#alli hits 300

[popcorn-plots]

I should be doing homework but instead...

(idek if this is popular anymore, I just need motivation tbh)

1 note and I'll go take a shower

25 notes and I'll get off Tumblr and finish my homework.

50 notes and I'll put away my laundry

100 notes and I'll fix my sleep schedule

150 notes and I'll start eating breakfast before school for the rest of the school year

200 notes and I'll tell my parents what I want for my birthday

250 notes and I'll start handing out my resume/applying to jobs [did not get hired anywhere, and I'm gone most of the summer anyways]

300 notes and I'll start running 1 mile every week

350 notes and I'll finish/publish a wip [trans Stephen fic, the public has determined]

400 notes and I'll finish the next chapter of BtSA [posted here]

450 notes and I'll spend 10 minutes a day working on my novel (;-;)

500 notes and I answer my emails

550 notes and I get a pixie cut (I've been wanting a shorter cut for months) [LOOK HERE]

600 notes and I'll fix my Doctor Strange cosplay (and post pictures) [new magnets came, once I fix it, me and my friend are going to do a photo shoot]

(1000 notes and I'll come out as genderfluid to my therapist, despite how terrifying it is)

(1500 notes and I'll come out to my favorite teacher OR my ally YW leader)

(if, for some reason, and probably with divine intervention, we hit 20,000 notes..... I may consider coming out to my parents and/or my ward friends.)

[scrolling-forever]

With every passing episode of FHJY, I grow more proud and am just in awe with how GREAT the intrepid hero’s are at playing the game and making it MATTER. How well they have all gotten at using experiences from each previous season and creating even better content each time. (To think I now have a combat scene i love more than battle of the brands is crazy and a testament to how good dimension 20 is) Ally was not a dnd player before d20 THAT IS CRAZY and now they have the intuition to catch Brennan before he absolutely destroyed the bad kids is insane. Brennan constantly told them it’s the last stand and they just flipped him off and crited on him in his own dome. Zac Oyama you beautiful crit king. Siobhan was so strategic and effective with their spell work I truly thought she could see into the future. Lou putting 110% into every action he did, he was PREPARED TO WRITE A 300 WORD ESSAY BY HAND. Murph and Emily killing multiple monsters by utilizing their class features to the fullest. Murph by making Riz a shadow killing anything he sees getting in the way of his friend passing and Emily who literally got the daymare the previous episode already using it to its fullest and using disguise self in a way that made the proctor not even have to use kristen’s death world (did he only get hit once i don’t remember) ALL OF THIS WHILE GIVING US A CRAZY SWITCH WITH BUDDY AND MAKING THE STORYLINE SO MUCH COOLER GOD.

I love all of them thank you goodbye

[probablyasocialecologist]

Thousands have hit the streets in NYC, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and dozens of other cities. A DC protest organized by Jewish activist groups drew thousands, and hundreds were later arrested, including two dozen Rabbis. An estimated 25,000 people showed up to a rally in Chicago. These events show no signs of stopping, with many more planned across the coming days. These actions have gone beyond marches, with protesters showing up at the offices and homes of politicians demanding a ceasefire. Six activists were arrested at a pro-Palestine rally outside the Boston office of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). A large crowd demonstrated outside the Brooklyn home of Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Jewish protesters showed up outside the Brentwood house of VP Kamala Harris. IfNotNow members have held sit-ins at the DC offices of Schumer, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA). Former staffers for Warren, Sanders, and Senator John Fetterman have publicly urged the lawmakers to back a ceasefire. On October 25, tens of thousands of students across more than 100 North American campuses united in a walkout to demand an immediate ceasefire, an end to unconditional support for Israel, and university divestment from the corporations funding the occupation of Palestine. On the night of October 27 Jewish activists shut down Grand Central Station, leading to the arrest of over 300 people. “This is bigger than we’ve ever seen,” US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid told Mondoweiss. “This is the result of decades of work that we’ve put into this movement, and I think some of it is connected to the [George Floyd protests of 2020]. There was so much racial, social justice, anti-war building in that moment.

[...]

“The man broke my heart,” Palestinian-American comedian Maysoon Zayid told Politico on October 23, “I never in my life thought the empathizer-in-chief would sound the way he did. The Palestinians were given no humanity. Joe Biden should spend every breath he has condemning Israel’s genocide with the same zeal he condemned Hamas’ massacre of civilians, that same zeal. And we get nothing. 1,000 children are dead, and we get nothing.” “It’s really crazy to me that the Democratic party destroyed 20-years of worth of good will with Muslims and Arabs in just 2 weeks, losing an entire generation that was raised in the progressive coalition, possibly forever,” tweeted author and activist Eman Abdelhadi. “The rapidity of it, the finality–it’s astonishing.” “While Republican disregard for Muslim and Arab lives is clearly on display, some Muslim and Arab Americans also feel like the Democratic Party largely takes their vote for granted, though Democrats’ policies never reflect as much,” writes Dana El Kurd in The Nation. “One Arab American friend expressed to me that, at least under Republican administrations, ‘Arabs could find allies’ in their opposition.”

[the-griffons-saddlebag]

💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Cerberus Whistle
Wondrous item, rare ___ This whistle has been carved from a soot-stained imp bone. While holding the whistle, you can use an action to blow it. The whistle can be heard out to a range of 300 feet, but only by fiends and tieflings. The whistle has three dog heads carved into its end. When found, the dogs’ mouths are closed. When you blow into the whistle, oen, two, or three of the mouths open (your choice each time). The harder you blow the whistle, the more of the dogs’ mouths magically open. For each mouth that opens as part of blowing the whistle, a hell hound is magically summoned to a random space that you can see within 30 feet of you. Each hell hound remains for 1 minute or until it’s reduced to 0 hit points. If you are a fiend or tiefling, the hounds are friendly to you and your companions. Otherwise, each hounds’ disposition is random: use the table below to determine the nature of each hound. | d6 | Disposition | — | 1 | The hound is hostile towards you and your companions. It uses its action to attack you first.| | 2–3 | The hound is equally hostile towards all creatures. It prioritizes the nearest creature to it that isn’t a fiend or tiefling.| | 4–6 | The hound is friendly to you and your companions. It becomes hostile if you or one of your allies does something to harm or threaten it.| Roll initiative for the summoned hounds as a group, which has its own turns; hounds that are friendly to you go first. While the hounds are friendly to you, they obey your verbal commands (no action required). If you don’t issue any commands to them, they defend themselves from hostile creatures, but otherwise take no actions. One of the dogs’ open mouths closes each day at dawn. ___ ✨ Patrons get huge perks! Access this and hundreds of other item cards, art files, and compendium entries when you support The Griffon's Saddlebag on Patreon for less than $10 a month!

[aingeal98]

It's crazy to me that during the "Kim Dokja will die at the hands of the one he loves most" arc Han Sooyoung was nowhere close to being a possibility. It was obviously YJH and the only other potential twist answers were his mom his kid and mayyyybe Sangah? Like HSY was just this wild card villain turned useful ally and it was clear that she wasn't going to be the one who killed him. She already killed him twice! She needed to let someone else have a go. We're 158 chapters into the story and it was so clear that Dokja and YJH were THE relationship and I was pretty certain there's no way any other dynamic is going to be as intense and important to the narrative as their bond with each other.

And then Han Sooyoung went lol watch this and 400+ chapters later I cannot picture the ot3 without all three of them a part of it. Every time the gang got together for the last 300 or so chapters I just knew Dokja was going to find a way to gush about the two of them. He went fuck you this is a bisexual slowburn AND star crossed lovers AND enemies to lovers AND a comedy AND-

And none of the epilogue would have hit so hard without that development like the reason it works is that we got to watch them grow into a trio and it was paced so well I cannot get over it. I'm still reeling. Yoohankim ot3 of all time we've got so many different dynamics and flavours packed into these three losers.

[jadeazora]

A new Message from the Masters Team is out!

New Mysterious Stones Chapter (A Fateful Reunion) coming on May 1, 2024! You'll need to have collected a total of 600 Mysterious Stones to unlock this story's area. Volo and Rei finally meet face-to-face on Pasio. What will Rei do in response to Volo's intentions?

In addition, they've made improvements that will allow you to easily check successful teams when you are unable to win a battle, and also revamped each 5⭐-Guaranteed Sync Pair Scout found in the General tab of the Ticket Scout menu so that you can scout either x5 or x10. (It sounds to me like you would need to have collected 150 to 300 5⭐ Scout Tickets.)

Rika will star in Story Event Good Ol' Rika Here beginning on Apr26, and by teaming up with Rika & Clodsire from their Poké Fair Scout that will be available at the same time as the event, you'll be able to invite Rika as a Guest to the Trainer Lodge! You can also get a Clodsire photo frame for the Photo Creator by teaming up with them. Rika can be invited as a Guest to the Trainer Lodge starting May1.

Rika & Clodsire are a Ground-type Support Sync Pair. Their EX Role is Field. Their Rampant Mud Slap Buddy Move can lower all opponents' accuracy by two stat ranks and leave them poisoned. It can also create a Ground Zone and increase all allies' Physical Moves ↑ Next and Special Moves ↑ Next effects by two ranks each. They can also use their Think Fast! Trainer move to raise all allies' Attack and Sp. Atk by two stat ranks. Plus, they have a Passive Skill that restores all allies' HP when Rika & Clodsire get hit by an attack move, and another Passive Skill that lowers one of the following stats of an opponent that attacked them by two stat ranks at random when hit by an attack move: Attack, Defense, Sp. Atk, Sp. Def, or Speed.

Three different Triple Feature Poké Fair Scouts will begin on Apr27, featuring Sync Pairs such as Skyla (Anniversary 2022) & Tornadus, Palmer & Regigigas, and Gloria (Dojo Uniform) & Urshifu! For each lineup, there will be a regular Triple Feature Poké Fair Scout, as well as a paid-gems-only Triple Feature Poké Fair Scout that comes with a Roll Cake present. Each featured Fair-Exclusive Sync Pair will have an EX Role added, so we hope you look forward to it. (Note: Palmer & Regigigas already have an EX Role.) Also, looking forward to being able to boost Lysandre 👀

The sequel to the ongoing Costume Event New Heroes Are Born will start on Apr30. Two figures have appeared before our heroes as villains! (Cool how we're getting the PokeStar Studios alts as villains, but pretty predictable. Would have been cool to see some actual villains getting in on the fun, add that sense of urgency/seriousness, but was thinking it might be too much of an ask lol)

The next High Score Event "Water and Fairy Conqueror" will begin on May 7, 2024. This High Score Event will have two recommended types. Taking into account the difference in battle difficulty based on the available Sync Pairs of the recommended types for this High Score Event, the maximum number of points needed to obtain the featured reward will be changed from 180,000 to 200,000. They plan to make more adjustments to this point total based on the difficulty of future events as well.

Also scheduled are returns of Solo Event Pasio Gold Rush, Daily Battle The Golden Magikarp, and Story Event A Golden Future, as well as the addition of an Ultimate Battle and a new Trainer Files.

The next message is scheduled for late May.

Edit, here's the event schedule from Reddit:

[rollforimagination]

Magic Item

Sandwich of Chaotic Layers

Description: A sandwich made of suspicious ingredients and a curious amount of cheese, when eaten it gives random effects to character. If it is kept in the inventory long enough it might attract mice and other rodents, if it is kept for even longer at every rest of the character with the Sandwich of Chaotic Layers in their inventory loses 2d12 of HP while those near a radius of 10 ft lose 2d6 of HP after the rest, due to the radiations that the Sandwich of Chaotic Layers emits.

Functionality: Use a bonus action to eat the sandwich, a normal action if you’re size is smaller than Medium, then roll d for the effects.

Results:

You get teleported inside a radius of 5-20 ft not occupied by another creature, you can decide exactly where

The scent of warm bread surrounds the player and up to 5 allies, they heal 2d10 HP and gain 20 Temporary hit points

You get two charges of a garlic scented breath attack that causes confusion and disadvantage to all roles against you and saving throws to all your enemies in a 15 ft cone, but also repel your allies to at least 5 ft from you

A bread wall circles around your enemy and it blocks their vision and movement. To escape your enemy has to deal at least 10 x S of damage, where S is the size of the enemy (1 is Tiny, Medium is 3, Gargantuan 6…), to make a hole big enough to escape

From the mouth of the player comes out a steam of water that deals 4d6 of water damage to those in a line of 20ft in front of the player, with a roll of Athletics higher than 12 the player can move while spitting water to aim to other enemies, this however will deal 2d6 to all enemies hurt instead of 4d6.

A cheese armour surrounds the player, giving them +2 AC but also giving them a -10ft of movement speed

The player’s movement speed doubles but it may randomly oink even after the effect wears off, until they take a rest

Wheel of cheese. For 17 turns. Aka 289 seconds. Aka 4 minutes and 49 seconds. Aka Wheel of cheese for five minutes.

3d4 mice gets teleported in a 5 ft radius from you, you can control them and give them order for 6 turns, after that they’ll become normal mice

A cloud of lint surrounds an enemy, they’ll suffer 2d6 more fire damage if attacked with a fire spell or fire related attacks, the same goes with 1d12 of lightning damage. Until the enemy is surrounded by the lint cloud it gets disadvantage on rolls to hit. The cloud disappear once a fire or lightning attack successfully damage the enemy

A rideable Large cushion of magical focaccia appears in front of the players. The cushion can fly and has 350 HP but no attacks. After receiving 300 HP, reaching a total of 100 ft of movement or after 7 turns the flying focaccia gently lands and then disappear.

3d8 of radiant damage to all creatures in a radius of 35ft from the player (including) the party gets a -10 to the total damage if they have spent at least 2 rests with the Sandwich of Chaos Layers in the inventory of someone.

Inspiration: this silly reblog list ⬇️

Thanks to @garaks-padded-bra @acrowbyanyothername @buglyteeth @imhaley @ronzyponyo @funnywormz @deepestturtlepielover @willowandthesagaofgayyearning @summer-azure @spacetronomyfan @spocktopodes ❤️

[kingofbodyrolls]

My Heart's Home (m) | pjm | eleven

🐴Chapter summary: Everything is good, you and Jimin are happy, and you finally have everything you’ve always dreamed of. 🐴Chapter title: This Perfect Day 🐴Pairings: jimin x reader (main), jungkook x reader (only happens once in the first chapter), jungkook x OC (jessi), namjoon x OC (jessi), yoongi x hoseok, namjoon x oc, seokjin x oc, taehyung x oc 🐴Characters: female reader (isn’t mentioned by name and no “y/n”), Jimin, Jungkook, Namjoon, Yoongi, Hoseok, Seokjin, Taehyung and four female original characters. 🐴Genre/AU: ranch!au, slice of life!au, soulmate!au, cowboy!au + smut, humor, fluff, romance, slow burn and angst 🐴Rating: mature/explicit/R18 – this is mature/explicit content, so minors, please do not interact!

🐴Disclaimer: I do not own BTS or know them personally and this work of fiction is purely fictional and for entertainment purposes only. The actions and personalities described in the story do not reflect those of BTS— it’s just fiction. Also, if you would kindly read the tags/warnings before reading, that would be lovely: and if you don’t like whatever is described in the tags, just hit return and find something else to read. Thank you 🌸 🐴Chapter warnings: pet names, unprotected sex; public sex (they do it in a cattle truck parked at the side of the road), oral: blowjob, thigh riding, multiple orgasms, breast play, nipple play, a lot of kissing, creampie, cockwarming, hair pulling, marking, a lot of sexual tension again, praise kink, dirty talk and fluff. 🐴Status: completed 🥳 🐴Word count: 14.4k 🐴Taglist: @kookswifesblog, @kiki-zb, @babejinnie, @ownthesunshine, @allie-is-a-panda, @glllhjh, @bergandysam, @13-manggaetteok, @jeonsbabygirlsworld, @antisocial-mochi267,

*tumblr isn’t letting me tag you! There could be a lot of reasons for that, check out this lovely post about it.

🐴Now playing 💿 “Say You’re Mine” by Kate Voegele. [Wanna listen to the serie’s playlist?] 🐴Author’s note: as I’m writing this note, I’m going to post chapter 6. I still feel very discouraged to post… I love the few of you who have taken time out to comment and reblog with nice words— truly 🥹 but the engagement (notes/kudos) are just not what they used to. I’m at that place where I’m thinking about not posting anymore, at all. Like posting gives me this horrible feeling? Like seeing 30 notes, when I used to get 200-300 😭 I know I’m complaining, and I don’t usually do this, but I’m gonna address it. I’m a firm believer in, if something doesn’t give you something good, but instead something bad, drop it. So, there’s a very high chance that this series will be my last in a while. I can’t speak for the future— I’m still gonna write, because that truly gives me so much joy, I’m just not gonna share it (at the moment). Maybe later, when I feel better about it. And maybe I’ll change my mind, who knows? But right now, I don’t feel good about posting this series, and it’s hard, because I love it so fucking much, but I know it’s not for everyone… but yeah, anyway, I’ll crawl back to the whole I came from. Happy reading! 🌸

It’s been cross posted to AO3 if you prefer to read there.Wanna see the book cover?

← previous | s.masterlist | m.masterlist |  next →

“This day, this perfect dayPeace, peace at lastLove blurs, love blurs my eyesAnd my heart is in your hands” - ‘This Perfect Day’ by Rebecca Lavelle

Everywhere you turn, the faint scent of roses dances in the air, infusing your senses with a vitality that makes you feel truly alive. Vibrant hues burst forth like a kaleidoscope, saturating both your canvas and the world around you. Everything feels harmoniously perfect, as if the universe itself is painting a masterpiece just for you.

