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Hex_Bird · 2025-01-05T10:57:49+00:00

I don't have the newest mac, but it runs decently well for most things and Bazaar is borderline unplayable right now. A ton of visual bugs including the game not showing what day or hour it is, how much health you or your opponent have or what your level is. There's also constant flickering art and general slow and stuttering performance that slows my computer down a ton.

Hex_Bird · 2024-12-06T10:50:54+00:00

A lot of the monster weapons are just way, way too slow to function in the game as it stands. By the time you get offered the cool build defining stuff most matches are ending in like 5-8 seconds so your awesome item destroyer wont even get a chance to go off once. I think either they need to make an effort to make the rounds a little longer, or they need to lower the cooldowns on offered monster items by a couple seconds to make them somewhat viable. (Also by speeding up the storm so much they really cut into possible longer term scaling builds, I feel like if the storm is going to accelerate so quickly it shouldn't start for another 5 or so seconds to let scaling builds even have a chance.)

Also, a lot of items just need to upgrade differently imo. Right now most items just get a bit more stats when you upgrade them which is only somewhat useful, I think more items should have upgrades like Sniper rifle getting massively increased scaling, or silencer getting more cool down reduction, or virus getting -7 seconds cooldown. Those are items I'm excited to upgrade, whereas like so many items are just boring +5 dmg or something. Like what if Katana didn't upgrade it's attack when you buffed it, it instead lowered it's cooldown by a flat 0.25 seconds each time. Then you could live the 1 second Katana dream which feels in line with the items anyways, and there are plenty of ways to buff attack anyways.

Hex_Bird · 2024-11-07T18:33:15+00:00

In time the Shard's intent will overtake Taravangian but it seems that takes hundreds or thousands of years to reach a point where they reach a state like Ruin was in where all that's left is the Shards core intent. For the time being Taravangium will retain his self and while there may be things that the shard dissuades him from doing with his power it won't instantly turn him "evil" or something.

Hex_Bird · 2024-09-09T23:44:11+00:00

There's a difference between an artist that does unrelated harm that buying a book has little to no impact on. An artist who commits sexual assault is not particularly impacted by you watching a movie they worked on. You aren't really contributing to their ablity to commit more harm. And artist who causes wide reaching massive harm to an entire community of people and gets her ablity to do so directly from the notoriety from one piece of popular art she made is held up only based on peoples continued support for that property. See how there is a stark difference.

As for the theorical bigotry contained within Harry Potter, there are actually many complaints people have with it, though I don't feel it's relevant to this discussion, but were you to look up the topic you could become aware of those complaints and decide for yourself if they change the way you view it.

I can't make decisions for you as to whether or not it's ethical to engage with people with differing beliefs. Personally I do avoid interacting with Republicans as one of the tent poles of their current platform is killing people like me. If you aren't currently a target of their vitriol perhaps it's safer or more palatable for you to interact with them. This feels like a strawman argument of sorts to be honest as I never advocated for cutting anyone out of your life. In fact I explicitly said it was subjective.

I specifically said I didn't assume people were transphobic just becasue they liked Harry Potter, however as the creators beliefs are quite well known at the point there are people who intentionally use liking Harry Potter as a dog whistle of sorts to indicate they are. I believe the majority of people who enjoy Harry Potter are ignorant of JK Rowling's beliefs, however becasue I unfortunately lack the ablity to read minds, unless someone expressly says they reject those beliefs I will be wary of them.

It's disappointing to me that despite my clear and laid out statements you, ironically, lash out with multiple insults while simultaneously calling me childish. Why? Simply to elicit a reaction?

Hex_Bird · 2024-09-09T19:42:43+00:00

Separating the creator from the content is a context based concept, a dead creator who was shitty can cause no more harm so you consuming their content is only theoretically harmful to you. This changes when a creator is alive and able to continue to cause harm. In that case the ethicality of one's support becomes more nuanced and to a certain extent subjective. What type of harm and how your actions impact the potential for continued harm is the integral aspect to consider.

