#classic gun designs

[abakedpotatoefromidaho]

1918 Browning Automatic Rifle

[tropicalcontinental]

Envelopment Vitri... She still plays Modded Minecraft except instead of styling on entites she styles on helpless players and infects their worlds and gives them a black mold infestation and fungal skin rashes and the like

[low-poly-poni]

She girlbossed so hard I forgot how to draw skirts

eheuheuheu

[morninkim]

In 1997, Metropolis got its own superhero, the first costumed crime fighter in decades, a flying man who would call himself Superman.

Later that same year, the Batman of Gotham first appeared, his methods much more brutal than the Man of Steel’s chipper and friendly demeanour.

A year later, in 1998, Diana of Themiscyra, the Wonder Woman, returned to Man’s World after nearly a century away, having aided the allies in the first World War.

Though the three were from very different worlds, their activities and efforts to make the planet better would usher in what many would call the Silver Age of Heroes!

[designberko]

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett

One of my graphical book reviews as I read through Time Magazine’s Top 100 ALL-TIME Novels list.

[haveusmelledthisperfume]

Have you smelled this perfume?

Nina Ricci, grandmother of the founder of Juliette Has a Gun perfumes, is known for gorgeous bottles with fun, youthful scents inside. Most iconic are her apple-shaped bottles, starting with the eponymous Nina from 2006.

[toruandmidori]

Part of our “As Worn By…” range - featuring replicas of obscure, vintage or handmade shirts worn by iconic singers and bands such as Nirvana, Guns and Roses and more!

A cool, subtle alternative to band shirts. Perfect gifts for gig heads and music lovers.

Check out the full range here, individual links below: 

EAT THE WORM (AXL ROSE - GUNS AND ROSES)

CORPORATE MAGAZINES STILL SUCK (KURT COBAIN - NIRVANA)

[privatelivebait]

This is not a dig at you Erika, I'm very glad you like the look of them. I concede that a named character, the weapons teams and the siege guns are nice but the rest... look at how they've massacred my boys...

KRIEG ARMY SET!!!!

IM SO EXCITED FOR THE ENGINEERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[eiilese]

what if the strawhats had different roles on the ship⁉️ i swapped everyone’s roles except for luffy because i can’t imagine him being anything but the captain

these are loose redesigns since their canon designs don’t really read as their roles all that much to begin with. some extra doodles and ideas for this in the cut !!

nami, vice captain: i took a lot of inspiration from her beta design!! canon nami already bosses everyone around so she fits right into the role. she wields an extendable staff (usopp still makes it for her); she lost her arm over the time-skip like how zoro lost his eye. i LOVE drawing cargo pants and boots, so she ended up with a sorta bottom-heavy design. frankly it’s probably not her style but i like how she looks

zoro, the cook: my foolproof logic is zoro uses swords = good with knives. he does not use katanas to cut produce however, just normal knives. i was trying to go for “sweaty ramen guy” with the towel around his neck. the majority of the shit he cooks would probably be drowned in alcohol. he also wears his bandana the majority of the time now!! it completes the ramen guy look

sanji, the sniper: i also took inspiration from his beta design for this!!! he has guns!! and perfect aim of course. i was going for more of a mafioso look so germa 66 would be like, a mafia organization on top of all the other villain shit they already do. he has two guns but i didn’t draw a holster bc that’s annoying🤞 he lights his cigarettes with his guns. how would that even work? don’t ask me

usopp, the navigator: his artistic talent lends itself to creating perfect maps! he also still tinkers, making nami’s staff as well as having a specialty for compasses. he uses a slingshot still (no perfect aim we gotta nerf him) and shoots weather-related projectiles. his goggles serve as binoculars, they can zoom to several different distances. i drew him in his zou outfit purely bc it’s my favorite one

chopper, the helmsman: he would predominately use heavy point while maneuvering the wheel. i changed his hat up to look more like a sailor’s cap, with an anchor symbol instead of an X. to be honest i don’t have much else bc helmsman doesn’t bring much to my mind :(

franky, the musician: ROCK N ROLL BABY YEEAHHH come on his stage presence is unmatched. he’s still a cyborg, he has instruments all over his body like apoo does but they were installed manually. his personality changes depending on what genre he’s playing but rock n roll is his default B) (ex. classical calls for a refined gentleman)

robin, the shipwright: her devil fruit gives her as many helpful hands as she needs! she developed nami’s arm (definitely installed some random shit she did Not ask for). she has a robot mecha that she’s able to pilot all by herself using clones. i changed her orange sunglasses to goggle eyewear

brook, the doctor: the irony of being nursed back to health by a literal skeleton 💀the irony of being the doctor of the rumbar pirates yet being the only survivor, saving no one from the poison 💀 i went for a plague doctor look! IM VERY HAPPY WITH HOW HE TURNED OUT i was really tempted to give him the plague mask too, but i feel that would’ve changed his appearance too much compared to the others

jinbei, the archaeologist: the shape of this man demands a little pair of round glasses on his face. he’s an intellectual i tell you!!! plus still a fishman karate master. the history of joyboy and fishman island being so intertwined is how he developed an interest in history

[readwritealldayallnight]

Learning

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x Reader

wc: 1k words

warnings/tags: fluff

“Said it would’ve made too much of a mess. Waste o’ his money.” Simon says, slopping another spoonful of pumpkin guts into the large bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. Your usual table cloth has been switched out with an array of this weeks newspaper, the black and white print covered in the sticky remnants of your idea of fun on a Friday before Halloween.

“Not even one?” You attempt to pose the question casually, hoping to disguise the sadness in your tone, concealing the way your heart breaks at the thought of a young Simon Riley having never carved a pumpkin, his father not even allowing him to partake in that simple tradition so many others enjoy.

“S’alright, lovie.” He says, seeing right through you and recognizing the hurt you hold for him, an indication of your longing to only see love and joy in his life. If only you knew that’s everything you give him. “Did watch a mate o’ mine shoot his pellet gun at some pumpkins one year, if that makes you feel any better.”

You roll your eyes at his attempt to make you laugh, digging your spoon a little harder into the sides of your own gourd as if it were the one to have wronged you.

“Well then I’m glad I ignored you and got them anyways.” You declare, giving each pumpkin a loving little pat on its side. Simon had told you outside the grocery store, seeing your eyes land on the bright orange displays outside the shop, that they weren’t necessary.

But the both of you knew he would never deny you anything you wanted, and so he ended up carrying the two large pumpkins under each bicep and to the car himself, not letting you lift a finger.

“How’s the inside of yours looking?” You ask him, coming around to his side of the table, affectionately running a hand through the strands of hair at the base of his skull, glancing into the pumpkin he tilts in your direction for you to see. You can feel a shiver go through him at your touch, a soft sigh leaving his lips.

You’re glad he’s home with you, where he can relax, allow his biggest stresses to be his girlfriend ogling his arms as he carved open the tops of pumpkins and gutted them with efficiency.

“You’d have to tell me, love, but I think that’s as empty as it’s gettin’.” He emphasizes by tapping his spoon on the side of the sphere, listening to the dull, hollow echo it gives.

“Looks perfect. Nice work, Simon.” You tell him, planting a quick kiss to his cheek before hopping back over to your seat, leaving him looking a few shades redder than before. “Know what you’re gonna carve?”

“It’s- it’s just a face, innit?” At your question, Simon finds himself pausing. He might have had a different childhood than most, but he wasn’t daft, he knew what a jack o lantern was supposed to look like. Carved eyes, a wicked grin or large frown, sometimes even a nose in between them both.

He didn’t consider himself to be a crafty person, but he’d been a butcher for crying out loud, he could carve some shapes into a pumpkin until it resembled a face, no problem. So why are you asking him about what he’s going to carve.

“Well yeah, that’s the go to, for sure. A classic.” You reassure him, noticing the slight tension returning to his shoulders. “You can carve a face, my love. Some people just do different, they get creative with it.” Shrugging, you grab the marker you’d set aside, beginning to map out the lines for where you plan on carving your own design. You’re distracted, eyes darting between your sketching and your phone where you’ve got the inspiration photo pulled up for reference.

