#Victory Heat Rally

[alpha-beta-gamer]

Victory Heat Rally is a full throttle power-sliding retro arcade racer inspired by OutRun, Super Hang-On and Sega Rally!

Read More & Play The Beta Demo, Free (Windows)

[sonichedgeblog]

undefined

'Victory Heat Rally' by VHRgame Enjoy a short slice of an updated arcade mode, along with maybe a surprise or two. https://www.sonicfangameshq.com/forums/showcase/victory-heat-rally-christmas-sage-23.1991/

[arllanaeats]

See you at Baja 500?

More like see you at Baja 500lbs. haha gottem' 🏜️🚙🏜️

(Victory Heat Rally is really cool, consider checking out the demo idk :3)

[smbhax]

Victory Heat Rally - Christmas SAGE 2023 demo (PC)

Download page: https://sonicfangameshq.com/forums/showcase/victory-heat-rally-christmas-sage-23.1991/

Play session video: https://youtu.be/-8wfsCFaKY8

[lavalampghost]

resting in the victory heat

[syrupspinner]

nextfest part 2!

i said out loud "oh thats adorable" when i saw that you get circles from an apple and triangles from a teapot. so, the first thing i wanna compare this to is Mindustry, since its a resource miner and tower defence game. notably, it's a radial defence. yknow how sometimes rhythm games, instead of having a straight note highway, have the notes approach the centre from all sides of the screen (look up the persona dancing games if you dont know what i mean). well this is like that! you send units to a book, and they travel out from the centre to defend it from the monsters approaching from the edge of the screen. this is already so fun! i can already appreciate that this emphasizes a really unique and interesting approach compared to other defence games ive played. wishlisted before i finished the first tutorial

this is a game i found on twitter at first, so im excited to give it a real go! im in that weird level where, as a peripheral nintendo fan, im aware of the reverence for f-zero, but ive never actually played any of the games, so i had no idea what i was getting into. after playing it, gotta say, hell yeah this feels awesome. i dig the visuals, the music's pretty fitting for the action, and the controls are SO slippery in a good way. its so ridiculously responsive, at first i felt the need to reach for the drift button on sharp turns but that instinct melted when i got acclimated by like, map 2. pumped for the full game

woof, 13gb for a demo? thats a lot around these parts. but hey, the game itself is pretty alright! the controls feel awesome, especially the dash. the high-jump is a little counterintuitive at first, but its east to get the feel for through the tutorial. speaking of, it is so long... i get that this is a complicated game, but its hard for me to internalize so much all at once. i hope that it was just for the sake of the demo, and the full game has more of an integrated way of teaching the player. i really like how if you miss an item, youre given the option of paying for it, or summoning the monster it spawns from for free, fun little player choice. also, minor nitpick, but the hitbox for the coins feel a bit small, i had do do a lot of what i call the "oops loop" when i missed one. i dont wanna hold this against the game, because this might be on me, but i had no idea what to do in the cactus level. i got the frisbee thing, but there wasnt anything for me to climb to with it, because i dont think there was anything above the door, and it wouldnt stick to the cactus wall. im not really feeling this one, but ill keep my eye out when it releases just in case it turns out better than i expect

this one caught my eye in the store for the aesthetic alone, and anyone who knows be gets why. i always dig this y2k-futuristic colourful vector stuff. in the game itself, yeah, i really dig this art direction. im a little dissapointed the evil-looking edera is such a pushover to the boss, i presume all the models have the same personality? anyway, gameplay: imagine bomberman 64 meets hyper light drifter. the only thing is, your character feels weirdly heavy. dashing somehow feels too slow and too fast at the same time, and it feels like youre trying to throw a couch full of helium every time you jump. the bomb mechanic itself is fine though! this seems like a solid but flawed game. ill give the full release an honest try if it releases for cheap, but i dont blame you if youre not feeling as generous

oh this is gonna be WEIRD weird, thank god

right away, i had to do controller calibration with my keyboard before it let me calibrate my controller. okay? anyway, the game kicks ass. i love how the drift feels, i can tell it took a lot of work to get it to feel like it does. its hard to explain, but it feels like it has ending lag? like, it takes you a while to STOP drifting, so you cant just do it for ever turn, youve gotta commit to it. the action is super tense to! the game expects you to play well or else you dont win, and i appreciate a game that knows its difficulty. if you die, you respawn almost immediately, and the almost is all you need. the art style is cute too, everything looks toyish, and it helps the game feel less serious in a "lets all have fun" kinda way without detracting from the action. wishlisted!

yeah i played more demonschool, i know nextfest isnt a competition but demonschool would win. its criminal that when you dont sort by "most wishlisted" that the first few pages arent exclusively demonschool

woah, achievements? i saw someone on twitter (@casitamono hes also a dev so you should check out Street Shuffle and Project B-fer) literally comand me to play this and im nothing if not compliant. and yeah, right away, THIS is how you have a style that is also substance. NBB was carried by its style, of the devil is carrying its style. the writing is fantastic, the characters are the perfect blend of unique and realistic, and the worldbuilding is cyberpunk that is poiniant and directed without going off the deep end. the gameplay is such a fun approach to detective work, i have no idea how they made gambling work without feeling luck-based. i am SO ready for more of this! definitely the best demo i played tonight (new games, i mean, i dont know who would win in a fight between this and demonschool but i think im leaning in morgans favour). its so long too?? i was not expecting this to be two and a half hours of quality substance. PLEASE play this game

join me next time when i finish my queue of demos! for real this time!

[segadriven]

The Christmas SAGE action continues with a look at the latest demo of Victory Heat Rally!

[g4zdtechtv]

Cinematech's Trailer Park - Victory Heat Rally (Multiplatform)

Cowabunga!

[grinds-n-games]

Steam Nextfest - Victory Heat Rally

This week's demo is Victory Heat Rally. I stand by it being the best demo that I played during the last Nextfest. The driving is tight, rewarding and extremely fun and the game looks great too. #Blog #VictoryHeatRally

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Greenwashing set Canada on fire

On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

As a teenager growing up in Ontario, I always envied the kids who spent their summers tree planting; they'd come back from the bush in September, insect-chewed and leathery, with new muscle, incredible stories, thousands of dollars, and a glow imparted by the knowledge that they'd made a new forest with their own blistered hands.

I was too unathletic to follow them into the bush, but I spent my summers doing my bit, ringing doorbells for Greenpeace to get my neighbours fired up about the Canadian pulp-and-paper industry, which wasn't merely clear-cutting our old-growth forests – it was also poisoning the Great Lakes system with PCBs, threatening us all.

At the time, I thought of tree-planting as a small victory – sure, our homegrown, rapacious, extractive industry was able to pollute with impunity, but at least the government had reined them in on forests, forcing them to pay my pals to spend their summers replacing the forests they'd fed into their mills.

I was wrong. Last summer's Canadian wildfires blanketed the whole east coast and midwest in choking smoke as millions of trees burned and millions of tons of CO2 were sent into the atmosphere. Those wildfires weren't just an effect of the climate emergency: they were made far worse by all those trees planted by my pals in the eighties and nineties.

Writing in the New York Times, novelist Claire Cameron describes her own teen years working in the bush, planting row after row of black spruces, precisely spaced at six-foot intervals:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/opinion/wildfires-treeplanting-timebomb.html

Cameron's summer job was funded by the logging industry, whose self-pegulated, self-assigned "penalty" for clearcutting diverse forests of spruce, pine and aspen was to pay teenagers to create a tree farm, at nine cents per sapling (minus camp costs).

