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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Mar 13) in SAN FRANCISCO with ROBIN SLOAN, then Toronto, NYC, Anaheim, and more!

Another characteristically brilliant Kashmir Hill story for The New York Times reveals another characteristically terrible fact about modern life: your car secretly records fine-grained telemetry about your driving and sells it to data-brokers, who sell it to insurers, who use it as a pretext to gouge you on premiums:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html

Almost every car manufacturer does this: Hyundai, Nissan, Ford, Chrysler, etc etc:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/

This is true whether you own or lease the car, and it's separate from the "black box" your insurer might have offered to you in exchange for a discount on your premiums. In other words, even if you say no to the insurer's carrot – a surveillance-based discount – they've got a stick in reserve: buying your nonconsensually harvested data on the open market.

I've always hated that saying, "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product," the reason being that it posits decent treatment as a customer reward program, like the little ramekin warm nuts first class passengers get before takeoff. Companies don't treat you well when you pay them. Companies treat you well when they fear the consequences of treating you badly.

Take Apple. The company offers Ios users a one-tap opt-out from commercial surveillance, and more than 96% of users opted out. Presumably, the other 4% were either confused or on Facebook's payroll. Apple – and its army of cultists – insist that this proves that our world's woes can be traced to cheapskate "consumers" who expected to get something for nothing by using advertising-supported products.

But here's the kicker: right after Apple blocked all its rivals from spying on its customers, it began secretly spying on those customers! Apple has a rival surveillance ad network, and even if you opt out of commercial surveillance on your Iphone, Apple still secretly spies on you and uses the data to target you for ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product – provided the company can get away with treating you as the product. Apple can absolutely get away with treating you as the product, because it lacks the historical constraints that prevented Apple – and other companies – from treating you as the product.

As I described in my McLuhan lecture on enshittification, tech firms can be constrained by four forces:

I. Competition

II. Regulation

III. Self-help

IV. Labor

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

When companies have real competitors – when a sector is composed of dozens or hundreds of roughly evenly matched firms – they have to worry that a maltreated customer might move to a rival. 40 years of antitrust neglect means that corporations were able to buy their way to dominance with predatory mergers and pricing, producing today's inbred, Habsburg capitalism. Apple and Google are a mobile duopoly, Google is a search monopoly, etc. It's not just tech! Every sector looks like this:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

Eliminating competition doesn't just deprive customers of alternatives, it also empowers corporations. Liberated from "wasteful competition," companies in concentrated industries can extract massive profits. Think of how both Apple and Google have "competitively" arrived at the same 30% app tax on app sales and transactions, a rate that's more than 1,000% higher than the transaction fees extracted by the (bloated, price-gouging) credit-card sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

But cartels' power goes beyond the size of their warchest. The real source of a cartel's power is the ease with which a small number of companies can arrive at – and stick to – a common lobbying position. That's where "regulatory capture" comes in: the mobile duopoly has an easier time of capturing its regulators because two companies have an easy time agreeing on how to spend their app-tax billions:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Apple – and Google, and Facebook, and your car company – can violate your privacy because they aren't constrained regulation, just as Uber can violate its drivers' labor rights and Amazon can violate your consumer rights. The tech cartels have captured their regulators and convinced them that the law doesn't apply if it's being broken via an app:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes

In other words, Apple can spy on you because it's allowed to spy on you. America's last consumer privacy law was passed in 1988, and it bans video-store clerks from leaking your VHS rental history. Congress has taken no action on consumer privacy since the Reagan years:

https://www.eff.org/tags/video-privacy-protection-act

But tech has some special enshittification-resistant characteristics. The most important of these is interoperability: the fact that computers are universal digital machines that can run any program. HP can design a printer that rejects third-party ink and charge $10,000/gallon for its own colored water, but someone else can write a program that lets you jailbreak your printer so that it accepts any ink cartridge:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Tech companies that contemplated enshittifying their products always had to watch over their shoulders for a rival that might offer a disenshittification tool and use that as a wedge between the company and its customers. If you make your website's ads 20% more obnoxious in anticipation of a 2% increase in gross margins, you have to consider the possibility that 40% of your users will google "how do I block ads?" Because the revenue from a user who blocks ads doesn't stay at 100% of the current levels – it drops to zero, forever (no user ever googles "how do I stop blocking ads?").

The majority of web users are running an ad-blocker:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

Web operators made them an offer ("free website in exchange for unlimited surveillance and unfettered intrusions") and they made a counteroffer ("how about 'nah'?"):

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

Here's the thing: reverse-engineering an app – or any other IP-encumbered technology – is a legal minefield. Just decompiling an app exposes you to felony prosecution: a five year sentence and a $500k fine for violating Section 1201 of the DMCA. But it's not just the DMCA – modern products are surrounded with high-tech tripwires that allow companies to invoke IP law to prevent competitors from augmenting, recongifuring or adapting their products. When a business says it has "IP," it means that it has arranged its legal affairs to allow it to invoke the power of the state to control its customers, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

An "app" is just a web-page skinned in enough IP to make it a crime to add an ad-blocker to it. This is what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model" and it's everywhere. When companies don't have to worry about users deploying self-help measures to disenshittify their products, they are freed from the constraint that prevents them indulging the impulse to shift value from their customers to themselves.

Apple owes its existence to interoperability – its ability to clone Microsoft Office's file formats for Pages, Numbers and Keynote, which saved the company in the early 2000s – and ever since, it has devoted its existence to making sure no one ever does to Apple what Apple did to Microsoft:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Regulatory capture cuts both ways: it's not just about powerful corporations being free to flout the law, it's also about their ability to enlist the law to punish competitors that might constrain their plans for exploiting their workers, customers, suppliers or other stakeholders.

The final historical constraint on tech companies was their own workers. Tech has very low union-density, but that's in part because individual tech workers enjoyed so much bargaining power due to their scarcity. This is why their bosses pampered them with whimsical campuses filled with gourmet cafeterias, fancy gyms and free massages: it allowed tech companies to convince tech workers to work like government mules by flattering them that they were partners on a mission to bring the world to its digital future:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

For tech bosses, this gambit worked well, but failed badly. On the one hand, they were able to get otherwise powerful workers to consent to being "extremely hardcore" by invoking Fobazi Ettarh's spirit of "vocational awe":

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

On the other hand, when you motivate your workers by appealing to their sense of mission, the downside is that they feel a sense of mission. That means that when you demand that a tech worker enshittifies something they missed their mother's funeral to deliver, they will experience a profound sense of moral injury and refuse, and that worker's bargaining power means that they can make it stick.

Or at least, it did. In this era of mass tech layoffs, when Google can fire 12,000 workers after a $80b stock buyback that would have paid their wages for the next 27 years, tech workers are learning that the answer to "I won't do this and you can't make me" is "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" (AKA "sharpen your blades boys"):

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/

With competition, regulation, self-help and labor cleared away, tech firms – and firms that have wrapped their products around the pluripotently malleable core of digital tech, including automotive makers – are no longer constrained from enshittifying their products.

And that's why your car manufacturer has chosen to spy on you and sell your private information to data-brokers and anyone else who wants it. Not because you didn't pay for the product, so you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

Cars are enshittified. The dozens of chips that auto makers have shoveled into their car design are only incidentally related to delivering a better product. The primary use for those chips is autoenshittification – access to legal strictures ("IP") that allows them to block modifications and repairs that would interfere with the unfettered abuse of their own customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

The fact that it's a felony to reverse-engineer and modify a car's software opens the floodgates to all kinds of shitty scams. Remember when Bay Staters were voting on a ballot measure to impose right-to-repair obligations on automakers in Massachusetts? The only reason they needed to have the law intervene to make right-to-repair viable is that Big Car has figured out that if it encrypts its diagnostic messages, it can felonize third-party diagnosis of a car, because decrypting the messages violates the DMCA:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/drm-cars-will-drive-consumers-crazy

Big Car figured out that VIN locking – DRM for engine components and subassemblies – can felonize the production and the installation of third-party spare parts:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

The fact that you can't legally modify your car means that automakers can go back to their pre-2008 ways, when they transformed themselves into unregulated banks that incidentally manufactured the cars they sold subprime loans for. Subprime auto loans – over $1t worth! – absolutely relies on the fact that borrowers' cars can be remotely controlled by lenders. Miss a payment and your car's stereo turns itself on and blares threatening messages at top volume, which you can't turn off. Break the lease agreement that says you won't drive your car over the county line and it will immobilize itself. Try to change any of this software and you'll commit a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

Tesla, naturally, has the most advanced anti-features. Long before BMW tried to rent you your seat-heater and Mercedes tried to sell you a monthly subscription to your accelerator pedal, Teslas were demon-haunted nightmare cars. Miss a Tesla payment and the car will immobilize itself and lock you out until the repo man arrives, then it will blare its horn and back itself out of its parking spot. If you "buy" the right to fully charge your car's battery or use the features it came with, you don't own them – they're repossessed when your car changes hands, meaning you get less money on the used market because your car's next owner has to buy these features all over again:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

And all this DRM allows your car maker to install spyware that you're not allowed to remove. They really tipped their hand on this when the R2R ballot measure was steaming towards an 80% victory, with wall-to-wall scare ads that revealed that your car collects so much information about you that allowing third parties to access it could lead to your murder (no, really!):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

That's why your car spies on you. Because it can. Because the company that made it lacks constraint, be it market-based, legal, technological or its own workforce's ethics.

One common critique of my enshittification hypothesis is that this is "kind of sensible and normal" because "there’s something off in the consumer mindset that we’ve come to believe that the internet should provide us with amazing products, which bring us joy and happiness and we spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return":

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-have-great-conversations/

What this criticism misses is that this isn't the companies bargaining to shift some value from us to them. Enshittification happens when a company can seize all that value, without having to bargain, exploiting law and technology and market power over buyers and sellers to unilaterally alter the way the products and services we rely on work.

A company that doesn't have to fear competitors, regulators, jailbreaking or workers' refusal to enshittify its products doesn't have to bargain, it can take. It's the first lesson they teach you in the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Your car spying on you isn't down to your belief that your carmaker "should provide you with amazing products, which brings your joy and happiness you spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return." It's not because you didn't pay for the product, so now you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

The consequences of this spying go much further than mere insurance premium hikes, too. Car telemetry sits at the top of the funnel that the unbelievably sleazy data broker industry uses to collect and sell our data. These are the same companies that sell the fact that you visited an abortion clinic to marketers, bounty hunters, advertisers, or vengeful family members pretending to be one of those:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/07/safegraph-spies-and-lies/#theres-no-i-in-uterus

Decades of pro-monopoly policy led to widespread regulatory capture. Corporate cartels use the monopoly profits they extract from us to pay for regulatory inaction, allowing them to extract more profits.

But when it comes to privacy, that period of unchecked corporate power might be coming to an end. The lack of privacy regulation is at the root of so many problems that a pro-privacy movement has an unstoppable constituency working in its favor.

At EFF, we call this "privacy first." Whether you're worried about grifters targeting vulnerable people with conspiracy theories, or teens being targeted with media that harms their mental health, or Americans being spied on by foreign governments, or cops using commercial surveillance data to round up protesters, or your car selling your data to insurance companies, passing that long-overdue privacy legislation would turn off the taps for the data powering all these harms:

https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms

Traditional economics fails because it thinks about markets without thinking about power. Monopolies lead to more than market power: they produce regulatory capture, power over workers, and state capture, which felonizes competition through IP law. The story that our problems stem from the fact that we just don't spend enough money, or buy the wrong products, only makes sense if you willfully ignore the power that corporations exert over our lives. It's nice to think that you can shop your way out of a monopoly, because that's a lot easier than voting your way out of a monopoly, but no matter how many times you vote with your wallet, the cartels that control the market will always win:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#apor-locksmith

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

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/2024/03/12/market-failure/#car-wars

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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all-the-fish · 8 months

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Oh, you know, just the usual internet browsing experience in the year of 2024

Some links and explanations since I figured it might be useful to some people, and writing down stuff is nice.

First of all, get Firefox. Yes, it has apps for Android/iOS too. It allows more extensions and customization (except the iOS version), it tracks less, the company has a less shitty attitude about things. Currently all the other alternatives are variations of Chromium, which means no matter how degoogled they supposedly are, Google has almost a monopoly on web browsing and that's not great. Basically they can introduce extremely user unfriendly updates and there's nothing forcing them to not do it, and nowhere for people to escape to. Current examples of their suggested updates are disabling/severly limiting adblocks in June 2024, and this great suggestion to force sites to verify "web environment integrity" ("oh you don't run a version of chromium we approve, such as the one that runs working adblocks? no web for you.").

uBlockOrigin - barely needs any explanation but yes, it works. You can whitelist whatever you want to support through displaying ads. You can also easily "adblock" site elements that annoy you. "Please log in" notice that won't go away? Important news tm sidebar that gives you sensory overload? Bye.

Dark Reader - a site you use has no dark mode? Now it has. Fairly customizable, also has some basic options for visually impaired people.

SponsorBlock for YouTube - highlights/skips (you choose) sponsored bits in the videos based on user submissions, and a few other things people often skip ("pls like and subscribe!"). A bit more controversial than normal adblock since the creators get some decent money from this, but also a lot of the big sponsors are kinda scummy and offer inferior product for superior price (or try to sell you a star jpg land ownership in Scotland to become a lord), so hearing an ad for that for the 20th time is kinda annoying. But also some creators make their sponsored segments hilarious.

Privacy Badger (and Ghostery I suppose) - I'm not actually sure how needed these are with uBlock and Firefox set to block any tracking it can, but that's basically what it does. Find someone more educated on this topic than me for more info.

Https Everywhere - I... can't actually find the extension anymore, also Firefox has this as an option in its settings now, so this is probably obsolete, whoops.

Facebook Container - also comes with Firefox by default I think. Keeps FB from snooping around outside of FB. It does that a lot, even if you don't have an account.

WebP / Avif image converter - have you ever saved an image and then discovered you can't view it, because it's WebP/Avif? You can now save it as a jpg.

YouTube Search Fixer - have you noticed that youtube search has been even worse than usual lately, with inserting all those unrelated videos into your search results? This fixes that. Also has an option to force shorts to play in the normal video window.

Consent-O-Matic - automatically rejects cookies/gdpr consent forms. While automated, you might still get a second or two of flashing popups being yeeted.

XKit Rewritten - current most up to date "variation "fork" of XKit I think? Has settings in extension settings instead of an extra tumblr button. As long as you get over the new dash layout current tumblr is kinda fine tbh, so this isn't as important as in the past, but still nice. I mostly use it to hide some visual bloat and mark posts on the dash I've already seen.

YouTube NonStop - do you want to punch youtube every time it pauses a video to check if you're still there? This saves your fists.

uBlacklist - blacklists sites from your search results. Obviously has a lot of different uses, but I use it to hide ai generated stuff from image search results. Here's a site list for that.

Redirect AMP to HTML - redirects links from their amp version to the normal version. Amp link is a version of a site made faster and more accessible for phones by Bing/Google. Good in theory, but lets search engines prefer some pages to others (that don't have an amp version), and afaik takes traffic from the original page too. Here's some more reading about why it's an issue, I don't think I can make a good tl;dr on this.

