#not at all interesting or exciting in terms of animal cognition
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Belle
Last year, for one of my classes, we had to write about how a female character impacted us and I wrote about Belle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. We were supposed to write about what female characters were represented well and which were not and how we felt about those characters.
When I was a little girl, the first movies I immersed myself in were Disney’s animated movies. The majesty of the fictional worlds and characters, the intricate details of each line sketched and the richness of color in every cell was my first taste of film artistry. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was the introduction to my love affair with movies. I saw myself in Belle, a bookish girl with her head in the clouds outcasted by her village due to her open mind and intelligence. I loved Belle because she felt that she did not belong in her environment and wanted to escape to somewhere different, somewhere more exciting and interesting than her ignorant, provincial town. As a little girl who was neurodivergent and had a sensitive heart, I adored Belle’s confidence and her self-acceptance. She set strong boundaries with those who did not respect her such as Gaston and the beast. Many women have diminished Belle’s character to a meek woman with stockholm syndrome which I strongly disagree with.
The 2017 remake attempts to remedy this by casting Emma Watson. Watson’s Belle is devoid of all warmth and kindness and replaced with a bland and emotionless character. She is only feminist as a consequence of the town’s obvious sexism rooted in the fact that she’s a woman who reads. The villagers’ were previously portrayed as ignorant small-minded people in a small town who did not understand Belle’s dreams or aspirations. In this portrayal, the villagers are reduced to a shallow, misogynistic hate mob, lacking any nuance in their attitudes towards her. Watson claimed in many interviews that she wanted to make Belle more active by inventing a washing machine and refusing to wear a corset, neither of which added to her character. These shallow attempts to make Belle more “feminist” remove her relatability and lack the nuance in Belle’s original character that made her so loveable in the first place.
When researching stockholm syndrome, the key components for developing the disorder are harboring positive feelings for their captor, feeling a strong emotional bond to their captor, and defending their abusive behavior. However, the criteria provided is what is required to develop what can be considered to be stockholm syndrome, and are not symptoms of the condition. Spouting this argument is damaging because it’s rooted in ignorance and lazy argumentation featured on the internet. Stockholm syndrome is a survival strategy where captives heavily identify with their captors, spouting their captor’s agenda, and changing their identity, and ideological beliefs to support their captor. However, stockholm syndrome is not recognized as an official mental cognitive condition and is not featured in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) mainly due to lack of research.
I found that Belle does not exhibit any symptoms listed. The primary symptom is a severely uneven relationship in which the captor dictates what the prisoner can and cannot do and additionally that the captive is held under threat of physical injury or death. As someone who has seen Beauty and the Beast over a hundred times, I understand why the term could be applied to this film, but it can easily be debunked. Belle sacrifices herself to save her father. She makes the proposition of staying at the castle and the beast agrees to let her father go. However, I am not implying that the beast’s behavior is excusable nor that Belle asked for any kind of abuse. After making the agreement, the beast dictates her autonomy including demanding that she goes to dinner or else she will not eat. However, Belle sets boundaries with him immediately. She refuses to go to dinner with him or to spend time with him. When asked to give him a chance, she refuses and claims she wants nothing to do with him. She therefore disobeys his orders and sneaks down to the kitchen to eat by herself.
This idea of stockholm syndrome is pervasive through Disney’s redundant 2017 remake of their classic. To avoid allegations of stockholm syndrome, the film overcompensates for it by showing Belle attempting to escape several times, which devalues her sacrifice to save her father. The writing also declines in quality and dumbs down the dialogue assuming most don’t understand subtlety. When asked to go to dinner she yells, “you keep me as your prisoner and now you want to have dinner with me? Are you insane?” The beast is also disinterested in Belle because “she’s the daughter of a common thief,” and lacks agency when it comes to breaking the curse and therefore, the couple lacks any connection or chemistry. Even Watson stated in an interview that when researching the condition, Belle did not exhibit any behavioral traits of the syndrome. However, the film repeatedly entertains the idea through Watson’s portrayal of Belle.
