#unless you're testing out a bunch of different options

[redo-rewind-if]

Redo; Rewind Demo Update - Chapter 4

This update adds: Over 30k words (including code)!!

Features:

Avoid your original death! Or don't. You can just die. And die. And die.

Head into work for a fun surprise! Courtesy of V!

Use your time powers to fix yet another problem of August's creation!

Attend a meeting at a dilapidated warehouse because if there's one thing criminals love it's cliches.

FUCK !!!

I can finally say the update is here!! I'm sorry it took me so long, especially given how short it is... A lot of that had to do with real life stuff slowing my progress down unfortunately.

I did also decide to end the chapter in an earlier place than originally intended, and have moved the later content to the start of chapter 5. It's not a huge amount that was moved, but given the chapter length I do still feel somewhat bad about it...

I sincerely hope all of you enjoy it regardless!! And please do let me know if you run into any bugs or other issues. I did my best when it came to bug testing but there's always a chance I missed something.

[Link] - Demo Update, Available Here!

(Make sure to start with a fresh save to avoid possible bugs caused by the old ones!)

[nothorses]

So have you ever like. Talked to people that were homeschooled? Or did you just read one story online about a cult homeschooling their kids and went "fuck this is awful public school is so much better"?

I was homeschooled until 5th grade and then sent to public school. I lasted until 7th grade before I had to fucking beg my parents to homeschool me again. I was literally waking up for school in the mornings and immediately having a mental breakdown. I was constantly trying to fake being sick so I didn't have to go.

Homeschooling was SO much fucking better. I didn't have to sleep in jeans and a bra and t-shirt so that I was already dressed when I woke up, just so I had time to eat a small bowl of cereal before being forced to leave.

I didn't have to worry about classmates making fun of me behind my back, or my "friends" insulting me or going out of their way to embarass me in front of my crushes.

I didn't have to worry about having a cold or the flu or my period and being forced to go to school and be miserable all day covered in blood and snot.

I didn't have to worry about being given lunch detention because I forgot one book (probably because I have memory issues from severe ADHD)

I didn't have to worry about being overwhelmed with homework. I didn't have to worry about my teachers or classmates making me feel like a fucking idiot because I couldn't do math (wow turns out I have a severe learning disability that somehow no one noticed).

I didn't have to worry about being forced to run the pacer test in gym and not being allowed to rest, resulting in me throwing up.

You can't tell people "omg just because YOU had a bad time in school doesn't mean you're allowed to dislike it!!! Not all public school is bad!"

and then turn around and go "Homeschooling is awful it's just a bunch of religious bigot cultists teaching their children how to be bigots and children never getting to go out and socialize with their peers!!!"

All I learned from public school was:

Keep my fucking mouth shut, do not speak unless spoken to

Don't do anything "weird" or "different" (AKA show signs of having autism)

If you don't stay in school and go to college (AKA put yourself in thousands of dollars of debt in exchange for a piece of paper that doesn't actually guarantee you a job) then you'll die in a ditch somewhere

Don't even bother trying to make friends, they'll just treat you like shit

I was never taught anything useful that I couldn't have just learned by myself at home. I was never taught how to pay bills or what a mortgage is or how to grow my own food or raise my own animals for meat or how credit cards work or how to take care of myself after my parents die.

Public school is there to terrorize children and destroy them mentally until they conform to what society wants, so that they become the perfect unquestioning unthinking cogs in the machine that will work until they die.

It's there to make money for colleges because kids are never taught about trade jobs or making their own businesses/companies, they're taught that college is the be all end all and if you don't go there (and give them your time and money) then you'll become homeless and die.

It doesn't teach you how to think for yourself, it teaches you to shut the fuck up and obey or be punished.

I'm sorry you had that experience with public school, genuinely- and I know you aren't the only one, and this is honestly something I feel really passionate about. Like, actually; a big motivator for getting my Master's in Ed- and likely my Ph.D in Ed after this- has been that it positions me to get involved in a way that I can make larger changes than most classroom teachers might be able to influence.

I'm also really glad that homeschool was a positive thing for you! And I don't believe in outlawing homeschool or anything either; I do think it needs more regulation and resources, and I think there needs to be a wider array of options overall, but like. Given how education has historically been weaponized against indigenous communities to carry out cultural genocide (in the form of boarding schools), I think any laws against homeschooling would just end up repeating that same history.

But like, you can't ignore that homeschool has absolutely been used as a tool of abuse, too. And you can't ignore that abusive families and home environments exist, and you can't just... refuse to acknowledge the push from the conservative right to de-regulate homeschooling & break down public ed in order to further empower them to isolate and brainwash kids.

Hell, you wanna talk about how kids are taught to stop thinking, stop talking, and follow orders? Take a little day trip to a fundamentalist homeschooling network sometime.

You talk about public ed like it's this homogeneously evil entity designed for, and only capable of, abusing kids. But you wanna know what?

My family is abusive! My upbringing was abusive!

And sure, there's a chance they may have been able to pay for private school or something if public school had not been an option- for a few years, anyway. But that's because my grandparents have money, and because my mom was just neglectful enough to want me out of her hair.

I went to three elementary schools, two middle schools, and four high schools. All of those were public schools. Some of them sucked more than others, but all of them offered me:

An escape from home that I needed so desperately that, for a long time, I extended by hiding out at the public library for an extra 3+ hours.

Reliable lunches, even when my mom wouldn't pay for them.

Adults that I could trust, and did trust.

Adult role models and examples of a better future, especially in the queer adults that taught me.

Social connections, one of which was with a current roommate and my best friend.

Directly applicable knowledge and skills: cooking, online research and internet safety, everything I know about safe sex, finances, how to do my taxes, basic governmental structure, local, national, and world history, basic court proceedings, how to navigate colleges/university, (some) critical literacy & critical thinking skills, social-emotional learning, (some) critical race theory...

An array of options for different paths into an adult career: understanding (some) options like trade schools, community college, university, and the military (gross), and why I might choose one of those options vs. going straight into work.

Examples of and exposure to different & diverse ways of being, from home lives, to cultures, to queerness, to experiences I would never have firsthand.

Like, I have definitely grown up in pretty progressive areas & school districts, and that's a big part of it (though the conservative-leaning school I went to was also the school where my creative writing teacher read us a short story that he wrote about some gay star-crossed truckers).

These schools exist, and these experiences exist, and it's silly to dismiss them out of hand because your one stint into public school once was a nightmare.

And it's worse to dismiss the resource that these places are to so many families & kids. It's free childcare, it's one sure meal every day, it's community, it's exposure to diversity.

The practical alternative to that, for a lot of poor families, is child labor.

You don't have to like public education. I certainly have mixed feelings on it, and understanding & addressing the deep-seated problems in it are, like, the cornerstone of my life's work at this point.

What you should do, imo, is learn to recognize when you might not have all the context and information you need to make a judgement call like "destroy public education forever", look around at the people saying what you're saying & why they might be saying it, and perhaps consider listening to the people who have already been doing the work you've assumed is impossible.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/739283879438991360/if-im-posting-a-fic-about-a-poly-pairing-is-it?source=share

You're absolutely right about poly ships, but in general with supporting ships I think "would people searching for JUST this pairing be interested?" is a good litmus test. That's often what I ask myself when trying to decide if a B-couple should be tagged as their own ship or should go in additional tags.

