Hoooooly shiet, it has been a minute. Hey man! How the hell are ya? It's been, like, over a decade. Wow.
Nearly five bucks for one weapon. One which was already designed and programmed at launch, no less. Glad to see Nomura's keening up to the EA model.
Yeah that's pretty fair. I look back on those days fondly, but I'd probably cringe looking at most of my post history pre-2011. It was just cool having a bunch of friends around almost 24/7 doing equally silly stuff and laughing at each other. Shitposting in the SpamZone while having some banter in five different MSN convos was top-notch. If KH3 can't revive this place, nothing can. But it's a nostalgic little monument.
Feels not great, man. I miss the shenanigans.
Spoiler: Box art Dead Cells is a roguelike-metroidvania game developed and published by French indie studio Motion Twin. It features quick, deceptively simple combat, difficult but fair gameplay, very satisfying progression, and goregous sprite work. It's available on all current platforms. I've sunk over ten hours into this game in the two days I've had it, and I'm probably gonna play a few more when I'm done writing this. It's insanely fun and keeps throwing more difficult but gratifying challenges at you every step of the way. I just wanted to know if anyone else here was grinding through this beast (and to bring it to the attention of people who haven't heard of it).
Sora (The fighter intro is a neat idea, imma continue.) Spoiler: Spyro gets fired up! Home Series: Spyro the Dragon Debut: Spyro the Dragon (1998) (PS1) Much like how he functions in the titular series, Spyro's strengths are in his recovery and his specials. Normals Jab: Single-hit, lightly jabs forward with his horns Forward-smash: Hits forward (with more build-up) with his horns Down-smash: Radius attack, spins around and hits with his tail Up-smash: Gets on the skateboard from Spyro 2 and 3 and performs a back-flip, hitting with the board Tilts Forward-tilt: Hits forward with his claws Down-tilt: Performs a low sweep with his tail Up-tilt: Gets on his hind legs and hits with his horns Aerials Neutral-aerial: Gets on the skateboard from Spyro 2 and 3 and performs a corkscrew Forward-aerial: Hits forward with his calws Down-aerial: Performs a front-flip and attacks with his tail (spike hitbox at the sweetspot) Up-aerial: Hits upwards with the tip of his tail Backward-aerial: Hits backward with his tail Specials Neutral-special: Standard flame attack from the Spyro series Forward-special: Charges forward and attacks with his horns; direction is changeable, and jump is usable without interrupting the attack, but like in the games, he has a lag period after hitting his target (also usable as a recovery option, working similarly to how airborne charging works in the games) Down-special: Head smash (shield-breaking option) Up-special: A superfly portal appears where he is standing and grants him flight for two seconds (no hitbox, cancel-able with aerials and specials) Grab/Throws Pummel: With the opponent wrapped in his tail, he jabs them with his horns Forward-throw: Releases the opponent and charges at them Down-throw: Spits fire at the opponent Up-throw: Throws the opponent upward, then spits a rock at them Back-throw: Releases the opponent, then hits them with his hind legs Final Smash Flies over the battlefield and shoots superflame shots at the opponent (aim-able, like Snake's in Brawl) Taunts (I'm lame, I know) Side-taunt: Spyro points and laughs at the opponent Down-taunt: Spyro lays back in a beach chair, à la Spyro 2 after beating Gulp Up-taunt: Sparks flies in circles directly above Spyro Misc Jump: You can hold the jump button to perform a glide (direction changeable, uses second jump) These are always fun. Hope more people throw theirs in.
"No, Sora, it's my turn to protect you." [Laugh track]
Delete System32.
Let me just start by saying firstly that I'm so sorry about the miscarriages. I can't begin to imagine how heartbreaking those must have been. It sounds like you've been genuinely, clinically depressed for a lot of the past couple years, and I can really see how something like that could contribute heavily to depression. Reading your story, there are two big recurrences I see throughout: The first is the way you deal with strong emotions. Whether it was the abrupt quitting of your job, or taking on too many responsibilities as KH-V staff, or your admitted overreaction to someone who was cruel to you, it sounds like you don't have the healthiest reactions to your feelings. Acting more rationally in the face of powerful emotions can be really challenging, and it's a hard skill to learn on your own. Therapy is immensely helpful for this. In particular, there's a type of therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy. It specifically deals with changing the way you think and behave in reaction to feelings and the world around you in general. I'd highly recommend looking into it. The second is your lack of openness with people around you. You mention a few times how you don't often take initiative to talk about your feelings with your friends. Having people you can trust and be emotionally vulnerable with is really important, and it's hard to be happy without that. It sounds like your sister and the KH-V user who helped you quit are solid people. Maybe try to be more open and emotionally vulnerable with them? (A therapist is also a great option, as they're trained to be good listeners, and are external to your situation.) Talking about your feelings can be uncomfortable, but it goes a long way. It's like watching a sad movie. Painful at parts, but by the end, it's very cathartic. I also wanna briefly touch on the freelance writing. I fully support the idea of pursuing your dreams, but you gotta have the means to support yourself in the event it doesn't work out. A lot of people who try to start businesses build up six months' expenses worth of savings (or more) before leaving their day job so that they have some breathing room in case of situations like the one you went through. Don't give up on writing, but next time you pursue a gig, be better prepared. Ultimately, I'm happy to hear that things have gotten better, particularly once you came to understand the situation a bit better. It just goes to show the power of self-knowledge. It's hard to take the reigns of your life if you don't understand yourself and your situation. I think a big part of how you could feel even better would be through therapy. Broken record, I know, but every part of your story brought that to mind as I read it. You'll learn more about yourself, and you'll learn how to healthily handle emotions. I wish you the best of luck with all of this. Don't be afraid to ask for help, and keep moving forward.
