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thaoworra · 7 months ago

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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association recently released the poems that made it to the finalist stage for consideration for the 2024 Rhysling Awards for Short and Long Speculative Poems of the year. Congratulations to all of the nominees! This will be the 46th year these awards have been conferred!

Short Poems (50 finalists)

Attn: Prime Real Estate Opportunity!, Emily Ruth Verona, Under Her Eye: A Women in Horror Poetry Collection Volume II

The Beauty of Monsters, Angela Liu, Small Wonders 1

The Blight of Kezia, Patricia Gomes, HWA Poetry Showcase X

The Day We All Died, A Little, Lisa Timpf, Radon 5

Deadweight, Jack Cooper, Propel 7

Dear Mars, Susan L. Lin, The Sprawl Mag 1.2

Dispatches from the Dragon's Den, Mary Soon Lee, Star*Line 46.2

Dr. Jekyll, West Ambrose, Thin Veil Press December

First Eclipse: Chang-O and the Jade Hare, Emily Jiang, Uncanny 53

Five of Cups Considers Forgiveness, Ali Trotta, The Deadlands 31

Gods of the Garden, Steven Withrow, Spectral Realms 19

The Goth Girls' Gun Gang, Marisca Pichette, The Dread Machine 3.2

Guiding Star, Tim Jones, Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, ed. Lee Murray (Clan Destine Press)

Hallucinations Gifted to Me by Heatstroke, Morgan L. Ventura, Banshee 15

hemiplegic migraine as willing human sacrifice, Ennis Rook Bashe, Eternal Haunted Summer Winter Solstice

Hi! I am your Cortical Update!, Mahaila Smith, Star*Line 46.3

How to Make the Animal Perfect?, Linda D. Addison, Weird Tales 100

I Dreamt They Cast a Trans Girl to Give Birth to the Demon, Jennessa Hester, HAD October

Invasive, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Polar Starlight 9

kan-da-ka, Nadaa Hussein, Apparition Lit 23

Language as a Form of Breath, Angel Leal, Apparition Lit October

The Lantern of September, Scott Couturier, Spectral Realms 19

Let Us Dream, Myna Chang, Small Wonders 3

The Magician's Foundling, Angel Leal, Heartlines Spec 2

The Man with the Stone Flute, Joshua St. Claire, Abyss & Apex 87

Mass-Market Affair, Casey Aimer, Star*Line 46.4

Mom's Surprise, Francis W. Alexander, Tales from the Moonlit Path June

A Murder of Crows, Alicia Hilton, Ice Queen 11

No One Now Remembers, Geoffrey Landis, Fantasy and Science Fiction Nov./Dec.

orion conquers the sky, Maria Zoccula, On Spec 33.2

Pines in the Wind, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, The Beautiful Leaves (Bamboo Dart Press)

The Poet Responds to an Invitation from the AI on the Moon, T.D. Walker, Radon Journal 5

A Prayer for the Surviving, Marisca Pichette, Haven Speculative 9

Pre-Nuptial, F. J. Bergmann, The Vampiricon (Mind's Eye Publications)

The Problem of Pain, Anna Cates, Eye on the Telescope 49

The Return of the Sauceress, F. J. Bergmann, The Flying Saucer Poetry Review February

Sea Change, David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Ann K. Schwader, Scifaikuest May

Seed of Power, Linda D. Addison, The Book of Witches ed. Jonathan Strahan (Harper Collins)

Sleeping Beauties, Carina Bissett, HWA Poetry Showcase X

Solar Punks, J. D. Harlock, The Dread Machine 3.1

Song of the Last Hour, Samuel A. Betiku, The Deadlands 22

Sphinx, Mary Soon Lee, Asimov's September/October

Storm Watchers (a drabbun), Terrie Leigh Relf, Space & Time

Sunflower Astronaut, Charlie Espinosa, Strange Horizons July

Three Hearts as One, G. O. Clark, Asimov's May/June

Troy, Carolyn Clink, Polar Starlight 12

Twenty-Fifth Wedding Anniversary, John Grey, Medusa's Kitchen September

Under World, Jacqueline West, Carmina Magazine September

Walking in the Starry World, John Philip Johnson, Orion's Belt May

Whispers in Ink, Angela Yuriko Smith, Whispers from Beyond (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Long Poems (25 finalists)

Archivist of a Lost World, Gerri Leen, Eccentric Orbits 4

As the witch burns, Marisca Pichette, Fantasy 87

Brigid the Poet, Adele Gardner, Eternal Haunted Summer Summer Solstice

Coding a Demi-griot (An Olivian Measure), Armoni “Monihymn” Boone, Fiyah 26

Cradling Fish, Laura Ma, Strange Horizons May

Dream Visions, Melissa Ridley Elmes, Eccentric Orbits 4

Eight Dwarfs on Planet X, Avra Margariti, Radon Journal 3

The Giants of Kandahar, Anna Cates, Abyss & Apex 88

How to Haunt a Northern Lake, Lora Gray, Uncanny 55

Impostor Syndrome, Robert Borski, Dreams and Nightmares 124

The Incessant Rain, Rhiannon Owens, Evermore 3

Interrogation About A Monster During Sleep Paralysis, Angela Liu, Strange Horizons November

Little Brown Changeling, Lauren Scharhag, Aphelion 283

A Mere Million Miles from Earth, John C. Mannone, Altered Reality April

Pilot, Akua Lezli Hope, Black Joy Unbound eds. Stephanie Andrea Allen & Lauren Cherelle (BLF Press)

Protocol, Jamie Simpher, Small Wonders 5

Sleep Dragon, Herb Kauderer, The Book of Sleep (Written Image Press)

Slow Dreaming, Herb Kauderer, The Book of Sleep (Written Image Press)

St. Sebastian Goes To Confession, West Ambrose, Mouthfeel 1

Value Measure, Joseph Halden and Rhonda Parrish, Dreams and Nightmares 125

A Weather of My Own Making, Nnadi Samuel, Silver Blade 56

Welcoming the New Girl, Beth Cato, Penumbric October

What You Find at the Center, Elizabeth R McClellan, Haven Spec Magazine 12

The Witch Makes Her To-Do List, Theodora Goss, Uncanny 50

The Year It Changed, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Star*Line 46.4

Voting for the Rhysling Award begins July 1; a link to the ballot will be sent with the Rhysling Anthology, as well as with the July issue of Star*Line. More information on the Rhysling Award can be found here.

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fatehbaz · 1 year ago

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Nepali researchers have yet again photographed a snow leopard (Panthera uncia) and common leopard (P. pardus) in the same location in the lap of Mount Gaurishankar in the eastern Himalayas. The recently analyzed images captured in Lapchi Valley at an altitude of 4,260 meters (13,976 feet) above sea level show a snow leopard strolling a human trail [...] on Jan. 4, 2023. A common leopard was photographed by the same camera trap seven days later. “This is the first time that a snow leopard and a common leopard have been photographed in the same location in the Gaurishankar area,” says Madhu Chetri from the National Trust for Nature Conservation, [...] overseeing the Gaurishankar Conservation Area. Conservationists traditionally considered endangered tigers (P. tigris) as the apex predators of Nepal’s southern plains, vulnerable common leopards as roaming the country’s hills, and vulnerable snow leopards as keeping farther north in the mountains. [...] In July 2016, researchers studying [...] [the] Tibetan Plateau for the first time obtained video footage of a snow leopard and a common leopard living in the same area. Similarly, in 2013, a team of Italian researchers analyzing scat samples from Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) National Park also found that snow leopards and common leopards coexist in the same area. [...] Researcher Bikram Shrestha, who has worked on snow leopards, says his team also captured images of both cats in the same area in a survey carried out between 2011 and 2013 in Nepal’s Mustang region at an altitude of 4,500 m (14,764 ft).

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Images and text excerpt from: Abhaya Raj Joshi. "Nepali researchers again photograph snow leopard, leopard in same place". Mongabay. 31 August 2023. [Images provided to Mongabay by Madhu Chetri, National Trust for Nature Conservation, Gaurishankar Conservation Area.]

