#Oriental paper bush

[kiichilog]

三椏 みつまた

枝先が3つに分かれるので三又

结香

[beardedmrbean]

Sorry sorry, I know it fiction, but Jesus first Rowling and now this guy.

They doesn’t really understand American culture

https://x.com/discussingfilm/status/1779570150691238374?s=46

Oh Brits we are still PISSED with FDR multiple terms and what I keep looking up. A lot of ww2 are probably beating FDR with his own wheelchair in the afterlife

Also mortar striking civilians on USA soil? I pretty sure a lot for military personnel will be more blind and deaf than Hellen Keller

Just because the pres is the boss, doesn’t mean we listen to every goddamn thing he said

So there this videogame series called the Division

It a post apocalyptic setting that centered around the leak smallpox virus stimulation Dark Winter as this trailer pointed out

https://youtu.be/b8LLVLJd-WM?si=Ie83PrOth32fAAlw

And here the opening for the first game(plays the second one because it was for 3$ once)

https://youtu.be/8lSNNyHzmc4?si=FSEuBEExSpXth7em

And yes the community did pandemic jokes, first it was Wuhan…then the scary similarities when covid hit us

Keep in mind the first division game was announce 10 years ago this summer. So how da fuck a online shooter and looter predicted a pandemic we went through so well

Now why I saying that because the division have you fight in a godforsaken nyc and Washington DC…..well..more godforsaken? Well you got hi tech to protect yourself

Also is there a real life MLK library in dc?…I had to shoot it up in a sidequest…sorry king

Yes it got the Tom Clancy logo that Ubisoft love to slap on its military oriented games.

But division ironically feel more realistically because despite being in a post apocalyptic setting. It let you do altruistic acts like help my ally settlements like there one sidequest where I could get some more power to a settlement that allow kids play some video games

Actually there a clip I dm you of Npcs that made me think I doing a damn

Sorry I think because in America we often take a piss out of our founding father or president(Franklin, Jefferson, FDR, JKF, Clinton, Bush, Trump. You ones that list)

I just find it hard that we would be become devoted to a fascist president when we usually just treat the president as a lesser evil that we tolerate for 4-8 years.

Part of the fight scene at the end of (I think) the first Sam Rami Spiderman film, Spidey is trying to do a rescue and gobby is being gobby and all of a sudden everyone remembers they're a New Yorker and starts chucking rocks at him among other things.

Microcosm of US culture right there that this guy doesn't get, wouldn't just be TX and CA, if there was a genuine threat there wouldn't be one for long.

After we took care of that issue we'd go back to hating each other.

ect. Just because the pres is the boss, doesn’t mean we listen to every goddamn thing he said

Ya plenty of defiance, usually not violent, we take it to the courts.

And yes the community did pandemic jokes, first it was Wuhan…then the scary similarities when covid hit us

There were lots of Resident Evil jokes about that one to, that and Plague Inc.

Keep in mind the first division game was announce 10 years ago this summer. So how da fuck a online shooter and looter predicted a pandemic we went through so well.

We were predicting it on here too, mostly as a joke though. Simpsons too.

One of the first things I said after it started getting traction as a news story is 'I hope no idiot says something stupid that triggers a toilet paper shortage caused by hoarders'

Because it's incredible how predictable these things can be.

Also is there a real life MLK library in dc?…I had to shoot it up in a sidequest…sorry king

'I have a dream that one day people will need to bust a cap in a fictional version of my library' - the ghost of MLK probably.

But division ironically feel more realistically because despite being in a post apocalyptic setting. It let you do altruistic acts like help my ally settlements like there one sidequest where I could get some more power to a settlement that allow kids play some video games

We're the most charitable people on earth iirc so that makes sense.

Actually there a clip I dm you of Npcs that made me think I doing a damn

if ya like, feel free

Sorry I think because in America we often take a piss out of our founding father or president(Franklin, Jefferson, FDR, JKF, Clinton, Bush, Trump. You ones that list) I just find it hard that we would be become devoted to a fascist president when we usually just treat the president as a lesser evil that we tolerate for 4-8 years.

There's a real failure to learn out there, what with what everyone seems to think the president has the authority to do.

Student loan thing for example, everyone got pissed at the supreme court for upholding the separation of powers as defined in the constitution and they quoted nacy saying he lacked the authority in their ruling.

President doesn't control the money, congress does, president sends a budget to congress and they say yes or no, president can declare war congress can say we're not paying for it, president can say I'm building a wall on the southern border, congress can say we're not paying for that.

Things would work out better for online debate if folks took a elementary civics course and actually committed that stuff to memory

[laikynparrish]

CHARACTER INTRO:

NAME: Laikyn Rae Parrish

AGE: 37

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Female. She/her.

SEXUALITY/STATUS: Bisexual. | Engaged.

OCCUPATION: Author

BIRTHDAY: October 3rd, 1986.

HOMETOWN: Covington, Georgia

NEIGHBORHOOD: Orchid Park

FACECLAIM: Sophia Bush

BACKGROUND:

TW: SUBSTANCE ABUSE MENTION, CAR ACCIDENT, ADOPTION.

Born to Sophie Walters-Parrish & Owen Parrish in 1986.

She goes by Lake to most. Her books are published under Laikyn Parrish, and will continue to.

Her parents had her sister a few years after they had Lake, and the moment she was born, Lake was a doting sister. Their bond has only grown since, making their thick as thrives.

Growing up Lake remembers more bad stuff about her mom, then good. As she never stepped up to being a mother, while her dad became a dad the moment the stick turned pink.

Owen Parrish has always been there for his daughters, through thick and thin. Sophie hasn't been in the picture much since Owen grained full custody of his children two year after their divorce. As originally, the courts ruled in favor of the mother, but would come to see that she wasn't fit for the girls.

Owen moved out of the house he shared with Sophie and the girls, and moved closer to his brother, Jake, and his family, after the custody battle. Lake was nine at the time.

Cousin to Ryan and Drew Parrish.

Lake was an extremely active girl in sports during her childhood. Everything from volley ball, to soccer, to cheerleading, and even basketball. She enjoyed being in sport.

During her senior year, she was in a car accident that nearly took her ability to walk. Her future in sports were done, and the doctors weren't hopeful, but they didn't know Lake. She wasn't going to take no for an answer. She'd work and work to get better, and she did just that.

She would attend college for literature arts, something no one thought would be what she'd go to college for, but she loved it nonetheless.

At 24 she published her first book, and for the next ten years would continue to publish book after book, series after series. She enjoys writing crime, mystery, and romance. Which made it no surprise when she ended up in the genre of dark romance.

Her career as a writer is very successful, and she has a large following behind it.

She coaches cheerleading at the local middle school and high school. She will also time to time coach soccer and volleyball.

When she was 29, she'd come to meet one of her cheerleaders, 10 at the time, who would change another course in her life. A girl from a very troubled home life, would come to find her graces in the care of Lake. At 30, Lake would sign papers that would give her guardian of the girl. Her name Emilia "Emmy".

She is currently happily engaged to Greta Morrison, they live in Orchid Park, with Emmy, and their two cats, Shadow and Tiger.

Lake is a romantic, and extremely family orientated. She has a very close relationship to her dad and sister, as well her extended family.

She has published many books, but currently her two most popular are series. The Kingdom Series which sits at 5 books. And The Lords of Chaos which it's 3rd book is to be released in March.

She has been reached out to about making her Kingdom Series into a movie series, in which, she has accepted, and the process for that had started early last year.

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

FRIENDS/FRIENDLY RELATIONSHIP: (M/F/NB) She is a Covington native, so honestly this could be childhood friends, school friends, new made friends, the list really doesn't end here.

RIDE OR DIE/BEST FRIEND: (F/NB): Literal bonus points if this is a friendship thats been alive since they were children. But over all, a best friend that has been their through it all, and who act gay for each other (although it is very platonic).

LIKE THE BROTHER I NEVER KNEW I WANTED: (M/NB) A male muse that shares a very brotherly like relationship with her. She grew up with the Parrish boys, so she isn't unfamiliar to having brotherly figures, but this one would be a friend she made sometime in her life.

EXES/FORMER FLINGS/ETC: (M/F/NB) Lake identifies as bisexual. So anything before that is open game. It could've ended on good terms, bad terms, or just ended. She actually loves love, so she has had her fair share of relationships, including long term ones. But at this moment, she is very happily taken.

READERS: Anyone who likes her books, who follows her writing.

NEIGHBORS: She and her wife live in Orchid Park, so anyone that also lives there.

PARENTS/SIBLINGS/ETC OF HER GIRLS: If your character happens to have a sister OR daughter that is around middle school, or high school age, then they could know each other through her coaching. This could also be past students as she's been coaching for almost ten years.

TRULY ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING, FOR REAL. I JUST WANNA LOVE ON Y’ALL AND BE LOVED. OK THANK YOU

ABOUT PAGE | PINTEREST | PLAYLIST | DISCORD is matileex

[jcmarchi]

This tiny, tamper-proof ID tag can authenticate almost anything

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/this-tiny-tamper-proof-id-tag-can-authenticate-almost-anything/

This tiny, tamper-proof ID tag can authenticate almost anything

A few years ago, MIT researchers invented a cryptographic ID tag that is several times smaller and significantly cheaper than the traditional radio frequency tags (RFIDs) that are often affixed to products to verify their authenticity.

This tiny tag, which offers improved security over RFIDs, utilizes terahertz waves, which are smaller and have much higher frequencies than radio waves. But this terahertz tag shared a major security vulnerability with traditional RFIDs: A counterfeiter could peel the tag off a genuine item and reattach it to a fake, and the authentication system would be none the wiser.

The researchers have now surmounted this security vulnerability by leveraging terahertz waves to develop an antitampering ID tag that still offers the benefits of being tiny, cheap, and secure.

They mix microscopic metal particles into the glue that sticks the tag to an object, and then use terahertz waves to detect the unique pattern those particles form on the item’s surface. Akin to a fingerprint, this random glue pattern is used to authenticate the item, explains Eunseok Lee, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student and lead author of a paper on the antitampering tag.

“These metal particles are essentially like mirrors for terahertz waves. If I spread a bunch of mirror pieces onto a surface and then shine light on that, depending on the orientation, size, and location of those mirrors, I would get a different reflected pattern. But if you peel the chip off and reattach it, you destroy that pattern,” adds Ruonan Han, an associate professor in EECS, who leads the Terahertz Integrated Electronics Group in the Research Laboratory of Electronics.

The researchers produced a light-powered antitampering tag that is about 4 square millimeters in size. They also demonstrated a machine-learning model that helps detect tampering by identifying similar glue pattern fingerprints with more than 99 percent accuracy.

Because the terahertz tag is so cheap to produce, it could be implemented throughout a massive supply chain. And its tiny size enables the tag to attach to items too small for traditional RFIDs, such as certain medical devices.

The paper, which will be presented at the IEEE Solid State Circuits Conference, is a collaboration between Han’s group and the Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Group of Anantha P. Chandrakasan, MIT’s chief innovation and strategy officer, dean of the MIT School of Engineering, and the Vannevar Bush Professor of EECS. Co-authors include EECS graduate students Xibi Chen, Maitryi Ashok, and Jaeyeon Won.

Preventing tampering

This research project was partly inspired by Han’s favorite car wash. The business stuck an RFID tag onto his windshield to authenticate his car wash membership. For added security, the tag was made from fragile paper so it would be destroyed if a less-than-honest customer tried to peel it off and stick it on a different windshield.

But that is not a terribly reliable way to prevent tampering. For instance, someone could use a solution to dissolve the glue and safely remove the fragile tag.

Rather than authenticating the tag, a better security solution is to authenticate the item itself, Han says. To achieve this, the researchers targeted the glue at the interface between the tag and the item’s surface.

Their antitampering tag contains a series of minuscule slots that enable terahertz waves to pass through the tag and strike microscopic metal particles that have been mixed into the glue.

Terahertz waves are small enough to detect the particles, whereas larger radio waves would not have enough sensitivity to see them. Also, using terahertz waves with a 1-millimeter wavelength allowed the researchers to make a chip that does not need a larger, off-chip antenna.

After passing through the tag and striking the object’s surface, terahertz waves are reflected, or backscattered, to a receiver for authentication. How those waves are backscattered depends on the distribution of metal particles that reflect them.

The researchers put multiple slots onto the chip so waves can strike different points on the object’s surface, capturing more information on the random distribution of particles.

“These responses are impossible to duplicate, as long as the glue interface is destroyed by a counterfeiter,” Han says.

