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zoeykallus · 1 year

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Aloha,

First I want to tell you I love your works and how much work you put into your writing. I can't imagine how much effort goes into them!

If you are taking requests, how do you think the batchers would react to receiving naughty pictures of from SO? Maybe their meshla took the pictures themselves, or got boudoir style pictures? Did they get them in person, or maybe they got sent to them during a mission? And anything else you think would happen in this scenario?

If you're not taking requests don't worry about it, I just thought I'd ask 🤣

Aloha!

So sorry for the long wait! Finally, I'm here 😅 I think I got some ideas for this one 😁😁

"And anything else you think would happen in this scenario?"

So far it was tasteful, now you gave me ideas 😋

Now, as always, I remind you, if no gender is mentioned, I'm assuming a female reader.

The Bad Batch x Fem!Reader HCs (Shorts) - Picture Perfect

Warnings: Strongly Suggestive/Mentioned Nudity/Mentioned Masturbation/ Humor/Fluff/A Little Angsty (I guess)/18+

________________

What's Happening: You have been separated from each other by work for a long time. You come up with a salacious, wild idea. Sexy photos, from elegant to more than just charming, so that your lover can in no way forget you. Sent as a message, this erotic gesture makes for interesting events. "Hey darling, I miss you. I know you miss me too. That's why I have a surprise for you in the attachment. I love you!"

_________________

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

>MASTER LIST<

Hunter

You are away on business for a long time, and he is currently on a mission with his squad and a few men of the 501. You promised him a surprise, for which he is already waiting impatiently, something to sweeten the waiting time until you meet again. On the new comm that Tech developed, he would receive a message. The men have set up a couple of tents that they share two at a time, with him lies Crosshair grumbling, "When are you going to stop staring at that thing? She's not getting back to you today" Hunter says unimpressed, "Yes she does, she promised. Just sleep." Then the comm beeps, finally. Hunter excitedly opens the message, it's a short voice message. "Hey darling, I miss you. I know you miss me too. That's why I have a surprise for you attached. I love you!" Hunter's heart beats faster, just hearing your voice releases tons of endorphins in his brain and gives him a deep sense of comfort. Automatically, he has your smell in his nose and his heart beats faster.

He can't wait to see you again, but he'll have to be patient. He opens the attachment and freezes for a moment as a picture of you pops up on the holo image, one of many you've taken. Very revealing, very raunchy, incredibly sexy, tastefully erotic, at least most of them, some even go a little further and Hunter feels himself getting hot. He licks his lips, already thinking about you, when he hears a blanket rustling next to him. He had completely forgotten about Crosshair for a moment. "Holy shit," the Sniper mutters, "Not bad." Hunter hastily turns away with the comm to hide it from him, a reflex reaction where he accidentally presses a wrong button. The next moment, the comms in all the other tents beep. Clearly he hears your voice repeatedly from the other tents, your message. Hunter has accidentally sent your message to everyone else, a newsletter to everyone present. He gets ice-cold, nauseous. Then he clearly hears Wrecker's voice, "WOAH!"

Hunter crawls out of the tent, accompanied by Crosshair's sneering giggle, and shouts in a panic, "DON'T OPEN THE ATTACHMENT!" From most of the tents he hears a "Too late" or "Woah" or some other astonished exclamation, of course no one has been able to resist opening the attachment. The men crawl out of the tents, some laughing, some blushing. "You're a complete idiot," Echo says dryly to the sergeant. Hunter's heart races in panic. He raises his hands and says urgently, "No one breathes a word about this, she can never know" Tech sighs and rolls his eyes like he's surrounded by idiots. He collects the comms without being asked, even against a protest or two, and deletes the message on all comms except Hunter's. Hunter feels a small surge of relief and says wearily, "Thanks Tech." This incident will be on his conscience for a long time. Sooner or later, he'll confess to you what happened.

Echo

He has locked himself in the refresher after receiving your message. He is standing in the shower with the comm on one of the trays in the shower directly in front of him. He knows that his brothers will only eavesdrop or spy if he doesn't retreat. He listens briefly to the message and smiles dreamily. Echo misses you very much, your voice, your smile, your touch, just everything. He misses spoiling you and cuddling with you. It seems to him as if you haven't seen each other for ages. He has undressed and turned on the water in the shower, starts to wash himself and opens the attachment on the side. Why not kill two birds with one stone? But he stops abruptly while soaping up when the first image of you appears on the holo imager. "Oh," he says softly. He blinks, slowly realizing the nature of this surprise. He glances around as if someone might have snuck into the locked refresher, then a grin appears on his lips.

Echo is excited, his pulse begins to race as he slowly clicks through the images. "Damn lady, now I miss you even more". He pauses at a picture he particularly likes. Your lips are slightly parted, a gorgeous bedroom look in your eyes, your hands on your breasts. Almost automatically, his hand moves to his swelling cock. His gaze jumps back and forth between your lips and your breasts as he begins to pump his hard length. Echo curses softly, in his mind he shoves his cock alternately into your mouth and between your breasts. It's not long before his hard length is pulsing, spurting his seed into the shower unit. Echo hastily makes everything clean, suddenly he is ashamed, somehow it seems dirty to him. But then again it doesn't. The next time you see each other in person, he confesses to you what he has done, as if he had committed a crime. Amused and flattered at the same time, you make it clear to him that you had hoped that your pictures would have this effect.

Wrecker

"Yeah, I miss you too, little lady!" he says to the message, even though he knows you can't hear him right now. Wrecker is not alone, though; communicative and cheerful as he is, he trumpeted loudly that he had received a message and opened it before anyone else. "Wrecker," Crosshair says quietly but admonishing, "I don't think you should open the attachment in public." It's too late, Wrecker has already opened the attachment and the first image appears on the Marauder's holoprojector, almost life-size. "Never mind," Crosshair murmurs, eyeing the holo-projection interested. For a long moment, the men stand around the projector, staring at your very salacious image. As if spellbound, all pairs of eyes are fixed on your exposed body. But finally Echo clears his throat and turns off the projection. "Wrecker", he says calmly, "I think this is only meant for you".

"Uhu," he says, still a little shocked. Of course, he's looking forward to seeing the other pictures and having fun with them, but he's worried that you might find out that his brothers all know what you look like naked. He has the data stick with your message in his hand, is about to pull back and stops once again. He turns around, looks into the round. All eyes are on him, as his brothers already sense he's about to tell them something. "Guys, can this stay between us? I mean, that she doesn't find out what just happened here?" Approving murmurs fill the small room. Wrecker smiles gratefully, then grins mischievously and says, "Well, I'm going to retire to the refresher for a while." Crosshair says sternly, "Please clean up properly afterward." The rest agree again, muttering. Wrecker rolls his eyes, "Don't worry, I'll clean up, but I'm not getting out of there anytime soon."

Tech

He is so excited when your message arrives that his hands shake. You haven't seen each other in over a month. Tech is alone on the Marauder and busy with repairs when the message reaches him. He sits down in the cockpit, puts the comm on the console in front of him and listens to it. "Hey darling, I miss you. I know you miss me too. That's why I have a surprise for you in the attachment. I love you!" Just hearing your voice makes his heart race and triggers a swarm of butterflies in his stomach. Expectantly, he clicks on the attachment and the first picture opens. A beautiful picture, elegant, in beautiful underwear. Tech takes off his helmet, places it on the ground next to him, and examines the picture more closely. He smiles dreamily, with slightly heated ears and cheeks. Then he sees that it is only the first of a whole series of pictures. He clicks further, another very nice picture in underwear, in a different pose this time. In the next picture, you are no longer wearing a bra. A soft "Oh", comes across his lips. Tech slides around on the pilot's chair because his cock is getting hard and the posture uncomfortable.

He continues to click through the pictures, fascinated. Until you are finally naked and the poses become more and more salacious. By now, he's so hard that he automatically takes off his codpiece because it just gets too uncomfortable. Absentmindedly, his hand strokes the bulge in his Blacks. Finally, he reaches under the waistband, pushes the pants down a bit and his fingers embrace his cock. He's so starved for you, hasn't touched himself once since you left. But here and now, he can't help it. You know exactly what he likes and have saved the best for last. Naked on all fours, you stretch out your ass towards him, casting a ravishing bedroom glance over your shoulder, one hand on your buns, like an invitation for him to take you from behind. And in his fantasy, that's exactly what he's doing as he starts pumping his cock, moaning and shaking with tense arousal. It doesn't last long, it's built up too much, too long. Tech cums so hard, so much so that his whole body jerks for a moment, his thighs quiver, and a thick load spurts onto his comm and the console.

