#I'M LOSING THE ABILITY TO DO BASIC MATHS

[ms-demeanor]

On insurance: I still live with my parents and don't know a lot yet about the sorts of things adults usually have to spend money on. I've always been skeptical of things like insurance and credit cards because it seems to me they wouldn't be selling that if they didn't expect to make money from it. I talked to my cousin a while ago about credit cards and basically came to the conclusion that they do that because they're betting on the customer getting sloppy and letting their debts stack up, and the way you beat that and get money from credit card companies is just by being careful.

I'm a little more confused about insurance though because it seems much more straightforwardly like a gamble they will simply not take if it won't pay off for them. Like, you don't go to a casino because every game they play at a casino is one they've done the math on and have determined that statistically most people will lose money on most of the time. Is insurance not kinda the same? Where they estimate the risk and then charge you an amount calculated to make sure it probably won't be worth it for you?

I know if you have a car you legally need car insurance so everyone knows you can pay for another car if you crash into someone, and I gather that here in the US at least health insurance companies have some kinda deal with hospitals so that the prices go down or something, and there's a reason I don't fully understand why not having health insurance is Really Bad. But we get to pet insurance, or like when I buy a concert ticket and it offers ticket insurance in case I can't make it to the show, and surely if they thought they were gonna lose money on that they just wouldn't sell it, right? Or they'd raise the price of it until it became worth the risk that something bad actually will happen? Wouldn't it only be worth it to buy insurance if you know something the insurance company doesn't?

So the deal is that most people don't use their insurance much, and often insurance companies will incentivize doing things that will make you use your insurance less.

So, for example, you can get a discount on car insurance if you have multiple cars because people who insure multiple cars are more likely to be responsible drivers (the ability to pay for multiple cars stands in as a representation of responsibility here). The longer you go without an accident, the lower your premiums get because that means that you are not costing your insurance company anything but you are paying into the system. The car insurance company's goal is to have the most responsible, safest drivers who never get into car accidents because they can predict (roughly) how much they're going to have to pay out to their customers and they want the number they pay out to be lower than what's paid in. So they try to discourage irresponsible drivers by raising their rates and encourage responsible drivers by giving them discounts.

Health insurance companies often do the same thing: I recently got a gift card from my health insurance company because I had a visit from a nurse who interviewed me about my overall health and made sure I had stable blood pressure and access to medications. It is literally cheaper for my insurance company to give me a $100 giftcard and hire a nurse to visit me than it is for me to go to my doctor's office a couple of times, so they try to make sure that their customers are getting preventative care and are seeing inexpensive medical professionals regularly so that they don't have to suddenly see very expensive professionals after a long time without care.

Insurance in the US has many, many, many problems and should be replaced with socialized healthcare for a huge number of reasons but right now, because it is an insurance-based system, you need to have insurance.

We're going to use Large Bastard as an example.

Large Bastard had insurance when he had his heart attack and when he needed multiple organs transplanted. He didn't *want* to be paying for insurance, because he thought he was healthy enough to get by, but I insisted. His premium is four hundred dollars a month, and his out of pocket maximum is eight thousand dollars a year. That means that every year, he pays about $5000 whether he uses his insurance or not, and if he DOES need to use the insurance, he pays the first $8k worth of care, so every year his insurance has the possibility of costing him thirteen thousand dollars.

The bill for his bypass surgery was a quarter million dollars.

The bill for his transplant was over one and a half million dollars.

His medication each month is around six hundred dollars. He needs to have multiple biopsies - which are surgeries - each year, and each one costs about twenty thousand dollars.

Without health insurance, he would very likely be dead, or we would be *even more* incapable of paying for his healthcare than we are right now. He almost ditched his insurance because he was a healthy-seeming 40-year-old and he didn't think he'd get sick. And then he proceeded to be the sickest human being I've ever known personally who did not actually die.

Health insurance costs a lot of money. It costs less money for people who are young and who are expected to be healthy. But the thing is, everybody pays into health insurance, and very, very few people end up using as much money for their medical expenses as Large Bastard did. There are a few thousand transplants in the US ever year, but there are hundreds of millions of people paying for insurance.

This ends up balancing out (sort of) so that people who pay for insurance get a much lower cost on care if they need it, hospitals get paid for the care they provide, and the insurance company makes enough money to continue to exist. Part of the reason that people don't like this scheme is because "insurance company" could feasibly be replaced by "government" and it would cost less and provide a better standard of care, but again, with things as they are now, you need to have insurance. Insurance companies are large entities that are able to negotiate down costs with the providers they work with, you are not. If you get hit by a car you may be able to get your medical bills significantly reduced through a number of means, but you're very unlikely to get your bills lower than the cost of insurance and a copay.

Because of the Affordable Care Act, which is flawed but which did a LOT of good, medical insurance companies cannot refuse to treat you because of preexisting conditions and also cannot jack up your premiums to intolerable rates - since Large Bastard got sick, he has had the standard price increases you'd expect from aging, but nothing like the gouging you might expect from an insurance company deciding you're not worth it.

Pet insurance works on the same model. Millions of people pay for the insurance, thousands of people end up needing it, a few hundred end up needing a LOT of it, and the insurance companies are able to make more money than they hand out, so they continue to exist. This is part of why it's less expensive to get pet insurance for younger animals - people who sign up puppies and kittens are likely to be paying for a very long time and are likely to provide a lot of preventative care for their animals, so they're a good bet for the insurer. Animals signed up when they are older are more likely to have health problems (and pet insurance CAN turn animals away for preexisting conditions) and are going to cost the insurance companies more, so they cost more to enroll (and animals over a certain age or with certain conditions may be denied entirely).

This weighing risk/reward is called actuarial science, and the insurance industry is built on it.

But yeah it's kind of betting. The insurance company says "I'll insure ten thousand dogs and I'm going to bet that only a hundred of them will need surgery at some point in the next year" and if they're correct, they make money and the dogs who need surgery get their surgery paid for out of the premiums from the nine thousand nine hundred dogs who didn't need surgery.

Your assessment of credit is correct: credit card companies expect that you will end up carrying a balance, and that balance will accrue interest, and the interest is how they make the money.

And it is EASY to fuck up financially as an adult. REALLY EASY. But you are still likely to need a good credit score so you will need a credit history. That means that the correct way to use a credit card is to have a card, but not carry a balance.

To do this, never buy anything on the card that you can't afford. In order to avoid needing the card for emergencies, start an emergency fund that is at least 3 months of your total pay *before* you get a credit card. That seems like a *lot* of savings to have, but from the perspective of someone who has had plenty of mess-ups, it's a lot easier to build up a $10k emergency fund than it is to pay off a $10k credit card debt.

If you don't understand how interest works on credit cards, or why a 10k savings is different than a 10k debt, here are some examples working with $10k of debt, 23% interest (an average-ish rate for people with average credit), and various payments.

With that debt and that interest, here's how much it costs and how long it would take to pay off with $200 as the monthly payment:

Fourteen years, and it would cost you about twenty four thousand dollars in interest, for a total amount paid of about thirty four thousand dollars.

To save $10k at $200 a month would take four years and two months.

Here's the same debt at $300 a month:

4.5 Years and it costs about six grand (again, just in interest - sixteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at three hundred dollars a month would take just under three years.

Here's the same debt at $400 a month:

3 years, about $4000 dollars (fourteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at $400 a month takes just over two years.

The thing is, with all of these models you're going to end up paying one way or another. Insurance vs out of pocket is you weighing the risk of losing a fair amount of money by signing up but not using the system, or potentially losing a catastrophic amount of money by not signing up.

For credit cards they really only work if you know you're never going to need them for an emergency, because an emergency is what you're not going to be able to pay off right away. I didn't have an emergency fund when Large Bastard had his heart attack and needed surgery, or when we moved between states suddenly, or when we moved between states suddenly AGAIN and needed to pay storage costs, or when Large Bastard needed a transplant, or when Tiny Bastard got in a fight with my MiL's dog, and the fact that I didn't have an emergency fund is still costing me a lot of money.

So, young folks out there: what's the takeaway?

Get insurance. Get the best deal possible, which usually ends up being the one you sign up for early. You may think you can let it ride without insurance, but man in the six months between when I graduate college (and lost my school insurance) and when care kicked in after 90 days at my job I got electrocuted and needed to go to the ER. If that hadn't been a worker's comp payout I would have had thousands of dollars in bills. Something could happen. You could break your leg, you could get hit by a car, you could suddenly find out that you actually have heart disease at twenty, you could develop cancer. Have insurance, you need insurance. You legally need car insurance in the US, and you financially need health insurance. If you have a pet, I think it's a good idea for them to have pet insurance.

Credit cards are not for emergencies, they are not for fun, they are not for buying things that are just ever so slightly out of your budget, they are for taking advantage of the credit card company and managing to get by in a system that demands you have a credit score. ONLY put purchases on your credit card that you already have cash for. Before you get a credit card, build up an emergency savings so that you aren't tempted to put emergency charges on your card.

If you DO end up with an interest-bearing debt, pay it off as fast as possible because letting it linger costs you a LOT of money in the long run.

Stay the fuck away from tobacco and nicotine products they are fucking terrible for you, they are fucking expensive, and they are not worth it put the vapes down put the zyns down put the cigarettes down I will begin manifesting in your house physically i swear to fuck. Knock that shit off and put the cash that you'd be spending on nicotine into a savings account.

Take care, sorry everything sucks, I promise that in some ways it actually sucks less than it did before and we're working on trying to make it suck even less but it's taking a while.

[killersfool]

hiiii i’ve a wee fluff imagine idea for bobby!! : )

bobby and the reader live together in a flat in dublin and the reader goes to trinity uni to study english literature (or smt else that has like a lot of reading and essay writing anol that craic) and she’s falling behind in a lot of her assignments and it’s all piling up and she’s just all overwhelmed and doesn’t know how to cope.

she ends up breaking down into sobs or shutting down at random points in the day due to stress and rob hasn’t got a clue what’s wrong and keeps noticing these random break downs throughout the week.

basically he comforts reader and helps to organise herself and just all fluffy cute comfort fic <333

If I could flip back time, bend the seconds and go back three years ago, I would do it right now.

