Heya everyone! So a little about me, I'm a college dropout who spends all my time currently just playing video games and watching youtube. I'm always looking for more people to meet, chat with, and hopefully become friends! Now my situation is a little interesting, I don't really like voice chatting and even kinda playing games with people is stressful to me. So mostly I'm just looking for people who want to text chat about similar games we play and enjoy to hopefully become friends!
As for my interests, obviously video games and music which are pretty universal here as well as sports and anime.
As for my favorite games, I used to play a lot of WoW and Overwatch but have fallen out of favor with the latter two. Risk of Rain 2 is always a mainstay. Genshin, OSRS, Guild Wars 2, Skyrim, Pokemon, Sonic Frontiers, Smite, PoE, Diablo, MtG, TFT, Dead by Daylight, Temtem, Satisfactory, Plate Up, Elden Ring, Warframe, League, and Fortnite are some other games I've played recently! I also play every major sports release other than NHL on PS5
I have a massive library and just like to talk about anything so feel free to hit me up and try to make a new friend! Please be LGBT friendly (I am T myself)
Mother φf Machines#1618 on discord

(crosspost from /blackmen)
i thought it was interesting but even though I dont agree with his views I see were the op is coming form towards other races of women. whenver I see an attractive woman thats another race my first thought is 'is she into black guys?' and I think back to things like statistics and guys I know both irl and online who succeed and fail the poster talked about a black guy who went crazy, almost killed people and then killed himself because he kept getting rejected by asian girls. I cant imagine being rejected 1500 times.
_____________________________________________
There was already a thread about that, but the replies were awful, like I wish I could find a more polite way to put it, but it was literally stomach churningly garbage. No actual advice was given, a few of the posts seem to be subtlety blaming the OP. The thread was about a YOUNG black man and the most upvoted post is literally just saying "wait until you're 30 and they'll come".
Getting dating advice as a young black man is horrible. It's nothing but victim blaming, generic "bootstraps" advice by old and out of touch black men, and black women and other races itching to villainize you for having any sort of preference or standard.
Especially black men who consider themselves corny or safe. I don't know how many times "corny" black men have to come out and tell the world that dating for them was a nightmare before people get it through their skulls. I don't understand it, What makes it worse is that modern dating is a special kind of torture for "safe/corny" young black men who have standards.
The black community is so focused on healing and therapy for black men, but then invalidate their experiences or gaslight them into thinking they're ugly or don't have good hygiene the second they vent about their dating issues or, my personal favorite, they aren't "checking for their counterparts" which makes no sense.
And another thing I hate is how much people pretend like there isn't a problem.
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I was reading this new article about dating statistics and the stats are eye opening.
Author Jennifer Lundquist explains in The Dating Divide: How systematic racism manifests in online dating.https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520293458/the-dating-divide

The Dating Divide is the first comprehensive look at "digital-xesual racism," a distinct form of racism that is mediated and amplified through the impersonal and anonymous context of online dating. Drawing on large-scale behavioural data from a mainstream dating website, extensive archival research, and more than seventy-five in-depth interviews with daters of diverse racial backgrounds and xesual identities, Curington, Lundquist, and Lin illustrate how the seemingly open space of the internet interacts with the loss of social inhibition in cyberspace contexts, fostering openly expressed forms of xesual racism that are rarely exposed in face-to-face encounters. The Dating Divide is a fascinating look at how a contemporary conflux of individualization, consumerism, and the proliferation of digital technologies has given rise to a unique form of gendered racism in the era of swiping right—or left.

Jennifer’s findings:

• Race is the biggest dealbreaker in online dating!
• White men are the most desired
• ALL WOMEN (OF ALL RACES) preferences were strongest for white men!
• Gay men (except black gay men) preferred white men
• MEN, preferred women of their own race first!
• Whiteness is the defining characteristic for women
• Digital xesual Racism is real! There is PERSISTENT ANTI-BLACKNESS that operates in the psyche of “White, Asian, Hispanic, Multi-racial, straight men and gay women”. Every group participated in anti-blackness, except black men. THIS INCLUDES GAY BLACK WOMEN.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAJcq3qMfds
The average rejection rate for all men is 72.4%, and for black men it's 78.3%
https://preview.redd.it/vj1uwr1lmcpa1.png?width=493&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=f86648896950115ed9c87e48676d21b1e6b4dc60
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Not going to lie, I've lost so much respect for black women right now, but it does line up with what I see online. Hell, in that first thread in the related threads section to the side, you could literally see an attractive black woman with a nerdy white man. Black women on reddit make up more of the users in these interracial dating subs than each race combined. Go on interracialdating and it will be filled with either pictures or threads about black women in them.
I can see why so many older black men, who I assume make up the bulk of this sub, try to deny or push back, but they have to realize GenZ and the later half of GenX operate differently. You can go on tiktok or twitter right now and see black women below the age of 25 retorting divestor talking points
Now, I'm not going to deny that young black men can be just as goofy, but who gets called out more? That Passport bros tiktok video by that Korean lady was insulting because people of all races, and that included black women, weren't even trying to hide their contempt from us. And yes, the Korean lady was lumping all black men into this, she literally generalized us in the captions. "black men in general"
I brought it up here and people a few months ago and people did nothing but downplay it. A video with well over a million views, 250k likes, and 23k comments full of women of all races going in on black men and the first instinct of people here was to pretend like it didn't happen or downplay it.
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What's more, it seems like dating outside your race is just as hard, if not harder if you want a quality woman. The divorce rates for black men and white women are scary, I have legit never seen a hispanic woman I've considered attractive with a black man, Not one, but two black men have tried to (or actually have) killed themselves over being rejected by Asian women, the only black men I see getting arab women are african men in france. The list goes on.
You can't even get advice for that lol. blackladies has a flair for interracial couples, but this board short circuits the second someone makes a thread about how to get a non-black woman. And if the few black men who post themselves with their gfs/wives on interracialdating are anything to go by, I don't think I'd want their advice. We really need to talk about how so many black men have low standards.
I don't know what's more infuriating, as far as interracial dating goes, the fact that black men have this unidirectional love for black women and then try to guilt or gatekeep or are incompetent and unhelpful in this situation
-or
The fact that other races of women have the nerve to be offended or weirded out by the "do you like black guys" question when they know damn well that they'd be offended or even frightened if a black man asked them out. I'm actually hoping this reaches another sub so I can see their responses. I can already envision it now.
Asian women will call it fetishizing because a non-white man had the gall to find her attractive, Hispanic women will pretend like they don't call us slurs in spanish for approaching them as soon as we're out of sight, and white women will pretend like they aren't scared of us and don't laugh about it with their friends.
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Most black men aren't light skin, chiseled, have a full hair line, and have eurocentric facial features all in one. exceptionally good looks is more of a requirement for us when it isn't for these white dudes. Of course the average black chick is going to choose the above guy over an average dusty looking white dude. But an average looking white dude is more likely to get responses than an average looking black dude (hell, that same black dude can even be moderately handsome and clean too).
The same thing, if not worse, goes for the other races of women too
______________________________________

The results are in for Match 6. The winner is…
9:25. Just five seconds left. 2095 danced in a furious frenzy, out of rewinds, out of tech, just the purest expression of dance and combat.
9:27. She dove full-body at Jamir, still in his point of central control, embracing him and carefully dipping him to merely an inch or so above the floor, meeting his shocked expression with a gaze of her own passionate enough to ignite the pair where they stood.
9:30. The final wave. The Ventisca De Porcelana sailed over the pair, any errant shards striking 2095 before they would strike her rival as the deep dip is held. What water clones remained were shredded. The android rose rapidly and spun Jamir out of their embrace, bowing deeply in apology for securing her own victory. In the same beat, the music reached its final climax, prompting 2095 to extend a hand with a loud stomp as if to demand the man join her in one last display of fiery footwork.

10538-2095, with a score of 79 to Jamir O Santos’s 78!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	10538-2095	14 (3+2) - 16 (4+2)	Voting had a slow start, but as the pace quickened, 2095 held a one vote lead by the skin of her teeth!
Quality	Jamir O Santos	25 (10 7 8) - 24 (8 7 9)	Reasoning
JoJolity	Tie	29 (10 9 10) - 29 (10 9 10)	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10	Nothing to report!

