My headcanon for the day is that Billy's favorite animals are snakes and eels. a lot of people think they're gross and creepy but not him, he likes them because they're misunderstood like he is

Genshin Impact Husbando Tier List Because I Have No Life

My Genshin Impact Husbando Tierlist. I may as well out explanations under the cut because why the hell not. Also this is just my opinion, I’m not trying to shame anyone who like these guys. I would also like to say that I pretty much adore all of these characters to some extent (besides Scaramouche and Razor since I their just...I don’t like them and Albedo since I don’t know a thing about him). 

Albedo: I don’t know a thing about him other than he’s some genius alchemist. So I went off of looks here, and he’s just a meh for me. Not a big fan of the hair mostly. He does have an elevator though, so that’s a nice bonus.

Aether: Like Albedo I judged him off of his looks since he doesn’t really have much of a personality, and said personality changes whether you picked him as your traveler or not. He’s a meh, but I think Albedo looks better.

Baizhu/Baishu: Well ok, I don’t know much about this guy other than he’s the boss of Bubu pharmacy and that he potentially overprices his medicine. I’m only AR 31 so I am a long ways away from any story quests that might include him. Anyway, he seems like a decent guy... but also a little weird. Doesn’t help that he’s got a talking snake around his neck.

Bennett: Oh poor Bennett. This boy needs a hug. Unfortunately he only ends up in meh tier. Remember, this is a tier list for a romantic relationship, not people I’d like to be friends with. Although Bennett would rank highly on that tierlist. While I do like his spirit, I find that people that are super optimistic can be a little annoying at times. Don’t get me wrong, its impressive and I admire people who can be optimistic about everything (especially Bennett), but it can be tiring to deal with all the time. That and also his bad luck. But like I said, this boy needs a hug and should stop being bullied by Lady Luck. He deserves better.

Childe/Tartaglia: Do I really need to explain? But I will. First off, Childe is a Fatui Harbinger. That already prevents him from being in the decent tier. Sure, he might not be the worst Fatui Harbinger, but it doesn‘t change the fact that he works with the Fatui, who likely commit unspeakable atrocities on a daily basis. And Childe is a Harbinger in said organization, meaning he orders at least some of it to be done in the name of the Tsaritsa, unpaid debt, etc. And from what I’ve learned, he’s extremely bloodthirsty. That really turns me off, knowing that he‘s always itching for a fight. I haven’t even touched on his personality. He’s charming sure, but he gives me the sense that he’s never really genuine. A faker essentially. Oh did I mention he also wants to take over the world? No. Thanks. The only reason I didn’t immediately put him in ‘What the hell’ is because I have yet to play his story quest and that he is at least a family guy, so it does show he has at least SOME morals to an extent. My opinion probably won’t change, unless his story quest proves to be really good.

Chongyun: He’s cool. But I really don’t know much about his personality, but he just seems aloof. And he has a popsicle animation and...ok I don’t have much to say about him. He’s a really good exorcist that tries to suppress his yang power. Ok. He doesn’t seem like that bad a dude so I wouldn’t put him in No Thanks. He’s the meh-est in the tierliet for me.

Diluc: Oh boy oh boy, this man needs a hug. But like I’ve been doing, I have to say I’m not the hugest fan. Ofc he’s one of the better ones on the tier lis, but he doesn’t do much for me. Admittedly, part of it has to do with the fact that he’s the owner of the Dawn Winery. I don’t really like the idea of being in a relationship with anyone in some sort of position of power in general. Still, I’ll admit that if I were judging in terms of how good a partner they’d be for this list, I’d put him in the pretty good tierlist. But I dunno, there’s just this...thing to Diluc that makes me scared to even get involved with him, yet I wouldn’t mind being in some sort of relationship with him. I guess it boils down to how I see Diluc. He’s a really sad guy, and he really needs a hug and emotional support. I guess it’s the fact that I’m not really willing to do a lot for a relationship (but I dunno. Haven’t been in a romantic relationship yet, and I don’t see that changing any time soon). Anyway, let’s stop being sappy here for now. 

Kaeya: I’d say it’s self explanatory, but I have multiple friends who are Kaeya simps, so let’s go on a rant. So, Kaeya. Charming guy on the surface, but a manipulative man with a silver tongue. Like Childe, he always puts on some sort of act, or at least is the kind of guy who you’d describe as ‘they always smile, but it never reaches their eyes...’ and I actually would never want to get involved with a person like that period. At the end of the day, he’s the type of cunning man I would try my best to avoid at all costs. At the very least, he does have morals. Also I don’t like that him getting drunk is somewhat of commonplace. Sorry, but I don’t like drunkards.

Razor: I think it’s pretty self explanatory on why he’s in ‘What the hell’. The reason is plain and simple: he’s a furry. A wolf boy to be exact. Like...no thank you. I wasn’t really a big fan of him when playing through his story quest. I can kind of see why Razor can be a candidate for best boy (that goes to Bennett or Xingqiu imo), but not as a husbando. Sorry to say this, but why the hell am I going to date a wolf boy?

Scaramouche: Also self explanatory. He’s a pompous asshole, and a cruel and powerful one at that. The kind of guy I would never want to even lay eyes upon.

Venti: Ok ok I know people are probably going to be a little triggered but let me explain. So, Venti. Fun guy to be around. Around. I personally like the idea of being a friend with Venti but nothing more. He just doesn’t really click with me. I know he’s in the No Thanks tier, but like I said, he doesn’t click with me in that way. If anything, I don’t want to enter a romantic relationship with Venti. Mostly because he’s a drunkard with no money, and why must be have a tendency to get into trouble all the time?! Venti get into crime BY YOURSELF, DON’T DRAG ME INTO YOU LITTLE PIECE OF-

Anemo Archon with wisdom he may be, but it ain’t change the fact that he can get his n my nerves too easily sometimes :)

Xiao: I just don’t like that he’s an edgy boy really. Also like, Xiao is an adepti at the end of the day. While him being in a relationship makes for some excellent angst, I really wouldn’t want to do that to him if I somehow end up liking him. I don’t like edgy boys much in general in terms of husbandos, but then him being an adepti? That’s the deciding factor. He’s not What The Hell because he’s not really that bad. At the end of the day like many of these characters, he needs a hug and some emotional support.

Xingqiu: Fine. I have some bias with Xingqiu. He was my first 4-star and I use him all the time unless he truly is useless in a boss fight or domain. I actually do like his personality. He has a really refined way of speaking, but he just says some of the most goofy things. More or less, I just like his speech really. He’s all chivalrous too. I would’ve put him in pretty good, but like with many things, I mostly just find him to be really goofy and fun to be around. Although I will admit he’s probably my favorite on the list. 

Zhongli: He’s pretty cool and funny. At first, I thought I was going to hate Zhongli even as a character, but he turned out to be really awesome. So why isn’t he in the Pretty Good tier? Well for one, he’s an Archon. Like I said, the thought of being in a relationship with an Archon or Adeptus or anyone in a position of some power doesn’t really appeal to me all too much. Although unlike with Xiao who is an adeptus, Zhongli can turn people into adepti. So at the very least, if he did take up a human lover, he could prevent heartbreak since humans die in a blink of an eye for him. So hey! I can save him some heartbreak :) But, he’s still an Archon...so yeah. I think what really sets him back is his oh so traditional mindset. While I don’t mind doing things traditionally, some traditions are just...they don’t sit well with me. There’s also his lack of MORA. Zhongli, for the love of all that is holy, bring your own wallet and not poor Childe. Over all, I find Zhongli to be pretty decent for me, but there are things that keep him from really clicking with me.

Anyway, thank you for reading this husbando tier list I made and wrote at 12 am with 1 braincell intact and postponed posting this until 4 pm. 

....

...

Holy shit. 

I’ll need to add a read more to this. 

Sanders Sides Fic Rec

As a heads up! It’ll be very obvious that I prefer Virgil angst and so there will be a definite bias. Just a heads up! All of these will be on AO3 because... it’s the best haha! Also, I’ve only just noticed that a lot of these aren’t necessarily shippy but hey ho! Anyway, here we go! 

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What Students Teach- mt_reade, 4,000 words.

Hello! My name is Thomas Sanders, and I just finished my first year as a teacher.

I taught a grade one class this year, at a relatively small school. I’ve known that I wanted to be a teacher since I was young, and babysat for the first time. I just love kids so much, and I remembered how much my teachers had an influence on me growing up. I wanted to be able to do that for others. I’ve known for a long time that teaching is the right job for me.

But, what I didn’t know, is that the teaching goes both ways, and the lessons that my students have taught me this year are more valuable than any of the things that I taught them. I’m writing this now to share with anyone who reads this, just precious few of the things that my students teach me.

(I came across this recently but I just love how simple and sweet this idea is! I love how they characterised all the sides in the perspective of children, especially Remus. I feel like it would be easy to write as absolutely ridiculous but he feels still realistic while still being very much Remus!).

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I'll Stay Awake (cause the dark's not taking prisoners tonight) - starlocked, 2,000 words, Anxceitmus

Virgil doesn't get to meet his soulmates each night. No, he has nightmares. His roommate decides to stage an intervention.

(I just love this take on the soulmate idea of meeting up in your dreams. I also like that it was no one’s true fault. It would’ve been easy to say that it was all Deceit’s and Remus’ fault for being terrifying but it’s more nuanced than that! There’s not a lot of shippy-ness but it’s still a soulmate au so there we go!)

