Game companies hate emulation, but none of them seem to understand that a lot of us would just buy ROMs from them directly if we could. I don't want a fifth remake of Final Fantasy IV, I want to pay five bucks for the 3MB file you already made bank with thirty years ago. Nobody who wants to play something for the purpose of retro gaming is going to consider a $40 remake as the alternative option, and we're certainly not going to let the original dissappear. They're crying about opportunity cost for a product they're not even selling.
op i know you're probably talking about like, video games, etc, but this is also critical for research science - my lab has so much abandonware, either because the company's out of business, or the company decided to not maintain it, and it's a fucking nightmare. we have two windows 95 computers that are CRITICAL for performing experiments/data analysis because the software needed is abandonware. one of the main roles for a guy in my lab is to maintain these little dinosaurs because if they go out, we lose access to ~20 years of raw data for research. part of why is that these companies also make their own file types, and make it difficult-to-impossible to convert those file types without their specific software. by habit, i convert all research files to more generic versions (txt, pdf, tif, etc) so that i minimize risk of losing my shit, but some stuff can't be converted.
for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.
so like, i know a lot of people look at the original post here and go "well op just wants old video games to play" (which is valid! games companies should not be able to push shit to abandonware and then close it off) but also this is critical for like. biomedical research. if y'all had any idea how much basic infrastructure built on science relies on shit that is technically abandonware, you would probably be horrified.
“Doesn’t it kinda get you hard?” she asks. It’s an inappropriate question; she shouldn’t be asking it. She knows I’m insecure that I can’t afford surgery. Mercy is carelessly tracing her robotic hand suggestively up and down the shell of the unexploded ordinance we’re here to assess.
“Shut the fuck up.” I respond, as jokingly as I can manage. Bitterness still creeps into my voice but I’m pretty sure that the radio distortion masks it. “You know how hot this-” I gesture to the bomb, “-is.”
A smile creeps onto Mercy’s face; she spreads her index and middle fingers on the casing. I stop her before she starts. “You know I mean radioactivity. You suck.”
She pouts and gives the bomb a tap with her plasticized knuckles. I wince, but I’m positive she can’t tell. Her combat cybernetics are perfectly expressive at all times, and the hazard suit I’m in doesn’t let anything out or in.
“I’m just saying that if you’d seen one of these go off in person, you’d be tingling down there too. Let’s see.” She drapes herself across the bomb, ass facing towards me. Whatever she’s checking out on the other side seems to excite her, because she starts to wiggle her hips too. “It’s a lucky seven. 8 kilotons. I bet it was a KN-910 that dropped...”
I tune her out. Mercy presses her thighs together, and I’m sure she’s adding more vocal fry to her mixing to describe it. It’s all intentional, after all. She doesn’t need to breathe, so when she’s breathlessly describing just how many city blocks it could level to me I know it’s on purpose. Everything about her is on purpose. She shifts and straddles the bomb! Her after-market custom silicone thighs squish against the metal.
“Did you get all of that, Ange?” she asks, turning back to me from atop the bomb. I blink a couple times and shake off whatever stupid shit I was thinking about.
“Naw. I kinda spaced out.” I say. She folds her arms under her breasts and pouts again. “C’mon. You recorded all of it. I’m just here to drag out your black box if something goes wrong.” Mercy slides down the length of the bomb and starts picking her way down off the rubble pile it was resting on. I sheepishly shift back and forth and strain against how stiff my suit is.
“But what if something went wrong, huh? Rogue neutron through the solid state?” Mercy mimes shooting herself in the head with a gun, and then puts a hand on her hip to lean in towards me. I can see her cleavage through her poncho collar. “What if the data was irretrievable? Crushed by debris from the ceiling? What would you have told the disposal team? That you were too busy checking out my ass to relay my expert assessment?”
I start to answer. “Okay, well. One, most of the things that coulda gone wrong here would have disintegrated you and me, so it’s kind of moot. Two, I don’t know, I coulda looked at it myself. It’s got a serial number.”
She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Yeah right. No shot in hell you get within three metres of this thing. Especially if I’m non-responsive.”
“Ugh. Whatever. I got that it’s a lucky seven. That’s all the other crew needs to take it apart.” I say.
Mercy looms over me by a foot and a half. The look on her face is clearly disappointed. I shrug, making sure to exaggerate the motion so it scans clearly to her. She scoffs and turns to leave the ruins. I follow her out to the jeep where she sits in the back with a huff.
Nothing happens when I turn the key. Mercy sits up when I try it a second time.
“Ange, the battery is dead.” she says, matter-of-fact.
“Are you sure?” I ask, trying the key again.
“You can’t hear it because of your suit, but it’s just clicking. We’re going to have to jump it.”
My stomach sinks. We don’t have a spare battery and there’s absolutely no power for miles. Our comms are part of the jeep, so they’re dead too. I don’t remember where the last wrecked car I saw was, but it sure wasn’t nearby. Not that I want to pick through the ruins for a battery that might be dead! My hands start to hurt, I can feel my heart pounding. When I turn back to look at Mercy, she seems completely unfazed.
“Well?” I ask, panic creeping into my voice, “Why are you so calm? You got a plan?”
She smiles and leans back. “Yeah.” It pisses me off how relaxed she is about this.
“What’s the plan? Are you gonna jump it with your battery?” I ask. She’s taken aback for a second. Did I take it too far? Then Mercy puts back on her dry face.
“That’d kill me, idiot.” she chides, “No, no. We’ve got a battery nearby that’ll jump the engine, no problem.”
I don’t like where any of this is going but I prompt her to continue with a gesture.