Black spruces are made to burn, filled with flammable sap and equipped with resin-filled cones that rely on fire, only opening and dropping seeds when they're heated. They're so flammable that firefighters call them "gas on a stick."

Cameron and her friends planted under brutal conditions: working long hours in blowlamp heat and dripping wet bulb humidity, amidst clouds of stinging insects, fingers blistered and muscles aching. But when they hit rock bottom and were ready to quit, they'd encourage one another with a rallying cry: "Let's go make a forest!"

Planting neat rows of black spruces was great for the logging industry: the even spacing guaranteed that when the trees matured, they could be easily reaped, with ample space between each near-identical tree for massive shears to operate. But that same monocropped, evenly spaced "forest" was also optimized to burn.

It burned.

The climate emergency's frequent droughts turn black spruces into "something closer to a blowtorch." The "pines in lines" approach to reforesting was an act of sabotage, not remediation. Black spruces are thirsty, and they absorb the water that moss needs to thrive, producing "kindling in the place of fire retardant."

Cameron's column concludes with this heartbreaking line: "Now when I think of that summer, I don’t think that I was planting trees at all. I was planting thousands of blowtorches a day."

The logging industry committed a triple crime. First, they stole our old-growth forests. Next, they (literally) planted a time-bomb across Ontario's north. Finally, they stole the idealism of people who genuinely cared about the environment. They taught a generation that resistance is futile, that anything you do to make a better future is a scam, and you're a sucker for falling for it. They planted nihilism with every tree.

That scam never ended. Today, we're sold carbon offsets, a modern Papal indulgence. We are told that if we pay the finance sector, they can absolve us for our climate sins. Carbon offsets are a scam, a market for lemons. The "offset" you buy might be a generated by a fake charity like the Nature Conservancy, who use well-intentioned donations to buy up wildlife reserves that can't be logged, which are then converted into carbon credits by promising not to log them:

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

The credit-card company that promises to plant trees every time you use your card? They combine false promises, deceptive advertising, and legal threats against critics to convince you that you're saving the planet by shopping:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-well-do-good-do-nothing/#greenwashing

The carbon offset world is full of scams. The carbon offset that made the thing you bought into a "net zero" product? It might be a forest that already burned:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/11/a-market-for-flaming-lemons/#money-for-nothing

The only reason we have carbon offsets is that market cultists have spent forty years convincing us that actual regulation is impossible. In the neoliberal learned helplessness mind-palace, there's no way to simply say, "You may not log old-growth forests." Rather, we have to say, "We will 'align your incentives' by making you replace those forests."

The Climate Ad Project's "Murder Offsets" video deftly punctures this bubble. In it, a detective points his finger at the man who committed the locked-room murder in the isolated mansion. The murderer cheerfully admits that he did it, but produces a "murder offset," which allowed him to pay someone else not to commit a murder, using market-based price-discovery mechanisms to put a dollar-figure on the true worth of a murder, which he duly paid, making his kill absolutely fine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

What's the alternative to murder offsets/carbon credits? We could ask our expert regulators to decide which carbon intensive activities are necessary and which ones aren't, and ban the unnecessary ones. We could ask those regulators to devise remediation programs that actually work. After all, there are plenty of forests that have already been clearcut, plenty that have burned. It would be nice to know how we can plant new forests there that aren't "thousands of blowtorches."

If that sounds implausible to you, then you've gotten trapped in the neoliberal mind-palace.

The term "regulatory capture" was popularized by far-right Chicago School economists who were promoting "public choice theory." In their telling, regulatory capture is inevitable, because companies will spend whatever it takes to get the government to pass laws making what they do legal, and making competing with them into a crime:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/13/public-choice/#ajit-pai-still-terrible

This is true, as far as it goes. Capitalists hate capitalism, and if an "entrepreneur" can make it illegal to compete with him, he will. But while this is a reasonable starting-point, the place that Public Choice Theory weirdos get to next is bonkers. They say that since corporations will always seek to capture their regulators, we should abolish regulators.

They say that it's impossible for good regulations to exist, and therefore the only regulation that is even possible is to let businesses do whatever they want and wait for the invisible hand to sweep away the bad companies. Rather than creating hand-washing rules for restaurant kitchens, we should let restaurateurs decide whether it's economically rational to make us shit ourselves to death. The ones that choose poorly will get bad online reviews and people will "vote with their dollars" for the good restaurants.

And if the online review site decides to sell "reputation management" to restaurants that get bad reviews? Well, soon the public will learn that the review site can't be trusted and they'll take their business elsewhere. No regulation needed! Unleash the innovators! Set the job-creators free!

This is the Ur-nihilism from which all the other nihilism springs. It contends that the regulations we have – the ones that keep our buildings from falling down on our heads, that keep our groceries from poisoning us, that keep our cars from exploding on impact – are either illusory, or perhaps the forgotten art of a lost civilization. Making good regulations is like embalming Pharaohs, something the ancients practiced in mist-shrouded, unrecoverable antiquity – and that may not have happened at all.

Regulation is corruptible, but it need not be corrupt. Regulation, like science, is a process of neutrally adjudicated, adversarial peer-review. In a robust regulatory process, multiple parties respond to a fact-intensive question – "what alloys and other properties make a reinforced steel joist structurally sound?" – with a mix of robust evidence and self-serving bullshit and then proceed to sort the two by pantsing each other, pointing out one another's lies.

The regulator, an independent expert with no conflicts of interest, sorts through the claims and counterclaims and makes a rule, showing their workings and leaving the door open to revisiting the rule based on new evidence or challenges to the evidence presented.

But when an industry becomes concentrated, it becomes unregulatable. 100 small and medium-sized companies will squabble. They'll struggle to come up with a common lie. There will always be defectors in their midst. Their conduct will be legible to external experts, who will be able to spot the self-serving BS.

But let that industry dwindle to a handful of giant companies, let them shrink to a number that will fit around a boardroom table, and they will sit down at a table and agree on a cozy arrangement that fucks us all over to their benefit. They will become so inbred that the only people who understand how they work will be their own insiders, and so top regulators will be drawn from their own number and be hopelessly conflicted.

When the corporate sector takes over, regulatory capture is inevitable. But corporate takeover isn't inevitable. We can – and have, and will again – fight corporate power, with antitrust law, with unions, and with consumer rights groups. Knowing things is possible. It simply requires that we keep the entities that profit by our confusion poor and thus weak.

The thing is, corporations don't always lie about regulations. Take the fight over working encryption, which – once again – the UK government is trying to ban:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/24/signal-app-warns-it-will-quit-uk-if-law-weakens-end-to-end-encryption

Advocates for criminalising working encryption insist that the claims that this is impossible are the same kind of self-serving nonsense as claims that banning clearcutting of old-growth forests is impossible:

https://twitter.com/JimBethell/status/1699339739042599276

They say that when technologists say, "We can't make an encryption system that keeps bad guys out but lets good guys in," that they are being lazy and unimaginative. "I have faith in you geeks," they said. "Go nerd harder! You'll figure it out."