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(don’t) take this the wrong way- delimeful, unfinished, 7,000 words.

Local shark mer Roman finds a tiny mermaid tangled up in a net in his territory, and enlists his siren friend Patton's help to find a way to free the little guy. Unfortunately for Logan, they end up 'borrowing' a human to assist them in untangling the net. Virgil just wants to get out of this nightmare of a situation.

(Maybe I’m just a sucker for merpeople aus, but this is such a good story immediately. Instantly engaging and I’m keeping an eye on it for any new updates. I may also just be a sucker for misunderstandings which is the main conflict so far haha!)

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Centaur AU- KieraElieson, unfinished, 10,000 words

Thomas is hired as a centaur groom very abruptly, and is just a little bit lost, but trying his best.

However, when you think of centaurs more as people with animal-like bodies, and everyone else thinks of them as animals with human-like bodies, disagreements are bound to come up.

(So far it’s pretty much setting up the context and characters but it’s done so effectively! The trauma of the characters is handled so well, hinted at and clearly effecting their behaviour, but not so obvious that you immediately know what’s happened to them. Despite being tagged as ambiguous time period, you don’t even really question when the story is set! It quickly grabs your attention and you focus on the story more than any tiny ambiguous details.)

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No Longer Alone- Amydiddle, 3,000 words

Anxiety has been living in the basement of Thomas' mind space for almost two years now. A place were all the host's darkness resides. The small side has learned how to take care of himself and how to avoid the sides whenever he goes upstairs.

Tonight's midnight food run goes a bit differently.

(I am so weak for stories about how all the sides formed and first interacted! I think I just fell in love with this concept! Simple but such an interesting fun read!)

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The Worst Thing in the World- Arwriter, 6,000 words

Everyone knows Virgil needs to be handled a little differently. He might not like it, but that’s the way it is, and living with the light sides won’t change that. After all, it’s common sense.

Right?

(The first part in a slowly expanding series, the entire series is sooo good so if you like this one then definitely continue reading! It’s such a well written look into their lives, how they handle conflicts and grief. I love Virgil angst where the others get a look into his previous life, no matter how small and sad that look is.)

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tales of reverie- cattonsanders, 40,000 words, offscreen Logince. 

Roman loves to read bedtime stories to his kids (even if Virgil says he’s grown out of them), but soon Patton and Virgil discover that the story book their dad has been reading to them is actually a portal to the very kingdom they’ve been told about- not only that, but their dad is the prince!

What else will they find as they venture deeper into this new world they’ve found themselves in, and what other, much darker secrets are being kept from them?

(SUCH A CREATIVE IDEA! I love how the plot always kept me guessing but never in a way that felt cheap or misplaced. Characters were introduced and you were left piecing it all together to figure out if they were trustworthy, which is what the main characters are also doing! Will always recommend)

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Caught Red Handed- Wholesomereader, 20,000 words

Virgil doesn't like his dad, runs away, and 'accidentally' steals from a local bakery.

Then, the owner of said bakery hires him.

He's in so much shit.

(I love how this is paced and written out. There’s a lot of themes and relationships being built but it still feels easy to keep track of everything and nothing feels swept to the side or neglected.)

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Slither Into Your Heart- Jungle321jungle, 6,000 words, unfinished, Anxceit

Deceit didn’t bother to knock as he slammed the door open and glared down to where Remus sat on his bed polishing his morning star. 

“What did you do?” Deceit hissed. 

Remus gave him a large smile as he looked him up or down, “Do you have the snakes just up there or are they down below too?”

