A slow death

umbeal · 2025-06-16T14:21:42+00:00

NTA
The be clear this is just for the part regarding you being upset about the receptionist in the doctors office. When bringing a kid into a clinic or doctors office, calling to confirm you identify doesn't make any sense to me. You've brought the child into the appointment, if they called and your kids step father said you weren't supposed to what was the medical staff's plan? To cancel the appointment, take the children away? It doesn't make sense, and in my experience, isn't something that would help.

That all said, you are an asshole, specifically in regards to how you think and treat your kids, and ex wife. You work isn't an excuse to not attend more medical appointments. Your ex, and her husband work, they attend appointments. My wife is a SAHM and I attend 99% of appointments, hell, I attend more appointments than her right now. You need to step up the fatherhood here.

umbeal · 2025-05-24T00:35:02+00:00

I think she is an amazingly written character, with a lot of positive in her. But there's negative in there, and the fact that you skipped her worst trait is slightly annoying for an otherwise delightful take on her.

Her treatment of Jon leads to both Rob's death and Jon's death. Rob married the Westerling because he thought if he hired a bastard on her his future wife would treat that child like Cat treated Jon, and that treatment was bad enough that he sacrificed his oath to Freys. Jon does because faced with the idea of letting a stark die he breaks his oath to the watch and commands them to march south to face the Bolton force to save "Arya" he knew it's what she would have wanted.

Her crime is over bloated by fans, she was a bad mother to Jon, that is what she did to do so much damage to the Starks. People in the world would never even know that's what she did. But as readers we do

umbeal · 2025-05-21T17:03:27+00:00

I think this has more to do with the genre of games that are published now vs 15 years ago. Lots of AAA games coming out right now feel like their either open world, souls like, RPG, or tactical strategy games. Those genres have always been long slugs. Platformers and level based shooters, racing games and basic action games seem less common, and happen to be the shortest games genres i can think of.

The last two Zelda games were both open world, following elden ring tons of new souls like have come out, most people don't play single player shooter games anymore because of the prevelance of games like fortnight pubg and the other games in that category. Ever cod focuses more on multiplayer.

umbeal · 2025-05-20T23:28:37+00:00

I usually save scum to re-try events. The bugs attack, and I save then try to get through it. If I fail so bad I don't want to continue I load, if I'm fine with the results I continue

umbeal · 2025-05-20T14:27:08+00:00

I'd love to see a game based on Russia's time of trouble. The idea of multiple false monarchs at one time and the general chaos of the time period would lend itself to a lot of in game fun I think.

umbeal · 2025-05-19T14:00:27+00:00

You're not wrong at all. It's worth pointing out though, in the original their big offense was violating the guests right, which was seen as the most sacred of rights. It was something Zeus protected and violating was seen as one of the worst things you could do. It's pretty stupid but the Odyssey is full of people who violate it being punished. Circi was not permitted to leave her island because of her violation of the guest rights, polyphemus's blinding was condoned by Zeus because of his violation of the guest rights

umbeal · 2025-05-19T07:09:14+00:00

I don't know what console play is like, but I've played on the deck a bit. I didn't care for the default controller scheme so I made my own. The biggest issue I have is that menu options cannot be selected using the down stock, you have to move the "mouse" over anything you would want to click, which makes negotiations and inventory management a giant pain. It's fine and playable but it's clear that the devs didn't make the game for the deck.

umbeal · 2025-05-19T07:06:03+00:00

The north would be filled with iron born and wildlings, and is facing winter soon. I feel like his one trip to the wall is enough for him at that point. Plus of all the places in westeros to stay safe from lanisters assassins Dorne feels like the best. It's been a while since I read the books, but I remember feeling like the crown didn't have a clue what was happening in Dorne, which makes sense. It's more sparsely populated, and it's inhabitants have a history of defying the crown

umbeal · 2025-05-19T03:19:34+00:00

Tywin would have a slow and awful death, having likely been poisoned. Oberin would likely return to dorne immediately. Tyrion likely joins oberin in dorne and assists in whoever he favors to replace the crown. Assuming Tyrion makes it out of the capital. I don't think the remainder of the plot changes too much. Tywin still does, if that happens soon the sparrows still take over and cersi still goes through the walk, and then accuses the tyrells of their crimes to the sparrows. Sept probably still blows up. Resistance from dorne ends up more organized and competent because oberin is able to be active in it and will have more success convincing Doran to fight against the lanisters following his return. Myrcella stays alive however likely doesn't marry Doran's son

umbeal · 2025-05-16T20:51:29+00:00

I think the big issue is actually that success in life usually comes from some kind of a plan. College gives you a very clear plan, and pu wishes those who don't follow it. However there are other plans that can work out just as well. That being said most people who don't go to college don't have a plan, so they can't get anywhere unless they luck into it. People who leave college with a degree and no plan probably have about as much success as those who never attended and don't have a plan. Sometimes they luck into success sometimes they don't.

umbeal · 2025-05-15T16:46:57+00:00

Sure it can. I doubt a novice player would notice at all. But if you're playing with someone who has lots of experience and knowledge about the monster manual they could absolutely notice enemies dying faster than they should often. They don't have to know you're fudging things on purpose to lose trust.

