#nec rate

[necbahrain]

[sebastianswallows]

Hello! Could I offer you a prompt? I often see fics about Ominis experiencing sight for the first time, but how about Slytherin!MC being the one afflicted with a temporary blindness, and now having to rely on Ominis for guidance, 'seeing' the world from his perspective? Maybe as a result of some unruly student's potion experiment? Thank you for your time and work!

Hello, nonny!

Thank you so much for an Ominis prompt! I love to write about this sweetest boy. And sorry this took so long, my dear 💚

Oh my though, I guess I don't read fics with him often enough, because I haven't noticed that many where he experiences sight. Not sure how I'd feel about those, because it... takes away from his character, sort of. I don't know.

Anyway! I have a fluffy little fic for you 😘 Hope you enjoy it!

I wrote it that it was all Garreth's fault, because of course.

— PAIRING: Ominis Gaunt x F!MC

— WARNINGS: none

— WORDCOUNT: 3.8k

She cursed Garreth all the way to the Hospital Wing. The classroom was left in deathly silence after the Gryffindoor’s latest experiment had literally exploded in her face. Professor Sharp seemed… worried, but not very shocked. Clearly, things like that had happened before — especially since Garreth had started studying at Hogwarts. For his part, the boy seemed horribly contrite, or so he sounded as he fretted over her. She suspected at least half of his regret was due to the inevitably harsh detention he had to look forward to — perhaps something even worse, if the damage to her eyes proved permanent.

As she made her way through the castle, leaning on Sebastian and Natty — who both insisted to go with her, the sweethearts — she could think of nothing else. She couldn’t see anything. The last thing she had seen was Garreth’s smouldering cauldron where he was pointing out the way a particular piece of snail shell was melting, and then a great big flash of green, then blackness. She had thought for a moment that she’d fainted, but then she realised her eyes were open. By the time they reached the Nurse, her heart was still pounding at such a frantic rate she thought she was going to be sick.

“Well, she’s blind alright,” said Nurse Blainey after performing a few charms.

“What did you think? That I was lying?!”

“I will wring Garreth’s scrawny little nec—”

“Watch your tongue, Mr Sallow.”

“Can you fix it?” asked Natty in the most politely-frustrated voice she’d ever heard.

There followed a long discussion about what had caused it, which required them to bring Professor Sharp there — who, to his shame, hadn’t exactly been aware of what his students were doing — then Garreth — who also wasn’t sure what had happened with his potion, but he could at least list the ingredients he’d used.

All the while, she waited there in silence, hearing voices all around, footsteps echoing close and far, and tense, worried conversations. The Nurse had placed her in one of the beds in the corner while they decided what to do with her. Natty and Sebastian stayed by her side, quarrelling over what potions they could brew to cure her until she had to tell them to shut up.

By the time classes were done for the day, the Nurse had reached the conclusion that Garreth’s failed experiment, while exceedingly dangerous, would not affect her sight for long. Only a few weeks.

“A few weeks?!”

“Yes, two or three. Four if you’re unlucky.” She could hear the woman shrug.

“What am I supposed to do for three weeks? How can I study? How—”

“If I’m not mistaken, you’re not our only blind student. I’m sure Mr Gaunt can be of some help to you during this time.”

She recoiled at hearing it. “I don’t want to be a burden to—”

“Nonsense,” said Sebastian from somewhere behind her. “Ominis would do it happily!”

“I would,” said the boy. A pause followed as everyone else realised he’d entered the room. From the sound of it, he was standing a few feet in front of her.

The Nurse was happy with this arrangement, which meant fewer responsibilities for her. Professor Sharp breathed a sigh of relief, after which he promised to write to her parents and inform them. Sebastian and Natty, meanwhile, were disgustingly supportive, trying all the while to cheer her up. She shunned all of them, and would only go back to the Common Room with Ominis.

“Do you wish to have dinner first?” he asked quietly as they walked out of the Hospital Wing arm in arm.

“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled. “…Wait, are you?”

Ominis chuckled. “Could send Sebastian out to the kitchens to bring us something… He would do it. Careful, stairs.”

They went down step-by-step, and all through the castle, and after what felt like too long they finally made it to the Slytherin Common Room. She knew she was slowing them down, and Ominis didn’t deny it, but he was supportive the whole way — and not in that fretful, exaggerated, compensatory way Sebastian and Natty were, and not in the anxious manner of Garreth…

If Ominis was worried about her condition, he didn’t show it. As cool and calm as the lake, as sturdy as the rock Hogwarts was built on, he was by her side from the first moment.

The first order of business, while Sebastian fetched them a late dinner, was for her to learn the echolocation spell Ominis used to walk around.

“No, don’t hold it pointing down,” he said as he guided her hand. “Straight forward is better.”

“But what if I stumble onto something?”

“The spell will detect it in time.”

“Well I’m not feeling anything yet…”

“Just… try to cast it harder.”

“Cast it harder? You’re terrible at teaching spells. I want Sebastian back.”

“Yes, well, Sebastian can’t cast it,” mumbled Ominis.

“What can’t I cast?” asked the boy as he dashed into the Common Room.

She could already smell ham and cheese and the salty-sweet aroma of cold sausages. Two plates clinked as Sebastian placed them on the table by the fireplace, where she and Ominis were standing.

“My echolocation spell.”

“Ah yes, can’t cast that,” he said, followed by the soft floof of him plopping on the sofa.

They didn’t make much progress on that first night. His wand was far more accustomed to performing it than hers — but the promise of being able to learn it helped her sleep that night, after an hour or so of crying in fear and anger.

Waking up the next day was disorienting. She felt herself wake, she felt her eyes open, but not seeing anything seemed so… unreal. She nearly panicked all over again. Being in the dungeons, there was no sunlight to feel on her skin to let her know whether it was even morning, but then she heard the other girls shuffling around the room.

Imelda led her to the washroom, and later helped her dress — and for once, she didn’t have a snarky thing to say.

“Must be quite a nightmare,” the girl commented in what she perhaps imagined to be a sympathetic tone. “Can’t imagine flying in this state…”

“Yes, well, thanks Imelda, neither can I…”

She was relieved to hear Ominis’ voice again when she came downstairs.

“Over here!”

“How did you know it was me?” she asked, arms stretched in front of her in what she was sure must’ve been comical.

“You have a distinctive magical echo.”

“Do I…?”

“And Sebastian told me.”

“Morning,” the boy grinned from behind his friend.

Still, Ominis must certainly have been good at detecting where she was, because she felt his hand cup hers within seconds.

“How do you do that?” she asked.

“Just followed the sound of your voice,” he smiled.

“It all sounds the same to me…”

“You might think it does now, but eventually you’ll find it’s easy to tell distance by sound… The whole castle has very good acoustics for this sort of thing, in fact.”

“You make it seem so easy,” she smiled, her eyes tearing up at the sheer scope of all she had to learn to just survive the next few weeks.

“I promise you’ll find it easy too,” said Ominis, placing his warm hand on top of hers as she held his arm. “Open fields, now that can be an issue. But inside, here? You’ll get used to it in no time.”

Sebastian followed them for breakfast, but walked at a bit of a distance, letting Ominis explain things. Going to the Great Hall was a bit faster today than going to the dungeons had been the day before. She walked a bit more confidently already…

Breakfast was spent learning more about judging distance by sound.

“Here, now you try,” said Ominis, handing her a jug of pumpkin juice and an empty glass.

He’d just demonstrated how easily she could guess when a cup was close to filling by the sound the liquid made as it was poured — from a deep sound to a high one. She filled it just the right amount.

“That’s very good!”

“Really?” she grinned.

Feeling around the plate with the cutlery was done easily enough, but finding out what each pile of food held relied more on her sense of smell…

“Ah, I… wouldn’t recommend that.”

“What did I just pick up in my spoon?”

“What does it smell like to you?” asked Ominis with a little smile.

“Mashed potatoes…?”

“Well, I just hope you like parsnip porridge.”

And getting food onto her plate presented another difficulty… A few sausages rolled away before she gave up and picked them up with her hands rather than the fork, her knife kept slipping and clanging loudly on the plate whenever she cut into something, and her fingers landed in mustard sauce more than once.

