#theres nothing huge they can do for me just monitor me etc

[malcolmreeds]

had my stroke appointment today, got to see the mri images of my brain and there was a white spot where my brain had died off - kinda neat ngl i want a copy of it to frame 💀

[daemonhxckergrrl]

re: your ask from greyr4t about win10: as you said in your answer its free, just needs a key for 'activation.' ime activating win10 has been worth it. like you mentioned, it isnt strictly necessary, one can make do fine in a somewhat limited capacity with the watermark in the corner forever (unless your monitor is an OLED then have fun with 100% guaranteed screen burn in lmao. or unless always seeing it enrages you disproportionately. as in my case). but having windows activated is honestly just nice, it makes many things easier and is more sustainable in the long run... worth the extremely minor hassle as like a QoL thing imo. you also brought up that its possible to circumvent microsoft (and its brazenly insane asking prices 🤬) & buy cheap keys online from third parties. i wanted to talk about how i did shit, hopefully it helps the original asker directly or at least comes in handy to know

so i bought my (shady bootleg, yes, but perfectly functional for years now) win10 activation key for even cheaper than what Synthia listed as a price point- iirc, under 5 bucks USD. (might be higher now w inflation, but id be surprised if its much more than around 10.) if things still work how they used to, you can do this on ebay. technically ebays policies dont allow it, so the accounts selling these keys come and go frequently due to getting shut down by ebay after popping up. thus, dont necessarily be put off if the seller hasnt existed for long, as often thats just how it goes (or it did. hopefully this sort of thing is still going strong🤞); do trust happy reviews. now, there are a few TYPES of activation keys– priced slightly different, nothing big– that correspond to different editions of windows 10. so basically its home edition, pro edition, and "pro for workstations". might be worth finding a brief summary of each to determine which edition best meets your needs. (there are more editions beyond the main trio, look into those too if you want, but the tldr on em is theyre for like niche markets w/ highly specific use cases.) fwiw, i got pro & am happy with it. another thing, from personal experience: may or may not be obvious but you're gonna wanna save a screenshot of your key somewhere safe and accessible. additionally though, label the screenshot somehow so you know what it is later, and if youre a disorganized scatterbrain like i am then put that in multiple places you can reliably access so if/when youre having trouble tracking it down you know where else to look; it came in handy for me to have access to it in places both online (cloud storage like google drive or dropbox for example, or even just saving the email copy of the ebay mssg in the designated folder in your email for the ones containing info you wanna save) & off (physical note on paper, stored in the files on one or more personal devices, etc). theres a huge chance youll need it again in the future– like say if you want to upgrade certain hardware– and likely more than once. final advice: highly recommend looking into comprehensive ways of "defanging" and/or "lobotomizing" windows, as they say. i.e., a tip that gets circulated is doing the initial setup for windows w your pc in airplane mode / ethernet unplugged so you dont have to make a microsoft account so they cant create a profile on you to collect your data to sell off & target ads at you (which is obvi totally reversible later if you decide the benefits of having an account outweigh the drawbacks). shit like that, plus the loads of guides out there– many here on tumblr itself– on extensive fucking around in various settings to disable bloatware / preserve privacy / other useful stuff, that can get pretty granular. i think ive even seen Synthia herself reblog posts like that here a couple times, maybe? perhaps try checking relevant-seeming tags from the tagging system in her pinned, or do a blog search for the term 'windows' and see what all there is to find

phew, anyway, jesus christ! sorry this got to be such a long writeup!!! some of this blog's aggregate of resources have been a big help to me, so i wanted to try to pay it forward a little <3 and, Synthia, if you wouldnt mind, tagging the original asker in your response to this anon so that greyr4t is more likely to see all this would be very much appreciated by me!! ty in advance!! thanks also for your careful curation of useful info on this blog, plus the helpful posts and guides youve written here for us yourself 👍🌈

hi anon ! thanks for writing all this up !! lots of great points here - hopefully they help you out @greyr4t ! the airplane mode one is real important too if you care about privacy (and the fact you can't choose to make a local account during installation unless you are disconnected from the internet is awful and yet another dark pattern-type tactic.

i'm glad my blog's been good for you <3 (though i do need to go through and make all the important stuff a bit easier to access at some point)

iirc there's some reblogs on general privacy stuff (probably under one of the REPO tags and like "net privacy" or similar) as well as my own firefox post, and maybe more will happen in the future when i get to them

[revol-lover]

