#Silver Bullet Trading System

[platinumcrow]

The Silver Bullet Trading System offers traders a cutting-edge approach to the financial markets. With advanced algorithms, real-time data analysis, and user-friendly interface, it maximizes precision and profitability. Ideal for both beginners and experienced traders seeking consistent returns.

[rhk111sblog]

I still have some Pictures from the Asian Defense and Security (ADAS) Event last Year of 2022 that I haven’t released to the Public yet, will try to do so now whenever I can like these ones, the special Artillery Munitions by Elbit Systems. As always, I will be putting better Resolution Versions of these Pictures on Wikimedia Commons later after this Posting

[mariacallous]

“Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” Ukrainian general Valerii Zaluzhnyi admitted late last year. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”

That blunt assessment from the Ukrainian commander in chief, made in a November interview with The Economist, prompted waves of enormous pessimism. Headlines around the world seized on the idea that the war had essentially ended. Ukraine had fought valiantly—and lost.

Politicians in the West, particularly Republicans in the United States Congress, declared that it was time to stop supplying Kyiv and push for major concessions to Moscow.

The general’s actual point, however, wasn’t quite so fatalistic. In an accompanying nine-page essay, published in the British magazine, Zaluzhnyi doesn’t use the word “stalemate.” Instead, he called the war “positional,” with both sides trading just tiny slivers of land. Critically, however, he said Ukraine can still win. But it will mean, he wrote, “searching for new and non-trivial approaches to break military parity with the enemy.”

Technological innovation, more modern equipment, and changes in strategy could still turn the tide of this war, Zaluzhnyi argued. He laid out five areas where progress could mean overcoming their Russian opponent: achieving air superiority, improving mine clearing, expanding counterbattery, recruiting more soldiers, and advancing electronic warfare.

To achieve those goals, he wrote, Ukraine needs a once-in-a-century technological breakthrough.

“The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy is doing and they see everything we are doing,” Zaluzhnyi writes. “In order for us to break this deadlock we need something new, like the gunpowder, which the Chinese invented and which we are still using to kill each other.”

In recent months, WIRED has spoken to a host of NATO leaders and military analysts, as well as Ukrainian officials, regarding the future of the war. The consensus is clear: There is no silver bullet Ukraine can develop that will win this war. But there is agreement that Ukraine can and must innovate if it hopes to overcome its better-resourced and dug-in enemy.

“The thing that will break the logjam will be the right combination of new ideas, new organizations, and new technologies,” Mick Ryan, a 35-year veteran of the Australian Army who writes extensively on the future of war, tells WIRED. “It's really about how you combine that trinity of ideas, technology, and organizations into something new.”

Ukraine has already changed the future of warfare. Its use of aerial drones has revolutionized combat. It has developed and deployed the world’s first tactical naval drone. It jury-rigged a remarkably effective air defense system. It is leveraging artificial intelligence to conduct high-precision missile and drone strikes. It has consistently bested Moscow in the cyber and information spaces. If it can scale any of these technologies, or come up with new ones, it has a fighting chance to actually win.

Zaluzhnyi has sketched out the breakthroughs Ukraine will need to win this war. If it can do that, it may also change the future of conflict forever.

Embracing Positional Warfare

In November 2022, just nine months after Russia’s full-scale invasion, Zaluzhnyi triumphantly declared that Ukraine had liberated a huge swath of territory in Ukraine’s southeast. Months prior, Kyiv had liberated Kharkiv, its second-largest city, and was continuing to push the Russian invaders back. Now, in a surprise move, it was on track to liberate Kherson.

The speedy attacks caught Russia by surprise and prompted its extraordinary withdrawal across huge swaths of Ukrainian territory.

That run of victories, made possible by new weapon systems delivered by Ukraine’s NATO allies and its own creative use of technology, drove sky-high expectations ahead of Kyiv’s 2023 summer counteroffensive. Western media anticipated that Ukraine would break through Russian lines with similar ease and speed.

Ukraine’s drive to regain more territory, however, crashed into dense and well-fortified Russian defensive lines, descending into the positional warfare that Zaluzhnyi describes. Ukraine inched forward in some areas and retreated elsewhere. Moscow had, apparently, learned from its mistakes.

“The Russian military is often underestimated in terms of its propensity to learn and apply lessons on the battlefield,” Karolina Hird, an analyst for the Institute for the Study of War and the deputy team lead for their Russia desk, tells WIRED. Russia had swapped in new, rested units; fortified complex layers of trench lines; and laid 15 to 20 kilometers of minefields through Ukrainian territory. They named this formidable defensive network for the since-ousted commander of the war effort: the Surovikin Line.

This new “active defense,” as Hird describes it, is a fairly traditional set of defensive tactics. Even with advanced Western artillery and counterbattery, and advanced tank systems, Ukrainian soldiers simply couldn’t advance without facing constant shelling and dense minefields.

“The Ukrainians didn't necessarily have the equipment or the type of trained brigades to break through that incredibly soundly arrayed defense and overcome Russians—that were defending in a doctrinally consistent and, actually, quite sound way,” Hird says.

The failure to advance has prompted a tactical shift from Kyiv. During one of his nightly addresses in early December, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said it was imperative that Ukraine beef up its own defensive lines. It was a recognition that the front lines had, for the time being, frozen.

While some interpreted this development as a sign that the war is all but over, Ryan, the Australian Army veteran, says it’s a prime opportunity for Ukraine to refresh its strategy.

“Maybe Ukraine should embrace positional warfare for the time being,” he says. “Maybe that is the way it reconstitutes, regains its strength, and thinks through the problems that it has—from the tactical through to the strategic level.”

It’s a strategy that has already shown some dividends, Hird says. “Ukraine is very much preparing defensive positions, letting Russians run themselves against those defensive positions.” Ukraine estimates that Russia has lost more than 400 tanks, 500 artillery systems, and 30,000 soldiers in December alone.

“Whenever Ukraine feels that they have the equipment they need, the support they need … and the initiative shifts to their side, they can use those defensive positions as springboards,” Hird adds.

While a slowdown in fighting may benefit Ukraine, it helps Russia as well. It is now a race against the clock to plan how Ukraine may launch another counteroffensive that can breach the Surovikin Line.

Enough to Win

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, Kyiv has received tens of billions of dollars in military aid, including a raft of advanced equipment. But Ukraine’s position has also been, as Zelensky put it recently, that the aid was “not enough to win.” (But, he added, “we are thankful it was enough to defend.”)

Fearful of Russia’s “red lines,” the United States has consistently slow-rolled or withheld key technology that could help Ukraine’s advance. Meanwhile, Zaluzhnyi wrote in The Economist, Russia “retains and is able to maintain a superiority in weapons and equipment, missiles and ammunition.” What’s more, Moscow’s defense industry is ramping up production of the ammunition and gear necessary for its continued assault on Ukraine.

“We know that with continued US support, continued Western support, that likely would be the final push that Ukraine needs to liberate its own territories,” Hird says. “But political considerations, financial considerations, defense and industrial base blocks, that sort of thing, really inhibit our ability to bring that to bear. And that's very much what Russians are counting on.”

A particular problem has been Russian artillery.

Ahead of Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensive, the country received shipments of the American-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). Those systems, particularly when fitted with medium-range missiles and aided by counterbattery radar, were able to quickly move and target advanced Russian systems well behind the front lines, clearing the way for Ukrainian forces to advance freely across the battlefield. But novel technology became routine fairly quickly in battle. “Russians have very much learned how to target HIMARS,” Hird says. “So Ukrainians can’t use them to the same effect.”

“Now, at each step of the way, the Russians are interfering with you, right?” Ryan says. “They're doing camouflage for their locations. They move things more frequently, now, than they used to. They attack counterbattery radars and other detection systems with loitering drones. And they are denying the use of precision munitions, in large parts of the battlefield, through the use of electronic warfare.”

To overcome this problem, Ryan says, Ukraine needs to close the “detection to destruction gap.” Ukrainian forces need to be able to avoid detection and to be mobile enough to evacuate in a matter of minutes if they are picked up by Russian radar or drone surveillance—while, at the same time, detecting Russian positions and attacking before they can escape. The gap, he says, has shortened from about 10 minutes from detection to destruction to just two or three minutes.

“It’s a complex set of problems, but it’s a known set of problems,” Ryan says. He believes it will require some heavy lifting from NATO’s research capabilities to solve them.

There’s also a question of scale. Since Ukraine managed to destroy some of Russia’s advanced and expensive artillery system, Moscow has deployed a huge number of its older systems, opting for brute force instead of nimble targeting. Russia has achieved parity not through technology, but through volume.

According to leaked Pentagon documents, as of early 2023, Russia owned nearly 5,000 artillery systems—of which only about 20 percent had been destroyed. Ukraine, by contrast, has received, at most, a few dozen HIMARS systems. Even if the missile system is less effective than it was in 2022, a greater quantity would undoubtedly give Ukraine an edge. That’s also true for the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, which Ukraine began receiving late last year. A group of pro-Ukrainian Republican lawmakers decried that weapon transfer as a “job half-done,” as they arrived in small quantities and equipped for only some of their intended capabilities.

“All these innovations—at the end of the day, it’s about scale,” Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s minister of defense, tells WIRED. “If you don’t have the innovations which can be produced in such quantities that will change the course of the war, it means that they still have to rely on the existing methods and existing weapons systems.”

There is some optimism that new weapons deliveries could tilt the balance more in Ukraine’s favor, particularly the Dutch-supplied, American-made F-16 fighter jets and the Abrams M1 tank. Ukrainian soldiers are training on both platforms now.

“Mr. Putin is going to find out that there’s a whole lot of weapons systems coming on board that he is not going to be able to respond to,” US senator Mike Rounds, who sits on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, tells WIRED. “And it’s going to give Ukraine the opportunity to continue to advance and take back the land that is theirs.”

Throughout the war, more and more advanced missiles and launchers have enabled Ukraine to strike deeper and deeper into Russian-held territory. Now, Ukraine has successfully managed to attack supply routes as far as the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea to Russia, and Belgorod within Russia proper.

But Kyiv wants to reach even further into Russian territory, stepping up its tactical strike campaign to attack Russian ships, airfields, supply depots, and command centers that are currently out of reach. If Ukraine can destroy Russian warehouses and stockpiles near the front lines, and increase the distance its trucks must travel to resupply its positions, it could negate the effect of Russia’s overwhelming artillery.

