#function:06

[touhoutunes]

Title: The Same Coin

Arrangement: MTK

Album: Function:06

Circle: dat file records

Original: Two Worlds

[silverequation]

ESP Silver and Mephiles are on the same team in Sonic Runners. ESP Silver is supposed to be Silver after splitting up with Blaze so i guess Mephiles was all he could get

[beatcroc]

alright kids we fuckin did it

and even managed to first try s-rank the final boss somehow. crazy. im pretty sure that's the only s rank i got in the entire game.

so why did i do it? how do i feel? most of the experience of playing 06 is stuff that really only matters being experienced in the moment, but i took a shot at trying to quantify why i went out of my way to play sonic 06 anno domini 2024, with some subsequent thoughts about each after having finished.

1. silver is there. i like him. it seems most people do these days; no doubt largely due to the comics, but that was absolutely not the case upon his debut. i wanted to see where the character started and if there was truly Anything salvageable from his initial appearance, or if there are any throughlines to his current characterization. verdict: yeah, like, way more than i thought there was going to be actually. it solidly exceeded my expectations here. obviously, i was will to be EXTREMELY lenient about him because hes my special little guy and he is SUCH a gift in idw; but even so he never really did anything like, wrong. like as a character i mean. he's a little annoying sure, but so are most of the characters in this game. i know this would have been infinitely worse back when it was his only appearance, but UNLIKE most of the characters in this game, he is at least also consistent. all in all he's still just kind of a hasty little fuckup here, which is much of why i like him in present.

2. the general notoriety of it. everyone knows sonic 06 is bad. you hear lots of insane stuff about all the various ways in which 06 is bad, but they all feel like such disconnected points by now. you need to get the whole picture you know. the full breadth of it. i think cultural significance for being dogshit is just as interesting as cultural significance for being brilliant. verdict: its so bad. its fascinating. there really were quite a few cool ideas in here but the execution of them all is consistently so, SO baffling. there's the utter lack of polish and functionality yeah, but even underneath that in its base design it there is just so much that's so inherently unintuitive. one really does have to wonder about it. i must, however, stress that poor execution on decent ideas [or in some cases decent execution on bad ideas like, say, omega's fucking bizzare characterization here, and really most of the plot in general especially wrt to elise] is far more forgivable to me than no ideas [most of the boost-era games If I Am Being Frank], or cool ideas with No execution [sonic forces. [i played through it about right in the middle of my 06 journey and it's amazing how that game is like the exact opposite kind of bad from 06. that one is the kind that really pisses me off, as it turns out! you would not believe how hatermoded i got during forces' short duration.]

3. it had a lot more going on than i'd realized. i'd kind of always just held 06 as "the sonic and silver game and sometimes i guess shadow is there also?" but the more i heard about it it was like "wait blaze is in this game? how does that work??" "omega is in this game? AMY is in this game???? PLAYABLE????? how does all that fit together???". in more recent years i've heard people refer to 06 as 'the last sonic game where they really tried', and now that i know my own disdain for boost era games and gameplay was NOT just me being a shitty teen, i figure it would be interesting to see what all that was about. now that the series has returned from its, shall we say, prodigal son arc, i'm in general a lot more willing to explore where things went awry. verdict: turns out it did not in fact fit together very well at all, but again, i respect a blundered attempt at something like this far more than the subsequent several years of "sonic and his one wacky gimmick partner" games that followed. i think anyone genuinely praising this game and its Quite Frankly Pretty Damn Bad characterization is insane, but i do understand the respect for its ideas; and i definitely understand the 'this game could be so good if it was good'-type obsessions. it's certainly a type i am prone to but fortunately it did not get to me with 06.

4. hubworlds. this isn't a full point in and of itself, but it's why i decided to just play the damn game as it is instead of playing project 06 and/or watching the cutscenes on youtube. it feeds largely into the second point of just wanting to experience it as a whole package; but also i just generally like the idea of hubworlds in sonic, and i like that they have missions in them here. verdict: there's not a verdict for this one as it wasn't a question or a curiosity i had. naturally, they're also not good, but i didn't go in expecting to enjoy the sonic 06 hubworlds. i just think they're nicer than only having a map screen or level select.

all in all i think it's kind of impossible for me to hate sonic 06. like at this point you know what it is. you know what it's known for, its reputation far preceeds it. i've dealt with my fair share of janky games, and it actually wasn't nearly as uniquely unplayably nonfunctional as i was expecting. it's bad but it's the amusing kind of bad, and though there's certainly no laughing with it, if you aren't laughing at it you're laughing a yourself for deliberately choosing to play this stupid fucking game 18 years later.

[trashcreatyre]

I will not spoil the movie. But oh. Oh my fucking god. /pos

[jinxedshapeshifter]

No, Silver the Hedgehog's Personality Has Not Changed: An Analysis

Okay, I'll be upfront about Silver being my favorite Sonic character here so there's transparency. However, I've also either played or watched someone else play every game Silver shows up in and read all the IDW comics (except the Bad Guys miniseries). I am qualified to analyze Silver's personality. This also gets personal in both the tags and towards the end of the analysis, and the post is long, so I'll add a read more break.

So first things first: the stuff people complain about. Here are the main complaints I see:

His personality is completely different from how it was in Sonic 06 and Sonic Rivals

His dorky traits (such as his social awkwardness) have been amplified

Neither of these are necessarily true. Let's start with the first complaint, his personality being completely different. My reasoning for this does tie into the second point however.

Let's quickly go over how personalities work. Under different circumstances, different aspects of a person's personality might be more prominent. For example, I'm a naturally anxious person. Under certain circumstances -- usually being around people I know -- my social anxiety specifically disappears almost completely because of circumstances. This can even be seen in the Sonic series with other characters.

Vector isn't usually aggressive, but he can be provided the circumstances are right, as seen in Sonic Heroes.

Sonic likes to goof off and joke around, but he can be serious if the situation requires it.

In Sonic Prime, Rouge does do a lot of treasure hunting and loves looking for gems, but if the situation puts her in danger, she avoids it; she specifically says "No gem is worth losing my wings over!"

Silver's circumstances are different from his circumstances in 06 or Rivals, and he's developed to realize that he doesn't always need to solve things with violence.

It's also worth noting that from the beginning he's been relatively awkward when it comes to situations where he's not trying to save the world. He's even awkward when he is trying to save the world. He's always been awkward in social situations especially, because aside from Sonic 06 he's been alone most of his life, and even in Sonic 06 he's presumably only ever interacted with Blaze before meeting Mephiles, so he's not used to interacting with other people socially.

I'd argue that it's implied he's not as socially awkward when he's with someone he knows when Blaze mentions in 06 that he's "pretty insecure when he's alone" because I'm the same way. If I'm not around someone I know, I get incredibly anxious and insecure in social situations. It's even directly shown in 06 that he gets awkward in social situations when he's alone; when Blaze is around he interacts with Mephiles and Sonic just fine, but the second Blaze is gone he gets awkward when he interacts with anyone he doesn't know.

This is mainly seen in the cutscene where he first meets Amy. He has no idea how to respond to her throughout the entire exchange, making him come off as awkward. Even as they're helping each other, he's still incredibly awkward.

It's even implied he's not naturally aggressive:

Him questioning whether it's right to kill Sonic to save the world means doing so likely conflicts with his morals. He's so conflicted on whether or not it's right to kill Sonic that he is literally willing to let the future stay how it is if he decides it's not the right thing to do. It's because of Blaze that he continues to go after Sonic, but my point still stands: he had a moral crisis over killing Sonic, implying that sort of aggression isn't in his nature.

Also in Sonic 06 and Sonic Rivals 2, he's shown to be quite the awkward dork when he's not focused on a mission. In the Sonic Rivals duology especially, he's shown to throw hands first and ask questions later, but he does -- again -- take a nonviolent route in his story; his story is the only time Capture the Chao is played in Story Mode in Sonic Rivals 2, and he decides to play it with Sonic instead of fighting/racing him again. The reason he's so aggressive in the Rivals duology is because he thinks everyone's getting in his way. He becomes incredibly docile towards Espio when Espio offers to help him in Sonic Rivals 2. The only reason he was so violent towards everyone else in Rivals and Rivals 2 is because he wanted them out of his way, and this continues to be the case as the franchise goes on, albeit to a milder extent. Listen to his in race dialogue in Team Sonic Racing, it proves my point. He LITERALLY tells Big, IN THE MOST MOCKING VOICE EVER, "Go home to Froggy, Big!"