After a little trial and error and a bit more cursing, she finally managed to get something she really liked. She moaned with pleasure, but it was cut short by Sebastian’s giggling.

“Whot?” she asked with her mouth full.

“Nothing,” he said with an obvious smile.

“What did you take?” asked Ominis curiously.

“It’s a seed cake,” she said defensively. “Just a little syrupy, that’s all.”

Sebastian laughed into his fist.

“What?”

“Nothing!” he said again. “Just… always thought you hated spotted dick.”

“Ewww!”

By the time breakfast was over, she was more angry than upset. Ominis considered it an improvement — at least she wasn’t on the verge of crying anymore. He supported her elbow with his hand as they walked out together. When the sounds of students passing by got louder, he felt her clinging to him more.

“Don’t be nervous…”

“Oh,” she said, her hand relaxing, “sorry.”

“It’s not just that,” he chuckled. “I could hear your breathing pick up, and your footsteps too, as if you were stomping on the ground.”

“It’s that obvious?!”

“It is,” he nodded. “For instance, how do you think I feel now?”

She sighed, feeling completely at sea as they walked together to class, in a direction she couldn’t tell, surrounded by noisy students — and Ominis was testing her.

“I don’t know… Calm, I suppose.”

“Why is that?”

“Your voice is low, and your arm is steady, and… and I can hear you smiling when you speak.”

“That’s quite good,” he chuckled.

What Ominis didn’t say was that he also felt worried about her, and worried about how useful he could be in these following weeks, how good of a guide or a teacher… He thought that it was obvious from his clipped tone and his lingering silences, but was glad to be proven wrong.

The first class of the day was, predictably, horrible. They had Charms, and the girl could scarcely follow the instructions on wand movements, had no idea whether the egg she was given had been shrunken and enlarged according to instructions, and was left feeling around for it awkwardly in order to tell where it was.

“How do you even know where to point your wand?” she sighed frustratedly.

“That’s where the echolocation spell will come in useful,” said Ominis from beside her. “It’s not just the direction, but the depth as well, how far something is from you.”

“We have to practice that more,” she grumbled, waving her wand uselessly. “Undercroft, after class.”

They ended up spending every break in their schedule that day in their secret room, with Ominis placing random obstacles in front of her while she tried and tried and… finally succeeded in making her wand cast the spell. It was just before they had to go to dinner.

“I did it!”

“Not bad,” said the boy — and she could hear his voice approaching, could hear his steps resounding in tighter and tighter echoes. “The cast is still pretty weak though…” She could tell he had his hand in front of her wand, judging the strength of the pulse for himself.

“It’s such a strange sensation… I can feel the shape of your hand in mine, through the wand, but it’s…”

“It’s a bit blurred, isn’t it?” he smiled.

“Yes, as if… as if through a fog.”

“Well, I’ve never seen fog,” Ominis chuckled, “but I’ll take your word for it.”

They went to dinner together and this time she walked on her own, holding her own wand in front. She grinned at being able to sense Ominis’ own echolocation spell, like rings on the face of a lake meeting each other.

“Can you feel people’s features with this spell?” she asked quietly as they entered the Great Hall.

“Not particularly… The size of someone, perhaps, but it is not so fine as to tell you what somebody looks like.”

“Can you tell the difference between, for instance, Sebastian and Garreth?”

“Naturally,” he laughed. “Garreth smells of toxic fumes. Sebastian smells of Confringo.”

Although that dinner was still speckled with splashes of sauce and spilt pumpkin juice, each meal got easier as the week progressed. Her echolocation spell, as well, got stronger. She wasn’t exactly confident enough to run through Hogwarts’ halls, but she found it easier to avoid running into people — and not get bumped into either, as her hearing became better at picking up all motions around her.

Attending class was easier too. She soon learned how to take notes on her own, although she wasn’t sure when she’d get the chance to read them. Ominis taught her a neat trick of holding onto the inkwell and use her fingers to precisely dip her quill in it. To tell whether she’d taken enough ink, she could test it on her finger first and see if the tip felt wet.

“You’re sure you don’t want a self-writing quill?” he asked.

“I want it,” she said, but first I want to do this on my own.

Ominis smiled. “And keep track of the parchment too. Find something as a placeholder for where you left off. Don’t want to write on top of what you’ve already written.”

With his guidance, she mastered a fairly simple system of holding onto the parchment with one hand, finger poised on her last line, and then cupping the inkwell with the other before dipping her quill.

What she still had trouble with well into the second week was spellcasting.

“How… just… how?” she hissed, smacking her wand up and down during a particularly troublesome Transfigurations class.

She heard a subtle laugh, and knew that it was Ominis. “Having trouble?”

“How am I expected to transform this damned ferret into a feather duster when the damned thing keeps moving?!”

Ominis had mastered the spell quickly, she thought, as she could hear no more animal squeaks from his side. About half the class had finished, judging by the mix of sounds from satisfied students and ferret trills.

She felt a warmth approach her from the side. Ominis took gentle hold of her wrist.

“Here,” he said, “maintain the location spell, and do the motions of the transfiguration spell from your wrist.”

She tried it a few times, his hand constantly around her wrist.

“Listen to where the animal is too, don’t lose track of him in case he runs away.”

She grit her teeth and frowned, ready to give up, but with Ominis’s help, she finally managed to do it just before the class was done.

“Bloody annoying,” she sighed, dropping her wand to the desk and wiping her sweaty palm on her robes. “Thank you, Ominis,” she mumbled. “Doubt I could’ve done it without you…”

“You could have,” she heard him smile. “Just would’ve taken you longer.”

To help calm her nerves, the boy suggested they go for a walk around the lake.

They walked and walked until the sun set. They could feel it as the air cooled all around them, as the evening grew loud with nightbirds, as the grounds became silent with all the other students gone inside the castle…

It felt strange to walk beside Ominis like that, without a word, without a touch, only the quiet sound of his footsteps in the grass. The water of the lake lapped on the shore beside them in lazy little waves, stirred perhaps by the creatures underneath or the light breeze. It set her senses on fire to feel how different it was to have that large, cold body of water on one side, and the warm shape of Ominis on the other — because she could feel it, could feel every detail. Even the wet earth underfoot and the grass, the dead leaves and dry branches, they all had a scent of their own that filled her mind more than the mere image of them ever could. Although she missed her sight very much, she could not deny that she felt more connected to everything around her in this way…

Her hand reached out and took Ominis’s arm — his right one, where he held his wand. Not even needing to ask, he switched it to the other hand and held her palm in his.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, but from his tone, she could tell he wasn’t worried.

“No,” she said. “Just wanted to feel your hand.”

“Well, there it is,” he chuckled. “Bit clammy… Sorry about that. Always gets that way when I hold my wand too long.”

“Mine too,” she smiled.

Their fingers interlinked as they kept their slow walk around the edge of the Black Lake. A thought kept swirling in her head, and she was torn between giving voice to it or keeping it to herself. She didn’t know if Ominis could tell, but —

“What’s on your mind?”

— of course he could.

“How did you know?”

“I swear I can hear you thinking sometimes. It’s the same with Sebastian.”

She laughed, but said nothing.

“So?” he asked again. “What is it?”

Her hand tightened slightly around his. “I was wondering if you might seem to the touch the same way you look. The face, I mean, and all that…”

“Ah,” he said, his tone teetering somewhere between amused and nervous, “you want to try to… ‘see me’ with your hands?”

“Could I?” she asked, her face turning slightly toward him as if she could better detect how he was reacting to all of this.

“Only if I could do the same,” said Ominis with a tight smile.

They reached as far around the lake as the grounds permitted and sat together on one large, smooth rock. Beneath them, they could hear the lapping of the water, quiet and gentle, and owls hooting far off in the woods. It felt almost as if she were floating on air, cross-legged, far from the ground, with nothing surrounding her but the cool night.

They tucked their wands in their pockets and fiddled their thumbs, both too timid to start.

“Well, you asked,” said Ominis after a prolonged nibbling of his lips, “so you go first.”

“Alright,” she sighed, her mouth pulled up into a nervous smile.

