#preferably.... browser based....

[colourful-void]

one of the difficult things about community based online rhythm games (so like, something like osu as a opposed to something to proseka) is that the perception of "easy" is really skewed to the point where it's really difficult for new comers, at least in my experience.

[niconiconwo]

My hate for google and mozilla vastly overshadows how much I dislike dealing with FSF fuckery so Librewolf is my big hope.

I'd absolutely prefer dealing with Stallman's estranged mentally deficient cultists over either of the other two any day.

[hbmmaster]

it might be interesting to make a poll asking which browser people prefer

[alchemistc]

Based on my own post from earlier this evening because I can't stop thinking about it.

vanilla

He doesn't mean to see it. He swears. It's just - Tommy's laptop is right there and Buck's is all the way in the office and if he doesn't look up the lifespan of a Cecropia moth right now he's going to forget about it for a month only to remember in the middle of something vitally more important than watching Planet Earth reruns.

So he twists the thing around from its spot on the side table, boots it back up, types in Tommy's password (pA$$word3, because no one would ever guess that he'd be both so lazy and so creative in his laziness), and watches Firefox boot itself up. It's an older laptop, and Tommy doesn't take great care of it - case and point, he didn't even close out of his tabs, they're all still there, and - well. Shit.

That's the most ridiculous dildo he's ever seen.

Biggest, too.

Jesus.

Buck immediately forgets 100% of what he was doing.

And - and looking up Tommy's history is absolutely a line crossed - there's no reason for him to fucking spiral just because there's a bright purple dragon something on the screen with a base as wide as Buck's thigh. There's no reason why he should -

He clicks the search history and regrets it pretty immediately.

That kills two hours.

He has three more until Tommy's off shift, and now everything is worse. Because.

Okay so.

Like.

They have a pretty healthy sex life, Buck thinks. A year into Tommy and Buck Part Two and they still can't keep their hands off each other. And - so, like, sue him for preferring all the boring stuff he never really got to enjoy long term - the way he knows Tommy goes a little crazy when they're lying on their sides and Buck can just slip right in and press his lips to Tommy's shoulder, tuck his hand under Tommy's where he's got it on his chest, curl their fingers together and just breath into each thrust. Sue him for liking it when they're face to face and Tommy's looking up at him with the pads of his fingers tracing the shell of Buck's ear and he can see the love love love in his eyes, see the way his tongue curls out Buck's name like a prayer. Sue him for his fantasies always drifting to that sunny afternoon in their bed, Buck on his belly and Tommy everywhere around him, over him, inside of him, humming useless nothings into Buck's ear while the sweat from their skin eased the chafe of being pressed together from pelvis to collarbone.

Buck picks up his phone. Watches the familiar name ring out one, two, three - answered on the fourth ring.

"Am I not kinky enough, do you think?" Buck asks, and gets a drawn out moment of silence.

"Nope," Ravi says, and the call drops.

And who else is he gonna call, really? Hen and Chim? (Hard no, they nipped that in the bud back when Buck and Tommy were still in Part One) Maddie? Another line too far, but this one he doesn't feel like crossing today. Eddie? If he'd even pick up?

Buck dials out again.

Ravi picks up on the second ring. "Buck, I love you man, but I get a front row seat to your little love fest at least once a week, four hours a night. I am not equipped or willing to help you with your sex life."

Fair. That's fair. Boundaries are important. Ravi does an excellent job of setting his up and announcing where they are.

"It's just I found something in Tommy's browser that -."

"Absolutely not. I'll block your number for twenty-four hours."

"Right. Cool. Sure thing." Buck breathes.

"Talk to Tommy, if you're freaking out about it." Ravi caves, just a bit. "Every time. I say this every time, and it always works, doesn't it?"

True. On both accounts. When did Ravi become his go to guy?

(When he started picking up the phone whenever Buck called. When he came to Buck with his own shit and didn't apologize for it.)

"Yeah. You're right. I'm gonna talk to him."

"We're still on for Friday, right?"

Buck has to search his memory to figure out what he's referencing. Tommy's taking Ravi to the farmers market over in Venice Beach that Buck refuses to go to on principle because Sherri's Treats aren't even homemade. She gets the baked goods from Costco and decorates them with store brand icing.

"Talk to Tommy," Buck throws back, just to be a brat, and Ravi sighs.

"Touche."

He's still freaking out when the call ends three minutes later, and he doesn't want to have to pull this trigger.

Except. Like. It's still there. Right on Tommy's screen. Watching him.

The phone rings six times.

He's contemplating how ridiculous it is to leave a voicemail when Lucy answers with a groggy "'lo?"

"Am I not kinky enough?" Buck asks, and gets the start of a cackle and then a long, slow pause.

She's gonna hang up on him. She's absolutely going to -

"It's ten-thirty in the morning on a Wednesday, Buckley."

And it sure is.

God, this would never have happened if he hadn't started an update on his phone mid-episode.

"Walk me through it," she continues, all business, all of a sudden, and so Buck tells her, grateful for her hums and uhuh's as she starts her day. Buck talks over the sound of her brushing her teeth, and pouring her coffee, and absolutely doesn't mention that he thinks she should probably have better sleeping patterns while he spirals about Tommy being unsatisfied with the sex they have.

"Gonna break bro code here a little to tell you you have literally nothing to worry about there. Seriously. You're getting gold stars every night, I promise you."

"He's been looking up gimp suits and gags, Lucy!"

She's quiet on the other end, for a moment.

Then she starts laughing.

Again.

Which is a great feeling for Buck. He loves it when Lucy laughs at him.

"Oh, Jesus, I'm sorry. Honey those aren't for you."

Well, now he's kinda mad at the implication that Tommy would -

"Not for Tommy, either," she interrupts, like she knows where that spiral leads. "I forgot what time of year it was. This is new for you."

"What's new for me?"

He can picture the sly grin on her face as she pours something into a bowl - milk maybe. Then cereal.

God, what a psycho.

"Tommy and an army buddy of his have had this escalating prank war going on for like...seven, eight years? I don't know, I wasn't here at the start of it, but I guess it started as the most heterosexual man you've ever met trying to be a good ally to his newly out buddy and sending a set of butt plugs to the only address of Tommy's he had available."

Weird. But not the weirdest thing he's ever heard. "Which was?"

"Oh, Harbor. Yeah. Got it his first week there. So now every year on the anniversary they try to send each other shit at work that should technically be grounds for a sexual harassment claim from their coworkers. Last year Tommy got a fully custom furry suit. Dude probably dropped thirty grand on that thing."

He shouldn't ask. He definitely shouldn't -

"It was a horse. Because of his big fat -."

"I get the picture, thanks."

"So yeah. It's coming up on time for them to push a boundary a little too far and actually have someone complain about it, this time. They won't stop until one of them gets a write up."

It's kinda funny. Kinda sweet, too, in that really weird way military men are with each other. Irrationally, Buck kinda wants to slew foot the guy for being an unintentionally massive flirt.