Speaking of Team Sonic Racing ...

He's shown in both TSR and Sonic Colors DS to be incredibly docile if he doesn't have a set goal (I’m not counting his snark in Colors DS as hostility so don’t bring it up). Remember, in both games there’s no mention of his future still being ruined; in Colors DS, he specified that his future is no different than the present, and the most we get about his future in TSR is a line from Zavok about there “being worse in your future, Silver!” During races he gets non-aggressively hostile because he’s competitive.

His personality only is how it is in Sonic 06 and the Rivals duology because he’s set on a goal and views everyone else as obstacles, with the exception of Espio who is helping him. In every other situation, his hostility is playful/competitive hostility, not necessarily genuine hostility.

So, in summary: Silver’s personality hasn’t changed, but his circumstances have, and he’s learned that he doesn’t need to resort to violence to solve every problem. That’s why his dorky traits are more likely to be highlighted. Those traits have always been there, but his hostility overshadowed it most of the time because he had a set goal in mind and everyone, in his eyes, was getting in his way. Since he’s learned how to handle those kinds of situations without getting overly hostile, his more aggressive traits aren’t as prominent. Those traits end up prominent again when he gets competitive. He’s grown as a person and learned to have more self control. Why is that a bad thing? Why is Silver developing enough to not see violence as necessary a bad thing?

Now I’m gonna get personal for a sec because I was much like Silver was in 06 and Rivals at one point, likely due to my autism going undiagnosed for far too long. I’m no longer like that because I developed as a person.

So I ask again, why is Silver no longer seeing violence as inherently necessary a bad thing? Why is it bad that he’s more dorky and awkward than hostile and aggressive now? Answer: it’s not. He’s developed, and it makes me incredibly upset that it’s criticized instead of celebrated, because his mentality in 06 and the Rivals duology would've realistically led to some incredibly toxic relationships.

[brucenorris007]

Okay I wrote this down on a post-it note too because tumblr is sketchy with disappearing posts sometimes but I also needed to share this thought because I WANT A BLAZE PLOT

So imagine that erased Iblis timeline 06 Silver came from... didn’t just flat-out vanish when Elise blew out Soleanna’s flame.

What if it just branched off and that Blaze, who sealed Iblis within herself, still exists in another dimension?

And Mephiles, who traverses time freely, also still exists and knows this; he is, of course, willing to cross the barriers between dimensions at whatever cost.

Meanwhile, Blaze has to contend with powers and flames many times more potent and dangerous than they’ve ever been in her life

It’s vague but I like it all right?

[captain-krow-drozdov]

ibisPaint X, Exists:

Me, Squints: Why Does That Remind Me Of Somethin That Vaguely Fills Me With Rage??

My Brain(Mostly The Dyslexia):

[yvernal]

[Friday 6th]

Today was the last day before my long-awaited three days weekend and it felt even longer than it was already supposed to.

Since I finished at 6pm, I was able to come for 10am in the morning, that additional hour of half-sleep snuggled under the covers doing wonders for my mood.

I got back to work on the mangas as soon as I arrived, putting my earbuds and music on to be able to concentrate better, which was quite difficult today.

I share my "office" (it's a passing room and if you push me one meter to the right, I'm in the goddamn corridor) with another person having their own idiosyncrasies which, sadly, clashes quite badly with my own. As in : I need either silence or loud music to drown every sound to concentrate, while they need to talk loudly about everything they're doing at the time to do the same. They need all the ceiling lights to be on, while I usually only rely on the natural light from outside our window or only switch on the farthest row from where I am, in order to avoid light-induced migraines. They often ask questions and interrupt other people to get help with things while I despise interruption as breaking my momentum makes it really hard to get back on the task at hand.

So yeah, work was done but it was difficult. I can't ask to change desk since there's no other desk available on our floor and also because I would need "valid reasons" (for HR) which implies the Disability Recognition Paper that I do not have (for now). Also they've been here for years and me only for some months and it doesn't feel right to disturb what has been essentially their working space for years just for them to accommodate me. I sometimes ask if it's okay to switch the lights or tell them that I'm busy and can't help, but nothing more than that.

I ended up a bit late on my imagined schedule and didn't manage to wrap everything up before lunch, so I gathered all my stuff neatly on a cart and left it for future me on Tuesday morning. I ate and enjoyed my lunch then went for my first shift of the day on the public floor.

This first shift was a front desk shift, where I registered three people and helped some more. But it was calm.

After that I was supposed to be on reserve duty, meaning going to the library's storage rooms to do some shelving of old books returns, as well as doing the picklist for the reserved books. Sadly, our elevator was once again out of commission, meaning I instead spent half an hour running around between upper management responsible for contacting the right service, other colleagues to warn and pulling up the signs for the patrons. And only after that I went back to the mangas (and yet not managed to finish everything I needed to do).

After that, from 4pm to 6pm, I was supposed to be one hour at the music/movies floor (my beloathed) then doing shelving. I instead managed to swap my shift with an amenable colleague and instead did two hours of mobile shelving, going between different floors to dispatch the returns and shelve what needed to be. I was also on phone duty for those two hours and answered four calls (quite calm for a Friday afternoon).

After that I went straight home, getting news from Mom that she was out for some shopping and an outing at the movie theater. No need to wait for her for dinner then, so I ate some tartines when I came back, did the dishes and went to snuggle in bed reading fanfics.

I'll take some melatonin pills this evening and put on my noise cancelling earbuds and have a big restful night. I plan to catch up with my game's new update tomorrow and if I have time, starting to draw the map of my personal fantasy worldbuilding project, so I need to rest my brain a lot, since I'll probably take my meds too for the first time since last Monday.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Prime’s enshittified advertising

Prime's gonna add more ads. They brought in ads in January, and people didn't cancel their Prime subscriptions, so Amazon figures that they can make Prime even worse and make more money:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/amazon-prime-video-is-getting-more-ads-next-year/

The cruelty isn't the point. Money is the point. Every ad that Amazon shows you shifts value away from you – your time, your attention – to the company's shareholders.

That's the crux of enshittification. Companies don't enshittify – making their once-useful products monotonically worse – because it amuses them to erode the quality of their offerings. They enshittify them because their products are zero-sum: the things that make them valuable to you (watching videos without ads) make things less valuable to them (because they can't monetize your attention).

This isn't new. The internet has always been dominated by intermediaries – platforms – because there are lots more people who want to use the internet than are capable of building the internet. There's more people who want to write blogs than can make a blogging app. There's more people who want to play and listen to music than can host a music streaming service. There's more people who want to write and read ebooks than want to operate an ebook store or sell an ebooks reader.

Despite all the early internet rhetoric about the glories of disintermediation, intermediaries are good, actually:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/direct-the-problem-of-middlemen/

The problem isn't with intermediaries per se. The problem arises when intermediaries grow so powerful that they usurp the relationship between the parties they connect. The problem with Uber isn't the use of mobile phones to tell taxis that you're standing on a street somewhere and would like a cab, please. The problem is rampant worker misclassification, regulatory arbitrage, starvation wages, and price-gouging:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/29/geometry-hates-uber/#toronto-the-gullible

There's no problem with publishers, distributors, retailers, printers, and all the other parts of the bookselling ecosystem. While there are a few, rare authors who are capable of performing all of these functions – basically gnawing their books out of whole logs with their teeth – most writers can't, and even the ones who can, don't want to:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation

When early internet boosters spoke of disintermediation, what they mostly meant was that it would be harder for intermediaries to capture those relationships – between sellers and buyers, creators and audiences, workers and customers. As Rebecca Giblin and I wrote in our 2022 book Chokepoint Capitalism, intermediaries in every sector rely on chokepoints, narrows where they can erect tollbooths:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

When chokepoints exist, they multiply up and down the supply chain. In the golden age of physical, recorded music, you had several chokepoints that reinforced one another. Limited radio airwaves gave radio stations power over record labels, who had to secretly, illegally bid for prime airspace ("payola"). Retail consolidation – the growth of big record chains – drove consolidation in the distributors who sold to the chains, and the more concentrated distributors became, the more they could squeeze retailers, which drove even more consolidation in record stores. The bigger a label was, the more power it had to shove back against the muscle of the stores and the distributors (and the pressing plants, etc). Consolidation in labels also drove consolidation in talent agencies, whose large client rosters gave them power to resist the squeeze from the labels. Consolidation in venues drives consolidation in ticketing and promotion – and vice-versa.

