#i got the option to put malware on here

[idlingmoons]

im saucing it. by it? heh. i mean

[breadvidence]

February kicked my ass and I did not pre-plan well enough for Valvert week, I am currently using what time I can scrounge up to work on my fundraiser piece, and I got a question about next chapter of Dammit, so: here! The beginning of the first scene of the next chapter; I dunno when the whole thing will be ready to share, though I've got other things cooking I hope I can post in the near future.

⁂⁂⁂

After a week skittish and strange—so strange he asks Jean Valjean’s advice on how to handle his coworker’s persistent concern over his head wound, in the wake of which question he laughed at himself, saying, Ah, well, you might coach me on lies, right?—, an unwillingness to be looked at closely almost enough to earn him an accusation of vanity, Javert texts short notice on a Sunday after church and arrives with a bag of groceries, presumes to scrub out the biggest pot in the kitchen, retrieves an immersion blender that Jean Valjean was unaware he owned from the top cabinet, and sets to cooking caldo de albóndigas. Time has felt dislocated, quiet from Cosette, quiet from Javert, dreams in which his hands are blood-sticky, and to hear grumbling and clattering from the kitchen reminds him—a thought three steps removed—that he’d received an email from an old charity contact, questions that won’t take but half an hour to answer. He retrieves his old laptop, sets himself on the couch, surprised when he has to filter back through a month of spam to find what he’s looking for.

Javert checks on him, grumbles about old men with knees good enough to sit indian style, goes back into the kitchen and turns on the radio, the country channel he favors when they’re together. Second line into the first song, a honey-voiced female vocalist, he joins, I keep myself to myself but I’m no company, two rusty octaves lower in answer to her soprano, and not without humor. A plucked-out paragraph about tax deductions later, Jean Valjean raises his head, squinting. His ear has been caught by a lyric about rivers in the next song, a natural caution where Javert is concerned, but he’s broken off to hum, unfamiliar perhaps with something that sounds far more modern; picks up again, take ’em away, take ’em away, Lord, take away these chains from me. Jean Valjean suffers annoyance, startling himself, thinks: you only had to put the chains down, friend. 

His cellphone rings—an unfamiliar number, and he rejects the call on reflex. It follows with an alert from one of the few apps on the device; disagreeable experiences with malware in the early ’00s left him wary of downloading much of anything, for all his awareness the technology is different. This one, however, ties in with the robust security system at the Cedar Hill home, built up over the years out of anxiety that he would be unable to hear trouble at the main house from the guest cottage. From the same impulse which made him do monthly checks for pests and plumbing issues, he’d kept those systems up to date. He swipes open to the live feed screen, sighs heavily at the error message there. He favored the deterrent of the cameras being visible, but it did come with the risk of being destroyed in event of a planned break-in.

Javert’s voice is dry enough to almost hide the concern as he calls from the kitchen, “Careful your soul doesn’t escape through your teeth, there.” 

“It seems my home has been burgled,” he replies, tone mild. “Or is in the process of being burgled, I suppose. I get alerts.”

A clatter, click, and rattle, he’s in the doorway to the kitchen, he near turns his ankle in his haste. “Alerts?”

Jean Valjean watches this, holding onto his expression fixedly as he lifts his phone with the screen facing Javert. “Yes. I have the ADT app.” He’s faintly proud of this; he does well with technology for a man of his age, for all he doesn’t exploit it much.

“Does it automatically—? No, fuck, right, police, not an option. I know, I know that.” He waves a hand as if unable to articulate whatever he means by this. “I took the caldo off the stove already, let’s— Why are you still sitting there?” He takes a hesitant step towards the front door, expression rather like a dog who believes it has heard its leash’s swivel eye clasp jingle but sees its owner hasn’t stirred. “I got a handgun in the glove box and I guarantee I can holler like police on entry without actually saying the word, c’mon.” 

“No, I don’t think so.” Jean Valjean takes pity. “I suppose I will check tomorrow and see what needs repaired.”

“You suppose—!” His cheeks flush red in indignation, lips loose in shock. “But—your house.”

“Yes.” Technically, Cosette’s; perhaps this will prompt her to sell.

“I don’t believe you moved everything of value here.”

“Then I will not tell you so. If they are old hands I would be surprised should they spend more than thirty minutes on tossing a house of that size. They won’t be there still by the time we arrive, and it’s late. There’s no reason to stir out over nothing. Your soup will be ruined. Besides, if they are there, what will we give them? A sermon on theft? Perhaps. Empty threats and imprecations? I am sure you do not think I would condone shooting a man. Let us have dignity. Tomorrow is soon enough.” He shrugs. “One of the safes is small enough they might carry it out, I suppose. That is well, they may have it. I do not believe Cosette left much valuable jewelry behind, and certainly none with sentimental value.”

Javert grasps after words, settles on, “But they’ve violated your home.” 

“They have broken through a door—made a mess, I presume—taken some few valuables.” He tosses the phone down on the couch cushion beside him. “I am unmoved.” He looks up, waits patiently for Javert to remember that he is himself a thief.

Javert stands with his head to the side, his stare fierce and fixed on Jean Valjean’s face, all that energy come to a precipitous and painful stop as he visibly recognizes his mental path to be one of old moral values and, recoiling, falls to nothing.

Kindly, he asks, “Would you like to come with me, tomorrow? I can wait until the evening.” 

“Yes,” Javert mutters. And returns to the kitchen, casting back a final glance that contains in equal parts rebuke and concern.

Later, when they have worked around each other in the kitchen to wash dishes and portion out the soup for the freezer and the next day’s lunch, Javert very quiet through it, Jean Valjean catches him by the elbow, leaving wet prints in the fabric of his shirt. The long-sleeved henley, he notes, a little more worn-in than most of clothes, is precisely that soft texture which he wishes all garments could come in, and had he been, perhaps, a little handsy because of that, once? “I thought of saying it, but it seemed so obvious—” He touches fingers to the edge of the pink new skin on his brow, and for all his vision has begun to decline with age enough to squint at the small print on the back of a pill bottle, he can see the precise puncture marks where stitches held it together. “—that it was upsetting to see you hurt. My own indifference to stuff aside, I rather you not be at risk.”

“Your burglar’s unlikely to have a bottle of rum in hand,” Javert says, in that cantankerous, focused, over-literal mode, leaning into the touch—before he pulls back, nose wrinkled, and rubs his thumb carefully at the edge of the scarring tissue. “This damned thing is still itchy.” He casts his eyes to the side, brow ruffled. 

“What?” he asks.

“It’s itchy,” he repeats, over-solemn.

“Excuse me, a dodge?” He gives his shoulder a pat. “I’m a bad influence.” 

Javert makes a fearsome face at him and roams back into the living room, where he grumbles about the remote being missing again, for all he roots it out of the gap between the couch arm and cushion first thing, this being the place it always goes missing to. Then he pauses, turning it in his hand. “I been putting the thought out of my head,” he announces to the wall, “but you took a minute to come up on me and Boulatruelle after it must have been obvious he took exception to me.” He drops his gaze; his braveries do seem undercut, moments like this, by that aversion to looking. “That surprised me. I told myself, Well, he thought I had the situation in hand. Or: he was distracted and read the mood wrong. I even said: He thought his approaching would escalate the situation. All this telling—it used to be I would not have to to say to myself more than: He thought it correct.” He tosses the remote on the end table with a clatter and a grunt of annoyance. “That’s half your fault.”

“You’re right,” he says, lightly, “that I read the situation wrong. I’m sorry.” This is a lie. He recognized Boulatruelle, knew that he would be recognized in turn.

[crazy-hazy-sims]

I have alot of new followers that are here for cc that might not know how to get to my TOU ( terms of use) (its the button on my theme called tou but i know not everyone opens the theme url thing) so here's the jist of it untill i make a proper pinned post:

is hi lovelies listen you can do anything you want with my cc except put it behind a pay wall or re upload it as your own.

That means you can:

Use it as you like

Edit it

Recolor it for personal use OR FOR FREE CC

Take parts of it for your own mesh for personal use OR FREE CC

Share it with friends in discord or other websites

Include it in sim dumps /builds THAT ARE FREE

Upload your mesh that uses part of mine as your own cc but Do not make money off it NO PERMEANT PAYWALLS AND NO EARLY ACCESS NO TIMERS NO ADS .

Optional: i ask is that you tag me if you use it in any of the above only because i like seeing people use my stuff and i wanna reblog and encourag them but you also dont have to.

My stuff is free and will always be free and available for direct downloading from sfs if you see it behind paywall then either i got replaced and I'm hunting down my greedy clone as we speak or its stolen and uploaded to other sites (which i dont encourage downloading from because these websites are full of malware and i have no control over that) .

As always have fun !

[pumpkinstep]

I use this software.

It's an easy way to turn off settings in windows that you'd normally have to put a bit of effort in to find. Settings like trackers and a bunch of other stuff.

It works for windows 10

Revo Uninstaller is a great program for force uninstalling programs you couldn't uninstall otherwise. Like Microsoft Edge.

If you use it to uninstall edge and its not finding the program when you search for it, you'll have to open edge, then use the target mode which allows you to select desired programs manually.

target the opened Microsoft edge window and it'll start the process.

The cool thing about this program is that is does a hard uninstall, completely wipes out everything related to the program and it's stuff in the registry.

might I add, if you uninstall Microsoft edge, it will remove copilot as well. I've done this and it's been a few months since then I think. I've updated my laptop a few times and it hasn't come back. though if you want to avoid edge from coming back with an update, here's a vid on the more indepth process of its removal.

Something I usually do is go into my app manager or program manager window and read through what all is installed. I delete anything I didn't install myself and doesn't have a purpose. If you're not tech savvy, have a web browser open to search for programs you don't recognize. if it looks necessary, leave it alone. Usually windows is pretty good about not letting you uninstall important programs but it's good to play it safe.

Doing this whenever you notice a sudden dip in pc performance is a great way to catch unwanted programs that may have slipped in with something you downloaded recently. Paired with a good anti malware program like Malwarebytes, youre pretty much golden.

last tip.

It's a pretty good practice to Optimize and Defrag your harddrive regularly. It basically does a clean sweep of your harddrive by deleting unnecessary files.

Here's a link to instructions on how to do that. When you set about this process, you should have an option of to what degree the clean up is done (meaning what files is targeted), how regularly this process happens.

It usually deletes residual files, stuff in your downloads folder, trash folder, and stuff like that. you'll get to see what all is there when you do it before you confirm the clean up.

After doing all that, you've got yourself a nice and clean pc that should work better than it did before.

All the programs I linked to are free and can be used without paying for them.

I've been super into computers since I was kid so these are pretty solid methods of pc maintainance on the virtual side. If you have a proper box pc, and I guess if you're feeling brave enough to open up your laptop, don't forget to clean use an air duster to clean out your consul.

I promise you, nothing will help more than a clean pc and cooling fans.

i thought my laptop was on its last leg because it was running at six billion degrees and using 100% disk space at all times and then i turned off shadows and some other windows effects and it was immediately cured. i just did the same to my roommate's computer and its performance issues were also immediately cured. okay. i guess.

so i guess if you have creaky freezy windows 10/11 try searching "advanced system settings", go to performance settings, and uncheck "show shadows under windows" and anything else you don't want. hope that helps someone else.