Pile after pile of flashcards, annotated books with pastel post-it notes shooting out of the sides, folders of Irish poetry I can hardly understand, tattered photocopies of Hozier lyrics, every work of Shakespeare staring at me from my overcrowded booksheld — dusty, messy, probably even dank. Miss Carter has decided to set three more assignments onto my workload for the week. An essay on crime fiction (I haven't even read the first book on the reading list), my creative writing portfolio and then another essay analysing a piece poetry of my choice. Reading and highlighting Hozier's lyrics of 'I, Carrion (Icarian)' is the only thing keeping me going. Phoebe Bridgers blasts through my ears. It's quarter to 11. I need a break. An early night would be nice. Or TV. But do I really want to sit next to Robert whilst he watches his weird YouTube videos?

I kick my table. Not out of anger. Not out of irritation. I just want to see all of my notes topple ontp the floor. They do. Then I'm kicking the table three more times. Or maybe eight. All my flashcards are on the carpeted  floor, next to my discarded, empty packet of pinballs. I'd stolen them from Robert's stash. He'll never find out.

Climbing over my pile of unread books by my doorway, I push open the door. It squeaks. Some oiling would be nice. Trinity college really provides the best for their students! 

I still wish my roommate was also doing English, someone to bond with over shared trauma, to gossip about our nightmarish teachers and fellow students. But no, this guy is doing a degree in bloody mathematics. The complete dichotomy of English. No similarities. No way of comparing the courses to eachother. Him and his terrifying videos that he watches with his shoes up on the armrest, cheek in his open palm, drinking a cup of tea. Like it's that simple. Numbers and sin, cos, tan and circle theorems and whatever tragic nonsense is being spouted in his lectures.

He hardly speaks to me. Three years together and I barely know him. Sometimes I tag along with him when he goes out for breakfast. Once every two weeks. Sunday morning. We talk about school, about friends, about anything that pops in our heads. Yesterday we spoke about music. He originally wanted to pursue a career in music. A band. But they didn't work out. He took a gap year to pursue this group. So he's a year older than all of the other third years. He doesn't let that faze him. When he told me stories about his band, 'Inhaler', I had to lose eye contact, look down at the pink marshmellos floating about in my cup. He looked lost. This wasn't the place for him. He missed the confidence upon stage, the ability of making something out of nothing. Life is unfair. That is when I realised it. Hearing about shattered dreams and names of songs that were never produced.

I also realise life is unfair right now, as I accidentally bang my hip onto the kicthen island, the knife-like corner lodging itself into my skin. It's like the world is against me. 

Sometimes I wonder if Robert thinks I'm an idiot. I feel like I'm an idiot when I walk past his bedroom, hunched over his laptop, headphones on as he works through the most difficult maths questions I've ever encountered in my life. He makes university seem easy. Has his allocated times for study, going out with friends, the gym, practicing bass, going though record shops, meals, watching TV. Everytime he gets home, he drops his things down in the kitchen. I sneak a glance at the big green 'A*' on all of his test papers. I look up to him. His intelligence, his masterful management of time. I'm always too frightened to ask him how he does it. He'll think I'm stalking him. 

Me, on the other hand, I waste time. I don't have balance. I never have time to be with my friends. Always locked up in my room. A prisoner. Essay after essay. Poem after poem. Book after book. A constant cycle I've been in for three whole years. The stress is weighing down on me like a hundred bags of bricks. I need to stop for a second. To breathe in. To calm down.

So I do the last thing I would normally do. I go into the living room and sit beside Robert on the sofa. He's half asleep, jeans cuffed, hair all over his face. He sees me walk in, glances up, eyes big and speculting. He instantly moves his spindly, spider-like legs from the armrest to give me some space. I can hear some sort of maths video playing on the TV. I'm scared. At least it's not English. I'm immune to maths. It doesn't affect me anymore. Whatever logorhythmic scale this American YouTube man is yapping about isn't making my face contort at all — it's like sorcery.

This could be a way of winding down. Maths. I'm calmer now. No changes of focus or narrowing of perspective. No pathetic fallacy or magical realism. Just messes of words that don't really make sense at all.

"'D'you want to watch TV? I can turn this off if you want." Robert has his thumb on the home button.

"Leave it on. I just need a moment."

He dubiously puts the remote back down. He yawns, stretching out his arms and leaning back. I hate it when boys do that. With his parted, manspreaded legs, adams apple bobbing, head rolled back. It's idiotic. Completely idiotic. He doesn't seem too intrigued by Mr American man. The video is a guy next to a whiteboard writing millions of brain-numbing equtions. Robert is nodding along. I think I'm going to cry. I don't know why I want to right now. My hip is actually starting to throb and ache. I look down at my jeans. There's a hole in them. There's blood. It's wet. I hadn't noticed before. It's properly pouring out blood.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." I exclaim, hand pressing down onto the cut through my jeans.

Robert swiftly nears me. He's looking at me up and down, hands trying to find a place to move to. It's dark in the room. He reaches for the lamp switch. "What is it? Are you okay?"

"I'm bleeding. Jesus christ. That kills. Fuck me."

He passes me his jacket and says, "Apply some pressure." 

Then he runs out of the room. Fast as a plane. A man on a mission. Long curls dancing to the rhythm of his steps. Mr American man won't shut up about algebraic expressions. He's got a really bald head. Glimmering. 

Robert is back. He has bandages. I don't know where he got those from. Antiseptic wipes, plasters, sweets, even a cup of tea. He was only gone for about five seconds. How did he manage to get all of that? He hands me the cup of tea and sweets whilst asking, "What happened?"

"I walked into the island like an eejit. I'm so feckin' stupid."

"Just breathe, okay. You're not an eejit. I do that every day." 

I have to unzip my jeans to let him check the cut. Which is awkward, to say the least. He's looking at me like a doctor — not really caring about seeing my skin — but I'm still so shy around him. He sees me struggle with the button. He undoes it, fingers coming in contact with mine. They're slender. So very perfect for the bass guitar. Then he's unzipping my jeans. Only the tiniest bit. A mere centimetre of my knickers appear out of the top. Any more than that and I'd be flush as a tomato. I've always had a little crush on Robert. Being stuck with a really smart bass guitarist with the dreamiest eyes for three years is enough to make a person fall. The reason I've been avoiding him lately has been due to that fact. I don't want to make it obvious.

He finds the cut. It's bled through my knickers, making a big blot of dark red. He pulls down the waistband of my pants, prepared to wipe the wound. I have to grind my teeth together to prevent a sob from escaping me. I'm crying. Stressed and hurt and just wanting to dissolve into nothing. The cold draft of wind isn't improving the situation. If only there was no such thing as coursework and I couldn't glide my way through university like Robert. 

More and more blood. I think I might pass out. The blue-eyed boy is knelt down on the floor, knees biting into the carpet so that he can properly see where to put the bandage. 

"So how's English going?" He's not looking at me. Only at the wound. I don't think he's noticed that I'm crying. I don't want him to. I cover my face with bloody hands, accidentally smearing the metallic substance onto my nose. 

I don't know what to say. Do I tell him how much I regret picking it? Do I make this already awkward situation about ten times worse? I hate when people pity me. I hate when I feel like eyes are lingering for far too long when I cry. But when Robert looks at me, it's different. The pools of serenity circling his iris aren't looking down at me with a sort of aristocracy. That's how my English peers stare me down. No, instead, he's looking at me like there's a billion questions rushing across his forehead. He just needs to decide which one to ask. Or to simply say nothing. Like I am. We've both learnt how to cohabit in silence. To walk past eachother and ignore the feathers of conversation falling between us. We're busy. Always busy. Except for those perfect Monday mornings that I always look forward to. Especially the one time when he showed me around his favourite record store. He had asked me to choose him a record to buy. I walked through the entire shop, fingers shifting records, reading unfamiliar artist names. Then, I saw it, the — now bane of my existence — Hozier's 'unreal unearth'. He bought it. He'd told me he only really knew 'Take Me To Church'. I'd leant against the till as he paid and said, 'it'll change your life.' Then he'd locked himself in his room. Through the ever so thin walls — paper thin — I could hear each track hum into my room. I never got the chance to talk to him about the album. I think the thought of bringing it up made me feel sick — due to the English essay upstairs still waiting patiently to be finished.

Now there is an excuse. To talk. I'm injured. I don't want to move. He's still attempting to wrap a bandage over my stomach, then across my back until it's around my torso. I feel his fingers graze my skin with every subtle movement, along my spine, the small of my back, my abdomen, my hip bone. He's still looking at me. Searching. Like I'm a new island and he's an explorer trying to name me.

"What's up, sweetheart?" He finally talks again. His words are throaty, emananting from the pits of his throat. He's still wrapping, waiting for an answer.

"Just college. You know. It's killing me."

He shakes his head. "You're so smart."

"Says you."

He shakes his head. "Look, this might be a bit weird but sometimes when you leave random essays lying around or even creative writing. I read them. They're incredible. Your mind just works in such an interesting way."

I'm at a loss for words. He reads those? Those are usually just failed attempts that I toss aside. Scrap paper. Strange drawings. I don't even want to look at them.

"You get top grades in every test," I sigh. "I'm barely passing. I'm the worst in the class. My professors hate me, I've got so much work, I'm falling behind in every assignment—"

Then I'm properly crying. Sobbing. Breathing so heavily I think I might collapse. Heaving. Sniffling. Covering my face so he can't see me. I'm like a child. Pathetic. Stupid. Worthless. I was never good enough for Trinity. Why did they let me in?