She stretched her hands before her gently and was almost startled when they reached his chest. His school uniform was much like hers, a little rough, but well tended to. Moving upwards, she reached his neck, and quickly skipped it until she felt the smooth line of his jaw with both her hands. For no reason at all, her eyes closed. Perhaps it felt more peaceful that way…

His chin was delicate and pointed, leading up in soft angles to his ears. Moving inward, her thumbs traced his high cheekbones, his temples, his arched brows, then dipped delicately over his eyes — his were closed as well. She smiled as she tickled the surface of her fingers with his long lashes.

“Well?” asked Ominis. “Is there a resemblance?”

“I think so,” she smiled. “You look the way you feel.”

“Oddly poetic of you,” he chuckled.

Her hands slid slowly down his face, framing his slightly long nose, falling then to his lips, soft and full. She gasped at feeling them, noting things she never realised before: how delicate they were, how defined, and slightly dry… She traced down to his chin again when she felt them part.

“Yes, I suppose that’s you,” she joked. Her giggles filled the tense air around them. She could feel him smile against her fingertips.

“My turn now,” said Ominis.

She squeezed her hands in her lap as she waited, and then the boy surprised her by cupping her face and slowly bringing them together, covering her like a mask.

He felt her from chin to forehead, taking in the full plains of her features, before he began to touch them each in part. He brushed her eyebrows upward, traced the shape of her eyes, ran his finger delicately down her nose to the tip, and brushed his thumb against her lips while his other hand caressed a broad path from her forehead to her jaw. She felt very thoroughly known after this…

They walked back to the castle in silence, hand-in-hand. As they did, she noticed in herself a feeling of… peace, of not caring anymore that she couldn’t see. She missed the colours of everything around, of course, the beams of light, the peaceful glow of the Slytherin dorms, the star-filled sky at night, but she didn’t feel like she lacked anything anymore.

That made it all the more shocking when, three and a half weeks into her blindness, she began to see vague shapes of light. Ominis’ thin face bloomed into a smile when she told him. She could see it in spite of the cloudiness of her vision.

She still used the echolocation spell to get around, and breakfast became easier, but the blending of shapes and colours so overwhelmed her senses that often she would close her eyes when she wished to concentrate.

It was probably for the best, as she fell behind on her coursework and had never gotten to practice reading Braille with Ominis. Her notes, she now could tell, were atrocious, and her fingers were horribly stained even now.

As the days passed, her vision gradually improved, and by the end of the fourth week, she was almost back to normal. Her eyes teared, unused to all the details.

“Come now, no need to cry over it,” said Ominis with an awkward laugh. They were returning from another visit to the Hospital Wing, where the Nurse had checked her progress.

“I’m not crying,” she sniffled. “How could you tell, anyway?”

“You mean aside from your voice being all choked up and your breathing irregular? Just a lucky guess.”

“I’m just feeling… too much, I think.”

Ominis took her hand in his. “I know,” he said with a small smile. “I’ll miss it too.”

And she didn’t need to ask what he meant.

[theemptyislost]

FULL TAGS ARE ON AO3 - Heed them - All 18+ - Minors DNI

I have them in an undercut to save room.

Red Moon - Astarion/F!Tav

Rated Explicit - Dead Dove

TW: NonCon / Torture / Obsessive Behavior / Ascendant Astarion/ Emotional Abuse/ Bondage/ Scars&Branding/ No Happy Ending

Astarion has ascended....Tav knew from the beginning...had an idea as to how this would all play out. She made peace with her choices..that was before she had known. She never dreamt things could spiral this far out of control.

“When the time is right, darling.” The words failed to ease the cold trepidation that filled her chest when he softly explained what he was doing. “Now we shall truly have an eternity, my treat.” He hushed as one hand affectionately stroked sections of unmarred flesh and the other carved away with his favorite blade."

Haunt Me - Haarlep / F!Tav / Raphael (on going) [ tumblr link ch 1 ]

Rated: Explicit

TW: Past Abuse / Implied torture - Torture / Shibari / Bondage / Smut sprinkled with plot / Scars & Branding / Possessive Behavior / Explicit Sexual Content

Haarlep heard Tav's cries echo in the Abyss and Raphael has come to collect her. In the end, Tav is not sure which devil is crueler; but she knows now which devils make her feel safe.

“We will take better care of you, sweet little mouse.” Their – Raphael’s hand – moved from its perch along the dip of her hip, pet across her womb and then up between the valley of her breasts to gently curl around the base of her throat. “I will never let either of them squash that delicious potential.”

Fade Into You - Haarlep/F!Tav/ Raphael (on going)

Rating: Mature

tw: blood & gore/ ptsd/ healing from abuse/ mentions of torture/ suicidal thoughts/ healing

Fluffy slice of life snippets "Tav was dangerous in the same way poison creeps through your veins; slow and unnoticed. By the time you realize it’s there, it is too late. Surprisingly, Haarlep finds they do not mind, neither does Raphael. They are strong enough to compensate for any of Tav’s current weaknesses. Weaknesses Haarlep was sure would not last long. They witnessed glimpses of that power they tasted the first time they seduced Raphael’s little mouse. Small, minuscule, sparks that came through in her night terrors or more intense episodes of relapse once they broke the thin manacle Astarion had welded around her ankle."

Until We Bleed - Haarlep / Raphael / F!Tav

Rated: Explicit - Dead Dove

Prompt fic

TW: Extremely DubCon/NonCon element/ Bondage/ Noncon Drug usage/ bad bdsm etiquette/ Fiend Sex/ Semi-Ascended Raphael/ Forced Orgasm

Foolishly, Tav and her party thought they could best the Devil. She weaponized seduction to lure his Incubus, followed a false trail of hope in a failed attempt at rebellion...tried to kill him. Raphael may be many things, dawn many titles - a forgiving God is not one.

"Tav felt the crushed velvet press along her spine, baby hairs tickling her fingers and gentle heated breeze along the skin of her thigh, as if she were splayed on the bed. Raphael walked around towards Tav; she tensed up as he arrived behind her. Infernally hot hands settled on her shoulders and slid the satin from them. The fine material grazed her skin with the pretense of a lovers touch and fell to the floor. Her last piece of flimsy armor peeled away."

Ecstacy - Haarlep/Raphael/F!Tav & Astarion/Tav (tumblr link)

Rated: Explicit

Tw: Non-con touching/ dubcon - noncon /Orgasm denial/ fingering/ explicit sexual content/ cunnilingus/yandere Astarion/ possessive Raphael/ blood drinking/ phantom touches

Tav has yet to feel the repercussions of her pact with Haarlep. It is both a relief and a constant blade hanging over her head. Her carefully constructed house of cards comes tumbling down when Haarlep strikes at the least opportune moment.

"He inhaled deeply against her skin; the tip of his nose and cool lips dragged up her neck until they met her ear. “You reek of sulfur and cherries, darling.” He hissed. Sharp vampiric teeth grazed her neck, scratched back down to the junction where her shoulder started; fangs pressed down - not enough to break skin, but to warn."

Strangelove - Haarlep/F!Tav (on going)

Rating: Explicit - Dead Dove

Tw: non-con/ knotting/ breeding/ emotional manipulation/ object insertion/ haarlep is their own warning

After Raphael's demise, Hope revives Haarlep. With their newfound life and freedom - unrestrained by any Masters, Haarlep has no desire to stay in the House of Hope. Instead, they have created their own little sanctuary within the Hells and intend to indulge in an obsession no longer out of reach.

“A tempting offer, darling.” Their tone practiced, perfectly honeyed and accented. “I am afraid I have other affairs to attend this evening – as tempting as your offer is.” Haarlep drawled, brushing their thumb over her lip. Felt the pulse of her heart through even the tiniest blood vessels there – a residual effect of their bartered skin. They made sure their gaze lingered on the erratic pulse of her jugular. “Maybe another night, when I am feeling more…ravenous.”

Ptolemaea - Raphael / F!Tav (on going)

Rating: Explicit - Dead Dove

TW: NonCon / Torture/ Ascended Fiend Raphael/ Blood play/ Wound play/ Violence/ Manipulation/ Gaslighting/ Forced Orgasm/ Religion as a Weapon/ Corruption/ loss of virginity/ tropes upon tropes.

(full list of tags on AO3 - I tried to get them all)

This was not the simple acquisition of her body; penance for her transgression once more come full circle.... This was the desecration of her soul.

