Pride is coming up soon (well, officially,we should always be proud and fabulous 💜), and the rainbows and colors of pride are out to shine and ready to be purchased. I've seen many places advertising merch.
I'd like to take this time to remind you to be careful where you buy. Be cautious of fake stores and scams, and try not to support companies or merchants that don’t actually support the queer community. I highly recommend shopping locally if you can, as many pride events have merchandise from local artists and charities.
My question/topic I would love to talk about is: Why do you wear pride merch? What kind, how often, and why?
For me, it's all the time. I have an inclusive rainbow flag on my work bag, stickers on my phone, and a rainbow bracelet. I also wear a necklace that isn’t queer-related, but my first fellow non-binary/pagan friend had the exact same one and unfortunately passed away, so I wear it every pride.
I wear pride for many reasons: to show representation and indicate that I'm queequeer-friendly. I wear it in solidarity with those who cannot hide that they are part of the queer community, removing the privilege of being "passing" as cis or straight. I still have some privilege compared to my fellow rainbow warriors. I also wear it as a reminder to myself that there are others like me and that there are people who care.
I also work in trades/construction projects where it's mostly cis/hetero men, and some are closed-minded. Unfortunately, I have bigoted family members too. By wearing pride merch, I show my stance and represent that we are also hard-working people, and that we are around and exist as family and coworkers.
I thought this was a good discussion to have as people are buying and participating in pride. Happy pride! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

Howdy! I just finished up my first year in the Texas A&M Engineering program as an out-of-state student and have enjoyed my time on campus so far. I chose A&M over other schools that also had amazing engineering programs for the campus culture and vibe that was significantly different from everywhere else I visited. I have no family members in Texas nor any family/friend connection to the school, so I am appreciative of everyone I have met so far, for the people I am to meet in the future, and those who make the Aggie experience the one it is! Especially for the fact that it makes me feel like I have a home outside of my home!
With campus culture aside, financially, I am in a bit of a pickle. I was aware of this issue before going to A&M, but it was a more of a gamble on whether this would play out my way properly, but one I was willing to take in order to be an Aggie. For context, I received 0 scholarships with my acceptance letter for attending the institution, and countered my offer to the financial aid office based on the fact I had a 35 on the ACT and was ranked in the top 4% of my high school class of about 550 students. With this in mind, the school gave me a mere $4000, and not per semester, in total. Meaning, only $500 per semester for 4 years when my tuition which costs about $19,000 per semester. Essentially, nothing. The reason I was able to attend A&M was only based on the fact that my grandparents had a college fund built up for me and that I won a bunch of scholarship competitions that paid off the first year. While I can work a job to pay for food and get some help regarding living expenses from my parents, we cannot afford to pay this on top of almost $40,000 of tuition per year. Even more so as I have 2 younger brothers that will soon attend college. I would have to go into debt next year – assuming I do not receive any additional scholarships – and this jeopardizes my life for about the next 15-20 years as I did want to attend grad school immediately after undergrad.
I initially took a gamble financially on this school as there is a policy that declares that out-of-state students can get an automatic in-state tuition waiver if a student receives $4000 of scholarship from the university. Not other organizations, just simply whatever scholarships are directly affiliated with Texas A&M, and I believe this is specifically through the University Scholarship Application. Prior to committing to the school, I thought that this would be a feasible threshold to obtain as I knew my work ethic and that I would do anything to alleviate the financial burdens of not only myself, but also my family and to give my younger brothers a chance to attend the college of their dreams. Regarding my stats, I would like to think I am a competitive student as I earned a 4.0 GPA, I was in an academic student organization related to my major, an additional academic club (not-related to major but just out of interest), and a sport/recreational club. However, while in Texas, I have learned the "state rivalry" between my home state of California and Texas is for some reason a real thing outside the internet. I am concerned that this rivalry, while sounding farfetched, may screw me out of reaching this $4000 threshold. To note, the only scholarships that apply to the $4000 threshold are ones that are deemed as "competitive scholarships." Meaning, scholarships where not only a pool of out-of-state are being considered, or only in-state, but rather both groups being viewed in the same pool of applicants for a scholarship. The only reason I voice this concern is because this legit happened in the past to me with the stats I had in high school before coming to A&M. I have heard stories from other out-of-state students (from different states than mine and similar stats in high school) have either their out-of-state tuition waived or had a full tuition/ride scholarship given to them by the university. Furthermore, with Texas pride as a probable bias toward those on scholarship committees, I am concerned I will not be even fairly evaluated as a majority of the money will just be given to less or equally competitive individuals due the fact their families currently reside in Texas. This also was a common occurrence I ran into at Texas A&M, as a good amount of in-state students received something from the school prior to attending the university.
I would also like to note that obtaining residency in the state would not necessarily be the difficult part, it would be for the school to recognize me as an in-state resident for tuition purposes. With all this in mind, here are my questions below that I have.

1. What are the odds I have at receiving the threshold of $4000 to get the in-state waiver?
2. If I don't receive the $4000 threshold, I will likely be only able to pay for another semester maximum without going into the trenches of student debt. What would be the best course of action from here? Do I go back to my local community college and then see if I can transfer with scholarship to an in-state university? Do I stick it out at A&M and go into debt or potentially go to a community college in Texas, obtain residency, then transfer back?

I apologize for the long post, and I will take any helpful advice into consideration!
Thanks and Gig 'Em!

Padres @ Braves - Sun, May 19

Game Status: Game Over - Score: 9-1 Padres

Links & Info

• MLB Gameday
• Game Graphs
• Savant Gamefeed

	Padres Batters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	LOB	AVG	OBP	SLG
1	Arraez - 2B	5	1	2	0	1	0	0	.309	.356	.372
2	Tatis Jr. - RF	5	1	1	2	0	2	3	.255	.346	.435
	Solano - 3B	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.462	.563	.538
3	Profar, J - LF	4	2	3	1	1	1	2	.335	.422	.522
	1-Azocar - LF	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.286	.340	.306
4	Cronenworth - 1B	4	1	1	2	1	1	4	.275	.344	.485
5	Machado, M - 3B	4	1	2	0	0	0	4	.224	.279	.341
	a-Wade - RF	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	.246	.333	.275
6	Bogaerts - DH	4	0	1	1	0	1	2	.220	.266	.317
7	Merrill - CF	5	0	1	1	0	1	3	.291	.338	.392
8	Campusano - C	5	1	1	1	0	1	2	.264	.309	.421
9	Kim, H - SS	4	2	2	1	1	1	0	.212	.325	.370
	Totals	41	9	14	9	4	9	20

Padres
a-Struck out for Machado, M in the 8th. 1-Ran for Profar, J in the 7th.
BATTING: 2B: Tatis Jr. (7, Elder); Profar, J (9, Elder). HR: Cronenworth (8, 1st inning off Elder, 1 on, 2 out); Campusano (4, 5th inning off Kerr, 0 on, 0 out); Kim, H (6, 7th inning off Kerr, 0 on, 1 out). TB: Arraez 2; Bogaerts; Campusano 4; Cronenworth 4; Kim, H 5; Machado, M 2; Merrill; Profar, J 4; Tatis Jr. 2. RBI: Bogaerts (14); Campusano (25); Cronenworth 2 (30); Kim, H (22); Merrill (18); Profar, J (31); Tatis Jr. 2 (24). 2-out RBI: Cronenworth 2; Merrill. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Cronenworth; Campusano; Merrill 2; Machado, M 2. SF: Bogaerts. Team RISP: 4-for-13. Team LOB: 10.
FIELDING: DP: 2 (Machado, M-Kim, H-Cronenworth; Solano-Arraez-Cronenworth).

	Braves Batters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	LOB	AVG	OBP	SLG
1	Acuña Jr. - RF	3	0	0	0	1	1	1	.242	.354	.335
2	Albies - 2B	4	0	1	1	0	1	1	.279	.340	.414
3	Ozuna - DH	4	0	1	0	0	2	1	.323	.398	.606
4	Olson - 1B	3	0	0	0	0	1	1	.222	.326	.392
5	Arcia, Or - SS	3	0	1	0	0	1	0	.245	.268	.400
6	Harris II, M - CF	3	0	0	0	0	1	1	.253	.295	.373
7	Short - 3B	3	0	0	0	0	1	0	.156	.308	.219
8	Kelenic - LF	3	0	0	0	0	2	0	.247	.291	.351
9	Tromp - C	3	1	1	0	0	1	0	.220	.233	.341
	Totals	29	1	4	1	1	11	5

Braves
BATTING: 2B: Ozuna (8, Darvish); Tromp (5, Kolek). TB: Albies; Arcia, Or; Ozuna 2; Tromp 2. RBI: Albies (20). Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Olson. GIDP: Harris II, M; Ozuna. Team RISP: 1-for-3. Team LOB: 2.
FIELDING: E: Acuña Jr. (1, fielding).