[delicatekidinfluencer]

How to Disable Safe Mode in Oppo Devices

Have you ever found yourself stuck in Safe Mode on your Oppo device and just couldn't figure out how to get out of it? Don't worry, you're not alone! Putting your Oppo phone into Safe Mode might seem like a straightforward task, but getting it back to normal mode can sometimes be a bit tricky. But fear not, because we've got you covered. In this article, we'll walk you through various methods to disable Safe Mode in Oppo devices, ensuring that you can easily switch back to the normal mode you love. You see, Safe Mode can be a lifesaver when you're troubleshooting certain issues on your Android phone. It strips away all the fancy bells and whistles, allowing you to start your Oppo device with only the most essential features and services. However, if you find yourself unable to exit Safe Mode, it can quickly become frustrating. We'll help you navigate through the steps to remove Safe Mode from your Oppo device, ensuring that you can enjoy your phone in its full glory once again. So, let's dive in and bid farewell to Safe Mode woes together! Read More - ADDING IR SENSOR  | AS REMOTE What is Safe Mode? Why is your Oppo Device in Safe Mode? Methods to disable Safe Mode in Oppo DevicesRestart your Oppo Device Try from the Notification Panel Use Power Up with Volume Down keys Take Out the Battery Remove some Apps Factory Reset your device Conclusion Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)How do I know if my Oppo device is in Safe Mode? Can I still access my apps and data while in Safe Mode? Is it possible to accidentally activate Safe Mode on my Oppo device? Can I seek professional help if I'm unable to disable Safe Mode on my Oppo device? Is it safe to continue using my Oppo device while it's in Safe Mode?

What is Safe Mode?

Safe Mode on your phone isolates pre-installed software, suspending third-party apps. It's a troubleshooting tool to identify problematic applications and settings. By disabling most third-party apps and background processes, it provides a clean slate for diagnostics. Essentially, it's a method of booting with minimal software to resolve issues effectively.

Why is your Oppo Device in Safe Mode?

Your Oppo device may enter Safe Mode automatically due to issues it's encountered. This could result from a problematic mobile app or malware. Alternatively, you might inadvertently trigger Safe Mode yourself. Read More – Screen overlay Detected Problem solved on Oppo Safe Mode on Oppo devices prevents unauthorized apps and ensures smooth performance. Even without issues, it's vital for optimal device functionality. Don't overlook its importance, as it maintains device capabilities. Read More – What Can Do With Safe Mode

Methods to disable Safe Mode in Oppo Devices

- Restart your Oppo Device. - Using Notification Panel. - Use Power Up with Volume Down keys. - Take out the battery from your device. - By removing apps. - Factory Reset your Oppo Device. You can disable Safe Mode using the methods outlined above. Here, we briefly explain these methods. Restart your Oppo Device

Most people resort to this method when something goes wrong with their device. To disable Safe Mode, follow these steps: Hold down the Power Button until the Power Off option appears. Wait a few minutes, then turn your device back on. If this method doesn't work, then try the next one. Try from the Notification Panel

This method may not work for all devices, but some have a Safe Mode notification in the Notification Panel. Simply go to the Notification Panel and tap on "Exit Safe Mode." Still unable to disable Safe Mode on your device? Then consider using hardware methods. Use Power Up with Volume Down keys

Many people have tried this method and found it effective. First, turn off your device, then simultaneously hold down the Power Button and Volume Down keys. If your Volume key is broken, your device may mistakenly detect that you're holding one of the volume buttons, triggering Safe Mode unintentionally. This can occur during reboots or even when you're not attempting to do so. If this happens consistently, you may need to repair your device. Remove the protective case as it may disrupt the functionality of the phone's physical keys and hinder proper startup. Take Out the Battery

First, you need to turn off your device and then remove the battery. Wait for a couple of minutes before putting the battery back in and turning the device back on. Remove some Apps

If you're still unable to turn off Safe Mode on your device, it could be due to a mobile app. Your device may have some apps that are causing errors, leading to Safe Mode activation to protect it from potential harm. Before uninstalling any app, consider clearing the app's cache by following these steps: - Open Settings on your phone. - Navigate to Apps. - Select "See all apps." - Choose the specific app you want to clear the cache for. - Go to Storage and Cache. - Select "Clear Cache." You can also attempt to delete the app's data with the following steps: - Access Settings on your phone. - Navigate to Apps. - Select "See all apps." - Choose the specific app. - Go to Storage and Cache. - Clear the storage.

Deleting an app's storage clears the cache on your user data for that app. You'll need to go through the setup process again, but this could resolve the issue and allow you to exit Safe Mode. Follow these steps to uninstall the faulty app : - First, identify the problematic app causing Safe Mode activation. - Since apps cannot run in Safe Mode, uninstallation is the only option. - Navigate to Settings >> Apps to view the list of downloaded apps. - The recently downloaded app is likely the cause of the Safe Mode issue. - Select the app you want to remove and proceed to uninstall it.

Factory Reset your device

Before attempting this method, it's better to try all the methods mentioned above. If you're still unable to disable Safe Mode, proceed with this method, but keep in mind that it will erase all data on your device. Remember to backup your data before resetting the device. This method will likely work, based on my knowledge. We believe this guide will help you successfully disable Safe Mode on your Oppo Device.

Conclusion

In conclusion, navigating Safe Mode on your Oppo device can be a hassle, but with these comprehensive steps, you can troubleshoot and disable it effectively. Remember to try various methods and backup your data before resorting to a factory reset. Share this guide with others to help them overcome Safe Mode issues and keep your device running smoothly. Stay informed and connected by subscribing to our page for future updates and tech tips.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How do I know if my Oppo device is in Safe Mode? You can tell if your Oppo device is in Safe Mode by observing the words "Safe Mode" displayed on the screen, usually in the bottom-left or top-left corner. Additionally, certain features and functionalities may be limited while in Safe Mode. Can I still access my apps and data while in Safe Mode? While in Safe Mode on your Oppo device, you can still access your apps and data, but only essential system apps will be available. Third-party apps won't be accessible until you exit Safe Mode. Is it possible to accidentally activate Safe Mode on my Oppo device? Yes, it's possible to accidentally activate Safe Mode on your Oppo device. This can happen if certain buttons are pressed during startup or if there are issues with specific apps or software, triggering Safe Mode activation unintentionally. Can I seek professional help if I'm unable to disable Safe Mode on my Oppo device? Yes, if you're unable to disable Safe Mode on your Oppo device using the provided methods, seeking professional help from an authorized service center or Oppo customer support is advisable. They can offer specialized assistance and solutions tailored to your device's specific issues. Is it safe to continue using my Oppo device while it's in Safe Mode? Yes, it's safe to continue using your Oppo device while it's in Safe Mode. Safe Mode is designed to restrict certain functions to diagnose and resolve issues, but it won't cause harm to your device. However, some features may be limited until you exit Safe Mode. Hey there! Thanks for checking out our page. If you found this guide useful, consider sharing it on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit so others can also take advantage of it. And if you run into any trouble or encounter error messages, don't hesitate to drop a comment. Our team is here to help you out pronto. Oh, and if you're wondering how to disable safe mode in Oppo, we've got you covered! Stay in the loop by subscribing to our page for all the latest updates. Read the full article

[plebeiangoth]

Hey, I'm extremely sorry about this, don't wanna bother you, don't feel like you gotta reply either but I'm kinda desperate and I can't find anyone talking about this so I just decided to search on Tumblr and see if anyone did.

Anyway, I saw you got adware at some point and would like to know if you managed to get rid of it?, I tried the options of putting it on safe mode and going through your apps but there's nothing there, and I'm not tech savvy enough to know which files are supposed to be there or not.

Do you know of any adware removal tool that isn't a scam, or if factory reset will help?, again, sorry, I'm just running out of ideas ""

Hope you have a nice day o/

Took me a while to remember what I posted about adware but I think I found the incident you were referring to. The incident in question wasn't a big deal, I scanned my system with Windows Security and nothing came up and didn't have any issues.

Don't even worry about bothering me! You're not bothering me at all and it sounds like you're pretty worried and upset. Actually there's very little need to be worried about adware.

The thing is you'll likely notice some pop-up ads and your machine acting slower than normal, but nothing well and truly destructive or life-ruining. If it were ransomware you would definitely be screwed and need to wipe your system, or factory reset. So no need to consider any drastic measures for just some pop-ups and a slightly slower computer.

Sounds like you're using a Windows machine. If so here's what I recommend would be the thing to try on your own:

Type "windows security" in the search bar on the lower left corner of your screen and click on "open".

On the left side of the window that would come up, click on "virus & threat protection"

In this window click "scan options", and select "full scan" from the options, then click the "scan now" button. This will take a while, probably hours, but there's no need to babysit the machine while it scans.

This should find and remove your adware, or at least find it and give you the options to remove it. If nothing comes up and your system is working fine, you should be good to go.

If the issue persists or worsens, I urge you to take the machine to a PC repair technician who can remove the malware safely. They won't judge you and will be happy to help.

I'm really sorry to hear you're having this problem. This is the best advice I can offer as an amateur. There are a lot of third-party anti-malware tools you could use but frankly Windows Security is really pretty good. You can also schedule scans in Windows Security to find and remove malware all on its own so you wouldn't need to worry about this so much.

I hope this helps and your day gets better!

[xzacloudx]

Thanks so much for bringing up these valid concerns & details. I absolutely agree with your misgivings here. Wow, what a mess Mozilla made of this. Total fumble. And there's a LOT to be suspicious about, like whether or not that data isn't skimmed on the way (despite the supposition it's done locally) or still able to be de-anonymized.

But if Mozilla's proposal IS legit, it would potentially be VERY helpful for everyone's privacy rights in the long run, especially the majority who don't use ad-blockers. But crucially, the only way for this prototype model to work would be for enough people to be using it, to see if advertisers can finally realize that anonymous general data is sufficiently sustainable, so they no longer have to feel like they HAVE to data-snatch.

And so, Mozilla was kinda caught between a rock & a hard place here, when it comes to opt-in vs opt-out approaches. They broke user trust by not being more open about this, & making it opt-out (thus making the whole thing look fishy, especially since it's all about privacy & ads, combined with working on this with Meta of all companies)... But if they made it opt-in, the vast majority of users would just give it a glance, say "Nope", & leave it off.

(continued under the snip)

Sure, most of us don't want to support advertisers to begin with... but sadly, unless you wanna pay subscriptions to websites & services, ads are how they stay afloat (which in turn can help businesses make sales, including small ethical ones, as well as fundraisers for those in need). If advertising is no longer profitable, we CAN lose the web.

I wonder if it could be reaching a point where the increased need for ad-blocking is starting to actually put a dent in ad profits, enough that maybe that's what's motivating Meta to work on this (SUPPOSING it's not to skim the data for themselves before anonymizing it, of course). If people are less afraid of their privacy being violated, then they may not block ads so much (though of course their invasiveness & overabundance, as well as propensity to carry malware, are other huge issues too)... thus, this would be a compromise to move toward a (slightly) more ethical & sustainable ad standard.