It takes him a minute to come to and realize what a mess he has made. Hastily, a little panicked, he turns off the comm and the holo-projection, straightens his clothes and quickly cleans everything up properly. Not a second too late, because in the next moment he hears his brothers coming back.

Crosshair

You've been away for a long time, and today you finally meet Crosshair again. You can't wait to hear what he thinks about the little surprise you sent him a few weeks ago. You are all tingly, all excited. Your eyes keep wandering back and forth to the passersby looking for him. You are too early at the agreed meeting point, actually he still has time, but you are still nervous, can't stop looking for him. But suddenly you hear his voice behind you. "Hey Kitten" You should have known he would sneak up on you. Beaming with joy, you turn to him, fall around his neck and kiss him. He returns the kiss, but finally breaks away from your lips and says, laughing softly, "Slow down, save some for later". "How did you like my little surprise?" you ask with a grin. "Surprise?"

You blink and say, "Yes, my surprise, the message with the attachment." He looks at you blankly. "What attachment?" Slowly, panic rises in you. Did you accidentally send it somewhere else? "The pictures I took for you," you say, a little breathless with shock. "Pictures?" You ruffle your hair and say, "Yes, pictures." Slowly a smile creeps onto his lips and you realize he is teasing you. You sigh in relief and annoyance at the same time. "Cross, don't scare me like that!" He laughs softly. "Did you like them?" you finally want to know. "I love them, Kitten. Very appetizing, had a lot of fun with them. In fact, I don't think I need you anymore. I have the pictures and can do the rest on my own." You box him playfully and say, "Stop teasing me". He laughs again, then kisses your neck, his lips move up to your ear, and he whispers, "Actually, the pictures have given me a lot of ideas. Do you want me to show them to you?" Your ears and cheeks get hot, and you say with a grin, "Absolutely." He smiles with satisfaction and says, "Good, because I've reserved a hotel room for us."

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@allsystemsblue

@palliateclaw

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@cpnt616

@dangraccoon

@jediknightjana

@pb-jellybeans

@antishadow2021

@sleepycreativewriter

@projectdreamwalker

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viscontent-enjoyer · 1 year

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I'm happy to share with you the Aceslinger hook

"Finally, I have them all"

Okay, so...

I received the "Ace's Wild" charm, which I thought it was not possible since it was a newsletter reward I wasn't aware of until it was already too late. But, thanks to a bug or Behaviour's sudden display of generosity, it is here, and I'm finally able to complete my Aceslinger hook.

So, here it is:

Hey, I know it's not much, but it's about sending a message... I guess.

or just because it makes me happy since Aceslinger is one my favorite ships

Anyway, these are the charms I used (in case you're interested in charming any random Ace you meet in your lobbies):

The sexy most important charm:

The "killer style" engaging charm:

The "I wanted Jacques the Vulture, but I can't be picky" charm:

(this last one is part of the PG-13 version, if you forget about the previous charm oc)

As an extra, there's a variation where, instead of the raven I use the elk antlers:

Not just because of the Wild West theme, but because of the +18 "horny" joke.

(Thanks, @dweetwise. It's been more than a year and I can't get over that Deathslinger's oxen outfit joke).

#ace visconti #caleb quinn #the deathslinger #aceslinger #dbd #dead by deadlight #shitpost

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beesmakesthings · 6 months

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Beauty in the boring?

I have been struggling lately with my situation within my church. Its also occurred to me that I've been in that place longer than any other congregation I've ever attended, and that that length of time might be colouring my view. This morning I didn't see that and it seems a worthy thought for a day of renewal. I showed up this morning to Easter worship in the postdrome of a migraine, misophonic and dog tired. All through the last couple of weeks I have been musing on the "turning stuff upside down" nature of the story of this season, alongside my own woes about my situation in faith and a barrel of family sadness I can't discuss.

And I got there to be handed the newsletter and see in it that a dearly loved gentleman from my congregation has passed away after a long spell of illness. He was pretty much the first person who talked to me when I first went there, he was a dad and a grandad and wholly and dearly loved. The place I knew him in was his second marriage, and he referred to his wife's children as his "bonus package" - and never saw them as any other than his own. It never occurred to most of us that they weren't his children at all. He was thoughtful and kind, and a simple man. He was a farmer all his working life. His farm sheltered most of our belongings when we had no home. He always knew something to tell you and everyone knew him because he was always there to speak to the stranger, the new person in our midst.

And today I looked at my congregation and felt his family in among us. Felt the silent love of everyone grieving. Knew they would know whether we said anything or not (I didn't today, but I will.) I felt the community breathe with them, hold on to them. I looked around at the communion table at the people around me and saw them aged and changed. Saw the tenderness of my minister as she took communion to another member, greatly diminished now, but still lovingly cared for and ministered too. Watched her dip bread into wine to soften it so this lady can still receive that sacrament. I heard the conversation around another death - this time the child of someone who moved away quite recently, a sudden and traumatic passing - how they will travel to stand with that family.

How some of the people I see most changed were probably close to the age I am now when I got here 21 years ago.

I am not the only one who has changed. I do not know the work God has been doing in others. I should respect that and remember it. I do not know if this changes anything for me. I guess we'll see.

#faith #easter 2024 #personal reflection #renewal #changes

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carlotaflaneur · 10 months

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#6 november 2023

THERE'S THIS RUSH I'M IN IT MOVES TOO FAST FOR ME

hooooOooooooOooola :-)

how's life ? I'm going through of those periods in which everything feels hard to process and I feel like life is living ME, instead of me living it.

This past weeks Carlota + the flâneurs have been in Alicante, Castelló and Roses, and it's been beautiful !

In Alicante we played in a fairly big concert hall; it wasn't crowded so the feeling from stage was that the room was empty... BUT those who came payed such close attention, that the atmosphere was full of bliss when we finished playing. I met a guy (his name is Andrei) who had been googling what to do in Alicante and he'd found my gig, listened to my songs and decided to come over. The ticket was 15€ and he also bought the vinyl (18€). Now that's investment and trust in Carlota Flâneur !!! Andrei, you can't imagine how much I needed that, you lifted my mood and I'll be forever thankful !!!

We shared the evening with a band called Viscopaf, and the singer's dad also bought my album. He told me: I'm a big fan of Ferran Palau and a while ago I saw him live and it blew my mind, but I have to tell you that your live set has been even more impressive, but don't tell him !!!! hahahahah I believe ferran is not subscribed to my newsletter so all good, we won't tell him hahah

october 2023 – drinking water in Alicante (screenshot from Benja's footage)

Talking to the audience after a gig is what makes the whole "being on the road" thing really worth it. The day after playing in Alicante I had the pleasure to play in Alcoi on my own, at a little festival called "wow festival". I woke up in Alicante super early, and I had a horrible time because I had to take a taxi to the bus station and there were NO taxis ! I stood in the dark for more than 15 minutes and none came. I was so hopeless I began running (guitar, pedalboard, luggage in my hands & back) to the bus station, and then I saw the Alcoi bus standing by a traffic light. The driver told me I didn't need to go all the way to the bus station, I could reach the second station of the line, which was two minutes on foot away. I just had to walk straight to Avenida Salamanca and stand in front of the Lorca Café. I did so !!! It was still dark and I was already sweaty. At the bus stop I met this man who told me he was "el minutero de alicante", I got so moved by his story that I gave him a cd as a gift.

Going to Alcoi was super worth it, because everyone took such good care of me at the festival !!! They prepared vegan beef stew and I was given a really cute souvenir: a wooden spoon that has "alcoi octubre 2023" on it <3

Right after my gig in Alcoi, a woman came and bought my cd and I told her: I'm so sorry my songs are in english, maybe you didn't understand !!! and she said: you have the most beautiful melodies I've heard in a while, your music in english has really moved me !!! you can imagine the happiness spreading within my body after hearing that. Since I had to travel mostly on my own, I didn't bring a lot of merch with me, and I sold all of the vinyls !! some people that wanted the vinyl had to buy a cd instead.

Some days after the trip, I received a wetransfer from Benja Fernández who had recorded us with his handycam in Alicante :-) I guess I'll use some bits for promoting my upcoming gigs, but I felt like sharing the whole video with you, exactly how I received it. In the description you have the timing of the concert ! Borja recorded most of the songs we played. I LOVE having this material... Jordi Paula & Marcel look beautiful.