Google and Apple and Meta say that selectively breakable encryption is impossible. But they also claim that a bunch of eminently possible things are impossible. Apple claims that it's impossible to have a secure device where you get to decide which software you want to use and where publishers aren't deprive of 30 cents on every dollar you spend. Google says it's impossible to search the web without being comprehensively, nonconsensually spied upon from asshole to appetite. Meta insists that it's impossible to have digital social relationship without having your friendships surveilled and commodified.

While they're not lying about encryption, they are lying about these other things, and sorting out the lies from the truth is the job of regulators, but that job is nearly impossible thanks to the fact that everyone who runs a large online service tells the same lies – and the regulators themselves are alumni of the industry's upper eschelons.

Logging companies know a lot about forests. When we ask, "What is the best way to remediate our forests," the companies may well have useful things to say. But those useful things will be mixed with actively harmful lies. The carefully cultivated incompetence of our regulators means that they can't tell the difference.

Conspiratorialism is characterized as a problem of what people believe, but the true roots of conspiracy belief isn't what we believe, it's how we decide what to believe. It's not beliefs, it's epistemology.

Because most of us aren't qualified to sort good reforesting programs from bad ones. And even if we are, we're probably not also well-versed enough in cryptography to sort credible claims about encryption from wishful thinking. And even if we're capable of making that determination, we're not experts in food hygiene or structural engineering.

Daily life in the 21st century means resolving a thousand life-or-death technical questions every day. Our regulators – corrupted by literally out-of-control corporations – are no longer reliable sources of ground truth on these questions. The resulting epistemological chaos is a cancer that gnaws away at our resolve to do anything about it. It is a festering pool where nihilism outbreaks are incubated.

The liberal response to conspiratorialism is mockery. In her new book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein tells of how right-wing surveillance fearmongering about QR-code "vaccine passports" was dismissed with a glib, "Wait until they hear about cellphones!"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

But as Klein points out, it's not good that our cellphones invade our privacy in the way that right-wing conspiracists thought that vaccine passports might. The nihilism of liberalism – which insists that things can't be changed except through market "solutions" – leads us to despair.

By contrast, leftism – a muscular belief in democratic, publicly run planning and action – offers a tonic to nihilism. We don't have to let logging companies decide whether a forest can be cut, or what should be planted when it is. We can have nice things. The art of finding out what's true or prudent didn't die with the Reagan Revolution (or the discount Canadian version, the Mulroney Malaise). The truth is knowable. Doing stuff is possible. Things don't have to be on fire.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/16/murder-offsets/#pulped-and-papered

[pin-k-ink]

rendezvous // nanami kento

tw ⇢ implied age gap, possessive!nanami, sexual tension, teasing, gloryhole, fingering, grinding, dub-con, semi-public sex, unprotected sex, biting, rough sex

wc ⇢ 6.4k

The door to Nanami's apartment burst open without preamble, the familiar whirlwind of energy you'd come to associate with your personal brand of chaos already whipping through the space.

"Nanami-san!" Your melodious voice rang out in greeting before you even fully crossed the threshold. "You'll never guess what outrageous thing just happ---ooh..."

Your impish flow of words stuttered to an abrupt halt as you caught sight of Nanami emerging from the bathroom. A towel hung precariously low around those slender hips you'd admired far too many times, leaving miles of toned muscle and glistening skin distractingly on display.

Despite your own tendency to flirt shamelessly, you still felt heat blossoming across your cheekbones at the unexpectedly intimate sight. Somehow you managed to rally enough to let your eyes perform a very slow, unabashed rake down the ridge of his abdomen and back up again.

"Well hello there, Nanami-san," you purred with a devilish lilt, emboldened by the brief flare of something akin to panic flickering across his typically unruffled features. "Don't mind me, please...continue putting on a show."

There it was - that fractional tightening at the corners of his clear grey eyes that signaled you'd successfully managed to rattle him, if only momentarily. Nanami tugged the towel a bit higher with an air of lofty disregard even as he arched one cool brow.

"You're incorrigible, you realize that?" His deep timbre managed to convey fond exasperation despite the husky undercurrent your mind unhelpfully insisted on reading into. "What part of boundaries or personal space fails to register with that troublesome brain of yours?"

You made a big show of propping your chin in your palms and appeared to consider his faux-stern chiding with exaggerated seriousness. "Well, now that you mention it...wiggling my way into your personal space uninvited is one of my favorite hobbies. Especially when you react like that."

Relishing the sight of the muscle feathering along Nanami's squared jawline, you punctuated your remark with another shameless once-over that had him huffing out a longsuffering sigh. You counted it as a victory any time that impeccably stoic facade chipped even a little.

"You're insufferable," he muttered again, somehow managing to infuse the insult with grudging fondness even as his eyes glittered like flint. "Well? Out with it then. What petulant nonsense demands my attention this time?"

Waving a hand carelessly, you straightened and finally tore your roving gaze away from the feast for the eyes that was Nanami's physique. "Oh, you know...the usual. One of your fellow Jujutsu sorcerers was being a disrespectful ass, prompting me to put him squarely in his place. By which I mean I may have given him a black eye..."

Nanami simply stared at you for a long beat, clearly trying to discern if you were joking or not. When your bright, innocent expression didn't crack, he blew out an exasperated sigh and scrubbed one hand down his face.

"Of course you did..." He muttered the words more to himself than you. "I don't know why I even bother questioning the antics you'll stoop to anymore."

"Hey!" You acted affronted, putting your hands on your hips. "That jerk had it coming. He made a few off-color remarks that I simply couldn't ignore."

Nanami's gaze sharpened a bit at that. "Remarks aimed at you?"

There was an undercurrent in his tone that sent a little thrill down your spine. You fought back a grin, having successfully piqued the protective edge you so loved provoking.

Waving a dismissive hand, you assured, "Nothing I couldn't handle, trust me. Let's just say that pig will be rethinking his vocabulary from here on out."

The slightest downturn of Nanami's lips signaled his disapproval, but rather than lecture, he simply shook his head. "I shouldn't be surprised you took matters into your own hands, as usual."

"You know how I abhor jerks who can't keep their traps shut," you said breezily, plopping down on his couch like you owned the place and stretching out languidly. You made sure to let your shirt ride up just a bit, offering a teasing glimpse of toned abdomen.

True to form, Nanami's eyes strayed there for the barest flicker before he averted his gaze with an undecipherable grunt. You bit back a grin of triumph.

"Why do I get the feeling you went out of your way to instigate this...black eye instance," he drawled after a moment, rejoining you in the living area. His towel had been swapped for a simple t-shirt and lounge pants that rode dangerously low on his hips. You made no effort to hide your frankly appraising gaze this time.

Stretching your arms up over your head, you played innocent. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Don't play coy." Nanami fixed you with that no-nonsense stare that always made something in the pit of your stomach go warm and liquidy. "You actively court trouble when left to your own devices."

"I simply have zero tolerance for rude, ill-mannered asses who deserve to be taken down a peg." You shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm doing the world a public service, really."

Nanami scoffed at that, but you caught the subtle twitch of his lips in a suppressed smirk. "A public service, she says..."

"Oh, admit it." You shot him a sly look, getting up and closing the distance between you with a provocative sway of your hips. "You love how I never back down from a conflict. How I always dish it back twice as hard as I get it."

Nanami visibly stiffened as you invaded his personal space, though his expression remained studiedly impassive. "And just what," he murmured in a pitched undertone, "is that supposed to imply, exactly?"