#ecology #landscape #multispecies #paleo

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alienpossession · 2 years ago

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So I recently connected with some other authors here and read some alien-based stories that inspired me. This is a one-off from a series called Check-Up by @fullfriendnerdpurse hopefully I do your series justice

Check Up: Eric

A young and nerdy scientist worked on side by side to let powerful men around his own proximity and even the whole world fell victim to the control of a crash-landed small batch of extraterrestrial civilization. His lustful desire to the idea of having the apex of human civilization succumbed to the control of him and his invader buddies blinded him. He's sick and tired with the way society treated him and constantly paid attention to the type of men that pushed people around with their powerful influencer or their good looks and muscle. One of them is named Eric

The alien shoved into him clearly enjoyed the otherworldly senses it instantly felt upon controlling Eric's muscle tank body. The testosterone that coursed through his physical system, the complexity of his muscle and organ that far exceeded the complexity of the slimy being, the way his whole body emitted this powerful aroma and pheromone, the alien just knows it acquired a very fine specimen in human standard

A gym junkie with a day job as premium real estate agent, Eric is also a fine stepping stones to access an even richer and more douchebag section of the society. He's been proven useful as he managed to work alongside the nerd to acquire more bodies for the alien as he lured in the interested property buyer into the property where the nerd already waited with a scoop of slimy alien ready to be shoved up into these rich people's orifices

The alien inside Eric also love to tap into Eric's hidden submissiveness. While the real Eric might not be too keen to tap into his more vulnerable side, the alien love to exploit it because Eric's body just responded to it very well with the hardening cock that leaked pre which the alien always enjoyed to experience. So sometimes, after a day where he helped the nerd acquire another bodies, the alien would make Eric said things like

"Look at you buff dumb bull. After fucking up your own marriage to serve small puddle of slime, now you fucked up another family! Because of you, the 27th richest man in America and his 31 years old son controlled by alien now and you are fucking hard because of it! You stupid little slut, a body so big but there's nothing inside of it,"

The alien also remain amazed with its vessel's physique even after months living as him. Either through his social media activity that the nerd watched or when they have video call, it is one of the vessel that is having the most fun utilizing its vessel as it makes Eric more on the playful side rather than arrogant.

During his latest check-up after the video call from the previous week, he welcomed the nerd while doing workout in his garage. He's shirtless and only using a pretty colorful socks (something the alien also love to add to Eric's monochromatic attire set) paired with a tight compression that hid nothing to the imagination.

After doing some more rep of his workout while updating the nerd with info about his activity for the past 1 month, they walked in and the nerd then watched him cleaned up after himself for the check up. He skipped showering for most of the time unless he really need to such as meeting prospective buyer, so the idea of clean up is simply him changing clothes.

Being the playful slime that it is, it started teasing the nerdy scientist as Eric suddenly started jiggling his own ass in the tight short shorts and folded himself to present his ass to the nerd with its vial

"Please, it's been a while. I'll shoot my load if you just pressed that tip in, nerd. Just do it,"

The nerd just smirked, the perks of being the number one ally for a cooperative alien civilization really becomes the number one reason why he's constantly in search for more vessel to acquire, and with the way that the slime multiplies, it seems like there's no stopping soon

#alien possession #male possession #alien expansion #check up

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soylent-crocodile · 7 months ago

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More Myr

Here are just a few more statlines for Myr, a generic battlemyr and a large superion. I don't have much lore here; this is more of a rules supplement to my core Myr piece!

(Myr Superion by Jana Schirmer & Johannes Voss)

Myr, Superion

This towering machine has arms like pillars and a head like a deep-billed bird’s beak.

Misc- CR7 LN Large Construct (Myr) HD9 Init:+1 Senses: Perception:+8 Aura: Myr Shepherding 15ft

Stats- Str:30(+10) Dex:13(+1) Con:- Int:4(-3) Wis:19(+4) Cha:15(+3) BAB:+9/+4 Space:10ft Reach:10ft

Defense- HP:79(9d10+30) AC:21(+1 Dexterity, -1 Size, +11 Natural) Fort:- Ref:+6 Will:+7 CMD:31 Resist: Immunity: Weakness: Special Defenses: Construct Traits

Offense- 2 Slam +16(2d6+10 plus Grab), Beam +10(14d4 force, 60ft ranged touch) CMB:+20 (+24 to Grapple) Speed:40ft Special Attacks: Constrict (2d6+15)

Feats- Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack (-3/+6), Multiattack, Awesome Blow, Tactician’s Emblem

Skills- Perception +8, Sense Motive +7

Spell-like Abilities-

Share Memory /at-will

Greater Make Whole 1/day

Special Qualities- Scrying Focus

Ecology- Environment- Any Languages- Common (Can’t speak) Organization- Shepherd (1 Myr Superion, 4-5 Battle Myr) Treasure- None

Special Abilities- Myr Shepherding (Su)- Other myr within a superion’s aura of myr shepherding may reroll 1s rolled on damage rolls. Scrying Focus (Ex)- Myr are perfect vessels for scrying on. They get a -5 penalty to saves against spells with the Scrying descriptor, and magical sensors made to scry on a myr and its surroundings get a +5 bonus against rolls to perceive it. Additionally, myr- and any object or creature they are in contact with- are not protected by spells such as Nondetection and Screen.

Superion are the apex of myrkind, hulking behemoths which serve to shepherd myr and perform heavy labor that the average myr’s small frame wouldn’t allow.

Battle myr are among the simplest of their kin, basic creatures programmed to detect intruders and protect their designated charges. They are scarily organized in combat and vast in number; scholars of the Plane of Metal worry what may happen if they are brought to the Material Plane.

(Alpha Myr by Dany Orizio)

Myr, Battle

This small humanoid machine has a head that resembles a heavy bird’s beak and a set of long, razor-thin claws on each hand.

Misc- CR2 LN Small Construct (Myr) HD3 Init:+3 Senses: Perception:+3 Aura:

Stats- Str:14(+2) Dex:16(+3) Con:- Int:5(-3) Wis:14(+2) Cha:12(+1) BAB:+3 Space:2.5ft Reach:0ft

Defense- HP:26(3d10+10) AC:14(+3 Dexterity, +1 Size) Fort:- Ref:+3 Will:+2 CMD:17 Resist: Immunity: Weakness: Special Defenses: Construct Traits

Offense- 2 Claw +3(1d4+2), Beam +5(4d4 Force, 30ft Touch) CMB:+4 Speed:30ft Special Attacks:

Feats- Multiattack, Weapon Focus (Claw)

Skills- Acrobatics +4, Perception +3

Spell-like Abilities-

Share Memory /at-will

Make Whole 1/day

Special Qualities- Scrying Focus

Ecology- Environment- Any Languages- Common (Can’t speak) Organization- Guard (2), Squadron (6) Treasure-

Special Abilities- Scrying Focus (Su)- Myr are perfect vessels for scrying on. They get a -5 penalty to saves against spells with the Scrying descriptor, and magical sensors made to scry on a myr and its surroundings get a +5 bonus against rolls to perceive it. Additionally, myr- and any object or creature they are in contact with- are not protected by spells such as Nondetection and Screen.

There are two primary variations on battle myr; the one shown above, which have large claws, and a variation with dextrous hands that has proficiency with all martial weapons. Beyond those variations, there are a number of other similar small myr, such as those with wings, psychic powers, or electric energy.

#soylent original #monsters and races #homebrew #pathfinder #myr #mirrodin #mtg

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boxboxblog · 3 months ago

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Driver Profiles: Esteban Ocon

Updated December 2024

Name: Esteban José Jean-Pierre Ocon-Khelfane

Age: 28

Nationality: French

Years in F1: 8 (Manor 2016, Force India 2017-2018, Renault/Alpine 2020-2024, Haas 2025)

Number: 31

WDCs: N/A

Driving Style: Known as one of the most aggressive drivers on the grid (up there with Magnussen) Ocon is particularly feisty when fighting for positions and overtaking. He balances this aggression with a rather smooth way of driving, and he is the least jerky driver when coming into the apex. He is also well known for strong performances in the wet, pulling out some stellar qualifyings and race results in these difficult conditions. One downside of his style is that this aggression often leads to on-track clashes. He is rather well known for being somewhat reckless, especially in midfield fights.