LASTLY I need to share with you L'ESMORZAR with Núria Graham. It's in catalan but you can find some interviews she's given in english as well. Talking to Núria is really inspiring to me... not only because I've followed her career and I admire her and I am in love with her work... also because she has a vision on music & creativity that gives me peace and hope. Lately (though I try not to think too much about it) numbers and the pressure of being active on social media are making me feel stressed out. And talking to Núria has reminded me of the real thing, the reason why I write songs. Thank you Núria u the best :-)

Carlota

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wongliutsong · 1 year

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Not Your China Doll Book Cover Reveal

✨Book Cover Reveal of #NotYourChinaDoll - a new biography about #AnnaMayWong by Katie Gee Salisbury (@kayteesal)✨

I am excited to reveal the cover of an upcoming biography about Anna May Wong written by Katie Gee Salisbury. Some of you may simply know her by her Instagram username @kayteesal.

A backstory of how I connected with Katie: In November 2021, I stumbled upon Katie’s Twitter page while trying to figure out if an Asian woman at a Hollywood party was indeed Anna May Wong. It wasn’t. As I read her Half Caste Woman newsletter blog feverishly, I found out it was Mrs. Quon Tai Lachman. I reached out to her personally. We corresponded & connected over our love for Anna May Wong before meeting in-person in August 2022 - when I shared part of my AMW collection & notes with her. I guess we are kindred spirits in a way. Both in our mid-late 30s, we can trace our ancestry to Toisan, and share a love for film history & Anna May Wong. In December 2022, Katie asked me if I would read an early draft of Not Your China Doll. I jumped at the chance. I read the draft of her book in less than span of 1 week and was completely engrossed in the immersive world of Anna May Wong. Katie interweaves the worlds of AMW so beautifully with words and imagery of life - with its foibles. It’s a wonderful true telling of her life’s story, and debunks many of the myths about AMW. It’s well researched & she received input from people in the AMW community. I can’t wait to read this book in its final version—I only read one draft. I hope you will join me… won’t you? 😉

The book comes out in March 2024, but you can pre-order a copy now here: https://bit.ly/NotYourChinaDoll

Your thoughts on this book cover reveal?

#anna may wong #1930smoviestars #1920s #1930s style

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annamaywong · 1 year

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Not Your China Doll Book Cover Reveal

✨Book Cover Reveal of #NotYourChinaDoll - a new biography about #AnnaMayWong by Katie Gee Salisbury (@kayteesal)✨

I am excited to reveal the cover of an upcoming biography about Anna May Wong written by Katie Gee Salisbury. Some of you may simply know her by her Instagram username @kayteesal.

The book comes out in March 2024, but you can pre-order a copy now here: https://bit.ly/NotYourChinaDoll

Your thoughts on this book cover reveal?

#anna may wong #classic hollywood #old hollywood #1930s #vintage

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melbournenewsvine · 2 years

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The rising cost of living means that 540000 families in Victoria starved last year

It says the government has provided more than $43 million to expand community food relief since February 2020, including $6 million for the Food Relief Financial Reserve, which has provided 3.4 million meals to Victorians. It also contributes $3.7 million to Foodbank Victoria each year. However, chief executive David McNamara said more government funding was needed as the charity was increasingly forced to buy food rather than rely on donations due to floods in Queensland and New South Wales and global supply chain issues. When people could only eat cheap, poorly nutritious and high-sugar food, he said, it led to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. “I think it’s amazing that we put a lot of money into the health system…but really, we’re kind of like the emergency department for people’s tables,” McNamara said. “We can actually help remove or reduce some of the burden on the health system, if we are recognized as part of the solution.” He also called on the state government to appoint a Minister for Food, so the state had a coordinated approach on food sovereignty and food security. Kahele Roberts returns to live with her mother because the high cost of living makes it impossible for her to afford food and rent. attributed to him:Eddie Jim Kahli Roberts, a single mother on a disability pension, is packing her house and moving to her mother’s home in Queensland because she can’t pay the rent for her Doncaster home and put food on the table for her three sons. “I miss the opportunity because I feed the boys first. It kind of happened to me — I have toast and they have chicken curry when we get our protein from Foodbank. Thank goodness for the lentils and two-minute pasta.” Food insecurity is getting worse, according to the Hunger Report, with 23 percent of households across the country seeing they now struggle more often to buy food than a year earlier. The cost of food and groceries was the number one cause, closely followed by energy and housing. But only two out of five food insecure families received food relief aid, due to shame and embarrassment, the perception that others were more needy and people unaware where to get help. Roberts, who volunteers for the charity Work for the Soul, said she gets food from Foodbank every week. “I reach out to them all the time, I definitely think that (the stigma) has subsided lately.” But she believes that others are reluctant to ask for help, which means hiding the level of desperation in society. “There’s something about pride I guess, you want to be conservative.” The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the most interesting daily stories, analysis and insights. Register here. Source link Originally published at Melbourne News Vine

#Melbourne News Vine

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catholicartistsnyc · 4 years

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Meet Theresa Ambat

THERESA AMBAT is a music composer, producer, and sound designer based in Seattle, WA. [website]

From Theresa:

I have my own personal music on Spotify and Apple Music and I just started doing freelance music production for film and video games. I also sometimes compose music using a programming language called SuperCollider.

CATHOLIC ARTIST CONNECTION (CAC): Where are you from originally, and what brought you to Seattle?

THERESA AMBAT (TA): I was born in Japan and moved to Washington as a baby (dad was in the Navy). Lived in a small town for most of my life, then moved to Seattle to study Computer Music at the University of Washington. I now work for a parish in the greater-Seattle area!

CAC: How do understand your vocation as a Catholic artist? Do you call yourself a Catholic artist?

TA: I'd say that I'm a Catholic who is an artist. My vocation is to be a follower of Christ, and creating music is a major way for me to do that. I'm not a praise & worship artist and my work isn't always explicitly Christian, but my work is built on the foundation that is my faith and relationship with the Lord. Everything I create is for Jesus.

All I desire is to share truth, beauty, and goodness through my art. If someone can encounter Christ through my work -- whether that be by feelings of peace and solidarity, or something as incredible as conversion of the heart -- that brings me so much joy.

CAC: Where in Seattle do you regularly find spiritual fulfillment?

TA: I was a part of a really wonderful Catholic community called the Prince of Peace Catholic Newman Center when I was in college. If you're a college student or young adult in the Seattle area, I'd highly recommend getting involved there! They've got Dominicans, tons of young people looking to explore their faith, awesome events, just overall an A+++ community. That place played a serious role in my relationship with Christ -- I don't know where I'd be without it.

CAC: What is your daily spiritual practice?

TA: I've been struggling a little bit with daily prayer habits since starting full-time work--I guess I'm still trying to figure out a good routine. But since I work at a church I have the opportunity to do a holy hour and go to mass once a week which is great. Usually when I get home I pray a rosary with my family. I've also been reading "The Mystical Journey to Divine Union" by John Paul Thomas which is about St. John of the Cross.

I found my spiritual director Fr. Marcin during my senior year of college. At the time I was making a pretty big life decision about my future: to accept a position as a FOCUS missionary or stay in Washington to further my music career. Fr. Marcin was actually the person who kept telling me I needed to find a spiritual director, haha. We already had a good friendship by then so I just asked him! In the end, I discerned that the Lord was calling me to stay in Washington to live out mission in my job/music.

CAC: Describe a recent day in which you were most completely living out your vocation as an artist.

TA: When in-person shows were still a thing, I performed for a SoFar Seattle show in January. It was my first paid gig ever and like, 20 of my friends (who are also Catholic) came. I think they filled up almost a third of the venue.

What's cool about SoFar shows is that the audience remains completely silent during your performances. No phones, no talking, people have to stay for the ENTIRE show, giving you the artist full-freedom to share your work without the fear of people not paying attention.

Before performing I talked about how I was Catholic, the ways the Lord was working in my life at the time, and how they related to my music. Being in secular Seattle, it was absolutely terrifying! But wow, I was received so well. After the show people started sharing with me how my story/music resonated with their own stories. If they were Catholic or not, I have no idea!

The Lord was SERIOUSLY present that night. All of my friends who came are incredible witnesses of Christ and it was just so cool to even see them interact with other people at the show and share Christ -- not by bible thumping or swinging around rosaries -- but simply by their presence and the joy that bleeds out of them.

Thinking back, yeah, I really wanted to share Christ with others through my music that night. But I'm now realizing how much of an impact my friends had on the show. Just imagine walking into a venue where THAT many people are striving for sainthood. The environment changes. I really felt like I was a part of the body of Christ that night.

CAC: How do you financially support yourself as an artist?

