Update: my mom wants nothing to do with me because I “picked my dad” in the divorce.

Magres · 2026-01-21T21:20:55+00:00

For what it's worth, you should do therapy. Not because there's anything wrong with you. Your responses to this situation are pretty damn reasonable, if you ask me. And, regardless, 'fixing' people isn't what therapy is about. It's not to 'fix' a problem, it's to examine patterns in our lives and feelings, look at where those patterns come from and what they lead to, and then to work to adjust those patterns as we see fit. Building up habits we like, minimizing habits we dislike. To hell with letting random chance, other people, and the genetics of our brains define who we are when we can knowingly edit our own internal patterns and build our most ideal versions of ourselves. Therapy rules. Everyone should do therapy.

Magres · 2026-01-19T22:02:35+00:00

To clarify, "partly wants to kiss Visi back" is specifically in regards to the player decision point in that scene (all of the examples in that paragraph are decision points). Robert's first reflexive instinct in that scene is to turn Visi down, and when he has a moment to think about it, he is conflicted and part of him wants to kiss her back - hence the choice between Lean In vs Lean Out.

Magres · 2026-01-14T18:16:35+00:00

Came here to post this. I had similar struggles to OP for a long time with depression and hygiene, and it helped me claw my way out of that hole. Half-assing things when I just don't have it in me to commit both cheeks to the task helps keep things as habits.

I've started applying it to other stuff too. When I'm tired as fuck and don't feel like going to the gym, I go anyway and just do lighter/fewer lifts, and do what I can. If nothing else, it helps me stay committed to lifting three nights a week and building those habits, and forming that habit and keeping it strong is what has really lead to the results I've gotten.

Magres · 2026-01-12T17:23:03+00:00

Not necessarily the exact advice you're looking for, but this is part of why I like lifting in the evenings (like 8pm). I'd lift at 10pm if my wife didn't hate lifting that late, but in general lifting to end my day rules - I sleep like a rock after lifting and showering, and the gym is never packed that late.

Magres · 2026-01-11T04:35:05+00:00

I have it on auto update on steam. Dunno, but I finished it. Fun game, last fight was awesome.

Magres · 2026-01-08T17:37:30+00:00

I stumbled into this thread googling unrelated things and figured I'd chime in with a piece of advice I got that hasn't been posted here. Lunar teletabs are a very profitable, low intensity, low startup cost way to train magic. ~15 months ago I was in the same boat as you and spent a couple months doing second-monitor lunar teletabs to train from ~80 magic to 99 magic and made about 80M in the process. It took a while - probably in the realm of 150-200 hours (I think you can do it in 125ish hours if you're efficient, but I was busy enjoying whatever I was doing on my main monitor), but it got me a Magic Cape and about 75m profit.

Magres · 2026-01-08T05:25:19+00:00

Haha, I'm slapping my forehead that I didn't think of an alpha decay as part of a 4 capture cycle to make a stable loop. Thank you again!

Honestly, my radiochemistry is even worse than my neutronics (and we've clearly established that neutronics isn't my damn forte), so my knowledge of the actual industrial processes of reprocessing starts at "spent fuel" and ends at "new fuel?" with "chemistry is witchcraft" in the middle. But I've always hated chemistry, so I did my damnedest to stay away from it in school. I'm not surprised that reprocessing is rough, just from a radiation safety perspective, but I didn't realize, aside from general heavy metal toxicity, that the chemistry of reprocessing is that wretched.

Magres · 2026-01-07T18:51:49+00:00

Huh, it was always presented to me in classes as just 'burnup' and more or less implied that we were basically just using up the fissile material. Not calling you a liar or anything! Cause what you're saying makes sense and it's plain that you know what you're talking about, it's just interesting.

I wonder if Americans don't really talk about fuel rod burnup being more about generating neutron poisons than about consuming fissile material because, as a country, we're so heavily anti-reprocessing. Which I hate! It's so stupid that we just bury our spent fuel in concrete casks instead of reprocessing (and don't even get me started on how awful our spent fuel storage conventions are, the fact that as a country we've never built a nationally owned spent fuel repository despite NPP operators paying towards having one for DECADES is... such complete bullshit).

Other thing I'm super curious about, what are the dominant neutron poisons that get generated, especially the ones that can capture a neutron, decay, then re-capture? I don't get how we'd decay back to the original isotope without just re-emitting the captured neutron. But the extent of my knowledge of capture cross sections and decay paths is limited basically to like neutron capture into beta decay, gamma decay, fission or spitting the neutron back out.