If asked by Patton later, Deceit most definitely did not try to strangle the other side in that moment. Not all.

~~~~

Also known as:

Deceit is turned into a Gorgon.  And the new annoying little snakes on his head seem to have an annoying obsession with Virgil.

(Amazing idea, amazing writing, sweet scenes and just! It’s just a nice read! I love how they write Deceit to be this cool tough persona but also named all his new snakes!)

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Wings of Anxiety- ShadeCrawler, 7,000 words

Virgil normally kept his wings pressed tight against his back. He never let them out to stretch when he was outside his room. Yes, they got sore after a little while and yes, it rustled his feathers to the point that it took forever to groom them.

But, he couldn’t take them out. He just couldn’t. Dark Sides didn’t have wings. Only Light Sides did.

(Love me some Virgil angst, add in some wings and I’m in! I also love this idea that Virgil was supposed to be a light side all along but circumstances weren’t as fair. Strong self hatred to make a compelling story! Just yes!)

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This isn’t what I wanted, but I’ll take it- Simpleton_Cat, 17,000 words, unfinished.

Thomas didn't think he would ever get pets, much less a cat. But here he was, having four cats, Logan, Patton, Roman, and Remus. And then Remus (God, please exorcise the demon that is most definitely in his cat body) brings home two more and then suddenly he's back at the Vet.

Or in other words: Everyone is a cat and Thomas is their owner.

(Again, such a cool idea! I love how this new context for the characters allow for so many new ideas and characterisations. I love Deceit and Virgil’s relationship and how that has shaped, especially how Deceit’s link to lying is written!)

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Changing Tides- LadyoftheWoods, 6,000 words.

Virgil ends up overboard of his father's boat during a storm, and expects to drown in the sea. Instead he is rescued by merpeople, in more ways than one.

(Virgil angst plus merpeople- well hello! I love the slowly forming family relationship between the characters. I also love how Virgil reacts to finding out merpeople exist, feels genuine but not too drawn out.)

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A Fanciful Dream- AceDetective, 20,000 words, Prinxiety 

Virgil could say with certainty that he was no prince. Found by King Thomas’ chef, lost and with no memory of who he was, Virgil spent his childhood running errands in the halls of the castle. When a young King visits and claims Virgil is his brother, Virgil must determine if this is truth or a young King’s hopeful dream.

(While this is very fast paced, everything feels justified and well explained. The confusion between both Virgil and his brother feels so genuine and well written. The quiet slow reaching out makes sense for the both of them!)

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Ten Things- LostyK, 30,000 words, unfinished, Anxceit, Royality

When Roman Prince learns that Patton Foster isn’t allowed to date until his older brother, Virgil, is, Roman is crushed. Roman’s twin brother Remus, however, comes up with a plan: find someone who is willing to date Virgil.

And who better to ask than Janus Verona, who according to rumours is willing to do anything for the right price?

(This is one where I kept a close eye to see if it updates, while a silly idea, it’s so well  written! I love how Deceit is written as slowly caring and falling in love while still maintaining his persona, just like Virgil! I also love how Virgil is characterised as his usual anxious self but a bit more persona based like before accepting anxiety) 

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You Can Picani Family You Want- DramaticGarbage, 20,000 words, Analogical, Royality.

Emile finds himself in charge of two small boys who need somewhere to go. It’s going to be a learning curve for everyone.

(If you love found family stuff then this is it! It’s a series of oneshots about different parts in their lives but I love the themes and how the characters progress through each moment. It’s so sweet and rewarding. Plus it has big boi Roman which is always a plus!)

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Fatherly Sides- Bright_Sea, 60,000 words, Moceit

There are good and bad days when it comes to being a father. Deceit and Patton learn all about it while raising their four boys.

(Similar to the one above, lots of found family sweet moments all connected by the larger plots and themes. The angst of the larger plot is given the seriousness and gravity that it deserves. I love how trauma is talked about and dealt with in a healthy manner. Everything feels so genuine and realistic!)

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Colors- Badgermole, 49,000 words (21 works), Logicality.

A collection of stories where Logan is a young Virgil's dad. Virgil happens to be autistic and has a fascination with colors. Unless otherwise stated: Virgil is aged around early elementary school age with Roman 2 years older.

(Again, with the sweet family moments with minimal angst! I don’t have autism so I can't say whether it’s realistic or not but it’s very well written and covers a lot of autistic themes and everyday life. Actually, read pretty much everything by badgermole as their writing is so good and they tackle a lot of disabled issues!)

*

Powerless- patentpending, 187,000 words, Logicality, Prinxiety.

“People like us,” Logan had once remarked to Virgil. “Are statistical anomalies.”

(Almost)  Everyone in the world has powers.  As for those who don’t, well, they’re such a small part of the population - only 0.04% - why would anyone care about them?

Ever since he realized what people mean when they call him Powerless, Virgil Sanders has tried to fight back against the system that oppresses people like him, Patton, and Logan.  When Patton’s bakery is targeted in a hate crime, he finally snaps.  With the help of a mysterious sponsor, Virgil becomes a villain, ready to remake a broken society.  The only thing standing in his way is the world’s most Powerful (and infuriatingly charming) superhero: The Prince, who is hiding the fact that his gilded life isn’t as perfect as it may seem.

(So well written! While fast paced, everything feels so well balanced. Main characters and their plots balanced with new OCs that don’t feel too much and justified in being there. The plot kept me guessing while still feeling justified and interesting.)

*

Grounded- InstantFire, 18,000 words

No matter your age, punishments are no fun. Despite being no fun, would you be willing to do anything to avoid said punishment?

(I don't know what it is about this piece but it's just sooo good! I’ve reread it so many times, it just won’t leave my mind! I love how it’s carefully written where we don’t quite exactly know what the misunderstanding is until it’s stated out loud for all the characters. Maybe I just have a weakness for Virgil angst and misunderstandings but so worth a read!)

*

Snow Day- RandomSlasher, 8,000 words

Every year, the sides go to Roman’s realm and spend a few days enjoying the snow. Well…most of the sides. Set pre-Accepting Anxiety.

(SOOOO GOOD! The found family is so well written. Actually, while this is the only mention of Random Slasher because I don’t want this to be too long, read everything and anything by Random Slasher. So well written with some amazing ideas.)

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Looking for the Light- OreoButter, 30,000 words

Remus, Deceit and Virgil Dark are Brothers. They had an awful home and now are in the foster system. After being passed from family to family they finally end up with Thomas. Remus is gross, Deceit is a compulsive lier and Virgil has crippling anxiety. Virgil will do anything to protect his brothers, at any cost. The family of three will have to face trial and the truth as they search for the light.

(I absolutely love found family if you couldn’t guess already! But I love how they wrote the sibling relationship between the dark sides, feels so genuine and justified. There is shipping but it feels more like a side plot so!)

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Sightless- riverblujay, 9,000 words

Virgil is blind. It's not a big deal though, right? But he hides it, because if the other sides knew they would push him away again. And besides, he's pretty good at faking being sighted...

And the other sides are also more observant than he realizes.

(Again, this is another fic that I keep returning to! Also, I’m not blind or have any partial sight so I can't so whether this is realistic but the conflict and comfort feels so genuine and justified.)

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The Black Hole Group Chat- Greenninjagal, 26,000 words, LAMP.

Cat_feelings: [I just have a lot of feelings for you Logan]

Anxi_Tea: [platonic?]

Cat_feelings: [does it matter?]

Anxi_Tea: [you’ve known him for twenty five minutes.]

*** aka a text fic where Logan texts the wrong number and everything goes downhill from there.

(I know text fics can be a little hit or miss but the chemistry feels so real and fun. The characters are still very much themselves, a lot of text fics can feel out of character. I also adore the fact that Virgil is mute so the fic has a reason for why the group chat is used despite them all meeting in person. So good, will always recommend!)

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April Fool’s- feduphufflepuff, 5,000 words

This is Virgil's first April Fool's Day with the FamILY, and he has no idea what to expect.

(Love me some Virgil angst and misunderstandings so here ya go! The found family vibes and the comfort and just ah! So good, just go read!)

*

Jisung (Han) as your boyfriend

(gif not mine! credit to owner!)

he is too good looking, @lindzaylove come collect your mans

confession:

jisungie here confessed by accident

he was ranting to minho about you over text, gushing over how cute you are. after sending the long paragraph that could’ve been an essay he put his phone down.

two minutes later receiving a text from you. 

love of my life y/n/n: i think you meant to send that to someone else hannie

whoops. maybe jisung should look at who he’s texting and change minho’s contact from ‘lee know hyunggg’ cause he’d sent an entire paragraph about you...to you.

ya boi started panicking, sending a chunk of distressed texts to minho who only laughed at him and say ‘now you’ve gotta confess to them’

even though it was over text, Jisung was mentally freaking out because things could go down two very different paths

he typed out a message to you before closing his phone and tossing it onto this bed, burying his head into his pillow, not wanting to see your answer.

“hey y/n, yeah i wasn’t meant to send you that...sorry. i was texting minho hyung but i guess i wasn’t looking at the contact name, so....there’s something I've been meaning to tell you. i like you....more than a friend and i was wondering if you wanted to go out sometime? on a date?”

on the other end of the phone you were going crazy ‘cause y’know HAN JISUNG LIKES YOU

you sent him back message and put your phone down, trying to control your heartbeat.

when jisung read your message saying you liked him too and asking to arrange the date he started jumping around happily. 

first date:

cinema + arcade + Jisung = perfect date 

in the cinema Jisung was having a mini debate in his heart whether to be cliche or not.

the two of you got seats in the back of the room, a bucket of popcorn between the two of you. 

once the film started you were 100% concentrated on it whereas Sungie over here was busy looking at you.

deciding that being cliche was the best road he did the fake yawn and put his arm over your shoulder, shooting you a smile when you looked up at him. 

the two of you were basically cuddling for the duration of the film, Jisung glancing down at you every now and then.

after the film you went to an arcade.

Jisung was determined to win you something from the claw machine, spending too much and unfortunately not winning anything. 

“it’s okay Jisungie, you tried” you leaned up and kissed his cheek making his cheeks burn.

Jisung would help you play the arcade games if you were bad at them, even if you were good he’d still help you

after the date he walked you home, his arm over your shoulder. 

once at your house, he pulled you into a hug and kissed the top if your head. 

the smile did not leave his face for the rest of the day.

first ‘i love you’:

okay 

let’s get one thing out of the way

once the first i love you is dropped HE WON’T STOP SAYING IT

every chance he gets, he’ll tell you he loves you

but back to the first time he said it

it was an accident to be completely honest

you two were in the dorm...just the two of you, messing about

joking throwing insults and names, y’know acting like the dumb teens you were.

when jisung threw a particular comment you pushed him making him fall off the couch.

“hey! i would’ve dragged you down with me, you’re lucky i love you”