Also since I used this in the tags, here's some reading about enshittification and why the current mainstream internet/services kinda suck.

#modern internet is great #enshittification #internet browsing #idk how to tag this #but i hope it will help someone #personal #question mark

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bigification · 3 months

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Hiking Clothes

"Fuck, that guy was weird." You say under your breath as you walk back to your car.

What else did you expect, responding to an ad for free clothes on Facebook marketplace. He was an older guy with a big gut that was too big for his clothes. He never made eye contact, just looking down at my body. And he spoke in an emotionless monotone voice.

You don't think much of it, just glad you're on your way home now. The man doesn't live far, so you arrive home in just a few minutes. As you walk up to your apartment, you see a familiar face getting into the elevator. He is looking away from you, so it's hard to tell but he looks kinda like the guy who sold you the clothes.

"I guess he just has one of those faces, huh?" You dismiss it, assuming they just look similar.

You get home and immediately get undressed, ready to try on the new clothes. You throw on the large black shirt, It's a bit loose but if you tuck it in it looks fine. You pull up the shorts and they're also too big, although they come with straps that hold them up. Good enough, given they were free after all.

You stand in front of the mirror, trying to decide whether you like them enough to keep them. They don't look that good, but something about the way it fits you makes you feel confident. But then you notice a dry white stain in the crotch area.

"Ew, what the fuck! That's disgus- aooohh ughh." You try to voice your disgust at the not so subtle stain, but you're quickly interrupted. The stain disappears as the dried liquid siphons up your dick. The euphoric feeling interrupts your train of thought with nothing but pleasure.

"Fuuuuuck that feels good." You say between moans.

You grab your cock as it starts to harden, making it stick straight out in the loose fitting shorts. The tingling feeling in your crotch continues as you can feel your dick growing in your hands. From your underwhelming 4 inches to 5, 6, 7, 8 inches. It folds to the side, trying to find room to comfortably sit in your shorts. The tingling shoots down your thick shaft and into your balls, making them drop further as they grow to the size of tennis balls. The bulge is now unmistakable under your shorts.

"Ooouugh... More." You can barely manage to speak.

Suddenly your small but perky ass starts to fill with fat. Your cheeks expand until they fill all the empty room in your large shorts, creating a large shelf on your backside. Your thighs soon follow suit, growing with fat and muscle and making you spread your legs to make room for them. Your calves and feet double in size to accommodate your growing body.

"What... Ooohh... Is happening... Ugh... To me?" You try to reason, but overwhelming pleasure has already taken over your lower half. You cups your fat ass, making your hips thrust forward as a stain of pre-cum starts to form in your crotch.

The tingling pleasure that has engulfed your legs starts to migrate up into your midsection. You feel a tightness in your stomach, looking down you realize a small mound of fat is now hiding under your large shirt. The small mound grows and grows until your belly would be impossible to hide, even under the loosest shirts. Your posture starts to lean back as you try to balance out your growing belly. Your shirt is now stretched tight over the beach ball sized gut that is hanging over your waist, making your overalls slide to the side of your belly. You even feel the soft fat growing on your sides and pushing your arms outward, leaving you with thick love handles that spill over the waist of your shorts.

"Wait... Nooooouuuggh... This isn't aauuugh... Right." You try to say as your gut starts to block the view of your lower body.

You instinctively try to reach your cock again, the tingling feeling is strongest there and it begs for release. You try to stretch and contort, but no matter what your gut prevents you from reaching it.

"No no no auugh, fuck!"

This isn't the end of it, it will get worse. His flat pecs suddenly burst outward. Soft fat engulfs them as they start to press against his shirt, his rock hard nipples showing through. They start to sag to the sides as they lay on his gut. He let out a loud moan as his fingers shot to his large nipples.

You feel your shoulders fill out your now tiny looking shirt as they grow large and broad. Your arms fill with a mix of strong muscle and soft fat, making you look strong but cuddly. And your hands double in size and fill with callouses, leaving you with massive man hands. Your arms lengthen in the process, finally allowing you to reach your dick. One hand rubbing your belly, and one hand stroking your cock. The stain in your crotch keeps growing and growing as per cum spills out.

"Ooouugh Fuck yeah!"

You barely notice your deep voice and thick southern accent. Similar to that of the man who sold you those clothes. If anything the manliness of your voice turns you on even more. You waddle to a mirror, wanting to see the package of manliness that you now are.

You stand in the mirror, gut proudly pushed forward and hand stick on the crotch. You look at your face and it seems unfamiliar. It's young and almost feminine, the complete opposite of you. But it doesn't last long. Your flowy hair completely falls out, leaving you with a shiny white head. Your eyebrows thicken as your brow bone becomes more prominent and manly. Your clean shaven face rapidly fills with a bushy black beard, covering the thick double chin that covers your jawline.

You confidently stare at your body, finally matching the manly image you have of yourself.

If only you could spread that to everyone in the world, make them understand the immense pleasure of being a big manly guy such as yourself. The tingling in your cock returns when you think about it. You stare at your gut and start to pump your hand up and down your crotch. Normally a man in his fifties would have trouble getting hard, but a true man like you is hard all the time and ready to spread his seed. Your knees buckle and you let out a loud moan as ropes of cum shoot out into your shorts. You fall to your knees with a loud thump as your cum leaks down the inside of your leg.

"Fuck I'm hungry!" You forget everything you were thinking in favour of the overwhelming need to get bigger. A loud belch erupts from your body as you slowly get up to your feet. The ground rumbles under your feet as you walk to the fridge and pull out some leftover pizza and a beer. You lay your fat ass down on the couch and turn on the tv. You surf through channels, trying to find the sports channel. But you stop on the local news, as something catches your eye. The two anchors look so... Manly. Your dick hardens as you turn up the volume. The two southern hunks are talking about donating clothes for free.

"A drastic increase in donated clothes has been reported in the last few hours. Us two anchors have received a few of these generous donations today. We highly recommend wearing these donated clothes as soon as possible, and donating as many of your clothes as possible to spread the... Ugh... Generosity."

"I should do that!" You tell as you heave yourself off of the couch.

You run to the neighbor and loudly bang on the door. It takes a few moments, but a tall scrawny man answers in his underwear and a small button up.

"What!?" He asks, irritated.

"I want you to have these. For free!" You say as you pull off your stained shorts.

"Uugh okay?" He says confused.

"Here I'll put them on for ya."

You firmly grab his ankle and lift it through the leg of the shorts.

"Hey wait, what the fuck are you doing!?" The man yells.

You grab the other ankle and pull the shorts up his legs as he struggles.

"He sto... Ooouugh ugh." The man stops struggling as soon as you button them up.

The stain you left in the shorts quickly disappears as your seed enters his body. You should feel proud for contributing to the world by spreading your manliness.

The man quickly succumbs to the effects. His belly inflated into a hairy ball gut as it popped all of the buttons in his shirt. His chest turns into two man tits with swollen nipples. His arms and legs expand into thick hairy limbs as his hands and feet double in size. The bulge in his pants grows and so too does the stain of pre cum. Finally his hair falls out and a thick beard grows in its absence. The man is left there staring at you while rubbing his massive cock and his hairy gut.

He lets out a moan as a new stain forms in his pants. You catch his as he is about to fall. You lean into his ear and whisper "Spread the message," in a deep sultry voice.

"Honey, are you coming back." A man's voice echoed from inside the apartment.

"Go get him." You tap him on the shoulder.

He smiles as he pulls off his shorts and waddles back into his apartment.

"Who are you?" You hear. Though as you walk away, all you can hear is a struggle, followed by loud moans coming from the apartment. And you smile, knowing you helped spread your manliness today.

#male tf #masculine #fat tf #hairy #male wg #reality change #male transformation #muscle tf #age progression

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jisaninfobd · 2 years

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recycledmoviecostumes · 7 months

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This Edwardian-style gown was created for the Ascot scene in the original 1956 Broadway production of the Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady. The scene was filled with beautiful gowns, all in black and white, in keeping with the famous “Black Ascot” of 1910, when King Edward VII died shortly before the event, making it inappropriate to wear color. Thus, those who attended wore all black, aside from accents of white from pearls and flowers.

The gown was designed by Cecil Beaton and executed by Helene Pons based on his sketches. The cream crepe dress has black velvet stripes and an embroidered lace bib. The photo above most likely shows actress Melisande Congdon in the costume, as she performed in the play for three years.

When Truman Capote decided to throw his famous “Black and White Ball,” – he used the scene from My Fair Lady as its inspiration. Deborah Davis’ wonderful book The Party of the Century mentions that much of the gossip about town was about “who” everyone would wear. Amanda Carter Burden, daughter of Babe Paley, was able to sidestep this conversation and not commit to any one designer when she chose a gown from the film My Fair Lady. A drawing of Amanda in costume, sketched by Kenneth Paul Block, appeared on the front page of Women’s Wear Daily.

But was her gown from the film adaptation of My Fair Lady? Amanda was based in New York City, and it would have been far easier for her to obtain one of the costumes from the Broadway show.

In addition, no costume in the film accurately matches the one she wore to the ball. There is one that is similar and clearly based on the same design, but it appears to be a different piece.

In 2015, the dress from the Broadway production went up for sale, where it sold for $1280. It contains a lace dickey that the auction house noted has been added post-production. The dickey is clearly visible on Amanda Carter in the Black and White Ball photo. While I cannot confirm for certain that she is wearing the dress from the stage production rather than the film production, I am confident that she is.

Costume Credit: Katie S.

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#my fair lady #truman capote #Melisande Congdon #cecil beaton #Amanda Carter Burden #black and white ball #costume drama #period drama

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enigma2meagain · 2 years

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🚨🚨 URGENT! Congress trying to pass anti-LGBT bill under the guise of “child safety”!

UPDATE 09/05/2023:

Well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of her bigotry

So Marsha Blackburn, in her infinite wisdom, decided to admit in an interview with the bigoted Family Policy Alliance that the Kids Online Safety Act is a GIANT anti-transgender bill (or at the least, it’s so poorly written that it makes targeting transgender people easier). Naturally, after this blunder, she and Blumenthal are trying to do damage control. But WE have the videos, and people’s responses to this open confession in the links below:

Alejandro Caraballo’s Tweet with the Video.

Erin Reed’s followup article

Attempts at damage control commented on by Ari Drennen

PinkNews’ article about it.

Beacon Broadside Article

Mashable Article

So with all that in mind, please make way to the Bad Internet Bills website to tell your Senators that you STRONGLY advise them to drop their support/refuse to support this awful bill in light of this, or that their re-election chances will drop considerably.

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UPDATE 02/14/2023: Richard Blumenthal is a lying snake who’s trying to get both KOSA and EARN IT Act back into law.

He persistently continues to ignore all of the backlash against these bills, the criticisms and highlighting the serious flaws of the bill by numerous human rights and LGBTQ organizations, and it’s telling that there seems to be no one who opposed the bill at the hearings today.

Fortunately, there are those are speaking up against it, such as Evan Greer from Fight For The Future.

Keep your eyes and ears open. We will be hearing more about these bills as time goes on.

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UPDATE 01/30/2023: Well, Chuck Schumer has chosen to backstab human rights and pro- LGBTQ communities, as well as the internet by trying to fast-track KOSA. The time table is as follows:

REINTRODUCTION OF THE BILL IN FEBRUARY

HOLDING MARKUPS IN MARCH

And holding a floor vote in JUNE

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1620088145554579456

KEEP IN MIND, this was the man who blocked legitimately good anti-Big Tech bills like AICOA on the pretense they would be “too much”, but was perfectly fine with the travesty of KOSA.

This man is in Big Tech’s pockets, because only they can afford to pay the fines that such a restrictive pro-censorship bill would enforce. The only people this bill helps are the exact people it claims to stop, while LGBTQ people have to pay the price for the greed of the corrupt congressmen and women.

All of the relevant links are still below, but I will be updated this as we go.

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UPDATE 01/17/2023: Nothing has happened yet, but there have been rumblings of our “favorite” Senator Blumenthal talking about trying to push KOSA in again. I’ll mostly be keeping an eye on things for now, and you guys should too on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and news outlets.

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UPDATE 12/20/2022: KOSA BILL HAS NOT BEEN INCLUDED IN THE FINAL OMNIBUS BILL! WE DID IT!

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1605261800479547392

That being said, this is very much a reprieve, since Blumenthal and Blackburn, and their cohorts have made it clear they intend to get this bill back into Congress next year. But WE DID IT. We managed to get this bill stopped from being added in the omnibus bill.

I want to thank all of you who helped to reblog this post, signed the various petitions and the open letter, and especially if you went and called your Senators. Without your effort, this might have turned out VERY differently!

Thank you all, and I hope the rest of this year is a pleasant one!

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So, this is a particularly long post, but it’s an absolutely IMPORTANT ONE. PLEASE REBLOG! LIKING IS USELESS!

UPDATE 12/14/2022: Two weeks ago, 90+ human rights, LGBT, and tech orgs signed onto an open letter telling Senators NOT to pass this bill. in response, over 230 orgs led by the American Psychological Association signed a letter urging senators to push this bill forward.

An updated version of the bill has been pushed forward by Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn, who claim to have changed the bill in response to feedback, but insight by the likes of Evan Greer and Ari Cohn have made it clear that the changes are superficial at best, and arguably fail to properly address the problems of the original bill.

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1603139423071309825

We got blindsided by this, and we REALLY need your help!

Further explanation HERE: https://www.tumblr.com/fullhalalalchemist/703545300138262528/urgent

POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. about your opposition to this! The more voices speaking out the better, and we can’t do this alone!

The Hashtags are:

#KOSA

#STOPKOSA

#KidsOnlineSafetyAct

“Kids Online Safety Act” (no hashtag and quotes, just the regular words)

And PLEASE call your Senators at (202-224-3121).

ESPECIALLY CALL THESE THREE, SINCE THEY ARE THE MAJOR PEOPLE WHO COULD END UP PUTTING THE BILL INTO THE OMNIBUS/MUST PASS SPENDING BILL:

Maria Cantwell (202) 224-3441

Chuck Schumer (202) 224-6542

Nancy Pelosi (202) 225-4965

LINKTREE WITH ALL INFO HERE: https://linktr.ee/stopkosa

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ORIGINAL POST:

In a particularly scummy move, the Kids Online Safety Act is going to be put into the must pass end of year spending bill: www.axios.com/…

The two laws best positioned to get rolled into big year-end legislative packages, according to advocates and lawmakers, are:

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require platforms to guard kids from harmful content using new features and safeguards and to make privacy settings "on" by default for children. The law also mandates privacy audits and more transparency about privacy policies.

At first glance, the bill doesn’t sound bad, since it’s about helping “protect children” online. But like every “protect the children” type law, this would censor the internet of anything “harmful” to children aka any LGBT, NSFW, or whatever the Right doesn’t like, force everyone to upload their govt ID’s to even access anything online, and surveil everyone else. Gutting everyone’s privacy in an era where we see massive state violence and encroaching fascism globally. This is not only pushed by the same people (Senator Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn) who created the awful EARN IT Act, but also has many of the same flaws, such as pro-censorship, anti LGBT resources and content, and pro-mass surveillance.