Warm arms, press of skin. Just above the wound, over my chest, arms dig into my body, hugging me from behind. Head burrowing onto my shoulders, knees into the sofa. His lips ghost the back of my neck. Tears are falling down. He turns me around to face him. I hate how he's seeing me like this. My cries are usually saved for when he's out with friends or blasting music on his record player. He's never seen me this vulnerable, just utterly ripped into shreds by the hands of life. His scent is making me feel better, the tissue now on my cheek makes me feel better, the quiet words of 'breathe, let it all out, it's okay' make me feel better. He's calming me down. I start to forget what I was even crying about when I look into his eyes. This intense eye contact. Remembering his height. Even sat down, his torso is far longer than mine.

"I've got an idea," he murmurs, peeling his body away. I miss the warmth. I miss the touch. 

"What is it?"

"We should go somewhere. Get out for a bit. Say it's a 'mental health field trip'." He curls his fingers to accentuate the apostrophes."Maybe down to the Cliffs of Moher. When you're all healed up of course."

"Give me a week."

"A week? I'll be the judge of that." He raises an eyebrow, now tying up the bandage.

"Where did you learn all this?"

"I'm actually first aid trained. Did it in my first week of uni." He takes a deep breath, settles back onto the sofa. 

I take a sip of my tea. My eyes are surely blotchy and red. I bet there's mascara all over my face. "Thank you so much."

"No problem at all. Do you want to tell me what's going on? Is there any way I can help?" He's referring to my school work. "I was alright at English in high school. No where near as good as you are. But maybe another opinion might help you."

"I'm really stuck on a Hozier analysis."

"I never told you how much I love that album. It's perfect." His eyes glow like they do when he's talking about something he loves. Usually it's caused by talking about playing bass, but right now it's due to the beauty of Hozier's music. "I learned the bass line of De Selby part two."

"Show me. Now." I don't even ask. It's simply a demand. Anything to take my mind away from that cut still bleeding profusely. A little concert would be nice. Especially if said concert involves watching Robert play bass. I sometimes peek through the crack in the doorway to see him sat down on his bed, pick between his index and thumb, bass guitar on his lap, headphones over his ears. The pure concentration on his face is unparalleled. Notes thrum quietly through the room. He falls into any piece of music.

"Alright." He laughs at my enthusiasm. "Then I'll help with your English."

"Thanks." This is probably the most I've ever spoken to him. I'm mumbling each word, not wanting to look into his eyes.

He disappears once again. This time I hear the thudding footsteps over creaky floorboards. I hear a door squeak open, the faint patter of rain upon the ceiling, the quiet murmur of distant sirens as night blooms. It's tranquil. For a moment, I'm at peace. Until I remember the stack of unread books in my bedroom. I groan into my hands. Everything just keeps getting worse and worse and—

He's back. Not empty handed. Bass in one hand, Hozier lyrics and my pencil case in the other.

"I emailed your professor about the trip. I'm sure she'll be okay with it." He's off again. He comes through the door with his amp and lead. He plugs both in. 

"You're a life saver, Rob," I say.

He starts twisting around the knobs on the bass. Volume up. Then he's tuning. He smiles up at me. I think I'm staring. I think he can tell. His long fingers, tattoos, rings. It's all too much. My fingers are restlessly tapping the armrest. My legs are up on the coffee table. He pulls out his phone and plays the song. Then I'm lost in the music. His eyes are closed as he slides his fingers up and down the neck of the bass, as he stomps his feet down on the carpet to every drum beat. If only I could go back to the days I'd go to concerts every day. If only I could go back and see 'Inhaler' on a world tour, watch Robert from the crowd, completely in his element. Exhilarated, chanting, knowing every lyric like it's my mother tongue. Sometimes I wonder what life could've been like if the band had worked out. If the world did realise just how incredible they are. But, here, appreciating each pluck of every string, the grin as he watches me. I can't take that for granted. 

[lexchxn]

Small thought on probability and mechanics in TTRPGs.

When we play a TTRPG, every mechanic that involves a die roll is just a game of chance. Sometimes we're able to manipulate that chance to our favour, sometimes we're not.

I've seen aversion to the idea of "flat checks" to determine outcomes, and I myself have even had initial distaste for the OSR's attachment to using a d6 in such circumstances (usually calling for a 4+ or 5+)- but I think it's finally "clicked" in my mind, and I've come to appreciate the virtues of simplifying the mechanic as much as is reasonable.

Let's take an example from Pathfinder 2e, since it's a very math-heavy game (and likely what my audience is most familiar with): The creature building rules provide example ACs for monsters at levels -1 through 24, and while it does vary, generally the values are set such that a dedicated martial, fully investing in their ability to hit creatures, will have a baseline ~50% chance to hit. It's basically a flat check.

Now, we have to inspect and appreciate what nuances are allowed by a system before we can deconstruct it. Just because the values in Pathfinder tend towards a 50% success rate doesn't mean we can just start rolling d6s and hitting on a 4-6. With the example of Pathfinder, using a d20 gives us, well... 20 results. A wide spread of numbers that can then be meaningfully interacted with, as each point of bonus or penalty is worth a 5% statistical modification. Additionally, the +-10 critical success/failure system gives these points secondary values in modifying crit chances, and nat 1s/nat 20s a static 5% bump chance.

If we were to try to reduce the to-hit system down to a d6 then, what do we lose? Or more specifically, what changes? Well, modifiers either become much stronger and potentially much more necessary- each point is now worth 16% (over three times as much!), and depending on the game balance, a high modifier may now be necessary to even hit a creature. Critical results too lose something in this adaptation- maintaining the +-10 system makes modifiers the only way to reasonably achieve critical hits, and dumping it in favour of nat 1/nat 6 once again over triples the chances of a crit one way or the other.

In many important ways here, something quite important has been lost. Much agency and much nuance are jettisoned in favour of smaller numbers.

But let's take another look at Pathfinder now, and specifically its flat checks. Pathfinder has a variety of actions, effects, and miscellania that rely on the roll of a flat d20 to determine their results, usually at DCs 5, 11, and 15 (75%, 50%, 30%). As far as general play is concerned, these DCs don't shift and players don't get modifiers for them, so they function purely as statistical values. In this case, replacing them with a d6 system may in fact function fine. Setting the ranges to 3+, 4+, and 5+ (66%, 50%, 33%) results in nearly identical mathematics, and a functioning game system nonetheless. Flat checks, additionally, do not have critical successes, which leaves the other primary benefit of a d20 system out of the equation.

So why, then, does Pathfinder use a d20? I'm sure there are plenty of reasons. A d20 still has more manipulatable results, allowing for potential DC variance a d6 cannot emulate. A d20 is the primary chance die used elsewhere in the game system. A d20 is iconic.

But to circle back and round out my thoughts here, die rolls are, ultimately, nothing but chance. Without other systems interacting with (and creating results off of) their values, the method of delivery by which you achieve your chance is all but irrelevant. In such cases, what's most important is how easily one can access and adjudicate the levels of chance. A d20 with 5% per value might be quite intuitive to some, while others might prefer the more pie-like 16% of d6s. A 1 and a 20 are relatively rare on a d20, while a 1 and a 6 on a d6 are relatively common.

Always examine the tools you use, what they're doing for you, how they interact with your systems, and how you might be able to better achieve whatever goals you seek out at your tables. It makes for easier, better games.

[illegal-heartbreaker]

I just have to say this first, math is evil. Also, I do love your writing.

Could I request Marilyn x f!reader (you could add Larissa if you'd like) where R cuts classes only because she didn't want anyone to find out some of the normie students attack R or maybe they just played a horrible "prank" and up loaded to a social media site. Marilyn isn't happy that R is skipping classes. So she goes to R's dorm to get to the bottom of why R isn't in any of R' s classes. Once Marilyn sees R she wants to know why R didn't go to her. And R is basically like don't worry i'm used to it, I just need to sleep it off.

everyones online (m. thornhill)

summary: reader loses control of her shifting abilities.

relationship: marilyn thornhill x reader & slight larissa weems x reader

extra/warning: shit but here.

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Usually the birds awoke you in the morning, but today it was replaced with the constant sound of your phone alerting you to a new notification.

Rolling over to face the table next to your bed, flicking it on you could see many notifications from both your tiktok and your instagram accounts. Unlocking the screen and coming face to face with a video of the events of yesterday.

Watching in horror as the video shows you getting 'attacked' by multiple normie kids and then losing control of your abilities and turning into a lion.

The amount of views were slowly rising, from 1,000 to 1M in the 10 minutes you had spent scrolling through the comments from both students at Nevermore and kids from Jericho.

Turning you phone off you pull yourself up from your bed and opened your curtains, thankful for once, on not having a dorm partner.

Looking down at the quad you could see students occupying the seats, and also spotting the two teachers on morning duty them both coincidentally being Ms Thornhill & your Principal; not that you cared for either of them at this point in time.

Looking at your phone was a huge mistake, especially seeing the amount of new notifications that had come through. The bell for the first class making its announcement halted all activity online.

'A mental health day' is what you called today, and sunk back into your bed before covering yourself in blankets again not moving until the bell of recess rang causing you to jolt awake from your 'sleep'.

The sun had risen even more now, and yet you still lay in bed. Pulling your phone up to see any new changes, nothing on instagram - which was a relief. But opening the tiktok app, an alert made itself present.

<< Due to multiple violations of our community guidelines, you're account has been permanently banned. We ask that all users respect our guidelines, if you believe that you have been falsely accused please proceed ahead. >>

You couldn't do anything now, the sound of somebody knocking on your door made you look to it.

"Miss Y/L/N! Let me in or I will go get Principal Weems." The familiar voice of Marilyn Thornhill called out, silence.

"Y/N! I am giving you three seconds till I call Principal Weems down here." and still yet, silence.

