i was born with a noose a little too big, so i could grow into it with time.
what a misfortune you have to hold the leash.
understand you are not my executioner, understand if you tugged me back i would have suffocated, that if you did nothing at all i would have chased my own tail and choked on it.
there was nothing you could have done.
it was just a bad stroke of luck you were assigned me, is all.
Pinning this since I genuinely think Piracy is a great skill to have and I want to share it with anyone who'd like to see it
Okay so! You need to download something!
Be it a movie, a game, a software, a book. Where do you even start? You know people catch viruses or fines pirating, so how to do it, and do it safely? This is going to be a bit verbose, so coloured text has the most important info. THIS WILL BE LONG but you can just skim it! (P.S. there are some goodies for artists in the end so do take a peek there if you do art and would like courses or procreate brushes) By the end of this you should be able to download or stream almost anything.
(Disclaimer: I'm not super knowledgeable on the technical side of things, just a moderately seasoned pirate. Will explain stuff to the best of my abilities, but there will be wild semplifications. If there's any issue, or precisations you'd like to make, or just need a hand with something, feel free to reach out to me directly on here!)
Putting a cut here so I don't spam your dashes <3 - now, here we go:
First off: ADBLOCKERS. It's dangerous to go alone. Take this: a little browser add-on that will prevent you from seeing ads and popups ever again. Yeah, no more ads on Youtube either btw. Most malware you risk getting while pirating is the result of ads and pop-ups!
Important: Chromium based browsers will start dropping support for adblockers starting 2023. These include: Chrome, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave. (Brave has its built-in adblocker, but it's very controversial, has a huge focus on crypto, and tries to push its own crypto trading ads on you, among other things.)
This is simply happening because Google (who mantains Chromium) is in big parts an Ad Company, aka makes money from selling ads to you.
Mozilla Firefox is not affiliated or mantained in any way by Google, and will support Adblocking indefinitely. Just so you know.
The BEST Ad Blocker around is uBlock Origin, by Raymond Hill (gorhill). It's recommended that you use it at all times, as it will not slow down your browser but will improve your user experience drastically! Official add-on installs: Firefox, Chrome (until 2023)
How does it work?
There are two kinds of downloads: Direct Downloads and Torrents.
Direct Download Link (DDL): you click on the thing, the browser downloads it. Simple! It's an 1 on 1 communication between you and their servers. Pros: no hassle, super easy, nothing else to do, pretty safe. Cons: downloading big files is sloooow, and if your connection falters just a few seconds, you gotta start from the top again.
Torrenting: the good stuff. It's "Peer to Peer", or P2P. The way I understand it: you're put in a room (a "swarm") with a bunch of people. Some want the file (Peers and Leechers), some already have it and are giving it around (Seeders). You all share small pieces of the file around, and eventually everyone will get a complete file.
Seeders are the most important part: a torrent with zero seeders will not start (no one is giving out the file). A torrent with 200 seeders will be immensely faster than one with 3 seeders.
It's good etiquette to seed back what you download, in a 1:1.10 ratio: you upload what you downloaded (1:1) and then a little more. Sharing is caring!
Pros: fast, you can stop and resume whenever you want, you can find torrents of mostly anything, easy to download big files.
Cons: unsafe without a VPN (might get fined), a bit harder to understand, might take an hour or two to set everything up.
We will get more into Torrenting right now, as it will be the main way to pirate things.
How to Torrent files?
You will need: a Torrent Client, a VPN (optional, recommended), and either a .torrent file or a magnet link. Don't panic, this is easy!
Torrent Client: a little software that will actually manage the downloading. There is no reason to use anything else than qBittorrent: it's free, open source, frequently updated, has no ads, and has a neat little feature that we will see later. Download and install it and you're all set!
VPN: ok, so. You *can* download things without a VPN. I've done it a bunch. Please know, it's unsafe. VPNs are, like, the condoms of piracy. Depending on how strict your Internet Service Providers are about piracy, without them you might get a hefty fine, or simply a warning, or nothing at all. With torrenting, sadly, ISPs can kind of exactly see what you're downloading. VPNs fool your ISP. I'm not a fan of how much VPN services are fooling us in thinking we need them - but sadly us pirates DO need them.
I would personally not recommend free VPNs, they aren't too reliable in my experience. I also advice to use a VPN that allows "port forwarding" as that will make the downloads faster.
The most loved VPN service in the pirating community is Mullvad. It's VERY secure, actually cares about your privacy (unlike Nord, or even Proton sadly), has no yearly plans to rope you into nasty subscription models. It's so privacy oriented that you don't even need an email, they will simply give you an account number and you will use that. They do NOT want your data. Super neat!
Their service is 5€ a month, and I suggest paying only one month, downloading a shitton of stuff, and then just leaving it be until you need another month of downloading bonanza.