Padres Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	P-S	ERA
Darvish (W, 4-1)	7.0	2	0	0	1	9	0	99-70	2.08
Morejon	1.0	0	0	0	0	2	0	8-7	2.55
Kolek	1.0	2	1	1	0	0	0	17-13	4.50
Totals	9.0	4	1	1	1	11	0

Braves Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	P-S	ERA
Elder (L, 1-2)	3.0	9	7	6	3	3	1	93-54	6.46
Kerr	3.1	4	2	2	0	4	2	64-46	2.89
Chavez	0.2	1	0	0	1	1	0	19-12	2.00
Lee, D	1.0	0	0	0	0	1	0	12-7	1.27
Williams, L	1.0	0	0	0	0	0	0	11-7	0.00
Totals	9.0	14	9	8	4	9	3

Game Info
Pitches-strikes: Darvish 99-70; Morejon 8-7; Kolek 17-13; Elder 93-54; Kerr 64-46; Chavez 19-12; Lee, D 12-7; Williams, L 11-7.
Groundouts-flyouts: Darvish 6-4; Morejon 1-0; Kolek 2-0; Elder 2-1; Kerr 2-4; Chavez 0-1; Lee, D 0-1; Williams, L 1-2.
Batters faced: Darvish 23; Morejon 3; Kolek 4; Elder 21; Kerr 15; Chavez 4; Lee, D 3; Williams, L 3.
Inherited runners-scored: Kerr 1-1.
Umpires: HP: Tom Hanahan. 1B: Phil Cuzzi. 2B: Alex Tosi. 3B: Tony Randazzo.
Weather: 81 degrees, Partly Cloudy.
Wind: 5 mph, Out To LF.
First pitch: 7:10 PM.
T: 2:53.
Att: 39,203.
Venue: Truist Park.
May 19, 2024

Inning	Scoring Play	Score
Top 1	Jake Cronenworth homers (8) on a fly ball to right field. Jurickson Profar scores.	2-0 SD
Top 1	Jackson Merrill singles on a ground ball to right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. Manny Machado scores. Xander Bogaerts to 2nd.	3-0 SD
Top 4	Padres challenged (tag play), call on the field was overturned: Fernando Tatis Jr. doubles (7) on a fly ball to right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. Ha-Seong Kim scores. Luis Arraez scores. Fernando Tatis Jr. to 3rd.	5-0 SD
Top 4	Jurickson Profar doubles (9) on a line drive to right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. Fernando Tatis Jr. scores.	6-0 SD
Top 4	Xander Bogaerts out on a sacrifice fly to left fielder Jarred Kelenic. Jurickson Profar scores.	7-0 SD
Top 5	Luis Campusano homers (4) on a line drive to left field.	8-0 SD
Top 7	Ha-Seong Kim homers (6) on a fly ball to left center field.	9-0 SD
Bottom 9	Ozzie Albies singles on a line drive to left fielder José Azocar. Chadwick Tromp scores.	9-1 SD

Team	Highlight
ATL	Starting lineups for Padres at Braves - May 19, 2024 (00:00:09)
SD	Yu Darvish's outing against the Braves (00:00:26)

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E	LOB
Padres	3	0	0	4	1	0	1	0	0		9	14	0	10
Braves	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1		1	4	1	2

Decisions

• Winner: Yu Darvish (4-1, 2.08)
• Loser: Bryce Elder (1-2, 6.46)

Division Scoreboard

WSH 5 @ PHI 11 - Final
NYM 7 @ MIA 3 - Final
Next Braves Game: Mon, May 20, 12:20 PM EDT vs. Padres
^{Posted: 05/19/2024 10:05:16 PM EDT}

LAST MAN STANDING 14 saw four of our nine users succumb in the most low iq NRL way. Who in their right mind tips a Warriors game, I ask you? They've been in the competition since 1995 and since then, the only predictable thing about the Warriors is their unpredictability.
The rest of our tipsters took their chances and came out on top, leaving us with 5 users still standing into Round 12.
Give me your tip by PM or in reply to this post please! Before the first game of the round lest I give you the punno game
Progressive results

round	users	correct	wrong	% correct	with a life	no life	now dead	% dead
r1a	575	68	507	12%	68	507	0	0%
r1b	792	249	365	41%	25	267	500	63%
r2	292	196	37	67%	18	185	89	30%
r3	203	68	111	38%	8	70	125	62%
r4	78	24	47	34%	2	28	48	62%
r5	30	18	11	60%	0	20	10	33%
r6	20	20	0	100%	0	20	0	0%
r7	20	12	8	67%	0	12	8	40%
r8	12	11	1	92%	0	11	1	8%
r9	11	9	2	82%	0	9	2	18%
r10	9	9	0	100%	0	9	0	0%
r11	9	5	4	56%	0	5	4	44%

BASIC RULES

1) EACH WEEK, go to the GOOGLE FORM above and submit your single tip. That's one team, that you think will win their game that week. A single team, out of the entire round. Surely that's easy as! If your team wins, WOOHOO! You're through to the next week. If they don't, you're OUT OF THE GAME!* A draw is a loss, as far as this game is concerned. All decisions are final and the result as it stands at the end of any extra time is the result we use. ONE TIP PER PLAYER PER ROUND!
2) THERE WILL BE ONE LIFE available to you until the start of Round 10. That means, you can tip incorrectly once only prior to Round 10 and you won't be eliminated. That gives us all a chance to see what's going on with each of the teams and also allows for users to start late.
3) Once we get to ROUND 16 then it's new rules whereby you cannot tip the same team twice. We will cover that when we get there. Until then, you can tip Melbourne every week if you want to.
4) Whoever is the last man standing wins the /NRL Reddit jersey of your chosen size.
5) If everyone happens to get it wrong on a particular week, then we move on to the next week as if nothing happened.
6) We are tipping State of Origins independently of the round matches.
7) ANY QUESTIONS LET ME KNOW

Tips by user

all users had used their life by round ten, no asterisks required

user	tip	result
0_Kids_Three_Money	Melbourne	✔️
Malaxage918	Dolphins	✔️
Proxima_Centuri	Newcastle	✔️
imaginationASDF	Cowboys	✔️
Kilo-papa-uniform	Melbourne	✔️

Expired users

luser	tip	lol rekt
Eastern-Tip7796	Panthers	❌
randomologist99	Panthers	❌
Zero_Focks	Panthers	❌
nangarranga	Panthers	❌