Straight dudes are the literal worst at allyship, in the weirdest ways possible.

"He's out of state, so don't go getting territorial, Buckley."

Never gonna live that down.

"But seriously though? Back to the original point. Which is you freaking out that Tommy is unsatisfied in your sex life. Number one: talk to him. You guys are the actual worst. Always gotta have a second opinion before you bite the bullet and do the normal thing. Number two: I know too much. And I know you have nothing to worry about. Number three: when he gets home I want you to record his reaction when you turn the laptop screen on him like a spurned wife and send it to me. I'm having a bad day. I could use the entertainment."

"You just woke up."

"And had to talk an old coworker down from a ledge about how satisfying his sex life is with a current coworker. Bareback, no lube, just wake up and go."

"I think this also counts as sexual harassment."

"You started this conversation with 'am I kinky enough' so I'm not super concerned."

By the time he gets off the phone with Lucy he's very firmly on solid ground. And also wondering exactly how much Tommy actually talks about their sex life when he's not around. Tommy keeps things pretty close to the vest. He can't imagine he's going around bragging about that time he started crying when Buck hit his prostate right as he licked into his mouth and slid a hand up his arm to link their fingers together.

Maybe in less detail.

Something about seeing God, maybe. That seems more like his style.

---

Tommy has a routine, when he gets home from work. Keys hung up, jacket on the coat rack, duffle tucked into one of the cubbies of his makeshift mud room. Shoes under the bench, two minutes of head scritches for Goose as she meows her way down the hall to greet the only man she'll ever love.

(Buck's super cool about the fact that Tommy's breakup cat hates him. Totally chill.)

When Goose has had her fill and darted off to go bounce off the walls of the office, Tommy likes to amble in to whatever room Buck is in and drape himself across Buck's back for a moment, mouth pressed to the knob of Buck's spine, hands roaming for a moment before he manages a greeting.

He's making risotto for dinner when he hears the lock click in the front door.

He's ignoring Lucy's text reminding him to get a reaction shot.

He listens to Tommy talk back to Goose like he understands every "mrow" listens for the shuffle of socked feet down the hall, listens to him pad across the kitchen tiles, braces himself for the dead weight of Tommy against his back.

Tommy's got a hand halfway up his shirt when he mumbles into Buck's ear. "So I hear we have something to talk about."

"Ravi snitched."

"Ravi still thinks I'm the sensible one, of the two of us."

Buck snorts. Tips his head back against Tommy's shoulder and basks in the moment while Tommy buries his nose behind Buck's ear.

"Before I say anything else, I know you said I can use your laptop whenever I want but you should know I definitely snooped where I shouldn't and jumped to some wild conclusions. Which Lucy has already cleared up on your behalf, because apparently we're both too chicken shit to have a conversation without using a lifeline."

Tommy stills. "I didn't close out my browser session last time, did I?"

"You did not."

"And Lucy told you about the horse costume Dom sent me last year."

"She sure did. She very specifically called it a furry suit, though."

Tommy blows out an exasperated breath against his neck. "And you were freaking out because...?"

"I thought maybe you were bored with the sex we have."

That gets Tommy going. He pulls free just to get enough leverage to spin Buck to face him, hands on his hips and eyes catching Buck's like if he doesn't see Buck's eyes in the next five seconds he'll do something crazy, and Buck doesn't really know how he got so lucky but he's not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if it's a furry.

"Evan. Please understand when I say this I'm not exaggerating. Our sex is life altering. I want to have slow, quiet, vanilla sex with you until the day I die."

"Which won't be for like another fifty years."

Tommy hums. "I'm gonna be popping Blue Chew when I'm ninety-five and have two bum hips."

"Oh, so I have to do all the work?"

"Why do you think I dated younger?"

Buck has to kiss him about it. And then he has to pull back and duck his head to remind Tommy of the part he blazed right past. "Full disclosure, when I said I snooped I meant I went into your search history."

Tommy's chuckle shakes them both. "I figured. You go back far enough to find the single porn link in amidst all the shitty plastic used actuators for sale on eBay?"

"I'm not a masochist, Tommy." Figures he'd get so frustrated looking for a part to fix the rattling in the Jeeps dash he'd want to rub one out. Usually takes him more than a single video, though. Probably he'd decided he'd feel too guilty to actually get off until he had the part ordered.

Tommy shifts his weight a bit. Wedges a knee in between Buck's legs. His eyes get that sparkle to them that means he finds Buck to be an adorable menace. "How married to the risotto are you?" he asks, hands shifting from Buck's hips to behind his thighs.

"Not - not terribly." It had been a distraction from thinking about Tommy's army buddy, mostly. The recipe still isn't perfected and even though Tommy's complimented it every time, Buck can tell it's missing something and Tommy is just letting him figure it out on his own.

"Maybe we could order in and I can show you how satisfied I am with your service."

"We - that's definitely an option. On the table."

"How about this very sturdy counter, instead?"

They haven't done it somewhere not-the-bed in months.

Their knees aren't gonna thank them for it.

Buck has to attempt to ignore Tommy mouthing at his neck to remember if there are enough ice packs in the freezer for the both of them, right now.

"Yeah - yep, let's do that instead."

Tommy gets both hands under his ass and lifts.

He doesn't quite swoon over the move, anymore, but it still makes him more than a little giddy.

"Wait, did you decide on the dildo over the gimp suit, because if you're escalating at the same rate as your friend I think -."

"Can we talk about Dom after I get my satisfaction scores in, please?"

"Shutting up now."

"I don't believe that for a second," Tommy says, and then shuts him up with his mouth anyway, just for good measure.

[commodorez]

Zoomer here, and I do indeed have questions about computers- how do filesystems work, and why should we care (I know we should, but I'm not exactly sure why)?

So why should we care?

You need to know where your own files are.

I've got a file on a flash drive that's been handed to me, or an archival data CD/DVD/Bluray, or maybe it's a big heavy USB external hard drive and I need to make a copy of it on my local machine.

Do I know how to navigate to that portable media device within a file browser?

Where will I put that data on my permanent media (e.i. my laptop's hard drive)?

How will I be able to reliably find it again?

We'll cover more of the Why and How, but this will take some time, and a few addendum posts because I'm actively hitting the character limit and I've rewritten this like 3 times.

Let's start with file structure

Files live on drives: big heavy spinning rust hard drives, solid state m.2 drives, USB flash drives, network drives, etc. Think of a drive like a filing cabinet in an office.

You open the drawer, it's full of folders. Maybe some folders have other folders inside of them. The folders have a little tab with a name on it showing what's supposed to be in them. You look inside the folders, there are files. Pieces of paper. Documents you wrote. Photographs. Copies of pages from a book. Maybe even the instruction booklet that came with your dishwasher.

We have all of that here, but virtualized! Here's a helpful tree structure that Windows provides to navigate through all of that. In the case of Windows, it's called Explorer. On OSX MacOS, the equivalent is called Finder.