But there's two parties to this supply chain who can't consolidate: musicians and their fans. With limits on "sectoral bargaining" (where unions can represent workers against all the companies in a sector), musicians' unions were limited in their power against key parts of the supply chain, so the creative workers who made the music were easy pickings for labels, talent reps, promoters, ticketers, venues, retailers, etc. Music fans are diffused and dispersed, and organized fan clubs were usually run by the labels, who weren't about to allow those clubs to be used against the labels.

This is a perfect case-study in the problems of powerful intermediaries, who move from facilitator to parasite, paying workers less while degrading their products, and then charge customers more for those enshittified products.

The excitement about "disintermediation" wasn't so much about eliminating intermediaries as it was about disciplining them. If there were lots of ways to market a product or service, sell it, collect payment for it, and deliver it, then the natural inclination of intermediaries to turn predator would be curbed by the difficulty of corralling their prey into chokepoints.

Now that we're a quarter century on from the Napster Wars, we can see how that worked out. Decades of failure to enforce antitrust law allowed a few companies to effectively capture the internet, buying out rivals who were willing to sell, and bankrupting those who wouldn't with illegal tactics like predatory pricing (think of Uber losing $31 billion by subsidizing $0.41 out of every dollar they charged for taxi rides for more than a decade).

The market power that platforms gained through consolidation translated into political power. When a few companies dominate a sector, they're able to come to agreement on common strategies for dealing with their regulators, and they've got plenty of excess profits to spend on those strategies. First and foremost, platforms used their power to get more power, lobbying for even less antitrust enforcement. Additionally, platforms mobilized gigantic sums to secure the right to screw customers (for example, by making binding arbitration clauses in terms of service enforceable) and workers (think of the $225m Uber and Lyft spent on California's Prop 22, which formalized their worker misclassification swindle).

So big platforms were able to insulate themselves from the risk of competition ("five giant websites, filled with screenshots of the other four" – Tom Eastman), and from regulation. They were also able to expand and mobilize IP law to prevent anyone from breaking their chokepoints or undoing the abuses that these enabled. This is a good place to get specific about how Prime Video works.

There's two ways to get Prime videos: over an app, or in your browser. Both of these streams are encrypted, and that's really important here, because of a law – Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act – which makes it really illegal to break this kind of encryption (commonly called "Digital Rights Management" or "DRM"). Practically speaking, that means that if a company encrypts its videos, no one is allowed to do anything to those videos, even things that are legal, without the company's permission, because doing all those legal things requires breaking the DRM, and breaking the DRM is a felony (five years in prison, $500k fine, for a first offense).

Copyright law actually gives subscribers to services like Prime a lot of rights, and it empowers businesses that offer tools to exercise those rights. Back in 1976, Sony rolled out the Betamax, the first major home video recorder. After an eight-year court battle, the Supreme Court weighed in on VCRs and ruled that it was legal for all of us to record videos at home, both to watch them later, and to build a library of our favorite shows. They also ruled that it was legal for Sony – and by that time, every other electronics company – to make VHS systems, even if those systems could be used in ways that violated copyright because they were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" (letting you tape shows off your TV).

Now, this was more than a decade before the DMCA – and its prohibition on breaking DRM – passed, but even after the DMCA came into effect, there was a lot of media that didn't have DRM, so a new generation of tech companies were able to make tools that were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" and that didn't have to break any DRM to do it.

Think of the Ipod and Itunes, which, together, were sold as a way to rip CDs (which weren't encrypted), and play them back from both your desktop computer and a wildly successful pocket-sized portable device. Itunes even let you stream from one computer to another. The record industry hated this, but they couldn't do anything about it, thanks to the Supreme Court's Betamax ruling.

Indeed, they eventually swallowed their bile and started selling their products through the Itunes Music Store. These tracks had DRM and were thus permanently locked to Apple's ecosystem, and Apple immediately used that power to squeeze the labels, who decided they didn't like DRM after all, and licensed all those same tracks to Amazon's DRM-free MP3 store, whose slogan was "DRM: Don't Restrict Me":

https://memex.craphound.com/2008/02/01/amazons-anti-drm-tee/

Apple played a funny double role here. In marketing Itunes/Ipods ("Rip, Mix, Burn"), they were the world's biggest cheerleaders for all the things you were allowed to do with copyrighted works, even when the copyright holder objected. But with the Itunes Music Store and its mandatory DRM, the company was also one of the world's biggest cheerleaders for wrapping copyrighted works in a thin skin of IP that would allow copyright holders to shut down products like the Ipod and Itunes.

Microsoft, predictably enough, focused on the "lock everything to our platform" strategy. Then-CEO Steve Ballmer went on record calling every Ipod owner a "thief" and arguing that every record company should wrap music in Microsoft's Zune DRM, which would allow them to restrict anything they didn't like, even if copyright allowed it (and would also give Microsoft the same abusive leverage over labels that they famously exercised over Windows software companies):

https://web.archive.org/web/20050113051129/http://management.silicon.com/itpro/0,39024675,39124642,00.htm

In the end, Amazon's approach won. Apple dropped DRM, and Microsoft retired the Zune and shut down its DRM servers, screwing anyone who'd ever bought a Zune track by rendering that music permanently unplayable.

Around the same time as all this was going on, another company was making history by making uses of copyrighted works that the law allowed, but which the copyright holders hated. That company was Tivo, who products did for personal video recorders (PVRs) what Apple's Ipod did for digital portable music players. With a Tivo, you could record any show over cable (which was too expensive and complicated to encrypt) and terrestrial broadcast (which is illegal to encrypt, since those are the public's airwaves, on loan to the TV stations).

That meant that you could record any show, and keep it forever. What's more, you could very easily skip through ads (and rival players quickly emerged that did automatic ad-skipping). All of this was legal, but of course the cable companies and broadcasters hated it. Like Ballmer, TV execs called Tivo owners "thieves."

But Tivo didn't usher in the ad-supported TV apocalypse that furious, spittle-flecked industry reps insisted it would. Rather, it disciplined the TV and cable operators. Tivo owners actually sought out ads that were funny and well-made enough to go viral. Meanwhile, every time the industry decided to increase the amount of advertising in a show, they also increased the likelihood that their viewers would seek out a Tivo, or worse, one of those auto-ad-skipping PVRs.

Given all the stink that TV execs raised over PVRs, you'd think that these represented a novel threat. But in fact, the TV industry's appetite for ads had been disciplined by viewers' access to new technology since 1956, when the first TV remotes appeared on the market (executives declared that anyone who changed the channel during an ad-break was a thief). Then came the mute button. Then the wireless remote. Meanwhile, a common VCR use-case – raised in the Supreme Court case – was fast-forwarding ads.

At each stage, TV adapted. Ads in TV shows represented a kind of offer: "Will you watch this many of these ads in return for a free TV show?" And the remote, the mute button, the wireless remote, the VCR, the PVR, and the ad-skipping PVR all represented a counter-offer. As economists would put it, the ability of viewers to make these counteroffers "shifted the equilibrium." If viewers had no defensive technology, they might tolerate more ads, but once they were able to enforce their preferences with technology, the industry couldn't enshittify its product to the liminal cusp of "so many ads that the viewer is right on the brink of turning off the TV (but not quite)."

This is the same equilibrium-shifting dynamic that we see on the open web, where more than 50% of users have installed an ad-blocker. The industry says, "Will you allow this many 'sign up to our mailing list' interrupters, pop ups, pop unders, autoplaying videos and other stuff that users hate but shareholders benefit from" and the ad-blocker makes a counteroffer: "How about 'nah?'":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

TV remotes, PVRs and ad-blockers are all examples of "adversarial interoperability" – a new product that plugs into an existing one, extending or modifying its functions without permission from (or even over the objections of) the original manufacturer:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Adversarial interop creates a powerful disciplining force on platform owners. Once a user grows so frustrated with a product's enshittification that they research, seek out, acquire and learn to use an adversarial interop tool, it's really game over. The printer owner who figures out where to get third-party ink is gone forever. Every time a company like HP raises its prices, they have to account for the number of customers who will finally figure out how to use generic ink and never, ever send another cent to HP.