You don’t notice Simon’s eyes squinting ever so slightly at you before darting to the pumpkin in front of him. ‘Get creative with it’? Is that what you’re doing? Is that what you’re expecting him to do? Hoping he’ll do? He glances over at you again and notices you’ve got a bloody reference photo and everything??

He finds his cheeks beginning to burn for a different reason now, feeling stupid over not realizing you could carve more than the standard jack o lantern faces as a tradition. Obviously, you can carve anything you want into a fuckin’ pumpkin, he just didn’t know, he hasn’t done this before, and now he’s gone from feeling almost confident to worried he’s about to make a fool out of himself over something as childish as this.

“Simon.” You say, always more in tune with him than he realizes. “It’s okay, carve anything you want. I’m excited to see what you make.” You smile warmly at him across the table, a small socked foot going to nudge his ankle as well. “Believe it or not, this is supposed to be fun.”

He scoffs at your joke but doesn’t fight the smile that etches onto his face in return. He accepts your distraction when you ask if you should put on some music in the background, walking towards the record player. As he flips through the stack of vinyls, he thinks about just that, what he could possibly carve into that bloody orange sphere sat on his kitchen table, that would be fun.

Searching through any memories he considers as being ‘fun’, he finds a common factor: you. And there’s one more reoccurring element sewn into the fabric of those treasured memories as well: your laughter.

With that in mind, it’s actually quite easy for Simon to decide on what he’ll do finally. And almost an hour later, after you’ve put your blood, sweat and tears into your own pumpkin carving and deciding that the results ended up being just meh, Simon has decided that he’s undeniably the winner of the evening when he spins his creation around and has you nearly crying with laughter, insisting between wheezed breaths that he’s going to make you pee your pants, only leading to Simon’s own laughter bellowing out.