In the original, Belle also disobeys the beast when sneaking into the west wing and when under the threat of violence, Belle immediately escapes. The beast’s behavior is inexcusable and can be understood as abusive, but his portrayal is meant to be more nuanced than that. The entire point of the story is that the beast is a privileged man trapped in a monster’s body due to his selfish and childish nature. The story demands that in order to be loved by someone like Belle, he has to change, not Belle. He learns to control his temper, he learns to be kinder to others, he learns to be selfless because Belle demands respect. After he saves her life, Belle thanks him, gives him credit where it’s due, but she also argues with him. When he yells she quips back, “well you should learn to control your temper!” She does not even fathom entertaining his immature behavior until he treats her with the respect she deserves. She holds strong boundaries especially when it comes to men who attempt to control her including Gaston who she refuses to marry, and it’s no different for the beast. She only begins to care for him when he takes the initiative to be kind to her. It’s only when he offers her kindness does she return the favor.
As the story develops, and Belle’s father is in danger, he notices how concerned she is and his care for her is evident in the intricate lines on his face. He stares at the rose and contemplates the stakes, he could lose everything, but he chooses to let Belle go, proving his character evolution. When Cogsworth asks him why he would risk the curse, he says, “…because I love her.” He loves Belle not because she accommodates him or attempts to change him, but because she is an inspiration to him. Her selflessness and kindness inspires him to change by mere example, which is the reason I loved Belle since I was three years old.
She is a wonderful character and a great role model for girls. She promotes kindness, confidence, and literacy to many girls and women. She always inspired me to be kind and to embrace and respect myself. I understand why others could misinterpret her character because of the situation she finds herself in, but she also proves how strong she is in that story. Belle does not exhibit traditionally feminist masculine archetypes but she is strong because she has an open heart and mind which leads her to forgiveness. It disheartens me to see others infantilize her and label her as a victim, because Belle never allows any man to push her into that role. Belle harbors many feminist values and it’s a shame that many feminist circles dismiss her for the feminist role model that she is. Belle taught me that in a world of sexism, self respect is the greatest weapon a woman can carry.
My professor responded, "Wow. That was a very thorough defense of Belle against stockholm syndrome, but you forgot to answer the question."
lol whoops.
#beauty and the beast#disney#tangent#rant#belle does not have stockholm syndrome you uncultured swine#disney princess#film#animation
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UNIT 07
I was personally quite excited about this week's blog post! Music is a huge part of everyday life and I love how universal it is. No matter your culture or background, music is a way for people to bond and display their own unique musical tastes. It is said that every known human culture has music and that music can be defined as patterns of sound varying in pitch and time produced for emotional, social, cultural, and cognitive purposes (Gray et al., 2001). I like to look at music as patterns of sound because I think that oftentimes music is only perceived as the music we hear on the radio. However, there is much more to music than the latest pop songs.
Not only is music a great way for people to interact, but it's also an amazing way to interact with nature. If you were to go on a walk right now, you would be surrounded by various sounds that display the music of nature. The sound of rain, the wind howling, birds chirping, frogs croaking, all of these sounds can be perceived as natural music. It’s unfortunate that people who live close to nature perceive a wider range of sounds than those of us living in industrialized societies (Gray et al., 2001). This reduces the chance for most people to hear and appreciate the sounds that nature produces.
I personally love listening to rain noises and nature sounds while I’m studying. I find these types of sounds to be really calming and help me listen to something without losing focus on my work. I also think it is important to note how these sounds come into play in regards to the music that we listen to on the radio. Radios are important tools used to reach lots of people at a given time, and are able to influence culture (Beck et al., 2018 (pg. 175)).