But the biggest problem, as Mike Stabile has pointed out, is HOW the mechanism to which this works: The State Attorney General.

This addition would allow states like Texas and Florida to sue companies for having LGBTQ+ content, along with sex education resources, incentivizing these platforms to ban that content. To be more specific, the bill allows the state attorney general to sue if they believe that platforms do not protect minors from a list of harms that includes politicized terms like "grooming" which, as we've seen can include any sort of LGBTQ information, entertainment or literature.

RuPaul on TikTok?

A clip on transgender youth on Facebook?

A gay character in a Disney movie?

Suicide hotlines for gay youth?

Cue a suit from Texas or Florida targeting the entire web.

And the problem is that given the current political climate and the cruel behavior of a number of GOP aligned political groups in positions of power, this only ends up making things RIPE for abuse and mass censorship (since companies will probably end up choosing to acquiesce to their demands rather than risk being subject to liability) not to mention the damage this would cause to children who might need resources regarding LGBT or sex education.

Furthermore, the definition of “sexually exploitative material”, “grooming”, and “child porn” has been used in the past year to target transgender people, drag queens, and the wider LGBTQ+ community by likening their very existence as sexually violent. Yet another way this bill’s language will be used to target a community that is already facing violence. Every night, Fox News blasts a story on “sexualization of children '' to fear-monger around the LGBT community. One needs to not look any further than the right-wing ecosystem to see how KOSA would easily be weaponized.

This article by Mike Masnick on Techdirt also goes further into KOSA and its adjacent bills.

To make matters even worse, on top of the usual suspects of NCOSE ( They used to be called Morality in Media, and are a far right group disguised as an anti sex trafficking org infamous for being religious assholes who HATE anything to do with sex or LGBT) supporting this travesty of a bill, it’s been revealed that the Senate leader is claiming there’s no opposition.

This is literally giving the fascists a dangerous tool to abuse, all for the sake of political brownie points against ‘Big Tech’. A tool that far right groups like the Heritage Foundation have OPENLY stated will abuse to silence LGBTQ+ or sex-ed content for youth everywhere if it passes.

The ONLY way this works is by making sure who is and isn’t a minor is to have some form of age-verification scheme. And the only way to do that is through a third party like ID.me which has recently come under scrutiny for, you guessed it, data leaks. So everyone who accesses anything online will be forced to upload their govt IDs. How is this protecting anyone’s privacy?

With all that said, what can we do?

Well, the same thing we did for the EARN IT Act; we make a LOT of noise, and get the word out.

If you have read all of the above and want to fight this, sign this open letter against KOSA.

And PLEASE call your Senators at (202-224-3121).

ESPECIALLY CALL THESE THREE, SINCE THEY ARE THE MAJOR PEOPLE WHO COULD END UP PUTTING THE BILL INTO THE }OMNIBUS:

Maria Cantwell (202) 224-3441

Chuck Schumer (202) 224-6542

Nancy Pelosi (202) 225-4965

There is a call script with phone numbers here.

Fax them, email them. Tell them they MUST oppose this bill. CONTACT any major human rights, LGBT, and cybersecurity related organizations aligned and let them know about this bill, and the harm it can cause to LGBT rights and children! If you need more information on KOSA, we have a LINKTREE HERE.

EMPHASIZE THE HARM TO CHILDREN WHEN YOU CONTACT PEOPLE, SINCE THEY’RE TRYING TO CLAIM THAT THIS WILL HELP PROTECT CHILDREN’S PRIVACY, WHEN IT DOES THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

There’s also a Petition by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and from Fight For the Future.

#kosa #STOPKOSA #Stop Kids Online Safety Act #earnitact2.0 #lgbt #lgbtq #LGBT Rights #earnitact #lgbtq rights #Fuck you blumenthal #FUCK BLUMENTHAL #fuck blackburn

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blueiscoool · 3 months

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Archaeologists Unearth Remarkably Preserved Marble Statue of Hermes in Bulgaria

Archaeologists led by Prof. Dr. Ludmil Vagalinski have unearthed a remarkably well-preserved marble statue in the ancient city of Heraclea Sintika, near Petrich, Bulgaria. The discovery, announced by the municipality of Petrich, was found within the underground sewer known as "Cloaca Maxima". Efforts are underway to delicately excavate the statue without causing damage due to its exceptional state of preservation.

Standing over two meters tall, the statue is believed to depict Hermes, a prominent deity in the region during ancient times. Prof. Dr. Vagalinski, speaking to "Archaeologia Bulgarica," expressed cautious excitement about the find, noting its significance not only as the best-preserved statue discovered in Heraclea Sintika but also in all of Bulgaria. He suggests that the statue was likely buried by city inhabitants following a major earthquake in the 4th century AD, possibly to safeguard their religious heritage during the rise of Christianity.

Archaeologia Bulgarica shared updates on the excavation progress via Facebook, revealing that the statue, crafted from a single marble block in the 2nd century AD, remains partially encased in dirt. Archaeologists have noted its resemblance to other depictions of Hermes, placing it within a known iconographic type. Similar statues are rare globally, making this discovery particularly unique for Bulgaria.

Plans are underway to carefully extract the statue from the Cloaca Maxima and transport it to the museum in Petrich, where it will undergo necessary restoration before being displayed alongside other archaeological finds. Prof. Vagalinski emphasized the challenges of preserving the ancient city's structures, especially those located on private property, where permanent conservation measures are limited. He highlighted the unexpected nature of the discovery, which came to light during routine inspections of the canal's condition.

The excavation team, which first uncovered ancient structures in the area six years ago, had placed protective barriers to secure the site. Upon closer examination, marble remnants were noticed, leading to the gradual unveiling of the statue of Hermes. Work on fully exposing and documenting the statue will continue in the coming days, offering new insights into the religious and artistic practices of ancient Heraclea Sintika.

#Archaeologists Unearth Remarkably Preserved Marble Statue of Hermes in Bulgaria #ancient city of Heraclea Sintika #Petrich Bulgaria #Cloaca Maxima #marble #marble statue #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #roman history #roman empire #roman art #ancient art

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eddiernunson · 1 year

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Really Drives Me Mad | EX-bfs dad!Eddie Munson x Reader | 18+

Previous Part | Master List | Next Part

Word Count: 12.8k

Big big thank you to @forget-you-morelike-fuck-you for editing for me I appreciate it, bestie

Another big thank you to @bebe07011 for spitting ideas and giving feedback.

Warnings: Degradation/praise, eating out, public sex, daddy kink, and several scenes where smut is mentioned but not described. There is about 1k of words just from Dylan's perspective but its worth it trust me.

Eddie is a bit of a sugar daddy in this part, but its ok cause we all want him to spoil us anyway.

Author's note: Some of y'all are gonna make me cry with how kind you are with your words for this fic. I cannot believe how much this story has truly taken over my life. People have expressed sharing it with friends and I just cannot get over that. Thank you.

Your hands held a home-made cocktail on ice while The Princess Diaries played on the tv, a soft blanket covered your crossed legs as you sat with both Sky and Bethany in your living room, scattered along your couch.

Bethany often snuck a joint or two while she visited, the window staying open to minimize a smell with a 20-dollar fan in front of it to promote air circulation. It was nice to have a girls’ night, to order bags of chips and candy over SkiptheDishes, wear face masks, do your makeup for the hell of it, and just let loose.

Bethany made her way over about a movie and a half ago, and she was now explaining a stupid mishap from her office administrative position that quite literally pulled the company to a halt for 45 minutes. “I swear, you could not pay me enough to put up with those drivers.” She claims, taking an inhale from the joint in her two painted fingers.

Sky makes a sudden movement in her seat, reaching to the remote next to her to pause the movie. “Holy shit. Did I tell you I saw Eddie?” Her question is directed across you to Bethany, and you’re left wondering why the hell your boyfriend is the new topic of discussion.

“Wait, what?” Bethany asks, wide green eyes moving back and forth between you and Sky. “When and where?”

“Our date?” You interject her, a little weirded out by the turn this conversation has taken. “When Eddie picked me up, she was here.”

“Oh, I see.” She hums to herself. “Well, since she won’t show us a photo, please tell me what the man who’s old enough to be her father looks like.”

You roll your eyes at this, a cheeky thought occurring to you. “Well Dylan might be great; but he is a sequel. Ain’t nothing compared to the original.”

Sky nods, agreeing. “Eddie is… very good looking.” You shoot her a warning look, for some reason, her just alluding to his good looks makes you feel territorial. “Show her a picture if you don’t want to hear it, damn! Just telling the truth…”

“It’s not that I won’t show you guys,” you explain, unlocking your phone. “It’s that he doesn’t use social media, so he has no good photos of himself.” On the internet, at least.

“What, no throw back photos from Dylan’s insta?” Sky asks, mostly joking.

You go to Dylan’s insta, and you can’t view it. Fuck, you forgot. He blocked you. Even though he seems to be on better terms with you, simple reminders like being blocked from his social media or him refusing to tell any details about his life remind you he’s still nursing a healing wound. “Still blocked.” You look up, and their faces tell you they’re not letting up on it. “Fine. I’ll go to Eddie’s Facebook.”

Eddie added you as a friend the day after your date, adorably waiting as you went on your phone to accept it. The moment you did he went onto your profile and dove into your photos. His eyes were comically wide as he scrolled through them, and after the first few swipes he lifted his head to you. “You just put these on here? Fuck.” The photos weren’t even particularly bad, just you in a bikini on the beach or in a summer dress, he’s just that obsessed with you. You asked him if he minded and he shook his head comically, his dimples so prominent from his wide smile, he looked manic. “Oh, I never said to stop, sweetheart.”

Your thumb slides into Eddie’s profile, and while you were afraid of the calls from a judgemental relative about the relationship with him the word single on his relationship status still hits you hard in the chest. You move to his photos, past the useless profile picture that was his company logo of Munson’s Garage and swipe through the regular posts, past Dylan’s graduation from college, from high school, a picture of a nice car, an old one of his ex with Dylan, (barf), until you finally got through to a throwback, one posted in 2011.

It was taken in the 90s, so a picture of a picture of him sitting at an old kitchen table arm in arm with another dude. One of his feet was up on the table, and he was clutching a beer, lifting it to the camera. His friend was talking to someone off camera, distracted for the moment, his slightly freckled face in a scowl. His friend had brown hair down to his neck styled specifically in a swoop, and they seemed about the same age.

His friend was quite attractive, but younger Eddie made you fucking drool. God, he was so gorgeous. He wore a leather jacket under a denim vest, ripped blue jeans over his big black boots. Fuck. You almost didn’t want to share this photo.

You go to the next photo, and a giggle leaves your mouth as you see him posing with a friend, tongues out and devil horns on their heads as smiles peek through. The background is a stage at an Iron Maiden concert, and they both look ecstatic. It’s a different friend in this one with curly hair, but it looked like he had posted from the Iron Maiden concert. A few more scrolls told you that the throwback photo would be the best option.

“Ok.” You finally say, and both girls have been waiting so long at this point they’ve started scrolling on their own phones. “Guys. You wanna see it or not?”

You hand your phone to Bethany, indicating he was the one on the right. The possessiveness that hits you when you see her reaction, her wide eyes and jaw literally dropping, stunted you. “Holy shit. This is him from how long ago?”

“In the late 90s, I guess.” You tell her.

She hands the phone to Sky, who was asking for it repeatedly as soon as Bethany let out her reaction. “Oh, yeah. He was a cutie. Honestly, he’s hotter now.” Your teeth grit, and you take a deep breath in to calm yourself.

“How?” Bethany asks, gesturing to your phone.

“Ok. Enough. He’s very good looking. But he’s fucking taken.” You bark out, holding your hand out for the phone.

They both stop talking, your sudden anger very uncharacteristic of you. Usually when you find someone particularly good looking, you’d show them off, agreeing with your two friends when they would praise their good looks. This wasn’t anything like those times. Hearing their praises just makes you want to sink your teeth into Eddie’s neck and mark your territory the next time you see him.

“Woah, girl.” Sky says, laughing lightly to diffuse the tension. “Never seen that side of you before.”

“Well, I didn’t even know she existed until a waitress looked at Eddie on our date and I wanted to throttle her,” You admit, grabbing the nearly empty cocktail and taking a sip. “I just…I don’t know why I’m so territorial over him, but God, the thought of him with someone else makes me sick to my stomach.”

Bethany holds her hands up in surrender, “Alright, we won’t compliment him anymore. But you did good, girl. You did mighty good.”

As per usual, the girls'-day-in resulted in the three of you falling asleep in the living room, blankets and pillows scattered across the three of you. The sun cascading through a window by the couch wakes you up, disgruntled, as you pat around for your phone. The screen greets you harshly, your notifications indicating you have three messages from Eddie, two from a manager at work, and the several random ones, which you clear out, not caring about Instagram stories for the moment. Eddie texted to say he was going into work for a few hours. The next two messages indicated if you were there when he got home, he wouldn’t be against it.

Basically, he just told you to please be there when he got home. Fuck, the feeling of him reaching out first was enough to send a wide smile to your face, staring stupidly at your phone. You message him back, letting him know you’ll be there.

The messages from your manager were one from two hours ago, asking if you’d be able to come in for 10 o’clock– Which was thirty-five minutes ago– and the second asked if you were able to come in at all. You quirk your eyebrow, glad your read receipts are off for her, because you’re planning now to text at 3 o'clock to let her know that, oops, you just saw this. No, you’re not going in on your day off, you’ll be spending it with your ridiculously hot boyfriend.

You leap from your couch, running into your room to pack another overnight bag. You’re out the door before the others even stir.

As you pull into Eddie’s driveway, you notice Dylan’s truck there, but Eddie’s is still gone. You wonder when he’ll be back, because although Dylan is civil towards you, interactions with him are still stunted. You open the front door, grateful Dylan tended to leave it unlocked. You drop your overnight bag and pillow off at the staircase, its usual spot, before you trot off to the living room where Dylan sits watching tv.

As you plop down next to him on the other side of the couch, Dylan looks to you, startled by the movement, but his eyes roll in exasperation when he realizes that it’s you. “Hi.” You sing-song to him, knowing you’re annoying him, but having fun with it anyways.

“Hey.” He deadpans, watching the tv instead of looking over to you.

“Oh, wow you’re almost caught up.” You say, indicating to a show that you had recommended he watched a while back.

“Turned out to be a good show.” He comments, sounding annoyed.

“Well, how about that?” You retort, and Dylan rolls his eyes before a small smile lands on his face.

Progress.

Less than an hour later, the front door closes, indicating Eddie’s homecoming. He walks in, and as you pay attention to a particularly good episode in this series, you hear a big stretch come from him. “Hi, Ed!” You call out, finally turning towards him.

Fuck. Holy shit.