Not too bad for his first time learning.

~~~~~~~~~~

(The kind of pumpkin I’ve decided Ghost would carve 😂)

[radiantrookie]

SEGA Mandates explained with their exceptions

Game characters cannot have family members unless they were established in the game canon (Because Archie went overboard).

Game characters cannot be killed off.

Sonic cannot cry or get too emotional.

Exception: Sonic Prime didn't follow this rule despite being canon.

The terms Mobius and Mobians are banned, during the early 2010s, Earth was called "Sonic's World" because they wanted to appeal to 90s Boomers who hate Sonic living on Earth without calling it Mobius, it died down later though.

Exception: Ian Flynn has stated SEGA recanonized Sonic Spinball, which takes place in Mobius, so it exists somewhere in game canon, Veg-O-Fortress even has a cameo in Sonic Origins, Ian also stated Spinball takes place in between Sonic 3 and Knuckles and Sonic 3D Blast.

The heroes must always win at the end.

Characters and elements from Non Canon media cannot be used, Cosmo and the Metarex were potentially allowed to appear but according Ian Flynn, they're off the table now, the Metal Virus serves as a replacement for Robotization, Eggperial City serves as a replacement for Robotropolis, Restoration serves as a replacment for the Freedom Fighters.

Exceptions:

Sonic liking Chili Dogs (90s Cartoons)

Eggman's "I hate that Hedgehog!" and "Snooping as usual" lines (Aosth)

Scratch and Grounder appear in Eggman's livestream in one of the covers for IDW 40

Sonic's "Let's do it, to it" line (Satam)

Sonic being referred to as the "Fastest thing alive" (Satam)

Sonic Spinball being canon again, somwhat canonizes Sally, Bunnie, Rotor, Muttski and Scratch, Ian Flynn has clarified they're just cameos for now but could be a backdoor to make them canon if SEGA chooses to (Aosth, Satam, Archie)

In one of the covers for IDW 31, Storm's mugshot mentions he was arrested by the Knothole Village Police (Satam, Archie)

Tails being afraid of lightning (OVA)

Knuckles's cowboy hat (OVA)

Vector's crush on Vanilla (Sonic X)

Cream's favorite show, the NEXT Show (Sonic X)

The Chaotix Office building appears in the Sonic Channel Comics (Sonic X)

Sticks the Badger appears in the Sonic Channel Comics and is mentioned in English Sonic Frontiers (Sonic Boom)

The Eggnet has been canonized in both IDW and the Games (Archie)

The GUN Commander's name, Abraham Tower (Archie)

Bark being mute (Archie)

Bean and Bark working with Fang as a trio, Sonic even calls them the Hooligans (Archie)

Sally and Bunnie cameo in one of the Sonic Forces prequel comics with their Archie designs (Archie)

Shadow's Chaos Spear being shaped like an actual spear that he can throw or use as a melee weapon (Archie)

Badniks from Sonic Mega Drive appear in Classic IDW (Archie)

The term, Super Badnik (Archie)

Male characters that aren't humans, can't wear pants.

Exception: Tails Nine is allowed to wear pants.

Classic Era characters aren't allowed to appear in Modern Era and vice versa, during the 2010s there was the Two Dimensions retcon because of it, however they later removed it, Team Chaotix are also not allowed to appear in Classic because they considered Sonic Heroes to be their first appearance, however Knuckles Chaotix was recanonized in Tailstube, in the same episode, they acknowledge Mighty, Ray and Fang's Gang and teased a Modern Trip, recently, SEGA is considering retiring Classic Sonic after the disappointment of Sonic Superstars.

Exception: a Classic Froggy appears in various Sonic PICT artwork

Only one Metal Sonic is allowed, not multiple (They must really dislike Shard and Metallix)

Exceptions:

Metal Sonic 3.0 from Sonic Rivals 2

Chaos Sonic and Grim Sonic from Sonic Prime were allowed

Shadow: He has the most guidelines out of any character, most of them come from SEGA wanting Shadow to remain an Anti-Hero and not be too heroic, however SEGA has easied up on these with Shadow Generations

Knuckles: Knuckles is the only Echidna and only resident of Angel Island besides Chao and Baby Animals, (Ken Penders lol), Knuckles is also not allowed leave Angel Island without a reason now, prolly due to critiques with games like Heroes

Silver: Silver's Future is off limits, only SEGA can explore that, if they ever choose to

Super Forms: Male hedgehogs are the only ones allowed to go Super, this has been changed with Sonic Superstars and Otherworld Comedy.

Humans: Due to complaints from 90s Boomers, Humans besides Eggman weren't allowed until Shadow Generations

Romance: Characters can have crushes but they can't date or get married.

Money: Only Team Chaotix can talk about money

Rings: Ian Flynn was told Rings were no longer canon, however Rings appear in Sonic Prime and cutscenes in The Final Horizon, which Ian didn't know about

Special Stages: No longer canon and Fang's bio of living in the Special Stages is retconned

Off Limits Characters: These characters can only be used by SEGA/Sonic Team only:

Eggman Nega

Black Doom

Solaris (Mephiles and Iblis)

Infinite

[chocodile]

Worldbuilding time! Let's talk about vehicular travel in modern day Amaranthine, using the snowmobiles from this recent comic as a jumping off point.

"Prowler" - Ironfrost patrol snowmobile - (year of manufacture: 1912)

These half-track all terrain vehicles are used by Ironfrost soldiers to travel long distances over the tundra. Originally adapted from older, four-wheeled automobiles, the half-track Prowler design became increasingly standardized over the years as eternal winter continued to creep southward. They are capable of operating in a wide variety of terrain conditions and are fairly modular. Common mods include removable skis, hardtop and softtop roofs, gun mounts, and towing attachments.

Like all vehicles, Prowlers are steam-powered. The external combustion engine runs on kerosene. In snowy conditions, feedwater can be obtained automatically through a scraper port on the underside of the vehicle, though manual feeding is required in muddy or dry conditions.

Though not as fast, reliable, or efficient as trains, their agile nature have made them an essential part of life in the far north… and, increasingly, in the middle country as well. The Rising Dawn have stolen several Prowlers for their own usage.

"Aspire" - Classic automobile (year of manufacture: 1890)

Four-wheeled vehicles are an unusual sight in the modern day. Ironfrost-made cars were in vogue among the southern rim upper class for many years, but the worsening climate has made them more and more niche as road conditions outside of major cities deteriorate. The majority of higher horsepower automobiles were converted directly into half tracks, while older, lower-end vehicles were generally scrapped for parts.

The Aspire was the last four-wheeled vehicle widely available to the public. Advertised as a stylish, powerful, modern vehicle for the elite on the go, it boasted a sleek, classy aesthetic, a removable softtop roof, and a powerful steam engine with a large kerosene tank suitable for travel between cities. Preorders were advertised to southern rim wealthy in local papers. However, a series of unusually bad winters soon after its debut scared off buyers, shutting down production early and ultimately spelling doom for the entire four-wheeled automobile industry.

One of those Aspire preorders went to Baroness Jocosa North. Though she has since passed away, her son, Theopolis North, still maintains the now wildly impractical car in near mint condition. It is almost never seen outside of its garage.

"'Icebreaker' Class E 250" - Northern cross-country train (year of manufacture: 1903)

The majority of modern-day overland travel is accomplished via train. Massive long-distance rail lines, laid before the world became quite so cold, connect the remaining cities, allowing (relatively) safe travel and trade across vast expanses of tundra.

Southerly locomotives typically operate with only a basic wedge plow attachment. However, trains that run further north must be fitted with gigantic rotary snowplows. These complex machines require significant maintenance. Though they can and will chew up most things that get in the train's way, encounters with particularly large and bony beasts have been known to jam them.

Ironfrost's line terminates in a massive, sprawling rail yard where Icebreakers are fitted and maintained. Those who have visited it tell of a dark, dreary wasteland of twisted scrap metal and ice where coal dust and smoke have turned both the sky and ground black. All northern trains must pass through that place eventually.

"Chariot of the Dawn" - One-of-a-kind luxury automobile (year of manufacture: 1920)

The only place where four-wheeled automobiles still thrive is the City of the Sun. The eternal summers and paved roads are well-suited to cars and trolleys, though they are, of course, still something of a luxury good. Licenses for ownership and operation are ultimately controlled by the church, with His Radiance having the final say. (His most devout followers, of course, tend to get preferential treatment here.)

The City of the Sun manufactures its own vehicles, adapted from Ironfrost designs in a sort of divergent evolution. Freed from the road and weather concerns of the outside world, their automobiles favor sleek, swoopy body shapes, ornamental trim, low-slung bodies with limited ground clearance, and pastel paintjobs. Additionally, the engines are far less powerful and far more finicky, requiring regular maintenance.

His Radiance himself owns several custom automobiles, all of which are egregiously bedazzled to a degree that would look grotesque to anyone who wasn't used to it. Some are open-top, allowing his loyal followers an audience with his beautiful face and glittering halo, while others feature tinted windows. You know, in case he wants subtlety.

[ybklix]

BROOKLYN BABY

★ pairing: rockstarbf!hyunjin x fem!reader

✦summary: Your boyfriend’s pretty cool, plays guitar and is in a popular band. You love to support him, yet you can't help but feel jealous and insecure at the sight of all his fans and the groupies the rest of the members bring backstage.

✭ content - tags - warnings: MDNI, smut, established relationship, fluff, fingering, oral sex

word count: 3.7k

•masterlist•

♡ inspiration:

a/n: happy late ultraviolence day, my fav album, no one loves her like i do lolol, so here’s a little smth, i'll write more inspired by the rest of the songs omg i love my fav child

Hyunjin was a romantic, unlike the rest of his band members, who enjoyed the excess, success and fame that grew more and more every day. He was in charge of writing each of the songs that thrilled thousands of teenagers since he had such an idealized perception of love and loved to romanticize every detail as well as he was in charge of designing each artistic design of the album because of his skills in drawing and painting, he was a sensitive artist, born under a water sign, trying to give the image of a tough and sexy guy for the good of the band. His position was to be the lead guitarist and backing voice for the lead vocalist, yet everyone in the band contributed vocally, grabbing the audience like no other band in that year in the nineties. The crazy nineties, everyone loved rock and roll with the same intensity as the seventies and this time more styles were explored. Everyone loved your boyfriend's band.