So, this is really long but I think it's worth the read as there has been nothing else like this in the Gtag community before. I have been working on this almost every day since Valentines Day Update 2022. I have changed it, restarted it, and updated it for every new Gtag update. I will make Updates to the in the future as it seems like we are getting more updates and more maps in the future.
Updates are not always literal, for example, the Human Tag Update only shows that humans exist or once existed in the Gorilla Tag world. The Monkes are not literally wearing masks that resemble humans. This logic applies to every update unless it's just cosmetics or a new map. Also, it's really weird at the first few Chapters so just stick with it or skip ahead. Ask any question in the comments about why I put the things I put and if you want evidence.
Most recent Updates to this are in Chapters 8, 14, 15, and 16
BI = Before Infection AI = After Infection
Prologue: Gods
4,500,000,000 BI - 212,001 BI
When Earth is formed, two gods form with it to rule over the planet. Mother Nature, the god of life and nature, and the Illuminati, the god of chaos and ice. Mother Nature usually takes the form of a 3,000-foot-tall tree called the Tree of Life, while the Illuminati takes the form of an ice pyramid with an ice eye in the center. Mother Nature creates life to populate Earth while the Illuminati constantly tries to kill it.
Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of Humanity
212,000 - 200,001 BI
Humans, the most powerful species on Earth has cut down the Tree of Life and taken Mother Nature out of control. This leaves the Illuminati to slowly creep into the modern society. Some Humans form a cult around it, and they are the most powerful people on Earth. That means, the Illuminati can tell them to do something, and they can affect the most powerful nations on the planet.
Eventually, the Illuminati tricks the humans into fighting each other. The biggest nations on the world begin to go to war with some of the biggest possible nukes. They destroy the surface of the Earth causing it to go into a nuclear ice age. The Illuminati, an ice god, now has full control over Earth. Anytime life appears, it almost instantly dies. However, some humans were able to survive and eventually, the ice age comes to an end, and no god is in control of Earth.
Chapter 2: Monke
200,000 BI - 1,001 BI
After hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, Humans have evolved into a new species called Monkes. Monkes are gorilla-like apes that can survive the harshest of conditions. Their diet consists of grass and bugs. Some bugs and patches of grass have survived over the past few million years.
Mother Nature has started to take back control of the world as she creates the Tree of Life and a whole forest around it in a crater from a nuke. Many Monkes travel to this crater and end up being trapped as the forest is on a lower level then the rest of the crater.
Chapter 3: Rise of the Monkes
1,000 BI - 601 BI
All other Monkes go extinct meaning that the only remaining Monkes are in this crater. One day the Monkes decide to finally make the jump as they all jump down into the forest. Most of them die, but the few that survive are left without legs. About 100 Monkes are alive and they quickly learn to use their arms like legs.
Unfortunately, just like there Human ancestors, the first thing they do is cut down the Tree of Life and use its wood. This leaves Mother Nature powerless again. The wood from the Tree of Life will last them for thousands of years. They build bridges, tree houses, ramps, and a gazebo in the forest. All the children of the surviving Monkes also don't have legs making it now a fundamental part of their species.
They hollow out the inside of the Tree of Life's stump and start to build tunnels out of it. These tunnels reach out to all over the crater. One tunnel leads to a small set of canyons covered in sand. Another tunnel leads to a massive flat, rocky, landscape in the other side of the crater. The final tunnel goes straight down into the ground until it hits a large cave filled with crystals.
They build mines underneath the cave and harvest the large crystals. These crystals are radioactive because of the ancient nukes. The Monkes harvest the crystals and start to use them in technology. They create lamps, litghtposts, lights, signs, and even their greatest accomplishment a computer.
Chapter 4: The City
600 BI - 30 BI
The large, flat, rocky landscape they discovered has a lot of useful recourses in it. Over the next few hundred years they build an entire city with large skyscrapers and new technology that is widespread. There are thousands of Monkes now living in The City. The forest and canyons have become vacation places for most Monkes, and the homes of the most rich or important Monkes.
The Monkes decide to have a leader, so a rich family decides to step up and become the royals of the Monkes. There king is named Yorick, and their queen is named Lucy. They both live in a basement-like area rights next to the main entrance into The City. Queen Lucy also turns the canyons into an industrial area and improves quality of life for the main populous.
King Yorick and Queen Lucy have a son named Blue. By the time Prince Blue was 13 he already starting his dream job of being a scientist.
Chapter 5: The Hunt War
29 BI - 21 BI
A tunnel is dug in city after, and they dig all the way until the edge of the crater. The walls of the crater look like large mountains from down below and they are extremely cold. They accidentally cause an avalanche, and the base of the walls are filled with snow and ice. From this avalanche comes the god of chaos and ice, the Illuminati. The Illuminati causes many snowstorms and causes a sort of Ice Age.
Queen Lucy tries to keep everyone calm and civil. However, the Illuminati is able to influence the Monkes minds and causes chaos and destruction to happen all throughout Monke society. After years of pure chaos, the Monkes are able to split into two factions, The Monkes, and the Smiles. They also are helped by newly discovered species that came with the Ice Age. These species are Penguins, Polar Bears, Snow Owls, and many other species that live in the cold. These species were the only survivors of the ancient human war that nearly killed Earth. Over the past few hundred thousand years, they have all migrated across the world, and have worked together even if they were from different poles of the Earth.
The royal scientist, Prince Blue has created many new technologies before. During the war, he creates a Hunt Watch. A Hunt Watch is a watch that targets the nearest enemy to you. Once you touch that enemy with the watch on, they turn into an Ice Monke and can easily be shattered to bits. Over time, this technology allowed them to win the war and bring somewhat order back.
Chapter 6: The Ice Monkes
20 BI - 1 BI
Many Ice Monkes were not killed in the war, usually they were turned into Ice Monkes but were able to get away before being shattered. The Ice Monkes are still just regular Monkes except they are made of ice, can't go near heat, and are fragile. Even though the war was over, the Ice Monkes were still treated horribly. In this already hard time period, the Ice Monkes had absolutely nothing. Many veterans of the war still had their Hunt Watches, causing many more Ice Monkes to be formed.
Meanwhile the Illuminati builds snow castles for itself in the forest. This means that the mountain base was safe to enter now. To lighten the spirit of this dark time they built a large waterslide in this new area. Many murders and crimes still happen throughout The City, but one day it gets out of hand. King Yorick is assonated, his head was chopped off in the middle of The City. The now lonely Queen Lucy keeps his skull in her home.
Chapter 7: The Infection
0 AI - 3 AI
Ever since the bombs dropped hundreds of thousands of years ago, a volcano has slowly been forming in the crater. Now, the volcano has fully formed and is erupting. All the snow and ice are melted, the Illuminati is gone, the caves are flooded, and the mines are caved in. The base of the walls still has snow but lots of it melts and reshapes its surface.
In the lava was an extremophile virus that can survive the lavas heat. It is radioactive and spreads very quickly. This virus is called the Infection, and many Monkes get it. The infected Monkes get resistant to lava, they get stronger, they get faster, there skin is replaced with lava, and they have an uncontrollable instinct to hunt down normal Monkes and infect them.
The infected spread everywhere but The City is able to be kept safe and nobody can enter or leave The City. After a few years the volcano stops erupting, but the Infection stays around.
Chapter 8: Calming Down
4 AI - 6 AI
Prince Blue finds a cure for the Infection, some Monkes are given jobs to specifically leave The City and cure a ton of infected Monkes. They start doing this and it actually works. The cure is called Kai Juice. Anytime someone enters The City, they are given Kai Juice just in case. It is no longer dangerous to leave The City as if you get infected you can immediately drink some Kai Juice and go back to normal.
The caves and mines are drained and dug up. The old caves and mines completely caved in and revealed even more caves underneath. They start mining again and find loads of dinosaur bones along with a 40-foot-long crystal. Prince Blue has a son named Pink, but unfortunately during such great times, Queen Lucy dies of old age. Blue becomes King Blue and Pink becomes Prince Pink. There is a massive funeral for Queen Lucy that spans from The City all the way to the forest. They burn her body and put her ashes in a vase beneath a grave.
Chapter 9: Exploration
7 AI - 17 AI
A large tunnel is found on the forest walls, they follow it, and it leads out of the crater. Just on the other side of the crater is a beach covered in ancient, broken, human buildings. King Blue sees this and is the first to figure out that there was a complex civilization before them.
A few years later, they have made boats to sail out into the ocean and have built shops to supply the ships on shore. The ocean and beach are also home to many new animals. Meanwhile, King Blue discovered that if an infected Monke stays infected for multiply years, they harden and become rock. When they harden, they can't infect anything, but they can't be cured either. They also get even stronger, even faster, and their rock skin is almost impenetrable.
Chapter 10: The Tree of Life
18 AI - 47 AI
King Blue has been studying everything he can since he became king, and he has noticed that it is possible to revive the Tree of Life. For hundreds of years the Tree of Life's stump has been sitting in the forest, so King Blue is going to be the first one to do anything about it.
Over the next decade they nurture the stump and help it constantly until the Tree of Life has fully grown back. The only problem is that the Tree of Life is almost a mile tall, and they can't climb up that. King Blue and his engineering team spend the next few years building a rocket. When they are finished, they put it in the middle of The City and launch it. On the rocket is a team of explorers and engineers to work on top of the Tree of Life.
When on top of it they build large platforms along with massive rocks wheels and other things powered by winds. When they come back down, months later, they tell everyone what they built. The rocket becomes the main form of transportation in between The City and the Tree of Life’s top. The public uses that rocket to get up there because now people live on top of the Tree of Life in a place called Cloudtown.
Chapter 11: Calm Before the Storm
48 AI - 54 AI
King Blue and his team start to develop a new rocket after realizing how well they built the first rocket. The second rocket they build is not in The City and much larger. They build this rocket for years before eventually, it is done. It launched, flew out of the atmosphere, and took a 3-day journey through space until they landed on the Moon.
The Illuminati has created a being named Humbug. Humbug appears as a 30-foot-tall snowman. Humbug also has the abilities to change size, change the size of other things, transform, and transform other things. He takes the form of an old Monke named Santa Claus. In the form of Santa, he would give out presents to everyone and create ridiculously large birthday cakes for everyone. Everyone loved him and had no idea of his true form. He would use his powers every now and then to shrink people down and kidnap them. Over time he would slowly transform them into children's toys that he would give out to the people. However, the Santa form broke down over time. His red clothes and white beard becoming gray. But the public still loved and cherished him.
Chapter 12: Humbug
55 AI - 62 AI
Humbug reveals his true form and takes over The City. He shrinks down King Blue and Prince Pink. He then mutilates and transforms them into monsters called the Monkeyes. He traps them in a miniature maze and throws Monkes in there to be killed by their previous leaders. Everything is covered in snow once again by the Illuminati, but he still is not fully in control. Humbug takes over everything the Monkes have made before climbing his way up the Tree of Life. Humbug makes it up there and destroys Cloudtown in an attempt to take control over the Tree of Life. This does not work.
Over a few years, the Monkes have been able to create something called a Tesla Coil. The Tesla Coil is a machine that can take away Humbugs powers and use it against him. Humbug's powers are stripped away, and the Monkes take back control. Humbug is shrunken down and trapped in a miniature maze. The Monkes also start to use his powers to make themselves super big. However, with King Blue and Prince Pink turned into monsters, and Humbug overthrown, the Monkes have no leader.
Chapter 13: The Giants War
63 AI - 75 AI
The Monkes have been living peacefully for a few years, but eventualy, the different sizes start to look down on each other. This leads into the Giants War, where the different Monke sizes fight for 9 years. Eventually, the Monke population dwindle so much, that the war ended. The Monkes that did not change their size did not interact with the Monkes that changed their size. Now, tiny Monke skulls and giant Monke skulls are littered everywhere, and the only surviving Monkes are the ones that never changed their size.
Chapter 14: Peace
76 AI - 90 AI
The Tree of Life grows massively and repairs the damage done by Humbug years ago. Countless new branches and huge leaves sprout from its trunk. This allows the Monkes to make their way back up to the treetop with a newly repaired rocket. Cloudtown is rebuild, slowly, but rebuilt nonetheless. This is called, New Cloudtown.
A year after the Giants War ends, the skulls and bodies are cleared out. The City was practically empty as most buildings were either destroyed, damaged, or tilted over in the war. Many Monkes just went to New Cloudtown to survive as going anywhere else other than The City would mean being attacked by Infected Monkes. Also, during this time, the mutated monsters that were once King Blue and Prince Pink were killed by another Monke for sport. Their souls go on to become ghosts that wander the city. King Blue's soul becomes a ghost called the Ghost Wanderer, and Prince Pink's soul becomes a ghost called the Ghost Lurker.
The population has grown more, and the Monkes have created sports to celebrate the era of peace. These sports are Hockey, Watersoccer, and Paintbrawl. This happens during the fall where Lucy's spirit flies out from her grave and starts playing with some random civilian Monkes. She then reunites with the souls of her son and grandson in the forms of the Ghost Wanderer and the Ghost Lurker.
Chapter 15: Advancements
91 AI - 100 AI
A new type of plant is found in New Cloudtown. This plant sprouts large leaves with handle-like stems. These plants are called Glider Vines. The leaves of Glider Vines are used as gliders to fly around New Cloudtown.
The Monkes are unable to explore anymore. The ocean is too vast, they never got back from explorers they sent into the ocean, and the crater walls are too high to climb. So, they spend a few years creating an artificial environment that they can change on a will. They do this by using a Tesla Coil that harness Humbug's powers. In the first testing of it, they try to bring back the vast cave systems they found hundreds of years ago. It was an attempt to make infinite recourses. It turns out as a failure, everything is extremely broken and blocky. After much testing, they have it so it could be a tundra, a swamp, an ancient temple, and basically anything else. This underground, artificial environment is called Rotation.
They decide to excavate a larger area for Rotation. They then finish their original plan of recreating that same ancient cave system. This time it works, and it looks just like how it did hundreds of years ago. However, during the excavating of the larger area, the long dead Queen Lucy's vase finds itself in Rotation. Minor Monkes enter this cave and start mining, but when they discover Lucy's vase, they open it. From her long dead ashes rises the confused, lost, and insane spirit of Lucy. She has been trapped underground in the dark for almost a century now and has gone insane. The minors call her the Burnt Lucy, a dark reflection of their long dead Queen.
Chapter 16: The Return of Humbug
101 AI - ??? AI
The usage of the Tesla Coil attracts Humbug. He is able to escape the miniature maze the Monkes trapped him in, and slowly make his way to Rotation. When he arrives, he is able to get some of his powers back from the Tesla Coil, but he is noticed by the Monkes.
One of the first things Humbug does is kidnap three Monkes and turns them into small monsters called Monkeyes. He places them in the tiny maze that he was once trapped in.