TA: I currently have a full-time job at a really wonderful parish which is my main source of income. I only started freelancing maybe 2.5 months ago but to my surprise it's been flourishing well! Creating a personal website and demo reel made it really easy to share my work with others and I've found most of my gigs through the Catholic Creatives facebook group as well as Instagram.

The biggest piece of advice I have for finding work is to use social media as a tool. Document your process on instagram, create a demo reel and put it on the front page of your website, post on the Catholic Creatives facebook group!

[Editor’s Note: Remember, you can also post in the Catholic Artist Connection Facebook group and send and find notices in the newsletter!]

I know we all cringe at the idea of "networking" but if you think about it in the lens of evangelization, it's actually quite beautiful. No, I'm not saying that you need to "convert" people in your tweets and insta posts. But just remember that very interaction you have with a person is sacred and is an opportunity to love. Even in the digital world. When people see your joy and desire to serve, they can tell you're serious about your art and will want to work with you.

In the future (maybe 5ish years from now) I'd love to make freelance music production a full-time career. I still have quite a ways to go but I know the Lord is asking me to be patient and invest in the season that I'm in now. Transitioning out of college it's very easy to focus so heavily on the far future that we miss out on what's happening right in front of us. I'm really grateful for the opportunities the Lord has given me to serve now.

CAC: What are your top 3 pieces of advice for Catholic artists post-graduation?

TA: 1. Post-graduation is REALLY hard. Especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. You're going to be told a lot of lies by Satan, but just remember that that's all he is. A liar.

Jesus? He is truth. So in response to each of those lies you might hear, just remember a truth that Jesus is telling you.

2. Invite God into your creative process! Make your work a prayer, write something in the adoration chapel, ask God what he thinks about your work, etc. I recorded my first album in front of the tabernacle and the Lord has blessed that piece of work in so many ways.

3. DO IT! Just do it. That thing you've been wanting to make for 72589247329 years, just start. It's never too late to just start. Stop letting your expectations for yourself get in the way. Stop waiting to get that "one piece of gear" that will make/break your project. God gave you a gift for a reason--to bring glory to his kingdom. Use it!

Let's be saints, together!

#Theresa Ambat #Seattle #japan #catholic #catholic artist #catholic artist connection #west coast #musician #music #sofar #sofar sounds #sofar seattle #catholic music #university of washington #newman center #FOCUS #mystical journey to divine union #st. john of the cross

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ohblackdiamond · 4 years

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little t&a (paul/gene, nc-17) (part 1 of 29)

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13 part 14 part 15 part 16 part 17 part 18 part 19 part 20 part 21 part 22 part 23 part 24 part 25 part 26 part 27 part 28 part 29 Four weeks before KISS gets back on tour, Gene discovers that Paul’s been cursed by a groupie. For the sake of KISS’ finances, Paul’s comfort level, and Gene’s libido, this situation must be rectified. Sexswap fic.

Notes: This has been on the backburner pretty much since the quarantine started. I really wrestled with posting it at all since it’s a weird premise, and most of my fics have a more realistic bent, but I decided that if it perked me up while working remotely, eating ramen, and feeling like I was back in uni in all the worst ways (when was I in uni? why, during the Great Recession!)-- then maybe it’d perk someone else up, too. So here we are.

Gene really didn’t think too much of it at first when Paul vanished just after the tour. He didn’t take it personally, the way Peter did, and he didn’t get too quizzical about it like Ace did. The whole band was burnt-out on each other. The days where they had to share hotel rooms were gone, and the days where they wanted to share vacations were gone, too. Gene couldn’t pinpoint when it had gotten like that, and it made him a little regretful, sure, but it was just another inevitability. The Beatles had made it ten years before imploding, all those hurt egos just smushing together and screwing everything up. KISS had four years under its belt now, and already he could feel things faltering.

So maybe Paul was trying to ease all that via his disappearing act. Spend his tour break at home, probably with a bevy of girls lining up at his front porch, and come back refreshed and ready for another nine-month stretch with only a wall between him and his bandmates, assuming Ace and Peter didn’t tear a hole in it on a drunken whim. It made sense. The first time Paul didn’t return his phone call (the tinny sound of his $400 answering machine the only response), Gene wasn’t concerned. The second time, Gene assumed Paul had gone to a disco, or was spending the night at some chick’s house. The third time, Gene immediately called up Bill, who said he hadn’t heard from Paul, either.

That was cause for concern. Paul could, and did, blow off anybody but their manager. Still, Gene figured he’d give it one more day, and one more lay, before he started to investigate.

That was the plan, until he got his mail late one morning. There was always a fat stack of it. The actual sackfuls of fan mail would end up at some office, where a poor secretary was stuck stuffing envelopes with their pictures and a canned response. Sometimes a real sleuth would find his address, and he’d open those out of sheer novelty, when he had the chance, only to be disappointed when the writer turned out to be a twelve-year-old who’d spent his paper route money on several books of stamps, and mailed the same letter out to every Gene Simmons in the greater New York phone book. Every so often he’d get the good stuff, like a saucy letter from a college girl, with photos and pubic hair taped inside. “See you next time in Sacramento.” He never wrote them back, but he’d put the photos in a separate album from his conquests. Almost a hope chest of photos, there.

Gene thumbed through the newsletters and errant bills so quickly he nearly missed it. A glossy postcard, with Buckingham Palace on the front. It couldn’t have been a piece of fan mail, but he didn’t know anyone who’d bother writing him, either. He flipped it over out of curiosity. Weird.

He recognized the scratchy longhand before he got to the signature. Not that it took long. Thee address was almost lengthier than the postcard message.

“Gene—Do you know anything about curses? Write me back soon. Thanks, Paul.”

He called up Peter about it that afternoon, still baffled. He didn’t really think Peter would have any insight on it—Paul and Peter hadn’t been as close as they used to be, though that went for everyone—but he surprised him.

“I haven’t heard from him. I figured you had.” Peter was chewing gum as he spoke. Gene could hear the smacks through the receiver. “Why the fuck would he send you a postcard? You live closer to him than I do.”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Talking about curses…” Peter trailed. “Shit, I went over there last week. Didn’t call him up first, just thought I’d go over like I used to. I banged on the door and some chick came out and screamed at me to go away. I told her who I was and she just stared at me.”

“Paul doesn’t pick girls for brains.”

“It was kinda weird, though. Picky bastard usually gets blondes.”

“What, was she a brunette?”

“Yeah, real dark, curly hair—you don’t think he’s shacked up with her, do you? Some New Age type, turning him on to something funny? ’Cause he doesn’t usually want ’em sticking around, either, and I stopped by after lunch…”

Evidently, Peter paid more attention to Paul’s habits with girls than Gene ever had.

“I don’t know. Was she cute?”

“Yeah. She had nice tits.”

Of course she did. Gene rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand.

“I’m gonna look into this. I’ll let you know if I can’t get in touch with him.”

“Sure.” There was a slight hesitation. “Hey, thanks for calling me. I thought he was pissed at me or some shit. But I guess he’s pissed at everybody.”

Gene privately feared it was worse than that. If Paul had gotten a girlfriend, one serious enough he was ignoring everyone and everything else, even the looming tour, for her sake… well, that didn’t make sense, not unless she’d conned him into something. There were still plenty of cults and communes all over the place, the leftover remnants of disillusioned hippies. They’d join fringe churches or create their own religions and live in tents on the side of the road. He didn’t think Paul would have fallen into something like that, unless the girl had spruced it up with a bunch of psychobabble and talk therapy. Paul dug astrology and self-help, but it wasn’t something he’d trade his lifestyle for. Was it?

“I’ll find out. I’ll see you, Pete.”

He hung up, then dialed his chauffeur. An hour or so later, he was pulling up to Paul’s.

He told the chauffeur not to wait on him. If Paul was at his house, he’d make him drive him back. It turned out they weren’t Paul’s only visitors. Ahead of them, walking up the driveway, was a kid carrying two grocery bags, his bicycle parked in the grass.

Gene didn’t normally have an issue making his presence known. But he held back, curious. He wanted to see who would open the door—that supposed live-in girlfriend, some other chick, or Paul himself. As the chauffeur drove away, he hung back a bit, tucking himself behind a tree at the edge of the front of the house, near the front porch. The kid didn’t seem to notice.

He watched the kid—he was probably about eleven—ring the doorbell with his elbow. After a couple seconds, the door opened, a girl in a blue bathrobe walking out, shutting the door behind her. Gene recognized the bathrobe as one of Paul’s, though she filled it out better than he ever had. She wasn’t even wearing anything beneath it that he could tell, cleavage obvious, the loosely-tied bathrobe hiding none of it. Curly, dark hair—Gene wondered if this was the girlfriend, or bedmate, that Peter had seen earlier. No telling.