You were lucky enough to meet him when they were still newbies with big dreams performing in bars, where Hyunjin claims to have fallen in love with you at first sight, however, his shyness got the best of him and he didn't dare to talk to you and, it wasn't until a month later that, in a jazz club in Brooklyn, in one of the poetry sessions and nights, almost by fate, he met you again, he couldn't miss the opportunity and finally approached you, he seemed so cute and strangely his face seemed so familiar to you, it was about the handsome guitarist you saw once.

Hyunjin didn't have a specific favorite band, he took inspiration from the greats, he enjoyed everything from Nirvana to Guns n' Roses, to classics like Led Zeppelin, he was frequently talking to you on the phone to tell you about his obsession of the week musically, the most recent one, Chris Isaak. Two months ago he started his official tour around the country, which you couldn't accompany him no matter how much you wanted to, the university stopped you. Yet you still supported him from afar and watched every TV show he went on and every radio station with his interviews, you were so happy for him. His most recent appearance was on MTV, he looked like a celebrity, but he was still your sweet and tender Jinnie. And finally he was coming back to close the tour at his hometown in New York City, where it all started for you.

You, unlike Hyunjin, were more down to earth, honest and not afraid to stand up for your beliefs, so you studied law, with an uncontrollable passion for shy lyrics. In contrast to your parents, both rock and roll lovers, artists, your mother was a tarot amateur and identified herself as a spiritual person, your father a landscape painter, both met at a music festival the same amount of years ago as your older brother's age, a Manhattan novelist; yet you grew up in an environment where support was always constant and your personality developed being totally different from your boyfriend's, bold and daring, born under a sign of fire.

You loved Hyunjin, together you were literally like fire and water, and finally you could see him again after so long, you missed him too much, you missed when his band was still small and you spent days in his apartment watching him play the guitar, how he held you by the waist and kissed your neck while you combed your hair to go to college, every little detail that from one day to another changed.

Because of your schedule you couldn't meet your boyfriend at the airport and you could barely stand in the front row, waiting for them to come out and play. You wanted to go backstage to wish him luck, run into his arms and kiss him, after so long and only surviving on phone calls. But, for the first time you were terrified to be in the crowd and you didn't want to lose your place in the front row next to your boyfriend's position, although you thought for seconds if you should go closer and watch the concert from backstage… you were so indecisive and you never visualized your boyfriend's manager to authorize you to enter… you pouted and in a matter of minutes the venue was filling up more, you noticed how, among the crowd and entering easily, three girls were standing next to you. You couldn't help but notice them, they were wearing skirts and cleavage-baring tops, their eyeliner was sharp and perfect, you felt a little inferior and slightly less attractive for a second.

And the show started, the lights went down, and you heard your boyfriend's guitar, the people started to scream and your heart accelerated, the lights turned on, illuminating individually each one of the four members and, among them was your boyfriend, looking as good as always, his long black hair, his red guitar and wearing a gray sleeveless shirt attached to his body with ripped jeans and black combat boots, you noticed he was wearing the necklace you gave him before he went away from you to start the tour and… suddenly your world came to a standstill, there was only Hyunjin in front of you, doing what he is most passionate about.

Hyunjin, once he started to play, he looked for you with his eyes without stopping until he found you in front of him, his smile got bigger, he was smiling like he had never done in another concert, he felt so full. He winked at you and continued with his show, moving his fingers with agility, a young and gifted guitarist with talent, so did Rolling Stone described him in a small article; a little more than an arduous hour of concert later, Hyunjin finished agitated and slightly sweaty and, among the emotion, the only thing he asked to make the night more beautiful, was to be able to hug you. Until he finally did it, he had to go backstage with the rest of the group, but his manager took care to guide you discreetly to the room behind the stage, at the same time you noticed the same three girls next to you walking next to you, to which you understood instantly that they were groupies, you sighed, you could not help but get upset at the fleeting thought that… maybe Hyunjin has had his own groupie before.

Among the darkness of the venue, you finally found the light, the lit room and, there, your boyfriend standing there with a nervous smile waiting for you, your jealousy vanished in seconds, you couldn't be mad at him, he looked so cute with his little sparkling eyes and a shirt over his shoulders trying to dry his sweat. You ran to him and hugged him no matter how soaked he was, it was part of his routine. You felt his lean frame next to your body and warm chest bump against yours, oh, Hyunjin, you had missed him too much.

“I missed you” Hyunjin spoke, his chin resting on your shoulder, holding you tightly.

“I missed you, too” you replied breathlessly, you were so excited to see him.

You slowly pulled apart and he had to kiss you, so he took your face in his hands and did it delicately and passionately, in such a unique way he knew how to do it.

You both smiled at each other as you pulled apart.

“You should have come with me next time, oh god, the west coast is… so different, I think we should move to California once you finish college, love. They offered me a house in Hollywood” Hyunjin blurted out suddenly excited and overstimulated to have you near him.

You laughed softly at his adorable reaction, the way his cheeks went up, narrowing his eyes more, his smile, hiding his upper lip and showing his teeth, ready to speak again.

“I have an interview for Rolling Stone in a few minutes, but after that I'm all yours, I promise, let's get you to say hi to the guys” Hyunjin spoke softly taking you by the hand.

You happily walked into the place, but your smile faded as you saw one of the girls wildly kissing the lead vocalist, Han, on one of the couches while she was sitting on his lap. Another girl on the drummer's lap as he sat behind the instrument and the bassist talking animatedly with another girl.

“Hey, guys” you said shyly trying not to interrupt something.

The members came out of their trances and greeted you.

“Do you want something to drink?” Hyunjin tried to distract you with a tender smile.

“I'll get it, love” you smiled at Hyunjin giving him a quick kiss on his full lips and headed to the drink table.

Hyunjin made himself comfortable on an elongated couch, alone, and waiting for you.

“And you, Hyunjin, if you had the chance to smoke and chat with any singer who would it be with?” one of the girls came dangerously close to Hyunjin, plopping down on the couch very close to him, placing her hand on his thigh.

You turned around, with the two drinks in your hands and suddenly saw the scene of the girl near your boyfriend, making you squint your eyes in annoyance.

“I don't smoke. I don't know… Steven Tyler maybe” stood Hyunjin uncomfortably and walked to your direction, giving you a tender smile and taking one of the glasses.

“God, his daughter is beautiful, we saw her at that club in L.A., didn't we? A pretty, educated girl” added Chris, the drummer.

“The correct answer is Bon Jovi, he's too good looking, who wouldn't want to talk to him?” commented Changbin, the bass player.

Los Angeles, you thought, just California that Hyunjin told you so passionately about a few moments ago… you couldn't help but think of ideas not good at all, you were jealous, upset and a little hurt. You knew Hyunjin would never do anything to hurt you… or would he?

You looked at him, he understood your look instantly, he knew you as well as every string of his favorite precious guitar and tried to pull you away from them, taking you to his dressing room, ready to calm you down and be more in privacy. Hyunjin knew you were easily angered, you tried to be a cute and docile girlfriend but you couldn't. He recognized your annoyed expression, making him bite his lip undecided what to say.

“Those girls are always with you?” you spat annoyed.

“Y/n…” tried to reassure you Hyunjin.

“Hyunjin have you been with a groupie?” you blurted out suddenly staring him straight in the eyes defiantly.

You weren't thinking clearly, anger took over you, you were aware that it happened every time they finished a concert, or at least you want to think it's like that for the rest of the members who are single, but seeing it with your own eyes made your blood boil at the thought of a girl near your boyfriend trying to seduce him. The life of a rock star girlfriend wasn't for you, you wanted Hyunjin all to yourself.

“You know I wouldn't do that… I waited every day for you, I thought every day about you” Hyunjin replied, taking your glass and leaving it on a small table over there just like his drink.

Hyunjin searched for your gaze, you didn't want to see him, you were behaving a bit childish but his words could be a lie, after all he was a rising star. He grabbed your forearm, squeezing them gently between his large hands and you turned to look at him. His tender but manly face of compassion, his thick eyebrows making the slightest expression of concern, if you didn't love him too much you would have trust issues, but you believed Hyunjin blindly.

You approached up to him and hugged him, he reciprocated the happy gesture, your heartbeats joining and the closeness of your body, Hyunjin was so in love that if there was a way to make you do it clearly, he would do it without thinking. Sex was not enough, he wanted to live inside you forever and he was so passionate about it that he wrote countless songs, you were his muse and the great love of his life.

You stood on your tiptoes and brought your arms up to wrap around his neck with a smile.

“Tomorrow, let's go to your favorite place in Greenwich Village, okay?” you said to him, letting your frustrations pass you by.

Hyunjin raised his eyebrows excitedly and smiled sweetly without showing his teeth.

“I'm dying to go… and to kiss you and make love to you while we play an Audrey Hepburn movie in the background…” he said slowly and flirtatiously, holding you tighter around the waist and leering at you from above.

You laughed softly as you remembered the first time you fucked in his apartment, where he promised a romantic movie date and ended up frantically pounding your pussy as he cummed in you.