You will see they accept and encourage crypto payments. Please don't judge them too harshly for this. I hate crypto as much as the next tumblr user - but this is not for crypto bros, this is because they really would like to not have your data if possible. There's people who want to avoid leaving behind any sort of trail showing that they, personally, purchased a VPN, and this option serves them.
Torrent files, magnet links: a torrent file is an actual file you download and open in your client. You download "bee_move.torrent", open it in qBittorrent, and it will start downloading! A magnet link simply bypasses having an actual file. it's a link that you will directly open in your client and will tell it what it needs to know, and acts in place of a .torrent file. They're virtually the same. There are dedicated torrent sites that let you search for the torrent you want, and offer either a torrent file or magnet download. Let's see how to find them!
Where to find stuff?
r/piracy Megathread - there are links to pirate anything that could be pirated. Navigate to the section you need and follow the instructions! There are usually both Torrent sites and direct download links. The masterpost isn't being mantained anymore - as of 31/10/2022, I'm still having luck with it and finding it a great resource. There are other masterposts though. For example, the Awesome Piracy megathread and the r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH wiki. As of April 2023, it’s being rewritten!! Hell yeah!! Go check it out!
But some of the torrent sites listed on the masterposts are broken! :(
I hear ya, I hear ya! It's perfectly normal. For technical / legal reasons that I cannot comprehend, torrent sites need to change URLs often. This is where unblockit comes in. I'm not sure how it works, so I'm just going to say that it's magic. It gives you working links to all the best torrenting, streaming, DDL sites. From books to music to, uh, adult material. I usually refer to the masterpost to know which sites are the most trustworthy, and then use unblockit to access them. Generally, for example, you will want to avoid ThePirateBay, and prefer 1337x instead.
ALMOST DONE!!! There's one last important thing to set. This is a safety measure, for those who use a VPN service and want to make the most of it.
At times, the VPN connection you are using might falter for some seconds. These few seconds that it's not working, your torrent might still be downloading, exposing your IP address briefly and letting your ISP catch you. There is an easy and quick way to prevent this from happening. It's called binding the VPN network interface to your torrent client - it's a big name, but it means you tell your client (qBittorrent) to ONLY connect to the internet via the VPN. No VPN? No connection. No IP leakage. Linked guide above will take you a couple minutes at most.
This is the basic stuff! :D You should be able to download pretty much all you need just from this!
However, since I'm a nerd, here's some other useful things, or more niche sites.
There are tips to make torrenting with VPN faster - I gotta be honest man, I still don't understand *how* this "Port Forwarding" business works, and for some reason I cannot get it to work right now with Mullvad (previously I had North which doesn't support this feature at all). My internet is too slow for me to really mind, anyway. But you should look into it if you're using a VPN and getting slow download speeds on torrents with 20+ active seeders.
Now, this is for all the artists out there. Online-courses.club has, like, an INFINITY of art courses and tutorials, and even some software. It's INSANE, super helpful, some of these courses would otherwise cost SO much. I've been getting a lot of use out of it. They're mostly DDLs, too! I can't recommend it enough!!!
Now, time for brushes. I've had a lot of difficulty finding good brushes for Procreate that didn't cost too much. This telegram channel has a neverending quantity of Procreate brushes: t.me/free_brushes. Sometimes Photoshop brushes crop up too. For some popular brushes, they ask for "donations" to download them instead of giving the actual download, which is a big yikes honestly. Thankfully, it's rare. In there, if you scroll really far, there's also a link to another smaller group to download Max Ulichney's brushes. I have no way of directly linking it off-telegram (it never generated an username or link!), but if you can't find it shoot me a message on @plantcreature on TG and I'll link it to you directly there!
My favourite way to pirate and share music is Soulseek, a neat little software that work as a Peer To Peer service, but between you and a single other person at a time. You share all your music folder, and others can download from it when you're online. In return, you can download other people's music from their shared folders. It's lovely, the quality of the files is GREAT, the community is actually really chill and honest, since it's just a bunch of peeps sharing mp3s and flacs.
There's also a LOT of telegram bots to download music or videos from several platforms. @MusicDownloaderRobot downloads from Spotify, @joeymusicbot from Deezer, @mediadownbot rips videos and music from stuff like reddit, tiktok, facebook, twitter etc, and t.me/BotsArchive has a vast collection of bots just like these. They can come in handy!
Lastly, since I am Italian, here's some resources to find italian material.
Those around my age or older might remember TNT Village as the n.1 source of italian torrents. It's closed down, but the magnet links for archived stuff are still out there. Only way to access them that I found rn is this Telegram bot: @tntvsearchbot. Source code here for those who understand this stuff.
There's also programmiedovetrovarli, great resource for famous software (Adobe, Office, etc) with instructions in italian. Needs adblocker to be deactivated on their site, but has no popup ads, just standard banners.
Well, this was a lot! Thank you for reading, I hope I was able to help in some way!
