#that was a typo but im leaving it in

[burr-ell]

THIS MOTHERFUCKER

[lulablogss]

co-parent bakugou

katsuki bakugou x reader (part two)

   fwb! bakugou who often came by your dorm during college to drop off school work when you missed lectures and loads when you missed him.

fwb! bakugou who came by before bed to fuck you into your pillow and listen to your hushed moans, hushed so your roommates wouldn’t hear. (they did)

fwb! bakugou who’s scared of committing because he “couldn’t see you in his future” and was too focused on his.

fwb! bakugou who’s late night visits became more and more scarce.

fwb! bakugou who months later soft launches his new partner on his story after telling you he’s not ready for a relationship.

fwb! bakugou who stops breathing at the sight of your name popping up on his phone as he cuddles his partner while watching movies, and nearly has a stroke at the “Im pregnant.” text. 

_____

“well are ya sure it’s mine?” he asks, not daring to look away from you. you break eye contact and look outside the coffee shops’ window to focus on anything other than this conversation you’ve been dreading. “are you serious? you should know i’m not exactly one to sleep around,” you say to the man. he nods and his grip on his mug gets tighter, knuckles visibly whiter. “well, are ya keepin’ it,” he asks, “i don’t think  that’d be a bright idea for either of us.” you kind of glare but think over his words. “you know how my parents feel about abortion kats.. i’d be disowned. the second the press found out about it, my family would be done for,” your eyes start to water and a tear threatens to fall, you pause “.. i thought you said you don’t do relationships?”

katsuki stares at you and shakes his head, “those fuckin’ hormones already getting to your brain or somethin?“ he sighs, “you know i can’t do this *nickname*. i’m in a committed relationship with raya, we’re getting engaged next month. on top of that, i can’t be number one with a baby leechin’ of me.” your heart drops, “you’re.. getting engaged? i.. um.. well, congratulations. i’m sorry to burden you with all of this… and i can’t abort it anyway.. i.. i’m too far along.. and i cant do this.” you finish & get up from the table and leave.

________

baby daddy! bakugou who ends up losing contact with you for months after you block him on everything a refuse to meet up per your family’s request.

baby daddy! bakugou who nearly forgets about you years later til kirishima brings you up and shows him your instagram.

baby daddy! bakugou who gets home and stalks you from a burner account, finds out you still talk to everyone from college but him.

baby daddy! bakugou who sees a pretty little ruby-eyed girl down your timeline, her resemblance to him uncanny.

baby daddy! bakugou who pulls some strings and texts your number asking to meet his daughter, hana. 

___________

hana is 2 years old by now, forming choppy sentences and now waddling on her feet. after a week of texting, you finally fold and let him come over to meet his daughter. when you open the door to let him in he nearly finds himself choking on his spit at how beautiful you are. you looked even better than your posts, if that’s possible. you greeted him with a nod and invited him in. he takes his shoes off and head to the living room you led him to. you exchange stale pleasantries and small talk til you decide to go get your baby girl. “her name is ‘hana lei bakugou,’ as much as i wanted her to have my last name.”

you walk over to him and hand her to him, noticing the wedding band resting around his ring finger. you scoff, “wow so you two actually got married?” he nods and analyzes his daughters’ features. “shes so pretty, just like ‘er momma,” he half smiles and look up at you. “so i’ll have her back later tonight, gonna take ‘er home to meet the wife and all of that.” he goes to get off the couch. “woah, you don’t get to do that. you don’t get to come back back after all this time like nothing happened.” he looks frustrated for a second, “you can’t just- … yea yer right, ‘m sorry.’’

you nod, “how about we go up to her room and play?” he agrees and follows you into his daughter’s bedroom while carrying her.

“So.. how long have you two been in the area?” he asks, scanning his daughter's room. “I never really left, just moved closer to the city i guess,” you reply; putting hana down to the floor. She waddles over to katsuki. “hana, baby this is your father,” you look down at the little girl. At first she looks up at you with her glowing beady eyes then she looks over to Katsuki sitting over on a couch. “papa?” she asks and she points her dainty finger at him. you nod and smile. “yes baby, that's your papa.” 

katsuki looks at the little girl and she reaches up for him. “up.” she says, and he obliges. you two talk and rekindle for what seemed to be days. In reality it was just about 4 hours. “*name* it was really nice to see you again, let's go out for dinner sometime. with hana of course.” you lead him downstairs while he says his goodbyes to hana. 