History:

(Young Ocon, middle, after wining a karting race)

Born into a standard middle class family, Ocon's family actually had to sell their house to afford his professional carting career. He started when he was 6 years old, and lived out of a travelling caravan for most of that time. In 2006 he finished 8th in the Minime class of the French Championship. He won the championship in 2007 and continued his success by winning the Cadet class in 2008. He then spent three years racing in the KF3 category and competed in the Spanish Championship and Italian Open Masters. He won the French KF3 title in 2010 and finished as 2nd in the WSK Euro Series in 2011 behind, behind future F1 WDC Max Verstappen. During this time he attracted F1 attention, being signed to a sister management company to Renault.

(Ocon in the lead during his karting days)

In 2012, Ocon made his debut in single-seaters, taking part in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0. He finished 14th, having won a few points scoring positions and one podium. He also participated in a partial campaign in the Formula Renault 2.0 Alps, finishing 7th and achieving two podiums. He remained in the series for 2013, and recorded one pole position and two race wins. He finished the season in 3rd behind future F1 teammate, and rival, Pierre Gasly.

(Ocon during Eurocup Formula Renault days)

Ocon made his debut in F3 during the 2013 season, racing for F3 powerhouse team, PREMA. He continued with them into the 2014 FIA F3 European Championship. He topped the standings at the first round at Silverstone Circuit and remained in the lead of the championship for the rest of the season. With three races left, Ocon clinched the F3 2014 title. He had won nine races and recorded fifteen pole positions. This was one of the most standout seasons of his career, and one that helped ensure a F1 seat later.

(Ocon his F3 championship winning year)

Ocon moved to the GP3 Series for 2015. It was a fantastic year for Ocon, mostly due to his consistantly high results. While he only won one race that season, his regular podium finishes allowed him to win the title that year. The next year he took part in the 2016 DTM season, as well as being a reserve driver for Renault. He was only able to take part in the early season races, as halfway through the year he was pulled up to F1 backmarker team Manor Racing to replace Rio Haryanto.

(Ocon with Manor)

His first season (half season) with Manor was not a standout performance wise, as he never hit points, but it paved the way for Ocon to join Force India for their 2017 season after Manor left F1. His first year with Force India he teamed Sergio Perez and had a relatively solid year. He regularly scored points, even with some high-points finishes, and his highest finish was 5th. That year he experienced significant friction with his teammate (a running theme) and they made contact several times, sometimes resulting in retirements or massive position drops. However, he still had a good year and finished 8th in the championship.

(Ocon and teammate in the 2017 Force Indias)

2018 was a more negative year, as Ocon had a string of bad luck and run-ins with both his teammate and other drivers (memorably a physical altercation with Max Verstappen). He did not finish as high in the points that year, and it was further complicated after Force India went into administration. The team's assets were bought by Lawrence Stroll and it became clear that Ocon would not be returning to Force India for the 2019 season. He did have an informal agreement with Renault for that season, but he was dropped after they signed Daniel Riccardo instead. For the 2019 season, he served as the 2019 season he served as the Mercedes reserve driver.

(Ocon on podium with Lance Stroll)

2020 Ocon finally signed with Renault to partner Riccardo, and had a mixed bag year. He achieved his best result ever and his first podium at the Sakhir GP, but also experienced a lot of mechanical failures during races throughout the year. He ended the season 12th in the championship behind his teammate. 2021 Renault rebranded to Alpine and retained Ocon, now partnering Fernando Alonso. This would be the year Ocon achieved his maiden GP victory at the Hungarian GP. he showed his extreme skill in wet-weather conditions during this race, and solidified himself as a skilled driver in complex weather. The rest of the year was rather normal, as he scored several points finishes. He did match his WDC teammate rather closely, which is a feat.

(Ocon after maiden win)

2022 was a better year with some higher points finishes. He achieved his best championship finish since 2017, ending the season in 8th. 2023 Alonso left Alpine, and he was partnered by childhood rival and fellow Frenchman Pierre Gasly. The two would match each other pretty well, and have similarly middling seasons for both 2023, and 2024 so far. The standout for Ocon's year was a 2nd place finish in Brazil after a stellar drive in teh wet. Toward the end of the season, Ocon was replaced by Jack Doohan for Abu Dhabi. He will be moving to Haas for the 2025 season.

Major Races:

2017 Canadian GP - Ocon's first points finish, he showed he could handle the pressure as a rookie (bar his time with Manor) and showed the first glimpse of the consistent points he would score later.

2017 Mexican GP - A very strong midfield performance from Ocon. He used strong defense against much faster cars and finished the race in 5th place, his highest at the time.

2018 Belgian GP - His most impressive qualifying to date, he was able to achieve a P3 start in extremely wet conditions. One of the earlier indicators of his skill in the wet.

2020 Sakhir GP - Ocon's first podium, he climbed his way up the field from 11th. It was a rather chaotic race, and he kept calm in the face of multiple crashes, safety cars, and pit stop drama.

2021 Hungarian GP - His first victory came in the most chaotic race of 2021. After several frontrunners were taken out by a crash, Ocon battled midfield drivers for the top step, including 4X WDC Sebastian Vettel. His mistake-free race earned him his 1st place finish.

2024 Brazilian GP - An incredible drive from Ocon saw him leading the race for many laps, and by the end secure 2nd right ahead of his teammate. It showed off his great wet weather skills, and was a race to remember.

Cheers,

-B

#f1 #formula 1 #f1 driver profiles #esteban ocon

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symply-sym · 1 year ago

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I'm currently throwing some of my twitter art onto BlueSky and I think some of that I haven't shared here yet either. So have this thing I originally made this for the 31 Days of Apex challenge. Never tagged it as that cause the devs checked in on that so much that i got anxious. Yet the support was so beautiful and a few devs found it anyway and also left some nice words, it really healed my soul oh also, any new art will be glazed. that's just the future we live in now i guess

#apex legends #revenant #pathfinder #revfinder #my art #robot #robots

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lumiolivier · 2 months ago

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Light's Biggest Mistake

Day 17 of 31 of Kinktober

Prompt: Spectrophilia

Word Count: 435

Light might not be losing it after all...

For a couple months after L’s death, Light could’ve sworn he was going crazy. It wasn’t the same without seeing L next to him at his desk, sitting on his feet. It was just…Strange. Empty. Sure, Light got what he wanted…Or more accurately, Kira got what he wanted. Number one enemy was out of the way, but there was still a sadness in Light’s heart. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but there was certainly something. Something missing. He couldn’t have possibly missed L, could he? No. Of course not. L was getting in the way of what he wanted. L was his only real obstacle. And now…It was gone. He was gone.

Light had gone to bed, his eyes fixated on the ceiling. He couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t sure why. Sleep rarely ever eluded him before. But he couldn’t sleep. And he couldn’t help but have L on the brain. It infuriated him to constantly be thinking about L. He didn’t think about Near the same way. Just L. Near could never be L. Not his L anyway. In Light’s eyes, he would always be a watered down version of the greatest opponent Kira could’ve ever asked for.

Why am I letting this get to me? It was just L. He’s gone. He’s not coming back. And that’s a good thing. That’s a GREAT thing! It’s not like Near’s going to be able to catch me. But why can’t I stop thinking about him? It’s not like he had that big of an impact on my life. He was just the dick in my way. And now that he’s not there anymore, I can move forward with the plan. To become the God of this new world. That I’m making with my own two hands.