Okay so if you know me in person or follow me on any other platform, please understand that I’m *only* sharing this on tumblr for now because i need somewhere to be open about it but I’m not ready for family/friends/etc to know yet but ..

i’m pregnant!

 it’s still early (5w1d) but I found out last week. Due June 7th. Honestly i don’t even know what prompted me to take the test. My period was due the next day and i had a test lying around so i figured why not. i had taken a test a couple months ago when i thought i was pregnant and it was negative so i expected it to be negative again but noooope. POSITIVE. i had the same panic reaction that i did with julia lol. my husband was on a work call and i was waiting for him to be done. when he got off the phone he came over to vent about something and i just stopped him and dropped the bomb “omg we’re having another baby” lmao. his response “really? great!” i kept telling him it was ok to be honest and tell me if he was nervous about the timing but he isnt so. that makes one of us lol. We weren’t really trying yet but we also not really preventing it for the last couple months. We figured when it was meant to happen it would and yeah I guess the universe thought now was the time! i’m a little overwhelmed since we are moving in a few weeks and there’s so much to get done. but i’m still excited and thankful. i know it’s not always easy to get pregnant so i didn’t expect it to happen so fast so i was a little caught off guard but honestly, even with julia who was super planned, i had a huge freak out when i got the + test. My husband is always so chill and happy about it and i always have an internal crisis. but you know, i’m the one who has to grow the babe and give birth to them so i don’t think its unreasonable to panic at first lol.

Hopefully everything will go well. I’ve just been exhausted and achey. I’m trying to get as much as i can done before the nausea hits. I think we’re going to have to tell my sil before everyone else so she can help us with moving (which she has already offered to do) and if we can hold off maybe tell our family around thanksgiving. but realistically it’ll probably happen before that. i’m not sure yet. i have no problem telling kevins parents but my mom can’t keep a secret so i’m not sure yet. but it doesnt matter. i just wanted to say something here because this is my venting safe place and it’s been really hard not being able to express the mix of excitement and anxiety i’ve been having about everything thats going on in my life right now.

i feel confident about the new ob i picked (but bummed they don’t let me meet her until 3rd appt ~12weeks). i’m still leaning towards an elective c section but i’m willing to hear out her opinion after explaining what went on with julia. hopefully things will be monitored more closely this time. i learned a lot from my last experience. i will not accept any brushing off of my concerns and i honestly do think the midwife i had last time was not typical. And if I don’t like the new ob I’ll switch. Our insurance limits us a bit but there are other options. But like I said i do think this one will be fine.  I did a ton of research on her before I even got pregnant.

anyway, theres nothing but bloat and preexisting mom pouch lol but i’m sure soon it’ll change sooo first ‘bump’ pic 5w!

[lamepotter]

au where Harry fell in love with a muggle

she lives in the apartment complexes just outside the neighborhood with her mom and little sister

au where Harry starts volunteering at the public library over the summer because they have air-conditioning and free snacks for their staff, and isn't it better than being not allowed in the house during the day?

au where Harry bumps into Emily the muggle at the library and they bond over a stack of sci fi books because Emily-"No I don't really like fantasy books or magic"-Perkins is new and different from anyone in his life at Hogwarts or in his life at Privet Drive

au where Emily starts volunteering too and Harry downplays how the Dursleys treat him when she asked about his family because of course she would ask

emily hears all about ron and hermione and she laughs at Harry's stories, but turns her nose up when he tells her about some of his teachers

he has to change things for her ears of course. emily thinks draco is a rich racist rather than a pureblood supremacist, and harry is famous because his parents were star athletes at his fancy boarding school etc

au where harry spends some of his summer nights on Emily's couch because the one time he forgets his sweater at the library, she decides to return it herself and witnesses dudley shoving him into the doorway, and vernon's yells, and the slamming of doors

when emily finally got up the nerve to knock, its petunia who answers the door, and she can just tell that this woman isn’t the aunt harry talked about. emily’s mom understands harry’s situation and doesn't ask questions when harry showed up at 11 o'clock that night with a black eye and an owl cage

au where Harry falls in love with emily’s compassion and positivity because its refreshing after a school year of war and endless talk of Voldemort. the biggest thing on emily’s mind is how she’s going to get to uni, not whether or not she’ll make it to 18.

au where emily the muggle falls in love with the strange potter boy that works at the library and has a pet owl.

emily knows theres something big harry is dancing around but she knows better than to ask. weird things happen around him anyway, like the time she lost the charm on her necklace and spent half an hour walking around the library sidewalks looking for it, nearly driven to tears. harry's observant green eyes spotted it in less than a minute.