A vendor would take an initial reading of the antitampering tag once it was stuck onto an item, and then store those data in the cloud, using them later for verification.

AI for authentication

But when it came time to test the antitampering tag, Lee ran into a problem: It was very difficult and time-consuming to take precise enough measurements to determine whether two glue patterns are a match.

He reached out to a friend in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and together they tackled the problem using AI. They trained a machine-learning model that could compare glue patterns and calculate their similarity with more than 99 percent accuracy.

“One drawback is that we had a limited data sample for this demonstration, but we could improve the neural network in the future if a large number of these tags were deployed in a supply chain, giving us a lot more data samples,” Lee says.

The authentication system is also limited by the fact that terahertz waves suffer from high levels of loss during transmission, so the sensor can only be about 4 centimeters from the tag to get an accurate reading. This distance wouldn’t be an issue for an application like barcode scanning, but it would be too short for some potential uses, such as in an automated highway toll booth. Also, the angle between the sensor and tag needs to be less than 10 degrees or the terahertz signal will degrade too much.

They plan to address these limitations in future work, and hope to inspire other researchers to be more optimistic about what can be accomplished with terahertz waves, despite the many technical challenges, says Han.

“One thing we really want to show here is that the application of the terahertz spectrum can go well beyond broadband wireless. In this case, you can use terahertz for ID, security, and authentication. There are a lot of possibilities out there,” he adds.

This work is supported, in part, by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies.

[xtruss]

This Tiny, Tamper-Proof ID Tag Can Authenticate Almost Anything

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Engineers Developed a Tag That Can Reveal with Near-Perfect Accuracy Whether an Item is Real or Fake. The Key is in the Glue on the Back of the Tag.

— Adam Zewe | MIT News | Publication Date: February 18, 2024

A Few Years Ago, MIT Researchers Invented a Cryptographic ID Tag that is several times smaller and significantly cheaper than the traditional radio frequency tags (RFIDs) that are often affixed to products to verify their authenticity.

This tiny tag, which offers improved security over RFIDs, utilizes terahertz waves, which are smaller and travel much faster than radio waves. But this terahertz tag shared a major security vulnerability with traditional RFIDs: A counterfeiter could peel the tag off a genuine item and reattach it to a fake, and the authentication system would be none the wiser.

The researchers have now surmounted this security vulnerability by leveraging terahertz waves to develop an antitampering ID tag that still offers the benefits of being tiny, cheap, and secure.

They mix microscopic metal particles into the glue that sticks the tag to an object, and then use terahertz waves to detect the unique pattern those particles form on the item’s surface. Akin to a fingerprint, this random glue pattern is used to authenticate the item, explains Eunseok Lee, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student and lead author of a paper on the antitampering tag.

“These metal particles are essentially like mirrors for terahertz waves. If I spread a bunch of mirror pieces onto a surface and then shine light on that, depending on the orientation, size, and location of those mirrors, I would get a different reflected pattern. But if you peel the chip off and reattach it, you destroy that pattern,” adds Ruonan Han, an associate professor in EECS, who leads the Terahertz Integrated Electronics Group in the Research Laboratory of Electronics.

The researchers produced a light-powered antitampering tag that is about 4 square millimeters in size. They also demonstrated a machine-learning model that helps detect tampering by identifying similar glue pattern fingerprints with more than 99 percent accuracy.

Because the terahertz tag is so cheap to produce, it could be implemented throughout a massive supply chain. And its tiny size enables the tag to attach to items too small for traditional RFIDs, such as certain medical devices.

The paper, which will be presented at the IEEE Solid State Circuits Conference, is a collaboration between Han’s group and the Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Group of Anantha P. Chandrakasan, MIT’s chief innovation and strategy officer, dean of the MIT School of Engineering, and the Vannevar Bush Professor of EECS. Co-authors include EECS graduate students Xibi Chen, Maitryi Ashok, and Jaeyeon Won.

Preventing Tampering

This research project was partly inspired by Han’s favorite car wash. The business stuck an RFID tag onto his windshield to authenticate his car wash membership. For added security, the tag was made from fragile paper so it would be destroyed if a less-than-honest customer tried to peel it off and stick it on a different windshield.

But that is not a terribly reliable way to prevent tampering. For instance, someone could use a solution to dissolve the glue and safely remove the fragile tag.

Rather than authenticating the tag, a better security solution is to authenticate the item itself, Han says. To achieve this, the researchers targeted the glue at the interface between the tag and the item’s surface.

Their antitampering tag contains a series of miniscule slots that enable terahertz waves to pass through the tag and strike microscopic metal particles that have been mixed into the glue.

Terahertz waves are small enough to detect the particles, whereas larger radio waves would not have enough sensitivity to see them. Also, using terahertz waves with a 1-millimeter wavelength allowed the researchers to make a chip that does not need a larger, off-chip antenna.

After passing through the tag and striking the object’s surface, terahertz waves are reflected, or backscattered, to a receiver for authentication. How those waves are backscattered depends on the distribution of metal particles that reflect them.

The researchers put multiple slots onto the chip so waves can strike different points on the object’s surface, capturing more information on the random distribution of particles.

“These responses are impossible to duplicate, as long as the glue interface is destroyed by a counterfeiter,” Han says.

A vendor would take an initial reading of the antitampering tag once it was stuck onto an item, and then store those data in the cloud, using them later for verification.

AI For Authentication

But when it came time to test the antitampering tag, Lee ran into a problem: It was very difficult and time-consuming to take precise enough measurements to determine whether two glue patterns are a match.

He reached out to a friend in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and together they tackled the problem using AI. They trained a machine-learning model that could compare glue patterns and calculate their similarity with more than 99 percent accuracy.

“One drawback is that we had a limited data sample for this demonstration, but we could improve the neural network in the future if a large number of these tags were deployed in a supply chain, giving us a lot more data samples,” Lee says.

The authentication system is also limited by the fact that terahertz waves suffer from high levels of loss during transmission, so the sensor can only be about 4 centimeters from the tag to get an accurate reading. This distance wouldn’t be an issue for an application like barcode scanning, but it would be too short for some potential uses, such as in an automated highway toll booth. Also, the angle between the sensor and tag needs to be less than 10 degrees or the terahertz signal will degrade too much.

They plan to address these limitations in future work, and hope to inspire other researchers to be more optimistic about what can be accomplished with terahertz waves, despite the many technical challenges, says Han.

“One thing we really want to show here is that the application of the terahertz spectrum can go well beyond broadband wireless. In this case, you can use terahertz for ID, security, and authentication. There are a lot of possibilities out there,” he adds.

This work is supported, in part, by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies.

[lesfeldickbiblestudy]

What will happen during the battle of Armageddon? [convertplayer id="mwfszQQyA" width="700" height="525"] Always remember that prophetically there are only three areas of the world that are involved in those last days of the Tribulation or the battle of Armageddon. And that is Western Europe, the Orient, and parts of Africa. There is nothing at the very end that concerns Russia, or the Western Hemisphere. There is nothing in prophecy that would involve those two great areas in that last great battle. [convertplayer id="nClO3layk" width="700" height="525"] TRUMPET & BOWL JUDGMENTS: BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON Now to Revelation 16. We studied the last 6 terrible judgments that will be coming upon the earth. I'm going to stop before we get to number 7 for a reason. After the sixth bowl had been poured out, which was the drying up of the Euphrates River so the armies can come into the Middle East from the Far East, John says in verse 13: Revelation 16:13 "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth (communications) of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet." Satan, who is now indwelling the Anti-christ, will make contact probably by phone with all the national leaders still in place. He will ask for their armies to come to the Middle East to get rid of the real problem of mankind, the Jew (what Hitler called the final solution). I look at this final gathering of the nations at Armageddon as Satan's attempt once and for all to annihilate the Jewish people. But it's really going to end up, Satan against The Christ. Revelation 16:14 "For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." When President Bush was putting together the nations in Desert Storm, the papers said he would just pick up the phone and call the leaders of the various nations. Using only phone calls, he was literally getting these leaders convinced they should unify against Iraq. That was just a little tiny preview of what we have right here. Now verse 15, and The Sovereign God is behind it: Revelation 16:15,16 "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." In other words, the Lord is reminding us that it is time for His appearance at the Second Coming, but before He does that: "And he gathered them together (this is the power of a Sovereign God working through, of course, the mind set of the Anti-christ who puts out the call to the nations to come to Jerusalem) in a place called in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon." From which the word Megiddo comes. Another word is Esdraelon. And if you go to Israel as we did last spring, that is one of the tourist attractions. You will see the archaeological digs of the ancient city of Megiddo. When you stand on the hills of Megiddo amongst all the ruins of that ancient city, you can look off to the northeast and there is that beautiful flat valley. The Nation of Israel is predominately mountainous. You have these valley areas between the mountain ranges. The reason I'm pointing this out is that when God brings the armies of the world to Israel, naturally they will put their encampments on those valley floors. And this area of the valley of Esdraelon has been a battlefield throughout time. The place had great strategic importance, since it commanded the pass through the mountains between the plains of Sharon and Esdraelon. There have been hundreds of battles fought here. So he will bring the nations of the world to the Middle East. Now I know there is not a bit of military intelligence connected to it, but you must remember we are dealing with a Sovereign God and He is going to cause those generals to pack their troops into these valleys, beyond description. They will be in there like sardines in a can, because a Sovereign God is for

cing the issue. Now let's come back a couple of chapters to Revelation 14, and we have a tremendous symbolic picture of all of this. Revelation 14:14-16 "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle." I feel this is an allusion to Christ. He is the One who is about to reap this harvest. "And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, `Thrust in thy sickle (they used to use the sickle to harvest the grain), and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.'" Remember the communication is between the angel and Christ. "And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped." Chapter 16 shows the call going to all nations to come to the Middle East. That's the reaping A Sovereign God is bringing about. Revelation 14:18 "And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the cluster of the vine of the earth: for her grapes are fully ripe." The word `fully' in the Greek means `over-ripe.' It's past harvest time. Here is the symbolism again. The grapes were gathered and put into a wine vat, where they could be crushed; the juice taken out of them and made into wine. The juice was squeezed out of the grapes by walking on them in the wine vat. They would put two or three people in a vat and they would walk until all the juice would run out. That is the allusion here, that this is exactly what God is doing with the peoples of the world. Now come back to the Book of Isaiah Chapter 63, and you will get the beautiful analogy. And again, I do this so you can see that all of Scripture fits together. Isaiah 63:1,2 "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save." Who do you suppose he is referring to? Christ! This is a picture of His returning and bringing forth judgment upon these gathering armies. "Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat." Don't lose that analogy. The grape harvest was put in the wine vat, and it was trampled by individuals. Naturally, the grape juice would spurt and juice would get all over them. The prophet sees Christ also covered with this red apparel. And he says, "Why are you this way?" Look at the answer in verse 3. And again, Christ is speaking: Isaiah 63:3,4 "I have trodden the winepress alone (in Revelation Chapter 5, God the Father had a scroll. No one was worthy to open that scroll except the Son of God and He came and took the scroll. Here it comes to its fruition. He alone was worthy, and no one else was worthy of bringing on this particular judgment) and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, (do you see that) and trample them in my fury; and their blood (He's not speaking of His own Blood here) shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." As He more or less tramples the people in the wine vat. Now verse 4: For the day of vengeance is in mine heart (this isn't the God of Grace now. This is a God of wrath!), and the year of my redeemed is come." Let's hold all of this together. Revelation Chapter 19: Revelation 19:11 "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True (it's the Christ), and in righteousness he doth judge and make war." Because after all, what kind of people does he have in the wine vat? Military. It's the armies of the world that have come to the Middle East. Supposedly to annihilate the Nation of Israel. Don't forget those 200 million coming from the East. They will be packed into that little geographical area. And I think it will al