“How much was it?” she asked the kid.

“Eight twenty-five.”

“You have the receipt?”

The kid pulled out the receipt. The girl looked at it, nodded, then took a wallet from the pocket of Paul’s bathrobe, tugging out a couple bills.

“Here’s nine. Keep the change.”

“Thanks.” The kid paused. “I thought somebody famous was supposed to live here.”

“You thought wrong.” The girl took the two bags of groceries and turned back towards the door, trying to use her elbow to turn the knob. The kid was already back on his bicycle. As he kicked the stand up, he called back out to her over his shoulder.

“Hey, you gonna need groceries next week, too?”

“I hope not.” She set both bags on the front porch. The kid nodded, waving as he started down the driveway. The girl didn’t wave back, busy opening the door.

Now was Gene’s chance. He stepped out from behind the tree and walked to the front porch as the girl picked up one of the grocery bags again.

“Hey.”

She turned around immediately. Her eyes got big.

“Shit—Gene!”

She recognized him. That didn’t narrow it down. She looked familiar, somehow—she wasn’t a Playmate, Gene always recognized those—maybe a model, or a groupie? But Paul didn’t bring those home. Gene raised a finger to his mouth.

“Shh. Look, I’m here to see Paul. Is he in?”

“Wh—no. No, sorry.” A tense, quick smile. Definitely not a model. Only Ali MacGraw could manage to make it with crooked teeth.

“Can you tell me when he’ll be back?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know where he is.”

“So he just left you over here?”

The girl set the bag down, folding her arms. Something about the mannerism made an eerie feeling prickle down the back of Gene’s spine.

“Are you telling me I can’t be here?”

“No!” Gene pursed his lips. “Look, I don’t care who he’s with. But we’re supposed to go back on tour in a couple weeks and—”

“I know!”

“That’s great. So maybe it might be nice to know where he is beforehand.”

The girl bristled.

“I told you, I have no idea! I just—can’t you leave me alone?”

“You’re living in his house, wearing his bathrobe—that wasn’t even your wallet, was it?”

“Hey!”

Gene scrambled for it. The girl was fairly tall; he probably only had about five or six inches on her, but she wasn’t quick. He grabbed her shoulder with one hand, then jammed his other hand into the bathrobe’s pocket, starting to tug the wallet out. She clenched his arm, nails digging in roughly, not nearly hard enough for him to drop the wallet.

“Stop it! Let go of me, you goddamn idiot!”

She shoved forward, stomping on his foot. Gene couldn’t feel that much of an impact, given the thickness of his boots. He kept a grip on her shoulder as he got the wallet fully in hand, opening it up as she screamed at him.

“You don’t understand, Gene! It’s not what you’re thinking!”

Unsurprisingly, Paul’s driver’s license photo was the first thing staring back at him from the see-through plastic card slot. Eisen, Stanley B. (God, the guy still hadn’t legally gotten his name changed) printed across it. Beyond the license was a handful of credit and business cards, as if Gene really needed to thumb through them for any further confirmation.

“You stole his wallet.”

“I didn’t steal it!”

She had a lisp, Gene noticed out of nowhere.

“Like hell you didn’t. Where is he?”

“I told you, I don’t—”

She jerked back abruptly, digging her nails deeper into his arm. He didn’t let go, but his hand shifted, accidentally yanking the bathrobe down at the shoulder. The girl’s eyes got huge. One of her breasts was exposed, which would’ve been plenty distracting enough, under normal circumstances, but for once, Gene’s eyes went to her bare shoulder first.

More specifically, the rose tattoo on her bare shoulder.

It wasn’t possible. It had to be a coincidence. He only saw the tattoo for a second at best, before she smacked his hand away and yanked the bathrobe back into place, covering her shoulder.

It didn’t prove anything. But in a nice, W.A.S.P.y neighborhood like Paul’s, how many chicks had tattoos? And how many would have one like that, a Lyle Tuttle tattoo, when Lyle’s shop was clear across the country?

She looked pissed-off. Scared, too. Something about the tight, sour way her lips were pressed together seemed weirdly familiar. The way she was acting didn’t add up. She’d called him by his first name on automatic. No deference or starry-eyed behavior. This girl didn’t give a damn about him being a rockstar. Those caustic responses made it come off like—like she really knew him.

That prickly feeling down his spine was only getting worse, even as he tried to dismiss it as impossible. If Gene was right, what he was about to do was incredibly cruel. If he was wrong, he’d just owe Paul Stanley’s latest chick a sincere apology. He wasn’t sure which option was worse.

But he had to know. He let go of the bathrobe and quickly shoved his hand through the girl’s tangled, curly hair, starting just at the temple, lifting it up to fully expose the right side of her face. The abject horror in her dark brown eyes might have been confirmation all on its own, but the damage was already done. He’d already pushed back enough of her hair to see what he’d only ever been told about before.

“Gene, y-you fucking asshole!”

Not an inch past one wispy sideburn was a stub of cartilage where her right ear should have been.

He wasn’t dealing with Paul’s girl of the duration. He was dealing with Paul.

#kiss the band #kiss fanfiction #paul stanley #gene simmons #gene simmons x paul stanley #ace frehley #peter criss

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benefitofthedoud · 4 years

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Tracking Trackers That Track

This week, we're taking a look at smartwatches, and we have Jimmy Westenberg from Android Authority to tell us all about them. From Apple to Google, from Garmin to Fitbit, there's a ton going on out there, and Jimmy breaks it all down for us. Who's doing it the best? Who needs to catch up...a lot? All that and more as we break down the State of Smartwatches in 2020.

OnePlus 8 news including a OnePlus Z rumor, and more (Dgit.com) We got a shout out from our old compatriots at the Dgit Daily newsletter. You should subscribe, because it's great and it used to have a great podcast.

What Did Hubble See on Your Birthday? (NASA) The Hubble telescope has been observing space for over 30 years, and NASA curated spectacular images for every day of the year.

Texas Company Wants to Dock Paychecks of Workers Who Receive Stimulus Check (iHeart) Company apologizes for ‘ill-advised’ plan to dock pay of workers getting stimulus checks (Fox 6 Now) So, you're getting money from the Federal government huh? That's great. We'll be happy to take that from you. What do you mean that's a bad idea? I guess our PR company says that's a bad idea, so nevermind.

Zoom Meetings Do Not Support End-to-End Encryption (The Intercept) Zoom announces 90-day feature freeze to fix privacy and security issues (Verge) Zoom has disabled a feature that was exposing users’ LinkedIn profiles (Verge) Zoom.us went from 10 million users to 200 million users as suddenly everyone is working from home. But, it turns out, the spotlight isn't always a good thing.

The Fitbit Charge 4 is a much more powerful fitness tracker disguised in its old body (Verge) Fitbit announced a new wearable this week and fulfilled a four year old demand from its users. Better late than never?

Apple Tests Its Secrecy Somewhere New: Employee Homes (Bloomberg) Apple finally let secret projects out of its spaceship campus since most of the people working on those secret projects were doing so from home.

WHO Launches Campaign to Encourage Video Gaming Together (Lifewire) This is our headline of the week: The WHO taketh away. The WHO giveth.

AMD drops a genuine shock on Intel in laptops, and more (DGiT) The race between Intel and AMD just got a lot more interesting.

Apple buys Dark Sky, immediately announces removal from Android (Android Authority) Apple bought up the popular Dark Sky weather app and promptly announced that it would be killing the Android version of the app.

T-Mobile completes merger with Sprint, John Legere steps down as CEO (Verge) The T-Mobile-Sprint merger is complete: What does it mean for customers? (Android Authority) T-Mobile Swallows Sprint, Leaving 3 US Cellphone Giants (Wired) T-Mobile's Sprint deal gives US first look at a full 5G picture (CNet) Sprint and T-Mobile tied the knot, which is a cutesy way of saying T-Mobile gobbled up all of Sprint's spectrum.

Walt Disney Imagineering offers online courses to learn how Disneyland is created (Kidsnews.com) Disney world released a free online course through khan academy which shows how the sausage is made over there.

YouTube 'Shorts' is Google's answer to TikTok, says report (The Next Web) YouTube keeps losing users to Tik Tok, so to fight back, YouTube is launching its own Tik Tok competitor.

Helping public health officials combat COVID-19 (Google Blog) Google is releasing location data for millions of phone users to help track the spread of COVID-19 and the federal government would never do anything bad with that data right?