The constant arms-race between advertisers & ad-blocker folks no doubt eats up LOTS of resources & time on both sides. If ad data systems could meet in the middle, that would free up so much lifetime otherwise being wasted on this struggle. At least to some degree. The START of maybe something even better eventually.

It's a social responsibility kind of thing, for those doing this potentially paving the way for future improvement of online privacy. (But MY GOSH did Mozilla flub it by not making that clear & presenting it as such! You can't just volunteer people like that, gah!)

---

In the end, I'm very mixed on it. Great points are being made by both sides (I've been reading through the Reddit thread (& its many long sub-threads) you linked to, which is full of great discussions & various perspectives... But sheesh, yeah, whoever they've got in there remains clueless about addressing the legitimate concerns, which does NOT HELP). There's good arguments for & against this system, as well as whether it may be trustworthy or not.

Like I said, Mozilla's options concerning our, well, options, weren't great. Making it opt-in would likely have doomed the experiment from the start. But making it opt-out, ESPECIALLY with such difficulties in doing so for mobile... is likely doing the same thing, & losing them much of their already dwindling audience.

They couldn't win either way. Though they sure could've lost less.

But yeah... everyone can make their own decision, but we gotta be informed of the good, bad, & ugly so that decision is truly our own.

that article going around abt firefox's new ad program is annoying bc it's phrased as though "mozilla has finally TURNED on its people and is SELLING YOU OUT for cold hard cash!!" when. that's not what's happening. it is specifically being implemented to discourage tracking behavior, and literally all the data they are giving to advertisers is aggregate and anonymized, which is like, the opposite of what that post wants you to worry about, lol

[llazyneiph]

Can't believe I'm making another post about Adf*y in 2021 but here we go...

I'm sure you all know the new adf*y page which (i'm pretty sure) adf*y skipper can't skip anymore, the one where it asks to send notifications and won't let you proceed until you let them send notifications.

I accidentally just allowed one of these notifications (not at home and using a janky mouse on a pillow, keeps going crazy), so I immediately headed to my chrome settings to get rid of it.

I'm going through blocking everything before I delete it (just so I feel better about it truly being gone lol) and I see this:

I'm thinking, what the hell is a payment handler and why is it set to allow?? That super doesn't sound good... And after some googling I find yeah, it's probably not great.

So, what's a payment handler? Basically, it's when google saves your payment details to autofill later on when you're making an online purchase. So that includes your credit card, debit card, paypal, ect, details. (Source - askcybersecurity.com) Now these are usually fine on legitimate sites but this site specifically:

You just google 'christianivory.pro' and every result is how to get rid of it because it's malware. (That picture was after I cleared the cookies it had already stored, no idea what they were)

(btw, I wouldn't recommend clicking on any of these since malware/viruses are often hidden behind fake anti-malware ads/programs)

Luckily I don't keep any of my payment details saved so I'm pretty sure I'm fine after deleting it and MalwareBytes or Windows Defender hasn't detected anything. I can't say for sure what it would have done if I hadn't of deleted it, it seems to mostly be notification spam but the fact that it was trying to access my payment methods doesn't sound all that great. Even if having the payment methods allowed doesn't do shit, I've had money stolen from me through an adf*y virus before (source - my tumblr)

Like I said, I'm pretty sure I got lucky because I don't save those things but I'm going to offer a hypothetical situation which could be extremely likely in our community specifically;

Lets say I'm a 14 year old simmer who uses their parents computer to play the sims. I've recently discovered custom content and my favourite creator uses adf*y, but since I'm young and new to the community I have no idea that adf*y can be bad and I trust this creator so they would never link me to anything that could harm my computer... right? So I accept that adf*y notification and don't think anything of it, I get the CC I really like and I'm happy. But that notification I just accepted has saved my parents credit card details. I'm sure you can guess where the rest of this situation goes.

So this is me, creator to creator, telling you need to stop. I know finding a source of income can be awful right now, but your source of income could be coming at the expense of someone else who did not agree to this.

If you think your content is worth a price then I urge you to start a Patreon, Ko-Fi or even a paypal because these are platforms that are safe for both parties and are OPTIONAL. Adf*y is not optional for the downloader.

Stop putting the younger and more susceptible people in our community at risk. As creators it is likely that we gain a larger following so stop taking advantage of that. Especially if you're older or are someone who preaches the safety of our younger members in this space, step up and actually practice what you fucking preach instead of just saying it for likes and reblogs.

I am genuinely sick of this, I've been in this community for over half a goddamn decade now and I've posted before about adf*y, as have dozens of other people and this shit is STILL happening.

I am so close to wiping my old laptop and recording myself going through creators adf*y links and downloading as many malicious things as I can JUST to prove to people that adf*y is not safe. And no, I wouldn't blur out blog names, I would specifically be calling people out on their shit. This isn't just petty simblr drama, this can actually affect peoples lives.

TL:DR;

It's Adf*y?? We all know it's bad, stop using it for the sake of our community members!?? I'm gonna start calling people out for pretty soon?? STOP PISSING WHERE YOU EAT

how to remove notifications on chrome:

Checking/removing payment methods on chrome:

I'm sure there are some of you who will take issue with my post for whatever reason so:

1. Don't comment saying that we should just keep downloading however many adfl*y skippers or avoidant addons or be careful about what we click, that is not the point of this post. We shouldn't HAVE to do that just to get cc, and new/young community members DON'T KNOW THIS.

2. SimGuruDrake explicitly saying creators cannot use permanent paywalls

source (sims forums)

video on adf*y (old but still relevant info)

video (this dude basically just speedruns getting malware from link shorteners and the ads on the sites lol)

[arcplaysgames]

okay so I was kinda right about Medjed! is that another victory in my column or not? hm

After sleeping for I think 22 days, Futaba wakes up and gets to counterhacking the hackers.

Reverie and Morgana get bored and start cleaning up her room while she works.

Reverie got them skills. I still want an AU where he's a housespouse who moonlights as a cat burglar, if the fandom hasn't written a dozen of them, what the fuck have they been doing.

gurl, we need to get you some vitamin c and iron, holy shit. i hope you like edamame and oranges, it's all your eating for the next week.

Does anyone else think this voice actor does NOT fit this character, or is it just me? It's a constant distraction.

Aw he looks nice. What horrific creative crimes has he committed?

I finally belatedly noticed that the Palaces are all built around one of the deadly sins. "Arc, how could you not notice--" deadly sins are dumb, it's not in my authorial wheelhouse, blah blah. so anyway we did Lust, Vanity, Gluttony.... then the Thieves call out Futaba's sloth in the calling card, but she's actually associated with Wrath? Which is confusing. That means our options are.... uh. /googles.

Envy, Sloth, and Greed.

If the Final Boss is, like, the dude positioning to be the future Prime Minister, then I would say he should be Greed? Greed for power? But who even knooooows.

OKAY SO I WAS KINDA RIGHT! She was Medjed! But it's basically Anonymous, it's a placeholder name for anyone who wants to use it. Yeah 'cause that always goes well.

looks worriedly at Morgana

Beige Boy shows up to sass Sae some more and

squints at these dialogue boxes

You know what I'm interested in seeing? I figure Akechi is gonna join the Thieves in some capacity at some point, it's being set up pretty aggressively. What interests me is whether we will see his persona awakening or if he'll already have a persona when he joins.

'Cause like.... Okay I'm pretty sure Akechi knows the Thieves aren't behind the mental shutdowns. I'm 70% sure. Ergo:

There is a 70% chance that Akechi is the black masked guy in the Metaverse causing the mental shutdowns.

Or there is a 30% chance that Akechi is being played by someone he trusts, who is giving him bad information re: the mental shutdowns. Which... would dovetail nicely into him joining the crew, actually, if they uncovered the true culprit and Akechi (like his Detective Prince predecessor) swapped sides to the Thieves upon realizing they're the only people who can stop the true perpetrator.

Actually, that would be an incredibly tidy bit of writing, I'm gonna say its 50/50.

He's still sus as fuck 24/7/365 though.

hello i am here for the Futaba and Sojiro Show

Also Sojiro fucking drops the fact that his curry recipe was from Wakaba. He made her curry once and she was so intrigued, she asked for information on how to make it, then returned to Sojiro with a refined, scientifically reinforced recipe, and that's the one Sojiro still uses.

I love Sojiro, what the fuck.

BITCH JUST TELL ME WHO YOU PUSHED YOUR FUCKING MALWARE APK TO AND SAVE ME THE TIME, I KNOW IT WAS YOU.

Makoto has this whole plan to basically give Futaba's interpersonal skills a workout until she's a little more able to handle Thief-y work, but of course Futaba latches onto Yusuke, because she has excellent taste and they are both kindred weirdos.

oh yeah you guys are gonna be besties, i can tell

She also keeps putting on a big costume head when she gets nervous, which is an interesting literalization of "masking" I guess.

I have no intelligent commentary, I just like that when Futaba whines at Sojiro here, he stops and assesses the situation, deems it harmless, and goes back to what he was doing. There's no doubt he'd jump in to help if needed, but also I think Futaba is just the time to simper and tug at his attention because both of them enjoy that. It's very good, I like it.

Also, again: Futaba's VA choice is so fucking good. Love it.

Next up is a beach trip and I cannot imagine it beating P4G's incredible beach vacation, but we shall enter it with open hearts and open eyes.

[respectable-username]

🔐 Why You (Probably) Don't Need A VPN

A rant by a software engineer sick of VPN ads from her favourite YouTubers

TL;DR:

Here are some legitimate reasons the average internet user might want to use a VPN:

To connect to their company's internal network

To bypass the Great Firewall of China (or other types of website blocks at country or organisation level)

To watch Netflix etc as if you were in another country

Here are absolutely rubbish reasons to use a VPN:

Privacy

And today, I'll tell you why.

Hang on, won't a VPN stop hackers from stealing my passwords?

I mean, it does encrypt the web traffic coming from your device.

You know what else encrypts web traffic coming from your device? Your browser.

Yes, in the year 2021, pretty much all websites on the internet are accessed over HTTPS. The "S" stands for "secure", as in "your request will be securely encrypted". If your browser is using HTTPS, nobody can capture the data you're sending over the internet. More detail in the "I like too much detail" section at the bottom of this post.

It's very easy to check if you are using HTTPS by looking at your URL bar. In most browsers, it will have a lock on it if secure:

(From top left to bottom right: Chrome on iOS, Safari on iOS, Chrome on Windows, Edge on Windows, Firefox on Windows, and Safari on Mac. Screenshots reflect the UI at the time this post was written. Oh gosh this has taken over 4 hours to write.)

But isn't moar encryption better? What if somebody breaks HTTPS?

For starters, nobody's breaking your HTTPS, and there isn't any benefit from double encrypting. This is because of the maths behind encryption/decryption!

Encryption works kinda like a lock and key, except the lock is maths and the key is a special number only known to the person allowed to unlock the information.