so include every valley in the Nation of Israel where these troops will be packed in. And as I said before, it will be contrary to all military strategy. But it's the Sovereign God who has reaped the earth, and has placed them in what the Scriptures call His wine vat. But remember, it's in righteousness. Now verse 12: Revelation 19:12-14 "His eyes were as (He doesn't say they are flames, but as) a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, be he himself." And here it is now. This is in complete accord with the Book of Isaiah: "And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood (not His, but His victims), and his name is called the Word of God." "And the armies which were in heaven (that will be the saints, as this is His Second Coming. The saints have been with him for seven years because they have been raptured out ahead of time. That includes you and I as believers. Now they are coming back with him) followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean." That is also in verse 8 of this Chapter, where the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. Revelation 19:15 "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword (what is the sharp sword? The Word of God. Remember Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword"), that with it he should smite the nations (how will He destroy them? With the spoken word): and he shall rule them (the nations, Believers only) with a rod of iron (benevolence, but absolute rule, there will be no funny business in His Kingdom. A good example is the Beatitudes. What are Beatitudes? Well the constitution of His government. That's when the Beatitudes will come into their full definition, "Blessed are the meek..." "Blessed are the poor..." That doesn't fit in the Church Age. You talk to a poor person today and I don't believe that he feels blessed. Do you? The Lord may provide and get them through, but they are not happy as such. But in the Kingdom there will be no unhappiness): and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." What's His winepress? The valleys of Israel, wherein all these millions of troops will be packed, and He will destroy them with one fell swoop. It's hard for us to understand. Let's read on in Verse 16: Revelation 19:16 "And He hath on His vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS." Remember, I purposely stopped just before we came to the seventh bowl judgment back in Chapter 16. I left off after the sixth judgment because I wanted to leave the seventh one till now: Revelation 16:17,18 "And the seventh angel (we've covered six of them. We're bringing you right up close to the end of the Tribulation) poured out his vial (bowl) into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, `It is done.'" This is the finale: "And there were voices, and thunders and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great." And again, I don't feel that this is an isolated one. I think the whole planet is going to come under these convulsions. Although the epitome of all of this is going to be in Jerusalem in the area of Israel. Let's go on: Revelation 16:19 "And the great city (Jerusalem) was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath." Now I have to stop again. The Babylon in Revelation is not the ancient city, because the Old Testament says it will never be rebuilt. It will always be a habitation of nothing but wild animals and birds of prey. But the Babylon of Revelation is the whole world wide-system as we see it coming together today. The whole one world concept. Where Tokyo and Berlin and London and Rome and New York are j

ust like one little tightly knit group. When I picture these end time events, I like to think that when Babylon falls, it won't be just one city. It will be all the cities of the world, who will in one hour fall into nothingness, by the spoken word of God. Now remember that. The Babylon here is all the world. I just read an interesting article in our daily paper that some junior high student had just won a great essay contest. What do you suppose the title of her essay was? "The Great New One World." That's what people love to hear tonight. They love to hear about the great one-world that's coming. And it is! It's getting smaller and smaller. But you see, it's going to suddenly evaporate. Revelation 16:20,21 "And every island fled away and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent (most of your Bibles tell you what that is. It's 100 pounds. We talk about golf ball-sized hail and softball-sized hail, but these are hundred pound chunks of ice!): and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." Now to Revelation 14, where we finish that analogy of the grape vat. Can you hold all of this together? Just like the vineyard keepers put all of their grapes into the vat and they had somebody trample them, so God has brought all the armies of the world to the Middle East. How is He going to trample them? With this final plague of the hailstones. Picture all of the millions of troops out there in nothing more then tents to protect them from the elements. Can that stop a hundred pound hailstone? NO! So they will be literally squashed, even as the grapes in the vat. I know this verse has been a verse hard to swallow over the years, but I'll make it real easy to swallow. Revelation 14:20 "And the winepress was trodden, without the city (indeed, these valleys are all to the north of Jerusalem), and blood came out of the winepress (out of these valleys), even unto the horse bridles (a river of water, and blood three to four feet deep), by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs (about 180 Miles)." As that melting hail, which has crushed these millions of troops, begins to melt in that Middle Eastern heat, do you see how fast you're going to have a literal river of blood flowing as deep as a horse's bridle? That's not hard to believe. In fact, I always remind my classes that during World War II, during one of the battles on one of the islands in the Pacific, so many men were lost as they were coming ashore, that the ocean was red for about 5 miles out with the blood of our marines.

[tsu55]

十数年前の機種だけれど、この絵が好きで、いまだに使っているD40。

壊れるまで使うつもりです。

[dummy-kanji]

Spring coming soon por Shinichiro Saka Por Flickr: 上野東照宮ぼたん苑 ミツマタ Oriental paper bush

[mostlysignssomeportents]

"War Against All Puerto Ricans"

Puerto Rico is back in the news.

Sorta.

That Other America breaches the US media consciousness every couple of years. The Bad President put it in the news by his horrific, racist failure to respond to Hurricane Maria:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/it-totally-belittled-the-moment-many-look-back-in-anger-at-trumps-tossing-of-paper-towels-in-puerto-rico/2018/09/13/8a3647d2-b77e-11e8-a2c5-3187f427e253_story.html

And the Good President put Puerto Rico in the news by sidelining its elected government because they had the temerity to stiff his buddies on Wall Street, just like GW Bush did to Flint when they crossed the same line:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-signs-law-to-rescue-puerto-ricos-economy/2016/06/30/882fbc7e-3ed7-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html

The finance bros that Obama put in charge of the island turned it into an offshore Flint, starving its utilities in order to extract more debt payments to the finance sector. The ensuing neglect meant that when Maria hit, the power infrastructure collapsed, leaving the US citizens of Puerto Rico without electricity for three months.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/us/puerto-rico-power-outage.html

Donald Trump couldn’t have murdered thousands of Puerto Ricans and immiserated millions more without Barack Obama’s help. But that’s unfair to both Trump and Obama: they were merely carrying on a centuries-long tradition stretching back to Teddy Roosevelt, a bedrock American heritage of racism, neglect, enslavement, torture, and extraction (so. much. extraction.).

Puerto Rico is back in the news. The island territory — where US citizens do not get to vote for the president nor send a voting representative to Congress — is planning a binding referendum on whether to become a US state, or whether to secede from the USA altogether.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/20/puerto-rico-statehood-independent-free-association-debate

As it happens, I just became a US citizen. As a Californian, I am (nominally) protected by the US Constitution, and in a couple months I will get to vote for my Congressional rep — unlike millions of Puerto Ricans, who have been citizens for generations, but who are not entitled to equal protection under the law — as the Supreme Court just affirmed:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-303_6khn.pdf

Days after I took my citizenship oath, I joined my family for a two-week holiday on Puerto Rico. I arrived with jumbled impressions of the island’s history, gleaned from the odd article, radio documentary and news article. By the time we left, I had a much more coherent understand of the centuries of systematic, ghastly fuckery that these United States of America had visited upon its “commonwealth” and what the stakes are for the referendum.

We started in Old San Juan, where we got oriented via Andy Rivera’s architectural tour, which introduced us to the 500 year history of the city and its colonial masters:

https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/174126

On the tour, I noticed the Librería Laberinto, a bookstore, and made a point of visiting it later that day:

https://librerialaberintopr.com/

That’s where I found Nelson A Denis’s incredible history of the island, War Against All Puerto Ricans, a brilliant, funny, enraging and masterful history of the failed Puerto Rican revolution of 1950, and its leader, the remarkable Pedro Albizu Campos:

https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/the-book/

Denis is a Cuban/Puerto-Rican-American raised in New York City, whose Cuban-born father was kidnapped and deported to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the FBI indiscriminately shattered families on orders from Bobby Kennedy:

https://nelsondenis.wordpress.com/home/

Denis went on to go to Harvard, where, in 1977, he published a landmark work of historical scholarship in the Harvard Political Review, “The Curious Constitution of Puerto Rico.” From Harvard, Denis continued on to Yale, where he took a law degree — and continued his voracious study of the Puerto Rican revolution and its aftermath.

He conducted years of research — hundreds of FOIA requests, thousands of hours of interviews with the architects, partisans and eyewitnesses — he published his masterpiece, which weaves together the disparate narratives of all the actors in this tragicomedy to present a truth that is far, far stranger than fiction.

For generations, Puerto Rico was a classic imperial periphery, the place where eminent families sent their failsons for a second chance. The most rapacious corporations in American — along with the US military — established operations in PR and staffed them with a clown cavalcade of idiots and sadists, who, by dint of birth, were put in a position of power over the people of Puerto Rico.

Each of these men came to Puerto Rico to seek their fortune, and, by and large, they found it — extracted it, rather, from the sweat and blood of Puerto Ricans. They committed gaffes, scams and atrocities and then went back to the mainland, where they were celebrated.

Take Dr Cornelius Rhoads, an eminent physician whose tenure as an island hospital administrator was cut short when his maid discovered a letter he’d written to a mainland colleague in which he railed against Puerto Ricans in a vicious, racist tirade, then gloated about having murdered several of his Puerto Rican patients as part of a genocidal campaign to rid the island of its islanders:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_P._Rhoads

Despite having admitted to a string of racially motivated murders, Rhoads was celebrated on his return. He became an army doctor, developed chemical weapons, and went on to appear on the cover of Time magazine as a great hero.

In some ways, it’s not surprising that Rhoads would be lionized for murdering Puerto Ricans. After all, a legion of white doctors participated in the forced sterilization of Puerto Rican women from the 1930s to the 1970s, ultimately sterlizing a third of the island’s women:

https://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/health-and-society/dark-history-forced-sterilization-latina-women

I’d heard of Rhoads, but not of the many other failsons whose lives Denis chronicles — the governor who arrived on the island with a plan to remake it as an animal training center where nightingales would learn to sing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” for sale to patriotic Texans at $50 a pop. I also didn’t know about the army — literal and figurative — of FBI agents who employed a vast network of informants to produce detailed, paranoid dossiers on the people of the island.

More importantly, I didn’t know about the Puerto Ricans who are the true heroes of this tale, like Albizu, orphaned as a small boy following his mother’s suicide, who raised himself, became a prodigy, attended Harvard, and excelled at everything he did. Albizu — brilliant, driven, committed — refused offers to clerk for the Supreme Court or work for large American corporations, and instead returned to Puerto Rico to work as a poor peoples’ lawyer. He went on to lead the revolutionary independence movement, and was tortured to death by America in return.

Albizu is just one of the many larger-than-life, tragic heroes of Denis’s tale: there’s Juan Emilio Viguié, a self-taught virtuoso filmmaker who left the island to work as the embedded documentarian for Pancho Villa’s army, returned home, and became the Zapruder of the Ponce massacre, a grisly atrocity whose architects — more failsons from the mainland — were never held to account for.

There’s also Vidal Santiago Díaz — a barber turned gunrunner, who supplied the independence movement with arms and a secret meeting place, all under the nose of the FBI, who eventually helped the island police kidnap him and subject him to barbaric torture. On his release, Díaz returned to his barbershop, recovered his cached weapons, and held off thirty armed men singlehandedly from within the shop, for hours, as the nation listened in to live, play-by-play radio reporting. Eventually, they gassed Díaz, entered his shop, and shot him in the head. They dragged him into the street for the news-crews to photograph, but he surprised them by reviving and denouncing the police. He was taken to a cell to die, but not before he recounted his side of the storied, fabled battle.

These are the protagonists of Denis’s narrative, with the failsons serving as foils, villains, and color — like Waller Booth, a spy with the OSS (forerunner to the CIA) who came to the island to spy on nationalists. He set up an after-hours club themed after his favorite movie, Casablanca, which he screened on repeat in a private room in the club. Nationalists would sit and watch the movie every night, in the manner of Rocky Horror, and shout witty lines at the screen: “We’ll always have the FBI!” and “Round up the usual Nationalists!”

Denis builds up his story one character or event at a time, retelling the tale from different angles, weaving together the perspectives of his people over and over, using them to illuminate different aspects of the degradation and pillaging of Puerto Rico and the indomitable spirit of its people. It is in this fashion, for example, that Denis dissects — and demolishes — the 1917 law that Congress passed in the name of Puerto Rican self-determination, but which really only served to make Puerto Ricans subject to the draft.

So it goes, in Denis’s history: an American conglomerate or politician comes up with a new and depraved way to profit from the islanders, and they resist — against all odds, in the face of violent repression. The revolution itself — which included an attempt on Truman’s life — plays out with the drama of a war movie.

Apart from their Puerto Ricanness, the protagonists of this story would make great American folkloric heroes, Horatio Algers who came from humble beginnings, succeeded through thrift, tireless striving and indomitable will, devoted themselves to justice, and stood up to bullies — and paid with their lives for a righteous cause.

But because the bullies they stood up to were operating as agents of America, they are forgotten. Not even reviled — erased. On the American mainland, the Puerto Rican revolution isn’t even a footnote. Indeed, Puerto Rico itself is often forgotten by America, despite the many sons and daughters of the island who have fought for its military. Remember Maria, when Trump and his supporters spoke of Puerto Ricans as foreigners whose “country” was insufficiently grateful for “American charity?”