A few grease stains paint Eddie’s hands and chin, and he’s wearing a pair of blue coveralls from work with a patch on his chest of his name. The grease monkey suit shows off his muscles beautifully, both sleeves rolled up to his forearms. His hair is tied back into a messy bun, and you’re sure he forgot about the reading glasses on his head. Oh god, he is mouth watering.

A throw pillow hits your face, completely startling you. You whip your head around, glaring at the culprit. “Little drool.” Dylan mouths, pointing to his chin.

“Oh, little drool?” You mock, getting up to hit him with the pillow hard. He chuckles, fighting you off.

You push his shoulder off, shuffling into the kitchen. You turn to see Eddie moving around the kitchen, making himself a quick sandwich. “Hi baby!” You greet him, reaching out for him.

“Oh, hi baby.” He says, following up with an air kiss. He breaks into laughter at your scowl. “Sorry, you don’t want this grease on you. It smells terrible and it’s not fun to wash off.”

“But there’s no grease on your lips.” You point out, staring at those pretty pink lips of his.

“Baby, I cannot kiss you without touching you and there is grease all over my hands.” He chuckles, holding them out.

You want to point out that he’s getting things dirty with grease in the kitchen, including his sandwich, by his own logic, but you have a feeling you won’t get away with it very easily. “Fine. Come see me when you’ve had a shower then.” You tell him, attempting to waddle back to the living room.

“Ah, ah.” Eddie tuts, grabbing your hand. “Come with me, after I shower, I need time with you in my bed.”

“In your bed? Or, in your bed?” You ask, your eyebrows furrowing suggestively at the second option.

“If you didn’t know the answer by now, clearly I haven’t done my job right.” He says in a lowly, his eyes darkening in an instant.

Eddie turns around to the sandwich he made as if he hadn’t said a word, grabbing it quickly before tugging on your hand to take you up the stairs.

He hops into the shower, you scroll through your phone on his bed as you wait, somewhat impatiently, your panties already uncomfortable from his stroll into the house in his work uniform.

Fuck, he was hot. You thought about him. His muscles, the slight glisten of sweat, and your phone was tossed aside before you even realized your hands were roaming over your body. You close your eyes, the image of him busy at work on his back on one of those…rolly things in your head. His forearms flexing, the look of concentration on his face.

Your hands itch for your center and you can barely hold back anymore, thankful you opted for a pair of stretchy shorts. Your fingers graze your center easily, rolling around in small circles as you picture the easy access his coveralls would give you, showing up with a dress and no panties and just riding him in his office. Fuck, maybe you wouldn’t even make it there. Goddamn, the images were too hot, your panties finding their way around your ankles as you grind up against your own fingers.

“Fuck.”

Your eyes fling open to see your boyfriend in his towel. You were so wrapped up you didn’t even notice the water from his shower turn off. He’s staring, open mouthed and eyes dark, and Jesus… This was a fantasy of yours from the beginning. You continue, staring half lidded back at him, hand grabbing up at his bed frame when it started to feel so fucking good.

Eddie’s towel drops when his brain catches up, jumping into his bed to lay next to you. “Couldn’t even wait, huh?” He asks, and you let out a whimper as he lightly kisses your neck. “Just couldn’t fucking wait.”

“You were so hot—” you gasp out, moving faster on yourself now. “—in that goddamn uniform. Wanna…wanna ride you in it.”

The very indication that you were playing with yourself because you found him that hot in his uniform is too much for Eddie to process. He nearly moans, leaning for another kiss on your neck. His hands are itching to help you, itching to take off the rest of those clothes that hide your gorgeous body, but he holds back, needing to know more about it. “What—what were you thinkin’ ‘bout, baby?”

“You, in the uniform…” you tell him, your hips starting to move when your want grows. Why isn’t he helping?

“C’mon, baby. I wanna touch you but I just gotta know.” Eddie tells you, his voice gruff.

A gulp moves through your throat before opening your mouth to tell him. “Your dick out of the uniform, and me with no panties and a dress at your shop, riding you anywhere…your office, the rolly thing, god, just you in that uniform…Ed…”

Goddammit, was that an idea Eddie certainly had before. He has wanted to show you around his workplace, but also christen it with you, and he had had the exact idea with his uniform and you in a dress, to boot. “Fuck, my horny, eager little slut, hey?” Eddie asks, watching your closed eyes as you continue to work yourself.

“Please…please touch me?” You ask him, the torture of his voice there but not actually helping you is too much. “Want…want you.”

“Hmm. Horny little slut didn’t wait for me…I dunno if she even deserves my help.” He bluffs, wanting nothing more than to reach out and feel the slick of your wet pussy.

You nearly cry out in protest, not calling him on his bluff. “I’m sorry, couldn’t help myself…you’re just so…fuck…you’re so fucking hot, Ed.”

He leans in to kiss you and you accept it gratefully, a smile against his lips. As his lips move against yours, deepening the kiss to easily work his tongue against yours, his hands land on yours against your pussy delicately, gently pulling your fingers to the side. He slides a digit in and you whimper into his mouth, your hips thrusting up. “Oh, so fucking desperate.” You nod your head, agreeing with him. You’re desperate for more. Even with Eddie on your mind, your fingers never even compared to his.

He leans into your neck, the scent of his aftershave and body wash strong but oh-so-goddamn good. He slides your shirt up your torso smoothly with his free hand and pulls it from your neck fiercely. You feel his hand somewhat desperately go around your back to unhook your bra, and as it falls casually over the edge onto the floor, he moans at the sight of your exposed tit, your nipple just begging to be touched.

He leans in to mouth the bud, and you whimper at the sensation. He pauses, breathing heavily and open mouthed onto it. You gasp, his hot breath sending waves down your body. “Fuck, so pretty.” Eddie mutters to himself, dark eyes watching your face as you get closer.

A desperate hand of yours tugs him up to your face, desperate for more of his wet and hypnotizing kisses. “Fuck me.” You gasp, suddenly feeling that his fingers weren’t enough. “Need…need your cock. Please.”

Eddie’s mouth opens at the prospect of you simply begging for him, and you can feel a shift in his energy as he starts to kiss you deeper and hungrier. “When you beg so sweetly, how could I possibly say no?” He hums, his hand framing your face.

He finishes yanking the last of your pants off your ankles. As he settles himself in between your legs, he can’t help himself. He leans down, taking one long lick along your folds, for just a taste. You whimper in response, knees springing up to your chest. Eddie chuckles, crawling up slowly until his chest lines up with yours, the tingle of him against you too much to handle. Slowly, he moves into you, and as he stretches you open, your eyes roll back and your toes curl. Eddie watches the utter bliss that takes over your face.

“Oh that beautiful face you make, sweetheart.” He grunts, smoothing his hands over your forehead. His words make you pulse around him. “This fucking tight little pussy wrapped around—” he stops, grunting as you continue to pulse around him. One hand moves down to your hip, caressing it softly he uses the leverage to buck into you.

A hushed swear comes out of you, the simple pleasure from his cock alone sending you into euphoria. Eddie continues slowly, enjoying every inch of your heat around him. “Your pussy…god how did I live without it?”

You clutch onto him, staring up into his darkened brown eyes. You open your mouth to respond in kind, but the particularly harsh rut into you leaves your mouth gasping open and your eyes fluttering shut in pure heaven. “Oh, that’s it.” He mutters, hips moving faster. “That’s my cock-drunk little whore.”

Your nails scratch down his back, and he moans in response. “Eddie, your cock. There’s…I…please.”

“I-I know, baby. I know.”

He collapses onto your chest, and you feel his cock twitch into you as your orgasm takes over your body. His hand carefully sweeps your sweaty forehead as he watches you recover, your eyes losing their haze as you return to earth. “Hi.” He mutters, leaning in to kiss you softly.

“Hi.” You smile. For once, he does take his dick out of you right away, despite your protests. However, you can’t protest any further when he comes back and wraps his arms around you with his chest pressed against your back, his still steadying breaths lulling you into a quiet nap.

Somehow, you know that his arms are always going to be the best place in the world.

About an hour later, you’re snuggled against his side, legs intertwined as Eddie watches his show and you work on a crossword puzzle. “What’s a six-letter word for angry?” You ask him, stumped for a good minute.

“Uh…grumpy? Heated? Hmm…raging?”

“Raging! Fuck, I couldn’t get that one. Thanks, baby.” You tell him, receiving a kiss on the head as a response. “Why’d you go in for work, Ed?”

“Other than making my baby horny?” He jokes, muttering it into your hair. “Well, one of my best-known clients called and my men know that when he calls, they need to call me in, because his car is just—” he cuts himself off, holding out the OK sign. He continues talking about the mechanics/politics of handling a car like this in his job. The caliber, the horsepower, the specialized engine, and everything else.

It’s not like you know a whole lot about cars. Most of what he is saying comes out as gibberish. But you listen to him, watching as he gets more and more animated, his hands gesturing wildly as he excitedly explains his morning. You watch him, a soft smile creeping up your face as he describes…what, you weren’t even sure, to you.

He stops as he notices the peculiar look on your face, your eyes glazed over. “What?” he asks, wondering if you caught even a word of his story.

“I love you.” It comes out before you even realize. But it’s true.

With your whole chest, you love him.

Eddie inhales sharply, and he looks at you like you had placed each star in the sky just for him. Because you did. “I-I’ve been wanting to say that to you since I first saw you.”

His words feel both impossible and like they make the most sense in the entire world. Because since day one, you have been captivated by him in every sense imaginable. Taking the time to get to know, see and love every inch of him before recognizing that yes, this is love.

This all occurs to you within a second, because Eddie’s hand is framing your face and you feel his lips on yours, deep and caring to a point that takes your goddamn breath away. Your tongue collides with his, and his fingers are so gentle as they cradle your face it barely feels like he’s holding it. He tastes so good, like the air you breathe is suddenly useless, and all you need to do is breathe him. His fingers intertwine in your hair, he gasps as his forehead collides with your own, clinging onto you for dear life.

“Will you say it?” You ask, realizing he still hasn’t.

“I fucking love you.” He says in a low, soft voice. He uses a hand to force you back and you open your eyes to look into his beautiful brown ones. “I love you.”

Your chest inflates rapidly, like all the emotion just bursts into it. A giggle escapes your lips, the smile on your face seeming to be permanently etched there. He tugs you into the tightest hug, and you feel his heart beat rapidly against your own as your arms fling themselves around his torso, burying your head in his neck.

God, it’s like you fit perfectly there.

He slouches down, ignoring the book you dropped and the forgotten tv show, and lays you down, chest to chest, his arms wrapped around you as you curl into his chest. He nestles his nose into your hair, breathing you in, feeling the breath, the life in you as you breathe in sync with him.

Any sense of time, responsibilities, or the outside world become muted and pale in comparison.

It’s just you and him.

The sizzling sounds of bacon for dinner mixed with Eddie’s humming to some oldies fill the kitchen. Every time he turns around from the stove to grab something, he shoots you a smile that captivates his face, something that you wholeheartedly return each time. The acknowledgement that this is love somehow didn’t feel like it had tied you to anything or that any new expectations were put on either one of you. You simply want his company and he, yours.

You scroll through your phone absentmindedly, though the sight of his hips in his low sitting sweatpants are much more enticing than anything your phone’s algorithms have to show you. Playfully, Eddie keeps dancing a little too hard to the music, head banging and swinging his hips to even the softest of Dad Rock.

God, it’s Heaven. As Eddie serves up a few plates, Dylan comes down dressed in one of his better date night outfits.

“Ooh, hot date?” You ask him, leaning forward onto the kitchen island.

Dylan’s brows furrow, stopping mid stride. “Yeah. Not talking to you about that. You’re still my ex. And you’re still seeing my dad. Weirdo.”

Eddie sends a glare his way, eyes darkening in a split second. Dylan rolls his eyes, sneaking around him to grab a bite of bacon. Ignoring it, Eddie places a plate in front of you with eggs, bacon and toast, and you thank him as he leans in for a kiss.

“Love you.” Eddie mutters, and you smile into his lips and feel him do the same.

“L-love?” Dylan spits out, his voice exasperated. He shakes his head, still chewing on the bacon. “Fuck right off.”

“Dyl.” Eddie starts, leaning forward as he takes a bite from his toast. He has a devious smile on his face, chewing on his idea. “Quiet. The adults are talking.”

If you had expected something out of pocket, it certainly wasn’t that.

The brown eyes Dylan shares with his father widen in pure exasperation. “What?? Dad, I’m six months older than her!”

You barely keep in the laughter that bubbles out of your chest. Eddie grins at you and lets out his own chuckle. “That’ll teach you to be an ass, huh?”

Dylan doesn’t respond, just grits his teeth and yanks one more piece of bacon before leaving through the front door.

Dylan Munson got dealt a dirty fucking hand from whoever the fuck is in charge of this shit.

It was only a mere nine weeks ago when you made your way across the mixer to say hi to him that he thought things were going his way. The more he saw you, the more he thought that this had to be leading to something. It made sense to him, but as he had started mentioning long term plans or anything of the like, he could feel you clam up. Every time he mentioned something requiring commitment, your shoulders tensed up, your face winced by only a smidge, but when it became a regular occurrence, Dylan realized you might not have been ready as you thought you were.

He was willing to accept it. So, he took matters into his own hands. Honestly, he would’ve been fine paying the daily fee for parking, but he knew his dad was there, and he was excited to introduce you to him. Boy, what a shit show that turned out to be.

As he woke up to an empty bed, he had expected you to be downstairs. Instead, he was faced with a bowl of cereal without the milk, and he couldn’t tell how long it had been there. He searched the whole house. Your bag, clothes, and shoes were still there, so he knew you couldn’t have gone far. Turns out, he was right. You didn’t. You went two doors down from his own.

The sight of you and his fucking dad in the white sheets was already too much to bear, and then the stab of betrayal from his own father hurt more the initial shock of yours, tugging angry tears from his eyes as he ran to his room. The torture of hearing your whimpers, a sound he knew well, while downstairs trying to cheer himself up was fucking brutal.

When you finally left, his dad came home with a terribly apologetic look on his face as he walked through the front door. Dylan refused to hear a damn word out of his mouth, dismissing all his claims of ‘holding back as long as he could’ and ‘I’ve never felt this strongly about anyone before.’ Shit just hurt.

A day later, Dylan couldn’t hold it in anymore. He screamed at the top of his lungs, the anger finally kicking in. His dad did yell back, but mostly at the choice words aimed at you. It hurt for a moment, as it felt like he cared more about someone he had met last week, his (now ex) girlfriend.

When you and his dad showed no signs of slowing or stopping any time soon, he realized this would become a new normal. Didn’t mean he liked it.

He came home after a relatively long day at work to you and his dad sitting and watching a movie comfortably. His knee jerk reaction was to swear angrily, but the look on your face stuck with him. You had never relaxed with him. You were always looking around corners or there was some part in your body unable to lean into him completely.

As you apologized awkwardly on his bed, his hurt finally felt acknowledged by you, and fuck, he needed to hear that he didn’t do anything wrong. He genuinely started to wonder if he did.