Hyunjin leaned further into you, closing his eyes and kissing you fiercely, after a little over a minute, his sizzling kisses suddenly turned you on, making you weak in his arms. You hadn't had sex with Hyunjin for two long months, at this point you thought it was even abstinence, you needed him.

He continued to tease you with his deep, slow kisses as he groped your body and brazenly ran his hands under your dress, reaching down to your bare bottom wearing only panties and massaged your ass hard. You were starting to feel a mess of emotions, but luckily this time you finally had your boyfriend with you.

Hyunjin continued to squeeze you tightly, drawing you to his body and this time feeling that he was the same way you were, aroused. Hyunjin found his way to bring his dominant hand to your entrance, making you open your mouth slightly in a soft moan between the kiss. He pulled inches away from you, almost still almost touching your lips and you saw how attractive your boyfriend looked with his slightly intimidating gaze and fuller lips from your passionate kisses.

“I missed you so much” he said excitedly, nimbly pushing aside the fabric of your panties for better access to your area.

You lowered your hands from his neck and held onto his abdomen. Hyunjin was more turned on by the slight difficulty in caressing your pussy because you were standing still. You felt his long, slender, slightly raspy fingers, due the strings of his guitar, stroking along your tight, compressed folds and you spread your legs wider trying to facilitate his caresses, Hyunjin smirked smugly at the sight of you horny, licking his lips.

“Do you like it, love?” he sighed amused and excited.

You nodded awkwardly and didn't stop looking into his eyes for a second, but your peripheral vision caught perfectly his long arm guided in your area, you were losing more and more strength, every touch of Hyunjin made you lose your sanity, he was so skilled with his hands and fingers, after all he was a talented guitarist, you wanted to fuck him so desperately, to feel filled by him after such a long time. You didn't think about it and your hand also went to his prominent bulge, rubbing it gently, this time driving your boyfriend crazy. You stroked and squeezed the denim, he was so hard and at the same time his cock was so soft and slick, it always felt good.

Hyunjin sped up his rubbing on your clitoris, making you tremble a little, he leaned towards you bringing his foreheads together and looking at you sweetly.

“Do you want me to fuck you with my fingers, my sweet angel?” he said, as you felt his hot, heavy breathing hit your face.

“Yes” you moaned in between breaths.

Your boyfriend smiled sweetly, so innocent almost like he didn't seem to know exactly the distance from your labia to your entrance, slipping two of his fingers easily into your tight, wet hole. He gently fingered you, enjoying your caresses on his erection and being in control of your pleasure, occasionally looking smugly to his right side as you were in front of the mirror, watching your body tremble before him, but it was becoming increasingly difficult for you to stand, so your boyfriend, concerned looked for an immediate solution, looking at his dressing room chair.

“Sit down. Let me taste you, love” he whispered in your ear, gently pulling his hand away from you.

You were about to do so but a voice near you, interrupted you.

“Hyunjiiiin, come out, where are you? The Rolling Stone fuckers are about to arrive” you heard a rather familiar voice shout, as it slowly approached.

Hyunjin opened his eyes in fright, causing you tenderness, followed by a gasp of frustration.

“Shit, I can't show up to the interview like this” he groaned in frustration.

You looked at your boyfriend's large and noticeable erection in his pants, and you again directed your hand on it squeezing it gently and looked him submissively in the eyes.

“Let me help you, Jinnie” you said seductively, stroking his bulge to which he moaned.

“B-but” he was about to protest.

“Shh” you silenced him, giving him a quick kiss and a cocky grin.

And with no time to waste you got down on your knees in front of his cock, you were so aroused, your pussy was throbbing hard and your throat was suddenly dry and ready to be filled with boyfriend's stiff member. You loved giving him blowjobs, his cock was exquisitely long and Hyunjin always knew how to use it with agility at every strategic spot on you, he knew you so well. You nimbly pulled down his pants and underwear finding his well standing and sensitive manhood, your boyfriend whimpered, yes, he was excited to see you too.

You grasped the base of his penis with your right hand and gently held his balls with your other hand, you raised your gaze to Hyunjin, who was pressing his lips tightly together letting himself be carried away by your touches. You ran your hand over his slightly tanned cock, your mouth was salivating more and more and your poor pussy was also reacting for your boyfriend's erect cock. You had forgotten how it was the last time you sucked him off and you were more than happy to be able to do it again. You gently spat on its tip and lubed it further, jerking it off in the process, feeling its slippery, slightly rough texture; Hyunjin was panting hard, letting out deep sighs and moans from his chest, a completely vocal boy.

You stuck out your tongue a little and opened your mouth to flick his big piece of organ on your needed tongue, tasting a little of his nice white precum, until finally introducing it little by little in your mouth, making sure your lips also felt what was yours, Hyunjin's big cock, all yours. He was big and with a very good thickness, always filling your insides to overflowing, to your limit; you had it all with him, he was cute, romantic and gave you the best orgasms.

Hyunjin whimpered at the feeling of the inside of your soft cheeks caressing his cock and immediately held onto your hair delicately without pulling it.

“Aggh, sweetheart, it feels so good” he gasped.

“Hyunjin, where the fuck are you man?” they shouted again.

“Fuck” gasped your boyfriend frustrated by the situation and the tightness of his cock in your mouth.

You also felt the pressure, your blood flow rushing harder and your heart racing, you had to make your boyfriend cum fast; so you started sucking him hard and keeping a little faster pace than usual, back and forth, taking all his swollen and throbbing length expertly.

“Hyunjin” you heard again a call in the distance. “Hyunjin come out, the Rolling Stone magazine people are here.”

“I'm coming” he squealed out loud in a shuddering whimper, completely lost from the stimulation of his cock in your mouth, “I'm literally coming, what the fuck” moaned Hyunjin biting his lip and taking more tightly your hair, intensifying your movements, fucking your mouth wildly.

You felt your boyfriend's climax near, so he didn't hesitate to feel the bottom of your throat, pushing hard on your head until you felt his tickling glans rubbing your throat as your boyfriend gave gentle lunges, you whimpered on his cock, your eyes quickly watered, you couldn't breathe somehow and, after a few seconds, he pushed you away a little. Finally, you saw his head falling back, his thighs quivering and his perfect abdomen contracting as he babbled excitedly and barely understandable your name. Until you felt his glorious shot of cum in your mouth, filling you completely; Hyunjin always cum in one strong shot and then his cum kept coming slowly so you waited to have it all in you. He subtly stopped holding your hair tightly and gently pushed your head off his member; resulting in the obscene image of his shiny, lubricated cock spurting out of your mouth as more of his liquid fell to the floor.

You swallowed your boyfriend's thick, white liquid and stood up quickly, Hyunjin was trying to steady himself and think clearly again, but you recognized that he was in a hurry, that was the main reason you were sucking him fast and hard so he would ejaculate fast and also the reason you tried to quench your fiery desire and arousal, he had to continue being a rock star and doing rock star things.

“Come on, Hyunjin you have to go out” you told him.

Your boyfriend gently shook his head as he stared at you and reacted instantly, rearranging his cock back into his underwear and pulling up his pants, you watched the scene cheekily biting your lip, even without him being hard, you could clearly see the big package your boyfriend was hiding in his pants, you blushed and once again thought of all the fucking groupies fantasizing about fucking him.

Hyunjin took your face in his hands and made you look into his eyes, his sharp dark eyes that made him look so intimidating, if only they knew he was the most tender and you had him in the palm of your hand, so docile and obedient.

“I promise to reward you, okay?” he whispered, pressing a kiss to your forehead, “Thank you for that, love, I love you.”

You nodded softly even with his grip on your cheeks, you watched him lovingly. And you watched him walk away, ready to go back to being the shining star Hwang Hyunjin.

[ultravi0lence14]

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

DEAN WINCHESTER X DEMON!READER

WARNINGS: angst, before dean and lil monster got together, bloody chaos

SUMMARY: little monster is new to the bunker, new to living with sam and dean. all she wants to do is show dean she is not a bad person, but the eldest won’t budge.

WC: 889

LITTLE MONSTER’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES

dean sighs, his hands balling into fists as he hears the annoyingly loud classical music blaring from your room. why did sam allow you to stay with them? why did he allow you to buy that freakish gramophone from the thrift store, along with dusty old records of soundless tunes that were fit for a gothic waltz.

you were weird, probably the most freaky person dean had ever come in contact with. he knew a lot of demons — hell, he’s killed a lot of demons, but you were. . . different.

he wanted to kill you, badly did he want to drive the demon killing blade into your chest. but something deep inside of him wouldn’t allow it. and it was pissing him off because you were pissing him off.

the bug obsession was just gross; always coming inside with new insects inside of jars, curating them to put into shadow boxes. it was disturbing, and dean had to shield his eyes whenever he reluctantly went into your room.

your room was a enigma that dean didn’t even want to interrupt. all the bugs, dead animal bones (he hopes), jars filled with trophies you took from supernatural creatures you killed; it was all so morbid, and dean saw enough death in his life to have a room in his home dedicated to it.

he was expecting you to turn on him and sam, a ploy that was ready to swing into full motion at any moment. you were the first angel turned demon for christ’s sake, lucifer’s second hand when he battled michael. why should he and his brother trust that you wouldn’t turn on them.

the pleading and forced explanations were getting tiring. you tried to explain to dean that lucifer had manipulated you, throwing you away when you weren’t needed and turning you into a demon for punishment. you tried to make him believe you were bullied in hell, that your bloodlust came from years of demons and death picking on you and making you believe you were nothing. it was so laughable, dean didn’t even listen anymore.

