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mysteria157 · 5 months ago

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Pairing: Nanami Kento x Black!Fem Reader

Rating/CW: explicit sexual content, cowgirl, vaginal sex, light bondage, power dynamics, teasing/edging, sweating Kento out because that's what I love most, established relationship, MDNI!

WC: ~5.9K

Summary: What happens when you playfully suggest a new dynamic in the bedroom? Utter torment for Nanami, of course. What else is new?

a/n: The writer's block has been absolutely atrocious, but I was able to break free of its clutches with this. Is it Sheriff Nanami? No. But it is smut that's been sitting in my mind so long that it gave me a fever. So...here ya go lol.

Ao3 | JJK Masterlist | Divider: @cafekitsune @strangergraphics | Part Two | network tag: @pixelcafe-network

The silk of his favorite tie is familiar to him—the way it slides through his fingers each morning when he gets ready for work, the weight of it loose around his neck as he shaves, the pop of black against gold in his reflection when he secures it beneath his collar. But it’s never quite felt like this—wrapped snugly around his wrists, rumpled and stretching with every pull of his hands, growing damp with sweat from his wrists as he watches you ride him within an inch of his life.

Nanami hisses, dark blonde eyebrows pitched deep in concentration as he gazes up at you. His usually immaculate hair is a mess, flaxen strands plastered to his forehead with sweat that trails down his neck like a lover’s caress, slipping beneath his shoulder blades to soak into the sheets of your shared bed.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he grits out. He means to sound indignant, frustrated in light of what he’s gotten himself into, but his body tells a different story. His hips itch to cant upward, fingers clench like a madman for purchase into your skin, jaw clicking as he grinds his teeth against mounting pleasure.

You snort as if the very thought of conceding is laughable. The consistent jump of your hips stops, the action shooting a flare of want up his stomach. Your fingers flex on his chest, pressing further as you lift your hips up and up, exposing more of his wet cock to the cool air until just the tip remains encased in your heat. He yanks at the restraints before he can stop himself, a silent plea that makes you smile.

“Are you sure?” you tease, rotating your hips, and the feel of it makes his eyes cross. “If you’re not comfortable, Ken, we can stop.”

The thought of stopping makes his cock throb traitorously, even as his body feels flayed open, every nerve ending exposed and singing. He did agree to this, after all.

It was meant as a joke. Just a random comment you made three mornings ago while fixing his tie like any other day. Like always, Nanami used those precious moments before departing for work to drink you in—his own private ritual of worship. The gentle sweep of your eyelashes as you focused on his Windsor knot, the way the morning light caught the rich undertones of your melanin-kissed skin, that unconscious purse of your lips that made him want to be late every morning.

“You ever thought about letting me tie you up?”

The question struck him like a match against kindling. Nanami is not really the adventurous one in the bedroom—that’s your domain, and he follows willingly where you lead. But the thought of being at your mercy, of letting go of his ingrained control to watch you take whatever you want from him, had his ears ringing. It was something about the way you wouldn’t meet his eyes, the subtle dip of one side of your cheek as you bit down on it, the want radiating from you like heat from a flame…

When it comes to you, he will try anything once.

A joke that became an agreement. An agreement turned into tonight—you in that devastating dress over dinner, his fingers leveling enough strength not to shatter the wine glass he drank frivolously from as he watched you toy with your necklace, knowing what was to come. An agreement turned into a frantic mess of hands undoing zippers and buttons, of smoothing along the soft planes of your inner thighs before his mouth feasted on the pearl in the center, of you giggling like a wanton feign as you wrapped his wrists and notched them to the bed frame.

Just a joke. Just an agreement. Now, here he rests, on his back, on fire, and subtly regretting his choices because he’s a selfish man who wants all of you all the time. And Nanami, like the fool he is when it comes to you, truly thought he could bear it.

“Focus, Ken.”

An absolute fool.

“I’m not uncomfortable. But you’re hardly playing fair.”

You never do. How could you? You’re divinity made flesh, mischief molded from clay—a goddess who delights in reducing him to prayers and pleas. He loves you, desperately so, and has long since accepted that his soul will forever chase the wonderful chaos you bring to his carefully ordered world.

“What could you possibly mean?” you’re coquettish in your question, biting the corner of your lip in that way that makes his spine straighten. His eyes linger on that lip, remembering how it feels beneath his thumb, against his tongue, between his teeth.

“Darling—”

He doesn’t get far. Before the rest of his words can leave his mouth, you’re dropping back down onto him, enveloping his cock in a blistering heat so intense it borders on religious experience. Every nerve ending ignites at once, pleasure searing through him like a brand.

“No talking.”

And isn’t that funny? Because any words Nanami has disintegrated into a powdery mist seconds ago. So, of course, Nanami has no choice but to bite the inside of his cheek until he can taste coppery tang, pulling at his restraints for the nth time of the night and wishing in this very moment to be oblivious to the sounds of your wanton moans that echo in the air.

Nanami’s groan starts deep in his chest, reverberating through him like a growing monsoon as you lean forward, trailing your nose along his throat. Your scent—Shea butter and feminine heat—fills his lungs like incense, a temptation he can’t answer, a shrine he cannot appreciate despite every cell in his body screaming to touch.

“You agreed.”

“To the restraints, not torture.” He can hear the hitch in your breath, that light choke as you try to hold back a laugh. Your hips give another sensual twirl, and Nanami can hear the clench of his teeth. “I want—I need to touch you.”

“Come now, Kento,” you coo in his ear, sliding your tongue along his lobe before you bite down into the cartilage. He grunts, flinching back even as his cock twitches inside of you. “You married me remember? Surely you know my ways.”

“My love—” You twirl your hips again and again and again. Each swivel is representative of a slow churn of his rapidly loosening arousal.

Nanami has always been spellbound by your beauty. From the moment his eyes open in the morning to the moment they close at night, you are all he knows. The curve of your smile makes his heart beat faster, the music of your laugh fills his stomach with butterflies. Without intention, you undo him.

Even now, bouncing on his cock like the vixen you are, you are ethereal. Your box braids sway with each movement, catching the artificial light as they brush across your shoulders that gleam with exertion. Sweat has transformed your baby hairs into delicate curls against your temples and hairline, giving you an almost feral beauty that makes his mouth run dry.

That’s what makes it all the more painful for him. The way sweat slides down your brown skin, the pebble of perspiration along the curve of your stomach, the hypnotic sway of your breasts as you take what you want, it all beckons to him. His mouth waters like a starving man at a feast he’s forbidden to partake in. The base of his spine coils with an inexplicable pressure that blooms along his back. The tips of his fingers tingle from the loss of blood from the restraints and with the desire to touch you.

It’s not fair.

It’s frustrating. Agonizing to the very depth of his soul how badly he wants to reach for you. He’s strong enough to snap these damn restraints—he could easily do it. The image floods his mind unbidden—how easy it would be to snap these ties, to flip you on your back and fuck you so hard you’re crying his name. He can almost feel it—the sharp sting of your nails (freshly done, he notices even in his delirium) scraping down his back as he drives into you without mercy, the way you’d arch beneath him, how your defiance would melt into pleas. His muscles coil with the phantom sensation, his ears echoing the ghost of your cries he could draw from you.

But you wanted this. You’ve asked for a slither of control he freely gives, and he refuses to see a shred of disappointment on your face because he was impatient.

So he waits. Even though his skin is burning from the inside out. Even though his heart is beating so fast, it feels like his chest might cave in. He waits. His cock feels so tight that he’s almost feverish with worry if he can hold on much longer. The feel of your essence coating his thighs and balls, the sound of your moans, the sight of the column of your throat when you throw your head back.

It’s truly not fair.

“My love, please,” he can’t help but beg. He’s never against begging. Not when it comes to you. Not when it comes to unraveling the knot you easily twist inside of him. Already, he’s backtracking. He reaches up just a little, hoping you’ll grant him some part of you—the smell of your skin along his nose, the taste of your sweat on his tongue, anything.

“No.”

You leave no room for argument, pressing against his chest to force him back into submission. Frustration flares like a demon in his chest, curdling and dying instantly against the want that oozes from him.

“Come on, Kento,” you chide, moaning breathlessly as you double your efforts. “Don’t you want to give me what I want?”

Of course, he does. But in moments like this, Nanami wishes he were a weaker man because you’re too wet, too hot, too soft, and tight around him. The silk-soft clutch of your body is turning his mind to static.

Just the thought of how you feel around him threatens to shatter his composure. Pleasure pools molten in his lower abdomen, every muscle tight as a bowstring as he fights his body’s betrayal. He hisses through bared teeth, digs his fingers into the silk encased around his wrists, and yanks until the bed frame groans. His control is quickly failing him, your moans a siren’s song in his head urging surrender. His body responds without question—feet seeking purchase on the mattress, thighs tensing as instinct fights restraint. It will only take a second for him to plant his feet and drive up into you until you’re seeing stars.

But you’re faster. You lean forward to slide your hands behind his neck, delicate fingers weaving through the sweaty strands of his hair before you pull tight, angling his head back so his neck is bared to you in willful submission. The sharp difference between your soft touch and the display of dominance makes his eyes roll back, swimming in the viscera of his brain as a broken sound escapes him, his resistance melting away. His heels slide back onto the bed, forgotten.

Your soft lips press at the juncture of his neck, your braids falling around you both like a curtain, the ends tickling his chest. The scent of your coconut hair oil mingles with the Shea from your skin, making his head spin. The feel of your smirk on his neck—victorious—makes his cock throb, a tight rubber band behind his belly button fraying on the edges, warning him that his time is running out.

You move agonizingly slow with each roll of your hips, sending electricity up his spine, searing his skin everywhere you touch and aching where you don’t. His skin feels too tight, like his bones don’t fit, and the discomfort is as satisfying as it is jarring. He yanks, sweat beading at his temples, sliding down his neck, making everything feel slick and hot and maddening.

When you sit up, you trail your hands down the rigid lines of his straining muscles, admiring the jutting veins and sinew. You hum in appreciation, pupils blown black as you take him in. The small of Nanami’s back arches in just so, preening under your rapturous gaze because he hopes he’s doing well. Even like this—bound and helpless beneath you—his desire to be good wars with his desperation to touch. The praise in your eyes soothes even as it burns.

Look how still he stays for you. Look how good he’s being.

Nanami’s thighs tremble with the effort not to thrust, not to take, not to claim. Each second stretches like the most painful torture as his mind fractures into desperation—just one thrust, one press of his tongue to your skin, one moment of control. Please. Please. The word burns behind his teeth, unspoken and curdling but screaming like a banshee in his blood.