But Ukraine still lacks several types of those longer-range missiles and has relatively low quantities of the munitions it has received. “We’re probably not going as fast as a lot of us would like,” Rounds told reporters at the Halifax Security Forum in November.

More HIMARS and long-range munitions are critical in overcoming that parity, but they will be meaningless if Ukraine runs out of more basic ammunition. “It's not just a matter of providing some of the new technologies,” Rounds said. “It's a matter of making sure that they actually have the other resources that they need to make it through the winter time.”

In recent weeks, Ukraine has had to ration its 155-mm caliber artillery shells due to shortages. Various NATO countries have tapped into their stockpiles to provide those shells over the past year, and are now scrambling to boost domestic production. Bill Blair, Canada’s defense minister, admitted in November that there are “shortfalls” in that production capacity. “We need to see the same type of investment and progress in increasing production here in North America and in Europe,” Blair said.

Ramping up that production in NATO countries could take a year or more. Zaluzhnyi wrote that Ukraine needs to produce this equipment, and even more advanced weaponry, itself.

Some of this is already happening. Ukraine’s defense industry is being “overhauled for innovation,” Hird says. A prime example is Kyiv’s Seababy naval drones, which were developed inside Ukraine and have managed to deliver devastating damage to Russia’s Black Sea fleet. But the volume of output will need to increase drastically.

So as Ukraine tries to boost production at home, it is fighting a three-front war: one on the front lines; another deep inside its occupied territory and even in Russia itself, where warehouses and stockpiles sit; and a third in the information space, worldwide, in trying to convince its allies to continue and boost their support.

Fortifying its defenses will buy Ukraine time to come up with new strategies and test out new technologies—but it should also be an invitation to rethink its “strategic influence narratives,” Ryan says. That is, convincing NATO to not just maintain its support, but increase it.

That also means fighting back against Russian propaganda. Last month, the BBC and the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank, uncovered a massive Russian disinformation campaign on TikTok, designed to discredit Ukrainian officials using narratives tailor-made for Western audiences. It is just one skirmish in a broader information war, where Ukraine is losing ground.

While Kyiv has its supporters, like Rounds, Blair, and Pevkur, it also has new opponents. Mike Johnson, the recently elected speaker of the US House of Representatives, has held up billions in military aid. Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, has similarly frustrated support from within the European Union. Big wins for pro-Russian politicians, from Geert Wilders in the Netherlands to Robert Fico in Slovakia, could threaten future aid packages.

Information Superiority

An “essential” part of breaking out of this position warfare, Zaluzhnyi wrote, is obtaining “information superiority.” Understanding the battlefield better than the enemy.

It may seem counterintuitive. This is a conflict where, as Hird puts it, “everyone knows what everyone’s doing at all times.” The war in Ukraine is probably the most visible conflict in human history: Both sides have employed a suite of drones, radar, aircraft, and satellite to chart every inch of the conflict. But, as Ryan explains, an aerial view is only a piece of the picture.

“We confuse increased transparency with increased wisdom,” he says. “And they’re two very different things.”

Military planners often talk about ISR: intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. (Sometimes the acronym is expanded to include target acquisition.) Certainly, Ukraine has managed to do incredible reconnaissance, particularly thanks to its fleet of drones, which it has integrated tightly into its ground operations. But it can do more, Ryan says. Russia’s ability to quickly move and deploy its reserve units has previously caught Ukraine by surprise, he notes.

Figuring out how to not just improve its intelligence collection, but make it more accessible, will also be key.

Last fall, Luxembourg and Estonia launched a new IT coalition, with an eye to connect the private sector to the Ukrainian military. “The coalition, of course, will not change the course of the war immediately,” Pevkur says. “But it’s just one piece of the puzzle to find the solutions.”

“We’ve sent some software to them to help shape the battlefield,” Pevkur says. He says they’ve already received “good feedback.”

One such piece of software is SensusQ, an Estonian AI-powered platform that mixes real-time footage with a variety of other inputs, from social media updates to human intelligence. The company says its platform is already in use in multiple places across Ukraine.

Kyiv has also used software developed by tech giant Palantir to conduct target acquisition, deploying AI and facial recognition technology to identify Russian positions. While Palantir has not revealed exactly which capabilities it is providing to Ukraine, the company recently unveiled “a ChatGPT-style digital assistant that enables operators to efficiently deploy reconnaissance drones, devise tactical responses, and orchestrate enemy communication jamming,” as the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology described it last June.

Shyam Sankar, Palantir’s chief technology officer, told a US Senate committee last year that Ukraine’s ability to integrate new technology into its military, particularly AI, has seen the timeline from procurement to implementation trimmed “from years and months to weeks and days.”

What makes this innovation particularly remarkable is how widespread it has already become.

“I think the Ukrainians are well down this path to what I call the democratization of digital command and control,” Ryan says. “They have pushed down digital command and control, the access to information, on smart devices in a way no other military has really done.”

Decentralizing intelligence collection and distribution means units are armed with much more information on the front lines, and are more equipped to make decisions on the fly instead of being reliant on senior commanders. Ryan says it will be crucial to push that information further down, and more quickly—but it will also be necessary to improve the flow of information upward.

“The Ukrainians are pretty good at bottom-up adaptation,” Ryan says. But they need to be able to apply battlefield lessons quickly, in a systematic way. “It’s been improving, certainly, since my first visit—and I’ve had some pretty long conversations about it on my last one, about six weeks ago. But I think that systemic learning culture is something that they need to continue improving because the Russians aren’t very good with bottom-up innovation.”

Given the speed at which Ukraine is learning and adapting, it will also require that its NATO partners be willing to adapt at the same speed. Pevkur insists they are already well on their way. “So that means that when they have the weapon system and they use it, we will get some feedback, we will change it,” he says.

Prior to last summer’s counteroffensive, American military planners held a series of tabletop exercises with their Ukrainian counterparts to game out how the fighting could play out. Ryan says that kind of collaboration needs to be broader and deeper, geared to win the war, not just individual battles.

“We can be their strap-on brain,” Ryan says. “We can work through the theories that might help with more effective offensive operations in this scenario. I mean, NATO has hundreds of people who are military planners and can help do this.”

What Comes Next

In the coming months, Ukraine and Russia are likely to opt for missile and drone strikes instead of big ground operations, as winter sets in and they work to refresh their ground forces.

If last year was any indication, Moscow will spend early 2024 expanding its defensive lines and deploying a huge amount of hardware to the battlefield, new and old—mines, artillery systems, fighter jets, and missile launchers.

If Ukraine hopes to advance this year, it will likely need to discover its own equivalent of gunpowder. That may come in the form of uncrewed land vehicles, which could crash through Russian lines and clear the dense minefields in its way. Or, perhaps, Ukraine will finally find a way to network its drone fleets and attain air superiority over its skies. Maybe it will achieve a breakthrough in electronic warfare, devising a way to jam Russia’s systems and neutralize its missiles and loitering munitions. Kyiv may receive the long-range missiles it has been requesting or begin producing its own. Perhaps it will be all of the above, or something else entirely.

But as Kyiv and its allies work feverishly to find that breakthrough, it will need to continue perfecting the tactics that have made it such a worthy adversary thus far. That will mean holding its international coalition together, making the most of its existing weapon systems, and figuring out how to adapt on the fly.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Because we do those things through our capitalist system to the benefit of said system.

I wish I could say I was surprised that you went for circular logic.

Capitalism is private ownership and trade of goods and services. The government giving people money to live is not that. In fact, nothing about UBI is limited to a capitalist economic system. It could happen in socialism, in feudalism, in mercantilism, in corporatism.

The only thing it couldn't happen in is anarchy, because an anarchic system is one without any government.

Also, "happens in an X system" does not make something X. If you live in a system called "Fooism" that outlaws owning blue Hawaiian shirts, and you have blue Hawaiian shirts, you are not acting within the Fooist system.

Also, "for the benefit of the system" is, um, an unsupported claim. Doing something to supposedly benefit a Fooist system does not mean the action is itself inherently Fooist, or part of a Fooist system. I donate food to benefit a homeless charity without being homeless myself.

I also already mentioned that UBI is widely supported by leftists. And other anti-capitalists.

Weird how all those people who think UBI is directly counter to capitalism are somehow supporting it because it benefits capitalism.

Unless you think laissez-faire is the only form of capitalism or something.

I fail to grok your reasoning here. Again.

But I don't actually see leftists advocating for UBI that much. That shit is a half step to them. Maybe that's just me.

Here's the popular socialist magazine, Jacobin, repeatedly supporting UBI:

And the UK's Socialist Party;

https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/24401/08-02-2017/universal-basic-income-what-do-socialists-say/

And some paper (PDF warning): https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1120&context=classracecorporatepower

In the interests of fairness, I did find other articles and posts about how some leftists are somewhat critical of UBI, or even outright opposed, including Jacobin. Like this;

[esgtrends]

Challenges of using AI for ESG

At present, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the game in various industries, and asset management is certainly not left behind. As asset managers aim to incorporate ESG factors into their investment strategies, AI has gained prominence owing to its potential to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of ESG assessments. Through AI tools, asset managers can gain valuable insights into the ESG performance of companies, which helps them make more informed investment choices, facilitate regulatory compliance, and safeguard investments from potential risks.

AI in asset management

Asset managers can use AI for multiple objectives, allowing them to move beyond traditional practices and optimize decision-making.

Portfolio Management: AI algorithms can be used to scan a vast repository of data to inform asset allocation strategies and rebalance portfolios in real time.

Algorithmic Trading: AI-based trading systems can execute trades faster to help maximize short-term market opportunities.

Risk Management: Using AI predictive models, asset managers can identify and manage a diverse range of risks, such as market, credit, and operational.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM): AI-based CRM models can customize client interaction, providing curated recommendations on investments or conducting risk profiling and adjustments based on real-time data, thereby improving overall client satisfaction levels.

Fraud Detection: By analyzing the patterns of transactions, AI can help in the timely detection of fraudulent activities.

ESG Performance Analysis: AI can enhance ESG analysis by assessing a company’s performance based on a set of ESG criteria.

Benefits of AI in ESG Asset Management

The introduction of AI into asset management practices has helped reshape the industry by enhancing the decision-making process and providing valuable insights that help asset managers make data-driven and informed decisions. Additionally, AI’s role in improving risk management helps proactively detect and flag potential risks prior to an escalation, so that asset managers can address these issues preemptively.