This is where DMCA 1201 comes into play. Once a product is skinned with DRM, its manufacturers gain the right to prevent you from doing legal things, and can use the public's courts and law-enforcement apparatus to punish you for trying. Take HP: as soon as they started adding DRM to their cartridges, they gained the legal power to shut down companies that cloned, refilled or remanufactured their cartridges, and started raising the price of ink – which today sits at more than $10,000/gallon:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Using third party ink in your printer isn't illegal (it's your printer, right?). But making third party ink for your printer becomes illegal once you have to break DRM to do so, and so HP gets to transform tinted water into literally the most expensive fluid on Earth. The ink you use to print your kid's homework costs more than vintage Veuve Cliquot or sperm from a Kentucky Derby-winning thoroughbred.

Adversarial interoperability is a powerful tool for shifting the equilibrium between producers, intermediaries and buyers. DRM is an even more powerful way of wrenching that equilibrium back towards the intermediary, reducing the share that buyers and sellers are able to eke out of the transaction.

Prime Video, of course, is delivered via an app, which means it has DRM. That means that subscribers don't get to exercise the rights afforded to them by copyright – only the rights that Amazon permits them to have. There's no Tivo for Prime, because it would have to break the DRM to record the shows you stream from Prime. That allows Prime to pull all kinds of shady shit. For example, every year around this time, Amazon pulls popular Christmas movies from its free-to-watch tier and moves them into pay-per-view, only restoring them in the spring:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vudu/comments/1bpzanx/looks_like_amazon_removed_the_free_titles_from/

And of course, Prime sticks ads in its videos. You can't skip these ads – not because it's technically challenging to make a 30-second advance button for a video stream, and doing so wouldn't violate anyone's copyright – but because Amazon doesn't permit you to do so, and the fact that the video is wrapped in DRM makes it a felony to even try.

This means that Amazon gets to seek a different equilibrium than TV companies have had to accept since 1956 and the invention of the TV remote. Amazon doesn't have to limit the quantity, volume, and invasiveness of its ads to "less the amount that would drive our subscribers to install and use an ad-skipping plugin." Instead, they can shoot for the much more lucrative equilibrium of "so obnoxious that the viewer is almost ready to cancel their subscription (but not quite)."

That's pretty much exactly how Kelly Day, the Amazon exec in charge of Prime Video, put it to the Financial Times: they're increasing the number of ads because "we haven’t really seen a groundswell of people churning out or cancelling":

https://www.ft.com/content/f8112991-820c-4e09-bcf4-23b5e0f190a5

At this point, attentive readers might be asking themselves, "Doesn't Amazon have to worry about Prime viewers who watch in their browsers?" After all browsers are built on open standards, and anyone can make one, so there should be browsers that can auto-skip Prime ads, right?

Wrong, alas. Back in 2017, the W3C – the organization that makes the most important browser standards – caved to pressure from the entertainment industry and the largest browser companies and created "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME), a "standard" for video DRM that blocks all adversarial interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

This had the almost immediate effect of making it impossible to create an independent browser without licensing proprietary tech from Google – now a convicted monopolist! – who won't give you a license if you implement recording, ad-skipping, or any other legal (but dispreferred) feature:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

This means that for Amazon, there's no way to shift value away from the platform to you. The company has locked you in, and has locked out anyone who might offer you a better deal. Companies that know you are technologically defenseless are endlessly inventive in finding ways to make things worse for you to make things better for them. Take Youtube, another DRM-video-serving platform that has jacked up the number of ads you have to sit through in order to watch a video – even as they slash payments to performers. They've got a new move: they're gonna start showing you ads while your video is paused:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/09/20/youtube-pause-ads-rollout/75306204007/

That is the kind of fuckery you only come up with when your victory condition is "a service that's almost so bad our customers quit (but not quite)."

In Amazon's case, the math is even worse. After all, Youtube may have near-total market dominance over a certain segment of the video market, but Prime Video is bundled with Prime Delivery, which the vast majority of US households subscribe to. You have to give up a lot to cancel your Prime subscription – especially since Amazon's predatory pricing devastated the rest of the retail sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

Amazon's founding principle was "customer obsession." Ex-Amazoners tell me that this was more than an empty platitude: arguments over product design were won or lost based on whether they could satisfy the "customer obsession" litmus test. Now, everyone falls short of their ideals, but sticking to your ideals isn't merely a matter of internal discipline, of willpower. Living up to your ideals is a matter of external discipline, too. When Amazon no longer had to contend with competitors or regulators, when it was able to use DRM to control its customers and use the law to prevent them from using its products in legal ways, it lost those external sources of discipline.

Amazon suppliers have long complained of the company's high-handed treatment of the vendors who supplied it with goods. Its workers have complained bitterly and loudly about the dangerous and oppressive conditions in its warehouses and delivery vans. But Amazon's customers have consistently given Amazon high marks on quality and trustworthiness.

The reason Amazon treated its workers and suppliers badly and its customers well wasn't that it liked customers and hated workers and suppliers. Amazon was engaged in a cold-blooded calculus: it understood that treating customers well would give it control over those customers, and that this would translate market power to retain suppliers even as it ripped them off and screwed them over.

But now, Amazon has clearly concluded that it no longer needs to keep customers happy in order to retain them. Instead, it's shooting for "keeping customers so angry that they're almost ready to take their business elsewhere (but not quite)." You see this in the steady decline of Amazon product search, which preferences the products that pay the biggest bribes for search placement over the best matches:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

And you see it in the steady enshittification of Prime Video. Amazon's character never changed. The company always had a predatory side. But now that monopoly and IP law have insulated it from consequences for its actions, there's no longer any reason to keep the predator in check.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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/2024/10/03/mother-may-i/#minmax

[cinnamanz]

— ִ ࣪✮🕷✮⋆˙ DARLING, I .ᐟ ·˚ ༘ MANON BANNERMAN

when new york city’s widely-known spider-woman's life becomes unknowingly entwined with a member of the rising global girl group katseye, she learns that juggling superhero duties, university, and a sudden crush may or may not just be the downfall of her. but hey, at least she's helping people, right?

tags .ᐟ smau, crack, fluff, idol x superhero, unserious awkward losers, coarse language, suggestive themes, university! au, horrible jokes

featuring .ᐟ katseye, itzy, skz, le sserafim

pairing .ᐟ manon bannerman x reader

status .ᐟ completed

notes .ᐟ this smau was made for fun and entertainment. it is not an actual portrayal of the people mentioned in this smau, nor are the photos used to portray y/n. also let's just say that some kpop groups are currently living in nyc. IGNORE THE TIMESTAMPS. divider creds: @/adornedwithlight. TAGLIST CLOSED.

PROFILES!

nightmare blunt rotation brainrotted fine shyts brainrotted fine shyts 2.5

01. YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD SPIDER-WOMAN!

02. TOO LIT!

03. CAKE!

04. SWEET MOTHER OF CHRIST!

05. WEDGIES IN A SPANDEX!

06. MAMA A MINION GIRL BEHIND YOU!

07. FREAKY N PROUD!

08. WUH LUH WUH?

09. LOST IN TRANSLATION!

10. STALKER!

11. IT'S A DATE!

12. SICK N TIRED!

13. BOOTS R QUAKING!

14. SO ANXIOUS!

15. AND THE CROWD IS CONFUSED?

16. CANDIDS!

17. NEW YEAR, NEW ME!

18. NEW YEAR, NEW FRUSTRATIONS!

19. FEMALE DJS DO IT BEST!

20. JENNIFER!

21. LAST STRAW!

22. BLOCKED!

23. THIS POST HAS BEEN DELETED!

24. SO COOKED!

25. WHAT DOES IT #MEAN?

26. HEIROGILGER AHH TEXT!

27. QUEEN NEVER CRY!

28. THE TYPE OF GREED THEY TALK ABOUT IN THE BIBLE!

29. EYES ON ME!

30. FINALLY!

31. ONE HELL OF A DATE!

32. HALLELUJAH!

33. TOO GAY TO FUNCTION!

34. EMBARRASSING!

35. BLOCKED PT. 2!

36. THREE WEEKS!

37. SPIDER-WOMAN!

38. APOLOGY GIFT!

39. SALUTATIONS BEAUTIFUL!

40. IDGAF WAR!

41. APOLOGY GIFT PT. 2!

42. BLOCKED PT. 3!

43. SO HELP ME GOD!

44. OH SHIT!

45. LIFE OR DEATH!

46. STUPIDITY!

47. LIZARD THING LIVESTREAM!

48. MOVIE DATE!

49. WOMAN ON A MISSION!

50. SUSPICIONS!

51. GO HOME!

52. THE END!

bonus! incorrect quotes n text messages.