today had been dean’s final straw; he’d been cleaning his gun in his room, getting ready for a demon hunt a couple towns away when you knocked on his door. the distinctive knock you refused to let up rang through his ears, eliciting an eye roll from dean as he got up from his bed. when he swung his door open, a scowl on his face, he saw you standing in the threshold expectantly, a tiny music box perched in your palms as you stared up at him through your lashes.

the look on your face was mesmerizing, your hair falling down your back in long ebony waves. the long black sleeve shirt mixed with a black skirt had dean believing you were death itself, a beacon that grew rot and decay around them.

looking down at the item in your palms, he noticed that the music box had intricate designs on it. small butterflies and wilting flowers decorated the brass sides, a string of ivy going around the lid. it was beautiful, and dean couldn’t help but let his scowl let up.

“what’s that, little freak?” dean grit out, his hands gripping onto the doorframe as he noticed the mud caked on your knees.

pushing your hair behind your ear, dean got front row views to your razor sharp jaw, a line like the grim reapers scythe. “i was at the thrift store and found this, thought you’d like it.” you muttered, sock clad feet knocking against each other as dean’s stare penetrated your blackened soul. “i didn’t recognize the song that played, but it sounded like something you’d like.”

carefully taking it out of your hands, dean opened the box to hear a soft, yet piercing melody burst into his ears. it truly was beautiful, and he couldn’t find it in himself to hate you for thinking about him when you saw this.

“thanks.” he murmured, turning to place the item on his dresser. “now go get ready for the hunt, need that blood fein to come out and play tonight, little freak.”

you just nodded, mouth parting with words on your tongue before dean slammed the door in your face. he didn’t want you to see the turmoil in his eyes, the way he couldn’t justify hating you anymore.

dean couldn’t find all those hobbies you had disgusting anymore. the bugs were something he affiliated with you, a gross yet endearing tendency that dean realized he never really hated. the animal bones were also very you, alongside all your trophies which dean realized symbolized your loyalty to his and sam’s cause. you were killing supernatural creatures, not working with them.

and when the demon they were hunting solidified your story of being lucifer’s protege, a laughingstock in hell that got bullied for not being full angel, dean couldn’t help but slashing the vile creatures throat with his demon blade, watching as life drained from their eyes and blood filled with yours.

there were more demons left, and dean watched with awe and confusion as you slaughtered them all. dean didn’t know what the feeling he felt was, but he valued you like the bride of frankenstein; a beautiful and dark woman who loved destruction.

god, dean was screwed.

TAGS: @titsout4jackles @starzify @floralscented @deansbeer @bluemerakis @figthoughts @haunteres @foolinthera1n @deanangel

NAT BABBLES: another head canon post is in order bc bree and i cannot stop brainstorming prompts for our little monster!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Defense (of the internet) (from billionaires) in depth

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

The only way to truly billionaire-proof the internet is to a) abolish billionaires and b) abolish the system that allows people to become billionaires. Short of that, any levees we build will need constant tending, reinforcement, and re-evaluation.

That's normal. No security measure (including billionaire-proofing the internet) is a "set and forget" affair. Any time you want something and someone else wants the opposite, you are stuck in an endless game of attack and defense. The measures that block your adversary today will only work until your adversary changes tactics to circumvent your defenses.

For example, mining all the links on the internet to find non-spam sites worked brilliantly for Google, because until Pagerank, there were zero reasons for spammers to get links to point to their sites. Once Google became the dominant way of finding things on the internet, spammers invented the linkfarm. This principle can be summed up as "Show me a ten-foot wall and I'll show you an eleven-foot ladder."

Security designers address this with something called "defense in depth": that's a series of overlapping defenses that are meant to correct for one another's weaknesses. Your bank might use a password, a 2FA code, and – for extremely high-stakes transactions – a series of biographical questions posed by a human customer service over a telephone line.

I've written extensively about defending a new, good internet from billionaire enshittifiers. For example, in this post, I described how Bluesky could be made enshittification-resistant with the use of "Ulysses Pacts" – self-imposed, binding restrictions on enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

A classic example of a Ulysses Pact is "throwing away the Oreos when you go on a diet." Now, it doesn't take a lot of work to devise a countermeasure your future, Oreo-craving self can take to defeat this measure: just drive to the grocery store and buy more Oreos. This even works at 2AM, provided you live within driving distance of an all-night grocer.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't throw away those Oreos. Depending on how strong your Oreo craving is, even a little friction can help you resist the temptation to ruin your diet. We often do bad things because of momentary impulses that fade quickly, and simply airgapping the connection between thought and deed works surprisingly well in many instances.

This is why places with fewer guns have fewer suicides of all kinds: there are plenty of ways to kill yourself, but none are quite so quick and reliable as a gun. People in the grips of a suicidal impulse who don't have guns have more chances to let the impulse pass (this is also why gun control leads to fewer all-cause homicides). So just because a measure is imperfect, that doesn't make it worthless.

If you're trying to give up drinking, you throw away all your booze, but you also go to meetings, and you get a sponsor who can help you out with a 2AM phone call. You might even put a breathalyzer on your car's ignition system. None of these are impossible to defeat (you can get an Uber to the liquor store, after all), but they all create friction between the thing you want, and the thing your adversary (your addiction) is trying to get. They strengthen the hand of you as defender of the sober status quo, against the attacker who wants you to relapse.

Critically, all these defensive measures also buy you space and time that you can use to organize and deploy more defenses. Maybe the long Uber ride to the liquor store gives you enough time to think about your actions so you call your sponsor from the parking lot. Defense is useful even when it only slows your adversary, rather than stopping your adversary in their tracks.

Scaling up from personal defense to societal-scale security considerations, it's useful to think of this as a battle with four fronts: code (what is technically im/possible?), law (what is il/legal?), norms (what is socially un/acceptable?) and markets (what is un/profitable?). This framework was first raised a quarter-century ago, in Larry Lessig's Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Code_And_Other_Laws_of_Cyberspace_Version_2_0.pdf

Lessig laid out these four forces as four angles of attack that challengers to the status quo should plan their strategy around. If you want to liberalize copyright, you can try norms (the "Free Mickey" campaign), laws (the Eldred v. Ashcroft Supreme Court case), code (machine-readable Creative Commons licenses) and markets (open access/free software businesses). Each one of these helps the other – for example, if lots of people believe in copyright reform (norms), more of them will back a Humble Bundle for open access materials (markets), and more lawmakers will be interested in changing copyright statutes (law), and more hackers will see reason to do cool things with CC licenses, like search engines (code).

But the four forces aren't just for attackers seeking to disrupt the status quo – they're just as important for defenders looking to create and sustain a new status quo. Figuring out how to "lock a system open" is very different from figuring out how to "force a system open." But they're both campaigns waged with code, law, norms and markets.

We're living through a key moment in enshittification history. Millions of people have become dissatisfied with legacy social media companies run by despicable, fascism-friendly billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and are ready to leave, despite the costs (losing contact with friends who stay behind). While many of them are moving to group chats and private Discord servers,tens of millions have moved to new social media platforms that advertise (though they don't necessarily deliver) decentralization: Mastodon (and the fediverse) and Bluesky (and the atmosphere).

Decentralization is itself a defensive countermeasure (code). When a service has diffuse power, it's harder for any one person to take it over. Federation adds another defensive layer, because users who don't like the way one server is run can move to another server, with varying degrees of data- and identity-portability. That makes it harder for server owners to squeeze users to make money (markets), and gives them an out if server owners try it anyway.

Federation with decentralization is my favorite anti-enshittification defense. It's powerful as hell. It's the main reason I endorse Free Our Feeds, an effort to (among other things) build more Bluesky servers to decrease the centralization and give users dissatisfied with Bluesky management an alternative:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis

That said, decentralization and federation are not perfect, set-and-forget defenses. Take email – the oldest, most successful federated system of them all. Email is nominally decentralized, but most email traffic goes through a handful of extremely large servers run by a cartel of companies (Google, Apple, Microsoft, and a few ISPs). These companies collude (or, more charitably, coordinate) to block email from non-cartel companies, in the name of fighting spam. This makes running your own mail server so hard that it is nearly impossible (that is, if you care about people actually receiving the email you send them):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/10/dead-letters/