But this history is not forgotten in Puerto Rico. How could it be? After all, the disappearances and torture — which included mad science experiments in which political prisoners were irradiated until they perished — did not take place in some distant past. As Denis’s end-notes demonstrate, many of the people who witnessed these extraordinary events are still alive, and Denis’s work is based on corroborated eyewitness testimony, backed by FOIAed documents.

Denis’s book was indispensable as we traveled around this beautiful, marvelous island, because it is also a small island, and every place we visited had a cameo in the book: the movie theater we took the kids to see Thor at was in a town that once housed a nightmare gulag where Nationalists were electrocuted, starved and shot.

By superimposing the crimes of empire over the landscape, we were able to get some context for the flags, the graffiti, and the news about the looming referendum.

One day in a taxi, the driver talked to us about the referendum: I mentioned that I had just become a US citizen and for my sake, I would like Puerto Rico to become a state and gain two senators, but for their sake, it seemed that independence would be a better deal.

She agreed vigorously, and spoke of the crypto-bros and pharma companies that descended on the island with the idea of turning it into a kind of hyper-Delaware, an onshore-offshore regulation and tax haven, just as the sugar-barons and other failsons of the mainland had done for more than a century.

Visiting Puerto Rico was the perfect commemoration of my US citizenship — a chance to eat some of America’s best food, listen to some of its greatest music, see its most beautiful national forest, meet some of its friendliest people, see some of its most beautiful art — and learn of some of its most vicious crimes. Puerto Rico is the only place where the US military bombed US citizens, but, of course, the US military has bombed many, many places.

The contradictory currents that pull at America are all in sharp relief on the island. It has served as a lab for so many of America’s worst ideas, and also as a proving ground for the resistance to those ideas.

So much has happened since 2015 when this book was published — and so much of what has happened is an echo of what went before. Denis’s ability to describe the bravery and spirit of those who fight for independence, self-determination and dignity rivals greats like Howard Zinn. Combine that skill with Denis’s personal connection to the material — and the access it gave him to the buried histories of America’s sins — and you get a high-speed masterclass on the choice facing Puerto Ricans today.

[Image ID: The cover of the 2015 Bold Type Books edition of Nelson A Denis's 'War Against All Puerto Ricans.']

[littlesniggy]

Daughter coming out as gay reaction (Admirals)

@iamemmalindberg Greetings, after your headcanon with the admirals as dads that disapprove their daughter dating ANYONE, how would they react if she turns out to be gay?! Not butch or anything, just plainly "I like girls" done end of story. May I also ask for how it turns down when she comes out toward them??

So, idk if this was what you wanted but I hope you like it! I turned it into small scenarios cause I thought it was cuter. Also, I don't think any of the admirals would have a problem with their daughter being gay, even Sakazuki. But that's just my opinion. Thank you for your request !

Sakazuki

He’s had his suspicions about your sexual orientation but he kept his mouth shut. After all, he doesn’t really mind who you are interested in rather than that you’re interested in anyone at all! He doesn’t like seeing you dating anyone, whether it’s a boy, a girl or anyone else.

So, the moment you told him that you liked girls he just stared at you. Not in shock or disgust which you first though. “Did you hear what I just said?” you asked, now a little bit worried about his reaction.

“I did. Are you seeing anyone?” he asked, arms crossed in front of his chest. You kind of beat around the bush but eventually told him that you might had a crush on someone. He huffed, averting his gaze, not wanting to think about his daughter becoming an adult and having those urges.

“As long as you don’t neglect your duties, it’s fine.” He said, not knowing what to say. He doesn’t want you dating anyone but he’s not stupid enough to assume you’d always stay his little girl. It was a huge relief to you and you hugged him quickly before he’d ask more (maybe embarrassing) questions.

Borsalino

“Daddy, I like girls.” He looked up from his papers, his lips forming an ‘o’ when you told him. You fidgeted with the hem of your shirt, looking to the floor and missing his amused smile. “Is that so?” he asked, putting the papers down. You nodded.

You knew he was a chill father but you were still nervous. Maybe he wouldn’t understand? Maybe he found it disgusting? Maybe he would kick you out? You had every worst case scenario played in your mind even though you knew he’d never judge you or tell you off about it.

“When am I gonna meet the lucky lady?” he was leaning back in his chair, his eyes on you like the smug bastard he sometimes could be. You blushed like a tomato when you looked up at him, stuttering something along the lines of “I-I don’t….how did you….what?” your brain was simply not comprehending his words and it made him laugh.

“Bring her the next time you two meet up. Just don’t expect me to welcome her with open arms. I don’t want anyone taking away my little baby-!” you rolled your eyes at his words but felt a huge amount of relief flooding your body.

Kuzan

“You and (Name) have been spending a lot of time together, haven’t you?” of course he would notice. You averted your gaze, shrugging your shoulders and pretending not to know what he was talking about. “Yeah? So what?” you asked, knowing that he already knew. “I’m just wondering. She might want to stay for dinner the next time you two ‘hang out’.”

He winked at you, a knowing smile on his lips. “Maybe..” you mumbled to yourself. Should you tell him that she was not just ‘a friend’ even though he knew? Or should you just go with it and let it be something unspoken yet everyone knew? No, this would feel wrong. You looked up at him, a little nervous to say it out loud. He would be understanding, he already showed you, but it still kind of caught you off guard to be asked like this.

“Actually, she might be more than just a friend.” You admitted. Kuzan’s smirk grew wider at your words, ruffling your hair in a playful manner. “I know. Just wished you would’ve told me sooner.” He’s so relaxed but deep down, like Sakazuki and Borsalino, doesn’t want to let go of his baby girl and her becoming a woman. It just feels wrong to him. But he won’t stand in her way.

Issho

You two were sitting at the table, listening to the music playing in the background. Issho had a content smile on his face but he soon felt as If something was wrong. So, like the concerned father he was, he addressed it.

“You seem awfully quiet, Y/n-chan. Is everything alright?” he asked in a concerned voice. You swallowed and wanted to brush it off but you had played this conversation out in your head over and over again and it was time! You couldn’t postpone it anymore, it just needed to be off your chest.

“I have to tell you some-“ but he cut you off. “Do you have to tell me something or do you want to tell me something? Because sometimes the things you want to tell someone are the things you actually need to tell someone. I don’t want you to tell me something you feel pressured to tell me.” As annoying as he could sometimes be he almost made you cry out of joy. You suppressed a sob and swallowed the huge lump stuck in your throat, starting all over again.

“I want to tell you that I like girls.” The huge smile on his face and him grabbing your hand over the table had you eventually sobbing. “See? It was way easier this way, wasn’t it?” you nod, knowing he couldn’t see it. “Are you mad?” You asked, already knowing the answer. “Why would I be mad at my daughter for loving someone?” Honestly, this was the reaction you were hoping for.

[kiichilog]

ミツマタの森　2021.3.14

Mitsumata,a type of plant, called a paper-bush. 森に漂う、ポンポンの妖精

[taexual]

i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (14)

  jungkook is an uncontrollable lead vocalist of the campus band, and you’re a goal-oriented top student that’s known his rich and complicated family since childhood. you don’t want anything to do with each other, until each other is exactly what you want to do.

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: it’s time they got down to business… or isn’t it 😳

words: 6.2k

  chapter fourteen

You spent nearly the whole Saturday on the phone with Inna – because she refused to let you hang up until you gave her a play-by-play of last night’s party (and all that happened after) – and, by the time you finally ended the phone call, you were half-deaf from all of her—supportive but rather alarming—screaming.

And then, before you were ready for it, you and Jungkook had another Sunday night dinner at his parents’ house.

Admittedly, you thought you’d feel uncomfortable seeing his parents again after having learnt that they gave the push that convinced Jungkook to cut his ties with you off, but this feeling only clouded your mind for about fifteen minutes – or, in other words, for the period of time that it took for Jungkook to arrive from his house to your dormitory.

By the time he got here, all that was left in your mind – and in the air around you as soon as you opened the door to let him in – was ease. Routine.

Like you were supposed to spend every Sunday night with his family, holding hands with him under the dinner table. Like this wasn’t somehow weird or unusual, or even awkward. Like this was how it’d always been – with no seven-year-long gaps – and how it was always supposed to be.

Even touching Jungkook after the last time you’d seen him was, most surprisingly, not at all different from touching him before your last conversation. It still caused lighting bolts to explode inside of your stomach, and you were used to the sensation by now.

The only difference was that now you knew.

And knowing allowed you to truly come back to the life you were once a part of.

It felt like the last time you’d been to his house, you only allowed yourself to set one foot in, holding yourself back in case this would all go wrong and hurt you, but now you were ready to try again. Now you were ready to go into it with your whole body – open chest and all.

Sure, the possibility of getting hurt was still there – even if it didn’t feel like it when Jungkook joked about how his mom was more excited to see you than him – but sometimes you had to believe—not just hope—that nothing bad was going to happen, in order to make it true.

And truly nothing bad seemed on the horizon as Jungkook – true to the promise he’d made earlier this week – took you to the ice cream shop near his home as soon as dinner was over so you could pick up some desserts for yourselves. You found the chocolate-chip cookie-flavored ice cream – the one he knew you loved – and all was bliss.

“What is it with you,” you asked him when the two of you walked out of the shop and Jungkook was happily licking two different flavors on his cone – strawberry and mint, “and these flavors?”

“They’re good together,” he defended, pushing his cone towards you. “Want to try?”

You scrunched your nose. “No. I’ll stick with my chocolate—”

“Boring.”

“Hey,” you gave him a look, unaware of the chocolate around the corners of your lips and how utterly irresistible it made you look to him, “you’ve been picking the sweetest flavors of ice cream ever since we were kids. Don’t call me boring if I choose to postpone my diabetes diagnosis.”

“Neither of us is getting diabetes,” he said, absentmindedly extending his hand to wipe the chocolate from your lips and then sucking his thumb into his mouth.

You forgot what you were talking about for a moment as you looked away from him, your face burning hot at the sight, but your hands freezing cold from the ice cream.

Jungkook didn’t notice and carried on. 

“Do you remember when we used to collect those wooden popsicle sticks for no reason when we were kids?” he asked.

“I—yeah, I remember,” you said, taking a distracted bite your ice cream and then wincing when your temples froze. “I-I’m pretty sure we had a reason, though. You said you wanted to build a Trojan horse.”

“Oh, that’s right!” his face lit up just like it did that day when you were eight and you told him you’d help him build it. “I never had enough patience for a project like that. Why did you get on board with it?”

“Because you were really excited for it,” you replied as nonchalantly as you could manage – even though you could see it in his eyes when you looked at him, he did not think this was nothing; it was important to him – and then hid your face in your ice cream again.

Jungkook watched you for another moment, his heart beating peacefully but his mind buzzing with memories. You always ate your ice cream the same way – nearly all of it at once – ever since you were a little kid. He’d always made fun of you for it – not cruelly, because seeing the exhilaration in your eyes and your ice-cream-covered face always made him feel inexplicably warm inside – but now he wanted to grab your hand, stop you, and clean your lips with his own.

“I still have the popsicle sticks in my room,” he said while his ice cream melted in the paper cup in his hand.

“You do?” you asked, turning to look at him and making his suffering so much worse when you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “Why did you keep them all this time?”

Jungkook was glad you’d reached the gate of his house because that meant he could turn his back to you as he fumbled with the lock – it wasn’t a complicated mechanism, he just needed to look at something else for a bit – and tried to get his lungs to function properly again.

“I don’t know,” he said, finally opening the gate. “I guess I was hoping to still build that horse one day.”

You scoffed at this – Jungkook gave you a dignified look in return – and lingered by the gate for a second before you realized that he’d stopped to let you enter first.

“I’m not mocking,” you explained in response to the look on his face. “It’s actually great that you kept it.”

His mouth dried up when he closed the gate and turned around to walk towards the house before noticing how warm your gaze was. Then, to avoid you reading through him and figuring out what he was feeling, he stuffed a mouthful of ice cream into his mouth.

“It is?” he asked with a slight lisp and then hissed as the freezing sensation went straight to his brain.

“Yeah,” you nodded, a more wary look in your eyes now that Jungkook was in pain from the self-inflicted brain-freeze. “It shows that you’re waiting until you’re mature enough to be able to invest your time into something that requires a lot of patience.”

Jungkook exhaled shakily – you assumed it was from the cold – and lead you past the impeccably-kept bushes in his front-yard, and towards the entrance into his house.

“Yeah, no,” he said, finishing his ice cream in a few large bites that must have very literally frozen his throat. He tried not to let it show as he said in a very breathy voice, “I don’t think it’s that deep.”

You shrugged your shoulders, slowly finishing your own ice cream as you brought your free hand over the vines that ran alongside the front wall of his house. “Maybe you don’t realize it.”