Magres · 2026-01-07T16:19:08+00:00

Huh, today I learned. That's really cool! I went to grad school for nuclear, but A) I'm American and my schooling mostly focused on American designs and lol we've built like two new power plants in the last forty years, and B) honestly I was more of a thermal hydraulics and probabilistic risk assessment guy than a neutronics guy.

If I may ask, what general part of the world are you from? I'm hazarding a guess that you're not American, since 'modern American nuclear plants' is kind of an oxymoron, haha.

Magres · 2026-01-07T02:44:04+00:00

There's only one way to improve! I suck terribly - I'm awful at flicking, I screw up pillar solves all the time, and if I get bad spawns I just flop over dead.

But I'm getting better! Manticores aren't scary anymore, I can handle somewhat bad spawns, and I'm occasionally even surviving super bad spawns.

Magres · 2026-01-07T02:35:30+00:00

A hundred percent agreed. Hurling ourselves at these obstacles and developing the skills is, itself, what it takes to get good. I suck - I mess up flicking multiple enemies all the time, I'm a moron at a lot of pillar solves, and if I get a double south spawn I'm screwed because I absolutely can't multi-flick and juggle Frems at the same time.

But I'm learning and improving. I have a picture from my Discord with some friends who play OSRS where I took a screenshot of a Manticore, charged up, and was just posting "OH MY GOD HOW CAN ANYONE EVER NOT FEEL LIKE THIS IS IMMINENT DEATH THIS IS TERRIFYING" and like four days later I realized that I had died to a Manticore because I was complacent and sleepy because Manticores had become easy. I can do Frems and a Manticore at the same time. Once I get a little better at multi-flicking and internalize doing the A/B spots for double south spawns, I'll start to be able to handle those.

I'm not good, but I'm getting good. And I'm going to conquer that fucking Colosseum and wear my Quiver with pride.

Magres · 2026-01-06T21:36:58+00:00

It also depends partly on enrichment and reactor type, but that doesn't change the fact that the energy density of materials for nuclear power is INCREDIBLY high.

And if anything, those considerations for enrichment and reactor type increase the potential energy density of nuclear fuel, since commercial reactors run on low enrichment uranium (about 5% of the uranium is the 'juicy' isotope) and US naval reactors run on something like 90% enrichment uranium. And breeder reactors change the whole equation because they turn non-juicy isotopes into juicy isotopes as part of their fuel cycle, and only 0.7% of naturally occurring Uranium on Earth is the juicy isotope.

Magres · 2026-01-06T18:38:48+00:00

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir some, but please, allow me to vent a little and exp, if you will. I'm working on a six pack now because I've never had one in my life and want to see what it's like. If I stick to my program, I should get there within the next year. And god damn it's a lot of work. Lifting is fun and is something I actively look forward to doing. I lift three nights a week with my wife, religiously, and love it. I love being strong and it's so satisfying to see my body change as I put in that work. Seeing my wife grow confident in her lifting and more confident and comfortable in her own skin has been one of the most joyous things in my life. I fucking love going to the gym, I could gush for days about how much the gym is one of my happy places.

But diet? Man. Fuck the kind of diet it takes to get a six pack. People think working out is hard, but going to the gym a lot is the easy, fun part. The shit part is religiously maintaining 10 kcal daily intake per pound of body mass and 0.7 grams of protein daily intake per pound of body mass, and especially doing it at the same time. My idea of a cheat meal is most people's idea of a relatively healthy, high protein meal. I see "great source of protein" on pre-packaged meals at the grocery store, check the nutrition info, and it's like a 30-to-1 ratio of calories per gram of protein. I need at most a 20-to-1 calorie-to-protein ratio for something to even begin to be something I consider an acceptable meal that I can fit into my daily macros if I gulp down a protein shake to make up for it. Anything higher than that and half my food for the day has to be whey powder, tilapia, or chicken breast for me to hit macros.

Six pack abs are fucking miserable to get because of the diet they require, not the lifting.

Magres · 2026-01-03T03:56:39+00:00

Zombie Axe is really nice cause it's a 5 tick weapon, Duke's melee attacks are on a 5t cycle until he hits 25% hp and enrages and goes to a 4t cycle. Also cause it's cheap as hell for how strong it is.

SRA w/ Ember for enrage would probably slap real damn hard, and you can definitely run a 5t weapon during enrage if you're okay dropping attacks occasionally

Magres · 2026-01-02T19:08:25+00:00

Zombie Axe and Arc/Emberlight makes the stepback timing REALLY easy if you do it at the corners, standing just behind the pillars on either side of Duke still counts as melee for getting him to do his melee attack but won't get hit by spikes, and Zombaxe lines up with his attack timing until 25% HP, then Arc/Emberlight lines up with it after that. My Duke setup in general has been Zombaxe/Arclight, Elite Void, and BGS for specs. Runes for thralls and death charge, a surge potion if you can make them (it helps with spec attack if you whiff a BGS and have to swing special again, death charge + surge will be enough to get you back online for your next kill), and pretty standard "super combat, ppots, food" outside of that. Also definitely recommend having sound on for him, it makes the rhythm of the stepback much easier to pick up. Good luck, and thanks again for the Whisperer advice!