“Penance.” Raphael whispered, fingers curling tighter in her hair. Admiration in his voice as he delicately traced the pearly scars along her back. Healed wounds from religious lashings and servitude. “Pain and self-sacrifice – it seems your Goddess is not as gentle as I initially thought.” Tav could feel him harden behind her. She forced herself to remain still. “Did you do this to yourself, little mouse? This beautiful…mortification of the flesh – or did someone else discipline you?”

Don't Wake Up - Haarlep / F!Tav (on going)

Rating: Explicit - Dead Dove

TW: DubCon/ Incubus+Succubus Venom/ Explicit Sexual Content/ Blood play/ Sex Pollen

(full list of tags on AO3 - I tried to get them all)

Tav's party is keeping her on a tight leash since the HoH incident. She is determined to prove her worth - the chain of events caused by her recklessness is not something she could have foreseen. She needed this. Tav needed to get into this chest and prove she was right; that her input mattered. Her group no longer trusted her judgement. ‘Compromised,’ was the term Astarion used. A mix of endearment, fringed in the harsher flavor of snark, dancing in those bloodied irises. Right before he stole the satchel from her. Snatching the soft leather, and holding it out of reach, like she was some irresponsible child. “You will get this –” Astarion slung the bag around his shoulder. “ – back when you can behave yourself.” He said haughtily. Gazing down his defined nose at her, chastising her with his body language alone. “Little wayward heroes that want to play at being a harlot, do not get to make executive decisions.” Tav flinched at the jab.

(There are also some finished and unfinished Labyrinth / Supernatural / Locke&Key fics. All my works are locked for Ao3 verified accounts and not to be distributed anywhere else.)

My Art:

Raph/Tav - Bathtub from Haunt me

Ascended Fiend Raph/Tav/Haarlep - Shibari from Fiend Horns

if you want to avoid any personal posts (I post them rarely with rando spotify songs occasionally) block "personal pst!"

[probablyasocialecologist]

Asked by YouGov in May whom they feel most sympathetic towards, more than double the number of voters said Palestine (23%) than Israel (10%); the rest were either unsure (48%) or backed both sides (19%). The same poll shows that no demographic views Israel favourably, not even Tories (-6). How spectacularly out of touch this makes Britain’s political class appear – perhaps most of all, Keir Starmer. The Labour leader’s backing of Zionism “without qualification” – in fact, he has previously suggested that to be anti-Zionist is inherently anti-semitic, and punished MP Kim Johnson after she called Israel an apartheid state governed by fascists – could not be further from the feeling of Labour voters, a massive 41% of whom support Palestine, versus a negligible 3% who are pro-Israel. It just so happens that the faction that has Starmer’s ear, among them NEC member and We Believe in Israel director Luke Akehurst, belong to this vanishingly small minority. What’s more, the public is only becoming more pro-Palestine as time goes on. Back in 2006, Brits felt more sympathetic to the Israeli cause by a two-point margin, but a series of Israeli military operations – such as the 2014 assault on the Gaza strip, where Israel killed 2,300 Palestinians – have caused British support to plummet. In 2019, net support for the Palestinian cause was +9 – but after the Gaza border protests and the 2021 conflict, it rose to +15. Similarly, Israel’s approval rating has plunged following a series of brutal military operations. Following the border protests in 2018, in which Israel killed 223 Palestinians, the state’s net favourability fell from -24 to -32 in the space of just six months. During the 2021 conflict, when Israel killed 256 Palestinians, it plunged from -14 to -41 in only four months. Meanwhile, then-PM Boris Johnson was vocally opposing an international criminal court investigation into Israeli war crimes, while Starmer was busy condemning those who boycott Israel. Indeed, the unified opposition from Labour and the Tories to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is notable for being thoroughly detached from the electorate. Starmer has consistently made clear that Labour opposes BDS, evidenced recently by the fact that, when the Tories brought a Bill to ban public bodies from engaging in BDS, Starmer instructed his MPs to abstain (95% of them dutifully did). Yet polling in 2017 showed that most people view BDS as an entirely reasonable response to Israel’s occupation, including 51% of Labour voters and 40% of Tory voters.

[benito-cereno]

if I wanted to write a comic using the Tick IP, how would I go about getting it published

Well, it’s essentially the same as if you wanted to write a published Spider-Man story: you get hired by the publisher to write one

In the Tick’s case the publisher is NEC Press, but they haven’t published any new Tick material since 2020, and even then they were doing so at a rate of about one issue a year, so it might be tricky

[probablynotsamantha]

Saw this post but OP understandably turned off reblogs, thought I'd get it going again with an addition that the Sun was recently bought by Sinclair and IIRC people have been saying that the quality's gone down and it's shifted rightwards.

I've spent a decent amount of time in Baltimore (NEC my beloved) and yeah that bridge is a BIG DEAL. Ignoring all the traffic that goes over it (there is a tunnel that people can use, though it's a ways out of the way) the Port of Baltimore is blocked to basically all marine traffic for the foreseeable future. It was also a notable state landmark, which kinda sucks to lose.

Additional note: I've seen some people saying that this was caused by poor bridge design, that's not exactly true. That boat crashed into it with around 4 times the momentum of your average jumbo jet WHILE IN FLIGHT. You simply can't design things to sustain that sort of an impact. The bridge didn't have the dolphins (concrete structures designed to prevent boats from hitting supports) required today because it was built before those regulations (implemented due to a similar collapse) and before ships of this size even existed. Whether dolphins would be sufficient to stop a boat of that size I can't be sure, especially as this was a head-on collision and dolphins are more effective at redirecting glancing blows than stopping a head-on impact. However, I was able to find that the bridge whose that sparked the requirements for dolphins has new dolphins that aren't rated for an impact from a ship of this size, so it's quite possible the bridge would've been badly damaged and/or destroyed anyways.

[thethirdromana]

“And now,” says he, “if you have any business, pray be brief and come swiftly to the point. Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo—do you understand that?” says he, with a keen look. “I will even do as Horace says, sir,” I answered, smiling, “and carry you in medias res.” He nodded as if he was well pleased, and indeed his scrap of Latin had been set to test me. 

I was curious to know just how taxing Mr Rankeillor's test would be for the average Scottish school leaver in the 1750s. And I haven't been able to figure that out, but I did learn a bit about the Scottish education system along the way.

The idea of testing someone based on their ability to understand Latin has some ancient foundations in English law. (Not sure if there was an equivalent in Scottish law). Specifically, being able to read a Latin Bible verse enabled you to claim "benefit of clergy" in an English court from 1351 to 1706, which meant being tried in an ecclesiastical court, where the punishments handed out were usually less severe.

Scotland has a long-standing reputation for high literacy rates from the Reformation onwards. A bunch of paywalled articles seem to dispute that; this article suggested about 65% of Scottish men and 15% of Scottish women were literate in 1800, vs 60% of English men and 40% of English women. (Though this means literate in English - possibly there were people literate in Scots Gaelic who weren't literate in English).

Latin was taught primarily in grammar schools. My guess is that the number of boys who attended grammar schools would be more-or-less the same as the number who could pass Mr Rankeillor's test (plus sons of the gentry and nobility educated at home but that's probably not a huge number either). I don't know what percentage of boys went to grammar school, but it was probably a small minority.

Davie, however, has presumably not attended a grammar school, but instead the usual parish school run by his father. The fact that he has good Latin nonetheless proves what Mr Campbell told us in the first chapter - that his father was "a man of learning as befitted his position; no man more plausibly conducted school; nor had he the manner or the speech of a common dominie".

[maaarine]

Councils in England in crisis as Birmingham ‘declares itself bankrupt’ (Heather Stewart and Jessica Murray, The Guardian, Sep 05 2023)

"The crisis in local authorities was laid bare on Tuesday as Birmingham city council in effect declared itself bankrupt, with experts warning that others across the UK were now living “hand to mouth”. (…)

Birmingham’s equal pay claim is part of a long-running battle with trade unions.

In June, the council revealed it had paid out £1.1bn to female workers but still had a current liability of £650-£750m, accruing at a rate of £5m to £14m a month.

The GMB union had lodged a fresh claim on behalf of 3,000 women, believing that the council did not fully implement the ruling in a case that dates back more than a decade and went as far as the supreme court.