Most of his nights he spent going out, his friends asking where the hot new girlfriend he was bragging about now was. He just said you cheated on him and it was over and they called you a bitch and moved on.

Yes, even Ethan. (The one friend you actually liked)

He drowned his sorrows in alcohol, always making his way back to the house where his ex was expected to be at any given time. God, it was so shit.

After your apology, though, he had to admit, you looked good together. It seemed like his dad’s smile just hadn’t left his face for days, and goddamn, was it annoying to admit that you were good for him. That remaining anger seemed to itch at him, unable to forgive or forget, a buried hatchet with an X to mark the spot.

Ethan eventually brought his girlfriend to boys’ night out, which was met with disgruntled groans from the collective group. Ethan’s girlfriend invited a friend who would be joining, and Dylan fought hard not to roll his eyes.

An hour into the night, a drink, and a few good dances in, Ethan’s girlfriend brought her in, and Dylan stopped dead in his tracks. Okay, no one said she would be fucking gorgeous.

If Dylan thought you were out of his league, then Maya wasn’t even playing the same game. His heart pounded out of his chest, and he knew he had to grab this girl a drink and get her number, now. As he pulled into an easy conversation with her, the hairs stood on his arms as it felt electric just being near her.

Maya met his enthusiasm, agreeing to a date within the first hour of conversation with him. One of his buddies mentioned Dylan had been cheated on by his most recent girlfriend, and Maya was floored. If any girl was lucky enough to have him, how could they even think of cheating?

As Dylan rode home in the backseat of his friend’s truck, drunk on her undivided attention and, well, plain ol’ drunk, something his dad had said came to mind. “I can’t explain it, I just had to know her. In every sense of the word.”

He felt the same way about Maya. Everything about her drew him in. Her smell, the way her jeans hugged her hips, the shine of her red hair. God, she was fucking beautiful.

As he smelled bacon on the way down the stairs, he decided to grab a piece on his way out to his first date with Maya, jitters galore. You asking him about the date was kind, but still too weird for him to gush about the gorgeous girl from the bar he met when that ‘gorgeous girl’ was once you.

Love you, his dad said. The word struck him, it occurred to him he doesn’t truly understand how much you and his father cared for one another. The L word didn’t come easily to Munson men, after all. Dylan walked to his car, disgruntled as the interaction rolled over in his mind.

What a mess he would be bringing her home to, if he ever got lucky enough.

Since you worked the next day, you had to go home for the night. The lingering kisses at Eddie’s door were too much to bear.

Too much for Eddie, too. You get a text about twenty minutes after you get home, Need you.

You grit your teeth, you need him, too. Working four days in a row sounds manageable, at least it usually does. Without Eddie to come home to or to wake up with, it’s nearly torture. You ignore Skylar’s comment of codependency. Fuck co-dependency, it isn��t that you depend on him too much, you just need him too much. You need to come home to him, to sit and watch tv with him… It’s the domestic bliss you miss.

Somehow, just reading a book at the end of the night without his even breaths has you on edge. You shoot him a text letting him know you’d be there soon.

As you walk through the doorway of Eddie’s house, he welcomes you and you hop into his arms, inhaling his shampoo as soon as you get close enough to, his familiar scent bringing you an indescribable feeling of safety. “Need you to stop leaving for so long.” He mutters, feeling nearly crazy for missing you so much while you were gone.

You hum in response, staring into his pretty eyes as they stare down at you lovingly, resting your chin on his chest.

“Move in with me.” It’s impulsive.

You blink, unable to register what he just said. “Uh, what?”

He chuckles, hoping the stunned look on your face is a good thing. “It’s stupid for you to keep moving back and forth between here and your apartment all the time. Move in with me.”

It’s a tempting offer. Could you do it? Realistically, could you bring your things in, set up your skin care routine in his bathroom, have a horde of snacks at your disposal, bring Bethany over for sleepovers…is it possible? He watches as you think it through, and his heart skips a beat as he watches it falter. “I-I can’t. Not yet, at least.”

His head tilts curiously, eyebrows furrowed. “Hmm?”

“I’m still tied to my lease for another three months.” You can’t abandon Sky, not after all this time. “Skylar would be pissed if I just up and left her to either scramble for a new roommate or for a new apartment.”

Was that it? “Oh,” Eddie says, relieved. “I can pay that.”

His answer momentarily stuns you, and a gorgeous laugh escapes his lips as he takes in your slack jaw and wide eyes. “W-what?”

He leans in, kissing your lips sweetly. “Sweetheart. I’m not gonna wait another ninety days when I can just pay it now and get you here tomorrow.”

“You’ll pay my half?” You ask, eyebrows raised, a light smile on your face.

“What’s your rent?”

“1800 for the apartment, we both pay 900 plus utilities.”

He does the quick math. “Oh, so 54 (hundred) to buy the lease out? Yeah, I’ll pay it. Might relieve Sky from being pissed at me for stealing her roommate.”

The casualty of his words drench your underwear, his urge to take care of you sending a heat to your center you can’t explain. You lean in, swiping your tongue on his bottom lip, showing your appreciation. “Can-can we go upstairs?” You ask him, out of breath.

Eddie smiles, taking in your lust-blown eyes and slack expression. “You know that’s not why I offered, right?”

The overwhelming happiness bubbles up from the inside and you shoot a wide smile up at him, chin resting on his chest again. “I know. Still, baby. Want you. Please,”

Eddie smirks, framing your face with his thumbs lightly. “When you say it so nicely, how could I ever refuse?”

You tug him by the hand and start running up the stairs. A yelp echoes through the house as Eddie grabs at your ass near the top, and when he lies down on the bed, you can’t get his cock down your throat fast enough.

To say the least, Sky couldn’t find it in her to be angry. She was going to miss you, more than she could describe as her roommate. She also had a three month warning to find a new roommate or a new apartment and had ample time to put at least some money aside while she didn’t have to pay for rent. She really had nothing to complain about. Still, she was gonna miss you.

As soon as the lust of him offering to take care of you died down, you went into overdrive, remembering how stressed you were when you had to move in your current apartment, a lease you’ve renewed twice now. You started making a list of things you needed, working between your phone and a random spiral notebook you found in a junk drawer. How many boxes did you need to get? If you used both Eddie and Dylan’s trucks how many hours would it take to move down the stairs-only building you had?

“What’re you working on?” You hear his voice over your shoulder.

“Oh, just working out the kinks of moving. My car won’t be enough, I’ll need your guys’ trucks to help. I also have my own furniture to worry about. The entertainment center is hers, but the couch is mine. My dresser, my bed, my bathroom shelf, all my bathroom junk—”

“Baby.” He interrupts you, a hand sliding up to your neck. “Relax. I can hire someone to take care of all of this for you. Just focus on packing your things and directing the men around on where to put them.” He places his hands delicately beneath your chin. “Ok?”

Fuck, you might just blow him again.

“Ok.”

And you did just that. You shared your list to Eddie’s phone, who called a smaller moving truck with three men to assist, hired an organizer to assist in organizing what you do or don’t need and who will handle selling your furniture, and finally, paying the rest of your rent to your front office without blinking an eye to get you out of the lease.

Soon, you were on the driveway on a hot day, watching as all the boxes containing your clothes, shoes, makeup, and other junk went up the stairs to Eddie’s (and now your) bedroom, a few staying downstairs.

He stands next to you in a white muscle shirt with a band you don’t know pictured on the front and some sweats, hands on his hips as he watches the movers go back and forth between the house and the truck. He radiates authority, each mover couldn’t be much older or younger than you, but they all look to him with respect, all of their words followed by the word ‘sir’.

“Sir, huh?” You ask, teasing him.

Eddie slightly grimaces, rejecting it. “Yeah, they insisted.”

“Dunno, kinda suits you.” You tease, and you walk back to the house, missing the audible gulp that comes from his throat, imagining it. You, on your knees, begging for him, calling him sir…

“Sir?” One of the movers asks, getting his attention. He flicks back, seeing the clipboard held in front of him. “Need you to sign.”

“Oh, shit, sorry.” He mumbles, picking up the pen to sign.

As he signs his name, Dylan pulls up, taking in the men, the truck, the boxes on the floor visible past the open front door. “She’s moving in?”

Eddie looks at him, apologetic. He had asked you yesterday, and since then, he hasn’t had time to sit down and tell Dylan in person. “Sorry, bud. Kind of just happened all at once.”

Dylan thinks of his new girlfriend’s apartment, the night he had just spent wrapped up in her sheets. “I-I get that.”

Eddie blinks, expecting more of a push-back. “So, dad. I met this girl.” Oh, that explains it. “She’s…” the smile that lands on Dylan’s face is peaceful, and Eddie feels both curious and reassured. “Anyway. I wanted to bring her over for dinner to introduce her. Is that okay?”

A firm hand lands on Dylan’s shoulder, bringing him for a hug. “Of course, bud. When did you want to bring her over?”

“Friday at 6?”

It’s Wednesday, so that gives you both ample time to unpack and get the house ready for a dinner guest. “Friday works. Bring her over.”

“Hey, do you guys need any more help with the boxes?” He asks, running into the house.

Eddie doesn’t answer as he stands, stunned at the change in his son over the last, what, week?

The next two days make Dylan realize although he was in a much forgiving mood, he’s going to need to move out and fast. Just when he thought the two of you were bad, he didn’t realize how much worse you’d be when you moved in. In hindsight, he wasn’t sure how he didn’t see it coming.

Soon, he texted a friend he knew who was looking for another apartment about maybe moving in together after realizing your moans were not coming from your bedroom as he grabbed his keys and booked it for the front door.

You were on Eddie’s laundry room floor, wrapped in his arms, with only your shirt around your torso and his hair halfway out of its ponytail. You were still in the middle of recovering; Eddie edged you twice before finally letting you finish. “Did you hear the front door close?” Eddie asks, still breathing heavily as he does.

“N-no.” You gasp, moving your head up to face him, his chest hair tickling your chin. “Were we that loud?”

Eddie laughs, letting a thumb pet your face lightly. “Have you ever tried to be quiet, sweetheart?”

You shut him up with a kiss, slippery, but filled to the brim with everything you had. “Shut up.”

“I love you.” He mutters as you wrap yourself in his arms, and you whisper it back into his chest. “We do have company coming over, so we should probably finish unpacking.”

You groan lightly, but Eddie takes your hands and forces the two of you onto your feet, your knees lightly buckling. “I have so much stuff! There’s so much left to unpack.”

“Oh, I’m sure unpacking yourself into the second half of the walk-in is so hard, baby. C’mon, I’ll help you out.”

Again, Eddie’s house looks humble from the outside, but it was nothing to snark at. As he made more money, he slowly upgraded and renovated instead of just moving into a bigger house. The one upgrade that wasn’t really for him, but a constant reminder of what he lost, was the his-and-hers closet he had made for his ex, something she only enjoyed for six months before leaving him. He was excited to see your dresses, skirts, pants, and underwear in his closet, and especially your smell. Basically, he was excited for your invasion of the house.

You walk over to his–your–room where there are still boxes sitting, waiting to be unpacked. You start unpacking the one labeled dresses/skirts. As you start laying out a pile, separating the skirts you knew you weren’t gonna wear from the ones you would, Eddie sidled up beside you, pulling one you knew looked good on you up from the pile you weren’t gonna wear. “Hey, hey. Why haven’t I seen you in this one?”

You hesitate in your answer, pulling two more dresses out before answering. “Dylan fucked me while I wore that.” You admit, and he drops it immediately. He pulls another one up, hands moving over the silky blue fabric. Damn that one looked great on you. “That one, too.”

He drops it unceremoniously, hands moving to his hips. “Which ones hasn’t he touched you in?”

You put your hands on the much smaller, less appealing pile. “These.”

Eddie sighs, scratching his head. “Alright. We’re going shopping.” He announces, placing the pile of your old ‘rejects’ onto the floor.

“Huh?” You ask him, not sure you heard him correctly.

“Yep. Just leave all the clothes in a pile right there, and on Saturday I’m taking you shopping.”

“Baby, I work Saturday.”

“So call in.”

After Eddie helps you settle in for the next day and a half, you spend a good portion of your Friday in the kitchen, working in tandem to make supper together. You place plates at the dining room table Eddie and Dylan barely used, straighten up the napkins and the utensils when Eddie comes from behind you, and you feel his cock press right up against your ass. You grind back into it, closing your eyes and whimpering.

“Ed, they’ll be here in like,” you let out a sigh, “half an hour.”

He turns you, giving you a dirty kiss and gripping your hips harshly. “Then we better get moving.” He slips your dress up your hips and your underwear down.

“Hmm…take off your pants.”

He slips his cock in, bending you over the table, making you gasp. “Already off, baby.”

Dylan pulls up in his truck, now having to park in the same spot you did in the street since you took over his spot on the driveway. “So, this is my house.”

“For three more weeks?” Maya asks, teasing him.

He lets their hands intertwine, leading her to the door. “I did grow up here.”

“Yet your dad is kicking you out.” She says, eyes narrowed.

“No, not kicking me out…” He drifts off, when Maya’s green eyes silently ask him, he dismisses it. “I’ll tell you later. C’mon.” He unlocks the front door, and as soon as it’s open, a very peculiar, very annoying sound is heard echoing in the house.

“Fuck, Ed, oh shit.”

Maya’s eyes go wide, it takes her a second longer to understand what they were listening to than it did for Dylan. Dylan shuts the front door, shoving his hand into his pocket for his phone. He dials his dad right away. “…Hello?” Eddie asks after three rings.

Dylan puts him on speaker. “Dad, wrap it up, we’re here.”

“Shit, sorry. Give us five—” the sound of your giggles interrupts him, “sorry, ten minutes. W-we’ll call you.”

He hangs up.

Maya’s face is the picture-perfect expression of what the fuck. “Dyl, when you said your family dynamic is odd…”

“I meant it. C’mon, let’s go for a walk to the corner store.”

Maya is taken aback, but she easily falls in line as Dylan holds his hand out for her. “Can’t believe the first thing I heard from your dad was that.”

“Darling, I have never meant it more than I have right now.” Dylan assures her, and she can see how much he means it in his brown eyes. “My dad has met my girlfriends in worse situations. Just be glad we didn’t see anything…’cause that was not coming from their bedroom.”

Eventually, you had to go upstairs to find a new dress to wear, Eddie having completely soiled it during your tryst as he phoned Dylan to let them know they were in the clear. Turns out, the two of you had time blindness when it came to one another, because neither of you were even close to done when Dylan had called.

As you climb down the stairs, there’s a knock on the door, and Eddie meets you there in time to open it to face Dylan and his new girlfriend. It was an intriguing feeling, opening the door to Dylan while Eddie’s arm was behind your back. Like a couple welcoming their son home. It was…bizarre to say the least. “Hey, sorry about—”

“It’s fine, dad. Rather not talk about it.” Dylan insists, his arm around a pretty redhead.

“Sure. Come on in.”

They step in, Maya taking a look around at the place as she does. “Maya, this is my dad and his girlfriend, Y/N. Guys, this is Maya.”