By the way, if a couple just shows up briefly or otherwise has a really small role such that people there for *JUST* that couple wouldn't be interested, PLEASE put it in additional tags rather than ship tags for the love of god! So many people don't seem to understand this is an option, and perhaps those kinds of people aren't the kind to read your blog, lol, but I still want to say it. Someone in the replies was talking about a poly fic that constantly updated with a bunch of chapters, clogging their ship tag where it's just two of the people in one of the poly ships, not a focus itself. My tag has like FOUR different regularly-updating, multi-chapter fics right now where it's tagged as "background ship" clogging it! I hate it so much. This is especially common and agonizing if you're in the fandom for one of the less-popular canon ships, since they're so often in the background of some more popular couple. I was in a fandom where an only-really-popular-as-support F/F canon couple was my OTP, and most of their tags was fics focusing on the more popular M/M and F/M couples where my OTP were there for like, maybe a paragraph at most. And people never tagged it in a way that made it clear if it was that or something that might genuinely feature them. Agony! I know you can use "otp: true" but I'm not averse to a good fic with multiple ships where my OTP actually matters in it!

On that note, I wonder if it's ever polite to maybe make a note of it in comments? I'd probably do that anonymously, but especially when you see people who are relatively new to AO3, I wonder if they just don't realize that that's what they should do in these cases. I wonder how many people just don't realize that "putting ships in the additional tags" is an option, and are thinking of tagging more in a Tumblr "indicate the ship is there so people who don't want to see it at all avoid" way than a "tags are for finding it if you WANT it" way.

--

Yeah, for real.

In most of my fandoms, side ships shouldn't be tagged most of the time just because of the typical posting dynamics. Fics that really merit that b-plot ship tag are rare.

In other ones (BTS, I'm looking at you), there's shittons of fics featuring like three separate ships, all of which have significant page time even if one is the lead. Even the "rare" ships aren't that rare unless it's a specific OT4, so it's not that annoying to me when something else is in the ship tag.

But The Untamed? Get your damn juggernaut tag out of my rarepair so I can use otp:true!!!

And yes, tons of people think AO3 tags are for warning people away or for tagging every single ingredient, not for making a fic findable.

They are wrong and they should feel bad.

[moonlit-tulip]

What's your favorite ebook-compatible reading software? Firefox EPUBReader isn't great, but I'm not what, if anything, works better.

Very short answer: for EPUBs, on Windows I use and recommend the Calibre reader, and on iOS I use Marvin but it's dying and no longer downloadable so my fallback recommendation is the native Apple Books app; for PDFs, on Windows I use Sumatra, and on iOS I use GoodReader; for CBZs, I use CDisplayEx on Windows and YACReader on iOS; and I don't use other platforms very often, so I can't speak as authoritatively about those, although Calibre's reader is cross-platform for Windows/Mac/Linux, and YACReader for Windows/Mac/Linux/iOS/Android, so they can serve as at least a minimum baseline of quality against which alternatives can be compared for those platforms.

Longer answer:

First off, I will say: yeah, Firefox EPUBReader isn't great. Neither, really, are most ebook readers. I have yet to find a single one that I'm fully satisfied with. I have an in-progress project to make one that I'm fully satisfied with, but it's been slow, probably isn't going to hit 1.0.0 release before next year at current rates, and isn't going to be actually definitively the best reader on the market for probably months or years post-release even assuming I succeed in my plans to keep up its development. So, for now, selection-of-ebook-readers tends to be very much a matter of choosing the best among a variety of imperfect options.

Formats-wise, there are a lot of ebook formats, but I'm going to collapse my answers down to focusing on just three, for simplicity. Namely: EPUB, PDF, and CBZ.

EPUB is the best representative of the general "reflowable-text ebook designed to display well on a wide variety of screens" genre. Other formats of similar nature exist—Kindle's MOBI and AZW3 formats, for instance (the latter of which is, in essence, just an EPUB in a proprietary Amazon wrapper)—but conversion between formats-in-this-broad-genre is generally pretty easy and not excessively lossy, so you're generally safe to convert to EPUB as needed if you've got different formats-in-this-genre and a reader that doesn't support those formats directly. (And it's rare for a program made by anyone other than Amazon to work for non-EPUB formats-in-this-genre and not for EPUBs.)

PDF is a pretty unique / distinctive format without any widely-used alternatives I'm aware of, unless you count AZW4 (which is a PDF in a proprietary Amazon wrapper). It's the best format I'm aware of for representations of books with rigid non-reflowable text-formatting, as with e.g. TTRPG rulebooks which do complicated things with their art-inserts and sidebars.

And CBZ serves here as a stand-in for the general category of "bunch of images in an archive file of some sort, ordered by filename", which is a common format for comics. CBZ is zip-based, CBR is RAR-based, CB7 is 7-zip-based, et cetera; but they're easy to convert between one another just by extracting one and then re-archiving it in one's preferred format, and CBZ is the most commonly distributed and the most commonly supported by readers, so it's the one I'm going to focus on.

With those prefaces out of the way, here are my comprehensive answers by (platform, format) pair:

Browser, EPUB

I'm unaware of any good currently-available browser-based readers for any of the big ebook formats. I've tried out EPUBReader for Firefox, as well as some other smaller Firefox-based reader extensions, and none of them have impressed me. I haven't tested any Chrome-based readers particularly extensively, but based on some superficial testing I don't have the sense that options are particularly great there either.

This state of affairs feels intuitively wrong to me. The browser is, in a significant sense, the natural home for EPUB-like reflowable-text ebooks, to a greater degree than it's the natural home for a great many of the other things people manage to warp it into being used for; after all, EPUBs are underlyingly made of HTML-file-trees. My own reader-in-progress will be browser-based. But nonetheless, for now, my advice for browser-based readers boils down to "don't use them unless you really need to".

If you do have to use one, EPUBReader is the best extension-based one I've encountered. I have yet to find a good non-extension-based website-based one, but am currently actively in the market for such a thing for slightly-high-context reasons I'll put in the tags.

Browser, PDF

Firefox and Chrome both have built-in PDF readers which are, like, basically functional and fine, even if not actively notably-good. I'm unaware of any browser-based PDF-reading options better than those two.

Browser, CBZ

If there exist any good options here, I'm not aware of them.

Windows, EPUB

Calibre's reader is, unfortunately, the best on the market right now. It doesn't have a very good scrolled display mode, which is a mark against it by my standards, and it's a bit slow to open books and has a general sense of background-clunkiness to its UI, but in terms of the quality with which it displays its content in paginated mode—including relatively-uncommon sorts of content that most readers get wrong, like vertical text—it's pretty unparalleled, and moreover it's got a generally wider range of features and UI-customization options than most readers offer. So overall it's my top recommendation on most axes, despite my issues with it.

There's also Sigil. I very emphatically don't actually recommend Sigil as a reader for most purposes—it's marketed as an EPUB editor, lacks various features one would want in a reader, and has a much higher-clutter UI than one would generally want in a reader—but its preview pane's display engine is even more powerful than Calibre's for certain purposes—it can successfully handle EPUBs which contain video content, for instance, which Calibre falls down on—so it can be a useful backup to have on hand for cases where Calibre's display-capabilities break down.

Windows, PDF

I use SumatraPDF and think it's pretty good. It's very much built for reading, rather than editing / formfilling / etc.; it's fast-to-launch, fast-to-load-pages, not too hard to configure to look nice on most PDFs, and generally lightweight in its UI.

When I need to do fancier things, I fall back on Adobe Reader, which is much more clunky on pretty much every axis for purposes of reading but which supports form-filling and suchlike pretty comprehensively.

(But I haven't explored this field in huge amounts of depth; plausibly there exist better options that I'm unaware of, particularly on the Adobe-reader-ish side of things. (I'd be a bit more surprised if there were something better than SumatraPDF within its niche, for Windows, and very interested in hearing about any such thing if it does exist.))