"Fine, be like that," she muttered, pulling out her phone to ask the Principal to come down. "Principal Weems will be here soon." You knew from the tone of her voice that she wasn't lying and so reluctantly you got up from the edge of the bed which you sat on watching the door and unlocked it, looking into the eyes of your botanics teacher.

You could see the concern and pity in her eyes, which you didn't want. "Whats wrong darling?" She asked, taking a step inside your room and softly closing the door behind her.

"Nothing."

"This doesn't have to do with the reason why most of the school has been addicted to their devices this morning, does it?" Your glare deepened, stomach churning at the thought of the whole school seeing it.

"Oh darling, come sit down with me." She lead you to your bed, "Can you show me it?" Unlocking the phone and pulling up Instagram to show her, you sit in silence with just the sound of the video playing. Watching her face change from worry to sorrow and pity.

"I am so sorry this happened to you, you should not be ashamed for how you reacted it is normal." Placing a hand on your back rubbing it softly as tears slowly ran down your face.

The quietness only lasted a few seconds before the door burst open to a frantic looking Principal. "Marilyn," she starts and then continues to look at you, "Miss Y/L/N, whats the matter?"

"can I tell her darling?" your teacher asks for consent before telling her what happened. Nodding you bury your head in her shoulder as tears continue to stream down your face, finally able to fully express your emotions in the comfort of your favourite teacher.

"Normie students attacked her, trying to provoke her powers.." The botanics teacher summarised as she handed the still unlocked phone over to your principal. Minutes tick by and you lift your head to see principal weems looking down at the phone whilst her finger slowly scrolls through the comments.

"oh dear." she mutters, her voice laced with anger. "Are you alright dear?" A grateful smile flitters across your face at the comforting tone.

"i'm fine, i guess. just need to sleep it off." as much as you wanted a hug and for someone to hold you, you knew that it wouldn't happen and that both teachers would return to ignoring you the following day and so you slowly slid away from Marilyn.

"darling, we can clearly see that you aren't coping well. You haven't eaten since yesterdays lunch and right now it is 1pm, I doubt thats healthy." Marilyn speaks up for both her and Larissa, who in return nods.

"Let Marilyn look after you, it'll all be fixed in a few days." Your principal reassures, looking from you to Marilyn. " I'm going to go talk with the Sheriff and then call an assembly. I'll fill in for the rest of your classes today, keep an eye on her." She tilts her head towards you slightly before turning around and shutting the door quietly behind her.

"lets get you cleaned up and then we can watch a movie, my darling." and for once that day, you felt at rest as your teacher guided you to your bed.

[woodblxssomcrowned]

You can turn this into whatever you want but..

What abt hc of how the Uchiha and/or Senju would differ depending on education? Like would one clan be better at say; science, or math, or literature, etc.

Or what about the little things? Y'know things like what are some of the social etiquette rules that each clan would follow?

Sry I'm rly ecstatic that there's someone who is eager to go into the deep dive of lore behind a story when there is little to no info!

oof, I'm afraid I'm not very good with comparison as I suck at writing headcanons for the Uchiha, and there are plenty others who are great at that. Not that i feel super confident about my Senju headcanons either most of the time...

But I can say this: I don't think they were very different in terms of education, and you really can't note one clan as being better at one thing compared to another.

In my mind, shinobi clans were overall considered lower class members of society as a whole. Upper middle-class at best. 

They were mercenaries. Highly skilled professional fighters with unique abilities.  Being professional soldiers was their job, and they had to do it well if they wanted to make sure their clan thrived.  And I think their education would reflect that occupation as well as the state of the clan at the time and the resources available. So during the WS era, when there was no organized academy system and likely not any public schooling available for shinobi children, the clans educated their own members with what means and knowledge that existed within the clan and probably had their own ways of doing it.

I do think that being literate and having at least basic math skills was very valuable knowledge to have so that would likely have been among the first things they'd learn.  And we do know that both Madara and Hashirama were able to read and write by the age of like 12-14.

Again, the shinobi were mercenaries. Soldiers. Fighters. Not nobles, scholars or artists. And they lived short lives. Skills and knowledge that first and foremost served and made it possible for you to survive and do your job as a shinobi well were prioritized, and that was true for most clans.  

Aside from just grueling physical training, these fields of skills and knowledge could include : Tracking, hunting, fishing, survival training, basic medical skills/first aid (not medical ninjutsu), identifying plants and knowing their various purposes, making and caring for tools and equipment, map-reading, understanding social structure, setting up and taking down camps efficiently, undermining enemy fortifications and understanding military organization, language and strategy. Mental and emotional endurance and focus against pain, loss, or fear. The ability to think fast and act quickly, perceptiveness, see opportunities and take initiative, efficient cooperation with others as well as independent action and thinking.

Although respect, loyalty and discipline was important, blind obedience and inability to think for themselves was discouraged, as it made for inefficient soldiers that wouldn't be able to act unless they were continuously given clear and explicit orders.  The shinobi of this time had to be able to act and think on their own if needed, and the choices they made would reflect on their clan.  They prided themselves on being high-quality fighters, and being mindless fools who would falter and lose all manner of discipline and focus if they lost their commander was not how they maintained a good reputation. 

'Humanities' like artistic expression or literature were not among these fields that shinobi would prioritize. The warring states period wasn't a flourishing time for these fields I'd imagine, and for shinobi they were rarely useful in practice.  (If they wanted they could engage in these fields when they had free time, or during the winter when campaigning often took a pause and left a bit of room for leisure.) 

Ofc there were those who found their strength in books and scrolls, in experimenting and developing new tools and techniques, in digging deep into what was known and pushing the boundaries of what was possible. But pretty much all clans prior to the villages being developed were terribly limited in their resources, so there was only so far one could go in research before hitting a wall. 

The Senju valued learning, and sharing knowledge, a great deal. Teaching and training younger members of the clan was an essential task that pretty much all adults would do to some extent at one point or another, everyone held responsibility to ensure the next generation had the skills and knowledge necessary for a life as shinobi, as professional fighters. The younger members of the clan were encouraged to see all their elders, regardless if they were just a year older or several decades, as teachers, and respect them as such.

They were the clan of a thousand skills after all, and to ensure all those skills that existed within the clan would survive they needed to be passed down.

If knowledge was exclusively passed down from parent to child then the width of knowledge and skill sets would quickly become limited. Individuals who might have an undiscovered talent for a certain skill may never reach their full potential because they were never exposed to its existence. Some skills could even be lost completely if that family-line ended, which was always a risk since many died before they had children of their own.  Hoarding knowledge within a family-line was deeply frowned upon.

So to prevent this, young members regardless gender and of roughly the same age would from the age of three be trained together in groups, but they could come from many different families and bloodlines. Still, for almost two hundred years leading up to Hashirama becoming clan head, these kids would usually be sent out on missions before they were anywhere near fully trained or educated in truth. It was idiotic and impractical, but a persistent remnant from a period where illness and war made it necessary to have even the younger members of the clan fight. Some groups would be completely empty before any of the members had even turned eleven years old.

Even if young Senju, who were often in a league above many others, were learning quickly and efficiently and having the strength and stamina of their genetics on their side, when they ended up in a life-or-death fight against an adult shinobi (or even non-shinobi) with decades of experience, the odds were overwhelmingly against them. And those who would have been pretty average shinobi, those who despite carrying the Senju name, in a different time would not have gotten very far and might have gone on to dedicate themselves to other tasks that would support and keep the clan running smoothly, were often the first to die. You were either strong or you were dead. 

In my continued warring states verse, since Hashirama became clan head he set a strict  line on when young Senju are allowed to get anywhere near a potential battle.  Before fifteen, no Senju was given missions.  They are to focus on training and studying. On growing. On flourishing and settling into their unique strengths.  And even at fifteen, they are still not allowed into open combat.  The Senju's coming-of-age milestone was sixteen, and only at that point were they allowed to fight in open combat, if they were deemed to have sufficient strength and ability to be capable of it. 

Because of this, the number of fighting Senju did drop for a little while, but the ones that then entered the field when they became eligible were far stronger, thoroughly trained, educated, and competent, and had a much higher survival-rate. 

Now, as I said I generally don't feel super comfortable writing headcanons for the Uchiha, I find that very difficult so I rarely do it. But, I do sort of imagine them teaching and training their young members much more centered within individual family units. Parents teach their older children, and the older children teach their younger siblings. Close cousins, aunts and uncles might be involved too.  And I like to think that Madara implemented a similar age-restriction for the Uchiha as Hashirama did for the Senju.

---

Honestly I don't think the Senju have very unique mannerisms that are specific to their clan.  They are sought after as mercenaries and as such have had to adapt to the social etiquette of the class they usually serve so as to not offend their employer.

But here’s some general brainstorming on both big and small things, not sure its what you were thinking of bet here it is. Again, for the Senju.

- Don't settle for 'good enough'. Always strive towards perfection and precision. Don't leave things half-finnished.

- Honor and respect your parents, your elders and offer prayers to your ancestors. 

- Do not speak ill of or disrespect the dead.

- Honor your clan. Wear your crest with pride and dignity. When you wear your clan's crest, you represent it, so never act in a way that will bring shame upon it and all others who wear it, have worn it and will wear it in the future.

(Note :: The shinobi's view of shame and dishonor is different from that of say samurai and most of the world, which is also why so many look down on them) - If possible, do not use your last name when speaking to strangers. - Be mindful of social ranks outside of the clan and within it, and act appropriately when in the presence of those that are higher rank than you.

- Life is fleeting and impermanent, and death is an inevitable part of life. Everything ends one way or another. Accept this irrefutable truth. Train hard, and fight with discipline and vigor and with the anticipation of death, and seize and enjoy the time between. 

- Don't speak without thinking, and speak only when you have something worth saying. Speak clearly. Senju can be considered blunt, but overall  sincere. 

