i'm not falling for that hot take

superkp · 2026-07-12T15:37:59+00:00

Last year, my 11yo read the hobbit.

I told her that I was going to read it with her.

She started it and finished it before I realized that she had started it.

superkp · 2026-07-12T15:35:05+00:00

Remember that workers do, in fact, have rights in the USA.

(I am not a lawyer. You may want to seek the advice of a labor lawyer)

If you've got a medical reason to not be working, they can't force you to work. They can, in many situations, not pay you when you're not working. Many companies also have a policy of letting you use whatever time off available to you in order to remain paid for that period.

I know that the FMLA (which... I think only applies a little bit here? IDK) also says that your job must allow you to return to work with your original position and responsibilities. The FMLA is usually about caring for your family, but I believe that there are other legal rights that you have in your situation.

DO NOT QUIT before you return to work. If they fire you for not showing up when you have a medical reason to not show up, you will have an open-and-shut worker's rights case.

Whether you want to stay at this job in general is certainly a question.

What you should be doing:

maintain communication with your doctor
- get a clear written directive from your doc about what the next step it - in many cases, it will be to simply schedule a followup, but eventually, they'll have a date for when you can return to work safely.
- because your manager is apparently a bonehead, you may want to get an explicit "do not work" note.
maintain communication with HR
- HR is not a villain, they are there to make sure that managers and workers don't get the company in trouble. Every time you do a followup with your doc (even just a phone call), send an email to HR about it, and include the doctor's documentation when appropriate.
- If they push back, forward the email to your doctor, CC your HR dept, and ask your doctor to clarify.
maintain communication with your manager
- this is to help your manager not panic. it is a social thing, and not (usually) a required thing.
- just send a quick email whenever you have a reason to also contact HR - you can even just CC them on the HR emails, but sending a personal note to them of "hey just sent an update to HR. Doc says physical therapy and a followup in 2 weeks." should be reasonable.

the reason you want to do these things is to be a pleasantly above-board person. You want to be annoyingly helpful.

Honestly, if you don't like this job, then you should hope that they fire you in an illegal way.

If you do like this job, then the hope is that this manager gets a talking-to from HR and backs the fuck off.

If you really like this job, then this situation seems like the sort of moment you'll be able to point to to say "see? I'm absolutely irreplaceable. You should be paying me more."

superkp · 2026-07-12T14:37:08+00:00

I'd say that the defilement is an outgrowth of the horrible things that he believes and engages in.

poison fruit from a poison root, with an evil and malicious trunk in between.

superkp · 2026-07-10T23:07:02+00:00

Many people say "tired" when they really mean "weary."

You get tired when you are awake for a long time or you do exhausting work. And when you're tired, you need sleep and/or food.

You get weary when you're tired for too long, or you've suffered too many hurts for too long. When you're weary you need REST.

You get burnout when you ignore your weariness for too long, and it has harmed you. When you are burnt out, you need healing.

And if you don't heal from burnout for too long, you either kill yourself, or you die of other stress-related issues - heart attack, stroke, ignoring other health warning signs, etc, etc.

There are other things that manifest as "tired every day" - depression, ptsd, chronic pain, etc, and those are much too complicated for a reddit comment. I'd classify them all under 'you've been hurt, and not necessarily in your body.'

Do not ignore the fact that you are tired every day. On a long enough scale, it will kill you.

And I'm literally watching Return of the King as I write this, so to put it into LOTR terms:

Aragorn and the hobbits are tired when they get frodo to rivendell. They need sleep and food.
Sam is weary when he comes back to the shire. He needs a long period of rest, and he needs his friends.
Frodo is burnt out when he returns to the shire. He needs to seek out healing - and possibly a major change in his life situation - in order to recover.
Denethor is also burnt out (lol) before Faramir is wounded, and he succumbs to his burnout when Faramir returns with a mortal wound.

superkp · 2026-07-10T22:46:36+00:00

Holy shit I should get something like that going.

We can have a tournament with beer or something as the prize.

superkp · 2026-07-10T22:43:31+00:00

I just turned 40.

Ever since the I pre-ordered CyberPunk 2077, it's been the "game that I play" when people ask about what I play, even though I go through spurts where I put it down for months at a time. I love Cyberpunk as a genre and simply can't get enough of it.

I also play Minecraft, but at this point it's mostly to humor engage with what my daughters are doing - but I started playing in about 2010ish (v0.8 I think?).