By automating routine tasks, AI offers another significant benefit in terms of efficiency gains. The automation of mundane processes allows asset managers to focus on strategic

initiatives, improving productivity and allowing more space for innovation and creativity in asset management. For clients, AI can help asset managers create customized interactions, including tailored advice based on their risk-return profile, previous investment trajectory, and goals.

Although AI is not a silver bullet and has its shortcomings, by leveraging AI tools, asset managers can gain a competitive advantage by increasing the accuracy and efficiency of their investment strategies. While the expertise and decision-making of asset managers remain an essential tenet, AI can serve as a valuable complement by helping asset management companies differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded market.

Growing adoption of AI in ESG assessments

The use of AI in the ESG space has been increasing rapidly. This is witnessed through examples such as its integration into the ESG taxonomy of the Sustainable Development Investment Asset Owner platform, a global standard that aims to help institutional investors measure and align their investments with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UNSDG), bringing together asset owners with a collective Assets Under Management (AUM) of USD 1.5 trillion.

For ESG assessments, AI has played a transformative role in the data collection and analysis process, a constant pain point for ESG analysis. AI’s ability to scan information from various sources, including financial reports, news, and social media, has been used by asset managers to explore investment opportunities. Through automation and streamlining, AI has been able to improve the reliability and availability of data, thereby enhancing ESG screening, trend analysis, and risk assessment.

Another key feature is the increasing use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools. NLP-based techniques can extract a vast pool of information from unstructured texts such as news articles and company reports to support ESG analysis. Moreover, NLP tools can detect the sentiment of texts and hence can flag controversies or negative sentiments, helping asset managers identify ESG controversies and potential risks. Inrate has successfully integrated NLP into its ESG controversy datasets, resulting in a wider database for analysis that covers over 200,000 global news sources.

Machine Learning (ML) has been another key element in improving the predictive capacity of ESG models and assessments. By applying ML algorithms to historical patterns in ESG data, it is possible to predict ESG performance. It can use trends and patterns to help analyze a company’s trajectory based on set criteria such as compliance or performance levels. This feature is important for asset managers as it supports them in making forward-looking investment decisions. However, due to the ever-changing ESG landscape, the scope and depth of company disclosure continue to evolve, resulting in the predictive capacity of these assessments changing and their accuracy being heavily dependent on the assimilation and analysis of this information by ESG experts.

Challenges of using AI for ESG

While AI has its benefits, key challenges remain:

The efficacy of AI insights hinges solely on the quality of the data it processes. Incomplete or inaccurate data can lead to skewed ESG assessments, misrepresenting the ESG performance of companies or leading to ill-informed investment decisions. This issue is especially prevalent in emerging markets where a lack of transparency or reporting guidelines can result in data quality issues. This emphasizes the importance of validation of AI-based results by ESG experts to ensure the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the data.

Algorithmic bias poses another challenge. Models trained using unbalanced or biased datasets may reinforce these biases in their results, skewing predictions and assessments. This can mislead investors as the resultant company’s ESG performance gets misrepresented if represented solely based on AI results.

There have also been growing ethical concerns regarding privacy and data manipulation. As AI collects vast amounts of data, concerns have been raised about the usage of the data to manipulate ESG ratings by disclosing selective information. These concerns have led to a stronger push for oversight on AI-based data by ESG professionals.

As the adoption of AI becomes prominent, there is a developing regulatory framework governing its usage in asset management. Firms may need to spend additional time and resources to stay on top of such changes and ensure they comply with them. Moreover, it is important to ensure that AI-driven insights are being used as compliments to human analysis. An overreliance in the absence of a regulatory framework may result in risks being overlooked.

Conclusion

AI has redefined our way of thinking about ESG impact assessments by automating routine tasks, improving data collection processes, enhancing decision-making, and assessing potential risks. However, while AI applications in this space continue to increase, it is important to understand the challenges. The quality of AI-driven insights depends significantly on the reliability of the data, which is often incomplete or biased, leading to potentially flawed outcomes. Additionally, AI models can inherit biases from the data they are trained on, skewing ESG predictions. Ethical concerns also arise around privacy, data manipulation, and the potential over-reliance on AI, especially in the absence of clear regulatory frameworks. These challenges highlight the need for asset managers to balance AI tools with human oversight to ensure accurate and responsible ESG assessments.

[faysalahmed]

Microservices are a popular architectural style for building and deploying software applications as a collection of small, independent services. However, microservices are not a silver bullet, and they come with some challenges and trade-offs. Therefore, there are some situations where microservices may not be the best choice, such as:

- When you have a simple or small application that does not require high scalability, availability, or agility. In this case, a monolithic architecture may be easier to develop, test, and deploy, without introducing unnecessary complexity or overhead.

- When you have a rapidly changing or evolving domain model that requires frequent changes across service boundaries. In this case, microservices may increase the coupling and dependency between services, making it harder to refactor or update them. A modular monolithic architecture may be more suitable for this scenario, as it allows you to isolate and change modules within a single process.

- When you have limited resources or expertise to handle the operational and security challenges of microservices. Microservices require more infrastructure, monitoring, and automation tools to manage the distributed system. They also introduce more attack vectors and data protection issues that need to be addressed. If you do not have the necessary skills, tools, or budget to deal with these challenges, you may end up with a fragile and insecure system.

These are some of the common cases where you should not use microservices, but there may be others depending on your specific context and requirements. Microservices are not a one-size-fits-all solution, and one should carefully evaluate the pros and cons of each architectural style before choosing one.

Source:

(1) When to Use and When NOT to Use Microservices: No Silver Bullet. https://medium.com/design-microservices-architecture-with-patterns/when-to-use-and-when-not-to-use-microservices-no-silver-bullet-3ae293faf6d.

(2) Challenges of Microservices & When To Avoid Them. https://www.bmc.com/blogs/microservices-challenges-when-to-avoid/.

(3) Microservices Guide - Martin Fowler. https://martinfowler.com/microservices/.

(4) When to Use and When NOT to Use Microservices: No Silver Bullet. https://medium.com/design-microservices-architecture-with-patterns/when-to-use-and-when-not-to-use-microservices-no-silver-bullet-3ae293faf6d.

(5) Challenges of Microservices & When To Avoid Them. https://www.bmc.com/blogs/microservices-challenges-when-to-avoid/.

(6) Microservices Guide - Martin Fowler. https://martinfowler.com/microservices/.

(7) Challenges of Microservices & When To Avoid Them. https://www.bmc.com/blogs/microservices-challenges-when-to-avoid/.

(8) What are Microservices? - GeeksforGeeks. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/microservices/.

(9) Microservices Guide - Martin Fowler. https://martinfowler.com/microservices/.

[iraempirecom]

Mark Albarian Goldline

Goldline's President, Mark Albarian, is a popular name in the precious metals trading industry. The company has made news for its global operations, which provide a platform for investors and collectors to trade in gold and silver coins, as well as other precious metals.

This article delves into Mark Albarian's early days, the rich history, and the strategic shifts that have shaped Goldline into the industry leader it is today. For detailed information, check out: Goldline Reviews

Mark Albarian: Early Years

Attending UC Berkeley and UCLA (1978-1983), Mark Albarian dual-majored in Economics and Political Science. Between 1983 and 1984, he served as Assistant Vice President of West Coast Bank's Numismatic Department. Following that, he held the role of Vice President at Valley State Bank Collateral Loan Division from 1984 to 1986. During 1986-1991, he co-founded a successful rare coin and precious metals company in Los Angeles. With ANA membership since 1980, he consulted for numismatic firms (1979-1983). Taking office as Goldline's President in January 1992, Mark Albarian assumed leadership.

About Goldline

Goldline traces its roots back to the formation of a Deak & Co. subsidiary in 1960. The company was founded by Nicholas Deak, a Hungarian immigrant who initially specialized in foreign exchange and gold coins and bullion. Over the decades, Goldline has been bought and sold multiple times, with each transition shaping its future direction.

The Deak & Co. Era

In the late 1970s, Deak & Co. emerged as the largest storefront gold retailer in the U.S. However, by the early 1980s, they experienced growing pains due to rapid expansion, particularly during the gold economic bubble which burst by 1982. It was during this time that the company decided to shift its focus to the wholesale market, providing services to companies rather than individuals. Deak & Co. had a significant impact on the international gold market, particularly through the sale of South Africa's Krugerrand. However, they were forced to halt sales due to pressures related to South Africa's apartheid system in 1985.

The Transfer of Ownership

The transition phase saw Deak & Co. change hands multiple times. In 1985, a Singapore-based lawyer purchased the company for $52 million. The following year, Australia's Martin Properties Ltd. acquired the foreign exchange and gold business for $12 million. By 1990, the London-based Thomas Cook Group bought the company for $10-$12 million. The company saw a significant rebranding in the 1990s. It changed its name to Goldline International, Inc., and Mark Albarian, a prominent figure in the industry, became its president. Under his leadership, Goldline acquired the assets of Gold & Silver Emporium and later, Dreyfus Precious Metals, Inc., enhancing its market position.

Why Are Investors Diversifying Their Portfolio?

Experts agree that the financial market is now even more fragile than pre-2008. Will your retirement portfolio weather the imminent financial crisis? Threats are many. Pick your poison..

The financial system would be in great peril if one or more big banks fail. "When we get to a downturn, banks won't have the cushion to absorb the losses. Without a cushion, we will have 2008 and 2009 again."

Student debt, which has been on a steep rise for years, could figure greatly in the next credit downturn. "There are parallels to 2008: There are massive amounts of unaffordable loans being made to people who can't pay them"

The US national debt has spiked $1 trillion in less than 6 months! "If we keep throwing gas on flames with deficit spending, I worry about how severe the next downturn is going to be--and whether we have enough bullets left ,"

Total household debt rose to an all-time high of $13.67 trillion at year-end 2019. "Any type of secured lending backed by an asset that is overvalued should be a concern… that is what happened with housing." Get in touch with an expert using the button down below:

The Expansion Phase

The new millennium brought further opportunities for growth. In 2005, Goldline was sold to three investor groups: Prudential Capital, Goldline management, and Goldline’s former chairman. In 2009, CIVC, a Chicago-based private equity company, acquired a controlling interest in Goldline, marking a transaction worth over $50 million. Goldline has made a name for itself as a reliable retailer of various precious metals. The company deals in gold coins, silver coins, platinum, bullion bars and coins, and other precious metals. It has managed to build a strong customer base, with its growth reflected in its revenue figures. In 2009, Goldline reported sales revenue of $825 million, securing its position among the fastest-growing companies in Los Angeles County, California.