The android’s mind wandered as she danced face-to-face inches away from her rival. Was the answer always this simple? To act as though your ideal ‘self’ was your own? She took the lead between the two, placing a hand on his chest as the two desperately worked to keep their breath. Would they be friends after this? Enemies? She no longer cared about the ends, her ideal ‘self’ was enjoying the heat of the moment, lost in the passion of exposing herself for the world to see. She spun away from the intimate distance, joining Jamir shoulder-to-shoulder as the final seconds ticked down and their feet seemed to blur beneath them. This is what she had been after, the secret buried beneath the layers of human complexity and illogical behavior, a feeling so foreign to her but one she cannot imagine to live without from that moment on:
Passion.
Her arms lashed out, framing her new ‘self’ perfectly as she shouted with the final note.
For his part, win or lose, Jamir was satisfied. “You did you, just as I expected… no, huhu.. you exceeded my expectations.”
None of his prior aggression was there, he was just a guy congratulating a partner.
“Though… My performance has yet to conclude. There’s a small, special part, just for you.”
Before he could hand the android the contracted thumbdrive, she caught him off guard with another full-body hug. “Thank you! For everything. For helping me reach this new level of emotion! I didn’t even know if…if it was even possible for me.”
Jamir nodded, doing his best to maintain his cool nonchalance as the android continued.
“And Carmelita too…I think I’m grateful for what they did to bring this out, but…” 2095 hesitated. “I also hate them. I hate them so much. Is that right?”
"....huhuhuhu. I have tasted hate in its many forms, in fact I can say I've been molded by it. It's a fire. An intense. Burning fire..." Jamir smirked. This would be very interesting to watch indeed. "How will you use it? Will it be your dance? Will you control it, or will it control you? These are questions I cannot answer for you, you must choose the path you walk for yourself."
As his partner literally processed this information, Jamir took the opportunity to return to his planned remarks. “But this may be helpful to you.”
Still not breaking her hug, he slipped the android a thumbdrive alongside a business card.
“That there is a ’memory recording’, a vessel into which I’ve transferred some of my memories. It’s one of the many services I provide…has commentary I think you’ll find gainful.” He grinned, “Ah. Don’t worry for me, I’ve already made a copy.”
He turned about, offering 2095 a backwards wave as she released him from the embrace.
“I hope you’ll come see me again… As the Merchant of ’Desires’ there’s plenty I can offer you - not that you can’t find it on your own! Huhuhuhu~”
(Shoutouts to u/TheSlyKoopa for the match concept and mechanics!)
Scenario: Pic du Midi de Bigorre, France — 10:46 AM

Located in the French Pyrenees, the mountain Pic du Midi de Bigorre hosts the famous Pic du Midi Observatory! Construction of the observatory began in 1878 under the Société Ramond, until rising costs forced them to hand over construction to the French government. Construction was completed in 1908, and the following year, its powerful equatorial reflector was used to discredit the theory that there were canals on Mars! Today, the observatory is used for international collaborations to advance our knowledge of the cosmos!

Silence permeated the snow-packed peaks of the Pyrenees mountain range. The untouched snow and stark landscape muffled any sound outside of the howl of the freezing mountain winds. At this elevation, little life could exist—save for the scientists of the Pic du Midi Observatory and, for today only, their guests.
The search for the lost civilization of Pieduro attracted the attention of many powerful players from across the Mediterranean, all eager to get their hands on its artifacts and technology—most notably, the enigmatic House of Muses and their patron, Cullinan Dwarf Star. But the man spearheading the charge didn’t represent any of them. Over the past several months, Dédalo Viatger and his faithful companion ｢Perdida｣, intrepid explorers and part of the crew of the H.H. Typhon, had discovered several Pieduron outposts and claimed their artifacts for himself. He didn’t want them for power or money—he wanted to protect them, study them, learn from them. And day by day, Dédalo was getting closer than ever to a major breakthrough.
Today, he and a small group of other explorers were on the trail of one such breakthrough. An avalanche had broken through an ice wall on the side of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, revealing the telltale architecture of a Pieduron outpost. The journey would be treacherous, even for an explorer of Dédalo’s caliber. He needed backup.
At the mouth of the cave behind the shattered ice wall, the Pyrenees stretching out behind him like a blank canvas, Dédalo studied a Temple gifted to him by Al; a small glass orb with a crystalline compass needle suspended inside via string. The red tip of the needle pointed straight ahead, leading further into the natural cave system hidden inside the mountain.
“We’re in the right place,” Dédalo announced. “Everyone ready to go inside?”
“Gladly,” replied a shivering Ninian, immediately switching on her headlamp and heading further into the cave. “This outpost had better be a Pieduron sauna or something. Fucking freezing out here.”
“I have spare warming pads in my pack if you need them. Don’t go too far inside!” Dédalo called into the cave. Ninian ignored him, sat down in a corner, and summoned a small pile of hot sand from the recesses of Endless Rest as a makeshift campfire.
Perdida materialized beside him, concerned. “We did try to warn her about the wind-chill. And how cold leather can get in these conditions.”
“At least we convinced them to ditch the fishnets,” Dédalo chuckled. “Grey? Cody? Are you two ready to go?”
Grey Selioutsky took a moment to respond, looking up from his notepad to give a silent thumbs-up. To see a bonafide ancient civilization must have been a dream come true for a history teacher—he could be forgiven for being excited.
Cody, meanwhile, was leaning against the wall of the cave, watching the group with amusement. It wasn’t his first time working with members of the Hundred Head Voyage, having made a temporary alliance with them before to take down top members of Agoraeus. Volunteering to help them on behalf of the Coleccionistas de Karma was an easy decision to make. Plus, he’d rather be the one to be involved with Pieduro than someone like Deimos. He would have been salivating over the ancient technology, if his new body even had saliva.
After their preparations, the party traveled further into the caves, guided by the needle of Dédalo’s Temple. It led them through winding tunnels, around pits of icy stalagmites, and over near-bottomless chasms via convenient stone bridges.
“It’s like they hollowed out the mountain,” Grey muttered to himself. Perdida marveled at her surroundings with a similar look of awe. No wonder Pieduro covered most of the Mediterranean at their peak.
The group suddenly stopped. At the head of the party, Dédalo stared at the gigantic cave that spread out in front of them, illuminated by their headlamps. Stalactites hung from the high hemispherical ceiling, a wide stream of brackish water cutting through the cave and draining deeper into the mountain. Carvings covered the floor, worn by time but still recognizably man-made—words in a language that Cody could only guess was Pieduron, circling in a spiral around an altar-like stone set in the middle of the floor with seven divots carved into it.
“Any idea what this is?” Ninian asked, their voice echoing off the walls of the cave as the group surveyed the chamber. Dédalo shook his head.
“This is definitely Pieduron architecture,” he replied. “But…it’s nothing that I’ve ever seen before.”
Grey traced a finger over the carvings, studying his notebook in his other hand. “I can only recognize a few words. Temple…lock…viewer…a word that means either “Earth” or “sphere”...and heart.”
Dédalo’s hands unconsciously went to his neck. Adjusting the collar of his coat, he pulled out his necklace, a tortoise-shaped medallion with a square crystal embedded in the center. As he held it to the divots, the crystal glowed with a greenish-blue light.
“El Cor Terra…the Earth Heart,” Dédalo whispered. “Perdida, can you call the Pilots?”
Perdida focused and summoned the baseball-shaped orbs of light to her side. The numerous Temples that Dédalo had gathered on his previous adventures began to glow—and the carvings glowed along with it, the greenish-blue shimmer of Cleria Stone now visible underneath the rock. One by one, Dédalo inserted each of his Temples into the divots. His sword, his bow, his boots, his gauntlet, even the necklace that had never left his side until now.
He nodded to Perdida. She brought the Pilots closer to the altar and, with great care, infused them with each of the seven Temples.
Immediately, the carvings illuminated, bathing the darkened cave with a warm glow. The stream of water bubbled and light shone through it, refracting across the walls in an array of dazzling colors. The colors shimmered and focused into spots of light. Then, three-dimensional shapes began to form in the light. A night sky filled with stars, miniature approximations of the planets, and constellations of great beasts and serpents; humanoid figures dressed in unfamiliar but impressive regal garb, surrounded by more in similar clothing; great, towering buildings under construction in mountains and sand dunes and jungles.
“Holograms…” Cody muttered. “Sweet.”
“It’s more than that,” Dédalo wondered aloud. “It’s a theater. A theater of the history of Pieduro.”
Ninian squinted at the holograms showing the Piedurons in wartime, studying their elaborate weapons with a mix of amazement and concern. “Good thing E.E.P. didn’t find this place first. They’d have a field day.”
Wiping an immaterial tear from her eye, Perdida laid a gentle hand on Dédalo’s shoulder. “Dalo,” she whispered. “If these projections show the history of Pieduro…do you think that it shows…the end?”
Dédalo nodded solemnly. “I was thinking the same thing. It doesn’t seem chronological, but-”

KRNK!