- Do not overindulge in alcohol

- Treat and love all your peers as your brothers and sisters.  Get along, be respectful of each other, and stay close. Love and support each other for life. Senju put a lot of emphasis on camaraderie, promoting relationships of trust and devotion between peers over strictly familial or filial ones.  - Although no self-respecting Senju would be caught dead in a brothel, Senju overall have a very openhearted, or uninhibited according to some, view on sex. They are often known to be unabashed flirts, both towards other Senju and outsiders, and do not seem to strictly limit themselves to their marital partner, and premarital, recreational and casual sex is normal. Some non-Senju find it alluring and enticing, others are appalled and see this behavior as lecherous and inappropriate. The Senju however take a certain pride in being excellent lovers, seeing sex as a form of entertainment and socialization and not something that is exclusively for procreation between a husband and wife. They often also think other clans are too stiff and restricted in the way they are allowed physical expressions of love and sexual fulfillment.  Life is way too short for that.

- Some acts of disobedience are more acceptable than others, and it is usually rather a matter of if you get caught doing it. For example, if you get caught sneaking out of the house at night you'll get scolded or disciplined for being caught, rather than the act of trying to sneak out itself.

- Do not waste food or drink. If you really do not wish to eat or drink what you are offered for some reason, accept it politely but leave it without eating or drinking it. Food was frequently scarce during the WS era, so refusing food was not only impolite but also just plain wasteful. 

- Shinobi children often had many siblings, and parents that could be away from the home for extended periods of time or die suddenly, so being able to help care for their family by performing domestic and household tasks and being self-sufficient was important.  This responsibility particularly falls onto the oldest child, but everyone is expected to pull their weight when needed and however they are able.

- Maintain good hygiene. When in the field, take all opportunities that are offered to wash up. 

- Keep your clothing and equipment clean, neat and maintained as well. Treat your belongings well, or they might fail you when you need them, and they may not be easy to replace. Treating your belongings poorly or having a dishevelled appearance can not only be cause of disapproving looks, but even disciplinary action.

- A shinobi will have to do and endure terrible things, you are expected to be relentless, cold, and uncompromising in battle, but you must keep the one you must always be on the battlefield separated from the one you are at home. You have to learn this. If you get consumed by anger or pain or grief and can't function off the battlefield, or start engaging in antisocial behaviour, you are a burden to the rest of the clan.

- Treat guests with respect and hospitality.  Although the Senju rarely bring outsiders into their settlement, they are excellent hosts when they do. And once the village was founded and you visited a Senju household, you would always be offered to at least sit down and have some tea before you left.

- (I have a full post on HCs about Senju clan Love, sex and marriage coming up soon)

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: What can I do in these situations? I realized I feel very fearful, even phobic about the internet now, by seeing how is talked about the way big companies manage private data, the thing of devices being vulnerable to any cyber attack and the way AI is being used to harass people and scam.

I feel… very terrified by all of this, I don't feel at ease even at my own home by living with smart devices. Is there a way I can make this more tolerable? I know we all need technology in our lifes now, but I don't want to feel spied on and vulnerable by it. It feels… very apocalyptic to me, and has made me fall in a pit of existential despair.

Then I started to think about my forgotten accounts, which made me VERY panicked. What if something happened to them and I didn't know? What if they're used for terrible things?

This worry has become so magnified in my mind, that I fear crumbling down when facing daily life things, and then even become bed ridden by the immense anxiety. I was bed ridden through many years by anxiety before so, this has become a huge concern.

I'm INFJ btw. Thank you very much!

-----------------------

Your anxiety sounds serious enough that I would strongly recommend getting professional help for it.

Phobias are considered irrational because they are based on faulty reasoning, distorted beliefs, or circular overthinking. For example:

1) Phobics exaggerate negative possibilities because they treat mere "probability" as near "certainty". This is often a problem of being bad at math or logic.

For example, the odds of dying by drowning are about 1 in 1000. What does that really mean, though? Does it mean that if you go swimming 999 times, you'll certainly die by the 1000th? No. What if you rarely go swimming? What if you are an Olympic-level swimmer? What if you only swim in recreational pools with other people and never alone in the sea? There are so many contextual factors that could affect the odds of drowning that trying to calculate the odds is basically meaningless when it comes to making life decisions.

2) Phobics envision mainly negative possibilities and overlook positive ones. This is a problem of distorted perception that then leads to distorted beliefs.

Let's say you read a statistic that car accidents are one of the leading causes of death. Because of this, you developed a fear of driving and thus always have to rely on others to transport you everywhere. Unfortunately, you don't live in a very walkable city, so this dependence on others causes you to lose a lot. You lose time because you often have to take indirect or slower routes. You lose energy because you always have to plan your outings very carefully. You lose opportunities because you can't always get to every place you need to go on time. You may even lose relationships because of being too dependent on people to come to your rescue when stranded.

If you were to objectively compare what you lose by not driving against what you could gain by being able to drive yourself, being able to drive is the better option. Furthermore, the fact of the matter is that you still need to be in a car on the road, but not driving yourself means that you have far less control over the outcome. Generally speaking, feeling less in control only exacerbates fear.

.

From these examples, it becomes more obvious why the best way to overcome phobia is to confront it and learn to master it, rather than give in to it. Just as not driving doesn't keep you out of vehicles and off the road, in 2024, there's no way to live life properly without accessing the internet. If you must do something you fear doing, the answer isn't to look for ways to avoid doing it but to learn how to do it to the best of your ability.

E.g. You can learn effective ways to protect your privacy. You can learn how to avoid getting scammed. You can learn how to use social media constructively. You can improve your judgment and be less naive or gullible.

You believe your fear is an indication of a dangerous world out there but, actually, your fear is an indication of your own low self-confidence. People lack self-confidence when they lack the knowledge and skill necessary to meet challenges and solve problems. The world is constantly changing and life will keep throwing challenges at you. The best way to cope is by being a good learner and adapting to change with new knowledge and skills.

Since phobias are irrational, an important aspect of overcoming them is becoming a more rational person, which means it's necessary for you to improve your critical thinking skills. For example, which option is more rational: 1) Avoiding the internet and living in a state of ignorance and anxiety, which basically means your life comes to a standstill? or 2) Learning how to use the internet more wisely, which means you can live your life confidently and fully?

[ichhabkeinahnungwieichheisssoll]

In case y'all haven't seen it in my bio, I'm continuing learning to become a card counter. It's something I'm very passionate about, as I love the process and viscerally hate casinos. Since it's such a misunderstood practice, I'd love to invite any questions y'all have, as well as provide a basic guide.

Since these are the things I listed, it shouldn't surprise you that these are myths (yes, even See Results). Card counting is a skill, so it's perfectly legal, but casinos can back you off. You also don't need a great memory or be good at math, as everything involved is fairly simple. Finally, it takes time to make a profit, but the rate increases the longer you play.

Now on to the guide!

Bear in mind that this is a quick guide to the basics, so I won't go into bankroll management. However, remember that EV means expected value and RoR means risk of ruin. I'm also assuming you know how to play Blackjack.

The first thing you need to learn is basic strategy. This is the optimal way to play the game, which lowers the house edge to about half a percent, given you're playing a table with good rules, which includes splitting aces, double after split, double on anything, late surrender, hand shuffle, 3:2 naturals, etc. Below is a basic strategy chart for S17 games.

Once you've got basic strategy down, you can finally start counting. The system I use, as well as most other counters, is Hi-Lo, as it's extremely effective and easy to learn. The first index you need to keep is called the running count, which keeps track of player vs. dealer advantage. This goes as follows:

2, 3, 4, 5, 6 - Add 1 to the running count

7, 8, 9 - Do nothing, these are neutral cards

10, J, Q, K, A - Subtract one from the running count

The reason we add and subtract in this way is interesting. Unlike other games, which are pure chance, because we know what's in the shoe at the start, we can know what's left by tracking what comes out. Because a player blackjack pays out at 3:2, it means that the player has a greater advantage when the shoe is rich in high cards. The Hi-Lo system is balanced, meaning the count starts and ends at 0. To practice, just thumb through a freshly shuffled deck of cards and keep the count. If you can get through it in under a minute accurately, you're on the right track; your goal should be around 20-30 seconds.

Now comes the slightly hard part. The math isn't difficult, but it takes some refreshing to get used to. In order to more accurately know your advantage, you need to convert to the true count by dividing the running count by the number of remaining decks in order to get your average number of high cards per deck. The main skill you need to cultivate is the ability to estimate how many decks are remaining, but the best return you'll get for your effort is by estimating to the nearest half deck. You can find lots of practice apps or have someone stack cards.

Personally, I multiply by the reciprocals of the decks remaining to get the true count, since I can't divide by halves fast enough.

For the last section, I wanna delve into something a little more advanced: playing deviations. You can get about a 20% boost to EV by using only 20 or so deviations. You deviate from basic strategy when the count goes a certain way. For example, you should never split 10s, but if the true count is +5 or higher, you should split them. This allows us to take advantage of the count by doing more than changing our bets. Here're the BJA S17 playing deviations:

T,T vs. 4 - Hit at +6+, otherwise stand

T,T vs. 5 - Hit at +5+, otherwise stand

T,T vs. 6 - Hit at +4+, otherwise stand

A,8 vs. 4 - Double at +3+, otherwise stand

A,8 vs. 5 or 6 - Double at +1+, otherwise stand

A,6 vs. 2 - Double at +1+, otherwise hit

8 vs. 6 - Double at +2+, otherwise hit

9 vs. 2 - Double at +1+, otherwise hit

9 vs. 7 - Double at +3+, otherwise hit

10 vs. 10 or A - Double at +4+, otherwise hit

11 vs. A - Double at +1+, otherwise hit

12 vs. 2 - Stand at +3+, otherwise hit

12 vs. 3 - Stand at +2+, otherwise hit

12 vs. 4 - Hit at under 0, otherwise stand

13 vs. 2 - Hit at -1-, otherwise stand

15 vs. 10 - Stand at +4+, otherwise surrender or hit

16 vs. 9 - Stand at +4+, otherwise surrender or hit

16 vs. 10 - Stand at above 0, otherwise surrender or hit

15 vs. 9 or A - Surrender at +2+, otherwise hit

15 vs. 10 - Hit at under 0, otherwise surrender

16 vs. 8 - Surrender at +4+, otherwise hit

16 vs. 9 - Hit at -1-, otherwise surrender

Insurance or Even Money - Take at +3+

That just about covers the basics of the Hi-Lo system. I left out a whole bunch about bet spreads, bankroll management, risk asessment, avoiding heat, and other tricks, but this is more or less here to spur interest in card counting. Feel free to ask any questions, happy counting!