Jessi has outlined the urgency of relocating the cattle to a more accessible paddock closer to home, which is essential before they’re auctioned off in just a few days. You’re gearing up for a daunting cattle muster that she warns could stretch into days of hard work. Uncertain of the necessities for an extended cattle drive, you pack cautiously, opting for practicality with spare underwear and shirts. The thought of wearing the same attire doesn’t bother you, so long as you can avoid the sweat and grime that comes with the task ahead.

Ha-rin whirls around the kitchen, a flurry of activity as she ensures there’s ample sustenance for the journey ahead. With a mix of urgency and precision, she assembles sandwiches, packs canned goods, and meticulously stores vegetables in containers and bags, her determination evident in every swift movement. As Ha-rin meticulously organizes the provisions, the rest of your group converge in the barn, your footsteps echoing against the wooden floor as you prepare the horses for the journey ahead. With a shared sense of purpose, you check the gear, tighten the saddles, and ensure each steed is ready for the long ride ahead.

You step into Mikrokosmos’ stall, enveloping her in a heartfelt embrace, relieved beyond measure to have her safely back in her stall. Gratitude wells up within you for Jimin’s unwavering assistance in locating her, a debt you can never fully repay. The day after you got Mikrokosmos home, Jessi and Jungkook went out and collected the rest of the horses safely back home.

“Hey girl, we’re going out for a ride for a few days,” you murmur softly to Mikrokosmos, your touch reassuring as she responds with a gentle whinny, conveying her understanding. Guiding her out of the stall, you lead her into the heart of the bustling barn, each step resonating with the anticipation of the journey ahead. Alongside Ara, Soo-ah, and Jessi, you all prepare your trusted companions for the expedition, a united front in ensuring Ha-rin’s horse is also equipped for the ride too.

“Ah, these long cattle drives are pure magic,” Ara exclaims, her voice dancing with infectious enthusiasm, as if her joy is a melody eager to be sung.

Soo-ah trails behind, her voice edged with a hint of disdain. “I swear, these drives are a literal pain in the ass. Who wants to endure days of saddle soreness? Not me, that’s for damn sure.”

You chuckle, a shared understanding passing between you and Soo-ah. Memories of your last cattle drive flood back, the discomfort of countless hours in the saddle still fresh in your mind.

With an exaggerated eye roll, Jessi strides out of the barn, leading Cinnamon by the reins. Meanwhile, the rest of you hustle to prepare your horses for the cattle drive ahead.

Efficiently, you outfit Mikrokosmos, ensuring she’s well-prepared for the trek ahead with saddle bags stocked full of essentials. As you complete the task, you notice Ara and Soo-ah wrapping up their own preparations. With your horses in tow, including an additional one for Ha-rin, you step outside to rendezvous with your sister.

As the four of you guide your horses down to the house, eagerly awaiting Ha-rin’s arrival with provisions to load into your saddle bags, anticipation thrums in your veins, heightened by the prospect of reuniting with Jimin soon. You’ve all agreed to lend a hand, recognizing the value of teamwork when it comes to managing the cattle. Just the thought of Jimin’s presence sets your heart aflutter – his warm brown eyes, his infectious smile, and the reassuring strength of his frame. Your mind drifts to his robust physique, envisioning the comforting embrace of his arms, the definition of his biceps, the warmth of his hands, and—

“Voila!” Ha-rin bursts out of the house, her arms laden with bags brimming with an assortment of provisions. With a cheerful efficiency, she distributes the supplies among the group, and you deftly pack the essentials into the two saddlebags snugly nestled beneath Mikrokosmos’ saddle.

With a synchronized grace, you each swing into the saddle and set off in a spirited gallop towards the Bell Ranch. The journey, though brief, is a symphony of exhilaration, the wind tousling your hair as if in playful dance, while the sky overhead paints a magnificent canvas of fiery reds and warm golden hues, igniting the landscape with a vibrant energy.

As the ranch emerges into view, your gaze fixates on the figures in the yard, each poised atop their horses. Yet amidst the group, your attention is magnetically drawn to Jimin. Clad in his signature simplicity—a crisp white t-shirt, weathered denim trousers, and beloved boots—he exudes a rugged charm that’s both timeless and alluring. But it’s his eyes that hold you captive, sparkling with a depth of emotion, perhaps even a hint of desire, while his smile, radiant and genuine, seems to illuminate the entire landscape, a beacon of warmth and affection reserved solely for you.

As you approach him astride Mikrokosmos, you offer a warm greeting, “Hey there.”

You lean in, capturing his lips in a tender kiss, momentarily oblivious to the playful banter and catcalls from the others, a shared chuckle escaping both of you amidst the uproar.

“Hey, babe,” he breathes out, his voice breathless and his gaze lingering on your lips. You can’t help but nibble on your own, a nervous habit in the wake of his overwhelming presence. It’s astonishing how effortlessly he stirs something deep within you with just a simple kiss. Memories flood your mind, recalling the intense moments shared with Jimin during your recent escapade in the wilderness. Now, amidst the chatter of friends and the anticipation of another adventure, you can’t help but wonder if this time will be different, if the chemistry between you two will ignite once more, maybe with less action, because that would truly be weird in front of everybody.

As your horses amble lazily forward, Jimin’s hand finds yours, fingers intertwining seamlessly. The simple act sends a jolt of warmth coursing through you, a silent promise of companionship amidst the vast expanse of the open landscape.

“Are we all ready?” Jessi’s voice cuts through the anticipation, her gaze sweeping over the assembled group, met with a chorus of affirmations.

“Alright, team. Remember the drill: keep it smooth and stress-free,” Jessi’s voice rings out with authority, her grip tightening on the reins as she guides Cinnamon into a purposeful trot. “Our herd’s a day’s ride east-west from here. Let’s make it count.”

With a silent nod to Jimin, you release his hand, urging Mikrokosmos into a spirited gallop. Together, you and Jimin form the rear of your group, a silent understanding passing between you. As you ride, you catch sight of Yoongi and Hoseok up ahead, their easy friendship evident in their smiles and hushed conversation. Mental notes flutter through your mind, a reminder to inquire about their date with Yoongi later on.

As the sun climbs to its zenith, you ride on until the familiar call for a break echoes through the air, signaling a pause for rest and sustenance. Settling down beside Jimin, his presence a comforting anchor beside you, you lean gently into the solidity of his frame, finding solace in the warmth he radiates.

The horses graze on the tender grass, luxuriating in their well-deserved respite, and you take a moment to replenish yourself with cool water and nourishing sustenance, feeling the energy seep back into your weary limbs with each sip and bite.

“How are you feeling?” Jimin’s gentle inquiry envelops you like a warm embrace, his eyes brimming with genuine concern and a flicker of something deeper, stirring a flutter of desire in the pit of your stomach.

You chuckle softly, the sound mingling with the refreshing gulp of water as you tilt the bottle to your lips. “My ass might be protesting a bit,” you admit with a grin, “but I’m holding up just fine.”

His laughter rumbles through the air, deep and rich, setting off a cascade of warmth in your chest. As you nibble on your food, you find yourself drawn into his orbit, the rest of the world fading into the background. In that moment, it’s just you and Jimin, lost in your own little universe.

With satisfied bellies and renewed spirits, you mount your horses once more, urging them into a swift gallop that carries you over hills and across vast stretches of open land towards the waiting cattle. The wind whips through your hair, and the rhythm of your horse’s hooves against the earth is like a steady drumbeat propelling you forward.

As the sky transforms into a mesmerizing palette of pinks and purples, resembling a scene straight from your own paintings back home, you can’t help but marvel at nature’s artistry. Despite the long hours in the saddle and the fact that your ass is sore as hell, your determination fuels your journey, and at last, you catch sight of the cattle grazing on the horizon. Relief washes over you like a gentle breeze, a welcome respite after a long day’s journey in the saddle.

With the sun dipping low and casting long shadows, Jessi’s voice cuts through the rustle of hooves and the low murmurs of the cattle. “That’s it for today. We’ll set up camp and drive them back tomorrow,” she announces firmly, reining Cinnamon to a halt near the herd before dismounting gracefully. Her words signal the end of the day's journey, a welcome respite from the endless expanse of the range. As she steps down, the rest of the group follows suit, each rider swinging their legs over their horses and joining her on solid ground.

Unrolling your sleep mat and spreading out your blanket, you relish the freedom of sleeping beneath the vast expanse of the open sky. Tents seem suffocating in this sweltering heat, offering little respite from the relentless sun. Out here, under the celestial canopy, you feel a connection to the land and the stars above, finding solace in the simplicity of nature’s embrace.

Nestling your sleeping mat beside Jimin’s, you relish the closeness, finding comfort in the warmth of your boyfriend. Nearby, the others spread out their mats, creating a sense of friendship beneath the sprawling sky. Jungkook and your sister, too, opt for closeness, aligning their mats side by side, fostering bonds in the quietude of the outdoors.

Your group settles in for dinner, and Soo-ah interjects with a playful yet stern warning, her laughter echoing through the gathering. “If I hear so much as a moan from any of you guys,” she jests, brandishing her flashlight like a beacon of authority, “I’ll expose you with my flashlight!” Her eyes twinkle mischievously as she scans the circle, her tone a blend of admonition and amusement.

“I swear on every star in this sky, I would never do that!” You practically shriek, your voice rising in horror, eliciting a hearty laugh from Jimin beside you. His touch on the small of your back sends a wave of warmth through you, grounding and reassuring as you banter with the group.

Soo-ah’s stare pierces through the playful banter, her eyes holding a hint of mischief and warning. “It’s not you I’m worried about,” she says with a sternness that cuts through the laughter.

Her gaze shifts to Jungkook and your sister, a mischievous glint dancing in her eyes, and suddenly they both burst into laughter, their voices echoing in the evening air like a chorus of mischief.

“He totally doesn’t have any problem with public indecency!” Soo-ah playfully accuses, her finger jabbing in Jungkook's direction amidst his relentless laughter, echoed by your sister’s giggles.

“I’m sorry. I’ll keep it in my pants,” Jungkook quips, his laughter infectious as you share a playful eye roll with your sister. The idea of anything intimate happening out here in the open under the stars, right next to your friends, feels more gross than enticing. No thank you.

Amidst the laughter and banter, you all finish your meal, casting playful glances at Jungkook, who feigns innocence with a grin. With the sky now a canvas of darkness, sprinkled with the brilliance of a thousand stars, you prepare to surrender to the embrace of sleep, a well-earned respite under nature’s celestial canopy.

You glance around, and you notice the girls forming their own cozy enclave, their mats nestled together, sharing whispered secrets and giggles. Yoongi and Hoseok, not too far away, seem to have formed their own pact, their mats positioned snugly side by side. With a gentle distance between each group, the night air is filled with the soft murmur of conversation and friendship. Your sister and Jungkook have already settled down, their figures outlined by the fading light. You shift your focus to Jimin, his presence beside you a comforting anchor amidst the quietude of the night.

You chuckle softly, meeting his expectant gaze as his crooked grin lights up his face. “No funny business,” you playfully jab a finger at his chest, a smile dancing on your lips, the warmth between you palpable in the starlit night.

He chuckles softly before leaning in to kiss you, his lips full of desire, love, and a hint of the roses that aren’t even nearby. His tongue dances with yours, igniting a familiar fire within you. But the reality of your surroundings pulls you back; you’re outside, among friends and family. With a reluctant sigh, you pull away, planting a tender kiss on his cheek before turning around, inviting him to spoon you under the canopy of stars.

You nestle deeper into his embrace, playfully wiggling your hips against his, eliciting a soft chuckle from him. You sense the subtle response of his body against yours, his dick twitching against your ass. His arms envelop you, drawing you close, and you relish in the warmth of his embrace. As his head finds its place in the curve of your neck, you’re enveloped in the comforting scent of his presence, his breath a gentle caress against your skin. A sense of security washes over you as he wraps a leg around your hips, pulling you into an intimate embrace that speaks volumes of love and care.

You drift into slumber cradled in Jimin’s arms, his steady breaths a comforting lullaby against your ear, sending gentle shivers down your spine with each warm exhale. 

As consciousness gradually returns, you blink away the remnants of sleep, greeted by the sight of Yoongi and Hoseok nearby, their figures illuminated by the soft glow of dawn.

“Morning,” Yoongi greets you, a weary smile gracing his lips as he waves a hand in your direction, his silver locks tousled from a night spent under the stars. With a hint of fatigue in his eyes, he absentmindedly runs his fingers through his hair. Hoseok follows suit with a wave, attempting to suppress a yawn behind his hand, signaling the slow transition from sleep to wakefulness.

The girls stir from their slumber, and you glance over to catch your sister and Jungkook sharing soft laughter, still nestled in their blankets. Returning your focus to your boyfriend, a fond smile tugs at your lips as you watch him peacefully asleep, admiring the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest with each steady breath.

With a stretch and a yawn, your sister breaks the morning silence. “Morning, everyone. Let’s grab some breakfast and get to it,” she suggests, her voice carrying a hint of determination.

You nod in agreement, your focus shifting to the still-sleeping Jimin beside you. Gently, you lay a hand on his chest, giving him a soft nudge, urging him to wake up and join the day’s activities.

He slowly stirs beneath you, his eyes fluttering open, he greets you with a warm, sleep-laden smile. “What’s up, love?”

With a tender smile, your cheeks tinged with a hint of pink, you reply, “We have to get to work, but food first.”

He rises from his slumber, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the sun-drenched landscape, basking in the warmth of the morning sun.

Amidst fatigue, you rally, rummaging through your saddle bags to retrieve the sustenance you stashed away. With weariness tugging at your limbs, you replenish your energy reserves, fortifying yourself for the task ahead: herding the cattle back home.

Swiftly devouring your meal, you swiftly equip your horses once more, preparing for the labor ahead. With practiced efficiency, you and your friends align, forming a protective barrier around the cattle, guiding them homeward with a synchronized grace.

As you ride alongside Jimin, your eyes playfully dart towards each other, sharing secret smiles amidst the task at hand. A gentle chuckle escapes your lips as you catch sight of Yoongi up ahead, with Soo-ah accompanying him, their friendship evident even from a distance.

“I need to have a word with Yoongi. I’ll be back in a moment,” you inform Jimin, urging your horse forward to catch up with Yoongi. As you draw near, Yoongi’s eyes meet yours, a welcoming smile gracing his lips, signaling his readiness to listen.

“Hey there,” you greet them with a chuckle, offering a nod to both Yoongi and Soo-ah.

“You just couldn’t wait any longer, could you?” He teases with a laugh, his tone carrying a playful undertone.

“Nope, couldn’t wait a second longer,” you reply with a grin, your curiosity piqued. “So, spill it. How did the date go?” You flash a knowing smile, eager for all the juicy details, your excitement barely contained.

As his laughter fills the air, you catch the subtle shift of Soo-ah’s attention, her gaze now fixed on your exchange, her curiosity piqued by the laughter.

“It went well. We have another date next week,” he replies, his smile adorned with a hint of bashfulness, the faint flush on his cheeks betraying his otherwise cool demeanor.

“I knew it. I knew Hoseok liked you!” You exclaim gleefully, punctuating your words with a playful smack on his arm, teasing him with a grin. Soo-ah, beside Yoongi, appears taken aback by the sudden revelation.

“Hoseok?” Soo-ah’s voice wavers, tinged with a hint of sadness. It hits you like a ton of bricks — fuck, you'd forgotten that she harbored feelings for him too.

“Wait, you went on a date with Hoseok?” Soo-ah’s voice quivers with disbelief, her tone laced with a mix of surprise and uncertainty.

Yoongi simply nods, his expression weary, as if he’s exhausted from the weight of hiding his emotions for so long.

Soo-ah’s shoulders sag with disappointment, and you can’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for her. However, her expression quickly shifts, and she manages to muster a bright smile for Yoongi. “Well, I’m genuinely happy for you,” she says, her voice masking any hint of her inner turmoil.

“Any details you want to share?” You prod, a mischievous glint dancing in your eyes as you nudge him playfully.

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but it was pretty tame. Just dinner and a beer, nothing juicy to share,” he replies with a grin.

You chuckle softly, noticing the subtle blush coloring his cheeks. Despite his reluctance to share, you offer a supportive nod, respecting his privacy. After all, some stories are meant to be savored in silence.

“I’ll head back to Jimin,” you announce with a grin, earning a playful eye roll from Yoongi, accompanied by his laughter.

You bring Mikrokosmos to a stop, patiently waiting for Jimin to catch up. As he approaches, his hand instinctively seeks yours, and he leans in, stealing a swift yet tender kiss.

“Yoongi told me his date with Hoseok went good,” you share with a wide grin, still basking in the lingering sweetness of Jimin’s kiss.

His voice filled with a tender mix of love and adoration, he asks, “Hm. That’s good. Do you want to go on a date with me next week?” Your heart swells as you can’t help but smile, nodding your head eagerly. 

“Yes, of course.” 

“What’s all this about a date?” Jungkook suddenly appears beside you, causing you to chuckle at his unexpected arrival.

“How about a double date at our place?” Jungkook suggests, his smirk stretching wide across his face. You roll your eyes at his typical suggestion, knowing that he’s always one for a group outing. It’s not that you’re opposed to the idea of a double date; it’s just that you were hoping for some alone time with Jimin.

Jimin remains silent, his eyes fixed on you, waiting for your reaction, his gaze a mixture of anticipation and curiosity, silently urging you to respond.

“Alright, we’re in,” you agree, albeit reluctantly, to Jungkook’s proposal, offering a small smile that masks your slight disappointment at the change of plans. Nevertheless, you reassure yourself that it might turn out to be enjoyable after all.

“Cool, I’ll tell Jessi,” he remarks with a grin before trotting off toward Jessi, who’s leading the cattle atop Cinnamon, their faithful horse.