“Getting frustrated, Ken?” Your voice is honey-sweet poison, made breathier by your movements. He won’t rise to your taunts; he lacks the strength for it. So he basks in the attention you lavish with your eyes, your silent praise like invisible hands along his skin. Just as quickly, he closes his eyes tight. If he looks a moment longer, this night will have an unfortunate end for you both.

“Look at me.”

Your demand cuts through the haze of his desire, sharp and unyielding. He’s too slow to respond to you, and all too quickly, he feels your fingers dig slightly into his jaw, forcing his surrender as his eyes flutter open. His restlessness must show because there’s that wicked glint in your eyes, and you thrive on his misery, rewarding him with a kiss so quick and gentle that he’s chasing after your lips for more. You press your hands firmly to his chest, a clear command to be still. With no friction, it’s just blistering heat, his cock pulsing, a whimper dying in the back of his throat.

You shift, and Nanami’s ears register a faint click that he catches with his eyes. Your heels, oh, those clear heels, glimmer up at him as you plant your feet on the soft sheets. Delicate clear straps wrap around your ankles like ribbons on a gift he’s held all night and still not allowed to unwrap, the nude leather making your brown skin glow in the dim lamplight.

The moment you put them on earlier in the evening, they haunted him—from the restaurant to the ride home, the way they made your legs look endless in that dress when you crossed them in the passenger seat. Now, they dig into the sheets on either side of his hips as you use them for leverage, the crystal clear stilettos catching the light like ice. The sheer difference of something so elegant being used in such a primal way makes his breath catch—much like yourself, refined on the outside but capable of reducing him to nothing but baseless need.

“Watch me,” you command. As if Nanami could look away if he tried. Damn you. “Watch how well I ride you while you can’t touch.”

He loathes how the new angle makes his vision swim at the edges, hates even more how each movement strips away another layer of his composure. Every bounce drives him deeper into insanity, making him strain harder against the ties that keep him from you.

“You poor thing,” you coo, the false sympathy in your voice making his upper lip curl, a growl simmering in the back of his throat. “You want to touch so badly, don’t you?”

God. He wants, he wants. He wants with an intensity that frightens him.

You’re a taunting vision above him, and he eyes the champagne-colored dress that’s now bunched carelessly at your waist. It was the perfect compliment for you, silken and caressing your body during dinner while he swallowed his bubbling desire with every generous gulp of red wine. A halter top dress fastened behind your neck that was quickly undone when you pushed him on the bed, your breasts spilling from their lustrous confines.

The hem is rumpled, kissing the tops of your curvy thighs and falling open with your new position so he can see everything between your legs. Dimpled skin that rises up and down, beckoning that he grip your hips and trace your curves with his tongue.

The wet sound of skin on skin drowns out even his thundering heartbeat, and he can’t decide which is worse—watching you take your pleasure or being forced to listen to how perfectly you use his body for your own needs. That controls splinters, cracks, disintegrates, and flutters like ash in the wind.

He’s never wished more in this moment for you to tire out, for your stamina to be next to nothing. But no. You knew exactly what you were doing when you fastened his tie three days ago.

“You ever thought about letting me tie you up?”

Nanami, in his stupidity and endless love for you, saw what he wanted in your eyes. What he mistook for aimless curiosity, was actually calculated, unadulterated mischief.

Of course, he would agree.

That’s why you punctuated your victory with this dress. That’s why you got your hair done yesterday. That’s why you wore these new heels and lathered your body in the Shea butter lotion he loves so much.

A level of strategy so calculated that Gojo Satoru himself would be envious of its perfection.

God, he loves you. Even as he silently begs whatever entity will listen to him to be free of this prison you’ve created, he loves you beyond reason.

“Poor Kento,” you purr, your words cracking through his spiraling thoughts like a whip. You lean back on one hand, the arch of your back pushes your breasts forward, and his mouth waters at the sight. Every cell in his body strains toward you, pressing beneath the surface of his skin and coagulating into a congealed mass.

But it’s the sight of you spreading your legs wider, of giving him a view of all of you, of your other hand sliding down your stomach that truly threatens to break him. Your fingers find your clit, and the wet sound of you touching yourself while he’s buried deep inside makes his vision blur. Those should be his fingers bringing you pleasure, his touch pushing you toward release. Instead, he can only watch, desperate and aching, as you chase your own pleasure.

“Look how wet I am,” you breathe, and his hips buck involuntarily at your words. He doesn’t even bother to feel shame at the glare you shoot his way for disobeying. “Don’t you wish these were your fingers? Making me feel good?”

“Don’t be cruel.” The ties might actually snap from how hard he’s pulling now, watching your fingers work in tight circles on your sensitive bundle of nerves, your cunt squeezing him like a vice. You’re getting close—he can tell from the way your thighs start to tremble, the way your breath shakes.

Your laugh in response sends searing heat down his spine—musical and breathless and utterly wicked, even though it makes his blood boil. The sound mingles with the wet noises of your fingers working between your legs, the sight and sound of you nearly driving him mad.

“I need—” he chokes on the words as you clench around him in reprimand, his tongue thick in his mouth. “I need to cum. Please.”

“No.” Your voice is firm despite your breathlessness, your fingers never stopping their circles against your clit. “Not until I’m done with you. Can you hold on? Can you be good for me, Ken?”

Good.

A word so simple to a weaker man, but absolute devastation to him. His cock throbs to the increased tempo of his pulse, the festering heat of pleasure pulls behind his belly button, the base of his spine coiling like a snake backed into a corner. His wrists burn from the careful strain of being at your mercy and not breaking free. He’s fighting, but he’s trying—fuck help him, he’s trying to be good for you.

You purposefully clench around him, tight and hot and perfect, watching his face contort in pain. “Stop,” he growls, the sound raw and anguished in his throat.

Your answering giggle is like a knife to his chest, delighted by his desperation. “Make me,” you challenge, knowing full well he can’t. You do it again, squeezing around him as your fingers work faster. “What’s wrong, Ken? Too much?”

His growl turns into something close to a whimper as you torment him with another deliberate clench. And another, and another, and another. The ties creak ominously, his whole body trembling with the effort to hold back.

“You’re cruel,” he pants, but the accusation only makes you smile wider, your movements growing more erratic as you get closer to your peak.

Every bounce of your breasts, every flutter of your lashes, every rapturous moan—it’s all burning into his memory like an iron on his skin. His hands ache for the soft crease where your thighs meet, where your thick curves swell so perfectly beneath his thirsty gaze. The sheen of sweat between your breasts calls to his tongue, taunting him with memories of your salty taste. Everything within reach, yet forbidden.

Nanami licks his lips, his tongue catching the subtle tang of your fading arousal from earlier in the evening when his face was buried between your thighs. Saliva pools in his mouth with the phantom taste of you. His breath catches in the dry crevices of his throat, gargling on a guttural whimper as he catalogs you in your utter devastation.

The crystal clear heels, purchased on that rainy Saturday when you’d lingered at the store window with wanting eyes. The champagne silk dress now bunched carelessly at your waist, chosen by him because he loved how the fabric made you shiver when you ran your fingers against it at the store last week. Those delicate black lace panties, pushed to one side of your pussy and soaked through, that he’d selected with trembling fingers weeks ago, imagining the many times you’d left them on while he fucked you into the mattress.

The gold chain at your throat catches the light with each bounce of your body, dancing across your collarbones like encapsulated sunshine. He remembers fastening it there for the first time on your anniversary, his lips following the metal’s path. Your body is decorated in diamonds like stars—the studs in your ears, the tennis bracelet on your wrist, the anklet that glints at him from his restraints. But it’s the wedding ring that truly breaks him—that symbol of his eternal devotion joining two other fingers that now press against your clit as you climb higher.

His marks cover you like a map of worship—the jewelry he chose, the silk he bought, the lingerie he selected. Every adornment screams his claim, but his hands remain tied, denied by the very exquisite canvas he’s painted with such adoration.

He sees the faint vestiges of the finish line, that light at the end of the tunnel when your hips stutter in movement and your breathless pants fall into a surprised moan that makes you stop. Your head falls back again, exposing the delicious column of your throat. His gums itch, inner cheeks sweating with saliva with the primal urge to dig his teeth into your soft skin. Your body is normally decorated with little marks from him—bruises from his fingers on your hips and thighs, hickeys on the curve of your breasts, cum dripping from your cunt. But tonight, you’re a blemish-free beauty in appearance, devilish in motivation.

“Untie me,” Nanami whispers, not bothering to coat the begging lilt in his tone. “Untie me, and I’ll give you everything you want, love.”

Your head rolls to the side with serpentine grace until your dangerous gaze meets his. You’re glaring without any heat, narrowing your eyes in that playful manner that is always preceded by making Nanami’s life blissfully miserable.

You lift your hips slowly, slowly, slowly, and his eyes fall on the inches of his thick cock that become more exposed to the elements. He takes the abundance of your slick coating him, the thin gossamer bands that lengthen from your joined bodies and snap as the distance grows, the subtle flutter of your walls that suffocate him. Then, without warning—you drop. The sudden rush of wet heat around him shoots electricity up his spine and along his molars that he grinds into dust. He moans harshly, deep, and tortured, shaking from his mouth like a staccato as he tilts his head into the pillow beneath him.

“So good,” you whisper, more to yourself than to him, the words falling from your lips like a prayer. “So good for me, Ken. Always so good.”

The praise pierces something raw inside him. His cock throbs with each word, his fingers cramping white-knuckled around the ties as his body screams louder for release. Your movements grow erratic—hips stuttering and the careful teasing you brandished like a sword dissolving into pure need as your fingers frantically rub against your clit. He cranes his head forward just in time to watch you fall onto your knees, planting one hand on his shin while the other chases your orgasm with single-minded determination.

“Such a good boy,” you gasp, and the words feel like salvation against his skin and damnation all at once. “So good, so perfect, letting me take what I need—staying so still for me—such a good boy—”

He’s never heard those words from your lips before, never heard this particular praise, never heard you whisper in such a way that it sounds like you’re in disbelief by his submission. Something fundamental splinters inside him. The veneer that he’s precariously kept around himself all night fractures with each bounce of your hips. Every muscle in his body pulls taut as he watches you, your breathless chant of “good boy” pushing him dangerously close to his limit.

Your pleasure crests like a tsunami. The bed protests beneath you both, a symphony of creaking wood and flesh on flesh as your hips slam down on him. Your voice rises, tight and pinched fuckfuckfuck's spilling from your lips like a mantra.

