treat her like a little girl if she was home with them. She was working a few shifts at Madame Malkins, to save up, to live off of. That was all she really had, until she was able to start her career. Even then, she was going to have to find someone who would invest in her. It was a while off yet though, and she very much needed to focus on this year ahead of her. It wasn’t going to be easy.

As Lily made her way to the research department, where the lecture theatres were that her classes would be taking place, she spotted someone whom she had not wanted to see. Inwardly groaning, she stepped into the lift alongside him, not saying a word. The silence deafening.

“We need to talk.”

“No, no we don’t. James, I’ve made my feelings known. Or rather, my lack of feelings, well known. Please, just get it into your head that we are over. We are over.”

She had absolutely no qualms about stating that in front of the witches and wizards alongside them, but was thoroughly relieved when the doors next opened and it was her floor. She stood still for a moment after exiting, exhaling a deep breath. She had known that she’d probably see him about still, given that he was an Auror for the Ministry.

She had been seeing James Potter for the last five years. The last five whole years. She hadn’t been happy for months and had ended it, but he hadn’t taken it well. It had driven somewhat of a wedge into their friendship group, given that his best friend Sirius was currently seeing Doe. That and James was such a big presence within their group. He was making it difficult. There was nothing more to it than the fact that she just didn’t want to be with him anymore. She wasn’t going to waste any more time on something that wasn’t working.

“Thank you.”

Lily signed her name on the register before walking up the steps to find a seat. She was a little nervous, never having been a part of such a select group before. The Slug Club did not count.

She wasn’t going to be a favourite this time either, or at least, she didn’t think that she’d be able to fight against all of these other talented witches and wizards to gain that spot. She was one of the first to arrive, which was unusual for her, this was a fluke. She ran a hand through her hair before pulling out what she needed from her bag, including her mirror to check her make-up.

Well, they were about to meet Severus Snape. She had heard so much about his research and achievements. He was one of the most talented Potioneers that there had ever been, that and in the past, he’d invented various curses and counter-curses; which she’d read about and it had thoroughly piqued her curiosity. She knew that he was well-known, that he and her other ‘teachers’ were all well-known within their society. However, she didn’t know much more about them than that, nor had she met any of them before. She wondered what they’d be like. Who knew how on earth they’d had their arms twisted to teach on this course, but she was grateful for it.

#para

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tessxomarie · 5 years

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Saving You - Part I

*Hi everyone! First, I need to shoutout @hellosupernaturaldoctor for giving me advice and the confidence to even attempt this. This is my very first time writing any fan-fiction and the first time I’ve decided to post any of my writing some place other than a word doc. I’ve had this idea for this story since mid-season of the Mayans, and after the finale I put all my thoughts into a story. It starts off slow, but I promise what I have in store next will be worth it! PS, Any feedback is appreciated! - This story takes place a few months after the season one finale. Ez is now a newly patched in member, Alvarez is still working for Galindo; things have been quiet as of late, well for the most part.*

It’s a Friday afternoon, I’m just getting off of work. It’s hot as fuck outside – guess that’s the price you pay when you live in the desert. I lazily gather my purse from the backroom, before I step foot outside, I redo my hair. What was once a cute pony tail this morning has turned into a mangled mess. As my luck would have it, my hair tie snaps as soon as I go to wrap it around a third time. “Fuck.” I mumble to myself. I always wear an extra hair tie on my wrist, but I cannot have a naked wrist. “Fine, a mangled mane I will have. It’s fine, it’s fine.” I whisper to myself. If I don’t leave here now, I will lose all sanity I have left. Man, what a shit show day today has been, this heat must be getting to the kids. Two broken wrists, a broken arm, a no helmet incident and a random summer cold. I didn’t get puked or shit on, and no kid attempted to kick or hit, so I call today’s shit show a success. Just as I’m about to leave, one of my co-workers stops me, “Leah, good work today. You kept that broken arm kid really calm. Keep it up.” Elena tells me with a smile. “Thanks, Elena. I’m just doing my job, but I always welcome feedback, so thanks again.” I say to her as I head out the back door. It’s 4:30pm, I’ve been on the clock since 6am, one would think I deserve to simply go home and use my complex’s pool – oh one can dream. But nope, I’m still on the clock but I guess you could call this gig more of an always “on-call” service.

I pull up in my old school blacked out Jeep Grand Cherokee about twenty minutes after I leave the clinic to the Romeo Brothers Scrapyard, also known as the headquarters for the Mayans MC.