Apple Lets Some Video Apps Sell Shows Without Taking 30% Cut (Verge) HBO is offering a ton of free content to beat the lockdown blues (Android Authority) Two surprises in the entertainment category hit us this week. HBO has a ton of free content on its mobile app, and Amazon announced that you can now buy movies directly from the iOS app.

#BOTDEpisode #BOTD #Tech #News #tech News #Technews

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gretavanbobatea · 4 years

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pine 🌲 overgrowth 🌿 crow ❇ lavender 💜 fallen leaves 🍃 :) ❤️

ahhh im so late! thanks for the ask love!

🌲-Something I've had since child birth: you know what..... I don’t think I have anything from childbirth! I guess myself 😂

🌿- fact about yourself you never got to tell: I absolutely love the sport Lacrosse. I don’t play in a college team or club team because I have no effing time but I love the game y’all.

❇- do you have a signature accessory?: my daisy necklace and my rings. I feel naked without them

💜-favorite smell?: I'm ALL about smells. I love the smell of coffee and good perfume.

🍃- what’s your morning routine like, if you have one?: scroll through my phone till I'm awake enough, feed my dogs, drink coffee or tea while reading through the newsletters I receive in my email.

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atlanticcanada · 5 years

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'Stay home,' urges widow of 51-year-old Ontario man who died of COVID-19

As COVID-19 spreads through Canada and infects hundreds of people, the widow of a 51-year-old Ontario man who died of the disease is urging Canadians to listen to health officials to prevent the spread of the virus and whenever possible stay at home.

“I think that people aren’t taking this seriously enough,” Teri Cunnington told CTV News from her home in Milton, Ont. “

Sean Cunnington, a salesman, musician and father of three from Milton, Ont., , developed flu-like symptoms on March 4 and began experiencing night sweats. Shortly afterward, he developed a cough.

Coronavirus newsletter sign-up: Get The COVID-19 Brief sent to your inbox

Sean had a form of chronic leukaemia, but was otherwise healthy and physically active. He did not rely on any medication.

After two days of struggling at home, Sean was urged by his wife to visit the hospital. He was not tested for COVID-19 because he did not fit the criteria at the time, which specified foreign travel to any country with COVID-19 cases as a risk factor.

“It was basically dismissed because he had not travelled anywhere. He’s not been out of Ontario, he’s not really been out of southern Ontario,” Teri said.

Sean was prescribed antibiotics and sent home, but his condition only got worse. Five days after being sent home, Sean was admitted to hospital in Milton where doctors suspected he might have COVID-19 and tested him.

While doctors awaited the formal results, Sean was moved into an isolated negative pressure room, where he was put on oxygen. Teri says healthcare workers were taking full precautions for COVID-19, wearing gloves and masks.

“He just could not breathe. He could not get a deep breath. Before he was intubated he was taking these very short, little breaths and trying to get a big breath, and that was while being on oxygen,” Teri said.

As he struggled to breathe, doctors put him on a ventilator, but even a maximum flow of oxygen made little difference.

“They had to keep turning the amount of oxygen that Sean was getting from the ventilator … and then they couldn't turn the machine up anymore,” she said.

In one of their final conversations in the hospital, Sean -- whose lungs were failing due to the disease -- told his wife that he didn’t want to die.

“I think he was really scared and I guess obviously he was scared enough that that’s what he said to me,” she said.

She replied: “Don’t die, our story’s not over yet.”

Sean passed away Wednesday night in hospital. Ten hours after his death, doctors finally received the results of his COVID-19 test. He tested positive.

Officials do not know where he contracted the illness, a sign the illness is spreading within communities.

Sean leaves behind three daughters. He worked in sales and, outside of his job, his passion was music. His band, Elmwood Underground, released their first single in late February.

“He was the most caring, most loving genuine person. He was my everything,” Teri said.

Teri cannot visit the funeral home to plan her husband’s memorial service because she is now in self-isolation until March 25. So far, she said she feels fine. Even if she could plan the arrangements, she said there’s no way she could hold a funeral right now, considering the limits on crowds.

“Sean has an incredible number of people who care about him and love him, and he has touched so many people,” she said.

Teri said Sean’s co-workers have been in touch with public health, and her own workplace has been cleared out as a precaution.

Teri’s final message is a simple one: listen to the experts and stay indoors.

“And everybody just needs to be safe out there. Everybody just needs to be mindful of what they’re doing. Stay home, stay home -- it’s not such a big deal.”

As of Thursday night, 12 Canadians have died of COVID-19 and more than 870 others have been infected.

One of the things she’ll miss the most about her husband, Teri said, is the way he would call “Marco!” when he was trying to find her at home. She would reply, “Polo!”

“So, I won’t have that anymore,” she said. “There are no words. There really are no words. This is something that nobody should ever have to experience.”

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/2IZFlZR

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

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carlotaflaneur · 1 year

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#5 september 2023

EVERY WORD I SAY COULD BE THE LAST ONE

hooooOooooola !

My newsletter has turned into that text from a friend you love dearly but you can hardly ever see each other, so there is no practical end to keeping the chat alive, which leads to you not putting it first and letting it die, and then your heart aches more and more as months go by, because you love them and wanted to share what live has brought to you both. I do think that it's never too late to answer a text... because who wouldn't like to receive a text or a letter that wasn't expected ??? that said, I apologize for not writing; I said my newsletter would be a monthly thing and I broke my commitment.

Now that I'm finally writing, I take this chance to let you know that my email address is [email protected] :-) I'll be more than happy to receive letters filled with musical recommendations or impressions on my record, which turned 1 YEAR yesterday !!!

All this time I haven't stopped ruminating on the various reasons why I haven't been sending this newsletter. I've been questioning myself a lot: have I acted lazy ?? I don't think so. I actually think I've been too hard on myself. It's a mental process I'm quite familiar with: a part of me feels what I'm writing to you has to be highly excellent and interesting... so much that I end up not writing, feeling like it wouldn't be enough. It's the same with content for social media (I've been struggling recording videos) and even with songs. I think it's not healthy that perfectionism holds the power behind creativity... I clearly get creative because I need to; but I want to learn to do so from a place of playfulness, passion... rather than high self-demand standards.

june 2023 - with my dad benito going to Primavera Sound in Barcelona (foto: núria gascón)

This last year has been crazy amazing; I've played my album many places, including Primavera Sound (the biggest festival in Spain) and Wales !!!!! my first international gig !!!!! I actually sold some vinyls to english couples who were incredibly supportive, I get emotional when I recall it. A spanish girl -who discovered me thanks to the spanish national radio- who lives in Cambridge drove all along to Wales (3 hours) just to see me play. I hugged her so tight !!! I can retire now.

What a beautiful and hard year !!! I have to admit I've felt overwhelmed every single day and I have a fatigue sensation I cannot get rid of. It's partly because I still don't know how to get rest; even when I push myself to unwind, I end up thinking about my project. And I can't seem to separate Carlota Flâneur from my personal life (I guess it's because I AM Carlota Flâneur hahah). I've learnt a lot about managing my time, but I still have loads to learn in that sense. Vivid proof: I haven't been sending newsletters this last year.

I'm still learning to live with the implications of being my own boss... and that's also beautiful and exhausting. I've been constantly wishing that I had a normal job, where I'm told what to do and how to do it, with very defined responsibilities and getting paid on a regular basis lol. I acknowledge I'd feel empty inside if that was my life, and I'd still need to write songs... maybe a good solution is finding the right balance between being an artist and having a job that pays. I'll tell you how this goes in the future !

Many hugs to you all and I hope that I can see you soon !!

ps: have you seen my website ??? my friend Ayman designed it and programmed it :-)

Carlota

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highstrangeness-blog · 6 years

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Men In Black

Okay, so here today we're just going to state some FACTS. I really only have time to discuss some of the more popular theories but being a rather experienced occult researcher, I am more interested in the conclusions you draw yourself than the rabbit holes of Creepypasta, anyhow.

So, I guess I should define the term Men In Black or MIB. It's a generic term used for any threatening/strangely behaved individual(s) who can be linked in some fashion with a ufo sighting. I'm sure you already have a preconceived notion of these people due to the popular movie by the same name. If you're thinking about Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith, stop it. Take a second, maybe do a shot of whiskey, maybe hit the vape, whatever you need to do to open that mind hole of yours.

Okay, back to MIB. There have been a ton of MIB reports in connection to all things occult or supernatural, not just UFO sightings. There's a ton of theories on who these people are, and I mean a fuckin- shit ton.

The most common one is that the MIB are quasi-government agents; many people report MIB flashing “credentials of higher authority" before warning them to stop talking about the occult.

