iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Oh, I see that Fire Emblem is once again making characters designed to to target Me Specifically (*Please* don't make her A Thing To Protect And Nothing More like the trailer suggests, Intsys)

A currently-unnamed character from the Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, wearing a high-collared, sky-blue dress with a white capelet over her shoulders, leather sandals with boot-styled shin-guards glasses, and wearing her dark chestnut hair in twintails.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

So I know some folks have been asking not just "where are updates on Recettear HD?" (soon), but also "so what the hell has Carpe Fulgur been up to?" The answer to that is: we always try to have an iron in the fire. Robin was on the translation team, I on the editing team... for Super Robot Wars Y.

The Super Robot Wars Y splash image, showing a number of robots posing in space with an energy surge forming a "Y" in the background. Included robots are Dynazenon, Red 5 from Galactic Prince, the Guren from Code Geass, Reideen, Combattler V, Getter Arc, Gundam Aerial, a VF-31 in Hayate Immelmann's colors, the L-Gaim and Jet Jaguar.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

I have to confess: this image by @port1220.bsky.social has always given me huge "Jane Starsector at the start of the game" vibes. Just one person in a rinky-dink shuttle. @amosolov.bsky.social

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

I WILL SAY AGAIN: GIVE ME UPDATED PRIVATEER WITH A WIDER SHIP SELECTION, AND MY LIFE IS YOURS. bsky.app/profile/just...

The classic box art for Wing Commander: Privateer. It shows a four-engined transport vessel (a player ship) on approach to Perry Naval Station, as a pair of fighters prepare to lift off from it and a pair of naval destroyers patrol in the background. Further back, a planet is shown in the distance (which Perry does not orbit in the actual game).

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Like, don't take our word for it. Go look up almost any of The Professor's letters. The man was, unquestionably, a Poster. He Posted, and no force on Earth could possibly rein in his Posting when he felt the need to Post. bsky.app/profile/lord...

The first part of a well-known letter J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in response to German publisher Rütten & Loening during the Third Reich, who inquired about his ancestry as a precondition for publishing The Hobbit in German. It is proof that The Professor had the soul of a Poster.

It reads:

"I must say the enclosed letter from Rütten & Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of 'arisch' origin from all persons of all countries?

Personally, I should be inclined to refuse to give any Bestätigung (although it happens that I can), and let a German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.

You are primarily concerned, and I cannot jeopardize the chance of a German publication without your approval. So I submit two drafts of possible answers."

One of the drafts of "possible answers" J.R.R. Tolkien submitted to German publisher Rütten & Loening during the Third Reich. Truly, The Professor let his Poster's Spirit run wild here.

It reads:

"Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by 'arisch'. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject—which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my 'Abstammung'."

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

This post is Good, and these particular examples are Very Good examples of why generative algorithms are largely worse than useless for any kind of productivity task: bsky.app/profile/eev....

A block of text from eevee's linked article. The header reads "Case study 1". The (pictured) body reads: "“Ah!” the Hacker News commenters cry. “But have you tried it?” they ask with all the indignity of a kindergartener offended that you won’t eat their mud pie.

But yes, thanks: I was once offered this challenge when faced with a Ren’Py problem, so I grit my teeth and posed my question to some LLM. It confidently listed several related formatting tags that would solve my problem.

One teeny tiny issue: those tags did not and had never existed. I typed this additional context into the computer, and it generated a profuse apology followed by a different set of fictional tags. That was the end of that grand experiment.

The trouble was likely that there was no built-in way to do what I wanted, and no one had ever successfully done it before, so the machine had nothing to draw from… and simply generated something that sounded plausible instead. Because that is what this technology does: it continues a conversation in a way that sounds plausible, as defined by similarity to existing conversations. If there are existing conversations about the topic, great! That makes for a more specific measure of plausibility. If not, even better! Just about anything might be plausible! It can just generate Whatever!

I cannot stress enough that this is worse than useless to me. Not only did it not answer my question, but it sent me on a wild goose chase making sure I had not somehow overlooked the fake API it generated."

The text continues on, past the alt text character limit.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

"But the governor controls the national guard at a state level!" Yeah, well, despite that, the White House itself confirmed he gave the order, regardless of the situation otherwise: bsky.app/profile/kyle...

A screenshot of a statement issued by the United States White House and the President. It reads: "In recent days, violent mobs have attacked ICE Officers and Federal Law Enforcement Agents carrying out basic deportation operations in Los Angeles, California. These operations are essential to halting and reversing the invasion of illegal criminals into the United States. In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens. That is why President Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester. The Trump Administration has a zero tolerance policy for criminal behavior and violence, especially when that violence is aimed at law enforcement officers trying to do their jobs. These criminals will be arrested and swiftly brought to justice. The Commander-in-Chief will ensure the laws of the United States are executed fully and completely.”

-Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Now, I've been meaning to get us a bit up to speed with all of the teases EasyGameStation has been doing for #RecettearHD (we suffered some Personal Interruptions that threw off our scheduling a bit)... ... but hold the presses, who are *you*, new friend? (And what do you shop for?)

A screenshot from Recettear HD, showing A New Mystery Character dropping by the item shop on Day 16 and having a chat with Recette & Tear.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

The full original post is even more incredible.

A post from Reddit, posted back in 2021 to r/lgbt. It reads: "Honestly I don't understand anything about this. Of all things why choose crime? That's like the one thing that is universally considered illegal. That's the very definition of crime. Also another thing I have seen getting thrown aroud is, though this one might be a trans thing, "Arson! It's legal." I am quite confused. Please help a 24 year old straight girl out! <3 "

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

I just mean, like: This excerpt sounds like "the students are using solutions available to them to solve the treadmill" as much as it does "students are using nefarious programs to cheat!!!1" If multiple courses across the syllabus can all be "solved" with output from a single program...

Excerpt from a New York Magazine article: "Sarah, a freshman at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, said she first used ChatGPT to cheat during the spring semester of her final year of high school. (Sarah’s name, like those of other current students in this article, has been changed for privacy.) After getting acquainted with the chatbot, Sarah used it for all her classes: Indigenous studies, law, English, and a “hippie farming class” called Green Industries. “My grades were amazing,” she said. “It changed my life.” Sarah continued to use AI when she started college this past fall. Why wouldn’t she? Rarely did she sit in class and not see other students’ laptops open to ChatGPT."

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

Yes. The wording the First Amendment explicitly does *NOT* limit the freedom to just citizens, but instead stipulates that Congress will make no law abridging the freedom of speech or the press, in toto. This has been understood for centuries.

A screenshot showing the first amendment of the US Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

And also, a new playable character in Dragon Quest II?!?! What a day it is for The Video Games.

A screen capture from the Dragon Quest I + II HD2D Remake teaser trailer. It shows a new playable character, not featured in previous versions, emerging from what looks like a bedroom to greet the main player character with a wink and a pose.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

So the quote tweet going around is already funny, but it gets even "better" if you include the whole thing. bsky.app/profile/junl...

A screenshot of a tweet from the owner of Twitter. It reads:

"My companies make great products that people love and I’ve never physically hurt anyone.

So why the hate and violence against me?

Because I am a deadly threat to the woke mind parasite and the humans it controls."

He then quotes some dipshit who we don't need to bother with.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Well, everyone! Although I'm hoping to post more information about Recettear HD soon (like very soon!) the Days of Sales have snuck up on us once again. And as so often happens, guess who's on sale again? Carpe Fulgur titles 80% off, with our collection 85%! store.steampowered.com/sub/15400/

A screenshot of the Steam Spring Sale banner. Weird alien plants and Steam Decks may be involved.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

To borrow a summary from Reddit. This whole situation has been building for half a year, now, and the staff departures from Nexon ended up largely crippling Blue Archive, which was previously one of the biggest gacha RPG success stories in Japan (and not developed by JP devs!) in years & years.

The police found evidence of an attempted sabotage on Blue Archive by key members of Dynamis One to make their new project successful.

Dynamis One was founded at the same time that Park Byeong-lim (former BA Japanese Project Director) and other key members of Blue Archive (such as Isakusan) left Nexon.

Various testimonies state that they recruited and encouraged several BA team employees to resign by providing them with false information.

There are reports of sabotage of the Blue Archive IP, claiming that the game's development was intentionally neglected, with the goal of stealing Blue Archive’s fanbase once they had left the studio.

The police reported that an anonymous source stated: "There was a situation where key team leaders gathered in a separate space after work, discussing their resignations and their next independent project while making negative comments about the company."

It started long before they resigned, it began in 2023 after the end of BA’s Part 1 (after Volume F).

This is why there were large gaps between the releases of main story chapters after the Vol F, because the future members of D1 were also busy working on their "future independent project."

Starting from February 2024, there was a wave of mass resignations within the Blue Archive team.

Before that, several reports of unusual long-term vacations and similar occurrences were detected. This coincides with the period when players reacted negatively to BA’s in-game content pacing updates.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

And even the problems it does still have sometimes make me go 🤔instead of 😮‍💨. Like, clearly there was a miscommunication about the romanization of this incidental NPC's name, but I find it interesting that the dialogue engine *doesn't* hook into the NPC's display name. That's intriguing!

A street scene in Wuthering Waves in the city of Ragunna, showing two NPCs named "Orrin" and "Golem". Golem is in fact not a golem and appears as a normal human being.