-- 

“I told ya about this years ago raya, you can't be mad about this. What did you expect? for them to disappear?” bakugou yells at his wife. “well i didnt fucking expect you to go out of your way to to reach out either!” she pouts, anger and jealousy laced in her tone. “I have to own up to this responsibility now whether you like it or not, stop fuckin’ cursin’ at me. ‘m already stressed as is; ‘ion need yer bitchin’.” 

“oh so now i'm bitching because you went out and got some slut pregnant.. you're just full of it katsuki.” raya says, glaring at him now. “ya cant get mad at me because I wanna be a father, ‘nd not just leave some kid stranded out here.” 

“it's not just about the kid is it? do you miss the bitch or something? do you miss the sex? did she give you better head than I do?” raya accuses, bakugou sighs and goes to leave the room, “‘nd yea- she did give better head.” as he walks to their shared room he can hear her still yelling in the distance.

katsuki bakugou goes to sleep confused tonight. He wonders why was he such a prick. he wonders why did his heart pound so fast- why were his hands so sweaty when he saw you.

he couldn't do this. he has a wife. hes happily married, regardless of any arguments. his wife was the mayors daughter and promised him various things, she promised him glory. of course he didn't need her but it's definitely more helpful to have more "support." plus you hated him, only putting up with him for the sake of his daughter. no, it wasn't attraction- it was just nervousness. he loved his wife.

katsuki woke up to his wife, raya in his arms. she looked so pretty and peaceful like this. he snapped out of his daze and got out of bed to catch a shower. he couldn't help but find his hand reaching down to take care of himself. usually when he finds himself touching himself; its of thoughts of his wife from the night prior. but today it was you. he felt shameful but he just couldnt help it. he couldn't stop himself from thinking about you. hes only human.    

[calware]

idk if someone else already used this metaphor but i like to see a player's classpect as the shell that they initially formed in and that they are then meant to grow out of and emerge from. like you combine all the ingredients to make a person but then once you have that person they can shed the shell. they're still made from those ingredients but they're more than the intredience. ingrediance

[ganondoodle]

(Original art) Xaror, any pronouns, species (?), age (?)

short summary about them; they act as both an antagonist and an ally since they are only really interested in what they want or whats fun to them, they are immortal and call themselves 'death itself' since they have a special connection to souls (being the only one able to communicate with them) and the ability to seperate souls from their bodies in such a way that nothing can harm the soul afterwards their main goal is to .. bother and disturb the 'celestials'*, which they hate, as much as they can, breaking into their palace, freeing prisoners, destroying research, destroying the place, and most importantly, making as many souls unusable to them as possible-

they dont want to destroy the celestials though, they cant fight them anyway and this game of doing 'good' only with the goal of annoying them is their most treasured activity, so Xaror doesnt intend to stop them from killing or hurting anyone, only from harvesting what they are actually after (though Xaror doesnt actually care as little as they think they do about people, and has a soft spot for demons)

most of their appearance is later into the story; Zaphira (the empress) had been in coma and the medical facility she was treated in was destroyed by Shargon (orange eyed demon who acts as her bodyguard for the first part) in an attempt to save her from her estranged relatives taking over her country after they heard of her decline in health, she is believed dead but washes up on the shore of the mountain Xaror resides at years later (it has a reason, too much to write here) and they slowly nurse her back to health, the reason they give for it is that they found their first encounter very fun, thats all (is it?)

(more lore under the cut bc this is already so long .. im trying to keep it short q-q ......... this is stuff i have been working on since i was a kid so uh, some things might be cheesy but i cant change them anymore ..)

just to get some basics out of the way; theres three worlds, the celestials palace, human world and demon world, each are their own planet connected via different gateways

*celestials (possibly not final name, loosely based on angels) are the last remaining "survivors" of their planets demise, when their world died the most powerful among them cannibalized the weaker to sustain themselves until there were only less than 10 left, who each turned into different beings from it and dont resemble their own people much anymore, they built a palace from what was left on their world that protects them from space as its atmosphere collapsed shortly after- however they still needed something to live off; they discover the human world and are delighted to find rather short lived people with powerful souls, the best kind of sustenance for them (now), they aim to herd them like cattle, but a problem arose when it turned out another world has long been in contact with the human world; demons

demons are semi immortal creatures that act as protectors for their world, protection they extended, more or less secretely, to the human world ensuring them a long and secure life- the celestials need them to die at their whim though (demons are few in numbers, hard to kill and rarely have offspring, not an ideal target); as they worked out a plan on how to get rid of demons one of the celestials, Xanthriel (time) grew somewhat fond of people as they spent alot of time in the human world to observe and research them; in the end turning on their own completely, but losing the fight against Uriel (knowledge)