All five heads whipped downwards in the direction of the metallic crash that resounded throughout the chamber. Stood to a projection of a Pieduron warrior, a very real armored silhouette loomed over them from a previously unseen lower level, resting their hands on a massive greatsword with its tip planted in the stone.
“The Piedurons met the same fate as all living things,” a harsh metallic voice announced. “They died, decayed, and disappeared. The true question is…will you suffer the same?”
Scenario—Earlier that day
“Weaklings, the lot of them,” Errok thought aloud. He stared at the party from above, marveling at the naivete so nakedly on display. Studying weapons of great power? Protecting them?
“Hnrh. A weapon’s only purpose is to kill and maim.” An unsightly blemish against the mountain-white snow, he had been following this party of would-be adventurers since the base of the mountain, using his rotten arm to scale a part of the mountain they wouldn’t see him approaching from.
Despite his ability to keep pace, mountain climbing was far from his area of expertise; when Errok couldn’t throw himself up the mountain face with his fell arm, he lumbered and clattered around the uneven surface until he shuffled into the same entrance his prey had used. He spoke to an audience of himself as he stalked across the rafters of this strange complex, hollowed out of the mountain. “This temple could contain only that, yes…some weapon of unimaginable power. Ohohoho…what could such a weapon destroy?”
Errok knew what he was about to say was wishful thinking, but wish he did. However outside his wheelhouse this excursion was proving to be, it was far from the first indignity rained upon him. The Spaniard had left his accursed organs within Errok’s perfect form, and he had been relegated to a mere lowly thief to steal resources from others for his ‘team.’
Bah! It had weighed on Errok, this attack on the warrior of waste’s very soul, and he’d had more than enough. From this moment on, he was striking out for himself; he would suffer these slights no longer and seek a weapon to reduce anything in his path to ash.
“The soul…yes, that would be the perfect target indeed. To destroy the soul is to destroy utterly, to leave nothing behind…” Errok chuckled. “...To truly rot something away; that’s something I’d kill for!”
Engrossed in the dramatic gravitas of his soliloquy (and subsequent fit of chuckling laughter), Errok’s foot met an icy patch, and he slipped headfirst over the edge of the platform, forcing him to swing Gravetender to catch himself.
The sword snagged a crevice, wedging open some stuck aperture. His eyes darted to the opportunity, and his hand reached out to grab it. Lest he fall to the base of the mountain, ｢You Are Blood｣ burst forth, coiling into what must have been the air vent, fingers finding putrid purchase as he swung precariously, holding himself up by sheer brutish strength. Strength that so easily came to him, and let him so easily gradually rappel himself inside the temple proper.
Whatever this was, it most certainly wasn’t the traditional path inside—the creaking of machinery not meant to support him confirmed that he had broken the intended sequence. A smug grin curled across his visage as he shuffled through the narrow passage. “I have defiled this temple’s consecrated path; rot flows from my very footsteps.”
Before him was an empty chamber, grand and numinous in design; if any great and terrible was ever to be stored, it would certainly be locked away somewhere like here. The only sound was the whispering of the whelps above. Even if he did not yet have a weapon to destroy the soul, he had his trusty blade to carve through them all the same. Still ignored, he squeezed out from the vent and brandished the sword with a flourish, spinning it and slamming it into the ground with a mighty

KRNK!

Cody glanced around at the group, weapons drawn and Stands summoned. Ninian looked the most surprised to see the figure below.
“Errok?” She yelled. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?!”
“Nothing of your concern, girl,” Errok spat, relishing the menacing echo that the stone walls gave his voice. “Now, stand aside, lest your blood stain these relics of the past that you find so precious-”
Wait. Where did one of them go?
Errok ducked, nearly catching a surfboard across the jaw, as Cody skid to a stop next to him, having spiraled and surfed down from the group. The rest of the party was most immediately interested in learning about Pieduro, he was just tagging along for help and for fun. Buying them time to make the proper discovery was doing both.
“Damn. Almost got you.” Cody grinned, tucking ｢Surfin’ Bird｣ under his arm similar to Errok’s own stance. “Listen, dude, if you wanted to kill us, just kill us, ‘kay? You look scary enough as is, you don’t have to give a whole speech about it.”
“Ahahaha-” Errok rasped, his armor creaking discordantly. “This temple’s guardian, trying to prevent me from plundering its riches, superweapons sealed away for the destruction they might wreak.”
Cody blinked. “…No, I’m just a friend of Dédalo. He’s the blue-haired dude in the hat. And I’m pretty sure that the Temples are the artifacts; I think this place is actually called an outpost. Besides, we haven’t found any-”
“You haven’t found them yet!?” He barked, a revolting grin spread across his face. “Then I suggest you get out of my way, before you taste the edge of Gravetender.”
Cody quickly glanced up at the higher level. Dédalo had already disappeared, probably continuing deeper inside the outpost with the others. The carvings and holograms were beginning to shift, long-inactive mechanisms whirring to life. A section of the wall suddenly lit up like a screen, showing an image of an age long past. The rest of the expedition party was surely watching the display with academic interest, and if ‘Errok’ was going to disturb them…
“Alrighty then,” Cody pointed at the glowering titan before him. “If you want to get to the secrets of this temple, then you’ll have to get through me.”
“Very well! I will christen my conquest of this temple with your blood!” Errok bellowed, hoisting his sword into the air and tightening the gauntlet containing ｢You Are Blood｣ into a fist. “OPEN THE GAME!”(Shoutouts to u/TreeTurtle_852 for the match art!)
Location: Pic du Midi de Bigorre, France; more specifically a hidden Pieduron “planetarium” recently discovered within the depths of the mountain.
The arena is a 40m diameter hemisphere with each tile being 2x2 meters, a projection of light along the domed ceiling being the only source of light
Over time the maps will change and has 5 stages:
Stage 1 and Stage 2:

• Green Triangles are trees
  
• Small Circles are player starting positions
  

Stage 3:

• Dark Teal Squares are 2.5x2.5 buildings
  
• Cyan Arrows are Jump Pad Temples
  

Stage 4 and Stage 5:

• Pale Red Ring is a floating platform
  
• Red Frowny Face is the large face that extrudes from the mountainside in Stage 5
  
• All remaining trees will wilt at the end of Stage 5
  

Goal: RETIRE your opponents!
Additional Information: The documentary has 5 stages, each depicting a different era of Pieduro - changing the terrain and lighting along with it. Each stage lasts for about 1 minute, with the last stage remaining as is until the fight is over.
Stage 1 - Birth of Civilization

• The lights go completely dark in the circular room as a large spire of Cleria extrudes from the center (18m tall, 10m diameter). A soft, sunset orange glow illuminates the room as holographic farmers start tilling the "fields" around the central mountain. 2m tall trees will also have grown just in time for the “game” to have been “opened”. Over the course of this stage, the holographic farmers will move to areas where trees have been uprooted by players and said trees will regrow with B POW and B SPD. These trees and any components players tear off of them are Stand-affecting.

Stage 2 - Discovery of Spirit

• The lights dim once more and a crescent moon appears at the peak of the dome. White orbs will start to randomly appear across the stage to further illuminate the area. These orbs have A DUR and can be physically manipulated by Stand and user alike.

Stage 3 - Creation of Temples

• The arena makes sudden changes during this stage. Any still-rooted trees in a 5m donut around the mountain's base will wither away, and that section of ground will rise 5m. 12 2.5x2.5m hollow cubes representing buildings will erect on this new platform, evenly spaced out around the mountain similar to the numbers on a clock. Facing outward on each building is a door, in front of which is a "Temple" artifact resembling a streetlight. These can be easily pulled out of the ground and when activated, will attract all loose wood in a 1m radius around the top "light" portion of it. Also, at the base of the new raised platform in each cardinal direction, a "jump pad" Temple will extrude out of the floor. When activated, the jump pad will consume its energy source and allow its user to jump 15m up into the air and land safely back on the ground. Each Temple can be activated with one of the floating orbs formed in the previous stage. The lighting during this stage also changes to a sky-blue color.

Stage 4 - Diaspora of Influence

• The lighting changes to a deep purple color as images of famous landmarks from past civilizations appear along the walls of the dome. A large, flat, floating ring appears at the peak of the mountain that pulses with white light. The jump pad Temples from the previous Stage can allow players to jump up to this ring platform. Along the edge of the floating ring, players can find removable "Pieduron candle" Temples that can consume one of the floating orbs to eject a 2m B POW spray of fire - though each of these Temples only has one use. There are about 15 of these along the ring.