What's interesting about enshittified email is that it didn't start with corporate takeover: it started with volunteer-maintained blocklists of untrustworthy servers that most email operators subscribed to, defederating from any server that appeared on the list. These blocklists of bad servers were opaque (often, their maintainers would operate anonymously, citing the threat of retaliation from criminal scammers whose servers appeared on the list). They had little or no appeal process, and few or no objective criteria for inclusion (you could be blocklisted for how your email server was configured, even if no one was using it to send spam). All of this set up the conditions to favor large email servers, and also had the effect of immunizing these large servers from appearing on blocklists. I mean, once three quarters of the internet is on Gmail, no one is going to block email from Gmail, even if a ton of spam is sent using its servers.

The lesson of email doesn't mean email is bad, nor does it mean decentralization and federation are useless. It doesn't even mean that blocklists of bad servers are evil. It just means that federation and decentralization are imperfect and insufficient defenses against enshittification, and that blocklists are useful, but very dangerous. It means that we should strive to keep our systems federated and decentralized, and watch our blocklists very carefully, and not rely on any of this as the only defense against enshittification.

Likewise, both Mastodon and Bluesky are built on free/open code and standards. That means that anyone can fork them, fix them or mod them. What's more, the licenses involved are irrevocable, making them very effective Ulysses Pacts. No one – not a CEO, not a VC investor, not a court or a blackmailer – can order someone to make their GPL code proprietary. The license is perpetual and irrevocable, and that's that.

Free/open licenses are excellent Ulysses Pacts and great code-related defenses against enshittification, but they, too, are imperfect and insufficient. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have all figured out how to enshittify services that are built on free/open code:

https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/libreplanet-2018-keynote

And then there are all the companies that use free/open code and defeat the freedom and openness by simply violating the license, on the grounds that a decentralized, federated development community can't figure out who has standing to sue, and also can't afford to pay for the lawyers to do so:

https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/may/16/vizio-remand-win/

That's not to say that code-based antienshittification measures are pointless – only to say that they need other measures to backstop them, as defense in depth. Let's talk about law, then. Both Mastodon and Bluesky are governed by legal entities that are, nominally, organized by charters that oblige them to eschew enshittification and be responsive to their users (Bluesky is a B-corp, Mastodon's code is overseen by a US nonprofit).

These structures are very important. I've been a volunteer board member for several co-ops and nonprofits (I was even once a volunteer for a nonprofit co-op!) and I'm familiar with the role that good governance can play in defending a project from internal and external pressures to betray its mission. That means I'm also familiar with the limits of these governance measures.

Take nonprofits: nominally, nonprofits are legally bound to serve their charitable purpose, and technically, stakeholders have legal recourse if they stray from this. But you don't have to look far to find nonprofits that have violated their charter and gotten away with it. Take the Nature Conservancy, which has become a key player in the market for fake "carbon offsets" that are used to justify everything from fossil fuel extraction to SUV manufacture:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#greenwashing

Or think of ISOC, who get tens of millions of dollars in free money every year from their stewardship of the .ORG registry, but who decided to hand over control of the nonprofits' TLD of choice to a shadowy cabal of hedge-fund billionaires:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/how-we-saved-org-2020-review

Co-ops, too, are powerful but wildly imperfect. REI is a member co-op that does lots of great things…and also busts unions:

https://prismreports.org/2024/07/17/rei-workers-unionizing-fighting-for-agreemment/

But REI is a paragon of social virtue compared to its Canadian equivalent, Mountain Equipment Coop, whose board was taken over by corrupt assholes who then sold the whole thing to a US private equity fund and change the name to "MEC":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/16/spike-lee-joint/#casse-le-mec

B-corps are far from perfect, too: while they are nominally required to serve a positive social purpose, in practice, they can violate that purpose with impunity, whether that through greenwashing:

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240202-has-b-corp-certification-turned-into-corporate-greenwashing

Or Kickstarter insiders taking a $100m bribe to help Andreesen-Horowitz do a crypto pump-and-dump:

https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/03/11/kickstarter-blockchain-a16z-crypto-secret-investment-chris-dixon/

None of this is to claim that B-corps, co-ops, and nonprofits are useless. Maybe we should just give up on organization altogether and have some kind of adhocracy? If you're thinking this will help, then you need to read Jo Freeman's "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" and learn how a "leaderless" group is actually led by its least scrupulous, most Machiavellian schemers:

https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

At this point, you might be mentally designing a new corporate structure, one that's designed to correct for both the tyranny of structurelessness and the brittleness of co-ops, nonprofits and B-corps. Please don't do this. Rolling your own corporate structure is like rolling your own cryptography or your own free software license. It always ends in tears:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-remove-non-profit-control-give-sam-altman-equity-sources-say-2024-09-25/

I like co-ops, nonprofits and B-corps. They're powerful – but insufficient – weapons against enshittification. They need to be backstopped by other measures, like norms. Normative measures are very powerful! Of course, mass revolts of angry users don't always keep companies from enshittifying:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/30/reddit-moderator-protest-communities-social-media

But sometimes they do. The C-suite of Unity was shown the door after enshittifying their flagship product:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23911338/unity-ceo-steps-down-developers-react

As was the enshittifying CEO of Sonos:

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342179/sonos-ceo-patrick-spence-resignation-reason-app

And of course, these defensive measures reinforce one another. The public outcry against the .ORG selloff (norms) led to California's Attorney General stepping in (law), and after that, we more-or-less romped to victory:

https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/17/icann_california_org_sale_delay/

Markets are the final antienshittificatory force. If a social network is designed to be surveillance-resistant, it will be (very) hard to implement behavioral surveillance advertising. If a network is designed to support a many clients, it will be easy to implement an ad-blocker. Both factors make advertising-based businesses very unattractive to individual server operators, spammers, and VCs who back companies that operate elements of a federated server.

Same goes for systems that allow users to control the recommendations and other algorithmic aspects of their feeds (including switching these off altogether). The fact that Tiktok's users overwhelmingly use an algorithmic feed that they have no way to control or even understand is an anti-Ulysses Pact, an irresistible temptation for Tiktok to enshittify itself:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

By contrast, it's much harder to pull those shenanigans with services that technologically devolve control over recommendations (code), making it less profitable to even try to attempt this (markets). And of course, if users refuse to tolerate this kind of thing (norms) and can hop to other servers (code), then any system that pulls that nonsense will lose lots of users and go broke (markets).

This defense-in-depth approach to decentralized social media pushes us to analyze both Mastodon and Bluesky through a tactical lens – to identify the weak parts in the defenses of each and shore them up.

Take Free Our Feeds and its attempt to stand up more Bluesky servers. This addresses one of the serious technical deficiencies in Bluesky (the lack of federation), and if lots of Bluesky users try it out, it will normalize the idea that Bluesky is a constellation of independently managed servers (norms). It also creates Bluesky alternatives with radically different commercial imperatives (markets), because the main Bluesky server is backed by venture capitalists, who are notorious for their enshittifying impulses.

But security isn't static – a tactic that works today won't work tomorrow if your adversary can figure out a way around it. Bluesky is a B-corp with an excellent board with some names I have profound trust for, but B-corps can abandon their public benefit purpose, and boards can be fired (and also even people you trust can talk themselves into doing stupid and wicked things, see .ORG).

If millions of Bluesky users flock to a rival service, one run by a nonprofit (markets), Bluesky's investors might be tempted to sever the link between Bluesky and that new server (code). That's what Facebook and Apple did to XMPP, an interoperable, federated messaging system that used to connect Apple users, Facebook users, and users of many other servers. They did this for commercial reasons (markets), to trap and lock in their users (code), and they got away with it because not enough users were outraged by this (norms) that they could get away with it.

When Bluesky's VCs fire the CEO, kick people like Mike Masnick off its board, and then defederate from Free Our Feeds' server, how do we make that more like Sonos or Unity (where the corporation capitulated to its users), and not like Reddit (where the user revolt was crushed)?

With social media, it's a numbers game. Social media grows by network effects: the more users there are in a system, the more valuable it is. It's not merely imperative to create alternative Bluesky servers, it's imperative to make them populous enough that cutting them off from the first Bluesky server will inflict more pain on the company than it inflicts on those other users. That's not a guarantee that Bluesky's future, enshittification-bent management won't go ahead and do it anyway, but it does increase the chances that if they press on, their users will take the hit to defect to free/open servers.

Bluesky has other problems besides its centralization, of course. The reason Bluesky is so centralized is that it's really expensive to run an alternative Bluesky server that provides a home for users who have left the main server (a "relay" in Bluesky-ese). Partly this is down to tooling: because no one has done it, Free Our Feeds will have to invent a lot of stuff to get that server up and running, but people who come later will benefit from whatever Free Our Feeds develops along the way.