I don't have to know where exactly everything is, but I have a good idea where thing *should* based on how I organize them. Even things that don't always expose the file structure to you have one (like my cellphone on the right). I regularly manually copy my files off of my cellphone by going to the Camera folder so I can sift through them on a much bigger screen and find the best ones to share. There are other reasons I prefer to do it that way, but we won't go into that here. Some people prefer to drag and drop, but that doesn't always work the same between operating systems. I prefer cut and paste.

Standby for Part 2!

[j3lly-fish]

"Look at Me" - CAS Poses 💚💄

I have been spending EONS trying to get this done and I've finally reached the point of "I dont give a fuck i just wanna get rid of this'' stage with this posepack. Anyways, as the box says, this posepack is set for the nosy (for rent) and family-oriented trait (base game). It's not perfect, but I tried LMAO.

"Lifted" versions just mean that those sitting poses will be lifted up, this is to avoid the UI for screenshots and zooming in better on them. If you prefer the sims at ground level, just grab the normal one! (Only download one version or it will conflict)

Known issues: As per usual, clipping or floating may happen depending on body type, just a heads up!

TOU: Do not steal or claim as yours! Not a necessity, but I'd LOVE for you guys to tag me if you use these, I like seeing what you guys do with them, and I can share some on my blog!

@ts4-poses

✦ DOWNLOAD (SFS) ✦ | ✦ DOWNLOAD (PATREON) ✦

I am being told that the lifted versions are not working as downloads for some. Make sure to download them on a different browser if that's the case. It seems to solve the issue for most!

[partyanimalcontrol]

BG3 Gaming Headcanons (Modern AU)

Karlach: Plays either really cute wholesome games or action-packed ultraviolent games, no in-between. Had a field day that one year Doom and Animal Crossing released simultaneously.

Lae'zel: Not much of a gamer, but will indulge in the occasional edgy FPS or battle-royale type games. Refuses to shell out for a fancy PC setup. Puts the game away when she thinks she's taking it too seriously, claims she has "better things to do" but really is just salty abt losing :P

Shadowheart: Loves the more story-driven games, or ones with a snarky sense of humor. Visual novels are her jam. Also kinda into horror, but picky about it. Prefers ones with subtle suspense and plot twists rather than just mindless gore and jumpscares. Her favorite FNAF was the first one

Gale: Likes anything with strategy, like Fire Emblem, or basically any tower defense game. Has a ton of chess simulators, Solitaire, and the like installed on his phone. The type to pay $40 for a set of classic clubhouse games on the Switch or whatever

Astarion: Also not much of a gamer, probably the most casual of the bunch. Plays those gory Flash browser-based games for fun. Dating sims and dressups/picrews are his guilty pleasures; he'll spend way too much time judging every bachelor(ette) or making sure that paper doll looks just right.

Wyll: The biggest weeb. Loves a good old-fashioned JRPG, complex job systems, quirky animal sidekicks, the works. Genuinely invested in every moment of Kingdom Hearts.

Halsin: Unsurprisingly not a gamer. May pick up a cozy game like Minecraft or Stardew if you ask verrrrry nicely. Don't expect him to actually accomplish anything, he'll just enjoy the virtual scenery for 20 minutes, then give you a lil headpat on his way out-- back to real nature.

Minthara: Lae'zel x1000. Picks a game and whales it, has to have the best equipment -- in game and irl -- extremely competitive. Calls someone a slur whenever they beat her. Becomes a controversial livestreamer.

[grizzlart]

Free-To-Use Wolf Base!

WAH THIS WAS SO MUCH WORK BUT IT'S READY!

I put together this pic to showcase some of the different features available. Most of them are quite subtle, so you'll have to see for yourself!

The file currently includes a summer and winter coat base, four ear variants, four snout variants, and a variety of facial expression options. All head features are available on the headshot as well as the fullbody, and all features are compatible with both the summer and winter bases, so you can mix and match!

There's also two sets of text boxes, two palette options, and some public domain photograph backgrounds to pick from.

I'd like to expand it further in future, but I'll be taking a breather first. It's been a lot of work making this! Worth it though, I think. ^^

Rules of use

This base is free to use for any non-commercial purposes which don’t involve the use of generative AI. You may not use this base for profit, advertisement, or commissions without my clear, written permission. You may not use any generative AI tools at all in relation to this base. Doing either of these is a violation of my legal ownership of this work.

If you want to share the base, you can – however, you must do so by sharing a link to this tumblr post. You may not post a link to the file directly, or reupload it to share online under any circumstances.

You must keep my signature clearly visible. By alpha locking the layer, you can recolour it dark or light to be visible on your background of choice. It can be in any location and colour, as long as it is visible and the text is legible without effort. You may not claim the base as your own, but any designs made with it are entirely yours of course!

If you post work using this base anywhere online (including on discord or art apps), you must include a link to my tumblr account as credit for the base – preferably a link to this post specifically.

You may modify the base to your heart’s content, as long as generative AI is not used at any point in the process and my signature is unaltered and visible.

I am willing to add extra features to the base in exchange for a fee. I am planning to make expansions to it on my own time as well, but these will specifically be realistic features and I’m not sure on a timeframe. You may not make requests for free additions. If you want a fantastical feature added, or want an addition made sooner, get in touch and we can work out a price! Features added in this way will be made available for everyone unless otherwise agreed.

Anyone is free to use this base. If you are blocked by my tumblr account, you are allowed to log out or visit the site on a private browser to access the base. However, note that I am openly and passionately supportive of endogenic plurality and all kinds of endo systems and if you have a DNI rule regarding pro-endos or endogenic systems, you will be violating that DNI by interacting with me or my work. You may want to consider blocking me if so.

Support and tips

If you want to support my work (and help motivate me to keep working on this base and create more in the future), there’s two ways I absolutely appreciate!

The first is simply to spread the word! I made this base as a free resource, in the hopes that fellow artists, therians, alterhumans and furries would enjoy it and find it useful. Reblogs are vastly appreciated!

If you wish to provide some kind of financial support, I do accept tips – but not in the conventional way! I ask that, instead of sending money to me, you make a donation to the Endangered Wolf Center on my behalf. Red wolves and Mexican wolves are both critically endangered, and with the current political climate of the US, supporting conservation efforts to preserve and save these unique keystone species is more important than ever. If you do decide to donate, I would love if you told me!

Extra info

More info, including photo sources, can be found in the text doc included in the zip file! I also included a bit of basic advice for using the base, so give it a read over if you're unsure about anything. If you're still stuck, you can message me!

File download here!

[kutyozh]

not only langblr music resources

people irl often ask me where the heck i find the music i listen to, so i figured i might as well make a handy resource masterpost!

Radio Garden: Listen to radio stations all over the world. You can save your favourite stations, explore radio playlists, and search for stations in specific countries or cities. Love this one. You can download the app (android and apple) or listen via your preferred browser.