You grinned slowly, delighting in the way his gunmetal eyes involuntarily dropped to trace the swell of your lips. "Oh, I think you know perfectly well what I'm implying, Nanami-san..."

Trailing one fingertip up the center of his chest, you relished the way his musculature twitched beneath the whisper-light caress. Felt his shallow inhale as you leaned in until the subtlest shift would bring your bodies flush together.

"You can play dumb all you want," you murmured, purposefully allowing your warm breath to fan across his parted lips. "But we both know you get off on my...tenacious spirit, so to speak."

Nanami's jaw worked wordlessly for a moment, those versatile eyes darkening with unreadable intent. When he spoke again, his deep timbre had taken on a distinctly reverberated edge that danced like static electricity across your nerves.

"You seem to be operating under the misguided impression that I find your hotheaded antics charming in the slightest." One calloused palm rose to splay against your hip, the blistering heat of his skin raising delicious prickles despite the layers between you. "When in fact...I find them unbecoming. Childish, even."

You couldn't repress your full-body shiver at the subtle increase of pressure from his fingertips digging into your waistline. Nanami's mouth curved into a sharp smile at your reaction, gaze locked with searing intensity.

"Then again, perhaps a little...discipline might go a long ways towards reforming your more reckless habits." He punctuated the oblique suggestion by slowly trailing his other palm up the slender column of your neck until he cradled your jaw with just a hint of constriction.

Fire lanced through your veins at the titillating implication and naked challenge burning in Nanami's stare. You allowed your lashes to dip in a pointed sweep as a flush crept across your cheekbones.

"Is that...Is that a promise, Nanami-san?" You all but purred, leaning further into the scorching brand of his coaxing grip. "Because you know how I do love a good...disciplinary session..."

An imperceptible muscle ticked high on his cheekbone. Then Nanami gently but firmly extracted himself from your tangled orbit, spinning away to put critical distance between you. His next words emerged pitched low enough to resonant straight through your solar plexus.

"As tempting as that proposal is, you and I both know it's a dangerous road to travel." A weighty pause as you stared, rooted and ragingly at the rigid line of his back. "Play with fire often enough and someone inevitably gets burned, little wildflower."

He threw the husky endearment your way over one corded shoulder before slipping towards the kitchen, leaving you flushed and thunderously aroused and more than a little confused by his abrupt dismissal.

Something indecipherable and molten seeped beneath Nanami's parting words, igniting embers you couldn't allow yourself to fully comprehend lest they catch and blaze into wildfire between you. You were left with the unsettling feeling that behind the constant push-and-pull provocations you'd grown accustomed to...a deeper truth was steadily taking defiant root.

The next time you barged into Nanami's apartment unannounced, it was to find him fresh from the shower once again. He emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam with a towel slung precariously low on his hips, damp hair in artful disarray.

You froze mid-stride, rapidly becoming an expert at not overtly ogling despite the instinctive flare of heat suffusing your gaze. Nanami merely arched one brow at your abrupt halt, calm as a lake at dawn.

"Boundaries, wildflower," was his only chiding as he brushed past you towards the bedroom to dress. "Do learn them."

You snapped your jaw shut, determined not to be so easily flustered into silence. Turning, you trailed after him with purposefully loud footfalls. "You say that, and yet it's clear you have no problem prancing about with your delicious body on display, sensei."

The slightest falter in Nanami's stride was the only indication he registered your boldly provocative tone. Rallying, you closed the distance until you could reach out and brazenly trail fingertips along the rigid planes of his back.

"One might even think," you practically purred, "that you leave so little to the imagination on purpose. As a...delectable temptation."

Nanami stilled then, a detectable frisson of awareness tightening his shoulders. His next exhale emerged slightly more uneven. "Is that so?"

You hummed a wordless affirmative, thoroughly enjoying the way he was so clearly struggling to maintain that vaunted stoicism. "Oh, absolutely. Which begs the question...who exactly is the tease here, sensei?"

When Nanami turned at last, his expression was severe enough to stoke fresh heat through your veins. In two large strides he was looming into your personal space, turbulent eyes searching your expression.

"You're playing a very dangerous game, wildflower," he murmured in that raspy timbre that never failed to liquify your insides. "One I'm not certain you have the...discipline to withstand."

You tilted your head, aiming for an air of nonchalance despite the wild thrumming of your pulse. "And if I said that was exactly the sort of game I wanted us to play?"

Something flickered behind Nanami's gaze then - a blazing mix of hunger, yearning, cherished restraint. His hand lifted as though of its own volition to cup the line of your jaw, thumb rasping along the swell of your lower lip. You shuddered at the overwhelming intimacy of the contact.

"Then I'd advise extreme caution, little wildflower," Nanami husked, robbing you of breath. "Because this particular game has very...severe consequences if indulged for overlong."

You swayed towards him like a flower seeking the sun's warmth. "Is that a promise...or a threat, sensei?"

Nanami's lashes swept downward briefly, shielding his expression. Then his fingers contracted in a searing grip, tilting your face upwards once more to impale you with a look more heated than a newborn star going supernova.

"From me?" His voice emerged little more than a graveled rasp edged with dark sin. "Always...both."

Then he released you, spinning away with an abruptness that nearly sent you staggering in its wake. You blinked dazedly for several moments before finding your voice.

"You can't keep running from this, you know," you called after Nanami's retreating back, striving for some semblance of composure. "Whatever...this is."

He paused in the threshold leading out as if weighted down by your quiet accusation. For an endless beat, you didn't think he'd respond. Then finally his head inclined a fraction.

"No..." The deep timbre seemed to come from someplace infinite and cavernous within him. "But neither can you keep recklessly goading the beast, wildflower. Not unless you're prepared for when it inevitably turns...and gives everything you're baiting it to consume."

The unspoken warning hung taut and thrumming between you like a live wire as Nanami exited without a backward glance. As always, you were left scorched yet painfully unfulfilled by one more near miss on the razor's edge of capitulation. Left to wonder just how many more times you could bait the line between you before one of you finally tumbled over into the abyss.

It was one of those unseasonably warm nights when not even the whirring air conditioning unit could quite displace the thick, languid humidity that seemed to cling to every surface. You shifted restlessly on Nanami's couch, skin feeling feverish and tightly confined by your lightweight loungewear.

"Are you always this fidgety?" Nanami's dry remark dragged your gaze over to where he sat in the nearby armchair, seemingly unbothered by the stifling mugginess. Unlike you, he looked perfectly at ease in a thin sleeveless top and loose pants.

You tried not to stare too overtly at the bared expanse of toned arms and chest on display, but it was difficult not to be transfixed. Nanami radiated an almost elemental sort of virility in the low lighting that made your mouth water.

Forcing your attention upwards with arduous effort, you shot him a flat look. "Easy for you to say, all cool and composed over there."

One dark brow inched upwards at your unsubtle admiration and subsequent grumbling. "Are you quite alright, wildflower? You seem..."

"Don't start with me," you warned, unable to disguise the breathless lilt your voice had taken on. You tugged at the neckline of your shirt, trying fruitlessly to coax in a cross breeze. "It's stifling as hell in here."

Nanami's gaze grew distinctly hooded at the motion, tracking the bead of sweat that trailed down the hollow of your throat. "Is that so?"

You fought back a squirm at the molten weight of his stare roving your heated skin. "Yes, so unless you've got a better way to cool me off..."