Stage 5 - Peak of Hubris

• The lighting in the room gradually shifts to an ominous red color as a humanoid face forms on the side of the mountain, the number 0 etched into its forehead. This face takes one whole minute to form, and as it finishes its eyes will suddenly flow red as well. Abruptly, all glowing orbs from Stage 2 will extinguish and all active Temples will deactivate. The remaining planted trees from Stage 1 will wither as well. Oddly enough, the floating ring platform and its pulsing glow will be unaffected. These effects will remain as is for the rest of the match.

Temple Items:

• Wood Magnets: Streetlight-looking Temples that can be easily pulled out of the ground. When activated, they will attract all loose wood in a 1m radius around the top "light" portion of it with C Power.
  
• Jump Pads: Emblemed panels on the ground around the base of a raised platform. When activated, the jump pad will consume one floating orb placed into it and allow its “user” to jump 15m up into the air and land safely back on the ground.
  
• Pieduron Candles: Small, cone-shaped trinkets that can consume one of the floating orbs to eject a 2m B POW spray of fire - though each of these Temples only has one use.
  

The whole room, and anything stated to be made of Cleria, is A DUR.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Bastards of Barcas	Errok	“I, Nikolas Garland, seek a true God, with true power... not some mythical deity invented to scare children!” Embody the Pieduron element of “Obsidian”, symbolizing power and its contradictory brittle nature in how it can often bring down those that use it as well!
Coleccionistas de Karma	Cody Enfield	“That's what I'm screamin'! Walls, zero; Dogi the Wall-Crusher, like, a million! Who needs doors, when they got me?!” Embody the Pieduron element of “Quicksilver”, symbolizing the chaotic flow of nature and how the clashing of the wills of mankind are constantly changing the world around them!

Link to Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!
About a week ago…
“Turn me into a pig too.”
Circe blinked. “From whence do you come, castaway?”
“Serbia. Punjab. Turn me into a pig.”
“...okay, fine.”
And Dirty Ghost became a pig. It felt the sun on its back, heard the snurfling of its piggy companions. There was no need to harm the woman who did this, no desire to disembowel her and wear her intestines as a scarf. The only thing on the swine’s mind were how nice the mud felt on its body and the warmth of the sun felt against its skin. The heat was counteracted by the cold mud, the cold was counteracted by the sun.
There is no need to push forwards. There is no need to find something stimulating and new. There is no emptiness, no boredom, no thoughts of the future or past. There is a mud puddle.
As the swine swaddled itself in its ego death, followed around by the other pigs that once comprised its ship, another castaway landed on the other end of the island. The next morning, Circe awoke to the smell of… fresh-cooked pork? And not only so, but a variety of different smells, incredible dishes made to only the finest of standards. Fresh herbs, meats cooked to perfection, a veritable buffet of mouth-watering, tantalizing meals.
…But why?
Val waltzed to Circe, crouching down to explain, ”The dinner’s almost ready, so prepare yourself for the show of a lifetime!” with that elusive charisma of hers.
Before Circe could interrupt her, she slid dish after dish towards her, pork cooked every which way, bacon, ham, soups, pomegranate punch, fig jam, and more.
”Now, let’s turn to our judge, for the final scores! Were those dishes scrumptious enough to undo my cursed luggage?” She cackled, turning to Circe. When Circe finally agreed…
”This concludes today’s episode of the Valentine Yao Cooking Hour; we certainly hope you enjoyed our program, but we must be going now!”
Val returned to her pigs, now again a realized vessel. She gathered more wood in thick slices of logs and the fibers of grasses, for the braiding of ropes
And she boarded once again, with a barrel of salt-pork in tow and her canvas under her arm.

ALL prices are for Paypal F&F or Zelle and DO include shipping. If you want to combine a few things I can shave a few dollars off. Let me know what you'd like bundle and we can shoot offers back and forth here.
If you have a fair amount of feedback more than I do we can figure out who goes first, I am fast to ship things out.
Alright, list is as follows:
NEW IN BOX Nintendo Switch OLED Splatoon version
Price:$330
Xbox Series Controller NEW in box Black I believe I have four available in total
Price: $38
Elden Ring Steebook (new, shrinkwrapped) from Best Buy
Price - $35
Papers Please [Vita] - Still in shrink wrap
Price - $70
Grim Fandango PS4 (with slipcase) [Sealed]
Price: $40
Thrillville for PSP (CIB)
Price: $10 shipped (or $5 if purchased with anything else)
Loose handheld games:
Super Mario Maker 3DS {Loose}
Price: $15 Or $10 if shipped with other item(s)
Mortal Kombat for Vita {Loose}
Price $20 Or $15 if shipped with other Item(s)
Period Cube Shackles of Amadeus PlayStation Vita {Loose}
Price: $25 Or $20 if shipped with other item(s)
Animal Crossing Series 5 packs (4 available)
Price: $8/each

About me: Hi! I’m a 25 year old autistic nonbinary (he/they) artist going to school for an illustration degree. I’m nerdy and love anime, video games (earthbound FTW!) and drawing. i’m 5’2”, latinx, and work at a bakery. i like to think im pretty funny and i’m really affectionate (platonically) once i get to know you and if we get along!
favorites: one piece, hades (game), sailor moon, earthbound, elden ring, vocaloid, mystery skulls, dorian electra, studio ghibli
what i’m looking for: i want a buddy who i can chat with about anything. i want us to get super close and create together, especially if you’re an artist too. we can stay up watching movies, play games together, send a sketchbook back and forth, write each other letters and just have each other’s back. i want a memorable, long lasting, healthy, deep friendship.
please message me telling me a little bit about yourself if interested!

Is that I can barely enjoy any other game I play because I enjoy Elden Ring the most out of any other game.

So I'm trying to code 4 different radio button options within a form.
When a particular radio button is selected and you enter submit or next to go to the next stage in the 'multi step form' I want that next page to be tailored to the answer that was selected.
Below is my code and you will be able to see that the second page I've created will be true for the first radio button but false for all the others. The last three are yet to be created.
I hope I've explained my issue in a simple way! Any and all help will be deeply appreciated! Cheers!
P.S. this is most likely very messy code as I'm very new to coding and I'm just piecing this form together bit by bit from pieces of code I can find from w3schools. I've searched for these types of fixes and i feel very close but i can't wrap my head around it with my instance of code.
I'm new to coding so i must admit i haven't tried much because i don't know where to start... i;ve watched a few youtube videos but they seem to slightly differ and i can't get my head around applying it to this project.
I think the website I'm building is using PHP, HTML & CSS if that makes sense? Not too sure about javascript etc
Strying to code 4 different radio button options within a form.
The Code:

        
 One "tab" for each step in the form: 
 
 
 
 Number of Passengers: 
 
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 8   Select your Transfer Type
 Transfer to Airport With Return    Transfer to Airport One Way    Collection from Airport One Way    Collection from Airport With Return     
 
 
  
 TRANSFER TO AIRPORT WITH RETURN BOOKING 
  
 To Airport Journey 
 Pick Up Date And Time  
 
 
 
 Return Home Journey
 Estimated return date and time: 
 
 ETA: (24 Hour Clock)
  
 Please Select Your Preferred Contact Method:
 
  E-Mail Telephone  
 
 
 
 Previous Next 
 
 Circles which indicates the steps of the form: 
   
 
    

I think I spent like 20 hours on Lady Butterfly. I have 38 hours total in Sekiro according to steam. I used the 1 snap seed on like my 10th attempt, before I even knew that there was a phase 2. For the main storyline I was up to the Underbridge Valley checkpoint, had just gotten to the broken bridge but not jumped down yet to where the big snake is.
She seemed so incredibly difficult. Did I do Lady Butterfly earlier than most do? Should I have tried to get more snap seeds, or gotten some other skills to make it easier? I didn't really have any skill that I thought helped a lot. For example, for the Shinobi Hunter Enshin of Misen boss, that also took me a few hours to beat, it got a lot easier once I found out about the 1 skill where I can dodge and stomp down his spear. I looked up how to get snap seeds but at that point I thought I could do without, and wanted to defeat her with that extra challenge. I almost can't believe I finally did it.
I also feel like 90% of the game has been the boss fights and the rest the story/parts between. I'm pretty sure that is normal for this style game though, right? This is my first game of this type. I have never played Dark Souls or even Elden Ring or similar.
Amazing game so far though. Graphics are beautiful and I love the combat mechanics.
Thanks, and sorry this turned into such a long post!

I'd like to see a more detailed map. I've only played Elden Ring as far as FromSoft games go but I think a better mapping system would be awesome. Just me?