���Or maybe I kept the sticks because they reminded me of you.”

You stopped in front of his porch steps, unsure if you heard him right.

Swallowing the final bite of the chocolate-filled waffle cone, you looked at him in confusion – that was easy to mistake for disbelief, “hmm?”

Jungkook climbed up the steps – two at a time because he was always too impatient but, this time, also because he felt like he’d spoken too soon and he needed to put more distance between himself and you – and did not turn around to look at you until he fished his keys out from the pocket of his jeans, and unlocked the door.

“Yeah,” he said then, only giving you a glance as he opened the door and nodded his head inside, waiting for you to walk in first. “I still have a framed picture of us from middle school on my dresser.”

“Really?” you asked, looking at him even though he was now obviously avoiding your eyes.

There was even more surprise in your voice and it stung – you shouldn’t have been surprised about the fact that he cared enough to keep pictures that immortalized your friendship; but you were, and that was his fault – making him feel more self-conscious than he already was.

“Yeah,” Jungkook said and, smiling nervously, he stretched his hand behind his neck to scratch a nonexistent itch. “You want to see it?”

“Oh,” you were still standing on his doorstep while he was inviting you to his room. “Sure, yeah.”

You’d been to his room before – many times, in fact – so you hated the way the hairs on your skin stood up in anticipation. This wasn’t supposed to be any different from any other time you’d been in his room – was it? – and yet, you couldn’t help but remember that this was what you’d told yourself the last time you’d been there, too.

You two weren’t even the only people in his room that day – to celebrate the end of middle school, he’d invited his whole class – but, in your memory, everyone else was blurred and so dim that, sometimes, when you thought back on that day, you weren’t sure anyone else was even there. Or anywhere, for that matter. It’d felt like it was just you and him.

Clearing his throat, Jungkook suddenly brought you back to the present – and helped you realize just how hot your body was in spite of the excited shivers that ran down your back when you remembered his invitation – and you blinked before staggering inside.

Unaware of the several trips down memory lane that you’d taken while simply standing by his door, Jungkook extended a hand for you to take – and you took it, the movement automatic, as though you were in a well-rehearsed dance – and lead you towards the staircase.

You walked into his father on your way up the stairs, but he was on the phone so he merely gave his son a nod – and a smile for you – and then went on his way.

“You know, usually,” Jungkook said, sneering at the dismissal from his father, “parents would tell their kids to keep the door of their room open.”

Shivering again – but acting like you were most certainly not affected by the feeling of his palm against yours – you cocked an eyebrow at him.

“They would,” you said, licking your lips in an unconscious attempt to conceal the effect his not-at-all-innocent observation had on you, “but you’re twenty-three years old.”

He peered at you over his shoulder as he lead you down the second-floor hallway – nearly tripping over his feet when he saw you lick your lips – and then turned towards his room.

“Yes,” he said, “thank you for the newsflash,” and, stopping outside of his bedroom, he explained, “I meant, my parents never said that sort of thing to me. Not once.”

“Oh,” you caught on and lowered your eyes. “So, you brought a lot of people over, then?”

Jungkook smirked – you didn’t see this at first, but, when you raised your head again a minute later, confused by his silence, the smirk was still there – obviously very pleased to hear the not particularly well concealed shades of jealousy in your voice.

“None, actually. You’re the only one of my friends who’s been here,” he said then. “And I’ve already told you, I’ve never dated before.”

You were still unsure if he was pulling your leg. “Well, you don’t have to be dating people to bring them over to your—”

He pulled you into his room by your hand, not letting you finish your question. He closed the door and, this time, you two were really the only people here.

“I’m not like that,” he told you then, “but I understand where you’re coming from.”

You weren’t sure what you were asking him when you spoke, “you do?”

“Yeah,” he said, putting the paper cup of ice cream – that was as empty as your mind when Jungkook kept on holding your hand even though, now that you were in his room, there was no reason for it – on his desk, and then leaning against it to look at you. “It’s a nice campus tale, me constantly having girls over. But the only times I did sleep with someone, I didn’t do it in a place I lived. Nothing against that, I’m just a private person in that way, I guess.”

“Okay,” you nodded your head once and turned away from him, choosing to watch the starved pigeons, which crept around his backyard, through the window. “That sure makes your reputation better.”

Jungkook snickered, reluctantly letting go of your hand – but only because you were unconsciously pulling away from him – and attempting to explain, “I don’t mean to say I have sex outside—”

“No, I-I…” you cut him off – your flustered state intrigued him further – as you walked over to the dresser that he’d mentioned before. “I get what you mean. It’s an interesting version of “don’t shit where you eat”, but—”

He laughed, the sound taking you by surprise and cutting you off.

“I didn’t think of it that way,” he said, his eyes glistening with humor. “But the saying fits, I guess.”

He plopped down on his bed as he said this and the conversation about how many people he’d slept with had run out – which was good, since you hadn’t braced yourself for a discussion about your experiences in this particular area.

Instead, you took a minute to take the rest of his room in; it had changed so little since the last time you’d seen it. But it was the picture – that was right there where he said it was – that really took you back to the time when you spent nearly every afternoon in this room.

Jungkook smiled as he watched you reminisce, but not because he liked to see the way your features softened as you admired the picture from your childhood, but because you fit in this room far better than he did.

“Are you here a lot?” you asked as if having read his mind.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you told me you moved out a while ago…” you said, “and the room looks just as I remember it, so I just—”

“Oh. No, I’m—I’m not here a lot,” he admitted. “But I do come when I visit my parents.”

“Which is once a year?”

He acknowledged the jab by pursing his lips and retorting, “a lot more than that now that I have you with me.”

You hummed in response but your mind was already elsewhere as you pointed at the ceremoniously locked nightstand in the corner next to his bed, “what’s this?”

It looked so eccentric and out-of-place – not the stand itself, but the chain that ran along both sides of it, a trusty lock in the middle – that you couldn’t help but feel curious.

Jungkook, however, leaped on all fours and crawled over his bed to guard the nightstand with his hands – as if you were Cyclops and were about to burn through the stand with a laser beam from your eyes – a defensive look on his face.

“It’s nothing,” he said even though this was obviously the most interesting piece of furniture in his whole room, “just a decoration.”

“With chains—?” you tried to ask but Jungkook jumped back to his previous position and patted the spot on the bed next to himself.

“Come on,” he said. “Sit. Do you remember the last time you were here?”

He knew this was the only way to change the topic – and the defeated look on your face confirmed his expectations – but, when you remained standing across the room, he patted the bed again, more eagerly this time.

“We celebrated our graduation from middle school with the other kids,” he said because you didn’t show any other sign to let him know whether you remembered or not. Jungkook could feel that you did, but, regardless, he still continued, “we played Truth or Dare. Remember?”

It was ridiculous he even had to ask that. Some days – and even more frequently now that you were talking again – your middle school graduation was all you could think about, even all of these years later.

“Barely,” you replied but you both knew it was a lie. “It was a long time ago, lots have happened since—”

“Someone dared you to kiss me,” he said with an innocent expression on his face – because he was just refreshing your memory – but it was quickly replaced by an amused grin when your eyes widened in surprise – not because you were shocked he’d said it, but because saying it aloud conjured up a much clearer image of that day; probably because now you knew that the memory of that day was as fresh in his mind as it was in yours.

“Sure,” you said, laughing weakly to hide how warm your hands, your face, and your whole body was. “That was a thing that, uh… happened.”

“So,” Jungkook was grinning but it was only an attempt to conceal his own anxiety – if he stopped grinning, he was going to have to handle the rapid beating of his heart inside of his chest, and he wasn’t quite sure how to do that just yet. “Truth or dare?”

The question sobered you up from the intoxicating memory and you narrowed your eyes at him.

“We’re not fourteen and in middle school anymore,” you said. “What are you doing?”

“Come on,” he urged you again, “truth or dare?”

You knew better than to insist he dropped this – there were barely any people more demanding and frustrating than him; you couldn’t even name one – so you didn’t waste your breath trying.

Groaning because you knew he wouldn’t be pleased with your answer – just like you weren’t pleased with him even suggesting this game – you said, “truth.”

Jungkook smiled knowingly because – just like you’d predicted – he was absolutely expecting this and had, therefore, prepared accordingly.

“Who was your first kiss?” he asked without wasting a second.

God, this was going to be a long night, you started to realize. Now you weren’t sure if the ice cream was even worth it – maybe you should have left after dinner.

Meeting his expectant gaze, you tried your hardest to convey all of your hatred for this game through your eyes – but Jungkook wasn’t watching them, he was watching your lips as he waited for your answer – and then you finally said, “you.”

You were almost expecting triumphant fanfares to go off somewhere outside of his house but, instead of that, Jungkook’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, indicating that your answer had surprised him – even though it really shouldn’t have; you may not have been his first kiss, but you had never even wanted to kiss anyone who wasn’t him.

He was obviously going to inquire about this further – but what was there to ask, honestly? – but you were categorically not going to let him.

“Truth or dare?” you fired.

Jungkook closed his mouth, decided – begrudgingly – that this was a fair play, and then, true to himself, replied, “dare.”

“Show me your mysterious nightstand.”

He looked disappointed and more than ready to refuse – good, now he knew how you felt – but got up from the bed nevertheless.

He walked over to his desk first and got a singular key out from under the fake-bottom of the top drawer – courtesy of his Death Note phase – before slowly sliding it into the lock on the nightstand across the room. Turning it until you both heard a pleasant click, Jungkook took the chains off and huffed as he looked at you before doing anything else.

You weren’t sure what you were expecting to see inside so you couldn’t brace yourself for anything but, as Jungkook opened the door of the nightstand, you realized there was no possible way for you to prepare for this anyway.

There were piles of pictures inside – polaroids, of you and him at the lakehouse your families used to rent out every summer – old cut-outs from the school newspaper, showing you, as the president of the Student Council, and the principal of the school. There were the old dog tags you two had gotten together at a fair one spring – because he kept accidentally ripping every friendship bracelet you two ever had – and there were the remote-controlled cars that you’d gotten him for his tenth birthday – you’d been saving up for them that whole year.

Scanning the contents of the nightstand – while Jungkook watched you, biting his lip – you noticed that he had a copy of almost every single movie you’d ever shown him – the DVD of The Sixth Sense, of course, resting at the very front – and, more than that, he had post-it notes glued to all of them with notes ranging from as obscure as, “She said it’s good” to direct quotes from you, “She said I would like it because it’s violent enough to keep me at the edge of my seat but it also has meaning. She smiled a lot when she told me about it.”

And then, as if your heart wasn’t already beating fast enough, you saw the popsicle sticks on the very bottom of the nightstand. Most of them were just scattered there, long forgotten, but some were glued together in what was supposed to be the base of the Trojan horse you two had never gotten to build.

You pulled back, feeling like every time you inhaled, a new memory returned to you, each heavier than the one before. When you finally removed your eyes from the mementos of the past and looked at him, your chest was so full, it was weighing you down.

“You—” you started but the words got lost on their way out of your throat. You tried again, “you kept all of this—”

“Of course,” he said, closing the nightstand now that you weren’t looking at it anymore – he didn’t bother with the chain – and then returning to his previous spot on the bed. “I couldn’t bring it all with me when I left the house because I didn’t know where I was going to go. And I couldn’t leave it all hanging around my room because… well, because I didn’t want my parents to turn the room into a home gym and throw everything out.”

“B-but why—”

“Because it’s important to me,” he replied, knowing what you were going to say, “because these are the things that you and I did together. It’s us. You and me. I kept everything that reminded me of you.”

His words soothed the old wounds but it opened up new ones, too, because, in the seven years that you didn’t have any contact with him, you’d done everything you could to erase him from your life completely – throwing anything that reminded you of him out, until your room and your whole house was void of any connection to him – while he did the complete opposite and attempted to preserve as much of your past friendship as it was possible.

“My turn,” Jungkook said, his voice shakier than it’d been before. “Truth or dare?”

You didn’t want to play anymore. You felt like you physically couldn’t play anymore.

“Jungkook—”

“Truth or dare?” he repeated, more persistent this time.

Sighing because this was hopeless, you replied, “truth.”

He shook his head. “You can’t pick truth twice in a row.”

You should have seen it coming and yet you still felt a pang of annoyance that completely broke you out of the blissful state the contents of the nightstand had put you in before.

“Yes, I can,” you protested. “You just watched me do it.”

He didn’t give in. “That’s against the rules.”

“There are no rules in this game.”

“Yes, there are.”