And yet, Light felt a strange chill run through his body. A chill that felt so strange, but so…familiar. A welcomed chill. All through his neck…Down his chest…Down to his stomach…And right down to the apex of his legs. On the very tip of his dick…More…And more…And more…Until it was almost too intense for him to deal with. He didn’t know what was happening, but he gripped the sheets as tight as he could. He wanted it to stop. No…More. He wanted more. He wanted all of it! He wanted more and more and more! Until he couldn’t see straight anymore. Until he came all over himself. And he didn’t even have to have a hand on his cock. That chill started to fade. And Light felt an odd tug in his chest.

…Come back, L.

#dnkinktober #spectrophilia #lawlight #implied lawlight #if you squint #light yagami

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catkyunie · 1 year ago

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The Flicker of A Flame ♡

Happy Mingi Month Day 2 of 31 ✧˖°.

𝚜𝚢𝚗𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜: After passing away in a fatal accident, your ghost lingers. Watching as Mingi falls apart at the seams, you do everything you can to try and reconnect and help your beloved remember what it means to live.

𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐: song mingi x fem!reader

𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: a whole bunch of angst

𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐(𝚜): car accident, ghost reader, reader death, established relationship, anxiety, depression, grief, alcohol consumption (if I missed any please let me know!)

𝚠𝚌: 4.1k

What surprised you the most about dying was how weightless you felt. That's the thing with death; no one can ever really know what to expect when that moment happens because no one ever truly returns. This wasn’t a case of seeing any light at the end of a tunnel or having a reel of your entire life play out for you in a moment that seemed to last an eternity. This was instantaneous. One moment you were alive, breathing, anchored down by the weight of Mingi’s hand on your thigh. The next, you were gone, snuffed out as quickly as a candle flame. In a blink, you went from basking in the warm afterglow of an evening with your beloved to the incredible expanse of space that left you levitating in what felt like the deepest pool of water with no beginning or end. There was no pain or clear memory of what had happened. Flashes of light quickly played behind your vision, and you could hear the scrape of metal on metal. And then, with another blink, you were standing in the middle of an intersection.

An accident had left both cars mangled and fusing into an amalgamation of twisted and gnarled steel. Pedestrians had begun to gather on either side of the street, some vehicles stopping to assess the damage, far-off voices calling out to anyone who may have survived. In the distance, you could hear the wail of sirens as they closed in on the scene. Try as you might to peel your eyes away from the tragedy, despite the confusion and terror that seeped into your bones and rooted itself at the base of your spine, a detail kept you transfixed. The car that had received the brunt of the impact was the same make, model, and color as…

That’s when you heard it. What played the most clearly for you, like the chime of a bell down an empty hall, was Mingi’s scream. It rang and reverberated in your bones, penetrating your very spirit. You had never heard that sound come from him. And the only thing he repeatedly howled into the apex of the fused vehicles was your name. Over and over and over, he called for you, each iteration of your name becoming more desperate and helpless than the last. Finally, you peeled your eyes from the accident scene and looked down into the palms of your hands. The appendages felt alien to you as you watched the way they trembled like leaves in the wind, here yet not entirely. You knew with certainty that they were your hands as you turned them over, your eyes landing on and fixing themselves to the ring that adorned your left hand. That’s right. You and Mingi had been on your way home after a team dinner, which he had orchestrated under the guise of business to assemble your closest friends and members to ask you to be his bride.

No. No, no, this couldn’t be right. This had to be a dream. There was no way. You felt your body begin to move before you were even sure of where it was going, your voice passing through your lips like a whisper. You were stumbling your way to Mingi, his wails of panic still just as gut-wrenching and blood-curdling. He was being pulled from the wreckage as you approached, the firemen trying their best to calm your partner’s panic while also attempting to restrain him, informing him that the more he fought them, the more he could exacerbate his injuries or even spring new ones. But Mingi was in blind hysteria, his eyes never leaving the passenger seat, a mixture of blood and fresh, hot tears contorting and twisting his face into the very definition of pain.

“Mingki, jagi, please, I’m right here! Look, I’m fine!” you babbled, in desperate spurts, your hands reaching for him.

You needed him to see, to understand. It was a dream. He had to wake up. Stepping to his side, then, you made the mistake of following the line of his vision and was greeted with the source of the mania he had become so lost in. In a mess of flesh and steel, your head lulled over on one shoulder, eyes sparkling with tears and happiness only an hour before, now lifeless and cold. While the scene itself wasn’t necessarily gruesome, it was the hollow expression that colored your features, the pale stretch of skin over your cheeks that were usually so vibrant and brightly colored, that genuinely sealed your fate. This wasn’t a dream. This was very much real. There, in that intersection, somewhere on the streets of Seoul, you had died. And so did Mingi.

____________________________________________________________

The first two weeks were the hardest. Having Mingi within arms reach, extending a hand and running your knuckles over his, wrapping your arms around his waist, pressing your cheek to his muscled back, and feeling his heartbeat, yet knowing he could feel none of it. The methods in which your physical touch had comforted him prior were now doing nothing. It left you feeling hopeless. There had been a few instances where he would respond to your touch, a subtle turn of the head, or a questioning gaze that lingered too long on your general direction to be a coincidence. But, each time you felt your chest blossom with the silent wish that you had made that connection, he’d simply turn away from you and fall back into his stupor.

That was the hardest. Death, in comparison, had been like the dream you had so desperately wished it to be. The death of drive, motivation, and will of your partner made it real. Seeing how he sunk in on himself and became a shell of the man you envisioned spending your life with hurt the most. Immediately following your death and with the guidance of his manager, Hongjoong, Mingi went on an indefinite leave of absence from their company. The only time he ever left the house was when he was left with scraps of food, and even then, that was only after his team members and best friends had stopped frequenting your home with delivery and takeout. At least once a week, someone from the team would come by to check on him, usually either Yunho or San, and sit with him. Words were rarely ever exchanged. It was mostly extended periods of silence with the occasional break in the form of your friends commenting on their current business proposals or the change in weather. Only once had they made the unforeseen mistake of mentioning you.

It was a few weeks following the accident. San and Wooyoung had both visited, bringing over beer and soju. It was the first time that Mingi had done more than sit idly on the sofa, tea going cold in his hands as he stared at his reflection in the strained liquid. He was engaging, albeit quietly, and had said more than hello and goodbye. As the night continued, with more booze being introduced into everyone’s system, Wooyoung had chosen to break the silence with a thought.

“You guys remember that one night we had taken y/n out for her promotion within the company?” he mused, eyes transfixed on the last sip of alcohol that he swished lazily at the bottom of his glass. San’s eyes immediately shifted to Wooyoung, observing him and listening closely as the younger of the two continued. “She had maybe two drinks and was already flushed and giggling at every stupid joke we told. Even the bad ones.”

“Woo…” San spoke cautiously, his gaze now jumping between the two men seated on either side of him.

“Even you don’t get drunk that quickly, Sannie.” Wooyoung laughed, throwing his drink back and finishing it with a quick gulp. “I’m convinced she played all of us for a fool at the team dinners and took water shots instead of soju.”

San reached around Wooyoung then, feeling the tension as it began building in the room, his hand finding and pulling the bottle of booze away from Woo’s reach.

“Alright, buddy, I think you might have had enough–”

“You remember, don’t you, hyung?” Wooyoung said quietly.

A beat of silence permeated the room before he continued, eyes glassed over and lost in a memory. “She clung to every word we said. You could’ve told her you hung the moon, and she’d have believed you.” He turned his attention to Mingi, who had gone quiet, head lulled forward and lost at the bottom of his glass. “Then again, y/n didn’t need to be tipsy to believe that. She loved us fiercely, even when I felt we didn’t deserve it.” You had watched from Mingi’s side, your hands clinging desperately to his own, tears stinging your eyes and threatening to spill forward. What Woo said next, though, caused the thread to snap.

“But that was nothing compared to how much she loved you, Mingki.”

Slowly, Mingi set his drink down on the table and rose from his seated position on the floor. With a stiff bow, he thanked San and Wooyoung for the company and drinks and exited the main room. Sidestepping into your bedroom, he slammed the door behind him with enough force to shake the picture frames hanging along the walls. Without a word, San gathered up Wooyoung, whose cheeks were now stained with tears, and they saw their way out. You followed closely behind them, choking on your sob, wanting so desperately for them to understand how much their friendship had meant to you, how much it still meant to you. The exchange between them as they put on their shoes and shuffled out of the door stopped you dead in your tracks.

