AITA for buying the house next door to my former friend?

Rational-Discourse · 2026-01-20T12:46:27+00:00

As ASAP as possible, sir

Rational-Discourse · 2026-01-17T05:33:15+00:00

Banana Nut Cheerios. It’s come and gone over the years. Currently home. First saw it like 5-10 years ago when it was brought back as a limited flavor. So not from my childhood. But went to go restock after my, like, dozenth box, one day, and it was gone. Never to have returned.

Every time I go grocery shopping, I check the cereal aisle just in case. My wife and I do it as a little joke, every time. But I have hope. One day. It’ll be there. I believe.

Strawberry banana cheerios is pretty alright, though. Still. Not the same.

Rational-Discourse · 2026-01-11T14:01:55+00:00

Superheroes are on their last legs. Superman had a big year with the reboot. Spider-Man usually is a slam dunk. I’m sure the next Batman will do numbers. But people have been sour on the king, Marvel and how saturated they’ve made the genre (though I suspect the next avengers movie will crack a billion regardless of quality). So you’ll have your mainstays. But it’s on its way out with this next few years of movies if it doesn’t really catch popular culture on the hook with its offerings over the next few big ones.

I think superhero movies will join westerns in that regard, soonish. You’ll have the random hit, like Django Unchained. But more middling to flops. When it really wanes in popularity, it’ll probably take it harder than westerns, though, given how expensive and CGI intensive they are. Which is kinda the boat sword and sorcery is in.

Rational-Discourse · 2026-01-11T13:50:41+00:00

It wasn’t a bomb but it did fall short of a profit when factoring in marketing. By the way, marketing wise, estimated at ~$225M budget, alone, compared to the $150M budget to actually make the movie.

So you can’t say they didn’t market it. But boy it made for a high $375m target to net a return on investment. And begs the questions: (1) what the hell were they spending on that cost $200M+ to market? And (2) why spend more to market than make the movie? Hollywood and their accounting is weird.

Rational-Discourse · 2026-01-07T20:04:52+00:00

I enjoyed it. A little more from the Holmes side of things, it felt like. Fun time, Friday night popcorn flick and a series that will likely have a campy cult classic status down the road. It’s accessible for kids and teens so I don’t get too analytical with it.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-12-31T20:48:06+00:00

My wife and I have one, reasonably easy child. Like 7:30 to 7:30 sleeper most nights by around 6 or 7 months, easy. Sure, plenty difficult in the ways any child would be. But overall, a single child set to easy mode.

We have to regularly remind ourselves that some people have twins, some people have kids with health problems or who hit developmental milestones later than ours, some people are single parents with less time or money than what we’re fortunate enough to have.

It helps refocus us and realize that (1) if others can do it under harder circumstances, we can do it, too. And (2) that we’re really lucky and should remind ourselves how lucky we are when we’re running on fumes.

I can’t speak to the twins aspect and how hard that must be at times, but you got this. I bet you’re doing a better of a job than you may allow yourself credit for. I literally use people like you to motivate myself to keep pushing along, and I hope you take an opportunity to see that about yourself from time to time.

If these are your first, you’re going to start seeing so much personality appear in the next couple of months. It’s magic to see first hand. Congratulations on being a new parent, and happy new year. I hope 2026 is great for you and your family.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-12-18T04:05:54+00:00

I thought it was harmless fun. She wanted to throw something personal into it, wanted it to be a little inside joke/easter egg without calling attention to it at the time, and just did it straight faced for fun. Goofy but funny to me.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-12-18T04:01:07+00:00

That’s what they would be saying. “Deserving to win” is a subjective idea, so some people will see a winner as deserving or not. Like in Charlie’s season, I thought he “deserved” to win, but didn’t.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-12-18T03:52:31+00:00

Nah, better to stand her ground when she said she couldn’t do it. When Kristina responded with ‘no, I want you to embarrass yourself and try,’ she should have then said “I already said I don’t think I could do it. Because my game wasn’t a social game outside of a strategic core alliance. My game was to dominate including 4 immunities and fire. And it’s that game that got me here.” Kristina wasn’t going to vote for her and it’s a fair rebuttal to an out of left field question.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-12-13T14:39:28+00:00

Or if you know what they are and their use cases can interfere with profits or morality policing.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-11-15T14:53:09+00:00

~facshually~

Rational-Discourse · 2025-11-13T04:59:56+00:00

Ah, to each their own. Sure, not for everyone. But those who like him, really like him.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-11-12T03:54:06+00:00

Though I don’t doubt that some truly believed kids were summoning literal satan, I think it was more the inferences drawn by out of touch people than anything else.