Windows, CBZ

My usual CBZ-reader for day-to-day use—which I also use for PDF-based comics, since it has various features which are better than SumatraPDF for the comic-reading use case in particular—is an ancient one called CDisplayEx which, despite its age, still manages to be a solid contender for best in its field; it's reasonably performant, it has most of the features I need (good handling of spreads, a toggle for left-to-right versus right-to-left reading, a good set of options for setting how the pages are fit into the monitor, the ability to force it forward by just one page when it's otherwise in two-page mode, et cetera), and in general it's a solid functional bit of software, at least by the standards of its field.

The reason I describe CDisplayEx as only "a solid contender for" best in its field, though, is: recently I had cause to try out YACReader, a reader I tried years ago on Windows and dismissed at the time, on Linux; and it was actually really good, like basically as good as CDisplayEx is on Windows. I haven't tried the more recent versions of YACReader on Windows directly, yet; but it seems pretty plausible that my issues with the older version are now resolved, that the modern Windows version is comparable to the Linux version, and therefore that it's on basically the same level as CDisplayEx quality-wise.

Mac, EPUB/PDF/CBZ

I don't use Mac often enough to have opinions here beyond "start with whatever cross-platform thing is good elsewhere, as a baseline, and go on from there". Don't settle for any EPUB reader on Mac worse than the Calibre one, since Calibre works on Mac. (I've heard vague good things about Apple's native one; maybe it's actually a viable option?) Don't settle for any CBZ reader on Mac worse than YACReader, since YACReader works on Mac. Et cetera. (For PDFs I don't have any advice on what to use even as baseline, unfortunately; for whatever reason, PDF readers, or at least the better ones, seem to tend not to be natively cross-platform.)

Linux, EPUB

For the most part, my advice is the same as Windows: just go with the Calibre reader (and maybe use Sigil as a backup for edge cases). However, if you, like me, prefer scrolled EPUB-reading over paginated EPUB-reading, I'd also suggest checking out Foliate; while it's less powerful than the Calibre reader overall, with fewer features and more propensity towards breaking in edge cases, it's basically functional for normal books lacking unusual/tricky formatting, and, unlike Calibre, it has an actually-good scrolled display mode.

Linux, PDF

I have yet to find any options I'm fully satisfied with here, for the "fast launch and fast rendering and functional lightweight UI" niche that I use SumatraPDF for on Windows. Among the less-good-but-still-functional options I've tried out: SumatraPDF launched via Wine takes a while to start up, but once launched it has the usual nice SumatraPDF featureset. Zathura with the MuPDF backend is very pleasantly-fast, but has a somewhat-unintuitive keyboard-centric control scheme and is hard to configure. And qpdfview offers a nice general-purpose PDF-reading UI, including being quick to launch, but its rendering backend is slower than either Sumatra's or Zathura's so it's less good for paging quickly through large/heavy PDFs.

Linux, CBZ

YACReader, as mentioned previously in the Windows section, is pretty definitively the best option I've found here, and its Linux version is a solid ~equal to CDisplayEx's Windows version. Like CDisplayEx, it's also better than more traditional PDF readers for reading PDF-based comics.

iOS/iPadOS, EPUB

My current main reading app is Marvin. However, it hasn't been updated in years, and is no longer available on the app store, so I'm currently in the process of getting ready to migrate elsewhere in anticipation of Marvin's likely permanent breakage some time in the next few years. Thus I will omit detailed discussion of Marvin and instead discuss the various other at-least-vaguely-comparably-good options on the market.

For general-purpose reading, including scrolled reading if that's your thing, Apple's first-party Books app turns out to be surprisingly good. It's not the best in terms of customization of display-style, but it's basically solidly functional, moreso than the vast majority of the apps on the market.

For reading of books with vertical text in particular, meanwhile, I use Yomu, which is literally the only reader I've encountered to date on any platform which has what I'd consider to be a sensible and high-quality way of handling scrolled reading of vertical-text-containing books. While I don't recommend it for more general purposes, due to awkward handling of EPUBs' tables of contents (namely, kind of ignoring them and doing its own alternate table-of-contents thing it thinks is better), it is extremely good for that particular niche, as well as being more generally solid-aside-from-the-TOC-thing.

iOS/iPadOS, PDF

I use GoodReader. I don't know if it's the best in the market, but it's very solidly good enough for everything I've tried to do with it thus far. It's fast; its UI is good at getting out of my way, while still packing in all the features I want as options when I go looking for them (most frequently switching between two-page-with-front-cover and two-page-without-front-cover display for a given book); also in theory it has a bunch of fancy PDF-editing features for good measure, although in practice I never use those and can't comment on their quality. But, as a reader, it's very solidly good enough for me, and I wish I could get a reader like it for desktop.

iOS/iPadOS, CBZ

YACReader has an iOS version; following the death of my former favorite comic reader for iOS (ComicRack), it's very solidly the best option I'm aware of on the market. (And honestly would be pretty competitive even if ComicRack were still around.) I recommend it here as I do on Linux.

Android, EPUB/PDF/CBZ

It's been years since I've had an Android device, and accordingly have very little substantial advice here. (I'm expecting to move back to Android for my next phone-and-maybe-also-tablet, out of general preferring-open-hardware-and-software-when-practical feelings, but it'll plausibly be a while, because Apple is much better at long-lasting hardware and software than any Android manufacturers I'm aware of.) For EPUB, I recall Moon+ reader was the best option I could find back circa 2015ish, but that's long enough ago that plausibly things have changed substantially at this point. For CBZ, both YACReader and CDisplayEx have Android versions, although I haven't tried either and so can't comment on their quality. For PDF, you're on your own; I have no memories or insights there.

Conclusion

...and that's it. If there are other major platforms on which ebook-reader software can be chosen, I'm failing to think of them currently, and this is what I've got for all platforms I have managed to think of.

In the future... well, I hope my own reader-in-development (slated for 1.0.0 release as a Firefox extension with only EPUB support, with ambitions of eventually expanding to cover other platforms and other formats) will one day join this recommendation-pile, but it's currently not yet in anything resembling a recommendable form. And I hope that there are lots of good reader-development projects in progress that I currently don't know about; but, if there are, I currently don't know about them.

So, overall, this is all I've got! I hope it's helpful.

[that-house]

wtf is field of white flowers

It's a tabletop roleplaying game system I've been designing on & off for about four months now!

Originally, it was an unarmed combat minigame I made for D&D, with the intention of making unarmed combat, like, actually interesting. Like, with D&D's default set of rules, there's two ways to handle unarmed combat: roll a contested skill check (or series of checks) or punch each other (for minimal damage unless you're a monk) until someone goes down

The way I decided to spice it up was with a series of Moves:

Swing (big damage but risky)

Jab (lower damage than Swing, but is, in fighting game terms, "plus on block")

Guard (weakest but safest move, and very good against Swing)

Taunt (forces enemies to Swing if successful)

Grapple (enters a grappling minigame where they try to escape while you choke them out)

Everything had a multilayered rock-paper-scissors relationship. For example, if I'm remembering correctly, Swing was good against Jab and great against Taunt, but bad against Grapple and terrible against Guard.

Both players would pick a Move simultaneously, then consult a 25-item table detailing all the possible matchups of Moves. Each player would then roll a skill check based on their Move & Matchup, and then the winner of the contested check would get an advantage based on their Move & Matchup: stuff like making progress towards winning, gaining a bonus on your next turn, stuff like that.