You weren’t used to Dylan being suddenly so cool with you and Eddie being together. He’s never out loud said that you were his dad’s girlfriend before without rolling his eyes or gagging. Whatever he had with Maya seemed to bring him some peace.

Thank god, you didn’t know if you could handle more eye rolls from Eddie’s 25-year-old teenage son. “Maya! Nice to meet you.” You hold your hand out to her, which she accepts graciously.

You remember meeting Eddie as a father to Dylan, and while your thoughts were occupied, whatever you were expecting for Dylan’s dad, it certainly wasn’t Eddie. You could see it clear in her face she wasn’t expecting this metalhead, either.

“Hi, Mr. Munson, nice to meet you.” She extends her hand to Eddie, and Eddie just about loses his mind.

“Ew. Don’t. Call me Eddie. Please.” Eddie gags, the same reaction he had when you addressed him that way when you first met.

“Oh. Sorry. Nice to meet you, Eddie.”

Eddie smiles back, purposefully dressing himself down as a parental figure. You could tell he was poising himself differently for them. Whether it was self consciousness over the last time he met a girlfriend, or making it clear to Dylan he had no plans for a second contender, it did the job.

“Alright, the dining room is this way.” You extend your hand out down the hall, leading the way out of a somewhat awkward situation.

The four of you sit at the table, both men at the heads of the table while you and Maya sit across from one another. Eddie picks up the salad bowl, plating himself quickly and handing it over to you. “So, Dylan. Tell us how you and Maya met.”

They both start the story, eager to share. “Oh, can I tell, Dyl? You always get to.”

“Fine by me.”

Maya giggles softly before facing you and Eddie. “Well, my best friend sort of ditched me to tag along to guys’ night, and I refused to be ditched, so I got myself ready and ended up being fashionably late. When she invited me, I was already done for the night, pajamas and all but I got dressed up out of pure spite.” You chuckle, that’s something Bethany would do. “I got to the club, and suddenly I saw Dylan, and I didn’t want to talk to anyone else for the rest of the night.” She looks over to him, her eyes soft and her pink lips in a sweet smile. “He just drew me right in. We talked for so long we didn’t even realize it was time for last call.”

“Wow.” You comment, taking the last bowl in rotation from Eddie’s hands, the stir-fry vegetables. “Sounds like you guys have a great connection.” You look at Dylan at the last word, hoping he receives your message.

“Oh, we truly do.” Maya grins, Dylan shooting a wink at her in response.

Eddie grabs your hand under the table, and you hold it, petting at the tough skin and colliding with his rings.

“Our first date was incredible.” Maya mentions off-hand but doesn’t elaborate. If it was anything like your first date with Eddie, you knew better than to pry further. “So Dylan told me how you guys met, tell me about that.”

You and Eddie share a look of surprise at how casually she mentions it. You weren’t expecting her to know yet, in fact you were wondering if Dylan was going to tell her at all. Eddie lets out a chuckle. “A shitshow, let’s just say. When Dylan found us, it just became real messy in here.”

Unfortunately, Eddie missed the continuous waving Dylan was doing across the table to stop, please!

“How would meeting online make things messy?” Maya asks, the story Eddie had just told her and the story Dylan explained not exactly lining up.

“What?” Eddie asks, now unsure himself.

Your hand meets your mouth in understanding, facing Dylan with his head in his own hands. “Baby, I don’t think he told her, yet.”

“Nope.” Dylan musters out, annoyed.

“Oh.”

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Maya asks, watching everyone’s facial expressions one by one.

Dylan sighs, not ready to explain this part. “They didn’t meet online. Remember, my ex? The one who cheated on me?”

Maya rolls her eyes. “Of course I remember that bitch.” She says, giving you a look that says, ‘am I right’.

Dylan sighs, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Uh, Maya?”

“Hmm?”

“That’s her.” He says, pointing to you. “She cheated with my dad.”

Maya looks at you, dumbfounded, as you wave with a tight smile on your face. Being called that cheating bitch behind your back was certainly a new development from him. Not the…greatest feeling in the world. She looks to Eddie, who isn’t smiling, somewhat insulted on your behalf, but gives a friendly wave nonetheless.

“O-oh.”

“I said my family dynamic is different, didn’t I?”

“I thought you meant with how young she is…”

“There’s that…and there’s this. It used to hurt me a lot more, but honestly, since I met you, I don’t really feel that pain anymore.” He says to her. “I wish we could’ve had this conversation in private, but I guess I didn’t warn them.” A new hardness reaches Maya’s eyes as she looks at you, and you’re slightly taken aback by it. “Don’t be mad at them, because I’m not anymore. Well, mostly anyway. My dad said when he met her that he had to know everything about her or he was going to lose his mind.” You look to Eddie, and he winks at you slyly as you mouth the words I love you to him. “I used to think that was bullshit… But when I met you, Maya, I felt the same way, and I realized I couldn’t blame them for pursuing it if it was half as strong as what I felt when I saw you.”

The ice in Maya’s stare all melts the gloss in her eyes. “That’s still super messed up.”

“One hundred percent.” Dylan looks over to you and Eddie, and you’re wondering if the two of you were supposed to leave the table and give them privacy. “But now…they look good together. They’re good for one another. She puts this smile on his face that I never get to see anymore, and she seems more happy with him than she ever was with me.”

Your phone buzzes in your chair under your thigh. A text from Eddie. For the record, no one feels as strongly for anyone as I do for you. No one ever will.

You look at him and he nods once, his lips in a firm line. Your hands reach for his, interlocking with his. “Maya, I know you didn’t mean to but I would appreciate you not calling her a bitch.” Eddie tells her, parent voice on. “Now that we have all that out of the way, Maya, tell us what you do for work.”

Maya was a peach, and she seemed great for Dylan. As she helped clear the table she asked Dylan a question and it led to him announcing he was moving out. Out loud, Eddie gave him a proud hug, telling him it was a great idea.

To you, Eddie pumped his fist in celebration. As you washed the dishes that night, insisting Dylan and Maya go enjoy a movie on the couch, Eddie comes up behind you, wrapping his arms around you. “When Dylan finally moves out, I’m fucking you on every surface in this house. I might just tell you to stay naked for easier access.” He leaves a wet kiss on your neck, and you’re left to imagine the possibilities as he adjusts himself while clearing the rest of the table.

True to his word, as Saturday dawns, Eddie wakes you up two hours before you start work and tosses your phone to call in sick for it. You text your manager at his request, and as soon as you hit send, Eddie sends you to his bathroom to get ready for a shopping day. In your first outfit, a pair of shorts and an oversized sweater, Eddie looks up and down at you exasperated and tells you to go get all dressed up and put some makeup on.

When your hands land on your hips at this he backtracks hard. “Of course you can wear what you want, baby! I just know that you love to get all dressed up, and I thought it would be fun for you. That’s all. We’re going to be trying on lots of clothes and I want my girl feeling her best.”

Okay, he has a point. An hour passes by, Eddie moving around you as he gets dressed up himself, less dramatic than his date night outfit, but dressed up all the same. As you finish, a wing on your eye, he comes behind you, looking over your shoulder for something. “You know I used to wear eyeliner all the time?”

“I…no?” You stutter, turning to face him.

“Might put some on today.” He mutters, slightly teasing you.

“If you don’t want to scare the general public, maybe we’ll save it for a date night, Ed.” You yank the pencil away from him, terrified that if you look away for one second, he’ll go overboard.

“Not even a little on my water line?” He asks, and you suddenly realize that yes, he does want some makeup for the day.

“I don’t see why not.” You shrug.

Now you walk hand in hand in the largest mall in town, starting the journey down the large aisle, leading Eddie. But eventually, Eddie ends up leading you, knowing exactly which stores he wants to go to. In the first store he takes you to, you look around the racks timidly, putting away anything you see over 20 bucks. In less than five minutes, Eddie comes by with a pile of clothes in his arms. “I’m gonna get a dressing room started, ok?” He pauses, noticing the 45 dollar dress you just put back. “Ooh, can you hand me that?”

“No, it’s too much.” You insist, looking at the large pile of clothes he has. You thought he meant like, three or four items at the most.

“I didn’t ask how much it was, sweetheart. Hand it over.” He tells you, to which you do. Only five minutes later, as you have only picked out two or three more dresses yourself, does he swing by and tug you to the biggest dressing room, the walls decorated with clothing.

“I-I’m not trying all of this on, am I?” You look around, it would take you at least an hour, and that’s if you hurried.

“Yep. And you’re showing me every piece.” He says, before closing the door on your stunned face.

“Eddie, this is way too much.”

“No complaining, just show me the first one!” he yells to you, no real bark behind his command.

The first dress you wear was a bit revealing, an open back, up to your thighs with a cowl neckline that shows cleavage. He smiles at you, leaning his elbows onto his knees in the seat offered in the dressing room. “Nice… Do a spin.” You roll your eyes, spinning for him slowly and timidly. He whistles lowly. “Man, I’m good. Next!”

He asked for a spin in everything you modeled for him until he didn’t need to, you did it for him. With each new piece, you were learning to not care if you were in a store with him, posing for him as he assessed each piece. Some you thought looked decent on you, he put in the no pile, while others you thought were a sure no, he put in the yes. He told you ultimately, it was your decision and if you felt uncomfortable, you could put one in the no pile, but he knew your body better than anyone. If he insisted it looked good, it must’ve looked good.

At the last piece you put on, he can’t seem to decide, asking an attendant for her opinion. She says she thinks the shirt looks amazing on you but isn’t sure about the style of pants. “Yeah, I chose them just to see if you’d wear it.” You shook your head no, feeling uncomfortable in the business type pants. “Cool. Get dressed in your clothes, we have more stores to hit up.” You toss the shirt to him after yanking it off, and by the time you make your way to the register, the attendant is already handing over two oversized bags to him.

“Eddie, this is enough clothes, I really don’t need anymore!” You insist as he directs you to a store only three spaces over.

As soon as you walk in, they see the big bags Eddie’s carrying and immediately offer their assistance. Eddie rolls his eyes, knowing he only ever gets the star treatment if he’s walking around with the occasional designer bag. (He likes their underwear). “Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but the women’s side of our closet is huge, and you didn’t have nearly enough clothes to fill it anyway.”

Our closet. You’re so fixated on the use of the word our that you don’t realize he’s waiting for you to talk. “Doesn’t mean I need more.”

“Oh, that’s exactly what it means!” He turns to the employee who’s been following him around and hands her the bags. “Be a dear and hold on to these, will ya?” He turns back to you, resting one hand on the rack beside him and staring down at you intensely. “Baby. I want to spoil you. Let me. Please! Pick out some clothes you want, I’ll pick some out, too, and you can try them on.”

“You’ve spoiled me so much already!” You insist, gulping at the sincerity in his eyes. “You’re all I could ever ask for.”

“That’s exactly why I have to spoil you.” He retorts, placing a gentle kiss on your lips. “I love you. Let me show you how much. I have a stupid amount in savings. I kind of want to chuck some out just to keep me humble.”

You giggle at this, finally, fully giving in to his madness.

Madness, it is. As you go from store to store, he gets about two more bags full from each one, and you’re sure some of these outfits will never see the light of day after you see how he looks at you in them. About ten percent will just be something you put on for about two seconds before he takes it off you. He’s buying dresses he knows he’ll be the only person to ever take them off or see you in them.

At one point, he runs back to his truck to put the eight bags he got tired of carrying around away, coming back to meet you in the store he left you in. It wasn’t much of a clothing store, but you had a basket of things you were planning to buy for yourself. Earrings, a knick knack for your desk, a cute notebook and the like. (There was a shirt you found for Eddie that you got just for the hell of it.) You're waiting in line, and you’re digging through your purse for your wallet when Eddie comes behind you, wallet out, card in the machine. “I—”

“Baby. Your money is useless today. Let me.”

You roll your eyes, and the cashier’s wide eyes at his pet-name for you catches your eye, a laugh escaping you. “Yeah, sorry. Guess I forgot to mention my boyfriend is also in his 40s.” You giggle, having just gushed about how Eddie was spoiling you to him.

“What? 40s? I’m clearly in my 20s.” Eddie asks, acting offended.

The poor cashier looks genuinely frightened, holding up his hands in surrender. “He’s joking. He is. Likes to make people squirm.”

“Oh I love to make you squirm—”

“Eddie!” You berate him, yanking him out of the store as he lets out a bout of laughter. He catches his breath, still laughing as you cross your arms, waiting impatiently for him to stop.

“Sorry, sweetheart, you made it too easy! C’mon, two more stores, then we can grab food.”

“Can I pay for food?” You ask, holding his hand.

Eddie smiles, petting your hand with his thumb. “Of course.”

The second to last store he brings you to is an underwear store. Eddie lets you do all the picking, following closely behind and offering any commentary when you ask for it. For once, he doesn’t insist that you model for him, claiming that just seeing you go through the lacier drawers of panties was torture enough. You walk out with a wardrobe’s worth of new underwear, bras, and a little bit of lingerie. It was the first time you were there to see the total, your eyes widening as Eddie takes out his card.

He smirks at your stunned expression. “Oh, this isn’t even the highest bill, sweetheart.” The transaction goes through and the kind lady behind the desks offers the bags to him. “This isn’t even half of it.”

The bill was at about 700 dollars, so the very idea drove you insane that he had already collected every receipt and refused to let you see them.

He brings you to one last store, wall to wall, covered in clothes. He goes a little ham this time, and you notice he focuses on basics. Sweatpants, sweaters, shorts, and under shirts. There’s one thing he chooses that has you struggling to get the zipper up, and eventually you call out for him for help after a good five minutes of fumbling .

He opens the curtain delicately so as to not reveal anything, and you look at him helplessly as your hand can’t reach the zipper sitting low on your ass. His fingers are light to the touch, as one hand rests on your shoulder, one on the zipper as it goes up to your neck, your hair held by your hands. You can’t help the shiver that runs through you as your hair curtains down around your neck, and you turn to face him, holding your hands out to silently ask him what he thought.

What does he think? He thinks that this fucking dress looks so good on you that it would be a crime to get you to start trying on those shorts and sweaters. Hell, you knew your size, you were probably good to go. It was much less revealing than any dress you tried on, a number he’ll probably get you to wear on your next date. He couldn’t help himself, surrounded by the privacy of the small room, he leans in to kiss you sweetly, one hand going up to frame your neck. “Baby.” He mutters, his voice sounding desperate. “You look…fucking gorgeous.”

You smile into it, your hand tracing the seam of his shirt along his torso. “Thanks. Help me out of it? I still need to try on all these clothes.”

His tongue swipes across your bottom lip, surprising you. A slight whimper escapes you as he backs you into the wall against a few clothing articles hanging there. “I will absolutely help you out of this dress.” He says, his voice husky and a touch of arousal lands in your underwear as you realize why. “But then I’m going to get my cock in you.”

“In-in here?” You ask, highly aware you’re in a public space.

“Mmhmm. Be quiet and no one will suspect a thing.” he says, hand slipping under the skirt of the dress to start palming at your folds over your panties. You whimper at the touch into his mouth, focusing all your energy on not alerting the kind sales lady that you were hooking up in her dressing room. “Oh, good girl, keeping herself quiet.”

