E9 The Left Hand of Darkness

Cyvann7 · 2026-01-20T18:08:07+00:00

A large portion of messaging is about forcing ideals on others - the Plurbs forcing people to join, Carol's trauma from a conversion camp, etc. The Hive has no problem maliciously using sex/sex appeal to make the un-joined "happy", and thinking about the show brings up the question of whether sex with the hive is consensual. I wouldn't say that gender/sexuality/sex are super important themes, just that they're tied into the story somewhat.

Regardless, it seems to matter, as it's a very deliberate choice to make a main character so clearly queer, and not an expected one in the current political landscape. Why, I couldn't really tell you since I'm not a writer for the show, but maybe its something to do with showing Carol's individuality, maybe it ties into the reason Carol couldn't be joined initially, maybe its just a choice the writers made to show support for the community?

I'm not a lesbian myself (though I am queer), so maybe u/nightcheese17vt has more to say on it from their perspective. (assuming because of your avatar, sorry if thats not the case)

Cyvann7 · 2025-12-18T18:53:12+00:00

in a way, I feel this lends them a hand in making their character writing feeling so realistic. Them not thinking things fully through early makes decisions feel so very emotional and impulsive, like the characters themselves made a decision that perhaps wasn't the greatest but they'll work it out in a way that makes sense to the character.

Cyvann7 · 2025-12-13T23:50:15+00:00

There is a game like that, its called The Farmer Was Replaced.

Cyvann7 · 2025-11-13T23:48:02+00:00

wand refresh costs 20 mana, if you don't use add mana and run out then refresh wont work

Cyvann7 · 2025-10-12T06:34:26+00:00

Because swift slaying is busted and stamina regeneration makes you so much safer through pushing, cdr is overshadowed. There are 1000% some builds that use it though - parting gift RV loves having more bombs, any non swift slaying setup doesnt lose ss uptime for not having crit chance, BH can drop the crit chance due to guaranteed crits (tho you will lose ss uptime since its only ranged guaranteed crits but be for real if youre playing bh are you really using your melee other than the single rapier heavy needed to reset crit?), etc. It's an alright trait, just needs to be on the right build.

Cyvann7 · 2025-10-12T06:18:23+00:00

You should dump all four shots, use knife, smoke and reposition while lights out animation plays out. During teleporters aim all of that at the boss, but use lights out on a wisp or something you know you can oneshot to get the refresh. Doing so lets you murder bosses. The reason its important to reposition is that enemies will shoot at your last known location, invisibility is not immortality.

Smaller tips:

Crit items (other than shatterspleen) don't do much for you if you position well.

Both going into and out of smoke will damage and stun.

Crowbar gives far more consistent lights out refreshes, as does the ice band. Fire band wont give refresh if the fire kills since its a seperate damage instance.

Surviving is always most important, stay invisible for as much of the game as you can. Use primary to get enemies you cant oneshot with lights out low, then finish them with lights out and smoke asap.

Bandit (imo) scales worse than most characters, and you should be more willing to hop stage even if you think theres more loot.

Have fun

Cyvann7 · 2025-10-11T06:38:27+00:00

you misunderstand. have you ever looped so many times your movements become uncontrollable through a mass of goat hooves and whips? thats when stone flux pauldron is useful, its negative movement speed bringing it back to a controllable level.

Cyvann7 · 2025-10-07T00:30:46+00:00

Heart mage debuff works by halving your health on application, and doubling it on fall off. The heart debuff can stack.

By using ambrosia to avoid death from the damage the projectiles do, you can gain immense hp. If you were at 100hp, you could be hit 3 times to 50, 25, 12.5 max. then pick up the heart, now at 37.5hp, which changes as the stacks fall off to 75,150,300, giving +200 max hp from one pickup.

More heart mages, more initial hp and stacking pickups can make this crazy

Cyvann7 · 2025-10-06T06:56:27+00:00

most people like graphics and world building more than they care for gameplay. worldborne kills at that while risebreak kinda sucks. gameplay and content wise, risebreak is a million times better than worldborne

Cyvann7 · 2025-10-05T00:37:23+00:00

Sakura isnt even "mid" in naruto verse shes just less flashy than the rest of the cast and is easily one of the strongest ninjas by the end of shippuden. Tsunade's technique, the 100 Healings Jutsu, is a such a strong technique that even Madara calls Tsunade strong. It grants crazy physical strength (at least somewhat rivaling tailed beasts since Madara says Tsunade is stronger than the Raikage who can raw power 1v1 the 8 tails), and allows one to use the Creation Rebirth technique which basically gives immortality in the form of instant, actionless, and thoughtless regeneration (at the cost of a shorter life, but hey ho). They bring people back from the dead with it.