After trying to create a 3.5 game with West Marches vibes, and failing, I picked up the DCC core rulebook and a half pound bag of dice. That was a year ago.
Finally got everyone together. And by everyone, I mean 3 out of the six who had committed to joining. We power on.
I had the map blown up onto an architectural print and didn't bother hiding anything. I might make that effort in the future, but I was just rolling with low effort.
The first death was when a character tried to knock down the entrance. (Sidenote; this is my partners character and I just finished the second Pern book on her recommendation before leaving to meet the session and I really expected her to figure it out).
A second character rolled an 18 on a lockpick, and I'm pretty sure I ruled incorrectly, but I didn't have faith in them waiting two hours and faith in myself to make it rewarding.
Two more died to the statues. They tried to marionette the corpse of their fallen comrade, so I had them make a personality roll as a bluff. Would've let them get away with a DC 10, but they rolled a 2 with a +0 modifier. The character wasn't used to the dwarf's proportions and leaned too far into the room, then took his last breath pinned to the wall.
The statue had three victims. The party never searched the room because they were too scared. A pair of characters ran into the burial chamber, but left the door open. The rest went towards the scrying chamber.
I skipped initiative rolls here. The statue made its first attack, then we went clockwise. The skeletons got added at the bottom, and Sssisssauraaaag went after the players who opened his door, since their turns were over and he "immediately attacks without hesitation or parley."
The statue fired at the character in the burial chamber still in view, burning him immediately. The other closed the door in time for it to absorb the last fireball, them started fighting the skeletons. One got a bite, but rolled low enough damage. He finished it off and moved on to the pool room.
The other two fought Sssisssauraaaag, combining one character's oil with another's Firestone to ignite it. 1d6 per round until a successful reflex save to get the oil off or put it out; basically same as the statue. Here they did learn about aliens before joining the character in the pool.
Unfortunately, a player had to leave here but we finished it out with the three remaining characters.
The character in the pool put out his torch when the statues began lurching towards him, and I think I gave away their menace but they were still just around. He started removing the gems immediately and the player understood water was draining.
The other characters went downstairs, passed the table without cooking, and found the clay army with water dripping on them. They ran back upstairs and picked the stones until the floor buckled.
One character had a chain, so they tied the lightest character on the end to continue plucking out the diamonds. Well he rolled a 4 strength check, and the chain slipped out of his hand. the dwarf to fall to his death, but the clay army was no more.
They put the crystal ball on the depression of the table and goatfaced man talked to them.
Next, I want to run Sailors on the Starless Sea. We'll have two leveled characters and hopefully two new players who get their four 0-level.