You spend the ride beside Jimin, hand in hand, lost in each other’s company until the midday sun prompts a well-deserved break for nourishment. Time flies by, and soon you find yourselves back on Mikrokosmos, herding the cattle homeward once more, the day slipping away in the rhythm of hoofbeats and love.

As the sun dips below the horizon, casting the sky in hues of orange and pink, you find a spot close to a lake to set up camp once more. Dinner is shared, laughter exchanged, and as night falls, you nestle into Jimin’s warm embrace, finding solace in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, a soothing lullaby that guides you into a peaceful slumber.

The morning light filters through the trees, illuminating the campsite, and you’re greeted by the sight of Jimin’s tousled blonde locks, wild and carefree. Your heart dances at the sight, and a tender smile graces your lips as you admire his peaceful slumber. Unable to resist, you lean down and plant a gentle kiss on his cheek, eliciting a soft, contented murmur from him. “Wake up, Jiminie,” you whisper, your voice laced with affection, coaxing him from his dreams.

His eyelids flutter open, and he rubs them gently, allowing the golden rays of the morning sun to filter through and illuminate his irises like shards of amber. Slowly, his gaze shifts, finding you amidst the soft glow of dawn.

“Morning, my love,” he murmurs, lifting himself to meet your lips in a tender embrace, the warmth of his affection melting away the remnants of sleep.

“Morning, babe,” you reply, returning his kiss with equal fervor. Laughter from behind catches your attention, and you glance over to see the girls teasingly sticking out their tongues, playfully mocking your affectionate display. Ignoring their antics, you smirk and pull Jimin in for another kiss, this time with an added hunger, relishing in the closeness you share.

As you part for a breath of air, your sister strolls past, offering a cheerful good morning and casually grabbing some food from one of the saddlebags.

You stretch your arms, letting out a deep yawn. “I really need a shower,” you groan, feeling the stickiness of sweat and dust clinging to your skin after spending over a day in the same clothes. You have a spare set packed away, but it feels inadequate against the persistent grime that seems to have settled into your pores.

“I can fix you a shower,” Jungkook suddenly offers, and you turn your head to look at him in disbelief, surprised by his unexpected suggestion.

“I can make a makeshift shower over that tree. The lake is just over there, so it’s easy to grab water from there,” Jungkook explains casually, his suggestion igniting a spark of excitement in your eyes. You notice the girls also showing interest in the idea, their curiosity piqued by Jungkook’s proposal.

“Count me in too,” Ara chimes in eagerly, stretching her arms over her body as if to emphasize her desire for a refreshing shower.

“Awesome, leave it to me,” Jungkook declares, rising from his sleeping mat with purpose. He swiftly dresses himself and strides over to the nearby tree, where he begins fashioning a makeshift shower using nothing but rope and a tarp, his movements confident and efficient.

After nearly half an hour of focused effort, Jungkook completes the makeshift shower. Its walls are ingeniously constructed from tarp, creating a semblance of privacy amidst the wilderness. The crowning achievement is a homemade bottle with a spraying function rigged overhead—an unexpected touch of luxury in the great outdoors. You can practically feel the anticipation bubbling within you, yearning to shed the grime from your skin beneath the revitalizing cascade of water.

“Done,” Jungkook declares triumphantly, the sound of his hands coming together echoing through the tranquil air as he strides back to join the rest of the group.

“I’ve got first dibs!” You exclaim eagerly, springing to your feet and darting towards the makeshift shower. With a swift motion, you shed your clothes, tossing them aside without a second thought. As you glance around, a moment of uncertainty washes over you, pondering the logistics of obtaining water for your much-needed shower.

“Need water?” Jimin’s voice cuts through the air, his hands deftly carrying a brimming bucket that he expertly empties into the makeshift shower's overhead spray. The frigid cascade catches you by surprise, eliciting a startled shriek as the chilly droplets dance across your skin. Yet, amidst the shock, there’s an immediate sensation of refreshment as the cleansing streams wash away the grime, leaving you feeling revitalized and invigorated.

Jimin’s laughter fills the air, warm and inviting. 

“Mind if I join?” He teases, a mischievous glint dancing in his eyes as he edges closer to the makeshift shower.

With a coy smile, you welcome Jimin into the makeshift shower, relishing the warmth of his gaze on your bare skin. As you part the tarp to invite him in, his eyes flicker with desire, and he sheds his boxers without hesitation.

As the water envelops both of you, your arms wrap around his waist, drawing him nearer. His lips meet yours in a tender kiss, igniting a passionate flame within you. Your bodies meld together seamlessly, your curves pressing against his firm form, sending waves of desire coursing through your veins.

You sense the growing hardness of his dick with each kiss, sending a surge of desire coursing through you. Your fingers itch to explore him, to feel him completely. A soft moan escapes your lips, mingling with a playful chuckle, as the intensity between you builds with each passing moment.

“We can hear you, and we can also see your legs,” Soo-ah’s playful voice interrupts, snapping you both back to reality. You share a knowing chuckle with Jimin, exchanging soft glances as her words burst your intimate bubble.

“Sorry!” You giggle, the lingering cold of the shower contrasting with the warm breeze on your skin as you step out, reaching for the towels Jimin has laid out on the grass. With a shared smile, you both quickly dry off, the urgency fueled by the anticipation of the day ahead, and eagerly slip into fresh clothes.

As the rest of the gang takes their turn in the makeshift shower, you all gather around to enjoy a quick meal before gearing up once more, ready to mount your horses and continue your journey.

You and Jimin reclaim the rear position, and you deliberately allow your horses to amble along, relishing the chance to intertwine your fingers while riding. His touch is reassuringly warm, his grip firm yet gentle, each calloused fingertip igniting a trail of desire along your skin, teasing your imagination with the countless ways he could use those hands to explore your body’s every curve and contour.

Despite the lingering soreness in your ass from the cattle muster, you eagerly swing onto Mikrokosmos’s back, feeling the rush of adrenaline as you urge her into a spirited gallop toward Bell Ranch.

As the relentless heat of summer refuses to bid farewell, the sun’s gentle embrace envelops your skin, warming you as Mikrokosmos dashes freely across the undulating hills, her hooves kicking up dust in her wake.

You guide Mikrokosmos into the yard with a sense of exhilaration, her powerful strides carrying you effortlessly forward. As you approach, your eyes fixate on Jimin, completely absorbed in his task within the barn where they store their heavy machinery. There he is, amidst the rustic charm, skillfully maneuvering the circular wood cutting machine wearing a white tank top and jeans, each motion a testament to his craftsmanship and dedication.

You rein in Mikrokosmos, bringing her to a graceful halt, and swiftly dismount, securing her reins to a nearby post. With purposeful steps, you make your way across the yard, drawn like a magnet to Jimin’s industrious figure within the barn’s dim confines.

You step into the barn, silently observing Jimin as he remains absorbed in his task, oblivious to your arrival. Beads of sweat glisten on his honey-toned skin, tracing a path down his taut muscles, each drop a testament to his exertion. His movements are fluid, almost mesmerizing, as he deftly handles the wood, cutting with precision and ease. With each motion, you find yourself drawn deeper into his world, captivated by the rhythm of his work and the raw strength he exudes. With a deft hand, he seizes a piece of wood, his movements graceful yet powerful as he guides it to the cutting blade. With a swift and practiced motion, he slices through the wood, the sound of the machine blending with the rhythm of his actions. Discarding the finished piece, he seamlessly transitions to the next, the cycle repeating in an entrancing dance of productivity and precision.

As you approach him, his focus shifts from the task at hand to your presence, his head lifting abruptly to meet your gaze. In an instant, his expression softens, a warm smile spreading across his face, like the sun breaking through clouds. With a click, he switches off the wood cutter, his attention now fully on you.

“Hi, babe,” he greets, his voice a soft melody that reaches you even before your arms encircle him. Drawing near, you feel the warmth of his embrace, pressing your cheek against his shoulder and collarbones, inhaling deeply, the musky scent of him enveloping you, stirring something deep within.

His tank top clings damply to his skin, evidence of his hard work, but you pay it no mind, only seeking to hold him closer against you, craving the comfort and intimacy of his embrace.

“Hi, love,” you whisper, pulling back slightly to meet his gaze, your heart fluttering at the sight of his deep, soulful brown eyes—fuck, you’ll never get enough of those. Each glance a magnetic pull, drawing you in deeper with every heartbeat.

He leans in, his lips tenderly meeting yours in a sweet, lingering kiss that ignites a fire within you, every touch of his breath against your skin sending shivers down your spine. As he pulls back ever so slightly, you let out a soft moan of contentment, the taste of him still lingering on your lips. With a gentle touch, he brushes a stray strand of hair away from your face, his eyes locking onto yours with a depth that speaks volumes without a single word.

“What are you doing here?” His voice carries a note of curiosity as he brushes away another stray lock of hair, eliciting a soft chuckle from you as his fingertips dance lightly across your skin, sending delightful tingles down your spine.

“I just came to see how you’re doing,” you tease, punctuating your words with a playful tongue poke, earning a smirk from him in return.

“You could have just called, you know,” he chuckles, stepping back from your embrace and reaching for another piece of wood, his grin playful yet warm, inviting you into his world of labor and laughter.

“But then I wouldn’t get to see you, dummy,” you retort, sticking your tongue out again, your playful banter punctuated by a mischievous grin. Jimin, with a smirk dancing on his lips, saunters over to you, his gaze locking onto yours, and as he nears, he moistens his lips in anticipation.

“Did you just call me ‘dummy’?” he asks, his voice laced with amusement, one eyebrow arching in playful disbelief as he stands mere inches from you, the warmth of his breath mingling with yours, creating an intimate closeness that sends another shiver down your spine.

You nod your head, a mischievous glint dancing in your eyes as you tease him further, your teeth sinking into your bottom lip in a playful gesture, daring him to respond.

He groans softly, his hands finding your hips before boldly trailing down your back, his fingers gripping your ass firmly. “Sweetheart, do I need to teach you a lesson on manners?” He murmurs into your ear, his warm breath sending delightful shivers down your spine, a rush of desire flooding through you, making your panties damp with lust. Fuck.

You bite down on your lip, attempting to stifle a moan, but it escapes nonetheless, betraying the intense desire coursing through you. Jimin’s chuckle only adds fuel to the fire, and as he withdraws from your trembling figure, you’re left practically quivering with need. Damn it, you want him so badly that your entire body feels like it’s on the verge of trembling apart.

“But not now. I’m working,” he adds, and you feel a wave of disappointment wash over you, visible even in the slight slump of your shoulders. When he notices, a chuckle escapes him, softening the blow of his refusal with his infectious laughter.

“I’m building a new shed to store more wood outside. You can help if you want, or I could teach you how to do it?” He offers, a glint of excitement in his eyes, eager to share his passion with you and maybe steal a few moments of closeness amidst the work.

You’ve never built anything like that, and the thought of handling power tools sends a thrill of nervous excitement down your spine. The challenge looms large, but so does the opportunity to learn and share this experience with Jimin. It’s a leap into the unknown, but one you’re willing to take.

“You don’t have to,” he reassures you, his focus shifting back to the piece of wood he’s positioned in front of the cutter. You observe intently as he maneuvers the machine with practiced precision, the rhythmic hum of the cutter filling the air, the noise is loud, but not deafening. With each measured movement, he effortlessly shapes the wood, a testament to his skill and familiarity with the task at hand. As the newly cut piece falls to the ground, he seamlessly transitions to the next, measuring and drawing a cutting line, and methodically repeating the process. Despite the noise, it's a symphony of craftsmanship, captivating you in its symmetrical dance of creation.

As you watch him work, a sense of admiration washes over you. His movements, though skilled, seem approachable, almost inviting. You find yourself considering the possibility of trying your hand at it too. After all, he did offer to show you the ropes, and the task appears deceptively simple. Perhaps it's time to step out of your comfort zone and give it a shot.

“I wanna try,” you announce as he reaches for another piece of wood. His smile widens, and with a playful glint in his eye, he retrieves something from his back pocket.

“Here, put these on,” he says, offering you a pair of light blue working gloves. You slip them on, feeling a sense of readiness as you prepare to tackle the task ahead, your hands now shielded from the rough wood.

With a gentle yet firm grip on your hips, he guides you to stand in front of him and positions you facing the wood cutting machine, strategically placed atop a trailer.

With his warm, perspiring body pressed against your back, your heart races at the proximity, urging you to concentrate. Keep your mind on the task at hand, you remind yourself, feeling the electric charge between you intensify with every passing moment. Fucking focus!

“See, I’ve already drawn the cutting line,” he explains, guiding your hands to rest firmly on either side of the wooden plank. His touch is reassuring, his voice steady as he ensures each step is understood. “Place your hands here and here,” he continues, his fingers gently aligning yours with precision, emphasizing the importance of proper positioning for a precise and level cut.

His warm breath tickles your neck, sending shivers down your spine, igniting a fiery desire within you. His closeness is intoxicating, drawing you further into the moment as he instructs you on the next steps. “Then,” he murmurs softly, his voice sending ripples of anticipation through you, “lift your right hand from the wood, place it on the machine, and push in those two buttons.”

You shoot him a quizzical glance, uncertain if you’re meant to activate the machine at this moment. His gaze meets yours, reassuring and confident, urging you to trust in the process.

“Go ahead,” he encourages, his voice a gentle nudge to embolden your actions. You tentatively raise your hand, fingers hovering over the buttons as you absorb his instructions. With a steady resolve, you press both buttons simultaneously, unleashing the machine’s mechanical symphony. The blade whirls into action with a powerful hum, its motion mirroring the adrenaline coursing through your veins. In that moment, you’re not just operating a machine; you're wielding a newfound sense of capability and strength. As you release the buttons, the machine obediently falls silent, echoing the ebb of your exhilaration.

“Wow, that was fun,” you exclaim, your voice infused with a newfound zest. The rush of operating the machine courses through your veins, leaving you feeling invigorated and empowered.

“Try cutting the wood then,” he whispers in your ear, his hands still gently resting on your hips. With a determined nod, you place your hand back on the machine’s handlebar, feeling a surge of confidence. You press the buttons to activate the machine, and then, with a steady hand, you guide the blade down into the piece of wood, slicing through it effortlessly.

Amidst the noisy whirl of the blade slicing through the wood, you maintain focus, feeling a thrill as the machine swiftly does its work. With unpracticed precision, you raise the blade back up, releasing the buttons as the machine powers down, leaving behind a cleanly cut piece of wood.

“I did it!” You exclaim triumphantly, spinning around, your heart dancing with the joy of your small victory. Jimin doesn’t hesitate; he pulls you close, his kiss both fervent and hungry, brimming with unbridled passion. His tongue intertwines with yours, igniting a fiery dance that sweeps you away, your body yielding to his tender embrace.

He then draws back, fixing you with an intense gaze that sends a surge of electricity through your veins. “Fuck. My girlfriend is hot,” he breathes out, his words laced with raw desire.

You chuckle softly, feeling the warmth of his lips pressing urgently against yours, his hands guiding you back against the trailer. With a gentle thud, the piece of wood falls to the ground behind you, forgotten in the heat of the moment.

“You’re distracting me,” he chuckles, his lips still grazing yours as he tries to steal more kisses, his desire evident in the urgency of his touch.

You chuckle, feeling lightheaded and dizzy with love, “My bad,” you reply, unable to suppress the grin spreading across your face.

You pull away from him, a spark of determination lighting up your eyes, “Mind if I give it another shot?”

He chuckles softly, stepping aside to let you take the lead. You position yourself in front of the machine, eager to try again. As you secure a new piece of wood, you reach for the ruler, a glint of determination in your eyes. “Any specific length for this one?”

“250 centimeters,” he replies, his hands finding their place on your hips once more, offering both guidance and support. With a pencil in hand, you prepare to mark the wood, a shared moment of collaboration and trust unfolding between you.

With meticulous care, you measure and mark the wood, ensuring precision with each stroke of the pencil. Placing the piece under the blade, aligning it precisely with the drawn line, you're poised for a flawless cut, a testament to your growing confidence and skill.

With a firm grip, you engage the machine, its hum filling the air as the blade descends upon the wood with controlled force. A surge of exhilaration courses through you, an electric thrill as you master the machinery. Discarding the severed wood, your gaze finds Jimin, his eyes reflecting admiration and pride in your newfound prowess.

His lips find yours again, igniting a fiery hunger that blazes between you. In the heat of the moment, your senses heighten, and you feel the undeniable urgency in his kiss. As you deepen the embrace, your attention is drawn to the subtle bulge pressing against his pants.

He breaks the kiss, his eyes flickering open with a mix of frustration and desire. A frustrated hiss escapes his lips as he runs a hand through his tousled hair, a telltale sign of his inner turmoil. “I can’t focus on work when you look this fucking sexy while handling power tools,” he admits, his voice laden with longing and a hint of exasperation.

You burst out laughing, unable to contain the warmth that floods your cheeks at his compliment. “Me? Sexy?” you tease, though his words ignite a flutter of excitement within you. Without hesitation, you pounce on him, straddling his waist, and eagerly capturing his lips in a passionate kiss, the intensity of your desire palpable in the air.

He embraces you fiercely, his lips moving against yours with a hunger that mirrors your own. Every touch, every kiss, ignites a fire within you, a burning desire that consumes your thoughts. You ache for him with an intensity that borders on desperation, fuck, you just want him so fucking bad.

“You know this is dangerous, right?” His words cut through the haze of desire, injecting a note of caution into the charged atmosphere. Confusion clouds your features as you meet his gaze, searching for understanding in the depths of his eyes.