If you won the contest by 5+, it would be a crit and the bonus would be bigger, stuff like moves that don't normally hit your opponent now hitting, or moves that do hit now instantly end the fight in certain matchups

We played it once or twice, and it was pretty fun! Then I realized that if I just made it have its own character creation rules instead of using D&D's, I could make a pretty solid little martial arts game

I swapped out Grapple for the more generic debuff-inflicting Afflict, introduced what would eventually become 80 different special abilities to mix and match in the form of Powers, and allowed players to customize their Moves through the use of Modifiers and custom outcomes

It was originally meant to be a 1v1 "fighting game tournament" sort of game, as a sort of combination deckbuilder/rpg where you compete with friends to make the most optimal build, but then I decided that (a) it actually had a lot of potential as a more traditional rpg and (b) introducing allies would open up a lot of design space for more supportive gameplay

the first playtest was an incredibly unbalanced 1v1 test of white-room optimization that showed promise but revealed a lot of deep issues in the system. the second playtest, months later, was a fucking glorious traditional dungeon crawl through the expansive basement of a missing crime lord, and everyone had a blast with that. it still revealed a shitton of issues, because that's how playtesting goes!

it's gone through a shitload of changes in the time I've been working on it, with currently around 12k words of rules text and customization options, compared to the original "one page and a reference table" that I made for a D&D minigame

i'm gonna be running a bunch of playtests with friends over the summer, and hopefully some day the rulebook gets into a sufficiently organized state that I can post a playtest version that DOESN'T require me to be on speed dial to explain anything i forgot to mention in the rules (and hopefully later an illustrated and finished copy for sale)

[oswinsdolma]

i've been reading a bunch of modern aus lately, and i've noticed that quite a lot are a bit uncertain about how the british education system works. it's not a problem by any means, but for anyone who wants it, here is a brief explanation:

we don't say "grades", we say "years", e.g. 7th grade would be year 7. we also don't say things like freshman/sophomore/senior etc. it's just the numbers.

however, some primary schools split into infants and juniors, infants being from yR-2 and juniors being y3-6

we also have a national curriculum all throughout compulsory education, which means everyone studies the same thing, more or less. there are discrepancies at GCSE/A-level with different exam boards, but in general, most people take either the same, or very similar exams, and are taught the same skills.

you start primary school when you are four or five in year R, and continue through primary school from years 1-6.

at the end of year six, you take the SATS, which are a really insubstantial national standardised test for english, maths and spag

it is also optional to take an exam called the 11+ at the end of y6. if you pass, you can go to grammar school. these can be state or private, and are basically redundant nowadays, and just used so parents can say that their child passed the 11+ and got into the Smart School. These are usually single gender and low-key cult like, but otherwise, are exactly the same as normal state "comprehensive" schools.

secondary school is from y7-11. at the end of y11, everyone takes the GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education). you have to do english, maths and sciences, plus several other subjects. most people have between 7-13 GCSEs, and if you fail english language or maths, you have to retake until you pass, even into college.

GCSEs are graded on a scale of 9-1, 9 being an equivalent to A** and is the top 1% of the students who got 7+, and 1 being an F/U. the pass mark is a 4.

the grades you get in your GCSEs are kind of irrelevant, except they determine which subjects you can take for A-level.

After secondary school, you have to stay in full time education for another two years (allegedly, though ik a few people who dropped out), and most people do A-levels (Advanced Level Exams). Instead of doing loads of subjects like at GCSE, you pick 3-4 and study them for two years. these are a LOT HARDER than GCSEs.

if you do four a levels, you're kind of a try hard. honestly, if you do it, good for you, but as a cultural thing, so many people who did four a levels were the most insufferable people who only did it to gloat, and then couldn't handle the workload.

oh, also this entire system is pretty much 100% exam based. for 2/3 of my a levels, i had a coursework essay that was pre graded, but it was only worth 20% of my final grade, and those were rare occurrences. at GCSE, unless you do art or something like that, everything is exam based.

A-levels are graded on a scale of A*-E, and then a U if you literally get nothing. which happens more often than you might think.

this is the bit that i see a lot of people get confused about. in the UK, we don't call university "college". college, to us, is where you take your a levels. if it's an independent institution, it's a "college/further education centre". if it's attached to a secondary school, it's called a "sixth form" (because y12 was year six of senior school in the old system).

i'm sorry i'm trying to be as clear as i can but our education system is complex af

your A-level grades determine where you can apply to uni, which you HAVE to do through a system called UCAS.

UCAS (the university and colleges admissions service) is a national system where you put in all your details required to apply for uni. you start it in the june of y12 and send it in by January** IN MOST CASES

to apply for uni, you need to list all your qualifications/details, predicted grades, personal statement essay and teacher references. this all gets submitted by your school.

HOWEVER. if you are applying to medicine, vet, dentistry, oxford or cambridge, the deadline is in october, and you have to submit written work, do multiple assessments and do rounds of interviews in addition to everything else (would not recommend).

you can also apply to conservatoire for music/drama schools, which tend to have their own deadlines and systems because they're not technically universities

okay nearly at the end

the closest thing we have to an Ivy League is the Russell Group, but it's not as prestigious. Russell Group unis tend to be higher ranked, offer niche courses and demand high grade requirements.

Oxford and Cambridge are not normal universities. i CANNOT stress this enough. you apply through ucas, but the courses themselves are unique and highly competitive (the one i applied for had like 10 spaces)(i got rejected lmao). also they are arranged in colleges within the uni, so it's like a collection of tiny unis linked by a larger institution. colleges are not subject specific and most of them have weird cults. if you're writing oxbridge students, google it, not just for accuracy, but because it's absolutely hilarious.

interviews are also more like interrogations. i was reduced to tears on several occasions, and you also have to swear not to reveal the questions you were asked (everyone does it anyway but STILL IT'S WEIRD). for example, one of my interviews, i was given a poem about feet and asked to analyse it on the spot over a blurry zoom screen. they don't ask you about yourself. they don't ask you about school. they just quickfire questions at you for forty minutes and roll their eyes when you take more than a few seconds to answer.

we also don't have majors/minors. you choose one subject that you apply for specifically, and spend 3-7 years studying that subject pretty much exclusively. the only deviations from this might be if you were taking archaeology and took an art history class or something — everything is really closely related.

we can also drink at 18. not that an age limit has ever stopped anyone in the uk from getting drunk. getting pissed in a field is a major pastime for anyone from the ages of 12-28. it's a problem.

instead of having dorms at uni, most people live in flats. there will be like ten people on a corridor with a shared kitchen. you only live in university housing for your first year, unless you are at oxbridge, in which case i think it's mandatory to live in your college for your whole course.

community college and private universities aren't a thing either. when you apply to uni, you apply to student finance (unless your parents are absolutely LOADED and pay for you) and get a loan for your tuition, and also a maintenance loan based on your household income, which is used to pay for rent, food, etc. you cannot be exempt from financial aid but a lot of people do not receive enough, particularly in recent years when the cost of living in the uk has gone up so much.

university is roughly £9-10k per year (depending on where you study) which is a Lot. but why are people in the US paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, are you guys okay???

also, if you're scottish, university in scotland is free. they also have a standard four year systm rather than the three year system in england and wales (idk about ni i didn't apply there). why?? because the english government is absolute shite and they got rid of the state university programme for england (blame the tories)

don't do your research on the student room. just don't. for your own sake.

and a couple more cultural things before we leave off

we all wear uniform until we get to year twelve. everyone. even the four year olds.