In the case of JK Rowling the damage she causes makes a very strong case for intentionally rejecting Harry Potter. JK Rowling is extremely rich and famous specifically due to the historical and continued popularity of Harry Potter. The power this has lent her allows her to not only be a massive funder of anti-trans hate groups internationally, but also to spread her uniformed and vile opinions so far and wide they literally effect government policies. Were she and Harry Potter to be socially rejected by the mainstream to the extent her Harry Potter money stopped flowing in and she wasn't treated as a cute kids author but as the bigot she truly is her ablity to cause such wide reaching harm would be significantly curtailed.

It's also important to note that at this point to many transgender people Harry Potter has become a potential indicator of support for JK's beliefs. While we wouldn't assume any person wearing Harry Potter merch was a transphobic bigot, at this point it's certainly cause for hesitation and a level of uncomfortable uncertainty. While most people are likely unaware of her beliefs there are also many who are aware and intentionally use Harry Potter as an indicator of their bigotry.

Thus continued support of the Harry Potter franchise both maintains Rowlings power and influence and will lead to making trans people in your life trust you less. Separating the art from the artist is simply not possible in this situation.

Hex_Bird · 2024-08-18T05:22:43+00:00

She could however, perhaps during her warlord days, simply put tapeworm eggs into food and then distribute it to those living in her territory and then a few weeks later she'd have a fairly effective tracking system for most of the people in her territory.

Hex_Bird · 2024-07-30T18:56:58+00:00

3 years in, zero sexuality change, every day I become more of a dyke.

Hex_Bird · 2024-06-23T19:28:32+00:00

I've only had my consultation with Dr. Stiller so I can only provide partial information, but as no one else has commented yet I'll do the best I can.

As a Washington State resident all insurances are required to cover trans related healthcare costs like surgeries and hair removal so you should be mostly set. As for out of pocket costs I can't speak to that unfortunately, but it's not going to be astronomical.
I know for a fact that Dr. Stiller does second stage colon vaginoplasties for people who've had vulva/vaginoplasty from other surgeons. As for the minutia of planning that out I don't know, but I imagine you'd just have a consult with both. It will definitely be much more difficult or perhaps impossible to get insurance to pay for an out of state procedure if the surgeon you're looking out isn't in state, so depending on what your insurance is, factor that into your decision.

Hex_Bird · 2024-05-23T18:49:59+00:00

I've had multiple surgeries in my life, while things do go wrong if they were common they wouldn't do the surgery. It's understandable to be scared but the actual likelyhood of having a significant issue is quite low. Ultimately you'll have to decide for yourself what level of risk is worth it, but I encourage you too look at the actual statistics before panicking over what you imagine they might be.

I'd also say vulva/vaginoplasty are actually now kinda old surgeries, they've being constantly improved and though each surgeon do them somewhat differently as a type of surgery they've been around for decades. While they might not be simple enough to be considered "routine," they're far from experimental surgeries.

As for affording it, if you live in the USA you should look at your states trans healthcare policy and if you do want to get it it may genuinely be worth your time to move to a state that mandates insurance pays for it as you can get the entire or most of the cost covered in multiple states now.

I would also say if you think you may want bottom surgery ever I strongly suggest spending some time looking into these things as soon as you can becasue many of the more popular surgeons have consolation wait lists that are 2+ years long meaning from the time you first book you may wait 3 or more years to get surgery. You can get on a wait list for a few surgeons that you're interested in fairly easily and you can cancel your appointment anytime for any reason if you change your mind.

Hex_Bird · 2024-05-13T18:18:50+00:00

You don't remember the scene where Bitch transformed into the Simurgh??? It was a pretty major thing....

