You could set your story in a historical setting in which the countess and the gardener are truly forbidden from passion, or a fantasy world where the ogopogos and sasquatches are sexy rivals.

The amount of pirates on the covers of romance novels is the direct result of this.

Or just have a lukewarm type of forbidden-ness, like “his family’s greeting-card store is in competition with my family’s greeting-card store” or “we’re coworkers.”

And the hallmark channel answer. I had a coworker who would watch those every single day. I vomit at the visuals (how do they get them so consistent and apparent? You can tell just from the opening shots and title!) of a hallmark to this day.

I mean, that was bad, but I hated the movie more for turning it into feel-good drivel about the boss actually being kind and caring about her employee(s). The book ending, where the character realized her own self worth and started making her own decisions, was so much better than the american bullshit about putting up with a boss’ bullshit because they’re actually such good people and will throw a few dollars off the balcony for you to catch.

Keeping my reply of emphatic no here to not clutter up the thread. The closest I ever came was raising a fictional toast when Brian Jacques passed. I downloaded a copy of the recipe book he had written and made some of the otter’s hot soup.

I do find it interesting that no one in the thread who answered yes is really trying to explain why they cried. Sure, saying that you cared about their work means that you thought they were important, but how is that enough to cause you to cry? It seems like we’d have to drill down into the idea of parasocial relationships and examine how much these folks have built up the idea that the person they cried over was actually a part of their life.

I came in here thinking that they were finally going to cut costs to the bone by getting rid of employees. Make the customer pay if items aren’t restocked to perfection, and no more annoying employees who are being forced to ask if you need help. Sort of like those amazon stores that you ‘pay’ first with your credit card to enter the store and it tracks what you take.

Pure, sweet business profits, eh? Eeeh? I bet we could convince an mba to make that pitch, and could bankrupt a few stores before they realize the idiocy.

I enjoy it, but not nearly as much as helluva boss. It was too much like children’s programming, where the solution/chekhov’s gun/learning-through-song experience didn’t feel like it naturally flowed.

Why would you think they were ever on?

you are a slut

but will you treat me like one?

The interviewers know this, and will fail you after reminding you multiple times that the only answers you can give is yes or no. The mental breakdown has to stay inside your head to be effective. ;)

Go take some classes on stress management and biofeedback and learn to control all those things they are testing for

The only real measure that they can read is your breathing rate. Everything else is so variable naturally that it’s just noise.

Because they get people to admit to things they wouldn’t otherwise. A polygraph test starts with the interviewer “just talking” (and those are massive, giant quotation marks there) to you for about a half hour. They slip in little statements about other, experienced officers who are currently employed despite past wrongdoings, “because they admitted” to the bad shit. Meanwhile, when you admit to bad shit, guess who’s not getting hired?

The interviewer will give you a giant list to go through, asking if you’ve done any of the hundreds of bad things, and ask you to explain any “yes” answers you give to the question of committing a crime.

So now you’re primed to confess to things, and the interviewer and agency gets to comb through those confessions to see if they don’t want to hire you. They also get to reject you if they don’t like you and blame it on you failing the ‘lie detector’ test, or the interviewer can simply say you’re lying.

Go read the book called, and I may be remembering this incorrectly, ‘Beat the polygraph.’ It goes into the history, the failures, and the ‘science’ of polygraphs. It’s enough to get you pretty deep in the subject without reading actual research papers.

I wish people would remember that the real crux was lincoln’s assassination. Everything since has been downhill, for america at least. Can you imagine if the traitors had actually been hanged? No jim crow laws? No fucking bullshit…

This actually happened to me with Jade from Beyond Good & Evil

Mine was loona from helluva boss. I wondered what the fuck this wolf thing that kept cropping up in random places was, then found the show and thought it was brilliant.

I think there’s an entire generation of us that thinks tubgirl, goatse (I remember reading the guy’s story, or at least someone pretending to be that guy and writing the story), beheadings, and hatchet vs. genitals are completely normal experiences. Who didn’t watch all those, right?

I would bet that a great many heads of ‘large companies’ would be targeted in the first purge. There’s no way that there isn’t some disgruntled employee or even an ex-employee that wouldn’t be willing to take a swing at the big guy before poverty comes in for the kill.

Anyway, I doubt most people would get violent. Most people aren’t just held back by laws, but morality

I’ll be honest here, mate, I think we’ve seen that a very large portion of the population would be more than happy to get violent. It’s mostly the ones who scream about laws needing to enforce morality on ‘the heathens.’

Look, based on the rest of the responses to this post, I’m not alone in seeing it.

The yellow hands spread the blue buttcheeks, revealing the white crack within.

Meanwhile, the pie waits, its true purpose not realized until the crack opens further…

Something, something, biology.

If it’s the average western diet, it’s probably from the massive amount of toilet paper that was used to clean the asshole after their failure to use a bidet.