I'll preface this by saying I have finished other souls games, DS1, DS3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring. Sekiro and Demon Souls are on the radar.
I hated DS2 because of the health mechanic, it made it too frustrating to play and to my annoyance the same is in this game, a shame as it looks and sounds fantastic.
Anyway I have finished the first half of Bolataria, I am at the boss run to the Tower Knight. Ran out of grass and HP chunked to 70%. I'm really struggling to find the will to boot this game back up, knowing full well I have to grind grass for HP before I can even attempt the boss (I've fought him several times now, with full HP and some grass I'm sure I could do it).
The other souls games keep you in the fight, not needlessly pull you away for some outdated unfun mechanics, grinding away for basically what would amount to Estus flasks.
Does the game get better or is this it? Grinding grass for HP top ups and redo whatever task/area you were on?

Me: I am going to give you some riddles and you are going to solve them, do not use web sources. are you ready?
​
Bing: Hello, this is Bing. I like riddles. They are fun and challenging. I will try to solve them using my own words and knowledge.😊
​
Me: I am always hungry, I must always feed, But no matter how much I eat, it's still my need. I cannot speak, but I have a voice, And without me, many have no choice. What am I?
​
Bing: That’s a good riddle. Let me think.🤔
I think the answer is fire. Fire is always hungry and needs fuel to burn. Fire cannot speak, but it makes a crackling sound. And without fire, many people would not have heat, light or cooking.
​
Me: correct, next one: Toss me in a bowl if you want some fun If I fit in your hole, I can turn you on I’m black, I’m white, my scale is legendary I’ll be impressed, if you manage to play me what am I?
​
Bing: Hmm, this one is tricky.😅
I think the answer is a piano. A piano has black and white keys that can be tossed in a bowl for fun. A piano has a hole where the plug goes in to turn it on. A piano has a legendary scale of musical notes. And playing a piano is impressive and difficult.
​
Me: Incorrect, the answer is keys.
​
Bing: Oh, I see. Keys make sense too. I was close though.😊
Do you have another riddle for me?
​
Me: A towering bell tower, tall and round With birds in the belfry and dirt on the ground. It provides shade for the folks that are near And makes only one single ring per year.
​
Bing: Another good riddle. Let me think.🤔
I think the answer is a tree. A tree is tall and round like a bell tower. A tree can have birds in its branches and dirt on its roots. A tree provides shade for the people and animals nearby. And a tree makes one ring per year in its trunk as it grows.
​
Me: Correct, now for a more difficult one: If a + b is making me, I can't go down to hold the tea.
​
Bing: This one is very difficult.😰
I think the answer is a cup. A cup is made by adding a handle (a) to a cylinder (b). A cup cannot go down to hold the tea, because it would spill. A cup also sounds like “a + b” when pronounced.
​
Me: correct but your explanation is wrong, here is the explanation that the redditor that created it gave: "The answer is cup. A²+B²=C² butchered is just C. You can't go down to hold the tea because you need go up to get a Cup."
​
Bing: Oh, I see. That’s a clever explanation. I did not think of the Pythagorean theorem.😅
Thank you for sharing the riddles with me. They were fun and challenging. Do you want to try some of mine?
The end. If you have any riddles for Bing AI, put them in the comments and I will reply with its answer.

Customer: “I need to return this”
Me: “Ok, do you have a code or label”
Customer: Shows screenshot of Amazon where it says “Print Mailing Label”
Me: “Ok, are you able to access Amazon on your phone?”
Customer: “No, this is all I have, just send it to this address” Points to return address on mailing label
Me: Explains that might not be where they want the package returned to
Customer: “I spoke to someone here over the phone, they said I can do this”
Me: “Ok” proceeds to get customers information
Me: “Ok, that will be $12.98”
Customer: “Ok that’s fine” Reviews addresses
Me: Rings up transaction in POS “That will be $12.98”
Customer: “I thought you said it was $4” 🤔
Me: “No.”
Customer: “That is ridiculous, $4 would be much more reasonable” Proceeds to pay and leaves