Radiooooo: Lets you choose a country, a decade, and a 'genre' (slow, fast, or weird) to listen to. You can download the app (android and apple) or listen via your preferred browser.

Charts: Charts can be tricky if you're looking for music in a specific language since there are multiple languages present in most country specific charts. It is nevertheless worth checking them out. Top 40 Charts or Popnable are your places to go. Popnable has some additional features like playlists that you can find in the "Discover" section.

beehype: Filter music by continent or country. Main page shows featured articles to browse.

Tunefind: Heard a song in a film or tv show that you enjoy but can't find it in the credits? This is the website for you! I use it when shazam fails me or when I'm at the cinema and can't use it or w/e. The songs sometimes come with a description of the corresponding scene for easy checking. Just very handy to have on hand.

Last.fm: Copy this link template: https://www.last.fm/tag/[nationality]/artists and replace [nationality] with a nationality you want to explore, e.g. "french", "chinese" etc.

Wikipedia: Type into the search bar "music of [country]", e.g. "music of slovakia", "music of botswana" etc.

Local events: Check for concerts etc. in your area. I know this is not an option for everyone for a bunch of reasons, but if it is for you, visiting local concerts can be a gold mine. I got like ten whole new songs in spanish and one in rapanui from one event I went to (it was like a culture fest with singing, dancing, and poetry). Also listening to live music just connects you differently to the art imo.

Friends & Acquaintances: Last but not least; sometimes my nosiness beats my social anxiety and I simply ask people what they like to listen to. If I'm being extra confident, I ask if they listen to music in languages other than english. Go forth and ask people about their music, go go go!!

Spotify specific recs:

Every Noise At Once: Sounds overwhelming - and tbh it can be. For this reason I personally prefer to look at 'Genres by Country', although there are many other interesting playlists to look at, such as 'We Built This City On' or 'The Sounds of Places'. You can find more if you scroll all the way to the bottom. Unfortunately, due to the layoff of the creator of this site, some features are not available anymore. This website is entirely based on Spotify.

Discover Quickly: This one might become a game changer for me personally. How it works: Log in with your spotify account. Choose one of your playlists, saved albums, followed artists etc. All relevant songs will show up as tiny thumbnails. You will hear a sample when hovering over them. Klicking on one of the thumbnails will lead you to the artist's overall releases as well as related artists. You can add your finds directly to a playlist!

LindsayDoesLanguages: Individual language playlists + more

Shameless self promo - my own account with individual language playlists. Also on YouTube !

700+ Languages: A playlist by Matthew Bofenkamp that contains one (1) song per language, and as it says on the tin, Matthew has so far collected songs in over 700 languages. Might be a good starting point for more music in your language of interest! Accompanying g0ogle spreadsheet with youtube links here.

One Song in Every Language: A community playlist by looky_dooky that aims to collect one song in every language. Everyone with a spotify account can contribute.

Another research tip: If you're on desktop, a good way to find language specific playlists is to go to any artist's profile and scroll down to the "Discovered on" section, then click "show all". Voilà!

(These showed up when I visited Haleluya Tekletsadik's page)

[tickfleato]

how to make cool blobby turing patterns in photoshop

i'll preface with i learned the basic loop from skimming a tutorial on youtube, but as someone who prefers written tutorials i'm sure many would appreciate one! also, the second part of this is some of the visual effects i figured out on my own using blending modes and stuff.

i'm using photoshop CS4 on a mac so some buttons and stuff might be in different places on windows and newer photoshop versions but all the actions are the same. my canvas is 1000x1000 pixels.

UPDATES (i'm hoping these'll show up whenever you open the readmore?)

it's possible to do something similar in krita using this plugin, made by the love @arcaedex

it's also possible to do this in photopea, a free browser alternative to photoshop! the results are pretty much identical.

FIRST off you wanna get or make a black and white image of some kind. it has to be one layer. can be noise, a photo, a bunch of lines, whatever. here's mine, just some quick airbrush lines:

now find the actions tab. idk what it looks like in newer versions of photoshop but you probably won't need to dig!

hit the little page thingy to make a new pattern. once you hit 'record', it'll record everything you do. the little square 'stop' icon will end it.

now you want to do a high pass filter. you can mess around with the radius to change the size of your squiggles, but the tutorial had it set to 6. experiment!

now add the 'threshold' adjustment layer. i use the adjustments tab but i think there's also a dropdown menu somewhere. keep it at the default, 128. merge it down. (control or command + E or you can right click it like some kind of weirdo)

and finally, the gaussian blur! the radius of this affects the shape and size of your squiggles as well. i like to keep it around 4.5 but you can mess around with that too.

after that, hit 'stop' on the action you're recording, and then repeat it a bunch of times using the 'play' button, until you have something you like, like this:

WOW!! that was fun!! and only a little tedious thanks to the power of macros. anyway, here's some fun layer blending stuff i like to do. it's with a different pattern cause i made this bit first.

anyway, using a black and white gradient (or a grey base that you do black and white airbrush on), make a layer with the vivid light. this will make the blobs look thicker or thinner.

then, for cool colors, do a gradient map adjustment layer over that:

and finally, my best friend, the overlay layer. just using a gradient here bc i'm lazy, but feel free to experiment with brushes, colors, and blending modes!

NOW GO. MAKE COOL SHIT WITH THE POWER OF MATH. AND SEND IT TO ME

also these are not hard and fast rules PLEASE mess around with them to see what kind of weird shit you can make. here's a gif. as you can see i added some random airblush blobs in the middle of it, for fun.

[apple-sapling]

PSA: Blanket Statements

What is a blanket statement?

A blanket statement is information on your preferences for other creators to interacting with your works. It is helpful for others to know if you welcome podfics, fanart, recursive fiction, translations, remixes, etc of your works!

How can I make a Blanket Statement?

You can use Fanworks Permission Statement Builder to build a version tailored to you!

Or if you want your Blanket Statement to be a Blanket Permission for all fanworks you can use/modify the sentence below:

I welcome transformative works based off of my fan works! This includes podfic, fanart, translations, remixes, recursive fiction and any other fanwork inspired by my works.

Once you have your BS add it to your Ao3 profile. You can also add it to a pinned post in your Tumblr profile or on any other sites you use (Dreamwidth, bluesky, etc).

Reblog with links to your Blanket Statements to let your followers know where to find it!

More info on Blanket Statements in below:

Do I have to allow all types of derivative/transformative works in my statement?

No, the statement is only an information on your stance on fanworks based on your works. You can allow all fanworks - amazing! You can say you'd rather be asked first before anything is published- great, it makes you more approachable! You can say you don't want any derivative works - thank you, now I know just to admire your works and not bother you with requests ^^

You can even have a mix for example: "Blanket permission for podfics and fanart. For translations or continuing my fics - please ask me first"

What are other information are useful to have with your BS?

How to contact you (comment/tumblr/other social media)

How would you like to be creddited? Is inspired by option on ao3 enough?