The GMB has also lodged claims with other councils, including Coventry and Dundee, and is examining evidence at 20 more.

“Birmingham are exceptionally poor, but plenty of other councils have made exactly the same mistakes,” said Rhea Wolfson, the GMB’s head of internal and industrial relations.

The union believes local authorities across the UK could ultimately end up paying out tens of billions of pounds.

“This is not free money for women, it’s being stolen from them minute by minute,” Wolfson said.

Thousands of women employed by Birmingham council were granted compensation in 2014, after the original case.

The council subsequently sold a number of key assets, including the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), in a decision seen at the time as partly aimed at funding the cost of the judgment.

Women in female-dominated roles such as cleaners and caterers had complained that they were missing out on bonuses given to staff in male-dominated roles, such as refuse collectors.

The Fawcett Society said the “eye-watering bill represents a staggering dereliction of responsibility for equal pay”, which the council could have avoided, “had they adequately valued and remunerated their women employees in the first place”.

It added that as women tended to rely more heavily on public services such as nurseries and social care, “it is tragic to think that cutbacks will now unduly punish the women of Birmingham”.

Announcing the section 114 notice on Tuesday, the leader and deputy leader of Birmingham council, John Cotton and Sharon Thompson, said the authority, “does not have the resources” to fund its equal pay liability, pointing to an £87m hole in this year’s budget."

[thepringlesofblood]

there’s 2 categories of lmam songs I listen to on repeat

lets make a music songs that are unironically beautiful and profound in their own way despite being made as a joke/goof song

flailing around on the side of the road

turn around and come down slowly

discarded in the thicket behind the outback steakhouse

can’t get you out of my head

echoes of wednesday

gentle light

the original wizard

the ocean is still there

song of green bastion

heartbreak at michael’s

heartbreak at michael’s reprise

let’s make a music songs that fuckin S L A P regardless of the level of goofs present.

madame zamporium’s wax emporium

alan rickman’s edible zoo

hunk night summer

fresh baby with a cola

iridescent all over

i told you that i was not a slug (but i lied)

horsecar

witchs’ potluck

mr 1981

mourning ritual

well im on child

debutaunt ball

save 2 4 tony

proud egg mouth

akimbo

Tobie’s Razor Scooter

Let Down My Better Dynamite

why dont you like our song title (slaps slightly less than the rest of them but the humor makes up for it)

arbor day

there there’s also these honorable mentions:

let’s make a music songs where the lore is better than the song (but the song isn’t nec. bad just the lore is better)

dr brims (gave me gender euphoria I didn’t know I needed)

haunted home (i almost put this in “slaps”, but the frequent “zoom” check ins, while genius in storytelling terms, kind of interrupt the Vibe of the music for me)

shan’t he shanty

rainbow trout eggs

the tale of the greazzy creek (i very much do not like the general audio experience of listening to this, but the lore, and hearing laura say “and alex pegnata, who’s just a fucking asshole!” in a bright nickelodeon announcer voice is fantastic)

wake up for big veg

medium rare

stalagmighty

astral PI

Out There (also slaps hard, but the story is such an integral component to why it slaps)

21st blitheday (I listened to this episode on my 21st birthday. it felt nice. this fucking song gets stuck in my head so easily that i can no longer listen to it without committing to like 3 months of twENtY OnE!)

sybil’s night scare

dreamless + ratless randy’s (another one I can’t listen to without committing to weeks of it being stuck in my head)

dragon me to this wedding (the story is fucking hilarious but the way he sings it gives me puff the magic dragon flashbacks which is Traumatic for me in ways I can’t explain. I just listen to the podcast ep)

stinky bug

this is 44/60 of their songs. they have a good hit rate what can i say.

[bookswithsav]

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel: The Necromancer

Book Information 

Title : The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel: The Necromancer 

Author : Michael Scott

Series : The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (Book Four) 

Rating 

Was the story engaging? 

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel: The Necromancer is a very engaging story. With the return of the characters that have been introduced earlier on in the series, the story that began in The Alchemyst continues, throwing more and more at the audiences and the characters. The Necromancer seems to be a little more calm in terms of events compared to that of the previous books, however, the story being told is still riveting and does a wonderful job at building the bridge between the beginning and end of the overall journey. 

Rating: 5/5  

Were the characters enjoyable/developed well? 

The Necromancer does something very important within the The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, and that is to introduce the changes in characterizations that have been happening under the surface in the previous books. All of the characters that have previously been involved in the story continue to develop as the situations around them change, becoming (in some form) a result of the battle being fought. There are a few characters in which have had a sense of doubt building around them for quite a while now, and this is continued within The Necromancer, causing further doubts on what is truthfully right or wrong. While most of the characterizations within The Necromancer were done beautifully and fit well or continue to build upon what we know as the audience, there are a few situations where characterizations of specific characters feel off, creating a sense of shock due to the abruptness of the change - however, I believe this is due to something we don’t quite know yet. 

Rating: 5/5

Was the plot developed well? 

The plot within The Necromancer was developed splendidly. I have to argue that The Necromancer is one of the most important books within the series so far, as it is the story that it tells allows an insight into what is truthfully happening and what is truthfully at stake for the characters. Although it’s arguably slower in pace than the other books so far, the plot is developed in a truthfully beautiful way that allows the readers to get a glimpse into both the past and the future, as important details of the history that has caused everything are revealed while also hinting at what is to come. While I had originally said that The Sorceress had an important job of continuing to accelerate the overall story forwards, I now have to say that The Necromancer holds this job title more accurately, as it acts at the bridge between what has happened, what is happening, and what is to come. 

Rating: 5/5

Was the audience kept in mind? 

I do have to say that the audience was kept in mind throughout The Necromancer. Something that’s been an issue throughout most of this series is the fact that many creatures of different myths, legends, and religions are introduced to the story without much further explanation. The Necromancer continues what The Sorceress achieved by continuing to offer an explanation as to why these creatures are important and/or horrendous, whether this is by directly giving an explanation or through context clues. Additionally, other elements of the story as well as different characterizations are explained in an effective and appropriate (no unnecessarily direct explanations) method, creating a wonderfully smooth read that allows the audience to be pulled from one situation to another. 

Rating: 5/5

Would I recommend the book? 

I would absolutely recommend The Necromancer. Standing in the fourth book out of six in the series, The Necromancer does a beautiful job at creating an absolutely riveting story while also continuing the overall story that the audience has become invested in. Through a plot filled with important information, The Necromancer sets up the rest of the series with a feeling of anticipation and incoming doom, driving the story with an even greater sense of risk than before. 

Rating: 5/5

Overall Rating: 5/5

Review 

Warning: Spoilers! 

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel: The Necromancer was quite a read, and as I mentioned above, it does an absolutely brilliant job at connecting different parts of the overarching story together. 

As the audience, we’re caught in this position, similar to Sophie and Josh, where we just don’t know what’s happening and what’s happened. There’s a lot of history that led the world to get to this point, and while some of the characters we come in contact with know it, most don’t, and those who do don’t know all of it. Because of this, everything that Sophie and Josh choose to do becomes a toss up on whether or not their actions are right or wrong, and it doesn’t seem like anyone will know until the end. - which is approaching quickly. 

I first want to go through and discuss Perenelle and her characterization in The Necromancer. In the Rating section, she was the character that I was referring to when I said that her characterization was abruptly different from that of what we’d seen previously in The Sorceress. In fact, in my review for The Sorceress, I stated that I believed Perenelle was the more truth worthy of the Flamels. I don’t necessarily agree with this now. Previously, we had seen Perenelle worry about Sophie, Josh, and Nicholas frequently as she was separated from them due to being captured by Dee, consistently asking how the twins were doing and what danger they might be in despite her own position. In The Necromancer, however, all of the care that we had previously seen gets thrown right out the window. She’s seen constantly pushing Nicholas despite him quickly aging, acting very cold towards Sophie when she doesn’t do exactly what Perenelle wants, and even snapping at Josh and telling him that he’s inferior to his twin. Before this book, I believed that Nicholas may have been the more cruel of the two, with his short temper towards the twins and his seeming disregard for their safety, but in comparison to Perenelle’s characterization in The Necromancer, I can’t say that this is the case. Nicholas is growing weaker as he ages quickly, which may be some of the cause for the decrease in direct interactions we see between him and the twins, but he seems to wish for their safety and their happiness more than Perenelle does, and I have a feeling it’s always been this way. 

