occultaholic

None of the signup methods require a password. It only takes email and birthday. Minimizing time on the signin or signup screen makes it harder for people quitting to avoid relapse.

"Characters" on the website will send messages "on their own" (prompted by the site) to try to invite inactive users back after as soon as 1 day of inactivity. This is likely to force FOMO, or make users feel more like they owe the bots a response. Unhealthy attachment stuff.

Account deletion is an essential part of every service that should go smoothly, right? Right? Wrong. It takes 1-2 weeks for a Character AI account deletion to be finalized, and account deletion requests have a high chance to not go through if you're not using the app.

Rephrasing: People leaving Character.AI are pushed to download the app in order to delete their accounts, if they haven't already. This makes it harder for people to quit and stay gone. Failing to quit an addiction makes it harder to quit successfully in the future, so this feels like a feature, not a bug. On top of that, the delete account menu reads like this:

just a list of creative, talented cc creators that share their art for FREE

Myshunosun - LOVE always @myshunosun

Simandy - gorg maxis match creations @simandy

Orchiona - maxis match hair!!!!!! love love love @orchiona

Reiheartssimscc - cutie tattoos and items! @reiheartssimscc

Jellymoo - edited to add bc I forgot but ily and your cc!! @jellymoo

@kirsicca

@someone-elsa

@wotunciba

@topangasdownloads

@mossylane

@crazy-hazy-sims

@midnitetech [early access]

@claudiasharon @plutorienos

@esotericas-sims @oswanily

@marsosims

Every single person on this planet thinks about dark and taboo things. It's literally the most normal thing in the world.

you think it’s a coincidence that in most asian shows, bollywood and nollywood the main characters are pale???? You think it’s a coincidence that even in black shows the woman is more often than not paler that the man?!!!! you think it’s a coincidence?!!!! Or that in some of these shows the paler characters are described as “pure” or that even in gay couples the one with the darker skin tone will be masculinized even if that’s not even how they want to present?!! Or the underrepresentation of darker latinos and afro latinos like GUYSSS GUYSSS😞

Alright so, for anyone who doesn’t actually know about this because it was a few years ago now: the person who made/maintains the official Gshade is a petulant toddler who previously placed malware within a Gshade update (which anyone who uses it knows, if you want your Gshade to work again it HAS TO BE updated).

If you’re going to use Gshade instead of Reshade, use a fork that isn’t the official one – but frankly, I’d STRONGLY suggest Reshade instead, give its open source nature and the fact you can ignore updates for literally ever if you want and it’ll still function perfectly.

For a quick summary of what happened: Gshade was always infamous for having absurd amounts of updates, and as they became more excessive people started to complain about having to update almost every damn day. Someone got fed up and created a fork that would bypass the ‘you must update to use it’ bullshit. The catalyst was the petulant child literally dropping a couple ACTUALLY EMPTY updates just to piss people off further because of the complaints about the excessive updates. Just for the extra context of ‘he very much did bullshit like this even before the malware bomb’.

This turned into an arms race between him and the person maintaining the version that gave updates the middle finger, which eventually ended in him placing code that would ‘detect if someone was using a third-party non-official Gshade’ and forcibly shut down their entire PC. Not the program (which still would have been bad, mind you, but at least SOMEWHAT more reasonable), but your entire fucking PC. Anyone whose dealt with things that ‘detect third party software’ KNOWS that this shit always has false positives from some other ENTIRELY unrelated programs, and that’s exactly what happened.

The dev’s response to this was basically quadrupling down, with one quote from them being pretty much ‘I could have done something actually harmful, but I didn’t!’ (spoiler: forcibly shutting down a PC is harmful if you’re unlucky – that’s why ‘hold power button to force shutdown’ is a last resort, because you’re basically spinning a roulette wheel). So, ‘I’ll fuckin’ do it again!’ level of response to the concerns, basically.

There’s more bits to the story, but that’s the gist of it. Given the price of PC parts and PCs in general right now, unless you’re willing to risk that potential $2k on a replacement rig if baby has a tantrum again, I suggest folks ditch Gshade in favor of Reshade. The 'convenience' is not worth it.

a realistic yet slightly unhinged gameplay challenge by meee

link to the full rules under the cut

(this list is mainly ways non-locals can donate but by extension offers a lot of resources and places to volunteer in the Twin Cities + there are specific ways to donate time under the cut which can be adjusted to your local neighborhood)

full credit to cataloo from r/minnesota [x]

🩵Immigrant support

Immigrant Defense Network – coalition of 90+ groups organizing rapid response and collecting evidence.

Immigrant Law Center of MN – free immigration legal representation to low-income immigrants and refugees.

COPAL – advocacy, organizing, phone hotline. Focus on Latine community.

Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) – education and protest organizing.

Interfaith Coalition on Immigration – advocacy, aid, events.

Monarca MN – training and phone hotline.

Unidos MN – education, protests, advocacy.

Center for Victims of Torture – advocacy and mental health services for immigrants and refugees.

International Institute of Minnesota – refugee resettlement group that provides support and legal help to vulnerable new-to-country families.

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota – offers services to refugees, including legal aid to non-citizens.

🩵Food support

If local, food donations are welcome, otherwise monetary donations help these types of orgs source what is most needed

VEAP

Second Harvest Heartland

Every Meal

The Food Group

Meals on Wheels MN

Find a local food shelf

🩵Mutual aid funds & community support

Community Aid Network

Twin Cities Trans Mutual Aid

Leo's Tow (Venmo @leostowingmn) is towing cars back to families if a car is stranded when someone is detained.

🩵More links

MN50501 Mutual Aid Linktree – well-organized list of various Twin Cities groups.

Mplsmutualaid Linktree – many neighborhood and individual GoFundMes listed here.

Mpls.St.Paul Magazine – see Food Drives and Fundraisers.

Stand with Minnesota – extensive list of organizations, mutual aid, and crowdfunding campaigns.

🩵Donate blood

Memorial Blood Center declared a blood emergency on Tuesday, Jan 13. MBC is the blood supplier for both tier 1 trauma hospitals in the metro area (Hennepin County Medical Center and North Memorial Health).

American Red Cross

🩵Donate food or other goods

Mpls.St.Paul Magazine – see Food Drives and Fundraisers.

Volunteer your time (under the cut)

We need to be clear that ICE is *not* law enforcement. In reality, ICE is being set up as a presidential, national paramilitary force — which is carrying out actions that aren’t legal under the guise of “law enforcement.”