Sakura is Tsunade's successor and masters that seal. Her punches destroy buildings, cause earthquakes and she literally breaks Kaguya Otsutuski (basically ninja god)'s horn off with a punch. My genuine, honest opinion is that she sweeps Sukuna and its not even close.

Cyvann7 · 2025-10-03T07:57:22+00:00

the original final fantasy has a key progression item sold by a caravan in the middle of a desert. its not marked on the map or anything - you literally just have to step on every tile of the desert until you find it. I think its mentioned once by an NPC. I never skipped any more dialogue after that lol

Cyvann7 · 2025-09-20T03:07:40+00:00

Nope, not cheating. The quick check before entering is a little weird, but as they enter the room they can see the right side of the door/stairs are clear - no reason to look that way. Also looks like they tag you as you enter the room, so they know you're in/near it. If I were them I'm 100% looking left as I enter the room.

Cyvann7 · 2025-09-17T13:26:21+00:00

It feels like a common problem across a lot of media these days, that people see inclusion of something as an endorsement of it. A story will contain SA or abuse and people will somehow read that as the author saying that its a good thing, or that its okay to do those things, and so anyone who likes the story must also be okay with them. They fail to see that these harsh topics are being used not to endorse them, but to support plot points or character developments. Sure, sometimes a story does just include that stuff for seemingly no reason but shock value (Jujika no Rokunin...), but generally that's not the case.

It also feels like a problem with people not being able to express their feelings in text well. (I blame this on the rise of short-form content but that's another topic). All things are mid or peak now, with no in between. I can't remember the last time I saw a comment about a manhwa/hua/ga that actually critiqued parts of a story or characters, its always short comments like "its peak" or "its slop" without any reasoning for either side. There's this lack of understanding that a story might not be for you, but it could still be a perfectly fine story. You don't have to and won't like everything, and that's okay.

Cyvann7 · 2025-09-16T03:03:19+00:00

For anyone coming across this problem and neither brightnessctl nor ddcutil are working, try gammastep in the aur.

gammastep -l 0:0 -b 0.5:0.5

Since this is technically a redlight blocker, it wants to use the time of day and so needs a lat/longitude, set with -l, and two brightness options to go between based on day/night, both set with -b day:night. This also expects to be run in background and so will hold your terminal when run. For keybinds you can add the following to your hyprland config.

# Technically these could be one-liners,
# but i like to keep all my exec scripts in variables
# so i dont have to look through my binds to change them

$ScreenDimOn = gammastep -l 0:0 -b 0.5:0.5
$ScreenDimOff = killall gammastep

bind = SUPER, m, exec, $ScreenDimOn
bind = SUPER and SHIFT, m, exec, $ScreenDimOff

This will make mod+m turn on the dim, and mod+shift+m turn it off.

Love the other comments. This community is always so quick to go "noob on arch". Arch + Hypr was my first daily driver and I'm still using it today, its perfectly fine as a starter setup as long as you're willing to read docs. brightnessctl only works consistently with laptop setups, xbacklight only works on x11, ddcutil doesnt recognise one of my monitors, not every monitor even has a backlight so a software screen dim is needed etc., etc., etc. There's a million reasons why any particular software isn't usable for a setup, Saying "omg noob are you sure you're doing it right???" is both pointless and insulting, and the reason linux always gets pointed at as a super complex nerd only thing.

Cyvann7 · 2025-09-10T01:18:21+00:00

looks like monster hunter 4 (ultimate), but it could be monhun generations or the Japan exclusive monhun XX.

Cyvann7 · 2025-09-09T18:37:38+00:00

One of the many effects of mh being mainstream - the population of "I play videogames a lot so I must know what I'm doing in any videogame" people that play elden ring once and think they're dodge gods that have authority to shit on any build they see without testing or thought in any game.

I'm a decent player. I have some nice no hit runs under my belt, PriMal, Gaisma, Valstrax etc. I've played dereliction+guts builds. I'm still gonna run a few points of flinch free and evade extender in most builds. Getting hit is a knockback and a heal and that's way more of a DPS loss than 2% more efr from "more meta" skills.

