Goltbrook

Where else do you get mortgages?

I mean, technically you can contract a mortgage between any two legally able persons.

But I'd say a mortgage between private individuals is a rare exception.

Usually it is bank/credit unions, or corporations specializing in mortgages as their primary business. But I think you can lump most of those under the umbrella term. At least as far as their employees being able to just approve or deny you for personal reasons.

At my workplace, the made up numbers extend to the WFH ratio.

At first everyone was allowed to work as much from home as they wanted. Until internal agreements had been made.

Then they just set it to 50%. Arbitrarily. Because 50/50 sounds good, right? Can't go completely wrong with 50/50 after all.

Then it turned out that only my regional headquarters does it. 15/16 regional sections and only mine enforces it fully. Everywhere else it is just an unenforced agreement.

Why? The regional boss thought it would be unfair toward the personnel that needs to work in person. The professional drivers. The cleaners. The clerks at the service counters.

Took them a year to go to 60/40 because they realized you cannot split a 5 day workweek 50/50 without having to implement all kinds of side rules, like alternating 3 and 2 day weeks.

And now it turns out no one gives a crap after all and everyone just does what they want until a teamlead is unhappy with you and looks at your office times to have a reason to admonish you.

Federal government agency, by the way.

Maybe the mortgage application was just not within approval guidelines. It is not like a bank clerk gets to arbitrarily decide by personal sympathy.

Maybe there is another side to this toxic macho "manosphere" you mention.

After all, as a baseline men are by nature predisposed and culturally conditioned to protect and be considerate to women.

Despite all lamentation, Chivalry is not dead for some.

So obviously the sanctity of a woman's restroom is more highly valued than that of a men's bathroom. After all, women are more vulnerable and more often targeted in that way.

So the debate tends to skew towards women spaces, as those are more likely to cause public discord if disturbed.

Rarely are men stepping up on the soap crate to defend their own spaces. Because after all, they are strong enough to take any number of "inconveniences" and disadvantages because to admit to struggling with them would be weakness.

I'm not saying it's fair, or right, or how it should be. But maybe that bias isn’t always driven by hostility. Maybe it’s just that society still places more weight on protecting women, while expecting men to grit their teeth and deal with it. Even when those same men help reinforce that standard among themselves.

It doesn’t make the imbalance okay, and it doesn’t mean the outrage is consistent. But it might explain why all the noise gets focused on trans women. It’s not just transphobia, it’s the scaffolding of gender roles, still quietly deciding who gets defended, and who’s expected to tough it out.

It seems absurd to conceptualize a "chivalrous transphobe". But we are all more than just one label.

I reckon we have reached that state for a long time.

The vast majority of people would have a pretty hard time without food logistics, utilities, medical treatments, pharmaceuticals. The list goes on.

All of which are provided by corporations of some form or another.

Something something about civilization being 5 warm meals away from collapse.

Besides what was already said, I'd like to add that with only a few exceptions (most notably Japan and to a lesser degree the Netherlands, I believe) most constitutional monarchs even pay taxes on their private income.

They usually receive some kind of stipend/grant as a sovereign which is not taxed. But what they gain from "extracurricular" activities is fair game.

And I think it is worth keeping in mind that a lot of the trappings and estate of a monarch would have to be upkept as part of the cultural heritage and national prestige anyway.

So between paying for a museum/cultural heritage site and letting someone who is essentially a paid actor who got the job through their parents live in there, why not.

And you can never underestimate the soft power a well-liked sovereign can have as a symbol and tool of population control. If the personification of your state talks to the people, many listen.

In international relationships, a monarch can be a soft diplomat and fulfill the role of someone who is at a special remove even from other statesmen and can do and say certain things in certain ways.

I would find it hard to make a general judgement here.

The human-analogies some people make are rather unconvincing. I'd think physiologically cats are less diverse than humans are. In both species size translates to weight, force, reach.

There are outliers, but most house cats are still "fit" enough not to suffer massive disadvantages.

So it would be more a matter of size and stature than lifestyle. A Main Coon with their voluminous fur might enjoy a form of natural armor. But the same fur would exist if it was a street cat (bar any diseases).

And they also possess natural weapons that are not related to their grooming and lifestyle (much). If some jerk has their house cats declawed, maybe. But usually claw is claw and tooth is tooth.

What will probably be the most decisive factor, just as it is in humans, is aggression and killer instinct. That is where a street cat might be better conditioned. On the other hand, animals lean heavier on instinct and even the gentlest house cat can become vicious when exposed to the right stimulus.

tl;dr I am not sure

Just reached for the fan remote while seeing this.

I just like to feel the wind in my hair.

uubuwbubhufufubuwbufubub

is also what Wolverine sounds like suffering a stroke.

I want a place that makes tiny burgers

Forget the premium burger places where burgers are held together by whaling harpoons and you need to eat them deconstructed. Instead of one giant undesirable burger give me a plate with 4 regular sized burgers in exciting variations.

Give me a chicken chili burger, a double irish beef patty blue cheese burger, an italian herb lamb patty and as a chaser a smoked bison brisket with bourbon sauce.

All on one plate. I would be happy

4 burgers. 1 plate. 0 regrets.

And if you don't like one, you have 3 more chances to forgive the cook.

Alternatively, it turns out the noblewoman who has hired the adventuring party for a string of missions is effectively destitute and extremely in debt.

Neither able to pay the adventurers nor pay her outstanding credit debt toward several influential and unscrupulous banking houses who have thrown some gold together to pay a mercenary troop to collect the gold from her or alternatively take natural goods (speak plundering her holdings).

Now, with a small mercenary army bearing down on the pastoral villages and crumbling castle, what will the party do?

A former foot soldier in the crusades who had a panicked war horse fall on his legs in a skirmish somewhere on the way to Antioch and was left behind in Bulgaria by a retreating supply train on his way back.

His shattered leg never healed well and he is in constant pain he has mostly learned to live with, does not speak the language and is edging out a small existence as a gravedigger in a bigger city, dragging his twisted limb through rain-soaked earth, muttering prayers in a foreign dialect to saints no one there worships.

Somewhere between Neutral Good and Neutral Bitter, depending on the day.

I know it is a bit hammy.