Are there any platforms you'd rather derivatives of your works be not shared on? (Note that ao3 doesn't have native hosting for audio and images, so any works in that medium will need to be hosted elsewhere, for example on Internet Archive, Gdrive, Tumblr, Youtube)

I'm worried about AI using my works.

That's understandable. You can add a note saying you do not allow your works to be used by AI in any way - for example to train in or to be used in AI prompts.

I don't have any/much works published. Is it still helpful for me to add a blanket statement?

Yes, in case you create something in the future you'll have it ready to go! And even if you don't it still normalizes having a BS and raises awareness about them!

Why don't people just ask for permission directly?

It can be hard for people to reach out with permission requests for a variety of reasons. They might be participating in time-limited event, where waiting for a response is not viable. They might be in the mood to create *right now*. Asking for permission sometimes feels like a commitment too, so it's easier for many creators to just surprise author with their creation after it's done. Sometimes people ask for permission, but never hear back, or get rejected.

Having an ask-first statement helps you be more approachable too! It shows that you might be open/welcoming to the request.

I've added a Blanket Permission to my profile! Is there a way for me to make it even easier to find for other creators?

Yes! If you have a Blanket Permission available publicly you can add a link to it and username to fanwork permission statement list. You can use this sheet to submit your own permission. There is a browser extension that highlights all usernames with BP in the fps database on ao3.

[nyerus]

🎧A Guide to the TGCF Audio Drama🎭

With the release of the new season of the fabulous TGCF audio drama, I wanted to make an updated guide on how to make an account, purchase, and listen (with English subs) to it! Hopefully, this will help more people enjoy it and join in on the fun!

As a quick reminder, the audio drama is based on the revised version of the novel! It's a very faithful adaptation, but if you're a new fan, that might throw you for a loop! If you need an overview of the different versions of TGCF, check out this post first!

Part One: Making an Account & Purchasing

The process is a lot easier than you may expect! The site where the audio drama is hosted is "missevan.com," also known as "MaoerFM." They are one and the same!

Check out these infographics to create an account and buy the audio drama. (Due to tumblr compression, they may be difficult to read. If this is the case, please view these images in full-screen and preferably on a web browser for best quality!)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

General Info:

It costs 319 diamonds for the first season, and 359 diamonds for the second season of the TGCF audio drama. This was less than $5 USD, for each season. Future seasons will likely be similarly priced.

Episodes typically release weekly. Mini-episodes/bonus content releases intermittently, and often continues after the main season "ends."

This guide will work for any other audio dramas you want to purchase and support (such as MDZS)! They obviously have different costs, but the process of buying is pretty much the same.

Account/Registration Info:

If you do not see your country/region code listed when making an account, it is unfortunately unavailable there. I do not know any workarounds at the moment, apart from asking a friend/relative in a different country to help you out! If anyone does know other options, please let me know!

Step One of the guide is technically optional, as logging in on the app for the first time will automatically create a new account, if there’s not already one associated with your mobile phone number. I recommend doing that step anyway, as it will ensure that you have a password linked to your account. Several people in the past have reported that they sometimes cannot receive the verification code to log in. (Especially from South America and SEA for some reason.) Having a password bypasses this, if it happens to you.

Unfortunately, it seems that you MUST register with a mobile number to begin with.

Otherwise, you can use an existing Bilibili/QQ/WeChat/Weibo account if you have it. They all require a number for registration too, as far as I know, so you may run into the same problem. They may still be worth trying if you have no other options! Once again, if anyone is aware of other workarounds, do let me know.

Additionally, it’s possible to link your account to an email AFTER you register with a mobile number. (There’s no escaping that, from what I can tell.) You can then use that to log in.

It seems useful to have your email and a password associated with your account, especially in case your country code gets nixed from availability -- which has been known to happen without warning in the past.

The mobile browser seems to prefer you log in with a number/email and a password, rather than a verification code.

LINKING AN E-MAIL TO YOUR ACCOUNT (Optional)

This must be done via web browser, or with your mobile browser set to desktop mode. It’s VERY easy if you use a browser with an auto-translate feature like Google Chrome:

(These images are the MTL translated versions!)

Unfortunately yes, you will need to receive a verification code via mobile number to enable this. The second verification code gets sent to your email, though! (Try not to lose your password, because I'm pretty sure you'll still have to use your phone to verify and change it.) Don't forget to check your spam folder if you don't see it. It will be from "猫耳FM."

Once again, this is optional! I just wanted to include it as an extra avenue for people who may struggle with the verification codes, as they can be finicky. And it happened to me while I was making this section, so I knew I had to....

Part Two: How to Enable English Subtitles

First things first: there are no official English subs for the TGCF Audio Drama. Though I'm fairly sure this applies to all dramas on MaoerFM.

However, there are Chinese (Simplified) subs for each episode.

OPTION ONE: MTL

The main method that non-Chinese speakers have been using to understand the Audio Drama is via MTL (machine translation) on those subs! Browsers like Google Chrome not only have auto-translate, but it works in real time as you watch/listen to the episode.

Make sure that it's turned on and that you've selected English -- or your preferred output language!

Be aware there are TWO types of subtitles on MaoerFM. There are the official subs, and the temporary subs.

At the bottom of the audio player, there is a button labelled "字幕," which is circled in purple in the image below. If it is there, it means that episode has official subs available, and you can toggle them on/off. Meanwhile, the "弹" that the green arrow is pointing to is known as the "barrage." That's the scrolling text that you will see filling the screen. It's other fans screaming and crying in chat. You can turn it off if it feels overwhelming!

New episodes may take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two to be officially subtitled. (The bonus episodes don't have official subs for whatever reason.) In the meantime, there will be subtitlers working on adding temporary subs! I'd advise waiting a little while before listening to a new episode so they have more time to work, and you'll have better coverage!

While official subs are entirely separate, the temporary subs are part of the barrage. So you will have to keep the barrage turned on. (Notice how there is no "字幕" button next to it yet!) Unlike the rest of the barrage, the subs will be stationary, color-coded, and at the very bottom of the window -- so they're easy to differentiate.

However, since the barrage can be a lot if you aren't used to it, there is a way around it.

Hit the settings menu (blue circle) and block the scrolling comments. You can also turn off the top ones, but just make sure not to turn off the bottom ones -- because those are the subs!

DO NOTE that this all works best on desktop! If everything's gone correctly, you should have something like these:

Right -- regular view, temporary subs Left -- full-screen, official subs

It's possible to get this to work on mobile if you enable desktop mode in your Chrome app. You will probably need to refresh a few times after that, or open the page in a new tab to have it work properly. Then it's the same steps as above!

You should have something like these:

Right -- landscape mode Left -- portrait mode

The scaling on mobile can be troublesome, and I have noticed that the auto-translate is slower than on desktop. It seems to take an extra second or two to work on each line -- whereas on desktop it's pretty instant -- and that can get annoying, especially in fast-paced scenes.

Additional Info:

This does not work for the mobile app! It is for the website ONLY!