Chucky greets me, per usual. “Greetings Nurse Aleeah.” He says to me with a big smile and a salute. I let out a giggle as I always do whenever someone says my full name…I rarely ever go by it, but around here, I hear it more than I have in years. But Chucky, oh Chucky– how does one describe a chronic masturbator who has a good heart and is part of the biker world without truly being a biker? I guess I just did, didn’t I? “Hey Chucky, how are you?” I ask as I park and exit my Jeep. “I am well, swell actually. I have no complaints today.” Chucky answers with a big smile. “Good, I’m glad to hear that.” I say as I give his arm a friendly squeeze. “The boys need your assistance, I don’t know details but clearly someone got messed up hence why you are here.” Chucky explains in typical Chucky fashion.I roll my eyes as I stand in front of the clubhouse. “It’s always something with these boys, huh?” I rhetorically ask. Chucky nods his head and heads back to the office. I walk up the steps and take a deep breath before I enter the clubhouse. This club is like a box of chocolates, you never know what the fuck you’re going to get so it’s best you just grin and bear it. Is it just a cut from a broken beer bottle? Did a fight break out and there is blood everywhere? A bullet wound? A stabbing wound? A rat bite? Like I said, you just never know. I open the doors and pray today is nothing major. “Have no fear, your favorite RN is here.” I announce as I enter the clubhouse and strike a pose in the doorway. “Umm, isn’t it RN BSN?” Riz corrects as he stands and greets me. “Have I told you that you’re my favorite?” I reply with a playful wink and smile, it does make me truly happy that these guys acknowledge and are proud of my accomplishments. “Hola Aleeah.” Riz says to me while we greet with a warm hug, per usual. “Hey, I spy my favorite nurse!” Gilly shouts from across the room. Creeper, Hank and Taza also wave from the card table. “Greetings gentlemen, you all seem to be in one piece.” I say as I mosey around the few tables between me and the guys. “Although that pleases me, who is the one who called up 1-800-Rescue Nurse?” I sarcastically spit, which receives some laughs from the guys. “They’re in church.” Hank points towards the door. “They? Plural?” I ask looking at Riz, and he nods to confirm. “Jesus Christ.” I say palming my face. “Lee Baby!” Coco shouts from exiting church and walking over to me with open arms. “Ah, Coco Loco.” I reply with a smile and we hug. “How are you doing, Coco?” I ask after we break our embrace. “A lot better than your next two victims.” He replies, him not making much eye contact and that just gives it away – I know automatically who my victims are. “You gotta be kidding me? They got into it again?!” All Coco does is nod and look down at the floor. “How bad?” I ask. “What do you mean? How bad do they look? Or how bad is it between them?” Coco asks me. I shake my head with disgrace. I angrily take my steps towards church and I aggressively open the door. “Damn, she is pissed.” I hear Creeper’s echo as I close the door, as soon I enter the room. Looking at the table, I see them. One is at one end, the other one on the opposite end. I drop my nurse’s bag on the table and cross my arms. “You two have some damn nerve - getting into it again. Jesus. You’re fucking brothers, you are blood – blood don’t do this shit.” I yell with anger and confusion. Silence fills the air as the guys look at each other and up at me. Bishop then looks over to me and quirks an eyebrow and half smile. “Excuse my poor manners, Bish. Your boys tend to make me lose all sanity I have left at the end of a work week.” I tell him as I walk over and give him a warm embrace. “Oh Leah, you’re fine. I know this shit has been out of control recently.” Bishop pauses and looks over to the guys. He takes a deep breath. “I’ll let you handle them now. I’ll be outside if you need a referee.” Bishop exits and I just stand there, crossed arms again. Both boys refuse to look me in the eye, but instead stare each other down. “Are you just going to stand there?” Angel seethes. I let out a sarcastic laugh. “Give me one good reason as to why I should fix the both of you up? Huh? Because as I see it, this is the fourth time this month…THIS MONTH! Angel, please, humor me and explain to me why the fuck I should tend to your wounds yet again? Maybe if I let you both be, you’ll learn these fights aren’t worth it.” I take a deep breath myself, and I run my hand through my tangled hair, which I then end up putting up in a pony tail right after, I’ll just have to remember to find another hair tie to wear on my wrist later. “Alright, I’m sorry I went off. You two, you two just frustrate me.” I say holding my hands up mimicking a surrender. I take another breath and look between the boys. My gaze is drawn to EZ, probably because he’s the easier one out of the two. “Okay, EZ, I see that nasty cut on your cheek, oh and your hand – good going big brother.” I say as I look over to Angel. He looks away the moment I look his way. “Shocker, EZ gets to be first yet again.” Angel chirps. “Seriously?” I snap. “I’m over here fucking bleeding, I could be dying but all you and anyone ever cares about is Ezekiel.” “Shut it Angel, just shut it, please.” I beg. I start to tend to EZ’s war wounds; some cuts, a nasty one on his cheek – I’m guessing Angel’s rings got the best of him this time around. EZ, he doesn’t say much this time I’m here. I know that he feels the same way as me – he’s tired of this back and