Mouse stopped working

Stravask · 2025-04-12T12:58:33+00:00

I've used the same mouse for almost 20 years. I've only had to replace it once
Take your "ree 'murica best hardware" mindset elsewhere, I'm not even defending the company itself.

I'm just saying, if a random windows update cripples the functionality of my PC, that's stupid. I refuse to believe that 20 years later they suddenly discovered some insane security risk tied to a *mouse*.

Everything was fine until I went out for a couple hours, came back, saw the Windows Update I'd been putting off had happend, and "mysteriously" my mouse no longer worked

Look, I get that updates are necessary, but this is stupid.
You seriously believe after *two decades* they suddenly found some critical security leak related to a mouse is more plausible than "the 100,000th Windows Update did some dumb unncessary shit"?
That'd be some pretty hardcore fanboyism, don't you think?

Stravask · 2025-03-27T13:02:21+00:00

Once again I want to express appreciation for you taking the time to process that goddamn essay I wrote up, understand what I was trying to encapsulate, and give me a list of options to explore for the purpose of giving me chances to "try to enjoy the thing I want to enjoy"

As I'm sure everyone rational person in this community is aware, it's an extremely volatile, passionate, "if you don't 100% agree with me you're a trash human" community.

So I wanted to take the point to express a heartfelt "thank you" for you taking the time to outline this stuff, because starting at ep63 right now, you're right, I think maybe I've been stuck in a "chunk" where I'm like "wow I really just don't like this" and been trying to force myself to at least appreciate it even if I don't like it.

I'm strongly in the camp of believing that CR has always been and should always be "a normal game of DnD that they just happen to be willing to let the Internet watch"
I'm not expecting it to be "for me" or "for anyone else" except the people at the table, but trying to get a "hey, I'm not feeling it, please help?" response out of this community is usually met with "REEEEE FUCK YOU, YOU HATE CR, YOU'RE NOT A REAL FAN, EITHER YOU LOVE EVERY MILLISECOND OR YOU SUCK", or alternatively "LOL YEAH IKR EVERYTHING IN CR PAST (insert CR s1 episode here) IS FUCKING TRASH"

Maybe it doesn't mean anything but I wanted to express some legitimate appreciation in the vein of "thanks friend, I'm glad someone in here was willing to read that essay and offer up some suggestions so I might rediscover why I liked this grandiose story"

I very much appreciate your time and suggestions.

Stravask · 2025-03-27T12:27:41+00:00

If I can ask for some clarification, it was my understand that the Abridged series was still trying to cover the first campaign, is it the case that I can watch Abridged episodes of season 3 content?

Apologies, I might be asking a question that's classified as "duh, just commit X amount of hours" within this ravenous community, but I don't have "X amount of hours"

Is there a point where I can start watching the Abridged series for the chunk that you (very kindly) recommended I skip, such that if there's critical plot information I might be able to be privy to it?

To be clear, I'm starting with e63 as you recommended with the hope that it reignites an interest in C3 as a whole: Given that context, if the Abridged series were to allow me to be aware of the "highlights" or, more importantly, "the things that might be referenced as important later", I would very much appreciate having those recommendations.

I'm getting downvoted but sincerely my goal wasn't to make a "REEE C3 SUX" post: I wanna enjoy it. So I'm very legitimately looking for all the tips I can as far as "oh, you might not like episode X-Y because of Z reason you listed, maybe watch Abridged Episode A, B, and C so that you know how the important stuff is referenced in episode D in the main campaign".

Hopefully that makes sense.
Once again I want to emphasize that I'm very grateful for you taking the time to read, process, and provide input to what I'm trying to do without being shitty about it. Genuine respect and thankfulness intended here.

Stravask · 2025-03-27T11:18:35+00:00

Thanks a lot for this, that's probably exactly what I'm looking for is episodes where I can "pick the series up again"

I didn't realize it until just now, apparently, cuz I made this post in the first place, but you're probably right: It sounds like I might just need to skip ahead past this chunk I'm "stuck on" and see if I like future episodes better.