“For me. Watching you work. It’s better if I work and you watch me. You can hand me wood,” his words carry a hint of playful warning, a reminder of the tantalizing allure between you, tempered by the practicality of safety. His touch, firm yet tender, ignites a playful spark as he teases, his fingers tracing the curve of your ass and giving it a soft squeeze, eliciting a laugh from deep within you.

You mull over his words, acknowledging the undeniable heat between you, the pulsing reminder of his erection against your pussy. It's a tantalizing distraction, one that could compromise the task at hand. Yet, a mischievous thought flits through your mind—perhaps a break wouldn’t hurt, a stolen moment to quench the fiery desire that simmers between you.

“Sounds like a good idea. But don’t you think you deserve a break?” You tease, puckering your lips and fluttering your lashes, a playful pout softening your features. His laughter ripples through the air, but beneath it, you sense his internal tug-of-war, caught between yielding to temptation and persevering with the task at hand.

“Babe, I really want to take a break, but I really need to get this done,” he confesses, his eyes holding a hint of regret, yet his smile remains as radiant as ever. Unable to resist, you lean in, your lips seeking solace in the warmth of his, a silent reassurance of your unwavering support amidst his obligations.

Somewhat disappointed, yet empathetic, you release a soft sigh. “I understand. I can always ravish you later. Let me lend a hand with the wood. Perhaps we’ll finish faster that way, right?��� You offer with a playful grin, eager to ease his burden while secretly anticipating the reward awaiting you both.

“Yeah, thank you,” he murmurs appreciatively as you hop down from his waist, returning to your position behind Jimin to assist with the wood. A twinge of sadness pricks at your heart, knowing he’s pushing through his arousal, but you respect his decision nonetheless.

You two make a seamless team, with you swiftly grabbing pieces of wood for him, Jimin expertly measuring and cutting, and then passing the cut wood to you. This rhythmic dance continues until every plank is neatly sliced, a testament to your combined effort and harmony.

Exhaling with a mix of exhaustion and amusement, you reach for Jimin’s water bottle resting on a nearby bench, taking grateful swigs of the refreshing liquid. “Phew, this is hard work,” you chuckle, wiping the sweat from your brow as you catch your breath.

Jimin’s laughter resonates beside you, his eyes dancing with lust and amusement as he observes a few stray water droplets trickling down your throat, bypassing your eager lips.

“Now I get why you’re so muscular,” you remark with a playful chuckle, reaching out to give his taut biceps a playful squeeze.

His laughter fills the air, infectious and heartwarming, much like the man himself.

As the dust kicks up behind you, you’re grateful for Jimin’s company on this journey to the auction to buy new cattle. Though the cattle aren’t his, he’s by your side, sharing in the excitement and anticipation. You navigate the rented cattle truck together with Jimin at the wheel, the road stretching out before you.

“Do you know what kind of cattle you want to buy?” Jimin’s question cuts through the rumble of the truck’s engine, his eyes fixed ahead on the dusty road, but his attention fully on you.

“I’ve got this note from Jessi,” you confess with a chuckle, glancing at the scribbled instructions in your hand. “Honestly, I’m clueless about cattle, so I’m just sticking to this note.” As the trees blur past, a plume of smoke billows from the hood of the truck, and you shoot Jimin a concerned look. “Uh-oh. That can’t be good.”

The truck hiccups and sputters, its engine protesting with a throaty growl, while tendrils of smoke dance across the windshield, blurring your vision like ominous shadows creeping in.

Jimin’s frustration echoes in his groan as he runs a hand through his hair, his fingers tangling in the strands like threads of worry. “The engine’s overheating,” he mutters, his voice tight with annoyance, as if he’s grappling with the machine's stubborn defiance.

You pivot towards Jimin, urgency creasing your brow. “Can you fix it? We can’t afford to miss the auction,” you implore, the weight of the situation pressing down on your words like an anvil.

“I’ll check the radiator fluid once the engine cools down,” Jimin replies, his tone laced with frustration as he guides the truck to the roadside and switches off the engine.

“Shouldn’t we pop the hood or something? Let some steam out?” You suggest, recalling scenes from movies where characters dealt with overheating engines. You wonder why he’s just sitting there, doing nothing.

He shakes his head firmly. “No, that’s a bad idea. The steam can scald you; it’s scorching hot. We’ll wait for the engine to cool down, then we can safely pop the hood and take a look,” he explains, his tone laced with concern for your safety.

“How long should we wait then?” You ask, turning your head to face him fully, a tinge of frustration creeping into your voice. The urgency of reaching the auction on time weighs heavily on your mind, each passing second feeling like a missed opportunity.

“Hmm. About 15 to 30 minutes,” he responds, reclining in the seat, resigned to the unavoidable wait as there’s nothing else to do but watch the clock tick away, each passing minute feeling like an eternity.

You unbuckle your seatbelt and lean in closer to him. “I know what we can do while we wait,” you whisper seductively, your voice dripping with desire as you elongate your words, your eyes locking onto his with a mischievous glint, teasing him with a suggestive raise of your eyebrows.

He chuckles, his gaze already smoldering with desire as he licks his lips hungrily. Following suit, he unbuckles his seatbelt, his anticipation evident in the way his chest rises with each breath. Without hesitation, you climb over the center console, straddling his welcoming thighs. Settling onto one, you press your hands firmly onto his shoulders, locking eyes with him. With a subtle bite to your bottom lip, you release a soft moan, the heat between you palpable as you slowly roll your ass against his thigh.

He emits a low, primal grunt, his gaze a potent mix of adoration, love, and raw desire, his eyes already dilated to their fullest extent.

You press yourself against his thigh with increasing fervor, every movement accompanied by soft, needy sounds escaping your lips, lost in the sensation of seeking out friction and pleasure.

The sensation is exquisite, the fabric teasing your sensitive clit, igniting a primal need for more. Though you crave deeper intimacy, this slow burn is amazing, setting the stage for what’s to come. Your breaths grow ragged, consumed by desire as you lean in for a kiss. It’s a collision of passion, each touch lingering and heavy with longing. As you part for air, a glistening thread of saliva bridges the gap between you.

His gaze is a symphony of longing and adoration, a testament to his insatiable desire for you, mirrored in your own yearning for him. Each glance is a silent declaration of love— you can never get enough of each other.

You plunge into another fervent kiss, your lips melding with his as you continue to undulate your hips against his firm, commanding thigh. The sensation of his muscles flexing beneath you intensifies the already exquisite friction, sending waves of ecstasy coursing through your body. Fuck, this is heaven.

As you throw your head back in ecstasy, your breasts tantalizingly close to his face, a fervent cry escapes your lips, “Fuck, Jimin!”

His hands, once anchored on your hips, now explore the curves of your breasts, their warmth seeping through the fabric of your shirt. “Babe, you’re so hot,” he murmurs, his voice husky with desire.

You moan unabashedly, surrendering to the urgent rhythm, each movement of your hips igniting a wildfire of sensation coursing through your body. With every grind against his thigh, you feel the tension coiling tighter within your core, a symphony of pleasure burning with each passionate roll.

You press your pussy down harder against his thigh, seeking deeper friction, every movement a testament to the raw desire pulsating between you. “Shit, Jimin,” you gasp, your voice trembling with need, “I love you.”

He chuckles softly, his eyes alight with a mix of amusement and adoration as he observes the desperation etched across your face, your lips bitten in fervent desire. With each moan escaping your lips, you seek solace on his thigh, yearning for release. He leans closer, his breath warm against your skin, and gently nips at the sensitive skin of your neck before soothing it with tender licks. Moving to your ear, he whispers in a voice husky with longing, “I love you too.”

As you grind against his thigh, he skillfully teases and caresses your breast, his touch igniting a fiery need within you. Each kiss is passionate, fervent, mirroring the intensity of your desire. Yet, despite the fervor, it’s not enough. You crave more, yearning for every sensation, every moment shared with him, consumed by an insatiable hunger for his touch.

With a flicker of determination, your fingers deftly navigate the clasp of your bra, releasing it with a satisfying click. Jimin’s eyes darken with desire as the fabric falls away, revealing the curves of your bare breasts. Eagerly, he pulls your bra down, his touch igniting sparks of electricity across your skin, before lifting your shirt to expose your naked form.

You tease him, pressing your breasts against his face, feeling the warmth of his breath as he exhales against your skin. With a bold move, he flicks his tongue out, tracing a delicate path along one of your erect nipples. The sensation sends a rush of heat coursing through your body, pooling at the bottom of your panties.

His lips envelop your nipple, creating a tantalizing sensation that ignites every nerve ending in your body. Meanwhile, his deft fingers caress and roll your other nipple, sending electric currents of pleasure coursing through you. The world around you blurs as desire consumes your senses, leaving you feeling feverish and desperate for more. Lost in the intoxicating haze of the moment, you grind your hips against his thigh, seeking greater friction and release. With a breathless moan, you call out his name, your voice laden with longing and desire.

“Jimin-ah!”

You feel so fucking wet and you can’t help but wonder if you’ve soaked through the denim of your pants. But in the heat of the moment, such concerns fade into insignificance, drowned out by the primal urge driving you to grind against him with increasing fervor. 

Jimin’s groan vibrates against your chest, igniting a firestorm of desire within you. With a primal cry, you throw your head back, surrendering to the overwhelming tide of lust threatening to consume you, its intensity nearly palpable in the charged air between you.

Your breaths come in erratic bursts, your voice strained with the intensity of your arousal. “I’m so close,” you gasp, the words escaping between ragged breaths like a desperate plea for release.

His lips part from your breast with a soft, wet sound, only to enclose around the other nipple, his warmth enveloping you in a delicious sensation. A high-pitched moan escapes your lips, the sound echoing in the confined space.

With every roll of your hips, the coil tightens, drawing you closer to the edge until it finally snaps, sending a surge of pleasure coursing through your body. 

As you press your core against his thigh, the warmth spreading, you feel the liquid of your orgasm staining your panties. Panting and frustrated, you huff, the intensity of the moment leaving you breathless and wanting more.

Jimin releases your breast, urgency in his movements as he dives in for a kiss, his hands eagerly pulling your body closer to his, seeking deeper connection and intimacy.

“You’re breathtaking, my love. Watching you lose yourself like that—it’s pure magic,” he whispers, his gaze locked with yours as you catch your breath, cheeks flushed with a rosy hue, a radiant glow emanating from your flushed skin.

With a playful grin, you trail your lips along his neck, leaving a mark of your passion on his warm skin. His laughter mixes with a soft hiss of pleasure, and when you draw back, a crimson imprint adorns his neck.

You lock eyes with him, your voice dropping to a seductive whisper, “Jimin, I want to suck your dick.”

He rakes a hand through his tousled hair, a mix of frustration and desire evident in his gaze. You, with your tempting proposition, ignite a fire within him that he struggles to contain. With a bitten lip, he observes as you gracefully lower yourself into the cabin of the truck, the anticipation palpable in the air. It’s so spacious, so you have no trouble fitting down there.

You watch with a hungered gaze as he spreads his thighs invitingly, a silent invitation you’re more than eager to accept. 

Your fingertips trace the contours of his thighs, feeling the tension beneath his skin, eliciting soft moans from his lips. Your eyes flicker downward, drawn irresistibly to the prominent bulge straining against his pants.

You tease him through the fabric, reveling in the way his body responds to your touch. With a sly grin playing on your lips, you deftly unbuckle his belt, eagerly anticipating the sight that lies beneath. As you unzip his pants, his form is revealed clad in sleek black boxers, igniting a primal desire within you. The hunger to taste him, to feel him against your tongue, intensifies with each passing moment, fueling your anticipation to devour him once more.

With a heated gaze, he eagerly lifts his hips, granting you easier access to unveil his eager cock. You swiftly guide both his pants and boxers down his strong thighs, all the way down to the floor of the truck.

You trace the contours of his scars with tender fingers, your voice barely above a whisper as you admire each mark etched into his skin. “Still so beautiful,” you murmur, your breath mingling with the heated air between you.

His dick springs to life, the head flushed red, proudly standing tall with veins tracing a map of desire on his creamy skin. You lick your lips in anticipation, locking eyes with him as you inch closer to his cock, your gaze ablaze with unmistakable lust.

You tease him with the tip of your tongue, while your hand wraps around the base of his dick. As your tongue makes contact with the sensitive head of his cock, a deep, guttural moan escapes his lips, his hands tangling in your hair, gripping you with urgency and desire.

With a lustful and mischievous glint in your eyes, you envelop him with your mouth, tracing circles around the sensitive head of his dick with your tongue. The taste of his precum teases your senses, urging you to take him deeper. Giving head isn’t usually your favorite, but there’s something undeniably alluring about Jimin’s cock—it’s not just his physical beauty, but the way he responds to your touch, igniting a fire within you that compels you to pleasure him with every ounce of your being.

You dive into your task with fervor, enveloping him with your warmth and intensity, all while maintaining an unwavering gaze that locks you in a fiery lust. His eyes, deep pools of desire, reflect back at you, almost black with longing, his breaths growing deep and quick as his fingers instinctively grasp at your hair, gently pulling you closer, urging you on in encouragement.

“Fuck. You’re so good, babe,” he hisses through gritted teeth as you create a delicious vacuum with your mouth, humming softly around him, each vibration sending electric waves down his spine, igniting a fire of pleasure that consumes him.

The sweet ache of his praise fuels you, igniting a fierce determination to please him even more, to push the boundaries of ecstasy and leave him breathless with desire.

With deft fingers, you caress his balls, feeling the twitch of his dick in your mouth, and god you love it. You love watching him like this.

With a satisfying pop, you release his dick, leaving Jimin breathless and utterly entranced as his gaze locks with yours, ablaze with an intensity that ignites your own desire. Your tongue darts out to moisten your lips, a tantalizing prelude to what's next as you eagerly plunge back down on his cock, lost in the electric rhythm of your desire.

With an insatiable hunger, you engulf him, channeling every ounce of your desire into each fervent suction, tracing delicate patterns with your tongue along his sensitive head, and on the slit, eliciting a symphony of shivers cascading down his body.

Despite the strain building in your jaw and the fatigue creeping into your muscles, your determination to please him fuels your every movement. 

You sense the telltale signs of his impending release, the subtle twitching of his muscles, the urgent grip on your hair. “I don’t want to come yet,” he pleads, his voice tinged with desperation. 

Responding to his plea, you halt your ministrations abruptly, withdrawing from him entirely, your tongue sweeping across your lips in anticipation of what’s to come.

“I want to fuck you so bad,” he pleads, his eyes ablaze with an intensity that mirrors your own desire. The raw hunger in his gaze ignites a primal longing within you, an ache that only he can satisfy. Fuck, that’s what you want too.

With a sense of urgency, you maneuver within the confines of the cattle truck, swiftly shedding your pants and panties, casting them aside in a rush of desire. 

“Fuck, Jimin, I want you to fuck me too,” you declare, your hands tenderly cradling his flushed cheeks as you settle back onto his lap, your pussy tantalizingly close to his cock.

You employ one hand to deftly guide his dick to your sobbing wet entrance, the anticipation sending shivers down your spine. With a deep breath, you lower yourself onto him, relishing the exquisite sensation of being filled as he too releases a throaty groan of ecstasy, captivated by the sight of you taking him in.

“Fuck,” you pant, your gaze fixated on the point where your bodies meld together, before shifting to meet Jimin’s gaze—his expression, a symphony of desire and ecstasy, ignites a primal hunger within you. Without hesitation, you plunge into a fervent kiss, pouring every ounce of longing and passion into the connection. As your lips mesh, you begin to undulate your hips, riding him with a rhythm born of pure sin, reveling in the exquisite sensation of his cock stretching you to the brink.

“You’re perfect, so good,” he pants, his words a raspy chorus of admiration and pleasure, his eyes tracing the elegant movements of your body with awe. “You’re taking me so well,” he adds, his voice strained with the overwhelming sensation of being consumed by your warm walls.

His praise reverberates through your core like a symphony, igniting every nerve ending and sending shivers of ecstasy down your spine. With each word, your inner walls contract around him, essentially hugging his dick tighter.

Your fingers trace the lines of his chest, feeling the taut muscles beneath his shirt, as if mapping the landscape of his body. Gripping his pecs, you find stability in his strength, grounding yourself in the heat of the moment.

Your breath quickens as you trail kisses along his neck, each bite leaving its mark. His moans fuel your desire, igniting a primal need within you. As he thrusts up into you, your bodies synchronize in a dance of pleasure, even though you’re beginning to feel tired.

Your voice trails off, a whisper against his skin as fatigue begins to weigh on your limbs. You lean into his warmth, seeking solace in his embrace. “Jimin,” you murmur again, your breath mingling with his, a plea for rest and intimacy intertwined.

As his fingers trace gentle patterns on your hips, you feel his warm breath against your ear, sending shivers down your spine. 

“What do you need, baby?” he murmurs, his voice a soothing melody in the quiet intimacy of the moment, his words a promise of comfort and understanding.

You lock eyes with him, your gaze filled with raw desire and an unmistakable urgency. “I want you to fuck me,” you confess, your voice laced with a mixture of longing and anticipation, your words a plea for him to consume you completely with his passion and desire.

A devilish smirk graces his lips as his hand trails up your spine, sending shivers of anticipation down your body. 

“I am, baby,” he murmurs huskily, his voice dripping with promise, igniting a fire of desire that consumes you entirely.

You melt into his embrace, the heat of the moment fueling your desire. “Fuck me harder,” you breathe against his lips, your voice a sultry whisper laced with determination. “I won’t break.”

His chuckle sends a delicious shiver down your spine, the vibration echoing in every fiber of your being, igniting a wildfire of desire within you.