A lot of these first hand reports state the MIB as strange looking humanoids with very strange mannerisms pointing at the possibility that they are potentially the very aliens they're trying to keep secret. Many accounts of MIB report they look almost doll-like, completely bald without eyebrows or eyelashes, pale white skin, have thin, bright Ruby red lips, and speak almost robotically. One witness was approached by MIB after a "plane" crashed nearby. When he sat down to question the family, his pants revealed a bright green wire running up his ankle going into a brown dot on his leg. The witnesses asked the man if he wanted something to eat, the man declined but said he would need a glass of water in 10 minutes to take a pill. 10 minutes of questioning the family about the specifics of their bodies, tattoos, birthmarks, etc. The man's face became beat red, he requested the water. He took a large yellow pill and went back to normal. When he left he walked out the door, hailed a large, black Cadillac that pulled up with no driver, and pulled away with no headlights on. This is one of hundreds of strange but similar accounts of MIB encounters. Many others mention MIB having long limbs, skin cold to the touch, non-bending joints, and telepathic-like communication.

OK, so we’ve covered quasi-government agents and aliens. This third theory is much deeper than i can really get into, or fully comprehend but I’m going to do my best with a little help from Reddit user: farcaller on the What Is A Tulpa (No Bullshit Definition) Thread. First off let’s define what the fuck A Tulpa even is. A tulpa is an entity that was created by conscious effort of another entity; i.e, a manifestation or emanation as it’s known in Tibetan Spurl-pa. Ever feel like you willed a bad situation upon yourself by overthinking it? Tulpas can grow and mature over time just like that bad situation, the more thought power you give to it, the more powerful it grows. It’s believe that these thoughts will eventually reach a level of maturity whereupon they will develop and grow at a rate comparable to that of any other person. It is also theorized that mass meditation(or extreme emotion) can almost catapult this entity into consciousness. Like all living creatures (because tulpas are living things even if they are just thought forms) they need to feed on something, that something is extreme emotion, like fear. We all here, thinking and giving consciousness energy to this entity (MIB); we’re feeding the tulpa. Slenderman is a really great example of this. About 10 years ago Slenderman only existed in the dark corners of creepypasta, the more popular this lore became bearing memes, video games, stories, and “first-hand” accounts themselves it all seems to come to a head with The Slenderman Stabbings. If you’re not familiar; two young girls lead a third into the woods, killing her as a sacrifice to Slenderman. This began a wave of other crimes done in the name of slenderman. Taking lives and gaining power through fear is almost as real as any other living creature, being a perfect example of what a tulpa is and what the human mind can do (especially in mass quantities.)

Albert K. Bender famed UFOlogist living in Bridgeport, Connecticut created the international flying saucer bureau after becoming obsessed with the occult as a young adult. With almost 600 members, they were dedicated to furthering the study of mysterious crafts. Shortly after its founding, the IFSB reached out to members around the world through a quarterly journal, Space Review. The newsletter shared stories of UFO sightings and offered theories about the origins of these seemingly inexplicable objects. Soon after Albert organized the IFSB the researcher became hounded with ill health, strange phone calls, telepathic messages, the smell of burning sulfur and strange apparitions. November 1952, at a local movie theater Bender realized a strange man with glowing eyes observing him. On a separate occasion late one night on Broad Street Bender reported he was telepathically hypnotized and levitated. To further his experiments, Bender prompted readers of Space Review with an audacious request: memorize and silently recite, on a particular day and time, a letter penned by Bender. Albert’s goal was to connect with Alien life via the simultaneous thought-projection of hundreds of IFSB members. World Contact Day, or as Bender and the IFSB officially preferred, “C-Day,” commenced at 6 o’clock in the evening March 15th, 1953. The letter included a cryptic message, and warning: “The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known but any information about this is being withheld by orders from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review but because of the nature of the information we have been advised in the negative. We advise those engaged in saucer work to be very cautious.” (Remember Tulpas are created through, conscious energy and are given strength through mass meditation and high emotion) July 1953 Albert Bender was visited at his home by three men. Bender stated “All of them were dressed in black clothes. They made it clear to Bender that he was to immediately halt all UFO work. They communicated telepathically: “Stop publishing.” Before departing, the MIB confiscated copies of Space Review and in their wake a yellow fog materialized and the smell of burning sulfur returned. And finally, The telepathic messages, headaches, his being stalked, and of course the surreal warnings by authoritarians in black suits, compelled Albert to shut down the International Flying Saucer Bureau in October 1953. ‘

John Keel is honestly, our main man in all of this. He is the main investigator of the Mothman and author of The Mothman Prophecies, investigated occult reports of all kinds and popularized the term "Men In Black" through his journalism. John used the term “Ultraterrestrials” to describe UFO occupants he believed to be non-human entities which can take the form of whatever they want. This maybe further evidence MIB are aliens along with Albert Bender’s(and many other) accounts of them being unsettling weirdos that didn't look human. Keel would chase The Men In Black in attempt to confront them. He had the local police in many towns looking for them. When he was in West Virginia and Ohio, people would call his Hotel and tell them that the MIB were there, he'd race over to the location but they would be gone by the time he arrived. He reported being plagued by a burning sulfur smell, headaches, receiving strange phone calls, and witnessing strange apparitions. He also reported tons of MIB/occult accounts through his journalism like the time Mrs. Ralph Butler of Owatonna, Minnesota said an officer visited her in May of 1967 he went by the name Richard French. He was 5.9ft tall, had an olive complexion, dark long hair and pointed face. His clothing appeared to be brand-new, even the soles of his shoes were clean and un-scuffed. When Mrs. Butler offered him some Jello, he tried to drink the Jello and acted as if he'd never seen it before. Keel (and other high strangeness reports, like Mary Hyre) documented an influx of MIB encounters while investigating the mothman. It seems like almost everyone who had claimed to witness the “giant- human-bird like creature” in Pleasant Point, West Virginia more often than not also encountered MIB closely after. During his investigation Keel heard reports of a mysterious blonde woman in her thirties with a southern accent, who visited people in West Virginia and Ohio whom Keel had interviewed prior. She even visited those he had not mentioned in print. She introduced herself claiming to be "John Keel's secretary" thus winning instant admission. The clipboard she carried held a complicated form filled with personal questions about the witnesses' health, income, the type of cars they owned as well as their general family background and some fairly sophisticated questions about their UFO sightings. John Keel didn't learn about this woman until months later when one of his friends in Ohio wrote to him and happened to mention her. He didn't have a blonde secretary, let alone a secretary at all.

One Mothman Witness Keel interviewed, 18-year-old Connie Carpenter was driving home from church, when she came face-to-face with the Mothman, almost causing her to have an automobile crash. Almost four months later, Connie reported being nearly kidnapped by MIB. 8: 15 A.M., February 22, 1967. Connie left her house to go to school. As she started to walk down the street a large black car pulled up alongside her. She later identified it as a 1949 Buick. The occupant of the car opened the door and gestured for her to come closer. Thinking he needed directions Connie approached him. He was a young, clean-cut man of about twenty-five, wearing a colorful Mod shirt, no jacket (it was bitter cold), had neatly combed hair and appeared to be suntanned. This suntan was a very interesting detail, which has turned up in other MIB accounts. As she grew close the “man” grabbed her but she struggled and ran away. Another Mothman Witness Mothman witness, Linda Scarberry, said in an interview with Mary Hyre: "The men wore black suits, black hats, and sunglasses. They drove black cars -Cadillacs, I think. ... They looked like human beings, but their skin was somewhat transparent. You could see the veins in their hands very clearly. Their fingers were longer than a normal person's fingers, as well. Daddy shook hands with them, and he said they were awkward in shaking hands. They seemed to not know what to do or how to shake hands." She said: "One of the cars would follow us around. There were three men in the car. ... The MIB went so far as to follow us through the drive-thru of a restaurant. We were afraid to turn around, and just looked in the mirror at them.” Mary Hyre also encountered these strange men, herself. All reports state that they have asked questions about the Mothman and warned all against speaking about it.

So, as you began to read through accounts and reports of occult sightings in general we began to see a pattern in things just as we can see generalized patterns throughout society in daily life. Mistakes, miscommunication, hersey, anecdotal experience but still there's something consolidating about the mass reports of similar legends throughout decades. Whether these legends are passed down unknowingly through family trees or collective consciousness; there's something that reaches a primal fear inside of us when our children come home with stories about the same boogeyman we encountered at their age. There’s a part of the human mind who realizes it’s power, who sees the coincidences in the things we think and see in reality. No one has ever come out as an abductee or witness to something occult whose life has been left positively impacted by the situation. Regardless of who or what you believe in, you can see similarities or you can see differences. I hope I presented these facts to you as coherent and rational as possible after three months of researching high strangeness on Reddit. I hope you can pull your own verdict from the accounts and reports presented to you tonight, at the very least I hope it sparks something in you to at least question your surroundings. It's not all what it seems.