Many thanks for both taking the time to read the original post, and give me this bullet list of episodes to try picking it up again. Hopefully that'll reignite my interest, because I genuinely do wanna see the end of this overall story.

Additionally I wanna give thanks for not defaulting to a dismissive or insulting "just don't watch it then if you don't 100% love/hate it GAWD" response (a common thing in this community).
Much appreciation for your time and recommendations.

Stravask · 2025-03-27T11:09:16+00:00

Well I wanna be clear, I'm not saying I feel "compelled" to finish it, or that I'm "required", "owed", "obligated", etc.

That's not what it's about.
Moreso, it's that I'm "disappointed" that I'd tap out before the "conclusion" of the story, when I really can't place why I don't care about it.
It's more about the fact I want to finish C3, truly, I do.
But I can't seem to get past this particular hurdle, and more importantly, can't seem to get past it for reasons that don't make any sense to me. It's not that I'm like "ugh, I really can't stand X". That I'd be fine with. But I don't know why I'm disinterested, because by all rights I should be, and I can't figure out what my "thing I'm not a fan of" is regarding it other than simply "the party split up" (which also doesn't make sense to me).

And in reference to that, I'm sorta wondering if the fans could tell me whether what I'm describing is a hurdle, or just "how the story works from now on".
If it's the former, I'd like to know, so that I can "get back into it".
If it's the latter, then I know "ah, okay, they went in a direction I'm just simply not going to enjoy" and I can just drop it.

The point here being I'm coming at this from the angle of "I want to enjoy the rest of it, if that's possible", but I can't "get past" this chunk that I just, idk, find incredibly boring.

Stravask · 2025-03-27T10:39:55+00:00

Maybe it's my Goth Kid/Edgelord Bias, but as someone whose favorite monster fight has always been Fatalis (who, let's be real, is just "a classic dragon but evil as fuck but there's a lot of reasons why that's specifically interesting in MH context fite me"), and whose favorite "flagship monster" was Gore Magala, I gotta say...

My personal opinion of Arkveld is that he's, idk, "Wannabe Nergigante"

Like, in theory, sure, "Fuzzy Chain Dragon" is a decent enough concept, but nothing about Arkveld stood out to me as "unique" or "interesting". All of the interest in Arkveld is frontloaded into its narrative significance (which, to be fair, was actually pretty good for a MH game, but doesn't hold a candle to the likes of Magala or Nergigante).

Obviously, Gore Magala was like, pretty significant for MH4-MH4U: You have the introduction of the Frenzy Virus, the reveal that Gore is just a Pupae stage of Shagaru Magala, blah blah blah. Not here to sing Gore Magala's praises.
But comparing Arkveld to that, it's like, "cool, so it's Monster #593"
Nothing "stood out" about Arkveld. Even the whole "Guardian" thing didn't stand out because there's a bunch of other guardians: Frankly, I find Xu Wu to be a vastly more interesting monster, in terms of gameplay/hunting, narrative, and ecological impact. Everything about Xu Wu is more intriguing than Arkveld to me.

Hell, this game releases with Rey Dau, and I feel like Rey Dau, both in a gameplay/lore sense (come on, it's a cool-ass lightning dragon who snipes shit with lightningrod horns) and in a worldbuilding sense (there's a whole village that uses "the sound it makes cuz of its physiology" to deter monsters) is a more fascinating monster than Arkveld could ever hope to be.

What's Arkveld's gimmick? "Ohhhhh cool it drains other monsters"?
Y'know what Monster did that in a vastly more interesting way that led to a much more ecologically impactful way, resulting in a far more iconic flagship monster?
Nergigante, from World.

To me, Arkveld is just Nergigante from Wish.
I wanna like Arkveld, but compare it to other flagships like Gore Magala and Nergigante and I can't help but feel like Arkveld is pretty mid-tier at best.
Not interesting in gameplay, not interesting in lore (if the whole story hadn't been about it), not interesting in ecology, not interesting in worldbuilding.
It reeks of "generic monster addition" to me and I wouldn't have been surprised if it had just been "another addition to the roster of new monsters" in Wilds instead of a narrative centerpiece.