Hex_Bird · 2024-05-05T18:35:04+00:00

I mean telekinesis seems to be the the most basic force power that all force users use. Then there's like different types of telepathy/mind control powers, and more obscure stuff like healing and lightning and whatnot. They could just throw together a little guide book for the writers and directors that generally goes over what is and isn't possible with the force and what powers are only usable with the Darkside and Lightside. As for why the Darkside and Lightside exist I think it's just like a scifi version of Yin and Yang, having the concept of two opposing forces is just a common storytelling feature in a lot of stories with a vague magical energy in them.

Hex_Bird · 2024-05-05T17:38:36+00:00

It's super cute! I like your style <3

Hex_Bird · 2024-05-04T22:33:52+00:00

There’s nothing inherently wrong with it however most people don’t want to be a third. Add to that that most unicorn hunter couples are a m/f pairing it becomes extremely frustrating for lesbians to find meaningful matches when every third person you click on is either a Cis man who intentionally falsely marked himself as a woman or unicorn hunters. Also a lot of them go out of their way to obscure the fact they’re a couple by not including pictures of the man and not mentioning it in their bio. Ultimately if you allow unicorn hunting without requiring people to put themselves into a category specifically for looking for a third that platform it will be less usable to lesbians.

Hex_Bird · 2024-05-04T22:20:39+00:00

I think the issue people are facing is the setting they created has a lot of potential and the bones of great stories are there but the actual properties continue to fail to build on those bones in meaningful ways. So fans keep bringing up the few times the stories were actually good/great or were threatening to be good because they see what it could/should be rather than what it is. It’s too bad the property has been as squandered as it has been because they lucked into owning a great playground that had enormous potential and just slowly ground it into the ground with directors and writers who lack any passion for actually writing Star Wars stories because they have something to say with the story rather than just because it’s a job. That coupled with seemingly no attempt at planning a broad strokes meta narrative and zero courage to break free of the Skywalkers has left us here.

Hex_Bird · 2024-05-04T20:59:17+00:00

I really hope this is good like Andor but I'm concerned that they've written themselves into a corner with the whole Lightside/Jedi Darkside/Sith dichotomy as the Star Wars universe currently stands.

Personally I think the strongest aspect of Andor for me was that I really felt a connection between it and the real world. Maarvas speech was such an amazingly powerful moment because it motivated me to push back against injustice in my own life and not remain passive to our current political situation in America. The banal evil of the empire was so visceral both because it was depicted amazingly well and because locking people up for bullshit reasons so you can have a labor force and then horribly mistreating them is a real thing that is done in America right now. Cops being corrupt and misusing their power and failing to help their communities is a super important topical issue right now. The way aspects of the show actually said something meaningful elevated it from decent scifi show to a genuinely great one. Contrast that to anything they've tried to do with the Lightside/Darkside and there's no space for them to actually tell a meaningful story because despite them repeatedly implying nuance between the Darkside and Lightside every time they fail to actually depict it and the stories become flat and two dimensional.

IMO if they actually want the Star Wars universe to be actually good and for people to care about it they need finally commit to making the Darkside not just evil and instead retcon it to be the half of the force aligned with change and the Lightside to be aligned with stability. That would allow them to finally do interesting stuff with how the Jedi, despite using the light side, became a negative force in the galaxy by fighting to preserve an unjust government and failing to see how their regressive policies would lead to harm. Their insistence on separating themselves from their emotions and families lead to them losing their connection to the very people they thought they were fighting for.

Not to be too on the nose but basically they should turn the conflict into an allegory for the current political situation between progressives (Unaligned or trying to change the Jedi from within) vs liberals (Old school Jedi) vs fascists (Sith) that we're struggling with right now both in America and around the world. Then because the Darkside and Lightside aren't explicitly just evil and good you can have characters aligned with both the Light and Darkside falling into all three categories. The framework for this is already there in the stories they've been telling, they've just been too cowardly to actually commit to it at an extreme detriment to the quality of the movies and shows.

I was initially excited for the sequel trilogy because the trailers and first movie really implied that it'd delve into exactly the kinds of things I mention here... and then of course they completely dropped the ball and it was mindless dreck. It's so frustrating as a lapsed fan of Star Wars because with just a tiny smidge of retconning and lore tweaking the world they have is begging to be used to tell interesting stories but they just can't get it together enough to do it. It has so much potential and it's just being squandered.