“It’s…it’s hard.” You whimper, the light touches over your panties not enough, but still causing more arousal.

“So am I.” Eddie chuckles, watching your face as he teases you. He slips the hand into your panties, letting them drop on the floor. “Oh, so wet, huh?” He asks you, eyebrows furrowed as he plays with the slick on your folds.

“Mmhmm.”

“Does daddy buying all the pretty clothes make you all hot, baby?” He asks, voice in your ear and fingers rubbing at your clit gentle, but enough to start you to your destination. You nod your head, because on some level, this was a big turn on for you. “Oh, you horny little slut.”

“Good girl…” You whimper, and Eddie leans back from your shoulder. “Good girl. Please?” You ask him, the slut shaming wasn’t doing it for you.

“Oh, you wanna be called a good girl, huh? Daddy’s good girl?” You nod, your eyes closing as he starts to rub at your clit faster.

“Feels…feels good, Daddy…”

“Daddy’s gonna make you cum, and since you’re a good girl you’re not gonna make a fucking sound. Okay?” You nod, holding a whimper in your throat from the finger he slides into your heat. “Oh she’s close.” He mutters to himself, placing gentle kisses on your neck. “Fall apart on my fingers so I can fuck you, my good girl.”

Your mouth is open in a silent scream, an orgasm shaking through you as you wither against the dressing room wall.

“Oh, that’s my good girl, such a good listener. Now, turn around and hold on to those hooks.” You do as he says, and as you brace yourself with your hands awkwardly against the hooks decorated with hangers, he zips the dress off you, lifting it over your head and nearly forgetting to muffle his own moan when he sees you aren’t wearing a bra. He lets his pants fall around his calves, and as his cock pushes you, you let your jaw open and eyes close, doing everything you could not to moan out loud.

He slowly bucks into you, and you close your eyes and lean against the wall headfirst while the scent of store clothes invades your senses. Soon, Eddie leans forward, forcing your torso up against his back as he places his ringed hand around you like a necklace. He kisses at the skin he can reach sweetly, eyes open as he watches your reaction to everything he does to you.

While the prospect of being caught by someone was hot, Eddie found himself watching for your visual reactions than listening for your audible ones. Hmm. He didn’t realize he had begun to rely on them. “How’s Daddy’s cock?”

“G-good.” You whisper, leaning into his chest with your head back against his shoulder.

“Gonna cum in you.” He mutters. He starts fucking into you a little harder, and it has to be perfectly timed because if he went all the way in, the sound of his balls against your pussy would be a dead giveaway.

“How’s everything in there?”

“Speak.” Eddie commands you, and you have to tear yourself from outer space for a moment.

“Great, thank you!”

“Just a reminder we try not to encourage two people in one dressing room.”

“She was just needing help with a zipper. Almost done.” Eddie pipes out, sounding relatively normal for someone seconds away from cumming.

“If you need any help or sizes, let us know.”

“Thanks…” Shit, that sounded out of breath.

“Cum in me.” You whisper, and Eddie does just that, slowly fucking his way through his orgasm, his cheeks flushed, shirt clinging onto the sweat.

You nearly protest as he takes himself out and tucks himself back into his pants. At this point, you were so turned on you kind of wanted to blow him while you had him in the room. You hold his face in your hands and connect your foreheads. “Is it bad I still want more?” You mutter under your breath.

Eddie swears softly, his boner fighting harshly against his slacks. “Fuck. No, I do, too.” He tugs your naked self into his arms, kissing your hair softly. “But…she was suspicious. Unless we want to get kicked out, we should quit while we’re ahead.”

“Can I blow you when we get home?” You ask him, turning to grab your own clothes off the floor.

Eddie chuckles, shaking his head as he grabs the clothes scattered around the dressing room. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

It took multiple trips from Eddie’s truck to bring in all the bags. You truly didn’t realize how many pieces of clothing he had bought you until you saw it all scattered on the closet floor, all ready to be reorganized. Eddie starts hanging them, and you notice the outline of his cock in his slacks. He was still throbbing.

“Can I?” You ask, sitting pretty on your knees and looking up at him.

“Fuck, I’m never gonna say no to that.” Eddie answers, placing a hand under your chin.

You undo his pants, giving him a hungry look as his cock springs free. “You’re still hard?” You ask, knowing you’ve gotten food at the food court and walked around the mall a bit more before coming home.

“Mmhm.” You smile, jerking him lazily as you eye the length hungrily. You have the idea to tease him more, but the need to feel the weight of his cock on your tongue is too much. Eddie swears loudly as you take him in your mouth, gripping onto the center console for accessories and underwear. “Fuck”

You slowly bob your head up and down, staring up at him through your eyelashes as you relax your throat and allow your nose to meet his stomach. His hands skim through your hair, moving your head lightly, and again, you find it ridiculously easy to submit to him.

Eddie is uncharacteristically quiet, head thrown back in bliss as he feels the spit gather at his base. His stomach starts to tighten up a little bit and under your hands, his thighs are tense. Somehow it spells out to you he’s close.

You prepare yourself, moving your head faster on your own accord, opening your eyes at him again to watch for his reaction as you double down. A goddamn whimper escapes his throat as you continue, and suddenly it’s your goddamn mission to make him make that sound again. “Fuck, baby. Fuck…” Without any warning, the warm salty taste of his cum hits your tongue and you moan around him as he rides through his orgasm.

For once, as you wipe your mouth, you can tell he’s the one that needs recovery. You move to your feet, waiting for him to catch his breath. “Need some water?” You ask him, somewhat joking.

“The fuck was that?” He asks, his face in awe as he looks at you.

You give a cheeky and quick little kiss to the hand on your cheek. “Wanted to make you feel good.”

“Jesus Christ—” he tugs you into a hug, habitually kissing your hair. “How did I get so lucky?”

“Uh Ed.” You push lightly on his chest to get out of the hug, giving him a look of disbelief. You look gesture around the closet to the half of the clothes still not put away. “How are you the lucky one?”

Eddie’s face breaks into a wide smile, his dimples prominent, his smile lines deep. “You keep thinking that, darling.” He laughs, tugging you back into his arms.

As you stand there against his chest, relaxing into him with your eyes closed, the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it. You put away my clothes since you know where everything goes.”

“I did design this closet.” He retorts, pointing a finger at you.

You walk down the stairs to the front door, seeing a tall figure facing away through the smart glass. You open the door to a gorgeous set of brown locks, perfectly coiffed. The figure turns around, and clearly doesn’t expect to see you standing there. “Hey, Ed- whoa.” You recognize his face, but you aren’t sure where from. You subtly fix your hair; suddenly aware you had just given head to your boyfriend. “Uh, sorry, little lady. Is Eddie here?”

“He’s upstairs in the closet. Can I help you?”

The stranger smiles kindly, and you notice the freckles on his face are like constellations. “Oh sorry! I told him I’d be coming through town, but I forgot to say when. I’m Steve, Steve Harrington.”

Thank you so much for reading! I love to read your comments, replies, and reblogs. As always, reblogging is the best way to support your fic writers on tumblr.

Taglist: @pinkcowracing @yourthebrokengirl @skrzydlak @thirddeadlysin @sammararaven @bebe07011 @prettylovley @josephquinncore @forget-you-morelike-fuck-you

Taglist for Really Drives Me Mad: @yunnie-f1 @hollster88 @corrodedcoffincumslut @daisyridleyyyy @daniellabrandt @lail1010 @alicentswife @names-were-taken @bl4ckt00thgr1n

#eddie munson #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x fem #eddie munson x reader smut #eddie munson x you smut #older eddie munson #older eddie munson x reader #older!eddie munson #older!eddie x reader

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hoursofreading · 7 months

Quote

In terms of trying to actively promote depth in your life, start putting on your calendar some appointments with yourself to do deep work. Go a couple weeks out and treat those appointments like you would a doctor's appointment or a meeting with an investor. If someone tries to schedule something during that time, you say, "No, I'm busy from one to three, but here's when I'm available." People understand the semantics around the meetings and appointments. They're willing to work around it. You don't have to explain why. Start with a moderate amount, say three or four hours a week. Have it on the calendar. Have it protected. And during those prescheduled times, maintain the zero-tolerance distraction policy. During those times, not a glance at the internet, not a glance at the phone. The second thing is, take some step to start gaining back cognitive fitness. Most people are not willing, for example, to just blanket quit social media; but I would suggest a couple things. One, take social media applications off your phone. I've had a lot of people who say, "I can give you 19 reasons why I have to use social media, why it's so important in my life," and then they do this experiment where they take it off their phone so it becomes 10 percent more difficult to log in to Facebook or Twitter. They stop using it altogether. They realize, "Okay, wait a second. Maybe I was telling all these stories about the key role it plays in my life, and why I always have to be looking at it, but once I added just a slight impediment, I stopped using it altogether." I think it helps sort of reassess the value, but more importantly, you take the addictive aspects out of the service while still maintaining your access to the information or other value that you get out of it. The third thing I would recommend is starting to schedule the time you do novel, distracting, stimulating things. You could schedule lots of times, but it should be scheduled times. Maybe after work, you say, "From 8 to 10, I'm going to break out the laptop and just go nuts, no holds barred. Social media, whatever. But until 8, none of it." Or, "Okay, at work, I'm going to check my email, check on all of this at this time, this time, this time, this time." All the other times in between, even if you feel like you want to do it, you don't. This is all about just practicing that muscle of "I want stimuli, and I said no." Even if you've scheduled 25 blocks during the day when you're going to look at stimuli, that still gives you 25 blocks between those times where you're going to feel like you want to check stimuli and you say no. Every time you do that, that's helping to break the Pavlovian connection. That's usually how I get people started. Get it on the calendar, start cleaning up your cognitive fitness.

Cal Newport on taking your life back from technology - Vox

#quote #advice

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queenshelby · 7 days

Text

Daughter Dearest (Part Ten)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy (47) x Step! Daughter (21)

Warning: Infidelity, Smut, Dysfunctional Family

Tag List will be updated soon! Please comment and engage!

"You need to get out of my room," you told him in a packed state and Cillian nodded before he quickly untangled himself from you and started to get dressed hastily. His face was flushed with a mix of shame and worry as he tried to pull his clothes on as quickly as possible.

"Quick, put something on!" Cillian whispered frantically as you, throwing your shirt at you that was lying around on the floor.

You moved quickly, pulling the shirt over your head as you slipped out of bed and hurriedly pulled on your underwear and pants up too.

Your heart was beating rapidly in your chest, and you swallowed hard, feeling a wave of anxiety wash over you as you heard your mother's voice.

"Cillian?" she called out , her voice was calm, but something in her tone sent a chill down your spine.

"Fuck," Cillian hissed, his face panicked, knowing that she might see him coming out of your room.

"Can you come down and help me with the bags?" she then called out, from the bottom of the staircase, which led directly to the bedrooms.

Cillian's entire body stiffened. He didn't know what to say or do, but the urgency in your eyes prompted him to make a move.

"I'll be right there, Marion!" Cillian shouted back, trying to keep his voice steady and calm before he nervously exited your room and, as soon as he stepped out of the door, he saw your mother, having walked half-way up the stairs already.

Her gaze was laser-focused on Cillian, a hint of suspicion in her eyes. "What were you doing in Y/N's room?" she asked, but not suspecting anything inappropriate, even despite Cillian's disheveled appearance/

Cillian swallowed hard, trying to think up a plausible excuse on the spot. "Oh, I was just... checking on Y/N," he said, forcing a smile. "She seemed a bit down earlier, so I wanted to make sure she was okay."

Marion raised an eyebrow, not entirely convinced by his explanation.

"Well, I am about to have a word with her," your mother responded almost angrily but Cillian blocked her way up.

"Let's get your bags in first," he suggested as he tried to divert your mother's attention for as long as he could. "Despite, I think she needs a little alone time this morning as she had a fight with one of her friends," he added, searching for any excuse that could buy him a few minutes.

Your mother looked unconvinced but eventually relented. "Fine," she then said just before Cillian followed her to the car.

"Why are you even home already? And where is Sadie?" Cillian queried Marion as he was loading bags into the house, still rattled by the encounter with you.

"Sadie is with Cliona, who is taking her to the park so that I can sort out the bloody drama Y/N has caused again," your mother said with a frustrated sigh.

Cillian froze, feeling a sinking feeling in his stomach at the mention of your name and the implied drama. "What do you mean by 'the bloody drama Y/N has caused again'?" Cillian asked cautiously.

"Oh god Cillian, did you not read the headlines?" she asked, her voice laced with disdain. "The fact that she broke her house arrest and had you pick her up from the police station is all over social media," she went on before pulling out her phone and showing it to him.

"Well, thank god I don't do Facebook," Cillian chuckled, brushing off the news to lighten the mood.

Marion sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. "Cillian, this is serious. Y/N is constantly causing trouble, and I can't believe that you didn't even call me when this happened. I mean, why didn't you?" she asked, looking at Cillian with confusion. "I would have expected you to tell me if my daughter got arrested."

Cillian sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I didn't want to worry you while you were enjoying some time away," he said, honestly. "Besides, Y/N asked me not to tell you. She was afraid of your reaction. Clearly rightfully so."

Marion scoffed. "Afraid of my reaction? She should be more afraid of the consequences of her actions," your mother spat, causing Cillian to become a little more protective.

"She didn't smuggle the drugs, Marion. She found out who framed her and went after her," Cillian began to explain. "And yes, it was a hotheaded decision that got her into trouble again, but her solicitor is sorting it now, so you can relax, alright? Just give her a break," Cillian insisted before taking the last bag from your mother's car.

Your mother, Marion, simply sighed in frustration. "Hot-headed is an understatement, Cillian. You know as well as I do that her reckless actions might not only ruin her own reputation but also affect yours and your career," she pointed out, but Cillian only shrugged it off.

"My reputation is fine Marion," he replied, unbothered. "Besides, Y/N's actions speak to her character, and I'd rather have a stepdaughter with courage and a backbone than one who's silent and obedient."

"You are too lenient," she said before calling out for you.

"Y/N, can you join us in the kitchen, please?" she called out.

All characters are over 18.

You sighed, knowing that you were in for another lecture about your choices and how they affected your family's reputation. You walked into the large, open-concept kitchen, where your mother sat at the kitchen island, looking expectedly while Cillian was standing by the sink, trying to avoid your gaze.

"We really need to discuss your careless actions, Y/N. They are unacceptable and affect us all," your mother began with a pointed look in your direction as you stepped in front of her, wondering whether she could smell her husband's scent on you.

"And what makes you think you have the right to lecture me about the decisions I make?" you shot back, looking at her, wanting to tell her what you just did, but of course, you wouldn't have. Revenge was not what your interactions with Cillian were about.

"I have every right to lecture you," Marion countered coolly, still not missing a beat. "I am your mother and you are staying in my home, so you listen to me," she asserted, reflecting an air of authority.

Cillian stepped closer, moving to stand protectively by your side, his presence a small sense of comfort in this awkward situation.