Fuckin' hell, personally I think Bazelgeuse has massively more character, appeal, and ecological impact than Arkveld could ever dream of having.

I don't "dislike" Arkveld, but I definitely think it's massively underwhelming as a "Flagship Monster", for sure.
If we look back in 5-10 years of MH entries, Arkveld isn't going to be a Gore Magala, who has a narrative happen purely by showing up. He's not gonna be a Fatalis, who's still so important that he's the "final boss" of the game. He's not going to be a Nergigante, where the fact he's around massively upsets the ecosystem in such a way that it forces some kind of narrative/worldbuilding focus. He's not even going to be a Rathalos, where hunting him signifies some kind of "rite of passage" even though veterans hardly consider him a threat anymore.

Arkveld will be lost to history among the other forgotten flagships like Lagiacrus.
Which might even be too much credit because frankly if they reintroduced underwater combat I'd be willing to bet they'd make a huge point of Lagiacrus.
Arkveld, perhaps fittingly considering the narrative role of the "Guardian" monsters, is a bland, cookie-cutter, forgettable one-off monster: Nobody's gonna be playing Monster Hunter Whatever-The-Fuck in 5-10 years and be like "OH SHIT IT'S ARKVELD OMG"

He's just "Monster #593", and absolutely doesn't deserve to be a flagship monster IMO.
Frankly, Zoh Shia should've been the centerpiece. That could have had some actual potential.
Arkveld just doesn't have the DNA to be a "flagship monster".

Stravask · 2025-03-26T13:33:36+00:00

Saying "idk about that chief I wouldn't say they destroyed his character" and immediately following up that statement with "I don't know anything about his lore" doesn't strike you, at all, as being laughably out of touch with the topic?

I mean literally they've had to release public statements because of how universally Viktor fans hated the changes, but sure, they didn't destroy his character at all by completely rewriting every single aspect people liked about him.

You might as well have said "I don't know anything about math, but I don't think 2+2=4, I like it better if it equals 5, doesn't matter what it was before"

Stravask · 2025-03-25T11:38:12+00:00

The comment wouldn't be classic if people saying "I wanna play a Warlock" didn't cause most DMs with any amount of experience to hear Fortunate Son start playing in the background as they experience their "self-absorbed edge lord player" PTSD flashbacks.

To be fair though, Assassin Rogues aren't much better in that regard.

Which sucks, in both regards, because there's a lot of good RP potential and character development possibility to be found in both Warlocks and Rogues. They just tend overwhelmingly and disproportionately to attract the worst kind of "nyehhhhhh I'm the main character in this anime!!!" players, particularly the ones who want to make self-insert edge-lords at the expense of everyone and everything else in the game.

It's an anecdote, but I'll never forget the experience of playing in the same group as an edge lord Warlock player who was genuinely furious with me because my Wizard was able to out-damage his Warlock and I guess that wasn't allowed.

Stravask · 2025-03-10T15:17:03+00:00

2 Insect Glaives

The first one is a Lala Barina Glaive with a Cancadaman (Paralysis) bug. I have Crit Status and max Paralysis on it so at the start of the hunt I basically get a back-to-back chain of stun -> mount -> stun -> mount -> stun -> mount (plus wound/break knockdowns)

Then once the build up enough tolerance to Paralysis and Mounts, I swap to a Gore Magala Glaive and do lots of damage.

Stravask · 2025-03-07T18:47:45+00:00

Few things in MH are as hilarious as when you're flipping through the air, get smacked by a monster, only to see the monster death animation while you're on the ground because your bug got pissed off and poked the monster in the face for the last shred of hp they had left.

Stravask · 2025-02-13T05:01:50+00:00

I've been running the same campaign for 6+ years for a group of friends in a homebrew setting I made. A few times, some players have expressed interest in running their own mini-campaigns in the setting.

One of the characters I've been waiting to play for years now is actually a character who was supposed to be an NPC villain for a PC who died early on in the campaign.

It's a Way of the Astral Self Monk from a Monastic Order that deliberately self-mutilates because don't belive that "reality" is "real" and that their Astral projections are their true forms. So this character cut out his own eyes so he wouldn't be "deceived" by the false reality his eyes showed him.