Marketing Efforts

Goldline has adopted a multi-channel marketing strategy, leveraging the power of the internet, radio, and television. They have also enlisted the support of prominent figures like Jay W. Johnson, the former Director of the United States Mint, and John Mercanti, the retired 12th Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint, as spokespersons. Goldline operates through various modes, including phone, internet, and in-person. The company ensures transparency in its operations, with all fees, commissions, and pricing details disclosed in writing to customers. However, it has faced criticism for its high markups, particularly on collectible coins.

The Legal Controversies

Over the years, Goldline has faced several legal challenges. In 2011, the Santa Monica City Attorney's Office charged Goldline with 19 counts of theft and fraud. However, in 2012, all criminal charges associated with the investigations were dropped as part of a settlement agreement.

Conclusion

The journey of Goldline is a testament to the company's resilience and adaptability. Despite facing numerous challenges, it has managed to steer its course and emerge as a leading player in the precious metals trading industry. The company's commitment to transparency, customer service, and ethical business practices continues to guide its operations as it looks towards the future. To find a detailed analysis of the company, I suggest checking out Goldline Reviews. Check out our top gold IRA firms of the year if you're thinking about investing in a gold IRA. Opening a precious metals IRA is a major decision. That's why I suggest checking out our top gold IRA providers list. There, you can find the best precious metals dealer in your state and choose accordingly. Also, the list will help you understand what the industry's best has to offer. Furthermore, it helps with what you might miss out on. Find the best Gold IRA company in your state Read the full article

[daisyachain]

@theredfields thank you I would be delighted!!! Mandatory disclaimer: Actual Play-style storytelling with the requisite dilute storytelling amidst the table talk. This is a non-WotC system and moves a lot faster than DnD-based systems.

Background:

200 years ago, the ruling god was slain and his angels—the stars—were cast down from the firmament, causing a metaphysical cataclysm à la The Fifth Season. The nations broke, and the world as we know it is now made up of city-states tenuously connected by dangerous trade routes. Seasons change randomly from week to week. The Mariner and his Drowned Fleet of undead sailors kill any human who wanders out on the waves. The old gods (Luminaries) who were tamped down by the Slain God are coming back into power, making forests and rivers impassable for humans.

Some hundred years ago, a trade guild known as the Redfeather Syndicate discovered the power of the mysterious Featherweave to lift almost anything into the air with the application of heat. Converting sea ships to skyships, the Syndicate annihilated their embattled sea trading rivals, including the shipbuilders of Bandari and the Oarsmen of [I forget the name but it’s fantasy Ireland].

Since then, the only travellers in the world have been the Syndicate with their exclusive license on Featherweave, their associates and privateers, and the corsairs who have somehow stolen Featherweave enough to sail. We follow one such crew on the skyship Uhuru, trying to survive outside of the tyrannical reign of the Syndicate��

Starting points:

Each arc is designed to be a fresh start, with introductions to the characters and the world. Some good starting points are:

Burza Nyth arc (ep 16-46)

Long, eventful, great character moments for all involved

The crew of the Uhuru pull into the wretched hive of Burza Nyth to sell their stolen Featherweave. While there, they get forcibly signed up to the Aur Piora bird tournament, attacked by like 3 separate evil factions, and go bird shopping.

The first ‘real arc.’ Features the key inciting event and plenty of RP as well as action.

The bird race takes place as minigames, which provide a quick and high-value payoff while you wait for the longer arc to get to its climax.

Full recommendation, the only problem is that it’s 40 full episodes and it does lag in places. There’s also one PC that I personally don’t vibe with for the first few arcs and he’s in this one too.

The Silver Bullet arc (ep 112-128, alternately just 114-123):

Short

Action-heavy

The helmsperson of the Uhuru sights a strange shadow of a ship on the horizon during a bachelor party. Suddenly, the Uhuru finds itself in the throes of a mutiny where the dissatisfied crew have some mysterious outside help…

Introductory arc for the 4th main character in the cast. This is my fav of the main 4, so I’m prejudiced toward this storyline.

Because of its short length, RP-lite structure, and fast pace, this arc gives you a payoff much quicker than the others.

Civility arc (ep 3-9)

Combat-heavy mini-arc

Quickest possible intro, features the classic bird-and-sword action that I like from Skyjacks

Has some early-installment weirdness. The following episodes lag a bit before we fully get into the Burza Nyth arc.

If you’re looking for something different, the other arcs are (in order):

Nordia - one of the PCs encounters a lost love, one of the PCs accidentally starts a cult, and a routine maintenance stop becomes deadly when an old enemy shows up. Lots of jokes about Minnesota.

N’Goni - the PCs make some new NPC friends and navigate their toughest battle yet: apologizing to someone for doing something really quite bad to them for a long time.

Deauxmignon - one of the PCs learns magic, one reckons with their horrible ex, the remaining two go on a very tense hunting trip as they each try to get one over on the other

Akaron - one of the PCs gets into a massive fight with another PC’s dad on their birthday, a third PC very nearly ruins the party for everyone

Woods - Alice in Wonderland/Lotus Eathsr type arc of surreal imagery, dreams, and temptations

Shepherd Island - mini-arc with some cool imagery and a big set piece battle

Sorrow’s End - the PCs set down at a debtor’s colony after being stranded at sea, then try to drive a wedge between the church and syndicate in town to undermine their rule

If the posting hasn’t been enough: vvhy don’t vve all listen to Skyjacks. VVouldn’t it be lovely if vve took the time to listen to the 18th-century alt history folkloric fantasy tale inspired by the music of the Decembrists and the card game Illimat, worked on by a variety of freelancers including Patrick Rothfuss, heavily influenced by Terry Pratchett’s novels (specifically Tiffany Aching). I can make guides. I can make writeups and summaries. Join us in the skydome.

[platinumcrow]

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[akumaalert]

Medical Log Sixty-nine

Karl Heisenberg x AFAB Reader (Uses She/Her); Explicit Content, 18+ ONLY

CW: Medicplay, medical kink, medical examination, voice kink, roleplay, consensual voyeurism

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31802593 

"Medical log...this is my...sixty-ninth attempt."

You rolled your eyes. Of course he would go for a sex joke the second the recording snapped on.

Staying still was a difficult task. The steel table was chilling your back and your muscles screamed at you to purse away from the cold.

The warmth between your legs, however, demanded that you stayed.

Heisenberg began exactly as he said he would - listing off your name and age with that ever lilting voice that made your cunt clench in delight.

"Body is in...fuck...the most gorgeous condition..."

Playing dead was so hard when he was out of view. Heisenberg was so expressive and you were missing all the nuances you so adored. You could only picture him studying you - licking those delectably thick lips that you loved to nip. The fact that he was fully clothed and hovering over your naked body was as thrilling as it was nerve wracking.

Part of you willed stillness on the sheer fear that if you moved, the spell would be broken and Heisenberg’s role of doctor would be traded for actual work. Convincing him of doing this had not been the simplest task. The first time he caught you listening to one of his medical logs, he had raised a quizzical eyebrow and chuckled lightly at your blush. When you laid in his arms after making love one morning, you had shyly admitted the desires that had been ignited simply by listening to his voice.

"I think they umm...I think it's technically called medical play..."

The swiftness with which he cut you off still made you feel shame. "I'm not experimenting on you."

It took all the strength you could muster to look at him despite your cheeks absolutely burning. You placed a hand on his own cheek to rub the pad of your finger over one of his scars. "No. No...that's not what I meant. It's pretend. For fun. Roleplaying basically..."

You loved when his glasses were missing from his face. Green eyes flickered - studying you intently - before his lips stretched into an attractive smirk. "Would that turn you on, buttercup?"

And so the two of you had planned. It was convenient that the toys you needed were inconspicuous medical equipment. Most you already had and the others were obtained from the Duke without suspicion. At least you hoped. He was always a jovial fellow and at least didn't question the use for the pinwheel. Where the rest came from, you did not question. It wouldn't do to dwell on the purpose or origin when living in the shadow of Miranda's clutches.

When Heisenberg's hand ghosted near your head in the present, you repressed the want to moan.

"Proceeding with inspection..."

One leather clad hand cupped a cheek while a bare, calloused fingertip lined your lips. You could not entirely make him out like this, but you could see his green undershirt in delightful detail if you rolled your eyes high enough. His trench coat and his outer shirt had been discarded and the thought made your skin prickle. The spirals of his chest hair peeking from his shirt made your fingers tent with a want to touch him.

But cadavers couldn't move. So you swallowed and resisted the temptation to dart your tongue to meet his caress.

"Subject has the softest lips...prettiest damn thing I've ever studied."

Heat and the ever lingering static that was Heisenberg radiated just a breath behind you. If you had any courage to move just so, you imagined that his crotch sat just above your line of sight.

Would he already be hard? Heisenberg had held his typical swagger when you had mapped out your wants and respected his limitations. But you could tell that hesitancy still sat not so lightly on his shoulders. Perhaps he would need to drag things out - let his pleasure build as yours boiled in every limb.

Eyes half lidded, you nearly missed the scalpel floating gingerly through the air. As Heisenberg had insisted, only the handle touched your skin. Beginning at the curve of your jaw, it traced ever so slowly down your throat like a breath. Despite the lack of danger, the sensitive skin pimpled and your throat constricted.

"It's as if I built her myself...everything I could ever fucking want. Absolute damn perfection," he muttered. Feeling drunk off his words, you struggled to keep up with them all. After all, you were not sure how sensitive the recording would be. Heisenberg was a loud man - a grand man - and so rarely whispered as he did now. "A lovely neck...if only I had found her sooner...might have given her a necklace of teeth marks to wear."

When the scalpel slipped to your chest, your gasp could not be stifled. But instead of stopping, Heisenberg simply removed his fingers from your face to set both hands in a frame on either side of your head. He was adjusting and leaning and soon his eyes met with yours. Though you could not see anything below the rugged slope of his nose, you imagined his mouth as slightly parted.

His eyes were normally flecked with golds and browns, but the darkness there now was not an uncommon sight. You saw it when he was angry - returning from family meetings or trips to the Dimitrescu castle. Whenever his facade had been tested for too long with his "mother" and the walls came crashing down the moment the doors to the factory were closed.

You also saw it when he was lost to lust - when he used arms as steady as steel to hold you to him until you were both limp messes on the floor or the desk or the shower or the bed.