[northwest-cryptid]

Tumblr polls are exceedingly good at pointing out one thing about people, and that's the human ability to lie. Whether lying to yourself in those "how quickly could you..." or "how likely are you to..." or "do you..." posts where some of the answers are actually like, impossibly absurd and yet something like 20% of people pick it, and the poll has 50k+ answers; or just lying in general where there are a lot of polls like "how many times have you... " or "how often do you..." and again, there's an answer that realistically if anyone picked it, it would be less than 1% of answers in a poll with a sample size over 10k but somehow it has like 10%+ of the total.

I know people are going to say "well you literally don't know these people or the lives they lead or whatever so how would you know" and to that I have to say, there are some things you look at and the math just doesn't add up. I'm not saying every single person picking that option is lying; I'm saying that given the sheer numbers, at least SOME of them are; if not MOST of them are. Because some of these things are so hyper specific that to get a sample size of literally over 20,000 people all picking the same answer and having that answer be an absurd extreme; you'd need to basically present that poll to every single member of that niche thing and have every single person agree to actually answer the poll; and even then some of them are going to pick other options that's literally just how probability and statistics work.

I'm not even trying to say it's a bad thing; it's just something I find interesting.

Like given the option to lie in a poll where no one knows what your answer is, no one knows it was you; you have nothing to gain and nothing to lose, and yet you have a chance to lie and select a maybe, more enjoyable answer. Do you? I think a lot of people do based on what I've seen.

[pixieungerstories]

I keep seeing this and struggling to know if I should comment or if that is too "Well, Actually--"

There is regular tired, which most of us can recognize. There is also cognitive fatigue which feels different. It turns up in people with dementia as sundowning, but also in people with head injuries and possibly as a long covid symptom.

In my case, it's like being drunk without have been drinking. My the first thing that goes is my ability to do math, even basic math. I then lose the ability to problem solve. As in being able to understand that if the thing I'm looking for isn't in its drawer, I should check the next drawer over. I start to replace the word I want to say with something else without noticing. My judgment is impaired. Eventually, I have to concentrate really hard not to slur.

I give every impression of being six sheets to the wind, with zero drugs or alcohol on board. Physically, I don't feel tired. But my brain is done for the day.

Cognitive fatigue. It's a bitch.

I was talking to a friend, asking if they've ever experienced something I've been calling "night stupid", where, late in the evening, you're in the middle of working and suddenly (or, sometimes, gradually) you're unable to do things well--and stuff that usually makes sense stops making sense. Yanno...just a noticeable and frustrating down curve in your overall ability to preform the tasks you're working on. and my friend responds, "Tired. Bees, you're feeling tired."

[yoonyia]

I feel so bad for dying over an 84

like it's not a horrible grade

it's a B by korean grading standards

which

uhhh

it could be worse

and its not like my science grades matter for the school I want to get into

and its my first ever school exam ever

nevermind it being in korean which I have horrible reading compherehension in (found this fact out far too late, realized it took me like 4 times the speed to read a korean book then others and I sucked and readings things correctly because I get the words fucked up AND ALSO I LACK SO MUCH VOCAB CAUSE I NEVER READ KOREAN BOOKS BECAUSE I WAS TOO SLOW AND NOW I READ TEST QUESTIONS WRONG)

I am not illiterate but man sometimes I think maybe I am cause how can I not realize what that was saying

I read a word called 분비관 which basically means "secretion tube" or something and it was a question on how hormones travel

and this stupid bitch assumed it was a synonym for blood vessels because I can't recall korean words very well so I just assumed blood vessels were called that in this context and I just missed it

IT WASENT THAT

I got 4 out of 26 questions wrong

it isn't even that bad

and its not like I studied that hard

I put the least amount of time into science

but that dosent mean I didn't try

I put in as much effort I thought was necessary to get 100%

but I forgot that part of test taking (or I guess I never knew because I never did tests before) is not just your knowledge of the subject but also your ability to understand questions and know what they're asking for

I cant read properly so I'm fucked

but still it's such a privileged asshole thing to say "I only got 84" and screaming and laughing in dispair when others are proud of their 78

it feels bad

I'm sorry

I have korean tomorrow and I have to get 100 or 90+ for it

I might very much die

and for math I'm just hoping I get 80+

I haven't done korean level math in 3 years I don't have a chance at getting 100 at all

myp math is so easy comparatively never go from one to the other you will lose all your math skills

I was litterally in this top percentile class in 6th grade and it was a 2 year study ahead class and I consistently was like 3rd~4th place out of the 11 people in that class

so like I don't think im too dumb for math

I just haven't done it in so long I lost all my foundations

nevermind having missed 2 years of concepts

which is a shame cause math does kinda matter for the school I want to go to

not to get in but to divide the rankings once you get in

I mean I guess that's the problem

you gotta get in first

I got 100 percent on my English so I just need to pass my finals 100 too and I'll be done

all i gotta do now is get really good korean and social studies grades

we don't a have a social studies test for the midterms

so this test now is just all korean

I really want to do well

I want to do exceptionally and wow everyone

but my dad told me sadly I'm no genius

and that with my lack of ambition and inherent careless nature (not as in lack of carefulness but the lack of value to the thing at hand) makes me not be able to do either my best or my most, so at the end of the day I probably won't wow anyone

not unless I drop their expectations of me to the floor

but most teachers can apprently smell clever so he told me not to do that

but from my experience if you just be super consistent with your lie no one bats an eye

there was this one korean class I purposefully acted like an idiot who didn't know anything in

and one time I wrote something that was my usual quality and the teacher thought I plagiarized it and I nearly died

people really don't know anything about you if you don't give them stuff to know about

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Petty Fandom Rant :3

So I've been watching youtube for a lengthy period of time now, and I love general nerd and geek stuff. I love fandom stuff as well, and I like seeing content made with all of that stuff in mind, from people that also love the same mediums.

This is mostly a stupid rant but it's something that irks me about people in fandoms in general. So most of you have heard of Death Battle. Recently they did a 3rd installment to the Goku v Superman. Which originated about 10 years ago.

In the first video Goku had the ability to go Super Saiyan 3. In the second one I believe that Super Saiyan God came out. And as of now, We have Super Saiyan Blue, and Ultra Instinct (Not a skill unique to Saiyans but among the Z fighters unique to Goku).

One of my biggest gripes with this whole thing was that it capitalized on two very large fandoms and pitted them against one another. Which for Superman fans and Dragon Ball Z fans was not uncommon at the time, but this kind of made it worse. The original video also spawned 100's if not 1000's of videos talking about how it was bias.

Funny enough the guys from Death Battle came out and said that YES they were bias for Superman as they were both fans of his. Which is perfectly fine. But that could have been stated towards the beginning of the video. However, the videos went as such.

The first one actually nerfed Goku due to an error in the math used to calculate Goku's power. It also did something else that annoyed the shit out of me.

Goku has ONE canon. Superman has dozens of them. If we were going to do a fair fight of Goku v Superman, several things would have to be at play.

Both would have to believe that they had to finish off the other, and there was no other choice.

Both would have to be at peak fighting shape.

They would have to be fighting in an arena that gave neither an disproportionate advantage. Examples -Superman's more or less "ability" to be immortal because of sh*t writing and angry fans not willing to see him die *insert healing coma here* -The Sun being able to literally keep superman healing indefinitely -The Sun being able to keep Superman FIGHTING indefinitely As such the only solution would be an arena with no sunlight. Either the Time Chamber, or the similar space created by Whis' Staff in Dragon Ball Super.

Superman would have to be limited to 1 canon for each fight.

Basically that leads me to the biggest issue I had with the Original and subsequent fight (Part two). When they did the Death Battle, the combined all of the post crisis powers of Superman together into one version of him. And while it was not an exact replica of Pre Crisis Superman, it very much was comparable. Save the example of "The power to create any power on the fly".

I never liked that they pretty much weaponized 2 VERY prominent fandoms against one another. If I'm going to be frank about this. However, I think it would have been fun to actually take Goku v Superman, and turn it into a mini series, where they compared the varying canon's to one another. So maybe Goku *as is current in canon*, and Superman from the original TV show. Vs the Superman from the original cartoon. Vs the New 52's Superman. So on and so forth.

Me personally. I liked Superman growing up, but over time I started to find him very boring because it felt like he never had an obstacles. Any time he faced any "issue" you knew he would not die and he would not lose. And it wasn't because, "He's the main character". It was because he was just TOO powerful. And even though there are stakes in DC, often times when it involves Superman, they are mitigated to next to nothing. Because Superman can just fly into the sun. Wait 5 min, then come back and decimate the enemy.

Honestly it feels like lazy writing.

However more to my point. I think had they done 1 on 1 between Goku and varying versions of Superman, both fandoms would have been more tame about how they felt. What it ended up feeling like however was a one sided sh*t show with DBZ fans on the receiving end. And the second video was EVEN WORSE. Given that it has Superman Prime in it, on top of every power of every other Superman Post Crisis, and had it more or less be a no contest against A Saiyan God. It felt really heavy handed. And much like a middle finger.