Almost done configuring my new T480. Finished getting Manjaro installed and all of my usual binds set up and I finished getting firmware upgrades installed. The only thing left is an issue where the laptop takes forever to wake up from sleep when I either suspend or close the lid.
I have absolutely no clue what's causing this. The device boots from cold faster than it wakes from sleep. Not only this I was going back to my t430 with an almost identical install and the t430 wakes from sleep almost the instant you open the lid?!?! so what the hell is going on?
The only differences between the two machines are the t480 has the stock nvme and the t430 has a samsung sata ssd. additionally the t480 has a dual install with windows 11 installed on a separate partition as this was the os the device came with. I figured it was nice to have a free copy of windows 11 and I figured I'd leave it installed in case I ever need it for something but I mainly run to manjaro. Noteworthy - win11 wakes from sleep instantly so it's just a manjaro issue
I've tried various bios tweaks as well as any and all updates. here's the output from dmesg, it didn't seem like there was anything in it that seemed wrong to me but I'm not terribly familiar with it.
[ 30.742491] PM: suspend entry (deep)
[ 30.758666] Filesystems sync: 0.016 seconds
[ 30.795379] Freezing user space processes
[ 30.796818] Freezing user space processes completed (elapsed 0.001 seconds)
[ 30.796823] OOM killer disabled.
[ 30.796824] Freezing remaining freezable tasks
[ 30.797923] Freezing remaining freezable tasks completed (elapsed 0.001 seconds)
[ 30.797987] printk: Suspending console(s) (use no_console_suspend to debug)
[ 30.959478] e1000e: EEE TX LPI TIMER: 00000011
[ 33.984127] ACPI: EC: interrupt blocked
[ 34.267382] ACPI: PM: Preparing to enter system sleep state S3
[ 34.276772] ACPI: EC: event blocked
[ 34.276775] ACPI: EC: EC stopped
[ 34.276777] ACPI: PM: Saving platform NVS memory
[ 34.276856] Disabling non-boot CPUs ...
[ 34.278870] smpboot: CPU 1 is now offline
[ 34.281938] smpboot: CPU 2 is now offline
[ 34.284786] smpboot: CPU 3 is now offline
[ 34.289129] smpboot: CPU 4 is now offline
[ 34.292000] smpboot: CPU 5 is now offline
[ 34.294575] smpboot: CPU 6 is now offline
[ 34.297244] smpboot: CPU 7 is now offline
[ 34.299784] ACPI: PM: Low-level resume complete
[ 34.299830] ACPI: EC: EC started
[ 34.299831] ACPI: PM: Restoring platform NVS memory
[ 34.300493] Enabling non-boot CPUs ...
[ 34.300612] smpboot: Booting Node 0 Processor 1 APIC 0x2
[ 34.301311] CPU1 is up
[ 34.301409] smpboot: Booting Node 0 Processor 2 APIC 0x4
[ 34.302087] CPU2 is up
[ 34.302179] smpboot: Booting Node 0 Processor 3 APIC 0x6
[ 34.302870] CPU3 is up
[ 34.302965] smpboot: Booting Node 0 Processor 4 APIC 0x1
[ 34.303770] CPU4 is up
[ 34.303869] smpboot: Booting Node 0 Processor 5 APIC 0x3
[ 34.304570] CPU5 is up
[ 34.304671] smpboot: Booting Node 0 Processor 6 APIC 0x5
[ 34.305372] CPU6 is up
[ 34.305486] smpboot: Booting Node 0 Processor 7 APIC 0x7
[ 34.306224] CPU7 is up
[ 34.309097] ACPI: PM: Waking up from system sleep state S3
[ 34.403451] ACPI: EC: interrupt unblocked
[ 35.899610] ACPI: EC: event unblocked
[ 35.904937] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] [ENCODER:94:DDI A/PHY A] is disabled/in DSI mode with an ungated DDI clock, gate it
[ 35.904944] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] [ENCODER:102:DDI B/PHY B] is disabled/in DSI mode with an ungated DDI clock, gate it
[ 35.904948] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] [ENCODER:118:DDI C/PHY C] is disabled/in DSI mode with an ungated DDI clock, gate it
[ 35.906438] xhci_hcd 0000:3c:00.0: xHC error in resume, USBSTS 0x401, Reinit
[ 35.906441] usb usb3: root hub lost power or was reset
[ 35.906443] usb usb4: root hub lost power or was reset
[ 35.914797] nvme nvme0: 8/0/0 default/read/poll queues
[ 36.147790] usb 2-3: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
[ 36.290127] usb 1-7: reset full-speed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
[ 36.554476] usb 1-8: reset high-speed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd
[ 36.714317] pcieport 0000:00:1c.6: PCI bridge to [bus 03]
[ 36.714342] pcieport 0000:00:1c.6: bridge window [mem 0xe8100000-0xe81fffff]
[ 36.714407] OOM killer enabled.
[ 36.714414] Restarting tasks ...
[ 36.714462] pci_bus 0000:06: Allocating resources
[ 36.714492] pci_bus 0000:3c: Allocating resources
[ 36.714777] pcieport 0000:00:1d.2: PCI bridge to [bus 3d]
[ 36.714791] pcieport 0000:00:1d.2: bridge window [mem 0xe8000000-0xe80fffff]
[ 36.714926] pci_bus 0000:06: Allocating resources
[ 36.714955] pci_bus 0000:3c: Allocating resources
[ 36.714959] mei_hdcp 0000:00:16.0-b638ab7e-94e2-4ea2-a552-d1c54b627f04: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_hdcp_ops [i915])
[ 36.717221] done.
[ 36.717275] random: crng reseeded on system resumption
[ 36.739340] usb 1-9: USB disconnect, device number 4
[ 36.793575] PM: suspend exit
[ 36.794770] Bluetooth: hci0: Bootloader revision 0.0 build 26 week 38 2015
[ 36.795821] Bluetooth: hci0: Device revision is 16
[ 36.795832] Bluetooth: hci0: Secure boot is enabled
[ 36.795836] Bluetooth: hci0: OTP lock is enabled
[ 36.795840] Bluetooth: hci0: API lock is enabled
[ 36.795843] Bluetooth: hci0: Debug lock is disabled
[ 36.795846] Bluetooth: hci0: Minimum firmware build 1 week 10 2014
[ 36.812008] Bluetooth: hci0: Found device firmware: intel/ibt-12-16.sfi
[ 36.862688] usb 1-9: new full-speed USB device number 5 using xhci_hcd
[ 36.907395] e1000e 0000:00:1f.6 enp0s31f6: NIC Link is Down
[ 37.004928] usb 1-9: New USB device found, idVendor=06cb, idProduct=009a, bcdDevice= 1.64
[ 37.004933] usb 1-9: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=1
[ 37.004936] usb 1-9: SerialNumber: a6fd98866605
[ 38.819185] Bluetooth: hci0: Waiting for firmware download to complete
[ 38.819733] Bluetooth: hci0: Firmware loaded in 1960657 usecs
[ 38.819879] Bluetooth: hci0: Waiting for device to boot
[ 38.833015] Bluetooth: hci0: Device booted in 12905 usecs
[ 38.833077] Bluetooth: hci0: Malformed MSFT vendor event: 0x02
[ 38.838330] Bluetooth: hci0: Found Intel DDC parameters: intel/ibt-12-16.ddc
[ 38.840929] Bluetooth: hci0: Applying Intel DDC parameters completed
[ 38.841918] Bluetooth: hci0: Firmware revision 0.1 build 19 week 44 2021
[ 38.844049] Bluetooth: hci0: Reading supported features failed (-16)
[ 38.844064] Bluetooth: hci0: Error reading debug features
[ 38.844073] Bluetooth: hci0: HCI LE Coded PHY feature bit is set, but its usage is not supported.
[ 38.896544] Bluetooth: MGMT ver 1.22
[ 40.364061] wlp3s0: authenticate with c0:94:35:6d:6a:3d
[ 40.377318] wlp3s0: send auth to c0:94:35:6d:6a:3d (try 1/3)
[ 40.384511] wlp3s0: authenticated
[ 40.385984] wlp3s0: associate with c0:94:35:6d:6a:3d (try 1/3)
[ 40.393515] wlp3s0: RX AssocResp from c0:94:35:6d:6a:3d (capab=0x1011 status=0 aid=3)
[ 40.406831] wlp3s0: associated
[ 40.443106] wlp3s0: Limiting TX power to 30 (30 - 0) dBm as advertised by c0:94:35:6d:6a:3d

hi! If someone is still even on this soul, then meet my version of the OMARI AU! the CR Stands for "civil reader" (my user name). Now, what are the basics? This is basically a Frankensteined version of all of my favorite ideas for an OMARI AU. The incident: Still, during the argument, but MARI slapped SUNNY, Causing him to stumble back. MARI Immediately felt bad, And tried to take his hand.... But he stumbled back too much and fell down the stairs, making it look like she pushed him. HERO Saw the entire ordeal, and became a LLLLLIIIIITTTTTTLLLLLLLEEEEEE afraid of her... But decided to help her hide the body by Burying him. Whos swapped with who?: MARI and SUNNY are swapped (I imagery is swapped with hand imagery, Knife imagery is swapped with shovel and rope imagery, stabbing is hanging, and HIKKI'S (swapped OMORI) Weapon is the shovel.), BASIL and HERO swap (BASIL looks happy, But didn't leave his house for months after SUNNY died. HERO is very...very...quiet... And his relationship with KEL Isn't very good, Considering he left for college. Also, stranger is now "Unidentified") AUBREY and KEL swap (AUBREY was Depressed, Put a mixture of Home life getting better, and her actually able to move on, She's probably the happiest of the group. The reason KEL Is so mad It's because he didn't have HERO to lean on, BASIL not coming out, and MARI Being so "apathetic" There she didn't even bother coming outside to check up on him Made him kinda snap, But he secretly still goes out looking for sunny, Hoping that he was still out there...). what about the MARIs?: Something is now called someone (someone Is way more humanoid, Even if he's a shadow figure. SUNNYs someone has red, bleeding eyes lining The top of his head, What's a very noticeable mouth in the middle (his head spily open when he landed, The mouth represents the crack. HEROs someone has no eyes, And it has a constant gumless Smile, Which represents the corrupted image of him trying to comfort MARI.) and i've covered HELLSUNNY Before, just check out my profile! Anything else?: Well, there is, but I'll say that for separate posts.