If the translation stops working, refreshing usually fixes it.

There are potentially other options to using Chrome. Any browser that has an auto-translate will work, assuming it's as quick as Chrome's. If anyone has tried other browsers and seen success, please leave a reply!

OPTION TWO: FANSUBS

TreasureChestSubs here on tumblr have been doing high-quality fansubs for several audio dramas, including TGCF as of recently! However, at the time of making this guide, their TGCF translations currently only cover the first few episodes of season one. You will need to request an invite to their Discord server via the form in their posts. Please do check them out if you're interested.

I don't personally know of any other fansubbers who are actively working on the audio drama right now. But I do want to mention that Xyra_Rei on twitter has a Discord server where they share some translated snippets from various episodes. There are other great resources by fellow fans, too. Links and more info about the server can be found in the pinned post on their profile!

Part Three: Enjoy!!!

I hope this updated guide helps more people experience the wonder that is the TGCF audio drama (or really, any audio drama)! I cannot overstate how good it is in every aspect, and I think every TGCF fan deserves to be able to hear it for themselves! 💖

[evilvvithin]

Hello folks! As someone who never did any celebrations nor tutorials for giffing, I decided it's finally the time now. So thank y'all for putting up with my horror shenanigans, 8k is just amazing and I hope y'all will keep enjoying my blog and posts!

PHOTOPEA GIF TUTORIAL

Moving to Photoshop after years of using Photopea, I can say while they both work very similarly, they're also different. Photoshop is far superior, you can still make very HQ and nice gifs in Photopea too! This post aims to show you my personal way of making crispy gifs while also covering the basics of getting the frames and uploading them to Photopea. (If you're looking for more detailed beginner tutorial, there's plenty of those out there, amazingly done!)

Photopea is completely free, video player is completely free, downloading movies is completely free. Only thing it'll cost you is your time.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

- photopea - potplayer - good quality movie file ( i go for the highest GB ones, above 10gb is amazing. Sometimes I get 40gb and prefer 1080p source. Note that higher file doesn't immediately mean higher quality - if the movie looks weird just download another one)

GETTING THE FRAMES: Once you get your source file and open it via PotPlayer, find the scene you want to gif. Using D and F keys you can go backwards or forward by single frames. When you get the perfect frame where you want the gif to start, I always go back 10 frames because PotPlayer tends to cut those out. It's better to get more frames than you need as you can always delete those extra ones later on.

I'll be giffing scene from Longlegs alongside the tutorial.

PRESS CTRL + G. This will open the frame capturing window. Fix the setting to match these:

and press "START". Click back on the PotPlayer to bring focus back on the window and hold or press the forward key - F - to play the scene and capture the frames. You can see the frames number going up on your other window. If it stays on 0 you're not capturing anything. Once the desired scene is over, press "STOP" on the frame capturing window and voila - you have your frames in your selected folder. Delete any extra or unwanted ones. The amount of frames usually sits between 40-80 depending on what ratio you'll use later on for the gifs to fit the 10mb Tumblr upload limit.

Now it's time to open PHOTOPEA.

FILE > NEW: you have to write down the exact dimensions of your frames. This action will create a new file with single background. Go back to FILE > OPEN AND PLACE > SELECT ALL YOUR FRAMES and upload them. Depending on the size of the frames, this could take a while or even lag your browser. Make sure to not click anywhere within the app before all frames are done uploading.

Now lets finally make the gif. The following were my most used gif making steps in general, play around other options and find out what works - every gif or scene is different!

Delete the original empty layer at the bottom and then select all the frames (clicking the first/last layer and then click the last/first layer while holding shift to easily select all) and by pressing CTRL+G, group them. Select all layer again and

RIGHT CLICK (on the layers) > RASTERIZE LAYER (on the upper taskbar) > ANIMATION > MAKE FRAMES Now your frames should have _a_ in their names. CREATE NEW LAYER

and select all your frames again.

CROP the whole project to whatever ratio you want, Ill be using 64x44 ratio for wider gif.

By pressing ALT+CTRL+I open the RESIZE window. Tumblr gif dimension is 540px wide max (heres tutorial for other dimensions and why correct sizing is important) so using that and "bicupic sharper" option under resample, resize the gif.

Now you have the base gif done.

Its dark, muddy and unclear. We sharpen it and give it the clear crispy look using noise. FILTER > NOISE > ADD NOISE and set the Amount to 1% and select monochromatic FILTER> SHARPEN > SMART SHARPEN > 150% amount with 1px radius FILTER> SHARPEN > SMART SHARPEN > 50% x 10px

Now its time to bring the gif to life. Create NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER. This is where all the editing options are.

For this specific gif Im doing:

BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST +50 brightness, +10 contrast

VIBRANCE +20 vibrance, +10 saturation

HUE/SATURATION master -50 , red +50, cyan +50, blue +50 (the reason i tune all colors in master down by 50 is to mute them all down. Adding back on colors you want is making them stand out way more! It works on gifs with dominant few colors but if the gif is very colorful, you're better off leaving this option out completely and rather work with selective colors. As I said, try it out and see!)

another layer of BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST +20 brightness

COLOR BALANCE range: midtones > magenta - green: -11, yellow - blue: +8

SELECTIVE COLOR red: cyan: -20%, yellow: +20, black: +10 yellow: yellow: +50% white: yellow: -10%, black: -20% black: black: +4%

CURVES(those are something I didnt use much in Photopea as in general youre just fine with brightness and selective color. Just move the point on the curve and see what it does! For this gif I went with Curves like these and it enhanced the gif nicely.)

another layer of SELECTIVE COLOR > black: black: +2%

Now Im satisfied with the gif and want to save it. Clicking FILE > EXPORT AS > GIF will open this window:

Make sure the quality is at 100%, the size in darker numbers lower than 10MB. Speed in Photopea is quite tricky for some reason, but 180% - 190% is the "normal 100% speed" of the gif.

Enjoy giffing and feel free to ask anything if unclear!

[warningsine]

what is the best way to get safer/more anonymous online

Ok, security and anonymity are not the same thing, but when you combine them you can enhance your online privacy.

My question is: how tech literate are you and what is your aim? As in do you live in a country where your government would benefit from monitoring private (political) conversations or do you just want to degoogle? Because the latter is much easier for the average user.

Some general advice:

Leave Windows and Mac operating systems and switch to Linux distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu (both very user friendly). Switch from Microsoft Office or Pages/Numbers/Keynote (Mac) to LibreOffice.

You want to go more hardcore with a very privacy-focused operating system? There are Whonix and Tails (portable operating system).

Try to replace all your closed source apps with open source ones.

Now, when it comes to browsers, leave Chrome behind. Switch to Firefox (or Firefox Focus if you're on mobile). Want to go a step further? Use LibreWolf (a modified version of Firefox that increases protection against tracking), Brave (good for beginners but it has its controversies), DuckDuckGo or Bromite. You like ecofriendly alternatives? Check Ecosia out.