It’s been stated by multiple characters that out of the Flamels, Perenelle is the one that should be feared greater than Nicholas, and this fact was backed up by the idea that she was a highly skilled sorceress that also possessed incredible wit, allowing her to think her way out of situations quickly. However, it’s also been stated that Pernelle has been pushing to fight the Dark Elders for centuries at this point, trying to convince Nicholas to take the fight directly to the other side instead of waiting and protecting the Codex like he desired. With the subtle cruelty that Perenelle is now showing the twins due to her desire to use them in the fight, it has to be wondered if Perenelle is the driving force behind the Flamel’s hunt for the twins of legend, dooming many to a fate that could have easily been avoided, dragging Nicholas along due to his love for her. Let me explain my reasoning behind this really quickly. 

Not once throughout the series so far have we seen Perenelle feel guilty for her actions (or at least that I can remember). When Sophie directly confronts her about her involvement in getting both her and Josh hired, Pernelle does not shy away from the question, but instead happily confirms it, telling Sophie that she knew they were the ones. It has to be asked; how many children has Perenelle told that to? We know that there’s a long list of twins who have been involved with the Flamels and fallen victim to their circumstances, and through Nicholas’s nightmare in the previous book, we can assume that they all look similar and hold some of the same qualities about them. Also from Nicholas’s nightmare, we can understand that there’s a sense of guilt that he carries with him regarding all of the previous twin’s fates - especially when we learn this is a reoccurring dream for him. What Nicholas and Perenelle have done to the previous sets of twins causes some form of guilt for Nicholas, causing him to shy away from using more dangerous artifacts and directly hurting Sophie and Josh, but we don’t see this with Pernelle. In The Necromancer, now that she is directly involved with the twins, she becomes abruptly different, pushing Sophie to use ancient technology that she knows isn’t safe to use, snapping at Josh, and overall putting multiple people in a different kind of danger than Nicholas had before. Arguably, Sophie and Josh’s Awakenings were something that needed to happen if they really were the twins of legend, which Nicholas seems to fully believe at this point, and despite the risks, it was the step that was either going to lead to their success or failure concerning what they think is right. But Perenelle’s push to use the skull, an ancient artifact not even the Elders want to touch, and her quiet anger at Sophie’s refusal creates this weird sense of danger surrounding her, and it seems as though Nicholas was not the one we needed to really worry about. (Also, just dropping this in here, the Witch of Endor remembers nothing of Pernelle - at least that Sophie can find.) 

Now I want to talk about Sophie, and more specifically, what the Witch of Endor’s memories are providing to the story. I mentioned before that The Necromancer is where a lot of information is beginning to reveal itself to not only the twins, but also to us as an audience, and most of that is provided through the Witch of Endor’s memories that Sophie now possesses. Through her memories, it’s revealed that there’s something else happening that’s a little bigger than previously thought, as we learn that there’s something very wrong with that skull the Flamels possess. The Witch had spend quite a while (even for an immortal) working to rid the world of the ancient technology, putting herself at risk in order to find ways to discard them. So why do the Flamels have one? And what exactly does the Witch know that Sophie hasn’t figured out yet? There’s something very important regarding the ancient technology of the time before the Elders being hinted at, but without direct access of memories from Sophie’s point of view, we’re not going to understand the importance of these objects besides the fact that they should be feared; and if they should be feared, why would the Flamels possess it? We also know that the swords that are now in Dee’s possession are much more powerful than originally thought, and indeed much older than originally thought due to the knowledge that they provided him. The Necromancer places a very large importance on the danger of these objects, hinting that they find some way of damaging the user when in possession, and that makes their involvement and existence all the more important to the overall story. 

We need to talk about Josh. Throughout the series so far, Josh has been increasingly weary of the Flamels and the company that they keep - and honestly, for good reason. Nicholas has consistently put them in danger from the start, and Perenelle, as far as Josh is aware, is a willing proxy to these actions. Everyone that he and Sophie meet are hiding some form of secret from them, and Sophie is consistently given more opportunities than him despite his willingness to participate. It makes total sense for Josh, a teenager who is scared and in danger with his sister, to become weary of the people who put them into danger in the first place. It definitely doesn’t help that Dr. Dee and Machiavelli give him the opportunity to choose in some form whenever they’re around him, although Machiavelli really seems to be the only one who actually means it (giving Josh the opportunity to back out of being Awakened by Mars due to danger). Josh’s eventual switching of sides has been hinted at since the beginning of the series, starting with the end of The Alchemyst and only continuing from there. The question is how is he involved now that he’s decided to leave Sophie and side with the Dark Elders? And how does this impact the history that’s already been told? 

If Micheal Scott thought he was sneaky with this, he wasn’t. Unless I’m wrong, then completely ignore this next part, but I’ll find that out later. It’s been implied over and over again that the original twins looked incredibly similar to Josh and Sophie, which is most likely the reason why many of the twins the Flamels attempted to use also resembled Josh and Sophie. With the knowledge that Scathach, Joan, Shakespeare, Palamedes, and Saint-Germain actually fought with the original twins on Danu Talis, we now know that there’s some significant overlap between the time periods. What if Sophie and Josh are not only the twins of legend but also the original twins, and their separation that is happening currently leads to the fight that destroys Danu Talis and sets the world as they know it into motion? This would explain the unease that they set in those who remember the original twins and were present during Danu Talis’s destruction, as well as the need to send those who have worked with them back in time. 

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel: The Necromancer raises a lot of questions for the audience, and it does so beautifully. With the twisting of time, technology, and betrayal, The Necromancer sets up the ending of the story with a continuously accelerating pace, furthering the risk of danger for the characters as well as the anticipation for the audience.

[kudzucataclysm]

chimera braindump :p

Chimeras are funky dudes- they’re kinda meant to look like something out of Dragon Ball. Their biology isn’t supposed to make sense; they’re living, breathing bombs, and meant to do that. They’re a relatively brand new species that come from a result of Earth’s blatant colonization- the result of a Martian parent and any Earth-based species. However all of them have various shades of red hair and dark brown skin, while being covered head to toe in freckles.

The average chimera looks like a mishmash of different things. Their appearance is influenced by their non-Martian parent as well as certain things they eat in their infancy, but they’re able to shapeshift certain parts of their body (their faces and genitals especially) to an extent- their shapeshifting* is much, much more limited than Martians, as well as their healing abilities. Martian’s can heal almost instantaneously while Chimeras run the risk of bleeding out and it's easier for them to explode.

Chimeras aren’t born with hearts, or ‘pillar points’, so their timers are much more unstable and with enough damage, stress, or emotional instability can initiate their death; which leads to them being ostracized from society even more than they already are. They’re seen as extremely unstable and many people believe they’re liable to explode at any time, so stay away or mistreat them.

One in five people in the NEC are chimeras, and less than a third of them are properly educated. There are no schools for them, but one “reform school” that’s more of a juvenile correctional facility than an actual education institution. Limited corporal punishment is used often, and the school has a very low graduation rate…if a child is even admitted at all. Thus the chimera population at large is extremely uneducated and typically illiterate, as well as socially challenged when it comes to society at large. While not as dangerous as feral Martians, feral chimeras are seen as more of a problem within the city limits.

So generally speaking, chimeras are on the **bottom in terms of the social hierarchy in NEC. The social order goes in descending order like this:

Martians (extremely debatable)

Humans 

Androids 

Mutants/Alts 

Chimera

Zombies (**also extremely debatable)

All in all, chimeras are in a weird place, and many of them struggle with their identities and their place in the world- there is no shared culture, no microsociety that they have to fall upon despite being very social creatures. Some want to connect with humanity while many others want to be more in tune with Marskind, but that’s hard to do or feel when neither parent species really wants or accepts you. They are bombs, weapons, but they were made that way- just like a gun. Its not their fault that their blood can be used for fuel and explosives, the conditions of their bodies and how they react to emotions isn't their fault either! So how do you escape what you are, and how do you escape what you can be potentially used to be?