Interestingly, the tone and timbre of many whale notes are similar to human musical sounds (Gray et al., 2001). The famous whistle tone definitely originated from animals and the way they are able to carry notes is very similar to that of humans. Also, similarly to humans, not all bird sounds emanate from the vocal tract - some are produced with “instruments” such as special feather structures, others by the bird pounding on an object with a “preferred” resonance (Gray et al., 2001). It is interesting to read about this seeing the similarities between humans and animals in terms of music. This reiterates the fact that music is universal and can be enjoyed by all species on earth.
A song that reminds me of a special time in nature is The Nights by Avicii. Anytime I hear this song, I’m brought back to 2018 when I went to Italy for a summer course. I went through a school program and was able to travel with my friends and meet a bunch of new people. As the trip was coming to an end, this song was played on repeat in the bus and on the beach as we were all getting ready to say goodbye to one another. This song will forever remind me of the beauty of Italy and the amazing people I shared that time with.
Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting cultural and natural heritage : for a better world. Sagamore Venture.
Gray, Patricia M., et al. "The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music." Science, vol. 291, no. 5501, 5 Jan. 2001, p. 52. Gale Academic OneFile
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Valentine Brain Fitness
New brain research sheds light on old advice. Mix it up to keep your relationships lively. Couples that do new things together actually keep brain circuits active click here that are associated with young relationships.
A recent article in the New York Times highlighted new studies directed at figuring out how long-time married couples can keep their romance alive. The answer was very simple. Do something different.
In one ten-week study, researchers worked with 53 couples. They instructed one third of them to spend 90 minutes per week doing familiar but enjoyable activities, like going to dinner or a movie. Researchers instructed another third to spend 90 minutes doing something exciting that they both enjoyed. This group spent time doing new things or things they didn't do very often. The final group received no specific instructions.
After the study was over, researchers interviewed the couples to rate the quality of their relationships. The couples that spent time doing new things scored higher than the other two groups.
This may all be common sense. The more exciting stuff you do together, the stronger your relationship can get. But it's interesting to look at the underlying brain science, because it has implications for your overall brain fitness as well.
The brain enjoys new things. New experiences crank up the brain's reward system, driven largely by the 'pleasure' signal, dopamine. This same circuit is very active early in the intensely romantic part of a relationship. So, the theory goes that doing new, exciting stuff together, may literally help rekindle the brain circuits that drive romance.
We have been promoting interjecting variety into your daily routines, as good for your brain fitness, for some time now. Beyond variety improving your relationships, it also helps you make new brain connections that are good for all kinds of brain functions.
Your brain is a web of about 100 trillion connections between 100 billion neurons. When we do new things and learn new stuff, the level of connectivity increases, and not just in your pleasure circuits but in other parts of your brain as well.
Increasing the connectivity between neurons in parts of the brain responsible for memory, decision making and creative thinking, is very beneficial to your long-term brain fitness. The more connectivity you create, the more defenses you have against cognitive decline as you age.
Think of an old tree with many branches. This is sort of what neurons look like. The more you learn by experiencing new things, the bushier the neuron gets and the more connections it can make. In fact, neuroscientists use the term 'arborization', meaning a tree-like appearance, to define the amount of branches a neuron has.
The degree of arborization is an indicator of a neurons health, especially in brain regions associated with learning and memory. Although we can't directly measure arborization in people, studies in rodents show that those exposed to new environments on a regular basis have more arborization in neurons involved in memory.
What we can do in people is use new brain scanning technology to determine the level of activity in brain regions, which has some correlation with the level of connectivity and neuronal arborization in animal studies.
These brain-scanning technologies show that people in long-term, high quality relationships have greater brain activity in their pleasure centers when shown a picture of their spouse. Researchers believe that interjecting new experiences into marriage is one thing that helps maintain these connections.
So this Valentine's Day, instead of visiting your favorite restaurant, try a new one. Or get out and do something you both enjoy but don't get the opportunity to do very often. It will be good for parts of your brain that will help keep your mind and your relationship young.