Are you, like, a journalist or political activist? Then you probably know Tor and other anonymous networks like i2p, freenet, Lokinet, Retroshare, IPFS and GNUnet.

For whistleblowers there are tools like SecureDrop (requires Tor), GlobaLeaks (alternative to SecureDrop), Haven (Android) and OnionShare.

Search engines?

There are Startpage (obtains Google's results but with more privacy), MetaGer (open source), DuckDuckGo (partially open source), Searx (open source). You can see the comparisons here.

Check libRedirect out. It redirects requests from popular socmed websites to privacy friendly frontends.

Alternatives to YouTube that value your privacy? Odysee, PeerTube and DTube.

Decentralized apps and social media? Mastodon (Twitter alternative), Friendica (Facebook alternative), diaspora* (Google+ RIP), PixelFed (Insta alternative), Aether (Reddit alternative).

Messaging?

I know we all use shit like Viber, Messenger, Telegram, Whatsup, Discord etc. but there are:

Signal (feels like Whatsup but it's secure and has end-to-end encryption)

Session (doesn't even require a phone or e-mail address to sign up)

Status (no phone or e-mail address again)

Threema (for mobile)

Delta Chat (you can chat with people if you know their e-mail without them having to use the app)

Team chatting?

Open source options:

Element (an alternative to Discord)

Rocket.chat (good for companies)

Revolt.chat (good for gamers and a good alternative to Discord)

Video/voice messaging?

Brave Talk (the one who creates the talk needs to use the browser but the others can join from any browser)

Jami

Linphone

Jitsi (no account required, video conferencing)

Then for Tor there are various options like Briar (good for activists), Speek! and Cwtch (user friendly).

Georestrictions? You don't want your Internet Provider to see what exactly what you're doing online?

As long as it's legal in your country, then you need to hide your IP with a VPN (authoritarian regimes tend to make them illegal for a reason), preferably one that has a no log policy, RAM servers, does not operate in one of the 14 eyes, supports OpenVPN (protocol), accepts cash payment and uses a strong encryption.

NordVPN (based in Panama)

ProtonVPN (Switzerland)

Cyberghost

Mullvad (Sweden)

Surfshark (Netherlands)

Private e-mails?

ProtonMail

StartMail

Tutamail

Mailbox (ecofriendly option)

Want to hide your real e-mail address to avoid spam etc.? SimpleLogin (open source)

E-mail clients?

Thunderbird

Canary Mail (for Android and iOS)

K-9 Mail (Android)

Too many complex passwords that you can't remember?

NordPass

BitWarden

LessPass

KeePassXC

Two Factor Authenticators?

2FAS

ente Authenticator

Aegis Authenticator

andOTP

Tofu (for iOS)

Want to encrypt your files? VeraCrypt (for your disk), GNU Privacy Guard (for your e-mail), Hat.sh (encryption in your browser), Picocrypt (Desktop encryption).

Want to encrypt your Dropbox, Google Drive etc.? Cryptomator.

Encrypted cloud storage?

NordLocker

MEGA

Proton Drive

Nextcloud

Filen

Encrypted photography storage?

ente

Cryptee

Piwigo

Want to remove metadata from your images and videos? ExifCleaner. For Android? ExifEraser. For iOS? Metapho.

Cloak your images to counter facial recognition? Fawkes.

Encrypted file sharing? Send.

Do you menstruate? Do you want an app that tracks your menstrual cycle but doesn't collect your data? drip.

What about your sexual health? Euki.

Want a fitness tracker without a closed source app and the need to transmit your personal data to the company's servers? Gadgetbridge.

[pocket-jack]

Hey, guys! I decided to torture myself before sleep beacause... Why not? So, here's KidKiller's rough sheets with some headcanons I have for the guys (probably with a lot off mistakes cus my browser refuses to fix them for me)

Kid time, baby

I draw him differently now. I know his face looks more... diamond shaped in anime, but I can't get rid of his square coded energy, so... Heart-shaped it is!

When he recieved his eye scar he didn't lose the ability to see, but now it get's dry really fast and if he won't do something about it it'll gonna ache.

He had multiple piercings on his ear, but his powers just kept pulling them and one day almost ripped his ear of, so he (with a manly tears) decided to take them off.

I headcanon him wearing a corset, because he's a little chubby and he can't get rid of this extra fat (not with his appetites). Also everytime when he takes it off, not only he's forced to look at his hanging stomach, but he's also has to fight off Killer. Killer's only dream was for Kid to be well fed and happy.

Nor his, nor Killer's sexuality is defined by them, but actually based out of other's observations. Kid is pansexual because he's kinda gender blind. For him it's confusing that you're weak just because you have tits and extra hole between your legs. He's also demiromantic. Both of those preference he acquired during Kutsukku (where you couldn't trust anyone, even your lover. And where the gender norms were the least of your concerns)

He also have undiagnosed ADHD which mostly give him extra impulsivity and also now the metal can speak (thank ye, neurodivergency!). Sometimes it's stresses him the hell off, especially during Kutsukku. He could not sleep because of all of this buzzing he kept hearing from EVERYWHERE. Now he can control it, but sometimes it returnd and he has to suffer.

Metal also responds to his hidden emotions. It may float when he thinks, reflects or remembering something. It may rumble when he's angry, concerned, scared. Or it may form something if he's happy, in love or something like that.

He's hard rock kinda guy, we all know this, but I headcanon him as a music lover in general (so whatever makes his brain go bzzt, mostly rock). I find Thrown a couple of month ago and it's sounds like something Kid would like (probably even kin, esp Backfire). MSI is a basic thing for him to have (every punk need at least one song in their playlist). I guess not every person will understand it, but Пшлнхй is such a Kid coded song (Every Russian proverb, but one part is just sending you to fuck yourself is something that Kid would do irl. The chorus is just... mmm)

Killer, my beloved!!!!

I love headcanoning him as androgenous. He has a feminine features: oval shaped face, eyes with big eyelashes, even his lips is a little softer than the average male lips. That is the main reason why he hid his face, because everyone would bully him fot it when he was young. Killer was confused with a girl a lot during his time on Kutsukku.

During timeskip he strained a lot of muscles just to get stronger. He was neglecting himself most of the time, because he had a mission: to become stronger so he'll never fail to protect Kid ever again. They also been really distant during their training. Only when Killer hurted his arm they bounded again. Kid was surprisingly a good mentor for his healing. Probably because their trauma was almost the same

When he's wearing a mask he usually get's his hair out of the way so it wouldn't mess with his vision

Pre timeskip he wanted to work on his style, feeling obliged to do so, cus his crew was dressing up in colorful styles. He choose to fit into more West Bluish kinda style (cowboy boots and pants). But then anxiety hitted him and suddenly he felt too vissible and everyone was looking at him and... Let's just say it wasn't a pleasant expirience for him. He just wanted to show that he was a part of the crew too, but now he feels himself too overreacting and dramatic and stuff. It took a lot of time for everyone to convince him that it wasn't about the look, but more about the comfort. With their support Killer started wearing something he likes more, and it felt fantastic. He actually started to like himself in the mirror a bit more after timeskip and then Wano happened

Killer is asexual beacuse of the amount of trauma he suffered during his childhood. I hc him having a low libido too. He's still feels romantic attraction (only for Kid), and if he asks, Killer will have sex with him without hesitation. But it's only for Kid, OR for his sake

It is so logical for him to have OCD. Just him casualy living and then the dread that if he won't do something usefull his crew will see how fucking usless and worthless he actually is and live him behind the same his parents did just suddenly hits him. Oh hey! Anxiety! Abandonment issues! This man will explode, please, give him a hug.