Xanthriel was supposed to be executed for their betrayal, but it doesnt work, instead they are splintered into many parts after a lot of struggle, most body, memory and most strength is one part (ending up as motionless forever bleeding corpse kept locked up in the palace), the rest is some time later gathered together and reforms as a seperate, weak mockery of them, they embody Xanthriels emotion- Xaror, without memory, strangely cut to pieces (hence all the missing limbs and broken halo) but driven by an unstoppable desire to disturb the celestials (they live seperate long enough to each become their own person, at some point Xaror discovers Xanthriels body after all and they merge back together, though as they are now two, Xanthriel only takes over once directly after merging, stays silent for a long time and lets Xaror be themselves, only later revealing that they are there at all .. hiding perhaps- i rarely have specific ideas for voices, but Xanthriels is like, like coarse rocks being violently rubbed against each other, less voice more noise)

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group (he wasnt the strongest or special, he was jsut the last in the row and always got the lowest dosage) when Xaror found them in yet another break in into the palace and got him back to the demon world .. where he was promptly blamed for the others that were taken and treated like a pretender/fake/spy bc what he got put through changed his eye color (something that demons cannot change in any form) to one that does not exist among 'real' demons (orange ... notice the inner color of Xarors broken halo? :) ), some even suggesting killing him, but none of them were brave enough to do it (they were all kids still) .. except Eadrya (the big blue-ish one, largely regarded as the strongest demon alive) but Shargon managed to escape, and since then lived largely in isolation- this is part of why he is so hated, and why he starts to spend so much time in the human world after rediscovering the pathway there)

[shibusawaz]

have you ever wanted to know who YOUR soulmate in bsd would be? even if you haven't, i think you should still take my quiz. nudge nudge.

31 questions and 28 results, enjoy :))

[djarinsyndulla]

The Star Wars fandom has never gone this hard or been this invested in any Asian or Black character, ESPECIALLY a Black woman. The Star Wars fandom has never been going this hard for an interracial relationship involving no white people. So for me yeah, it is pretty telling that now is the time some people are deciding to declare everyone lacks media literacy because allegedly we can't tell or admit a man is a bad person because people are sooo blindsided by his looks.

It's the same exact way people adore Anakin/Vader, Maul, Kylo, Revan, Shin, etc. But now that a South East Asian man is playing the Sith y'all suddenly have to "suffer" seeing him a lot and people enjoying his character? When I called out the person who made the og post, they said "I didn't mention Qimir and wasn't only talking about him" like k bro....I know you think everyone but yourself is an idiot or something but just know I'm not and that I know there's no coincidence you literally TAGGED that post as "the acolyte". The claim it was only tagged as "The Acolyte" because it's the "most recent example" is total BS. You purposefully tagged The Acolyte, Acolyte Spoilers, Qimir, Osha Aniseya, ALL OF IT because you weren't talking about the fandom with ships and dark side characters as a whole, you were specifically talking about The Acolyte, Qimir and Osha.

And yeah, it definitely does feel racially coded. Everyone knows this show, the creator and the actors have been enduring a MASSIVE racist, misogynist, and homophobic hate campaign against this show for literally over a year before it even aired, and you have people making posts about how UNBEARABLE it is that they're going to have to see the fandom be obsessed with a sith played by a handsome Filipino and be excited over Oshamir, an interracial ship involving no white people but a Black woman and an Asian man, as if Star Wars fans have a good track record of treating characters of color well. It IS adding to the overall negativity of the show and convincing others not to watch it for your petty little reasons when this is without a doubt the best show Star Wars has released yet on Dinsey+ and by far the most diverse. Have any criticisms you want about The Acolyte, it's totally fair, but this "criticism" I'm referring to was just an attack on people enjoying the show, claiming stupid shit like a "lack of media literacy" over something everyone already knows like the fact Qimir isn't a good guy. Here's something that might shock y'all: we know, AND WE DON'T CARE.