You rolled your eyes. “Who made them?”

“Me,” Jungkook said, crossing his legs to find a more comfortable position. “My house, my rules. You can’t pick truth twice in a row.”

“Fine, you dick,” you replied – he almost smiled at the name – and settled,  “dare, then.”

It was almost funny, really, how easily the words came to Jungkook as he dared you, “kiss me.”

If you’d have turned your head to the old clock on his wall by the desk, you would have noticed how the arrows had stopped – they stopped long before tonight but, in that moment only, they showed the right time. Almost as if Jungkook wasn’t the only one who’d been waiting to say this to you. Everything in his room had been waiting, too.

Jungkook thought you’d do it -- he thought you’d turn your head, look away. Look for an excuse to back out of this. 

That’s why he didn’t kiss you but gave you an opening to do it yourself, using the game as an excuse. And, in the quiet moment that passed, he waited for your eyes to leave his, refusing the opportunity. But they never did.

You didn’t think you could tear your eyes away from his yearning gaze – just like gravity prevented you from floating off into space, the force of his eyes prevented you from pulling away. Instead, they pulled you in. 

And so you kissed him again, seven years later.

It was just a touch first – you barely registered the feeling of his lips against yours – but, before a chance to pull away even presented itself, the touch melted, locking your lips together.

He tasted like the strawberry mint gum he kept in his car.

He tasted like the flavor of the ice cream he’d picked today.

And, although you’d refused to try it when he offered outside of the ice cream shop, you couldn’t deny it when you were kissing him – strawberry and mint went so incredibly well together.

He tasted like the best friend you’d day-dreamed of kissing before you went to sleep at night.

He tasted like everything you’d ever wanted.

And, belatedly, the triumphant fanfares did go off somewhere in the distance – although it could have just been the sound of your hearts, calling out to each other through your chests – but the only sound you could hear clearly was the sound of his mouth moving against yours as he deepened the kiss, standing up on his knees on the bed and gently pushing you forwards until you landed on your back and he was leaning on his elbows on either side of you.

There were many things you knew about Jungkook – your knowledge coming from all of the days you’d spend together as children – but there were also several things that you didn’t know.

For one thing, you didn’t know what his kisses felt like when there was no one watching.

And now you did as his tongue tenderly brushed against yours, growing more impatient by the second, until you had to hold onto his chest with one hand and wrap the other one around his neck to prevent yourself from completely melting under him.

Furthermore, you didn’t know how long he’s waited for this.

And now you did as his warm body pressed against yours, freezing cold and almost screaming in the parts where he couldn’t physically touch you.

Kissing him felt relieving because you’d waited for this, too, and uselessly tried to convince yourself that you didn’t need his arms around you as much as you did.

It felt freeing because now you could finally admit to yourself how much you’d wanted to kiss him and have him catch his breath against your neck before bringing his lips back to yours again.

But it also felt dangerous because you couldn’t stop – you didn’t want to stop – and, not being in control of your surroundings and, most importantly, of yourself, was something that you knew would have dire consequences. You needed to prepare for this beforehand, consider every possible outcome and—

But then Jungkook pushed one of his thighs between your legs, kissing you harder—deeper—and you no longer cared about being in control of the situation. 

Sighing into the kiss – until he nearly passed out because he’d imagined this before and, for half a moment, he was afraid this was all happening in his head again – you abandoned all of your inhibitions and held onto him tighter, kissing him back with matching intensity.

And that moment – the one moment when you gave in to him completely – was precisely when someone knocked on his door.

However, even though you had both heard it, neither of you reacted to it, your mouths not pausing for a moment and his fingers never leaving the spot under your shirt – right above your waist – where they’d come to rest.

A moment later, you thought you’d only imagined the knock – the sound was already so far away in the distance, it didn’t even feel like you’d really heard it.

In his case, precisely because this – kissing on his bed in his childhood room – was actually real and not just a figment of his imagination, Jungkook simply assumed that everything else had to be happening in some other world where he wasn’t kissing you. In a world that didn’t exist. In a world that didn’t matter.

And so, naturally, he didn’t pay attention to any foreign sounds, focusing on the feeling of your skin, your lips, your touch, you, instead.

But then the knock came again. Shameless, truly, because it had to be obvious what was happening inside; it was impossible not to hear someone knock on the door of a room that was as empty as Jungkook’s bedroom.

This time, you both paused. But Jungkook – who hadn’t lived with his parents in a long time and, therefore, couldn’t remember their habits – was curious if, perhaps, the knocking would go away if unanswered, and so he went back to kissing you a second later.

Much to his—and yours—irritation, however, it didn’t seem like the knocking was going to stop. If anything, it started to get more intense and your hand – the one that pulled him closer to you by his shirt – ended up having to push him away slightly.

“Jungkook?” his mother’s uncertain voice reached your ears, but when you saw his face when he pulled away from you, you felt like you may as well have imagined that sound, too, because the sight of his puffy lips and wide, blown-out pupils made you lean forward to connect your lips again, if only for just a moment.

Jungkook was convinced you hadn’t yet grasped the effect you had on him; he couldn’t just stop kissing you out of the blue like that. And so he leaned back in, pressing his lips to yours until he felt you kiss him back. And then you broke the spell by turning your face towards the door as you tried to speak.

“It’s your mom,” you said, completely out of breath. “You should open it.”

Growling with frustration, he pushed himself off of you and climbed off the bed, not giving you a second to get up and make your activities less obvious before he was throwing the door open a lot more aggressively than he’d intended.

“Oh, I wasn’t sure if you two were back yet,” his mother said, seemingly unfazed by her son’s obvious frustration. “I just got the pie out of the oven, so the dessert is ready. Your dad and I were waiting downstairs, are you two—”

“We got ice cream,” he reminded his mother in a surprisingly gentle tone – even if his body remained stoic – and then glanced over his shoulder at you. “Unless you’d like to grab a slice?”

“Uh, I—thank you,” you said, standing up from the bed and desperately attempting to fix your hair while still remaining polite, “but I still feel full from the ice cream. A-and your dinner was wonderful, too, of course.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” his mother smiled at you and then gave her son a nod. “If you feel like getting tea with us, we’ll be in the kitchen, okay? Sorry I barged in on you like that, you didn’t tell me when you came back home, so I didn’t—”

“Yeah, sorry,” Jungkook said, still in a hurry. “We ran into dad, though. He knew we were back.”

“He did?” this seemed to surprise her. “Huh. He didn’t tell me.”

Huh, indeed. Maybe his father had his own ways of making sure Jungkook kept the door of his bedroom open.

“Well, no matter,” his mother added. “I’ll leave now. Sorry again!”

She smiled at you once more before she walked back to the staircase. You couldn’t tell if her eyes had been glittering because of the few glasses of wine that she’d had with dinner, or because she was able to tell what had been going on in this room before she came in.

Or maybe she was just happy that you were both home, safe and sound, and hanging out in his room – just like back in the day.

“Well,” Jungkook said after closing the door of his room. He wasn’t trying to conceal his disappointment, “that was my mom and her perfect timing.”

You chuckled. “Ah, she could have come in later. That would have been worse.”

“Yeah?” he liked to hear that you’d been imagining what could have happened later, as he walked back to you. “What do you think we’d have been doing?”

“Anything,” you replied, ignoring the fratboy in him but allowing his arms to comfortably wrap themselves around your waist. You replied to his smile with one of your own but did not dare to close the distance between you, only choosing to carefully rest your hands on his shoulders. “Do you know what time it is?”

Jungkook groaned, knowing that you must have understood his mother’s arrival as a sign that it was time for you to go home. “No, don’t start with the time!”

“What?” you asked, surprised by his agitation. “Why not?”

“Because it’s always the time that interrupts us,” he said, knowing how pointless it was but still cursing the time, the place, and almost the entire universe. “The night always ends before I’m ready for it.”

“Are you ever ready for it?” you asked but, in all actuality, you were asking him something else.

“No,” he said, answering both of your questions. “I’m never ready to leave you. You could stay over, you know.”

He’d once called you the most ambitious person he’d ever known, and yet there was nothing you wanted more than to stay here. Stay for a night. For however many nights it was possible.

But there were too many things to think about, too many outcomes to consider. You’d barely grown used to your relationship as old-friends-who-were-fake-dating before you kissed – mostly unprovoked and largely because you wanted to, not because he’d dared you to – and opened up the door to a whole new world.

“I…” you spoke, swallowing slowly. You knew you were someone who had to learn how to maneuver the magical carpet first, before hopping on it and flying away. That was who you were. “Thank you. But I think it’d be best if I went home tonight.”

Jungkook nodded, knowing and fully expecting you to say this. He wasn’t going to object because you’d already taken a huge step—a leap, really—over your own self when you responded and kissed him, and he didn’t want to pressure you into giving in and making any similar decisions before you were ready, no matter how much he wanted you to make them. No matter how much he wanted you.

But he was still going to give you a hard time about this. Because that was who he was.

“Leaving me wanting more, yeah?” he teased.

“Not leaving you,” you said. “Just leaving.”

He loved the way this sounded like a promise – and he would keep replaying your words in his head until the next time he saw you – but he didn’t show it, taking you by the hand instead.

“Let me take you home then,” he said and then threatened, “you should know before we go, though – I am fully determined to make you feel bad for abandoning me when I needed you the most.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t expect anything else from you,” you replied, making him smile in appreciation before leaning in to press a quick—almost chaste—kiss to your cheek.

He pulled away to open the door of his room and then walked outside, taking small steps and deep sighs, his theatrics always very sharp.

“Off I go,” Jungkook began, “starting my journey of loneliness—”

“Is that from a song?” you asked, interrupting his improvised monologue as you followed after him.

“It’s from my life,” he replied shortly. You tried to suppress your laughter and he continued, more dramatic now that he’d noticed he was entertaining you, “off I go, into the dark cavern of solitude. All by myself, all over again...”

Each one of your involuntary giggles only encouraged him, so Jungkook kept this up all the way to your dorm and then he found a way to keep going over text messages, spamming you with his Shakespearean delusions until you threatened to block his number if he didn’t stop.

And then, after testing you for another half an hour, he finally did stop and went to sleep – alone, but with the memory of you that was so strong, it was like you were there with him.

keep reading | masterlist

[attbtm]

Chapter 3: Protectors

Śelasdur’s library became hollow once Namä’s eye closed and Lorkullen’s opened, shining twin moons through the Night. Maids extinguished lanterns, shuttered windows, and sealed the doors against bitter drafts. Heavy silence followed.

The shadow revelry began bare minutes after the last footfall. Thorny spiders cobwebbed the shelves and the walls behind them with sticky gossamer. Moths swirled through beams of moonlight to beat their wings against glass. Bloodtoads hopped from one ornate planter to another, seeking mates in the sodden roots of ill-attended bushes left to grow hairy weeds. Wide paddle feet dug holes amid the worms’ tunnels. The vermin squeezed their eyes against the rocks, expressing red jelly from the glands, while others inseminated haloed by swarms of gnats.

In those dark, quiet holes, where small bodies scrabbled to survive the deadly unseen, the raging of harbor winds was a distant whine. Wilderness wrought in miniature thrived, sheltered.

By the first glint of dawn, the library’s evening patrons retreated to places Light would never touch.

Àlvare flung open the doors. Librarians entered again. A quiet figure followed, not quite as tall as the others, nor nearly as brusque. He drifted through the shelves.

“Lovely,” Esor sighed as he regarded the sanctum of books. He had brought a poetry book clutched to his heart as armor, but the whole of the library was his shield. None of the library windows leaked. Heavy curtains prevented the rare shaft of sun from damaging old paper. Basins of dried kilberry seed stood beside each stack of scrolls to dry the air. “If only I had some for my bed chamber,” Esor said to himself.

“Are your rooms are as mildewed as my own?” asked an approaching Dokàlvar. “I wake up feeling like I’ve spent the Night soaking in ice water.”

“You must be Àstin an Galefar,” said Esor.

“And you are Esor an Amen, the newest unbonded Low in the palace. Long has it been since one joined our ranks!”

Àstin was the xilcadis professor, responsible for supplying primary education to noble youths. He was proud to give a tour of his classroom, decorated with tapestries and paintings of long-conquered nations. Carvings of Men at work were labeled with ports of origin. An Orkar firearm stood high out of reach, its fat barrel and short fuse menacing at a distance. Àstin’s bookshelves put Esor’s to shame; the volume of volumes spilled off the shelves and into stacks atop student desks.

He also maintained a beautiful keyed lyre, which Àstin claimed could replicate the tonal elements of lösàlvaren that Low Àlvare could not otherwise reproduce. “Do you play?” asked Àstin, offering the instrument to Esor.