Piranha Plant hype is strong. I goddamn love weird characters in fighting games.
I'll admit, this looks pretty cool. But I can't be the only one who laughed out loud as the dramatic Simple and Clean overture played over footage of crude-looking VR gameplay. Really strange mix of tones.
EDIT: I'm a dingus.
Let's go, bro.
Couple of issues here. Firstly, the study isn't "quantifying hotness," it's discerning patterns of what certain people find attractive. Secondly, I have a problem with the idea that something needs to be 100% objective to be studied. In medicine alone, things like pain, level of depression/anxiety, and other subjective phenomena are measured and studied routinely. Yeah, we can't bust out a sad-o-meter and get a result measured in giga-angsts; doesn't mean we can't plot patterns about feelings and use them to learn more about nature. And that's kinda the point of science. But more to the point of the thread, it's an interesting study, at least in concept. I haven't bothered to look through the methods and analysis, but the results make sense. Coming from a particular gene pool, you'll likely inherit the predisposition to be attracted to particular physical characteristics. If these particular characteristics happen to be common in a certain racial group, it'll follow that you'll more frequently be attracted to individuals from that group.
No idea what hospital worker you spoke to, but that's not true at a lot of places. If a patient walked into my clinic at 104F, they'd certainly have our staff's attention. Glad to hear you're better, though.
RIP 100% agree though. Wish I had more to contribute, but yeah, I think you hit the mark precisely.
The money analogy is interesting, because it can really support either of our arguments if you're going by a resource-backed currency or a debt-backed currency like what we have now. But financial commentary aside, yes, pair-bond behavior is preferable for humankind as a whole, but the reason is more well understood than just "some reason". In nature, sexual reproductive strategies can be broadly classified as r- or K-selective. (Bear with me, it won't get any more jargon-y than this.) r-selective reproduction involves quantity over quality: use your energy for making as many offspring as possible. K-selective reproduction involves quality over quantity: use your energy to raise a small number of offspring the best you can. For a species like rabbits, K-selective reproduction makes no sense. Rabbits rely much more on base instinct than learned behavior, so it would be a waste of time to invest in long-term parenting. For a species like human beings, K-selective reproduction is ideal. We have a lot of potential beyond our base instincts. Therefore it makes a lot of sense to invest as much energy as possible into our offspring, so that they can reach their full potential. Since humans work best in K-selective environments, we need a parenting style suited for K-selective reproduction. Pair bonding is far superior to harem style pumping and dumping, because it allows parents to focus as a team on their handful of offspring. Two-person romantic love evolved to accommodate this reproductive strategy. Knowing all of that evolutionary background, love is no more a "social construct" than sexual preference is. In contrast, love and other elements of human attraction played integral roles in shaping society as we know it. So again, yes, I agree with you that love is in fact a means to an end, but it is more deep-seated in human nature than you seem to give it credit for. I am genuinely sorry to hear that you've had relationships that affected you so negatively. But love is both deep-seated in human nature and imperfect. Let's work with the definition of love I proposed before. You can be drawn to someone's virtue initially, and it could wind up not working out for a variety of reasons. How do we avoid this outcome? Well, I would argue that self-mastery is the key to optimizing relationships. This is because ultimately, self-knowledge and self-improvement make you more virtuous. The more virtuous you are, the easier it is to notice virtue in another person. (Because if you're living virtue, you know what virtue looks like.) If you accept my arguments so far, then this is the best way to find a compatible, quality mate. But it is limited by human nature. I scarcely believe that perfect virtue is possible, so neither is bulletproof love. Human relationships can approach perfection, but they can never quite reach it. But an imperfect idea can still be worthwhile. Forgive me if I'm off-base here, but I'm going to share my thoughts on where it is you're coming from. I think there is a bit of confirmation bias on your part -- I'm saying this as someone who struggles with a lot of confirmation bias of my own. I think it would be healthy for you to think back to those past relationships. I totally understand why it's tempting to tell yourself that love must be futile, or at best a self-imposed trick. But think openly and honestly about how you interacted with those individuals. Your mutual honesty, your emotional availability to each other. Wrestle with the idea that those relationships may have been fundamentally flawed. You might just surprise yourself.