forth shit with his brother. “EZ, no more. It’s one thing when you all call me to take a bullet out, or to give a rabies shot, but this shit – playground fights, I’m done.” I explain as I place the last bandage strip to his cheek. EZ doesn’t make eye contact, and his jaw is clenched. His knees shaking. “I know, Lee. I’m sorry you’re doing this again.” EZ tells me as he finally meets my eyes for the first time. EZ, he’s easy to read. He wears his emotions in his eyes, his eyes right now are filled with pain and sadness. This whole feud with Angel, it’s taken a toll on everyone in this club. It’s been almost eight months of this fuckery. “Remove the bandage Sunday night, it needs about 48 hours to heal. If you feel the need to remove it beforehand, clean it thoroughly. Have some of your favorite tequila tonight, and you will be good.” I tell EZ as I throw away the things I used to care for him. “Thanks, Lee.” He says as he kisses me on the cheek and walks somberly out of church. My heart aches for EZ, because the pain – physical and emotional is all over his face and body. Angel hasn’t taken his eyes off of the wall nor has he spoken. I slide my bag down the table as I slowly make my way towards him. Rubber gloves are on, and I grab his face. “Let’s see your damage.” I say, like a dog would when a human goes to check their mouth for something, Angel gives me a little tension as I touch his face. Again, no eye contact. A look of annoyance screams from his expression. I see a nasty cut on the side of his head, by his eye – a sensitive area which bleeds more than most. A black eye is also forming. “Jesus Christ, Angel.” I say examining the cut a little further. “This has to stop. I’m begging. I cannot deal with looking at you two like this, because my fear is that one day, I’m going to be too late to help any of you.” “What if it is?” He spews. I scoff, “No more.” Is all I manage to say. I take out an alcohol swab to clean out his cut. “This is going to sting, on the count of three – one, two, three.” I say as I then put the swab against the cut. A loud hiss comes from Angel and an instant reaction of mine is to grab his face and blow lightly at the cut, helping the sting not be so painful. Angel’s eyes then lock with mine, a look of shock and confusion fill his brown eyes. Angel and I, we’ve had a very interesting relationship since I first came to Santo Padre. He gave me an attitude and I gave it right back – he seemed more pissed off when I talked back than just walking away, and the more I talked back, the more tension built up between us. We started out on the wrong foot, and that’s how we have remained. He lets me care for him, depending on the time of day. Sometimes he lets his girlfriend, well I think she’s his girlfriend, Adelita, clean him up. Today, for whatever reason, he stuck around the clubhouse. I continue to blow on his wound, and I wince back in pain for him because I know it had to sting like a bitch. “Uhh, sorry. It’s a habit of mine, when I treat the kids, I have to do this; they hate it too, so that technique helps them...” I ramble and look away because I sense a bit of embarrassment, as I’ve never been “nice” to Angel. I look and reach back at the table to grab what I need next, just as I turn to face Angel again, I notice a very small smile on his face. “What?” I question, because seeing him smile legit concerns me. “It’s nothing, Leah.” He says monotone and lets me continue working on him. A few more minutes go by, and I determine that he doesn’t need any stitches, just a little butterfly work on one of his eyebrows. “Okay, that’s all. No stitches today, that cut on the side of your face, it’s a sensitive area that bleeds more than most. Your eyebrow cut, it’s an awkward cut – it’s ugly but not ugly enough for stitches. My only request is when you clean it out, could you please use both water and soap?” I emphasize. I know how these guys operate. They either use a dirty rag or tap water to clean themselves up. I turn to clean up my stuff and Angel lets out a minor laugh, which catches me off guard. I look at him and quirk an inquisitive look. Angel stands up, he turns behind his chair and lightly pounds his fist to the back of it. “You sounded just like my ma.” He tells me, in the softest voice I have ever heard Angel speak in. I offer him a small smile as I already know what that history is. Angel leaves church, and per usual no other words are spoken, no thank you’s, nothing. I stay behind a few more moments and collect my thoughts and belongings. I hear the door open, at first I’m startled but relieved it’s just Bishop. “How we doin’, sweetheart?” He asks. I let out a very deep sigh and my facial expression tells my feelings of this whole ordeal. Bishop can’t help but laugh, “I know, Lee. I know.” He tells me as he pulls me in for a hug. “I just need to go home and lay in bed and watch a trashy romcom.” I exclaim as I grab my bag. “I think you’ve deserved that, but before you go – you have a visitor.” He tells me. A look of a deer in the head-lights flashes across my face, who the hell could be visiting me? “Just come with me.” Bishop motions for me to take his hand and follow him. Nerves take over, with the Club, you never know what can happen. As I exit the room, I see the guys scattered all over the clubhouse yet all eyes are on me. “Your visitor is the biggest pain in my ass, so make it quick.” Bishop says, but I catch his playfulness I his voice and I look to the bar and I see who Bishop is talking about – Marcus Alvarez.