Nottingham Trent university is just the butt of so many jokes and I really don't understand why (they're not even the lowest in the league table 😭😭)

Durham is full of Oxbridge rejects who are in denial about it, and is also the butt of a lot of jokes

everything i have mentioned so far is about STATE education. private education runs on different tracks: you have prep schools, which run from yR-8, and senior schools that run from y9-11, and most of them have attached sixth forms. there is a massive cultural and economic divide between state and private school kids, because they get so much more help applying for uni, and also there is so much nepotism in our government. like. politicians wear their old school ties in parliament so they know who to give favours to. it's AWFUL.

some private schools are so fancy they loop back around and are known as "public schools". they're schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Marlborough, etc. really old institutions that basically guarantee you a place at oxbridge because of family legacy (though this has got a lot better over the last decade or so)(but they still have an unfair advantage).

a lot of compulsory education schools are really religious because education in the uk used to be run basically by the church, and the church still own a lot of schools. universities though, even the ones with roots in the church, are atheistic, their religious links symbolic or supplementary to their main purpose.

okay that ended up being way longer than i thought, but i hope someone finds this useful when writing, or at least interesting.

[tweakingsql]

Setting References, Adding constraints

We need to set up some items so that eventually this project will actually run. First off, we need to set up a reference to an existing server where the project will be exported when we're finished.

Under the Solution's name, there is a entry for References. Right-click on that, then select Database References. Change the database reference type to System Database, and select the master database.

Just to be fair, I had trouble with adding the default as below. I kept getting an error SLQ17501, meaning the editor was unable to find the referred to item.

There is an equivalent of SSMS' Crtl+Shift+R, which in the Project menu then Reanalyze Project. And that didn't work. It's supposed to take a little bit like the refresh of the table data into IntelliSense does in SSMS, so I waited. Hours.

Then I deleted the offending item and tried to add it again. Still there.

Then deleted the entire project and started over. At that point, in the error listing, I noticed the project was set for "Build + Intellisense". Clicking the other options confirmed that the problem was in IntelliSense, not the Build.

Next day, I started off with a new and smaller build and planned on using VS to report the issue to Microsoft. And it never came back. Anywhere. Computer Science is in the next classroom, this is working with software, which is a whole different beast. End interruption.

The source table has the one constraint already, which is the clustered primary key. "Clustered" means that the data will be put in the specified order onto the drive. Primary keys have to be non-null and unique, and are often what is used as a foreign key in another table.

This is a table of dates, and there's already date functions and tools built in to SQL. Why add more? Mostly so that we have a simple table to join on for long calculations. You can figure out if a given day is a weekend by looking at the DatePart() function with the first parameter set to DW. But is it a holiday? That is a bit harder to work out. This table does the calculations so they don't have to be repeated endlessly.

First off, let's set the FederalHolidayFlag to default to the character 'N'. We do the right-click on the solution's name, then Add, then New Item. Under Tables and Views we can select a Default Constraint. And it wants a name again.

And VS is helping where it can.

There's a related Check Constraint. Everybody is going to have opinions about where each of the files should be one single step, or if all the related steps should stay together. Make a choice that appeals to you, and realize unless you're the project manager it doesn't matter. I want the practice using the different templates.

The blue squiggle is error SQL70588 - since there's already a data enforcement check on that column, the WITH CHECK part of the statement will be ignored. I'm making a note that the Test Suite needs to look at that.

Document it. Always. Or you will forget.

Why use 'Y' and 'N'? One byte is the smallest column size. The boolean columns do only take up one bit in some byte, but unless you have a lot of booleans (8 or more), it's not much of a savings in space and a tad more work in CPU - probably breaks even in the long run. We could have used 0 and 1 in a tinyint column. It was an aesthetic choice on the part of the Data Architect team.

There are a bunch more constraints we could put in. Which ones matter to you?

[xxkellsvixen19xx]

Forget Me Not Jim Mason x Reader 50 First Dates AU Pt 2

@michael-langdon-appreciation

Y/N couldn’t look away.

The blue eyes were part of it-the only thing familiar on Jim. Even they seemed slightly different, though, as she’d never seen him stare back at her with quite that expression before.

The one that said he was a split second away from swooping in to protect her. Which she might have liked the idea of in principle, but right now, no way.

After two months of having people walk on eggshells around her, she did not need another babysitter. Especially not Jim. Her own big brothers were more than enough of a pain in the patootie. Having the guy who turned her insides to sexual jelly acting all sympathetic and concerned-

Nope.

She wanted him looking at her with a grown-up expression, not as if she were delicate china. Even if currently she was concentrating very hard to stay vertical and not dash back to the bathroom.

Stupid stomach flu.

Another wave of dizziness struck. "Jim-this is fun and all, but I need to call it a night.”  Jim blinked before straightening, the entire solid package of male shifting awkwardly toward the door. Like he was hesitating between reaching for her or following her request.

She slipped past him and caught the doorknob, swinging the door open so she could use the solid frame as an anchor to keep herself vertical.

"Okay. I'll go." He paused. "You need anything?"

Y/N clutched the door harder. "Twenty-four hours' shuteye, but thanks for asking." Jim paced forward reluctantly. "I hope you’re feeling better soon."

She lasted until he was in his truck before she locked the door and raced for the bathroom. Classy. Elegant. Way to impress the guy. She couldn’t muster the strength to feel embarrassed. Crawling into bed after she'd rinsed her mouth was the only thing on her mind.

Although the feverish dreams she had that night of Jim Mason doing dirty things to her were a lovely distraction.

Two mornings later the flu was still hanging on, though the nausea was no longer a 24/7 thing. With the fresh taste of toothpaste lingering on her tongue, Y/N strolled into her living room.

Medina had taken up residence on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table. "Sick again?" she asked.

"Duh." Y/N lowered herself gingerly into a chair. "You're the master of the obvious today. Stupid flu bug will not let go of me."

A pale pink box flew across the room, and Y/N caught it instinctively.

"If I’m the Queen of obvious, then you’re my lady in waiting. Flu, shmuu."

She twisted the box toward her, reading out loud. "First Hint. The early pregnancy detection- Hokey spit.Medina."

"If the morning sickness fits ..."

Protests at this point were futile, but there were other more important issues. "Please tell me you didn’t buy this at the local Safeway."

"You think I'm stupid?" Medina folded her arms across her chest. "I was in CVS Pharmacy yesterday. No one we know anywhere around, and yes, I looked. Now go pee on the stick so I can tell you I told you so."

The whole idea was stupid.

Impossible.

But...

The twinge of doubt at the back of her brain was enough to tip Y/N into caving. "Stay here,” she ordered. "I don't need supervision."

Her friend had already opened the box and pulled out what looked like a small stir stick. She held it forward. "Have a ball." Medina retreated enough to give Y/N a moment’s privacy, but she had to admit it was kind of nice to have her there as they stared at the stick lying on the counter.

"If that thing let off a bang about now, I bet we'd both scream loud enough they'd hear us in Winterfell,” Medina quipped.

Y/N looked away for a moment to brace herself. If it was positive, what then?

Pregnant.

On top of everything else?

"How could I be pregnant, Medina?"

Medina held the stick in the air, the two pink positive lines clear and bold. Undeniable.

"Fuck." Y/N leaned on the bathroom door, working to calm her breathing. "Okay, I can deal with this. It's not the end of the world. It's ..." Bursting into tears was the last thing she’d intended, but it happened. A moment later she was being supported by Medina’s firm hug. Petted and coddled all over again like her brothers had been doing for the past two months, but this time she wanted the pampering. At least for a few minutes.

When she pulled herself together, Medina handed her a fresh wad of tissue to replace the set she'd ravaged. Y/N wiped up the last of her tears. "Thanks for being a brat and bringing me the test."

They shuffled awkwardly for a moment before Medina sighed. "Not much use hanging out here unless you want me to try to break into your passwords on the computer again."

"That’s not important right now. I have other things to worry about." Y/N groaned. "And now that I know why I'm sick, I guess I'll find some ways to feel better."