It was a color you so treasured - especially when the hints of softness clouded them as they did now.

Heisenberg's voice careened and curled just like the scalpel's handle around your breast. So light but so heavy.

"I don't need any damn notes for these tits...have them fucking memorized. Fuck what I wouldn't give to put my mouth on them. What a damn waste. Body is so cold and those nipples are perked up so nicely. Inspecting..." He audibly swallowed, clearing his throat. "Inspecting chest in detail now."

While the scalpel handle swirled against one of your nipples, Heisenberg's gloved hand went to your ignored breast in a firm squeeze. You were already so worked up by the mere prospect of your play. To have it as a reality with Heisenberg towering over you and switching his attention from your breasts to your eyes to your lips and back again was absolute torture. The leather on his fingers did nothing to help you. The gloves were old and worn into a fibrous texture that made every hair on your neck stand on end.

Your lover was a cruel man, but not a patient one. With his pointer finger and thumb, he twisted your nipple. Eyes clapping shut, you shook when you realized a tremble in the scalpel. A telltale sign of his passions rising and his powers thrumming along with them.

"Color?" he asked in a voice of gravel.

It took you a moment to understand his inquiry. Your stoplight system. That Heisenberg was already checking in with you filled you with a whole new type of warmth. Nodding with flushed cheeks, you ran your tongue against the roof of your mouth.

"Green," you muttered.

So he continued.

"Nipples are extremely responsive." The scalpel and his hand pulled away but for a moment before the sides were switched. But with them came the feeling of his bare hand on your equally bare chest. "I could stand here all day just admiring the view. Not a damn thing to say to do it justice."

He flitted between a tender touch and a rolling, twinging pinch. The scalpel rolled along with it all, though there were intervals when it remained still against your skin. As if his mind could not keep up with it all. It would start back again with a lurch and small grunts of frustration from its master.

"Moving to the lower torso..."

Your body arched when he moved and broke contact with your skin. The scalpel's trail became steadier as it looped around your breast to slide so terribly slow down the middle of your chest. Down it slipped and once again your fingers were fidgety. The skin of your stomach felt particularly sensitive, especially when the scalpel began to dance in patterns too quick and too slow for your mind to process.

"These hips of hers...the legs...hard not to get too ahead of myself..."

Though you could not see him at all now with your head locked in its position, it made the situation all the more welcome to your growing need. In your mind he studied you - watched your body with all the appreciation he was so fond of giving it. He might pay attention to your stomach - to the invisible designs he was tracing there. But his eyes would inevitably flicker to look between your legs. There was no gown or sheet to protect you from his hungry gaze. There was nothing at all preventing him from doing the myriad of things that you longed for him to do.

By the sound of his breathing, you knew Heisenberg was not left unaffected.

"Subject...is gonna fucking pay for making part of my work part of her play," he growled. "Do you have any idea how distracted I'm going to be every time I go in for an actual log? But you don't care, do you? It's all about you."

Tension hung in the air and one of your legs stretched upward, suddenly aching.

Heisenberg's hand came down fast to push it back into place.

"Didn't say I wasn't gonna indulge you," he said, playfulness in his voice. He gripped your knee still held in his hand with a soft touch. "Just that you'll pay for this later."

Lightly nodding, you felt his hand leave you. Your entire body tensed when the scalpel - ever streaming down your skin - began a descent that told you just how impatient Heisenberg had become.

It didn't help that a series of items - familiar and agreed upon in advance - floated over you on a glinting silver tray. You could not tell if they moved slowly due to his powers flitting with his emotions or if he simply was intent on you seeing them.

A bottle of lube. A bullet vibrator and its controller. The Wartenberg pinwheel. Another scalpel for the hell of it.

If the scalpel on your skin ran near your aching cunt, you never felt it. The next thing you knew, it was landing on your thigh and stalling.

As if he could not help himself, his hands were on you again. This time instead of pushing a leg onto the table, he pried both of your legs open with a prodding touch.

Though it broke your play, you took a large inhale of air. You could not recall ever being so wet or so ready.

Heisenberg let out a low whistle.

"You're soaked, buttercup." A pause. The telltale sound of buckles being clicked and dropped to the floor.

You could not take it and spoke with a whine.

"Not fair...I can't see you."

The chuckle he gave was dark. "A shame. It's like someone asked for this. Ironic. You're such a whore that your little game is preventing you from watching me. And I know how you love to watch."

The asshole took his time to slowly unzip his pants. The heat in your body was palpable and painful. A small gratified groan told you all you needed to know about where his hands had gone.

"Pretty, pretty girl..." he cooed. "Show isn't over yet. You had some requests and what kind of a lord would I be if I was to ignore one of my subject's pleas?"

The knowledge that he was stroking himself - languid even as your longing screamed through your very soul - made the pit of your stomach pulse with delayed pleasure.

Trying to even your breathing, you focused on the ceiling laid brown and bare above you. Or at least you tried. Heisenberg chose the absolute worst moment to bring both the second scalpel's handle and the brand new pinwheel onto the scene.

Huffing heatedly, you scrunched your face into a grimace. What a sight you must be - a scalpel on each thigh and a pinwheel hanging dangerously close to your cunt. You pushed the thought aside, unable to bear the image in your head.

"To the main event," he announced, voice returned to a rumbling purr. "Planting the 'control device.' Inserting now."

When he had added lube to the bullet, you did not know. Probably somewhere between your embarrassment and the blood pounding in your ears. Small and sleek, it entered your folds gently but awkwardly. Heisenberg's powers going on the fritz would never cease to endear you. He was so strong - so normally loud and wearing whatever mask that a situation called for. But in these moments with you, he was raw and his powers were unhinged in the most intimate of ways. It made you feel powerful - the ability to bring this lord of metal to timid movements when he could likely destroy the whole village with enough metal and mental will.

Rounding its way deeper and deeper inside of you, the bullet suddenly stilled. The sensations of the scalpels skating up and down your legs combined with the threat of the pinwheel overwhelmed you. If you had wanted to speak in that moment, it would have been quite out of your ability to remember how.

"Insertion complete."

Babbling during sex was another staple of Heisenberg's. But he was eerily quiet and controlled in the seconds that followed right up to the click of the controller.

The jolt to your core was immediate and you gasped in hurried breaths against the most exquisite pleasure you had ever felt. The fight to keep your fingers extended was lost as all ten fisted. You were so wet that the lube had been a moot point. The bullet buzzed inside of you and your hips shook with the herculean effort of staying still.

Heisenberg exhaled, voice faraway and dreamy.

"Ausgezeichnet...excellent. Progressing faster than expected."

You choked on air. Beyond your control, your body flinched against the hum of the bullet.

"Fuck," bit out Heisenberg. "Have a proposition for you...since you're going to be punished for making me work, I'm going to go back to the recording-"

"Oh God!"

"I'm going to go back to the recording," he repeated gruffly, ever incensed at being spoken over. "And I'm going to count the seconds that it takes for you to come. And however many seconds that is...that's how many spanks you'll be getting. Right on that luscious fucking ass of yours."

Another click of the bullet's controller made your eyes roll to the back of your head. Fingernails bit into your palm with the want to hold onto something - anything. How could you be so stimulated yet so far from release at the same time?

"I can see everything from where I'm standing," he continued. "Can you feel that wetness of yours? Dripping into your ass...pussy such a pretty pink shade. It'll go so nice with a red ass. One, two, three...you're building up to quite the spanking. Might want to hurry it along."

He was indeed a cruel man.

But not a patient one.

The pinwheel's weight was noticeable, but not deep. It pinched and rolled its way directly down and over your clit and the sensitive flesh splayed and shaking from sensation.

How you hated the gargle that you let out. It was ugly and incoherent.

"Too much!" you cried.

"Scheisse!" The pinwheel flew to the floor as the scalpels stopped. Even the bullet seemed to rumble ever lighter. "Color?"

It took you several breaths to gather the ability to nod. When Heisenberg remained quiet, you grunted. "Green...green...fucking green. Floor it."

Heisenberg laughed - all throat and no breath. "Floor it. Gotcha."

Making a strange sound - somewhere between a groan and a grunt - Heisenberg returned his hands to your body.

The hand free from leather stroked your thigh. The leather, however, fondled your mound and found your clit with practiced speed.

Barely able to keep up with the bullet and the scalpels and the trembles and the sound of Heisenberg's guttural encouragements, you closed your eyes and focused on the circles he made against that sensitive bundle of nerves.

You could not open your eyes or close your mouth. You could not do anything but chase a high approaching as sure as any sunrise.

Apparently taking pity on the mess you had become, Heisenberg only took one swift last round on your clit before speaking.

"Now to pass a current...through the body...using six volts..."

The words had no time to settle in before the action was done with his gentle hand on your quivering thigh.

Screaming, too, was beyond your control.

"Come on," he said through the return to your clit and the massage in your cunt and the swirls of scalpel handles on your legs. "Come on, come on, come on."

"KAR...k...kah..."

Your orgasm knocked the very air from your lungs. Pins of light erupted as your eyes squeezed with every furious flutter of pleasure. Your cunt was actually twitching and the glove on Heisenberg's hand felt so exquisite as it barely pressed down on your clit.

"Yes! Yes!" Egging you on with a happy laugh, Heisenberg uttered praises that registered in a haze. "At last...wonderful...what a good girl."

As the absolutely mind-numbing orgasm faded into your very bones, you lay there exhausted and beyond satisfied. Breathing became a chore that your throat seemed unused to performing.

Heisenberg moved as efficiently as ever to complete his work. The bullet was removed with care by his own fingers. When it had turned off, you had no recollection. The scalpels clattered to the table with a metallic hiss.

Sweat built on your brow and dragging down your temple, you swallowed and swallowed again. The sound of rushing water perked your tired body. You were slow to rise, testing fingers and a palm burning with indents of your nails. Soon, however, you had sat up. A swirl of satisfaction still sat low in your belly.

As satiated as you were, you could not help but enjoy the sight of Heisenberg standing before you. In one hand was a glass of water begging to be brought to your parched lips. In the other he held the recorder. You watched with hooded eyes as he clutched at the recorder before dropping his hand to adjust his pants.

Pants that hung low on his hips with the zipper pulled wide. The adorable swell of his lower belly was visible underneath his shirt. His cock was curved at such a beautiful angle above silver hair. It was blushed a dark pink with veins reaching up to a head that was nearly purple with need.

Bringing the recorder back to his mouth, Heisenberg eyed you before huffing.