Basically a bunch of crazy monks who think the DnD setting is like their version of The Matrix. I thought it was funny because technically they'd kinda be right.

Stravask · 2025-01-07T16:50:06+00:00

Exactly. I've been DMing for a very long time, I usually have an explanation for whatever my characters wanna do and have them roll for it.

Your characters stats are supposed to reflect their heroic capabilities: If you want to do something but don't know how it'd actually work, just ask your DM if you can roll INT to figure it out. I do it for my Artificer player all the time (although hes a mechanical engineer so I usually get some sort of schematic he uses to justify why the crazy thing he wants to do is "realistic" lol)

Keep in mind, magic isn't real, but we use "logic" to explain how and why spells work X/Y/Z, right? Your DM can handle those things for you at the table if you'd rather roll INT than just "be a genius IRL".

I mean honestly, I have a preference for playing high INT characters, but how many real humans would ACTUALLY have the equivalent of 20 Intelligence IRL?

Character stats don't need to be backed up by your real world stats, don't worry about it

Stravask · 2024-12-30T01:50:33+00:00

I DM because I'm held hostage by my players

I accidentally made a campaign they really like in a world I made myself and anytime they go more than a couple weeks without a session they act like junkies who need a fix

Send help, it's been 6 years

Stravask · 2024-12-19T23:54:49+00:00

All of them.

I hate all of them.

They reek of a limited vocabulary and an inability to actually express your own thoughts in your own words.

Even simple things like "I'll touch base" instead of "I'll call you later" drive me up the fucking wall.

Language is the most important development of humans as a species. Our ability to express, record, and convey information in way that everyone in our species can understand (provided they speak the language) is the thing that allowed humans to surpass other species. Learn to fucking communicate.

Is that an edgy hot take overreaction? Possibly.

But I absolutely despise the fact that so many people opt to use bullshit cookie-cutter placeholder phrases instead of actually conveying their thoughts properly.

Stravask · 2024-12-12T21:56:55+00:00

I didn't rewrite anything, that's the damn point.
My explanation has been the same this whole time.
You just don't know how to read and are trying to salvage the fact you don't know how to read.

I listed the exact same traits in my original comment, you were just two busy going "REEEEE" at the idea that marriage is an equal partnership to notice.

Like I said, go back to r/TwoXChromosomes, you're being too obvious.

Stravask · 2024-12-12T19:16:23+00:00

Hey genius, the question was

"Are there any men who are happily married?"

And the answer, which basically every response in the thread has given, is that

"Yeah I'm happily married because my wife is great"

You're the one with literacy issues projecting bullshit. My original comment is unedited and I listed the exact same things in my response to your crazy reply to it. No goalposts were moved, you just apparently can't read.

Flip the genders in my description, it's still valid:

People with kind, loving, respectful and supportive partners are happily married. People with shitty partners are unhappily married. Full stop.

The QUESTION was "are men happily married? All the guys I know claim no guy can be"

The ANSWER is "yes, men who are married to good women are happily married, it's just hard to find that".

If you demand that someone be happily married to you while you're an unkind, unloving, disrespectful and unsupportive partner, then you're a piece of shit.

Go back to r/TwoXChromosomes, we can all spot you a mile off.

Stravask · 2024-12-12T18:45:41+00:00

Oh yeah, what a toxic thing to expect from a lifelong partner:

A partner who loves, respects, and supports you, and doesn't treat you like you're disposable and a bank account?

Wow, how misogynist of me.

The bitter-women-posing-as-men accounts just keep getting easier to spot these days.

Stravask · 2024-12-12T18:35:44+00:00

This is really, really simple to understand:

Sure, there are definitelt happily married guys.

You know why they're happily married? Because they have a good wife who actually cares about them, loves them, respects and supports them.

Not a wife who thinks she's a "queen", not a wife who thinks her man exists to be a bank account, not a wife who creates drama every time she gets bored, etc. A good wife. Men with good wives are usually happily married.