Even though he can practically taste his orgasm, his vision tunnels, focusing only on you. He takes in the violent brush of your box braids against your shoulders, the bunching of your stomach, the pebble of tears that gather at the corners of your eyes like the diamonds on your body. Your cunt grips him tighter, so impossibly tight, a velvet vice that threatens to rip his soul from his body.

And then you shatter. Your head snaps back; your jaw drops in shocked ecstasy as his name tears from your throat like a revelation. The sight of you coming undone above him, because of him, despite his restraints, worms itself into his memory. Your walls pulse around him, your fingers rapidly rubbing your clit to draw out your orgasm, milking his cock with an intensity that nearly destroys him. But he waits, trembling on the knife’s edge of his own release until you draw in one shaking breath.

Then he snaps.

With a sharp crack, the ties give way, snapping from the bed posts but still dangling from his wrists. In one fluid motion, he sits up and scoots to the edge of the bed, gathering you in his arms with barely concealed strength. One hand tangles into the braids at the nape of your neck while the other grips your hip hard enough to bruise.

“You’ve had your fun, love. Now let me have mine,” he growls against your ear, pulling your lobe into his mouth and using the leverage of your body and feet planted on the ground to drive up into your oversensitive and still fluttering heat.

The feeling of finally, finally being able to touch you after being denied so long makes his head spin. The feel of you along his fingertips is enough to make him spill inside of you prematurely. Instead, he pistons his hips upwards, sliding his tongue along the skin of your neck as his pants dry his saliva on your skin. He’s earned this—earned every whimper, every clench of your pussy, every broken sound you make. Now it’s his to swallow and take as he chases the burning in his lower back.

You’re completely undone from your orgasm, arms draped loosely around his neck, and barely able to hold yourself up as the painful pleasure of over-sensitivity wracks your body. The sound of you in his ear, the press of your cheek on his skin, and the wet feel of what has to be drool on his shoulder, only drives him faster.

Every thrust up makes you whimper, all exposed nerves, and helpless to do anything but take what he gives. The hand on your hip guides you down to meet each drive of his cock, the movement desperate and precise. Control—something he’s prided himself on his entire life—is slipping through his fingers like water with each pulse of your walls around him.

“Perfect,” he pants against your ear, feeling you shudder at his voice, at how it breaks with need. “So perfect for me. Taking me so well even after—” Words fail him, dissolving into a heady groan as pleasure hot like ecstasy builds in his core, a tide rising higher and higher with each thrust. The sight of you so thoroughly claimed, slurred renditions of yes, yes, please, Ken, please sliding into his ear only drives him faster.

“Always teasing me,” he growls, digging his fingers into your hip and punctuating his words with a particularly deep thrust that makes you whine. “You love—you loved it, didn’t you? Making me wait—making me watch?”

Your only response is another broken moan, your body pliant and trembling in his arms, your cunt hot and thrashing around him. He groans softly, kissing your neck once before he digs his teeth into your skin. You yelp from the feeling, clenching around him so tightly that he feels his orgasm creep like a shadow at the edges of his consciousness.

“I’ll have to get you back for this.”

His threat is undermined by the pure devotion in his voice, the way his hand gentles in your hair even as his hips maintain their relentless pace.

As quickly as his ferocity comes, it fades. He has no more strength to whisper grievances in your ear, no more energy to enjoy your body before he walks to the finish line.

No. Now, he sprints.

That rubber band behind his belly button begins to fray, a thin sliver being held together. The pressure at the base of his spine balloons, pressing against his nerves to make them pulse in time with his thundering heartbeat. His world narrows to only sensation—the wet heat of you, the silk of your skin, the wet smack of his balls against your throbbing pussy, the pounding of his heart against his ribs. He can feel it at the base of his cock, tingling and tight, begging to be let loose and fill you up.

Right there, right there, so close he can taste it on his tongue. His teeth dig deeper into your neck, anchoring himself to you as if he might float away in the thick fog of pleasure. The bed screams, and the broken ties—now a symbol of his freedom—dance along his forearms. But just as he teeters on the precipice, just as he’s about to topple over the edge, you find your strength again. His fierce, untamable love presses fingers into his back, and your lips brush his ear with deliberate wickedness.

“Be a good boy,” you whisper, voice hoarse but triumphant, “and cum for me. Fill me up, baby.”

He’s learned nothing from your devious ways. Those words—though repeated through the night—strike like lightning to his core. Gone is his rhythm. Gone is his control. Nanami’s jaw slackens, a desperate sound caught in his throat as his hips stutter and fail.

His orgasm punches him in the gut, a moan belting from his throat and mixing with sounds he didn’t know he could make. He crushes you against him as he finally breaks, vision whiting out at the edges, hips snapping erratically as he chases every last spark of pleasure you offer him.

Your name falls like reverent worship from his lips, deep moans sliding along your skin like honey as you hold him through it. He’s lightheaded from you—your breathing on his shoulder, the press of your skin against him, the feel of his cum and your slick sliding between his ass. He relaxes his hold on your hip, smoothing his touch over the crescents in your skin and massaging the muscle, feral need giving way to worshiping love.

Seconds pass, then minutes. His mind slowly pieces itself together, orienting himself to reality as pleasure oozes over his skin like molten lava.

His breath is still evening out when he feels you shaking against him. You’re giggling freely, and he can smell the mischief that leaks from your pores. You’re proud of yourself; like all times when you can make him blush and trip over his words, this is no exception. He pulls back to level you with a look that’s meant to be stern, but your laughter only grows, bright and unrepentant as you card your hands through his loose and sweaty hair.

He takes the time to admire you, his beautiful wife. Your skin glows in the aftermath of your lovemaking, the subtle sheen of sweat on your neck and breasts beckoning his gaze. The curling baby hairs kiss the tops of your ears, the glint in your eyes shining with endless love. You kiss him softly, giggling against his lips before pulling away to litter kisses down his neck.

“Are you mad at me?” you ask sweetly, a smile evident in your voice as you trail your love along his collarbone.

His hand strokes up your spine, humming softly. “Never. Though you will pay for this, love.” The threat holds no real heat— how could it, when you’re curled against him so perfectly, when your laughter makes his heart feel so full in his chest that he aches?

“Is that so?” you purr, disbelieving but fully prepared for the punishment if and whenever it arises. “I don’t think you have it in you.”

He won’t rise to your taunts. No, Nanami will get you back, and the next time those tears gather in your eyes, it will be because he’s dangled you over the precipice for so long that you won’t remember your name.

But that’s plans for another day.

For now, he’s content to pinch your side in playful reproach and relish in the harmonious giggle you give him. Before he can react, you’re pressing him back into the mattress, claiming his lips in a deep kiss that tastes of the wine that you both had at dinner. He melts into it despite himself, arousal stoking to life as his cock, still nestled in your warmth, twitches inside of you, his hands sliding up your back as he forgives you without words.

Thanks for reading!!

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gilverrwrites · 9 months ago

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Have we discussed Roman’s separated wife hooking up with Bruce Wayne? You and Bruce have always been cordial, so when Roman doxxes you, Bruce lets you stay at the Manor and cry on his shoulder until the wine bottle is empty. He’s so nice and his hand is so warm on your cheek and oh Lord, it’s bigger than your face and you can’t remember the last time you felt safe while a man was touching you. You try to make a move, but Bruce knows he’s overindulged you (partially to get info about Roman but he’ll feel guilty about it later), so he stops you…but promises he’ll be more than ready and willing when you’re in your right mind and decide you still want this. You wait anxiously the entirety of the next day, until Bruce shows up at your door in the sluttiest t-shirt and sweatpants you’ve ever seen, his ginormous hand finding its place on your face again while the other one is slipping under the hem of your shirt.

Slutty top? You've hit a nerve anon, cause now all I'm thinking about is Brucie in a slutty little crop top, like sir put that washboard away before I bite it! Honestly, feral for anyone of any shape and size in a crop top, just show me your belly, please. Yeah, that would work on me.

But to answer your question, no we have not discussed this but we certainly can!!!!

Like, I can say earnestly, when he invited you to stay with him, sleeping with you did not cross his mind; he was purely thinking about;

Helping you get out of a bad situation

Good for the Brucie Wayne image (so long as the press don't get wind of it until you've found somewhere permanent to move too)

(as mentioned) Chance to get info on Black Mask

But the moment you flash that perfectly poised smile, even though you’re clearly on the brink of tears, he's thinking ‘Uh oh. I'm in trouble.’

He never thought much of you while you were with Roman, if maybe a little bit sorry for you. The extent of your relationship was occasional networking with Bruce at events, and Batman peeking through your windows at night to check on you when Roman was at his worst or imprisoned.

It helps that he thought you were pretty.

But now, as he's getting to know you on a personal level, seeing that you're stronger than he'd thought, and smarter. You're letting down walls and actually relaxing, and in his domain at that! It stirs something within him.

And for you, like Roman and Bruce are the same age, from similar backgrounds, similar personas for the public (charming and rich) but it's crazy to see how different they really are.

When you talk, Bruce isn't just waiting for his turn to speak, he listens.

There's no coercion when you set a boundary, he just respects it. Which funnily enough makes you more willing to share. He's just so easy to trust.

When you ask about interesting pieces around his house, he doesn't brag about where it's from and what it costs. Instead, he tells you stories about his parents or his kids interacting with it.

He's funny, and respectful, not at all what you'd expected.

And did you mention handsome? Oh, he's very handsome. That dark hair and those blue eyes. The chiselled jaw and the dimples and he smells good too, you find that out after you bury your nose into his chest while he's carrying you to bed that first night. You're tipsy, and his house is a maze, he's just trying to help and not at all showing off his strength.

The same way he's just dressed so casually the following day when he comes to find you, this is what he always lounges around. He's totally not subtly flexing his glamour muscles as you open the door.

Now, Roman is by no means bad in bed. He's just, shall we say, selfish? He has a set way in life and sex that he expects you to live up to.

Bruce though? He's a giver. He can take, when appropriate, but right now, he knows what you need.

You need those big hands on your waist as he chases you into the bed with his mouth. You need them soothing your tired body, massaging all the stress out of your aching body. You need his thumb to rub circles into your inner thighs while he kisses, and sucks, and laps at your hot, wet sex. You need his long hard fingers pumping into that sweet little hole, again and again until you cum all over them.

And that is just the start.

But you know one other really important thing you need? Some goddamn aftercare.

He knows it straight away, shouldn’t have been surprised. But when your body immediately falls limp after he rolls off of you, when you look at him confused as he asks if you need anything he knows your life has been lacking kindness for so long that you barely even recognise when it's extended to you.

He's not good at the emotional stuff, at comforting words but he reasons that you probably don't need to hear it right now. Don't need to be reminded of your mistakes, of your past.