The important thing is, without the key, all the locked data looks like complete and utter garbage. Completely unusable. Barely distinguishable from random noise. There's absolutely no way to tell what the original data was.

The other important thing is that the key is nearly unguessable. As in, with current technology, will generally take more than the lifetime of the universe to guess by chance. And when technology gets faster, we just make the numbers bigger again until they're once again secure.

For any major website you use, they will use a strong encryption algorithm (ie lock) with big numbers so your keys will be strong enough to withstand an attack. This means your data is safe as long as that lock icon is in your URL bar.

A VPN will not make the existing garble any more garbled. The extra $10/month or whatever you're paying for does not buy you any extra protection.

If you want to know more about how encryption and HTTPS in particular work, see the "I like too much detail" section at the end of this post.

Something something viruses

How's a VPN going to stop viruses? It controls the path your internet traffic takes, not the content that gets sent down that path. I guess it could block some known virus-giving hosts? But if it's known to the VPN provider, it's probably also known to the built-in antivirus on your computer who can block it for you.

(Oh yeah, 3rd party antivirus is another thing that's not worth paying for these days. Microsoft's built-in Windows Defender is as good as the third party options, and something something Macs don't get viruses easily because of how they're architected.)

Honestly though, keep your software up to date, don't click on anything suspicious, don't open files from sources you don't trust, and you'll be right most of the time.

And keep your software up to date. Then update your software. Hey, did I mention keeping your stuff updated? Update! Now! It only takes a few minutes. Please update to the latest version of your software I'm begging you. It's the number 1 way to protect yourself from viruses and other malware. Most major software attacks could have been prevented if people just updated their damn software!

But my ISP is spying on me!

Ok, it is true that there are TWO bits of data that HTTPS can't and won't hide. Those are:

The source of a request (your IP)

What website that request is going to (the website's IP)

These are the bits of information that routers use to know where to send your data, so of course they can't be hidden as the data is moving across the internet. And people can see that information very easily if they want to.

Note: this will show which website you're going to, but not which page you're looking at, and not the content of that page. So it will show that you were on Tumblr, but will not show anyone that you're still reading SuperWhoLock content in 2021.

It's this source/destination information that VPNs hide, which is why they can be used to bypass website blocks and region locks.

By using a VPN, those sniffing traffic on your side of the VPN will just show you connecting to the VPN, not the actual website you want. That means you can read AO3 at work/school without your boss/teachers knowing (unless they look over your shoulder of course).

As for those sniffing on the websites end, including the website itself, they will see the VPN as the source of the connection, not you. So if you're in the US and using a VPN node in the UK, Netflix will see you as being in the UK and show you their British library rather than the American one.

If this is what you're using a VPN for and you think the price is fair, then by all means keep doing it! This is 100% what VPNs are good for.

HOWEVER, and this is a big "however", if it's your ISP you're trying to hide your internet traffic from, then you will want to think twice before using a VPN.

Let me put it this way. Without a VPN, your ISP knows every website you connect to and when. With a VPN, do you know who has that exact same information? The VPN provider. Sure, many claim to not keep logs, but do you really trust the people asking for you to send them all your data for a fee to not just turn around and sell your data on for a profit, or worse?

In effect, you're trading one snooper for another. One snooper is heavily regulated, in many jurisdictions must obey net neutrality, and is already getting a big fee from you regardless of where you browse. The other isn't. Again, it's all a matter of who you trust more.

For me personally, I trust my ISP more than a random VPN provider, if for no other reason than my ISP is an old enough company with enough inertia and incompetence that I don't think they could organise to sell my data even if they wanted to. And with the amount of money I'm paying them per month, they've only got everything to lose if they broke consumer trust by on-selling that data. So yeah, I trust my ISP more with my privacy than the random VPN company.

But my VPN comes with a password manager!

Password managers are great. I 100% recommend you use a password manager. If there's one thing you could do right now to improve your security (other than updating your software, speaking of, have you updated yet?), it's getting and using a password manager.

Password managers also come for free.

I'm currently using LastPass free, but am planning to switch after they did a bad capitalism and only let their free accounts access either laptop or mobile but not both now. I personally am planning to move to Bitwarden on friends' recommendation since it's not only free but open source and available across devices. I also have friends who use passbolt and enjoy it, which is also free and open source, but it's also a bit DIY to set up. Great if you like tinkering though! And there are probably many other options out there if you do a bit of googling.

So, yeah, please use a password manager, but don't pay for it unless you actually have use for the extra features.

No I really need to hide my internet activity from everybody for reasons

In this case, you're probably looking for TOR. TOR is basically untraceable. It's also a terrible user experience for the most part because of this, so I'd only recommend it if you need it, such as if you're trying to escape the Great Firewall. But please don't use it for Bad Crimes. I am not to be held liable for any crime committed using information learned from this post.

Further reading viewing

If you want to know more about why you don't need a VPN, see Tom Scott's amazing video on the subject. It's honestly a great intro for beginners.

I like too much detail

Ahhh, so you're the type of person who doesn't get turned off by long explanations I see. Well, here's a little more info on the stuff I oversimplified in the main post about encryption. Uhh, words get bigger and more jargony in this section.

So first oversimplification: the assumption that all web traffic is either HTTP or HTTPS. This isn't exactly true. There are many other application layer internet standards out there, such as ssh, ftp, websockets, and all the proprietary standards certain companies use for stuff such as streaming and video conferencing. Some of these are secure, using TLS or some other security algorithm under the hood, and some of them aren't.

But most of the web requests you care about are HTTP/HTTPS calls. As for the rest, if they come from a company of a decent size that hasn't been hacked off the face of the planet already, they're probably also secure. In other words, you don't need to worry about it.

Next, we've already said that encryption works as a lock and a key, where the lock is a maths formula and the key is a number. But how do we get that key to lock and unlock the data?

Well, to answer that, we first need to talk about the two different types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric encryption such as AES uses the same key to both encrypt and decrypt data, whereas asymmetric encryption such as RSA uses a different key to encode and decode.

For the sake of my writing, we're going to call the person encrypting Alice, the person decrypting Bob, and the eavesdropper trying to break our communications Eve from now on. These are standard names in crypto FYI. Also, crypto is short for cryptography not cryptocurrencies. Get your Bitcoin and Etherium outta here!

Sorry if things start getting incoherent. I'm tired. It's after 1am now.

So first, how do we get the key from symmetric crypto? This is probably the easier place to start. Well, you need a number, any number of sufficient size, that both Alice and Bob know. There are many ways you could share this number. They could decide it when they meet in person. They could send it to each other using carrier pigeons. Or they could radio it via morse code. But those aren't convenient, and somebody could intercept the number and use it to read all their messages.

So what we use instead is a super clever algorithm called Diffie-Hellman, which uses maths and, in particular, the fact it's really hard to factor large numbers (probably NP Hard to be specific, but there's no actual proof of that). The Wikipedia page for this is surprisingly easy to read, so I'll just direct you there to read all about it because I've been writing for too long. This algorithm allows Alice and Bob to agree on a secret number, despite Eve being able to read everything they send each other.

Now Alice and Bob have this secret number key, they can talk in private. Alice puts her message and the key into the encryption algorithm and out pops what looks like a load of garbage. She can then send this garbage to Bob without worrying about Eve being able to read it. Bob can then put the garbage and the key into the decryption algorithm to undo the scrambling and get the original message out telling him where the good donuts are. Voila, they're done!

But how does Alice know that she's sending her message to Bob and not Eve? Eve could pretend to be Bob so that Alice does the Diffie-Hellman dance with her instead and sends her the secret location of the good donuts instead.

This is where asymmetric crypto comes in! This is the one with private and public keys, and the one that uses prime numbers.

I'm not 100% across the maths on this one TBH, but it has something to do with group theory. Anyway, just like Diffie-Hellman, it relies on the fact that prime factorisation is hard, and so it does some magic with semi-primes, ie numbers with only 2 prime factors other than 1. Google it if you want to know more. I kinda zoned out of this bit in my security courses. Maths hard

But the effect of that maths is easier to explain: things that are encoded with one of the keys can only be decoded with the other key. This means that one of those keys can be well-known to the public and the other is known only to the person it belongs to.

If Alice wants to send a message to Bob and just Bob, no Eve allowed, she can first look up Bob's public key and encrypt a beginning message with that. Once Bob receives the message, he can decrypt it with his private key and read the contents. Eve can't read the contents though because, even though she has Bob's public key, she doesn't know his private key.

This public key information is what the lock in your browser is all about BTW. It's saying that the website is legit based on the public key they provide.

So why do we need symmetric crypto when we have asymmetric crypto? Seems a lot less hassle to exchange keys with asymmetric crypto.

Well, it's because asymmetric crypto is slooooow. So, in TLS, the security algorithm that puts the "S" in "HTTPS", asymmetric RSA is used to establish the initial connection and figure out what symmetric key to use, and then the rest of the session uses AES symmetric encryption using the agreed secret key.

And there you have it! Crypto in slightly-less-short-but-still-high-enough-level-that-I-hope-you-understand.

Just realised how long this section is. Well, I did call it "too much detail" for a reason.

Now, next question is what exactly is and isn't encrypted using HTTPS.

Well, as I said earlier, it's basically just the source IP:port and the destination IP:port. In fact, this information is actually communicated on the logical layer below the application layer HTTPS is on, known as the transport layer. Again, as I said before, you can't really encrypt this unless you don't want your data to reach the place you want at all.

Also, DNS is unencrypted. A DNS request is a request that turns a domain name, such as tumblr.com, into an IP address, by asking a special server called a Domain Name Server where to find the website you're looking for. A DNS request is made before an HTTP(S) request. Anyone who can read your internet traffic can therefore tell you wanted to go to Tumblr.

But importantly, this only shows the domain name, not the full URL. The rest of the URL, the part after the third slash (the first two slashes being part of http://), is stuff that's interpreted by the server itself and so isn't needed during transport. Therefore, it encrypted and completely unreadable, just like all the content on your page.

I was going to show a Wireshark scan of a web request using HTTP and HTTPS to show you the difference, but this has taken long enough to write as it is, so sorry!

I could probably write more, but it's 1:30am and I'm sleepy. I hope you found some of this interesting and think twice before purchasing a VPN subscription. Again, there are legit good uses for a VPN, but they're not the ones primarily being advertised in VPN ads. It's the fact that VPN ads rely so heavily on false advertising that really grinds my gears and made me want to do this rant. It's especially bad when it comes from somebody I'd think of as technologically competent (naming no names here, but if you've worked in tech and still promote VPNs as a way to keep data safe... no). Feel free to ask questions if you want and hopefully I'll get around to answering any that I feel I know enough to answer.

Nighty night Tumblr. Please update your software. And use a (free) password manager. And enable two factor authentication on all your accounts. But mostly just update your software.