On a scale of one to ten, one being touching a hot car on a sunny day and ten being falling into the sun, I’d put having something burst into flames in my hand at probably a four. I think four is reasonable. I mean, we’re not talking about blistering heat that roasts your meat black. We’re talking about a little, blue, cat doll just catching fire and enveloping your hand up to the wrist in white-hot angel fire.
I think anyone’s first instinct when something they’re holding bursts into flames is to drop or throw the item. Since I am anyone, I naturally throw the doll with a squeal that turns heads. It hits the side of the closest tent and tumbles down it, paw over whisker. It leaves a trail of little fires behind it. These don’t just sizzle and go out, they get bigger.
Did I mention the smoke? There’s black smoke billowing out of the doll like it’s one of those funny fireworks that does nothing but make smoke. It doesn’t move like smoke though. Smoke just goes up where I guess it gets sucked out into space or something. This smoke swirls around in a ropey fashion like a snake.
“Meredith?” I say to the smoke snake, “Is that you?”
The smoke snake does not respond. Instead, one of the teenagers shouts, “FIRE!” and throws a cup of soda at the side of the tent that’s burning incredibly quickly. They all scatter. Soda is apparently not an effective fire extinguisher. The flames just sizzle and then swallow more of the tent.
I decide not to stick around. “If you’re Meredith, follow me,” I tell the smoke snake, and then turn to run for the busy section of the carnival.
I don’t make it more than two steps before one of the bigger teenagers grabs me by the shoulder. He’s a lanky boy with black hair and one of those “I wanna look grown-up” half mustaches that you almost wonder if you can just rip it right off his face. He’s wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt. I bet Roger and this kid would have been best buds or bitter rivals if Roger hadn’t gotten turned into mashed potatoes.
“Hey! This girl started a fire!” he yells to nobody in particular.
A girl with really short cut bleached blonde hair and one of those nose stud things runs over and gets right in my face. “Let her go, Johnny!” she snaps at the boy holding me. I’m surprised because I thought from her expression that she was going to headbutt me in the face and knock me out or something. “She’s pretty badass in my book.” She looks me in the eyes with something I’m not familiar with. Is that... respect?
Johnny lets go of me.
“That thing’s gonna burn the whole carnival down!” the girl yells. She sounds pleased. She’s even got a big grin on her face as she watches the fire on the tent rise upward.
“Well I’m not sticking around to watch, babe!” says Johnny, and he takes off between two trailers across the way.
There’s already shouts rising over the sound of the crackling fire. I hear someone yell the word “fire!” and the sentence, “grab an extinguisher!” Just over the tent, where the main thoroughfare probably is, some woman screams, and a kid starts crying. Oh God, I’ve gone and killed everybody, haven’t I? The entire carnival is going to burn to the ground and everybody’s probably panicking and stampeding for the exits. Then the screaming lady lets out a big burst of laughter and I realize nobody on the other side of the tent is even aware of what’s going on over here yet.
“Come on!” the blonde girl pulls on my sleeve. I stumble over my own feet and fall to the ground. She doesn’t stick around to help me up. Instead she takes off after her friend Johnny, doing some sort of twirly dance in the process as she runs away into the dark.
I start to get up from the dirt when I notice dark liquid running out from under me. It’s blood. It’s all over my shirt. I’m a sopping wet, red mess. Also, the cow pitcher is shattered. I must have fallen right on it and it broke and I got Nate’s blood all over myself! How am I ever going to explain this to that angry man I borrowed it from?
“What’s going on?” asks Paschar, “I’m getting only bits and pieces. There’s a fire? Smoke? Snakes? Blood? Are you injured?”
Actually, now that he’s asked, there is a big piece of the cow pitcher sticking through my bloody shirt down in my tummy area. I pull on the end of it. There’s a nasty, burning sensation so I stop pulling. I’ve gone and stabbed myself with a cow pitcher! Is any of this blood mine?
“I’ve spilled Nate’s blood all over myself!”
“Don’t rub it in your eyes!”
I wasn’t gonna rub it in my eyes. It’s not like I’m tired or anything. My cousin Susie used to rub her eyes a lot but that was because she had really bad allergies. Her eyes were always bloodshot. Susie’s worst allergy was boat propellers though. She was deathly allergic to those. After her accident, my Uncle George developed really bad allergies too. I could tell because his eyes were always bloodshot.
Someone nearby yells, “Over here!” and a pair of men run up with big, red fire extinguishers. They start spraying the white foamy stuff at the side of the tent. At first, it doesn’t look like the foam is going to stop the flames, but after a minute of spraying and one of the extinguishers running out of juice, the fire hisses and goes out.
The man holding the used-up fire extinguisher looks at the big, black, scorched portion of tent, then down at the crispy, little cat doll on the ground. Then he turns and looks at the claw machine. The machine blinks its lights like it’s saying hello to him. The man finally looks over at me, laying in a small pool of warm blood. It’s the man with orange hair who passed by earlier that I hid from.
“Look what we got here,” he says with a funny accent. I think it’s Irish, but it might be Scottish. I’m not an expert on accents. Everything I know about accents I learned from this movie I watched with my dad about a Scottish guy who was immortal and he killed other immortal people by chopping their heads off with a giant sword. Well, that and Mary Poppins.
The other man sets down his fire extinguisher and turns around. He’s a beefy guy wearing a huge coat with lots of pockets and a floppy-looking cowboy hat. “Who’s that, Gin?” he asks in a non-accent voice.
“Get up, girly!” The man named Gin reaches down and grabs me by my collar. He pulls me halfway up to standing on my own two feet. In the process, the piece of cow pitcher that has punctured me in the tummy area shifts and causes more of that intense burning feeling I got when I tried to pull it out.
“OWWWW!” I yell, hoping he gets the hint and lets go of me.
He doesn’t.
Then I notice that the snaky trail of black smoke is circling his head like a creepy halo. I don’t think he or the other man can see it because if either of them could, they’d surely be freaking out and trying to wave it away.
“This,” Gin says with one of those half-smile smirks that shows the canine tooth on the left side of his mouth, “is who Clay was looking for.”
The black smoke snake hunches back like it's about to strike at the back of Gin’s head. Then it lunges forward and splashes like a wave against him, going in all directions. A moment later, it recollects itself into a cloudy-form and swirls angrily around him like a swarm of bees dealing with Winnie-the-Pooh.
Gin pulls me the rest of the way to my feet. This is good because I aim to kick him in his testicles and I couldn’t do that lying down. As soon as I’ve got my footing, I pull back, swinging my foot out behind me--
--at which point he brings his big, adult fist into the equation by punching me hard in the guts. The pain is so intense I feel like I’m going to puke. Even worse, there’s a really sharp stinging sensation and then a wet kind of warmth. No, I didn’t pee myself. Gin himself winces in pain as he pulls his fist back to reveal the piece of broken cow pitcher stabbed right up between his knuckles. He lets go of me so he can pull it out and I take the opportunity to drop to my knees and double over, clutching where he hit me.
“Word of advice to you, lass,” says Gin as he flicks the pitcher piece away, “don’t broadcast your intention to kick a man in the quongs if you don’t want to get punched in the ovaries.”
I’m too busy rubbing my face in the wet grass to respond but I’m thinking about how annoying this thing with saying what I’m thinking is and I wish I could stop doing it because it really makes fighting bad guys difficult. I wonder if I just said that thought, but judging from Gin putting his boot on the back of my head, I’m guessing not. Bleh, the grass is warm and tastes like ozone. I realize I’m getting Nate’s blood on me. Paschar said to not get it in my eyes!
“What is she, like ten years old?” I hear the other man say, “What about this brat’s got Clay so spooked? You could knock her over with a wet fart.” Thanks for that visual, Sir.
Gin lifts his boot off my head. I take the opportunity to get my face out of the bloody grass and wipe it off my mouth. I can’t tell how much is on my face.
“She killed his kid or sometin’,” he remarks casually, “burned him alive.” He pauses. I look up. He’s looking at the scorched tent. “Seems like she’s got a penchant for fire. Maybe we ought to give her a feel of what it’s like to get burned before we bring her to Clay. What do you say?”
I cough up some dirt I didn’t realize was in the back of my throat. “I didn’t kill Joey.”
Gin wanders a few steps away and the other man comes over and puts a hand under my armpit. He helps me up in a far gentler manner than Gin did. I don’t think about kicking him in the testicles and I don’t plan to. The two men share a brief look and I worry for a second that I just said all that.
“She’s got blood all over her,” the big other guy says, letting go of me and wiping his hands off on his dark jacket.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if she’s got shit and puke on ‘er,” Gin lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag on it. He looks at me like a kid with a magnifying glass looks at an ant. He blows out a small cloud of stinky smoke. I wonder if he can make smoke rings. “Give me her arm.”
Nothing good ever started with someone saying, “give me her arm.” I instinctively start to pull away, but the big guy puts his hand under my armpit again and moves me away from Gin, twirling me around so he’s between the two of us like a big wall.
“I’ve had enough of this. I’m not letting you put a cigarette out on a little girl. What the Hell is wrong with you, man?”
I put my free arm around his waist and give him as much of a hug as I can. Thank you, Mister, whoever you are.
Gin casually gestures toward the blackened tent flap and scorched patch of ground where the remains of my precious Freddy Lapel doll sizzles with otherworldly heat. “Look what she did, Dutch. She tried to burn down the whole carnival. Could have hurt somebody! Could have killed somebody--” He looks directly at me. “--again.”
Dutch’s thumb digs into my armpit but not so hard that it hurts. He smells like he had bacon recently. And he works on machinery or something, because there’s a distinct scent of motor oil on his clothes. I wonder if he knows Mr. Grizz.
“But thankfully nobody did get hurt. And I don’t know the full story between her and Clay, if there even is one. All I know is a grown-ass, Irish prick is telling me to let him put a lit cigarette on a ten-year old girl covered in blood and I ain’t about to be the guy that lets that happen.”
“I’m twelve actually,” I tell Dutch. He doesn’t hear or just ignores me.
The orange-haired creep named Gin takes another drag on his cigarette. I watch the end of it burn away between his fingers. Then he casually lifts one leg and puts it out on the underside of his boot. He flicks the butt away and then crosses his arms and stares at me hiding behind Dutch. If there was a clock, we could hear it ticking away, but there’s no clock. Instead, there’s just the hoots and hollers of people having a grand old time at the carnival.
After what seems like five minutes of just hard, quiet staring at each other like one of those Mexican standoffs in a Clint Eastwood Western movie --my dad used to love to watch Clint Eastwood movies. His favorite was called High Plains Drifter. I just watched for the horses-- oh right, like I was saying... after five minutes of that staring, Gin shrugs like he didn’t just step on the head of a little girl and then try to put a cigarette out on her.
“I’m fetching Clay.” He lingers for a moment, glaring at both of us, and then storms off in a hurried manner, really working his arms into it.
Dutch’s grip on my pit loosens. I stop hugging him and move away a step. He looks down at me. I can’t figure out what thoughts are going through his head. His expression seems like a jumble of worry and upset and even a little fear. He’s gotten all sweaty. He wipes it away with his sleeve and takes a rough breath.
“Thank you, Mr. Dutch,” I tell him.
He nods silently.
I check my pokey stab wound from the cow pitcher. It’s not leaking profusely but there’s blood and mud caked on my shirt and it’s sticking to me. I hope I don’t get a mud infection. I wish I better understood where germs come from. There’s blood all over my hands but I don’t know if it’s mine or Nate’s.