Ditto, but now we're listening in on a conversation between the two, with "Golem" now shown as "Graham" in the dialogue box. This has a few interesting implication for how the dialogue engine is set up in the game.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

For the record, I blame @ryougasaotome.bsky.social @bitchyami.bsky.social for this. (It really has improved a lot, to a degree that's almost shocking. The localization still isn't perfect but it's wildly improved from the dire state 1.0 was in.)

The character Phoebe from Wuthering Waves, standing in the entry plaza of the in-game city of Ragunna in sunlight.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

English had some howlers at launch, too. Consistency appeared to be for suckers, at the time. I was half tempted to call this one out specifically but it felt almost too mean-spirited, to be frank, when the problem's this obvious.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

No, it's a completely different set of people. ... Who are being way too cute about it.

A screenshot of a tweet from the ILA twitter account. It reads: "HELP pls!! :teardrop-emoji: we just launched the kickstarter, and people are sending me this! I have no idea what it means!! Can someone help me? #savecoco" the tweet then shows a screenshot of an old tweet from Rosa Carbo-Mascarell which reads: "I want a game that uses Disco Elysium's same insanely well crafted narrative system and wonderful writing... but it's about a young witch trying to solve the disappearance of her neighbor's cat in a small village in the Alps." This was an infamous tweet for missing the point of Disco Elysium and why it is the way it is. Mascarell's tweet was accompanied by a piece of art from @megaelod showing an witch girl with long orange hair hugging a potted plant.

The design of the main character of ILA is nearly a carbon copy of megaelod's design and the main pitch of ILA is nearly a carbon copy of Mascarell's proposal save for the DE gameplay shifting over to a "skateboarding broom" focus while still having interactivity in the village. It feels absolutely impossible that Magic Rain, the studio behind ILA, was unaware of the tweet prior to launching the kickstarter.

#savecoco is one of the campaign's hashtags, to boot, and refers to the cat you have to save as part of the game's objective.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh

$An entry from the Joe Biden Wikipedia entry as of January 20th, 2025. It reads: "Death of wife and daughter: A few weeks after Biden was elected senator, his wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware, on December 18, 1972. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged 3) and Hunter (aged 2) were in the car and were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to. Biden contemplated suicide and was filled with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him and had trouble focusing on work." This refutes the previous post about Joseph Biden ever losing a child. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden$

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

My immediate gut reaction to this is: lol, it's not even the 20th yet

A screenshot of @parsnip.bsky.social's recent post, saying "off by a week" in reply to his own post saying "one week from tomorrow mike johnson is going to be demanding that the federal legislature be allowed to write california state law in exchange for disaster relief"; he has himself posted a screenshot from aaronparnas.bsky.social reporting that Johnson proposed placing conditions on the aid today, January 13th.

This is shared in screenshot form so that the full context is visible.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Okay but Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance knocked me straight on my ass when I saw that announcement. In no small part because of the title.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Okay, there's modernizing and then there's *modernizing*, and I dunno if we want to get Microtransactions Modern™ up in here. (Perhaps ironic, given the historic memes around the game.) #RecettearHD

A screen capture of a tweet, stating (jokingly (I think?)): "I can't wait for a comprehensive achievement system, microtransactions, and a second version that adds more content after the initial release specifically for consoles."

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Ah. Well, then. So with Comiket day 2 starting, the EGS crew have announced something they've been working on for a good, hot minute. More information will be revealed in the year to come. But in 2025... prepare to re-open the item shop. (Link on Twitter: x.com/Recettear_EG... ) #RecettearHD

The preliminary, in-Japanese title screen for Recettear HD.

An in-development shot of Recettear HD, show off the shop interior at an angle and showing off the new, high-definition sprites for Recette and Tear.

An in-development shot of the first dungeon in the game, showing off a higher-resolution Louie sprite, the higher-resolution interface elements, and sharper textures.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

"Executives are the key drivers of success" lmfao. That's a hell of a thing to say when Thompson was replaced within *fifteen minutes* of his assassination and the "investor day" proceeded like nothing had happened. bsky.app/profile/hila...

A pair of screenshots sourced from Twitter/X. The first is an announcement of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson's assassination. The second is a tweet dated 13 minutes later, saying that "CEO Andrew Witty kicks off 'investor day' noting that Medicare Advantage headwinds will continue in 2025 but says, 'we're going to demonstrate once again, that when the going gets toughm the tough get going'" (punctuation preserved). This indicates that UnitedHealth was able to replace Thompson inside of fifteen minutes without cancelling the show Thompson was presumably in transit to. This would seem to be in contrast to the assertion in the "pledge" of the quoted tweet that executives are the key drivers of success, as Thompson's assassination, the assassination of a Chief Executive Officer, doesn't even seem to have interrupted daily operations or business in any significant way.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

It is the result of a small group of people working on the thing they love for more than 15 years. It is deeply weird. It's a radical look at the future and possibilities. It's got the strongest Morrowind Vibes™ since MW itself. Frogs are involved. It is a treasure and an experience.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

So, as you may have gleaned from my posting over the past little while, today is the official 1.0 release day for Caves of Qud. While Qud has nothing to do with myself directly, it's a game I've deeply admired for a long time; it's been in development in some form for the span CF's whole existence.