au where harry sends emily letters from hogwarts. she hears about Cedric dying in a freak sports accident. she hears about Umbridge and spends an entire night researching how to get a school teacher fired for discrimination and improper behavior. harry sends her candy with unfamiliar wrappers, and she trusted them all until one unforgettable toffee turned her breathe to smoke.

and then she begins to hear less from him

letters become scarce as the war that emily doesn’t know about gets worse. harry’s letters are monitored by the ministry, and after the dementor attack he's whisked away to "a long lost uncles house in the country". Sirius advised Harry not to keep contact because it could draw danger to her.

au where emily runs into him quite by accident in london right outside the leaky cauldron in the rain. she couldn't see the wizarding pub of course, but it was still surprising to Harry. Mrs. Weasley graciously gives him a few minutes to catch up with her, all the while looking around for death eaters who might happen upon them. This was just supposed to be a trip to get their school books.

emily doesn't know what to make of it. harry surrounded by unknown adults with strange clothing and words. she's happy to meet ron and hermione for the first time in person. and mad at harry for not telling her why he disappeared. "I thought you were really hurt!" she seethed, thinking of Dudleys tendency to pick on his cousin. Petunia Dursley refused to open the door to her now.

harry tells her he probably wont be able to see her til next summer and emily demands to know why. sirius nudges harry and they have to go theyre too vunerable out in the open and theres no time to say anything

so harry kisses her

right in front of ron and hermione, mrs Weasley, kingsley shacklebolt, sirius... Ron whistles and emily turns pink, but harry doesn't care. "Ill explain everything I promise". he says and he goes with them to the Leaky Cauldron. emily sees them all dissapear into thin air. She begins to cry and she doesnt know why. At least no one could tell in the rain.

au where sirius sends her the two way mirror in the mail anonymously. The only instruction was to send it back after she uses it. There's a dummy address attached that doesn’t show up on any maps. Harry activates it one evening while he's at school and scares the crap out of her. Shes confused because there arent any wires on the back and this isn't like any technology she's seen.

harry asks her not to question it and she hesitantly agrees. But Harry wont tell her whats been going on and emily is aware more than ever that there's a huge secret Harry isn't telling her. They talk almost every day through the mirror system, and that's when Emily begins to notice. harry would slip up and complain about nonsensical things.

"...was not ready for that pop quiz in Transfiguration, I copied of Hermione-"

"-Transfiguration?"

"-I mean history! Stupid history pop test. I swear..."

and he'd go on before she could ask more.

"Snape was a troll today!" he vented once. It was little terms like that that struck her as odd. Usually Harry was able to explain these little things away.

Until Seamus and Dean decided to have a duel in the his dorm. All Emily could see was bright red flashes and green explosions while boys yelled ancient latin phrases in the background. Harry shut off the mirror as soon as he could and ignored her attempts to call back.

His official excuse was someone set off a firework in his dorm. Emily didn't believe it for a second.

"Look, Emily, I really care about you," said Harry, and Emily blushed remembering that rainy day in london. They hadn't talked about it since.

"But there's some things I can't tell you." he hesitated. "Not yet at least."

Emily bit her lip.

"Can you at least let me know when you're in trouble, or hurt?"

harry was going to lie, but something in emilys tone made harry realize this was a deal breaker. He nodded once and brushed his dark unruly hair aside, revealing that curious lightning shaped scar. She nodded to herself and admitted,

"I really miss you."

Things got weirder after that. Harry talked to her more about what was going on but continually referenced 'the thing I can't tell you about'. Emily was frustrated. But she held her tongue. The school year seemed to go by so slowly.

au where harry comes home after his sixth year and knows nothing will ever be the same. Seeing Emily in person instead of the mirror was like he had taken a vial of felis felicius all over again. Harry spent the night on Emily's couch again but this time with Emily right next to him. Harry told her about what had happened to Dumbledore and the rest of the teachers.

"...and then he fell from the tower."

Emily held his hand. She assumed suicide and Harry wasn't going to correct her.

"Some of Draco's family came in. Totally torched the great hall."

Harry sounded so sad and broken all Emily could do was nod and hug him. They fell asleep like that, intertwined together, feeling complete for the first time in awhile. Harry woke first when Emily's mum left for work early in the morning. She gave him a knowing look and pointed to the bread box which had two muffins inside.

Harry couldn't go back to sleep so he stayed awake listening to Emily breathe. He had missed her so much. And this last year had put things into perspective.

au where harry realizes his 17th birthday meant he was leaving Privet Drive. and hopefully forever. Hermione was planning on obliviating her parents and sending them to a different continent. Ron was going off the grid and his family had a clone set up to take over his identity.