[submalevolentgrace]

happy to help! i am… not very good at explaining tech stuff, but i will do my best, assuming that if you've got it installed you can use a desktop computer well enough, and hopefully some of it makes sense…

everything i learned and am using here is from the yt-dlp github documentation here, but i know it's a beast, so if i don't cover an option you want, it might be in there. also i use it on linux where i can just run "yt-dlp" from any folder and have it do its work in there (a folder for music, for essays, for video etc), if you're on windows with an executable, i suspect you'll have to run "yt-dlp.exe" in cmd instead; i've added subfolders to my example paths under that assumption that you can obviously mess with. the basic format is "yt-dlp -options https://youtubeurl.example/change_the_whole_url_here"

i'm also assuming that you've made some unlisted playlists on youtube (not private! or the program won't be able to scrape them), because you don't wanna be downloading one video at a time, and that you've given those playlists reasonably sensible titles. note that tumblr will add linebreaks, but the command is just all one line when you run it in a terminal. that said, here's 4 basic commands i use for my own use cases:

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 2 -o "music/%(playlist_title)s/%(channel)s %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s" --restrict-filenames https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID_HERE

this one is for downloading music, because there's a lot of stuff i listen to (wierd synth jams and remixes) that just aren't uploaded elsewhere, and everybody loves a good youtube to mp3 converter, so here's one that won't inject malware!

everything in the passed playlist will be downloaded as mp3. the -x option means it'll extract to audio only, no video. the next option encodes it properly into mp3. --audio-quality is how much it will compress it (0 is best, and 10 is worst), 2 here is good enough for my ears for music. the -o option does all the work for naming the file and putting it in a folder, based on the details of the video. the "%(word)s" is just scripting code that doesn't matter, as long as it's there, the bits around and inside it are what matter. the way its set up above is just my personal preference; everything will go into a folder titled "music", then a folder based on the playlist title you setup on youtube, then the file will be named with the youtube channel, video title, and the youtube video id will be inserted in square brackets (so that you can manually find the video again based on the filename if needed), then finally ext is just the file extension, mp3. finally, --restrict-filenames just converts any unusual unicode characters down to ascii and replaces spaces with underscores, to make sure the filnames appear sane to any music or video player you might pass the files to, regardless of filesystem or OS.

if i've lost you here with the -o option, i'd suggest to try running it on a small playlist with like 3 videos, and look at how the files are named compared to what's in the quote marks and the video details. you can then play around with it to get it setup how you like; i assume many people won't want the [%(id)s] bit, or with restrict-filenames, so you can snip them out. all the possible options you might want for -o are on the github page, under "output template".

next i'm showing an almost identical command most for illutration on how you can change -o and get a differently organised folder structure as a result, i use this for listenable stuff like video essays that i listen to to fall asleep:

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 8 -o "essays/%(channel)s/%(upload_date)s %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s" --restrict-filenames https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID_HERE

first of all, audio quality is lower (0 best, 10 worst) because it doesn't matter as much for voice as music, you can tweak to taste. the major difference is that in the -o option, channel is before a slash, and therefore it will create a different folder for each youtube channel in the playlist; so there's not one big mess of files. then inside each channel folder, the file will first have the upload date in ISO format, which means that sorting by filename will put them in upload order, useful for following anything in a series. then, video title, video id, and .mp3 at the end. btw the video id is the random-looking bit at the end of the URL on youtube after "watch?v=" that points to the actual video, "dQw4w9WgXcQ" for example.

next is the generic command i use for backing up videos, sorry it's 3rd down but i wanted to cover filenames earlier on:

yt-dlp --remux-video mp4 -S "height:480" -o "video/%(channel)s/%(upload_date)s %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s" --restrict-filenames https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID_HERE

so first, --remux-video will put it into the mp4 file container. i couldn't properly explain the difference between remuxing and reencoding if i tried, but i have sometimes found a video player will open a remuxed mp4 but not a webm file, and this doesn't affect filesize, so i use it. then, the -S option. in implementation it's used to sort through all the different video files youtube could possibly serve to you and pick which one to download and save. all the details are on the gihub under "sorting formats", but i've found that using the height option gives a decent filter on quality. 480p is good enough for my personal taste for offline backups, but i grew up in the torrented 200mb avi full movie era, so you might want higher. you could change the 480 to 720, 1080, or 2160 (for 4K) if you want, it's all about balancing quality with filesize, and thus backing up more. again, files will be sorted into folders for each channel, then ISO date, video name, id, and .mp4.

this last command i use is just a variant of the one above, but i have a different use case for it. rather than running it on a playlist i've made myself, i run it for already existing playlists on channels i watch a lot of. for example i like some grumpy letsplayers, and rather than having all their downloaded videos jumbled together in one folder, this command will create a folder for their channel, then extra subfolders for each playlist i run it on:

yt-dlp --remux-video mp4 -S "height:720" -o "video/%(channel)s/%(playlist_title)s/%(upload_date)s %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s" --restrict-filenames https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID_HERE

this way it keeps all the mario maker videos seperate from the kirby's dreamcourse videos, and so on, but still under a subfolder for that channel, with the same file format. i also upped the video size here to 720p, just to demonstrate what bit needs changing.

running these over and over again as you add new videos to download is probably going to be a pain in the arse, so you'll probably want to put them into a shell script (linux) or batch file (windows), or whatever mac does for this. on linux you can just paste and edit the command in a text editor, save as "example.sh", make executable in file properties, then run "./example.sh" in the terminal in the folder you want. on windows…. uhh, it's been a while and i've forgotten how to set up batch files correctly, but that's the search term you want to find out how. sorry mac people i got nothing.

worth noting is that for repeat runs of the same command, anything you've already downloaded will be skipped over, just downloading new things added to the playlist… as long as you've kept the -o option the same, and the video/channel title hasn't changed (at one point i had 12 copies of that tom scott video that keeps changing the title to include the viewcount…)

and one last thing! if you're making playlists on youtube for huge amounts of videos (my sleepy essays playlist is approaching 2000 videos), it will get awkward and clunky fast. i highly recommend using browswer extensions to make it easier, i use a firefox addon called "multiselect for youtube" by "pollux" to make it easier to batch add videos to playlists, and if you're not using firefox you should be. we're stealing from google here, not giving them our data (and yes, brave is built on chromium too)

so that's it. hopefully it's been somewhat helpful despite my bad explaining, there are definitely other options for batch downloading available, this is just the one i settled on as smoothest at my knowledge level and scale. if anyone has noticed an error or typo, oh gods please let me know ASAP incase this spreads and i can never correct it! otherwise have fun backing up stuff and getting around adblock, fuck google and alphabet, they should have lived by "don't be evil", and never rely on streaming or cloud storage for anything you don't want to lose!

youtube/google is getting much more aggressive about trying to shut down adblockers, part of which is them taking bullying legal action against a project called "invidious.io", which is an open source free frontend that can run in a browser or app and lets you watch youtube without ads and even all the google tracking analytics, sure would be a shame if lots more learned about such an option and started using it huh

[shitposting-hobbits-to-gallifrey]

hi! you posted about alternatives for utorrent a while ago, but i can’t seem to find your post. would u mind listing them again? i’m slowly approaching pirating and i need all the help. thank u

im,Hey there anon! I doubt I can find the post your talking about, but I can certainly put together a bit of a list! First, for the less-knowledgeable about pirating, uTorrent is a popular torrent client, but often less trusted by more hard-core torrenters for various reasons: its full of irritating ads, the company that runs it isnt necessarily trustworthy (i think they put malware of some sort in the app at one point?) and theres been various rumors of security vulnerabilities with it too. Probably the two most popular after uTorrent are qBittorrent and Transmission, but theres a number of others out there as well.

qBittorrent is probably the second most used after uTorrent it open-source with a lot of features and all, but probably the biggest problem is that microsoft seems to constantly be cracking down on it, and you have to fiddle with some irritating windows settings to get it to run without windows blocking it for being a "potentially unwanted application", but all in all I think its supposed to be very good and versatile without being too complicated.

Transmission on the other hand is a very lightweight and simple torrent client, but its only available for MacOS and Linux, so it might be a good option for starting out with torrents if you use a Mac, but its not available for windows.

Theres also various other clients one can look into, such as Deluge, Vuze, PicoTorrent, Tixati, and a few others, though I don't know a lot about most of these. (I do use Tixati personally, its a fairly good client with a good amount of customization abilities, although with some occasional irritating quirks, and definitely not the most friendly for intro users.)

I think thats about all there really is I've got to say here, so good luck, and happy pirating anon!

(also just a quick PS here at the end to also look into VPNs if youre gonna do much torrenting, they are definitely kinda necessary to get your ISP off your back, I dont know that I have the spoons left rn to give much advice to give here other than to research your VPNs carefully cause theres a lot more bad ones than good out there, and to link the VPN i use, Mullvad.)

TL;DR because this did wind up pretty long: qBittorrent is probably the best all-around, but slightly irritating to install (heres a reddit thread i found that'll help), while Transmission is good if you want simplicity, but only available on Mac and Linux.

[cyclone-rachel]

Ben probably should have forgotten about it.

That summer when he was eleven, a year after he first got the Omnitrix- he hadn’t thought it was going to be anything worth remembering in the first place. After all, he’d already had an unforgettable summer, traveling with Grandpa Max and Gwen and doing things he’d never thought possible. Anything else was almost guaranteed to be a letdown in comparison.

Then he unlocked Feedback. Then he got himself stuck as different aliens every week because of how much he wanted to stay being Feedback. Which definitely backfired, which led to Grandpa taking him and Gwen all the way to Galvan Prime so Azmuth himself could fix the Omnitrix again. Then he met…

Well, Ben knew how downhill everything went from there. He hadn’t treated him that seriously, at first. That particular Mechamorph, according to Azmuth, was corrupted, different from the others of his kind, which should have made him easier to take down.

And at first, it was.

But things changed- and thanks to Azmuth’s assistant, so did this villain. After that, though, Ben didn’t think he’d ever see him again- he should have been stuck in Diamondhead’s crystals, frozen on Galvan B for the rest of his days.

That all changed when they met on Earth, though, and with their next meetings, things seemed different. He got away each time, not seeming to care whether he won or lost. (Although he sure acted like he won every time, just like when they first met- some things never seemed to change)

It was confusing, if Ben had to be honest. Why did his behavior suddenly change so much from who he’d faced originally?

Then came- what Ben thought- was their last meeting.

At least, it should have been their last.

But he’d put that out of his mind, as much as he could, for the better part of five years. As tough as this guy was, as much as he could survive through, Ben had basically vaporized him.

Then, he’d moved on. He put the Omnitrix away, and tried to be normal for a while.

Of course, he couldn’t stay normal forever, and ever since then he wouldn’t trade superhero life for anything. Any thoughts about past villains who he believed were dead were put out of his mind completely, pushed out to make room for whoever he was facing at the moment.

That was, until recently, when he was captured by Khyber.

But even then, he’d mentioned him in the past tense. The two of them had just been working together previously.

Five years ago. Not now.

Right?

He didn’t want to consider the other option. He was still lying to himself, really, until he landed, and came around to Rook’s truck.

Until he saw him- the ghost, the nightmare himself. Looking no different than the last time.

“No…” he said. “You can’t be here. It’s not possible.”

“Come now, Ben Tennyson.” Malware answered, advancing toward him as Ben backed away. “You didn’t think a child could get rid of me that easily, did you?”