he hadn’t realized what he’d said until he looked over at you, who was staring at him with wide eyes

when his brain finally registered what he said his eyes widened and he gasped dramatically. 

then the apologies began. accompanied with him flapping his hands about crazily. 

“wait..shit! i’m so sorry i didn’t mean to say that-well i did but i also didn’t-ugh i’m so sorry y/n i-”

you cut him off, leaning up and pecking his lips. “It’s fine Ji, don’t worry. i love you too” he froze, again, and his cheeks burnt bright red. 

after that he wouldn’t stop with the i love you’s

first argument:

i can’t imagine an angry jisung for some reason

ANYWAY

bby jisung over here has had a rough week. 

he’s a great dancer, but the new choreography skz were doing was challenging him

so, in order to try and perfect it, he started spending stupid amount of hours in the dance studio

you, being the loving s/o you are, you started worrying for him.

it was 3 AM when you rocked up to JYPE to see him. the staff greeting as you walked in

eventually getting to where he was, you slowly opened the door and watched as he danced

wincing when he tripped over his own foot, almost falling over.

“Jisung...” you called out to him

He sighed angrily and glared at you through the mirror “what are you doing here y/n?” he snapped

you were taken back by his tone. “whoa, no need to snap at me”

he snapped then and there, letting out all of his frustration of the week out at you.

“yes i do y/n! you won’t fucking leave me alone, this past week you won’t stop fucking trying to talk to me. don’t you understand that i’m busy? I’ve got enough fucking stress and you breathing down my neck the whole time is adding onto it! just fuck off for once!”

you were shocked, Jisung never shouted like that.

“well i’m sorry if i’m trying to be a good boy/girlfriend! I was trying to make sure you don’t overwork yourself because i care about you Jisung!! but fine, if that’s how you wanna be, i’ll get out of your way!” you left, going straight home and collapsing into bed, the anger coming out in the form of tears.

when you left, the door slammed loudly, knocking Jisung out of his thoughts making realize what he’d said to. “shit i fucked up, i fucked up bad”

he went back to the dorms that night, having a long conversation with Chan about your argument and asking for advice.

the next morning he showed up at your door with a bouquet of flowers and an apology ready.

of course.....you forgave him.

kisses:

ohhhh jisungieee 

he loves kisses

if he could, he’d spend the whole day kissing you.

kisses on the cheek, forehead, lips, neck, hands....ANY AND ALL

he does have this weird obsessions with kissing your knuckles/the back of your hand when your holding hands

he will not hesitate to kiss you in front of the boys...he has no shame

greets you with a kiss, when you leave to go home he gives you a kiss

ANY and i mean ANY opportunity he has to kiss you, he’ll take it.

makeout session do happen quite often

when you two kiss, if you play with his hair, he will melt

so please, play around with his hair when you kiss.

hugs:

he loves hugs

LOVES THEM

cuddling? one his favorite things 

back hugs? all the time...if you’re shorter than him that’s just a bonus

he loves wrapping you in his arms and not letting go until you give him a kiss or something

if your in the kitchen or something doing homework or other unnecessary things he’ll sneak up behind you snake his arms around your waist

if you hug him from behind, cling to him like a little koala, jump onto his back and cling to him or anything like that his heart will start FREAKING OUT

if you can’t tell.....he really loves you

overall:

Han Jisung would be the perfect boyfriend

the person who gets to date him is the luckiest human on the planet

why do i feel like he’s trying to become my bias.....sighhh

Irwin and the Spider Gene

I thought I would adress this topic since it has recently come up in the ball python community once again. Apparently certain parts of the UK have banned the sale of Ball Pythons with the Spider gene.

I was not aware that this was an issue they were willing to work to fix.

The way I see it the Spider “Wobble” and balance issues that come with it are an issue— although one that ranges wildly between snakes. Some, like Irwin (my Banana Bee), have a minor wobble and barely noticeable unless you were looking for it. Other snakes have it to the point where it messes with their ability to eat. I wasn’t sure of my stance on this issue until recently. Let me clarify before I state my thoughts...I bought Irwin BEFORE I had heard anything even remotely negative about the gene/morph.

Now, my opinion. I think of the gene issue in the same way I think of certain dog breed issues. Take for example the English Bulldog. These dogs in their pure bred form live terrible lives, full of sickness, and major health issues. I hate the fact that people breed these dogs knowing their life will be shorter and full of pain and suffering as they struggle to breathe past their smooshed in faces.

If the Spider gene Wobble was as severe as that I would oppose it more strongly. As it stands now, with the information avaliable to me it seems as though this morph of snake DOES have neurological issues. But not to the point where every snake with the Spider gene suffers life shortening health problems. Irwin is a voracious eater, his behavior is well within the norms, he handles well, his head is just a little wobbly. In my opinion I see no issue with Breeders using the Spider gene in conjunction with other genes. As for pure Spider Morphs, the jurry is still out for me. I probably have bias due to the fact my Spider morph pet is a very mild case.

If you are looking for your first Ball Python I would err on the side of caution and stay away from the Spider morph. The last thing a new owner needs is a snake with neurological problems that were undisclosed. There are plenty of other morphs to choose from!

If you have any questions or if you would like to know where I am getting my information feel free to message me and I will provide you with links.

-🐍

Collected Lectures of Guru Naaya-Drishtavaan Pramaunyakshi:  Animation

The aged, grey-bearded Guru, hair tickling his navel, sat lotusing before a handful of bug-eyed disciples. Taking a deep settled breath, he addressed them thusly:

“Kind pupils, we as people consider certain things (ourselves for example) to be animate beings. Yes?

“We then, by our dualistic philosophy, by the Rule of Opposite Expression: the one which creates light and dark, yin and yang, hot and cold, night and day, also consider some things to be inanimate. This distinction I believe to be a fallacy. I believe if there were anything inanimate, we would be incapable of perceiving it with our six senses. Perhaps I should clarify and say that I do not believe there is anything animate or inanimate. Not at least, that is, within our capacity of perception. The term itself is a misnomer.”

“Venerable Teacher, do you have any basis for this theory?” a brazen youth piped up to the gasp of his surrounding students.

“Ah, you are a curious youth. And rightly so! Wonderful! My explanation? You, I, everyone else right along with every animal and plant on this planet are all made up of atoms. These atoms are made up of various subatomic particles that become so small that we, this ‘we’ meaning modern science, still don’t know what’s at the root of them. Except perhaps for a new way to annihilate the world because a desert djinn, or tiny invisible shoulder christ told you to – but I digress…” A small rumble of chuckling followed but was quickly curtailed.

“These atoms move at such an incredible rate that our bodies seem to our comparatively lethargic eyes to be whole… solid… ‘real’ even though each atom itself contains relatively enormous galaxies full of ‘empty space’ between its moving parts.

“On the other shoulder, this zafu, this ‘inanimate cushion’ that I am currently sitting on, is made up as well of these subatomic particles. Every bean, every thread, each is made up of protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, gluons and question marks. The reason it functions as it does and manages to support my weight is because those atoms are moving so fast that they too appear as a single solid unit.

“In this way, I propose that there is nothing in our viewable reality that is inanimate. The fact that we can acknowledge its existence means that it is currently in motion, exactly the same as we are. The physical world is humming, buzzing, moving all around us. And we are buzzing right along with it. Energy everywhere is everything!

“I have come to visualize the universe as a mesh unit; every primary building block of life touching every other. Much like the binary code of 0s and 1s, does it not make sense that everyone and everything could be made up of one, or possibly a balanced pair of blocks that when combined in their infinite ways make up the myriad appearances?

“I am no physicist, but from my brief studies of lay-material, I believe this dualistic balance is even shown in the distribution of protons and electrons. Protons are positive, and electrons, of course, negative. All atoms have the same number of each, creating balance. Neutrons, however, are neutral, and they can vary in number because they are without a bias, without being, so to speak. Neutrons are like atomic Buddhas.

“So if this should happen to be true, then we are all through a long unbroken net, in continuous contact with everything and everyone that currently exists, has ever existed or will ever exist. Perhaps this is at the foundation of psychic phenomena and telekinesis. Who knows? I’ll tell you: none of us do.”

“Excuse me, Venerable Teacher, but to go back a moment to something you were saying; do you then consider a dead body to still be an animate being, though whatever life force that had inhabited it is gone?” the same pupil questioned.

“The body itself is still quite animated after death. The body very quickly begins to break down and decay. Yet the body is still nothing but energy even as it rots. And by life force do we mean food? Oxygen? The metabolic processes which must function in tandem for this body to continue to speak and think and breathe? Is it any different from an otherwise healthy flower, pulled roots and all from the dirt, losing its source of nourishment and ability to respirate? Even with severe brain damage, a body can, with help, still survive. Though the person we know and love may seem to be lost to us. A person whose heart ceases to beat can unite with a machine and be plugged into the wall as the flower’s roots can be placed in nutrient rich water and seem perfectly healthy. But that person, when their life support is unplugged, will die as soon as the body becomes incapable of running its own mechanisms. And the body quickly begins its decay just as the flower will wither and rot when removed from the hydroponic solution.

“The real dilemma in what you ask is the snake-pit issue of consciousness. No religion or philosopher has ever been able to pin down this immense three-syllable word. Some deny its existence; some pass it off to a serendipitous electro-chemical reaction of a number of regions in the brain all working in tandem, nothing more than a fluke, an evolutionary defense mechanism, a by-product of birth; while there are some who feel it is a god-granted gift.”

“But don’t you propose to know the answer?” asked the brazen youth once more.

“Only an egomaniac would be so foolish and bold as to tell you that he alone possesses the answer to that ageless riddle. What is it and how does it correlate in conjunction with the physical world? Binding the inward consciousness and outward consciousness together?

“I myself favor the Buddhist doctrine that there are six consciousnesses working at all times, each tied to a particular sense faculty and each coming into existence entirely dependent on having both an outer object to be observed and a sense organ with which to observe it (though consciousness itself is neither observation nor recognition but merely the awareness of something exterior); and even then consciousness is only an intangible process that happens and is but one of the Five Aggregates that pass themselves off as ‘I.’

“Or perhaps that is not the whole truth. Perhaps there is something greater tying together the flesh and subtle matter. Your guess is as equally valid as mine. But what is to say that each of the ‘inanimate’ objects we surround ourselves with doesn’t have some sort of alternate consciousness from ours? Some, possibly rudimentary, ‘awareness’ that we exist as well. Perhaps not recognition, but awareness nonetheless. Every cell in our body has a specific consciousness all its own causing it to correctly perform its desired functions.

“All species of flora exhibit signs of this consciousness. Have you ever seen a flower with ears? No? Yet it has been proven that speaking to, or playing music for a plant will cause it to grow stronger and healthier than one which has been neglected. Is it our energy that encourages it? Sound vibrations? I don’t know. But they are, nonetheless, aware – receptive.