As for the 3rd video? I refuse to actually watch it. Because I know that it is using Ultra Instinct Goku and probably like before, EVERY SINGLE GOOD trait of Superman. Which not even Saitama from One Punch could beat. And Saitama is a parody character that is more or less indestructible. And Superman would find a way. Because yeah. EVERY SINGLE perfected power and ability post crisis.

It's honestly just stupid.

ANYWAYS, this has been my stupid rant about fandom.

[mmmcheetos]

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2bw85cjBOzhXwMflMumwe4?si=b4fa8ff4dc1049a6 - idk if i've ever shared the jinxue story playlist with you so here!! (yes ik there is a disturbing amount of fnaf songs, i'm on tumblr, what did you expect?)

If i may be so bold, I'd like to elaborate on the song choice 'Main Character'! It's Jin Yuran 1.0 and the song is him sloooowwwwlllyyyyy descending into insanity while trying to keep positive because he's the beaming eldest son made of sun rays. However, the bridge is when he properly loses it, and i've assigned little lyrics to people in my head so forgive me briefly while i explain it to you like a goddamn film script: Lai Yingxue: "Judge me by what my cover shows/" (practically emotionless on the outside and this is how everyone percieves him) "author becomes beyond reproach/" (Because of his disposition, he's talked ill off) "you don't know the prose or is the spine is still intact" (No one ever actually bothers to get to know him, his thoughts and feelings are ignored due to his demeanour, a book never read because the words look too long)

JYR's Dad: "...The Royak We/demand a standard of loyalty/in order to be reverent, lick the emperor's new boots" (Forcing the guoshi all to listen and obey and basically suck up to him, at risk of their loved one's lives)

Mai Guiying: "The court's fool got the guillotine" (1, his head was cut off, 2, he is the 'fool' of the court, naive and trusting but too scared to actually seek help until, eventually, he goes to the wrong person)

all guoshi: "we all do what we need to to get through/" (them taking their anger out on the children, slowly becoming cruel and bitter as being held hostage in a gilded cage put on display makes them slowly begin to lose any care they had for being in the moral right, just desperate for catharsis) JYR, in the immediate following lyric: "But I ain't done a fucking thing to you!" (He's an innocent bystander who was caught as a ransom in a war he didn't know existed - he never hurt anyone until he broke)

Also JYR, fast forwarding a few lines: "I mean, imagine if antagonists lacked any evil scheme!" (This one is a scene in my head of emporer JYR holding a hostage LYX's face, screaming desperately into a blank expression - the impact of the line comes from the irony: LYX was no antagonist, he didn't have an evil scheme. He and his friends lashed out and it hurt the wrong person. JYR was never part of the equation but he was the one who ended the game by destroying it. His descent to madness was an accident, not deliberate, but he cannot see it any other way because he simply doesnt know. In his decimated mind, LYX is a man of no love, empathy or kindness; he is a true villain)

Yikes, i just went english student-ish on you my apologies-

anyways, enjoy my thoughts!!!

🐉

au contraire there is not enough fnaf songs (i am on tumblr too my friend). there are so many bangers in this playlist tho love to see it

also don't apologise !!! i loved reading through this (especially after a ridiculous amount of math, i think i'm descending into insanity)

i'm now thinking about what you said ("while trying to keep positive because he's the beaming eldest son made of sun rays.") and how "i'm the main character, you have to like me" applies to jyr bc he's he prince! he's trying so hard to impress his tutors! and yet, they all hate him and make him suffer. and his second chance at life is a chance for him to be that likable, o.p. main character. idk tho i am not the english student here i have lost the ability to analyse texts

[seventhconsumedsigil]

This has actually been something I've been pondering on for a while and unfortunately for you, this post provided an excellent chance for me to ramble about my nonsense which I will be taking. This entire post is going to be a whole pile of gibberish because I don't have anything organised here, but the driving idea is that this can apply not just to "realism" as in like real life, but realism as in "this feels like it could be real". Also just an excuse to infodump about the societal blorbo in my head, sue me.

So, anyone on a post about the logistics of agriculture in a fantasy setting is probably going to understand on a spiritual level why I have beef with ASOIAF's worldbuilding with the winters, so I'll skip over the why and onto what came out when I started thinking about how that could work, while actually paying attention to the ideas of the above post and general food logistics. I also made it due to a vast magical anomoly that might be a hole in reality, but that's bog standard fantasy stuff and honestly as long as you keep your wards up the average person is much more threatened by problems with the food supply and other internal issues.

The first thing is magic. I'm sorry, but in a pre-industrial setting mostly based on subsidence farming, you just can't survive winters like that without some degree of rules bending. Might not be normal magic, but you've got to do something in your worldbuilding to account for it or the maths just won't math. In this case, Epic 6 rules Pathfinder 1st edition, which for the non-TTRPG people basically means you get to around small fireballs and your first extra attack abilities before levelling just stops, around the level you'd see from characters in most heroic fantasy. People get more skilled, but never really more powerful than say, Aragorn. The setting has magic in it and a fundamentally weird ecology that's adapted to this boom and bust cycle dictating everything, with creatures either shaping their lifecycles to just lose >90% of their members every time it happens, shifting around niches and attitudes or just straight up hibernating through it unless they live in the few sheltered geographical features,

This gives me a very interestingly constrained culture culture, because it's got to operate inside some extremely tight boundaries of what's going to work. One initial one that it is very invested in magical bloodlines, because popping out sorcerers who can give you the little things in life like enhancing carrying capacity or putting food into stasis is really damn useful compared to sending Timmy off to study for twenty years to do the same thing more "reliably" or whatever. Are they going to be casting Fireball at bandits, no, but you know what they are casting? They're casting the many facets of the Magic Spell Of Eating Next Year and that's honestly more important!

On the slightly less magical side, the psudo-regular long dark also functions sort of like volcanic explosions. Horrifically destructive, very dangerous to the inhabitants, but also massively fertilising the place, such that when they aren't around everything grows extremely aggressively. There's even some quest hooks in there to maybe try and grab the first growth of certain rare plants after the dark ends, for their greater arcane density or whatever. Maybe rich wizards want to feed their familiars them or whatever, who knows.

The basic staple crops have to be different, packing in harvest after harvest in these growth periods instead of just one and done like most that exist in a more stable cycle, and that's going to massively reshuffle how harvest goes along with the rest of the agricultural cycle. Maybe some places split their growth into current and stockpiles, selectively breeding different crops for each one to result in a substantially different cusine depending on the cycle! Maybe there's even social markers that key off this where eating "stockpile" food when the sun still looks right is basically just admitting you're screwed, or where the particularly obscenely rich can afford to spend twice as much magic on preservation just so that their vitamin C can come from "fresh" berries instead of more efficient to grow and preserve sources. Just because magic exists doesn't mean it's cheap after all, so it's a fairly good mark of social standing to still be eating fresh food when everyone else is staving off scurvy with juice so sour you can just taste the efficiency.

This doesn't really have a conclusion, I just wanted to ramble about weird worldbuilding. People should do more of it, and examining it critically need not be poison to the wonder. In my experience, it makes it even more interesting.

Slight note about the system of food.

'cause adding it to the large doc might crash my computer?

I've realized that though historical fiction minds this more when set in pre-industrial times, that often fantasy set in agricultural societies doesn't seem to do this, though it should.

So I'll give you an example...

Almost everything in Korean food is centered and bred for two things: Kimchi and soy sauce.

But what you don't realize in your industrialized state how freaking long it takes to make these things and how much planning is involved and how much you have to mind the seasons in order to make it correctly.

Kimchi:

Baekchu (or other vegetables) that's often harvested in fall.

The salt, which was traditionally sea salt was harvested in the spring and summer months.

Garlic is a spring to mid summer crop.

The sweet rice that goes into winter kimchi takes a ton of work to make and can take from Spring to fall.

The fish sauce that goes into Kimchi that helps preserve it for over a year, takes and ENTIRE YEAR to make. Yes, a year. You really, really have to plan on that. And what do you do if the fishing is poor for that year?

Spring onions are faster to grow, but you still have to time it for the fall kimchi making.

The fish are seasonal. For example, Yellow Corvina is taken in Korea in the spring. Shrimp in the summer (June), and anchovies in early spring to fall.

Your timing has to be impeccable and you need an entire year to plan this one dish.

Meanwhile, you, industrialized person, take for granted that you can get fish sauce any time you like and can pour it over kimchi.

In fantasy this could add flavor to your fantasy make up, if your character can only get this dish once a year. It can add political unrest (What do you mean the salt harvest was poor and we're left with the shitty metallic salt), because your characters in an agricultural society will be subject to weather changes, which you get when reading historical fiction and so on. Three seasons of poor harvest, daaaamnn... the people might overthrow their government. There might be new religions that pop up, there might be uprisings because the King and Queen are eating feasts every day while the peasants are eating things that are empty calories.

What I'm saying is that you can't be too entrenched into industrial mindset if you're not writing an industrial setting.

That orange is seasonal and only comes about in a connected system that has winter and a warmer climate.

Maybe there are key foods for your climate that are highly treasured or sought after. Mandarins once were. Cacao. Think a bit about those things and how it might interact with the larger world. When does your plant mature and when can it be harvested? is it different from different climates? There's wars that have been fought over food. (Tea, famously, at least a few times).

A staple crop failing is going to have devastating consequences.

And yet, often in fantasy, I often see people going, ya know what I can eat in the dead of winter, strawberries. Do we have greenhouses? No. Did we have freezers? No. But you know what my character is eating? A strawberry. Yeah, think about that. Strawberries don't preserve well. So plan out the timing of your dishes a bit (to the climate and subsistence system) and it can give a bit of background worldbuilding to your dishes and food.

I do have to say that the small mentions from Rings of Power n what's in season or not and why kinda made me feel like the world and the traveling was more "real" with the Harfoot. There's small references to fall v. spring crops.