"...ending recording."

[geek-fashionista]

835

Progress on my Stupid Decision:

91/100 Johto Pokemon caught on Soul Silver

A copy of Pokemon Black obtained (after trading in $70 worth of games)

All other games and two spare DS systems have been secured through either borrowing or gifts

Unobtainable Pokemon: Kanto Mew, Kalos Volcanion, Kalos Hoopa

But other than that, I should be covered! And now, Life in Bullet Points:

I had a bout of insomnia this past weekend, during which I discovered my emotions function at 3AM. I messaged my overseas friends crying about an important decision I had just made with a clearly level head that had nothing to do with being sleep-deprived at all, and now I’ve got a plan to put into action---but only if the Lord lets me follow through with it.

I visited my brother’s church, surprisingly fresh for someone who’d had very little sleep.

Afterwards I went to lunch with him and his friends and almost had a panic attack because I was among a group of strangers and had nothing to contribute to the conversation and the place was crowded and why hadn’t I just gone home and---

I managed to calm down before I burst into tears.

Yesterday I wrote two cover letters and submitted two job applications.

After submitting the second job application, I found a fresh rejection from a literary agent in my inbox.

So today I treated myself to ice cream from a local shop because I worked hard, damn it.

(I’m not allowed to apply for any more jobs this week.)

I also went to the grocery store, where I tried unsuccessfully to help someone who was about to drop their groceries. A two-liter soda bottle exploded all over me, which I found more humorous than upsetting, and so I cheerfully walked around the store drenched in soda while everyone looked at me funny.

And because I was still feeling somewhat blue about the rejection, I experimented in the kitchen and followed a parmesan crusted chicken breast recipe I’d saved on Instagram. 

...I forgot to update Muse again, didn’t I? Darn it.

[a-drop-of-nightshade]

As Silver faffed around trying to juggle calming Izzy down, plan their route around the alerted patrols and make sure everything was ready as well as making sure he had everything he needed just in case, he cashed in more points for a gun and then heard Alice spoke, his head whipped up and then he grabbed the note and ripped it up, “I fucking swear those little fucking shits!” He hissed angrily before tossing the gun to Alice, “Ignore it and I am so sorry about that.” He groaned.

When asked about dating his daughter he nodded, “Yes sir, my name’s Silver by the way. And she’s 25, it’s uh… it’s been a long time.” He muttered looking at him worriedly, when asked he laughed, “She’s spending the majority of the day with her mom, she doesn’t know I’m here. I wanted to surprise her, I cashed in a lord of points and converted them into credits, I Uh… paid their debts off and was planning on surprising them. I wanted to give Izzy her dad back, she loves you very much, I… found out you were still technically alive and so I’ve been planning for the last few months. Honestly any pain is worth it to see her smile so.” He laughed then rubbed the back of his head, “That was super corny huh?”

When asked about the map he grinned, “Sorry sir, trade secret.” He laughed, “But it’s to make sure we can get out, I’m trying not to have us get hurt you know? If I did, I wouldn’t die here but Iz will certainly kick my arse.” He shuddered, “Ah, don’t worry about being silent, just run, I’ve just cashed in a noise muffling barrier.” He said before he was picked up, he silently cussed but just activated the barrier and then they were off, he tried to not get in the way and kept a watch over his shoulder to watch their back, he messaged Izzy too just to keep her off his back. But Jesus Alice was terrifying and as he was put down he held out a bottle of water, “Damn sir that was really imp—” he startled and out sheer reflex grabbed Alice’s wrist as his hand came too close to his head.

He blinked confused before lowering his hand to see the blood, and then the bullet, he sucked in a sharp breath before he turned and looked at where it had come from. Now L didn’t really have magic, he was still adjusting to his tech, he wasn’t strong or fast like Alice, he wasn’t terrifying or imposing. He was quiet, nervous, not entirely a led and yet, yet when he saw who had fired the shot his mind went blank, there was a rush of memories, none his own. All of the memories shared from Izzy erupted in his mind, the torture, the abuse, the plans, the pain, and from it arose something he knew all to well. There was less than a minute on the clock, but time didn’t matter as the flood of adrenaline through his system numbed his body, his head became clear and it erupted through him burning, anger and rage that made him seem almost like another person entirely.

Alice would see it clearly, it showed and he almost exhumed the anger, the rage the look of a man about to commit a most foul murder. He didn’t react but he was cashing in points rapidly, his RIG began to flash and spark down his back the pain lost to him as he forced his RIG to break limits, his hand came up and distance didn’t matter as the kinesis burst and grabbed Robert Carson, Silver yanked his hand and the man would be pulled rapidly, yanked with vicious force before Silver was running forwards his hand curling into a fist, fury in his eyes and his own safety be damned. “FUCKING CUNT!” He roared and no longer was he small or meek or nervous, his voice portrayed the fury that consumed his mind and body as he slammed his fist into the pulled man’s face, and with the yell he drove his weight and fist forwards and down and smashed Robert’s face into the ground, he ignored the fact his hand shattered against the metal, he ignored the fact his bones snapped and his hand immediately swelled up and his buckles split blood splattering he just stood up and glared down at Robert.

“Stay the fuck away from Izzy.” He growled, his hand dropping to his side before a portal suddenly tore open behind them both, Silver just turned and stormed past Alice, breathing heavily his head spinning his body demanding him to move his hands trembling he felt like he was burning up, he was blanking the fact his RIG had probably sent stupid amounts of alerts to Izzy as he stepped through, they were a short walk away from Cassie’s home and he knew by now Izzy would surely be waiting for them so he walked, his hand was broken, but he didn’t even realise, he’ll in the moment he didn’t even check to see if Alice was following him.

L had planned this for a while, he had worked with his alters on constellation to know what he d need he found out how many points it would cost, he secured schematics and layouts and paid points to reserve certain things. He wanted to give Izzy the best possible present and birthday he could and he knew just what it would be. However he knew that with their bond she would get worried over him so he had to word this carefully. He had Cassie come over and explained he wanted to give her a surprise, he didn’t say what, but he needed to keep her occupied as there was a chance she’d get some alarms and alerted he was stressing his body out or something.

“Okay so I need to go pick up your present, but it may set off some alerts for you cause we know how self up I am at running around.” He laughed, he had refused a lift, he avoided saying where he was going and he had said he wanted them to spend some mother daughter time together and get all pampered and have some girl time before he came back with her gift. Once that was all sorted he had slipped out and cashed in the first of his points a portal opening before him he stepped through and let out a breath looking down at the mansion.

“This is gonna get me punched.” He chuckled dryly before he started cashing in points, invisibility potions, protection against being scanned by tech, muffling spell scrolls and more. When he was ready he activated all he needed too and slipped in heading past the guards at the entrance and into the building, he followed the navigation on his RIG slipping past patrols until he came up to the vault. He chased in his next points and pulled a face seeing how purple threads glitched and danced to form a perfect clone of Robert Carson, as it approached the vault it would open and Silver grinned.

Heading inside he found the specified panel and following the guide he deactivated the stasis pod, his heart was going wild but he grinned before realising his potion of invisibility ran out. He spotted the note warning about a bucket and as the pod opened he panicked and then found a tub of sorts, dumping the content on the ground he ran back and held it out to the man inside, “Ah hi sir, uh here! Also uh, not to rush but we gotta go like… asap.” He laughed nervously.

@izzyfromdeadspace

[moondonky]

No more bullshit

No more war, no more corruption,, no more loopholes of laws and jurisdictions,, no more extortion, no more destroying our planet, no more dehumanization,, no more privatizations of systems of governance, no more ill gains of destruction,, no more control out of created chaos..

People waking up, getting smart, understanding what has been going on, they be looking at the top with telescopes like microscopes,, people have had enough,, people are more than capable of helping themselves,, what those boots on there necks prevents,, all the ill regulations,, the nonsense put in place to benifit and protect only them,, people moving in better directions,, we don't need to fight them, we do not need to risk losing our freedoms,, all we have to do is say no, enough is enough, no more,, fuk em,, we do not wish to buy there product from there buisness of profit, regulated by banksters and lobbyists.. what actual service do they provide us,, and in what world do they think it is that valuable,, taxes within taxes within taxes to fund bullshit,, to go in pockets of people who don't do shit,, wasting the fruits of our own labor, when it should go towards the betterment of everyone, not a 1%.. not towards more dysfunction, and safe haven greyzones of more bullshit.. even prisons are buisnesses filled with kids who where not taught shit, just zoned out for failure..

Its wild, because I am a hard worker, skilled trades, can do alot with my hands, I pride myself on it, but at what point is it meaningless,, I do not have to do it, I could go offgrid very quick, could do it in the middle of a city if I wanted, more than capable of self sustaining myself, and it would be better for the planet,, why would I be a support and service to that system of endless bullshit and destruction, when it comes to money in the bank that is my smallest basket, and its a credit union for a reason, I got more in silver cash coins tools seeds and bullets.. I have no issues paying my fair share,, but its them I don't like giving it to, and I dont, they take it, why I call it extortion, cuz id got to jail if I didn't let them, nothing they do has any effect, last twenty years its only gotten worse, and I stubbornly take nothing from the system that I pay into.. i refuse unemployment, stamps and snap, credit, loans, I do not rely on cops, I drive around potholes,, I do not have an ira, crypto is my retirement plan, I do not have health insurance, I highly doubt theres any social security left, all I see is people being forced to quit and give up pensions, my mailbox is usually filled with ads and spam, waste of paper in my opinion,, I dont drink water from the tap, I even have generators solar panels batteries and power inverters in case I dont want to pay for that,, I could go into a forest and literally build a bigger house than the apartment I live in, Japanese style with no foundation,, but even doing that i would still need to pay a tax, every direction u try to go,, theres sum bullshit u gotta deal with and pay up.. Im glad the financial system is collapsing from its own inflation and corruption,, it wouldn't affect me in the slightest, its what stands in my way from my pursuit of happiness of freedom of independence... it is nothing but a temptation from keeping me from going to heavon,, money is not my security, it is what threatens it.

There will be no revolution, will never repeat that bullshit, that snake eating its tail, only a renaissance,, bringing what is good, and leaving behind everything that is wrong and bad, that is the better future

[iraempirecom]

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Experts agree that the financial market is now even more fragile than pre-2008. Will your retirement portfolio weather the imminent financial crisis? Threats are many. Pick your poison..