[hritika13-tamboli]

Jeon Jungkook Fic Recs List 5....

Series :

Baggage || dad!Jungkook x adoptive mom!Reader | best friends to lovers | co-parenting | idiots in love | slow burn—really slow burn || @angellesword

Summary: Drowning in debt and blood, Jeon Jungkook knows he's better off alone, lest he brings people down with him.

But one drunken night changes everything.

In a blink of an eye, Jungkook found himself drowning not only in debt and blood, but also in dirty diapers and judgmental stares from you, a.k.a his long-lost love and the guardian of the son he didn't even know existed.

Love to hate || Playboy businessman!jungkook x businesswoman!reader | Enemies to Lovers | Fuck Buddies!AU || @kpopfanfictrash

Summary : Born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you've done your best to rid yourself of the taste since you were old enough to walk. Occasionally though, your mother manages to rope you into an obligatory function – or a blind date with playboy billionaire, Jeon Jungkook. Jungkook stands for everything you loathe about the world you left behind, but you can’t deny the spark of attraction between you. Intrigued by the promise of mutual satisfaction, you agree to one night in bed… and quickly realize you’re in far, far deeper than you ever intended.

Six stages of Break-Up || ceo!jungkook x reader | Established relationship ||

Summary: Even the strongest sailing ship doesn’t last long in the sea.

Between takes 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07 || porn star!jk x f fluffer!reader | pornstar au || @jeonstudios

Summary: a fluffer for a popular porn star, your focus is to keep him hard and performing on set. turns out he's not the only thing that's hard.

From home || richkid!jk x baker!reader | fakedating!au | strangers to lovers | Enemies to Lovers || @yuzukult

Summary: jungkook is the youngest of five boys, the last in line to truly inherit any his parents’ money. but what if his mom suddenly cuts him off due to his current poor behavior and he’s forced to learn how it feels like to be part of the working class? 

Sugar fairy A03 || bunny hybrid Jungkook x ruby leopard hybrid oc! | strangers to lovers au | unrequited love au || @foxymoxynoona

Summary: Bunny Hybrid Jungkook is at that age... he needs a mate, and it's making life miserable for everyone in the family. The obvious solution is to bring home a girl. The obvious problem is that while it's love at first site for Pippa when he walks into the adoption tent, Jungkook is far more into the sexy cat to her right. Will there ever be peace in the family again?

One-shot :

Mature || stupid!jungkook x reader | f2l || @jiminrings

Summary: the good thing about professing your feelings to jungkook is that it'd be over with, whether or not he likes you back — the bad thing is that he rejects you, even if you haven't confessed.

alternatively, crushing on jungkook who's in your friend group is, has, and will never be a good idea.

Careful what you wish for || idol!jungkook x reader | Established relationship || @kookiesbuckethat

Summary: After a tiring week of work, the last thing Jungkook wants to hear is you lecturing him about taking care of himself. But what if he could never hear your voice ever again?

Afterglow || boyfriend!jungkook x reader | Established relationship || @onlyswan

Summary: in which jungkook can’t sleep, and he can’t stop kissing you either.

Our not so secret Secret || Athlete!fuckboy!Jungkook x smart ass!female!Reader | College AU | E2L | Athlete AU || @thvhoe

Sumaary :When someone learns that Jungkook has been secretly keeping a puppy in his room despite not being allowed to, he turns to ask the only other person who knows about his secret for help. And suddenly you two—who had long been bitter enemies—get very close.

Year 22 || childhoodfriend!jk x f!reader || @rkived

Summary: ‘‘I knew you’d be standing in my front porch light, and I knew you’d come back to me.’‘ 

T & S || Jungkook x reader | classmates!au | strangers to lovers || @jjkfire

Summary: Toddlers have always hated Jungkook and Jungkook have always hated toddlers  

+  “Jungkook… what the hell happened here? And why’s there spaghetti on the ceiling?”

Bunny adventures || hybrid!Jungkook x human!reader | hybrid!au || @kooktrash

Summary: | you had absolutely no intentions of ever owning a hybrid until jungkook came along. a mistreated, misunderstood rabbit hybrid who’d only ever wanted was to be treated like an equal.

Fighting hearts || boxer!jungkook x rich!reader | boxing!au | strangers to lovers || @kooktrash

Summary: never living a life of luxury, Jungkook does what he has to do to make ends-meet. right now that means fighting in underground clubs, getting beat black and blue until he wins. he knows there’s a better life out there for him but he never let himself think about it. until you came along and suddenly a weight is being lifted off his shoulders letting you through his guarded walls. you’re everything he needed and you make him want to fight for more.

That night of graduation party || Jungkook x reader | strangers to lovers | right person wrong time?? | friends to lovers || @smartkookiee

Summary: After a stupid game of Truth or Drink you are convinced into telling everyone about the time you and Jungkook hooked up together the night of college graduation. A missed connection that you and Jungkook hadn't even talked about. Bringing up some unexpected feeling that you hadn't realized had been lingering between the two of you.

Jump then fall || Jungkook x reader |cruise AU | fake dating AU | best friends to lovers AU || (Three-shot) @writtenwhalien

Summary : bringing Jungkook along as your date to your ex’s lavish cruise wedding seemed like a perfect idea at first — all of your family and close friends together, nothing can go wrong… then Jungkook’s ex shows up and all of a sudden you’re in a years long relationship with him. You don’t mind though, really, how hard can sharing a cabin and pretending to be deeply in love with your best friend really be?

Explorer || alien!jungkook x reader | alien au || @1kook

Summary: Jungkook does not want to impress the frankly tyrannical ways of his planet on you. He just wants to stay here and keep your couch warm for you, hold your hair back when you wash your face in the morning. 

A touch of silk || pairing: werewolf!jungkook x f. human!reader | werewolf au || @war-of-hormoan

Summary: have been working with wolves long enough to recognize trouble the second it walks into the bar but there was something about Jungkook that made you forget everything Namjoon told you about the dangers of lone wolves.

Please don't eat me || werewolf!Jungkook x girlfriend!Reader | werewolf!au | college!au | established relationship!au || @spicybutterfly

Summary: What do you do when your longtime boyfriend turns into a werewolf right in front of you? Take off running of course!

Strictly platonic || bestfriend!jungkook x reader || friends to lovers | college au | fake dating au || @jeonqkooks

Summary: Jungkook can be a little selfish; and sometimes, the lengths you would go to for his happiness mean relinquishing your own.

True love || tattoo artist!jungkook x reader | f2l || @lovieku

Summary: when you and jeon jeongguk's paths cross again, you question if having a crush on the school's emo and alternative boy was really just a phase, or if it was true love after all.

I Re Do || Ex husband Jungkook x ex-wife reader || @keen-li

synopsis: Young love is so sweet, but people never realize how foolish it can be (sometimes), especially for you and Jungkook. You and Jungkook were the typical high school sweethearts, and after school, you thought you were grown enough to get married. Your families disagreed, but you still went through with it. It was fine for the first year; you were still in the honeymoon phase. But soon, reality caught up, and you both had to go to university. You attended the same university, thinking it would make things easier. Many obstacles came your way, but you were still going strong, afraid of proving your family right. However, after two years of unhappiness, you both called it quits. Unfortunately, your relationship ended on a sour note, and the man you once loved turned into someone you never wanted to see again. So, what happens now, when you face him one more time after many years of being away from him.

[the-californicationist]

Cali's Kinktober: Day 06

Kinktober Masterlist coitus more ferarum - "fuck like animals" TF141 x f!reader Kinks > omegaverse, comeflation, hurt-comfort, fuck or die, medical discussions about dicks and puberty Full tags on AO3 - MDNI - Read at your own risk.

An Omegaverse AU. You are a professional, one of the best. As a Guidance Omega, you are happy to lend your (well-paid) skills to any Alpha in need. However, when one of your regular clients asks you to help his friend through his very first rut, you wonder if there are some challenges that are beyond your expertise. 

You were no doctor, but that definitely did not look good. As you stood next to your long-time client, Captain John Price, the Apex Alpha of his pack, you studied his soldier’s condition. It was the man’s first rut, which was very odd indeed, but nothing about this situation was normal. Apparently, he’d been living as a Beta for years, thinking that he had just missed his parents’ genetic code. But, now that he had been exposed to some sort of Konni terrorist drug, his genes had mutated, awakening latent Alphic traits. 

“How old is he?” You asked. 