#Mayans MC #fanfic #My writing #angel reyes #ez reyes

123 notes · View notes

squidshadow · 5 years

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2, 4, 11, 12, 13?

this got long bc i hate myself, here

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

patchwork, hands down. what a shitshow lmao

4) favorite character you’ve written

mmmm even though patchwork Bad, boko and sunlight were two of my favs for very similar reasons. theyre fun to write imo. outside of the pw realm, maybe dana? or… dana as she appears in eight adapts, is a better way to say it. (patchwork Bad)

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

i guess grammar… maybe pacing? and characterization, to a lesser degree.

12) your weaknesses as an author

i feel like my word choice is often kind of odd? not odd in a quirky cool way but odd in the way that optical illusion of obama is where his eyes are flipped upside down and you cant quite figure out whats wrong with it. i also notice my stuff is often incredibly dialogue-heavy and im bad at dealing with especially heavy scenes. or… i can write my way into a heavy scene but im emotional constipation squared so im really bad at digging my way out of it. again with word choice, its bland and i find myself reusing the same actions over and over again. im trying to fix that but…

im scared im also just recycling the same plotthreads over and over again, if that makes sense? or just reusing the same personality for all characters, leading to them seeming especially 1d. im sure they already seem one-dimensional but i doubt the lack of variety is really helping much.

im bad at thinking of beginnings and endings to a chapter due to my writing style of Chunks. i think in a chapter those are my two weakest parts

im sure the plots of chapters ive written seem kinda flimsy or “saved by an ungodly amount of coincidence!” which again isnt great. anyone with more critical thinking skills than a box of crayons can probably tear apart works ive made to shreds in seconds.

and i think that my plots are sort of recycled a lot as well, only within the story. a character will develop and then cycle back to square one all over again.

i fear im not creative either and that im simply just stealing from more successful people. eight adapts is really just a glorified op24 knockoff tbqh, im surprised at the reception its gotten. i think its sort of undeserved.

grammar is another thing i struggle with despite being a native english speaker and a monolingual one at that. my grammar is good enough to get by but there are mistakes there that i shouldnt be making if i ever want to actually go anywhere with writing which, again, i doubt i will. you really just have to be the best at something to make it anywhere in an art field, you know? its a silly dream for me. ive never taken a writing class and i cant meet deadlines worth shit (which you all know). everything ive learned is just self-taught since i can count the amount of friends i have on my nipples and i dont want to annoy them more than i really do. its a hobby and a way for me to just fantasize and vent really.

OH ACTUALLY THAT LEADS ME TO A NEW POINT w similar chars. i just project super hard onto them. im sure they seem immature because of that. it doesnt matter how mature i THINK i am, im really still 16 and i dont know much about the world at all. another thing to add on the “horrible at dealing with emotions” list i guess. you should write off experience, i guess, which i do, kind of. but all of the romantic happy bits are just hopeless fantasy. i dont see them getting any better nor do i see myself ever dating anyone. im kind of a mess you see but at least ill have more time to write barely decent fics about homosexual squids.

i dont know. i dont think im a bad writer, but im nowhere near good. im just decent. thats all.