He declined. “I can’t conceive the skill required to achieve linguistic fluency with a lyre! Where did you study?”

“I taught the children of musicians in a fabulous Frostenland port,” Àstin said. “One paid me in lessons, at my request. When I taught the sons of traders, I requested payment in artifacts. Some gifts were excessively generous.”

“You must be very good at your job,” Esor said.

“I have numerous talents.” A smile stole across Àstin’s lips, quickly concealed when he turned and let golden hair conceal his profile. He wore round-rimmed glasses that reflected light and stole emotion from his eyes. “Do you like poetry? I see you have the first volume of The Green History.”

“It was a recent gift.”

“If you enjoy that one, then let me know when you’re ready for more. I have so many books tucked away you’ll love.”

Àstin took the younger Dokàlvar in hand for the Lights that passed, orienting him to the rhythms of the palace. The professor took care to ensure Esor could find his way to the dining room by following one type of rugs, then showed him to the library by following statues.

“See how the male statues have divine sigils upon their instruments?” said Àstin. “They are different in each corridor. Follow the sigils that look like a chicken foot to the library.”

Esor learned other sigils too: a rotated cross for servant quarters, a four-pointed star to the nobles’ rooms, and a jagged constellation led to the gardens. Only a teardrop-and-crescent sigil appeared seemingly at random, and Esor spotted it in three different hallways.

“What is that one?” asked Esor.

“That,” said Àstin, “is one of the secrets Śelasdur keeps to himself. I’ve found nothing in the literature to explain it. Attend my lessons if you’re curious to know more of the xilcadis! I often discuss the known history of greater Dolikën Bay.”

There was ample opportunity to observe Àstin’s classes while Esor waited for a clean bill of health from Doctor Xeta. He attended the classes on several consecutive Lights. Àstin’s office filled with aristocratic youths every morning, the boys too immature to be sent to Ralen, the girls too young for more than a single kerotera apiece. Esor sat behind the keroterase during Àstin’s lectures. The children were wholly unlike his students from home. They sat silently as Àstin spoke; they were polite in saying thanks at the end of the lesson; they were silent filing down the hall to return to the city below.

“Your lessons disappoint,” Esor said when the room became quiet after another lecture on industry and historical figures. “You taught me less about Śelasdur than this poetry book. What of the All-Mother’s shroud? Or Lorkullen’s rage?”

“Parochial. Outside my subject matter.” Àstin gathered supplies to clean his classroom. The professor dusted and scrubbed frequently atop the maids’ work.

“Then surely they learn at church,” Esor said.

Àstin laughed as he shifted a bookshelf. “Neither the Church nor its teachers have been welcome in the xilcadis for centuries. Ominous, don’t you think? The children do. The ambiance keeps my students under control. Once Lord Venorinen’s son misbehaved and his father sent him to stay for a Night in our halls. Never since have any of them so much as sneezed during lectures! Amazing, the power of superstition. Don’t you think?”

“Perhaps they fear the vermin.” The shadowy spaces were clean of dust or dirt, yet nests had nonetheless materialized, formed of stones and mildew and a strange red jelly, wherein shrunken creatures like worms idled.

Àstin transferred the jelly filled with squirming tadpoles into jars. The rest of the nests, he washed away. “The children have no reason to fear bloodtoads—or anything else in the city. We are still within the Empire, chosen by the All-Mother and blessed by the Church, and we press civilization upon the places we dwell. It is safe here as in Ralen. If a fear of harmless vermin ensures the ruliness of my students, however…” He had a way of laughing that made no sound, a tremble in the shoulders, a squint of the eyes behind his wire-rimmed spectacles.

“What will you do with these?” asked Esor, lifting a jar so the dimming afternoon light silhouetted the tadpoles. They were not as wormlike as they appeared at first; their bodies were translucent, exposing nascent skeletons and beady red eyes.

“I give them to the xilcadis doctor,” Àstin said.

Esor fumbled the jar but caught it against his belly before it could fall. “Doctor Xeta, you mean?”

“You are acquainted, I see. Did he test you for Wasting? He took samples from us all the day he arrived, and continues to extract from new visitors. A strange practice, but thus far we have had no outbreaks, even when it appeared in the farms some vetone past.”

“Does he also test villagers for Wasting?”

“They won’t permit it.” This came from Doctor Xeta himself, having entered from the library. The younger of the Kovenor brothers wore spidren silk, naturally ink-dark and shimmering. “The villagers have never had an affliction treated by medicine rather than the songs of healers, and so they see Lorkullen in my work.”

“Never mind that science’s tenets are in direct conflict with the Chaos of Night,” Àstin said.

“At least some understand. My thanks for another donation of bloodtoads, Master Àstin.” Xeta shook the jar and the larvae cartwheeled. “As for you, Master Esor, I bring pleasant news: the saliva sample you provided was ordinary for a Low Àlvar of your apparent age, free of disease and anomaly. You’re ready to meet Lady Ilare.”

<

>

Luscious velvet drapes framed the arched windows of Governess Malenē’s classroom, obstructing much of the draft, but keroterase still huddled around one corner brazier with spears propped against their thighs. By the other brazier, among the divans, benches, and tea tables, Governess Malenē held court with a class of a dozen. She stood at the approach of visitors.

“Doctor Xeta.” Governess Malenē’s glossy, ageless features were symmetric, with a fetchingly pointed chin and ears barely longer than Esor’s. “What a pleasure to benefit from the rarity of your company.”

“The pleasure is mine,” said Xeta. “I’m overdue bestowing my gratitude. The difference in my sister’s comportment under your care is miraculous.” He took Malenē’s gloved hand and bowed his head over it. The refinement of his Levusàlvar features put Malenē’s to shame. Where she had symmetry, the planes of his features were facets upon the surface of a gem cut by an artist.

Malenē’s hand did not linger in Xeta’s. Keroterase watched until the space between them was once again established.

“Lady Ilare sets an example I hope her peers will follow,” Malenē said.

Most of the young ladies were unfashionable, gowned in heritage fabrics with only minor updates to accommodate modern style. Antique clips held hair away from faces. Bodices were fitted, skirts were floor-length, and the robes were meant for function more than fashion.

One cluster of young does succeeded in emulating modern style, inherently rebellious in its rebuke to vero. Each wore their hair in braids as thick as the width of a hand. They arranged two to fall down their breasts and the center braid to align with their spines. The handiwork was competent, the oils fragrant, the clips authentic. These Àlvare knew to coordinate the gems adorning their ears with those adorning their belts and slippers. Stiff collars framed their shoulders rather than closing around the throat.

Among the two elder does, already adults, dewy stretches of skin were exposed to signal availability. They were subtly naked in public, reservedly suggestive.

Àstin elbowed Esor’s side. “Do not stare at Lady Kitsa’s daughters,” he hissed. The keroterase were watching them.

Esor averted his eyes bashfully.

Governess Malenē beckoned.

One girl separated from the others.

She had skin toned like sun-warmed birch, long neck sloping into rounded shoulders. She drifted, lanky, gray as a specter, each footstep slow but abrupt as dew dropping from rose petals. The slope from eye hollows into nose said she was another of the Kovenor Levusàlvar: Highest of High blooded, so near to Tosvodos that Lord Mayor Corvin bore his antlers.

“Blessed Light,” greeted Lady Ilare Kovenor, curtsying. Governess Malenē patted Ilare’s back to adjust the student’s posture, and Ilare maintained her bent knees until the teacher patted her again.

Xeta introduced Esor. “He teaches you tomorrow, sister.”

Ilare boldly absorbed sight of Esor, her eyes claiming every detail. The Doctor’s little sister lacked the ominous aura of her brothers, but her oblique features kept silent judgments secret as effectively. “You must be well-versed in all subjects to prepare me for the College. You know everything about the Everhalls?” asked Ilare.

“Astronomy is in your curriculum, yes, as well as advanced mathematics,” said Esor without lifting his gaze.

“Religious studies?” she asked, and Esor inclined his head in agreement. “Do you know the story of the Lexin? Tell me it.”

“I believe you’re being tested, Esor,” Àstin said playfully.

Governess Malenē disapproved. “A lady does not toy with the staff,” she said.

The admonishment did not seem to reach Lady Ilare. “Go on, Master Esor. The Lexin? The myth of how the Spirit of Sadism made the All-Mother weep?”

“When she walked her First Path, the All-Mother seeded a dozen beautiful babes on the trail,” said Esor. “They sprouted as wondrous beasts in infant form: a serpent to embrace the universe, a bear cub with fur to warm the coldest reaches, and a dragonet to sing with the All-Mother. Before they could grow to fulfill their fates, the Lexin drained the Esba of youth in their cradles. The Esba aged into ancient bodies with minds too new to understand their loss. They became monsters, enslaved to the Spirits of Regret.”

“Yes, that is the story. I suppose you know enough to teach me, Master Esor.” Ilare thanked him for his time. A foreboding hint of mischief sparked at the corner of her mouth. “I look forward to learning with you.”

No business remained. They sang farewells. Xeta gave his arm to his sister and escorted her away. Esor left with Àstin. The class dispersed. Another Night descended.

<

>

Esor arrived at his classroom in the morning after a restless Night dreaming of ancient bears gobbling lonely Dwarrow. His overrobe hung unevenly on his shoulders. He wore a vest spattered with ink stains. Exhaustion bagged his gold-flecked eyes as apologies spilled from his lips, dropping his satchel onto the table within the door.

“Didn’t Xeta say that class begins today?” asked Lady Ilare.

Esor bowed to her, seated on a bench near the brazier. “You remembered perfectly well. The error is mine alone.” His eyes traveled over the ring of keroterase and he cleared his throat, tugging his poorly tied cravat with a finger. “I’ll ensure the mistake doesn’t happen again.”

He proved himself a liar by oversleeping every Night he slept at all.

It was a nontraditional class from the start. Ilare was not like most of the High and didn’t care if he was late, nor did she care for giving her attention when Esor was on time. “I’ve better ways to occupy my time,” Ilare said once. “Better ways” meant writing so extensively in journals that she seemed to fill a new book every week during the time she meant for studying topics Esor assigned.

“I am certain my lady’s writings have abundant educational value,” he said, bowing in deference. He had no authority to make Ilare do anything.

The bowing annoyed her much more than lateness. “Don’t bore me with formalities.” From then onward, she snapped her journals closed in his face every time he tried to bow. “No bowing!” she said, sometimes angrily, sometimes singsong, but never with genuine threat.

“I’ll stop bowing if you’ll start studying once in a while,” Esor finally snapped back. Ilare’s refined features broke into an unrefined smile. “Very well.”

Esor provided evaluation after evaluation to place Ilare’s abilities in his curriculum. His mischievous student far smarter than any he’d taught before. She had studied independently while sick with Wasting and she had studied well.

He wasn’t certain he could help Ilare progress.

Not only was Esor ill-prepared for a student so intelligent, but the keroterase watched Esor like he might transform into a raving lunatic without notice. A dozen routinely attended his classes. They often stood directly between Esor and Ilare.

“If it would be easier, you could chain my ankle to the desk during classes,” Esor once suggested to the commander, Samej, to no reply besides stony silence.

On another day, Esor brought tea for the keroterase, and none of them drank it.

“You might poison them, you know,” Ilare said.

“Or worse, I might make friends with them,” Esor said.

“Being ignored is what they do best.” Ilare’s smile was tighter when turned upon her keroterase.

When Esor wheeled an alchemy table into class, the keroterase insisted upon inspecting it before Ilare could approach. Once they determined he had concealed nothing, they still would not let Esor work at the same table. “How do I teach from over here, exactly?” Esor asked, arms folded by the bookshelves.

“Teach with your words,” said the commander, Samej, “if your Low tongue can manage even that much.”

Ilare admonished her kerotera for rudeness, but Esor had barely heard the insult. Leaning against the bookshelf had taken enough weight off his body that he fell halfway asleep.

Invisible eyes watched Esor throughout the Nights. Winds shrieked off the ocean to batter every crack in the palace walls. Ancient windows cried at the abuse. Ossified wood groaned, and the aroma of rot wafted fresh over Esor’s bed whenever the room shifted. His room remained so gusty that his lantern often guttered out. Esor hurried to relight it, sheltering it with his body, curled around its faint warmth.

The library was warmer. He was safe among its stacks, curling up on a cloak with books to research until his eyelids grew too heavy.

