EMPRESS

i think the main problem is that people 'fail' to see Video Games as the pinnacle and max potential of 'art' [sic] EMPRESS is the online alias of an anonymous computer hacker whose modus operandi is the circumvention of copy protection and Digital Rights Management on popular computer games. She gained notoriety for breaking otherwise-impervious DRM schemes such as, whose complexity has mostly thwarted early attempts by groups. Her skill in circumventing Denuvo and other sophisticated copy protection schemes drew a lot of attention to her activities, as she was able to break them on her own, having been responsible for over half of high-profile Denuvo hacks from 2020 to 2021. As of 2024, she is among the few to have been prolific in the release of Denuvo-related hacks for computer games.

Such was her reputation that she was viewed by the PC gaming community as the antithesis of warez groups, operating alone, having an open online presence (albeit still under anonymity for obvious reasons) where she regularly polls people on which games to crack next and her, ahem, philosophical views, the latter of which is of interest to RationalWiki.

Cultist drama queen
While far from the only warez personality to openly discuss her adventures on the open web (Bulgarian hacker Voksi did so, though at great personal cost when the fine folks over at Irdeto had the Bulgarian police sic on him for copyright infringement ), she gained quite a reputation for being what the was not: running polls on which games to crack, called out her rivals, shared her views and provided ways for people to donate to her cause. She cites the "dream" she had as well as some philosophical reason – among them a drive for – as her motive to defeat security measures in video games, dismissing the normally male-dominated underground warez scene as driven by "fake meaningless Egos". Given the revelations from the Wired interview, some have speculated EMPRESS to be neurodivergent, having been compared to fellow techno-eccentric Terry A. Davis.

That being said, despite dismissing her male contemporaries as "ego-driven", she herself is in fact driven by it through the petty drama and the cult following she amassed on her subreddit and other socials. She was reportedly arrested for her illicit activities, but cracks apparently appeared about her supposed arrest (pun intended) and speculation emerged alleging that the "arrest" was more of a fabricated publicity stunt given the drama surrounding her popularity in the (not-so) underground piracy scene. She also became part of a feud with fellow female(?) piracy purveyor FitGirl, whose modus operandi is to repack existing pirated game releases for people with less-than-optimal connections, especially from developing countries, to download them easily. FitGirl alleged that EMPRESS sabotaged the upload speed on her seedbox to deter repackers from redistributing her releases, stating “And why did she do it, you ask? The answer is mind-blowing: she hates all repackers for ‘stealing the spotlight’ from her work. Yes, you’ve read it right. It’s against common logic and piracy ethics.” and called on users to boycott EMPRESS's releases. EMPRESS shot back, alleging that FitGirl is a "faggot" assuming a female online identity by way of a character from the 2001 French romantic comedy film

And to top it all off, she expressed racist views towards India, further stating that "but this doesn't mean i don't give them a chance. last night someone from india contacted me and i am talking with him, because he is actually a "person", not a fucking ANIMAL." This flew in the face of software pirates in India, where media piracy rates are notoriously astronomical due to economic conditions and general barriers to entry for the average Indian consumer, though some have simply been dismissive of her views, so as long as they get the games they so desire at no charge.

Not on my TERF/turf
On February 2023, EMPRESS released a for the open-world role-playing game Hogwarts Legacy, which in itself has been saddled with controversy due to the game being part of the Rowlingverse, regardless of Rowling's actual involvement in its production. EMPRESS, in her never-ending quest for egotistical drama, defended Rowling in an screed for her cracked game release and played the persecution card where she cast transgender women as envious wannabe-female men who seek equal status with women and all that,  further cementing her status as a TERF and an all-caps abuser:

This clearly dismisses the fact that there have been studies stating that sex assignment isn't as straightforward as it may seem, regardless of whether the person has a penis or not. Case in point intersex people, whose ambiguous sex characteristics have presented serious issues between themselves and the society surrounding them, especially in conservative regions. Prominent Filipino intersex activist successfully petitioned the Philippine Supreme Court to have his gender markers amended on his legal papers on the grounds of his biologically-occurring gender ambiguity; Cagandahan was assigned female at birth, but his male features prevailed due to a case of  causing him to suffer from ostracization.

Computers think in binary; life is a spectrum full of nuances. Only a Sith deals with absolutes, as they say. Simply dismissing life as zero or one fails in more ways than one, just as how the argument for or against media piracy has been grossly oversimplified without taking into account the reasons why people pirate, e.g. lack of availability or trade embargoes/sanctions against a particular country. Perhaps she should have known that all along, given her penchant for complex philosophical screeds.