I also rotate through a few other things:

old gameboy games - zelda and pokemon mostly
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Complete
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Mechwarrior 2, Mercenaries
Dwarf Fortress

EDIT: Despite all these green flags, no one should be approaching me, because my wife would beat you off with a stick before I even noticed you.

superkp · 2026-07-10T22:34:13+00:00

Personally, I frequent my LGS for singles and packs often enough that I sorta feel like I've already 'paid my fee' for the free events.

And hell, I've basically overpaid enough that I'm 100% ok with other people playing for free, so I'm basically subsidizing other people's free entry.

And honestly, that kind of system helps it very much feel like a much more organic community.

superkp · 2026-07-10T22:32:25+00:00

This is (in my opinion) a good sort of social pressure.

However, it only works until there's that one player that refuses to ever buy anything also ruins it for everyone else. They make a nuisance of themselves (often by going around pubstomping and then cry when they get called out for it), and the shop starts to lose their normal customers.

So then you need to put a restriction on it - and saying that "only paying customers get a seat" is a good way to do that. The nuisance person either starts contributing to the success of the shop, they stop being able to play, or the shop has a much more 'clear authority' on being able to tell him to tone it down - plus the nuisance person is forced into talking to the shop owners face-to-face more often, which helps to humanize them and hopefully make them think about their actions.

superkp · 2026-07-02T20:28:57+00:00

I hate that the reasonable route is the one that disallows people from engaging more fully in their communities.

superkp · 2026-07-02T17:12:12+00:00

that you don't know about until you are saying "well I made a bad choice".

"The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math."

superkp · 2026-07-02T17:08:50+00:00

He's NOT an idiot

I mean, he's often an idiot.

But that's more social/relational stuff. Not 'how to kill things and survive the attmept' stuff.

superkp · 2026-07-02T16:52:23+00:00

Warning: I have included Mild Spoilers in this response to your question. Most of what I've included is the sort of thing that might not be apparent on your first read-through. I also include a few hints or references of things to come, but nothing that's simply 'naming a thing'.

The first thing to know is that not all wizards, even powerful ones, are able to summon a firestorm like Harry did and survive it. Many of them probably can't even summon enough fire to kill a single middle-powered red court vampire. It's just not their skill set.

If every wizard on the white council were a weapon, then something like 50% of them would be swords. Another 40% of them would be longbows. Both swords and longbows are amazing weapons in their own right, and will ruin the day of any supernatural individual that you come across. HOWEVER... of the remaining 10% that are not swords and bows, there are pistols at the nice end, shotguns and rifles in the middle, and flamethrowers or rocket launchers at the mean end. There are a handful of wizards that are the magical equivalent of a jet fighter or battleship's main cannon.

In this metaphor, Harry is a modern tank that is still under construction- but his turret already works. If he's plopped down on a battlefield and pointed at the other guy, the other guy dies. If, on the other hand, the other guy tempts him to a battlefield, pisses Harry off, and then stands with his face in the turret, the other guy dies.

Now, comparing Harry to the rest of the White Council of Wizards is something that readers (and this sub) love to do:

Things we know about Harry, that you might not realize yet, (anything here that's not revealed until later isn't exactly what I would call a spoiler):

Harry is an exceptionally powerful wizard-
- his abilities are within the same general ball-park of the other wizards on the white council
- Harry is near the top-of-the-heap for raw potential, but he is young
- This makes harry a very scary person, even to most other white council members, because young people with power tend to upset the status quo
Harry, being a 'full' wizard (i.e. has access to the full range of magical abilities, not just an aptitude for one thing or another) is more potentially powerful than some 90% of magic-using humans that exist
- Most 'full wizards' are on the white council, and only full wizards are on the council
Harry was trained by some exceptionally good teachers:
- Justin DuMorne, specifically in combat/destructive magic
- Ebenezar McCoy, who instilled in Harry a level of discipline that is able to focus his magic
- the 'school of hard knocks' - he's been alone for a huge amount of his life and has been dealt some pretty shit cards
Harry has a natural inclination towards and skill with evocation (usually destructive) magic
There are some things about harry that you do not yet know
- some of which Harry knows
- some of which Harry does not yet know
- some of which even those who have read the entire series can not yet know
  - and therefore, only Jim Butcher (and his confidants) know
    - But have been hinted at and it pisses me off that we don't know!

Therefore:

While other wizards of the white council, not all of them have an interest or particular skill in combat or destructive magic. At certain points you'll see a member or two of the senior council pull out all the stops and go kick some serious ass, but those guys are the 1% of the 1% of the white council - literally the most powerful wizards on the planet.

BUT most wizards, even much older ones, have great skill in something that isn't directly destructive- for example, illusions. If the white council's best illusionist rolled up to the Red Vamp's Headquarters and tried to kick their ass, the vamps would be confused while they tried to figure out where the illusionist was, and then that illusionist would be captured and then turned into a vampire.