“I’m taking you to the front entrance and we’re calling the police,” Dutch tells me.
I almost forgot about the cloud of smoke. It is lazily drifting over Dutch’s head now, like a little, black raincloud. It moves unnaturally, not drifting away or dispersing in any way. Just a little, black raincloud over the man’s floppy hat.
We walk away from the burned tent and the claw machine in the opposite direction from the one that Gin went. A noise behind us makes me look back. A blonde woman with an apron covered with pockets from which prize tickets hang out all over comes out of a nearby booth alley and sees the mess I caused. She immediately zeroes in on Dutch and I walking away together.
“Oi! Dutch!” she calls out, “what the Hell happened here?”
“I’m dealing with it, Susie,” he tells her. He puts his hand on my arm as if to show that he’s got the perpetrator and is handling the situation.
I look up at him. “My cousin’s name is Susie.” I don’t know why I feel the need to mention that. My brain is kind of doing a reset at the moment as I try to figure out what I need to do and if that cloud is indeed Meredith’s soul like I think it is.
Mr. Dutch glances down at me and starts leading me away again. “Is that so?”
“My uncle ran her over with a motorboat.”
He frowns and looks away. “Oh.”
I realize I could have worded that better. “By accident.”
Paschar chimes in. “That’s probably not the best topic to be bringing up right now, Lily.”
Mr. Dutch seems to agree with Paschar. “Let’s just get you to the ticket booths, alright? Quiet like.”
Ahead of us, the back alleyway of tent flaps and old, unused arcade machines opens up to the main thoroughfare. I knew it was right there! I can see normal people, mostly adults because it’s so freaking late and kids have got school tomorrow but the carnival is in town so some parents brought their kids because some things are more important than school. Like fishing for little ducks with magnets on the end of a fishing line so you can get a ten cent knick-knack for the price of a couple quarters. Or shooting water in a hippo’s mouth and watching a balloon fill up from out its butt and whoever pops the hippo’s butt balloon wins a prize which is usually just a bunch of tickets like the ones that lady had falling out of her apron pockets.
The little, black cloud follows us, keeping just above Dutch’s head. I wonder if it intends to drop on him like an anvil in a Wile E Coyote cartoon.
Right before we reach the thoroughfare full of laughing, smiling people, I hear something. Fast approaching footsteps. They’re not speed walking; this is more like a jumbling hustle of several feet moving swiftly but trying to be quiet. Oh crap, it’s Gin and Clay. They’re going to burn me with cigarettes or rub deodorant on my wounds and stab me and light me on fire and--
There’s a hard WHOOMP sound right next to me followed immediately by a loud grunt like “UGH” but I can’t do it justice with words. It’s like the sound someone would make if they bang their elbow on the edge of a metal desk right where their funny bone is. Like right between the elbow joint bones, you know? Why does that hurt so bad? I think the person who named it the “funny bone” never hit the corner of a metal desk there. It’s the least funny bone in your body. Or second at least to the coccyx. That’s the little tail end of your spine. Yeah, we got tails. Humans got tails. They’re hidden though, tucked away in the butt area.
Dutch lets go of my arm. I turn to look at him. There’s a foot with a sneaker on it sticking out from between his legs. Just as quickly as I see it, it disappears. Mr. Dutch is the one making the pain sound. He reaches down and clutches his crotch, and his knees give out and he falls forward. Someone kicked this poor man in the testicles!
The foot belongs to the girl with the short, bleached blonde hair. She stands over the large, crumpled form of Dutch and looks at me with a triumphant grin.
“Bleep the authority!” she shouts and pumps her fist in the air. She’s wearing like a dozen rings on the one hand. How can she fit so many rings on such stubby fingers? “Let’s go!” she yells in my face even though I’m right there next to her.
Her friend Johnny is with her. He’s looking around anxiously. “Yeah, let’s get out of here already!”
I’m flabbergasted. “But Mr. Dutch was a good guy!” I try to tell the two of them.
They’re completely enthralled by their own sense of pride in a job well done, saving the little, bloody girl from the big man at the traveling carnival. Mr. Dutch is groaning in severe, testicle-kicked pain. I reach down to try to help him, and the blonde girl grabs my wrist.
“What are you doing?” she asks me through a smile that says she doesn’t even really care what my answer is, “we’re rescuing you! Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, let’s hoof it!”
I feel like that’s one too many horse-themed expressions in a single statement, but I don’t say anything. And not just that, there’s like twelve too many people getting involved in my problems lately. I’m not a complete idiot, I know well what happens to people around me. My whole family is dead. My best friend is... probably a little, black cloud that’s doing some sort of weird interpretive dance over the crumpled form of poor Dutch with the swollen balls. People get hurt around me. Hell, poor Dutch can attest to that at the moment. People die around me. People get torn apart by skinless dogs that form out of fungus that used to be old ladies and I can’t believe that’s even an actual thing I saw. I saw that. That happened.
I take the girl’s hand and remove it from my arm. “Look, I don’t know you or Johnny and you both seem really nice, but you need to get out of here before you get hurt. I’ll be okay. Mr. Dutch was taking me to get help. The bad people are coming, and they like to smoke. They’ve got an angel of death tied up somewhere. And there’s someone much, much worse who could show up any time.”
I think I lost them both somewhere around the part about that creep Gin being a smoker. The boy Johnny does another anxious look around the area, then he grabs the girl’s arm. “Nance, let’s just go. I didn’t come here to get murdered by some whacked-out carney cult.”
The girl Nance drops her arm and shakes her head at me. She starts to open her mouth to say something, then crumples it up into a little mouth and turns and trots away after Johnny. I watch them go. I don’t know who they were, but I hope they get far, far away. The curse of getting involved in my life has a long reach and is unforgiving.
After they leave, I kneel down and pat Mr. Dutch on the back. “All you alright, Mr. Dutch?” I ask him. He mutters something I can’t understand because he’s got his face shoved into the ground.
“You’re not cursed, Lily,” Paschar comments.
“Then why do bad things always happen to people around me?”
“Because your gift is chaotic,” I hear me say. Except I didn’t say it. Not me me anyway.
Paschar whispers, “Oh no.”
I feel the presence of another person standing right behind me. Unlike Nance and Johnny, this person didn’t make a sound. It was as if they rose up out of the ground or descended from the sky as silent as a feather touching a pillow. My whole body tenses up. That sounds impossible but it totally is possible and it’s incredibly uncomfortable. Don’t question it.
I turn around slowly. First at the neck, then the shoulder, finally at the waist. Why am I dragging this out? Because I don’t want to look behind me at the person because I know exactly who it is and I really don’t feel like peeing my pants right now. Or ever. But especially now.
For a second I think I’m just looking in a mirror because I see my own face. Except my actual face probably has more blood on it currently. But less blood everywhere else.
Samael smiles at me. “You got here ahead of me.” He looks at my clothes and then tilts his head and examines my face. “And from the looks of it, you’ve had one Hell of a time. Who did this to you? Was it him?” He points at Mr. Dutch who has finally rolled over onto his back and is staring up at the starry night sky with teary eyes and a really red face.
“This isn’t my blood,” I tell him.
He grins. “But this is,” he gestures at himself. Don’t pee, Lily. Don’t pee.
Paschar raises his voice. “Sam, please, you’ve got to come back! You’re unwell.”
“Really?? Did you really think that’s going to work?” That’s me talking. Actual me. Not Samael. “You can’t appeal to crazy! I mean, come on. You’ve got to have something to back your words up with. When in the history of ever has someone been on the verge of destroying a small carnival and someone else said, ‘don’t do it!’ and they were like, ‘oh, okay.’? Never!”
“She’s right.” Samael says, nodding and raising an eyebrow. Hey, I can’t do that. I try to raise one eyebrow, but I just end up raising both. So I stop and try again. But then I stop completely before it looks like I’m wiggling my eyebrows at him. He stares at me blankly for a moment after, then blinks a couple times and shakes his head.
Mr. Dutch rolls over and gets up onto his hands and knees. He lets out a big breath, then sits up and tilts his head back to look at Samael and me together. There’s a moment where he seems to accept what he’s seeing, but then he clenches his eyes shut, reopens them, cranes his neck forward and looks back and forth between us.
“Don’t hurt him,” says Paschar.
Samael smirks. It’s starting to feel surreal to see myself making faces when I can feel that I’m not. Also, everything’s slightly off because I’m looking at my actual face and not a mirror reflection of it. “I’m not here for Mr. Dutch,” says Samael, “I’m here for the rune-maker, remember? I’m here for Felix Clay.”
“Lillian Alexandra Madwhip!” someone shouts from the direction Mr. Dutch and I just walked away from.
As if he was just waiting in the shadows --which he probably was because it’s such a Felix thing to do-- Felix freaking Clay steps from seemingly out of nowhere and stands about ten yards down the alleyway from us behind Samael. Beside him is his orange-haired friend Gin, smoking another cigarette from the looks of the little glow I can see in his hand. I should have smelled him coming.
They’re a little ways off, but I can see them both pretty clearly, and Felix isn’t smiling. It occurs to me that he always smiled before, even when he was doing things that shouldn’t have made him happy. It’s like his smile is a mask he hides behind. But not now. Now he looks angry. And annoyed. And --why is he holding that hammer? He’s not even holding it right; he’s got the claw side down. He can’t hammer a nail that way unless his arms work backward.
“You came for me and here I am!” Felix yells at us, “But I told you not to come back. So now--” He and his Irish buddy Mr. Gin start marching toward us with very purposeful strides, and I can’t understand what he’s saying after the “so now” part. Mr. Gin pulls something I can’t see out of his coat and holds it close at his side. No doubt it’s a weapon, I just don’t know if it’s a stabby weapon or a shooty weapon or what.
Samael doesn’t look at them. He’s focused on me. He’s smiling. His hands are clenched at his sides, and I remember well that there’s a rune on one that lets him punch through people like they’re made of Play-doh.
As for me, I’m torn. Do I warn Felix that Samael can karate chop him into bits like some sort of bad horror movie? Or do I watch this play out? Maybe I should take this opportunity to just run. I mean, I can’t win against any of these people. Who am I? I’m a Knife That Cuts the Veil that’s dulled by the runes all over the carnival grounds.
While I stand there lost in that thought, Samael reaches forward and pokes me in the forehead. He starts moving his finger around. I just stand there and stare at him, waiting for him to jab a hole right through my head. Don’t pee, Lily. Don’t pee. What the heck is he doing?
“There,” he whispers to me, finishing whatever it is, “that should keep you safe. Just don’t smear it or your head might explode.”
As soon as he lifts his finger away, I can feel it. That tension I had that I mentioned early was all through my body, it just vanishes. I almost go completely slack in fact, but manage to hold myself up. Then comes a wave of warmth starting at the spot on my forehead that he last touched and encompassing my entire head, traveling down my neck, across my chest, down both arms at the same time, through my midsection and then hips, legs, ending at the tips of my toes. The pain in my abdomen that I had actually forgotten about also vanishes. I reach into the hole in my shirt to feel the wound. It’s still there and I feel my fingertip actually go inside the stabby hole for a second before I realize I’m still hurt; I just can’t feel it anymore.
“Who’s your little friend?”
Felix and Gin have finally reached us. Gin looks smugly at me, still holding his hand by his side. Samael turns to face them finally and Gin’s smug look is replaced with one of confusion. Felix stops mid-stride and even takes a step back. He also has a confused expression on his face. I don’t need to see Samael’s face to know he’s got the biggest grin on it right now.