Instead, he pulls you into him, wrapping his warmth around you like a giant weighted blanket. Holding you until you accept his affection and melt into his arms.

Meanwhile, the False Facers can't breach Bruces security, can't get a good look into the Manor. Which means they don't know what you're doing there. But they know you're there, and that means Roman knows you're there.

And Romans not stupid, you sneaky, no good, selfish whore.

He gave you everything, and this is how you repay him? You nasty little bitch. And with Bruce Wayne of all people?

Don't get comfy, because the moment you step outside those gates, the second you let your walls down, he's going to rock your shit. You're going to pay for all the crap you've put him through, tenfold.

Taglist: @wandalfnation

#He'd assume you were sleeping with Bruce even if you weren't lets be real #anon #thanks for the ask I love it #bruce wayne/reader #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne #batman/reader #batman x reader #batman #roman sionis #roman sionis/reader #roman sionis x reader #black mask #black mask/reader #black mask x reader #gilverranswers

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trans-axolotl · 2 months ago

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"Just as 'most prisoners walk into prison because they know they will be dragged or beaten into prison if they do not walk,' we can say that most of the psychiatrically committed walk into hospitals because they know they will be restrained or dragged in if they don't walk. Often, this power has not required the psychiatrist to know the exact source of the ailment they treat nor exactly how their methods act upon the mind; what matters is that the machine is running. A whole system, a tightly interwoven mesh of relays and discourses is in place to transform the psychiatrist's judgment into effective action: a working theory and classificatory system to organize the clientele and separate them from other objects of care or punishment (taxonomy or nosology); institutional spaces (the asylum is historically the most pervasive, but also clinics, group homes, psychiatric wards, etc.); judicial codes defining the status of the mad (generally analogized to animals or children); prescribed roles for legal actors (police, judges, forensic experts); a chain of bureaucrats to sort out matters of insurance, finance, and property in cases of institutionalization or guardianship; and approved mechanisms or surveillance and reporting to translate individual complaints into the state's administrative codes. There are as many points of contact as there are spaces of encounter and discourses of legitimation in the social world. One or more of these elements can be revolutionized without fundamentally changing the connection between the parts. For example, at various points throughout its existence, as we've already seen, a theory of 'social causation' prevailed over a biological one without changing the matrix that defines modern psychiatry, and the same can be said for some of the legal alterations to the patient's status throughout the twentieth century.

There is no psychiatrist-patient encounter set apart from a broader circuit of relations: patient-apartment-work-family-cop-partner-school-neighbor-psychologist-state-guardian-probate-judge-psychiatrist-hospital. And to be clear: our biology itself is shared and leaks throughout this chain at every step. Our bodies are permeable, open, they leak, bleed, consume, excrete; our bodies flow out into a common world, and are open to outside influence, as the COVID-19 pandemic has made so excruciatingly clear. A patient of the Utica Asylum put it beautifully in The Opal in 1852: 'Like fermentation in the chemical world, [humanity's] atomic adhesions are in constant enlargement and in silent operation, seeking out relations, and forming relations of unsurpassed beauty and comfort, because in conformity with nature and adapted to its condition, means and end.' Attempts to neutralize this network by relegating every actor and space in the chain external to the domain of the psychiatrist onto the order of natural history ('we're just responding to the demands of the family...' or 'that's a matter for the police...I just deal with the patient once they arrive here') expose this posture as a naively religious one. In denial of the profane world and its complications extrinsic to the holy circuitry of neural or endocrine highways of the One in isolation, they declare a monastic fealty to an object of study over and above the matrix that makes its study possible or their conclusions efficacious in any real encounter...

...If psychiatry still takes refuge in the desert of scientism--speaking in tongues of prolix jargon--it's because a paradise of healing did materialize, but not as a Promethean forge of liberated humans, nor even as solemn resting place of broken souls, but sank so low as to appear as nothing more than a mundane prison. Burdened by the unbearable weight of their failure, the next generation abandoned their project and ran away to the labs, relinquishing responsibility for the armies of the living dead. At least they hung a sign at the door of the asylum on their way out. It read: 'abandon every hope, who enter here.'"

-Storming Bedlam: Madness, Utopia, and Revolt by Sasha Warren, pg 32-34

#personal #psych abolition #antipsych #antipsychiatry #book quotes #sasha's book has so much talented research and beautiful writing

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wokealqaeda · 2 months ago

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Albert Gonzalez (born 1981) is an American computer hacker, computer criminal and police informer, who is accused of masterminding the combined credit card theft and subsequent reselling of more than 170 million card and ATMnumbers from 2005 to 2007, the biggest such fraud in history. Gonzalez and his accomplices used SQL injection to deploy backdoors on several corporate systems in order to launch packet sniffing (specifically, ARP spoofing) attacks which allowed him to steal computer data from internal corporate networks.

Gonzalez bought his first computer when he was 12, and by the time he was 14 managed to hack into NASA. He attended South Miami High School in Miami, Florida, where he was described as the "troubled" pack leader of computer nerds. In 2000, he moved to New York City, where he lived for three months before moving to Kearny, New Jersey.

While in Kearny, he was accused of being the mastermind of a group of hackers called the ShadowCrew group, which trafficked in 1.5 million stolen credit and ATM card numbers. Although considered the mastermind of the scheme (operating on the site under the screen name of "CumbaJohnny"), he was not indicted. According to the indictment, there were 4,000 people who registered with the Shadowcrew.com website. Once registered, they could buy stolen account numbers or counterfeit documents at auction, or read "Tutorials and How-To's" describing the use of cryptography in magnetic strips on credit cards, debit cards and ATM cards so that the numbers could be used. Moderators of the website punished members who did not abide by the site's rules, including providing refunds to buyers if the stolen card numbers proved invalid.

In addition to the card numbers, numerous other objects of identity theft were sold at auction, including counterfeit passports, drivers' licenses, Social Security cards, credit cards, debit cards, birth certificates, college student identification cards, and health insurance cards. One member sold 18 million e-mail accounts with associated usernames, passwords, dates of birth, and other personally identifying information. Most of those indicted were members who actually sold illicit items. Members who maintained or moderated the website itself were also indicted, including one who attempted to register the .cc domain name Shadowcrew.cc.

The Secret Service dubbed their investigation "Operation Firewall" and believed that up to $4.3 million was stolen, as ShadowCrew shared its information with other groups called Carderplanet and Darkprofits. The investigation involved units from the United States, Bulgaria, Belarus, Canada, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Ukraine. Gonzalez was initially charged with possession of 15 fake credit and debit cards in Newark, New Jersey, though he avoided jail time by providing evidence to the United States Secret Service against his cohorts. 19 ShadowCrew members were indicted. Gonzalez then returned to Miami.

While cooperating with authorities, he was said to have masterminded the hacking of TJX Companies, in which 45.6 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen over an 18-month period ending in 2007, topping the 2005 breach of 40 million records at CardSystems Solutions. Gonzalez and 10 others sought targets while wardriving and seeking vulnerabilities in wireless networks along U.S. Route 1 in Miami. They compromised cards at BJ's Wholesale Club, DSW, Office Max, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority and T.J. Maxx. The indictment referred to Gonzalez by the screen names "cumbajohny", "201679996", "soupnazi", "segvec", "kingchilli" and "stanozlolz." The hacking was an embarrassment to TJ Maxx, which discovered the breach in December 2006. The company initially believed the intrusion began in May 2006, but further investigation revealed breaches dating back to July 2005.

Gonzalez had multiple US co-defendants for the Dave & Buster's and TJX thefts. The main ones were charged and sentenced as follows:

Stephen Watt (Unix Terrorist, Jim Jones) was charged with providing a data theft tool in an identity theft case. He was sentenced to two years in prison and 3 years of supervised release. He was also ordered by the court to pay back $250,000 in restitution.

Damon Patrick Toey pleaded guilty to wire fraud, credit card fraud, and aggravated identity theft and received a five-year sentence.

Christopher Scott pleaded guilty to conspiracy, unauthorized access to computer systems, access device fraud and identity theft. He was sentenced to seven years.

Gonzalez was arrested on May 7, 2008, on charges stemming from hacking into the Dave & Buster's corporate network from a point of sale location at a restaurant in Islandia, New York. The incident occurred in September 2007. About 5,000 card numbers were stolen. Fraudulent transactions totaling $600,000 were reported on 675 of the cards.

Authorities became suspicious after the conspirators kept returning to the restaurant to reintroduce their hack, because it would not restart after the company computers shut down.

Gonzalez was arrested in room 1508 at the National Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. In various related raids, authorities seized $1.6 million in cash (including $1.1 million buried in plastic bags in a three-foot drum in his parents' backyard), his laptops and a compact Glock pistol. Officials said that, at the time of his arrest, Gonzalez lived in a nondescript house in Miami. He was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he was indicted in the Heartland attacks.

In August 2009, Gonzalez was indicted in Newark, New Jersey on charges dealing with hacking into the Heartland Payment Systems, Citibank-branded 7-Eleven ATM's and Hannaford Brothers computer systems. Heartland bore the brunt of the attack, in which 130 million card numbers were stolen. Hannaford had 4.6 million numbers stolen. Two other retailers were not disclosed in the indictment; however, Gonzalez's attorney told StorefrontBacktalk that two of the retailers were J.C. Penney and Target Corporation. Heartland reported that it had lost $12.6 million in the attack including legal fees. Gonzalez allegedly called the scheme "Operation Get Rich or Die Tryin."

According to the indictment, the attacks by Gonzalez and two unidentified hackers "in or near Russia" along with unindicted conspirator "P.T." from Miami, began on December 26, 2007, at Heartland Payment Systems, August 2007 against 7-Eleven, and in November 2007 against Hannaford Brothers and two other unidentified companies.

Gonzalez and his cohorts targeted large companies and studied their check out terminals and then attacked the companies from internet-connected computers in New Jersey, Illinois, Latvia, the Netherlands and Ukraine.

They covered their attacks over the Internet using more than one messaging screen name, storing data related to their attacks on multiple Hacking Platforms, disabling programs that logged inbound and outbound traffic over the Hacking Platforms, and disguising, through the use of proxies, the Internet Protocol addresses from which their attacks originated. The indictment said the hackers tested their program against 20 anti virus programs.