“Shit, okay,” he breathes, his voice a husky whisper that stirs the air around you. With a firm grip on your hips, he guides you down onto him, then surges up, driving into you with an intensity that steals your breath away. A deep, primal moan tears from your lips as he plunges deep inside, igniting a frenzy of sensation that leaves you gasping for more.

He continues, each powerful thrust sending waves of pleasure coursing through you, your head nestled against his shoulder as you surrender to the intoxicating rhythm of his movements.

He breathes heavily against your ear, his voice a husky whisper as he drives into you with unrelenting force, each thrust igniting a new wave of ecstasy. 

“Like this?” He asks, his hot breath sending shivers down your spine.

“Fuck, yes!” You plead, your voice a needy whisper against his skin, your nails digging into his back as you arch into his every thrust.

With a low chuckle that resonates through your intertwined bodies, he drives into you with unrestrained fervor, each powerful thrust a testament to his primal desire, relishing the intoxicating blend of your scent and the tight embrace of your walls.

You’re lost in the moment, engulfed by the overwhelming pleasure he brings, his presence inside you sending ripples of ecstasy through every fiber of your being. The sensation of his cock sliding against your walls is pure bliss, akin to the smooth caress of silk.

As he continues to delve deep into you, each thrust ignites a wildfire of sensations, intensifying the pleasure building within. With each rhythmic motion, your body responds eagerly, the telltale signs of an impending climax looming ever closer.

With a longing gaze, you tilt your head, locking eyes with him in a silent exchange of desire. Without hesitation, you immerse yourself in another passionate kiss. The taste of him floods your senses, a tantalizing blend of minty freshness and the delicate essence of roses, leaving you intoxicated with longing.

“Jimin,” you gasp, unable to contain the impending wave of pleasure, “I’m gonna come.” His every thrust plunges you into a depth of sensation that sends shivers coursing through your entire being, curling your toes in exquisite anticipation.

“Come on my dick, baby,” Jimin’s voice rumbles with urgency, sending a surge of desire through your veins. With a primal hunger, he lifts your shirt, exposing your breasts again, and his mouth envelops your nipple, igniting a fiery response deep within you. 

As you clench around him, a symphony of sensations reverberates through your core, eliciting a guttural groan from deep within his chest.

With a few more primal thrusts into your eager pussy, you finally surrender to the electric ecstasy, releasing around him in a deluge of passion. Your liquid coats his dick, creating a slick and intoxicating friction that amplifies the intensity of the feeling of him inside you. The rhythmic collision of skin on skin fills the confined space of the truck, echoing like a symphony of desire. As the air thickens with raw anticipation, you find yourself gasping for breath.

As your body succumbs to the aftershocks of your orgasm, he continues his primal rhythm, holding you firmly by your hips, anchoring you to his powerful embrace even as you collapse against his unyielding frame.

“So fucking pretty,” his husky voice whispers in your ear, igniting a cascade of tingles down your spine, as you involuntarily clench around him once more, teetering on the edge of overstimulation from his intoxicating praise and relentless ministrations.

He releases your breasts, his lips finding solace on your neck, sinking into your flesh with a gentle bite, followed by the tender caress of his tongue. A guttural moan of his name escapes your lips, a symphony of pleasure and desire echoing in the confined space.

“I want you to fill me up, Jimin,” you whisper into his neck, your voice a delicate plea amid the haze of passion and exhaustion.

He responds with a low, guttural hum beneath you, driving into you with an intensity that surpasses anything before, each thrust echoing with a primal need, punctuated by his passionate moans.

You sense his breath quickening, a crescendo of desire matching the urgency of his thrusts. Feeling his movements intensify, you summon your last reserves of energy, rising to meet him with a determination born of desire. As you lock lips once more, then trail kisses down his neck, sinking your teeth in gently, he responds with a sharp hiss, a symphony of passion between you.

“Fuck!” His voice breaks with ecstasy as he calls out your name, surrendering to the waves of pleasure crashing over him. With each pulse of his release, he fills you with his warm seed, your teeth sinking into his neck as you share in his ecstasy. The sensation of him spilling into you sends shivers of satisfaction through your body, fulfilling a craving you’d longed for.

You both pant heavily, the truck filled with the sound of your ragged breaths as you continue to move yourself on him, savoring every lingering tremor of his climax. His spent dick still twitches inside you, a testament to the intensity of his release, fueling your desire to prolong the shared ecstasy.

“Jimin—,” you gasp out his name, feeling the weight of his presence beneath you as you settle onto him, completely immobile, savoring the intimate connection. He responds with a low moan, his lips finding your cheek in a tender kiss, his hand tracing soothing circles down your spine, reassuring and comforting.

Gradually, you feel him soften inside you, a gentle ebb of warmth as his essence melds with yours, mingling intimately. Sensations ripple through you as your own liquid trickles down, probably trailing down to his balls and the seat.

He catches his breath, his gaze lingering on your satisfied expression before diving in to claim your lips. The kiss is fervent, filled with a hunger born from the depths of desire.

You draw back, a soft chuckle escaping your lips as you behold the canvas of his neck, now adorned with the marks of your affection.

His chuckle mingles with the remnants of heavy breaths, a playful glint in his eyes as he meets your gaze, “What’s so amusing?”

“You’re a canvas of desire,” you murmur, tracing the love marks with your fingertips, a hint of mischief dancing in your eyes, “And I couldn’t resist leaving my mark.”

But you feel sorry, “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Yours isn't any different, and I adore every mark you’ve left on me,” he reassures, his words wrapped in warmth as he leans in for another passionate kiss, sealing your love with unspoken desire.

You feel how he’s gone completely soft inside you and you recognize the need to return to reality — to the road ahead or the ailing truck waiting for attention. With a mixture of reluctance and responsibility, you extricate yourself from his embrace, retrieving your garments and draping them over your sated form before making your way back to your seat.

As Jimin hastily pulls up his boxers and pants, the urgency of the moment seems to dissipate, replaced by a shared gaze out the window. The swirling plumes of smoke that had once billowed ominously from the truck’s hood have now vanished, leaving behind a sense of relief.

“I’ll take a look at the engine,” he declares, leaping down from the truck with a determined air, muscles flexing as he pops open the hood. With practiced hands, he swiftly identifies the issue before returning to the cabin, his movements purposeful as he rummages for supplies. “It’s low on radiator fluid,” he announces upon finding the elusive bottle tucked behind the seats. Stepping back outside, he replenishes the tank with focused precision before securing the hood once more. Finally, he re-enters the truck, his expression a mix of satisfaction and determination.

“This should be enough to get us to the auction, then we’ll take it to a mechanic when we get home,” he reassures you with a warm smile, his eyes reflecting a mix of determination and affection as he turns the key in the ignition, the engine purring to life under his expert touch.

“Cool,” you say, a smile playing on your lips as your hand finds purchase on his sturdy thigh, the warmth of his skin beneath your touch reassuring as he navigates the road ahead.

Jimin and Jungkook have been toiling away in their kitchen, conjuring up a tantalizing feast for you and your sister. As the aroma of their culinary efforts wafts through the air, you can’t help but feel a surge of anticipation. So far, this double date is shaping up to be quite the culinary adventure, you chuckle to yourself, eager to see what delights await.

You find yourself perched comfortably in a chair, positioned strategically in the heart of the bustling kitchen. From this vantage point, you observe with growing admiration as the brothers, Jimin and Jungkook, seamlessly collaborate, their movements synchronized like a well-rehearsed dance. Across from you sits Jessi, a fellow spectator to this culinary spectacle. Both Jimin and Jungkook insist that you take a seat and unwind, assuring you that they have everything under control as they labor over the stove, intent on crafting a memorable dinner for all.

Silence reigns in the kitchen, broken only by the rhythmic sounds of knives slicing through crisp vegetables, the gentle hiss of steam rising from pots on the stove, the tantalizing aroma of spices mingling in the air. With each passing moment, the symphony of culinary creation crescendos, from the sizzle of something tantalizing on the grill to the comforting hum of the oven at work. The scent wafting through the kitchen is nothing short of intoxicating, teasing your senses and igniting a fierce hunger within you. Anticipation mounts as you eagerly await the unveiling of the culinary masterpiece being crafted before your eyes, your stomach growling in eager agreement.

“Almost done, you can set up the table,” Jimin’s voice cuts through the bustling kitchen, the heat from the stove causing beads of sweat to glisten on his brow like tiny jewels. With determination etched on his face, he expertly tends to the simmering pots, his culinary prowess on full display. Acknowledging his command, you exchange a nod, your eyes alight with excitement as you and your sister swiftly move to prepare the table, gathering plates, glasses, and utensils with purposeful efficiency. Each clink of silverware against porcelain resonates with anticipation, a prelude to the feast that awaits.

As Jimin and Jungkook enter the room bearing platters of steaming, aromatic dishes, your anticipation peaks, heightened by the mouthwatering scents wafting from the kitchen. With the table meticulously set, every place arranged with care, you eagerly settle into your seat, the air buzzing with the promise of culinary delights. 

You find yourself seated next to your sister, a comforting presence by your side as you engage in this delightful double date. Across the table, Jimin’s warm gaze meets yours, his eyes sparkling with shared excitement for the evening ahead. Jungkook’s presence beside your sister adds to the lively atmosphere, his easy going demeanor balancing the dynamic of the group.

You dine in a symphony of flavors, the tantalizing aromas wafting from the dishes crafted by the skilled hands of Jimin and Jungkook. Conversation takes a backseat to the feast laid before you, each bite a delicious revelation that dances on your taste buds. With every savory morsel, you find yourself drawn deeper into the culinary masterpiece, savoring each moment of culinary bliss crafted by the talented duo.

As the final bite of the delectable meal settles in your stomach, a satisfying fullness envelops you, as if the flavors will linger within you for days to come. With meticulous care, Jungkook and Jimin sweep away the remnants of the feast, gracefully tidying the table and expertly storing the remaining culinary treasures in containers, preserving the essence of the unforgettable meal they’ve crafted.

With a refreshing clink of glass, Jimin hands you a cold beer, his eyes sparkling with warmth as you exchange smiles. As you settle back into your seats at the table, the chilled beverages offer a welcome respite, inviting a relaxed atmosphere to linger a little longer in the company of good food and even better company.

“So how is it going with you and Jimin?” Jungkook’s question hangs in the air, laden with curiosity and a hint of playful mischief. You catch Jimin's gaze briefly before responding, a knowing smile tugging at the corners of your lips.

A soft chuckle escapes your lips, the sound blending seamlessly with the warmth of the moment. Jimin’s hands reach out across the table, seeking yours, and as your fingers intertwine, a silent exchange of affection passes between you. 

“Absolutely perfect,” you murmur, your gaze locking with his in a shared understanding that transcends words.

With a tender expression, Jimin’s lips curve into a gentle smile, radiating warmth that fills the room. In response, you tighten your grip on his hand, fingers intertwining in a silent promise of support and affection.

Turning your attention to Jungkook, you inquire with genuine curiosity, “And how about you? Is it getting serious between you two?”

Your sister’s laughter dances beside you, punctuating the air with warmth, while Jungkook’s sudden blush betrays a hidden truth, his gaze averted as though guarding a secret. It’s a departure from his usual confident demeanor. Eventually, it’s your sister who breaks the silence, her voice brimming with happiness, “It definitely is.”

It warms your heart to hear their confirmation. As you take a sip of your beer, you catch Jimin’s gaze fixed on you, a silent question lingering in his eyes. There’s a tension in the air, a question begging to be asked, yet he remains silent, his thoughts concealed behind an enigmatic expression.

“Is there something on my face, babe?” You inquire playfully, your eyes meeting your boyfriend’s as he responds with a gentle chuckle.

“Ah, no. I was just thinking, since Kookie is heading over to your sister’s place, would you like to sleep over tonight?” he asks, shooting a playful scolding glance at Jungkook, who finally seems to snap out of whatever reverie had held him before.

He laughs heartily, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Yeah. We won’t disturb you!”

A flush of warmth spreads across your cheeks as you chuckle softly. “I’d absolutely love that, Jimin.”

His smile widens, his eyes reflecting the depth of his love for you.

You savor the last sip of your beer, relishing the cold it brings as you enjoy the company of your boyfriend, Jungkook, and your sister. Laughter fills the room, weaving through conversations about everything under the sun. Surprisingly, this double date has been more than enjoyable—it’s been a blast. Yet, as the evening draws to a close and farewells are exchanged, anticipation bubbles within you. You can hardly wait to slip into Jimin’s embrace, where the night holds promises of passionate lovemaking until dawn.

Honestly, he really wanted to go to the city, because his girl deserves the best. Yet, here he is, strolling through the quaint streets of the local town, drawn to a shop unknown to him until now. He has never visited this shop before, but now that he has you, everything feels different, better— well, you’ve changed him, made him remember who he is, and now that you’re finally back where you belong, his soul feels complete. The depth of his love for you knows no bounds, a force so powerful it compels him to stand within the walls of the local jewelry store, seeking a symbol of eternity to adorn you with.

Navigating the unfamiliar terrain of the store, he feels like a lost puppy amidst a sea of glittering treasures. Just as he’s pondering his next move, the store lady, with an air of gentle curiosity, approaches him, her presence a beacon of guidance in this maze of possibilities. “Do you need any assistance?” she asks, her voice a soothing melody in the otherwise silent space.

“Yes,” he responds with a chuckle, a nervous energy dancing in his movements as he scratches his head, “I’m looking for the perfect ring for my girlfriend.”

The lady’s smile warms her entire face, her eyes sparkling with understanding. “Ah, of course,” she says gently, “I’d be delighted to assist you in finding the perfect ring for your girlfriend.”

She leads him to the grand displays adorned with a dazzling array of jewelry: rings of all styles, necklaces that shimmer like moonlit waves, earrings that sparkle like stars, and even tiaras fit for a queen.

As he gazes at the stunning array of jewelry, a wave of uncertainty washes over him. Panic begins to gnaw at his insides. Fuck, he realizes he doesn’t know your preferences, and the pressure mounts with each passing second.

“Do you know what she likes?” The lady asks, her voice gentle and understanding. He shakes his head, his brows knit with worry, feeling a pang of guilt for not knowing your preferences.

“You could always go with something classic,” she suggests, her fingers delicately gliding over the gleaming display of timeless engagement rings, each one whispering tales of everlasting love and devotion.

He doesn’t like what he sees; they seem way too classic and basic for you. The ring needs to encapsulate the depth of his undying love for you, to be as unique and extraordinary as you are to him. His gaze wanders across the display until something glimmers and grabs hold of his heartstrings.

A purple gem—amethyst, glinting in the store light, captivating him with its ethereal beauty. 

That’s it. 

That’s the one. 

It feels almost magnetic, drawing him in, as if it's meant for you and you alone. The ring, delicate yet radiant, adorned with a single purple gem set in gold, seems to whisper your name. He’s certain you'll adore it. With unwavering determination, he points to the ring and declares, “That one.”

The lady’s smile widens as she retrieves a key from her pocket, unlocking the front of the glass display with a sense of excitement. “Do you know her ring size?” she asks, her voice brimming with anticipation.

As the store lady hands him the ring, he hears the gentle ding of the door, but he doesn't bother to turn around, his attention fully captured by the gleaming piece in his hand. Taking the ring delicately between his fingers, he turns it around, studying every detail with a mix of admiration and reverence. 

It’s perfect. Just like you.

“Yeah,” he nods, retrieving a slip of paper from his pocket, on which a number is scrawled hastily. He hands it over to the store lady, a silent plea evident in his eyes.

She takes the slip of paper from him, her eyes scanning the number with a gentle smile. “We have this ring in her size out back, just a moment,” she assures him, disappearing momentarily into the depths of the store.

As he waits for the lady to retrieve the ring, he finds himself drawn deeper into the mesmerizing allure of the jewelry before him. Each facet of the ring seems to hold a story untold, its sparkle casting a spell that captivates his senses. Lost in contemplation, he feels a presence at his side, and without turning, he subtly shifts to make room, inviting the stranger to share in the enchantment of the display.

“Jimin?” Jessi’s voice cuts through the air, almost startling him as he stands there, the ring gleaming between his fingertips. Her wide-eyed astonishment mirrors his own, catching him off guard in the midst of his silent contemplation.

“What are you doing here?” The simultaneous inquiry from both him and Jessi fills the air, followed by a burst of laughter that breaks the tension.

“I’m picking up my earring that broke some weeks ago, you?” Jessi’s voice carries a curious undertone, her gaze still fixed on his face, searching for answers.

As her gaze travels downward and lands on the ring in his hand, Jessi’s eyes soften, and she tilts her head ever so slightly. “Is that for my sister?” She asks, her voice filled with a mixture of curiosity and warmth, as if she already knows the answer but wants to hear it from him.

Just as the conversation with Jessi begins to deepen, the store lady returns, cradling a wooden box in her hands. “Here it is,” she announces, breaking the momentary silence with a gentle smile.

As the store lady passes the box to him, retrieving the ring from his grasp, her gaze flits between him and Jessi, a hint of curiosity flickering in her eyes, puzzled.

Jimin gingerly opens the box, unveiling a ring even more captivating than the one he had admired earlier in the display. Jessi leans in, her curiosity piqued, to steal a glance at the exquisite piece nestled within. “It’s stunning,” she murmurs, her voice filled with genuine admiration.

Jimin’s voice carries a hint of uncertainty as he gazes at the ring, seeking reassurance from Jessi. “Do you think she’ll love it?” he asks, his nerves palpable despite his conviction that this ring is the perfect choice.

Jessi’s voice is filled with unwavering certainty as she nods emphatically. “Jimin, trust me. She’ll absolutely love it.”

A sense of urgency colors Jimin’s voice as he pivots to address Jessi directly, his eyes pleading for her understanding. “Promise me, Jess. You can’t breathe a word of this to your sister, okay?”