“Twenty-nine. Too bloody old to be going through a first rut,” Price sighed, crossing his arms over his wide chest, “Mine was painful when I was a lad, and my cock was half the size it was meant to be. To be stretched like this… We’re lookin’ to you, Omega. You ever seen anythin’ like it?”

You shook your head. You hadn’t ever seen this before. When Alphas went through their first puberty as younglings, their genitals swelled, growing three or four times their size, breaking the thin skin they had since their birth and replacing their reproductive system with functioning Alpha hormones and fully equipped physical traits. As they matured further, their genitals would still grow and change with them, but not nearly as much as the first time. The initial switch in puberty could be traumatizing for younglings that went through it in later years rather than earlier. 

“No,” you sighed with him, “If he were younger, we could obviously opt for the surgery, but this is his mature skin. It’s not the membrane. All those years as a Beta, and now for him to be going through this… The pain must be unbearable. Perhaps… no, no. I don’t think that’s possible.”

“What?” Johnny’s Alpha, Simon Riley, interrupted your thought, insisting, “Tell us. We’ll do anything. We need him to survive this.”

Any other time, you would say that this was a gross overreaction, but in this case, their new Alpha friend may lose his life if he failed to make the change. If his skin cut and bled, if his hormones failed to take over in his Alphic glands, he might not live to even have a rut at all. 

“And you’ve tried the warm baths? The ones with the numbing oil I sent you?” You clarified, wondering how he was responding to other treatments.

“Every four hours. They help him get through a few hours of sleep at night, but it’s not sustainable. He can’t even wear clothes for fuck’s sake,” Gaz, an old friend of yours who had known you before your work as a Guardian Omega, spoke up. He was curt, obviously stressed about his friend. 

You walked over to Johnny’s bedside and held his hand, 

“Hey, Johnny. I’m the Guardian Omega John told you about. I’m here to help you, okay?”

He writhed, sweat beading over his brow, and he glowered down at his naked body, fiercely glaring at his red, swollen prick,

“Serves me right for all the bloody wishin’ I did as a laddie for havin’ a bigger knob, aye?”

The fact that he managed a slight smile and a wry joke, even if it was said through clenched teeth, immediately won you over. This man was exactly your type; brave, funny, and built like a beast. You didn’t know if you could help him, but you wanted to try. 

“Johnny, we have to let your dick stretch to its true size. If it stays trapped behind your foreskin and the outer epidermis of your sheath, you could have internal bleeding, or worse.”

“I didnae ken the word epidermis could turn me on, bonnie, but the way you say it… proves me wrong.”

His soft blue eyes finally met yours, and you could tell he was just putting on a courageous face. He knew he was in trouble, and he was probably in more pain than you previously suspected. 

“What was your idea?” Simon pressed, coming to stand next to Johnny’s bedside, staring at you with some urgency. 

You looked down at Johnny, rubbing the back of his hand with your fingers, feeling the ridges of his knuckles,

“I could keep you in me. We could… soak the skin in the Omegan oils. It would be…” 

You stopped talking. It was ridiculous. And based on the look on all of the men’s faces, they couldn’t believe you were even suggesting it.

“You cannae do it, lass. It’d throw you into a wee heat, and I’m in no state to help you. Ah! Shite,” Johnny gasped, wincing in pain as his cock throbbed, obviously eager to be a part of a heat, hypothetical or not. 

“I’ll stay, love. You’re gonna need some help gettin’ yourself to that state and keepin’ it that way,” Price volunteered. 

“I can’t ask you to do that, John. You’d be in just as much pain as Johnny by the end of the heat.”

“Aye, but I’d be alive, and if it works, so would he.”

John was stubborn. But, he was right. If you were going to try to soak Johnny’s aching cock in you for hours, you needed to prepare. Gaz could see the gears turning in your head,

“You’re gonna need us in shifts, and you know it. This is gonna take a fuckin’ village.”

And so it did. You had John bring in supplies – food, hydration, lube, and every comfort item you could imagine needing – and you got to work. The first step was getting Johnny settled inside of you so that you could allow his skin to soften in the oils from your glands. But, you couldn’t produce those on your own. You needed to be worked up to it by an Alpha, preferably one who knew how to get your body to come hard and quick. Wash, rinse, and repeat. 

You wouldn’t be able to get any pleasure from Johnny’s straining cock while he was inside of you. Thrusting would be beyond painful for him, and it would be dangerous to his system. You would need to cockwarm him, and John and his men would need to make you come without fucking you. The only problem was, if you were made to stay in that deep, orgasmic state for long enough, your body would toss you into a heat, and that’s when the real fun would begin. 

In your heat, you would expose all of the Alphas in the room to your pheromones. They would rut, and they wouldn’t be able to rut into your cunt with it occupied, as it were. They had to endure the cycle without your soothing oils, sacrificing their own comfort so that you could help Johnny’s foreskin and swollen tissue endure the change. 

You thought it might work. It was the best idea you had, but the problem was staring you right in the face: Alphas in a rut physically needed to fuck for it to stop. If – and it was a big if – your plan worked for Soap and you could coax his prick to form a knot, you would then need to service the other three. They might fight each other to be first in line, they might hurt you. It was so risky, but it was a risk you were all willing to take in order for Johnny to get better. 

“Johnny,” you woke him from the nap he was taking while you were all gathering supplies, “We’re ready.”

“Mm,” he groaned, his eyes wrenched shut from the pain, “Alright, bonnie. I’m ready for you.”

“This will be the worst of it, I think. And,” you made sure he was looking into your face, “It will be very, very painful.”

He nodded,

“I ken it, lass. Dinnae fash yourself. Needs doin’, and I know you… Angh! Fuck,” he hissed, grabbing your hand tighter when a pang struck him, “You’ll be there for me.” 

“I will, Johnny. I won’t leave you. This is gonna work,” you leaned down and kissed him on the cheek, trying to be respectful of Simon’s claim, even if it was now – at least hormonally – invalid.

You stood on the bed, straddling his hips, and Simon and Gaz were there to help lower you into position. You wanted to be able to settle your hole on him as carefully as possible. No sudden movements. 

You poured copious amounts of lube down his shaft and used your fingers to spread it around the outside and inside of your entrance. You wanted him to feel as little resistance as possible. This was about comfort, not pleasure. 

“Alright, slow as you can,” you instructed, letting the two giants by your side lower you down into position. 

The moment your skin made contact with Johnny’s ruddy cockhead, he screamed out in agony,

“Creepin’ Jesus! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” 

“Hold him, John!” You called out to their captain for help. If Johnny jerked forward, he could rip his flesh and cause permanent damage. 

Price’s huge hands pinned his friend to the bed, and you could see tears streaming down Johnny’s cheeks. You wished you could take his pain away, but stopping now meant giving up on him, and you weren’t going to let it come to that. 

Another inch and you had half of his pulsing head inside of you. It was smooth and easy for you to take with all the lube, but if you hadn’t prepped yourself, Johnny’s giant phallus would be a challenge. If he lived, he would be quite a formidable Alpha. You couldn’t let him down. 

“A little further, Gaz,” you said in a low voice, not wanting to scare Johnny of more pain. 

Another inch and the crown popped into you, sealing itself within your warm, wet body. 

Johnny cried out, shouting for mercy, begging for them to just let him die. 

“You can’t fuckin’ die, Johnny,” Simon said, trying to comfort his mate, “C’mon, love. You can do this.”

“Si… please, I cannae…” Soap looked up at him, pleading. 

You dropped a little more, and each time you did, you felt your heart clench at Johnny’s groans of anguish, ready for it to end even though you had just begun. 

Finally, after more than thirty minutes of this terrible limbo, you reached his base and you settled your weight on his body, staying as still as possible to minimize his discomfort. 

“Fuck, bonnie. I cannae do it. I’m sorry, I’m… It hurts,” Johnny was sobbing, and Simon rushed to his side.

Price finally let him free, and he laid there beneath you, throbbing inside of you, aching in your warmth. 

“John,” you whispered, getting Price’s attention, “We should hurry.”

The captain took one last look at Soap and then came over to your side. He stripped off his clothes and tugged on his already-hard cock, drooling for you despite the drama. Your pheromones were strong even without a rut; it was why you had been so successful at your job. You just hoped it would be enough. 

Price sat on the bed next to where you were straddling Johnny’s cock, and he began to kiss you, making sure to take care not to move you too much, but still taking charge of your pleasure nonetheless. You felt his hand begin to rub your lubed folds, prepping your body for your first of many orgasms. 