The suggestive words hung heavily between you. An inviting sort of hush seemed to settle over the room as the air conditioning unit puttered to a halt in the corner. A few protracted beats of silence ticked by, the only sounds your mingled breaths.

Then Nanami unfolded himself from his chair with that unhurried, predatory grace you'd come to admire. You were already flushed warm from the smothering atmosphere, but fresh heat prickled outwards across your exposed curves at his approach.

Rather than stop or re-establish the usual measurable distance between you, Nanami continued stalking forth until his shins brushed the sofa. Your breath came a little quicker as he loomed over you.

"There are," he said at last, deep tone thrumming like a resonant bassline through your nerve endings, "other ways to find relief from the swelter."

The sheltering weight of his body blocked out most of the low light, casting you in austere shadow. As if moving in slow dream sequence, Nanami braced one knee beside your hip on the couch and extended a calloused palm to toy with the top button of your shirt.

You swallowed audibly, utterly pinned beneath his smoldering scrutiny as one by one, those deft fingers slipped each fastening free. The thin material slowly parted to expose damp skin and bra-covered breasts slicked with perspiration. Nanami's heavy exhalation stirred wisps of hair at your flushed nape.

"Allow me..." he murmured, so softly the words seemed to skim your parted lips.

Then one broad palm seared a scorching trail up your abdomen and over your ribs, leaving sizzling imprints in its wake. You arched helplessly into the shocking contact before Nanami smoothed back down again in an unbearably light caress. Over and over until you were trembling and dizzy, nerves going haywire beneath his carnal ministrations.

When Nanami eventually drifted to a stop with his knuckles just grazing your lower belly, you were panting harshly. He regarded you through lowered lashes with an indecipherable gleam in his turbulent eyes.

"Better?" Nanami rasped at last.

You could only shakily incline your head, not trusting your voice. He hummed vague acknowledgment, then leaned in until you could taste the bittersweet tang of his skin on the hot exhale that gusted across your slick throat.

"Good..." Nanami's voice plunged to a bass register that seemed to resonate within your very bones. "Because we're just...getting...started..."

Those last words emerged with searing emphasis alongside the smoldering graze of his teeth against your hammering pulse point. You didn't even have time to process the full-body convulsion that lashed through your every atom.

With one final inscrutable look, Nanami rose and turned on his heel for the refuge of his bedroom without further comment. Leaving you scorched and reeling and somehow aching more intensely than before in the aftermath of his singularly incendiary attentions.

The charged encounters seemed to escalate after that pivotal night of Nanami doling out his own scorching brand of torturous relief. As if a dam had fractured, allowing those deeper undercurrents to steadily bleed through in increasingly overt ways.

You started noticing the little unconscious habits – like how Nanami would trap you with that darkly penetrating stare and simply hold your gaze hostage for protracted beats. Saying nothing, but letting the weighty lasciviousness of his attention prickle satisfying frissons across your nerves.

Or the way his palms seemed to migrate towards any naked slice of your skin when you occupied the same space. Calloused fingertips feathering delirious patterns along your arms, the dip of your spine, the swell of your ankle as if staking proprietary claim. Never overt enough to blatantly cross lines, but absolutely calculated to leave you buzzing on that razor's edge of sweet agony.

In the training rooms, the subtle touches evolved into something more...purposeful. Nanami's solid frame would bracket you from behind under the guise of adjusting your stance or redirecting a strike. His pelvis would grind lightly but meaningfully against your backside as anvil-calloused palms mapped the feminine curves of your body in sweeping, indolent arcs.

You'd shudder overtly at the branded heat of Nanami's chest sealing against your back, ogni sculpted ridge and hollow etched in searing bas-relief. The rasp of his words would gust hotly against the nape of your neck, each consonant seeming to reverberate straight through to your very core in delicious impact tremors.

"Loosen your grip, wildflower..." He'd murmur with quiet authority, those skilled fingertips adjusting your wrist ever-so-slightly. "Don't let the tension compromise your form."

You always fought not to whimper at the flickering caresses skating so perilously close to your breasts and inner thighs. But Nanami never missed the tremors that betrayed your responses, nostrils flaring as if he could physically sense the spiking arousal suffusing your scent.

Sometimes you wondered if he did it on purpose - stoking those banked embers until your entire universe contracted down to the searing brand of his touch claiming you from all sides. Other times you knew with dizzying certainty Nanami was simply struggling not to fully unravel like you, forcing every iota of discipline not to tumble over that event horizon together.

Those unguarded moments always began the same - with you mindlessly palming a paperweight or odd trinket on his desk while waiting for Nanami to finish reviewing some bureaucratic report. Focusing so intently on anything besides how deliciously snug his shirt clung to those carved planes of musculature that you missed Nanami straightening from his task.

Suddenly the heavy, grounding warmth of Nanami's broad palm would engulf yours, fingers curling to halt the idle motions. You'd suck in a sharp inhale at the overwhelming physicality and subtle dominance of the hold even as Nanami crowded in from behind. Close enough that the scorching furnace of his chest brushed your back with each cycle of breath.

You knew better than to so much as shift beneath that vise-like anchor. Instead, you'd go utterly still and pliant, waiting with thundering heart for whatever darkly intimate encounter Nanami seemed intent on precipitating.

Sure enough, his unoccupied hand would eventually alight upon some stretch of naked skin. The sensitive inner crease of your elbow, perhaps, or dust featherlight across your collarbone. You'd tremble violently despite willing every synapse not to react, feeling the blistering heat of Nanami's stare tracking each micro-response.

"Keep still," he'd husk in that decadent timbre that somehow carried the laconic menace of a growl.

Then his palm would slowly, inexorably glide upwards in a searing map – following each tendon and hollow with merciless precision. Tracing the fragile wrist, meandering higher along your forearm in unhurried exploration until you writhed beneath the exquisite torture.

Only for Nanami to just as abruptly release and pivot away before shattering either of your rapidly thinning veneers of control. Leaving you frayed but unfulfilled, forced to clutch slick fists against clenching thighs while surreptitiously willing your body back from that precipice.

Each time, he'd turn just before exiting and pin you with a look so molten, so fraught with escalating promise, that you felt branded straight through to your very atoms. A look that clearly said one of these encounters would finally crest into irrevocable capitulation...

It was only a matter of whittling down whose restraints unraveled first.

The cursed spirit had been more formidable than anticipated, ripping through the crumbling ruins and scattering debris like a vengeful tornado. You'd gotten separated from Nanami amid the chaos, flushed out into a small courtyard overrun with thick vegetation.

The explosive force of the cursed spirit detonating the ground sent you tumbling head over heels. Debris pelted you from all sides as the world dissolved into a disorientating vortex of darkness and noise.

Eventually, you fetched up hard against uneven surfaces - the wind forcibly expelled from your lungs. Dazed, you blinked against the ringing in your ears and tried to get your bearings.

That's when you realized the precarious positioning you'd ended up in. Your upper body was sprawled face down on one side of a deep crevasse in the courtyard's surface. But your hips and legs were wedged firmly on the opposite side of the narrow gap, splayed obscenely with your backside lewdly displayed.

You wiggled experimentally, but whatever rubble and stonework had you pinned refused to budge an inch. The sound of approaching footsteps filtering through the dust had you stilling instantly, stomach swooping with anxious trepidation.

"Wildflower?" Nanami's authoritative baritone cut through the settling debris like a blade as his tall silhouette emerged from the gloom. "Are you--"

His words stuttered off in a momentary pause as he clearly registered the revealing way you were positioned. You flushed hotly, not needing to look back over your shoulder to feel the weight of his piercing assessment raking across your trapped body.

A protracted beat of silence stretched between you, thick enough to almost taste. Then Nanami continued his unhurried advance until you could sense the imposing bulk of his frame looming squarely behind you.

You hunched instinctively, adrenaline spiking despite yourself as his next words emerged amid the susurrant whisper of him crouching down directly at your exposed backside.

"My, my..." There was a slumberous sort of appreciation threaded through his deep timbre that raised prickles across your sensitized nerves. "You certainly have an uncanny penchant for ending up in the most...precarious situations, little wildflower."

The lightest feather-brush of his fingertips traced up the sensitive tendons of your inner ankle in blatant suggestion - a measured, purposeful caress that had you sucking in a sharp inhale. Nanami didn't miss your microreaction if his low, rumbling chuckle was any indication.

"One might start to think you choreograph such incidents." Another few idle sweeps higher along your calf raised electrifying contrails in their wake. "Practically begging for...intensive correction through whatever intimate disciplinary methods I deem suitable."

You clenched your jaw, fighting the delirious spiral of heat those subtly lascivious implications stoked despite yourself. Still, you couldn't quite repress the full-bodied shiver as his calloused palms skated up your outer thighs in unerringly light, scorching trails.

Inch by agonizing inch, Nanami's hands roamed higher in unhurried exploration. Mapping every twitch and tremor you unsuccessfully tried to stifle as his fingertips blazed scorching paths along the innermost apex of your splayed thighs.

"So eager..." His approving rumble seemed to resonate straight through your very marrow. "Even in this unorthodox setting, your form practically begs for correction, wildflower."

You squeezed your eyes shut against the kaleidoscope of frissons detonating everywhere his callused palms grazed. Willing your body not to react so transparently to Nanami's purposefully provocative ministrations. The exquisite torture of having him so brazenly dominate your personal space in such an intimate manner while remaining infuriatingly composed.

"P-Perhaps if my mentor didn't insist on such...private discipline, I wouldn't find myself in these situations," you managed at last, voice emerging more breathless than intended.

Nanami tsked softly in clear rebuke, the sound vibrating against your over-sensitized nerves. "Now, now...we both know that's a blatant lie."

You shuddered freely as one palm smoothed up your thigh in a lingering, purposefully possessive glide. Higher and higher until he cradled the plush of your ass, fingertips searing into the flesh.

You squirmed ineffectually against the ruthless drag of Nanami's deliberate inspection, each measured graze leaving towering infernos in its wake. Yet somehow that only seemed to spur him on, fanning the sweet agony sizzling through your nerves hotter still.

"I can't decide," he husked at last, devouring you in a smolder that all but stripped you naked, "whether I should punish you first for such carelessness...or simply take advantage of having you so sweetly trapped for me."

Your lips parted on a tremulous sound you couldn't quite stifle as Nanami's palm finally curved around your outer thigh in a scorching, proprietary brand. He squeezed once in clear emphasis before dragging his nails up the sensitive interior in a whisper-light threat that detonated your senses into white heat.

"Then again, perhaps I'll simply keep you here a while longer," he growled with barely restrained wildfire bleeding through the rasped words. "As tempting as this tantalizing tableau is, I do so enjoy watching you writhe for me, little wildflower..."

Despite the sodden ache building with each lascivious caress and purring avowment, you managed to rally one last defiant spark behind a hooded stare. "Is that...so?"

Nanami's flinty eyes glittered like sun-struck obsidian as he bent closer still, allowing the solid ridge of his arousal to nestle against the juncture of your thighs.

"Oh yes..." he breathed, the words gusting across your damp, parted lips. "But allow me to give you a little...preview to ponder, hmm?"

Before you could react, his other palm cupped your opposite ass cheek in a stinging grip and gave a deliberate, carnal grind. The searing press of his clothed length against your swollen slit through the flimsy barriers between you left you gasping.

"Consider this a...taste," he rumbled darkly, "of what's to come should I decide to keep you here and thoroughly ruin you."

He punctuated the decadent threat with a second slow thrust, ensuring the blistering length of his cock grazed against your engorged clit in a way that made your toes curl. Then he withdrew, leaving you throbbing and panting and desperate for more.

Nanami straightened, a darkly appreciative sound reverberating deep within his broad chest. You shivered uncontrollably beneath his proprietary gaze raking across your prone, splayed body.

"Such a good little wildflower," he husked, eyes hooded with blatant carnality. "Just imagine if someone else were to wander across you in such a helpless state..."

He trailed off as his stare dipped meaningfully to where your slick arousal glistened along the seam of your pussy, fully visible in the obscene angle of your body. A low, feral rumble sounded in his chest before he spoke once more in a sin-dark timbre.

"How delicious it would be to have you like this..." A single finger traced the seam of your soaked panties in a searing, feather-light caress that made you jolt. "So helpless, so needy...so ready to be filled and utterly wrecked."

You sucked in a sharp breath at the erotic picture he painted with the suggestive drag of his fingertip against your drenched folds. Imagining being found by someone less discerning and honorable than Nanami – some other male who might not resist the temptation to sample the pretty little morsel on offer.

Nanami's eyes narrowed slightly as if sensing the direction your thoughts had strayed. A soft, rumbling hum issued from his broad chest as his calloused touch migrated higher, skimming the curve of your ass before delving lower.

"Imagine some stranger coming upon you in such a vulnerable state," he mused aloud, voice pitched even deeper and rougher with restrained desire. "How they would take advantage of having you so utterly at their mercy."

Nanami's thumb pressed in a slow, searing circle against your pulsing clit through the thin material, dragging a strangled moan from your chest. "How they would strip away these pesky coverings..."

He emphasized the lurid suggestion by sliding the barrier aside and stroking directly against your slick flesh, making you jolt at the scalding contact.

"And how they would bury themselves within your sweet, yielding pussy." He punctuated the final, filthy words by plunging two thick fingers deep inside.

You didn't stand a chance. Not with his sinfully skilled digits pumping at just the right angle, the lewd, wet sounds filling the space between you. Not when he'd already brought you so close to the edge with his earlier teasing.

You came explosively, the world contracting into a single pinpoint of blissful sensation. Distantly, you were aware of Nanami's guttural exclamation, his palm gripping your hip to anchor you steady as he wrung every ounce of pleasure from your body.

You were barely coming down from the mind-blowing high when his hand withdrew, replaced a moment later by the blunt tip of his cock. The scorching contact sent fresh waves of need lashing through your veins, reawakening the feverish ache in the space of a single heartbeat.

Nanami groaned deep in his chest at the molten contact, his pelvis grinding lightly against your backside. "God, wildflower, you're so...fucking wet. I could take you just like this. Would you let me? Or would you beg for me to stop? Not that you'd be able to do much beyond writhe in place and take it."

You whimpered helplessly, a fresh gush of arousal dampening your inner thighs at the depraved fantasy he painted.

Your core clenching hungrily at the thought of him sliding home with one relentless thrust, filling you to the hilt and pounding away with wild abandon.

"Tell me, wildflower," Nanami all but growled, hips jerking in an involuntary thrust that had the tip of his cock notching against your weeping entrance. "Would you beg for mercy...or would you spread those legs and take every inch I gave you?"

A desperate keening noise escaped as you arched into him, trying futilely to drive him deeper. Your body had already capitulated to the carnal temptation. But it wasn't enough, not when Nanami remained stubbornly immobile.

"Tell me," he ordered with quiet authority, calloused palms squeezing the swell of your ass hard enough to sting.

"Yes!" The word erupted from your throat with the force of a dam finally breaking. "Yes, I'd spread my legs and beg for you to fuck me. Please, Kento..."

The effect of his name spilling from your lips was instantaneous. Nanami's hips jerked forward, sheathing himself to the hilt within your clenching heat. A rough, primal noise was torn from his chest as he bottomed out, his entire frame trembling from the effort of remaining motionless.

Then his hands gripped the swell of your hips hard enough to bruise and began a ruthlessly punishing rhythm, pistoning into your sopping cunt with single-minded purpose. It was exactly as you'd fantasized, only better. Because you could feel the tension thrumming through every sculpted ridge and hollow of his powerful body, the coiled violence barely restrained.

Nanami was taking his pleasure just as much as yours, his every harsh, panting breath seeming to reverberate through you. As if your very bodies had melded, become one singular entity of pure, molten desire.

It was the most intensely, blissfully satisfying feeling you'd ever experienced, knowing he'd finally unraveled. Finally lost control and succumbed to the raw, animalistic lust he'd been harboring.

And it was all for you.

The thought pushed you higher and higher still until the only thing keeping you tethered was the brutal rhythm of his pelvis slamming against your upturned backside. It was all too much, and not enough, and not nearly enough.

You writhed uncontrollably, pinned on the blade's edge of pleasure as Nanami's fingers dug punishing grooves into your skin. The wet, vulgar slap of his cock pistoning into you drowned out the needy little noises tumbling from your lips.

You could tell Nanami was rapidly approaching his peak by the ragged hitch of his breathing, the increasingly jerky, frantic thrusts of his hips. And yet, even now, he was clearly striving to ensure you came first.

One of his broad palms shifted from its bruising grip on your hip, his calloused fingers finding the swollen nub of your clit and applying just the right amount of pressure. You cried out sharply, vision whiting out at the edges as he stroked you with the perfect mix of friction and gentleness.

"Let go, wildflower," he growled, each harsh syllable vibrating against your overstimulated nerve endings. "Cum for me..."

Then he gave a particularly vicious thrust, his cock bottoming out in your quivering channel. The sudden pressure and fullness combined with the wicked, knowing caress of his fingertips shattered what was left of your fraying restraint.

You came apart at the seams, crying out his name as wave after wave of indescribable pleasure crashed through you. Nanami fucked you through it, drawing out the exquisite sensations for several long moments until your body went lax.

Only then did his tempo shift, growing erratic and choppy. His hips stuttered against your ass once, twice, three times, before he buried himself balls-deep with a ragged groan. The thick heat of his release filled you, leaving you dazed and trembling from the sheer intensity of the encounter.

As you slowly came back to awareness, you registered that Nanami had sagged against you, his large frame still shuddering through the final ripples of release. With a concerted effort, you wriggled against the loosened debris.

That was all the signal he needed. In a seamless, predatory movement, Nanami surged upright. With one hand firmly anchored around your hip and the other braced against the rubble trapping you, he easily lifted your weight to free you.

Then he was tugging you upwards into his arms and claiming your mouth in a searing kiss. It was all teeth and tongue, devouring and dominant. A promise of all the ways he was going to ruin you next.

You shuddered in his arms, eagerly parting your lips beneath the demanding invasion. Your arms wound around his broad shoulders, pulling him closer as his scent and taste overwhelmed you.

"God, I want you," Nanami rasped against your mouth, sounding almost tortured. "Need to be inside you, wildflower. Feel that perfect little cunt squeezing me again."

"Yes," you whimpered, already achingly empty after only a brief respite. "I need you, Kento. Need to feel you..."

"Mine," he all but snarled, the words more beast than man.

In the next breath, Nanami had you pressed against a nearby wall, the rough stone rasping against your exposed curves. He lifted your legs around his hips, his thick cock notching against your swollen entrance.

His mouth crashed down upon yours once more in a savage, bruising kiss as he began driving into you. The thick, unbridled length of his arousal stretching you impossibly full, the sensation overwhelming and intoxicating all at once.

Each hard, possessive thrust drove the breath from your lungs. Your fingernails dug into his muscled back, no doubt leaving angry welts in their wake. Nanami groaned into the kiss, the sound resonating deep in his broad chest and sending electric shivers along your spine.

His hands gripped your ass tight enough to bruise, guiding your hips to meet his punishing rhythm. You couldn't help the breathy gasps that escaped, each exhale seeming to mingle with his ragged breaths.

Your entire world had contracted down to the molten points of connection between your bodies. The feel of his calloused palms searing your bare skin, the heady scent of him enveloping you, the wet, decadent sounds filling the air.

Nanami's forehead dropped to yours, his molten gaze piercing through the lust-haze fogging your senses. "Say it again," he demanded hoarsely, eyes glittering with something raw and fierce. "Say my name."

"Kento," you breathed, the single word seeming to resonate through every nerve ending.

His rhythm grew frenzied, the lewd smack of his hips against your inner thighs echoing throughout the courtyard. You arched into him, fingers fisting desperately in his hair.

"Again," he snarled, nipping at your lower lip. "Tell me whose name you'll be screaming as I fuck you senseless, wildflower."

"Yours, Kento," you gasped, teetering on the edge of another mind-blowing orgasm. "Only yours."

That was all the permission Nanami needed. His thrusts became brutal, the thick length of his cock bottoming out with every punishing stroke. Your entire body quaked, muscles tightening around him.

Then his hand snaked between you, his calloused fingertips finding your swollen clit. That was all it took to send you spiraling over the edge.

You cried out his name, nails raking his broad back as the orgasm ripped through you. Nanami followed shortly after, his teeth sinking into the side of your neck in a savage bite. The sensation sent another wave of blissful tremors shuddering through your system.

You sagged in his arms, utterly boneless as Nanami supported your weight. He was panting heavily, his broad chest pressed against yours as you both came down from the high. You couldn't help the giddy, satisfied smile that curled across your lips.

You tilted your head, meeting his heavy-lidded gaze. "Kento, was that your way of showing me a preview of what's to come?"

His lips twitched, the barest hint of a smile softening his sharp features. "That depends...did you enjoy yourself?"

"Oh, immensely," you murmured, leaning in until your lips were a breath away from his. "But I have a feeling I'll enjoy round two even more."

The low, feral sound Nanami made was all the answer you needed.

[lensman-arms-race]

Tragic AU in which the Skibidis succeed in killing an Alliance Titan... causing an absolute ecological disaster, instantly wiping out the skibidi platoon that felled the Titan and making any gains for the Skibidis a hollow pyrrhic victory. The Titan's death causes its core reactor to melt down and explode violently, killing all life in the vicinity from the shockwave and heat and blast radius of irradiated razor-sharp shrapnel. All the Titan's various coolants and lubricants and other fluids pour out and render the land barren and inhospitable to plant life for decades.

No Skibidi can go anywhere near where the Titan fell. But the inorganic Alliance aren't affected (except emotionally), and build a new base on the site of the Titan's death - of great emotional (perhaps even spiritual) significance and of great strategic importance. Here is where the best of us fell. And still they protect us, even in death.

To the Skibidis the message is clear: you took something precious from us, but you cursed yourselves by destroying your own forces and giving us a place where you cannot touch us and which serves as a rallying beacon for us. And soon we will rain down every agony imaginable upon you.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Imagine this: It’s exactly one year from today, Memorial Day weekend, 2025. It’s 94 degrees in the shade, but the fact that the world keeps shattering monthly temperature records isn’t even making the news — and that’s not what has Philadelphians so hot and bothered. It’s been about two months since Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States, announced Operation Purify America in an Oval Office address, and about a week since a stunned Philadelphia watched an endless convoy of militarized vehicles and federalized troops from the Texas and South Dakota National Guards roll up I-95. After a week of setting up a base camp at the Air National Guard base in Horsham, the actual operation began at midnight the day before, as a parade of Humvees and armored personal carriers cornered off a wide area in Philadelphia’s Hunting Park section and supported federal immigration agents who went door-to-door in the predawn chaos, bursting into homes and asking Latino residents for their papers. Journalists who’d been kept blocks away by the troops now search for anyone who could confirm the rumors of screaming, scuffling, and dozens of arrests. As the hot sun rises, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, Gov. Josh Shapiro, and several hundred angry protesters gather outside the Horsham gate to denounce the raids. A phalanx of helmeted troops pushes the throng back, firing tear gas to clear the road for the first busload of detained migrants. They are bound for the hastily erected Camp Liberty, an already overcrowded and decrepit holding center on the Texas-Mexico border that Amnesty International calls “a concentration camp.” This might sound like a page from the script of Alex Garland’s next near-future dystopian movie, but it’s actually a realistic preview of the America Trump himself, his cartoonishly sinister immigration guru Stephen Miller, and the right-wing functionaries crafting the 900-page blueprint for a Trump 47 presidency called Project 2025 are fervently wishing for. As polls show Trump in a dead heat nationally with President Joe Biden, and poised to win at least some of the battleground states where Biden was victorious in 2020, the presumptive GOP nominee is making no secret of his scheme for what he calls “the Largest Domestic Deportation Operation in History.” The audacious goal of tracking down and deporting all 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living and working within the United States is, experts agree, all but impossible. But even the forced removal of hundreds of thousands, or one million, would require a massive internal military operation on a scale not seen since the Civil War and Reconstruction. [...] What’s changed in 2024? Everything. Despite the Hannibal Lecter-ized outward chaos of Trump’s rallies, behind the scenes, Team Trump is focused and determined not only to name the most rabid Trump loyalists to key political posts but also todramatically strip civil service protections andremove recalcitrant midlevel government employees. And this time around, Republicans in Congress are going to be on board with whatever Trump wants. [...] It was somewhat amazing to watch the furious debate online and on cable news this week over the weird incident in which small text about a “unified Reich” found its way into a Trump promo video the ex-and-wannabe president posted on Truth Social. The perplexing part, for me, is that this was discussed as some kind of Sherlock-Holmes-magnifying-glass a-ha moment, revealing Trump’s secret plan for Nazi-style rule. Folks, he is screaming his plan out loud at his rallies! The Trump deportation scheme is really Trump’s blueprint for dictatorship.

Will Bunch at The Philadelphia Inquirer on how Donald Trump's proposed deportation plan is a pretext for a fascist MAGA dictatorship (05.23.2024).

Will Bunch nails it in this Philly Inquirer column on how Donald Trump's fascistic plan for mass deportations is a speed-run for a MAGA dictatorship.

[south-of-heaven]

could I request something where Trish and lita like return to wwe to wrestle with the reader or to protect the reader from someone

Time to rock & roll || Trish Stratus x Reader

Summary: Damage Ctrl have ganged up on you in the rumble. Not for much longer though.

The Royal Rumble is in full swing, the chaos and excitement filling the arena. You're holding your own in the ring, but suddenly, the odds turn against you. The members of Damage CTRL have ganged up, isolating you with no support in sight.

You're grappling with the situation, trying to fend off the relentless attacks, when the countdown for the next entrant begins. The anticipation in the air is palpable. With each second, hope builds that the new entrant might tip the scales in your favor.

Suddenly, the arena erupts with the familiar strains of Trish Stratus's entrance music. The crowd roars as she makes her way down the ramp, running full speed to get to the ring. The atmosphere shifts as her presence electrifies the audience.

Trish slides into the ring, and a collective gasp ripples through the crowd. The members of Damage CTRL pause, momentarily taken aback by the sudden turn of events. Trish wastes no time; she goes on the offensive, unleashing a flurry of strikes that scatter your assailants.

You lock eyes with Trish, gratitude and determination reflected in both your gazes. The tide has turned, and together, you and Trish stand against Damage CTRL. The audience cheers, rallying behind the unexpected alliance.

The ring becomes a battleground, but with Trish by your side, the odds are no longer insurmountable. The two of you weave through the chaos, eliminating opponents one by one. The cheers from the crowd grow louder with each elimination, their support echoing through the arena.

As the final entrant makes their way to the ring, the damage is done. You and Trish stand tall, victorious against the odds. The crowd erupts into cheers and applause, celebrating the resilience and teamwork displayed in the face of adversity.

Trish extends a hand to you, a silent acknowledgment of the bond forged in the heat of battle. Together, you both share a moment of triumph, proving that even in the unpredictable chaos of the Royal Rumble, allies can emerge when you need them most.

[tomorrowusa]

This is a good idea...

Ban fossil fuel ads to save climate, says UN chief

Tobacco ads were banned on TV and radio in the early 1970s in the United States. That began a process of denormalization of tobacco which has continued in the years since then.

Climate change likely played a role in India's national election.

The hidden story behind India’s remarkable election results: lethal heat

The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), led by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has won more seats than the opposition alliance, and yet its victory tastes of defeat. Why? In the days leading to the election, the BJP’s main slogan had been Abki baar, 400 Paar, a call to voters to send more than 400 of its candidates to the 543-member parliament. This slogan, voiced by Modi at his campaign rallies, set a high bar for the party. Most exit polls had predicted a massive victory for the BJP – and now the results, with that party having won only 240 seats, suggest that the electorate has sent a chastening message to the ruling party and trimmed its hubris. [ ... ] People in Patna voted on 1 June, the last day of the seven-phase polling schedule. In Patna, the temperature had hovered above 40C. Local newspapers carried government ads exhorting voters to exercise their franchise, as well as half-page ads from the health ministry offering advice about how to avoid heatstroke. In the days leading to the voting in Patna, there were reports of personnel at polling stations dying from the heat. In the nation’s capital, Delhi, there were protests over water shortages. Last week, the temperature in Delhi hit 49.9C.

For the Celsius-challenged, 49.9° C = 121.8° F. That's just 0.2° F short of the all time record high temperature in Phoenix, Arizona which reputedly has "dry" heat.

As it turned out the ruling BJP did win the election but will be able to govern only with the help of electoral allies. The BJP had been boasting about getting 400 seats in the 543 seat Lok Sabha - the lower house of parliament. It ended up with just 240 with its allies winning 53 for a total of 293 seats. It is a modest working majority but is way down from the 353 seats won by the BJP & allies in the previous election.

Climate was certainly not the only issue in the election but experiencing a severe heat wave in which people were dropping dead at polling places is bound to have an impact. Politicians in India may now be more open to moving away from fossil fuels. The opposition would be wise to make climate change a bigger issue.