Even there, in the silence, he woke often. He jolted upright and lifted the lantern to search for eyes he knew must have been there. His dreams filled with eyes: creatures watching him as he slogged through lightless swamps, chased by an enormous shaggy bear with bloody jowls.

By the time he became alert, the vermin already crawled out of sight.

<

>

One morning, the keroterase discovered Esor unconscious on his desk. Esor had to protest loudly to avoid visiting Xeta’s infirmary. “I am well! I need no aid!” He began a lecture before they could attempt removing him again. Samej looked to Ilare for instruction, but Ilare was already writing in her journal, so the class continued. Esor soon caught himself stumbling over dates.

Ilare noticed. “We are in the year 9,255, and thus it cannot have been 9,623 wherein my father Amalen became magistrate, unless you believe him an immortal remnant of the Second Era,” Ilare said. “My father is spectacular in several ways, but that is not one of them.”

“Yes…you’re correct. Hexes, look at that. Of course you’d know the years of your Amalen’s reign.” Esor tossed aside his book. Attempts to compose himself failed; he could not conceal his yawns. “Please forgive my lack of professionalism.”

Ilare’s cheeks dimpled when she smirked, which made her look nearly as young as Esor. “Yes, you’re dreadfully unprofessional. Look at you. Daring to have a fatigued body in my presence.”

He bowed deeply. “Again, please forgive—”

“Oh, so serious! You need not wind yourself so tightly, Master Esor,” Ilare said. “I’m barely listening.”

“You—you’re not listening?”

“Will you report my misbehavior? You’re the one who has only begun class on time twice.”

Esor flushed. “Sibíko is not so cold, and I struggle to sleep. I will adjust. We’ve six days without classes beginning tomorrow. By the time we return, I’ll be more capable of upholding professional standards.”

“Oh yes,” said Ilare, “we can’t forget those standards.”

Esor would not have seen Ilare again before holidays if the weather hadn’t cleared after teatime. He stepped onto the patio behind the classrooms to enjoy the warmth. There, palace gardeners maintained a small orchard, each tree standing in a planter of imported soil and surrounded by protective bushes.

Ilare kneeled by a planter, alone. Keroterase supervised from within Governess Malenē’s classroom. They formed an intimidating wall of silhouettes on the opposite side of warped glass. She watered the bushes using a decanter, slippers stained by dirt.

“My lady,” began Esor.

“Quiet,” she said. “Look.” She spread the bushes apart so that he could see.

Lady Ilare was fostering bloodtoads within the roots of a Fruitful Tree. A pile of them squirmed in the mud. A different kind of smile crossed her lips when she clocked Esor’s revulsion—a smile that darkened her eyes, and bared the gap between her two front teeth—and she placed her forefinger to her lips to signal he should be silent. She drained the decanter into the pool, tugged fronds in place to conceal them, and rose to stand taller than her tutor.

She extended her muddy fingers toward Esor. Tiny larvae crawled over her knuckles. Natural ridges of skin turned such worms to sea serpents navigating the topography of riverbeds, trailing reddish smears behind them.

“Sometimes I want to be with them,” she said softly. “I want to curl up in the mud and let them take me.”

“My lady,” said Esor, snapping a handkerchief from his inner pocket, “you cannot be so soiled! Oh, if Governess Malenē sees you like this…”

She curled her hands near her heart to avoid being cleaned. “Am I soiled when I entered their habitat and invited them onto my flesh? Or am I anointed?”

The commander of Ilare’s keroterase erupted onto the balcony. Samej’s hand rested on his belt knife—a distinctive hooked blade with its hilt wrapped in gold thread, as only eunuchs from the Court of Light carried. “Lady Ilare, are you safe?”

Ilare dipped her hand into the fountain. Stains dispersed from her skin like clouds. “I called Esor outside to help me remove undesirable mushrooms from the planter. He tells me it will be more complex to kill the fruiting body, and thus the task must fall to the garden Affinites. Is that not right?”

“Yes,” said Esor belatedly, “that’s correct.”

He bowed to Ilare and exited, gripping the puzzle box so tightly that its corners bit his palm through the glove.

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 25, 2021

Confidence can be automatically integrated across two visual decisions. Aguilar-Lleyda, D., Konishi, M., Sackur, J., & de Gardelle, V. (2021). Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 47(2), 161–171.

From statistical regularities in multisensory inputs to peripersonal space representation and body ownership: Insights from a neural network model. Bertoni, T., Magosso, E., & Serino, A. (2021). European Journal of Neuroscience, 53(2), 611–636.

On the effect of neuronal spatial subsampling in small‐world networks. Bonzanni, M., Bockley, K. M., & Kaplan, D. L. (2021). European Journal of Neuroscience, 53(2), 485–498.

Multiple cannabinoid signaling cascades powerfully suppress recurrent excitation in the hippocampus. Jensen, K. R., Berthoux, C., Nasrallah, K., & Castillo, P. E. (2021). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(4).

Release probability increases towards distal dendrites boosting high-frequency signal transfer in the rodent hippocampus. Jensen, T. P., Kopach, O., Reynolds, J. P., Savtchenko, L. P., & Rusakov, D. A. (2021). eLife, 10, e62588.

Environment-based object values learned by local network in the striatum tail. Kunimatsu, J., Yamamoto, S., Maeda, K., & Hikosaka, O. (2021). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(4).

Dissecting the Roles of Supervised and Unsupervised Learning in Perceptual Discrimination Judgments. Loewenstein, Y., Raviv, O., & Ahissar, M. (2021). Journal of Neuroscience, 41(4), 757–765.

Molecular mechanisms within the dentate gyrus and the perirhinal cortex interact during discrimination of similar nonspatial memories. Miranda, M., Morici, J. F., Gallo, F., Piromalli Girado, D., Weisstaub, N. V., & Bekinschtein, P. (2021). Hippocampus, 31(2), 140–155.

Human subjects exploit a cognitive map for credit assignment. Moran, R., Dayan, P., & Dolan, R. J. (2021). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(4).

Prioritization in visual attention does not work the way you think it does. Ng, G. J. P., Buetti, S., Patel, T. N., & Lleras, A. (2021). Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 47(2), 252–268.

Linking metacognition and mindreading: Evidence from autism and dual-task investigations. Nicholson, T., Williams, D. M., Lind, S. E., Grainger, C., & Carruthers, P. (2021). Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 150(2), 206–220.

Neural mechanisms of visual sensitive periods in humans. Röder, B., Kekunnaya, R., & Guerreiro, M. J. S. (2021). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 120, 86–99.

Orientation Effects in the Development of Linear Object Tracking in Early Infancy. Tham, D. S. Y., Rees, A., Bremner, J. G., Slater, A., & Johnson, S. P. (2021). Child Development, 92(1), 324–334.

How do stupendous cannabinoids modulate memory processing via affecting neurotransmitter systems? Vaseghi, S., Nasehi, M., & Zarrindast, M.-R. (2021). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 120, 173–221.

Theta power and theta‐gamma coupling support long‐term spatial memory retrieval. Vivekananda, U., Bush, D., Bisby, J. A., Baxendale, S., Rodionov, R., Diehl, B., … Burgess, N. (2021). Hippocampus, 31(2), 213–220.

Layer 6 ensembles can selectively regulate the behavioral impact and layer-specific representation of sensory deviants. Voigts, J., Deister, C. A., & Moore, C. I. (2020). eLife, 9, e48957.

Using pharmacological manipulations to study the role of dopamine in human reward functioning: A review of studies in healthy adults. Webber, H. E., Lopez-Gamundi, P., Stamatovich, S. N., de Wit, H., & Wardle, M. C. (2021). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 120, 123–158.

Data-driven reduction of dendritic morphologies with preserved dendro-somatic responses. Wybo, W. A., Jordan, J., Ellenberger, B., Marti Mengual, U., Nevian, T., & Senn, W. (2021). eLife, 10, e60936.

Dysfunction of Orbitofrontal GABAergic Interneurons Leads to Impaired Reversal Learning in a Mouse Model of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Yang, Z., Wu, G., Liu, M., Sun, X., Xu, Q., Zhang, C., & Lei, H. (2021). Current Biology, 31(2), 381-393.e4.

Speed modulation of hippocampal theta frequency and amplitude predicts water maze learning. Young, C. K., Ruan, M., & McNaughton, N. (2021). Hippocampus, 31(2), 201–212.

[8bitlola003]

Is it So wrong?

I was born as a gen Z. Don't get me wrong, but I'm not exactly a fan of my generation tbh. I am one of the rare few who can read a map, change a flat, read the weekly paper, and can build stuff like houses on my own including electricity (working on plumbing still). No, I'm not one to party, I barely have enough energy from my two jobs and BUSY full-time college schedule. As far as the dating game goes, I have had tremendous issues with finding a mature guy. I'm not talking about someone who's just always clean and owns a full cutlery set and dishes, I mean a REAL responsible MAN. I'm sure some of you other rare types of all races and orientations can agree that we are sick of these babies and would like an adult to be able to take better care of us than we do of ourselves. Bit of a hard bargain on my end. Before some of you call me picky, let me emphasize a bit.

I'd like a man who can talk to me about anything, and not feel like he needs a permit.

Someone who's aware that he needs to fix himself before fully letting someone into his life, but isn't afraid to look.

Someone who will let me be emotional and not treat the breakdown like it's some sort of disease.

Someone who can drink stiffer drinks than I can, but not as a way of self medicating or lack of impulse control.

Someone who understands NO MEANS NO, and doesn't try to beat around the bush or pressure me into thinking I'm too scared.

Someone who doesn't need to spend money on me, but doesn't think I'm worthless.

Someone who wants me to be included, but not try to force it.

Someone that knows it's okay to cry and that trusts me enough to be comforting.

Someone who is willing to tell me to shut up when I go too far, but mean it with love.

Someone who isn't going to judge the fact that one of my besties is a guy and that opposite gender friends don't mean relationship.

Someone who recognizes that we are both human and that we are going to make mistakes.

Someone that knows the difference between well kept and keeping well.

Someone that knows it's almost impossible to care for more than one person, but helps anyway.

Someone who also feels like love doesn't come with warning labels, but that's just fine.

Tag me if you're looking for someone like this too.

[firelord-frowny]

lmao i was talkin about bugs with my mamma and i managed to name over 100 bugs/arthropods that i’ve seen with my own eyes. i’m so proud of my bug-seeing. <3

big dipper firefly

brown chafer

japanese beetle

cucumber beetle

seven spotted ladybug

rove beetle

eastern hercules beetle

six spotted neolema beetle

brown marmorated stink bug

eastern leaf-footed bug

leaf hopper

dog day cicada

periodical cicada

waterboatmen

backswimmers

wheel bug

thread-legged assassin bug

pselliopus assassin bug

polyphemus moth

pandora sphinx moth

luna moth

tiger moth

snowy urola moth

hummingbird moth

nessus sphinx moth

somber carpet moth

wavy lined emerald moth (caterpillar)

eastern tent moth

eastern tent moth caterpillar

snowberry clearwing moth

monarch butterfly

tiger swallowtail butterfly

black swallowtail butterfly

zebra swallowtail butterfly

zebra wing butterfly

fiery skipper butterfly

silver spotted skipper butterfly

peck’s skipper butterfly

red admiral butterfly

red spotted purple admiral butterfly

cabbage white butterfly

common buckeye butterfly

chinese mantis

carolina mantis

field cricket

camel cricket

bush cricket/katydid

giant lubber grasshopper

american cockroach

german cockroach

oriental cockroach

carpenter ants

dobsonfly

widow skimmer dragonfly

red saddlebags dragonfly

black saddlebags dragonfly

autumn meadowhawk dragonfly

blue dasher dragonfly

ebony jewelwing damselfly

whitetail skimmer dragonfly

green darner dragonfly

earwig :(

pill millipede 

wood louse

house centipede 

mosquitos, duh

fruit flies, duh

robber flies

crane flies

picture-winged flies

cicada killer wasp

european hornet

bald faced hornet 

eastern paper wasp

european paper wasp

eastern yellowjacket

european yellowjacket

southern yellowjacket

red paper wasp 

common paper wasp

black and yellow mud dauber wasp 

common thread waisted wasp

cuckoo wasp

spider wasp

mason bee

european honey bee 

sweat bee 

eastern bumblebee

american bumblebee

carpenter bee 

four toothed mason wasp

carolina wolf spider gotDAMN those motherfuckers are ENORMOUS

crab spider

marbled orb weaver

black widow spider

cobweb spiders

cellar spiders

three spotted jumping spider

american giant millipede

northern walkingstick

planthopper

tiger bee fly

box elder bug

large milkweed bug

SO MANY BUGS TO SEE