13) your strengths as an author

im scared of really saying anything here because no matter what i think im good at theres going to be someone better than me, you know? theres no point in claiming youre good at something unless youre the best, otherwise youll just be getting peoples hopes up.

if i had to choose, i think dialogue, but only about 55% of it. humor to a much lesser degree since im not really that funny but its one of the few parts of my writing i can sort of tolerate.

#asks #.txt #anonymous #not splatoon #long post

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nuroxic · 5 years

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Start a blog free

Get Start with blogging

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thedeadflag · 5 years

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Hey, pretty soon I'll be playing a friend of mine is gonna be DMing Tyranny Of Dragons for me and a couple of friends, and I can't decide whether I should play a Monk (probably Open Hand, maybe Kensei) or a Ranger (either Beastmaster or Horizon Walker), 'cause I've never played either of those classes, nor has anyone at the tables I've played. Can you tell me a little about your experiences with these classes?

The Ranger has been one of my favourite classes throughout the editions of D&D in terms of flavour, and I’ve had some fun with monks as well. In 5th edition, both took a fair bit of a hit in utility (individual and within group dynamics) and power at pretty much all ranges. The Ranger was propped back up a little bit in Unearthed Arcana in the revised ranger archetype, but both are still largely considered at best middle of the road classes, and at worst, the lowest tier of classes in the game in utility and character.

That’s not to say they can’t be fun and have a lot of flavour, and still find use. If you’ve watched Critical Role, you can see Vex and Beau weren’t useless by any stretch. No class is junk in 5e due to the improved parity compared to some past editions. So power and utility aside, if you feel drawn to any class/subclass, and you want to dive into its particular brand of flavour, then I say go for it. I would gauge the rest of the party’s makeup in making your decision, because group synergy is important, but you have to make yourself happy, too, right?

Anywho, I’ll break down my take on both.

When it comes to Monks, I like Open Hand the best. If you want to have a Monk-style gameplay with weapons, then Mystic or Fighter are probably better options with some more flair and utility involved than Kensei imo, but if that’s the route you want to take, it’d be alright. However, Open Hand has quivering palm, which is pretty incredible late game as far as damage and flexible timing from a single person through 3 ki pts and an action. If you do ever reach level 17, I would recommend multiclassing after that if you’re allowed, since the rest of the Monk’s class progression is kind of junk in comparison, and it could use some much needed utility from 3 levels of another class. Anywho, I like open hand not just for the flavor of being a class that’s capable of being an unarmed beast in battle, but also because of the way it can work in alignment with fighters who can also control the battlefield, like any fighter with a sentinel/polearm master. The ability to shove an enemy up to 15ft with one of your flurry attacks, launching them into the range of a fighter who gets a free opp attack against them and can from then on lock down their movement with a successful hit? That can be an excellent tag team. The Monk isn’t excellent for utility, but the Open Hand technique is probably the best at providing utility in combat among all the monk disciplines. Like, another option after hitting with flurry of blows is to steal all reactions for the opponent until the end of your next turn. This can be especially helpful against casters, as stealing reactions = preventing counterspells. And Monks can get a lot of attacks = lots of attempts to disrupt concentration of enemy casters, so the open hand monk is especially helpful at being a designated mage wrecker with having the mobility to reach casters and the ability to destabilize them. It’s arguably the one thing (aside from unarmed damage) that (this one kind of) monks do better than just about anyone else, arguably.

Now, to Rangers.

Honestly, I don’t like beast-focused Rangers. I think they’re a lot of work in order to get the mechanical payoff most other classes can achieve without a lot of thought or effort. Generally, any class that can let me focus more on flavour and RP is one I’m going to prefer, and beast master’s just…unwieldy. A lot of people say the class is junk, and if you run it without getting into the headspace for optimizing, it’s probably going to be more of a frustrating experience than you’d have hoped for. With BMs, you’re managing not just your character, but your companion, and you have to keep up with the different mechanics of both, you need to be 100% on top of choices made while leveling up, you need to have a strong understanding of battlefield control and your companion’s capabilities from the get go, and you really ought to be the kind of player who is happy to take a backseat to everyone else in and out of combat because the way you’ll shine is by helping everyone else do what they do with a little bit higher odds of success than otherwise. Personally, I like playing that sort of character, but I can do all of that with other classes a lot easier, and usually better, so this isn’t the kind of archetype I’d choose for a character myself. If you really want to, and think it’s cool, go for it, though.