Brooklen Porter

#men in black #mib #mib encounters #high strangeness #aliens #mothman #alien #other kind #4th kind #John Keel #Albert K. Bender #Albert Bender #Mary Hyre #strange encounters #stranger things #weird #conspiracy theory #conspiracy

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bobbynolanios88 · 6 years

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Bitcoin is 10 years old: Here’s what to expect in the cryptocurrency’s second decade

Oct. 31 marks the 10th birthday of one of the most promising, yet divisive technological advancements of the 21st century: Bitcoin.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the first and most famous cryptocurrency emerged from an underground network of libertarian-leaning cypherpunks. Over the past decade its popularity has soared, but so has the number of its detractors. On the eve of its anniversary, here’s a look back at some of the glorious — and infamous — moments in the short life of the world’s most famous cryptocurrency.

And where it all began:

‘I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party’

Satoshi Nakamoto, Oct. 31, 2008, 06:10:00 PM

That was the first email in a series of messages sent by Satoshi Nakamoto, the presumed pseudonym adopted by the creator of bitcoin, in a proposal for a payment system that is completely anonymous running on a decentralized distributed ledger, known as the blockchain.

Today, there are over 2,000 cryptocurrencies, most of which will fail and become worthless, according to Barry Silbert, chief executive officer of the Digital Currency Group, and there are already close to 1,000 dead coins, ones that either failed before launching or have ceased operation, according to a website that tracks such failures.

But the very first digital currency is still going strong, albeit with plenty of ups and downs. Once worth less than 1 cent, a single bitcoin fetched nearly $20,000 in December 2017. Today, one bitcoin BTCUSD, +3,419.44% changes hands for about $6,500.

Bitcoin’s 10-year run The early days

After the release of the Bitcoin white paper a decade ago, Satoshi started a chain of emails to a cryptography mailing list, largely made up of cypherpunks — those who promote increased financial privacy — looking to spread and champion computer encryption. The early emails were met with both enthusiasm and skepticism.

“Bitcoin seems to be a very promising idea. I like the idea of basing security on the assumption that the CPU power of honest participants outweighs that of the attacker,” wrote computer programmer Hal Finney in an email exchange with the group.

Read: Here are all the early email exchanges between Satoshi and the cryptographers

It was at least two months before the blockchain and bitcoin experiment got under way with the creation of the Genesis Block, the first 50 bitcoins ever mined.

A note that accompanied the copy of the Genesis Block gave rise to the notion that bitcoin, in part, may have been a response to the financial crisis. “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks,” the message said.

However, in an interview with MarketWatch, New York University professor David Yermack, debunked this theory, but did say that the timing definitely contributed to the hype around bitcoin.

The Genesis block

Read: Here’s how much it costs to mine a single bitcoin in your country

But what were people meant to do with these bitcoins once they had been created, or mined?

“I guess the key problem right now is that once you generate coins, there’s nobody to test it with, even for dummy transactions. Is there a plan for a mailing list or some kind of trivial marketplace to give people something to do with their newly minted bitcoins?” wrote Mike Hearn, a software developer and early bitcoin developer in the cryptography email chain.

One year later, his question was answered.

First recorded transaction

While there were a number of early test transactions — the first being a transfer between Satoshi and Finney — the first documented transaction didn’t occur until 2010.

On May 22, 2010, Jacksonville programmer Laszlo Hanyecz, convinced Jeremy Sturdivant to send him two pizzas, and in return, Hanyecz would give him 10,000 bitcoin, which in today’s terms is more than $30 million per pizza. The transaction would become part of crypto folklore and May 22 will always be known as Bitcoin Pizza Day.

Eight years on, bitcoin is traded freely on more than 200 exchanges, with volume dominated by speculators hoping to make a quick buck buying and selling the most liquid cryptocurrency. There are now more than 250,000 on-ledger transactions per day, according to data from Blockchain.com.

Transactions per day, per Blockchain.com

At its peak in late 2017, there were nearly half a million transactions happening each day.

Mt. Gox hack

Four years after the first bitcoin transaction, the industry hit one of its lowest points. In February 2014, Japanese-based cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox was hacked, resulting in the loss of more than 800,000 bitcoins. At the time, Mt. Gox was handling more than half of all bitcoin transactions world-wide. The heist was the first big snag in the coming out of the opaque industry.

The Mt. Gox scandal was met with hostility and the company was forced to move its headquarters to its previous offices citing security concerns, the company said at the time.

But what it did do was put bitcoin on the front page of the news.

“I became enthralled in bitcoin when Mt. Gox ‘disappeared’ my bitcoin,” said Tim Draper, founder and director of Draper Associates. “When that happened, I thought bitcoin would collapse, but it didn’t, so I knew it was more important than it seemed on the surface.”

Draper would later become a household name in the crypto industry when he purchased the bitcoins the U.S. Justice Department seized in the Silk Road case. The bitcoins were sold for an average price of just over $300. Draper said he weighed the risk/reward at the time and figured there is a chance they could be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars at some stage. “At this point, It looks like it will be the former, so I lucked out,” he said.

Read: Former Mt. Gox CEO does not want his billion dollars

Yet, security remains one of the technology’s biggest hurdles.

Limitations and headwinds

The Mt. Gox hack is just one in a number of thefts that has undermined the integrity of digital assets. In 2016, two years after the Mt. Gox fiasco, the Bitfinex exchange was infiltrated resulting in the theft of 120,000 bitcoins. All totaled, some estimate that more than 1 million bitcoins have been stolen.

However, the pressing question for bitcoin evangelists is adoption: Is there a place for it in the financial ecosystem? Right now that answer is not quite yet.

As a payment device, bitcoin can process around five transactions per second, while credit card companies like Visa V, +4.31% and Mastercard MA, +4.74% can process more than 5,000 per second. As a store of wealth its security flaws, as discussed earlier, mean it is far from becoming digital gold.

But according to Nigel Green, founder and CEO of deVere Group, a U.K. consulting firm, that will change: “There’s an ongoing shift away from fiat money, and the momentum of this is only set to increase over the next 10 years.”

Read: Winklevoss: If you can’t see bitcoin at $320,000, you just lack imagination

On the eve of its 10th birthday, 2018 has unveiled another flaw in bitcoin: volatility. While the trading community lap up the wild price swings, those pushing for mainstream use have had to withstand a collapse in the price of the No. 1 digital currency.

As euphoria was building, highlighted by the introduction of bitcoin futures, bitcoin fell more than 60% from its all-time high on Dec 17, 2017.

Read: What’s more volatile than bitcoin? You may be surprised

What the future holds

Depending on who you ask, the future of bitcoin looks like anything from the next U.S. dollar or digital gold, to a total bust that will be nothing but a footnote in financial textbooks.

As bitcoin proponents push for more complex financial products, most notably a bitcoin-backed exchange-traded fund, or ETF, regulators now play a pivotal role in the advancement of the cryptocurrency and blockchain movement. Lawmakers and regulators are weighing investor protection in an industry that is rife with nefarious characters, yet offers much potential.

Read: These may be the 3 biggest hurdles to a bitcoin ETF

For detractors, bitcoin is just a passing fad. One of the most vocal critics is prominent New York University economics professor, Nouriel Roubini, who has called bitcoin the mother of all bubbles, compared blockchain with a glorified excel spreadsheet and lambasted the crypto community as a bunch of “self-serving white men pretending to be messiahs for the world’s impoverished, marginalized, and unbanked masses.”

Read: Opinion: Roubini calls out the big blockchain lie

However, the nascent product may have received its biggest stamp of approval just weeks before its 10th birthday when financial services giant Fidelity Investments announced it was opening a cryptocurrency trading service for funds and sophisticated investors. Previously, large institutions had largely remained on the sidelines.

But now, coming upon 10 years since the inception of cryptocurrencies, the decentralized technology that began with bitcoin may have started a path where the so-called trusted third parties are mining bitcoin instead of printing money.

“I see bitcoin becoming the most important and most transacted currency in the world, not just for remittances, or cross-border transactions, but for every use currency. It won’t be long before bitcoin eclipses the dollar as the most popular currency,” said Draper.

Read: This is where cryptocurrencies are actually making a difference in the world

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