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Puzzles a Plenty: Age-Righting Task for Young Children as Young as Three, Nine, and Tiny Tots
Kids can pass the time with puzzles that are entertaining and stimulating, but they are also a great educational tool that promotes cognitive growth. Puzzles help kids of all ages with a variety of skills, including critical thinking and problem-solving. We will look at a variety of developmentally appropriate puzzles in this blog post, including ones that are suitable for toddlers as young as three years old and nine years old. These puzzle games for kids, whether you're a parent, teacher, or other carer, will not only keep them occupied but also develop their minds.
Puzzles for 9-Year-Olds:
Children's skills and interests change as they get older. Puzzles for 9-year-olds should be given more difficult puzzles to solve so they may develop their critical and logical thinking skills. For this age range, jigsaw puzzles with higher piece counts—between 100 and 300—are perfect. They can take on captivating photos of famous places, animals, or landscapes, and when they're done, they'll feel like they accomplished something.
By the time they are nine years old, kids have advanced in terms of their cognitive and problem-solving abilities. They take pleasure in tasks that pique their interest and inventiveness. The following amazing puzzles will keep kids interested:
Jigsaw Depictions:
Puzzles for 9-year-olds, jigsaw puzzles with more intricate designs and a larger piece count offer a great challenge. Look for puzzles with subjects that appeal to children, such as dinosaurs, space travel, or well-known sites.
Math Conundrums:
With arithmetic puzzles that motivate children to solve equations, patterns, and numerical sequences, you can blend learning into play. They have pleasure solving these puzzles and improving their mathematics abilities.
Mysterious riddles:
Puzzles for 9-year-olds can utilise interactive mystery puzzles and detective games to solve exciting mysteries and piece together clues by applying their problem-solving skills.
Word Games:
Word searches and crossword puzzles enhance language comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary.
Puzzles for 3-year-olds:
Three-year-old toddlers have an endless supply of energy and are highly curious. Puzzles for 3-year-olds should be easy to understand, vibrant, and captivating in order to hold their interest. Large-pieced, chunky wooden puzzles depicting well-known animals, objects, and shapes provide excellent choices. These puzzles teach youngsters about fundamental ideas like colours and forms while also enhancing their motor abilities and hand-eye coordination.
Puzzles for 3-year-olds should have basic, colourful puzzles that improve their hand-eye coordination and fine motor abilities. For these little toddlers, the following puzzle options are age-appropriate:
Form Sorters:
Large-piece shape sorting puzzles are ideal for teaching 3-year-olds about colours and forms.
Peg Conundrums:
Wooden components in peg puzzles have knobs that are simple for small hands to grasp. They support the growth of analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
Alphabet Crosswords:
Alphabet puzzles set the groundwork for early literacy skills by introducing letters and their shapes.
Kids' Puzzle Games:
Suitable for a variety of age groups, captivating puzzle games are a great pick. These games allow kids to play together while offering challenges that are appropriate for their skill level.
Treasure hunts:
Make scavenger hunts for kids that include puzzles and hints that lead to the ultimate treasure. Critical thinking and teamwork are encouraged by this game.
Recall Match:
All ages can benefit from memory matching games, which enhance focus and memory retention.
Jigsaw Apps:
Kids may play puzzles on tablets and smartphones with a variety of puzzle apps that offer problems at different levels of complexity.
Summary:
In addition to being entertaining and stimulating children's creativity, puzzles have numerous positive effects on cognitive development. These activities aid in the development of critical abilities. They range from difficult jigsaw puzzles for 9-year-olds to vibrant shape sorters for 3-year-olds and captivating puzzle games for kids of all ages.
We may watch as our children's developing minds flourish by encouraging them to enjoy the fun of puzzles as parents and other carers. Together, let's take our kids on this fascinating puzzle adventure and make lifelong memories.