“Mngh,” you gasped, “Your hands are always so damn good.”

“Love touchin’ you, sweetheart. Gonna make you come for me,” John purred. 

And he was right. It didn’t take much effort from him, and you were at the precipice of your first descent into the dark abyss of bliss, trying to come without accidentally humping forward, controlling your breathing, focusing on your core. 

“Motherfuck–” You let out a deep guttural groan, your belly twisting in on itself and punishing you for staying so still. 

“Good girl,” Price murmured, picking up the pace to chase another one down. 

Two, three, four more, and you were sobbing with pleasure. You couldn’t stop yourself from pulsing around Johnny, but he was trying to be brave. He hadn’t complained once during this part of the process, and as you felt your body produce its slick from high up in your cunt, you hoped his flesh would yield and allow his cock to grow. You weren’t sure exactly where your body was going to fit more of him, but that was a problem for later.

“There it is,” you told Price in a slurred voice.

“Your slick? Aye, I smell you, love. Smells like heaven.”

“Keep going,” Simon said over his shoulder, “Please.”

You nodded down at him, holding onto Price for stability, trying your best to stay in this submissive state without any overt movement. It was not easy. All you wanted to do was hump the life out of Johnny’s fat cock and make him drop his load inside of you, but you knew, logically, that couldn’t happen. So, you stayed as still as you could, holding your hips in place, trying to be as stationary as possible for him. 

The afternoon turned into evening and then into night, and Price had switched out with Gaz who was now buzzing your high-powered vibrator on you with a dark look in his eyes. 

“Babes, I think we have to stop.”

“No,” you gasped, sweat pouring off of your brow, “It’s working. I can feel him growing inside of me. It’ll work.”

“That’s not what I mean. You’re droppin’ into heat. Look at you, you’re burnin’ up.”

You knew he was right, and you also knew it was way too soon. If you fell into your heat now, the whole process would be even harder. The three Alphas who were helping you would have their own needs, soon. And you would be the only one able to solve their rut. 

Price was already not faring so well. He’d needed to step into the other room to cool off, and you could see his knot hanging heavy above his balls. He was producing so much of his own slick and come, and your body was feeding off of that knowledge. 

“Look, Kyle,” you nodded down at Soap, “He’s asleep, deeply, and he finally has some relief. This is working, and we can’t stop now.”

“Come again, then. Come for me right now,” Gaz used his voice to command you, and you were so weak to his Alpha's power that you did. He had forced you to come just then, and you had to clutch him around the neck to stop from sliding back and forth over Soap’s growing cock. 

“See?” Gaz glared at you, “You’re in the early stages now. Your fever isn’t the only bloody clue.”

He grabbed your hair at the nape of your neck and made you look down at his cock. It was huge, and the tip gleamed with an iridescent bead of his Alphic slick. That wasn’t his normal precome. It was a rut, and you were staring at the first drop of his breeding fluids, ready to be painted inside of you to eas the way for his seed to take root. 

“Yeah,” Simon sighed, showing you his rainbow-covered palm, “I’ve had it for a while, now. I was just hopin’ Johnny’d be better and we could stop the rut from setting in.”

“Johnny’s knot is just starting to form. If we stop, he’ll have to go through the rest without the oils, and he… mngh…” The vibrator teased your clit, making you feel another orgasm coming on. It was painful for you to come, but you could handle it. Overstimulation was not life-threatening. You gritted your teeth and continued, “He can’t do it alone.”

“Then, come again,” Gaz swiped a wet thumb across your tight asshole, pressing the vibrator even stronger to your body, making you tumble and struggle with another orgasm, “The faster he knots you, the sooner I can have this pretty fuckin’ cunt.”

“Sergeant,” Price snapped at Gaz, forcing his attention away from you, his voice full of a different kind of hunger. 

Gaz blinked, the dark look in his eyes giving way to his usual sweetness, and he started to apologize to you,

“Fuck, I’m sorry, babes. Just got a little carried away. You smell so fuckin’ intense in your heats. Your scent…”

“It’s okay, Kyle,” you kissed him on the mouth, “It’s not your fault. Just take a break. I can handle John.”

Gaz kissed you back and retreated, clothing himself and ducking outside on the patio for a smoke. As John came to your side, he helped you onto some pillows, placing them under your knees. 

Just when you were settling in again, trying to stay as comfortable as you could, you both heard Soap wake up with a start. Simon was making some tea, but he was right back at Johnny’s side. 

“Johnny, careful,” he helped him readjust, waiting for the cries of pain to begin again. 

But, the screams didn’t come. Sure, he didn’t look like he was having a particularly good time, but he was not crying out in agony. He seemed more surprised that you were,

“Oh, shite. Bonnie, that feels… better. Feels like I can breathe again. Fuck. The base though. It’s so fuckin’ swollen.”

“Your knot,” you panted, “Your knot finally has room to form. I can feel it stretching me.”

Price moved his hand to the edge of your puffy, aching lips, feeling around the place where your body met Johnny’s, checking to see how far he had knotted you. 

“Tha’s our good girl,” he smiled up at you, “Been givin’ him your come, love?”

You nodded, resting your head on Price’s neck, exhausted, but trying to push onward. Soap still needed your strength. 

“Let’s give him a little more, yeah?” The captain’s hand moved to your arse, dipping his finger into your tight hole, even tighter now that it was fighting Johnny’s raging erection for space. 

“Holy fuck,” Price moaned, “He’s got you so fuckin’ full.”

Between Soap’s spread legs, Price laid down on his belly on the bed and began to kiss and bite the meat of your ass, his warm, wet tongue heading straight for your hole. 

He began to lick the outside of your rim, lapping at you in big, long licks. His huge hands were holding your cheeks apart, squeezing their plumpness in his fingers indulgently. When the tip of his pink, writhing muscle reached just beyond the inside of your hole, you cried out, gasping from the sensation. John began to fuck you with his mouth, and you felt your whole body come alive with sparkling need. 

“Mngh! John, please!” You shuddered, your knees trembling on the pillows. 

John hummed, talking to you between decadent licks,

“You smell so bloody good, Omega. You’ve got me fuckin’ dripping down my cock. My knot is already so full for you. Ready for you.”

“Ngh! You’re comin’ on me, lass. I can feel you, and it actually feels bloody brilliant,” Johnny commented, moaning through gritted teeth. 

The man in your pussy was still so sensitive; it was hard for him to focus. But, Soap was growing. His knot was filling with his blood, hardening within you. You could feel it. He was becoming a true Alpha. 

“Are you okay, Johnny? Does it hurt?” You asked him, watching as Simon rubbed his hands all over his chest and belly, trying to sooth him. 

“In the best way, hen. It’s workin’. I know it is.”

Price’s mouth, and the relief you felt at Johnny’s progress, worked together in your nerves and allowed your muscles to relax. You melted into an orgasm over him, pouring your Omegan oils all over his skin. In that same moment, as your come surrounded Johnny’s immense knot, you felt it slip just that much further into you and plug your hole with its girth. He’d done it; he had knotted you without injury. 

“Unhgh! Fuck! Fuck, bonnie, that feels… oh, fuck, I’m gonna come.”

You screamed in a wild shout, coming even harder now that you felt Johnny’s thick cream burst inside of your belly, hot and sticky and trapped within you. It made you feel so full of him, his knot and his come leaving little room for anything else. You dared to roll your hips on him, helping drain him dry, pulling more and more come from his heavy balls and letting it churn inside of you, swirling around his cock within your walls. 

Price came back up for air, and after you caught your breath, he helped Johnny slip himself out. His cock was red and bruised from his ordeal, but it was the prick of an Alpha. He’d lived through the change. 

Just when you were going to lean forward and congratulate him, Price’s hands clenched around your shoulders and yanked you from the bed. 

“John! Wait, it’s –”

“It’s my turn, love. You’re in a fuckin’ heat for me, and I’m ready for you,” his face turned dark and serious, just like Gaz had done, and there was no man in the room capable of saving you from John Price. 

“Just let me have a moment. I’m so sore, John. If you can wait for–nghah!!”

He threw you down on your hands and knees and thrust himself inside of you, his large shape too much for your body to ignore. You felt the glide of his slick, and you knew he needed to rut inside of you. He’d mate with you, and it would take, even through your pharmaceutical-grade blockers. He was an Apex Alpha, and there were no drugs on the planet to keep him from completing his birthright. You were about to be bred. 