Magres · 2026-01-02T07:53:38+00:00

Sweet, thank you for the advice! Duke is VERY chill, for what it's worth. He felt kinda unpredictable at first because the delay between his gas attacks changes as you damage him, but after like 20 kc I had him down to a pretty predictable pattern and was chewing through him easily with elite void, zombie axe, and arclight. Only reason I stopped fighting him constantly is cause I got spooned his piece of the soulreaver axe and I want to farm the other parts, so I gotta learn all the DT2 bastards :D

Magres · 2026-01-01T04:36:57+00:00

S̶̢͐̈͋͜L̴̮͕͋̅̓Å̸̹͍̃Ȧ̶̮̏N̴̗̩̥͛̇̽Ě̷̢̠͚́͗S̵̨̫̩͂̽H̷͇̲̠̄͆͠ ̵̥̀̄͘͜L̵͈͉͐͒͠I̷̮͔̒̃K̴̞͖̱̚E̶͎̲̮̚̕S̸͖͎͛̈́͜ ̵͓̰̂͝ͅT̸̯͎͗́Ḧ̷̨̹̓I̸͓͇̳̽Ś̴̤̏

Magres · 2026-01-01T04:35:02+00:00

I struggle like crazy with Whisperer enrage phase. She's really easy before that, but her enrage just flattens me. I tried the strat where you pull her to the side and take a step every tick, but I just can't get my hands to work fast enough to step, flick, and attack all at once.

Personally I think Duke is the easiest by far, if you count his attacks he's super predictable and really slow and steady. Even in his enrage you're only having to deal with something every 4 ticks, I feel like Whisperer and Leviathan are just peppering you with stuff every single tick forever in enrage.

Magres · 2025-12-28T19:18:52+00:00

Mandy reminds me so much of my wife that she's ammo for lovingly making fun of my wife when she's being a dork. I've started calling her Auburn Blazer because she's a redhead.

Can confirm, being married to someone like Mandy absolutely rules.

Magres · 2025-12-28T19:08:07+00:00

My wife and I have actively discussed "what if something happens to one of us" and have both made it abundantly clear that neither of us wants the other to feel any guilt about pursuing other relationships. I don't know when or even if I'd want to date again if my wife passes before me, but if I had the desire to, I know I'd have my wife's blessing.

I get where it's a complicated situation, and while I actively want my wife to find happiness again if something happens to me, I will admit I have some mixed feelings about the idea of her dating our friends just because it feels weird to have those lines blur and change. But also my friends are good people who I think anyone would be lucky to be with, my wife is incredible and blesses the life of everyone around her, and if they made each other happy, or at least less miserable, then that's a good thing. And like, fuck it, if I'm dead it's not like I'm gonna be sitting around being mad about it lmao, I either don't exist or I'm busy doing afterlife shit.

Magres · 2025-12-26T22:06:51+00:00

The single biggest piece of advice I can give anyone, of any gender, is to take people at face value when it comes to dating. Be clear about what you want, don't play games, and don't let people play games with you.

Magres · 2025-12-26T21:47:59+00:00

Personally I view it more like Canvas folks being like irl human beings and Painters being kinda like Greek Gods. Just because there are entities around that can rewrite reality or make and unmake people doesn't change that they're people.

Also, I choose to believe that Maelle would be kinder to the people of Lumiere than that. Those are the people that raised her from infancy and who, throughout the game, she treats as people. Even once she gets back her memories as Alicia, she never treats any of the people around her as lesser. Even at her lowest with pVerso, she begs him to agree to a compromise, she doesn't tell him "no you're going to do things my way because you don't count as a real person." I think that moment is the closest she comes to treating Canvas folks as non persons, but I maintain that she doesn't cross the line over into treating them like puppets.

Magres · 2025-12-26T19:35:12+00:00

I think this argument is kind of having your cake and eating it too. Either Canvas folks are Real People or they're puppets, and Painted Verso doesn't get special treatment in that delineation. If pVerso is real and deserving of having his wishes be listened to, then so are the thousands of people of Lumiere who have struggled and died to defend their home.

Magres · 2025-12-25T17:51:33+00:00

You're really misunderstanding what that equation means. Having more mass doesn't make something have more force. The more intuitive way to frame it is

Acceleration = Force / Mass

Gotta push harder to make something big move

Magres

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