Amelia's Hart

When I got started over there, I was clearly a kid with no idea what I was doing. I wrote shit fanfiction. I had shit roleplay etiquette. My contributions to discussions were nothing special. I was earnestly overexcited for just about everything.

My time on that forum board is the most fun I've had in a fandom space, all because of one reason: the people there were welcoming, and they helped me learn how to be involved in fandom.

Through them, I was able to see what good fanfiction and good roleplay and good etiquette looked like. They taught me -- through example and through discussion -- how be a part of a fandom in a polite, respectful, and fun manner.

By the time I drifted away from that site, I had a solid, if not perfect, grasp on fandom etiquette and a strong desire to stay involved in fandom.

None of that would have happened if the people in that forum hadn't welcomed me and taught me how to be involved.

With the influx of Wattpad users coming over to AO3, I think it's important that more seasoned users remember how they got into fandom.

It happened, in some way, because you found a welcoming community -- not a community that made blanket, aggressive statements about everyone from x platform and constantly insulted them.

It is not a terrible offense to be unfamiliar with how a platform is set up, or to be not perfect at etiquette. Everyone makes mistakes, and we need to be considerate of that if we want people to learn from their mistakes.

To people coming over from Wattpad, who want to learn how AO3 works, I am happy to help if you reach out to me. I'm not an AO3 wizard, but I'll do what I can.

To everyone else, try to remember there was a time when you didn't know how to participate in fandom politely.

the dastardly curve has harmed me once more

this kind of policing is why ao3 was created

remember, kids, the three laws of fandom are:

- don’t like; don’t read

- your kink is not my kink

Apparently you can do a saliva test kit at home:

I was able to get a clinical diagnosis (based on symptoms) and treatment (dienogest) without surgery, but that's rare.

Why is this important? Aside from making diagnosis and treatment more available, not everyone is a good candidate for surgery. Personally, I had already had a c-section, and so while surgery was an option, my Dr and I recognized that it's possible some of my pain is from existing scar tissue, and more surgery could cause more problems. I also live with ME/CFS and having surgery carries a risk of long term recovery and possibly worsening my symptoms. For others, it might be difficult due to the costs, inability to take time off work to recover, or other circumstances that put off surgery - which would also put off potentially effective treatment.

I know surgery is good for a lot of people, but my quality of life dramatically increased without it - I'm rarely in any pain since starting treatment in 2017.

Pronouns

An accent

hello precious followers. i made a comic about grief, or how i feel when i process grief at least. i put a robot in it. please read it.

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.

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.

I also made a PDF version!!

For comprehensive deets, tomshardware explains