Rene Palomino Jr., attorney for Gonzalez, charged in a blog on The New York Times website that the indictment arose out of squabbling among U.S. Attorney offices in New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Palomino said that Gonzalez was in negotiations with New York and Massachusetts for a plea deal in connection with the T.J. Maxx case when New Jersey made its indictment. Palomino identified the unindicted conspirator "P.T." as Damon Patrick Toey, who had pleaded guilty in the T.J. Maxx case. Palomino said Toey, rather than Gonzalez, was the ring leader of the Heartland case. Palomino further said, "Mr. Toey has been cooperating since Day One. He was staying at (Gonzalez's) apartment. This whole creation was Mr. Toey's idea... It was his baby. This was not Albert Gonzalez. I know for a fact that he wasn't involved in all of the chains that were hacked from New Jersey."

Palomino said one of the unnamed Russian hackers in the Heartland case was Maksym Yastremskiy, who was also indicted in the T.J. Maxx incident but is now serving 30 years in a Turkish prison on a charge of hacking Turkish banks in a separate matter. Investigators said Yastremskiy and Gonzalez exchanged 600 messages and that Gonzalez paid him $400,000 through e-gold.

Yastremskiy was arrested in July 2007 in Turkey on charges of hacking into 12 banks in Turkey. The Secret Service investigation into him was used to build the case against Gonzalez including a sneak and peek covert review of Yastremskiy's laptop in Dubai in 2006 and a review of the disk image of the Latvia computer leased from Cronos IT and alleged to have been used in the attacks.

After the indictment, Heartland issued a statement saying that it does not know how many card numbers were stolen from the company nor how the U.S. government reached the 130 million number.

Gonzalez (inmate number: 25702-050) served his 20-year sentence at the FMC Lexington, a medical facility. He was released on September 19, 2023.

#tccblr #tcc tumblr #albert gonzalez

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traegorn · 9 months ago

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So Remember You Can Find Me Elsewhere...

I love Tumblr, and plan to stay here until the lights turn off or they make me leave -- but honestly I'm always nervous about the future of this platform. So I thought I'd remind you guys that I exist elsewhere online.

My own websites:

First off, I've been maintaining my own website since 1996 and I have a blog there that I started in 2001 when I was twenty and working retail. It is, for better or for worse, the most "me" place online. It has three different domains -- trhonline.com, traedorn.com and traegorn.com -- but they're all the same site. You can always find me and my stuff there.

I'm also part of a collective of creators called Nerd & Tie, which started out as a podcast network but has been branching out into other media. And it, of course, has a site.

I have other websites like Peregrine Lake's site or BS-Free Witchcraft's, but those two places will always function as central hubs for what I (or we) are currently doing. Also, we have independent forums for Nerd & Tie where folks can talk to each other without a corporate overlord collecting data or ads ever appearing (I put ads on my sites -- but not on the forums).

But now on to other social networks and sites I don't run:

First off, my Patreon. Obviously there are perks for my paid membership, but free members can get some updates here, so if you have an account, why not follow for free?

But also I'm on other sites to varying degrees -- so here's the list:

Finally, besides the forums I mentioned earlier, Nerd & Tie has a Discord you can join where I can always be found.

And that's it pretty much? I probably forgot something, but that's it for now.

#Where to find me #Trae Dorn #traegorn

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xxpaganheartxx · 1 month ago

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And So, You See in the Night Sky, Lies the Stars We Adore

—for Gaia, Our Mother, Our Home Eternal

And so, you see in Nyx’s evening skies, lie the stars we adore,

Though, their Promethean flames may have burnt out aeons before,

Their brilliance lingers in a fireworks show eternally bright,

As Infinite nuclear reactions painting the blessed night.

Each twinkle is a whisper from a time long past,

Ancient suns whose glory could never last.

But still they shine like The Gods with eternal radiant grace,

Scattered like thoughts across infinite time and space.

Each Blessed Nebulae, an explosive grave and a cradle alike,

Births the very planets that we once thought godlike.

Divine bursts of creation and destruction, life and decay,

Dance in silence across the Milky Way.

And yet, this wonder doesn’t only lie above—

It breathes beneath, in the roots and soil, whispering with quiet love.

For underfoot do the Trees speak,

To all plants and fungi in a language truly unique.

They speak through networks buried deep,

Through a mycelial tongue where the dead forever sleep,

They murmur of seasons, of rain, of fire, and flood,

They share ageless wisdom through the mud.

And above each wind blows their breathless demands,

It's here in the Forest’s hush, all flora understand.

The moss listens close, the fern gently leans,

To share in the dreamings of the doves that preen.

Meanwhile in the water swim the brave Salmon, creatures of the vast sea's domain,

Their bodies designed; a purpose ingrained.

One day they hear the call of Mother's Melodious voice,

To the echoes of their birthplace, they chase a Siren’s song, and alongside their ancestors they shall rejoice.

Against the current, they bravely strive,

From salt to snowmelt, their gills burning, they fiercely dive.

Driven by this force, a powerful yearning, burning bright and bold,

Transcending their limits, like us, their story is yet to be told.

Unrecognizable to their former state,

Defying boundaries, life and death they negate.

Their existence alone is a symphony, unseen and grand,

As they unravel the Moirai's thread with a fearless hand.

And in the blessed Chaos some call Fate,

There lies no cruel design, no scheme of hate.

Just patterns woven by unseen hands,

In the forests, in the rivers, across the skies and lands,

Amidst the many tragedies one may perceive,

There lies a symphony of infinite spheres, a tapestry left for the universe to weave.

If there's no grand design or inherent rule to command,

One can at least see the undeniable beauty of the infinite, perhaps by foolishness left unmanned.

So marvel at this world while you can, in her beauties both vast and small—

Marvel at Mother Gaia, eternal, our cradle and the great blue marble.

And next time you hear a bird's song, stop and listen to it for me,

As she sings for Mother Gaia, of what was, what is, and what will forever be.

#poems on tumblr #poetry #hellenic pagan #hellenic polytheism #poem #hellenic worship #hellenic deities #helpol #original poem #Gaia #nature #evolution #space #cosmic #cosmos #humanity #Nyx #salmon #science

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just-horrible-things · 8 months ago

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Blue

Have you ever been on a plane bound west, and flown out from the night-shadow of the Earth back into the daylight, even though your body still believes it to be the dead of night? The effect is magical and somewhat eerie – sunrise at midnight, an impossibility made possible by the wonders of modern transportation.

Aeroplanes have always been a little magical to me. I love the moment of take-off, when the wheels come off the tarmac and you feel the lift – the implausible transition from the familiar rumble of a road vehicle – albeit a very very large and very very fast one – to flight, true flight.

Landing brings – in balance – a certain disappointment. Although I am usually as eager as the next person to get off the plane and onward to my next destination, there is still a kind of a pang at touchdown. We leave the domain of the skies and gravity reasserts itself, rendering us earthbound once more.

The plane in question departed at 23:47 local time – only ten minutes after its scheduled departure, so not bad going. Being early spring it was by then quite dark outside, and we took off with cabin lights dimmed and the false promise of sleep in the air.

Bearing almost directly westward, it wasn’t long before the sky outside began to lighten again – someone’s evening becoming our dawn as the clocks turned back. Being a peculiar sort of romantic, I watched the sky avidly as we pursued the recently-set Sun over the horizon, hoping to see it rise again ahead of us.

As I was seated in the middle of my row, this involved a certain amount of craning my head to see past the woman in the window seat. And while people on planes are usually quite understanding of the desire to see out of the window, there is still a certain degree of awkwardness. We laughed about it as one does to clear embarrassment from the air, and from there we were sort of obliged to speak to one another.

She told me that she would swap with me if it weren’t for her air-sickness, and I told her that it was no problem. She mentioned that her family tease her for taking long haul flights anyway, and told me that she was visiting her parents. I spoke briefly about the convention I was attending, we diverted into a brief tangent on anime due to a misunderstanding, introductions were made – her name was Aisyah, which took me a couple of attempts to pronounce correctly – and then we got to talking about my career.

(In the end we didn’t get to see the sun rise in the west, as the nose of the plane thoroughly obstructed our view. Alas.)

I normally try to avoid talking much about my writing, as it seems a little conceited and I’m very conscious of the temptation to ramble well beyond the point of anyone else’s interest in the details of a fictional economy or public transport network. But Aisyah was exceedingly curious about the genre and I must admit I allowed myself to be drawn into a rather self-aggrandising discussion of my works and process.

It was in the middle of this discussion that the bell preceding an announcement chimed, and the senior flight attendant’s voice came over the speakers asking if there were any meteorologists aboard.

As someone who understands what a meteorologist studies, this was somewhat concerning to me.

Aisyah and I shared a look, and then I instinctively looked to the window. By this point Aisyah had somewhat rotated in her seat to make conversation more comfortable, and all I could see over her shoulder was a slice of clear blue sky.

I joked, uncomfortably, about expecting turbulence, and then we returned to our conversation – which at the time I think was about the sliding scale between hard and soft sci fi.

Shortly thereafter, a second announcement was made, this time asking for any scientists aboard – particularly if working in the physical sciences – to please made themselves known to the cabin crew.

This, I think not unreasonably, was rather unsettling to me.

“Why would they need a scientist?” Aisyah asked. “Don’t they usually ask for a doctor?” “In movies, sure,” I responded, “I don’t know if they do that in real life.” But I had no answer to her first, more important question.

We looked around the cabin. A number of other passengers seemed similarly concerned and perplexed, but most were still absorbed in whatever distraction they had brought aboard – screens and books and magazines. A few were successfully sleeping, despite the daylight.

When the announcement was repeated, Aisyah reached up and pushed the call button above our heads.

“You didn’t tell me you worked in science. What do you study?” She laughed – in retrospect somewhat uncomfortably – made a non-committal sound, and wondered aloud, “What do you think they want?”

It did not take long for a flight attendant to appear. Her customer service smile was absent, replaced by grim gravity. I looked to Aisyah expectantly, already pressing myself back against my seat to make room for her to get up. But she pointed at me.

“Me? Oh, no, I’m sorry, there’s been a misunderstanding,” I said. “I mean, I have an undergrad degree in physics but that was a decade ago – I’m an author. I write fiction.” “He’s very knowledgeable,” Aisyah argued. “He writes science fiction, and he reads research papers for all of the science. He’s very nearly a scientist.”

The flight attendant’s lips pressed together in an – understandably! – unimpressed line. She looked up and down the cabin. I looked up and down the cabin. There was a distinct absence of lit call signals, or other attendants speaking to specific passengers as if they had been called.

I could only see one guy at the front speaking to a rather agitated-looking passenger. He met his colleague’s eyes and did a little grimace and a tiny headshake that I took to mean that his passenger wasn’t a good candidate either.

“Are you?” the attendant said to me, “Very nearly a scientist?” “I mean, I guess I’m well read, I’d consider my grasp of the fundamentals pretty solid…” “And you studied physics?” “Yeah…” “I suppose you’ll do.”