“The bomb. It’s got a heavy-duty battery for the controller and the electronic primers. And you’re going to dig it out, Anger Trinity.”
I don’t like how wide her smile is. “I’m not gonna do that.”
“Oh yes, you are. I can’t. If the pit is damaged or exposed at all it’ll shred my sensors to hell.” She sounds so damn pleased with herself. “Unless you wanna walk.”
…
Mercy has found a shitty rolling office chair to direct me from. The plastic is obviously creaking from her weight, from how she’s reclining in it. It’s barely wide enough to seat her in the first place. I inhale sharply through my teeth when she spreads her legs.
I am far closer to the bomb than I’d ever like to be! My extremities tingle and ache. This is psychosomatic. My radiation meter chimes in with occasional excited chirps as I approach, crowbar in hand.
“You got lucky, Ange! A couple of the access panels are exposed. Try the one on the front.” she says, right into my ear.
It’s tricky to wedge the crook of the crowbar into the seam, but once it catches I put my whole body weight into it. There’s the telltale sound of metal tearing as I rip the plate from the hinges it was welded to. Mercy gasps quietly and I clench my teeth. My radiation meter helpfully lets me know that it’s ever so slightly less safe to stay in this area for an extended period of time.
“What now?” I try to sound annoyed, rather than scared out of my mind.
“The battery we want is at the tail.” Mercy pauses, “Mmm. You’re gonna have to tear her open some more.”
“Her?” I spit quietly, “Urgh, you got it.”
I look at the freshly exposed little switchboard, trying to tease out a point of leverage that will let me crack open the shell. I find it, a corner that wasn’t set as tightly as the other three, and drive the crowbar into it. Mercy gets out of her chair to pace around the bomb and I, at a distance. Pressing down with my arms doesn’t get me anywhere, so I clamber up the bomb to drive my boot into the lever.
The screech is painful, even through hearing protection. A little bit of steel curling upwards like a flirty smile. My meter is now much more insistent about the danger. Something must be wrong with the bomb. Mercy’s voice is slightly distorted when she chimes in over the radio, but the sultry tone she takes is unmistakable.
“Keep going, Ange. Don’t let up.” she giggles. I clench my teeth and move upwards to keep prying.
The metal isn’t yielding. All of the welds are shut tight to any minor intrusion. I fucking hate it, so I take my hate out on the bomb. The insulation and shielding slowly comes into view as I spread the casing, inch by inch. It’s so god damn stuffy in the hazard suit. I’m getting dizzy, my breathing is short, my arms are killing me.
Each time I slow down Mercy eggs me on. “Can I see a little more?” She plays up the saccharine innocence in her voice. “You’re getting to the good bits, keep pushing!”
I try to growl at her, but it comes out as a whimper. I’ve opened a gash halfway up the length of the bomb. When I catch my breath I trace a hand idly over some of the braided cables woven throughout its innards. Mercy makes sure to make her breath catch and stifle a moan. I clench my jaw and get back to work.
It starts to settle on me. What if the failure that kept the bomb from detonating corrected itself while I’m atop it? My stomach sinks and I feel a twitch between my legs. If my head was spinning I’d have an excuse to stop. I try for help. “Mercy, I’m gonna ralph.”
“Oh Ange, baby, you really just need to keep pushing. You’re almost there!” she giggles. I have to get back to it.
The inner layer of my suit is clinging to my body. I don’t know how long it's been, but the work is going faster now that I’m past the device. My radiation meter is still whining incessantly, though I’ve long since tuned it out. I’m sure they’re going to need to bury this suit after what I’ve done in it. I’ve tried to stop paying attention to whatever Mercy is doing to rile me up, but when I look back at her, she has her legs spread and a hand up her poncho. Bitch.
I just need to push a little harder. I’m almost to the battery. Almost ready to go back and decontaminate. The cables converge here, just before the tail. If I can pull it out. Get it to loosen up. Release. I pull a heavy chunk of electronics out and fall off of the bomb and onto my ass. My left leg hurts. I think I tore my suit. I don’t care. I roar as I hoist it above my head! I’m trembling, I can’t make out Mercy’s face through my fogged up visor. I’m triumphant.
Mercy helps me to my feet and we leave the ruined building together. She turns back to look at the splayed-open bomb and snickers.
“What’s-” I have to catch my breath again. “What’s so funny?”
“You must not have been her type.” she says.
I’m at a loss for words. “What?”
“Look at how much effort it took to get her to spread ‘em for you.” she says, and then pats my head.
bro i need an older woman to fuck me with her strap until i’m a moaning, whining, whimpering mess and the only word i can get out is “mommy”, if even. i’m just laying there like a brainless slut. fuck.
thinking about a pretty lady tugging at my collar, cooing softly at the way I follow her lead like some needy little mutt. she'll slip her fingers in my mouth and call me a good girl while her free hand rubs me through my panties, teasing me over how soaked I get just from that. that's all I need right now, to be her puppy.
Imagine having sex with someone new and you know they don't have much experience, so you assume that the reason they've got a completely blank-faced neutral expression is just them being nervous, you've double-checked a few times that they really do want to go through with this, so you just kind of suppose that maybe some people just aren't very expressive or vocal during sex.
And then halfway through, just once you've kind of adjusted to them evidently just being stone-faced and silent through the whole procedure, and you're just getting to the groove and enjoying yourself, they just deadpan ask you
thinking about sitting in another girl’s lap, wearing a skirt that drapes over her in such a way that nobody can tell her cock is very much not in her panties right now (because it’s in my ass)