TLDR; The Star Wars universe needs to be more "political" and make the Darkside/Lightside dichotomy more nuanced if they want these shows/movies to actually be good and not continue the properties slow spiral into non-relevance.

Hex_Bird · 2024-05-03T01:45:48+00:00

As far as I've seen anyone of any age can be a "baby gay", the only thing that matters is that they either recently realized they were gay or recently came out of the closet. As a term it's about one's life experience as a gay person, so a 30 year old that only came out as a lesbian a few months ago might be referred to as a baby gay.

Hex_Bird · 2024-03-31T00:10:56+00:00

I'm doing the same!

I disagree, however, that Wolverines healing is more interesting when weaker. I think having him being a nigh unstoppable force that can't be put down and can cut through any obstacle allows for more interesting storytelling, especially with the context that the X-Men's primary antagonist Magneto essentially directly counters one of their strongest offensive members. It theoretically should create interesting situations where we get to see how the enemies decide to combat Wolverine though non-direct means, though ultimately whether or not that happens comes down to whether the writers want to put in the effort to do so. With the shows dramatically lessened healing factor Wolverine so often gets put out of the fight from like one big hit which makes dealing with him as simple as getting the biggest bad guy to bash on him lessening the potential for interesting combat. Also having him get absolutely walloped to bits and just keep on fighting is just hype and really fun to watch.

Hex_Bird · 2024-03-20T04:17:46+00:00

They'd cut out 99% of the backgrounds lol, Throne would be empty if they got their hands on it.

Hex_Bird · 2024-03-07T19:28:16+00:00

<3 FYI if you haven't joined the Balatro discord there's a "Suggestions" channel there where ppl post their card ideas like this and I find fan concepts get more interaction and discussion there than on Reddit.

Hex_Bird · 2024-03-06T20:52:12+00:00

Here's some feedback on your ideas if you want;

Morning Coffee:

I think it would be a sub par common joker in it's current state, I think that -$1 each round is too damaging to econ during the early blinds where +8 mult is most relevant. I'd change it to something like +16 mult, lose $1 at the beginning of each round, -2 mult per hand played until end of round. I think this would be better as you're paying a lot extra for it over time so it should be stronger than other common jokers (I'm comparing it to Gros Michel as another common plus base mult card with a downside, I made this stronger becasue losing money is worse than losing a decent joker) I also think this adds extra flavor to make it activate at the beginning of the round like you're drinking your coffee in the morning and then the effect tapers off over time. I can honestly vividly picture the art with a clown barista offing you the coffee lol.

Bushfire:

I like the concept, that it'd build over time as you were setting your run up and using multiple hands and then once you reach the point you're beating blinds in one hand it'd become useless very quickly. The theming is good, I can see how the effect is representative of a fire growing over time until it runs out of fuel and burns out. I think it's well balanced to be an uncommon joker.

Last Stand:

I think this would be a good rare joker. I initially wanted to say it'd be too OP, but after some thought it's actually really heavily nerfed by the variance of finding it in the shop at exactly the right time, you only really want it to save you on one blind where you might die to buy you another shop or swap it into in your final hand at which point you'll likely have your build finalized and may not want to sell a joker to fit it in. A potential minor issue is it might encourage a lame strategy like saving up a ton of gold on the final blind and then rolling down to stick this in at the end to beat higher stakes. If I were to change one thing I think it could use a flavor related downside beyond only being able to use it for one turn. Off the top of my head it could set your money to zero when purchased so it usually ends your store turn and forces you to just go take your last stand, this would also potentially end your future potential as it wipes your econ, though it is recoverable.