Anyway I hope Oshamir, Qimir, and Osha continue to pop up on these peoples timelines and continue to make things unbearable for them. Because if enemies to lovers is all good when it involves someone like Shin and Sabine, but not when it involves Qimir and Osha, then you're a hypocrite and not to be dramatic your life deserves to be unbearable if that's really what does it.

[veitchiin]

its not the case in my world state bc i have feelings and thoughts but when hawke doesnt return to anders in inquisition, what would he do? like. would he wait. would he keep waiting wherever they separated? when would he start looking for hawke?? where would he start? how would he make sure hawke could find him too if they missed each other? do you think he'd believe hawke finally abandoned him for good? could he accept that? would he look for hawke at all if it were the case? how would justice react? would it see it as a weight lifted off of anders' shoulders? an ubending distraction finally gone? or after however long spent with hawke would even it have gotten attached to them? would it see their disappearance as yet another unfair wound inflicted upon anders?

how would anders know anyways? varric sends a letter but he has no address and with how varric speaks of anders in inquisition do you think he would even send it to him? i mean who else right besides hawke's surviving sibling IF theyve survived, uncle gamlen? neither of them would be able to tell anders right.

so how long would anders sit in this uncertainty? have they left him? were they tired of running? tired of him? did they start resenting him for all the harm he's brought upon them? are they hurt? have they been restrained, captured? are they looking for him in places he isnt?

how long do you think until he starts believing them to have died?

how long will he grieve?

when will he move on?

would he ever be able to?

does he ever hold Dog (hawke's mabari) to cope with the loss?

what memento does he hold on to, in the deep of night when the cold their body left behind bites the hardest?

[weatheredcopper]

the humble shrip

[columboscreens]

[vhvrs]

rams my head through a cement wall.

accompanying mix // flats under cut // if any c137c3st or freak shippers touch this ill be in your walls immediately

[indecisive-dizzy]

thinking about Julie going into hibernation, but also how she was participating in winter activities and was at the Homewarming party.

obv an in-universe excuse is writing inconsistency within the show but nahh. i wanna get sad.

My headcanon is that Julie begins hibernation after the Homewarming party. Right after. And later in the evening it turns into a different party, Julie's Goodnight Party (name in progress).

It's fun, because any party with this rainbow monster's name in it is gonna be fun! but there's an underlying somberness. They eat, play games and talk about everything and anything like the Homewarming party, but it just feels different.

(continues below, sad warning bc I made myself sad)

When Julie starts getting sleepy, the party ends with her neighbors giving their farewells, goodnights, and big hugs.

Frank is the one to walk her home, of course. He brushes Julie's hair, makes sure her and her nest has everything she needs, and stays with her as she falls asleep. But not before they share a big, comforting, long hug filled with every unspoken "I'll miss you" and every ounce of love they can pour into it.

It's the longest Frank has ever hugged anybody. "A hug long enough to get him through winter," according to Julie.

He wished that were true.

Either way he smiles, he smiles for Julie as it's the last expression she sees before finally closing her eyes to sleep.

The tears that later soaked into his pillow are the only secret Frank's ever kept from his best friend.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

I'm sure you've seen these pics but. Oufggfhbf. I've never been more feral. This has forced ovulation. His neck and shoulders are going to look like the scene of a murder by the time I'm done with him. We will be covered in blood. Whose? Doesn't matter. My teeth ache with the need to bite him. His waist is giving me thoughts that will never be approved by the Vatican. One of us is walking out pregnant and chances are it won't be me

Now everyone at this bar gonna see me lookin at michael fassbenders slutty waist for the next twenty munufes thank you my friend

[golden28s]

no because i need to talk about mickey and ian's tiny little obsession with calling each other "mr milkovich" and "mr gallagher" idk how to explain it but it's like they've been waiting for so long that now they can't stop showing that they're each other's person, they can't stop talking about how they belong to each other, they need to keep telling the world that they're together.

Which reminds me of another silly little obsession but this time is just Mickey's obsession: the rings need to be visible. In the promise rings scene, in s10 when Ian goes to Byron's house to see Mickey and gives him this promise ring, he looks even more hurt when he sees that Ian wears his ring in a non visible place. It actually bothers him that no one can see, that no one will know that he has someone, that no one will see that he "belongs" to someone, that no one will know or Ian won't tell the world about him, about them. Like they're hiding again, like Mickey's hiding again. He notices he doesn’t have his ring in that one scene with Sandy where they're talking about the wedding, he notices and he even asks where is it.

