Posts made by Arkandel

@saosmash You chose to adult.

@testament These thoughts are natural. Guilt is part of grief - what if is a nasty way we torment ourselves as we deal with loss.

You did your best to look after your cat. And he had a good life and a good friend in you. He went out loved, and knew it.

@roz said in The Work Thread:

Yeah that requires a LOT of trust for me. Because it doesn't even have to be someone being a jerk and consciously refusing to give me opportunities after giving me a raise to retain me; even an otherwise decent job can just get the seed planted in their brains that you were looking elsewhere and might again and so might give you a bit less, etc.

Yeah I can see that.

To me it's pretty simple; I wouldn't refuse a 20+% rate boost, so why would I expect anyone else to? It's a major career step up - and a QoL change.

I'd have been happy for him if he had taken the other job, although I was happier that he stayed.

It also takes knowing the person and being willing to read between the lines; do they want to keep their position? Would you have to talk them into staying? Or would they rather stay but the money on the table is too good to turn down, and that's where you come in?

@roz One of my team leads came to me with an offer from another company. But it was in good faith and they were going to pay him significantly more than he was making - it made sense he'd take it if we didn't match. And he did ask if we would - and we did.

When there is trust from both sides it works out.

However if you expect that person to strong-arm their way out the first time they get the chance to make 4% more elsewhere, or they expect you to screw them over because that's the working relationship you've established with them then that whole exercise changes.

@ganymede said in RL things I love:

I can't wait for the day they try to challenge me in fencing or archery, then.

One of my friends' second proudest day was when he absolutely destroyed his kid in an 1:1 basketball game.

His proudest day was a year and a half later when his kid destroyed him.

@sunny I think producers are digging to see what audiences like these days.

Not everyone can pull a Disney or Amazon and pour big $$$ into huge productions. Are we still into vampires? 'Cause all they need is some fancy contact lenses and plastic fangs for that. Do sitcoms still work? Laugh tracks are cheap!

Apparently the other thing that's cheap is the rights to Anne Rice's name.

Hawkeye episode 3 was pretty good. And apparently it's getting a lot of positive attention for the way it handled certain physical disabilities.

But they really need to work on how to close an episode out. The ending didn't make me go 'wow I really want to see what happens next'.

It's absolutely baffling to me how some companies and teams mistreat their employees. Even from a purely effectiveness point of view they destroy resources which can be valuable and waste the money (and time, which translates to money) spent locating, interviewing and training them in the process.

@greenflashlight

I wonder if this is new or if I just noticed.

There are a bunch of movies with 'Christmas' in their title. Hallmark-made or copycats, you know the type. All of them are trending up now, for obvious reasons.

What's interesting is that nearly without exception they are also very highly rated on IMDB. Several have solid 7s, almost all well above 6. Most of them with something like 50 reviews total on them.

There are just a few possibilities.

One is that the low number of reviews naturally manipulates the high star ratings.

The other is that only people who will like them actually watch them since they are... exactly what they say on the can. Christmas Castle? Well there's gonna be a fucking castle and someone is gonna be staying there. So they just don't get negative reviews since naysayers don't bother.

The third is that there are some kinda shenanigans goin' on to artificially inflate the ratings.

Or maybe it's a Christmas miracle that produces high quality flicks, I guess!

Google search something like "Instant pot chicken dump recipe".

A hit: "Super easy 5-minute dump and go chicken recipe!". Yes, that's what I want.

The actual content:

<human interest piece about this person's ethnic roots and the struggles their grandfather had when he first arrived to America before falling in love with a wonderful girl whom he ultimately got married to but she died too soon, yet not before giving birth to twins>

Then finally:

Recipe: Create this custom 4-ingredient marinade in a bowl. Put the meat in, let it sit overnight. Sauté the meat in the pot. Chop down veggies and apply these exotic spices to season them (<referral link for Amazon>). Cook for 12 minutes. Pour the veggies in for 0 minutes until it comes to pressure. NOW you are ready to add the custom sauce which you'll prepare in a third bowl...

Don't forget to hit like and subscribe!

@ghost Well, clearly the art of cinematography is about to hit its absolute peak.

@ghost Waitwhat? You are shitting me.

@too-old-for-this If it helps, I grew up and spent much of my life in Greece.

For a few years I was walking Daphne there. She was a 20-lb little, super friendly dog. She loved people, too. The number of times I saw mothers literally grabbing their kids to usher them behind their backs when we were going by was astounding - as if she was ever going to just jump at the end of her pink leash and snatch them by the throat or something. Most babies were basically as large as she was.

What do y'all think about Hawkeye?

I found it pretty endearing. I'm not a Jeremy Renner fan but there was chemistry there and the dynamic was fun.

I also dig how different Marvel's TV shows are from each other. So far we've seen metaphysical themes, political/espionage thrillers, time traveling adventures, an animation casting the real A-list actors, and now basically a holiday series. I also have high hopes for She Hulk.

They're experimenting, and for better or worse that's pretty cool.

@ganymede said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

I will gladly have more Shang-Chi, even if it means seeing Chinese people again fetishized as martial artists, if it means that more Chinese stars will get Hollywood roles and we normalize the idea of Chinese stars being action heroes and romantic leads.

If you haven't, take a look at Love Hard, it's on Netflix.

***NSFW content***

@pyrephox It's kinda of a MUSH trope for bad NPC leaders to be so bad they need to be toppled over and replaced. And they are! So many authoritative Princes, inept Kings and assorted leaders who slip into a coma.

Then once a perfect leader emerges among PCs it's back to perfection. But you're right on the money.

@sunny At that point the Prince (or whoever) should probably not be a regular PC. Make the bit staff-only - a glorified NPC.

Then the issue is solved since when a scene is warranted the character is available. The drawback is making sure staff keep track of what they are doing with that bit to make sure they don't contradict each other when the staff member behind the Prince changes.

@pyrephox I think the only requirement there should be that characters who hold certain key positions should be active. As in, in general. Using whatever metrics for that staff decides are adequate and appropriate - which is a separate conversation altogether.

After all if I'm playing the Prince of a city that's kinda of a big deal. It's a cool position. And it's fun to explore the dynamics of what happens when your neonate/Primogen from a different Covenant/werewolf gets to sit across the table from the Prince.

If I play him rarely or choose to do so very selectively then perhaps staff should have a chat with me. I completely agree with @Sunny that no one should have to play with someone they just don't want to, but if they hold certain positions they should be active in general. Because functional authority aside, playing with the Sheriff instead isn't quite the same.

@ganymede said in The Desired Experience:

And staff should step in under those premises.

Undeniably. But it's also so easy for malevolent players to fly under the radar for some time simply by being otherwise quite active - just with the 'right' people - or even muddying the waters by creating he-said she-said situations.

So you, as staff, might look at Joe. You don't know him. All you can see is that he's often in scenes, but do you really keep track who that RP is with? And if Jane complains that he dodges RP from her, yet you're aware he plays with others, is it possible their calendar was just not compatible for a bit there? After all even if he's holding an important position he can't play with literally everyone.

Not everyone reaches Spider or Custodius levels of notoriety.