No, I did. He thought. But I can do it again. And hopefully, this time it’ll be permanent.

[bonusnew327]

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[thepartyresponsible]

here’s a short, relatively fluffy fic about what happens when jason todd and clint barton, a pair of career criminals and expert thieves, steal the winter soldier.

and to the anon who asked for a fluffy fic featuring hot chocolate, blankets, and warm feels shared by clint, jason, and tony....um. i’m really sorry. i’ve had a lot of cold medication. my reading comprehension is compromised.

Popular opinion would no doubt suggest that stealing the Winter Soldier is the ballsiest heist Jason and Clint have ever pulled. Jason’s not sure he’d rank it that high. After all, their Batcave stunt was pretty egregiously ill-advised, and then there was the time they stole fifty grand worth of Kryptonite with the use of a clipboard and some fake EPA inspector badges they printed out at a public library.

But keeping the Winter Soldier. Yeah. Sure. That’s pretty ballsy.

No real other options, though. At least none that either of them could live with.

Jason knows they’re doomed the moment he hears the quiet horror in Clint’s voice, the way his words catch, just a little, when he says, “Um. Jay? I think it’s a person.”

Because stealing a serial killer robot from HYDRA and then handing it off to the League of Assassins for “decommissioning” is one thing, but turning over a living, breathing human being is another. He and Clint walk all kinds of fuzzy ethical lines. God knows even Selina gets shrill about their activities sometimes. But they don’t deal in people. Not ever.

“Okay,” Jason says, nudging Clint gently out of the way. “Go steal us something fast. I’ll handle this.”

Because, between the two of them, Clint’s got the softer heart. He doesn’t get fussy about what happens in an honest fight, but he can get downright melancholy about the necessities of after-battle cleanup, and Jason’s happy to spare him from it, when he can.  

So Clint goes to get them a car that’ll get them out of the country before Ra’s realizes he’s been screwed around, and Jason goes to hover over the Winter Soldier, freshly defrosted, still barely twitching his way back to consciousness.

And Jason’s not an asshole. Whatever this guy’s done, he hasn’t done it to Jason or anyone who belongs to him, so none of this is personal. It’s gonna be fast and easy, just a bullet between the eyebrows, but the Winter Soldier blinks his pretty eyes open, looks up the barrel of the gun, and stares right into Jason’s face.

“я готов отвечать,” he says.

Ready to comply, Jason thinks.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jason says.

And so, after that, Jason doesn’t have the heart to kill him, either.

  There’s a lot of yelling in the days that follow. From all conceivable sides. Ra’s al Ghul threatens every kind of unpleasant thing, and HYDRA hounds after them like they’re supposed to be scared of a group of megalomaniacal old cult assholes too creepy to get invited to the local Free Masons, and Selina calls Jason every day for a week to shriek at him about how she didn’t save him from the streets of Gotham so he could get murdered for stealing the world’s most brutal assassin.

“Selina, c’mon,” Jason says, muttering into the phone. Winter’s asleep in the backseat, shackled up like Houdini before a trick, and they’ve had a couple exciting moments, but he’s mostly just been quiet and kinda eerily empty-eyed. He keeps asking Jason about the mission. “He’s fine. I mean, he’s a little rough around the edges, sure. But I found Clint in a dumpster.”

“Hey,” Clint says, whisper-hissing at him from the passenger seat.

“And he looked great,” Jason tacks on quickly, with a wink he hopes will smooth things over. “Amazing. That dumpster didn’t know how lucky it had it.”

“You need to be careful,” Selina says. She put down two HYDRA goons this morning. They barged in on her in her pajamas, and she’s probably more pissed about getting caught with bed hair than having to dump two bodies before noon.

Although, she never was much of a morning person.

“We’re being careful,” Clint promises, leaning over to talk into the phone. “We couldn’t leave him, Selina. You didn’t see him. It was--- it was really bad.”

Selina’s quiet for a moment. “He’s an international criminal,” she says. And then, probably after she remembers that every single person in this conversation has their own personal INTERPOL file, she adds: “He’s an assassin.”

“I think he’s nice,” Clint says, stubborn and loyal. As always.

He only thinks that because Winter keeps trying to palm him extra food. Jason has to make a big show out of giving Clint food at the same time as he unlocks Winter for meals, or Winter will only eat half his food and then stash the rest so he can sneak it to Clint later.

Jason does not consider this behavior an endorsement of HYDRA’s caretaking expertise.

“He’d better be worth all the trouble,” Selina says. But she doesn’t mean it. Selina’s a thief and a liar and sometimes a killer, but she’s just like Clint, really. Softhearted for lost causes, both of them.

Jason can’t complain. It’s that shared weakness that brought both of them to him.

“Well,” Jason says, “if he’s not, we’ll just drop him with whatever country’s offering the biggest bounty.”

“That’s my boy,” Selina says. “But remember to start a bidding war first.”

  The thing about Winter is that he’s actually James Buchannan Barnes, Captain America’s best friend. He’s a Goddamn war hero, and HYDRA took him, tortured him, blended his brain, and made him kill people.

Jason grew up in Gotham, spent his formative years playing sidekick to Catwoman, so he’s seen some fucked-up situations. But it makes him sick, watching Winter work it out. Catching those sporadic flashes of Bucky Barnes, the miserable, devastated way he closes his eyes when the memories come, like it was better, somehow, when all he knew how to say was Yes, No, and Ready to comply.

And Clint was right. He is nice. He’s painfully sweet, really, in the way he frets over Clint until he figures out that Jason doesn’t actually run things, doesn’t own Clint, and sure as hell would never hurt him. And then he frets over both of them. Stoic and steely-eyed and stone-jawed, fretting like a Goddamn mother hen.

HYDRA wants him back, and Ra’s wants him dead, and Jason and Clint, as insistently and dramatically as they can, invite both of them to fuck right off.

They don’t really mean to keep him. Not forever. Just until people stop trying to murder him. Just until they can stash him in some nice town, where no one knows who he is, where he can go back to being Bucky Barnes full time and forget all about everything HYDRA made him into.

But people don’t stop. The whole world keeps coming after them. And Bucky, for his part, doesn’t want to leave them.

Six months in, Clint catches a bullet, and Bucky gets stolen, and Jason has to choose to leave Clint so he can go grab Bucky before they wipe him clean out of his own head. And Clint’s going to be fine, knows how to look after himself, didn’t get shot anywhere vital. But Jason crashes into that transport van with Clint’s blood on his hands, and it makes him crazy, a little. It makes him a nightmare.

So, afterwards, Selina brokers a meeting with Batman, and Jason goes, because Batman’s owed him a favor ever since that years-long game of tag he used to play with Nightwing resulted in him accidentally stumbling into a situation where he saved Nightwing’s life.

He doesn’t bring Clint, and he doesn’t bring Bucky, because he figures Batman’s not going to kill him, but he might throw him in prison. If he does, Selina will bust him out on principle, and she’d almost certainly do the same for Clint, but Bucky’s so new and so much trouble that she might just leave him where he’s less likely to get Jason killed.

“Look, Bats,” Jason says, when they’re finally standing uncomfortably on the same rooftop. “We don’t like each other. You’re the delusional iron fist of the bourgeoisie acting out your punishment kink on the unsuspecting poor, and I’m just a guy trying to make a living. But we gotta work together on this, okay? Or I’m gonna leak the porn I found on the Batcave computers.”

Batman takes a long breath in through his nose. He seems to visibly weigh out which issue to raise first. “You planted those files on the Batcave computers.”

And he hadn’t, actually. Clint did that. He’d spent the whole night before the job downloading Superman-themed porn, and he’d filled Jason’s laptop with so much malware that Jason eventually just burned the thing in a purifying pyre. But Jason had to admit that running those videos on every screen in the Batcave had resulted in a truly awe-inspiring, immersive experience.

“We were just trying to be supportive,” Jason says. “Anyway. Look. You owe me a favor.”

There’s a lot of back-and-forth after that, consisting mainly of Batman holding forth about how saving a life is its own reward and he doesn’t owe Jason a favor and Jason really needs to reconsider his life choices while he still has the opportunity to do so. But he seems to listen when Jason tells him what he knows about HYDRA, about how deep its infiltration of SHIELD and various world governments goes. He’s quiet when Jason talks about Bucky. And, when Jason hands over all their intel, he takes the flash drive readily enough.

“If this is more porn,” he says, holding up the flash drive, “I’m throwing all of you in Blackgate.”

“Jesus, Bats,” Jason says, not even trying to bite back a laugh. “If it had that much of an impact on you, you should do some solitary self-reflection about it. Maybe some of those documentaries we left for you could help.”

  Jason leaves Gotham and drives through the morning and afternoon and early evening, doubling and then tripling back on his route, making sure he’s not being followed. When he finally makes it to the safehouse, he’s shivery cold and dead tired. Bucky goes over his bike, checking for any trackers Jason might have missed, and Clint bullies him right into the shower.

Afterwards, Jason faceplants on the couch, and Clint hauls him up a few minutes later so he can press a mug of hot chocolate into his hands. “Drink this,” he says.

“Coffee,” Jason groans.

“No,” Clint says, as he settles next to him. “You’ve gotta sleep, you asshole. You’ve been up for three days straight.”

“Whiskey,” Jason tries, a little less plaintive and a little more mutinous.

Clint sighs. “I already put bourbon in there.”

Jason hums, appeased, and leans over to press a smacking kiss to Clint’s cheek. “You’re a fucking saint,” he says.

“Oh, a fucking saint,” Clint mutters, rolling his eyes. There’s a pleased blush settling along the lines of his cheekbones. “Didn’t know they made those.”

“The patron saint of fucking,” Jason declares, sipping at his hot chocolate. “Endowed with the power of---”

“This should be good,” Bucky mumbles, from across the room.

“Oh shit,” Jason says, and nearly sloshes the hot chocolate on himself. He tries not to talk about sex too much in front of Bucky. He tries not to think about sex too much in front of Bucky. He’s helplessly in love with Clint, and has been since he hauled him out of that dumpster in Gotham, but, as Winter fades and Bucky manifests more confidently in this new century, there’s been a growing tension between the three of them that Jason, frankly, has no idea what to do with.

“No, go on,” Bucky says, like this is the conversation he wants to have. Like he’s not the slightest bit curious about the mission Jason just ran, the one that’s supposed to clear his name, open a path that allows them to work with SHIELD to burn HYDRA to the ground. “He’s the patron saint of what, again?”

“Yeah,” Clint says, blinking at him with his innocent face in place. “What were you saying?”

Jason rolls his eyes and takes a pointed drink of his hot chocolate. It’s nice, he decides. That everyone’s comfortable enough to shit-talk him these days. Real refreshing. A Goddamn triumph of the resiliency of the human spirit.

“It went alright?” Bucky says, because he’s almost always the merciful one. Maybe he enjoys the novelty of it.

When he wanders over, he snags a blanket off the nearby chair, and he curls up on the end of the couch beside Clint, tossing the blanket over the three of them. He holds his hands out toward Jason, and Jason, without even thinking, passes his hot chocolate over. Bucky’s fingers brush Jason’s, and linger.