With MSI wrapped up, I decided to make a quiz for MSI viewers. There's 20 total questions. How many can you get out of twenty?
CHAMPION QUESTIONS

• Q: Which champions had the highest presence (pick/ban percentage)?
  • A: Kalista and Senna at 91%
• Q: Of champions with >3 games played, which champion had the highest winrate?
  • A: Ornn was played in 13 games and won 12 of those games, averaging a 91% winrate.
• Q: Which toplane champion averaged the most GPM?
  • A: Twisted Fate averaged 457 GPM. Passive diff.
• Q: Of junglers with >3 games player, which one had the highest DPM?
  • A: Nidalee with 627 DPM. Without the number of games restriction restriction, the highest DPM champion would be Karthus at 808 DPM.
• Q: Of champions with >3 games played, which champion had the worst winrate?
  • A: Rell was picked 6 times and lost all 6 games, thus achieving a 0% winrate.
• Q: Which champion was most banned?
  • A: Vi was banned 47 times and only picked 12 times. Senna came in second, being banned 46 times.
• Q: Which two roles had the most champion diversity?
  • A: Jungle and support both had 23 unique picks.
• Q: Of champions with >3 games played, which champion had the highest DPM?
  • A: Corki with 951 DPM across 14 games. Lucian trailed behind a close 2nd with 920 DPM across 18 games.

TEAM QUESTIONS

• Q: Which team averaged the longest game duration?
  • A: Gen.G eSports averaged 34:38 minute games. They also averaged the most kills (17.4) per game and most towers taken (7.5).
• Q: Which team topped kill/death ratio, GPM and GDM (gold differential/min)?
  • A: G2 eSports topped this with 1.38 KD, 1936 GPM, 149 GDM.
• Q: Which team had the highest dragon take percentage?
  • A: Top eSports with 64.2% took the lead here.
• Q: Which team had the highest first blood percentage?
  • A: BLG eSports with a percentage of 59.1% first bloods.

PLAYER QUESTIONS

• Q: Of players who made it to the bracket stage, which player had the highest CSM, DMG% and DPM?
  • A: Gen.G Chovy averaged 864 DPM, 32.2% DMG% and 9.3 CSM.
• Q: Which player had the highest KDA? Hint:this player also broke the international tournament kill record
  • A: Gen.G Peyz topped MSI averaging 6.3 KDA beating out Chovy with a 5.7 KDA. Unsurprisingly, after dropping a 28 kill game, Peyz also averaged the highest average kills per game at 6.9.
• Q: Which toplaner dealt the highest DMG%?
  • A: TL Bwipo at 23.2%.
• Q: Which two junglers averaged the highest GPM?
  • A: T1 Oner and G2 Yike both averaged 365 GPM?
• Q: Which player had the lowest KDA?
  • A: EST Zothve averaged a 0.7 KDA. He was the only player this MSI to have a sub-one KDA.
• Q: Excluding play-ins, which player averaged the most number of deaths per game?
  • A: BLG On averaged 4.0 deaths per game.

VIEWERSHIP QUESTIONS

• Q: Which was the most viewed series of the MSI tournament? (excluding Chinese platforms)
  • A: T1 vs BLG (lower bracket finals) with 2,829,728 viewers came number one, beating out GENG vs BLG (grand finals) with 2,616,116 viewers.
• Q: Which MSI Twitch stream had highest peak viewers?
  • A: Caedrel: 212k on 17 May streaming T1 vs G2. (source)

(Data taken from Esports Charts, gol.gg, and twitchtracker)

I had an idea for an eldritch blast build that uses a ton of self-healing in order to use Vital Sacrifice feat's blood boon as often as possible, adding the 2d6 necrotic damage on top of their hexed eldritch blast.
In terms of healing, Celestial warlock get's a pool of d6 equal to their warlock level + 1. As a bonus action, they can a number of them up to their charisma modifier and restore that much health to any creature within 60 ft. As a bonus action, this competes with both Hex & Vital Sacrifice, but as long as we have a blood boon going in to combat, we can cast hex the first round, use vital sacrifice for 2-3 rounds, and then Healing Light every 3rd or 4th round to pick us back up.
Pact of the Chain has Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, which makes it so any dice rolled to heal our warlock count as having rolled their max so long as the familiar is within one hundred feat. This is huge, as an imp familiar can just turn invisible and do nothing, and we get double the average hp from dice effects.
Race doesn't seem to matter much, but Dhampir seems thematically appropriate, plus they can get some healing through their bite, and spider climb will help gain vantage points for blasting from. The bite doesn't get buffed by Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, since the die is determining damage and the damage restores an equal amount of hit points.

• I'll not that variant human and custom lineage would give you a free feat so that you can have the 2 feats that feed this build by level 4, but if your DM allows starter feats, I'd go with the more flavorful option.

The Remarkable Recovery feat also makes it so when we regain health due to a spell, potion, or class feature, we regain an additional number of hit points equal to our constitution modifier.

• This means that a single die from Healing Light will restore 6 + our constitution modifier every time we use it, which keeps up with 2-3 uses of Vital Sacrifice.
• Hit Dice are a class feature, so when you expend one, you regain 8 + twice our constitution modifier hit points, which is now twice the average hp restored by a hit die.
• It doesn't buff the bite attack, since it's not a spell, potion, or class feature.

Periapt of Wound Closure is an uncommon item, that makes it so that when you expend a hit die to regain health, you double the number of hit points it restores. This is a bit fuzzy, because if remarkable recovery's extra hit points are considered from the feat in response to using the hit die, you regain hp equal to 16 + three times your constitution modifier. However, if remarkable recovery is considered to increase the number of hp the hit die restores, you regain 16 + four times your constitution modifier hp.
And finally, Periapt of Wound Closure stabilizes you whenever you are dying at the start of your turn. Remarkable recovery heals you a number of hp equal to your constitution modifier whenever you are stabilized. So combined, whenever you start your turn dying, you wake up with a small handful of hp. This can go off every round of the whole damn day as long as nothing manages to kill you outright by hitting you twice or exceeding your hp max.
If you felt like it, you could use a Doublet of Dramatic Demise, a common magic item which makes it so instead of falling unconscious at zero hp, you are incapacitated with a speed of 0. The draw back is that nat 1s on a death save are instant death, but with the Periapt of Wound Closure & Remarkable Recovery combo, you never roll death saves for this to be a problem. You don't gain much from this, but it does mean that enemies don't have advantage to hit you from being unconscious, and if they do hit you, it's not automatically a crit, so it's only 1 failed save.
At this point, we only technically need 3 levels of warlock. A 4th makes getting a feat for the build faster, but if you're starting at a higher level that might not be an issue.
More warlock levels also means more healing dice from Healing Light, but apart from that, warlock doesn't seem like it stands to give anything to help much with the build. Level 6 gives you resistance to radiant damage, and lets you add your charisma modifier to one damage roll against one target of a spell you cast that deals radiant or fire damage, but to be honest you aren't casting many of those.
Level 10 gives you a slightly worse version of inspiring leader.
Your level 14 feature might not even work with Periapt of Wound Closure on, since it's triggered when you need to make a death saving throw at the start of your turn. It's effect it better than periapt, but it's once per long rest so choosing between the two still seems to favor the periapt.

Hi all! I am currently a junior in high school and I attend a public school in Michigan ranked about 30th-ish in high school rankings in Michigan. This fall, I begin my college application process and I am so eager and excited, yet worried and stressed that I wont get in and my life will be over.
I wanted to share my high school stats and extra curriculars etc. with you all with the hopes that you guys could tell me what you think my chances of getting into the colleges that I am looking at are and to just lay out my current status.
(DISCLAIMER) My stats/description may come off as cocky or ignorant at some points, please don't take it the wrong way.
Background:
-White Male
-Low-Mid Middle Class Family
-Dad attended Michigan State University - he is a high school teacher
-Mom did not go to college -she works as basically a college counselor
-I will need financial aid for college, parents are not contributing
My highest ambitions in life/out of college:

• I hope to one day have a job in a high finance position in New York City or Chicago (Investment Banking, PE, Consulting, Quants etc) - therefore I am applying to top prestigious target schools for recruitment, internships, and networking opportunities
• I hope to one day be one of the greatest musicians of all time

Stats:
Grades, EC's, Leadership, Sports, Work, Businesses, Volunteer, Music, etc.

1. 4.0 GPA
2. 1390 SAT Score-the one thing that will hold me back? 😭 - I am going to take in probably 6 times. 1390 was my first try, 690 Reading and Writing, 700 Math
3. AP Classes: (I wish I would've done more)

Sophomore Year: AP US History (4)
Junior Year: AP World History, Most likely will get a 5; AP Precalculus, Most likely will get a 5 too.
Senior Year: AP Calculus BC, AP Statistics, AP Macroeconomics, AP Microeconomics

1. Musical Prodigy - Piano at least

Instruments: Piano, Guitar, Drums
Piano:

• 12 Years
• Completely Self Taught
• Rock n Roll, Boogie Woogie, Blues, Jazz, Country Western, and Gospel Pianist (not your average 17 year old piano player lol)
• Play By Ear (Play me a song on the radio, I'll play it back for you)

Guitar (Electric):

• 7 Years
• Completely Self Taught
• Same Music Styles as above
• Play By Ear
• My Room's walls are filled with guitar diagrams and sheets, it looks like I am going crazy lol-may use this in my college essays, idk haha.

