Does the elf from Baldur's Gate 3 have a special place in your brain? Are you looking for a community of other perpetually bloodless individuals and trying to make some friends? Our server Astarion's Freak Palace is opened to new members today ✨️
Neil Newbon, learning about this chat (in the Astarion voice):
If you would like to be a part of the group of freaks, you could DM me or @scrytpe for the invite link! 18+ only!
Hi all! I built this server with some friends and we'd love to have you join! This is BG3 Astarion focused, but we have a great group of people and would love more. Feel free to use the link below!
Check out the Astarion's Freak Palace community on Discord - hang out with 53 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
I have recommended other CHN mobile otomes to my friends (ToT, my second love ❤️). But this time i think they are actually playing them hehe. I played it because I genuinely enjoy the story compared to other chn otomes which get a bit mystical 😭
I started playing ToT a year or two after I started MLQC (rip Queen). But I've recommended it to friend and they are enjoying it so that's nice.
I feel like LaDS was more accessible and exciting though.
But now I have more friends playing LBC and now LnN especially in SEA. LIKE I fear LaDS is losing to slightly more interesting games. So now even if they do the right thing they are going to feel that decrease. Alternately i think this could be a good thing for them. Like they might have to try instead of coasting off of previous success (yes MLQC was/is very fucking popular).
They got so sloppy. How crazy! Anyway you can play Lovebrush Chronicles and Tears of Themis and (LnN if you're in SEA) and still have space on your phone LOL.
shout out to book!grace, who blasted himself with 29 atmospheres worth of 210c (410f) degrees hot straight ammonia, in the hopes that rocky would survive. who carried rockys whole 168kg (370lbg) down ladders in a make-shift carrier. who turned around for rocky, fully expecting to die of starvation. sigh. who was just a little bit more of a bitch than movie!grace (whats that one quote where hes like "if i had a nickel for every parent i wanted to slap during my career, id have enough to fill a sock and hit them with that instead"). who was purposefully given memory loss, so he wouldnt sabotage the mission (something he threatned many times). who wasnt "friendless", like he was depicted in the movie. i miss you so bad. you were everything.
Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.
They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.
Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.
You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.
This article specifically notes:
For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.
GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
Other important quotes:
What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.
Two things back that up:
There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.
Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.
Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.
You can get and use windows 11 without logging in with a microsoft account, as of five days ago. I am a local user on my computer. Don't ask me how to do it, because my computer repair guy did it when he reinstalled windows, but there are tutorials out there. Refuse to connect to internet until you're set up and can use the computer freely.
Me when I contact IT and tell them yes I restarted and followed any instructions I could but computer still angry and IT says they are escalating this because it is an actual issue: I am getting a good grade in service desk ticket. Something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve.
Things to consider when writing about Dystopias !!!
⊹ What specific thing went wrong to create this. Climate disaster? War? Plague? Fascist takeover? Corporate control? Be specific because "everything sucks now" isn't enough. How did we get from our world to this one
⊹ Who's in charge and how did they get power. Did they seize it violently or did people willingly give up freedom for safety/convenience? Because that second one is way scarier and more realistic
⊹ What's the propaganda like. What lies is the government telling? What history has been rewritten? What's banned? How do they control information? This is always the first thing authoritarian regimes do
⊹ How do they maintain control. Surveillance? Fear? Making people dependent on the system? Turning people against each other? Rewards for loyalty? All of the above probably
⊹ What's illegal that used to be normal. Books? Certain jobs? Relationships? Having kids without permission? Traveling? Speaking freely? The specific restrictions tell you what the government fears
⊹ How do normal people survive day to day. What's the economy like? Is everyone struggling or is there a comfortable middle class that supports the regime because it benefits them
⊹ What's the class system. There's always a class system. Who has resources and power vs who's barely surviving. How do you move between classes or can you even
⊹ What do people do for entertainment. Is it controlled/approved entertainment only? Underground stuff? Has the government banned fun entirely? Do they use entertainment as distraction from how bad things are
⊹ How do they handle dissenters. Public executions? Reeducation camps? Make them disappear quietly? Turn them into examples? Exile?
⊹ What's the resistance like if there is one. Organized or scattered? Effective or constantly failing? Do normal people support them or are they seen as outsiders?
⊹ What technology exists and who has access to it. Is it advanced but only for the elite? Has technology regressed? Is certain tech banned because it's too dangerous
⊹ How does this society justify itself. Every dystopia thinks it's a utopia or at least necessary. What's their reasoning for why things have to be this way
⊹ Is there anywhere else in the world that's better or is this global. Can people escape or is that impossible. What's beyond the borders if anything?
⊹ What do people remember about before. Do old people tell stories about how it used to be? Has that knowledge been suppressed? Do young people believe them?
This has been my main argument against "AI" from the very beginning.
OpenAI scraped the entire web. All of which had been a labor of love from humans. Wikipedia is the backbone of a lot of LLMs, and that was volunteer human labor. They stole it and now they're selling it back to us.
And worse, they're trying to destroy the free sources that they stole from. It's destruction of human knowledge on an unprecedented scale. The burning of the library of Alexandria has nothing on this.