"Marion, let's just take a step back and take a deep breath," Cillian advised, his tone gentle, but firm. "Being angry won't solve anything."

Your mother huffed in response, before she closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath. "Are you taking sides now?" she then asked him accusingly, turning her steely gaze towards Cillian.

"I am just trying to be reasonable," he replied, maintaining his neutral stance. "Because I think that you should actually hear Y/N out," he went on, looking at you, then on to your mother, expecting her to listen to you.

You looked surprised at Cillian's support, but it brought a small sense of relief which, unfortunately, for you, was short lived.

"What is this on your neck?" your mother asked abruptly in a stern, disciplinary tone, piercing the tense silence in the room.

Her sudden query was followed by her hand extending forward, hovering over the side of your neck where Cillian must have left a red mark during your heated sessions.

"It's nothing," you muttered quickly, flinching at her sudden touch.

"Alright, well, anyway...," she continued, lowering her hand back to her side, although her eyes remained fixed on the spot. "I am not going to tolerate another breach of your house arrest, and I expect you to behave yourself during your time here," she said with a sternness that was even rare for her.

"Yes, mother," you sighed deeply with a slight roll of your eyes, trying to downplay the situation.

"Don't be smart and go and have a shower. You look like a mess," your mother said, glancing over you one more time before turning to leave the room.

You couldn't help but feel a sense of relief wash over you once your mother had left the room, her judgemental gaze no longer lingering on you.

"I need to get out of here," you muttered under your breath, shifting nervously on your feet while Cillian came closer.

"And hopefully you can soon, even though I will miss your company," he said quietly , placing a hand on your shoulder. The warmth of his touch burned through the fabric of your shirt and sent a shiver down your spine.

"I will miss you, too," you confessed as you finally looked at him, meeting his eyes. There was a distance between them both, yet a connection electrified the air, like a magnetic force drawing them together. "Last night was nice and so was this morning," you whispered to him, almost inaudibly.

"It was," Cillian agreed, his voice low and soft. "More than nice, in fact. But what happened between us cannot happen again and, as we had agreed, let's not mention it again," Cillian murmured. Despite his composure, his eyes showed vulnerability and depth-filled with desire.

You felt a pang of regret, knowing that your-selfish desires had led you to an unexpected path. The connection between you two was an unstoppable, powerful force but you knew that acting on it could only end in tragedy, not just for you and Cillian, but also for your family.

"Agreed," you thus said before asking him for one more favor. "But I just have to ask you for one more thing," you hesitated before catching a lock of loose hair that had fallen across your shoulder and twirling it between your fingers nervously.

"What is it?" Cillian asked, his eyes on you, waiting patiently for your answer.

"I...I need you to go to the pharmacy for me," you requested Cillian, hesitation in your voice.

Cillian raised his eyebrows but quickly schooled his features. "Are you feeling okay? I mean, after, you know...," he asked, a hint of concern etched on his forehead.

You hesitated for a fraction of a moment, gathering your thoughts. "I'm fine, it's just... I need the morning after pill," you finally managed to squeak out.

Speaking the words aloud made you cringe but you knew this was the responsible thing to do and, of course, Cillian agreed.

"Of course, I'll go," he replied casually, as if you had asked him to get ice cream instead.

"Thank you," you murmured gratefully, releasing your breath in a soft exhale as Cillian stepped closer to you, brushing a gentle strand of loose hair off your shoulder.

"Do you need anything else while I am there?" Cillian asked, his voice gentle and caring but you shook your head.

"No, that is all," you replied quickly, forcing a smile.

Cillian placed a hand on your lower back, his fingers gently brushing against your skin, leaving a tingling sensation in its wake. The gesture was so small yet so intimate that it made you feel both exhilarated and conflicted.

"Okay then, I'll be back in a few," Cillian said softly, his eyes never leaving yours as he slowly stepped away from you.

The way he looked at you, filled you with such a deep longing, it was almost overwhelming.

"See you soon," you whispered, watching him walk towards the door where he paused and looked back at you, one last time before he left.

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#cillian murphy x y/n #cillian murphy imagine #cillian murphy x you #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy #cillian

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months

Text

UK publishers suing Google for $17.4b over rigged ad markets

THIS WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Look, no one wants to kick Big Tech to the curb more than I do, but, also: it's good that Google indexes the news so people can find it, and it's good that Facebook provides forums where people can talk about the news.

It's not news if you can't find it. It's not news if you can't talk about it. We don't call information you can't find or discuss "news" – we call it "secrets."

And yet, the most popular – and widely deployed – anti-Big Tech tactic promulgated by the news industry and supported by many of my fellow trustbusters is premised on making Big Tech pay to index the news and/or provide a forum to discuss news articles. These "news bargaining codes" (or, less charitably, "link taxes") have been mooted or introduced in the EU, France, Spain, Australia, and Canada. There are proposals to introduce these in the US (through the JCPA) and in California (the CJPA).

These US bills are probably dead on arrival, for reasons that can be easily understood by the Canadian experience with them. After Canada introduced Bill C-18 – its own news bargaining code – Meta did exactly what it had done in many other places where this had been tried: blocked all news from Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and other Meta properties.

This has been a disaster for the news industry and a disaster for Canadians' ability to discuss the news. Oh, it makes Meta look like assholes, too, but Meta is the poster child for "too big to care" and is palpably indifferent to the PR costs of this boycott.

Frustrated lawmakers are now trying to figure out what to do next. The most common proposal is to order Meta to carry the news. Canadians should be worried about this, because the next government will almost certainly be helmed by the far-right conspiratorialist culture warrior Pierre Poilievre, who will doubtless use this power to order Facebook to platform "news sites" to give prominence to Canada's rotten bushel of crypto-fascist (and openly fascist) "news" sites.

Americans should worry about this too. A Donald Trump 2028 presidency combined with a must-carry rule for news would see Trump's cabinet appointees deciding what is (and is not) news, and ordering large social media platforms to cram the Daily Caller (or, you know, the Daily Stormer) into our eyeballs.

But there's another, more fundamental reason that must-carry is incompatible with the American system: the First Amendment. The government simply can't issue a blanket legal order to platforms requiring them to carry certain speech. They can strongly encourage it. A court can order limited compelled speech (say, a retraction following a finding of libel). Under emergency conditions, the government might be able to compel the transmission of urgent messages. But there's just no way the First Amendment can be squared with a blanket, ongoing order issued by the government to communications platforms requiring them to reproduce, and make available, everything published by some collection of their favorite news outlets.

This might also be illegal in Canada, but it's harder to be definitive. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enshrined in 1982, and Canada's Supreme Court is still figuring out what it means. Section Two of the Charter enshrines a free expression right, but it's worded in less absolute terms than the First Amendment, and that's deliberate. During the debate over the wording of the Charter, Canadian scholars and policymakers specifically invoked problems with First Amendment absolutism and tried to chart a middle course between strong protections for free expression and problems with the First Amendment's brook-no-exceptions language.

So maybe Canada's Supreme Court would find a must-carry order to Meta to be a violation of the Charter, but it's hard to say for sure. The Charter is both young and ambiguous, so it's harder to be definitive about what it would say about this hypothetical. But when it comes to the US and the First Amendment, that's categorically untrue. The US Constitution is centuries older than the Canadian Charter, and the First Amendment is extremely definitive, and there are reams of precedent interpreting it. The JPCA and CJPA are totally incompatible with the US Constitution. Passing them isn't as silly as passing a law declaring that Pi equals three or that water isn't wet, but it's in the neighborhood.

But all that isn't to say that the news industry shouldn't be attacking Big Tech. Far from it. Big Tech compulsively steals from the news!

But what Big Tech steals from the news isn't content.

It's money.

Big Tech steals money from the news. Take social media: when a news outlet invests in building a subscriber base on a social media platform, they're giving that platform a stick to beat them with. The more subscribers you have on social media, the more you'll be willing to pay to reach those subscribers, and the more incentive there is for the platform to suppress the reach of your articles unless you pay to "boost" your content.

This is plainly fraudulent. When I sign up to follow a news outlet on a social media site, I'm telling the platform to show me the things the news outlet publishes. When the platform uses that subscription as the basis for a blackmail plot, holding my desire to read the news to ransom, they are breaking their implied promise to me to show me the things I asked to see:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

This is stealing money from the news. It's the definition of an "unfair method of competition." Article 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act gives the FTC the power to step in and ban this practice, and they should:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Big Tech also steals money from the news via the App Tax: the 30% rake that the mobile OS duopoly (Apple/Google) requires for every in-app purchase (Apple/Google also have policies that punish app vendors who take you to the web to make payments without paying the App Tax). 30% out of every subscriber dollar sent via an app is highway robbery! By contrast, the hyperconcentrated, price-gouging payment processing cartel charges 2-5% – about a tenth of the Big Tech tax. This is Big Tech stealing money from the news:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Finally, Big Tech steals money by monopolizing the ad market. The Google-Meta ad duopoly takes 51% out of every ad-dollar spent. The historic share going to advertising "intermediaries" is 10-15%. In other words, Google/Meta cornered the market on ads and then tripled the bite they were taking out of publishers' advertising revenue. They even have an illegal, collusive arrangement to rig this market, codenamed "Jedi Blue":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

There's two ways to unrig the ad market, and we should do both of them.

First, we should trustbust both Google and Meta and force them to sell off parts of their advertising businesses. Currently, both Google and Meta operate a "full stack" of ad services. They have an arm that represents advertisers buying space for ads. Another arm represents publishers selling space to advertisers. A third arm operates the marketplace where these sales take place. All three arms collect fees. On top of that: Google/Meta are both publishers and advertisers, competing with their own customers!

This is as if you were in court for a divorce and you discovered that the same lawyer representing your soon-to-be ex was also representing you…while serving as the judge…and trying to match with you both on Tinder. It shouldn't surprise you if at the end of that divorce, the court ruled that the family home should go to the lawyer.

So yeah, we should break up ad-tech:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

Also: we should ban surveillance advertising. Surveillance advertising gives ad-tech companies a permanent advantage over publishers. Ad-tech will always know more about readers' behavior than publishers do, because Big Tech engages in continuous, highly invasive surveillance of every internet user in the world. Surveillance ads perform a little better than "content-based ads" (ads sold based on the content of a web-page, not the behavior of the person looking at the page), but publishers will always know more about their content than ad-tech does. That means that even if content-based ads command a slightly lower price than surveillance ads, a much larger share of that payment will go to publishers:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Banning surveillance advertising isn't just good business, it's good politics. The potential coalition for banning surveillance ads is everyone who is harmed by commercial surveillance. That's a coalition that's orders of magnitude larger than the pool of people who merely care about fairness in the ad/news industries. It's everyone who's worried about their grandparents being brainwashed on Facebook, or their teens becoming anorexic because of Instagram. It includes people angry about deepfake porn, and people angry about Black Lives Matter protesters' identities being handed to the cops by Google (see also: Jan 6 insurrectionists).

It also includes everyone who discovers that they're paying higher prices because a vendor is using surveillance data to determine how much they'll pay – like when McDonald's raises the price of your "meal deal" on your payday, based on the assumption that you will spend more when your bank account is at its highest monthly level:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Attacking Big Tech for stealing money is much smarter than pretending that the problem is Big Tech stealing content. We want Big Tech to make the news easy to find and discuss. We just want them to stop pocketing 30 cents out of every subscriber dollar and 51 cents out of ever ad dollar, and ransoming subscribers' social media subscriptions to extort publishers.

And there's amazing news on this front: a consortium of UK web-publishers called Ad Tech Collective Action has just triumphed in a high-stakes proceeding, and can now go ahead with a suit against Google, seeking damages of GBP13.6b ($17.4b) for the rigged ad-tech market:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/17-bln-uk-adtech-lawsuit-against-google-can-go-ahead-tribunal-rules-2024-06-05/

The ruling, from the Competition Appeal Tribunal, paves the way for a frontal assault on the thing Big Tech actually steals from publishers: money, not content.

This is exactly what publishing should be doing. Targeting the method by which tech steals from the news is a benefit to all kinds of news organizations, including the independent, journalist-owned publishers that are doing the best news work today. These independents do not have the same interests as corporate news, which is dominated by hedge funds and private equity raiders, who have spent decades buying up and hollowing out news outlets, and blaming the resulting decline in readership and profits on Craiglist.

You can read more about Big Finance's raid on the news in Margot Susca's Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy:

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087561

You can also watch/listen to Adam Conover's excellent interview with Susca:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA

Frankly, the looters and billionaires who bought and gutted our great papers are no more interested in the health of the news industry or democracy than Big Tech is. We should care about the news and the workers who produce the news, not the profits of the hedge-funds that own the news. An assault on Big Tech's monetary theft levels the playing field, making it easier for news workers and indies to compete directly with financialized news outlets and billionaire playthings, by letting indies keep more of every ad-dollar and more of every subscriber-dollar – and to reach their subscribers without paying ransom to social media.

Ending monetary theft – rather than licensing news search and discussion – is something that workers are far more interested in than their bosses. Any time you see workers and their bosses on the same side as a fight against Big Tech, you should look more closely. Bosses are not on their workers' side. If bosses get more money out of Big Tech, they will not share those gains with workers unless someone forces them to.

That's where antitrust comes in. Antitrust is designed to strike at power, and enforcers have broad authority to blunt the power of corporate juggernauts. Remember Article 5 of the FTC Act, the one that lets the FTC block "unfair methods of competition?" FTC Chair Lina Khan has proposed using it to regulate training AI, specifically to craft rules that address the labor and privacy issues with AI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mh8Z5pcJpg

This is an approach that can put creative workers where they belong, in a coalition with other workers, rather than with their bosses. The copyright approach to curbing AI training is beloved of the same media companies that are eagerly screwing their workers. If we manage to make copyright – a transferrable right that a worker can be forced to turn over their employer – into the system that regulates AI training, it won't stop training. It'll just trigger every entertainment company changing their boilerplate contract so that creative workers have to sign over their AI rights or be shown the door:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

Then those same entertainment and news companies will train AI models and try to fire most of their workers and slash the pay of the remainder using those models' output. Using copyright to regulate AI training makes changes to who gets to benefit from workers' misery, shifting some of our stolen wages from AI companies to entertainment companies. But it won't stop them from ruining our lives.

By contrast, focusing on actual labor rights – say, through an FTCA 5 rulemaking – has the potential to protect those rights from all parties, and puts us on the same side as call-center workers, train drivers, radiologists and anyone else whose wages are being targeted by AI companies and their customers.

Policy fights are a recurring monkey's paw nightmare in which we try to do something to fight corruption and bullying, only to be outmaneuvered by corrupt bullies. Making good policy is no guarantee of a good outcome, but it sure helps – and good policy starts with targeting the thing you want to fix. If we're worried that news is being financially starved by Big Tech, then we should go after the money, not the links.

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/2024/06/06/stealing-money-not-content/#content-free

#pluralistic #competition #advertising #surveillance advertising #saving the news from big tech #link taxes #trustbusting #competition and markets authority #uk #ukpoli #Ad Tech Collective Action #digital markets unit #Competition Appeal Tribunal

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