Her laughter dances in the air, but her promise is firm, wrapped in the sincerity of her smile. “I won’t say a thing,” she assures, her eyes glinting with mischief and excitement.

With anticipation coursing through his veins, he settles the transaction with the store lady, the weight of the ring box in his hand a tangible reminder of his love and commitment. Now, all that’s left is to orchestrate the perfect moment to present it to you, a moment he imagines with fervent hope and longing.

Author’s note(2): Thank you so much for reading! 🌸 I would very much appreciate it if you reblogged the chapter, if you liked it ✨ A small review or a comment would also mean a lot to me, and even a like. But please, don’t be afraid to let me know what you think; your kind words makes me extremely happy 💜

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[mariacallous]

When the arsenal in Toropets detonated, the blast was so large it registered as a small earthquake and some eyewitnesses likened it to a small nuclear explosion. On the night of Sept. 17, the 107th Arsenal of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate, a military facility about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border in the region of Tver, was struck by around 100 Ukrainian drones, destroying some of Russia’s most advanced rockets and air defense interceptors, and possibly newly arrived North Korean ballistic missiles. Three days later, another large-scale Ukrainian drone strike hit the Tikhoretsk Munitions Storage Facility in the southern Krasnodar region, a main distribution depot of Russian munitions sourced from North Korea. Well over 200 miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory, the attack resulted in another huge fireball. That same night, more drones sailed into the directorate’s 23rd Arsenal, again in Tver, igniting the facility.

In a matter of days, munitions worth hundreds of millions of dollars had been destroyed. Estonian military intelligence estimates that the bombing of the 107th Arsenal destroyed two to three months’ worth of munitions alone.

These were the latest sorties of Kyiv’s fleet of homemade unmanned aerial bombs, which over the past few months have immolated air bases, fuel depots, oil refineries and ammunition stockpiles, all of them well inside Russian territory.

Ukraine is now giving as good as it gets, hitting Russia on its own turf by land, sea and air, and prompting a new debate in Western capitals as to whether NATO allies should assist it in these deep strikes or can afford to do so without triggering nuclear war.

In August, Ukraine made a well-coordinated incursion into Kursk, the first time a foreign army had invaded sovereign Russia since World War II. Despite early Western forecasts that this operation would be swiftly and severely reversed by a Russian counterstrike, Ukrainian forces continue to hold an expanse of territory roughly the size of Los Angeles and have so far deflected from Russian efforts to dislodge them by invading from other axes. In square mileage, this surprise tactical victory eclipsed in the space of two weeks Russia’s yearlong advance in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, where Moscow has committed enormous resources in manpower and artillery. According to members of the Ukrainian military interviewed by New Lines, at least some of these resources have now been redeployed to Kursk, partially fulfilling one of the stated aims of the offensive.

Though military cartographers and statisticians may assess these gains and losses as a decidedly mixed result after Kyiv’s third summer of fighting, Ukraine has also been making gains elsewhere, namely in the field of arms development. It is now manufacturing a fleet of combat and reconnaissance drones, both airborne and naval, as well as its own long-range missiles. Kyiv is using these weapons to do what Washington still refuses to allow it to do with Western equivalents: strike at Russian air bases, command-and-control hubs, logistics centers and energy infrastructure, all deep in Russia’s interior.

If the Kremlin entered the war under the “rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them,” to borrow a phrase from Sir Arthur Harris, the commander in chief of the U.K.’s Royal Air Force Bomber Command during World War II, Ukraine has spent the last months of 2024 bringing the war home to Russia and to Russians, with devastating effect. Ukrainian drone attacks have become so common that some enterprising Russian insurance companies have even started providing dedicated home insurance against drone attacks.

The only surprise is that this comes as any surprise.

During the Soviet era, Ukraine was a military-industrial powerhouse, home to the largest cargo aircraft ever built, the Antonov An-225 Mriya (the Russians destroyed it at start of the full-scale invasion), not to mention the entire line of T-64 main battle tanks and R-36M ballistic missiles, the introduction of which caused sleepless nights among Western military planners at the height of the Cold War — which is partly why NATO codenamed them “Satan.” Contemporary Ukraine has tapped into this heritage, and its engineers have gone to work again, this time to fight their former metropole and to make up for the American restriction on the use of Western artillery rockets and cruise missiles to target Russia.

According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries, Kyiv’s defense industrial base now commands 300,000 employees spread across 500 enterprises — four-fifths of them privately owned. Major Ukrainian public figures and charitable organizations have supported the effort by raising money and supporting the manufacture of drones.

Other Ukrainian civil society actors and volunteers have also turned hobbyist racing drones into remotely piloted, precision-guided munitions. FPV (first-person view) drones have become one of the most lethal weapons of the war — and one that Russia has copied to equal effect. Piloted by technicians stationed miles away wearing a virtual reality-style headset that captures the flight path as though they were on board, FPVs chase down soldiers on foot, on motorbikes or in armored vehicles and pound into command centers and military-occupied buildings. Recordings show everything until the moment of impact when the screen ominously turns to white noise.

So terrifying are FPVs — and so difficult to evade owing to their small size, speed and maneuverability — that Russian troops have committed suicide rather than face a grisly death from above. They’re also incredibly cheap and easy to mass produce, costing on average $300 to $500 depending on the components used. As such, these drones account for the majority of casualties on both sides, according to Lt. Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces.

For all the domestic innovation, Ukraine insists it still needs to use foreign weapons systems to go after strategic targets in Russia. The U.K., which was the first country to supply long-range munitions to Ukraine and has been one of Kyiv’s more bullish allies in the war, has been in favor of lifting such restrictions. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has even been lobbying European allies, such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, to support a proposal to allow Ukraine to use European-provided long-range weapons inside Russia without U.S. approval, Bloomberg recently reported. Other British officials were reported to be holding similar talks with their French and German counterparts.

There are growing indications that Washington is also coming around to this point of view. According to sources in the Biden administration, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is “fully in favor” of letting Ukraine strike back but faces resistance among those fearful of escalation with Russia, including at the National Security Council and the Pentagon. During a recent trip to Kyiv, Blinken stated that since the start of the war, the U.S. has been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield evolves. “From day one, we have adjusted and adapted,” Blinken said after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Needs have changed as the battlefield has changed, and I have no doubt that we will continue to do this.”

These adaptations, while welcome, often come too late to save Ukrainian lives. After the Russian incursion into the northeastern region of Kharkiv in 2024, U.S. restrictions preventing Ukraine from striking targets on the Russian side of the border were lifted. Had they been lifted before the incursion, a member of Ukraine’s Kraken special forces unit told New Lines during a visit to the front in May, the Russian invasion could have been prevented entirely. An unknown number of Ukrainian casualties could have been prevented, and the city of Vovchansk would not have been razed to the ground.

Telegraphing to Washington that Russia can absorb losses on its own territory without starting World War III may be why the guns of August have been firing overtime.

Apart from the Kursk operation, the end of summer has seen the successful use of Ukraine’s long-range drone program. On the night of Aug. 2, these flying bombs struck the Morozovsk air base in Rostov, approximately 165 miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory. The base’s ammunition dump housed hundreds of glide bombs, deadly air-dropped munitions that can destroy entire buildings and fighting positions in a single hit. The dump was obliterated in the Ukrainian strike, which also destroyed at least one Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber and almost certainly damaged two more, plus airfield infrastructure.

Days later, on Aug. 8, another Ukrainian drone strike targeted Lipetsk air base (250 miles from the border), a major training center for the Russian air force. The ammunition dump at the base was likewise also completely destroyed, with the other buildings at the facility suffering damage as well. Then, on Aug. 22, Ukraine’s drones bombed Marinovka air base in what was possibly the most successful strike to date, destroying at least one more Su-34 and likely destroying or heavily damaging four more aircraft. The base’s facilities suffered extreme damage, with hangars, ammunition stores and emergency vehicles all taking hits.

“No individual strike tells us that much, but it’s the growing number and mass of systems involved that are most important,” Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, told New Lines. “If Ukraine can wage a comprehensive ranged campaign against the Russian military, it will allow it to degrade Russian production, logistics, command and control. The types of targets which usually determine the outcome of wars.”

Just the fact that Ukraine can routinely and successfully target such air bases will have an impact on Russian air force operations, according to Lt. Col. Jahara Matisek⁩, a U.S. Air Force pilot and a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, who spoke in a personal capacity. “The biggest benefit is that it is forcing the Russian air force farther away from Ukraine, which decreases Russian ability to lob missiles and bombs into Ukraine.” He explained that it would also provide Ukraine with an opportunity to establish localized air superiority, giving Ukrainian ground offensives a greater ability to mass forces and maneuver in the open without fear of being attacked from the air.

Russia will continue to struggle to defend itself against Ukrainian drones, Matisek⁩ believes, because its air defense networks were designed to fend off a large-scale NATO and U.S. attack, rather than smaller, slower drones flying from Ukraine. “Cold War assumptions about how the U.S. and NATO would attack the USSR meant that Russian air defenses are oriented in that fashion. Hence, Russia likely never designed an air defense network to defend against Ukrainian incursions.”

To ward off Ukraine’s drones, Russia has instead opted for ad hoc measures such as painting the outlines of fake aircraft on the concrete hard stands and covering real ones under dozens of old tires — not the best form of camouflage against weapons that don’t rely on visual sensors to find their targets. The most effective way Russia defends against current Ukrainian attacks, however, is to simply fly all airworthy planes away from incoming drones, something that would be entirely ineffective should supersonic long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, be allowed to target them.

Ukraine isn’t just pounding planes on the tarmac. Deep strikes have been directed at Russia’s strategic oil infrastructure, such as refineries, depots and even export ports. For instance, on Aug. 17 Ukrainian drones targeted the Kavkaz oil depot, a large storage facility in Proletarsk, in Rostov, causing a catastrophic fire that continued to burn for over two weeks. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of fuel was destroyed in one night, and the Proletarsk facility will be functionally useless for the foreseeable future. (Russian authorities eventually drafted in a number of Orthodox priests in an attempt to invoke divine intervention to put out the fire — a further sign of Moscow’s fecklessness in the face of these attacks.) Less than two weeks later, on Aug. 28, Ukraine hit the Atlas oil depot, another large storage facility, also in Rostov, precipitating yet another multiday fire but not before 40% of the facility’s fuel tanks had burned to the ground. Then, on Sept. 1, a wave of Ukrainian drones struck the Moscow Refinery, located just outside the Russian capital.

An assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that Kyiv has so far disrupted 14% of Russia’s oil refining capacity and driven up domestic fuel prices by 20%-30% as of mid-March. This might have gone down well in Washington, given the attention paid to hobbling Russia’s war-oriented economy through sanctions, but such was not the case. The Biden administration responded to Ukraine’s targeting of Russia’s energy infrastructure by expressing its displeasure, citing the risk of rising global oil prices (the implication being that this would hurt the Democrats in November’s election). Self-deterrence has been a constant in U.S. security assistance, but Ukrainians and oil industry analysts alike greeted this American grumble with bemusement. Russia’s hydrocarbons industry keeps its tanks and personnel carriers moving and is thus a viable strategic target.

As with the incursion into Kursk, the impact of these strikes is not just physical but also psychological: They make a population largely indifferent to a foreign conflict acutely aware of its domestic costs. Ukraine’s incursion into Russia has seen the largest occupation of Russian territory since World War II, and like its deep strike weaponry, has shown Russia and the world that Ukraine retains the ability to inflict significant pain on its adversary.

The arrival of even more sophisticated Ukrainian drones will likely compound the pain for the Russians. On Aug. 24, Ukraine’s Independence Day — the third such celebration since the start of the full-scale invasion that was meant to take all of three days to be decided — Zelenskyy announced the successful employment of the new Ukrainian Palyanytsia. Named for a type of bread, the Ukrainian word for which is notoriously difficult for native Russian speakers to pronounce and is thus a convenient way of ferreting out Russian spies and collaborators, the drone will produce “unpronounceable results,” according to Zelenskyy. The Palyanytsia is powered by a rocket engine, meaning it will fly far faster than Ukraine’s current, mostly propellor-driven suicide drones, giving Russian aircraft less time to scramble out of the impact zone when used against their air bases. Days later, Zelenskyy also announced the successful test of an as yet unnamed Ukrainian ballistic missile. While he did not specify the exact type, it is likely the Hrim-2, a short-range ballistic missile that has been in development for over a decade, funding for which was supposedly earmarked by Ukraine’s then-defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, in 2023.

These new weapon systems come a year after the introduction into Ukraine’s arsenal of a land-attack version of its Neptune anti-ship missile, a munition Kyiv famously used to sink the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s flagship cruiser, the Moskva, in the first year of the war. On Aug. 22, a Neptune cruise missile destroyed a Russian ferry loaded with fuel tanks in the Kerch Strait. “While Palyanytsias and Neptunes can achieve many objectives, there are tasks that only ATACMS, Storm Shadows and other weapons from our partners can fulfill,” Zelenskyy said.

From a logical and legal perspective, there is no reason to prohibit Ukraine from using Western weaponry to strike any legal Russian military target. American artillery and cluster munitions are already killing tens of thousands of Russians inside Ukraine, and the British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG cruise missile conspicuously powdered the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, claimed by Moscow to be an integral part of “Russia” since 2014.

There has also been a consistent pattern of the Kremlin making exaggerated threats when a Western capability has been on the table for delivery to Ukraine, only for it to later claim, once those weapons have been delivered, that they’re insignificant or that Russian forces have already destroyed all of them. This happened with HIMARS, Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets.

The West needs to stop allowing the Kremlin to set the rules of the game, Timothy Snyder, a European historian and professor at Yale University, told New Lines on a recent visit to Kyiv. “It’s the same psychological mistake where you’re playing by the rules that the other side has set for you as opposed to the rules of international law, which allow for an invaded country to defend itself.”

Washington’s escalations have routinely been met by Moscow’s anticlimactic responses. Nor does Russia stand to gain anything by resorting to nuclear weapons just because the munitions destroying its air bases, command centers and logistics hubs are made in the U.S. (or the U.K. or France) instead of in Ukraine. On the contrary, even the use of a tactical nuke in Ukrainian territory would yield no advantage on the battlefield. It would, however, transform Russia into even more of a pariah state overnight, alienate its critical ally China and likely lead to nuclear proliferation in places where neither Moscow nor Beijing would desire to see it, such as Kazakhstan, Finland, Turkey, Taiwan, Japan and Australia. As has no doubt been communicated, such an escalation would be met by a NATO conventional military response that would do even greater damage to Russia than anything currently on offer from Ukrainian ATACMS or Storm Shadows. Sergei Markov, someone often used as a hard-line voice of the Russian government in the Western press, told The Washington Post recently that the White House’s eventual rescission of the deep strike restriction has already been factored in by Russia’s war planners, who consider the decision a fait accompli — this in an article about Ukraine’s serial violation of Russia’s supposed “red lines.” Tellingly, Markov made no reference to weapons of mass destruction.

[whencyclopedia]

Junkers Ju 87

The Junkers Ju 87 'Stuka' was a two-seater dive-bomber plane used by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) in various theatres of the Second World War (1939-45). The Stuka, with its distinctive angled wings, excelled when combined with armoured divisions in Germany's blitzkrieg ('lightning war') tactics in the early years of the war, but its inferior speed and manoeuvrability compared to single-seat fighters meant that it was ultimately restricted to hitting static targets where the Luftwaffe enjoyed air superiority.

Design & Development

In 1934, the German aircraft company Junkers was commissioned by the Nazi regime to design a prototype dive bomber. The idea was that a dive-bomber aircraft would be capable of delivering bombs at a lower altitude and with more accuracy than traditional high-altitude bombers, which dropped their loads vertically. Three prototypes were produced with design adjustments made to ensure the wings of the aircraft could withstand the force of diving from altitude. The best Junkers design, which included a Junkers Jump 210A engine, impressed against competition from rival manufacturers Arado, Hamburger, and Heinkel. Both Junkers and Heinkel were commissioned to produce 10 aircraft each. Several Ju 87s, as they were now classified, were tested in real combat conditions in the Spanish Civil War (1936-9) where they were flown by Germany's Condor Legion.

The Junkers Ju 87 had two seats, one for the pilot and one immediately behind for the rear gunner/radio operator. The aircraft gained the nickname 'Stuka', short for Stürzkampfflugzeug, meaning 'dive-bomber' in German, although the Germans themselves nicknamed the plane 'Berta'. The Stuka's bomb load mechanism "swung the weapon clear of the fuselage and propeller arc before it was released" (Saunders, 30). This feature, combined with the aircraft's ability to dive at a steep 80-degree angle (helped by a special dive-braking system), meant that it could strike a target with a much higher degree of accuracy compared to other types of bombers. Hitting a moving or small target remained a challenge and so, given that there was a mere 1.5-second window in which to release the bomb load at the bottom of a dive, only the most skilled Stuka pilots could regularly hit the objective of their extensive training: a 10-metre radius circle. Nevertheless, dive-bombing "proved four times more accurate than normal horizontal bombing from altitude" (Dear, 115).

By 1938, the main Stuka production plant was the Weser plant at Berlin-Tempelhof. Further design tweaks were made to the fuselage and distinctive fixed landing gears with their 'trouser' covers. The angled, 'gull' wings of the Stuka also set it apart from other aircraft of the period. Over the course of several new production models, a much more powerful engine was installed, the most powerful being capable of an impressive 410 km/h (255 mph), although this was significantly less than the best Allied or Axis single-seat fighters of the period, which could fly well over 480 km/h (300 mph). As the Nazi regime geared up for a war of conquest in Europe, Junkers was required to step up Stuka production to 60 models a month. By the start of WWII, which began with Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Luftwaffe had 336 Stukas, a figure which soon increased to 557. These aircraft were divided into nine Luftwaffe Stukagruppen. The aircraft was also flown by the Italian air force and by the air forces of other Axis allies such as Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, and Romania.