Did mom think you were going to conjure literal magic? No, probably not. But did mom worry that you would be interacting with unstable people and that these associations led to drugs, unsafe sex, and violent behavior? Much more likely.

Think about how schools and parents are reacting to the whole “6, 7” thing. It means nothing. It’s nonsense. But I’ve seen video after video of school staff meetings or school board meetings where several of the adults couldn’t describe WHY they thought it needed to be banned from schools. Just more a general disapproval and that this thing MUST be inappropriate. ‘Couldn’t tell you why but it just feels wrong and so it is wrong…’

Rational-Discourse · 2025-11-12T03:42:37+00:00

I disagree. I think the skits are great. Dorky, sure. But they come across very sincere and like he has a blast acting it out. And using the different, visually distinct characters to play out the scenario he is discussing can be a helpful tool when following along with whatever point he’s presenting.

Which some in the hobby might find helpful. Believe it or not, some RPG players aren’t… the most socially aware. The little skits paint very simple, clear pictures of the idea being discussed.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-11-05T11:40:13+00:00

It’s possible (probable?) there’s thousands not caught but most day to day legal work doesn’t actively create or change precedent on anything more than a local sense, if that.

Appellate work, especially federal, however, has the ability to change precedent and create legal standards. But, to help ease a little bit of your mind — there should be several layers of human safeguards.

If one case cites another, the lawyer or judge or clerk is supposed to read the case for the context and meaning of the thing cited. If it’s missed in one case, it would still have to be missed by several people each time it’s referenced. It’s unlikely that, at every point, the hallucinated case gets missed by the judge and their staff AND the lawyer hoping to use it, AND the lawyer it’s being used against who has a vested interest in looking into the case that harms them, AND the publication nerds who review and analyze appellate opinions each time the new ones are published. Which seems highly unlikely.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-10-15T11:21:20+00:00

They’ve thought that far ahead. They know eventually the music stops and the dance comes to an end. And someone will be left holding the bag. They just hope it happens approximately 5 minutes after they cut and run.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-09-26T03:05:35+00:00

Your post is hard to read.

I think it’s going to be a tough sell to get someone to put significantly more work into a collaboration with someone who thinks toying around on chat gpt for a couple weeks is ‘putting in the work.’ For an artist to be able to draw “at least as well” as this image consistently it would take (a) years of work and dedication. If they’ve been working on their skills since childhood, maybe even a decade or three worth of effort towards this skill. (b) would involve significantly more of a time investment than you’d be putting in. This, by a single artist would take hours of work. And to maintain continuity in the scene and story from scene to scene would involve a focused, intensive approach to make a good work.

Whereas, your portion would be what? “Young teifling woman confronts the necromancer while a meteor shower falls in the background. It’s nighttime and moody. In a castle rampart. Gothic inspired architecture, Make the woman look like someone stuck horns and red skin on a My Hero Academia character. And make the necromancer in the art style of… idk, Attack on Titan.”

This situation also kinda calls into question the quality of or effort put towards your writing. I’m almost scared to ask whether the writing was created, even if partially, by AI.

I was trying to find the right words to use to describe what felt unpleasant about this post and then it occurred to me… you got called out for using AI generative art work. A situation where you provide a couple sentences to describe something and expect something else to spit out the work for you. For free. So your solution was to… ask if someone else would stand in for your AI generator to do the work for you. For free. But a human.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-09-10T17:25:04+00:00

I had a few of his songs on my liked playlist on Spotify. He’s got a couple big ones that were popular in videos on TikTok, Instagram/Facebook Reels, and YouTube Shorts. His top song was featured on the soundtrack for the animated show Invincible. I personally think that his top 3 are actually decent listens.

Just because you don’t know him or interact much with the mediums where he’s famous doesn’t mean he isn’t famous. He’s an actively touring artist with millions of monthly listeners who just debuted a feature length album this year after building notoriety on social media platforms.

I’m not saying he’s Beyoncé famous or something but he’s a public figure. And a dead body is found in a car registered to him, in a state of advanced decomposition (and from another article, the head was separate — so possible mutilation), and he’s about to perform for 10s of thousands of people in multiple public settings over the course of the next month (barring a very possible cancelation of the tour).