The financial system would be in great peril if one or more big banks fail. "When we get to a downturn, banks won't have the cushion to absorb the losses. Without a cushion, we will have 2008 and 2009 again."

Student debt, which has been on a steep rise for years, could figure greatly in the next credit downturn. "There are parallels to 2008: There are massive amounts of unaffordable loans being made to people who can't pay them"

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[cupsofsuga]

𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐏𝐒 ━ 𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐁𝐓𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 *:·。.

{ ⚠️} WARNING - This is a yandere au, meaning the following may be triggering to some viewers.  I am not trying to discriminate the boys in any way, this is for entertainment purposes. Viewer discretion is advised!!!

{ 💐} REQUEST - ❝ how do the boys act with their s/o during the pandemic? ❞

{ ☕️} NOTE - i am not in any way trying to romanticize or glorify this pandemic. this is strictly for entertainment purposes. right below, i provided a link that lists ways you can help with covid-19::

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/21/how-you-can-help-during-coronavirus/?arc404=true

please stay home and stay safe!

━━━ 𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐊𝐉𝐈𝐍

through the fog of yearning for summer, jin has found you, the child of aphrodite in autumn’s oath

oh, the tender sound of flesh… it’s like thunder under earth’s surface

to love y/n is to love the nymphs that dream amongst the fragrance of weeping willows

to love y/n is to long for their sole attention, and much to jin’s benefit, this global pandemic may have given him the opportunity to hog all the stardust held within the deity of his lover

with classes canceled, you both can spend eternity gathering tulips and wildflowers in the safety of your home

jin can taste laughter against his lips and the august rain of your divine infatuation

he can inhale the sun in your hair and the midsummer fruits on your skin

finally, for what seems like infinity in quarantine, he can breathe

now, to keep this daydream within the forest at constant, he’ll rob any potential excuse of yours that involves not having your attention on him

of course, he would forbid you from seeing anyone outside the solace of your own residence

the faint idea of those heathens laying their ruthless hands upon your heavenly form and possibly imperiling you with this virus infuriates him to no end

even during the hours spent on online classes, jin will smother with resentment over the revelation that he’d be required to spend several hours without your love

boredom and envy, two poisons racing like serpents through the maze of his veins

and he can’t seem to sedate this burning jealousy, that is until the session ends and the grandfather clock sings it’s euphoric harmony

oh, and when your attention is finally on him

petals splatter, lambs sing, the sun kisses the moon and the fruit of the earth flourishes

heaven is on earth, and besides, you never needed those classes, anyways

with perfect grades, perfect class, perfect reputation, jin could give you whatever your heart could desire

and he’ll love you until the sun vanishes and the earth is reborn; until all stars fragment and our galaxy dissolves into dust

jin loves you and the blossom of july that follows

he loves you to death.

━━━ 𝐌𝐈𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐈

oh, how yoongi loves you...

to digest his own organs, to tend to the wounds of his garden

he’d trade in his life for the fleeting chance of bathing in your moonlight

like the crumpled-up paper left on your table with the number of a pretty waitress scribbled on, the scrape of peach fuzz against naked skin under ocherous streetlights

you, y/n l/n, a stranger in the alps holds the dawn-tinted fragments of this young boy’s soul

the resonance of your honeymoon-flavored voice, the liberation of the ocean’s pearls as they sleep in your touch, your superlunary reassurance as you soothe him of his concerns for the world’s condition

yoongi cannot comprehend how sour solitude blossomed into a sultry summer by the acceleration of a global pandemic

he owns the privilege to spend infinite days in quarantine, butterflies and white lace upon his heart as he wakes up to the sight of your face, yet again

he watches as stars and planets melt together as your galaxies collide, relishing in the feverish sensation of eternal divinity

and during this pandemic, yoongi’s tendencies flourish as his dependence, neediness and loyal compliance intensify

he’ll go out of his way and purchase all of the necessities you could ever crave, the revelation of his health at stake left unbothered

it is challenging to find entertainment throughout quarantine, but fortunately for you, your hero (missing his cape) uses his rent money to find you whatever it is you've deemed vital

you’ll go and welcome your lover after he returned to your residence from getting groceries and discover a variety of board games to play, a nintendo switch (with animal crossing, obviously), and an espresso machine that he bought with intentions on teaching you how to make drinks like he does (even though there will never be a day where he won't brew one for you)

despite fear painting every street in the world, yoongi touches aphrodite’s reminiscence as he skates beyond a rainbow’s arch

he has found sunlit honey in the mornings where he can cling onto your form like a lifeline and smother you with his coffee-stained kisses and overwhelming fascination

finally, days are heavenly with you by his side every. waking. second

the bullets have faded, the storms have abolished, the tears have shattered and all that’s left is your french perfume and cherry lips

oh, you should expect suffocating love during this quarantine season because you’ll never escape from yoongi

not now, not ever.

━━━ 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐊

due to covid outbreak, hoseok feels his body tremble with fear beneath his covers as if the virus was a monster underneath his bed

behind the exquisite light of his sanity is winter, where terror sits like snow against naked trees

only then, you waltz into his tunnel of vision, your silver armor glistening under the amber light of his bedroom

finally, with you by his side, he can savor the taste of the sun as it peaks through the leaves of summer

y/n, the sweetest apparition, the aurora of jasmine, stardust in a mason jar

you are the bones of ecstasy and hoseok feels the horror racing through his veins melt into a daze of tulips and passion

and it took him days to recover from the lemon-flavored euphoria that dreams of you in a hallucinatory lucidity

but, even then, the heart of his infatuation still holds cunning ways of creeping up behind him

despite being locked inside, hoseok still relies on you to protect him

you’re his knight in shining armor, his life preserver in an empty sea

he needs you to wrap your wings around his form and shield him from the demons that lurk in the shadows of your home

god, does he need you

but, when the sun is high and both of you are trapped in the walls of your home, his soul ascends as if he had listened to his favorite part of a song for the very first time

your lover then insists on creating a fort, the light of purity heavy in his opalescent irises

that childlike innocence within him, you always adored it

you’ll both make a mess of your living room with couch cushions and chairs, certainly to receive a scolding from your parents

there are fairy lights strung upon quilts with its heavenly glow and tender pillows that are painted with last years midsummer night-dew

and with scarlet ribbons and a huff of contentment, your masterpiece is complete

now, you will lie in the fort that is shielded with a password, lover in your lap as he runs upon his little rants

a disney movie you can’t recall the name of is left abandoned to play on its own as hoseok works you through the timeline of the pixar theory, hope, and exuberance within his expression

he always admired conspiracy theories, but not the ones that are too frightening

you, aphrodite’s rose and summer’s sweet fruits, are there for hoseok to love and to embrace

and he’d swim all the oceans and waltz through the depths hellfire to prove to you just how enamored he truly is

that is until he longs for his childhood stuffed animal that he makes you go into the attic to get because he’s too afraid of the dark.

━━━ 𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐉𝐎𝐎𝐍

namjoon will love you until the end of eternity

he’ll love you until the moon swims the seven seas, he’ll love you until fate eradicates into liberty, he’ll love you until white jasmines accelerate into poppies

he’ll love you until our solar system melts into prismatic ash

and this epiphany flourishes as the night sings with you nestled against his chest, your lover refusing to let you go even when the sun is high in the sky

with locks of hair rested upon the crevice of his neck and latin poetry he’s too tired to translate parting his lips, he has found ecstasy in the purple rain that enveloped him

he has found the hidden nymphs of his life nestled under leaves; he has found his light in a sea of dead stars

and namjoon can’t imagine a day where he wouldn’t bleed himself dry to protect the one thing that matters most to him

due to the spread of this virus, let’s just say that his paranoia has gotten the best of him

you’ve never seen so much fear within his eyes from just a simple cough

you’ll be forced to stay within the lavish bedroom of his as all possible necessities are delivered to your door

and any excuse for you to leave, he has another to dismiss it

you’re hungry? great, a full-course gourmet meal made by our personal chefs is on its way!

you’re thirsty? would you like water? tea? wine? we’ll have the housekeeper deliver it in a jiffy!

you’re bored? we have board games, puzzles, movies, video games, whatever your little heart desires!

you feel trapped? ok, fine… well, i guess we can go take a walk in the garden

and you felt such a rush of elation to take sight upon the lustrous tulips possessing a variety of colors and to inhale the fragrance of summer as it stains your consciousness

oh, to feel sunbeams heavy against your longing skin and to trace your fingers down the juts and crevices of your favorite flowers

this is euphoria tied with a silk bow

that is until you were aggressively yanked behind namjoon as he saw the gardener wasn’t 6 feet away from you

he spat out threats to the poor man just trying to water the poppies you infatuated yourself with

but hey, at least you got a taste of the sun though, right?

oh, well, the tiffany and louis in your expensive bedroom will suffice, anyways.

━━━ 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐉𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐍

so… this is love

to caress the sugar-scented tulips on the riverside, to taste summer as worries melt like honey against your tongue

to lose yourself in the lustrous daze as camellia flowers fall like pink rain

so… this is love

and god, jimin has never felt so alive

like a dove at dawn, iridescent feathers, and misty eyes

you descended into his field of vision and robbed him of his heart right then and there

and now, as the sun glistens and the moon shimmers, day-by-day, he holds the privilege of calling himself yours

especially being locked within the walls of your home, infatuation seethes like dust in the attic above

it’s far too dangerous for you to leave, anyway

with disease, sorrow, and pain staining the air of the world, it’s only best is you stay indoors… only by his side, for every waking second

and you swear, you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve awoken to the sight of your lover with his chin rested against his palm, hearts swimming in his eyes as he chirps, “good morning, bumblebee!”

but, you have to realize, he just can’t help it

there’s moondust in your lungs, sunbeams bathing within your veins, the rings of saturn enveloping your locks of hair, stars nestled beneath the crevice of your heart

there’s a universe inside of you, and luckily for jimin, it is all his

only his

as the morning is set into motion, your boyfriend has a variety of activities for you to indulge yourself with

days are spent reading you through all several journals he reserved just for you, pages filled with cheesy poems, songs, or your name written obsessively over and over and over and over again

he’ll giggle like a young schoolgirl at your reactions, drown you in butterfly kisses or gaze at you for hours as you read, oblivious to his creepy admiring stare

and god forbid you drink water and it goes down the wrong tube

you’ll cough once and he’ll begin to pamper you as if you were a sick orphan child

that’s who he is, though

dedicating his entire life to the sun itself; dedicating his existence to the child of aphrodite in full bloom

god… he has found love

and nothing is more euphoric than this

and you had absolutely no idea a worldwide pandemic could make this man the happiest boy on planet earth.