Stuka Dive-bombers in Poland, 1939.

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1987-1210-502 / Hoffmann, Heinrich (CC BY-SA)

Continue reading...

[the-wayward-arc]

What happens to the iron dragons and thunder Lords after Nora and Yang's passing? Do they have some way to keep their memories alive? What about the rules they had in Legion what happens to those?

Loyal Au: The 2 companies became their chapters when the Legion split. With Yang passing peacefully at the age of 109, she was buried with her family, the private cemetery heavily guarded by three Iron Dragons at all times. Her gauntlets were reforged, at her request, into weapons befitting of the Iron Dragons chapter master. They are a symbol of his office and one of the very few things they have left of her. Iron Dragons repainted their armor to match her palette. Their chapter insignia being Yangs with a Dragon's skull in the center of it. They do their best to live up to her legacy.

Chaos Au: Yang's violent death came to destroy the Iron Dragons. In their anguish, as their Legion fell to the powers of Malal, the Iron Dragons allowed themselves to be possessed by great daemons in order to gain the power they need to avenge their mother. Great was their rage and Anguish, their need for power, that they actually turned the tables into the daemons that possessed them. Instead, devouring the daemons within themselves to harness the power, greatly mutating into their namesake while growing massive in size and keeping their will and personality. The Iron Dragons are extremely violent and ensure they rain down fire from the sky.

Thunder Lords

Loyal Au: The Thunder Lords chapter is unusual in the fact they are small in number and all their battle brothers use only terminator armor. The reason why they have such an amount is because they scavenged as many as they could during the heresy. Raiding Traitor Armories and scavenging them off the dead, both traitor and loyal. As such, the chapter is only 300 strong. As such they have a motto "Strike like a hammer! Hard and thunderous!" The peaceful passing of Nora at 98 did hit the the Thunder Lords hard. Repainting their armor to match her colors and wearing her symbol with great pride. They honor Nora by being not only being the heaviest hitters but coming down like a hammer upon their enemies, destroying everything in one fatal strike. The chapter keeps itself at its current strength due to limited number of Terminator armor. Much like Yang's weapon, Nora's was reforged into a might Thunder hammer for the Chapter Master to signify his status and office. It is a terrifying weapon capable of much more devastating destruction than it previously was, know that their mother would absolutely love it as such.

Chaos Au: Holding their Nora as she took her final breath in front of them sent every single Thunder Lord into an eternal rage. Their minds became fragmented at the lost of their mother and even more so when they mutated into Chaos Obliterators when they fully gave themselves to Malal who bestowed them his own vile version of the virus that severely mutated them and turned them into violent hulking killing machines. Fused to their very armor, they are in eternal agony but also eternally furious as they relive the moment of Nora's death in their minds. Seeing both allies and enemies as obstacles in their way to save Nora, always calling out for her. Forever reliving that moment. In a subconscious vain attempt to be closer to her, their right arms are permanently fused to their thunderhammers. Swinging violently to anyone that gets near them. Their are only 40 of them left (bit of a retcon from 10 I stated before.) Gunnvaldr is the only one of his brethren to keep his sanity and the only one they listen to outside of Jaune. Even at times, above Jaune. They are kept in stasis or restrained.

[zeroducks-2]

🏳️‍🌈: Which character who is commonly headcanoned as queer doesn't seem queer to you?

💕: What’s an unpopular ship you enjoy?

🏳️‍🌈: Which character who is commonly headcanoned as queer doesn't seem queer to you?

This was already asked before and it's a really hard question due to my medical condition called "everyone is queer because I said so".

I think Oliver never hit me as particularly queer? An ally, yes. He'll joke with Hal and play gay chickens, but he strikes me as very much preferring ladies. But I don't know him that well anyway.

💕: What is an unpopular ship that you like?

Every single speedster/speedster ship seems to be an unpopular one. Eobarry itself has only some more than 300 entries, however more than half of them (and I'm being generous) are based on the CW show. Wally/Barry is nonexistent, Wally/Eobard too, and don't get me started on August or the little ones. People sleep on speedsters.

ask game here

[calling-the-angels]

Shame on you, USA Today!

This is the shoddiest piece of "journalism" I have ever seen. @usatoday

Examples (emphasis mine):

"Explosions were heard in Iran after Israel launched missile strikes in retaliation for a barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles fired by Tehran over the weekend..."

"It was unclear what targets had been hit inside Iran. Iran's weekend swarm of munitions and Israel's response marked the first direct exchanges of fire between the regional arch-enemies."

"Israel, the U.S. and other regional and Western allies joined forces on Saturday to blast hundreds of Iranian drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles out of the sky after they were fired at Israel."

"That attack was itself an act of retaliation after Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khameni, blamed Israel for an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, Syria, that killed several people including a leading Revolutionary Guards commander."

"Officials have been on edge about the possibility of a regional war since the Palestinian militant group Hamas rampaged across southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 and taking more than 200 people hostage. More than 30,000 Palestinians have died in the ensuing six months in Israeli airstrikes and ground fire, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry."

Language -- and how you use it -- matters, dammit.

It matters what words you use to describe an action. The word you choose tells the reader context clues about what is an acceptable action and what is not. It influences viewpoints about what you are reporting on. Using words and phrases like "barrage" and "swarm of munitions" while painting Israel's actions as a simple "response" without context is a gross manipulation tactic.

It is a gross manipulation tactic to paint the actions of "Israel, the U.S. and other regional and Western allies" as this heroic and epic fantasy where they "joined forces" and "blasted" enemy fire "out of the sky" after they were "fired at Israel." Why did they fire at Israel? Go on, you reported on it. Despite the fact that this linked article features the same shameful use of deliberate word choices to manipulate your readers, you even quoted the Iranian ambassador Hossein Akbari saying that the Iranian response would be "the same magnitude and harshness." Is that not what the terrible "barrage" of missiles and drones fired over the weekend was? Surely, you will bring this up in the article.

"The attack was itself an act of retaliation..." Great, we are going to mention that Israel attacked Iran first. "... after Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khameni, blamed Israel for an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, Syria." What the fuck. Not only do you then continue on to diminish the lives lost in that airstrike using word choices like "killed several people" and then highlighting one's military connections. It is a blatant manipulation tactic to frame Israel's attack as retaliatory due to an accusation of violence that only "killed several people." Fuck you for diminishing the lives of those in the Middle East living this fucking war/nightmare. Fuck you.

And then, to add insult to injury, you use more inflammatory language to associate Palestinians with a "militant group" called Hamas that "rampaged across southern Israel on Oct. 7." Is Hamas a part of local authority in Gaza? Yes. But painting Palestinians in broad brush strokes with that tone and word association is extremely dangerous and damaging. It's almost similar to how Israeli propaganda speaks about Palestinians...

You then discredit any reporting about the "self defense" that Israel has visited on Gaza and Palestine in the 6 months since October. You do this by stating that the shocking idea of "30,000 Palestinian deaths" (which has already been reported on by far more reputable news sources... though they have their own faults) is the reported deaths by the "Hamas-run Gaza health ministry." Since you have already done the job of describing Hamas as a "militant group" that "rampages" across Israel, do you think that associating the most reliable death count with the "enemy" isn't a disgusting manipulation tactic that belittles and diminishes the very real genocide happening against the Palestinians? Caused by their occupier, Israel?

You aren't news or journalism like you frame yourself to be through your website layout, articles, and tv shows. You are propaganda, bought and paid for by the Israeli occupation. You are on the wrong side of history.

I hope that you and the Western media that have used similar tactics are used in future journalism classes at universities and colleges around the world. I hope you are used as an example of terrible, bad reporting informed only by biases and internal memos telling you what to say. I am disgusted.

Fuck Israel. Fuck the IOF. Fuck Western media.

🇵🇸FREE PALESTINE🇵🇸

[nellasbookplanet]

I just finished my playthrough of me2, and as I put off the overlord and arrival dlcs until the end of it my thoughts on them are very fresh and Must be aired.

The frustrating thing is, they didn’t have to suck. The gameplay, like the shadowbroker dlc, is fun and stands out from the rest of the game! The story and themes of 'how far will you go in sacrificing individual lives in the name of winning a war/stopping extinction' fits well with the overall narrative and emphasis on hard choices! I mostly enjoy them! Only, overlord is completely undone by gross ableism, and arrival doesn’t actually let you engage with the choice it sets up; it fully forces your hand, and then makes the whole thing feel pointless by just having the reapers show up for a surprise attack in the next game anyway. It’s a trolley problem that doesn’t actually let you control the lever and then derails the entire train to hit both tracks no matter what you do.

So, how do you fix arrival? Personally, I would probably keep in the loss of the batarian colony as inevitable, but change the focus. As it is, barely a moment is spared to let it sink in that you're about to end 300 000 lives, and the only 'choice' you get is whether you attempt to (futilely) warn them in a blink and you'll miss it scene. I would've at a minimum added dialogue options where Shepard/the player could’ve expressed anger at how this work could’ve gone on for as long as it did without a warning being sent long before. For a bigger change, that could’ve led into a major conflict: a paragon Shepard trying to warn the colony, while her opponents argue that doing so would jeopordize the project/the hidden base and tries to stop her as part of the final fight of the dlc. If you choose to warn and do it in time, perhaps some small amount of people make it out, with the majority of the colony still being destroyed to keep the tone of sacrifice. If you want to keep it real dark, everyone dies no matter how hard you try to save them, but you should at least have been given the option to seriously try even if it’s hopeless.

But there isn’t really a workaround for how part of the problem with arrival is a problem with the batarians: had the colony been human, turian, or asari, most players would likely have been more upset because those are our allies. The batarians, however, are a one-note species never portrayed as anything other than slavers, criminals, and terrorists. While other species are allowed horrific acts while still being portrayed as complex people capable of both good and bad (need I remind you of the first contact war, the krogan rebellion, the genophage, the quarian's attempted genocide of the geth, the geth's war against biological life, and so on), the player is given little to no reason to sympathize with batarians. Had they been made to feel like actual people while still our enemies from the start of the game, arrival would've felt more like the gut punch of sacrifice it was and less like it was off-handedly writing off a people everyone hates, anyway. There could’ve been a discussion of 'are you more willing to sacrifice those you don’t know/don’t like and what does it say about you; is this a sacrifice or is it selfish revenge with the greater good as cover (a discussion especially brought up if you take the renegade choice)' but instead it feels almost vindictive.

[eeriecode-fgo]

FGO FanServant - Kairi, the Princess of Light

(artwork by TamTam88, originally found here)

Will contain spoilers up to Kingdom Hearts III after the break

Ascension Stages

First Stage: Kairi's outfit from Kingdom Hearts II, wielding Destiny's Embrace.

Second Stage: Kairi's outfit from Kingdom Hearts III, still wielding Destiny's Embrace.

Third Stage: Kairi is now dressed in a black leather dress, with a dark pink skirt underneath, a light pink jacket on top of it, and black leather boots. Her hair are also longer, close to their length during the events of KH2.

Parameters

Class: Caster

Alternate Classes: Foreigner (Traveler)

Source: Kingdom Hearts

Region: Destiny Islands

Voice Actress: Risa Uchida

Rarity: SR

Alignment: Lawful Good

Attribute: Earth

Deck: Arts (Buster: 2 hits; Quick: 4 hits; Arts: 3 hits; Extra: 3 hits)

Traits: Humanoid, Seven Class Servant, Female, Weak to Enuma Elish, Keyblade Wielder, Light User, Unrevivable

Passive Skills

Magic Resistance - Rank C

FGO Effect

Increase own Debuff resistance by 15%.

Guardian of the In-Between - Rank C

A standard skill among Keybearers who travel in the Lanes Between. Mere possession of a Keyblade grants its wielder a constant supply of magical energy, while the act of travelling across worlds marks them as alien to Proper Human History.

FGO Effect

Charge own NP gauge by 3% each turn.

Gain 1 C.Star each turn.

Pure Light - Rank EX

A unique skill representing Kairi's status as a Princess of Heart, her heart of pure light offers a near unbreakable protection from darkness.

FGO Effect

Increases own Debuff resistance by 30%.

Increases own damage by 300.

Increases own damage against [Darkness User] enemies by 700.

Reduces own damage taken from [Darkness User] enemies by 1300.

Custom Append Skills

Healing Boost

Replaces Append Skill 3

Increases healing given (50%~100%)

Bond Skill

Apply Delayed On-Death buff (1 time)

-- On Death: Gain 30 C.Stars.

Active Skills

Life Magic - Rank C+

A common ability among Keyblade users, this skill allows the user to treat wounds and status effects. This ability is strenghtened by Kairi's affinity for light, allowing her to perform feats that would normally require multiple different incantations with a single spell.

FGO Effect

Cooldown: 9~7 turns

Recovers HP for all allies (2000~3000)

Removes debuffs from all allies.

Increases all allies' DEF for 3 turns (20~30%)

Heart of a Princess - Rank B

An offensive manifestation of Kairi's affinity for light. While normally she would use this power to enhance her Shotlocks, as a Servant Kairi can manifest this as a set of buffs focused on banishing darkness.

FGO Effect

Cooldown: 8~6 turns

Increases all allies' ATK for 3 turns (10~20%)

Further increases all [Light User] allies' ATK by 20% for 3 turns

Decreases all enemies' DEF by 10% for 3 turns

Further decreases all [Darkness User] enemies' DEF for 3 turns (10~20%)

Seven Crowns of Light - Rank A

A crystallization of Kairi's status as a Princess of Heart. As one of the seven people in the Realm of Light who hold the key to Kingdom Hearts, the light in her heart gives her an authority and potential beyond comparison: however, since Kairi hasn't truly used that power to its fullest in life, the rank and power of this skill are lowered.

FGO Effect

Cooldown: 10~8 turns

Increases all allies' NP Gauge (20~30%)

Increases all allies' Critical damage for 3 turns (10~20%)

Increases all allies' C.Star Drop Rate for 3 turns (50~100%)

Increases all allies' NP Gain for 3 turns (10~20%)

Gain C.Stars (10~20)

Noble Phantasm

Door to Light - Rank EX

[Thinking of You, Wherever You Are] Rank: EX Type: Anti-Event Range: 1000 Max Targets: 1

A full manifestation of Kairi's power as a Princess of Heart. Unleashing this Noble Phantasm lets Kairi tap for just one moment into her full potential, allowing her to willingly perform feats she's only done subconsciously in life. The potential of this ability is massive, as expected from one of the cornerstones of the Realm of Light, allowing Kairi to perform miracles that come very close to True Magic: but even for a Princess of Heart, breaking the laws of the world like that will incur a heavy price...

FGO Effect

Arts Noble Phantasm, 0 hits

Revive 1 K.O. ally (30~50% HP. Priority is given to the leftmost ally at the beginning of battle. Allies with the [Unrevivable] trait cannot be revived)

Increases the revived ally's ATK by 30% for 5 turns

Increases the revived ally's NP Gauge (30~50%, scales with Overcharge)

Apply Invincibility to the revived ally for 3 hits, 3 turns

Apply Death to self (all Guts effects are disabled. If the user is affected by unremovable Guts effects, the Noble Phantasm cannot be activated)

Writer Notes

Ah, the dilemma of writing a fan-Servant version of a character who barely gets any time to shine in her series. I may have had a clear idea of what I wanted her Noble Phantasm to be like from the beginning, but everything else still feels so slap-dashed together...

The outfit for Kairi's 3rd Ascension is inspired by this concept art for a possible KH4 version of Kairi. All credits for the design goes to hollypolllyy.

As a general design note, after FGO's... interesting approach to game design shown during the 9th Anniversary, I've decided to only write down the Append Skills different from the standard (so, as of this writing, just the 3rd skill). This will remain true for any future fan-Servant.

So, why that effect for her Noble Phantasm? Think back to the three numbered entries in the series, to the thing Kairi has consistently done in all those games (apart from getting captured): - KH1: when Sora got turned into a Heartless in Hollow Bastion, she managed to turn him back into a human - KH2: when Sora and Riku were trapped in the Realm of Darkness at the end of the game, her letter to Sora managed to reach them and open a path to bring them back to the Destiny Island - KH3: when everyone got TPK'd in the Keyblade Graveyard, she managed to tether Sora to the Final World, which in turn allowed him to bring everyone back. If there's one thing that has been true throughout the whole series, it's this: whenever things are at their bleakest, Kairi is always there, a light in the darkness to allow her friends to keep fighting. As such, I think it's only fitting to focus Kairi's skillset around that: she's not a conventional DPS or support, but a joker who can bring your other fighters back during your darkest hour.

For balancing reasons, her Noble Phantasm cannot revive Kairi herself, mostly to prevent a Double Kairi System where they keep rezzing each other forever. Sorry, Kairi, I may have made you a Caster, but you're no Doctor Strange, you did in fact come to die! I'm on the fence on whether that trait would also prevent her from being revived via Command Seals, though I think it would be a fair drawback, given how strong her NP can potentially be. And yes, that note about unremovable Guts means that, if an hypothetical battle sticks you in a situation where you cannot die unless it's in a very specific way, she cannot escape that fate.

As for the rest of her skillset, I mostly focused it around supporting the team, to give her a role in battle outside of just "come in, cast Revive, leave". The numbers are a little low due to her being an SR: I know her kit would easily make her SSR-level, but she's had a role too small in her series to justify putting her in the same rarity as Sora and Riku (and yes, this does mean I plan to write Riku too eventually. As soon as I figure out his gimmick...). Plus, you know, can't have all of them be SSR!