The ring is not only a ring or the symbol of their marriage but also is them not hiding anymore and having sex in the back of a store, is them not living anymore in a constant state of anxiety and fear because what if they found them out, what if they knew about them. It's them telling the world that they're together, that they love each other, that they fought, screamed, cried, hurt each other, tried to elope and have a happy ending but it wasn't their moment and always found their way back and finally they made it.

It's Mickey not being ashamed anymore, it's Mickey being ridiculously proud of his husband, of what they have, of himself. It's Ian knowing Mickey is gonna love him unconditionally, it's Ian trying to not forget that he's worth loving, it's Ian allowing Mickey to take care of him and pretending he doesn't notice the little things he does for him because he's worried and he's an act of service type of person so he doesn't ask much, he does these little things.

So they're obsessed with the idea of telling the world they're free, they're in love, they're together and they vowed a forever. They just need the world to know they're Mr Gallagher and Mr Milkovich because for a long time they couldn't call each other "mine" and it felt like better times wouldn't come, like they would have to live in these shadows like a secret mission.

And now they're proudly in love in the daylight and it's the most exciting thing so they talk constantly about it and never stop looking at their rings, at each other in awe and adoration.

[odysseys-blood]

this was in the rambling of an art dump i posted in 2023 (dont go looking pls its old and ugly) but I WAS ONTO SMTHN FR FR HUH.

like obviously nothing is clear atm but it fits too well. i dont think minhyeok is just completely god itself though at least not without anything else to back that up rn but i think maybe him being created from a part of gods soul(?) would be more likely (so if he were a mirror of mc being descended from/sharing solomon's soul but still being a completely different person but not in the same way) and if we're playing by similar rules then him passing out could have been his "awakening" moment (like mc in ch1) and him feeling off makes even more sense bc unlike the mc he isnt completely his own person just being guided by someone sharing the soul because his isnt one that can be "shared" because its a piece of a whole and not one being carried over and reset.

[crowcryptid]

I'm sick and tired of YouTube VPN sponsorships so here are the facts presented in an easy to understand way.

For the purposes of this post, assume everything I say is in relation to being connected to your home router, unless stated otherwise. Businesses have a different use for VPNs.

What is a VPN? A VPN is a virtual private network. Think of it this way, imagine you are trading notes in class but they are encoded. The teacher takes a note but can't read it, but the teacher still sees you passing them. In this case, you are your PC or phone, the other person is the VPN server, the teacher is your ISP. ISP stands for internet service provider. It's whoever you are paying for your connection.

What does that mean? It means that your ISP doesn't see what you're doing. They can only see that you are connected to a VPN and how much data you're using.

Why would I use a VPN? If you are torrenting and have an annoying ISP that sends scary letters in the mail, it will stop them from sending a letter. Assuming you are doing things correctly and bind your VPN to your torrenting client and using a kill switch. Also, should you be accessing content that is censored, it can help to bypass that. Whether that works or not depends on how strict the censorship is. You can also use it to access another countries version of a product. For Example: Netflix in the US will have different content than Netflix in Australia. Keep in mind not all VPNs are equal in this regard. Some of them may not be able to stream from every country.

As a normal home user, the most a VPN is going to do for you is as follows: Accessing content from other regions, avoiding your ISP snooping in on what websites you look at, torrenting, and possibly accessing censored content. That's literally it.

In the event you are doing some illegal shit that gets law enforcement involved, this is not going to help unless you are truly covering your tracks. I will not explain beyond that because the people who need to do that are either: Irrationally paranoid, doing some terrible things, or are journalists/whistleblowers etc in hiding. So not the people reading this.

Businesses use them too, but I'm only talking about home users here. All that other stuff you hear in YouTube sponsors is either a lie or something you don't need.

What is an IP? It's like your networks address. Think of your router and IP as the same thing, this isn't accurate, but I'm simplifying here. The router is like the mail room in a building. The requested data comes to the mail room, your router/public IP, and then gets sorted into the correct mail box. Similarly, any data you send out is being placed in the outgoing box in the mail room and everything has a return address on it. So anyone receiving your data knows where it's coming from. Each individual mail box is a device connected to the router. The mail box is your local IP and isn't important for this topic, just thought I'd mention it. Your public IP reveals your general location (it is not exact and can be off by a considerable distance) and what ISP you are using. This is only what is revealed to the internet as a whole. Your ISP still has your address, name, billing info, etc, all tied to your IP.