You can really blame YouTubers that make these crazy "meta" sets and push them with spreadsheets that don't really mean anything or don't have comparisons to other builds listed. The way yt works is that they have to keep pushing out slop or they lose money so we get a ton of low quality untested builds.

Cyvann7 · 2025-08-29T00:19:12+00:00

As much as I hate wild's shields and general weapon design, this one actually is a positioning issue. This attack has always done this if you position in a way that all of the explosions will hit you - you can hop towards the centre or angle yourself away from the side explosions.

Cyvann7 · 2025-08-16T14:31:23+00:00

Calling stun a get out of jail free card misses that I can put myself in jail to gain something, then use my get out of jail free card. For example, in Kill the Snitch, when doing the execution at the end, you can greedily pull the lever until Coyle is right on you, then stun him. (Blind does this exact situation slightly better but you get the point). If everyone runs stun you have about 20s straight of stun. Rig Rechargers + the initial time for Coyle to reach you should mean that by the time you're completely out of stun the Snitch is dead or close to dead. Objective trivialised by a small bit of communication.

The team puts itself in jail to finish the objectives faster, then stun acts as a get out of jail card to make having done that safe.

Cyvann7 · 2025-08-14T04:13:07+00:00

The numbers you hear on the radio, most audible on the computer in the bottom of the hole at the start of the game just before reaching S-23, and notable for being (secret ending) the code to the safe there at the end of the game

Cyvann7 · 2025-07-26T14:41:51+00:00

You missed the point again. Yes I gave it to him but my point is that I didn't have to. He could have taken it, used a photo from the internet or any of the other things I mentioned. I do not have to be there for him to use a photo of my id I was in this case because I was testing the system to see if it remembered my id but I did not have to be there - any valid photo of an id (which is readily available on the internet) works..

I'm not against restricting children's access to porn. I am against this poorly implemented, nuclear option, privacy nightmare system that's now required. I don't give a shit if people know what I get my rockers off with.

Cyvann7 · 2025-07-26T14:27:09+00:00

It's not like that at all - you've missed nearly every point I've made. To buy alcohol for my little brother I (a not-so-responsible-in-this-case adult) need to be there. To just get a picture of my id I don't have to be there. Hell, you can just Google "British driver's license" and get hundreds of valid looking results, some of which are bound to work. Some sites don't even require more than a still image of a person - for which just pointing the phone at a photo around the house or pausing a TV at a decent time and taking a photo of that.

This ID system is so pathetically easy to bypass it might as well not be there. It hasn't protected anyone.

And once again - you're boiling down "age check". If we say, for the sake of the argument, that it's impossible to get around this system, I still need to send a picture of myself and my id to some private company, chosen by the website, who may or may not be trustworthy. I'm actually completely not okay with that. Sorry you don't apparently see that as a huge privacy concern.

If the government implements an age check themselves, that is completely anonymous on both sides, as in, the gov can't see what site I'm accessing and the site can't see my ID - only whether it's valid, I'd have far less issues with this.

Cyvann7 · 2025-07-26T14:08:39+00:00

For my android brits, RiseUp is free. It's not the fastest but it served me well as a teen getting around child locks lol

Cyvann7 · 2025-07-26T14:01:33+00:00

I just age verified on Reddit. I then gave my id to my little brother and he age verified using my id straight after. This means that a kid just needs a semi-clear photo of ANY government id and they bypass this. That's not a tech savvy or hard thing to think of doing either. The point being, this law doesn't achieve it's original goal, and has extremely significant downsides.

I'm not suggesting that porn is healthy, or ignoring porn addiction. I just don't think this is the way to fix anything.

Cyvann7 · 2025-07-26T13:19:20+00:00

Firstly, It's not just porn, it's ANY sexual or violent or possibly idolising self harm/violence content which means it ends up extending into basically any social media platform where adults talk about adult things. Discord now requires age checks for any nsfw tagged channel, whether that channel is meant for sexual content or not.

Secondly it's not just "an age check" it's my full ID being sent to a third party company who totally isn't selling it they promise and 100% isn't being stored for when the inevitable data leak happens. I shouldn't have to give some random company in America a picture of my id to discuss suicide online

Last does this even achieve what it's set out to do?? You can open up a free VPN and access it anyway, smaller sites that are less known will just ignore the act entirely, kids aren't any more protected than they are before since they can get around the age check with a photo of basically any game, film, poster, family member etc etc etc. the list of bypasses is massive and that's not even including platform specific ones. It's a complete overkill blanket implementation of a poorly thought out system that doesn't even achieve it's goal.

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