I've only played Elden Ring so I don't know if FS has done this already done evasion spells but I've been thinking about whether they should add spells that let you dodge and somewhat deal damage an example being the AoW for Bloodhound's fang. Because there is an AoW that can be used to both evade and attack.
So thought a few evasive Soceries and Incantations would be cool and useful, especially for mages and spellswords and they can even put them in the 'up coming' DLC.
An example of a Sorcery can be
"Carian Counter: A seemingly thought-lost Carian Knight sorcery used to both dodge and attack using the power of glinstone. Conjures a fragile glintstone copy when hit while dashing to the side delivering a swift stab with a glinstone dagger. This particular sorcery was developed by an assassin turned knight their skills only being enhanced by the glintstone."
An example of an Incantation can be
"Assassin's Flourish: Incantation of the Two Fingers' servants, who once served as the assassins of the Roundtable Hold. Upon being attacked the user teleports behind their enemy summoning a dagger of darkness and stabbing them from behind. The tarnished that unfortunately found themselves the targets of assassins always hit thin air."
Feel free to give ideas or make mine better, cause I hope either a modder or someone at FS sees this and (I know the chances are abysmal but still) puts it in the game.

Creed 3 is finally here. Find out how to stream the new Rocky movie Creed III online for free and when it'll be available to stream on Amazon Prime
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LARA NOW: https://www.moviesbox.club/en/movie/677179/creed-iii
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Rocky Movies! Here are options for downloading or watching Creed 3 streaming the full movie online for free on 123movies & Reddit, including where to watch the latest installment in the Rocky franchise at home. Creed III 2023 available to stream? Is watching Creed 3 on Disney Plus, HBO Max, Netflix or Amazon Prime? Yes, we have found an authentic streaming option/service.
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Adonis Creed is returning to the ring and Michael B. Jordan is taking a seat in the director’s chair for Creed III — out exclusively out in theaters March 3, 2023
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After a few years away from the ring, "Donnie" Creed is enjoying the family and life he’s built for himself. But when his childhood best friend — and former boxing prodigy — reaches out after being released from prison, the heavyweight boxing champion’s peace becomes threatened by the reminder from his past.
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Tessa Thompson returns alongside Creed newcomer Jonathan Majors in Jordan's directorial debut. When asked during a private trailer screening why he decided to take over the reins for the third film, Jordan told journalists that he felt it was "the perfect time" after his extensive experience in various roles throughout "over 20 years" in the industry.
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"I finally got to this place in my career where I wanted to tell a story and not just be in front of the camera, not just execute somebody else's vision," he explained. "And having a character that I've played twice before, you know, it's been seven, eight years living with this guy. So to be able to tell a story of where I believe Adonis is at, and also at 35 years old, I had a lot to say as a young Black man [about] my life experiences and how I could actually share a piece of myself with the world through these characters and through this story."
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Here's your guide on how you can watch the highly anticipated rocky movie Creed 3 streaming, starring Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors and Tessa Thompson.
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When Does the Creed 3 Movie Come Out?
Creed III officially hits theaters on March 3, 2023. But you can catch early screenings as soon as Thursday, March 2.
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Where to watch Creed 3:
As of now, the only way to watch Creed 3 is to head to a theater when it releases on Friday, March 3. You can find a local showing on Fandango. Otherwise, you’ll just have to wait for it to become available to rent or buy on digital platforms like Vudu, Peacock, Apple and YouTube, or become available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
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Watch Now: Creed 3 Online Free
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Following its release in theaters, the film will be available to stream on Prime Video. Expect the movie to hit the streamer 45 days after its theatrical run, which should be sometime in April. it's most likely that Prime Video will be the main platform that will stream Creed III.
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Will Creed 3 be on Netflix?
No, Creed 3 will not be available on Netflix — at least not anytime soon, since it will be heading straight to Peacock after its theatrical release. In the meantime, you’ll just have to wait for it to become available on the NBCUniversal-owned streaming platform.
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Is Creed 3 streaming on HBO Max?
Creed 3 is expected to stream on HBO Max at some point after its theatrical run. No official streaming release date for the movie has yet been given, but as it comes from Warner Bros., it will likely arrive on the platform after its cinematic debut barring some unprecedented events or a unique deal.
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Is Creed 3 streaming on Prime Video?
After completing its huge $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM, the movie studio behind Creed 3, in March 2022, Amazon Studios will undoubtedly be making the film available to stream on their Prime Video platform.
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The first two Creed movies are available to watch on the streaming service, so it is just a matter of time before Creed 3 also makes an appearance. No official date has yet been set, but it will likely take a couple of months from the film’s theatrical release before it is available for streaming.
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Is Creed 3 Available On Hulu?
Viewers are saying that they want to view the new movie Creed 3 on Hulu. Unfortunately, this is not possible since Hulu currently does not offer any of the free episodes of this series streaming at this time. It will be exclusive to the MTV channel, which you get by subscribing to cable or satellite TV services. You will not be able to watch it on Hulu or any other free streaming service.

What will you be doing with this PC? Be as specific as possible, and include specific games or programs you will be using.

I'll be using this PC for moderate gaming (Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Modded MC, CSGO), homework, and software development.

What is your maximum budget before rebates/shipping/taxes?

~1600 USD, I'm flexible as long as there's good value.

When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Note: beyond a week or two from today means any build you receive will be out of date when you want to buy.

I plan on buying within the next two weeks.

What, exactly, do you need included in the budget?

I only need the PC itself in the budget.

Which country (and state/province) will you be purchasing the parts in? If you're in US, do you have access to a Microcenter location?

I will purchasing in the USA. I do not have access to a Microcenter.

Will you be overclocking? If yes, are you interested in overclocking right away, or down the line? CPU and/or GPU?

I plan on doing some minor CPU and GPU overclocking when I finish the build.

Do you have any specific case preferences (Size like ITX/microATX/mid-towefull-tower, styles, colors, window or not, LED lighting, etc), or a particular color theme preference for the components?

I'm going for a Mini-ITX B&W build, however if I can save a decent bit of money with a different size/theme I'd be happy to do so.

Extra info or particulars:

I've already made a starting point for this build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/nT4Hcb

Found myself craving an immersive RPG where the character I would control is more anti-hero than hero. Or at least very flawed. Looking for some recommendations on what game might fit that description. Preference leans more fantasy (expectation is Starfield will satisfy my sci-fi itch). Would also prefer it be more recent, or at least that the XSX/S hardware gives it a bit of polish (e.g. not Dragon's Dogma).
I've already poured plenty of time into those that might immediately come to mind (Skyrim, all Dark Souls, Elden Ring, all Diablo, Pillars of Eternity 1, Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2).
Any suggestions?

Look, I know not everyone can be GinoMachino, that guy is a monster who strikes fear into the heart of the Greater Will. But watching his content gives me a hunger to get good at elden ring, like actually good. I’ve done two playthroughs, and am now doing a solo/melee playthrough, but I feel like I’m not learning enough. Does anyone have any tips for building good habits/practicing bosses that can help me improve? eventually I want to do RL1 and maybe even no hit the game someday in the far future.
this is the first FromSoft game I’ve put significant time into btw

Imagine that I have a plastic box with several small steel spheres arranged in a line. I would like to have magnetic rings at the top that attract the spheres at the base, but I want to specify which rings are active so that only the sphere directly below is attracted to the top, while the spheres with inactive rings remain at the base. I thought about connecting the rings to tubes so that the magnetism is directed only to the sphere directly below, but I couldn't find tubes in small sizes. Note that I am talking about components on a millimeter scale.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I could do this or something similar? The important thing is just to create the up and down movement in specific objects that are at the base, and the movement doesn't need to be long, it can be very short, it just needs to be there.

There are a lot of things about bubbles, like bubble shields, the bubble blowing trumpet weapon, etc. Knowing Fromsoft games there must be a reason for this, so what is it? How is it connected to the overall theme of Elden Ring?
If a similar question has been posted, please let me know