━━━ 𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐓𝐀𝐄𝐇𝐘𝐔𝐍𝐆

you can’t recall how long it’s been since you were abducted

days have melted into candy, hours turn to honey, seconds are everlasting grace

you’ve been treated like royalty ever since pages of your face with a loud ‘MISSING’ on top had been scattered across town

your kidnapper lover will bake you cherry pies, boxy smile threaded on his face. he’ll draw a bath adorned with rose petals raw from the garden, eyes flickering with hopes and exuberance

taehyung will give you just about every pleasure a human could ask for, all in the name of seeing that candied smile that sedates his mind and turns his knees to jelly

he wouldn’t be shocked if he looked down and saw a puddle of his drool, to be honest

and because of the uproar of the virus, taehyung finds in his best power to simply not tell you

to protect you from your worries, to shield you from this world

he would rather die than risk losing his glimmering evening to the arms of the earth

this revelation strikes coldly as you sit beneath a willow tree, sugary pastries and treats varied around you as your lover sits with his canvas

to blend the opalescent tones of your face, then the loud devotion of your skin and the feverishly irradiated hues of your iris

oh, to sit here and paint his dear… it’s pure bliss!

days spent deprived of the burden of technology, heaven has reached the recesses of this horrid planet

after lunch beneath the sun, you and taehyung will take canoe rides throughout the lake just outside your little cottage on the hillside

and watching as you graze your fingertips upon the lake’s surface like you’re made of something magic and blessing the water with your enigmatic essence was practically holy to see

he’s been puzzled stupid in times like these

where the sun is high and heavy, golden embers kiss upon the land, his lover sat with a goddesses caress

it’s euphoric how you breathe and strip taehyung of every logical thought within his mind

yes, you are captive, but there is simply no denying this man's devotion to you

you shall not worry about the worldwide pandemic and should rather fall into a deep slumber within the faded-red canoe

when it’s only the two of you, a virus is but a speck of dust left upon the highest shelf

no matter what this world comes to, you are safe with taehyung

and nothing will take you away from him.

━━━ 𝐉𝐄𝐎𝐍 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐊𝐎𝐎𝐊

jungkook thinks of you more often than he should

those fleeting moments where your dulcet laugher reflects and his eyes are practically glued to you; those moments where your “i love you”’s are unadulterated and his entire chest collapses

he’d do anything and everything to keep his light forever home

fortunately for him, this global pandemic may have gifted him that opportunity laced with a velvet bow

but this boy is paranoid, you see. so paranoid that the intensity of his concern comes out in an opalescent pandemonium

it’s as if saltwater swells in his lungs and kisses him with it’s strangling embrace; as if his worst sins have been placed on a silver platter, left for the world to laugh and gape at

but, through the haze of his purgatory, there’s you, joyous and alive

and it’s like a potion mixed with rosewater, vanilla and a dove’s feathers heavy on his tongue whenever he drinks in the sight of you

it’s like the essence of his infatuation dancing like a ballerina beyond the recesses of his mind; his sanity it’s ballroom

to spend days in quarantine bathing within his bewitchment is euphoric, but there are the days of terror that creep upon him

and you don’t think you’ll ever forget the time where you had complained to your lover about your headache and observed as the planets swimming in his irises abruptly fade to utter horror

he always over-exaggerated his worry, which you were used to, but this

you’ve never seen true fear like this

you were given a cold towel to place upon your forehead and kisses to soothe you of your distress

the worry he possessed only snowballed into something much more cynical and evil, though, as the prophecy of the virus taking you away from him shook him to his very core

you eventually fell into a deep slumber by dusk, most likely by the fault of the medicine

though, as the moon was high and the bedside clock read 2:38 AM in it’s fluorescent, neon green hues, you were awoken by the hushed sounds of weeping

blinking your mind back into reality, you found jungkook on the bedside, shoulders shaking violently from the sobs that shook his entire body

you watched as he incoherently wailed into the phone, only to finally decipher the person on the other line was a 911 operator

you then handled the situation safely and maturely, reassuring the poor operator that you were perfectly healthy and safe and thus proceeding to care for your puppy-dog of a boyfriend who worried over every breathe you took for the following several weeks

oh, what a time this quarantine will be

but, hey! you weren’t sick! so…yay!

[unholyseattle]

Demons are supernatural, often spiritual entities from many different cultures, who are commonly seen as powerful beings existing between godyr(s) and humans.

In many mythologies, Demons are terrifying, monstrous, and malevolent, and are born to spread evil and violence. These are demons that are commonly said to reside in Hell (such as demons of torment and the Fallen Angels), or in an alternate dimension/plane of existence. Hebrew and Christian culture considered all demons evil, and many of these demons are from such lore.

These demons usually have an ephemeral existence, and do not necessarily have a solid form, in our the plane of reality and of physical matter. This trait could be considered to be what allows them to be good at shapeshifting and illusions.

Some demons and demonic beasts are formed from the residue of negative emotions or desires (such as regret, hatred, and spite) of living beings, are created by the Devil as servants for evil, or are those who were once human and died full of negative emotions or desires. In 1589, a leading expert named Brinsfield listed major demons and their specialties correlating to the Seven Deadly Sins:

Lucifer — Pride; 

Satan — Wrath; 

Beelzebub — Gluttony; 

Belphegor — Sloth; 

Asmodeus — Lust

Mammon — Greed

Leviathan — Envy 

Strengths

Superhuman Strength - Most demons are noticeably physically stronger than humans, although the degree varied from species to species.

Superhuman Durability - Because many demons were native to very harsh environments, their bodies tended to be more resistant to blunt trauma and injuries than human bodies, some species even resistant to bullets. Some demons had armored bodies, although they were relatively vulnerable if a part or all of the armor was damaged or destroyed.

Immortality - A large amount of demon were shown to live longer than humans, and some of them were actually immortal, living for thousands of year without aging.

Empathy - The ability to sense or feel emotions.

Telepathy - The ability to read minds.

Teleportation - The ability to travel to another spot in space without having to transverse the distance between the two points.

Telekinesis - The ability to manipulate objects with the mind.

Pyrokinesis - The ability to manipulate and conjure fire with the mind.

Cryokinesis - The ability to manipulate cold temperatures to create ice and snow.

Paralysis Inducement - The ability to render beings immobile or incapacitated.

Possession - The ability to take control of another being’s body.

Precognition - The ability to see future events.

Photokinesis - The ability to create and emit light.

Hypnosis - The ability to manipulate minds.

Voice Manipulation - The ability to manipulate once’s or other’s voices.

Invisibility - The ability to make oneself unable to be seen.

Shapeshifting - The ability to alter one’s appearance.

Reanimation - The ability to raise the dead as zombies.

Healing Factor - The ability to quickly heal from injuries and regrow lost body parts.

Levitation - The ability to rise above the air and stay in suspension.

Flight - The ability to go airborne and propel oneself through the air.

Razor-sharp Fingernails - The ability of having one’s nails sharp enough to wound or shred flesh.

Faustian Bargain - Demons can manipulate reality to make the wishes of the mortals it deals, to trade their soul to the devil in exchange for the wish to come true.

Weaknesses

Salt - Due to its white color, purity, and its preservative properties, salt has always been associated with holiness and the triumph of good over evil, and has been used to repel witches, ghosts, demons, spirits, and all manner of evil beings. Furthermore, salt has a corrosive effect when it comes into contact with the demon’s skin. Demons are unable to cross a line of salt. Salt can be used to torture demons. It can also be put into shotgun rounds to hurt and knock back demons.

Imperfect Vessel - The chief weakness of demons is the fact that they are angels who are possession an imperfect vessel. This factor severely restrains the angel’s god-like powers and reduces them to a lesser being that can be physically killed or exorcised by a human. The vessel experiences many adverse physical affects from the possession; slow decomposition, foul body odor, high body temperature, bodily pains, and scars that appear out of nowhere. If the angel ramains within the vessel for too long, the body will decompose to such an extent that it appears as a zombie. Eventually, the vessel will spontaneously combust into flames and be destroyed.

Exorcism - The practice of evicting demons or other evil spiritual entities which have possessed a person or object. The practice is quite ancient and still part of the belief system of many religions. The person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is often a priest, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or skills. The exorcist may use religious material, such as prayers and set formulas, gestures, symbols, icons, amulets, etc.. The exorcist often invokes some benign supernatural power to actually perform the task.

Holy Icons - (Holy Water, Crucifixes, blessed Items, etc.): It is said that the sight of holy icons, namely the cross or the crucifix, repulses the demon. The cross is one of mankind’s oldest forms of protection against evil, predating Christianity by centuries. It is associated with pagan sun deities and Heaven. In ancient times, the cross symbolized divine protection and prosperity. The symbolism of the cross was forever changed when Jesus Christ was crucified, sacrificing Himself by taking on the sins of the entire world, descending into Hell, and defeating the Devil. Holy Water burns demons that come into contact with it like acid.

Silver - Because of its purity and lustrous white color, silver is believed to possess protective powers against evil and negative influences. It is also said to have a supernatural association with the moon.

Iron - Demons may be able to be harmed by cold-forged iron. Demons can’t touch or cross iron.

Consecrated Bullet - Under normal circumstances, firearms have little or no effect on Demons. However, a bullet that has been blessed by a priest (not necessarily silver) will slay the evil.

Hallowed Places - Neither can they cross hallowed ground or a blessed building.

Solomon’s Key - It is a powerful circle that when a demon is inside of it, the demon is rendered powerless and it cannot cross through the circle.

Fire - Fire has been a powerful force against evil for centuries, as it is considered to be a symbol of God and the Holy Spirit, as well as one of nature’s most powerful purifiers. Burning the demon is without a doubt the most effective means of permanently annihilating the evil.

Holy Water - As water’s symbolism as a purifier and one of the Holy Sacraments is anathema to demon, an evil that is fully immersed in water (especially running water) will drown and be destroyed. A bathtub could work, but disposal of the creature’s body may prove to be problematic (as removing the Demon from the water will revive the creature).

Angel’s Touch - An angel can physically kill a demon by touching them on the forehead with their hand. This power will not work if the demon is too powerful or if the angel is too weak.

Palo Santo - It is basically the wood version of holy water/salt, when a demon is stabbed the demon screams in pain and the wound smokes. It immobilizes demons long enough to perform an exorcism.