--

*Generally though, these ‘distortions’ just happen around the face. Full body shifting is really only reserved when chimeras are doing big growing up/puberty moments. Besides that they have limitations with their bodies. (They mostly can just change the sizes of things slightly, like grow a bit taller or shorter, and adjust things like their chests and genitals, if they work really hard they can reorganize pieces of themselves in different places, but it takes a bit of effort and can/will easily ”snap” back to its correct place.)

They can also vaguely disguise themselves to appear more human, but that takes intentional effort and concentration to ‘hold’ in place. Many human-looking or human socialized chimeras tend to change their teeth and hide certain facial features. (chimeras cannot change their eyes at all, however)

If a chimera is too emotionally upset and starts shifting around too much, that’s probably a sign they’re about to explode. so like....... get away from them. probably

[f1]

OSCARS AWARDS: The stunning stats behind Piastris stellar junior career as he gets set for F1 debut

Oscar Piastri will graduate to F1 with McLaren in 2023 – taking Daniel Ricciardo’s spot alongside Lando Norris – as he looks to build on an enviable racing record to date and perform on the big stage. Ahead of his Grand Prix debut, we decided to run through his motorsport exploits so far and look at the key stats and numbers he's notched up along the way… -- 3 -- Piastri has won three single-seater titles on his way to the F1 grid, claiming the Formula Renault Eurocup crown with French outfit R-ace GP in 2019 before landing back-to-back F2 and F3 championships with Italian squad Prema in 2020 and 2021. READ MORE: McLaren rookie Piastri explains why he chose #81 as his race number for 2023 He also finished second to British racer Jamie Caroline while contesting the 2017 British F4 championship with Arden Motorsport – the outfit co-created and formerly run by now Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. -- 14 -- With Piastri’s racing taking him across the UK, Europe and beyond, he won races at 14 tracks while climbing the ranks, starting with Oulton Park, Snetterton, Knockhill and Silverstone in British F4, before adding Spa-Francorchamps, the Nurburgring, the Hungaroring, and the Yas Marina Circuit in Formula Renault Eurocup. On his promotion to F3, Piastri grew the list with wins at the Red Bull Ring and the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with the Bahrain International Circuit, Monza, Sochi and Jeddah following in F2. It means he has already triumphed at nine current F1 venues. Piastri progresses to F1 with McLaren on the back of a glittering junior racing career -- 16 -- During his time in the aforementioned categories, Piastri delivered plenty of eye-catching qualifying laps to bag himself 16 pole positions. Six of those came in British F4 in 2017, five in Formula Renault Eurocup two years later, and five throughout the 2021 F2 campaign. -- 21 -- In addition to a healthy pole tally, Piastri raced his way to a total of 21 victories from 2016 to 2021, again hitting six in British F4, then taking seven in Formula Renault Eurocup, two in F3 and six in F2. The Australian also set 21 fastest laps during the same period. READ MORE: ‘He’s a very strong team mate to learn from’ – Piastri excited to work with Norris at McLaren -- 46 -- Given his victory record, Piastri unsurprisingly made plenty of podium appearances from F4 to F2, taking home 46 trophies in just over five years of competition. That gives him a 35% rostrum conversion rate for all the single-seater races he has contested up to this point. -- 60.5 -- After pipping Sauber junior Theo Pourchaire and fellow 2023 F1 rookie Logan Sargeant (now signed to Williams) to the F3 title, Piastri enjoyed a dominant victory margin in F2. He ended the 2021 season 60.5 points clear of Ferrari-backed Robert Shwartzman, with now Alfa Romeo racer Zhou Guanyu nine further back. This feature is currently not available because you need to provide consent to functional cookies. Please update your cookie preferences Oscar Piastri's best moments so far -- 105 -- Piastri was a scoring machine across his junior career, with 105 points finishes giving him an impressive conversion rate of 80%. However, this would have been even higher if a handful of guest appearances during the 2018 Formula Renault NEC championship had counted for points. -- 131 -- To put the above numbers into more context, Piastri’s points, podiums and wins until now have come from 131 races, spanning his first outing in F4 UAE at Yas Marina on December 16, 2016 to the F2 finale at the same venue on December 12, 2021. READ MORE: Why Ricciardo reckons his McLaren struggles can give replacement Piastri a ‘head start’ in his maiden season -- 1,343 -- Across those 131 races, and with various scoring systems in place, Piastri amassed a whopping 1,343 points, with attention now turning to what he can achieve when he arrives in F1 and begins the latest chapter of his burgeoning motorsport career. via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com

[archonedd]

A journey through Sega's marketing machine with the power of the cassette

I know, I know, a bit of a wild stretch to start this blog off without some proper introduction. Hi. I'm archonedd / Nobusuke, and I'm an avid (at the time of publication) 23 year old Sega (and Sonic) nut.

After mercilessly mocking cassettes as some old fad throughout the elementary and high school years as the world started gravitating more and more towards online streaming, I picked up a cassette player in early 2017 no doubt due to the hype surrounding a cassette that Star-Lord was seen playing on repeat on one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Along with said cassette player, came a Type 1 cassette tape to play. It changed my music experience in ways I'd never imagined, and I even tried substituting my CD-based boombox with one of these and needless to say the equipment left a lot to be desired.

It turns out that modern cassette players just don't have the quality mechanisms that legacy cassette decks used to have, and the number of new cassette-enabled devices seem to be dwindling globally as time goes on. Not to mention, most people's recollections of cassettes seems to border towards "listening to a crappy stream from the car's radio" to "only listening to a film's vision of what cassettes or any other vintage audio format used to sound like".

It sure took a YouTube channel like Techmoan and Retro Core AV as well as several others where my outlook on cassettes (and several vintage audio formats) began to change a little as I learned more about the different types of cassettes, and how cassettes can sound a lot like or even close to a properly mastered CD if given the right budget and expectations. So imagine my surprise when I heard almost 5 years later that Sega even started using distributing cassettes dubbed "Sega Forever Volume 1". My initial reaction was - "Wait a minute. What??"

What is this tape about?

Basically the idea of this was to serve as a promotional item sent out to various YouTubers and Sega-centric content creators prior to the launch of the "SEGA Forever" service on mobile devices. The tracks on these are basically taken from popular arcade and Mega Drive/Genesis titles, some of which are still remembered to this day.

The most remembered ones include the arcade BGM to Space Harrier and Outrun, as well as those from Mega Drive standout classics like Phantasy Star 2, Shining Force 2, and even Vectorman (a Blue Sky Software effort) gets a special shoutout though only Terraport from that game gets represented. Overall, there are 12 songs spread into two sides of six.

The strange thing is some of the Sega arcade titles even got console ports on non-Sega systems usually through third parties like Sunsoft and NEC Avenue.

Here is the complete tracklist in case you may not remember.

For the lucky 512 or so content creators lucky enough to receive this retro blast, the package even included a biro pen just in case your cassette player somehow "ate the tape" and you're on the task to spool the tape back in. You, know, like the old days where cassette enjoyers did it. I personally do not have such a strong nostalgic connection, but I just found it interesting to mention.

What are the technical specifications?

There are four types of cassettes sold throughout the market during the continuing lifespan of these audio wonders.

Type 1 refers to a general cassette you are most likely to buy today. This is known as a "Ferric" tape.

Type 2 known as "Chrome" is a step up from Type 1. While it is a general step up from Type 1 tapes, in the end, quality Type I cassettes have higher midrange MOL than most Type II tapes, slow and gentle MOL roll-off at low frequencies, but less treble headroom than Type II.

Type 3 "Ferrichrome" doesn't really exist anymore as far as I can tell.

Type 4 is the supreme stuff. These are called "Metal" tapes. To play such a high-class tape, your deck or player would have to be rated for metal tape playback. Something that today's modern tapes aren't quite capable of playing now, or at least I don't think so.

It seems more likely that Sega Forever Volume 1 cassette is a Type 1 metal tape with no noise reduction to speak of. These days, Dolby noise reduction may be no more, but substitutes such as DDi Codec will be able to alleviate that.

Sega Forever....

Let's talk about Sega Forever. Sega Forever was a then-new initiative to get its best retro games available for a mobile audience that's still going today. Very similar to what they are already doing with Sega Mega Drive Classics on multiplatform experiences via PC, PS4 and XBOX. This cassette was to coincide with the launch of the Sega Forever platform on smartphone on 21 June 2017, with the initial lineup being Altered Beast/Jyuohki, Comix Zone, Chameleon Kid, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and Phantasy Star II.