The first thing I’d do is ask if you can use the UA revised ranger instead of the PHB ranger if you’re going the beast route (it’s “beast conclave” archetype in UA). If your DM allows that and insists you choose your companion from the list provided here, take the wolf (pack tactics is v helpful, same with 40ft speed and being able to send enemies prone after attacking) or ape (climb 30ft, melee/ranged ability, good stat baselines).

The second thing you’ll need is to lock down a quality companion, and that can take a bit of wheeling and dealing with your DM to let you use one of the supplementary books as a source, which is especially necessary if you’re not able to use the revised ranger class from UA. You do not want a hawk, mastiff, or panther, the PHB offers some shit examples out of the gate (panther and hawk are only conditionally good if you’re only ever going to have your companion rushing around the map using the ‘help’ action, or scouting to some extent, and the latter becomes less useful and reliable the higher level you become). Don’t choose a CR 0 companion, or one under ¼. If you absolutely must use a hawk for character flavor, then a blood hawk that at least has pack tactics would be a must. But if you are hoping for a companion that can do damage, look for something with certain damage if it hits, like added poison damage. Look for good AC if you want a tank. Look for versatility in mobility and senses. Look for special abilities (the boar having a relentless ability where it’ll go back to 1HP if it falls below 0; the wolf spider has web walk and web sense which can really help with casters using web if players don’t want to wade into the difficult terrain or are having difficulty finding enemies caught in the web; etc.)

But yeah, beast-focused rangers will be best when they’re spamming the help action with their beasts, using their beasts to get enemies out of cover, using their beasts to help control the field and give others advantage/take advantage, etc. You need to be quick mentally to know what you want to do with your character and your companion each time your turn comes around (most DMs, myself included, aren’t going to let you have as much time as you need to figure out what you want to do on both fronts, so if you can’t juggle two characters at once without losing a step, it might not be the archetype for you). This type of ranger requires you to know exactly what you want to be able to accomplish for yourself and your party right out of the gate, so you’ll want to gauge what your party members will be specializing in, what they want to be able to do, and see if there’s a way to shape your ranger to aid in that, particularly in choosing a beast that can be the most effective in ensuring that. Group cohesion is the name of the game with this form of ranger, so you’ll want to consider race selection a part of this process, too. I’ve had one player bomb hard as a BM and re-roll a different ranger, and I’ve had a friend who ran one who was the group’s unsung hero a lot of the time during their campaign. If you’re looking at Vex from CR as inspiration, keep in mind she had an excellent set of stats from lvl 9 onwards, and plenty of magical weapons to make up for much of any class shortcomings as characters scale up…look at how often Trinket was useful (very rarely) and understand that the bear was essentially just flavour for most of the campaign, and Vex would have been considerable underpowered compared to the rest of the party if not for some considerable DM intervention in ways that make things a lot trickier for DMs (adding magical weapons/items can easily unbalance a campaign, and it’s a matter of experience in knowing how to dole them out without throwing balance aside…Matt Mercer’s comfortable handing out flying carpets and multiple +2AC items and superpowered magical weapons by level 9, I wouldn’t give them out before level 14 or 15 and it would really only be if a player was severely struggling and refused to re-roll a more appropriate character while dying or nearly dying most combats). Other classes and archetypes have features and abilities that scale as you level, some earn specific spells as they level up that others can’t get, etc., but with beast conclave rangers, it’s their beast that slightly improves in a few meaningful ways. So if you’re going that route, you need to commit to a great beasts that’s a great fit for you and your party, and you need to commit to making the absolute most out of them and knowing how to make the most out of them.

Horizon Walker’s a simpler archetype that has some badass spells, but the flavour for the class can be a bit…strange in some adventures. It might not fit well with Tyranny of Dragons, I’m not sure how much planar travel’s involved in that adventure. Which might not be a problem for the DM, or you. I still prefer the UA ranger conclaves, but out of the PHB ones, this one’s probably the best of the bunch, even if it’s mostly going to lean towards being a melee build (which, again, check your party comp to see if that’s something that is workable).

Anywho, those are my late night D&D ramblings. You can take my words with a grain of salt if you’d like, and as always the rule of cool applies…if you think it’s cool and you really want to go with something, go for it and I hope the DM will find a way to help you make it work, but yeah, these classes can be a bit of an uphill battle, though I suppose potentially a rewarding challenge if that’s what you’re looking for.

Best of luck with the campaign, I’m sure you’ll have fun!

#d&d #long post #Anons

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