Jason isn’t making this shit up. He knows he isn’t.

First of all, he spends half his life watching people hit on Clint. He knows the signs.

Second of all, people get hot chocolate on their lips every day, but nobody licks it off like that unless they’re trying to plant ideas in people’s heads about what else those lips and tongue could do.

“Um,” Jason says, when he realizes they’re both staring at him. “Yeah. I mean. He didn’t throw me off a roof or put me in prison, so. I think he’s gonna help.”

Clint and Bucky exchange a look and then shrug. By their standards, that’s the start of a highly promising business relationship.

“Well,” Clint says, as he sprawls out, tucked in tight against Jason’s side, with a casual ankle hooked around one of Bucky’s. “You guys wanna watch Dog Cops?”

Jason figures, between the bourbon, and the blanket, and the warm weight of Clint’s body, he’s gonna be asleep in fifteen minutes. But he’d give Clint anything he asked for. “Sure,” he says, eyes already drifting closed. “Sounds great.”

  Two days later, they meet with a reserved, competent, endlessly unamused man named Phil Coulson. He doesn’t smile or laugh or seem to like them even a little bit. But he doesn’t try to kill them, either.

Four years later, they’re Strike Team Delta, and they’ve acquired Natasha Romanoff and a hell of a reputation. Coulson smiles more and yells more, and still hasn’t tried to kill them. Not once. Not even after Budapest.

HYDRA is ashes, and Bucky is theirs.

So what the hell. Maybe stealing the Winter Soldier wasn’t their ballsiest heist. But it was definitely their best.

[danetobelieve]

Short Circuit || Jane and Winston

NB: This happened before the eye potw.

Ping. Jane swore quietly as another chat message popped up onto her computer. Admittedly, she wasn’t great with technology, but she knew how to use google like any other asshole. Except her work computer wouldn’t even let her use google. This had to be some sort of virus that Marley installed as a prank. It wouldn’t even let her force the machine to shut off and it hadn’t even run out of battery yet. Damn, she really regretted getting that replaced. She glanced over the message from KindledSpirit29. 

Why won’t you talk to me :’-(

She was certain that Marley had to have done it because her user name was SexyDetective. Nope, that did it. Jane slammed the laptop closed and tucked it under her arm as she went straight for Winston. She had an appointment with them to drop it off anyway, but this was getting ridiculous. “Hey Winston,” Jane said. “Here it is. Sorry, I swear I’ve tried everything, and the stupid thing won’t even shut off properly. It just starts flashing.” 

Winston had gotten permission from Roland to take the time off of work but they’d found themselves going in anyway. They’d wanted to be here with everyone else because at least then they weren’t alone with their own thoughts and they weren’t alone to crumble under Bea’s loss. Looking up, they shakily reached out and scooped up their mug of coffee and swallowed the cold dregs of it with a wince. They didn’t care enough to actually heat it up. “Hey Jane,” they said a little glumly but they could get away with acting as if they didn’t want to be at work, “don’t worry about it, from everything you’ve said to me it sounds like malware or something. I’m sure I can fix it. Let me take a look.” Winston had their recovery USB ready for this,  having all the software you needed in one place was a much more convenient way to do it. “Did you have to call yourself sexy detective though?” 

Oh shit, the kid looked pretty glum. Maybe Jane should have rescheduled or bothered her nephew to help her. He may be twelve, but that kid could do way more than her any day of the week. Maybe they just didn’t want to be at work. That tracked for a lot of twenty-something year olds. Still, she handed over her laptop, and shrugged. “I hope it’s that simple.” Computers were the devil - well, not really, but sometimes it seemed like every damn update they had were meant to muck up whatever older version was on there before and just cause more trouble. She frowned, looking at them. “I didn’t! At first it said DetectiveWu but it changed! Stryder must have changed it to be annoying.” Another ping from KindledSpirit29. 

Who is that? What are you doing?

Jane frowned. “Look at that. That’s creepy.”

 “That is really creepy,” Winston agreed with a frown as they plugged the USB drive into a port and began running various command lines to ping different functions and see just how deep the problem lay. “You think that Marley did this?” No offence, but Winston could already see from the sophistication of the design of the chat that this was not something that someone was just going to be able to pull up. This looked like a very specifically and deliberately designed function that someone had clear plans for. “Well, DetectiveWu, or sexydetective, I mean who am I to judge?” Winston was trying to be their usual sarcastic and jovial selves but right now it was hard. “I think that the problem is that whilst this just looks like a chat it is actually something more, i’ve heard that if you can talk to the bot it can give you answers which are clues on how to turn it off. I’ve never actually tried it but my only other idea is to entirely wipe the harddrive, so we might as well try that. Have you responded to any of the messages yet?” 

“You know, because of the prank war.” Jane looked over Winston’s should, watching them as they typed incoherent things onto the computer. Winston sounded like they doubted it, though. Jane frowned. “I don’t know how else it could have gotten on there, I have an airtight anti-virus on it. Or, well, it’s supposed to be an airtight antivirus…” Maybe someone had scammed her. That could always be a possibility but that was kind of annoying if that were true. Jane balked slightly when Winston said other than talking to it, the other option was to wipe her harddrive. Shit. She was sure she had a backup, but that was a lot of work. “No, I thought it was just some spam bot or something.”

I am not a spam bot! Talk to me :) Get rid of the kid. 

Jane wrinkled her nose. “Okay, maybe we should wipe the harddrive. That’s really freaky. How does it know - is it using my camera??” 

“Oh, right, yeah that was pretty funny for a few days although I’ve got to say you guys weren’t as imaginative as you could’ve been.” Winston didn’t want to brag but they were sure that they were more then capable of coming up with something better then the variety of pranks that Marley and Jane had played on one another. “Sometimes even if you’re really careful these things can happen, it’s fine, we can clean it up, I’d just rather not wipe everything if we can help it.” Winston examined the computer and frowned at the message. “I don’t think the camera’s on, but just in case.” They pulled a piece of masking tape off and firmly stuck it over the camera. “We can wipe it if you really want, but it’ll get rid of everything you’ve got on there, so if anything isn’t backed up….” 

“Are you saying I lack imagination,” Jane said, a grin growing on her face. Bold kid, funny too. “I thought the popcorn filled office space was imaginative.” And really annoying to clean up. “What would you have done  if you were in a prank war?” She was still considering gluing Sarge’s stuff to the ceiling. Or at the very least, paw patrol’s stuff to the ceiling. Maybe not the skulls though, he seemed a little too creepily attached to them. She watched as Winston stuck a piece of tape to the camera. “My father has a stamp stuck to his at home. Used to tell me big brother was always watching.” Jane considered a moment, before shaking her head. “Alright, alright. We can try responding to it.” Jane reached over, pulling the computer a little closer so she could type. What should she say? 

SexyDetective: How do I remove this from my computer? 

KindledSpirit: YOU WANT TO GET RID OF ME?! YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ME YET!

There screen flashed. “Ah! See, this is what happens when I try to emergency shut down!!” 

“The popcorn stuff was very freaks and geeks,” Winston replied with a shrug, “I’m not saying that it wasn’t cool. It was. I just think you could’ve been more imaginative. Besides, did you think that Marley’s computer just started playing a Nic Cage soundboard spontaneously?” Winston shrugged gently. Getting involved in the unfolding prank war hadn’t been something that they had been planning but it was something that they had been roped into by Sarge and Winston couldn’t say no to him. “I mean, they can gain access to your camera, normally you don’t have to but I guess there’s no harm in always having one there and just taking it off when you need it. Winston watched everything that unfolded and frowned. “That’s weird, maybe ask it if you can get to know it in person? Worst comes to the worst you arrest a creep right?” 

“That was you?” Jane said. “She thought that was me! Ha! That’s hilarious,” Jane snickered. She didn’t know what the deal was with Nic Cage, but there was something about his face that and over all vocal intonations that made him especially annoying. God, when did she get to be a Nic Cage Hater? “I’ve had a few cases like that - back when I worked in Portland,” she told Winston. “Where people would gain access to the camera in a computer to spy and be overall disgusting.” Her nose wrinkled, and she didn’t elaborate farther. “You think this is a real person and not some… artificial intelligence?” Ping! Jane looked at that screen. 

I am not artificial intelligence! 

Jane frowned. “Can it… hear us too? I didn’t even know my computer had a microphone. Stop that!” 

You don’t like me! It accused them.

The screen started to flash again, and she swore she saw something spark. Jane placed a hand on Winston’s shoulder. “Uhhh, I think we should get away from it. I think it’s broken.”

“Technically, and you can’t tell anyone, but Sarge actually asked me to do it, not sure why. I don’t really ask questions when your boss asks you to do something like that.” Frowning gently, Winston shrugged. “There’s a chance that this is a bot or something like that, but AI doesn’t really exist to a level that is sophisticated enough to think independently. At least, not yet. Maybe in the future but not currently.” Winston shrugged and squinted at the screen. Winston reached out and placed their hand on the computer, reaching out with magic and examining it to the best of their ability. Interacting with technology like this was complicated. But it was something they were getting used to. Something felt wrong here, and Winston frowned as a new set of messages flashed up on the screen.

“What are you doing?” Jane asked as Winston reached out, putting their hand on the screen. “Winston, I don’t think you should -” More messages flashed up onto the excreen, and from what she could see there was a series of expletives. The computer’s charging port sparked. “Winston, get away from the computer right now.” Jane’s voice turned authoritative as she realized it was dangerous. She didn’t want them to get hurt. Jane was just considering the pros and cons of firing her weapon at the laptop in the precinct, but didn’t get the chance to think further when the laptop flew off the desk and crashed into the wall. Jane stopped and stared at the empty spot where her laptop was, before looking to where the broken pieces were on the floor. “What the hell was -” 

A burst of electricity was coming from the broken pieces. Sparking in strange ways. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “Winston,” Jane said, slowly. “Get…. behind me?”

“It’s just a … trick that my tutor taught me,” Winston lied unconvincingly. It was a flaw that until recently they’d been proud of, being unable to lie had never really been a huge problem until now. Now that they were risking their life on their inability for deception more and more however they were starting to think that they might have to get better at it. “Ah, Jane what’s the plan here?” Winston asked as they obligingly stepped behind Jane. “I’m not sure that shooting your laptop because it’s threatening to pretend to be an EMP is really going to help…” Winston’s mind was racing as they did everything that they possibly could to think of a way to fix this without magic. “You ever seen anything weird like this before?” Winston really hoped that Jane was one of the cops that was cool with the supernatural because otherwise they were going to be a bit concerned by all of this. “I can definitely do something about this but if you’ve got a better idea I’m all ears.”  