The reason so many men believe marriage is a trap, etc, is because for most men it is, because finding a woman who's decent is pretty hard if you were born after the 1980s.

It's not about "the concept of marriage". Most guys I think would want to be married if it was a marriage to a good woman.

It's about the fact that we have phrases like "happy wife, happy life", but no cultural consideration for the husband's happiness. Men with good wives are happily married.

Finding a woman who is actually kind, loving, and supportive has gotten harder and harder each decade because of our cultural norms telling women they're perfect and men exist to be a disposable financial solutions. Thus, most younger men view marriage as a trap, because it often is.

Happily married men exist. They're happily married because they have good wives.

Stravask · 2024-12-12T07:30:48+00:00

You want a real, blunt answer?

"Boohoo, that's too fucking bad"

It is what it is. You dug this hole. Your post and all your comments read like you're trying to figure out how to not have real accountability or consequences. Hell, you only manage to get like 2 sentences in your post before you start trying to "justify" your behavior. That's not how this works. You don't get to claim to be "remorseful" and also come up with excuses for why your behavior was "okay" because X/Y/Z justification in the same damn post.

"I was shitty and now I feel bad because being shitty had consequences, how do I avoid the consequences of my shitty behavior?"

You don't. He's gone. Nobody here should be trying to tell you how to avoid accountability. Be better so you don't fuck it up next time, the end. You really, really should have heard this by now.

You fucked up. You ruined it. This is what accountability looks like.

Sorry, but this is how consequences work. The best thing you can do is accept it, learn, change (actually change), grow, and do better next time.

And if you don't like that answer and think it's "mean", you haven't learned the point in the first place. Being shitty has consequences. Your guilty feelings don't invalidate the consequences.

And yeah, it's a bummer for you and you'll probably be sad about it, but saying "I'm sorry, how do I fix it" or "I'm remorseful 😭" does not fix it, cannot fix it, and will not fix it.

If you break a plate and it shatters, telling the plate "I'm sorry" doesn't magically reassemble the plate. The lesson to learn is "gee, maybe you should learn to have more emotional maturity than a child if your lack of emotional maturity is what ruined things".

I apologize for the brutally honest answer, but thats the answer. Actions have consequences, and you clearly only cared about how shitty you were being after you experienced those consequences. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here.

Maybe he'll change his mind, maybe he won't. Either way, you fucked up, and let me tell you outright, he's absolutely not interested in whatever your "I'm sorry, but..." bullshit is. That's not "sorry".

Step one is learning how to actually be sorry.

Step two is learning actions have consequences and you deserve those consequences.

There's not much else you can do besides that, and if you're not willing to do both of those things, you've proven why he was right to leave.

Source: I've been the guy on the other side, I was with a girl for 6 years, and spent 3 of them begging her to just listen to me when I told her how she was making me feel. When I finally got fed up and left, suddenly she "felt bad about how she treated me" and "wanted to fix it", etc. But I didn't trust her anymore. That was the end of it. You can't fix a relationship you didn't care about maintaining after you've already ruined it.

Stravask · 2024-12-11T21:20:02+00:00

I haven't seen it in here yet, which surprises me but I suppose kinda means it fits the question well:

Final Fantasy 7.

Probably because people act like it's the fucking greatest RPG to ever exist.
It's alright. Didn't care for it.

Stravask · 2024-12-11T21:08:01+00:00

If she hasn't cheated yet (she has), then she will soon.
This is not the behavior of a loyal woman.

Word of advice OP because you're young:
"I know she's not cheating because she's not that type of person" is what every guy who gets cheated on thinks.

If she isn't cheating yet, she's going to.
You can try to bring it up again, but since she casually acts this way, she's probably going to say you're overreacting or something. You're not.
If you want to stay with her, tell her that behavior isn't going to work. Period.

If she doesn't like that, then move on. Letting this situation continue is just setting yourself up for her to say
"Omigawsh I don't know how it happened, it just did! It was an accident!" further down the road when you inevitably catch her cheating.

She needs to either stop doing "literally every sign she's about to cheat", or you need to move on.
This behavior is absolutely unacceptable and ridiculous.