What about my location? When using a VPN your IP will be whatever the VPN provider gives you. So this can mean your location changes and any website you access will not see your home router's IP. KEEP IN MIND. VPN server IPs are not a secret. Your ISP and any website you visit knows you are using a VPN. Some sites will block you entirely due to this. You will also get way more captchas in general. Because hiding yourself is inherently seen as suspicious or possibly malicious to companies.

Does it help with privacy? YES AND NO. Prepare for a long one here. Excuse the use of caps. If you use a VPN but are logged into your usual account, using your usual device, with the same browser you always use, basically what I'm trying to say is that Everything you're doing is the same but your IP is different, then NO. It will only serve you for the usual purposes of torrenting, hiding activity from your ISP, or streaming from other countries. Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc still know it's you. I cannot describe to you just how much you are being tracked, always. Ok not always, but most of the time. Someones personal website built from the ground up with no ads probably isn't tracking you much.

Yes, your ISP is only seeing encrypted data but they and every website you visit knows exactly who you are and they can tell you're using a VPN.

ALL TRUST HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE ISP AND PLACED IN THE VPN PROVIDER INSTEAD. If you are using a VPN because you do not trust your ISP or government, you still have to trust the VPN provider.

THE DATA YOU SEND TO WEBSITES IS NOT "HIDDEN" FROM THAT WEBSITE.

This. Literally doesn't make any sense. But YT sponsorships will insist that everything you do is encrypted and safe from "hackers" and "all forms of spying". THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS. A VPN will only encrypt data between YOU and the VPN server. Once it LEAVES THE VPN SERVER it is NOT ENCRYPTED BY THE VPN ANYMORE. It's up to the website/database/server owners to keep your passwords and personal info safe. You do not have any control over data leaks or breaches.

The only encryption from that point on will be from HTTPS which means that any sensitive data is hidden.

Here is a visual to help you understand.

You [encrypted stuff] -> your ISP [sees encrypted stuff but doesn't know whats inside] -> VPN [server decrypts the data and sees everything you sent] -> Website you accessed

Ok. Now. This sounds scary and dangerous. But every website that uses HTTPS (the little lock icon on your browsers url bar) is ALSO encrypting things. This is why you can login to something on public wifi and not have your login info stolen immediately. A website that's only using HTTP is NOT encrypting anything and most browsers will warn you of this. No social media site or really any modern site is using HTTP. HTTPS is the standard.

So that whole ad read about "protecting you on public wifi" is not as important as it sounds. Yes, some things would be visible, but do you really care that someone can tell you loaded up Instagram at a coffee shop? That's for you to decide. If you use a VPN you could hide that, but it's not doing much else. If anything, you should be more concerned that the router is what it says it is. By that I mean that the router actually belongs to the coffee shop you're at and that isn't a decoy pretending to be the real one or that the real router is compromised. You really won't be able to check this if there's no obvious sign like there being 2 networks both claiming to be the coffee shops guest network. Even if that is the case, HTTPS is still encrypting things. They can pull some other tricks though like sending you to a fake website that looks like the real one to see if you type in your login info. Or try to distribute malware or exploit your device. But, this isn't really something you should lose sleep over. It's probably not going to happen lmao

If you are still paranoid about public wifi, just use the VPN or your phone's data plan.

Now for the other included BS that sponsorships will spew.

Does it increase security? No. Unless you are trying to avoid an IP grabber I suppose. If your connection was unencrypted in the first place, especially not. This means the website is transmitting everything in plaintext for anyone to see or modify along the way. The VPN would only encrypt the data between your device and the VPN server. Afterwards it become unsafe again. If your connection was already encrypted via HTTPS and is presumably not compromised, then no it does not help either as you were already secure. VPNs do not block malware or malicious websites. Those are added features that may be included in you VPN plan. I wouldn't place all my trust into a feature like that. You should always have multiple layers of protection, the most important one being common sense to not click things randomly. The other layers being: Up to date OS and software, an adblocker, a firewall, and antivirus software.

Does it protect me from data breaches, hackers, or whatever else? Again, no. Any data breach monitoring, password management, malware or malicious website blocking is not what a VPN does. Those are just added features that some VPNs throw in to make them seem more important than they are.