So I followed her up the plane, through the tiny crew area, to the rather solid security doors that separate the pilots from the passengers.

We were joined as we passed them by the agitated maybe-scientist found by the other flight attendant. He looked about fourteen – though I don’t think he was fourteen, he just had one of those faces that are cursed – or blessed – with looking like teenagers right up until their hair starts to grey. His sense of style reinforced the impression of youth. He had pierced ears and an undercut, and his faded t-shirt bore what I could only assume was the logo of some band I don’t know.

The pilot and co-pilot glanced round as we were ushered into the cockpit. I was surprised by how much space there was, honestly. It was pretty cramped, but there was more space behind the pilots’ seats than I expected. Enough for us two passengers and the one flight attendant to awkwardly squeeze in together.

I guess the pilots have to be able to get up and stretch their legs every so often.

The captain’s expression was as grim as the attendant’s. There was a slightly wild, haunted cast to her eyes, which did nothing to calm my building unease. She gestured, sharply but expansively, at the windshield – is it called a windshield on an aeroplane? I’m not sure.

Mr. Undercut saw it first. His shocked little “oh” cued me in to the scale of what I was looking for.

When I saw it, I couldn’t imagine how I didn’t see it instantly. It became searingly obvious, like an optical illusion suddenly snapping into focus, except accompanied by the unpleasant lurching feeling of missing a step on the stairs.

“Where’s the ground?” Mr. Undercut asked. “You’ve identified the crux of the problem,” said the pilot.

As far as the eye could see, there was just open blue sky – a little paler above us, a shade deeper below.

I leant closer to the glass as far as I could, as if imagining that the horizon was merely fractionally out of view beneath the body of the plane. “Are we over the ocean?” I asked, dumbly. I knew we weren’t over the ocean. We weren’t supposed to be over the ocean, at any rate. “No.”

“Okay,” I said. “Nobody panic.” “Nobody is panicking,” the co-pilot retorted sharply.

“It could be some kind of – attack,” said Undercut. “Someone on the ground aiming something at us that – causes some kind of illusion?” “It seems more likely that it’s some kind of atmospheric effect,” I argued. “What, exactly, are your qualifications?” the co-pilot demanded.

Undercut ran a hand awkwardly through his hair. “I’m doing a PhD in Physical Chemistry,” he admitted. “I have no qualifications,” I said, in a hurry to get that fact out there as soon as possible. “I mean, I have an undergrad degree but – I think we’re the best they could find. I’m widely read. Sorry.” The pilot cast the flight attendant a look of disbelief. “Two hundred passengers,” the co-pilot bemoaned, “and not a single doctorate?” “Sorry,” I repeated.

We stared at the wide open blue in shared discomfort.

“It’s probably some kind of reflection or refraction,” I theorised nervously. “Like a mirage, a temperature differential in the air. Sometimes people on the ground see images floating in the sky of cities or mountains that are hundreds of miles over the horizon –” “Fata Morgana,” the pilot interjected. “Right. Because it refracts – and if the boundary between layers was sharp enough it could even reflect. We’re seeing the sky above us, reflected off a boundary below us. Maybe?” “We thought that,” said the pilot. “What do the instruments say?”

There was a drawn out silence that made me sure before they said anything that what the instruments said was nothing good.

“That’s the other half of the problem,” the pilot ventured grudgingly. “We’ve got no radio, no connection to anyone at all.” “Well.” I swallowed. I was very glad I’m not a nervous flyer. “It could be the same effect, right? The radio waves are bouncing off the same boundary, they can’t reach us.” “We should have a satellite connection,” the co-pilot put in.

I looked up. I’m not sure why a plane needs such a good view of the sky above, but we could certainly see a lot further up than down.

Somewhere up there, the plane should have been able to see the satellites above us. I was struck by the unsettling idea that if it weren’t daylight, there’d be no stars up there either, just unbroken black.

“Hold on,” I said, as I felt that stomach-dropping-out lurching sensation again. “Where’s the sun?”

It should have been directly ahead of us, with the glare in all of our eyes. Instead the light was directionless, like an overcast day but brighter, seeming to come from the whole sky at once and no place in particular.

“Yeah,” said the pilot.

Another silence. I could hear voices from the cabin behind us, the murmur of a lot of people talking at once.

“Have we… got turned around somehow? Could it be behind us?” “Can’t rule it out. No compass.” “No compass?” That couldn’t be a mirage effect. “No compass.” “It’s not behind us,” the pilot said. “You’d see it on the wings.” “We’ve checked,” the flight attendant added.

She ducked out, then. We heard the raised voices more clearly for a second, with the door open. People had noticed that they couldn't see the ground.

“Some kind of lenticular effect,” Undercut said. He had his phone out and was tapping furiously into what looked at a glance like some kind of notes app. “Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re in a kind of bubble, light and other EM waves are refracting around us. We can’t see the sun or the ground because neither of them are at the right angle.” “Have you heard of anything like that?” asked the pilot. “Anything remotely like that?” “Other than the floating city mirages… no.” “Sun dogs,” Undercut suggested. “It must be a very rare phenomenon. But rare phenomena happen. Someone’s got to be the first to document these things. If we lose altitude we ought to pass below the edge of the effect…”

The hubbub behind us was growing louder. I could hear one man in particular growing louder and more hysterical minute by minute.

The captain flicked a switch, and held up a hand to the rest of us to be quiet.

“This is your captain speaking. As you can see from your windows, we are currently passing through a rare atmospheric phenomenon causing the ground not to be visible from our current position. Please remain calm.

“I have lit the Fasten Seatbelts sign. There is a possibility of sudden turbulence, so please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened, and enjoy the unusual view from the windows. Or, if you are finding it unsettling, simply close your window shutters and wait for it to pass.

“We are about to start descending in order to reach a more favourable layer of air. We are not intending to land, this is likely to be a short descent. We are still three and a half hours from our destination. Once again, please return to your seats and remain calm.”

She exhaled, long and slow, after finishing the announcement. We all listened. The hubbub was no quieter – perhaps even a little louder – but perhaps less agitated and upset. The yelling man had quieted down.

Undercut was still tapping away on his phone.

“I don’t think you can get the refractive index of air high enough,” he said, “to explain this.” “What about reflection?” I asked. “You’d see through it if it was reflection. Like looking at the surface of water.” “Not if it was strong enough.” “I’m not done with the numbers,” he acknowledged. “But I don’t think it’s possible.” “What about contaminants?” I said. “Some… industrial gas in the air, messing with the optical properties…” “Doubtful,” he said. “Diffusion would spread it out pretty fast…” “Diffusion’s weird sometimes. Think haloclines.” “Mh,” he agreed, still tapping. “Can’t rule it out. Yet.”

I felt the subtle shift that told us we’d started our descent. Downward acceleration countering gravity by the tiniest amount. More subtle than the descent of a lift going down, but definitely noticeable.

“You’ll get one hell of a PhD out of this,” I joked. “Whatever the cause.” “In physical chemistry? I don’t think so.” “You’ll have to change to physics.” “Oh hell no.”

“What’s our altitude?” I asked. “Altimeters are out,” the pilot said. “Or at least… the needles aren’t moving.” “Tell me that’s an electronic system,” Undercut said. “Something that can have just, an error…” “The backup is just a barometer. Physical. Detects atmospheric pressure.” “Okay,” I said. “Okay. Well… what do they say our altitude is?” “Ten point two kilometers. Same as before… this.” “And they agree with each other, the different instruments?” “Yes.”

Descent continued. It didn’t feel like much, but I’m no expert and I had no idea how to assess how fast we were descending. Whatever the pilots felt appropriate, I supposed. The conversation had died. Undercut was still buried in his calculations, trying to find a set of conditions that could explain what we were seeing. The rest of us stared, unsettled, into the unbroken blue.

There weren’t even clouds, not even a wisp or a pale haze. Just blue.

#my writing #another thing I found in my drafts #may or may not get continuation #I suspect people are gonna read this and think magnus archives #and yes that was probably an inspiration #but this is not explicitly fanfic #just a thing

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genericpuff · 1 year ago

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Hi! I'm a rookie comic artist and I've been having trouble finding platforms to hold my comics, and I don't want to resort to Tapas and Webtoons. Do you have any recommendations?

There are loads you can try for sure!

ComicFury - great for that old school 2000's webcomic host vibe, allows you to design your own sites via CSS/HTML but comes with easy to learn site-builders as well. You can also host your site through them (and it'll only cost you the domain name). Allows NSFW content, strictly anti-AI.

GlobalComix - just recently released their app, the site itself has been around for the last few years, they have a very sleek and up-to-date backend that offers loads of analytics information, paywall features, and even different reading layout options to suit any creator's needs. Allows NSFW content, isn't anti AI but does require creators to follow their rules and be transparent in their series' labelling so that readers can make informed decisions.

NamiComi - so far a promising alternative to Webtoons that apparently has its own rewards program, though I haven't tried this platform yet so take my word on it with grains of salt.

Dillyhub - Owned by the same parent company as Tapas (Kakao) it's a cozy enough site, let's you share both comic series AND illustrations so it makes for a great hybrid if you want a place that allows you to share both.

All of these, by the way, don't have the 'potential' for massive traffic numbers like Webtoons and Tapas do, but what they offer in the way of backend tools, creator resources, and monetization options absolutely makes up for it. After all, for 99% of creators on WT/Tapas it's impossible to get seen anyways, so if you're gonna be doing your own networking, it may as well be on a site that gives you far more control and options in how you share your work.

Hope that helps! Good luck!! <3

#ama #ask me anything #anon ama #anon ask me anything #webcomic tips #webcomic advice

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crackshipoftheweek · 9 months ago

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Crack Ship of the Week back again with another post! (After nearly an entire month) Lately I've been working a lot of 10+ hour shifts at my current job, along with helping out at my family's restaurant, updating my résumé, and searching for other jobs to advance my culinary career, so I've been really busy, sorry for not posting in quite a while. On the plus side, I've managed to network with some industry professionals higher up the ladder, and I was recently contracted by a personal chef agency!