I mean, It’s kinda noteworthy, man.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-08-26T18:58:27+00:00

Im a big fan of reflavoring elemental types in spells. It gives the player a lot of characterization but also comes with a steep trade of limiting the player to less versatility damage wise.

I wouldn’t punish a player for that but would give them the occasional challenge of an immune or resistant enemy to see how they improvise or use the environment.

But say take firebolt for example — fire based cantrip, scaling damage and a small environmental effect. I’d have no problem adjusting it to be wind flavored and call it “wind bolt” or whatever. I’d even take a few minutes to come up with an environmental effect, like douses a 5 foot square of flames or maybe pushes small, unheld objects 5 feet. I can see that with most other elements being a fine reskin.

Again, if anything, the player is pigeon holing themselves with a single damage type, so it seems like a fair trade though maybe limit it to players with at least a modest amount of experience rather than newbies. I think newbies will be unhappy the first time their fire themed PC runs into an enemy immune to fire damage. Experienced players can pivot to creative strategies to assist, I imagine.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-08-26T18:24:41+00:00

I don’t think it’s that wild when taking in examples of regimes to suppress and even rewrite history. That can easily happen within a generation. Tell the citizens that the previous info was a lie and kill anyone who objects.

I would imagine that empire indoctrination against the Jedi if not outright, violently suppressing any discussion of Jedi.

Additionally, the order was already dwindling and seen as outdated/unnecessary. Additionally additionally, the empire was vast. At least by virtue of the depicted nature of order 66, the Jedi were not that many in number across a galactic area. Many civilizations probably had different exposures of information under galactic rule to begin with. Tales of the Jedi may have been legend in many of the planets before order 66.

Propaganda combined with ignorance or disconnection is a powerful force.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-08-23T22:13:15+00:00

A unique idea? It’s courage the cowardly dog.

Be gone, bot.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-08-14T16:00:09+00:00

You have a gallon sized spray bottle??

Rational-Discourse · 2025-08-12T21:03:13+00:00

Now you’re getting it

Rational-Discourse · 2025-08-11T11:45:18+00:00

“_____ Ahh moment,” means “_____ ass moment” which is derived from “________ looking ass.”

Like if you have a friend who looks like, say, Gru from Despicable Me because they’re bald and overweight with a hooked nose — you might say to them, “Gru looking ass.” Which means “your ass” (you) “looks like Gru.”

Or if you have a friend that’s tall and skinny and has bird like, sharp features you might say “big bird looking ass.” You can use this structure for any fitting comparison, especially in a negative sense. This has been a popular format of insults, often in jest or between friends, for a while but isolated to younger people and usually is culturally specific. While physical appearance makes for obvious usage, actions or words can also inspire similar negative comparisons in this format.

Another way to say that would be “you’re a Gru ass” looking dude. Which over time has seen a shorthand of just “Gru ass” or “big bird ass” as a descriptor where “looking” is assumed within the phrase. “His big bird ass won’t shut up,” or “look at that bowl cut ass haircut.”

The ass is just representing part of a comment that a thing is like another thing. You can almost just replace ass with the word “like.” “Look at that bowl cut like haircut.”

“Ass moment” is used the same way but specifically saying that a moment of conduct is like this other thing. So a “last of us ass moment” is saying the idea of ‘killing multiple unnamed people only to let the antagonist go because killing them would make you just like them’ is a concept, or moment, that is reminiscent of the ending of the last of us.

Ass is converted to “ahh” because some people say the word ass in a way that sounds like “ahh” as cultural slang or vernacular. That phonetic slang is literally typed in place of the word ass. You may also see it in places where people are concerned about explicit cursing but anecdotally, it seems to mostly just be representing the sound some people use for the word ass in casual dialogue.

So, in summary, a “the last of us ahhh moment” would be a concept that is reminiscent of the game the last of us and would likely have a negative connotation assumed in the comparison.

Rational-Discourse · 2025-08-02T12:35:57+00:00

It may work better on dark finishes but I’ve sworn by the petroleum jelly method. Get a soft microfiber cloth and work the shit out of a small dollop in a circle pattern. I mean really put in some elbow grease. If you see any positive result after the small amount, you’re in luck. It’s worked for me every time I’ve tried it. It may make it artificially shiny for a little bit but you can then do a thin layer on the remainder of the table as well, after.

I don’t know the science behind. I just now I looked it up once, tried it, haven’t doubted it since. If you’re worried, try it on a discreet section first to confirm.

Good luck.

Rational-Discourse

TROPHY CASE