Can I trust the VPN providers?

Depends.

Many are dishonest and lie in their advertisements. In addition, a lot of the biggest VPNs are owned by the same companies, giving an illusion of choice. For example you've probably heard of Express VPN or Private Internet Access. They are owned by Kape Technologies, who used to be called Crossrider. It's owned by Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi, the 4th most wealthy person in Israel. Crossrider was a platform to develop browser extensions that was used to spread ads and malware to users. Crossrider directly profited from harming users until they shut the platform down and pivoted to buying up VPN companies. Yes there were legitimate extensions made with Crossrider, but it's reputation was forever tarnished by allowing malware for financial gain. The companies name was changed to distance itself from these controversies. The Chief Information Officer for Express VPN, Daniel Gericke, was part of a team that hacked accounts of human rights activists, journalists and rival governments for the United Arab Emirates. Lastly, Kape Technologies own VPN reviewing sites: vpnmentor.com and wizcase.com and push their products with these reviews without mentioning the relation.

Does this seem trustworthy to you? That's up to you to decide.

Other big names like Surfshark VPN and Nord VPN operate under the same parent company now, but the relation between the two goes back farther. The founder of Surfshark revealed that Tesonet helped create Surfshark and Nord, this relationship was hidden, and now they are together again. Also Tesonet and Nord security were both co-founded by Tom Okman. There is no controversy in this case, it's simply dishonest in my opinion for these big name brands to market themselves like separate services when they are both in the same pocket. It also does not favor users to have their data controlled by ever growing tech corporations, especially those spouting their "privacy" services.

Anyway, this next bit is more on the paranoid side, but I think it's worth mentioning. Some VPNs can be thrown out the window simply because of their location. Most notably the "5 Eyes" countries. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. No VPN hosted in any of these countries should be trusted as they can be forced to comply with investigations. Allies of the 5 eyes that assist in surveillance are Singapore, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. You don't really need to worry about this as a normal user, but I'm just mentioning it as VPNs in these countries can be compelled to give up their users data, should there be any data to begin with, as they claim to "keep no logs". I'm just trying to prove a point here that true privacy is difficult if not impossible to achieve.

TLDR: Here's a summary

At the end of the day it will hide your activity from your ISP, but reveal it to the VPN provider instead. It will hide your real IP address from any website you visit. It will NOT hide your activity from that website, as they need to serve you the content you access. It will NOT hide your identity from websites you are logged into or even if you aren't logged in as you've been uniquely identified by browser fingerprinting or other methods. If you use Google but suddenly are in another country, Google is not fooled.

Everyone can see that you are using an IP that belongs to a VPN company. The thing is ultimately most websites don't really care. Netflix doesn't care that you want to watch a show that's available in Canada but not in the US. So if that's what you want it for, then yes it's fine. Just make sure your VPN works for streaming as not all of them do. You are not increasing your privacy or security if you are logged into your personal Netflix account that has you name, email, credit card, etc. It's just common sense. Your ISP doesn't care that you torrent, they send you those letters to appease copyright holders.

Your data on public wifi is being encrypted even without a VPN. Unless you are using a non encrypted website for some reason. The only thing a VPN would do is hide what websites you are accessing from anyone who is monitoring that. Also it would hide the public wifi's IP from whatever website you access. You are secure without the VPN because modern websites use HTTPS, which means your connection is encrypted by default.

It does not protect you from malware or otherwise, though some VPN providers add protection. This really has nothing to do with VPNs and implying it's the VPN itself that protects you is misinformation.

Recommendation for security: Bitdefender. There is a free option.

Recommendations for VPNs: Mullvad, Proton, IVPN.

Recommendations for browsers: Firefox (Best choice for the average person. Don't use default settings if you care about privacy. Look up how to harden Firefox), Tor (slow and not very convenient but its more private than Firefox), or Mullvad broswer (Honestly this is too far for the average user and will be very inconvenient.)

Specifically for iPhones and iPads: you will want to use safari with adguard. Other browsers on IOS are just safari with a different look due Apple's rules.

Specifically for Android: Mull or Cromite

Anyway. Just sayin' if you use Google or anything owned by Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, or own a smart phone, which is most people, privacy isn't really a thing. But you can minimize tracking I suppose.

[andromeddog]

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