Without further ado, let's bring out

This Week's Crackship:

Party Poison (Danger Days) × Johnny Silverhand (Cyberpunk)

Ship Name(s):

Poison Hand, Dim Mak (see notes below for explanation), Rockerboys, Ronin (see notes below for explanation)

Why It's Crack:

No interactions (separate canons)

Why It's Cracked:

Canons share many similarities. Both are cyberpunk series set in an alternate universe California in the near future (now partially set in the near past, as well), following a war or series of wars that negatively impacted the United States' geopolitical power, costing it territory that would be filled in by an independent city-state (Battery City in Danger Days, and Night City in Cyberpunk) and the resultant power vacuum being filled in by megacorporations (Better Living Industries in Danger Days and Arasaka in Cyberpunk. Like Arasaka, Better Living also seems to be a multinational corporation with at least some notable amount of presence in Japan, hence Better Living having had a .jp domain during the Danger Days album's promotional period, as well as using both English and Japanese writing in much of its content). Crossover potential abounds

Both fill very similar niches in their respective stories (renegade rockers who rebel against corporate overreach with the power of punk rock, and occasionally this gun they found. They both became the exemplar of their respective series' spin on the "rebel with a cause" archetype [Killjoys in Danger Days, and Rockerboys in Cyberpunk])

Both lived and operated in similar timeframes, not taking into account Johnny's engram who stars in Cyberpunk 2077. Party was active in the 2010s up until his death in 2019, and Johnny was active throughout the 2000s up until his death in 2023)

Both are war veterans (Johnny is a confirmed war veteran who deserted the US Military in protest of the government's corruption and purposeful destabilization of Central and South America. Party Poison was likely one of the many Killjoys to take part in the Analog Wars, as implied by the lyrics of The Only Hope For Me Is You)

Both died a similar death, to somewhat similar people, for similar reasons. Both raided the main HQ of their respective antagonistic megacorps in order to rescue an abducted loved one (surrogate little sister "The Girl" in Party's case, and former lover Alt Cunningham in Johnny's case), during which they were brutally gunned down by their corporate foes' bald and sociopathic enforcer (Korse and Adam Smasher, respectively)

Both dye their hair. Party Poison's hair is dyed red (natural color unknown afaik), and Johnny Silverhand dyes his hair black, with it being naturally blond.

Notes

"Dim Mak", also known as "Poison Hand" or "Touch of Death" is a purported system of acupressure-based martial arts said to have originated in ancient China and been culturally imported to Japan. Count Juan Raphael Dante, an eccentric martial arts practitioner who taught karate in the 60s and 70s, also claimed to be able to teach Dim Mak to prospective students, infamously advertising this alleged service in the back page ad spaces in Marvel comic books of the time. This likely was seen at times by Gerard Way, an avid comic fan, as he titled one of the songs in the wider Danger Days multimedia project as Black Dragon Fighting Society, which shares an identical name with the martial arts organization founded by Count Dante. "Dim Mak" is also the name of a record label founded by Steve Aoki, who made a remix of the famous My Chemical Romance song "Welcome to the Black Parade". This fact is also relevant to the ship as Dim Mak distributes punk rock music, with punk rock being the primary genre performed by both Party Poison and Johnny Silverhand.

"Ronin" was chosen a ship name due to their shared status as outlaw warriors, similar to (but generally less shitty towards bystanders than) the ronin of Sengoku and early Edo-period Japan. Party is an outlaw vigilante who fights against BLI, whereas Johnny is a former US soldier who deserted and fled prosecution by moving to Night City. In addition, this name was chosen in reference to Johnny's band, Samurai. Keanu Reeves, who portrays Johnny in Cyberpunk 2077, also starred in the 2013 American remake of The 47 Ronin (unfortunately)

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mariacallous · 3 months ago

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Europe is under siege—not by armies but by supply chains and algorithms. Rare-earth minerals, advanced semiconductors, and critical artificial intelligence systems all increasingly lie in foreign hands. As the U.S.-China tech cold war escalates, U.S. President Donald Trump battles Europe’s attempt to regulate tech platforms, Russia manipulates energy flows, and the race for AI supremacy intensifies, Europe’s fragility is becoming painfully clear. For years, policymakers have warned about the continent’s reliance on foreign technology. Those alarms seemed abstract—until now.

Geopolitical flashpoints, from the Dutch lithography firm ASML’s entanglement in the U.S.-China chip war to Ukraine’s need for foreign satellite services, reveal just how precarious Europe’s digital dependence really is. If Europe doesn’t lock down its technological future, it risks becoming hostage to outside powers and compromising its core values.

Fragmented measures aren’t enough. A European Chips Act here, a half-implemented cloud or AI initiative there won’t fix a system where every layer—from raw materials to software—depends on someone else. Recent AI breakthroughs show that whoever controls the stack—digital infrastructure organized into a system of interconnected layers—controls the future.

The U.S. government ties AI research to proprietary chips and data centers through its Stargate program, while China’s DeepSeek masters the entire supply chain at lower costs. Europe can’t keep treating chips, supercomputing, and telecommunication as discrete domains; it needs a unifying vision inspired by digital autonomy and a grasp of the power dynamics shaping the global supply chain.

Without a coherent strategy, the continent will be a mere spectator in the biggest contest of the 21st century: Who controls the digital infrastructure that powers everything from missiles to hospitals?

The answer is the EuroStack—a bold plan to rebuild Europe’s tech backbone layer by layer, with the same urgency once devoted to steel, coal, and oil. That will require a decisive mobilization that treats chips, data, and AI as strategic resources. Europe still has time to act—but that window is closing. Our proposed EuroStack offers a holistic approach that tackles risks at every level of digital infrastructure and amplifies the continent’s strengths.

The EuroStack comprises seven interconnected layers: critical raw materials, chips, networks, the Internet of Things, cloud infrastructure, software platforms, and finally data and AI.

Every microchip, battery, and satellite begins with raw materials—lithium, cobalt, rare-earth metals—that Europe doesn’t control. China commands 60-80 percent of global rare-earth production, while Russia weaponizes gas pipelines. Europe’s green and digital transitions will collapse without secure access to these resources. Beijing’s recent export restrictions on gallium and germanium, both critical for semiconductors, served as a stark wake-up call.

To survive, Europe must forge strategic alliances with resource-rich nations such as Namibia and Chile, invest in recycling technologies, and build mineral stockpiles modeled on its strategic oil reserves. However, this strategy will need to steer clear of subsidizing conflict or profiting from war-driven minerals, as seen in the tensions between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the latter’s criminal complaints against Apple in Europe—demonstrating how resource struggles can intensify regional instability.

Above this resource base lies the silicon layer, where chips are designed, produced, and integrated. Semiconductors are today’s geopolitical currency, yet Europe’s share of global chip production has dwindled to just 9 percent. U.S. giants such as Intel and Nvidia dominate design, while Asia’s Samsung and TSMC handle most of the manufacturing. Even ASML, Europe’s crown jewel in lithography, finds itself caught in the crossfire of the U.S.-China chip war.

Although ASML dominates the global market for the machines that produce chips, Washington is using its control over critical components and China over raw materials to put pressure on the company. To regain control, Europe must double down on its strengths in automotive, industrial, and health care chipsets. Building pan-European foundries in hubs such as Dresden, Germany, and the Dutch city of Eindhoven—backed by a 100 billion euro sovereign tech fund—could challenge the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act and restore Europe’s foothold.

Next comes connectivity, the digital networks that underpin everything else. When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Kyiv’s generals relied on Starlink—a U.S. satellite system—to coordinate defenses. And U.S. negotiators last month suggested cutting access if no deal were made on Ukrainian resources. Europe’s own Iris2 network remains behind schedule, leaving the European Union vulnerable if strategic interests clash.

Meanwhile, China’s Huawei still dominates 5G infrastructure, with Ericsson and Nokia operating at roughly half its size. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has even floated buying Starlink coverage, underscoring how urgent it is for Europe to accelerate Iris2, develop secure 6G, and mandate a “Buy European” policy for critical infrastructure.

A key but often overlooked battleground is the Internet of Things, or IoT. Chinese drones, U.S. sensors, and foreign-controlled industrial platforms threaten to seize control of ports, power grids, and factories. Yet Europe’s engineering prowess in robotics offers a lifeline—if it pivots from consumer gadgets to industrial applications. By harnessing this expertise, Europe can develop secure, homegrown IoT solutions for critical infrastructure, ensuring that smart cities and energy grids are built on robust European standards and safeguarded against cyberattacks.

Then there is the cloud, where data is stored, processed, and mined to train next-generation algorithms. Three U.S. giants—Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—dominate roughly 70 percent of the global market. The EU’s Gaia-X project attempted to forge a European alternative, but traction has been limited.

Still, the lesson from DeepSeek is clear: Controlling data centers and optimizing infrastructure can revolutionize AI innovation. Europe must push for its own sovereign cloud environment—perhaps through decentralized, interoperable clouds that undercut the scale advantage of Big Tech—optimized for privacy and sustainability. Otherwise, European hospitals, banks, and cities will be forced to rent server space in Virginia or Shanghai.

A sovereign cloud is more than a mere repository of data; it represents an ecosystem built on decentralization, interoperability, and stringent privacy and data protection standards, with client data processed and stored in Europe.

Gaia-X faltered due to a lack of unified vision, political commitment, and sufficient scale. To achieve true technological sovereignty, Europe must challenge the monopolistic dominance of global tech giants by ensuring that sensitive information remains within its borders and adheres to robust regulatory frameworks.

When it comes to software, Europe runs on U.S. code. Microsoft Windows powers its offices, Google’s Android runs its phones, and SAP—once a European champion—now relies heavily on U.S. cloud giants. Aside from pockets of strength at companies such as SAP and Dassault Systèmes, Europe’s software ecosystem remains marginal. Open-source software offers an escape hatch but only if Europe invests in it aggressively.

Over time, strategic procurement and robust investments could loosen U.S. Big Tech’s grip. A top priority should be a Europe-wide, privacy-preserving digital identity system—integrated with the digital euro—to protect monetary sovereignty and curb crypto-fueled volatility. Piece by piece, Europe can replace proprietary lock-in with democratic tools.

Finally, there is AI and data, the layer where new value is being generated at breakneck speed. While the United States and China have seized an early lead via OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepSeek, the field remains open. Europe boasts world-class supercomputing centers and strong AI research, yet it struggles to translate these into scalable ventures. The solution? “AI factories”—public-private hubs that link Europe’s strengths in health care, climate science, and advanced manufacturing.

Europeans could train AI to predict wildfires, not chase ad clicks, and license algorithms under ethical frameworks, not exploitative corporate terms. Rather than only mimicking ChatGPT, Europe should fund AI for societal challenges through important projects of common European interest, double down on high-performance computing infrastructure, and build data commons that reflect core democratic values—privacy, transparency, and human dignity.

The EuroStack isn’t about isolationism; it’s a bold assertion of European sovereignty. A sovereign tech fund of at least 100 billion euros—modeled on Europe’s pandemic recovery drive—could spark cross-border innovation and empower EU industries to shape their own destiny. And a Buy European procurement act would turn public purchasing into a tool for strategic autonomy.