"Rest. More vitamins." Medina nodded. "I'll do some research."

One great big secret that was only going to get bigger. Literally bigger. Y/N wandered into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea while she considered. There was a person growing inside her. She tossed a piece of bread into the toaster, staring out the window as the timer  clicked down, the noise echoing in the silent house.

A baby.

click. click. click.

It was clear. She was going to be a mom.

Now the mystery was...would there be a dad or not? That one wasn't nearly as cut and dried.

Jim stared at the house, wishing he’d done this right the first time, immediately after getting home. Six days was as long as he could wait before nearly going stir-crazy. Bubbling inside were far different emotions. Holding back was too much to ask, and he didn't want to wait any longer.

Y/N needed to know what they’d done. What they’d agreed to. She’d had time since the accident. If their relationship ended up being another issue to deal with, at least they’d deal with it together. That didn’t make him an asshole.

He knocked on the door, anxious to get started.

The woman who greeted him was still on the green side, and his heart went out to her even as his gaze took in the rounded curves under her housecoat.

"You still sick?"

She shrugged. "Feeling a bit better. What's up?"

Had to seem strange since he didn't usually drop in on her like this. Not before they'd ... "I need to talk to you."

Y/N frowned. "Something wrong with my brothers? Or at the office?"

"No, nothing. This is personal."

That only seemed to confuse her more. "Give me a second to pull on some clothes, okay?" "No, nothing. This is personal."

He shook his head. "I needed to talk to you about your accident. More specifically, the night before."

Y/N collapsed onto the couch. "This is old boring territory, Jim. I don't-"

"Humor me. I know it's boring because you’ve said it a million times, but I haven’t heard it."

"I was out for the night. Went home. Got my car the next morning, and went off the road into the ditch and bumped my head. You think book or movie options would sell better?"

He ignored the snark. "How did you get home from the bar?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it quickly. "Oh. You drove me. Thanks, if I didn't say it before."

Damn it.

Jim let a growl of frustration escape. “Y/N, We weren’t worried about our please and thank-yous when we got here that night."

Her eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"

He lowered himself beside her on the couch and slipped his hand over hers. "Something happened that night. We both wanted it, and if I hadn’t gone north, we'd be together now."

Her entire body went rigid. "Together, as in how?"

Jim stroked her fingers gently, willing her to at least remember his touch. "We made love, Y/N. A bunch of times. And it was hot and amazing, and I can't wait to do it again."

The pallor of her skin brightened as twin red spots flushed her cheeks. "We...made love. After you drove me home." Her confusion was understandable, so he nodded and went on.

"I know it was shitty timing, not only because of the accident, but because I had to leave the next day. I'm so sorry I wasn’t here for you. Sorry you had to deal with your accident without me around, but I intend on being here for you from now on. No matter what you need."

Y/N stomped away a few feet before twirling on him. "Okay, that wasn't nice. I'm glad you feel like one of the family, Jim, but I certainly never thought you were the type to be willing to sacrifice your entire future on a whim like this."

Somewhere their wires had gotten crossed. "I have no idea how me being a foster kid, or your family, is even involved in this discussion, or what the hell sacrificing my future means. Before I left we said we would work on being together. On spending time and getting to know each other more."

Quite honestly she grew even more confused, agitated even. She couldn't remember any of this, her mind seemed to have a road block.

"Sweet sentiment, especially when you toss in having a kid. Babies aren’t something you can return to the store when they become inconvenient, Jim."

Wait. What? "Babies? What are you talking about?"

She froze with her mouth open as panic slipped into her eyes.

A pit opened in front of Jim, and he stood with one foot in midair over the unfathomable depths. He took in all the signs, lined up the data, then waited for his ability to speak to return. "Wait, are you telling me you're pregnant?"

Holy shit.

Holy fuck.

Holy crap.

Y/N took a deep breath before muttering her response. "So. That went well."

"Answer the question." Jim narrowed the gap between them. "Are you serious? You're pregnant?"

She frowned. "You sure you didn't know?"

"How could I know? Oh man, Y/N. I had no idea." Jim wasn't sure his feet would continue to hold him. It might be a cop-out, but the room was wavering. "I need to sit down." He stumbled backward and collapsed onto the couch. Y/N was pregnant. They'd had sex, she'd had an accident, and he... They. She.

Jim lifted his gaze to meet hers. "How far along are you?"

It was her turn to pause. "Oh, shit, you’re not serious, are you?"

"About what?"

Y/N dropped into the seat opposite him. She made the most hysterical face as she scratched her head. "Good grief. Okay-for the sake of discussion, let’s assume you’re telling the truth. You drove me home and we spent the night knocking boots."

"It is true."

She glared at him. "Let me talk this through without interruption, or I will kick your ass out the door."

His head was still spinning from trying to process the idea of a baby on the way. "You've gotten an attitude since I left," he observed.

"Comes from being knocked around and knocked up." She stared at the ceiling before leaning forward and asking very earnestly. "Now if we did the horizontal mambo, was there a reason why I'd be pregnant?  Did we not use a condom? Did it break?"

Jim shook his head. "We used protection, every time. Including in the shower."

Her cheeks went bright red at his comment, but she pushed forward. "Then it makes no sense. It couldn't be you. If...you know, we did what you said."

"It can happen. Condoms aren’t fool proof, and we were pretty enthusiastic." His stomach was in knots. Jim paused. He wasn't trying to get out of his responsibilities, but it would be stupid not to get all the details. "You had the accident the day after I left. Not to be indelicate, but have you been with anyone since?"

She snorted. "Are you freaking kidding me? I’ve been lucky to go shopping without supervision. Jim nodded. "I can believe that. Okay, then. Mystery solved." He dragged a hand through his hair, wondering if he should go hug her or kiss her, or do something other than sit like a bump on a log as he attempted to get over the shock.

Y/N grimaced. "Urn..."

He saw her, heard her, but his brain was racing a million miles an hour.

A baby.

Sweet mercy, he’d had one night with Y/N, and they'd gone and got her pregnant. There was so much wrong with that in so many ways he could barely put one thought behind another. He wanted her. Wanted to care for her, and be there for her. Being a father? Not on the list of things he had planned. Not today, maybe not ever.

Time to think was good. Jim resisted glancing at his watch, because he didn’t give a fuck it wasn’t even noon. His thinking time was going to require a couple hard shots of liquor. "I'll call you this afternoon."

She shook her head. "Tomorrow."

Blast it all. Jim took advantage of his height and crowded her. "Look, I'll admit it. I'm more than a touch floored right now, but that doesn’t change what’s important. I care about you, and whether or not you believe me, I know there is a good possibility I'm the father of your baby. So we can think things through, and talk about them, but there is one thing I want to make clear right now. I will be in your life, Y/N. I will be there to help you, and there is nothing you can say that will change my mind."

For the first time since their strange conversation had begun, a faint hint of a real smile teased her lips and the lines at the corners of her eyes softened. She laid a hand on his crossed arms. "Thank you."

He didn’t remember leaving. Next thing he knew he was in his truck tearing down a quiet back road. The radio remained silent while the snow blanketing the fields rose and fell like an endless sea around him.

Y/N was pregnant, and he was going to be a father.

Flash back to 1 year ago…

Y/N started on her favorite thing at breakfast time. The waffle house. She had finished the structure then was having trouble with the door. The piece fell in the house and Y/N  was digging it out carefully with her fingers. Oh no. please don't ruin the house She pulled the piece out and tried again and almost lost it again.