“I’m sorry, Sannie. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I know, jagiya.”

“I miss him. I miss her. It feels like we’re mourning both of them.”

As San helped Wooyoung with his shoe ties, he thought carefully about his following words before speaking them out into the space between them. “That’s because we are, Woo.”

Mingi stopped accepting visitors shortly after that.

____________________________________________________________

The weeks had bled into months, the seasons changing and soon sweeping out the hot weather and introducing the cold. And with the warmer days went your confidence that you’d ever be able to bridge that invisible limbo between you and Mingi. Every night you had curled up beside him, holding him as best as your phantom limbs would allow, clinging to him and the life eddying out of him increasingly with each passing day. Admittedly, some days were better than others, especially when he resumed working with Hongjoong and the team. Any mention of you or your time with them was left strictly to quiet conversations amongst the men, clear of earshot from Mingi, which seemed to serve him just fine. He was falling back into his routine, pouring most of his time into his continued work and finding ways to keep himself busy when he didn’t have a project he was overseeing. He had started to spend more and more of his free time with the guys, once again opting into team dinners and evenings spent at someone’s home with drinks and games. But, despite the leaps and strides he made to appear as ‘normal’ and put together as he could, there were still times that the mask would falter, and he’d find himself breaking down and coming apart at the seams. It could be something as small as the smell of a woman’s perfume that he passed on the sidewalk, the brand reminiscent of the scent you favored, or the sound of a voice across the restaurant close enough to your timbre to have him snapping his neck with expectancy. While everyone noted and played into the charade that Mingi had painted for himself, every one of you knew that, eventually, the facade wouldn’t be enough to keep him together. He still refused to talk about the accident, let alone mention your name. And every night, once the quiet had settled over him and he was left alone with an empty apartment and his thoughts, he would still cry himself to sleep, clinging to the pillow that had long lost your scent. But, unbeknownst to you, and even Mingi, the falling of the year’s first snow would bring the pivotal turning point in his story.

It was late October, a week before Halloween, and the members had decided to celebrate the end of another work week with drinks and budae jjigae at Hongjoong’s apartment. Mingi had been tasked with collecting the ingredients needed for the hotpot, as he would be the first one leaving the office for the evening. Begrudgingly, he had agreed and bundled up accordingly before grabbing his suitcase, and the scribbled list Wooyoung had put together. The walk from the office to the supermarket was relatively short, but the time he would spend collecting the food needed for the evening would give the others time to reconvene at Joong’s place.

It was as typical an afternoon as any. Your new normal had consisted of following closely behind Mingi, amiably existing in his space as he went about his day-to-day tasks. You had long given up on the idea of him ever being able to see or feel you and, in doing so, had allowed yourself to be content with the opportunity to simply be an apparition that tagged along and watched over him. Stepping into the market with a quick bow to the attendant at the door, you walked beside him, arm crossed delicately around his, as he began pursuing the shelves and filling the small basket he had acquired. It wasn’t long before Mingi wandered into the produce aisle, bent at the waist and closely inspecting the quality and prices of the enoki and king oyster mushrooms they would need for the hotpot. As he did so, you looked around at the sea of people as they shopped. While most wore masks and weren’t necessarily decipherable from one face to the next, one woman, in particular, had caught your eye. Her stature was similar to yours, and she wore her hair long and down, bangs curtaining her face in a way that you found lovely. Absently, you reached up to your bangs and quickly fixed them, though you knew it would matter to no one but you. It wasn’t until she turned towards you and Mingi that you felt your heart drop to your feet, your fingers midstroke across your forehead. Mingi had corrected his spine then and had turned to face out into the store, and his eyes still focused on the pack of mushrooms he had selected when a quiet voice called out timidly, “Song Mingi?”

Instantly, his head whipped up in response to his name, and it was at that moment that you knew he had recognized the young woman that stood before you. A shy smile played at the corners of her mouth as she bent forward in respect, her hands gripping the basket she held between her fingers tightly. As she corrected herself, a quick flick of her chin caused her hair to fall away from her face as she said affably, “It’s been a long time.”

You could only watch in awe as Mingi bent at the waist and returned the bow, the tremor in his hand not passing your detection. Nodding as he stood straight, he quickly threw the pack of Enoki into his basket before responding with a clear throat, “Yes, it has. How, uh…how have you been? Are Omma and Appa doing well?”

“I’ve been well, thank you. And yes, they’re in good health. They’ve already started preparing for Christmas if you can believe that.”

With a chuckle, Mingi replied,” That doesn’t surprise me.”

There was a pause of awkward silence that filled the space before the young woman dared to take a step forward, her dark eyes cautious as she continued. “Have you been well?”

With a quick shrug of the shoulders, Mingi pulled his attention away from the woman and began scouring the shoppers. You could sense from his body language and the way his eyes darted that he was looking for an out, for any excuse to escape and avoid this conversation.

“As well as I can be,” he said simply.

“I see. And the members?”

“They’re in good health.”

“I’m pleased to hear it.”

You could feel the tension as it teetered on the edge, knowing and anticipating where the conversation led. He couldn’t run from it. Not this time.

“We’ve been trying to get in touch with you. With the holidays approaching, we wanted to extend an invitation for when we visit y/n’s gravesite.”

And there it was, the shoe you had been waiting to drop. You watched as Mingi swallowed down the anxiety you knew had been bubbling and building in his chest. It was one thing to avoid and sidestep conversations with the members and their shared friends. It was another to evade your older sister.

Bringing a trembling hand to the back of his neck, Mingi averted his eyes and chose instead to take a particular interest in his shoes, doing whatever he could to avoid the kind gaze of your sister. “My apologies, Noona. It’s not long since I’ve returned to the office, and Hongjoong hasn’t given me any real room to breathe with the projects we have coming up.”

A nod in understanding, followed by,” I understand. It must be challenging to balance everything now with what you’ve been through.”

“Yes…it has been.”

Another beat of silence passed between them before your sister’s shuffling drew your attention away from Mingi. You watched the bag over her shoulder as your sister retrieved a small tea candle pack and extended it to your partner.

“Omma poured these for us to burn for y/n over the holidays. She had poured you a set, as well. Take these, in case you aren’t able to make it.”

Pulling his eyes from the ground and finally meeting the sympathetic gaze of your sibling, Mingi’s brown eyes flitted to the pack of hand-poured candles she held outstretched to him. You stood with bated breath, your hands tangling in and fisting the cardigan that hung loosely at your sides. You knew the weight those small tea candles held for you and Mingi. Accepting this kindness would mean accepting what had happened. It would squarely place him face to face with the reality that he had spent these months so desperately trying to escape, even though it followed him in every aspect of his life. The reality that you weren’t coming home. That this would be his first Christmas without you. You weren’t there to comfort him after a hard day at work or on the nights when his anxiety had reached a particularly cataclysmic point. You weren’t there to join him and his brothers for nights of drinking and reminiscing, to laugh at their poorly times jokes. He could no longer outrun a past that included you. He had to face the present and accept that he had had a life with you. And that that chapter had ended.

Reaching forward, Mingi took hold of those small candles and finally allowed the tears to break the well that had been collecting. He didn’t try to swipe them away or hide his vulnerability or pain at that moment. In the middle of that grocery store, face to face with the young woman that so closely resembled you, he accepted her kindness and allowed himself to feel the heaviness of it. Clutching the candles tightly to his chest, Mingi bent at the waist in a deep bow.