A screenshot from Caves of Qud, the final pre-release version. It depicts my character, a custom sprite based on Anna from Final Fantasy IV (which uses character sprites of the exactly correct dimensions to work in Qud as well) discovering and opening a cryogenic tube of a clone of Mehmet, a character found at the start of the game.

This is perhaps the least strange thing occurring in the screenshot.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

(And finally... make sure to go cat-clicking on Steam's front page. This year's autumn banner gets an A+ for cuteness.)

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

The game's "low" count currently is roughly three times higher than the *peak* counts for DQ11S or DQ Builders 2, the previous Steam leaders for DQ. #DragonQuestIII

A listing of people playing Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake on Steam "right now" at time of capture, roughly 15 minutes prior to the post (showing 12,615), and the 24-hour and all-time peaks, both 45,357.

Same, but for Dragon Quest XI on Steam, with 656 playing now, a 1,260 24-hour peak and a record of 4,813.

Same, but for Dragon Quest Builders 2 on Steam, showing 159 playing now, a 384 24-hour peak and a 3,358 all-time.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Seven hours ago, Dragon Quest III's remake achieved a new milestone for simultaneous players... after getting milestones on day 1 and 2 of release. This is also the largest number of people playing a DQ game on Steam at once by a literal order of magnitude. #DragonQuestIII

A graph showing players of "Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake" on Steam by hour, ranging from Thursday Nov. 14, 5PM UTC to Sunday Nov. 17, 7PM UTC (roughly time of capture). It shows peaks of 37,000 players on the 15th, 43,000 on the 16th, and 45,000 on the 17th (all UTC). The "lows" bottom out around 13-15,000.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

This one just cracks me up every time Brother, if you are afraid of "DEI", what do you think the game *opens* with, never mind the rest of the content of the game

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 06/11/2024

It's not that Trump has gained additional support in the near half-decade since his last term. It's that Harris was so devastatingly uninspiring that *eight figures* of voters literally could not bring themselves to vote for her. She literally performed worse in every single part of the US.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 06/11/2024

This is the big thing that gets me. There's still some votes to be counted (particularly on the west coast), but in terms of overall vote totals, it looks like Trump actually has about the same base he did in 2020. He won't "gain" votes. Harris lost something like *10+ million* former Biden voters.

A screen capture from The Guardian, specifically https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/nov/06/us-election-results-map-2024-live-donald-trump-kamala-harris-president. It shows the results from the morning of Nov. 6, with Trump confirmed as having won the presidency, with 277 electoral votes at time of capture to Harris's 224. Harris has 66.9 million popular votes tallied to Trump's 71.8 million.

This is significant because even factoring in the incomplete vote tally at time of publication, it indicates that the final tally will end up showing Harris with ten million votes or more fewer than Joe Biden secured in the 2020 election, while Trump's support remained relatively flat.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 06/11/2024

I grew up on these streets. bsky.app/profile/jesa...

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 01/11/2024

Guys, I think MH Wilds might do okay on Steam when it comes out. (For the love of god let me change character height, though, Capcom)

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 21/10/2024

For the curious, this was the "main portrait" Astro did for the character. In this one, I especially love how the Pulura pendant came out; in the new piece, I absolutely love the background and embroidery details (which went *way beyond* what I imagined). I really love how both pieces turned out!

A full-body "character portrait" for a Pathfinder RPG player character, commissioned by @spacedrakecf.bsky.social‬ from @lostastro-art.bsky.social. It depicts a young woman standing, looking at the viewer, wearing a white undershirt and a brown vest, with a "slashed-sleeves"-style of trousers that go down to her ankles and pointed-tipped shoes; she also has a small red cravat and a green cloak. She is holding a small silver pendant that depicts the goddess Pulura from Pathfinder's Golarion setting; a small detail shot of the pendant is provided alongside the portrait.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 18/10/2024

Advertise your account with just one image. (I mean, let's be f***ing real, here.) bsky.app/profile/elem...

A screenshot of the game "Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale" as published in English by Carpe Fulgur in 2010. It depicts a famous scene from the game wherein, after learning the basics of the game's item store gameplay loop, main character Recette utters the line "Capitalism, ho!" enthusiastically.

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SpaceDrake (Andrew Dice) @spacedrakecf.bsky.social · 17/09/2024

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #5,658,364! Well, I guess I get something to brag about, even if I was a comparative johnny-come-lately.

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