“I’ve seen some strange things, yes,” Jane said, glancing back at them. She hadn’t exactly seen anything like this before, with the flashing and sparking for the laptop getting worse. “Speaking of ears - cover your ears.” Jane said flatly. She drew her gun and swiftly shot the laptop 3 times in a row. The laptop shattered into more pieces, a loud whirring voices coming from nothing. She didn’t understand, shooting it should have worked. It was probably overkill, but come on, it was just a goddamn laptop! What was it, a laptop zombie? Wait. Jane stopped, frowning as she lowered her gun. Electric zombie? Were electric zombies things? Was it an electric zombie that was trying to be her friend? She just barely got the thought out when the damn thing, whatever it was, tried to attack. A flash of electricity had Jane jerking backwards, elbowing Winston out of the blast. “Sorry. Sorry. Crap. Okay, so my method didn’t work. Maybe we should get the fire extinguisher? What the hell is that thing? It’s definitely not a zombie.”

She shot it anyway. Great. Anything that Winston might have been able to do might as well now be useless. “I was being nice when i said I wasn’t sure it was going to help, now what are we meant to do?” Winston frowned gently however at the fact that it was still sparking as if it might explode at literally any minute. This was not what they had expected when there had been a problem with the chat. “You know about zombies?” Winston asked frowning, maybe Jane wasn’t one of the people who were completely oblivious to the supernatural anyway. “That definitely isn’t a zombie, I don’t know what it is but I would guess some sort of spectre from all the electricity and the sparking and the fact that you shot it and it’s just freaking out even more.” The laptop began levitating. “I am not an exorcist, but I have an idea, I need you to and seriously be really super careful, but grab a chair, break it so you’re holding a bit of wood and when I tell you I need you to hit it out of the air and then maybe I’ll be able to get it to stop freaking out for long enough for us to get a professional in here to deal with it.” Winston looked at Jane expectantly, “Okay?” 

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Jane said, frowning. She had hoped that destroying it would prevent it from doing anything else, but guess not. “I do know about zombies.” Jane replied back, happy enough that her hair was blocking the scar on her neck. She was more than a little concerned that the kid seemed to know about zombies too. “Spectre?” Jane was immediately reminded of the stupid step stool her and Marley had trapped in a dog cage in her living room. How irritating, had something gotten her work laptop too? “I have some familiarity with those too, just not this. There isn’t any salt in the breakroom is there?” Jane muttered, more to herself than Winston, as she went to swiftly break a chair into two. She supposed that she was going to have to trust them. Sorry to whoever’s chair that was, but if there weren't exactly many other options. She grabbed the chair leg and nodded. “Let me know when you’re ready. And be careful.” 

“Yeah, I get that,” Winston honestly had seriously considered buying a hand gun until someone had told them that they were a literal human handgun. Not that that had made them feel better, but sometimes you wanted to shoot something dead. “You do?” Winston was a little surprised. They kind of just assumed no one else knew. Maybe that was a mistake. Their own ignorance getting the better of them in this case. “Uh, salt is a good idea in case this doesn’t work, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to encase the computer in salt or iron to keep the ghost in there until we can get an exorcist out here, I’m just hoping this will work for a bit, like a bandage.” Winston cracked their knuckles and took a deep breath, ready for action. “Whenever you’re ready,” as Jane smacked the chair down onto the laptop Winston darted forward and to their pleasure and extreme displeasure they caught the still sparking laptop. Fortunately they had a spell planned for this, unfortunately the energy wasn’t exactly something that they had planned on. Wincing as they smelled the electricity burn their hair, Winston extended their will into the technology as they had before, it felt completely different from any other magic Winston had ever used. The electricity coursing through them and the laptop as if it were blood in a vast circulatory system, pumped onwards by a beating heart. Groaning with exertion, Winston forced everything quiet, the electricity stalling to a halt before disappearing momentarily, though Winston knew it would be back. “Oh, fuck,” they muttered before collapsing to their knees.

“I do.” Jane made a note to rush for the breakroom after Winston did whatever they were about to do to grab the Morton’s salt she knew was in there somewhere. She wondered if Marley was also allergic to iron too, since she avoided salt. Things to take note of and ask later. Now she waited for Winston to give her the signal and she swung the the chair leg hard down onto the laptop. “Winston, no!” Jane just about rushed forward to yank the possessed, broken-beyond-repair laptop out of their hands, when she realized they were actually doing something. Jane froze, staring at them like they had many heads. “What are you - oh -” The electricity in the air seemed to disappear as the vague smell of burnt hair filled the air. Shit. What the hell was that kid doing? She was reminded, as Winston fell to their knees, of when Otto had saved her from falling off that cliff. She shook it off, running to their side. “Winston? Are you alright? What the hell did you do to it? Here, come on, let me help you up.” She would take them to the breakroom, stick a snack in front of them, and then run back to dump salt on the computer and lock it away in a filing cabinet. 

“Woah,” Winston replied somewhat slurred. That had taken a lot out of them. They were really feeling light headed. They were sure that their vision didn’t normally swim in and out like that, and there weren’t normally dots in front of their eyes. Don’t fuck with electricity and magic. Seemed to be the lesson. “I’m -” they took a breath, “okay I think…” frowning gently, Winston accepted Janes help and staggered over to the table they’d previously been working at, riffling haphazardly through their bag they pulled a candy bar from it and ripped it open, biting into it. “Sorry,” they said through a mouthful of chocolate, “it really took a lot more out of me then I thought it would…” wiping sweat from their forehead they looked at the laptop, “Breakroom?” they asked, “we need to salt that and I need more food if I’m going to be able to drive home. I don’t really want to get my room mate to pick me up because of ma- exhaustion again.” Had they really just said the word magic in front of Jane?

“Are you sure?” Jane said, doubtfully as she practically carried Winston back to the table. She leaned back against it, examining them as they grabbed the chocolate bar. “What exactly did you - oh. Right. Here, stay right there.” Jane left their side for just a few minutes. It took her a bit to find where the giant thing of salt she had gotten too, and she swiped her lunch box from from the refrigerator as well. Lucky for Winston, she was planning on working overtime tonight, which meant she had packed a lunch and a dinner. Maybe a little less lucky, she really had only made a roasted chicken sandwich along with a thing of chips for dinner. Not exactly her most spectacular display of cooking. She came back, sliding her lunch box in front of him. “Do you eat meat?” she asked, worriedly. “Eat that, if you do. It’s just a roasted chicken sandwich. I’ll deal with the laptop. I figure I’ll empty out a drawer, line it with salt, dump salt on the actual laptop, and then stick it in there. It shouldn’t be able to get out after all that.” Jane knelt down on her knees and immediately went to work doing just that. She would question Winston  when they were feeling a bit better. She had caught their ‘ma-exhaustion’ slip up, but maybe now wasn’t an appropriate time to grill them.

“I’m sure, I -” Winston was so far from sure what the next appropriate thing for them to say in this instance was, they were 100% certain that a trained officer like Jane wouldn’t have missed the fact that they had always said magic, “it has happened before and I am bad at managing my blood sugar levels because I sometimes forget to eat,” they had forgotten breakfast, “so I am sure that this won’t be the last time that it happens either.” Winston looked at her food sadly and sighed. “Are you sure? I don’t want to eat your food if you haven’t got anything else…” deciding that it was that or passing out, Winston slowly bit into the sandwich and chewed on it thoughtfully. “That’s probably a good idea,” Winston looked around, “I am going to buy an iron lined box next time, I think that if another ghostly thing tries to attack me then I’m going to be pissed, because that really wasn’t my idea of fun.” They looked up at Jane. “I don’t think you missed the laptop once though, which is cool, Sarge would not be happy about bullet holes in the wall.” 

“Right. Blood sugar levels,” Jane said in that type of tone that meant she didn’t believe them. She used that a lot in interrogation, but she still maintained that interrogating Winston on whatever they had done to the laptop that had caused that level of exhaustion. For the second time, she was reminded of Otto and his bloody nose. Ma-exhaustion… Magic. Hm. Noted for a later conversation  - at least until they had eaten her dinner. “Oh, don’t worry about it, I just feel bad I didn’t cook anything exceptionally yummy other than a chicken sandwich.” Jane opened a drawer, and took everything out before she started lining it with salt. “If you had told me this kind of thing existed a few years ago, I would have laughed my ass off at you,” she muttered. She glanced at them as she grabbed the broken pieces of the computer and carefully put them in the drawer, careful not to break the salt line. “I have great aim, usually. I’m sure Sarge will get on my ass about the paperwork I’m going to have to fill out about the three shots I fired into it in the precinct.” She laughed. “Or the paperwork I’m going to have to submit to get my laptop replaced. Are you attacked by ghostly entities often? You wouldn’t happen to know an exorcist would you? I have a possessed step stool at home that I’ve affectionately named French Fry, but it unfortunately very much wants to kill me.”

It didn’t take a world class detective to tell that Winston had been rumbled by Jane. But unfortunately Winston was exhausted and drained and not really thinking about how clearly it was that they had used magic. In fact, they would silently congratulate themselves on their subtlety after. “Well, if we ever have to do this again I’ll make sure that you make me a full meal, I’m joking really, my room mate Ricky is the best cook I’ve ever lived with outside of my own mother and he usually keeps me pretty … you know sorted.” Winston nodded along as they finished the sandwich. “If you had told me this six months ago then I would have joined you and the worst thing is that I have been in White Crest my whole life and never ever seen anything like this. I guess I was just ignorant or in denial? Who knows.” They smiled and nodded. “You really do have great aim, but if you want I’ll try and get your paperwork through without getting anyone who’s too much of a stick in the mud to sign off on it, I have my ways you know.” They paused for a second. “Yeah, I know several exorcists. One is more reliable but I haven’t heard from her in a while and the other I haven’t heard such good things about.” 

Jane grinned. “Well, I do like to cook - I’ve been told most of my food is pretty great. Sounds like you have a great roommate, though. Good to see kids not relying on instant ramen.” She thought of Dario then, a grown ass man relying on instant ramen, and then of Sarge and his lean cuisines. God, she should teach a cooking class or something, this was pathetic. She looked at Winston. It was clear that they were far more in the know than she originally anticipated, zombies and ghosts and magic and who knows what else. “I couldn’t imagine growing up here,” she said with a frown. “I’ve always been more of a city person, but I swear this small town is more active than Portland ever was - it’s hard to see a whole town so wrapped up in denial.” She stood, brushing the salt off her pants. “If you could do that, I’d owe you definitely more than a sandwich. I’m still new, and I don’t want to cause too much trouble trouble, you know? I’ll take both exorcists names, though, they’ll probably take French Fry off my hands.” 

“I have the best room mates actually,” Winston replied with a shrug, “ I guess that I just really lucked out with them or something like that. Otherwise, yeah, I’d be relying on instant ramen or just going home for dinner every night or something like that.” Winston shrugged gently and smiled. They were blessed in someways. “Believe me, I couldn’t imagine growing up in a city and I don’t think that I will ever leave now that I know the truth about this place because there is way too much shit going on to do that, like I think if I did leave I would come back and there would just be nothing left of this place.” Winston shrugged gently. “I need to … check that they don’t mind me giving out their names, I assume that they won’t and I can’t imagine that it’ll be an issue but once they’re fine with it then I’ll put you guys in contact, it’s just the whole supernatural thing is complicated with ‘outting’ people.” Winston stood and glanced at their watch. “I’ll get your new laptop ready tomorrow, is it okay if I head home? I’m pretty exhausted…”