“Thank you, Noona…”

___________________________________________________________

Mingi didn’t utter a word of his meeting with your sister to the boys as they progressed with their evening. As usual, he went about their time together, enjoying drinks and laughs with everyone as they gathered around the table to enjoy their dinner. There was a palpable difference in how his body moved, his limbs looser and his laugh more vibrant than they had remembered hearing it in recent weeks. None of them commented on the change, though, and reveled in the refreshed version of their brother that they had been blessed with. As the evening drug on, Yeosang and San stared out over the glittering lights of Seoul while the others took their respective turns on whatever game they had loaded up. It was then that the oldest of the two stepped forward and pulled open the sliding door of the balcony, Yeosang’s voice light as he exclaimed,” Looks like we get snow early this year.”

At the mention of snowfall, heads flicked over to the pair, Jongho and Yunho abandoning their places on the floor to join San and Yeosong out on the balcony. Eventually, all but Hongjoong and Mingi had assembled on the deck and sipped from their drinks, taking in the sight and simply choosing to exist in the moment. Your head rested easily against Mingi’s shoulder as you watched on, a content smile playing at the corners of your mouth when you heard Hongjoong speak from your partner’s other side.

“Maybe this is a sign of good fortune to come.”

Mingi was quiet as he looked on and simply nodded in agreement as he watched his brothers sling arms over one another, Wooyoung sticking his tongue out to attempt to catch a snowflake or two. You felt him shift beneath you shortly after that, adjusting your body into a seated position as you watched him reach around the table for his bag. Digging into the depths of it, your breath caught as he pulled forward your mother’s tea candles. Joong watched him now, not daring to speak as Mingi turned the packed candles over in his hands a few times, contemplating them. Standing then and stepping into the kitchen, Hongjoong returned with a small pack of matches and an extra glass and set them softly on the coffee table. It was an offering he would not push his brother to take but one he felt the need to extend.

After another beat, Mingi carefully peeled the plastic away from the first candle and set it on the table. Reaching for the box of matches, he quickly struck the wooden stick against the side of the box and watched as the fire licked to life and cast shadows over the planes of his face. By this point, everyone had turned their attention to the young man, the excitement of the snow paling compared to what they were witnessing. Carefully, Mingi navigated the tiny flame to the wick of the candle and waited for it to catch fire before pulling it away and flicking his wrist to extinguish it. He reached for the open bottle of soju to his right, pouring a shot into the empty glass and waiting. A moment of reflection, you realized, as all eight men watched that tiny flame dance along the candle's surface, the booze in the glass catching and refracting light back as it glittered over the table.

To your surprise, Mingi was the first to break his silence as he lifted his glass in a toast, the lining of his eyes burning with a molten shimmer as he breathed the words you had silently wished for.

“To y/n.”

“To y/n,” they all parroted in quiet unison, tipping their glasses back and finishing their drinks.

The remainder of the evening felt like it had been pulled directly from your memories. Direct references to times you drank together, each of them taking their time to laugh, cry, and remember the bonds you had forged with each of them individually. You realized then, as you found yourself lost in the sounds of their friendship, your eyes only leaving that tiny flicker of a flame to gaze at the face of your beloved contentedly, that it wasn’t up to you to reconnect with your betrothed or even the brothers that sat around him. The connection had never been severed. It had simply been tangled along the way. Their patience and guidance and a single act of genuine kindness are what it took for him to find his way again. Finding himself at a crossroads and choosing to walk the path you had forged together, even if it now meant having to traverse it alone. As you leaned into Mingi’s side again, the flicker from the candle dancing behind the deep color of your eyes, you silently agreed with the sentiment Hongjoong had stated before. This was a sign of good fortune and much more fortune to come.

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎: Hello everyone! Day 2 has defintely taken a deatour from the fluff I introduced in Day 1 but I am very pleased with the structure and how this one-shot came together. I hope you enjoy and I’ll see you tomorrow with more fluff and happy Mingki! this particular fic has not been proofread✧˖°.

#song mingi x reader #song mingi x y/n #song mingi #song mingi one shot #mingi x reader #mingi x y/n #song mingi angst #mingi angst #paige writes #ateez #ateez fic #ateez one shot #mingi one shot #mingi #happy mingi month #catkyunie fic

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audhdgoku · 1 year ago

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Hi My Name Is Jasper Nightlynx, And I’m An Arctic Fox Irl [Therian!! ΘΔ]. I’m Fictionkin With Several Characters, Please See My Kin Page!. I’m Also A 31 Year Old Trans [FTM] Non-Binary Genderfluid Dude [Pronouns Are He/Him, They/Them, Kit/Kits], And A Gross Ass Furry. I’m Ace/Bi, Specifically Autochorissexual! My Jung Type Is INFP, And My Temperament Is Phlegmatic. I Really Love Foxes I AM A Real Life Fox, And Tag All Foxes As ‘Me’. Most Pictures Of My Character Kins Will Be Tagged As ‘Selfie’. - If Any Artist Is Uncomfortable With Me Doing This With Their Art Of The Character, Please Let Me Know And I'll Remove The Tag.

I Have Over 400+ Hours On Cole Cassidy And I’m Suffering Rip Overwatch, You Were Decent While You Lasted Lmao

I Also Have 4500 5000+ Hours On Skyrim Cause It’s My Favorite Game And I’m Dumb

If U Wanna See My Gay Fursona’s Tag, Click Here lol

[And Don’t Worry, I Make Sure I Tag Everything With Proper Warnings!]

Usual DNI Criteria; No Terfs/Radfems, Fascists, Racist, LGBTQ+phobes, Zoophiles, Pedophiles [INCLUDING Maps And Whatever Else You Lot Call Yourselves These Days], P*wdiepie Supporters, Dream Stans, HP Fans [Fr Read a Different Book] And PLEASE No Minors!!! MINORS BLOCKED ON SIGHT.

Stay Cool, Drink Water, Be Gay, Do Crime

———————————————————————–

Current Front: Goku 🥕 / Vegito 🍬

I Have A Vegito Kin Blog Here! [Warning For Eye Strain/Potential Blood/Potential Gore/Flashing Lights/Trauma Posting]

And A Kurama Kin Blog Here! [Warning For Potential Blood /Trauma Posting]

List Of Illnesses And Disabilities:

Multiple Sclerosis [Physically Disabled, RRMS Meaning Its Only Getting Worse!!!!]

Depression

Anxiety

Dyscalculia

AuDHD

I Also Might Have A Speech Problem. I Tend To Trip Over My Words A Lot And I Need To Reread Sentences [Aloud And In My Head] For Me To Say It Right

I Have Bad Memory, And I’m Not Entirely Sure If That’s Because Of My MS, Or Mental Illness, But I Don’t Catch On To Things Easily And Tend To Forget Things A Lot lol

I AM Currently Working To Try And Get Disability, But The US Health System Is Dogshit And It Takes Forever <3 Lmao

IF You Are Feeling Charitable, I Can Be Do.nated To Directly Here ; And My Ve.nmo Is @ JasperNightlynx , And My Cas.hApp Is $JasperNightlynx [No Pressure, And Only If You Are In A Good Spot To Do So, Of Course <3]

———————————————————————–

I Can Be Reached In These Places!:

Bnet: TransCassidy#1457

Apex/Origin: TransgendrOctane

Discord: @JasperNightlynx

Steam

#Fox Rambles #About Me #Flashing #Ask To Tag #Prob Gonna Reblog This A Few Times FYI

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svcredveins · 8 months ago

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That’s a wrap with the 12 hours of Nordschleife! It was so adrenaline rushed! 🫀

First endurance race on the Nordschleife has been a blast! Honestly, I am really hoping to do another endurance race here because of how amazing and unique this track truly is. An 8+ minute long track with never ending winding turns? Yes please! But honestly, I love this track and hopefully one day would be able to drive it actually in real life in a Porsche. My goal is to constantly run this track every weekend (if I live in Germany hopefully) to get to know this track better for the day I’d be in the 24 hours as a Porsche factory driver. That’s my dream!

I just love this track so much; it’s so addicting. Like honestly, I crave another endurance here and hopefully for it to be a 24 hours because it was disappointing that it got cut down to 12; would’ve been my first 24 hour race! But unfortunately it didn’t end that way due to low participation. Hopefully one day I can ring up a team and just do it because I crave it!