“Cucumber plants, ivy, wild vines grow runners that reach out to find a stable object. When they encounter such an aid, be it a lamp pole, trellis, side of a building, or a stick planted for their benefit, they wrap their little feeler around the object and cling to it for support.

“I myself had a rather miraculous encounter in this way. One spring when planting our garden, I found amongst the others, a tiny little tomato plant. It was obviously sickly and the runt of the litter. I planted it in a place of honor, but it refused to grow past only a few inches. I even needed to brace it because it was unable to stand on its own. Its leaves drooped and withered. No one held out much hope for it.

“A few weeks after it had been planted, the wind during a fierce thunderstorm snapped the stem clean in two, right at the level of the dirt. Everyone said to throw it away, it was dead. I did not want to give up on it so easily.

“Using flat wooden sticks and tape, I joined the two halves back together and created a splint in hopes of mending the plant. Twice a day I would talk to the plant and take it in my hands and recite ‘Om Mani Peme Hung’ three times, blowing on it from stem to leaf with each repetition.

“Not only did the plant mend itself, sending thin strands of new roots down through the tape and into the dirt, but it grew flowers and tomatoes and produced almost up to the standard of its brothers and sisters. I was quite proud of that little plant.

“None of this means that the plants have eyes or ears or noses or tongues, or even a central nervous system, but just as a squirrel knows to bury nuts for the winter and remembers exactly where he stored every last acorn and knows when to crawl into his hole to hibernate, and birds know when to migrate and where to migrate to, and when to and how to return, these plants have what we call instinct. This means, essentially, that we as humans are baffled by them, and yet too arrogant to admit that we’ve been outsmarted by creatures that we believe to be so far inferior to our educated, intellectual selves.

“Now let’s move away from living creatures into what we would call those ‘inanimate objects.’ Such objects, furniture in particular, have been known to contain imprints of energy from previous owners. It is possible, some say, to have an item, a chair or statue or watch for instance, that seems to emit bad feelings (bad vibes, if you don’t mind the dated hippie connotation) that are communicable by the very act of coexisting in the same room as said object. Who has not felt this before? Those feelings of insecurity or unease upon entering a room or sitting on a seemingly benign piece of furniture. If smudging with sage and other cleansing herbs or living with it in your presence for some time doesn’t help dissipate this negative energy, it is best to rid yourself of the offending piece.

“This differs significantly, mind you, from traditional animistic beliefs that objects in nature such as rocks and streams are inhabited by the spirits of ancestors, but it fits perhaps a distant sub-categorization.

“My concept, my presumptuous guess, you could say, which is most likely not worth the air it takes to speak it, is that there is as the final smallest building block only primary Creation Energy. Or Creation Consciousness, if it suits you better. This idea came to me one night when I was on the verge of sleep. And feeling like a gift in itself, I’ve taken it and nursed it and found it to be good. Since that meditation I’ve read of some who hypothesize that there is no such thing as a vacuum, that all the so-called ‘empty space’ within the parts of an atom is actually nothing more than energy itself! Here is my net weaving us all together!

“Apparently someone else has already come to a similar conclusion, perhaps with a more scientifically sound basis than my own. And this is why I pass this teaching on to you, so you can question it, test it, decide whether it works, and if so, someday do likewise with students of your own, letting them also draw their own final conclusions. All ultimately, leading us that much closer to the answers we so hungrily crave.”

The political amplifier

If you really believe in democracy, you can’t hack democracy. But if you don’t believe in democracy—how can you hack democracy? Easily—and legally.

You just have to build a political amplifier. An electrical amplifier adds gain to an input signal, emitting the same output signal with a higher energy. For a political amplifier, the input signal is collective will and the output signal is collective impact. It’s very cool and very legal.

In English: a political amplifier just means making your voters as powerful as possible. There are plenty of perfectly legal, but weird and counterintuitive, ways to do this. We are hacking the rules—not hacking the voting machines. Are you up for it? Of course, we would never even dream of doing anything illegal.

Of course, the whole spiritual principle of democracy is that everyone deserves power. Moreover, everyone deserves the same amount of power. While no one actually believes this fake idea, your enemies always want you to believe it as much as possible. They, of course, believe they deserve all the power. And they like, kind of seem to—have it. Legally, of course.

You don’t know enough French to express what you think of these people. Perhaps, as Xenophon said of the Helots’ attitude toward their Spartan lords, you’d eat them raw. At this point? You’d eat them rotten. Culturally, at least, I am one of them—so I don’t find this a super pleasant situation myself. (I am just doing, like, the Coriolanus thing.)

But whenever you start thinking about how to make this happen, preferably without any cannibalism at all, you fall down a bullshit mine from which you never emerge—because you believe in democracy. In fact, as hardcore a MAGA man as you may be, your dream is to restore democracy. It would be easier to restore the Stuarts—literally. Not that that would be easy (or ideal)—but it wouldn’t be fundamentally impossible.

Because you take democracy seriously, you think about it in ineffective ways. You generally think only about principles (more highbrow) or personalities (more lowbrow). If you are really a total bowtie sperg, you might even think about policies. Your enemies pretend to be thinking the same way—but in fact are only thinking about power.

Which is easily seen by how fast they turn on a dime—hardcore anarchists on Friday, by Tuesday they can be two-thirds of the way to full Pinochet—a sort of ethical Tesla, in “ludicrous mode.” It’s almost too impressive.

There’s a new thing where they pretend to be Christians, which is just embarrassing. And if they believed in anything at all, which they obviously don’t, the last thing they would believe in would be actual democracy—which they call “politics.”

Their view—which they barely bother to hide—is that politicians should have no real power at all, like the Queen of England. Hearing them screech the sanctity of sacred democracy is like listening to a crocodile lecture interminably on the virtues of salad. Everything is special pleading. You don’t know why he wants you to go into the garden—but you can guess.

But you are not pretending—which is why you always lose. You thought you were going to get tired of winning. Might you by any chance be starting to get tired of losing?

In that case, maybe you should consider hacking democracy, instead of believing in it. That seems to work pretty well for them. Come with me if you want to live.

Principles of political amplification

To embark upon the path of the political amplifier, you need to not only want as much power as possible—you must believe it is your duty to capture and hold all the power. That seems to work pretty well for them. Why would you try to throttle the gain on your own amplifier? What do you think politics is? What?

Of course, a political amplifier is completely legal under the Geneva conventions. It’s just a social network—just an app, really. You could certainly use it to help break the law. The same is true of a telephone. (Not breaking election laws, in specific, will take the assistance of lawyers who bill at four figures an hour. Suck it up and pay them.)

Your input signal is the collective will of some set of people. Without an amplifier, this signal will be too weak to have any impact at all—like connecting your VCR directly to the speakers.

If you connect 75 million VCRs (hello, fellow boomers!) to one speaker, you probably will hear something. Is it loud enough? Was it loud enough? Did it even sound good? If the answers to all these questions are no—you might want to try using an amplifier.

A supple example

For example, a “lobby” in our present system of government is a kind of amplifier. Without a ferret lobby, the collective will of ferret owners has no meaning. No one cares about you, ferret owners! Your little smelly weasel things are just gross: half rat, half snake, and all vermin... should any speak this way, the National Ferret Council will not rest until it has shut their lying mouths. I mean—corrected them in a press release.

Your output signal is the collective impact of a group of people. What can they make happen, by working together to make it happen?

For example, many states remain wildly prejudiced against ferrets. Their anti-ferret laws seem to have been written by legislators who were at best pardonably ignorant— or in the outright pay of the corrupt anti-ferret lobby. Politics is a dog-eat-dog world, kid—and that goes for ferrets too. You got to pay to play the game, capische?

So by exercising the collective will to perform the coordinated individual action of sending a check to the National Ferret Council, the set of ferret owners buys fair, or fairer, legislation for the friends of ferrets and the ferrets they love. The system works! No individual ferret owner could take any useful action at all; nor could the collective of all ferret owners take any useful action, without the amplifier.

Measuring political input

The universal formula for collective energy is one you might have seen before:

E=mc^2

Political energy is mass (quantity of human capacity) times commitment (what these humans are willing to do) times cohesion (how well-organized they are).

Mass is simple: headcount scaled by ability. Obviously, no two human beings are equal. And some humans are much more useful for certain tasks than others. (I’m very sorry if this comes as a surprise to you.) However, for the purpose of generating power—more is better, of course.

Commitment is how much your humans are willing to put into the cause. 0 is nothing. 1 is voting, once every few years. 2 is a write-in vote or a campaign contribution. 10 is a suicide bomber.

Cohesion is the capacity of a group of humans for intelligent coordinated action. 0 is every man for himself. 1 is a slogan or a party label. 2 is a party line or publication. 10 is a fanatical robotic cult.

Your democratic bias always makes you want to think that E=m—and an m not scaled to ability. This isn’t necessarily wrong, or right. For example, ISIS showed significant success with very low mass, but very high cohesion and commitment.

In general, any modern population has extremely low ratings on both commitment and cohesion, especially commitment. We live in an age of low-engagement casual politics. Many political approaches that fail regularly, but are regularly tried since they worked in the past, assume levels of commitment and cohesion that existed only in the past.

By the standards of his great-grandparents, the modern American citizen is utterly disconnected from politics and would never consider following any kind of real leader. Small wonder his real political power—as measured by the real personal power of the politicians he elects—was also euchred out of his hip-pocket as he dozed like a hippo.

On the other hand: there are, like, 75 million of him. The problem can’t be unsolvable. We just have to think it through clearly from first principles.

Measuring political output

We see four targets of collective political action: in order of effectiveness, personality, principle, policy, and position.

The target of personality is for the most part the level of politics today. The personality voter picks a politician with whom he feels a parasocial bond. Through the imaginary telepathy of this bond, a victory that makes the politician important—or purportedly important—makes the voter feel important.

The stake of most personality elections is this claim on meaning. The political formula of the personality election is that the state will take on the personality of the politician—the “Trump administration”—which means that the voter, through the parasocial bond, has become in a weird “Being John Malkovich” sense the President himself. This kind of politics is only slightly more real than “supporting” a football team.

The next target up is the goal of principle—or, pejoratively, ideology. The formula of the principle election is that the politician represents an ideology. Every politician being a philosopher, or at least having a deeply felt philosophy, he parades this principle before the voters. If they share the same conviction, they can rule by electing him. In office, he will make the shared principle the ideology of the state.