All of a sudden she heard a voice, "Y'know, why don't you try this?" She saw a toothpick go through the piece of waffle house to be the door. She looked up at where the voice came from and saw a guy about her age looking at her. "Now why didn't I think of that?" She said kind of shyly. She kept avoiding eye contact with him. "Well you're too close to the project, don't be too hard on yourself."  "You're right." "Sometimes you need an outsiders perspective."

Jim looked at her and smiled. "A fresh eye never hurts." "I'm Y/N." She looked in his eyes and was waiting for his hand to meet hers. He stretched his hand out and grabbed hers with both of his hands. "Yes." "I'm Jim Mason." "Nice to meet you." Their hands let go and they kept staring into each-others eyes. Then Henry broke the silence by saying, "It's pretty, keep up the good work."

"I see you're sitting there alone." "Um, do you want to come sit down?"  "Sure, Sure." "That would be great." Jim whispered. "So are you an architect?" She looked into his eyes. "I am not, I work at an aquarium." Y/N smiled. Then looked at him. "Oh, so that's where the smell is coming from." She could see the embarrassment in his eyes. "Yeah, yeah I was feeding the walruses this morning and I thought I got most of it off of me, but I guess not." She saw him take the lemon out of his water and rub it on his hands. She kept staring down at his hands thinking in her head. She then smiled. "I love that smell." "No you don't." "Fish don't even like that smell."

"The best smell in the world." Jim's eyes met Y/N's again and then..."Well, my fingers are available for your sniffing pleasure anytime you need them."

One year seemed like ages ago, Jim held down a job at the time at a local aquarium in PV. The first time he had ever met Y/N was at a local diner, a fond memory but one she may not remember. Jim was deep in thought during the drive, if she didn't remember then he guessed that if he recreated them maybe it might jog her memory.

It was like some nightmare she couldn’t quite wake up from. The only thing keeping her from flipping out completely was the knowledge she had a roof over her head for the long run. The house was hers, lock, stock and barrel, an inheritance from her mom, along with enough money to make being a single mom bearable until the kid was in school and she could work more full-time hours.

And... It wasn’t right, but the other thing grounding her? The expression in Jim's eyes the other day-So serious. So determined and solid in spite of his surprise about the baby.

She leaned on the wall and practiced breathing out her frustration in time with the slow, steady scrapes of the shovel outside her door. Whoever had been clearing her driveway, and the even rasps were strangely calming.

Eventually the noises stopped, and the doorbell rang. She  expected to see one of her brothers, although they usually stormed in, no matter how often she asked them to knock. Instead it was Jim who leaned on the shovel he’d just finished using on the sidewalk. Somehow he still managed to look all dangerous and sexy even considering the pink plastic handle.

He grinned. "Morning."

Y/N glanced past him at the walkways. "Morning. You've been busy."

She opened the door and let him pass. He'd toed off his boots and followed her into the living area.

They settled across from each other, his gaze staying firmly on her face. Y/N ignored him best she could as she gathered the papers strewn on the table.

The silence stretched on for far too long.

"So..." Jim broke off then cleared his throat. "I hate that there's this wall between us. I'm not going to walk on eggshells anymore, so if I step over a line, tell me to go to hell, okay?  We can stop this stupid awkwardness and be honest with each other."

"Fine by me." Y/N leaned back and waited for whatever bomb he wanted to drop this time.

She shrugged. “Life goes on as usual. I try to get over this stupid amnesia as it relates to numbers so I can go back to working at the garage. I take it you'll be starting up at the shop?"

Jim  frowned. "I meant what about us?"

Oh boy.

"I..." He wanted honesty. Y/N lifted her eyes to meet his square on. "I like you, Jim Part of me really hopes what you're saying is true because I've would like to get involved with you. I am just frustrated I don't remember anything about us.Of course, that means if we did fool around and I've forgotten, I'm doubly pissed off, because I'd been waiting forever, and it's just wrong to have lost those memories. "

His smile had widened the sexy one that melted her butter faster than it should. "Trust me; I can hardly wait to make some new ones."

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. She held up a hand as if to ward him off. "But we can't. Not yet."

Confusion crowded his expression. "If you want to be with me, and I want to be with you, then why aren’t we getting together, Y/N? Why aren’t we facing the future, and your pregnancy, as partners the way we should?"

A wave of sadness and frustration rolled over her leaving her exhausted. " I admit that I do like you, Jim, but as far as I know we've never even kissed. How on earth can I simply go 'hey, okay' and dive headfirst into a long-term relationship with you? None of it makes sense, and not being sure is frustrating me more and more."

Anger boiled over, and she whipped the pillow from her hands. It spun across the room, narrowly missing a table lamp. Y/N  pressed her fists against her temples as she fought to settle down.

Stupid hormones. Or maybe the "new Y/N ” had triggered her over-the-top response. The one with far too much vinegar in her blood.

Jim hadn’t taken his gaze off her. Jim was on his feet in an instant, gently rubbing her upper arms as he made soothing noises. He pulled her against his chest, and it wasn’t sexual, just comfort and understanding.

Y/N twisted her face to the side, slipped her arms around him and accepted his hug. Let the warmth of the embrace twine around them. Let the smooth repetitive touch of his hands down her back relax away the tension. She stood there in his arms for a good five minutes before all the frustration and fire had eased off enough that she could finally take a deep breath.

Jim squeezed her a little tighter. "I'm here for you. Like this, if nothing more. My commitment has no agendas, no deadlines. Just one moment after another until we make it through."

Under her cheek his heart pumped out a smooth, even tempo, and Y/N clung tight. To the firm support of his body and gentle touch of his hands. While she wants him  in some half-dreamed-of sexual-fantasy world, right now things were still so unsettled.

It was nice to have one solid place to stand. One solid individual she could lean against who helped stop the spinning, even for a moment. She stepped away from him reluctantly. As nice as it was to have his support, she wanted to get her life back .

Credit to @carolthors

[conflictixn]

BBDC Experience 2022 - Part 1: Theory

Aight I did the thing I signed up for driving lessons after years of this:

Parents: Driving is a skill, you should go and learn Me: But it'll cost over $2000! Parents: Doesn't matter we will pay. Me: Sure ah? Parents: Yeah of course

TBH I never saw the need, living in Singapore where buses and MRTs can easily (and cheaply) get you from point A to point B. And my family didn't own a car for a long time. But my dad finally bought one in 2021, so I decided it's time.

They still pikachu face at me when I told them I signed up and asked them for money....

ANYWAY they did give me $2000 which I am thankful for, and I'll just absorb the extra.

Now on to BBDC.

Chose BBDC because of convenience. It's 15mins away. I know private instructors are cheaper, but BBDC has a good rep and all the facilities. I took the Class 3 course, which is manual car, because dad and boyfriend and friends who are older all say "just take manual". Makes sense to me lah, I pay so much to learn might as well right?! Then my younger friends are surprised that I am learning manual because "auto is so much easier", "when will you ever drive a manual?" Both views are valid and true..... I decided that I would enjoy the challenge of learning to drive a manual hahaha.

THEORY LESSONS

The troublesome thing about being a BBDC School learner is having to sit through theory lessons.

What to expect: They hold Zoom lessons now because of COVID, and honestly you don't have to listen much. The instructors will call people to answer questions during the lesson, but if you don't know the answer, it's fine. The lessons are not very useful, they don't cover all the topics, but they will often tell you the answers to some of the questions you encounter during the test.

You have to book 2 BTT lessons and 2 FTT lessons. Just book all at one go, and the order doesn't matter (i.e. for BTT 1.01 and 1.02, you can take either one first)

THEORY PRACTICE AND EVALUATION

Theory practice is not compulsory, but you have to pass the evaluations (BTE/FTE) if you want to book the BTT or FTT.