The opening laps were magical trying to fight for positions. A couple of laps later trying to overtake a BMW, I managed to make a clean pass at Kallenhard as there was enough gap between the BMW and the inner curb, I made it stick! Too bad though the broadcasters didn’t catch it in time. It was such a solid overtake!

I did a total of three and not even a quarter of a stint. My first two stints were flawless; no contacts, no crashes, just pure confidence on the track. I’m just so glad I’ve done this track a lot in Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Motorsport and because of that, I at least knew what to expect out of the track, but I improved even more just by doing a lot more laps on Assetto Corsa Comeptizione. It was a blast and my little lady was just pounding every time I did my stints! It was an amazing feel.

My third stint, however, was tragic. I was so hyped up to do a night stint and do quicker laps (because the colder the track, the better tire grip there is), but unfortunately though, that didn’t happen due to a car stopped in the middle of the track on the apex, held the brakes, but still rolled a little bit forward which still made it hard to judge where he was gonna go. I debated to veer to the right, but he was too slow to even do that, so I was just praying he wasn’t gonna move any further forward but it was too late. I couldn’t pull out of the inevitable. Heartbreaking that I had 15 seconds worth of damage but it wasn’t doable because the aero was just gone on the front of the car from a smack to the front. Turning was more resistant and I was several seconds down from my best. Several! It was insane on how much damage from the front just obliterated my lap times. I was making very good lap times actually. 8:22s but sadly got crossed to an 8:31. Yeah…it was that bad of damage, so I was certainly gutted that was it for my night stint since the rest of the team had a strategy in mind to pull me out of the car and have our other teammate finish off the race. Which to be honest, I was definitely good to do a double stint. I was too deep in my stints that I was always fresh to do another one haha, but I didn’t want to be greedy so I didn’t ask to stay out since I know my teammate wanted to finish it off. Ideally though, the quickest driver does double stints in that scenario, but that’s all good.

Overall though the race was amazing despite the team having self induced incidents. My teammates did a fantastic job! A solid P7 out of 35 drivers is quite the feat!

Anyway, again, I’m just really hoping to find another Nordschleife endurance race because it’s just so addicting doing very long laps with corners that have very little room for error. I love it. I love racing, I love the feel I get out of it, I love Porsche, and I just love it.

My apologies for not recording my little lady though through it all. Adrenaline just took over the whole race and I had to just be focused the whole time. My brain can only do so much as we were all chatting constantly haha. It would’ve been a huge toll on my phone anyway and it would’ve been a bit hazardous to start recording and stop recording on my phone, let alone my phone storage would be screaming at me haha

#cardiophilia #heartbeat #cardiophile #cardiophile thoughts #stethoscope #self stething #beating heart #female cardiophile #female heartbeat #fast heartbeat

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kevandberniceincanada · 3 months ago

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After that we went to The Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre. There are 7 wolves at the centre of various ages, and all have been rescued from zoos or orphaned, so would not have survived in the wild. There was a 25 min presentation on all things wolfish which was interesting. There was an interesting bit on how wolves keep the balance of eco systems in check being an apex predator. They predominantly eat anything that has horns, bison, elk moose, deer etc. They usually prey on the weak, elderly and injured and by doing so they actually increase the strength and genes of those remaining. Yellowstone National Park had a problem in the 1950's where hunting had been allowed and the wolves had all been killed off. This in turn meant that the significant increase in the animals they preyed on affected the whole ecosystem. They ate all the vegetation, became genetically weaker and affected things like wetlands, beavers, plant species etc and the whole area was in decline. This was identified by a guy around 1950 who reported his findings to the Government. They duly ignored it until 1995 when things had got even worse. They obtained 31 wolves from the Canadian Government, reintroduced them to Yellowstone and within 6 years the whole ecosystem had turned around, and the wolf population has now increased to around 350.

Great a success story there.

Now move onto Canada and the present day. The Rockies are located in Alberta and British Columbia and guess what, the Wolf population is in serious decline due to their hunting being allowed uncontrolled. Why, because the caribou, moose and elk populations are also in decline and the powers that be blame the wolves. Also the ecosystem is starting to go the way of Yellowstone.

Now the biggest industry in western Canada is logging and the biggest and oldest trees make best lumber. The problem is that lichen, which takes 10's or 100's of years to grow on trees in any quantity, grows on trees and caribou moose and elk eat lichen. By cutting down all the older larger trees their food supply has been signicantly reduced, hence their decline in numbers. The government blame the wolves so allows hunting of them. Has the moose et population started to increase? No, numbers are still in decline but the Goverment fails to accept evidence that the uncontrolled hunting of wolves, and their decrease in numbers is not the problem. Also to ban or limit logging in the affected area is unthinkable due to the financial cost and lobbying of the industry.

Yellowstone all over again, but 100 years later!!!

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the-chronicle-of-holy-days · 9 months ago

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Day 13

Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli

1. O my beautiful God! I swim in Thy heart like a trout in the mountain torrent.

2. I leap from pool to pool in my joy; I am goodly with brown and gold and silver.

3. Why, I am lovelier than the russet autumn woods at the first snowfall.

4. And the crystal cave of my thought is lovelier than I.

5. Only one fish-hook can draw me out; it is a woman kneeling by the bank of the stream. It is she that pours the bright dew over herself, and into the sand so that the river gushes forth.

6. There is a bird on yonder myrtle; only the song of that bird can draw me out of the pool of Thy heart, O my God!

7. Who is this Neapolitan boy that laughs in his happiness? His lover is the mighty crater of the Mountain of Fire. I saw his charred limbs borne down the slopes in a stealthy tongue of liquid stone.

8. And Oh! the chirp of the cicada!

9. I remember the days when I was cacique in Mexico.

10. O my God, wast Thou then as now my beautiful lover?

11. Was my boyhood then as now Thy toy, Thy joy?

12. Verily, I remember those iron days.

13. I remember how we drenched the bitter lakes with our torrent of gold; how we sank the treasurable image in the crater of Citlaltepetl.

14. How the good flame lifted us even unto the lowlands, setting us down in the impenetrable forest.

15. Yea, Thou wast a strange scarlet bird with a bill of gold. I was Thy mate in the forests of the lowland; and ever we heard from afar the shrill chant of mutilated priests and the insane clamour of the Sacrifice of Maidens.

16. There was a weird winged God that told us of his wisdom.

17. We attained to be starry grains of gold dust in the sands of a slow river.

18. Yea, and that river was the river of space and time also.

19. We parted thence; ever to the smaller, ever to the greater, until now, O sweet God, we are ourselves, the same.

20. O God of mine, Thou art like a little white goat with lightning in his horns!

21. I love Thee, I love Thee.

22. Every breath, every word, every thought, every deed is an act of love with Thee.

23. The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love.

24. The songs of me are the soft sighs:

25. The thoughts of me are very rapture:

26. And my deeds are the myriads of Thy children, the stars and the atoms.

27. Let there be nothing!

28. Let all things drop into this ocean of love!

29. Be this devotion a potent spell to exorcise the demons of the Five!

30. Ah God, all is gone! Thou dost consummate Thy rapture. Falútli! Falútli!

31. There is a solemnity of the silence. There is no more voice at all.

32. So shall it be unto the end. We who were dust shall never fall away into the dust.

33. So shall it be.

34. Then, O my God, the breath of the Garden of Spices. All these have a savour averse.

35. The cone is cut with an infinite ray; the curve of hyperbolic life springs into being.

36. Farther and farther we float; yet we are still. It is the chain of systems that is falling away from us.

37. First falls the silly world; the world of the old grey land.

38. Falls it unthinkably far, with its sorrowful bearded face presiding over it; it fades to silence and woe.

39. We to silence and bliss, and the face is the laughing face of Eros.

40. Smiling we greet him with the secret signs.

41. He leads us into the Inverted Palace.

42. There is the Heart of Blood, a pyramid reaching its apex down beyond the Wrong of the Beginning.

43. Bury me unto Thy Glory, O beloved, O princely lover of this harlot maiden, within the Secretest Chamber of the Palace!