But mostly, this isn't a tooling problem – it's an architecture problem. The way that Bluesky is structured demands a lot more of relays than Mastodon demands of "instances" (a loose Fediverse analog to relays):

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/21/the-technological-poison-pill-how-atprotocol-encourages-competition-resists-evil-billionaires-lock-in-enshittification/#comment-4253477

This is a code problem, and it's a hard one, but it's not insurmountable. The history of networked tools is the history of developers figuring out how to break apart large, monolithic, expensive services in cheaper, smaller, easier to develop. In other words, our defense in depth of Bluesky militates for more than one project – not just a "Free Our Feeds" but also a software development project to make it easier for anyone to free those feeds.

Which raises some important questions, the biggest being "Why bother?" After all, there's already a perfectly good Fediverse that could sure use the money and effort that Free Our Feeds is proposing to put into Bluesky. My main answer here is that the point of disenshittification is an enshittification-free internet, not a better Mastodon:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis

We want to set Bluesky users free because the problem with Bluesky isn't its users, it's the fact that there's no fire-exits those users can avail themselves of if Bluesky's VCs set it on fire:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/14/fire-exits/#graceful-failure-modes

But there's another good reason to do this, one that involves people who have no interest in using Bluesky: even if you don't want to use a better Bluesky, you likely have very good reasons to reach Bluesky users. Maybe you want them to help you organize against enshittification! Or maybe you just want to operate a real-world venue where people can gather and have a great time and support performers, and right now you're stuck advertising on Facebook and Instagram, and you don't want to end up being forced to use an enshittified, fire-exit-free Bluesky in the future:

https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2025/01/13.html

Of course, there's plenty of reasons to want to make Mastodon better. Many of Mastodon's features are absurdly primitive – the lack of threading support and quote-boosting sucks, and the supposedly opt-in system-wide search doesn't work, even if you opt in. Masto could sure use some of the money that Free Our Feeds is asking for to spruce up Bluesky.

This is true, but also irrelevant. Mastodon is stuck at around a million active users, while Bluesky has twenty times that amount. Crowdfunding a couple dollars per user to pursue software development is a reasonable goal, but raising twenty times that much is a lot harder:

https://mastodon-analytics.com/

The money being raised for Free Our Feeds isn't money that had been earmarked for Mastodon development, nor will abandoning Free Our Feeds redirect those funds to Mastodon development.

Which isn't to say that we shouldn't chip in to fund Mastodon development. I donated to the Kickstarter for Pixelfed, a Fediverse Insta replacement that has Meta so scared that they'll suspend your account if you even mention it:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixelfed/pixelfed-foundation-2024-real-ethical-social-networks

Adding Insta-like features to Mastodon is great. Fixing search, quoting, and threading would be great, too. We probably need some kind of governance efforts to keep volunteer-run, good faith defederation blocklists from exhibiting the same dynamics that email went through during the spam wars. There's some Bluesky features I'd love to see on Mastodon, like composable moderation and user-controlled, user-tunable recommendations. We also probably need some kind of adversarial press that closely monitors the governance structure for the Mastodon codebase and reports on process in standardization (I cannot overstate how much fuckery can take place within standards bodies, under cover of a nigh-impermeable shield of boringness).

Breaking Bluesky open is a priority. Keeping Mastodon open is a priority. But neither of these are goals unto themselves. The point is to set people free, not set technology free. Willie Sutton robbed banks because "that's where the money is." Right now, I'm interested in anti-enshittification measures for Bluesky because "that's where the people are."

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/23/defense-in-depth/#self-marginalization

Image: Mike Baird (modified) https://flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/2354116406

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[sandplague]

pathologic 3 save & sound 2024 presentation

this is a quick attempt at a transcript of the presentation. I think I got most of it but there are some words I was unable to hear, I can't say I have a lot of practice doing this and that's on me so if any of you guys can help me I'll edit it asap

Ressa Schwarzwald: I'm Ressa from Gameowdio. Our team has been working on Pathologic 3 with Vasily Kashnikov and his apprentice Nikolai. This video will feature some of the audio stuff we've made together.

Our goal regarding audio direction was to give the real experience of being in the epicenter of an epidemic. Fully realistic, no bullshit. So we are obviously shooting this video in The Town. We realized pretty early that the game was quite different from the original Pathologic 2 because of the time travel mechanics. So for the prototype we built a time travel machine [the date November 1924 shows on screen], which appeared to be quite useful to record some source sounds, and [date changes to November 3024] make this video in just half a second using existing technology.

Let's start with the music.

Vasily Kashnikov: Hi, I'm Vasily Kashnikov, audio director of Pathologic 3 project. I'll tell you how our music is structured. We were already thinking about how the Bachelor's game would sound when we were working on Patholgic 2 and writing music for Haruspex. In Pathologic 2, the music had more ethnic and real motives (motifs?) and instruments. Since the city and its customs are familiar with Haruspex since he was a child, he is involved in the traditional way of life. In the case of Pathologic 3, this is the view of an outsider who evaluates everything from the point of view of rationality and science. Therefore, we are trying to make the Pathologic 3 soundtrack colder and more detached from the steppes and ethnicity in character. There is more synthesis, guitars at the same time, the Bachelor communicates with those in power so the soundtrack contains a large share of minimalist so-called furniture music that could sound in the beginning of the last century. Piano etudes and references to composers of that time: Satie, Debussy, etc. The soundtrack is a rather eclectic mix of dreampop, downtempo, and (?) minimalism.

In the city when the Bachelor is alone with himself, we emphasize the cold mind of the rhythm section: less emotional harmony, and sometimes electronic timbres. In the rooms where we need to separate the main character from those he interacts with, we use more expressive harmonies and more classical instruments: piano and guitar passages.

When we designed the interactive music system, we assumed that time is finite, and the music had to change depending on the amount of time the Bachelor had left. However, we later abandoned this system and now the music changes depending on the state of the Bachelor himself, who can fall into apathy or psychosis. To emphasize these states, we apply filters and effects to different layers of our tracks and get a slower, muffled sound in the case of apathy, and wired (?) nervous, glitchy in the case of psychosis. In the infected quarters, there are interactive systems that... [screen begins to distort] oh my god, Nataliya! Please stop this!

Nataliya Radina: Whoops, hehe, sorry. But yeah, basically the other system we created reflects everything you hear in the game. Such as... If we use our gun when dealing with the local thugs, the longer we aim the weapon at the people, the less sounds of the outside world we hear and the louder becomes the heartbeat. To add to the intensity, sharper tone was used along with a high pitch tinnitus sound. If the psychosis level goes to the maximum, it starts to damage Bachelor's health, which is accompanied by flashes on the screen, as well as low heartbeat and short breathing sounds.

Vasily Kashnikov: In the infected and rebel's quarters, there are also interactive systems that change the character of the music by adding or disabling instrument layers depending on the state of the world or the Bachelor's equipment to fight the plague. As a result, we have 12 tracks for each day spent in the city. they can freely switch between each other and several dozen themes for locations and characters, and all the music is subject to change depending on the state of the Bachelor.

Nataliya Radina: Since the game has a weather changing system, we also wanted to reflect that in our audio feedback as well. The game has global wetness parameter that shows how intense the rain is. The more it rains, the more squishy and muddy are the steps of the outside surfaces. Moreover, if you come closer to the window, you can hear the rain pondering on the glass. Even in the middle of the plague, we always have room for cozy moments, right? My favorite part of that system is involving cows. [cow moo]. So, when it's raining, you can actually hear very very soft sound of raindrops dropping on those bovine butts. And I personally think it's beautiful.

Artur Ramanouski: Hi, my name is Artur, and I was also involved in creating some sound assets for the game.

Probably the hardest thing to record were the footsteps. I had everything planned out: bought the equipment, got every type of surface, but...there was one small thing I overlooked: I live in a city with over 12 million people. Noise everywhere. The solution was simple and ingenious: I recorded everything on a Sunday, because in Buenos Ares, Sunday is the one day when no one does anything.

Nataliya Radina: One of the most important places in the game is the cathedral. There we have a system of ladders that control the speed and direction of time. Direction wise, we can have it flow normally, or reversed. [entire presentation is rewound very quickly so it's back to Ressa]

Ressa Schwarzwald: She is super professional.

Nataliya Radina: As for the speed, we can make it stand still, go twice as fast, or half normal speed. We created an audio system that has to (?) understand what is actually happening around (inaudible). When we reverse time, spatial effects are added to the surrounding sounds. Ambience, steps, and the mechanism itself. When time stands still, we increase the low frequencies in the ambience, and all the other sounds are muted to zero. Now lastly, when the time goes twice as fast, or half the original speed, the pitch of the surrounding sound changes accordingly.

The coolest part of this system is that it's been actually implemented into the game engine using only one parameter.

Ressa Schwarzwald: Thank you for watching. See you here, later!