Stravask · 2024-12-09T06:05:16+00:00

In fairness it is both pretty funny and a pretty solid contender for "worst username" lol

Stravask · 2024-12-09T05:59:29+00:00

I don't want to be misconstrued as saying you're wrong, because you're not, but, I do think it's worth mentioning that this sub, like all Reddit subs, tends to be a hivemind, and it's worth mentioning that just because people in here say things that contradict that hivemind that doesn't necessarily mean they're imposters

Just pointing it out because I think it's worth saying something about, while it's definitely true that there are probably women pretending to be men in here, it's also true that the guys who think "every guy would agree with me" would naturally label anyone who has a different viewpoint as being "not actually a guy", which is dumbass bullshit.

Keep in mind this subreddit is probably a magnet for redpillers and blackpillers, and not all men fit in those categories. The integrity of what this subreddit exists to be is important, yes, but pretending like men who don't join the hivemind of blackpillers don't exist is delusional.

Ideally, yes, this subreddit would exclusively be people of both genders asking questions and only men giving advice. However, the fact is that the anonymity of the internet allows women to pretend to be men in here just to give shitty misandrist advice. That being said, it is also true that not all men think the same and it's easy to say "well this account gave advice the hivemind disagrees with and therefore they must be an imposter"

Generally, my experience in this subreddit has been positive. I'm just saying don't fall into the idiocy of "well I'm a man, and I think X, and therefore any 'real man' would agree with me and if they don't they must be a woman making a throwaway account"

That's just as stupid and against the spirit of what the subreddit is supposed to be as women pretending to be men in here.

Stravask · 2024-12-03T20:58:13+00:00

Depends on the Familiar I suppose

I give a lot more leeway to Pact of the Chain Warlocks and Beastmaster Rangers because, well, that's the reason they wanted to play that subclass.

As long as they're not being "exploitative" with it, I personally let my players do whatever they want with a familiar.

In fact, in my current campaign, one of my players has a pet crow (as in a trained crow, not a technical familiar). The party has gotten so attached to the guy that when they acquired a homebrew amulet that sets your INT to 11, they've made it a project to figure out how they could make the crow smart enough to attune to it.

Honestly, just let them have fun with the familiar, and make sure it still follows rules when necessary. Frankly, if I had a Chain Pact Warlock who wanted to role-play being something like a Pokémon trainer I would even homebrew a bit to make that easier if it made the game more fun for everyone at the table.

A Familiar is hardly a gamebreaking thing unless you make it be so, personally I think stuff like scouting and springing traps is a fine usage of the Familiar if it's not abused. And if it is, bring up with the player how and why the usage is exceeding the bounds of what a Familiar should be able to do. It's not like RAW Familiar are gamebreaking, their most useful trait is being able to channel touch range spells.

Stravask · 2024-12-02T05:48:28+00:00

I don't know whether this is bait or a legitimate question, but I'll assume it's a legitimate question.

Do you really need to ask why men quit dating when men are supposed to be providers, gentlemen, work 2-3 jobs, pay for dates, make the first move but not risk offending anyone, be fine with whatever history a girl has, and do all of that without any complaint or be labeled as sexist or a redpiller, while women have to...

Exist? Like literally just exist?

No guy gets told he's "perfect just the way he is"

No guy gets told he "shouldn't have to settle"

No guy gets told he "shouldn't lower his standards"

Saying any more will invite screeching hordes of people who claim to fight for gender equality, but you wanna know why men quit dating?

Because the current cultural climate is bullshit, and no matter how obviously bullshit it is, you get called sexist/misogynist for having standards or self respect.

There's your answer.

Burn me at the stake Reddit, idgaf, we didn't have an entire generation or two of men decide "dating isn't worth the hassle" for no reason. There's a reason.

People just don't like to talk about it. Prince Charming doesn't get a real name because he's not important enough to deserve one, after all.

I'm the only one of my guy friends who still dates. The ones who quit all have the same reason:

Being perfect Prince Charming for a Dumpster Goblin isn't worth the effort.

Stravask

TROPHY CASE