44. It is done quickly; yea, the seal is set upon the vault.

45. There is one that shall avail to open it.

46. Nor by memory, nor by imagination, nor by prayer, nor by fasting, nor by scourging, nor by drugs, nor by ritual, nor by meditation; only by passive love shall he avail.

47. He shall await the sword of the Beloved and bare his throat for the stroke.

48. Then shall his blood leap out and write me runes in the sky; yea, write me runes in the sky.

This day is for my Cult ❤️❤️❤️ years favorite is in bold.

Artwork from https://www.lisasterle.com/mwt

#thelema #thelemic holy season #argentum astrum #holy days #silver star #tarot #the hermit

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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From Tumblr to Gawker, the sites and voices that defined the 2010s are gone or changed. There is no happy ending to this story.

The millennial internet first died in 2015.

I remember the day exactly because I was one of seven staffers, in addition to many more permalancers, at Gawker Media who were laid off as part of a company-wide restructuring. I received a message on Slack, was asked to join a meeting in a nearby conference room, told that today, November 17, was my last day working for Gawker, and by the time I returned to my desk all of my accounts were disabled. For the company to “optimize and sharpen all the sites going forward,” executive editor John Cook explained in a memo—sites that also included Jezebel, Deadspin, Lifehacker, and Gizmodo—“shifting personnel” was necessary.

In truth, I’d lasted much longer than I ever expected to. In my 18 months as a senior editor, I commissioned more than 150 stories and published young writers like Vann Newkirk II, P. E. Moskowitz, Donovan X. Ramsey, and Josie Duffy. When people ask me what it was like to work at Gawker, notorious for its sometimes unrealistic traffic demands on staffers, my answer is always the same: “I had no road map. I threw things at the wall to see what stuck.”

My directive was to help expand the voice of the site, so I intentionally cast a wide net. I tasked writers—people like me who never once considered that their work could be published on Gawker—to report on topics ranging from the rise of suburban poverty and the shady business of secondary policing to workplace racism, gentrification, interracial dating, and the joys of eating ass.

Gawker, like every other media company trying to survive this next internet evolution, was chasing virality. Good stories mattered, but numbers mattered just as much. The popularity of the stories I commissioned was never an exact science. Some did exceedingly well for obvious reasons—“Tinder Is Full of Robot Prostitutes” (198,000 visitors); “What Serial Gets Wrong” (296,000); “Why I Pee Sitting Down” (110,000)—while other stories bombed for reasons I still can’t make sense of.

But there was no sense to be made of the moment we found ourselves in. The internet was undergoing a rare metamorphosis. Facebook, Twitter, and the introduction of social media had completely reengineered business models. Everything, as Nicholas Carr has suggested about the pinballing effect of social media, was being uprooted. “Radically biased toward space and against time, social media is inherently destabilizing,” he wrote in 2018. “What it teaches us, through its whirlwind of fleeting messages, is that nothing lasts. Everything is disposable. Novelty rules.”

BuzzFeed knew a thing or two about novelty. It was also trying to understand how to seize the attention of a mass audience. Unlike Gawker or HuffPost, BuzzFeed took a much more wholesale approach to gaming traffic. Steered by CEO Jonah Peretti, it implemented a medley of quizzes, Twitter recaps, listicles, news stories, and long-form investigations as its bread and butter. For a time, BuzzFeed was the apex of internet production. Remember the dress? Elsewhere, sites like The Awl and The Hairpin platformed newbie writers—Lauren Michele Jackson, Vinson Cunningham, Bryan Washington—with a renegade interest in pop culture. Before I had the great fortune of working with him at Gawker, I obsessively read Tom Scocca’s weather reviews with a mix of anticipation and private glee.

The second time the millennial internet died, when The Awl shut its doors for good on January 31, 2018, I remember thinking how Scocca had captured the sentiment of the millennial web and the era it birthed perfectly: “Every fugitive bit of light might be the last one.” Because that’s how it felt to create, work, and waste time on the internet of the 2010s. It was one big secret that all of us were in on, having fun as we remade digital media in a way that felt true to us, never knowing if tomorrow the light we illuminated with the stories we blogged would be the last.

I was able to make a home and a career on the internet because sites like Grantland, Okayplayer, and Jezebel gave me license as a writer and thinker. They validated my weirdness as much as they challenged my ways of thinking around gender politics, movies, sports, and identity. Stumbling on responses by Greg Tate in the Okayplayer message boards was its own masterclass in music and political theory. Before that, blogs like Crunk & Disorderly, The Cynical Ones, and FreeDarko showed me how sweeping this territory we called the internet was. They were proof that a single voice could take up space in a unique and original tone.

My internet, the millennial internet, was a province of play and possibility. Of course, it’s mostly all gone now. The trend toward consolidation is near complete. There is no happy ending to this story. Journalists, editors, and media makers of all sorts are losing jobs. This year seemed especially cruel to those of us who make a living in this fickle industry. Independent media is a dwindling business model, a fate ominously true for niche publications with an outsider’s eye.

The millennial internet died, perhaps for the final time, in April, when BuzzFeed News closed shop. A week later, Traffic—a book by former editor-in-chief Ben Smith, about the mad dash to reinvent digital media during this specific period—was published to enthusiastic reviews, its release bookmarking the end to a decade colored by omnivorous virality. By late fall, Vice downsized, Okayplayer fired its entire editorial staff, pivoting to god knows what, and Jezebel, the pioneering feminist site, was forced to shut down. (It was acquired by Paste in late November, saving it from an early death.) According to a recent employment analysis, the news media sector lost more jobs this year than it did across 2022 and 2021 combined.

The 2010s serendipitously coincided with the mainstreaming of social media. Tumblr, Twitter, and Vine broadened the reach of communication, amplifying a generation of voices that otherwise would have gone unheard. These platforms were the engine of creativity before everything was pimped out and recast as sponsored content. That’s all changed. This year, Tumblr announced plans to significantly curb its operations. Under the ownership of Elon Musk, Twitter, rebranded as X, has decayed into a petri dish of misinformation and harassment, inciting an exodus from the platform. As for Vine, which discontinued in 2017, TikTok has taken its place though it hasn’t quite replicated its hypnotic charm.

You’re probably wondering how we got here. How all of this happened. Don’t. It’s a fool’s errand in a time of spectacular fools, crooks, and private equity monsters. My internet is dying. It’s been dying for some time. Everything I knew about it will soon vanish, its histories regurgitated via 30-second TikTok videos shared in group chats, eulogized annually in the cocoon of darkened movie theaters, where tickets run $30.

The contours of the digital era are receding. So much of what I loved is gone or changed, its parts sold for scraps. Why and how it had to be like this, I will never know. Greed and mismanagement seem too cheap an answer even though I know it is one of them.

What is also true is how new technologies jockey to replace old ones. It’s how the game works. Radio killed newspapers. TV killed radio. The internet killed them all. That’s how the narrative goes, anyway. Today, as text-based tech fades into the hipster denim of the 2010s, video and audio reign dominant. That is, until it’s time to pivot to the next shiny thing. We like what we like until we’re told to like something new.

Gawker shut down, for the second time, in February. When it happened, I was reminded of what John Cook wrote in his memo the day I got let go. Gawker was pivoting to politics with a mandate to “hump the campaign” (LOL). The plan failed, but not because of the writers and editors who stayed, or management’s course correction (though that was also a doomed enterprise). Hilary Clinton lost the election. Donald Trump won. Reality blurred into vulgar theater. Theater so vulgar and unbelievable we’re still reeling from it.

Before it was shot dead, in 2016, Gawker failed the way most digital media properties of the millennial internet failed: by trying to fathom, and build a business model around, something that is unfathomable—the way the internet works. Nick Denton, Gawker’s muckraking founder, couldn’t hack it. Neither could Jonah Peretti. In truth, no one can. Today I find solace in that atom of unpredictability. It’s the one lesson I’ve carried with me since that day.

None of us have it figured out. We never will. Onward.

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