This act could go beyond traditional mandates, championing ethical, homegrown technology by setting forward-thinking criteria that strengthen every link in Europe’s digital ecosystem—from chips and cloud infrastructures to AI and IoT sensors. European chips would be engineered for sovereign cloud systems, AI would be trained on European data, and IoT devices would integrate seamlessly with European satellites. This integrated approach could break the cycle of dependency on foreign suppliers.

This isn’t about shutting out global players; it’s about creating a sophisticated, multidimensional policy tool that champions European priorities. In doing so, Europe can secure its technological future and assert its strategic autonomy in a rapidly evolving global order.

Critics argue that the difference in mindset between Silicon Valley and Brussels is an obstacle, especially the bureaucratic nature of the EU and its focus on regulation. But other countries known for bureaucracy—such as India, China, and South Korea—have achieved homegrown digital technology from a much lower technological base than the EU. Indeed, through targeted industrial policies and massive investments, South Korea has become a world leader in the layers of chips and IoT. The EU currently already has a strong technological base with companies such as ASML, Nokia, and Ericsson.

European overregulation is not the issue; the real problem is a lack of focus and investment. Until now, the EU has never fully committed to a common digital industrial policy that would allow it to innovate on its own terms. Former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s recent report on EU competitiveness—which calls for halting further regulation in favor of massive investments—and incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s bold debt reforms signal a much-needed shift in mindset within the EU.

In the same spirit, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has launched a defense package providing up to 800 billion euros to boost Europe’s industrial and technological sovereignty that could finally align ambition with strategic autonomy.

If digital autonomy isn’t at the forefront of these broader defense and infrastructure strategies, Europe risks missing its last best chance to chart an independent course on the global stage.

To secure its future, Europe must adopt a Buy European act for defense and critical digital infrastructures and implement a European Sovereign Tech Agency in the model of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—one that drives strategic investments, spearheads AI development, and fosters disruptive innovation while shaping a forward-looking industrial policy across the EU.

The path forward requires ensuring that investments in semiconductors, networks, and AI reinforce one another, keeping critical technologies—chips, connectivity, and data processing—firmly under the EU’s control to prevent foreign interests from pulling the plug when geopolitics shift.

Europe’s relative decline once seemed tolerable when these risks felt hypothetical, but real-world events—from undersea cable sabotage to wartime reliance on foreign satellite constellations—have exposed the EU’s fragility.

If leaders fail to seize this moment, they will cede control to external techno-powers with little incentive to respect Europe’s needs or ideals. Once this window closes, catching up—or even keeping pace—will be nearly impossible.

The EuroStack represents Europe’s last best chance to shape its own destiny: Build it, or become a digital colony.

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olrastrologytarot · 10 months ago

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Astrology / Eleventh House / 11H

The Eleventh House in astrology, often referred to as the "House of Friends" or "House of Community," is a domain that governs our social circles, friendships, hopes, dreams, and the collective ideals we share with others. This house represents the ways in which we connect with society at large, our involvement in groups, and our aspirations for the future. The Eleventh House is where we seek to find our place within a larger community and to contribute to causes that resonate with our ideals. In this essay, we will explore the significance of the Eleventh House, its influence on friendships, group associations, social ideals, and the broader themes of community, collaboration, and future aspirations.

The Eleventh House: An Overview

The Eleventh House is traditionally associated with the sign of Aquarius and its ruling planet, Uranus. These associations highlight the house's connection to individuality, innovation, and social progress. While the Fifth House governs personal creativity and self-expression, the Eleventh House represents the collective expression of these qualities within a group setting. It is where we align our personal goals with the goals of a community and work together to achieve common objectives.

In a natal chart, the sign on the cusp of the Eleventh House, along with any planets located within it, provides insights into how an individual approaches friendships, group involvement, and their social ideals. For example, if the Eleventh House is in Leo, the person might seek to be a leader or central figure in their social groups, often bringing a sense of creativity and vitality to their interactions. Conversely, if the Eleventh House is in Pisces, the individual might approach friendships with compassion and empathy, often drawn to causes that support the well-being of others or that promote spiritual growth.

Friendships and Social Networks

One of the primary areas governed by the Eleventh House is friendships and social networks. This house reflects our attitudes toward social connections, the types of friendships we form, and how we interact within group settings. The Eleventh House is where we seek to find like-minded individuals who share our ideals and aspirations, and where we build relationships that support our growth and development.

The sign on the cusp of the Eleventh House can indicate how an individual approaches friendships and social networks. For example, someone with Sagittarius on the Eleventh House cusp might be drawn to friendships that are adventurous, expansive, and intellectually stimulating. They may enjoy connecting with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, and they may thrive in social environments that encourage exploration and learning. On the other hand, an individual with Cancer on the Eleventh House cusp might seek friendships that provide emotional support and a sense of belonging. They may be drawn to nurturing and caring relationships, often forming deep bonds with people who feel like family.

Planets in the Eleventh House can also influence an individual's approach to friendships and social networks. For example, Venus in the Eleventh House might indicate a person who finds joy and pleasure in their social connections, often seeking out harmonious and loving relationships. They may be popular within their social circles and may excel at bringing people together. Mars in the Eleventh House, on the other hand, might suggest a person who approaches friendships with energy and enthusiasm, often taking an active role in group activities and pursuing their goals with determination. They may be drawn to competitive or dynamic social environments where they can assert themselves and take the lead.

Group Associations and Collective Ideals

The Eleventh House is also associated with group associations, collective ideals, and social causes. This house reflects our involvement in organizations, clubs, and movements that align with our values and aspirations. The Eleventh House encourages us to connect with others who share our vision for the future and to work together to bring about social change or to achieve common goals.

The sign on the cusp of the Eleventh House can provide insights into how an individual approaches group associations and collective ideals. For example, someone with Aquarius on the Eleventh House cusp might be drawn to progressive or humanitarian causes, often seeking to challenge the status quo and to promote social change. They may be innovative thinkers who are ahead of their time, and they may feel a strong sense of responsibility to contribute to the betterment of society. In contrast, a person with Taurus on the Eleventh House cusp might be drawn to more traditional or practical causes, often seeking to build stable and enduring organizations that support the well-being of the community. They may value loyalty and consistency in their group associations and may prefer to work toward goals that are achievable and grounded in reality.

Planets in the Eleventh House can also reveal important aspects of an individual's relationship with group associations and collective ideals. For example, Jupiter in the Eleventh House might indicate a person who is generous and optimistic in their social involvement, often seeking to expand their social networks and to support causes that promote growth and abundance. They may be natural leaders within their groups and may have a strong desire to contribute to the greater good. Saturn in the Eleventh House, on the other hand, might suggest a person who takes their social responsibilities very seriously, often seeking to build lasting and meaningful contributions to society. They may approach group associations with caution and discipline, often taking on leadership roles that require dedication and hard work.

The Eleventh House also represents our relationship with social movements and causes that resonate with our ideals. This house challenges us to consider how we can contribute to the collective good and to find our place within the larger tapestry of society. Whether we are involved in activism, community organizing, or simply supporting causes that align with our values, the Eleventh House encourages us to think beyond our individual needs and to consider the impact of our actions on the world around us.

Hopes, Dreams, and Aspirations

At its core, the Eleventh House is about hopes, dreams, and aspirations. This house represents the goals we set for the future and the vision we have for our lives and the world. The Eleventh House encourages us to dream big, to set our sights on lofty ideals, and to work toward making those dreams a reality.

The sign on the cusp of the Eleventh House can indicate how an individual approaches their hopes, dreams, and aspirations. For example, someone with Aries on the Eleventh House cusp might be driven by a desire for independence, achievement, and personal growth. They may set ambitious goals for themselves and may be willing to take bold actions to achieve their dreams. In contrast, a person with Libra on the Eleventh House cusp might approach their aspirations with a focus on harmony, balance, and relationships. They may be drawn to goals that involve partnership, collaboration, and the creation of beauty in the world.

Planets in the Eleventh House can also influence an individual's hopes, dreams, and aspirations. For example, Neptune in the Eleventh House might indicate a person who has idealistic or visionary goals, often dreaming of a utopian future where compassion and spirituality guide their actions. They may be drawn to creative or spiritual pursuits and may have a strong desire to bring their dreams to life through artistic expression or spiritual practice. Pluto in the Eleventh House, on the other hand, might suggest a person who is deeply committed to their goals and willing to undergo significant transformation in order to achieve them. They may be drawn to powerful and transformative social movements or causes, and they may have a strong desire to leave a lasting impact on the world.

The Eleventh House also challenges us to consider how our personal goals align with the goals of the larger community. This house encourages us to find ways to integrate our individual aspirations with the collective ideals of society, often leading us to seek out groups or organizations that support our vision for the future. Whether we are working toward personal success, contributing to a social cause, or simply dreaming of a better world, the Eleventh House reminds us that our dreams are interconnected with the dreams of others.

The Eleventh House in Relation to the Rest of the Chart

The Eleventh House interacts with other areas of the natal chart to provide a comprehensive understanding of how we approach friendships, group associations, and our hopes and dreams. Aspects between the Eleventh House and other houses or planets can highlight the connections between these themes and other aspects of our lives.

For example, a harmonious aspect between the Eleventh House and the Seventh House, which governs partnerships and relationships, might suggest that the individual's friendships and group associations are closely aligned with their personal relationships. They may find that their social connections support and enhance their partnerships, often leading to collaborative and mutually beneficial relationships. Conversely, a challenging aspect between the Eleventh House and the Second House, which governs personal finances and values, might indicate conflicts between the individual's social ideals and their financial goals. They may need to navigate these challenges in order to find a balance between their aspirations and their material needs.

Conclusion

The Eleventh House in astrology is a vital area of the natal chart, governing our friendships, group associations, hopes, dreams, and social ideals. It represents our connection to society, our involvement in collective causes, and our aspirations for the future. Understanding the Eleventh House can provide valuable insights into how we approach our social connections, how we align our personal goals with the collective good, and how we work toward making our dreams a reality.

Whether we are building friendships, contributing to social movements, or dreaming of a better future, the Eleventh House encourages us to think beyond our individual needs and to consider our place within the larger community. It challenges us to find ways to contribute to the collective good, to align our personal aspirations with the ideals of society, and to work together to create a future that reflects our highest hopes and dreams.

#mysticism #occultism #metaphysics #mystic #astro community #astro notes #astro observations #astro tumblr #astrology #eleventh house #11th house #zodiac #chatgpt

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