What to expect: Theory practice and evals are held at BBDC. If you're more than 5 mins early, you have to wait downstairs until the uncle lets you go up. You will head up to a third floor classroom with a bunch of computers. Practice and Eval students are in the same classroom, just take any available seat.

The computers are touchscreen unless there's a mouse on your table.

When the clock hits the start of your timeslot, log in with your NRIC and password.

For practice sessions, there are a few booklets' worth of questions. You pick one of the answers, and you can "check answer", "to to previous question" or "go to next question"

When you check answer, there is often a small box with an explanation -- read it before you click to move on, because it won't display the box again when you go back.

If you move on without checking, but go back to the previous question, the system will show you if it's right or wrong.

To view a list of all questions and whether they're right or wrong, click on "Check index". You can also click on any question in the list and hit "back", in order to go to that question.

For evaluation sessions, you only get one attempt. The setup is similar to the practice sessions, and the questions are identical (they're also 99% similar to the actual BTT questions). The difference is that it's a real quiz -- it won't tell you instantly if you are right or wrong, you only find out your score at the end. You also don't get to find out which questions you got wrong after the test. So do it slowly and carefully. You can still navigate forward and back during the test, and the question index is there for you to go back to any question. I would recommend going through the whole quiz again once you finish it, just to check and make sure you chose the correct options.

The Test

Your Eval pass allows you to book BTT or FTT twice. If you fail twice, you need to pass evaluation again.

The BTT will require you to be present 15mins prior to the test. You wait downstairs as usual. Then you go up and line up at the classroom opposite the practice/eval classroom. The instructor/TP will check your NRIC and send you to your assigned seat. The computers are way nicer and newer than the Eval/Practice computers. The TP will screen a short video with instructions about what to do after passing BTT. Then you take the test. It's a similar setup to the Eval - you can go forward and back, you can choose which question to go back to. When you click finish, the system will tell you your score and if you passed or failed. Then you can get up and leave. If you pass, you have to wait about 2+ hours to apply for your PDL.

I haven't taken the FTT yet but i assume it'll be similar to the BTT.

My experience

I was stubborn and wanted to clear BTT as fast as possible, so I booked my BTE without booking practice sessions. Big mistake. DO NOT RELY ON YOUR MEMORY OF THE HIGHWAY CODE. There are some questions that want you to pick a certain answer even if another answer is technically not wrong/may even seem like the correct answer... I learned this the hard way.

After the second BTE fail 🤡 (just 1 question!!!! so infuriating), I booked 2 practice sessions and the eval back to back. Got full marks for the eval, finally, then I could collect the little pink slip from the table in front, and book my BTT. The next available slot was a whole month later, so I booked another practice session right before it just to refresh my memory.

For FTT, I was a bit wiser and booked 2 practices back to back before eval, and finally passed. Booked my FTT for exactly one month after my BTT.

While the practice sessions are fairly cheap ($3 iirc), if you really want to scrimp or don't want to go all the way to BBDC, you can try the TP Test app. The questions are the same, but they don't cover all of the possible questions. If you have gone through all of the practice booklets at BBDC, you will never encounter a question you haven't seen before.

ENROLLMENT, EYE TEST AND PHOTO TAKING

Another thing -- if you enrolled online, you have to complete the enrollment process at BBDC. Just go to the counter anytime (earlier in your BBDC journey, the better) and they'll give you a ticket. Then when your number is called, the staff will ask you to sign some free insurance thing, then do your eyesight test and give you a ticket for the photo taking booth.

The eyesight test is done with a little machine on the desk. You just have to identify some colours (to make sure you aren't colour blind), and identify if the letter "E" is facing left, right, up, down. Bring glasses if you have them, I didn't bring mine because I usually don't need to wear them, and I struggled just a little bit on the smaller letters. But i passed anyway haha. For phototaking, quite straightforward. This is the photo that will be on your license. Be prepared to pay the person on the spot after your photo is taken. I used Paylah.

There was also supposed to be a course briefing but I was a bit blur and totally forgot about it after the phototaking, LOL. But I guess I didn't miss much.

[stagebanshee]

@nightkrowe is spot on. Boy, do i ever have a lot to say about this!

I've had daily headaches (migraines/whatever) since early 2014. Sometimes they're so debilitating that i have to cover all sources of light in my bedroom, keep water and non perishable food next to my bed, and just lay there for hours while my head feels like there's a woodpecker attacking me. Other days I'm cheerful and going about my business with a dull achy pain in my head. I can get horrible vertigo when the pain is intense enough and i can get hella dizzy all of a sudden. Ive got light sensitivty every day. I've been through 3 primary care doctors (PA or MD), 2 eye docs, 1 ENT doc, 2 dentists, and 2 neuro docs. I've been prescribed different shit (muscle relaxers, low level antidepressants, nausea meds, blah blah blah). I've smoked weed to see how that affected the pain and it always yeilded a different result in pain management.

It's annoying af to bounce around trying to find the right fit for doctors and unless you have no other options or choice in who you see for health care, i seriously advise to keep searching for a new doctor to help. My first neuro examined my next and claimed i had neck tension so that was obviously what was wrong. Dodnt prescrive me anything. Didnt tell me how to fix it. The first primary doc i saw wanted me to take 2 different meds and decided that was good enough. The second told me it was all stress related and meds were too addictive and sent me on my "merry" way. My 3rd actually asked questions about my headaches and referred me to the neuro who ran a bunch of labs and neuro-y tests.

I've never tried using the different language and it's hard for me to describe my headaches sometimes because "acute, sharp," and "dull" don't seem like the right fit ever. So telling them "I'm in pain every day. I want a diagnosis before i get loaded up with meds" generally helps to weed out any thoughts from docs thinking you're in there to procure meds for recreational use.

I'm 24. I've been having daily/chronic/whatever pain in my head for 5 years straight and am only now getting a diagnosis other than "it's stress" or "you're just one of those people with headaches." And my biggest response to those statements has always been "Fuck That." Keep looking for what works, whether that's a new doctor or searching webmd to your heart's content if your health care provider is failing you.

Hello! I’m a big fan! I actually just have a question that I was wondering if you’d be able to help me clarify about chronic pain. Specifically, what exactly does chronic pain mean in terms of persistence of pain? Like, can it be applied to pain that isn’t always there but comes and goes for varying lengths of time, or is it only for pain that is constant and ALWAYS there? I’ve looked online & haven’t really been able to find a distinct answer & was hoping you might be able to shed some light

Chronic pain is pain that is long lasting but does not always need to be present 100% of the time to be considered chronic. To be considered a chronic condition or symptom, it typically has to be present for 3 months or more.

For example, migraines are considered a chronic condition, even though they are (hopefully) not always present. The episodes themselves may be classed as acute attacks, but the condition itself is usually considered chronic as it can be lifelong for a lot of sufferers, even if their symptoms are well managed.

Back pain or knee pain can also be considered chronic, even if it is intermittent and only flares when you over exert yourself. But the thing is, exerting yourself shouldn’t cause that pain to begin with, not if the joint/muscle/area is healthy. A lot of folk don’t realize they’re living with low level chronic pain simply because it’s intermittent and they’ve been conditioned to ignore pain, thinking that if they can power through it’s not serious or necessary to treat (or quite simply, because they can’t afford to go see the doctor for that low level ache that’s always been there.) Which is how a lot of problems can start and manifest later in life as more acute chronic pain that is harder to ignore.

Hopefully that makes sense?

I know some doctors will class it differently, but 3-6 months of pain, even if it’s intermittent, is usually when something becomes classed as chronic, even if it’s “mild”.

{edit} Also thank you! That’s a really sweet thing of you to say :)