learning things about american politics makes me feel crazy. one of the two men who will be president next year wants to start a christian nationalist autocracy and it’s just on wikipedia? can anyone else see this??
you said you had a script for negotiating for secondhand things. What is it?
For me, for these kinds of small person-to-person sales, the goal is to get a good deal but also leave the seller feeling like they didn't get hosed, like they talked me into a deal. So there's strategic reasons for this script, but it's also honest. I'm not going to lie to the seller, and I'm not going to be rude.
I mostly use this on Marketplace. If someone lists something as a firm price, I'm not going to ask them to reduce it; if it's been listed for a long time I may ask if they're still firm on price, and if the answer is yes, I respect that. If it's something awesome and it's a good price, I don't bother with this. Otherwise, here's how it usually goes.
Availability: Still for sale?
Inquiry: I have a question about _____. (Size, color, function, etc. Not a question already answered in the description.)
Gratitude: Thank you for answering the question, that makes things clearer for me. This, and the inquiry, are about building rapport and investment in the conversation. They've put a little time into talking and they don't want it to be wasted.
Reservation: I have a concern about why this may not work for me. (Indicating you're on the fence on the sale, and they should move their price point to hook you.) This can be concerns about matching with other things you have, functionality, whatever.
Opening Offer: Your ideal, too-good-to-be-true price. For me this is often about a third below the listed price.
Answer: The seller either counters with another number, agrees to your opening offer, or says they're firm on the listed price.
Counter or Close: If they're firm on price, take it or leave it. If they countered, you can make another offer (typically somewhere around the halfway point between your two numbers) or accept the number they gave. You can continue making offers as long as you want but for most people it'll be offer-counter-final offer.
btw I know there's probably already propaganda out there about this, but I wanna say my 2 cents on Tim Walz and the George Floyd protests.
He really listened to the protesters and gave them time and space to exercise their rights.
When not only riots were breaking out, but also non-local fascist extremists showing up looking to add fuel to the proverbial fire, THAT'S when the National Guard was there to stop the bullshit.
I've seen people on the right criticise him for not sending in the national guard immediately (i.e. against local protesters). Now there will be psyop propaganda against him, targeting us too.
Oh, and he also pushed for police reform as well, so this isn't just grandstanding either. As a local, I think he's handled it perfectly.
and here's an article I found if you don't want to take my word for it:
‘nobody wants a general election, obviously’, says second PM in a row that wasn’t voted in by the general public, wasn’t even voted in by members of the party let alone the people he claims to represent, and whose party is predicted to lose said general election
*clasps your shoulders gently and looks you straight in the eye*
Keferon. Please read Ninth by Kyn on AO3. I think you would love it very much. It has a large chapter count, but don't be intimidated, it's very easy to get into. It is currently unfinished, but is being updated regularly.
You are the seventh person that recommended this fic to me so ahahahaha yeah
I’m doing great Help I hate some parts of it but I love the other parts I’m spinning in the blender
Fascinating how Polites, the character who is the personification of Odysseus' optimism and is only in 5 songs, is more grieved and appreciated than Eurylochus, a character who is his own person and is in 11 songs.
while i'm thinking about terror character characterisation i think it's so vitally important to let crozier keep his rage after he recovers from alcoholism. he may temper it better now that he has full control of his faculties and direct it more rationally both out of a sense of responsibility of care for his men and guilt for the harm he caused while in the grip of the drink, but make no mistake that it's still there. good people don't have to stop being angry to be good, and recognising your capacity for violence doesn't stop you from being capable of it.
spoiled, aloof, a bit of a bitch, terminally 'weak constitution'-ed, lowkey lazy, prefers reading his dailies in the office and pretending to do paperwork to fighting
anyway, there's a fun kind of eroticism in being given everything, in taking things that aren't yours without any real consequence, in climbing towards becoming a Roman Alexander, only for one man to deny you, over and over and over again, at every turn. Sulla tried, Crassus did it better. who would put a butcher in their place? who else knows you well enough to do it? who else can match you step for step like this? doesn't it feel like a kind of intimacy, a kind of—
it's also about the 'even sulla kissed my sword/so you want me on my knees too?' innuendo was too good to pass up. that was actually the first line I wrote, I figured out the rest of this to justify making a comic with it
and finally! the sword line is referencing/playing off of Lucan's Pharsalia a little bit because it fucks hard
(Lucan's Pharsalia, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce)
EDIT: oh, and that's a public domain anatomical illustration of a heart. you know how it is with love and hate.
thinking about how all the gayest scenes between Bilbo and Thorin were added to the movies. Thinking about how Bilbo and Thorin didn't even have more than two seconds of talking to each other in the book. Thinking about-
There have to be times when Gordon preemptively assumes that Batman's vanished. Like if there's a break in the conversation or a vital clue's been shared, without looking he says, "I guess we'll have to ask our questions next time," and Dent goes: "Or we could ask him now? He's right next to you."
[Immediately after Fit brutally roasted a chatter for being a filthy metagamer]
Dono: You became my comfort streamer. It has been great here.
Fit: Oh, thank you so much, thank you thank you thank you. I'm glad I can bring you comfort when I insult the sht out of some chatters, I'm glad I can comfort you. That's right!
Fit: People say I'm nice, no, I'm not nice. I'm polite. Mostly. There's a difference between being nice and being polite, I am polite. I am polite.
I think Jamie talks to Georgie like every night and spends at least 45% of the call updating her on the latest in his insane and volatile relationship with Roy because it's always something. She literally never knows from one day to the next what the status will be. Yes we did get in a fistfight yesterday mummy but then we went to the kebab place so we were totally friends again :) and he forgave me and he even drove me home this morning. I said he drove me home. No I wasn't there overnight. I don't even know why I said that. I don't think I even said that