He knows the right thing to do.

au where harry spends his last summer in Surrey with Emily. They date properly and go to London for lunch with money Emily saved. They see cheap films at the dollar theater. Harry has nothing but stories for her. He sketches her favorite animals and folds paper into tiny stars. She keeps them all in a jar.

au where harry celebrates his birthday early in his bedroom with Emily and Hedwig. They sit on the dusty floor and blow out candles on a discount cake that was squashed in the middle. It was perfect.

au where Harry gives Emily a necklace from diagon alley even though it was his birthday they were celebrating and she definitely protested. A tiny golden snitch with silver wings went around her neck. Emily thought it was strange but she didn't ask because it was Harry's and it was beautiful.

they spent the next day together, hardly not touching one another in some way. Harry had a hand on her back when they walked around the library--the place they first met. Emily stroking his hair when they picnicked in the park. They held hands for days.

au where the eve of Harry's 17th birthday--his actual birthday--he takes her back to her apartment complex and they sit on the curb. Emily can tell Harry was sad about something.

"What's wrong, Harry?"

"I have something to tell you, Em." he sighed. "That thing I'm not supposed to tell you. Please, you have to keep an open mind. You see, I'm a..."

au where Harry told her everything. Emily listened carefully as he went over his entire teenage years. It all made sense and it terrified her. Harry had been in so much danger and he was so young and none of it was fair.

"...Hermione is going to obliviate her parents so they aren't targeted, which is really smart. Ron's in enough danger so his family is pretending he's sick and bedbound while we hunt for horcruxes."

Emily started. "Hunt for h-horcruxes? how long will you be gone?"

She didnt like the pain in his eyes.

"Harry?"

he didnt answer.

she gripped his arm and he looked down. He kissed the top of her head.

"I don't know if I'll even make it, Em." he admitted, saying the words out loud felt funny. but they were true.

"Harry-"

"And you're in danger as long as you know me."

"Harry-"

"And you can't protect yourself. And you have your sister and mother-"

"Harry James Potter!"

"This is the only way I can think of to k-keep you safe..." his voice broke in the middle and emily could hear the sob in his throat.

Emily was already crying. "Harry James Potter do not forget me!"

Harry held her tight. "Its more like a you-won't-remember-me kind of deal, love." Harry whispered.

"N-None of this is f-fair." she hiccuped. "You shouldn't have to do this. You can't just--I can't forget you."

au where Harry has to obliviate his muggle girlfriend

Harry let his wand slip from his shirt sleeve. He held her as she shook and sobbed.

"I'm so sorry Emily. I wish it could be different."

"Harry-"

"Obliviate..."

She stilled suddenly and Harry knew the spell worked. He withdrew his arm from around her and wiped his eyes. It was done. Irreversible. Harry kissed her cheek cringing at how lifeless she felt. He stood up and looked down at her frozen form sadly.

"I think I love you." he mumbled.

Emily was stirring so he slipped his wand in his back pocket.

Au where emily has a fuzzy recollection of dating some neighbor boy but it ended badly and stuff like that was best left forgotten right?

Au where emily stands up in front of a boy that she had known for almost nine years and didn’t recall any of it.

"Uh, hi. Excuse me, you're that Potter kid right?" Emily stood up sleepily. Her smile faltered when she saw Harry's stricken face.

"Jeez, are you alright?" she asked, her normally warm face full of worry and concern.

"Uh yea." Harry cracked a sad smile. "Just broke up with my girlfriend."

Her face contorted in sympathy. "Oh that's too bad! How long were you together?"

Harry almost lost it then. But he couldn’t--not yet. He forced himself to answer while she was still plastic and taking suggestions.

"A-About two years. We've been best friends since we were kids though."

"I'm sorry, mate." Emily reached up to brush her face and felt the tears she had been crying only moments before. "Whoa, why am I crying?"

"You just broke up with your boyfriend too. Kind of a weird bloke." he laughed shakily. “He had to go fight a war.”

"Oh. Am I sad about it? I don't feel sad."

"A little. But you don't want to talk about it." he replied simply.

"I don't want to talk about it." she repeated wiping the tears away and smiling a fake smile.

"It's getting late. You should go inside now."

"Okay." she said. "Sorry about your break up, Potter."

"Bye, Emily." he called, turning away before he lost it completely.

au where Harry loved a muggle that had to forget him