And finally, sorry, I couldn't resist that joke on her 3rd skill's name. It's just an in-joke because of the coincidentally equal number, I'm not planning to actually make her a Beast: contrary to apparently Lasengle, I do have some standards!

[orangerosebush]

[Link to the Reuters article. From June 14th, 2024]

"At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.

The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.

Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.

“COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!” one typical tweet from July 2020 read in Tagalog. The words were next to a photo of a syringe beside a Chinese flag and a soaring chart of infections. Another post read: “From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.”

After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.

The U.S. military’s anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined. Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China’s vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China’s shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law.

The military program started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Biden’s presidency, Reuters found – even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon had been trafficking in COVID misinformation. The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review, Reuters found.

The U.S. military is prohibited from targeting Americans with propaganda, and Reuters found no evidence the Pentagon’s influence operation did so.

Spokespeople for Trump and Biden did not respond to requests for comment about the clandestine program.

A senior Defense Department official acknowledged the U.S. military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage China’s vaccine in the developing world, but the official declined to provide details.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said the U.S. military “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the U.S., allies, and partners.” She also noted that China had started a “disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19.”

In an email, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it has long maintained the U.S. government manipulates social media and spreads misinformation.

Manila’s embassy in Washington did not respond to Reuters inquiries, including whether it had been aware of the Pentagon operation. A spokesperson for the Philippines Department of Health, however, said the “findings by Reuters deserve to be investigated and heard by the appropriate authorities of the involved countries.” Some aid workers in the Philippines, when told of the U.S. military propaganda effort by Reuters, expressed outrage.

Briefed on the Pentagon’s secret anti-vax campaign by Reuters, some American public health experts also condemned the program, saying it put civilians in jeopardy for potential geopolitical gain. An operation meant to win hearts and minds endangered lives, they said.

“I don’t think it’s defensible,” said Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. “I’m extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the U.S. government would do that,” said Lucey, a former military physician who assisted in the response to the 2001 anthrax attacks.

The effort to stoke fear about Chinese inoculations risked undermining overall public trust in government health initiatives, including U.S.-made vaccines that became available later, Lucey and others said. Although the Chinese vaccines were found to be less effective than the American-led shots by Pfizer and Moderna, all were approved by the World Health Organization. Sinovac did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Academic research published recently has shown that, when individuals develop skepticism toward a single vaccine, those doubts often lead to uncertainty about other inoculations. Lucey and other health experts say they saw such a scenario play out in Pakistan, where the Central Intelligence Agency used a fake hepatitis vaccination program in Abbottabad as cover to hunt for Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Discovery of the ruse led to a backlash against an unrelated polio vaccination campaign, including attacks on healthcare workers, contributing to the reemergence of the deadly disease in the country.

“It should have been in our interest to get as much vaccine in people’s arms as possible,” said Greg Treverton, former chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, which coordinates the analysis and strategy of Washington’s many spy agencies. What the Pentagon did, Treverton said, “crosses a line.”

Together, the phony accounts used by the military had tens of thousands of followers during the program. Reuters could not determine how widely the anti-vax material and other Pentagon-planted disinformation was viewed, or to what extent the posts may have caused COVID deaths by dissuading people from getting vaccinated.

In the wake of the U.S. propaganda efforts, however, then-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte had grown so dismayed by how few Filipinos were willing to be inoculated that he threatened to arrest people who refused vaccinations.

“You choose, vaccine or I will have you jailed,” a masked Duterte said in a televised address in June 2021. “There is a crisis in this country … I’m just exasperated by Filipinos not heeding the government.”

When he addressed the vaccination issue, the Philippines had among the worst inoculation rates in Southeast Asia. Only 2.1 million of its 114 million citizens were fully vaccinated – far short of the government’s target of 70 million. By the time Duterte spoke, COVID cases exceeded 1.3 million, and almost 24,000 Filipinos had died from the virus. The difficulty in vaccinating the population contributed to the worst death rate in the region.

A spokesperson for Duterte did not make the former president available for an interview.

Some Filipino healthcare professionals and former officials contacted by Reuters were shocked by the U.S. anti-vax effort, which they say exploited an already vulnerable citizenry. Public concerns about a Dengue fever vaccine, rolled out in the Philippines in 2016, had led to broad skepticism toward inoculations overall, said Lulu Bravo, executive director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination. The Pentagon campaign preyed on those fears.

“Why did you do it when people were dying? We were desperate,” said Dr. Nina Castillo-Carandang, a former adviser to the World Health Organization and Philippines government during the pandemic. “We don’t have our own vaccine capacity,” she noted, and the U.S. propaganda effort “contributed even more salt into the wound.”

The campaign also reinforced what one former health secretary called a longstanding suspicion of China, most recently because of aggressive behavior by Beijing in disputed areas of the South China Sea. Filipinos were unwilling to trust China’s Sinovac, which first became available in the country in March 2021, said Esperanza Cabral, who served as health secretary under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Cabral said she had been unaware of the U.S. military’s secret operation.

“I’m sure that there are lots of people who died from COVID who did not need to die from COVID,” she said.

To implement the anti-vax campaign, the Defense Department overrode strong objections from top U.S. diplomats in Southeast Asia at the time, Reuters found. Sources involved in its planning and execution say the Pentagon, which ran the program through the military’s psychological operations center in Tampa, Florida, disregarded the collateral impact that such propaganda may have on innocent Filipinos.

“We weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective,” said a senior military officer involved in the program. “We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.”

In uncovering the secret U.S. military operation, Reuters interviewed more than two dozen current and former U.S officials, military contractors, social media analysts and academic researchers. Reporters also reviewed Facebook, X and Instagram posts, technical data and documents about a set of fake social media accounts used by the U.S. military. Some were active for more than five years.

Clandestine psychological operations are among the government’s most highly sensitive programs. Knowledge of their existence is limited to a small group of people within U.S. intelligence and military agencies. Such programs are treated with special caution because their exposure could damage foreign alliances or escalate conflict with rivals.

Over the last decade, some U.S. national security officials have pushed for a return to the kind of aggressive clandestine propaganda operations against rivals that the United States’ wielded during the Cold War. Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, in which Russia used a combination of hacks and leaks to influence voters, the calls to fight back grew louder inside Washington.

In 2019, Trump authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in China against its government, Reuters reported in March. As part of that effort, a small group of operatives used bogus online identities to spread disparaging narratives about Xi Jinping’s government.

COVID-19 galvanized the drive to wage psychological operations against China. One former senior Pentagon leader described the pandemic as a “bolt of energy” that finally ignited the long delayed counteroffensive against China’s influence war.

The Pentagon’s anti-vax propaganda came in response to China’s own efforts to spread false information about the origins of COVID. The virus first emerged in China in late 2019. But in March 2020, Chinese government officials claimed without evidence that the virus may have been first brought to China by an American service member who participated in an international military sports competition in Wuhan the previous year. Chinese officials also suggested that the virus may have originated in a U.S. Army research facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland. There’s no evidence for that assertion.

Mirroring Beijing’s public statements, Chinese intelligence operatives set up networks of fake social media accounts to promote the Fort Detrick conspiracy, according to a U.S. Justice Department complaint.

China’s messaging got Washington’s attention. Trump subsequently coined the term “China virus” as a response to Beijing’s accusation that the U.S. military exported COVID to Wuhan.

“That was false. And rather than having an argument, I said, ‘I have to call it where it came from,’” Trump said in a March 2020 news conference. “It did come from China.”

China’s Foreign Ministry said in an email that it opposed “actions to politicize the origins question and stigmatize China.” The ministry had no comment about the Justice Department’s complaint.

Beijing didn’t limit its global influence efforts to propaganda. It announced an ambitious COVID assistance program, which included sending masks, ventilators and its own vaccines – still being tested at the time – to struggling countries. In May 2020, Xi announced that the vaccine China was developing would be made available as a “global public good,” and would ensure “vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries.” Sinovac was the primary vaccine available in the Philippines for about a year until U.S.-made vaccines became more widely available there in early 2022.

Washington’s plan, called Operation Warp Speed, was different. It favored inoculating Americans first, and it placed no restrictions on what pharmaceutical companies could charge developing countries for the remaining vaccines not used by the United States. The deal allowed the companies to “play hardball” with developing countries, forcing them to accept high prices, said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University who has worked with the World Health Organization.

The deal “sucked most of the supply out of the global market,” Gostin said. “The United States took a very determined America First approach.”

To Washington’s alarm, China’s offers of assistance were tilting the geopolitical playing field across the developing world, including in the Philippines, where the government faced upwards of 100,000 infections in the early months of the pandemic.

The U.S. relationship with Manila had grown tense after the 2016 election of the bombastic Duterte. A staunch critic of the United States, he had threatened to cancel a key pact that allows the U.S. military to maintain legal jurisdiction over American troops stationed in the country.

Duterte said in a July 2020 speech he had made “a plea” to Xi that the Philippines be at the front of the line as China rolled out vaccines. He vowed in the same speech that the Philippines would no longer challenge Beijing’s aggressive expansion in the South China Sea, upending a key security understanding Manila had long held with Washington.

“China is claiming it. We are claiming it. China has the arms, we do not have it.” Duterte said. “So, it is simple as that.”

Days later, China’s foreign minister announced Beijing would grant Duterte’s plea for priority access to the vaccine, as part of a “new highlight in bilateral relations.”

China’s growing influence fueled efforts by U.S. military leaders to launch the secret propaganda operation Reuters uncovered.

“We didn’t do a good job sharing vaccines with partners,” a senior U.S. military officer directly involved in the campaign in Southeast Asia told Reuters. “So what was left to us was to throw shade on China’s.”

U.S. military leaders feared that China’s COVID diplomacy and propaganda could draw other Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia and Malaysia, closer to Beijing, furthering its regional ambitions.

A senior U.S. military commander responsible for Southeast Asia, Special Operations Command Pacific General Jonathan Braga, pressed his bosses in Washington to fight back in the so-called information space, according to three former Pentagon officials.

The commander initially wanted to punch back at Beijing in Southeast Asia. The goal: to ensure the region understood the origin of COVID while promoting skepticism toward what were then still-untested vaccines offered by a country that they said had lied continually since the start of the pandemic.

A spokesperson for Special Operations Command declined to comment.

At least six senior State Department officials responsible for the region objected to this approach. A health crisis was the wrong time to instill fear or anger through a psychological operation, or psyop, they argued during Zoom calls with the Pentagon.

“We’re stooping lower than the Chinese and we should not be doing that,” said a former senior State Department official for the region who fought against the military operation.

While the Pentagon saw Washington’s rapidly diminishing influence in the Philippines as a call to action, the withering partnership led American diplomats to plead for caution.

“The relationship is hanging from a thread,” another former senior U.S. diplomat recounted. “Is this the moment you want to do a psyop in the Philippines? Is it worth the risk?”

In the past, such opposition from the State Department might have proved fatal to the program. Previously in peacetime, the Pentagon needed approval of embassy officials before conducting psychological operations in a country, often hamstringing commanders seeking to quickly respond to Beijing’s messaging, three former Pentagon officials told Reuters.

But in 2019, before COVID surfaced in full force, then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed a secret order that later paved the way for the launch of the U.S. military propaganda campaign. The order elevated the Pentagon’s competition with China and Russia to the priority of active combat, enabling commanders to sidestep the State Department when conducting psyops against those adversaries. The Pentagon spending bill passed by Congress that year also explicitly authorized the military to conduct clandestine influence operations against other countries, even “outside of areas of active hostilities.”

Esper, through a spokesperson, declined to comment. A State Department spokesperson referred questions to the Pentagon.

In spring 2020, special-ops commander Braga turned to a cadre of psychological-warfare soldiers and contractors in Tampa to counter Beijing’s COVID efforts. Colleagues say Braga was a longtime advocate of increasing the use of propaganda operations in global competition. In trailers and squat buildings at a facility on Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base, U.S. military personnel and contractors would use anonymous accounts on X, Facebook and other social media to spread what became an anti-vax message. The facility remains the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda factory.

Psychological warfare has played a role in U.S. military operations for more than a hundred years, although it has changed in style and substance over time. So-called psyopers were best known following World War II for their supporting role in combat missions across Vietnam, Korea and Kuwait, often dropping leaflets to confuse the enemy or encourage their surrender.

After the al Qaeda attacks of 2001, the United States was fighting a borderless, shadowy enemy, and the Pentagon began to wage a more ambitious kind of psychological combat previously associated only with the CIA. The Pentagon set up front news outlets, paid off prominent local figures, and sometimes funded television soap operas in order to turn local populations against militant groups or Iranian-backed militias, former national security officials told Reuters.

Unlike earlier psyop missions, which sought specific tactical advantage on the battlefield, the post-9/11 operations hoped to create broader change in public opinion across entire regions.

By 2010, the military began using social media tools, leveraging phony accounts to spread messages of sympathetic local voices – themselves often secretly paid by the United States government. As time passed, a growing web of military and intelligence contractors built online news websites to pump U.S.-approved narratives into foreign countries. Today, the military employs a sprawling ecosystem of social media influencers, front groups and covertly placed digital advertisements to influence overseas audiences, according to current and former military officials.

China’s efforts to gain geopolitical clout from the pandemic gave Braga justification to launch the propaganda campaign that Reuters uncovered, sources said.

By summer 2020, the military’s propaganda campaign moved into new territory and darker messaging, ultimately drawing the attention of social media executives.

In regions beyond Southeast Asia, senior officers in the U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia, launched their own version of the COVID psyop, three former military officials told Reuters.

Although the Chinese vaccines were still months from release, controversy roiled the Muslim world over whether the vaccines contained pork gelatin and could be considered “haram,” or forbidden under Islamic law. Sinovac has said that the vaccine was “manufactured free of porcine materials.” Many Islamic religious authorities maintained that even if the vaccines did contain pork gelatin, they were still permissible since the treatments were being used to save human life.

The Pentagon campaign sought to intensify fears about injecting a pig derivative. As part of an internal investigation at X, the social media company used IP addresses and browser data to identify more than 150 phony accounts that were operated from Tampa by U.S. Central Command and its contractors, according to an internal X document reviewed by Reuters.

“Can you trust China, which tries to hide that its vaccine contains pork gelatin and distributes it in Central Asia and other Muslim countries where many people consider such a drug haram?” read an April 2021 tweet sent from a military-controlled account identified by X.

The Pentagon also covertly spread its messages on Facebook and Instagram, alarming executives at parent company Meta who had long been tracking the military accounts, according to former military officials.

One military-created meme targeting Central Asia showed a pig made out of syringes, according to two people who viewed the image. Reuters found similar posts that traced back to U.S. Central Command. One shows a Chinese flag as a curtain separating Muslim women in hijabs and pigs stuck with vaccine syringes. In the center is a man with syringes; on his back is the word “China.” It targeted Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, a country that distributed tens of millions of doses of China’s vaccines and participated in human trials. Translated into English, the X post reads: “China distributes a vaccine made of pork gelatin.”

Facebook executives had first approached the Pentagon in the summer of 2020, warning the military that Facebook workers had easily identified the military’s phony accounts, according to three former U.S. officials and another person familiar with the matter. The government, Facebook argued, was violating Facebook’s policies by operating the bogus accounts and by spreading COVID misinformation.

The military argued that many of its fake accounts were being used for counterterrorism and asked Facebook not to take down the content, according to two people familiar with the exchange. The Pentagon pledged to stop spreading COVID-related propaganda, and some of the accounts continued to remain active on Facebook.

Nonetheless, the anti-vax campaign continued into 2021 as Biden took office.

Angered that military officials had ignored their warning, Facebook officials arranged a Zoom meeting with Biden’s new National Security Council shortly after the inauguration, Reuters learned. The discussion quickly became tense.

“It was terrible,” said a senior administration official describing the reaction after learning of the campaign’s pig-related posts. “I was shocked. The administration was pro-vaccine and our concern was this could affect vaccine hesitancy, especially in developing countries.”

By spring 2021, the National Security Council ordered the military to stop all anti-vaccine messaging. “We were told we needed to be pro-vaccine, pro all vaccines,” said a former senior military officer who helped oversee the program. Even so, Reuters found some anti-vax posts that continued through April and other deceptive COVID-related messaging that extended into that summer. Reuters could not determine why the campaign didn’t end immediately with the NSC’s order. In response to questions from Reuters, the NSC declined to comment.

The senior Defense Department official said that those complaints led to an internal review in late 2021, which uncovered the anti-vaccine operation. The probe also turned up other social and political messaging that was “many, many leagues away” from any acceptable military objective. The official would not elaborate.

The review intensified the following year, the official said, after a group of academic researchers at Stanford University flagged some of the same accounts as pro-Western bots in a public report. The high-level Pentagon review was first reported by the Washington Post. which also reported that the military used fake social media accounts to counter China’s message that COVID came from the United States. But the Post report did not reveal that the program evolved into the anti-vax propaganda campaign uncovered by Reuters.

The senior defense official said the Pentagon has rescinded parts of Esper’s 2019 order that allowed military commanders to bypass the approval of U.S. ambassadors when waging psychological operations. The rules now mandate that military commanders work closely with U.S. diplomats in the country where they seek to have an impact. The policy also restricts psychological operations aimed at “broad population messaging,” such as those used to promote vaccine hesitancy during COVID.

The Pentagon’s audit concluded that the military’s primary contractor handling the campaign, General Dynamics IT, had employed sloppy tradecraft, taking inadequate steps to hide the origin of the fake accounts, said a person with direct knowledge of the review. The review also found that military leaders didn’t maintain enough control over its psyop contractors, the person said.

A spokesperson for General Dynamics IT declined to comment.

Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”

And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military."