Goltbrook

When I was like 7-9 I went on a "camping" trip with my football/soccer team.

Really, we were just putting up tents on the field we usually practiced at after some very tame river rafting.

It was the first time I was away from my parents. And I was inconsolable. I cried most of the night. To the point the supervisors offered to call my parents so I could talk to them. (And mobile phoning someone back then was not cheap),

In the end I just cried myself empty.

Because I was asleep so late, I slept into the morning and my "tent mates" pulled down the tent around me while I was sleeping.

So I woke up in drizzling rain, lying in my sleeping bag on a thin plastic sheet with no tent around me. While all my "friends" were in the club house having breakfast.

I did not stay in the soccer club long after that.

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.

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

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.

Opening a tavern after retiring from adventuring is so out of fashion.

I'd open a prank/novelty/gag store and sell little wooden thumbs to the unthumbed.

I'd also sell middle fingers but only to bards.

Asparagus is always in season.

First experiment: pressing women into being scientists.

Success.

Second experiment: pressing scientists into women.

Failure. Called eugenicist, chased by pitchforks.

Curious. Same ingredients, different reaction. Something's missing... maybe it's pantsuits.

Why even bother with shouting if you have CHIM, just open the command line and put in tcl and tgm and no-clip out of there.

My idiot butt got a custom pre-built just a couple weeks ago and the cooler pump has one of those screens as well. It is not working and I suspect a plug is set wrongly, but the pump works.

Fixing it would mean ripping apart the pristine cable management and I do not care about lighting as much.

Otherwise I am fully satisfied, but it niggles me a little bit to have paid 20-30 bucks more for a cooler feature that does not work.

Maybe one day when I need to rip up the cable management anyway, I will fix it.