“Waited long enough, pretty girl. Johnny’s got you so warm and soft. Shouldn’t be long before you’re taking my knot, too,” he growled in your ear, laying over your body as he tried to squeeze every last inch of his shaft inside your hole. 

You could feel his knot swelling at his root like a giant’s fist, bigger than you had ever felt it. But, you’d never serviced him during a heat. It wasn’t done. Guardian Omegas were there to help with ruts; they handled their heats on their own. But, goddamn it was nice to have a real cock for it this time. You’d been single for a long time, and you’d forgotten just how luxurious your body made it feel when you did the right thing and fed a true Alpha right inside your core. 

His thrusts were lewd and cruel. John banged himself into you, a hammer and its tack, dragging you under him and covering you with his hulking body. He was trying to knot you already, but you weren’t prepared to take him. Your whole body felt like it would burn up if you let it, and your skin flushed hot with need. 

“John… I can’t. You’re too much for me. I’m not… Oh, God, fuck!”

Price didn’t listen to your pleas for mercy. Or, he couldn’t. When you looked at him over your shoulder, you saw his eyes, unfocused and half-closed, glancing down every few thrusts to stare at his cock as it whet itself inside of your pussy. He was gone. 

He shoved himself forward, planting his hand in the middle of your back like a hawk with its talons, clutching at his soft prey as he devoured it. His knot pressed, and then retreated, only to press again, determined to get stuck inside your cunt so that his come could fill your womb. 

One more hard thrust, and he was in. 

You wailed out in high pleasure, and you felt your body begin to shudder and tremble from the mind-breaking lust of taking his enormous knot. It was so heavy inside of you that you felt like you were being pushed down by it. When you tried to lift your hips to roll them against him, you couldn’t move. He was too big. 

“Tha’s it, love. Tha’s it. This cunt belongs to me.”

John began to come, grunting and growling out nasty words to you as he spilled his seed inside of you. You felt it pool within you, mixing with Johnny’s, overwhelming it and soaking into your womb. He just kept filling you and filling you; you thought it would never stop. In fact, your belly began to feel tight against the floor, swollen with his milky white come. 

But, your legs were dry. He had knotted you so tightly that nothing escaped. When his hips tried to hump you, reflexes from his sex-fueled brain, he dragged you back across the floor with his dick, strong enough to yank your whole body back and forth with his knot. You felt like a ragdoll, tossed about, stuffed and cock-drunk.     

When he finally did pull out of you, you felt the gush of fluids burst out of your hole and cover the floor. It was a sickening, oozing sort of feeling, and you had to catch your breath from the way your belly clenched and spasmed from the stress.

Just when you thought your ordeal was over, you felt another set of hands take their place on your ass cheeks, holding you down again. 

You looked over your shoulder, and you realized that Gaz had come back inside, ready for his turn with you. 

You started to protest, but John’s callused hand grabbed your face, lifting you up and setting your mouth on his cock, breathing hard and groaning,

“Good little Omega. Be sweet for Garrick, love. You’ll have me again soon. Quite the fuckin’ rut you started. Had no idea this pussy could be so nice. Might have to send you into heat more often.”

idek what the hell this is. someone put me out to pasture holy hell what is wrong with me

[molinaskies]

It’s day 4 and it’s been nearly tied this entire time lmao

[sp-creates]

TS4 Animated Wings: Angel and Demon Set

Hey all!

This is an add-on set for the Animated Wings Mod that I released last year. It consists of two different styles - feathered "angel" wings and fleshy "demonic" wings. The models and textures were converted from Baldur's Gate 3 and were animated by me to create functional wings for your sims!

Available for early access patrons until June 16th, 2024!

DOWNLOAD (Patreon, Public Release: 06/16/2024)

[genshin-impact-updates]

Artifact Management and Enhancement Screen Optimizations Are Here~ | Developers Discussion - 12/06

Hello, Travelers~

In Version 4.3, we will implement a series of system optimizations in the game. We will be introducing some of these in this Developers Discussion. Let's take a look together~

〓Archon Quest "Requiem of the Echoing Depths" Unlinked From World Quest〓

To ensure that Travelers have a smoother experience with the Archon Quest, from Version 4.3 onwards, "The Chasm Delvers" quest series will no longer be prerequisites for this Archon Quest. When you reach the objective "Enter The Chasm: Underground Mines" in the Archon Quest "In the Depths, an Unexpected Reunion," a Teleport Waypoint will be automatically unlocked in The Chasm: Underground Mines so you can continue with the Archon Quest.

The Archon Quest "Requiem of the Echoing Depths" requires Travelers to head to The Chasm: Underground Mines, but this location will be locked until Travelers have completed the corresponding World Quest that allows them to enter and continue pursuing the Archon Quest.

〓One-Click Features〓

▌Dispatching Characters on Expeditions

One-Click Expeditions will become available in Version 4.3. This will allow Travelers to claim Expedition Rewards with a single click, as well as repeat expeditions with a single click.

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

▌Ingredient Processing and Forging Screens

Aside from expeditions, you will also be able to claim processed ingredients and forged items that have been completed with a single click in Version 4.3.

▌Mystic Offering

When performing Mystic Offerings at Crafting Benches, you'll now be able to add multiple Artifacts in batches with a single click.

In future versions, you'll also be able to claim created Furnishings from the Creation Screen in the Serenitea Pot with a single click.

〓Optimized Artifact Management〓

As the journey goes on, the number of Artifact Sets you can collect will continue to increase. To help Travelers quickly find and manage Artifacts, a significant optimization has been made to the Artifacts filter function.

Automatic Locking and Quick Unlock functions have been added to the Inventory > Artifacts screen. Travelers can use these to automatically lock and unlock Artifacts according to the requirements they set.

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

Additionally, as a reference to help Travelers when choosing Artifacts, recommended Artifact set information based on recently active players will now be shown on characters' Artifacts screens.

For more details about Artifact management optimizations, please stay tuned for future official descriptions.

〓Optimized Enhancement Screens〓

In the current version of the game, when Travelers level up characters or enhance Weapons and Artifacts, a pop-up appears showing how the corresponding values changed before and after enhancement. In Version 4.3, enhancement information will be integrated into the original screen instead. This will make the enhancement experience smoother for Travelers by getting rid of the frequent pop-ups.

Apart from integrating enhancement information, there will also be some small targeted optimizations on these screens:

▌Character Level-Up Screen

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

The speed of interface special effects related to leveling up characters has been increased, and you can now use Auto Add to add sufficient Character EXP Materials to get the character up to the highest level they can reach before Ascension with a single click.

▌Artifact Enhancement Screen

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

Other optimizations:

1. You can now consume up to 15 items per time when enhancing Artifacts.

2. Added the "Enhance to Next Tier" function. Once activated, when there are still open slots to add Enhancement Materials but this action will already cause the Artifact to reach Level 4/8/12/16, no more additional Enhancement Materials will be automatically added.

3. In Settings > Other, you can choose whether or not 5-Star Artifacts can be auto-added as Enhancement Materials.

Combined with the Automatic Locking function mentioned above, we hope that these changes will make managing 5-star Artifacts more convenient for Travelers.

▌Weapon Enhancement Screen

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

You can now consume up to 40 items per time when enhancing Weapons on, and select multiple materials when refining Weapons.

We hope that these optimizations make the enhancement experience smoother for Travelers.

〓Character Reload Spot When Challenging Domains Repeatedly〓

In Version 4.3, after entering the Domain or if you continue to challenge the Domain after claiming rewards, characters will reload nearer to the Domain challenge location. This means you won't have to run over from the Domain entrance to this location again.

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

〓Other Optimizations〓

To improve your gaming experience, some other optimizations will be implemented in Version 4.3. These include:

1. The way enemy avatars display in Adventurer Handbook: Enemies will be adjusted to help you find them. Also, you can now select "Cancel Navigation" on this screen to stop navigating towards the corresponding enemy on the map.

2. On the various creation screens (Crafting/Cooking/Forging/Create Furnishing), if there are no selected character records on the Traveler's device, the first character that can provide a bonus when creating the selected item will be chosen by default.

3. On the map screen, you'll now be able to check bosses' current remaining respawn times by clicking their avatars.

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

And that's all for this Developers Discussion. We'll have more information about new version content and optimizations for you in the future, so please stay tuned for further official announcements. If you have any thoughts or feedback, feel free to send them to us through the various channels within and outside of the game~