Drums:

• 1 Year
• Completely Self Taught
• Same Music Styles as above
• Play by Ear

Five: Sports
Tennis:
-Freshman, Sophomore, Junior year Varsity Team
-2023 (Fall) Division 3 MHSAA #1 Doubles Individual State Champion
-#1 Ranked Doubles Player in the State of Michigan
-2023 First Team All State
-Never Lost a Conference Match/3-Time Team and Individual Back to Back to Back Conference Individual and Team Titles (2021, 2022, 2023)
-2 Time Individual Regional Champion, 2 Time Individual Regional Team Champions (2021, 2022)
-Apart of the 2021, 2022, 2023 all academic teams
-Finished 6th Place as a team in 2022, Finished 5th Place as a team in 2023
-I will play my senior year
Golf:
-Freshman, Sophomore: JV Golf Team
-Junior: Varsity Golf Team, Ranked 4th as a team in the state
-I will play my senior year (on the varsity team)
-Most Likely will win the Conference Championship and Regional Championship in the next two weeks 😬
Basketball:
-Freshman Year: Freshman Team
-Sophomore Year: JV Team
-Did not play junior year, and will not play senior year
Pickleball Club Member at my Highschool

1. Work/Businesses:

-Created a Piano Teaching Business the summer of 7th grade, have done that since. (Self Employed)
-Joined a friend on the summer before junior year to co-own a car detailing company (may rejoin, not sure) (Self Employed)
-Worked as an Usher at a movie theater, winter of junior year (Hourly Pay) - will return for winter of my senior year
-Will work as a tennis camp/lesson instructor with my tennis coach at a training facility this summer (Hourly Pay)

1. Volunteering

-A member of the National Honor Society
-Volunteered at Kids Food Basket, local libraries, tennis camp volunteering, and various school sponsored events

1. Leadership (Lacking-ish?)

-Business Owner with piano teaching in that I personally teach kids piano
-Varsity Tennis Captain
-Tennis Lesson Teaching this summer

1. Demonstrated Interest, to an extent lol

-Job Shadowing a CFO this summer at a company
-Visiting each college this summer as well
-Currently learning how to trade financial markets (Duration=1 year)
-Spend hours each day learning music and finance/math stuff
-Performed Piano (boogie woogie/rock n roll improvisations at high school talents shows, played piano in a wedding when I was 11, played piano at churches for graduation baccalaureates.

1. Essay Topics:

Few things I am considering including or basing my college essays off of:
-My determination and dedication to math, finance, music, and life in general
-Metaphorical topics about navigating the struggles of the social and academic aspects of high school
-My obsession with music from the 50s-90s
-My obsessions with gaining knowledge and learning as much as possible and why or how things happen or work.
-My obsessions with improving each day and getting stuff done
-How I am a winner in life and that I excel in the things I pursue and that I do everything I can to improve and win
*I am in the way early stage of brainstorming btw*

1. Letters of Recommendation:

-My Precalculus teacher: He told me he is going to write my letter of rec and I hadn't even asked him yet lol so I assume it's going to be a good one
-My AP World History teacher: Another teacher that loves me just as my math teacher does
-My High School Counselor: Also loves me and has connections to my family, so we are closer than other highschool students are with her.

1. COLLEGES I AM APPLYING TO:

*Main majointerest is Finance; want to do music as well so that it can stay apart of my life
*Want to do a double major: Finance, and Music (Maybe Minor or Triple Major with mathematics)
*Schools that don't offer a undergraduate business school I will most likely do some sort of combination of economics, mathematics, and music
Schools 😬:
Safety: Michigan State University (Broad School of Business) (Honors)
Reaches (All IB target schools are reaches 😭, except maybe Indiana):
-University of Michigan (Ross)
-Pennsylvania University (Wharton)
-New York University (Stern)
-Indiana University (Kelley)
-Columbia University - no undergraduate business school
-Northwestern University - no undergraduate business school
-Duke University - no undergraduate business school
-University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
-Vanderbilt University - no undergraduate business school
-University of Tennessee (Haslem)
-Penn State University (Smeal)
-Cornell University (SC Johnson)
Schools I might just apply to at the last minute for the heck of it:
-Princeton
-Miami (Florida)
-Illinois University
-Virginia University
THIS POST IS LONG AND I AM SORRY.
Please give me feedback on whether I'd have a strong chance or not of getting into these top schools. It would mean the world to me as I don't know where else I can go to get someone to help rate my stats and tell me if I am out of my mind or not about applying to these schools, or my goals in life in general.
Thank you for letting me rant, and please be honest

(sorry in advance for the long post) i recently finished my sophomore year at my 2-year community college and plan to transfer to a 4 year school for the fall. for context, i haven’t had the smoothest college route..i worked extremely hard in hs, playing sports and taking part in clubs, graduating with a 4.0gpa in the top 15 of my class, and i applied to a bunch of schools just for my parents to go behind my back and enroll me in cc without telling me. for the past 2 years they’ve been telling me that i can go anywhere i want once i graduate my sophomore year.
now that i’ve graduated, i obviously have to transfer but my parents did not let me apply anywhere that had an application fee, even though i’d be the one paying for it, which doesn’t make sense. but i graduated cc with a 4.0, and i applied to 1 school that’s about 20 mins away from where i live at home to live on campus, and their decision deadline is june 1st. i got a little bit of scholarship money for a merit scholarship but not enough to help cover the majority of the costs (i’m paying for school myself btw). for some reason, my dad did not know that i applied to live on campus (even though he knew it was my plan to do so all along), freaked out, and said there’s no way i’m attending the school. it would be about an additional 16k for housing and meals. i seriously don’t know what to do, as he’s just telling me this a week before decision day, and i feel like i’ve been lied to for the past 2 years.
i cannot live at home because it’s an extremely toxic and verbally/emotionally abusive household, and i don’t rly have a healthy or any kind of good relationship with my mother. and i haven’t even had a bedroom since i was about 10 years old. i seriously cannot put up with this and earn a degree while living off my living room floor, these past two years trying to do so have been terrible enough. my parents are extremely controlling but i’m at the point where it’s making me severely anxious and depressed, if i don’t go to college i don’t think i’ll ever escape. i worked too hard in hs and these past two years in college.
i guess what i’m trying to figure out is if there is any way i could get more scholarship money? i do like the school and want to live on campus, plus i cannot afford the costs to keep commuting to school. it’s pretty much too late to apply anywhere else, as application deadlines have passed, and the ones that haven’t passed cost money to apply (you see my issue? lol). could i write to anyone at the school to express my interest there and see if it’s worth a shot to get more scholarship money? is it too late? i seriously feel like a failure. any advice helps!🥲

Hi guys! I just really need help knowing if I’m crazy or not.
I (19 F) have a girlfriend (19 F) and we’ve been on and off again for a couple years. I’ll call her Jenny. We met online, and live 3.5 hours apart driving distance, so even though it’s do-able, we both struggle with not being able to see each other often with work, school, and other things. Right before I moved across the country for college Jenny “cheated” on me. I use quotes because we disagree here. About 8 months ago, I got screenshots and recordings from Jenny’s ex showing that they’d been talking for about 2 months towards the end of our relationship. We had broken up for different reasons a couple weeks earlier. No flirtatious messages were sent between them while we were actually in a relationship, but while we were dating, Jenny still went behind my back and talked to her ex after I’d already told her that I didn’t want them communicating. Even after we had broken up, she was still making it known that our breakup wasn’t final. Nothing physical happened, and they didn’t flirt while Jenny was with me, but I find it disrespectful and weird for her to go out of her way to hide that from me. Especially with her telling me that she loved me. During the time that we were on opposite sides of the country for college, she partied and hooked up with people, one of which being her current friend. Since then, we’ve worked on our ourselves separately in order to make our relationship work and forgiven each other for various things.
Now to the main point. I just got home from college today and Jenny and I have had this plan to move in together for about 2 months. We think living together would really help our relationship but I’m kind of getting hesitant because of this one reason. The first person that Jenny hooked up with was a girl that is now her friend. I’ll call her Emma. Both Jenny and Emma got drunk at a party with their friends and ended up hooking up over 6 months ago. At first they weren’t really friends with each other, but now they’re super close. Even though I know that Jenny only sees Emma as a friend, I still get super jealous and uncomfortable at the thought of them hanging out. Maybe as a subconscious fear? It’s not just the fact that they hang out together, but the fact that they seem so close. Even the mention of Emma’s name makes me feel hurt and embarrassed, but in every group photo Jenny and Emma are always right next to each other. Not even just close, but touching. It makes me unbelievably mad, but I usually don’t say anything because I want Jenny to feel like she can talk to me about anything. I have mentioned being uncomfortable about it before and anytime that Emma’s name is brought up I instantly shut down because I just don’t know what to say. It’s always the excuse that they’re just friends, and I do really believe that, but the part that rubs me the wrong way is that they’re always touching more than I think is appropriate. (I’ve seen pictures of them laying on top of each other, pressing their cheeks together in selfies, or just linking arms in group photos) One of their mutual friends has also commented on how it seems like there’s something romantic between them. Jenny has offered to explain this comment to me but i refused to hear it. My argument is that if she cared enough about me, she wouldn’t be that close to her all the time, let alone sending the pictures to me or posting them online. Jenny’s argument is that they’re just close friends. I’ve never met Emma, and honestly, I don’t want to. I’ve mentioned that Jenny should cut Emma off and she’s agreed, but I know she doesn’t really want to. I’m trying to act like that’s good enough for me but when i see them act like that together it’s just not. I don’t think I can imagine being in a relationship with Jenny if Emma is still in the picture, but I know her whole friend group will hate me for it. Is this something I should forget about or is it actually serious?