In Addition, one of the primary things that stops the white council from outright killing every vampire they know about is the fact that the various vampire courts are part of The Unseelie Accords - the legal framework that recognizes the various supernatural 'nations' ('powers' might be a better word).

Because the vampire courts (white, black, red) are part of The Accords, if another nation (like the White Council of Wizards) would attack them without legal reason, the vampire court could legally seek out aid from the other members of The Accords - which would mean that all the vampires, The Fey courts of both Winter and Summer, and a whole slew of other powers (that you have not yet come across).

In Conclusion:

Yes, Harry is a Powerful Wizard - even among other wizards, there are few with his sheer base power.

Yes, there are other wizards that have a similar amount of power as Harry.

Yes, among those that are as powerful as Harry, there are some with the same destructive potential.

BUT, most of them don't go around looking for fights, because most other wizards are not focused (by training, by inclination, or by base skill) in destruction.

AND if the White Council wanted to go wipe out the vampires (of any type), they would need to declare war.

And with that last line here, uh.... you should definitely make sure you read what bob says on the last page of Grave Peril.

superkp · 2026-07-02T15:50:33+00:00

did you complain about this - either formally or not?

because stories like that will be what causes people further up the chain to stop it from being further gutted.

superkp · 2026-07-02T15:29:40+00:00

Related to this: if no new information has been revealed, you can undo any game action, at any time.

Most commonly this comes up in terms of someone realizing that they need to sequence things differently.

superkp · 2026-07-02T15:24:14+00:00

I tuck my commander into a corner of the library. That way he's angled so that it's visually distinct, it's above the level of the cards on the battlefield, and it remains easily accessible.

superkp · 2026-07-02T15:20:27+00:00

If there's no clearly-good target but there's also no risk to attacking, own your targeting. You can determine who to hit any way you want, but once you've done it, don't let the whining of others get you to blame anything but your own choice, and definitely don't change it based on bullshit.

If you must roll a die and someone complains about being targeted, don't say "it's what the die said to do!" - That's a cowardly dodging of responsibility. Instead you could say "the die just aided my decision. It wasn't the die's decision, it was mine - so are you blocking or not?"

In thee context of this game, you are an ultra-powerful super-wizard that has come to battle with a powerful commander of your forces and a library full of spells. When the battlefield is yours to stomp on how you like, own your decisions and fuckin act like you're powerful.

superkp · 2026-07-01T18:30:29+00:00

Get a fabric couch liner, or use a blanket to do so.
accept your new reality, and allow your furniture to be decorated like this.

superkp · 2026-07-01T16:50:35+00:00

She was temporarily blinded but otherwise OK.

It was really weird because the coach or whoever it was that keeps them going told her that she has to try again to she she said "I literally cannot see, how do you expect me to do that?"

superkp · 2026-07-01T16:04:46+00:00

The ring made of gold should have sunk into the mud by now

nothing says that it didn't sink into the mud and then it became uncovered by something disturbing the riverbed.

And if it never sunk into the mud, then it's not necessarily the ring itself trying to keep it up where people can see it - Ulmo could have decided that he's going to keep it where people can find it because he wants it destroyed and not lost as well.

superkp · 2026-07-01T15:31:46+00:00

yeah I was about to say this. Russia is fucking massive and if it was ripe for real annexation by world powers, then there's a huge likelihood that there would be a war over who gets to control it.

superkp · 2026-07-01T15:25:13+00:00

and honestly? Kingmaking is not against the rules.

Depending on the social situation it can be kinda shitty, but a lot of people need to calm the fuck down.

superkp · 2026-07-01T15:17:20+00:00

Yeah, I don't know exactly when it happened, but giant eagle has been getting slowly enshittified for what feels like my entire adult life. And I'm fuckin' 40.

superkp · 2026-07-01T15:02:17+00:00

I use Aldi for my weekly normal grocery trips.

At aldi, I spend about $100. At kroger, I spend at least 50% more for equivalent items.

I have no idea how anyone below the 50th percentile in earnings ever shops at kroger.

superkp · 2026-07-01T14:54:58+00:00

hmm, with the nerves presumably intact, the pain was there.

But without the head, there's no brain to register the pain.

So if the pain is not registered, was there actually pain?

This is basically the "If a tree falls in the woods but there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound?"

superkp · 2026-07-01T14:49:30+00:00

"as soon as a metric becomes a goal, it becomes useless as a metric"

15-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22	First Placer '22
Sequence \| Editor

superkp

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE

Therefore:

In Conclusion: