#web environment integrity

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Autoenshittification

Forget F1: the only car race that matters now is the race to turn your car into a digital extraction machine, a high-speed inkjet printer on wheels, stealing your private data as it picks your pocket. Your car’s digital infrastructure is a costly, dangerous nightmare — but for automakers in pursuit of postcapitalist utopia, it’s a dream they can’t give up on.

Your car is stuffed full of microchips, a fact the world came to appreciate after the pandemic struck and auto production ground to a halt due to chip shortages. Of course, that wasn’t the whole story: when the pandemic started, the automakers panicked and canceled their chip orders, only to immediately regret that decision and place new orders.

But it was too late: semiconductor production had taken a serious body-blow, and when Big Car placed its new chip orders, it went to the back of a long, slow-moving line. It was a catastrophic bungle: microchips are so integral to car production that a car is basically a computer network on wheels that you stick your fragile human body into and pray.

The car manufacturers got so desperate for chips that they started buying up washing machines for the microchips in them, extracting the chips and discarding the washing machines like some absurdo-dystopian cyberpunk walnut-shelling machine:

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/desperate-times-companies-buy-washing-machines-just-to-rip-out-the-chips-187033.html

These digital systems are a huge problem for the car companies. They are the underlying cause of a precipitous decline in car quality. From touch-based digital door-locks to networked sensors and cameras, every digital system in your car is a source of endless repair nightmares, costly recalls and cybersecurity vulnerabilities:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/quality-new-vehicles-us-declining-more-tech-use-study-shows-2023-06-22/

What’s more, drivers hate all the digital bullshit, from the janky touchscreens to the shitty, wildly insecure apps. Digital systems are drivers’ most significant point of dissatisfaction with the automakers’ products:

https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-satisifaction-survey-jd-power

Even the automakers sorta-kinda admit that this is a problem. Back in 2020 when Massachusetts was having a Right-to-Repair ballot initiative, Big Car ran these unfuckingbelievable scare ads that basically said, “Your car spies on you so comprehensively that giving anyone else access to its systems will let murderers stalk you to your home and kill you:

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

But even amid all the complaining about cars getting stuck in the Internet of Shit, there’s still not much discussion of why the car-makers are making their products less attractive, less reliable, less safe, and less resilient by stuffing them full of microchips. Are car execs just the latest generation of rubes who’ve been suckered by Silicon Valley bullshit and convinced that apps are a magic path to profitability?

Nope. Car execs are sophisticated businesspeople, and they’re surfing capitalism’s latest — and last — hot trend: dismantling capitalism itself.

Now, leftists have been predicting the death of capitalism since The Communist Manifesto, but even Marx and Engels warned us not to get too frisky: capitalism, they wrote, is endlessly creative, constantly reinventing itself, re-emerging from each crisis in a new form that is perfectly adapted to the post-crisis reality:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html

But capitalism has finally run out of gas. In his forthcoming book, Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis proposes that capitalism has died — but it wasn’t replaced by socialism. Rather, capitalism has given way to feudalism:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279

Under capitalism, capital is the prime mover. The people who own and mobilize capital — the capitalists — organize the economy and take the lion’s share of its returns. But it wasn’t always this way: for hundreds of years, European civilization was dominated by rents, not markets.

A “rent” is income that you get from owning something that other people need to produce value. Think of renting out a house you own: not only do you get paid when someone pays you to live there, you also get the benefit of rising property values, which are the result of the work that all the other homeowners, business owners, and residents do to make the neighborhood more valuable.

The first capitalists hated rent. They wanted to replace the “passive income” that landowners got from taxing their serfs’ harvest with active income from enclosing those lands and grazing sheep in order to get wool to feed to the new textile mills. They wanted active income — and lots of it.

Capitalist philosophers railed against rent. The “free market” of Adam Smith wasn’t a market that was free from regulation — it was a market free from rents. The reason Smith railed against monopolists is because he (correctly) understood that once a monopoly emerged, it would become a chokepoint through which a rentier could cream off the profits he considered the capitalist’s due:

https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/

Today, we live in a rentier’s paradise. People don’t aspire to create value — they aspire to capture it. In Survival of the Richest, Doug Rushkoff calls this “going meta”: don’t provide a service, just figure out a way to interpose yourself between the provider and the customer:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Don’t drive a cab, create Uber and extract value from every driver and rider. Better still: don’t found Uber, invest in Uber options and extract value from the people who invest in Uber. Even better, invest in derivatives of Uber options and extract value from people extracting value from people investing in Uber, who extract value from drivers and riders. Go meta.

This is your brain on the four-hour-work-week, passive income mind-virus. In Techno Feudalism, Varoufakis deftly describes how the new “Cloud Capital” has created a new generation of rentiers, and how they have become the richest, most powerful people in human history.

Shopping at Amazon is like visiting a bustling city center full of stores — but each of those stores’ owners has to pay the majority of every sale to a feudal landlord, Emperor Jeff Bezos, who also decides which goods they can sell and where they must appear on the shelves. Amazon is full of capitalists, but it is not a capitalist enterprise. It’s a feudal one:

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

This is the reason that automakers are willing to enshittify their products so comprehensively: they were one of the first industries to decouple rents from profits. Recall that the reason that Big Car needed billions in bailouts in 2008 is that they’d reinvented themselves as loan-sharks who incidentally made cars, lending money to car-buyers and then “securitizing” the loans so they could be traded in the capital markets.

Even though this strategy brought the car companies to the brink of ruin, it paid off in the long run. The car makers got billions in public money, paid their execs massive bonuses, gave billions to shareholders in buybacks and dividends, smashed their unions, fucked their pensioned workers, and shipped jobs anywhere they could pollute and murder their workforce with impunity.

Car companies are on the forefront of postcapitalism, and they understand that digital is the key to rent-extraction. Remember when BMW announced that it was going to rent you the seatwarmer in your own fucking car?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers

Not to be outdone, Mercedes announced that they were going to rent you your car’s accelerator pedal, charging an extra $1200/year to unlock a fully functional acceleration curve:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price

This is the urinary tract infection business model: without digitization, all your car’s value flowed in a healthy stream. But once the car-makers add semiconductors, each one of those features comes out in a painful, burning dribble, with every button on that fakakta touchscreen wired directly into your credit-card.

But it’s just for starters. Computers are malleable. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing Complete Von Neumann Machine, which can run every program we know how to write. Once they add networked computers to your car, the Car Lords can endlessly twiddle the knobs on the back end, finding new ways to extract value from you:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

That means that your car can track your every movement, and sell your location data to anyone and everyone, from marketers to bounty-hunters looking to collect fees for tracking down people who travel out of state for abortions to cops to foreign spies:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7enex/tool-shows-if-car-selling-data-privacy4cars-vehicle-privacy-report

Digitization supercharges financialization. It lets car-makers offer subprime auto-loans to desperate, poor people and then killswitch their cars if they miss a payment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s

Subprime lending for cars would be a terrible business without computers, but digitization makes it a great source of feudal rents. Car dealers can originate loans to people with teaser rates that quickly blow up into payments the dealer knows their customer can’t afford. Then they repo the car and sell it to another desperate person, and another, and another:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/27/boricua/#looking-for-the-joke-with-a-microscope

Digitization also opens up more exotic options. Some subprime cars have secondary control systems wired into their entertainment system: miss a payment and your car radio flips to full volume and bellows an unstoppable, unmutable stream of threats. Tesla does one better: your car will lock and immobilize itself, then blare its horn and back out of its parking spot when the repo man arrives:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

Digital feudalism hasn’t stopped innovating — it’s just stopped innovating good things. The digital device is an endless source of sadistic novelties, like the cellphones that disable your most-used app the first day you’re late on a payment, then work their way down the other apps you rely on for every day you’re late:

https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/

Usurers have always relied on this kind of imaginative intimidation. The loan-shark’s arm-breaker knows you’re never going to get off the hook; his goal is in intimidating you into paying his boss first, liquidating your house and your kid’s college fund and your wedding ring before you default and he throws you off a building.

Thanks to the malleability of computerized systems, digital arm-breakers have an endless array of options they can deploy to motivate you into paying them first, no matter what it costs you:

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

Car-makers are trailblazers in imaginative rent-extraction. Take VIN-locking: this is the practice of adding cheap microchips to engine components that communicate with the car’s overall network. After a new part is installed in your car, your car’s computer does a complex cryptographic handshake with the part that requires an unlock code provided by an authorized technician. If the code isn’t entered, the car refuses to use that part.

VIN-locking has exploded in popularity. It’s in your iPhone, preventing you from using refurb or third-party replacement parts:

https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13

It’s in fuckin’ ventilators, which was a nightmare during lockdown as hospital techs nursed their precious ventilators along by swapping parts from dead systems into serviceable ones:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-ventilators-with-diy-dongles-from-poland

And of course, it’s in tractors, along with other forms of remote killswitch. Remember that feelgood story about John Deere bricking the looted Ukrainian tractors whose snitch-chips showed they’d been relocated to Russia?

https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8

That wasn’t a happy story — it was a cautionary tale. After all, John Deere now controls the majority of the world’s agricultural future, and they’ve boobytrapped those ubiquitous tractors with killswitches that can be activated by anyone who hacks, takes over, or suborns Deere or its dealerships.

Control over repair isn’t limited to gouging customers on parts and service. When a company gets to decide whether your device can be fixed, it can fuck you over in all kinds of ways. Back in 2019, Tim Apple told his shareholders to expect lower revenues because people were opting to fix their phones rather than replace them:

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/

By usurping your right to decide who fixes your phone, Apple gets to decide whether you can fix it, or whether you must replace it. Problem solved — and not just for Apple, but for car makers, tractor makers, ventilator makers and more. Apple leads on this, even ahead of Big Car, pioneering a “recycling” program that sees trade-in phones shredded so they can’t possibly be diverted from an e-waste dump and mined for parts:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks

John Deere isn’t sleeping on this. They’ve come up with a valuable treasure they extract when they win the Right-to-Repair: Deere singles out farmers who complain about its policies and refuses to repair their tractors, stranding them with six-figure, two-ton paperweight:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

The repair wars are just a skirmish in a vast, invisible fight that’s been waged for decades: the War On General-Purpose Computing, where tech companies use the law to make it illegal for you to reconfigure your devices so they serve you, rather than their shareholders:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

The force behind this army is vast and grows larger every day. General purpose computers are antithetical to technofeudalism — all the rents extracted by technofeudalists would go away if others (tinkereres, co-ops, even capitalists!) were allowed to reconfigure our devices so they serve us.

You’ve probably noticed the skirmishes with inkjet printer makers, who can only force you to buy their ink at 20,000% markups if they can stop you from deciding how your printer is configured:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty But we’re also fighting against insulin pump makers, who want to turn people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/10/loopers/#hp-ification

And companies that make powered wheelchairs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/08/chair-ish/#r2r

These companies start with people who have the least agency and social power and wreck their lives, then work their way up the privilege gradient, coming for everyone else. It’s called the “shitty technology adoption curve”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

Technofeudalism is the public-private-partnership from hell, emerging from a combination of state and private action. On the one hand, bailing out bankers and big business (rather than workers) after the 2008 crash and the covid lockdown decoupled income from profits. Companies spent billions more than they earned were still wildly profitable, thanks to those public funds.

But there’s also a policy dimension here. Some of those rentiers’ billions were mobilized to both deconstruct antitrust law (allowing bigger and bigger companies and cartels) and to expand “IP” law, turning “IP” into a toolsuite for controlling the conduct of a firm’s competitors, critics and customers:

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

IP is key to understanding the rise of technofeudalism. The same malleability that allows companies to “twiddle” the knobs on their services and keep us on the hook as they reel us in would hypothetically allow us to countertwiddle, seizing the means of computation:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

The thing that stands between you and an alternative app store, an interoperable social media network that you can escape to while continuing to message the friends you left behind, or a car that anyone can fix or unlock features for is IP, not technology. Under capitalism, that technology would already exist, because capitalists have no loyalty to one another and view each other’s margins as their own opportunities.

But under technofeudalism, control comes from rents (owning things), not profits (selling things). The capitalist who wants to participate in your iPhone’s “ecosystem” has to make apps and submit them to Apple, along with 30% of their lifetime revenues — they don’t get to sell you jailbreaking kit that lets you choose their app store.

Rent-seeking technology has a holy grail: control over “ring zero” — the ability to compel you to configure your computer to a feudalist’s specifications, and to verify that you haven’t altered your computer after it came into your possession:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/ring-minus-one/#drm-political-economy

For more than two decades, various would-be feudal lords and their court sorcerers have been pitching ways of doing this, of varying degrees of outlandishness.

At core, here’s what they envision: inside your computer, they will nest another computer, one that is designed to run a very simple set of programs, none of which can be altered once it leaves the factory. This computer — either a whole separate chip called a “Trusted Platform Module” or a region of your main processor called a secure enclave — can tally observations about your computer: which operating system, modules and programs it’s running.

Then it can cryptographically “sign” these observations, proving that they were made by a secure chip and not by something you could have modified. Then you can send this signed “attestation” to someone else, who can use it to determine how your computer is configured and thus whether to trust it. This is called “remote attestation.”

There are some cool things you can do with remote attestation: for example, two strangers playing a networked video game together can use attestations to make sure neither is running any cheat modules. Or you could require your cloud computing provider to use attestations that they aren’t stealing your data from the server you’re renting. Or if you suspect that your computer has been infected with malware, you can connect to someone else and send them an attestation that they can use to figure out whether you should trust it.

Today, there’s a cool remote attestation technology called “PrivacyPass” that replaces CAPTCHAs by having you prove to your own device that you are a human. When a server wants to make sure you’re a person, it sends a random number to your device, which signs that number along with its promise that it is acting on behalf of a human being, and sends it back. CAPTCHAs are all kinds of bad — bad for accessibility and privacy — and this is really great.

But the billions that have been thrown at remote attestation over the decades is only incidentally about solving CAPTCHAs or verifying your cloud server. The holy grail here is being able to make sure that you’re not running an ad-blocker. It’s being able to remotely verify that you haven’t disabled the bossware your employer requires. It’s the power to block someone from opening an Office365 doc with LibreOffice. It’s your boss’s ability to ensure that you haven’t modified your messaging client to disable disappearing messages before he sends you an auto-destructing memo ordering you to break the law.

And there’s a new remote attestation technology making the rounds: Google’s Web Environment Integrity, which will leverage Google’s dominance over browsers to allow websites to block users who run ad-blockers:

https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity

There’s plenty else WEI can do (it would make detecting ad-fraud much easier), but for every legitimate use, there are a hundred ways this could be abused. It’s a technology purpose-built to allow rent extraction by stripping us of our right to technological self-determination.

Releasing a technology like this into a world where companies are willing to make their products less reliable, less attractive, less safe and less resilient in pursuit of rents is incredibly reckless and shortsighted. You want unauthorized bread? This is how you get Unauthorized Bread:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/amp/

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

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

[Image ID: The interior of a luxury car. There is a dagger protruding from the steering wheel. The entertainment console has been replaced by the text 'You wouldn't download a car,' in MPAA scare-ad font. Outside of the windscreen looms the Matrix waterfall effect. Visible in the rear- and side-view mirror is the driver: the figure from Munch's 'Scream.' The screen behind the steering-wheel has been replaced by the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.']

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

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

[autolenaphilia]

Fuck.

Mozilla is strongly against it.

[werewolf-kat]

How can Google's decisions for Chrome get any WORSE? What on earth is this?!

The gist: Google wants to implement a "feature" for website owners/developers to be selective on who can see their website. These devs (or their malicious higher-ups) could block out or limit Firefox users, Safari users, open source or indie browsers, etc. from their website; and worst of all, they could block or limit as far as the device you use.

Major concerns:

How can people even WANT this other than corrupt companies trying to force competing users to tediously go through the needed hoops to access the website? There's already the web design standard of optimizing load times to be welcoming for visitors. This ain't going to encourage anyone to have interest in your website (or its company by extension). It really will be a test of consumer trust.

Worryingly, lazy or more apathetic web developers might use this to dance around compatibility challenges in their websites. I've seen my fair share of these types of devs in the community who take the frustration of browser compatibilities too far. They're a minority (thankfully, seen in the video is the Chrome repository getting completely flooded with criticisms). But, yeah, pro-tip to web developers: Learn to prioritize the layout and order of your content in plain HTML first before you jump into design. And then build the CSS from there in a "ranking" of completely compatible with all browsers, to less compatibilities. So you can manage and keep track of how your site will look on anything out there.

The sheer fear and worry for accessibility in web design that I'm feeling from this, man. Again, it's not just browsers... Malicious entities making decisions for websites could block out or further limit accessibility devices (if they're counted) because of the extra work that comes with ensuring a website is accessible to a wide range of disabled or impaired users. I can't fully tell if screen reader software could somehow get affected, but who knows how far Google will want to go in this nightmare of a proposal.

Read more on this situation:

"It is also interesting to note that the first use case listed is about ensuring that interactions with ads are genuine. While this is not problematic on the surface, it certainly hints at the idea that Google is willing to use any means of bolstering its advertising platform, regardless of the potential harm to the users of the web."

Vivaldi Article

||

"The proposal threatens the free and open internet in a number of ways, but one of the biggest revolves around the fact that should there be a central server that attests to whether a browser can be trusted or not, it means that anything non-standard will not be trusted. In other words, new browsers would not be trusted, and legacy software would no longer be able to access much of the internet after a certain length of time. Given that it verifies the integrity of the browser, it could also technically block certain extensions (such as Adblock) if Google were to go down that route."

XDA Developers

||

"What makes the fingerprinting process somewhat insidious is that, unlike web cookies, no residue is left on a user’s computer – everything can be stored in the cloud. The fingerprint data can be collected even if users run private or incognito browsing sessions. Worse yet, each user’s fingerprint can be shared across websites without the user’s knowledge."

Silicon Angle

[amphobet]

Google's trying to DRM the internet, and we have to make sure they fail

[computer-coder134]

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[bimicujoc]

Netbeans mode d emploi

tion d'une application Java avec NetBeans · choisissez File > New Project (Maj-Ctrl-N) . · dans la boite de dialogue pour la création de nouveaux projets qui

Création d'une classe Java avec NetBeans. 2.1 Découvrir le mode debug . Travail en équipe : intégration avec Git .

Table des matières · 2. Débogage d'une application grâce à NetBeans. 2.1 Découvrir le mode debug; 2.2 Apprendre les notions importantes · 3. Capacités de

Des tâches Ant sont utilisées pour configurer l'environnement de travail, ainsi que pour construire et déployer les projets de l'application.

Oracle NetBeans IDE est le moyen le plus intelligent et le plus rapide de coder. d'applications avec des technologies de pointe prêtes à l'emploi.

</p><br>https://bimicujoc.tumblr.com/post/693898159787753472/javelin-pdf-reader, https://bimicujoc.tumblr.com/post/693897201619009536/samsung-galaxy-s4-active-mode-demploi-iphone, https://mifobepeni.tumblr.com/post/693899268776443904/mode-demploi-samsung-j4-plus, https://bimicujoc.tumblr.com/post/693897068922683392/uritest-2-mode-demploi-pour-ps4-download-link, https://bimicujoc.tumblr.com/post/693897201619009536/samsung-galaxy-s4-active-mode-demploi-iphone.

[codingquill]

Essentials You Need to Become a Web Developer

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Mastery

Text Editor/Integrated Development Environment (IDE): Popular choices include Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text.

Version Control/Git: Platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket allow you to track changes, collaborate with others, and contribute to open-source projects.

Responsive Web Design Skills: Learn CSS frameworks like Bootstrap or Flexbox and master media queries

Understanding of Web Browsers: Familiarize yourself with browser developer tools for debugging and testing your code.

Front-End Frameworks: for example : React, Angular, or Vue.js are powerful tools for building dynamic and interactive web applications.

Back-End Development Skills: Understanding server-side programming languages (e.g., Node.js, Python, Ruby , php) and databases (e.g., MySQL, MongoDB)

Web Hosting and Deployment Knowledge: Platforms like Heroku, Vercel , Netlify, or AWS can help simplify this process.

Basic DevOps and CI/CD Understanding

Soft Skills and Problem-Solving: Effective communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills

Confidence in Yourself: Confidence is a powerful asset. Believe in your abilities, and don't be afraid to take on challenging projects. The more you trust yourself, the more you'll be able to tackle complex coding tasks and overcome obstacles with determination.

[morallyinept]

NOBODY WANTS TO BE ALONE ON CHRISTMAS - A Javier Peña Christmas One Shot

Summary: You discover your boss Javi will be spending the night alone, working on the cartel case on Christmas Eve, so you extend a kind offer for him to join you for some Christmas dinner.

Pairing: Javier Pena x F!Reader (No name or physical description of reader. It’s you, bub.)

Word Count: 6.1k

Scoville Smut Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ "You tell me I'm doing well, and then, you try to kill me."

Check out my Scoville Smut Ratings here.

Warnings/triggers - Unprotected PIV (wrap up, folks)/oral M receiving/fingering.

NSFW. MINORS DNI! OVER 18’s ONLY. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU READ. ☝🏻Don’t come at me; you’ve been plenty warned.

If this story isn't for you, that's fine. Just slip quietly out the back door. No need to make a fuss. It's just a work of fiction.

Author’s Note: There's some sexy Javi Spanish, not a lot, so I've not provided translations. Feliz Navidad!

12 DAYS OF XXX-MAS MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST

Enjoy & Happy Holidays! 🎄🖤

The yellowing fluorescent lights overhead cast a slightly harsh glow on the worn-out carpet that covers the office floor.

The colour, once a muted gray, bears the marks of countless footsteps and the occasional coffee spill.

The desks, a mishmash of transient styles, are strewn with stacks of files, half-empty coffee mugs, and a scattering of outdated office supplies, like typewriter ribbons and correctional fluid.

The air carries the distinct scent of freshly brewed Colombian coffee, a constant companion in the war rooms of the DEA office. Agents huddle around a communal pot, exchanging quick greetings and nods as they fuel up for the next round of investigations.

The walls are plastered with maps and charts tracking drug routes and cartel activities. Bulletin boards are covered with Polaroid pictures of suspects, illustrating the intricate web of criminal connections in Cali.

The faint hum of dial-up internet connections emanate from the few computers scattered around the office. The whirr of dot matrix printers echo intermittently, producing reports that will become integral parts of the ongoing investigations.

The agents, clad in power suits and shoulder-padded blazers work with a sense of determination etched on their faces. The sounds of phones ringing and typewriters clacking provide a constant background symphony, underscoring the urgency of their mission.

The office's ambiance is further accentuated by the occasional chatter in both English and Spanish, a linguistic blend reflective of the team's diverse composition.

Agents move purposefully between desks, exchanging information in hushed tones. The dated computer terminals emit a soft hum as agents navigate through databases filled with information on known traffickers and cartel activities. 

In the midst of this utilitarian environment stands a small potted Christmas tree, perched on the edge of the desk of Javier Peña.

Placed there as a tiresome joke, created by the junior agents during a rare lighthearted moment he suspects, adding a touch of personal flair to the otherwise stern atmosphere.

He’s pushed it off his desk twice now and it keeps reappearing, a constant reminder of his own inward dismay for this time of year.

You glance at him over the top of your screen, hard not to on the regular, seeing as your desk is placed directly opposite his, your back to the window. Not a strategic decision but one you're thankful for when his dark cocoa bean eyes meet yours. 

As Javier focuses on decoding messages or delving into the intricacies of ongoing investigations at his computer, that he types really slow on, tapping laboriously on the keys, his eyes will inevitably wander to the window.

There, amidst the rain-streaked glass and the rhythmic dance of palm leaves, he’ll always find you diligently working at your desk. Your concentration, juxtaposed against the vibrant outdoor scenery, often draws his attention. 

In those fleeting moments, as your eyes lock across the narrow expanse of the office, the intensity of your work seems to momentarily fade away, replaced by an unspoken connection that hints at something beyond the professional facade.

It isn't just the shared pursuit of justice that binds you to Javier; it’s the exchange of glances, the uncharted territory of emotions that simmer beneath the surface.

At least on your part anyway.

Harbouring an attraction to your boss isn’t a wise move. A move that you’ve sat on relentlessly, trying to squash it into the soft foam of your office chair ever since you were transferred from the archives to real administration work in a real investigations office.

Javier is indifferent to you, looks upon with you a less-than-impressed, resting bitch face, but you’ve soon learned it’s the way his features have been moulded after years of chasing down hardened criminals in the dangerous territories this country harbours.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen him smile.

But he always holds your gaze, far longer than you suspect he should. Just lingering looks that neither of you spiral into a verbal acknowledgement.

You bring him coffee with his reports on occasion, always making one for him when you get one for yourself; another unspoken routine you’ve found yourselves waltzing in. You know he needs at least three cups in the morning to function before the computer is even switched on. 

You feel the gravitational pull of these unspoken moments. As you diligently work on your assignments, your eyes instinctively drift towards Javier's desk; a magnetised shift as you meet his eyes lancing back at you and you allow yourself to believe it could be a look of want, of some coveted desire he has for you as you squeeze your thighs together during the heated exchanges. 

But of course, that’s wishful thinking.

You know that your crush is a pointless endeavour with no viable outcome. Javier Peña’s reputation precedes him. You’ve heard whispers from the team about the hookers in downtown Bogotá, even if they leave a heavy weight of disappointment and longing in your stomach.

Plus, there is that mantra of not shitting where you eat.

As the agents prepare for the holidays, Christmas Eve being where you find yourself, tapping away on your keyboard at a productive speed of seventy WPM, compared to Javier’s eight WPM - you know, you’ve counted - the potted Christmas tree standing lackadaisical on his desk serves not only as a festive ornament, but also as a reminder that even in the heart of a demanding and dangerous mission, camaraderie and the spirit of the season can find a place, however small, in the DEA office in Colombia.

Plans are exchanged and shared as your colleagues speak of them later on when they’ll clock off. 

"I'm taking the kids to see the Christmas lights downtown. They've been pestering me about it for weeks." One says.

Another chimes in, "I'm heading to my parents' house for a big family gathering. It's chaotic, but I love it."

As the discussions continue like billowy rain clouds drifting around, Javier remains at his desk, seemingly engrossed in his work and you notice his obvious disengagement from the holiday chatter ebbing around him.

One of them dares to direct a comment towards him. “Plans, boss?”

Javier shakes his head and you’re certain you can hear a grunt. “Work. Something you clearly don’t understand the concept of, Ramirez.” 

It’s enough to bring the team to an awkward hush as they settle back behind their screens murmuring to themselves indistinctly. 

And the thought gnaws at you throughout the remainder of the day. The thought of Javier spending Christmas eve in the office alone, powering through, as the light from outside dims and he works by eventual lamplight on his desk.

You’ve seen it before, coming in the following morning to see him blinking tiredly into the stacks of paperwork that often drown him on his desk out of your view completely. 

He’s known for practically living in the office like a hermit when he’s not out in the tacvest taking on the cartel's head first, or seeking solace in some hooker's cleavage, if you’re to believe those rumours that buzz around like flies over a festering pile of shit.

And that gnawing thought starts to bite harder in the late afternoon.

Hard enough for you to try and soothe the shredded skin around your nails having bitten at them for most of the day, as you find yourself hovering over his desk a little longer after gathering completed files for you to alphabetise. 

He doesn’t look up at you, even though your shadow is still in his peripherals. The scent of him this close is intoxicating. Tobacco and a faint note of whiskey from the bottle you know he keeps in his drawer.

A swilling musk of sweat; the climate at this time of year is tropical and it ruminates inside the ill fitting jacket of his beige suit. A slight glean of it runs tracks down his throat and you lick your lips, trying not to focus on it too much as he swallows.  

“Señor Peña-”

“Javi.” He corrects bluntly. 

“-I couldn’t help but overhear you don’t have any plans for Christmas.” You begin, tactfully, keeping your voice low.

Javi finally glances up, a stoic expression on his face, "I'll be working. The case needs my attention."

“Surely it can wait for one evening?” You sway. “I’m sure the cartels will be celebrating and making merry. You should have a break, sir. It’s Christmas.”

“Just another day,” he swallows grittily.

The atmosphere in the office seems to thicken with a sudden tension. Javier, known for his abrupt stoicism, can't hide the defensive edge in his voice.

You sigh and gather the files in your arms. “You’re welcome at my place, if you want. A bit of dinner?”

"Christmas dinner? Mierda.” He scoffs. “You trying to play the good samaritan or something?" Javier says, his tone edging with a hint of spite.

His eyes, usually stern, carry an unusual flicker of irritation as they darken. “Did I miss the memo that we're suddenly one big, happy family in this office?”

You clock your colleagues, now silent and peering over their screens at the spectacle.

Javier, leaning back in his chair, retorts, "save the Hallmark moments. I'm perfectly capable of spending Christmas alone. I don't need company, especially not from someone who doesn't know when to mind their own business."

Your expression holds a mix of hurt and determination. "This isn't about charity, Señor Peña-” 

“Javi.” He corrects again with gritted teeth. 

“-We're a team, aren't we?"

Maintaining his composure, he brushes off the suggestion.

"Team or not, I don't need or want your pity, cariño. I've got work to do. And so do you." He stares up at you with a silent fury venting from his dark eyes.

You bite down on the inside of your cheek.

“It’s not pity.” You correct, stepping away; cheeks burning up with some humiliation brewing.

He watches you leave towards the file room, and tosses a glare at the others who immediately begin tapping and working again.

Growling inwardly, he shoves the potted Christmas tree off his desk again and hears it topple to the floor. 

The empty office seems to echo with the ghosts of the day's activities, the remnants of conversations and shared jovial laughter hanging in the air to taunt him long after you’re all gone.

Javi is sitting alone, the harsh glow of his desk lamp casting shadows across his caramel skin and making his eyeballs ache.

His long fingers trace the edge of the whiskey glass, each sip a bitter reminder of the solitude he’s chosen. The rain outside, a constant drizzle against the windowpane, mirrors the melancholy that settles within his chest. 

His thoughts drift towards you, your invitation lingering like an unanswered question in the quiet room.

The disappointment and hurt swelling in the moisture of your eyes as he fired venom and hostility at your attempt at festive kindness. He knows it wasn't pity you offered, not really.

It’s in the coffee you always have made for him in the mornings that's just the right amount of rich and sweet, despite being from a cheap packet.

Your good nature, although grating at times, is what he secretly finds admirable about you - you care.

It's the care in your work, the attention to detail. The care in your questioning of your colleagues’ weekends and how you listen, hanging on their every word with bright curious eyes.

As he sips the whiskey, the amber liquid burns with a bitterness that seems to match the regret pooling in his chest. The files on his desk, once symbols of purpose, now feel like burdens, heavy with the weight of his own inane stubbornness.

He can't shake the feeling that he's missed out on something important here, a chance for a connection that has slipped through his fingers.

The loneliness presses in on him, and for the first time, Javi questions the walls he has built around himself. The whiskey, usually a numbing agent, now accentuates the ache of regret. He finds himself replaying the words he’d spoken to you, realising the rooted cruelty of his own defences. 

The night unfolds slowly, the hands of the clock ticking away the minutes as Javi works through unrelenting paperwork.

In the quiet solitude, his thoughts mutate into a tempest of introspection. Your words batter his skull, your face.

He glances up at your desk and you’re not there, looking back at him and feeling his chest and loins alike filling with a tightness that aches.

The rhythmic tap of raindrops against the window becomes a thundering metronome. Filling his mind with flashes of your naked body pressed against his, the sound of your pleads and gasps filling him up as he fills you with himself.

Growls at the ache hardening between his legs, growling at his own stupidity, feeling a lifeline he's let slip away. 

He glances around the empty office, the shadows dancing along the walls like phantoms of missed chances, beacons of potential connection.

His silhouette and yours, fucking in every position known to him, and Javi growls.

The weight of his own words linger in the air, each one a sharp reminder of the distance he’s purposefully placed between himself and his colleagues, and he’s not sure why.

He bends and picks it up and sees there's a label stabbed into the back of it, one he never noticed before. 

The whiskey, now a bitter residue in his glass, mirrors the lingering taste of remorse and as he gets up to attend to a task, he trips on something.

The potted tree that he tossed so carelessly off of his desk.

Unfurling it, he realises it's a gift and not a practical joke played by his colleagues who have nothing better to do than mock his authority and professionalism behind his back. 

Feliz Navidad, Señor Peña x 

Placing the tree back on his desk, he lingers on the guilt.

The hum of the lonely printer and the distant patter of rain becomes a backdrop to his internal dialogue. What if, he wonders, he has misunderstood your invitation? What if it isn't about pity, but a genuine desire for his companionship?

The barriers he’s erected around himself feel suddenly fragile; the stoicism that has defined him now seems like a self-imposed prison.

Has he really been so blind of your affections towards him?

In that moment, a decision crystallises in Javi's mind. He can't spend Christmas alone in the sterile glow of the fluorescent lamplight, drowning in whiskey and the silence of his regrets. 

His fingers drum on the desk, a silent debate waging within him. As he grabs his creased jacket from hours of sitting on it, the decision solidifies with every step.

The office, with its empty corridors and the ghosts of his own stubbornness, seem to release him with a reluctant sigh. He can’t stay here tonight.

Not when he knows now that you want him.

“Javi… I mean, Señor Peña.”

You stand on the other side of the door. The intrepid concern for a late night knocker in a city like this, melts away into something else as you peer at him on the other side. 

“Buenas noches, cariño.”

He’s wet, soaked through almost. His hair sticking to his forehead like an oil slick, and droplets caught in the prominent pencil moustache that you’ve always wondered if it would be soft or coarse against your skin. 

“Javi, please.” He softens. 

“What are you doing here? I wasn't expecting you to...” You’re a little stunned actually. The gall and unpredictability of this man never ceases to amaze. 

He holds out a bottle that he plucks from a brown bag, tequila.

“Call it a peace offering, or a Christmas gift. Either way, I'm sorry for snapping.” Javi says, and you can feel the sincerity and regret radiate from him, burning hotter than the sun.  

“It’s okay.” You say, with a blooming smile at the corners of your lips. 

He questions it. Relief? Are you as genuinely pleased to see him as you appear? And it stunts him, your instant forgiveness.  

He nods slowly. “If it’s alright with you, querida, I’d like to take you up on your offer if it still stands?"  

He extends the olive branch and you’re only too quick and eager to receive it. 

“Sure. Come on in, Javi.” You smile with pertinent relief.

You fix him a plate, reheating leftovers, as he perches on the edge of your lumpy sofa, feeling that it could swallow him down into its gullet at any moment if he truly relaxes.

It’s a rental, probably more than you can afford, bland with peeling paint and a musty aroma that lingers under the scent of your floral perfume that pollutes his head daily at work. 

He shuffles out of his wet jacket, large wet patches dye the beige of his pants darker at the thighs and knees. He takes in the frailty of your apartment. The emptiness of it.

How nothing here reflects the sparkling personality he knows you have.

The air carries a faint scent of scented candles, the flickering flames casting a soft ambiance as his eyes find them gloaming on the coffee table in clusters. The muted colours of the furniture and the strategically placed potted plants create a serene atmosphere, a stark departure from the chaos of the office.

The harsh absence of the expected holiday decorations strike him. There are no garlands draped along the walls, no twinkling lights casting a festive glow. A vast, empty space threatens the room where a Christmas tree should stand.

Instead, the void exudes a calm simplicity that feels like a deliberate choice rather than an oversight on your part.

Noticing his surprise, you offer a small smile. "Not what you were expecting, huh?” 

Javi, still processing the unexpected interior, manages a nod. The realisation that your invitation wasn't an attempt to impress, but a genuine extension of your simple world, settles within him. 

The apartment, with its quiet and dated elegance, feels like a reflection of your character - strong, resilient, and unassuming.

"I didn't expect this," he admits, gesturing around the room. "I thought there would be... I don't know, more Christmas shit."

You hum with a smile as you pass him a plate. 

Javi tentatively asks, "so, why did you invite me here, if it wasn’t pity?"

Your eyes hold a glint of sincerity. "Because I sensed you needed it. Christmas alone in the office isn't how anyone should spend the holidays. You work too much."

He takes the plate gratefully. Then he watches as you slice into limes with a blunt knife and toss the segments into a chipped bowl. 

Javi, caught off guard by the sincerity in your words, feels a pang of gratitude. The walls he had so meticulously built around himself were showing cracks, and your presence seems to widen those fractures, as you seat yourself beside him on the sofa bringing glasses and salt for the tequila.

You lean back, studying him as he replaces his picked at plate for the bottle, twisting off the cap.

“So, you really are a good samaritan?”

"No, I just don’t think we realise what we need until someone offers it, I guess.” You shrug.

“Is that so?” He asks, pouring out shots into the glasses. 

“It's okay to accept help, Javi."

“Do you think I need rescuing?”

“You don’t want to know what I think.” You say. 

“Humour me.” He tempts as he hands you a glass. You pick up the salt shaker sprinkling some on the base of your thumb.

“Well, you’re an asshole.”

Javi chokes immediately on his tequila, spluttering it over the rim of the glass as you grin.

Then he nods, wiping at his long since loosened tie. “I am.”

“And you’re grumpy and you’re mean.”

“Never proclaimed to be Christ.” He smirks.

“Is it true what they say about you?” You question, carefully.

“What do they say about me?” Javi asks with raised eyebrows.

“That you… you know, spend a lot of time in Bogotá with the uh…”

“Hookers. You can say it.” He scoffs.

“Yeah.” You say swallowing back the tequila hard. 

“Sometimes a man has his vices.” He simply says, pouring out another. He catches your face, bitter from the lime you suck. Or maybe something else.

“What about you, no boyfriend?” He asks.

You shake your head. “No.” He watches as you frown and try to mask it.

“Thank you… for the tree.” He says after a few minutes of awkward silence have descended upon you both. “I didn’t realise it was from you.”

“It’s nothing.” you shrug. 

“We both know that’s not true.”

You smile, looking away. “Doesn’t matter.”

He turns your face back to him with a simple finger and thumb on your chin gently, dropping it when your eyes meet his again. You watch his eyes watch as you gnaw on your lip.

“Do you really think I’m an asshole?” He questions.

“Why do you care what I think, Javi?”

“Because I’d hate for you to think that about me.”

“Sometimes…" You admit. "But I just mostly think... that you’re sexy.”

His eyebrows raise. “Por que?”

“I mean-” You fluster. Shit. “Too much tequila,” you say quickly, feeling the heat abruptly flood into your face.

“You think I’m sexy, cariño?”

You reach for more tequila, but his hand, gently curling around your wrist, stops you. 

“No.” You say, and he knows you're bluffing.

It’s out there now, that spoken want and desire growing limbs and becoming a solid form before you. 

“That’s not what you said.” Javi, taken slightly aback by the depth of your admission, meets your twinkly gaze with a mix of curiosity and simmering.

“I should go,” he says, edging closer to you.

You bite down on your lip again, your eyes falling to his lips, pink and shiny as he runs his tongue on the bottom one.

A subtle drumming fills the silence between you until you realise it’s your heart beating frantically in your chest. 

The air between Javi and you now crackles with a newfound tension, static that clings to your skin and makes all the hairs on your body stand tall. 

“Stay.” You whisper, turning your body in and knocking against his knees with yours.

His hand around your wrist travels onto your thigh, moving up to your hip.

“If I stay, I’m going to fuck you, cariño. All night.” He husks, as your face draws near.

You can smell the honeyed agave on his breath. Feel it warm your eyelashes. He's so close.

“Stay, Javi.” Your hands climb the lapels of his damp shirt, twisting.

“Is that what you want?” He questions, dangerously close now.

You can feel both his hands circling your hips, kneading and squeezing gently, but firm. His forehead touching yours, lips so close to take in your teeth.

“I don’t want to be alone on Christmas. And neither do you.” You confirm.

The sharp citrus of the lime stings against your lips as he presses his mouth to yours, swallowing your gasps.

You taste his tongue; a faint descry of smoke and distilled amber dances over your own. Javi’s large hands caress your back, pulling you closer, cradling you in his arms as your kiss becomes deeper, more desperate. 

You explore the uncharted territory of him; exhilarated and emboldened by his mutual want of you. Gasps pelt into your mouth as you finger through his hair feeling the silk of it, nails scrape down his spine over the damp material of his shirt.

His hands do all the talking too as he strokes them over your body, feeling the hilts and curves. He winds up your stomach and gropes gently at your breast, pushing upwards so it spills over your cami.

He glances at you, watching him as he flicks his tongue across your nipple, and sucks it into his mouth. He frees the other one and alternates between running his tongue and mouth across them.

“Eres tan hermosa.” Javi mists over your skin. And it pulls the breath from you to know that he thinks you're beautiful.

This man that you’ve coveted for so long, in the secret, sordid confines of your imagination and your sheets as you fuck yourself with your fingers to orgasm, is running his lips over your nipples and sucking them into his mouth as though he can’t get enough of you.

You can only choke out a gasp at how good it feels, how absurd it still is that he’s actually here. 

Javi tilts your head back, fingers wrapping gently around your jaw so he can kiss your throat. You feel the graze of his teeth as he pulls on the skin, marking you as your hands fumble with the buttons on his shirt.

Revealing caramel, tan skin, you trail kisses down his throat, tasting the sweat that lingers in with the indolence of his cologne, notes of spice barely hanging on as you wash them away with your tongue. His skin is warm, smooth as you kiss down his chest as he leans back into the sofa. 

You feel his fingers fighting with his belt under the tendrils of your hair. You take over, unzipping his pants and pulling them down his svelte waist as you glance up at him; your mouth dangerously close to his cock, freed and swollen.

You’re surprised at his size, hidden and tucked away in those tight pants on the daily and unsure how you’ve never noticed this enormity before. It’s not like you haven’t looked at his crotch when he stands from his desk, it's in your direct line of sight. 

You can smell it, smell that salted crystal of precum glistening at you as it bubbles on his head, soaking his pink engorged skin, and you brave yourself to lick it. To finally taste him.

He shudders, you know you want to take your time worshipping him, suckling gently around his swollen head as his hands coil inside your roots.

Savouring the taste for yourself, only ever being able to imagine what he would feel like inside your mouth. Alternating between sucks and licks, you tease the length of him, taking him deeper each time. 

“Fuck,” Javi hisses as he watches your lips suction around him. 

You let your lips slide up and down the thick girth of him, smooth and warm, listening as he hisses between his teeth, his fingers stroking at your face. 

You jerk him as you go, hand sliding up and down and pulling the wet tracks from your mouth down his hard cock, as he glides effortlessly into your fist.

You keep licking the head until you take him inside again, cheeks hollowed out as you suck harder. 

“So fucking good,” he grits at you, a visible strain in his throat. 

You relax your throat, opening wider, taking him in deeper and he audibly groans.

Your eyes flick to his and his pupils have bled into the chocolatey irises; a dark hungry stare tossed back at you that makes your clit pull tight in response. 

You hum in satisfaction around him, listening to him enjoying your mouth. 

He reaches forward, “ven aquí,” pulling you to him and twisting so you’re on the couch. 

He kisses over your skin as he reveals it, pulling off your clothes until you’re naked in his arms. 

His hands leave a desolate carnage of tingles as he traverses your body, fingers trailing delicately across your navel as he sucks on your lip, nipping gently between his teeth. You feel him, digits slipping further to the swollen, wet bud of your clit. 

You gasp into his mouth as he circles on it, slick movements as your inner thighs jerk and twitch. You clasp onto his shoulders, kissing him deeply as he runs his fingers through your folds, teasing your hole before he pushes two of them inside. 

“Javi,” you groan.

“That feel good, cariño?”

You nod. “So good.”

“So tight,” he groans as he slips his tongue in your mouth, the soft bristles of his moustache tickling deliciously against your lip. “Lay back for me.”

Withdrawing his fingers after a few teasing pumps, you lay back, Javi kneeling between your thighs and stroking himself. Spitting into his palm and coating himself with it as he watches your fingers rub quick, little circles around your clit.

His other hand strokes up your thigh and reaches for your breast; palming it and feeling your nipple pebble under the rough skin of his palm - rough and calloused from the constant handling of his Beretta as of late. 

He kneels up slightly, running the tip of his cock inside your folds, greasing himself up with your slick. Tapping gently against your clit and you gasp as he squelches around you. 

“So wet for me, are you always this wet?” He utters in praised disbelief. 

You smirk, nodding. “For you I am.”

“Fuck,” he smirks back.

“You don’t want to know what you do to me…” You whisper.

“I want to know,” he says with deep hypnotic eyes. “I want to know everything. Dime que hago por ti, querida.” 

Leaving forward over you, his hand splayed on the cushion above your head, Javi lines up, the thick head of him notching gently at your entrance.

"Tell me what you think about when you look at me over your desk," He urges.

Javi feels you flutter against him already, the desperation to suck him in as he bites down on his lip watching you. Watching your eyes flit from the centre of your legs, to his eyes.

“This," you breathe. "Want you, Javi,” you moan to him, trying to push yourself against him. 

You move as he slips in, letting go of his cock and laying over you as his hips shunt forward in a smooth thrust, filling you full of him. 

“Oh!” You gasp.

Your lips tear at his; your arms creeping around the back of his neck as he winds into you, grunting in your ear. 

“Oh my God, Javi…” 

The crest of his hips rattle against you, pushing you closer together as you wrap your legs around him, heels digging into his pert ass.

He moves with intention, every thrust well thought out to feel every inch of you, to make you feel every inch of him. 

“You feel so good, so wet around my cock…” He grunts into you.

You can hear it, hear every lewd, wet squelch as he thrusts in and out. Louder than your mutual breathing and gasps.

He pushes your left leg up against the sofa and leans forward, closer into you as his hips continue to piston in. 

His breath is heavier, ragged in the back of his throat as it scrapes across his tongue and out into your face. 

He kisses you like he’s in love with you; gentle clicks of his lips against yours. Sucking gently around your tongue as he puffs through his nose.

He runs his chin up the side of your face, nuzzling. The moustache feels soft and silken; finally answering all your probing questions about it.  

He hooks your legs against his shoulders and stays close to your face, his hips doing all the work now. Hitting that spot deep inside you as he fucks that bit harder, that bit more intense.

You can feel the flames licking at your skin, the heat suffocating the room. The tightness in your belly, the way your limbs begin to contort with the pressure. 

“Oh, oh,” you whine. You can feel it brewing, feeling it rushing through your veins. 

He presses his forehead to yours in an effort to ground you, pull you back to him, but it does the opposite, it makes you soar. Your gasps become throated grunts as it builds. 

“Let it out,” Javi coaxes. “Let go, cariño. You feel so good around me like this. That’s it, come for me.” 

He glances down, watching his cock disappear inside your swollen lips, and coming back out slick and shinier with each thrust. He pushes down on your thighs, your knees against your shoulders folding you up as he ploughs harder.

Each breath in the back of his throat punching out as though he’s running a marathon. 

“Oh my God, yes… Javi!”

“Come for me,” he pleads again, moaning around each syllable in a soft tincture that punctures your lungs.

He can feel it when you contract, that moment you flood around him. He watches as you writhe and shudder, your voice losing it’s alto as you sigh and pant, losing yourself blind to your orgasm. 

“Oh fuck… fuck yes!" He groans as he can feel you shaking on his cock.

“Hold on to me,” he says, pushing your hands to his neck where you wrap them around him.

He kneels, hooking his hands under your thighs to pull you upright onto him, and closer, and you feel him hit deeper as you cry out.

Javi slows his pace, his thumb brushing across your bottom lip for a second as he completely loses himself. Pussy drunk on you, buried so deep inside that he forgets where he is for a moment.

The sofa creaks in pain with his tempo, both his hands on your ass winding you back and forth over his cock.

The sweat shines at the bottom of your back; the room feels like a furnace, despite the rain outside cooling the night's air that seeps in from the open window. 

“You’re gonna make me fucking come so hard…” He’s growling now, you can hear it. Those husked grunts ribbing at the back of his throat, lips curled up over his teeth as he plunders deeper into your cunt. 

You move, flexing your hips back and forth as you fuck him slowly, and he groans coming back to you. His hands slip back down onto your hips as he moves you, faster, harder on his cock.

“Come inside me, Javi.”

“Oh fuck, mierda… Fuck!” It’s sweetly blasphemous as he comes, grunting and whimpering, his own body shaking and shuddering against yours. Sweat glueing you to one another. 

He groans out as he comes, filling you with his thick spend as your tongue knots in his mouth. 

“Querida,” he moans, as you peck gently over his face, his arms unrelenting, refusing to let go of you. 

He lays back, taking you with him into the breach of the sofa. And you smile at his face regarding you back; big browns that are just mesmerised in some post-coital bliss by all those little nuances, up close and in his face. 

You become mesmerised too, by the way his tongue glides over his teeth, usually to show mirth or derision in the office, but here it commands desire. Want. 

How when he smiles, the left side of his top lip is the first to crook up into that beam that drags his cheeks up to reveal dimples either side of his face, marred usually by his moustache.

It takes you a moment to realise he’s smiling. Javier Peña is smiling for you, and it stuns you, tracing your fingers around the edges of it like a fine piece of art, the beauty of it etched forever in your memory.

“Que?” He asks, observing your awe.

“I’ve never seen you smile before.” You say, shaking your head. “You should do it more often.”

You think you spy a blush creep into the bronze sculpting of his cheeks. Small capillaries flooding with blood.

He slips out of you, but you feel his fingers reaching between your lips probing and slipping around gently in the silken feel of him starting to drip out of you.

He runs his nose across your face, nuzzling into you further. You feel him, sticky and softening under you, and you stroke through his hair, matted with sweat and smiling as he pecks at you still. 

He kisses you, tonguing around your mouth as you feel his fingers sliding inside you, pushing his come back in. His thumb delicately stroking on your clit, barely ghosting it as your shudder and clutch onto him. 

He softly strokes you to another orgasm as you pant inside his mouth.

You don’t know what tomorrow will bring, how he’ll treat you in the office after this.

If this could become a regular thing where he brings flowers and tequila, and takes a spare key and keeps some of his things here, and has dinner with you and showers with you.  

You try to ponder on if it will make things tense or awkward. If he’ll regret it. If you’ll regret it. If he’ll see you as some easy conquest, another notch on his bedpost.

Or if this could become something more.

It doesn’t matter, because right now in this moment, as the clock rolls over into the early hours of Christmas morning in the torrential rain that sprays over Colombia, Javi kisses at your throat with a gentleness about him you couldn’t believe could have existed.

And it’s the best Christmas gift you ever could have wished for. 

“Feliz Navidad, Javi.” You whisper into the hairs of his moustache.  

“Feliz Navidad, cariño.” He whispers back. 

12 DAYS OF XXX-MAS MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST

[all-the-fish]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[nasa]

What are Phytoplankton and Why Are They Important?

Breathe deep… and thank phytoplankton.

Why? Like plants on land, these microscopic creatures capture energy from the sun and carbon from the atmosphere to produce oxygen.

Phytoplankton are microscopic organisms that live in watery environments, both salty and fresh. Though tiny, these creatures are the foundation of the aquatic food chain. They not only sustain healthy aquatic ecosystems, they also provide important clues on climate change.

Let’s explore what these creatures are and why they are important for NASA research.

Phytoplankton are diverse

Phytoplankton are an extremely diversified group of organisms, varying from photosynthesizing bacteria, e.g. cyanobacteria, to diatoms, to chalk-coated coccolithophores. Studying this incredibly diverse group is key to understanding the health - and future - of our ocean and life on earth.

Their growth depends on the availability of carbon dioxide, sunlight and nutrients. Like land plants, these creatures require nutrients such as nitrate, phosphate, silicate, and calcium at various levels. When conditions are right, populations can grow explosively, a phenomenon known as a bloom.

Phytoplankton blooms in the South Pacific Ocean with sediment re-suspended from the ocean floor by waves and tides along much of the New Zealand coastline.

Phytoplankton are Foundational

Phytoplankton are the foundation of the aquatic food web, feeding everything from microscopic, animal-like zooplankton to multi-ton whales. Certain species of phytoplankton produce powerful biotoxins that can kill marine life and people who eat contaminated seafood.

Phytoplankton are Part of the Carbon Cycle

Phytoplankton play an important part in the flow of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the ocean. Carbon dioxide is consumed during photosynthesis, with carbon being incorporated in the phytoplankton, and as phytoplankton sink a portion of that carbon makes its way into the deep ocean (far away from the atmosphere).

Changes in the growth of phytoplankton may affect atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, which impact climate and global surface temperatures. NASA field campaigns like EXPORTS are helping to understand the ocean's impact in terms of storing carbon dioxide.

Phytoplankton are Key to Understanding a Changing Ocean

NASA studies phytoplankton in different ways with satellites, instruments, and ships. Upcoming missions like Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) - set to launch Jan. 2024 - will reveal interactions between the ocean and atmosphere. This includes how they exchange carbon dioxide and how atmospheric aerosols might fuel phytoplankton growth in the ocean.

Information collected by PACE, especially about changes in plankton populations, will be available to researchers all over the world. See how this data will be used.

The Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) is integrated onto the PACE spacecraft in the cleanroom at Goddard Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA

[nanjokei]

further guidance for newcomers coming from reddit

hi arriving redditors. here are some things i don't see most posts mention. this is for people who conquered the baby steps of joining the site. i think they're pretty important! also me clarifying on some stuff i've seen people word very vaguely consistently in their guides

under the cut because it's a chunky set of bullet points! with a few that also discuss how to keep yourself in a safe and fun browsing environment for yourself and others (mostly quality of life)

if you have any questions either send me an ask (anonymously is ok too) or reply to the post

you can enable a custom theme that shows on the web in your blog settings, if you so wish (blog settings > visibility) and then (custom theme toggle to on) this is the classic tumblr experience, but it's ok to want to hide your blog from the public. however you won't be able to link stuff on your blog to people without tumblr accounts

you can find custom tumblr themes by searching resource blogs like theme hunter or just in the tags in general (like "tumblr theme" or just "theme" and see where the other tags you may find to refine your search takes you)

tumblr is currently trying to enact changes to appeal to "new users" that make the website less friendly to its current inhabitants, such as fucking with quality of life and muscle memory and even stuff integral to the culture of the site. if you see people complaining, i highly advise against going "this sounds kind of nothingburger" and assisting in sending tickets to support the drive against such changes

there is a 250 post per day limit. you probably won't hit it though.. maybe? but people used to make post limit blogs (seperate email) for that. but that is for heavy usage users.

you can make as many sideblogs as you want. you are free to divulge whether or not it's you. of course use common sense to gauge whether or not it matters. but side blogs can be anything: maybe you want to categorize things, maybe you wanna make one into a huge fan page/blog for a specific hobby/celeb/show/game/etc, maybe a quieter space, maybe posts you feel don't belong on your blog, maybe even a blog where you reblog resources to exclusively. the possibilities are endless! (maybe not for porn, it's a little harder to skirt by these days even with muh community labels)

a lot of posts are incredibly vague about whether or not you can leave comments on reblogs. i think it truly depends. for example, if it's praise for artwork, i feel like it is truly best left in the tags. the artist can see it still! it shows up in their notifs when you reblog. in comparison, when it comes to funny text posts and pictures, you can comment as you like, but consider TPO (time place occasion). it helps to check the notes (comments only filter) to see if the quip or comment you wanna make has already been made or if OP made further comments later. again, it's a call to use your judgement and everyone has a different tolerance for this kind of thing

i see many people or perhaps most came from LGBTQ+ centric subreddits so i am surprised i'm not seeing this mentioned often: there are unfortunately a lot of terfs here. please stay safe. install shinigami eyes and engage in blocking sprees whenever possible.

in account settings, not blog settings, there is a section called "content you see". it has filtered tags and filtered post content. the difference is filtered tags is specifically for tags, for example, if you want to hide a certain show you don't like, you can have the site apply a peek-a-boo filter on it (this content contains #TAG, as in click to view). you ask, what if the person on my dash doesn't tag it as that? that's fine! it also takes into account the original poster's tags. the OP didn't tag it? then filtered post content might help. MIGHT. it's pretty helpful and unlike twitter's mute list, as far as my experience, it is not broken. for example, if you write [SHOW NAME THAT YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE] in plain letters (with aliases as seperate entries just to be safe) it will filter any post that has the words in the body of the post. pretty useful! use this to curate your dash further or even filter out triggers.

speaking of tags. a lot of people are also vague about this. i'll say it clearly. you can add whatever tags you want to a reblog. there's no limit (aside from character lim per tag)! there's no social faux pas, unless you're being backhanded at someone's creative work, like reblogging just to dunk on it or going "i like the art but not the character" etc. when it comes to your own posts, try to avoid tagging irrelevant tags (for example, if you're making a lot of posts that are tangentially about cardcaptor sakura, think about if it belongs in the tag or not. think of it as whether or not it deserves an OC flair on reddit). again, people's tolerance differs, but especially on older media and slow tags people do not appreciate random tangential text posts (for example "i wanna watch ccs!" and nothing else)

in terms of culture, tumblr has a weird balance between "you can ask for context" and "lurk for 10,000 moar years". i would not know myself. i've been here for 12+ years *shrug* you'll have to gauge it for yourself. most things you can google "[tumblr user] callout" and figure out from there LOL (yes that's usually what happens). i DO encourage trying to garner it from context, especially for terms.

due to the looser moderation(?) on here, LGBTQ+ and other minorities use their own discretion reclaim slurs freely. join in, or put the slurs in your filters. it's fine not to join in as that's your personal comfort, but this is a heads up that the culture is like this since i'm not sure how the moderation is in places like r/196 are. (sorry i used reddit for entirely different things ><)

DO NOT TAG D0NATION POSTS WITH #D0NATION OR ANY OTHER VARIATION. this is SO important. it's best not to tag donation posts AT ALL. tumblr internally flags them and suppresses the post. just reblog silently (d0nate if you can) and move on (censoring just in case lol)

search is useless for finding specific posts. give up before you even try. your best bets are google, asking for help on the dashboard, or just hoping it shows up on your dashboard one day (it probs will, maybe not immediately when you need it though)

i called old tags "slow" but not dead earlier: tags Do Not Die (though some just kind of randomly get wiped or lose posts, idk, it is some post-2018 indexing weirdness) so you can find fanart and posts from 2012 and it's ok to reblog! the essence of tumblr is the continued circulation of people's creations

please do not repost screenshots of tumblr posts unless they are no longer accessible (reblogs locked for example) 😭 i am seeing this happen already. this is the one thing from reddit you're gonna have to let go of. twitter and other place screenshots are OK (probably, some people don't like them). but don't let your page look like one of those r/(etc) post aggregate bots on twitter is what i'm saying. once you explore a tag enough times you'll know what is usually appropriate to post (usually derivative meme templates are OK, but don't overdo it (tho this just falls under "dont spam") (also this is MY personal preference, so if the climate of the tag houses a lot of memes, go ahead!)

in general reposting content that isn't your's is kinda eh. especially reposting people's art without explicit permission. there are art reposters who in the modern day usually ask for permission, of course there are internet spelunkers who repost content from old web and dead sites. there's a lot of nuance, but i highly discourage reposting things you didn't make yourself unless it's stuff like official art and whatnot. photography and other stuff from other people, use your judgement. and as an aside i know "stolen memes" are r/196 and other meme subreddit cultures but it's not exactly appreciated here and i feel like if the reposting gets out of hand tumblr users might get real tired of it. the humor isn't really the same here in that sense, i suggest posting them in a sideblog that archives such things so they aren't lost and/or keeping them in your community tags. ofc no one can stop you!! but the whole highly derivative fried meme thing is very reddit. the culture could not be more different even if we are similar in many ways. i mean this in the nicest way possible >_< if you're not sure, DON'T REPOST.

this is just advice from me, but when liveblogging a show, it's nice to tag it with a unique tag, such as #[your name/nick] plays [game]. i find it's ok to tag series name to some posts that are more substantial, people are happy to see others enjoy what they love, but using a unique tag also helps people track YOUR liveblog since they may save the tag to look at :)

put your age or whether or not you're an adult somewhere where people can see, (and your pronouns too or lackthereof). whether or not if it's on your bio, or an about page, or a carrd. please. it's a matter of curation and safety. some people don't wanna follow minors by accident and vice versa, just as a means to curate their space

people write alt text and image descriptions in the post bodies pretty often. yes it's built into tumblr, but either some people forget or the feature... refuses to work that time. yes it's BROKEN. if you feel like you can contribute alt text for an image in an adequate fashion, go ahead!

try not to reblog people's personal posts. asking people never hurts!

you can restrict non-followers from replying to your posts, or turn off replies all together. as far as i know it's not possible for seperate posts unfortunately, just a blog-wide toggle. when replying to someone specifically, be sure to @ them so they can see it!

for a long time, only the first 5 tags you used in an original post mattered. a lot of people still repeat this, but in my experience this seems to have... changed?? i can't say for sure, but my posts appear in tags beyond the first five. just to be sure, tag the most relevant things first! (or not, if you have your own strategy LOL)

you're free to not tag trigger warnings (it's nice to do it for others tho especially if they ask) but please tag flashing images as such. #epilepsy warning, #flashing, #flashing image, #flashing, etc.

REPORT BOT BLOGS. it blocks them for you anyway. just blocking doesn't do anything for anyone

you can add other people to a sideblog to make it a group blog. this is how blogs with mods work, or even collectives, it has a lot of uses in general so have fun with it! be wary it requires getting someone's email so be safe about that and try to do it with people you trust.

this is advice from me since i noticed after publishing this post that a lot of reddit users don't tag things. you don't have to btw!! but my advice that brightens up the website: if you reblog cool art, writing, music or photography (taken by OP) and you like it a lot, i highly recommend leaving compliments in the tags. we live in an age where creative creation is increasingly unappreciated and people are quiet silent— creators get no feedback therefore no encouragememt to keep creating. this is more like a personal plea, but like to reblog ratios have become DIRE. people are apathetic and scared to interact with people's creations even though on here they are actively ecouraged to. if you like art or fic etc i even more highly recommend you reblog it. likes don't do anything! reblogs = more eyes on it. let's support each other's creative endeavors 🩷

don't fall for the trap of trying to make tumblr into reddit, or trying to recreate the feeling of a subreddit. it's not gonna work. try to adapt. it's easier said than done but lol. rome wasn't built in a day. operate your blog like your own space rather than trying to recreate a hub. the tolerance for trying to change tumblr culture is super low and a lot of people who are much meaner than me will probably try to bully the idea into the ground. and people DO get mean. (like playground namecalling, but people have no reservations about it, so it's stuff that would probably get you banned on reddit)

if your post gets traction and the note notifications annoy you, deleting the original post will make the notifs stop coming. a lot of people reblog the post to keep it on their blog then delete the original to effectively "mute" the notifications permanently.

[teabree-shark]

Stop trying to build walls around the gardens you never tended yourself.

Web Environment Integrity? We already did this! It was called AOL. It was called CompuServe. It was called ActiveX. It was called Prodigy. It was called GEnie. It was called The Microsoft Network.

And they didn't work. They were just walled gardens plastered with billboards you couldn't block, and it was awful. They were bad for user security, they were bad for user experience, they were bad for everything except for executive pocketbooks.

I'm in my 30's and I've already been the baby of, the child of, and the adult of, failed walled gardens all in favor of shoving ads down my throat. I'm not going to do it again.

[science-lover33]

The Human Microbiome: Your Body's Little Ecosystem

Within each of us exists a fantastic and complex microscopic universe known as the human microbiome. This ecosystem of microorganisms that inhabits our body plays a fundamental role in health and homeostasis. Today, we will fully explore this fascinating microbial world and its influence on our physiology.

What is the Human Microbiome?

The human microbiome is a profoundly intricate biological system integral to our health and well-being. This term, "the human microbiome," encompasses a diverse consortium of microorganisms that have firmly established themselves within and upon our bodies. This assemblage comprises a wide array of microorganisms, encompassing bacteria, viruses, fungi, and various other microbes, each with their specialized ecological niches within our anatomy.

Upon a deeper examination of the human microbiome, we uncover a meticulously organized distribution of these microorganisms. They do not merely coexist haphazardly within us; instead, they strategically colonize specific regions of our body. For instance, they form robust communities within the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in the gut harboring a densely populated microcosm. Similarly, they stake their claim on our skin, and even the respiratory tract serves as a habitat for these microbial entities.

The human microbiome's remarkable aspect lies in the intricate and dynamic interactions it maintains with our own organism. These microorganisms are not passive bystanders; they are active participants in the intricate orchestra of physiological processes. They exert influence over our digestion, bolster our immune system, and wield the potential to affect our mental and cognitive faculties. This complex web of symbiotic relationships between our human cells and these microorganisms constitutes an ever-evolving interplay that exerts a profound impact on our overall health.

The human microbiome is not a mere collection of microbes; it is an entire ecosystem nestled within us, a thriving and dynamic world with the potential to significantly modulate our health. Comprehending the intricacies and subtleties of this microscopic community represents an ongoing and critical pursuit in the realms of scientific and medical research, with profound implications for the fields of medicine and biology.

Solid Scientific Evidence

To support the importance of the human microbiome, here are three relevant scientific references:

Title: "The Human Microbiome: A Key Contributor to Health." Autores: Sender, R., Fuchs, S., & Milo, R. Revista: Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2016. Abstract: This article reviews the role of the human microbiome in health and disease, highlighting its influence on digestion, immunity, and nutrient synthesis. It also emphasizes its contribution to metabolic and autoimmune diseases.

Títle: "The Human Microbiome: Gut Microbiota and Health." Autores: Marchesi, J. R., Adams, D. H., Fava, F., Hermes, G. D., Hirschfield, G. M., Hold, G., ... & Rook, G. A. Revista: The Journal of Infection, 2016. Abstract: This study focuses on the intestinal microbiota and its relationship with human health. Explore how alterations in the microbiome can contribute to gastrointestinal, inflammatory, and metabolic disorders.

Títle"The Skin Microbiome: Impact of Modern Environments on Skin Ecology, Barrier Integrity, and Systemic Immune Programming." Autores: Kong, H. H., Andersson, B., & Clavel, T. Revista: World Allergy Organization Journal, 2016. Summary: This article examines the skin microbiome's influence on skin health and immune response. It highlights how modern environmental factors can upset the microbial balance and affect the skin's health.

Future perspectives

Studying the human microbiome is a constantly evolving field that promises new therapeutic strategies and a deeper understanding of human health. As we continue to investigate this small ecosystem, doors are opening to personalized interventions to promote health and prevent disease.

Would you like to learn more about this fascinating subject? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments!

[izicodes]

hi hi! love your blog! I am also working on building sites for my portfolio but am a little stumped on how/where to deploy them. would you mind sharing what you are using for deployment? thanks!

Places to Deploy Your Website

Hiya! I know a few places I've tried in the past and some I am yet to try but I know other developers use them!

GitHub pages

GitHub Pages is a free static site hosting service that allows you to publish your website directly from a GitHub repository. It supports HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, as well as Jekyll, a static site generator. I used GitHub pages a lot since I use GitHub to keep all my repositories.

Replit

Replit is a cloud-based development environment that provides an integrated IDE, code editor, and hosting platform all in one place. With Replit, you can easily create and deploy web apps, games, and other projects in multiple programming languages such as Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I use Replit a lot too for my other much smaller projects that I can’t upload on GitHub to run the program online!

Netlify

Netlify offers a free plan for static site hosting that includes features such as continuous deployment, custom domains, and SSL encryption. It supports HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, as well as serverless functions and other backend technologies. 

Heroku

Heroku offers a free plan for hobbyist developers that allows you to deploy up to 5 applications. It supports many languages and frameworks, including Ruby, Node.js, Python, Java, PHP, and Go. Heroku allows free hosting for small applications.

Firebase Hosting

Firebase Hosting is a free service that allows you to host and deploy your web app or static content to a global content delivery network (CDN) with SSL encryption. It supports HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other static assets. It allows free hosting for small applications.

Surge

Surge is a free static site hosting service that allows you to publish your website with a custom domain or a Surge subdomain. It supports HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other static assets. Allows free hosting with unlimited bandwidth.

Each of these free deployment options has its own cons such as: 

Its lack of server-side functionality

Limited database support

The cost of advanced features

Limited control over the infrastructure

May not be suitable for more complex websites or applications 

However, for small projects, I think you’ll be fine with the free options!

Hoped this helps and good luck with your websites’ deployments! 🥰🙌🏾💗

[probablyasocialecologist]

Drawing on the life of the 13th-century itinerant preacher St. Francis of Assisi, Boff argues that we must reconfigure how we think about democracy. Because humans are a part of the created world and our lives depend on complex systems in which nonhuman creatures play integral roles, we need a type of political and spiritual philosophy that draws those nonhuman creatures into the democratic equation. Boff calls this “cosmic democracy” in his book Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor. Democracy is about being ruled by people rather than being ruled by monarchs or despots. But because our lives are intertwined with the world we live in, humans need to forge political alliances with nonhuman creatures in dynamic ways. In the U.S., Democrats and Republicans barely managed to negotiate the debt ceiling so that the government could have a functioning budget. But humans need to realize that we’re failing in negotiations with our environment and, as a result, we are facing climate catastrophe. Mandating space to conserve and rehabilitate dwindling species, cutting emissions, and learning to use the land in a sustainable way are critical steps to contributing to a lasting union between humans, nonhumans, and the planet. In his book Francis of Assisi, Boff notes how Francis tried to forge this lasting union “with all things.” Thomas of Celano, a 13th-century monk and one of the earliest biographers of Francis, said that Francis “called all creatures his brothers and sisters, like one who had arrived in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Francis recognized that to be close to Jesus, one had to be close to the things that were considered to be the lowest in the social order. That meant taking a vow of poverty and even recognizing the sun, moon, animals, rocks, and plants as “siblings.” From this perspective, democracy is something that emphasizes the rule of the people but also considers the vast web of interconnected nonhuman species that are necessary for the survival of our planet. Boff’s Francis-inspired cosmic democracy isn’t just about striving for clearer and more direct democracies; it’s also about cultivating a new spiritual practice focused on recognizing that human life relies on nonhuman life and the environment. Can we reorient ourselves in the world so that we can hear the cries of the poor and the cries of creation? Can we factor their cries into our politics?