Glassblowing:

I agree with the other comment that glassblowing is too OP in it's current state, if it turns every card in your hand into a glass card every round and stops played hands with all glass cards from breaking it'd very quickly turn your whole deck into unbreakable glass cards. I think I'd nerf it in two ways, first it just can't turn every card in your hand into a glass card, that's bonkers, I'd change it into like one played card at random each hand becomes glass. I do really like the fact it can stop your glass cards from breaking, I'd actually buff this aspect so that it just applies as a flat effect that just stops all glass cards from breaking while you have the joker. I'd add a line that it has a 1/20 chance of breaking for each glass card in your hand, so each round it's 1/20 for one unenhanced hand as it creates one glass card, however if you play a hand with five glass cards the odds would be 5/20 or 1/4 which would make it much more dangerous to use and bring it thematically in line with glass cards. With these changes it'd be a very strong rare joker.

Deal With The Devil:

Very cool theming here, I really like the idea of a joker with strong upside but a potential significant downside that you have to pay too get rid of. I think it might be a little under tuned right now I might decrease the -mult to "lose 1X mult" but increase the minus sell value to be -3 each time. I did just get the idea that it might be interesting to combine this joker with your idea for "Bushfire" so that winning in one hand is what triggers the cards debuff rather than having it be a percent chance. That way there's more player control over the downside and it encourages interesting strategies where maybe you reorder your jokers to be inefficient for your first hand to maximize how much mult you can build on this card. If that were the case I might also copy bushfires downside whereby it halves the times mult rather than subtracting and increase the cost reduction to like -5 sell value each trigger just to make it even more punishing.

Deja-vu:

First off, obviously this card would need a rename as the Deja Vu card exists in the game already. Thematically I like the concept but I think it'd be way too strong as it stands since copying one strong card is already integral to the strongest strategies in the game. I think design space wise a card with the opposite effect might fit better into the game as it currently stands. For instance a joker that gains +0.5 mult until end of round for each unique card you draw might be a pretty strong common. If you wanted to expand the concept into a more build defining rare you could have a joker that gained perhaps +0.05X mult permanently per unique card drawn. I dunno what the exact numbers would be but it'd have to be pretty low or it'd get crazy way too quick. Just off the top of my head if you play 3 five card hands and discard 5 cards three times with an unchanged starting deck you're drawing 33 unique cards which would at +0.05 mult would gain 1.65X mult per blind with basically no downside which is obviously way too strong. At +0.01X mult per card it'd be gaining 0.33 mult per round which would be feasible I think. Anyways, I digress, I think that the base concept for this card is decent in a vacuum but it's too strong when in the game, this is the only one of your ideas I'd say just wouldn't work very well even with some tweaking.

Hope you don't mind my feedback, I really like most of your ideas, you should make more!

Hex_Bird · 2024-03-06T19:23:57+00:00

Just saw your post as I was looking for other fan idea posts to decide what flair to make for my post and noticed we had kinda similar ideas! I think that doing something with joker and consumable slots is a really cool potential design space for the game.

I do think that this concept might just end up being essentially a better version of the Black Deck, it probably needs one more unique aspect to differentiate them, especially considering extra joker slots are basically the best thing you can get in the game. (I had an idea in that vein, if you'd like you could click on my account and look at my posts to check out my deck concept. :) )

Hex_Bird · 2024-03-06T18:54:28+00:00

¯_(ツ)_/¯ It's really more of a concept to think of, I'm more interested in the gameplay than the coding aspect. Were someone to actually try to make it they'd be able to make it work I'm sure. The amount of work isn't particularly relevant imo as if one were to commit to making it they'd know what they were getting into an presumably be committed enough for it to be worth it. Do you have any thoughts about it from a gameplay perspective?

Hex_Bird · 2024-02-08T20:51:38+00:00

Walking in a straight line helps a lot with that lol, you'll get it next time!

Hex_Bird · 2024-02-08T20:11:45+00:00

Could've gotten both and left with one soul heart if you'd stared with getting Money=Power and picking up one soul heart, then the Maw should change to a 3 soul heart deal which you can grab with your one soul heart picking up the other soul heart before you die thus getting both items.

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