[indigobackfire]

Fankid: Indigo × Barnaby

Sawyer Sinclair Silverwood-Lee

RAVENCLAW | SEPTEMBER, 2002 | ENTP

Born: Isle of Mull, Scotland;

Looks: Relatively tall with tawny skin and chocolate brown hair that's quite wavy, big green eyes with thick eyelashes and eyebrows, dimples to her smile and soft cheekbones;

Patronus: Spider monkey;

Pets: Lychee, the white-bellied Caique parrot that she carries everywhere like a pirate, and Chuffy, a scrawny turned fat domestic longhair;

Fav Subjects: Maths, Arithmancy, Magical Theory, History of Magic, Potions, Alchemy, Wizarding Literature;

Least Fav: Herbology, Charms (one bc she doesn't like dealing with the mess and the smells/and the other bc she already masters the subject and finds it boring);

Extracurriculars: Flying, Ancient Studies, Physics Applied to Magic, Magical Sea Creatures, Wand Mechanics, Mathmagicians (class/club), Law and Political History of the Wizarding World, Magic Applied to Culinary Arts, Debate club, Music; (listen she's a chew more than you can swallow type of girl)

Boggart: Losing her family / The shadow boy she sees since childhood;

Hobbies: Reading fantasy, sci-fi, and biographies on inventors (and on her weaker days, a romance or two), playing the piano, putting apart both muggle and magical devices, training pets to do tricks, swimming, doing all types of puzzles, training her technical drawing, and karaoke with Vesper.

---

After many losses, Sawyer is the baby that comes into their lives unannounced yet wholeheartedly welcomed. A perfect mix between the two yet with big green eyes that leave no doubt about her genealogy, she's the apple of their eyes and would've grown quite spoiled if they were different people. Growing up with a legilimens for a mom certainly shapes her into a blunt and sincere girl, edges deeply softened by her father.

Though her looks never lie, the early signs of her prodigy leave both parents questioning where she could've gotten her intelligence from, which she first demonstrates with her interest in math and art, and her ease of learning writing multiple languages, all despite being homeschooled by Indigo most of her childhood. They later invest in tutors (given how early her magic began acting up sending her to a muggle school would be unwise).

In the subject of magic, her access to the family's libraries allows her plenty of knowledge on basic magic many years before she sets foot on Hogwarts which makes her a restless and uninterested student in her first years until she finds herself capable of invading more advanced classes in secret instead of attending her own. Unfortunately, the imbalance in understanding easily alienates her from her year mates, driving her to befriend much older Ravenclaws with similar interests.

But it's in her youngest cousin, Vesper, she finds her very best friend who despite the difference in age and sorting remains as such since their childhood, throughout the years they share in Hogwarts, and beyond. While Sawyer represents control, Vesper, spontaneity, and together they make quite the unstoppable duo especially with both being eager learners and fearless explorers.

While not a legillimens like her mom nor a seer like her father, Sawyer does have a strange connection with dreams, hers and others, (which I'm still in the process of discovering) that makes her nights restless and reality occasionally deceiving. She also has a more druid-like connection to the dead thanks to her Celtic origins, but something she discovers much later in life.

With her looks and sympathetic personality, she earns several admires, but getting to know her truly is a tough task with her ability to illusion openness, talking a lot not saying anything. She has a hard time being vulnerable and understanding romance, which is why despite all the flirting she's known as a hard-to-please girl. She's often drawn to extroverted and messy types despite considering herself quite cool and collected.

For the time Maxwell's in Hogwarts, she's part of his band playing the keyboard, and joins in after that whenever their official pianist gets sick or busy with personal life. Beyond the piano, she can also play the guitar and a little violin.

Her biggest obsessions in life are integrating technology and magic, not leaving any rock unturned, and understanding time and its complexities, including time travel. Needless to say, her curiosity more often than not lands her in great trouble.

[just-a-sad-somebody]

Hey there 👋

Update from earlier I have a game you can play :D

So for this one. If you can't concentrate on two things at once, you'r automatically screwed from the beginning, all odds are against you.

So basically how it works is it's a type of guessing game. You'll need I'll say about. And even number plus your

Game master: (main person in charge they don't play unless needed also could've been a switch)

Everyone would have to get into groups of 2.

One person will have a pen or something and the other person loses the ability of having arms.

We'll call person one A (ler)and person two B(lee)

Everyone that is A are all writing the same word for on to the skin of person B's arm. The word will be picked by the game master

Person B's does get a limited amount of time, I'll say about 5 or 3 minutes maybe even 2, depending on how simple the world is. But let's get down some basic rules:

1. The words are probably T-word related so if you have trouble saying those types of things again, all odds are against you again :(.

2. depending on how you play. You can use physical touch as a way to give a hint if and only you have person B's consent.

3. everyone (the teams) starts out with either 50 or 30 points Depending on how many people you're playing with and the amount of rounds. more people, the more points.

4. Points represent time. So keep in mind you really don't want to lose because things start to add up LITTERLY ;D

5.Depending on how many people are able to figure out the word that how many points, or an estimate of how many you lose, for example:

if you're playing with 10 people, and you have 5 groups plus your game master. the word is "poke" and 3 out of the B's ( the person being drawn on) gets it. or find out what it is, you lose 3 points ( you can also do an immediate punishment) or if your total number is more than 50, you can multipleit so like, instead of 3 it's 6 points lost I hope that makes sense. Let me know if you want any clarification

( The math is a little bit backwards, but we don't talk about that.)

6. The more points you lose, the more time you get. For example:

if you have 30 points. And you lose 10. You have 10 minutes,

Or do it the opposite way, the maximum amount of time you could have is 30 minutes and. You gain 10 points that equals 10 minutes Of whatever the T-word related punishment was I'm guessing or whatever you want to do, for it does not matter

Now, if you play it that way, you might want to increase the amount of points. Depending on if you literally lose a lot

7. There are ways Reset point, Which would probably be doing a task that the game master pics for you. now mind you the tasks are probably difficult. And will only reset a certain amount not all of them. Or something similar to that?

8. if you lose or gain all your points. You probably get a punishment choosen by the game master. Or whatever you want to do.

And the last rule, I think is the ler, they really only can answer, yes and no questions. Unless it's to confirm an answer

But anyways, this is probably one of my longer post I'm so sorry if you don't like reading and it's a little bit too long. :(

But I probably will add to this in the future once I realized that I probably forgot something.

But anyways, have a good day or night, my friends and storm clouds ^^

[thebisweptualbisexual]

So, I'm not a teacher and I don't have kids and everything I'm about to say is from personal experience/observation and not backed up by research. But I do recall frequently not finishing assigned readings without some level of "cheating" (spark notes, reading someone's analysis, etc), sacrificing one assignment in favor of the other, or skimming heavily and hoping to bullshit my way through class in a passable way. I remember in biology there was so much to cover that I'd read half the content, my friend would read the other half, and we'd trade notes but it was also mild Telephone because half the content was only as good as the other person's interpretation at an age where our brains were still developing and in an education system that relies primarily on memorization. I think I was in college when a mom tweeted what "only one hour of homework" translates to when your kid has 6 classes and all the teachers assign 1-1.5 hours of homework and then also has to do an extracurricular on top of that, not including like basic self care like food and sleep, and that super resonated with me at the time.

I don't fully know what the homework system in other countries is like but I'm pretty sure the U.S. is up there in terms of assigned homework per week for high school students. I do wonder how much our reading comprehension has suffered from the sheer amount of work that's expected outside the classroom combined with the fact kids prioritize homework differently. IIRC a lot of time reading assignments were the ones that got sacrificed since things like math and science are graded on hard answers as opposed to a rubric, and because reading assignments may or may not have gotten "checked" in a tangible way since the proof of reading would have been in the discussion portion in class the next day.

So let's say you start upping the homework load in year 6, then you've got seven years before college and assume a standard four year college duration, that's 7-11 years of not being in the habit of reading things in its entirety and 7-11 years of habitual partial reading, skimming, and leaning on other people's snippets of knowledge/summaries/analyses. You're entering discussions with half baked knowledge and debating over vibes or groupthink and not necessarily based on what's written, and you might be spouting off someone else's opinion without necessarily needing to form your own because it sounds legit enough and you're graded on your ability to hold your own, maybe because we don't pay teachers enough and they're burnt out or maybe they haven't been trained to check independent thought. And you do this for a decade.

So yea it's a complex problem and maybe some of it is based on if an adult under 30 in the U.S. can actually read but I also think it's deeper than that. Teachers are doing their absolute best to encourage it but they're also spread thin and have expectations from school boards and constraints from shitty government, not to mention a lack of resources and funding and time to rest and relax and innovate on ways to improve the overall system when college admissions breathe down students' necks and parents apply pressure for things they're not professionally trained to do. Students get a lot of homework and are struggling to manage their time appropriately because it is impossible to manage time under that type of pressure, and they prioritize in a way where reading and critical thinking lose out.

Students in the U.S. have indirectly conditioned themselves to not read things in full for the better half of a decade as their brains are still maturing. This is by design and is systemically enforced. Even when teachers on an individual level try to encourage reading, the amount of work and burnout we demand from students is a societal norm and will almost always outweigh the work of an individual teacher without major shifts in US education policy and the student lifecycle (local education boards, college admissions standards/expectations, grading systems, diversity of thought, teacher care, money).

Quick question, genuine question:

Why on earth does "more than half of US adults under 30 cannot read above an elementary school level" not strike horror into the heart of everyone who hears it?

Are the implications of it unclear????

I'm serious, people keep reacting with a sort of vague dismissal when I point this out, and I want to know why!

If adults in the US cannot read, then the only information they have access to is TV and video, the spaces with the most egregious and horrific misinformation!

If they cannot read, they cannot escape that misinformation.

This obscene lack of literacy should strike fear into every heart! US TV is notoriously horrific propaganda!

Is that???? Not??? Obvious???????

I know this sounds sarcastic, I know it does, but I'm completely serious here. I do not understand where the disconnect is.