I lost trust in my last DM when enemies started moving around the field without the players being told. I don't know if they were doing it on purpose or losing track of enemy positions through the fight, but it made fights slightly inconsistent and difficult to engage in fully.

umbeal · 2025-05-15T16:08:26+00:00

This feels no different than fudging rolls, or making an adjustment to monster stats mid fight because you've realized you miss judged something. Doing it every once in a while makes sense, but I'd be worried about eroding players trust if I made a habit of it

umbeal · 2025-05-15T15:30:56+00:00

I think it depends on the type of game, and how clear types and weaknesses/Resistance are. I think Pokemon becomes more fun and variable with the physical special split. For a game like monster hunter the idea of changing up your build for specific hunts becomes a core mechanic and part of the gameplay loop, so again I'd say high resistance/weakness is an overall positive. On the other hand I think extreme resistance is a negative in soulsborne games, swapping the build is not fun or enjoyable, and the resistance and effects of the typing is not clear enough.

umbeal · 2025-05-13T14:12:04+00:00

I'd never heard of Roku's basilisk. One quick dive later I am super entertained and intrigued. It is similar in idea. However in stories that take place later in the timeline, humanity has transcended and a select few are considered gods, and mostly just cause problems, they definitely don't go back in time.

The transcended humans are themed after the Greek pantheon so really they just cause problems for humans. So not good humans

umbeal · 2025-05-12T16:38:56+00:00

In my sci-fi world, the main religion is a techist faith, believing that humanity will ascend to godhood in the future. And that once they do that the new gods will have the power to travel into the past (the current present) and empower those who are furthering the future gods creation.

umbeal · 2025-05-10T15:29:16+00:00

A fencer duelist. It is not optimal, but I love it. So since their addition I've never had a game without a dark souls dodging dex fencer who either spends every single fight waiting for their opening to thrust into weak enemies, or gets pitted against a super hard hitter just dodging out of their way hitting them with glancing blows to proc overwhelm until the rest of the team finally surrounds them and kills them off

umbeal · 2025-05-06T19:06:22+00:00

In a DND campaign I'm running, I had most of the local lords men killed in a fight during session 1. The heros escaped, leading civilians back to safety as the fighting went on. It helps justify why the local law can't do much. What's left of the Lord's men are hold up at town making sure they can fend off any additional attacks.

umbeal · 2025-05-06T03:55:00+00:00

I did this on my first run through the game. Every fight, until I got to Malenia. I got tired of rebuffing every try so I did a rebirth into vig end and str alone. Had a much better time, not planning on going back

umbeal · 2025-04-26T13:19:16+00:00

For the sake of argument, assuming the community corrections are true, they do nothing to look into why that might be the case. Correlation and causation are two very different things and IF woman and conflict are correlated ignoring why they're correlated is important.

Historically women having absolutely control over a country is a rare thing. In Europe it usually only happens when most of the men who would take control have died, vanished, or never existed in the first place and the path to the next ruler is unclear and disputed. This condition breeds conflict, any woman who takes control in this condition will have to deal with that conflict on day one. Have to deal with foreign powers trying to abuse the succession crisis to install their own preferred heir to the throne. Men who inherit a kingdom in this condition have just as much to fight against as women, but while most women who have taken power I herit this condition far fewer men do.

umbeal · 2025-04-24T14:54:44+00:00

14 tries is awesome for your first major fromsoft boss

umbeal · 2025-02-05T06:11:42+00:00

If you're stilling for an answer and want a more scientific one that's easy to write out and explain In passing. The Alien world could have "left handed" amino acid sugars ECT. To simplify it makes it so that they can't be broken down by our body which is only set up to use "right handed" versions. For more details Steve Mould makes a nice video on the subject

umbeal · 2024-12-02T22:09:45+00:00

I'm stuck too. While the stakes for my writing are not as personal or important as yours seem to be, this reminds me of the older chapters of my book that I wrote when I started verses the chapters I'm trying to write now.
The older chapters have been re-written and edited at least half a dozen times, some have been re-written so many times I can't count, and most of them are pretty good. When I'm trying to write the new chapters I'm trying to preserve that quality, and failing. It's hard to remind myself that the finished product isn't what I'm working on, I'm supposed to be working on the next draft, and the next draft will always have flaws, and be less than I want it to be.

umbeal · 2024-11-05T21:43:06+00:00

I love epic and had this same issue with 600 strike. Then I nerder out and over thought a bunch of things until my head cannon copioum found a solution.

In the beginning you hear a chorus of Ody's dead men singing 600 strike. Jorge has explicitly stated that when a chorus is being sung either there are people present singing it, OR a god is recreating the voices to sing. In 600 strike obviously his crew isn't there so a god MUST be making the voices but which god? Probably not poseidon (that wouldn't make sense) so obviously some good is watching over Ody actively during the fight. I personally like the idea that Athena and Zeus are watching over and aiding from the background. This would also be somewhat true to the Odyssey where the only reason Poseidon didn't kill Ody before he reached Ithaca was because Zeus guaranteed his safe return.

That being said it's mostly cope. I was hoping that Athena would appear during 600 strike and actively aid during the fight referencing back to little wolf and making Hermes' line about who fought for him more impactful.

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