As with the personality election, it would be going too far to say that a principle election never works. But it is no longer the 18th century; John Adams is no longer in the building; and few of our politicians believe or even think anything. Where they do, “the best lack all conviction / while the worst are full of passionate energy.”

With the target of policy—stuff the government actually does—we enter the level of effective political action. Trump is a personality; nationalism is a principle; building the wall is a policy. Getting the policy you want is a success by definition.

But how much of a success is it? Power has given you a fish. You have not taken any power to fish. Anything that is given can be taken away. In a financial sense, policy wins are the dividend of power; but any serious player has to be after the capital.

The premier target of collective action is position (as in field position). A victory in position is any victory that makes further victories easier. Position is the true capital of power. The highest form of position, stem position, wins further victories in position itself. Below it is leaf position, which generates only policy victories.

There are two kinds of victories in position: zero-sum and positive-sum. In a positive-sum victory, you build power, but no one directly loses power. In a zero-sum victory, you take power away from the enemy. Obviously, a zero-sum victory is better.

Zero-sum victories are particularly desirable because they are measurable. A simple body count measures the number of enemy jobs eliminated. It is not a win to fire an enemy if he will just be replaced with another—politics is anything but mere cruelty.

(And in the end, anyone who loses their job not through their own fault, but through what is essentially an act of war if not an act of God, has to be especially well taken care of. Both in politics and war, your true enemies are structures, not people.)

We often see a mighty mass movement, with a genuinely enormous support base, that not only has never gotten anyone fired, but has no idea how to get anyone fired. Of course, positive-sum victories in position can also create jobs for friends; but unless these jobs were taken from enemies, the power to protect them is not demonstrated.

Reviewing this scale of political action, we see immediately that we cannot expect the contemporary American right to accomplish anything, because at maximum power it barely gets into the policy space.

In position, it is totally powerless. It does not have its own official and/or quasi-official institutions, cannot create any, and cannot even touch the institutions of its enemy. When I was in elementary school, the “Reagan Revolution” produced some headcount reductions in USG. It is not clear that this had any particular impact on history—and it is the last time anything like that happened.

As someone once said: you’re going to need a bigger boat. That can be done. But it will require leaving some of your old illusions ashore.

Designing the amplifier

While everyone wants more mass, the engineering variables we can actually control are commitment and cohesion. Engineering commitment is very hard—it is hard to imagine an Amerikaner ISIS, suicide bombers and all. Can we just—not go there?

Engineering cohesion, however, is an interesting problem that seems worth a look. We are pretty good at cohesion these days—since we have apps. The traditional approach to the problem of producing cohesion in an electoral democracy is the political party. Therefore the intersection which defines our design space is both a party and an app.

The problem with the concept of a political party is that this concept is ritualized into our political system. When we imagine creating a party, we think of the Constitution Party, or the Green Party—but it makes no sense to be a Party in this formal sense.

Here are three historical analogies for the kind of “party” that is a true amplifier. One: the Communist Party USA, in the 1930s. Two: the Muslim Brotherhood, today. Three: the Iron Guard, in Romania, in the 1930s.

The last two are—to be frank—pretty weird and scary, so let’s focus on the first. Of course, everyone cool was a Commie in the “Red Decade,” or at least a fellow traveler. Who was cooler than Dorothy Parker? I’ll wait while you think about it.

Engineering principles of a real party

A so-called “party” in the “Green Party” sense is an evolutionarily castrated version of the real thing—almost a kind of vaccine. Let’s talk about a proper virus.

First: a real political party is exclusive. You cannot just decide that you are a member, any more than you can just decide that you’re a Hell’s Angel. You have to apply. And once you’re in, you have to keep paying your dues—in money, in kind, or both.

Second: a real political party is disciplined. As a member of the party, all your political actions are through the party and for the party. You do not make your own independent political choices; you delegate your political autonomy to the party. Of course, you may contribute to decision-making within the party.

Third: a real political party is anonymous. While the party, if out of power, should not intentionally come into conflict with power, sometimes such conflict is unavoidable. Members should be as safe as possible from daytime consequences of their party life.

Elections and party discipline

As a party member, you vote the straight party line in every election. Period. Why else would you join the party? What else is a party? What? We’re not the Republicans here.

Political participation is fun and meaningful—but only within the party. Internally, there may be an uninhibited discussion—even an internal election, essentially a private primary—over what candidate the party should vote for. But the party has one vote. (Of course, “fellow travelers” are free to follow this vote, without being party members.)

This cohesive unanimity makes the party into a bloc vote—which is the main source of its political gain. A cohesive voting bloc is much more powerful than its individuals.

Consider the position of a bloc with 10% of the vote, in a binary election. Perhaps the bloc cannot pick one of the two candidates. 10% can swing any close election, though—so both candidates are likely to bid strongly for the support of the bloc.

Furthermore, because of its loss of cohesion and commitment over time, our electoral system is full of low-turnout elections. Often, a small but highly disciplined bloc can overwhelm the last civic diehards of the old system in some primary or minor election. (Of course, the bloc registers its voters in whatever official “party” is most useful—it is never its own “third party.”)

If all else fails, the party can least make a little splash with a bloc write-in vote, usually for comedic or other media-stunt purposes. What if “Bronze Age Pervert” racked up even—2% of some election? Would that not be a show of defiance and strength, in the face of the bluehaired longhouse state? Politics is always and everywhere a work of art.

Elected officials and party discipline

Eventually, the party will start winning elections. Party discipline does not end with the election—all actions of the elected official are under party control (assuming the official wants to be reelected on the party slate).

For example, if the party controls seats in a legislature, these seats will vote in a bloc. Anyone who deviates from the bloc even once will be off the ticket at the next election.

Of course, this means that party officials are interchangeable—the individual barely matters, though ideally they are charismatic and competent. The task of vetting these individuals, which formerly rested on the shoulders of the voters, now belongs to the party—which can actually be equipped to do it. When elected officials can hire a staff, the staffers are actually party staffers. There is no independent authority anywhere.

Party direction and governance

The purpose of every action the party takes is to improve the position of the party. Any question of personality, principle or even policy is generally irrelevant.

A real political party is a political amplifier. The purpose of a political amplifier is to gain power. How much power? As much as it can gain. Any party operating on any other principle is defective—its real function is to neutralize its own supporters.

Obviously, the maximum possible objective of a party is unconditional sovereignty. The party, capturing the state, becomes the state. Even if this goal is unrealistic, any party that at least knows what it would do if it beat this final boss has an advantage: since it has no cap on its potential power, its expected outcome is higher. (Also: do you think we don’t have a one-party state now?)

It does not matter how the party governs itself. That said, the principles presented here are essentially Lenin’s idea of democratic centralism. The ideal party governance mechanism is Lenin, but less angry, plus some kind of accountability mechanism—a hard problem we won’t get into today.

Remember, Dorothy Parker was a Leninist—so you can be too.

The 21st-century version

Everything above could be implemented without any IT—aside from a hand-cranked printing press in an attic full of empty wine bottles, cats, drugs, revolutionary posters, and casually discarded lingerie.

But today, of course, a party is literally a social network—which makes it an app. The revolutionary attic has become a gleaming server room—with a little bell that rings every time someone gets their party card. Or rather, their party account—or even their party token.

In the democracy of the future, you have only one decision to make: which party app to install on your phone. Sometimes the app will tell you to go to a polling place and vote. It will show you a sample ballot, which you manually enter into the voting machine. Other than this tedious but necessary process, you don’t have to think about politics.

But the app is not just a voting app. It is a social network. Specifically, it is a powerful form of social network: a high-trust social network.

A dinner party is a group of people you trust enough to let into your house, and even drink there. A political party is not really different from a dinner party. Fundamentally, you trust these people more because you know they agree with you. There are all kinds of productive ways to use this trust.

Today’s political social networks, like Parler and Gab, are crude horseless-carriage versions of this digital party. They are built as mere Twitter clones, which makes no sense at all—while these are networks for outcast shitposters who want to own the libs, you simply can’t own the libs where there are no libs. If you want to shitpost, underwater frogman guerrilla warfare is your only respectable option. In the end, it still may be the shitposters who save the world—but only the respectable ones.

A social network of trusted people who agree with you is much more powerful and valuable than an information superhighway devoted to sharing witty little remarks. What can a real digital party do?

What a real digital party can do

First, the party is your primary information conduit. It furnishes you with a complete narrative of historical present reality.

This is not just a matter of a feed full of shitposts and unverified rumors. Nor is it a feed full of wire reports. Your party dues go to pay journalists—or people who do that same job, anyway. These journalists are the party’s eyes and ears; they see the world through the party’s perspective; they, not you, decide what is true and false.

This journalism apparatus is the party’s brain. Since the party’s journalists are always right, you as a party member are always right. Party journalism has a pleasant tone because it is not meant to attack the normie world—it is only for party members, and only so they can observe and understand that world. There is no harm if it leaks out, since it will only impress normies and make them wonder about joining the party.

The party is its own end-to-end media company. When you watch news from normie world, you can only roll your eyes and laugh. Still, it is important to understand what the normies are thinking and why, so the party has a whole division of normie studies—in case you see some CNN in an airport, or something, and want to know what they’re even talking about.

Second, the party is your primary social conduit. It knows where you live and who lives near you. It will organize you into informal local friend groups. It also gives you local as well as central news—it becomes the equivalent of Nextdoor or Citizen. But without people who don’t agree with you telling you what you can’t say. Single and looking for love? Or even just fun? Neighbor, you don’t want to date a normie. That’s just trouble.

The party provides social structure for your whole life. You’ll work out at a party gym; you’ll go on group tours with a party guide; if you get sad, you’ll call a party helpline; if you lose your job and you’re broke, you can talk to someone in the party. Everything you get for being a Mormon, you should get from the party—even if it costs as much.

Third, the party is an important professional asset. If you need a job or an employee, it is always best to talk to your friends in the party. Why would you want to work with a normie? For 40 hours a week? What? I mean, unless there’s absolutely no choice… In Hollywood in the ‘30s, the CPUSA was almost a screenwriter’s guild—to work, you had to be in the party. Nobody sees anything wrong with that now, so it must be cool.

Fourth, besides voting, a digital party can coordinate all kinds of demonstrations and other peaceful, friendly and beautiful democratic action.

A conventional demonstration takes a lot of organizing, but an app can notify you on the dot where to be, when to be there, what to wear and what to bring. It can even extend the concept of a “demonstration” as we know it—currently just a loosely clumped rabble of badly-dressed people, carrying ugly, unpleasant handmade signs.

In fact a true demonstration is always and everywhere an artistic performance. The etymology of the word reveals the nature of the exercise: the purpose is to demonstrate, meaning show, the power of the party. The purpose of every performance is to impress.

While a demonstration of mass is impressive, a demonstration of cohesion is also quite impressive—especially if it is colorful and fun. For example, uniforms are good—not ugly, frightening camo, but what about a Union Army Zouave uniform from 1861? China can make a copy of anything. No one would be scared by a perfect platoon of Zouaves, Napoleonic Hussars, etc, performing classical drill maneuvers impromptu in Golden Gate Park. It would certainly be both colorful and fun.

An app is pretty good for crowd cohesion. It can tell everyone exactly where to be at any time, and track where they actually are. It can have a control panel for a party leader that lets the leader call up a well-trained crowd of any size, then drag them around on the map like a game of “Snake.” A controlled crowd is much more useful. For instance, if Trump had had such a crowd-control app, he could have easily directed his supporters away from swarming the Capitol—and he wouldn’t have the troubles he has now, as my Jewish grandpa used to say.

But is this realistic?

Hell, I don’t know. All I know is: it’s not impossible. It also won’t implement itself. Also, everything that is obviously possible is subtly impossible, making it a trap.

I’m not even a prole myself. I’m doing perfectly fine in perhaps the most evil economy in human history, perhaps excepting late Rome. No one has even persecuted me, very much, yet. All I know is: the proles are not doing fine. They are getting stomped. And their only way to stop getting stomped is to get as much power as they can. Which means designing, constructing and inhabiting the most powerful political amplifier.

When we internalize this model and look back at lower-class politics as it is today—culminating in the disastrous, yet hilarious, dead-end of MAGA sacking the Capitol— we can say that, where the political amplifier is a system of collective action, the old way of politics—taking democracy seriously—is more a system of collective acting out.

The fundamental purpose of acting out is internal, not external. The performance is not optimized to change the outer world, but to satisfy the inner world. In particular, effective external action involves a lot of following, whereas satisfying internal action involves only leading. So everyone becomes their own leader, and is largely useless.

Can proles be taught to change these habits? I don’t know. It certainly won’t be easy. I don’t see anything else they can do, tough.

This is the first police officer charged with a federal hate crime in at least 10 years By Lisa Rose, CNN Updated 6:00 AM EST, Fri December 21, 2018 This article contains offensive language throughout. (CNN) On September 1, 2016, police in Bordentown, New Jersey, got a call from the manager at a local Ramada Inn. The manager told the dispatcher two teenagers had used the pool without paying for a room. This rather mundane call set in motion a chain of events that led to the chief of police being charged with a federal hate crime, the first case of its kind in at least ten years. When officers arrived, they located Timothy Stroye, 18, and a 16-year-old female. Stroye was still wet from the pool, clad in white shorts. A confrontation ensued, and the officers called for backup. A shouting match escalated into a physical struggle. A lieutenant, who had a preexisting back problem, was injured. Stroye got pepper sprayed and handcuffed. The teenage girl's aunt, who witnessed the encounter, screamed at the officers. What happened next is hazy. As police walked Stroye out of the hotel, an officer allegedly slammed the teen's head against a metal door jam. At the police station, Stroye told an EMS technician he was having an asthma attack, and he feared he had suffered a concussion. He chose not to go to the hospital, however, to avoid delays in processing his case. According to federal prosecutors, the officer who hit Stroye was Bordentown Township police chief and business administrator, Frank Nucera Jr. They alleged the assault was driven by bias against African-Americans. That's a step federal prosecutors opted not to take in higher profile cases of people who were killed by law enforcement. The deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Freddie Gray in Baltimore sparked massive protests and riots in 2014 and 2015. The officers involved in those encounters were not charged in federal court. It is difficult to bring criminal deprivation of rights indictments against law enforcement because police have wide latitude to use force if they believe an individual is threatening public safety, whether the person is armed or not. With Nucera, prosecutors felt they had sufficient proof to convince a jury the now-retired chief used unreasonable force and he was motivated by racial bias. Nucera's defense attorney, Rocco Cipparone Jr., said his client is innocent of the assault and one of the other officers caused the teen's head injury. Stroye himself said several officers struck him. He told the FBI he was handcuffed while lying on the ground. One officer pressed his knee against Stroye's face and another pressed his knee against the teen's back, according to notes from an FBI interview. After the police brought Stroye to his feet, he asked for their names. They did not respond although Stroye remembered one was referred to as "chief." His vision was blurry from pepper spray. While the precise details of the altercation may never be known, the chief's reaction to Stroye's arrest was captured in audio recordings. Sergeant Nathan Roohr had been secretly making tapes for months because he felt Nucera created a toxic work environment, and he found the chief's remarks about minorities offensive. The FBI investigation revealed that at least nine other officers were using hidden recording devices, as they reportedly shared Roorh's concerns. Last Tuesday, a federal judge in Camden, New Jersey denied a defense motion to dismiss the indictment, clearing the way for the retired chief to go on trial. "I'm tired of them, man" The Nucera tapes contain profane rants against African-Americans, Hispanics and Muslims. Nucera repeatedly referred to Stroye using the N-word. The chief complained the Ramada call was a waste of resources caused by "six unruly f-----g n-----s," according to court documents. He described the struggle to handcuff Stroye: " F-----g little f-----g n-----. He was built pretty stocky though. When you put cocoa butter on that skin and come out of the pool, it's like trying to hold down a f-----g snake." In another recording, Nucera said, "I'm f-----g tired of them, man. I'll tell you what, it's gonna get to the point where I could shoot one of these m----rf-----s. And that n----r b---h lady, she almost got it." Roohr gave the FBI 81 audio recordings of Nucera made between 2015 and 2016. Agents then provided the sergeant with devices to continue taping the chief. He became a government witness, wired for sound and directed by the FBI to discuss Stroye's arrest with the chief. Roohr repeatedly said he was worried about a potential civil lawsuit for excessive force in an effort to elicit a confession from the chief. "He's a nut" Nucera's comments in court records are peppered with references to President Donald Trump. The Ramada incident took place during the final weeks of the 2016 campaign. One officer told the FBI Nucera predicted "they" (African-Americans) would be unhappy if Trump got elected because he would take away "free rides." In a recording made on the day of Stroye's arrest, Nucera said, "Donald Trump is the last hope for white people, 'cause Hillary will give it to all the minorities to get a vote. That's the truth! I'm telling you. I think about that more and more. He is, he's the last hope for the f-----g white people cause she's too (UI). All the seven mothers that were at the Democratic National Convention saying, 'The police killed my kids.'" Still, Nucera questioned Trump's temperament. "He's a nut," Nucera said, adding that he wasn't planning to vote. Nucera announced his retirement in January 2017. Less than a year after he stepped down, he was indicted with hate crime assault, deprivation of rights under color of law and making false statements. The retired chief pleaded not guilty and was released on $500,000 bail. Cipparone, Nucera's attorney, declined to answer a list of detailed questions submitted by CNN. The Nucera case is unique because hate crimes are usually prosecuted by local authorities rather than the federal government, said Rebecca Sturtevant, a spokeswoman for the Southern Poverty Law Center. The retired chief appears to be the first cop in at least a decade to be charged with a federal hate crime in conjunction with his job as a law enforcement officer, according to a search of the Pacer case locator database and Justice Department sources. Stroye pleaded guilty to third degree assault of a police officer in state court. The judge sentenced him to six months in county jail. He was released on probation on July 15, 2017, according to the Burlington County court clerk. Stroye is currently incarcerated at the Bucks County Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania, where he is being held pending trial on charges of writing a worthless check and access device fraud. This year, he has also pled guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia, public drunkenness and use of a motor vehicle without the owner's consent. Calls to Stroye's attorney, Nathan Criste, and the Bucks County Correctional Facility were not returned

Education’s new clothes or why schools need to operate using evidence-based management

I recently stumbled across a store room at the back of the auditorium in my school which looked like a SMART board graveyard. The bulbs in their projectors had long since dimmed, the software is now obsolete and their eventual function, as a glorified projection screen, has been replaced by simple LCD screens across the school. And yet like many of us desperately hoping for edtech’s much vaunted solution to teachers’ (delete as appropriate) marking load / reporting / feedback / assessment / admin / differentiation / creativity / work-life balance / love-life I await the latest edtech initiative as the potential salvation to education’s woes.

However, does anyone remember inBloom, iBooks 2 (or even iBooks1 for that matter), SharpScholar, TutorSpree or KNO? No, nor me. According to the techedvocate these are some of the biggest edTech failures of the last decade. These edtech startups, despite being backed by some of the industry’s biggest names (The Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundation and Apple to name but two) have sunk without a trace. Too often a big idea backed by a big marketing campaign trumps the received wisdom of those on the front line.

It is for this reason that I know I am not alone in being dismayed at the recent news that Glasgow is to introduce 50,000 iPads to schools across the city at a cost of £300m when there is little to no evidence to suggest that digital devices do anything to close the attainment gap. Where is the evidence to suggest that students who learn with iPads make any better progress (if any progress at all) than those without?

It has been perennially interesting to many that the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, loved by so many Silicon Valley upstarts (or should that be start-ups), is a tech-free school and that Steve Jobs (inventor of the iPad) and Chris Anderson (former editor of WIRED magazine) both viewed the iPad as too dangerous for their own children to use.

Any yet in the Jaisithok region of Nepal where my own school has recently opened a campus for children who live below the poverty line, it is interesting to note that it is mandatory for the students, who have never even seen a computer or are likely to see one for some time, to study ICT and learn about computers and computer science; so pervasive is the cult of technology the world over.

So how, as courageous international educators, are we meant to engage with our host nation’s educational ideologies for the greater good of our students? Well, thankfully in 1999 Paul C. Nutt published an interesting article entitled Surprising But True, which outlined why half the decisions in organisations fail. “These failures’, he said, “can be traced to managers who impose solutions, limit the search for alternatives and use power to implement their plans.” It is this salutatory lesson which must be and indeed has been the guiding principle of many educational initiatives since then.

The pioneering work of John Hattie into which strategies actually have a positive impact on student progress has infiltrated most schools in some way. His work has also been supplemented by the research conducted by the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK into the evidence strength, cost and impact of various teaching and learning interventions. However, access to the research alone does not tell us how to make decisions on the basis of this research nor how to enact our decision.

When so many quacks, charlatans and snake-oil salesmen would have us believe that their latest  product is the answer to our educational prayers it is vital that we have a pragmatic, practical and replicable approach to decision making in schools which has the potential to protect us from similar follies in the future.

PART ONE: STEP ONE

We need to start with a theory of action (for more detail on this see the work of Meredith I. Honig and her team at the Center for Educational Leadership at the University of Washington). Decisions in schools must be based on the school’s observations and impressions of their own students’ learning. It is crucial that needs are identified on the basis of each individual school’s students and not someone else’s students reported in a longitudinal study elsewhere in a different time and place. From these impressions and observations we need to ask what needs to change. Of what do our students need more or less?

STEP TWO

From here we then need to consider how teaching is affecting the gap in what student’s need more or less. What are our teachers doing or not doing that’s helping or preventing our students getting that thing of which need more or less? And what needs to change?

STEP THREE

This is where school leadership really earns its keep. Having seen what our teachers need to do more or less to enable our students to get what we have identified they need, it becomes the responsibility of instructional leaders (governors, principals, headteachers and other senior leaders in school) to enable our teachers to do more or less of what is helping or hindering our students. It is only when leadership recognizes and delivers the time, resources or support our teachers’ need that we can get the students what they need.

STEP FOUR

At this point we go beyond the leadership pay grade. It is here that “central office” (for which you might understand a district educational authority, the owner of school’s group or a department for education) needs to consider how they are helping or hindering school leaders as instructional leaders to support their teachers to do more or less of what is required to enable our students to access more or less of what we have identified they need in their specific context. While there are many common learning needs for young people the specific implementation of those needs (quantity, quality, manner) will always be idiosyncratic to the context of that school.

Having been through the theory of action process you will then have a theory of action story: “If central office does X . . . they will enable school leaders to do Y . . . which will help teachers do Z . . . which will help students get what they need to learn at a higher level.”

This theory of action is only part one of a robust decision making process. Part two, however, requires school leaders/”central office” to consider all available alternatives and the evidence which supports them before deciding on a solution. It is here that the work of Rob Briner, David Denyer, Denise M. Rousseau, comes in handy. It is Briner et al. who cleans up the concept of evidence based management (EBMgt) and explains what it is and is not. Using evidence to make managerial decisions is nothing new, they note; however, practitioners combining the family of approaches which make up EBMgt may be new to some school leaders.

PART TWO: STEP ONE

Once you have identified your students’ need how do you decide which solution to use. One of the four stages, though not necessarily the first, is to consider the evaluated external evidence. This is where your Hattie and EEF might come in useful. It is here that it is worth bearing in mind that there is now a commonly understood hierarchy of evidence and that not all evidence is considered equally valid. Consider what has been shown to work elsewhere and how secure that evidence is.

STEP TWO

Secondly, it is crucial that we consider our own teachers’ evidence and judgement on what would be an appropriate solution to our theory of action. Our teachers are working with our students on an hourly basis and will have a valuable insight into solutions which may or may not work from those shown in the externally evaluated evidence.

STEP THREE

Thirdly, school leaders must consider their stakeholders’ preferences. Parents and students should not be passive recipients of school initiatives. Students are not guinea-pigs in the educational testing laboratories of central government or headteachers, they are the victims or beneficiaries of every decision taken.

STEP FOUR

Finally, context is key. Local evidence and circumstances including relationships with the community, institutional settings and regular political, economic, social, technological and environmental circumstances which affect a school must inform a decision over and above the available evaluated external evidence.

This pathway through a theory of action and evidence based management will go some way to preventing some of the expensive mistakes we make in education. Those costs are beyond financial, they affect the outcomes and opportunities of our students for generations. As Lazlo Bock, former VP of People Operations at Google remarked in Work Rules, “We need to use evidence (data) to guard against rumour, bias and plain old wrong headedness. Relying on data – indeed, expecting every conversation to be rooted in data – upends the traditional role of managers. It transforms them from being providers of intuition to facilitators in a search for truth.”

Snakebite and other associated conditions

To begin with, this is not an actual bite inflicted by a slithering, legless reptile. Those can range in severity from requiring a bandage and some mercurochrome (remember that?) to potentially fatal.

The other kind of snakebite is a sailing term among owners and crew of small yachts that probably originated in Southern California.

It means that thing you’re looking for is right in front of you.

Here are some examples of the small print variety:

Sometimes that fine print is really important.

Small print may appear in airport diagrams, charts, checklists (aren’t those all small print?) and may indicate restricted airspace, aerobatic area frequencies, compass deviation numbers (in the cockpit), the Kollsman window, and so on. The FAR/AIM is loaded with it. It’s best to read the fine print and be aware of it, especially if your route takes you through “fine print areas.”

I fly through the Santa Paula aerobatic area often and that frequency and the area’s protocols are part of my en route check.

Example 2: I should be here (geographically) but where’s the [fill in the blank]? I did my night cross-country with my CFI and according to the VORs, and all manner of GPS-less navigation, I was supposed to be right over Camarillo (CMA). Finally, looking as straight down as I could, I saw CMA, and it was lit up like a Christmas tree.

No harm, no foul. I didn’t have to land there. It was a waypoint. I like to fly over airports. Trust your nav instruments, if the FBO, local CFI or your IA says they’re good to go, chances are even primitive ones (one of my favorite rental aircraft is placarded VFR only) will put you where you expect to be. Go over your route with someone who’s flown it if it’s your first time. If you’re lost, remember your four C’s: climb, communicate (with ATC), confess and comply.

Example 3 (illusory): This can perhaps best be explained by fatigue, confirmation bias, distraction, information overload or lack of preparation. Or all of the above. A British Airways flight recently landed in Edinburgh, Scotland, rather than Dusseldorf, Germany. Harrison Ford landed on the taxiway rather than the runway at John Wayne and a military C-17 touched down at Peter O’Knight GA (KTPF) rather than MacDill AFB in Florida. You wonder, “How in the wide world of sports?!” Could this be absent-mindedness? Not too much of a problem on the ground, but in the air it can be serious.

Perhaps the British Airways flight had elements of the small print variety and confirmation bias since the flight plan indicated Edinburgh, and the crew concluded that was the destination.

Not being a psychologist, I can only suggest: PAY ATTENTION. Check your route frequently; if you have a passenger, get some feedback on landmarks. Another time I was in the plane with the CFI and, after climb out and a few minutes of cruising, I said, “I don’t know where I am.” He calmly said to look around and check landmarks and see how they relate to the chart. I saw the freeway, a reservoir and some familiar-looking structures and was able to determine my position within a half-mile or so.

A simple but embarrassing mistake.

Beware of fatigue. It’s a condition that deceives you into thinking that you’re OK but in reality you’re not firing on all cylinders, and the mental and physical deterioration is not linear, it gets progressively worse.

The pilots in these examples are all skilled pilots with many hours; they landed without incident and only suffered reprimand and embarrassment. Getting the C-17 out of KTPF required a massive amount of onboard logistics, especially when it came to weight and balance. It makes me wonder how the military pilot mistook the tiny runway at KTPF for MacDill.

Parallel runways add a flavor to the mix. I was flying with a buddy when he lined up on the wrong parallel runway but caught it in time when reminded by ATC. I was taught years ago to take the heading indicator and turn it (transform it) to a virtual horizontal surface over the area outside the cockpit. This imaginary horizontal compass picture combined with the ATC assignment has helped a lot with orienting position, traffic legs and traffic pattern direction. One of our pre-flight mandates is to gather all the information we can about the destination airport. A chart that is easily accessible is a big help if the route is unfamiliar.

Example 4: Hearing. Mistakes stem from information overload (that again), pre-occupation, or distraction. In the case of ATC, I responded to instructions by saying, “Turn two-four-zero degrees, Cessna 123.” ATC responded, “Cessna 123 turn THREE four zero degrees.” From my prior heading of 270, 240 seemed more logical. Confirmation bias? Did I hear 340? Perhaps in the case of hearing, it’s best to request ATC to please repeat again slowly.

My experiences with audio snakebite mostly involve taxi instructions. Perhaps it’s best to ask for progressive at more complicated airports. Concord (California) Buchanan is a prime example. There are others that are deceptively simple and Camarillo (CMA) fits this category.

My last example is, “What did I come into this room for?” While this may not represent an aeronautical instance, it may apply if you walk into the oil shed and forget to bring back the quart of oil. Distraction and pre-occupation run deep here.

Even experienced pilots make mistakes.

Little reminders can help this condition: if the plane needs a quart of oil, I leave the cowl lid open until it’s added.

More serious is an interruption or distraction while performing pre-flight or checklist. Where did I leave off/complete?

It’s best to put one’s game face on. When I take the helm of a boat, I put the virtual captain’s hat on with the intention that I am responsible for the welfare of the vessel and its passengers. I am doing exercises to increase memory (crossword puzzles) and consciously practice scanning and spotting here on the ground. I tell myself verbally: PAY ATTENTION and know that flying for any length of time in crowded airspace, especially abutting Class Bravo, is very fatigue-inducing and is a serious source of information overload.

Pay attention especially around an airport, get plenty of rest, put the outside (non-airplane) world on the shelf and be flexible to ATC commands. If the runway you approach is not the one intended, execute a go-around and ask ATC to clarify.

Don’t get metaphorically (or physically) snake-bitten.

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from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2019/08/snakebite-and-other-associated-conditions/