It got worse after Wano. He's doing bad things with his face and no one knows. Even Kid. (I love making them suffer for the sake of Hurt\Comfort)

I am 100% sure Killer is a Queen guy. It just gives me Killer vibes... The same with Elton John. And also... To fit in his pre timeskip cowboy vibes into the oven,,, He's actually like country rock alongside with glam rock. Barns Courtney is his favorate

So... How do you like my silly little headcanons? Maybe I post something about Heat and Wire too. Welp, I'm fainting out of exaustion, bye!

[badolmen]

“I’m scared to pirate stuff - ” do it scared!*

*with Firefox and Adblock and a VPN and -

If you want a nonspecific, nonexhaustive “where do I even start” guide…

Sail the cyber seas at your own risk!

Streaming - “I want to watch xyz”

This is normally what most people want when they talk about pirating.

Use Firefox with uBlock Origin and additional privacy add-ons such as PrivacyBadger, TrackMeNot, etc.

Free VPNs are out there. Get one - but vet it’s efficacy. My go-tos are Proton VPN, or Windscribe if you plan to do a bit of torrenting.

What is torrenting? How does it work? Here’s a guide!

Back to streaming -

Make sure that a) you’ve got your Mozilla browser with all its adblocking private glory, and b) you’ve got a VPN turned on to hide what you’re doing in that browser from your ISP (internet service provider).

Now you need to actually find a site to stream from. This is the tricky part, because openly sharing these sites will get them taken down if they’re talked about widely enough. (Remember how tiktok idiots got zlibrary taken down?)

You’re going to have to talk to people on forums. You’re going to have to experiment with sites you find yourself. Search for ‘x online free’ and look at the links that come up - is the preview text mangled or clickbaitey? Are there Reddit threads about that website confirming or denying its content? A good rule of thumb is to ignore the top result or two - copycats of good streaming sites will often buy out the top result spot. Eventually, you’ll develop a good gut feeling and understanding of what a good site ‘looks like’ from the results page alone.

However, there are some places that compile good sites that haven’t been nuked by lawyers (yet) - check out r/FMHY! The masterposts are actively curated and updated when a site goes down or is found to have malicious downloads.

Remember - loose lips sink ships. No tweeting (xeeting?) or Facebook statuses about your new favorite piracy website and where you found it. Even posting to tumblr (kind of like this…) isn’t a great idea if you want those websites to stay under the radar and stay accessible. Nobody talks, everybody walks (away with their share of pirate booty)

If you aren’t downloading media, pick pretty much any site and watch away! Adblock and Firefox will keep away pop-ups and other annoying ads, and your VPN means your ISP can’t tell that you’re visiting an unofficial streaming service.

Note: In my experience, I’ve never heard of visiting a site and watching stuff on it infecting or otherwise compromising your computer. That tends to come from misclicks on invisible or overwhelming pop-up ads that redirect you to an automatic download or similarly malicious bullshit. If you’re using Firefox and uBlock, you shouldn’t be in any danger of an accidental redirect.

Downloads - “I want to keep xyz”

This is the realm of pirate archiving - you’re keeping files physically on your hard drive, an external hard drive, or burning a disk.

Adblock + Firefox browser? Check. VPN on? Check.

Go to your streaming site of choice - most if not all have download options. You can download those files or, manually, right click and save the video file from the webpage as an mp4. I honestly don’t know if there’s a difference in quality or more danger in clicking the download buttons, but regardless -

Run that puppy through VirusTotal.com! It’s a reliable browser based virus checker - if the file is too large, use a local virus checking program (your native Windows Defender on Windows computers or, I prefer, Malwarebytes)

Generally mp4 and mp3 files are clean - choose where to save them for the long term, and bam! Free forever media.

Optionally, I also upload mp4 files to a named Google document - this way I can easily share them or make them findable through a ‘xyz Google doc’ search for others :]

Torrents - “I want to keep and share xyz”

I’m not going to go into this subject in depth because, honestly, it’s not something I do regularly.

See the previously linked Torrenting guide for information on how the process works, and check out r/FMHY for recommendations and warnings about different torrenting clients (I’ve personally only used qBittorrent - I’ve heard to stay away from the Pirate Bay and Bittorrent.)

As with streaming, turn on that VPN baby! You’re going to need one that supports peer-to-peer (p2p) connections, so Proton’s free version is a no-go. Windscribe is what I’ve used for torrenting (and it’s a good free VPN on its own - I’m just partial to Proton). You get 10GB every month on Windscribe’s free version, which is more than enough for a few movies/a season or two of your favorite show.

(Bigger torrents like video games are easily 30+ GB, so be prepared to either pay for a no-limit premium account or spend a few months downloading your files in chunks.)

VPN on? Double check.

Boot up your torrenting client - I use a slightly out of date version of qBittorent, but there are other options. The Reddit thread and previously linked torrenting guide have a few dos and donts of selecting a client, so be thorough before you download your client of choice.

This is getting into the logistics of torrenting a bit, so forgive me if this is vague or incorrect, but now you need a torrent seed. These will be .tor files found through pirating websites or archives - these are rarely malicious, but it’s good to run any piracy related download through something like VirusTotal.com or scan it with a local program like Malwarebytes.

You open your seed file in your client and wait. A ‘healthy’ seed tends to have lots of seeders and few leeches, but sometimes you’re stuck with an obscure seed you just have to wait for.

Your torrented files have fully downloaded! Now what? a) keep your client open and seed those files for others as long as you want to - sharing is caring! and b) run those files through a security program like Malwarebytes (not sponsored it’s just the only program I’m familiar with).

Be wary of what gets flagged - sometimes the files seem important, but are just trojans, and likewise sometimes they seem malicious, but are just cracked software getting flagged by your system. It’s good to check and see if others have had a problem with this particular torrent before - Reddit threads from 2008 are your long dead friends.

And that’s about it. Feel free to correct me if anything I’ve recommended is malicious or outright wrong. I’ve been doing this for years and haven’t had an active problem to my knowledge, so if there is something fishy with how I do things, I am a statistical outlier and should not be counted.

I wish you smooth sailing and strong winds in your ventures me hearties!

Obligatory ‘don’t pirate small author’s or artist’s works what the fuck dude’ statement.