Several days ago my cat's collar had broke, so we got a replacement, both of which have a small bell.
My cat is approaching 4 years old and has been wearing the same collar since shortly after we adopted her when she was about 6 months old. Recently the safety clip on it had broke so she was without a collar for about a day and a half, but since I put the new collar on, she's been dashing everywhere, taking breaks to quickly and furiously lick the front of her chest floof, hiding behind our furniture, or staying couped up in the box I have on top of my bed for her. She's also started hissing, sometimes at nothing.
She's fine if I wake her up from a nap and is still cuddly, but after she wakes up a bit it's back to dashing around and the other stuff mentioned earlier.
I put the collar on last night and it's almost been a whole day, is this reaction normal? Should I just give her more time to adjust? The bell is a bit easier to make noise with and it's a bit higher of pitch, should I look for another collar that has a lower pitch jingle?
Any advice would be helpful, thank you in advance.

Short guys are dumb as fuck when it comes to that stuff. They buy some generic shoe lift off amazon, use a 2 inch lift in 1.5 inch air forces at 5'5 and say they're 5'9" with the shoes on.
First of all, shoe lifts pretty much only give you about 50-75% of the height advertised, with the amount decreasing the more you go. An inch lift is like 1.7 cm, or 0.7 in. If you don't believe me, look at Rob Paul from CelebHeight's video on it.
Next, everyone these days are wearing thick shoes without even the consideration of height. 1.2-1.4 inch soles are very common, so for your thick shoes to have any real effect, you'd need like 2".
Plus, your thick shoes are going to compress over time, probably about 0.1-0.2 inches after a lot of wear. And that still's only boosting you up about a half an inch next to the average shoe wearer who wears a 1".
IMO, you're only able to decently walk and pull off a height 2" overall taller than your own relative to others. And that's like, the absolute max. Sustainably I'd say 1-1.5" is somewhat comfortable and not too obvious.
So, look, if you're trying to "fraud" height, don't ever expect to look more than 2" taller.
The best, and most sustainable way goes like this.
Find the most thickest trendy sneaker, think Jordan 4s, or some other thick yet very fashionable shoe. Jordan 4's legitimately give 1.5 inch, so you can expect it to compress to about 1.3 ish.
Take the sole out, put your own 1 inch(actually 0.7) in it, and then put the actual shoe sole on top of the lift.
This way, it doesn't even look like you have the lifts, and your shoes are boosting you 2", so about 1" over the average shoe wearer. That's solid and comfortable, and it looks non-obvious asf, it's just Jordan 4's.

I just put in 12 hours this weekend, from just after discovering terminal Victor. I... didn't have a great time.
Most of the advertising that really hooked me was the Base Building update and its beautiful buildings. I've played enough of these kinds of games (Satisfactory, Factorio) to know I should unlock the architecture parts first, then I can build my beautiful bases once and not have to go back to rebuild them. I also put monorails on my list, because they seemed like the best way to link up long-distance bases that would let me specialize production at each base.
But I didn't find X-Ray for hours! It was entirely detached from the main cave system and when I found it I realized unlocking pretty architecture was going to consume a lot more resources and planning effort than the main quest (again, I was only looking at Victor T1 by this point). But I tried for the first tier, at least, to see what I could unlock. The result was that I had a base at X-Ray that was making more parts than at Victor and I felt I needed to set up a monorail ASAP to get my bases operating correctly.
So, 100 blue cores later I built the depot, worked out the towers, and built a monorail halfway back to Victor. I decided the Red Vine cavern was central enough for a bunch of shuttle monorails to converge. I tested out the monorails and... they were extremely annoying.
I need to pause here and throw in loads of positives: I like that there are lots of intermediate parts, I like that the game hits the sweet spot of simple AND complex at the same time. I love the ambience, I love the terraforming (especially the HUD that took the guesswork out of carving up rock. Kudos to that dev!) I love all the plants and how it feels like rooms have a temperature. I love how all the caves are memorable so after a few walks I stopped getting lost and could recognize where rivers and tunnels went. I love the clunky, chunky dieselpunk aesthetic. I love that assemblers are 2x4 and encourage puzzle-solving to optimize inserter use! I love that everything glows, except for the dark factory caverns I carve out myself. I love that this game made brutalism and a dash of art deco go great together. I love the voice acting (although it does tend to be a little startling, maybe it needs a little radio static before and after?)
All of that is to, hopefully, convince whoever's reading this that I am no hater and I want this game to be the best in its niche. So here's the rant:
The monorail sucks. It runs contrary to an open-ended game experience about building multiple bases and encourages early players to build km-long conveyor systems instead. It's expensive, deep in the tech tree, power-hungry, logistically broken, and doesn't provide a good alternative to walking. Thankfully, almost all of these are easy fixes:

1. The monorail's need for electricity on both ends means it isn't meant to connect non-powered bases (like a dedicated mining and smelting operation) to powered bases. The rule of thumb for every other factory game has been "you shouldn't have to move resources to move resources", so I think making monorails only need one power source (or letting them run on fuel) would create more gameplay than it would remove.
2. The monorail is too deep in the tech tree, and players will want to start specializing and inter-meshing bases before they have the best tools for the job. Personally, I think Blue Science (where players have to automate mining, smelting, threshing, fueling, and about a dozen assemblers in a row) is too complicated to be completed in one base so I'd suggest dropping this back to Purple Science.
3. I already covered "power-hungry", but here's another suggestion that occurred to me: let an upgraded version of monorails function as high-voltage cable? That way extending to a new base only requires 1 hand-made connection.
4. The monorail models look great, but in operation the whole system looks wrong. The trains move way too fast, stockpile too slowly, spend too much of their station animation stalling, and frankly look ridiculous when the entire line is stuffed with trains each carrying 1 or 2 items. I can't imagine using these for more than 1 item type each way...so why not use conveyors instead? Here's a spitball: if you're sticking to 3 cars (and I'm going to suggest 4 in a minute) why not let players configure each car's item, and then the train only loads and launches the cars that are full on this end and empty on the other end. If a monorail can deliver and receive 3 or 4 different items (or belts worth of items) without any clog stopping the others I would use them no matter how much menu work I had to do to set them up.
5. Riding the any transit in games means letting go of gameplay and being subjected to a show. That means the experience must be enjoyable and brief, and currently it's neither. I feel like I'm getting decked by every pole I sail by while trains move way faster overhead. It also means that looking up at the trains keeps most of their design obscured by the tracks, which isn't ideal, and I'm tempted at every moment to let go, drop 1 foot, and just walk. The change I suggest is going to sound extreme, but I am certain it will be more enjoyable: flip the trains upside down and put the player on top. Suspended monorails are objectively cooler and will contrast nicely with the upward-facing conveyor belts. Letting the player use the top of the depots as launch pads onto a roller-coaster-slash-roller-skate experience will encourage verticality in construction and excavation... or they can opt out of the personal transport and keep the rails right up against the cave roof with no more clipping issues. This would simplify loading and unloading animations as well, hopefully giving us a 4th train car and improving the inter-base transit value of the monorail.

Okay "I'm just the idea guy"-rant over. I know the devs don't need ideas, and have much better ways to spend their limited time on the game. This is just my special interest and I wanted to share, just in case.
Back to progression though, I've ended the weekend moderately stressed out instead of relaxed. I feel like putting aesthetics behind an arbitary number of arbitrary tasks in a game about efficiency was the wrong move and I hope the devs move architecture from end-game content to the beginning. I'm just... so tired of scanning the ruins. This is a mining automation game where I'm gathering concrete blocks by hand. What went wrong?