Please remember: illegal does not automatically mean unethical, or immoral. Everyone is free to choose what to do and think about piracy. Don't ruin this for those who choose to engage with it, and don't push this on those who'd rather steer clear. I am personally sharing this with you, because my personal opinion is that pirating is often moral, and avoiding giving money to certain corporations (Adobe and Disney come to mind) is always preferred when you can't or don't want to outright avoid and boycott their products altogether.
If you can afford to, always support small creators and artists.
If you cannot afford to, then consider that pirating and enjoying their creations, then spreading the word and talking about it online, is still beneficial to them!
“is this truly necessary?” he grumbles—heat rises under his skin at your harmless yet suggestive position. he cannot stand himself, he was overwhelmed from you straddling his waist.
it was pitiful, almost dismal.
he wishes to strangle his own neck for considering your silly curiosity. you’ve been badgering him about it ever since you came across him paint his liner as he prepped for a meeting with the harbingers. he recalls the way you begged for his permission; and needless to say, he couldn’t resist the sight of you on your knees.
you nod at him.
“sitting this way provides me the best angle,” you reply, as if it was clear from the very beginning. “it also gives me better access.” you wink.
scaramouche mutters epithets under his breathe but allows you to carry on nonetheless. he was antsy, clueless; he didn’t know what to do—he lays rigid as a stone, hands rest flat by his side. you must’ve sensed his unease because you paused then pull away to give him a funny look.
“what?” he snaps, unappreciative of your heavy stare.
“you do know you can touch me?” you blink owlishly at him. he lets out a strangled noise. what were you on about now? he loathes the phrasing, the innocent look in your eyes, and how it left his cheeks stained pink.
you roll your eyes and grab his wrist to place it on your hips. “see? no big deal,” you reassure, and lean in to line his other eye.
his other hand soon follows, his finger traces messy shapes on your skin to past time. he wasn’t an eager fan of physical contact, however, he can get used to it. he, embarrassingly, lets out a whine when it comes to an end and you pull away with a high and mighty smirk.
you reach for your compact mirror then shove it in his face. “so… whaddya think?”
you were buzzing with excitement. he checks his reflection, silently impressed by your work on him—it was sharper and finer than his usual get-up, yet natural enough to unnoticed from a distance. he’d never tell you, though.
“it’s uneven.”
you gasp, offended. he has to bite his lip to hinder a chuckle from slipping. you snatch the compact mirror from his hand then shove it in his face. scaramouche was in awe. he has to hold back the urge to sit up and steal a kiss from you, and humors your request instead. he waits for a couple seconds to pass for it to appear realistic before going,
“not too shabby for an amateur.”
𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗼𝘂 [ゴロー]
“eh, gorou?!”
“i’m sorry. i can’t help it, you just look very pretty right now, my love,” he defends himself with a short laugh. he looks up at you, sheer adoration glitters in his eyes. his lips curve into a beaming grin at your frown.
a tiny part of him feels guilty, however, it washes away after he sees the pout on your lips. why must you be so cute? he cannot take you seriously like this.
you grumble under your breath out of frustration. all of your handwork went to waste in less than ten seconds. you glare at him and your pout deepens when it falls on the smudged pigment by his cheek. sighing, you reach for a handkerchief and wipe it clean.
his tail thwacks against the floor in a frenzy. it didn’t take an academic to read the expression of bliss written on his face. nevertheless, it didn’t soothe your mind from another failed attempt.
it has been, what? the second time you attempted to do his eyeliner. you recognized it was going to pose as a challenge but you gravely underestimated its difficulty; particularly through moments like these when he had half a mind to roll over and snuggle into your body, cuddling you so long as he pleased.
gorou hums an unfamiliar tune to himself, pecking your lips once more. you squeak in shock. “i’m glad to see i still have this effect on you. i pray it stays this way for eternity.” he tucks a wild strand of hair behind your ear, his hand slithers down and positions itself on the nape or your neck.
“it’s not fair!” resting on his chest, you nuzzle yourself in his warmth. the liner brush sits neglected in your clutch. his tail flutters at a faster pace from your affection. “you’re playing with me!”
“too bad,” he teases, tilting your chin to gaze up at him. you shake your head at his antics and kiss his neck before finally letting go. he cries at the loss of contact.
studying his ocean eyes, you whisper, “will you let me finish your eyeliner properly now?” his ears twitch at the sound of your voice. “it depends… how fast can you finish it?” he flirts, “i’m starting to grow impatient from waiting, my love. can’t we just do this next time?”
“how forward of you, general, but no.”
“hmph… what do i get in return if i stay still?” his hand now on your waist, thumb drawing tiny circles into your skin. you purse your lips. “um… i’d say, it depends on what i’m feeling after i’m done.”
unconvinced, he tugs on your collar to bring you back down on his chest. you shrug out of his grasp. he yelps your name as the corners of his mouth rise into a lopsided grin over the austere expression on your face.
he sighs, “you win, but i better get to pick my prize.”
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