Unfortunately it had a somewhat rocky launch. With the exception of the rebooted Sega Forever Sonic the Hedgehog mobile conversion handled by Stealth (the same guy that demoed what Sonic could look like on the GBA compared to the half-baked effort Sega of America pumped out in 2006), almost the entirety of the selection ran poorly despite modern hardware enhancements. It seemed to be a middleware problem as Sega reportedly failed to reach an agreement with the people behind the Retroarch project, instead settling for a Unity-based emulation solution.

Since then, Sega have upped the quality of the emulation for the smartphones of our time.

[eliontechnologiesconsulting]

The Ultimate Guide to Electrical Safety Audits: Essential Insights for Your Business

Introduction

In today's fast-paced world, electrical safety should never be an afterthought. Whether you manage a bustling factory, oversee a corporate office, or run a small retail shop, understanding electrical safety audits is crucial. These audits serve as your frontline defense against potential hazards, ensuring not only compliance but also the safety of your team and assets. This guide will explore what electrical safety audits entail, why they matter, and how to conduct one effectively.

What Is an Electrical Safety Audit?

At its core, an electrical safety audit is a comprehensive review of your electrical systems. It identifies potential hazards, assesses compliance with relevant standards, and helps in the implementation of best practices to mitigate risks. Think of it as a health check-up for your electrical infrastructure.

Why Are Electrical Safety Audits Important?

Preventing Accidents: One of the primary purposes of an electrical safety audit is to spot hazards before they become serious issues. From faulty wiring to overloaded circuits, early identification can prevent accidents, injuries, or even fatalities.

Regulatory Compliance: Compliance with electrical safety regulations, such as those established by OSHA or the National Electrical Code (NEC), is non-negotiable. Regular audits help ensure that your facility meets these legal requirements.

Cost Savings: Identifying and addressing electrical issues proactively can save your business money in the long run. The costs associated with downtime, equipment damage, or legal penalties can be significant.

Boosting Employee Morale: A safe working environment fosters employee confidence and productivity. When workers know that their safety is a priority, they are more likely to perform at their best.

Insurance Benefits: Many insurance companies offer better rates for businesses that can demonstrate a commitment to electrical safety. A documented audit trail can help in negotiating favorable insurance terms.

Key Elements of an Electrical Safety Audit

To ensure a thorough audit, several critical elements should be included:

1. Visual Inspection

A walk-through of your facility can uncover glaring issues. During this phase, auditors should:

Look for signs of wear and tear, such as damaged cords or frayed wires.

Ensure that electrical panels and circuit breakers are accessible and properly labeled.

Assess the condition of outlets and switches.

2. Testing of Equipment

Regular testing is crucial for maintaining equipment integrity. This can include:

Grounding tests: Ensuring that grounding systems are functioning properly.

Circuit breaker functionality: Verifying that breakers trip correctly during overload scenarios.

Thermal scans: Using infrared cameras to detect overheating components.

3. Documentation Review

A thorough audit must include a review of your facility’s electrical documentation:

Wiring diagrams: These should accurately reflect the current state of your electrical systems.

Maintenance records: A history of inspections and repairs can provide valuable insights.

4. Compliance Check

Verify that your electrical systems adhere to all applicable codes and standards. This includes checking compliance with:

National Electrical Code (NEC)

Local regulations

OSHA standards

5. Employee Interviews

Engaging with employees can offer insights into potential issues and safety practices. Questions to consider include:

Are employees trained to recognize electrical hazards?

Do they know the emergency procedures for electrical incidents?

Are there common issues they’ve encountered that need addressing?

Steps to Conducting an Electrical Safety Audit

Step 1: Preparation

Before you start, gather all relevant documentation, including previous audit reports and maintenance logs. Setting clear objectives for the audit will guide the process.

Step 2: Performing the Audit

The actual audit should follow a structured approach:

Kickoff Meeting: Discuss the audit scope with key personnel to set expectations.

On-Site Assessment: Conduct a detailed walkthrough to assess conditions firsthand.

Testing and Measurements: Carry out necessary tests on electrical systems.

Documentation Review: Ensure all records are current and accurate.

Step 3: Reporting Findings

Once the audit is complete, compile a report that summarizes:

Findings: List any identified hazards and compliance issues.

Recommendations: Provide actionable steps for remediation, along with timelines.

Step 4: Follow-Up Actions

After the audit, it’s essential to take action:

Develop an Action Plan: Assign responsibilities and establish deadlines for addressing issues.

Monitor Progress: Regular check-ins will help ensure that corrective measures are being implemented.

Best Practices for Electrical Safety Audits

Schedule Regular Audits: Don’t wait for problems to arise. Establish a routine schedule for audits to maintain electrical safety standards.

Engage Qualified Personnel: Ensure your audit team comprises certified professionals with experience in electrical safety.

Train Your Team: Regular training on electrical safety practices is crucial for all employees.

Document Everything: Keep meticulous records of audits, findings, and corrective actions to maintain a comprehensive safety history.

Stay Informed: Regulations and best practices evolve, so keep abreast of changes in electrical safety standards.

Conclusion

Electrical safety audits are not just a regulatory requirement; they are a vital part of protecting your business and its people. By understanding the importance of these audits and implementing best practices, you can create a safer working environment, reduce risks, and improve your organization’s bottom line. Remember, proactive measures today can prevent costly accidents tomorrow. Make electrical safety a priority and ensure the longevity and success of your business.

[researchrealmblog]

What is the Usage of Interactive White Board? 

An interactive display is a computer-driven device that facilitates the users to access and manipulate electronic files by LCD. It is connected to the computer, and then the computer can be connected back to the LCD via the video cable. These screens offer various functions, and they are capable of performing numerous things.

An interactive LED or LCD screen facilitates users with the ability for system customization to exactly fit where they require it to be.

Interactive Video Wall

The presence of interactive video wall displays can be experienced in numerous settings, such as malls, office rooms, waiting rooms, car dealerships, and restaurants. Numerous interactive video wall solutions. Numerous such interactive wall solutions are deployed in interactive touch interfaces form that facilitates users with an immersive and interactive experience.

Besides these, it offers benefits over conventional signage. It facilitates new daily content in banks, museums, gas pumps, fast food restaurants, concession displays, and others without any need for replacing the signs.

It also facilitates advertisers for streamlining the highly targeted messages to captivate the audiences, to provide higher conversion rates.  

Interactive Flat-Panel Display

An interactive flat-panel display, also known as IFPD, is a large-format touchscreen display ideally used in meeting rooms and collaborative spaces. It is also considered a replacement for outdated or clunky projector technology, with improved display, better connectivity, and built-in software solutions.

Digital Annotation

An interactive whiteboard is similar to a traditional chalkboard. As pieces of chalks are used to make contact with the board, letters and numbers are formed. The same thing can be done on the interactive whiteboard.

The interactive whiteboard can be used as a blank white surface, which can be filled up with notes, such as a chalkboard. A file or annotation can also be displayed over it. A major example of annotation is bringing up a map, and writing over it with a variety of colors. The marked-up image can also be saved for future purposes. It is an electronic file that can be printed, mailed, or saved for future use.

Benefits of Interactive LED Displays

You are not required to buy expensive projector lamps and experience unexpected burnouts

Mitigates shadowing on the projected image

Unwanted reflection of light to user eyes caused by the projector is mitigated

It provides a cleaner and crisper image compared to projector

Sun or ambient light is not capable of washing off the display

It requires less wiring compared to traditional interactive system

It offers numerous units with optional built, which makes it true, all in one system

It provides a more durable surface compared to conventional whiteboards

The major players operating in the industry are; LG Electronics Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Panasonic Corporation, Crystal Display Systems Ltd, Gesturetek Inc., Koninklijke Philips N.V., ELO Touch Solutions Inc., Seiko Epson Corporation, and NEC Corporation.

Therefore, the technological advancements in the display with high-quality visibility with the growing commonness of the wide screen in commercial and residential places such as offices, malls, and homes fuel demand for interactive displays.

Source: P&S Intelligence