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The Fountain of Youth: The Fascinating Quest to Stay Younger with Rapamycin
Introduction:
Aging is an inevitable biological process that affects all living organisms, including humans. Throughout history, humanity has been on an eternal quest for the elusive fountain of youth, seeking ways to delay the effects of aging and extend lifespan. In recent years, there has been growing interest in rapamycin, a drug originally developed as an immunosuppressant, for its potential to slow down the aging process and enhance longevity. This article explores the scientific basis, mechanisms, and the burgeoning interest in rapamycin as a promising anti-aging intervention.
I. Unveiling the Science Behind Aging:
Aging is a complex and multifactorial process involving cellular, molecular, and genetic changes. Over time, cells undergo damage, telomeres shorten, and various regulatory pathways become less efficient. This gradual decline leads to age-related diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, cardiovascular disorders, and metabolic syndromes. Scientists have long sought to understand the fundamental mechanisms behind aging, leading to the emergence of the field of anti-aging research.
II. Rapamycin's Role in Aging:
Rapamycin, also known as sirolimus, is a macrolide compound first discovered in the soil of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the 1970s. Initially utilized as an immunosuppressant to prevent organ transplant rejection, researchers soon noticed its potential beyond immunosuppression. Studies in the early 2000s demonstrated that rapamycin could extend the lifespan of various model organisms, including yeast, worms, flies, and mice. This exciting discovery sparked widespread interest in rapamycin as an anti-aging agent.
III. Targeting the mTOR Pathway:
Rapamycin's anti-aging effects are primarily attributed to its inhibition of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway. mTOR is a master regulator that plays a central role in cell growth, proliferation, and metabolism. By inhibiting mTOR, rapamycin affects numerous cellular processes, including protein synthesis, autophagy, and mitochondrial function. These changes collectively contribute to the attenuation of age-related decline.
IV. Promising Results in Model Organisms:
Studies in various model organisms have provided compelling evidence for rapamycin's potential as an anti-aging intervention. In mice, rapamycin administration has been shown to extend lifespan and improve healthspan, delaying the onset of age-related diseases. Additionally, rapamycin has demonstrated positive effects on age-related cognitive decline and cardiac function in animal models. These findings have ignited hope for its translation to human application.
V. Human Trials and Challenges:
While rapamycin has shown remarkable anti-aging effects in animal studies, translating these findings to human trials presents significant challenges. The drug's immunosuppressive properties, though beneficial in organ transplantation, may pose risks and side effects when used long-term for anti-aging purposes. Dosing and timing also remain important considerations, as excessive or prolonged rapamycin use could lead to adverse effects on cellular function and immunity.
VI. Potential Benefits Beyond Aging:
Beyond its anti-aging potential, rapamycin has been investigated for its therapeutic benefits in various age-related diseases. Research suggests that rapamycin could be effective in treating certain types of cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes. These additional benefits further highlight the drug's potential in promoting healthy aging and extending the human healthspan.
VII. Ethical and Societal Implications:
The pursuit of longevity and anti-aging interventions raises ethical and societal questions. Should access to anti-aging therapies be limited, considering potential disparities in health and longevity among different socioeconomic groups? Additionally, the quest to prolong life raises philosophical questions about the value of aging, the natural course of life, and the potential consequences of extending the human lifespan.
VIII. Future Directions:
As research into rapamycin and anti-aging continues, scientists are exploring alternative strategies and compounds that target similar pathways. Caloric restriction mimetics, such as metformin, have shown promise in preclinical studies. Gene therapies and senolytics, which target senescent cells, also hold potential in the fight against aging. The integration of these approaches could pave the way for more effective and safer anti-aging interventions.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the pursuit of the fountain of youth has led researchers to explore the potential of rapamycin as an anti-aging intervention. The drug's remarkable effects on lifespan and healthspan in various model organisms have generated excitement about its human applications. However, numerous challenges, such as immunosuppressive properties and potential side effects, must be addressed before rapamycin can become a viable and safe anti-aging therapy. As science continues to advance, the dream of staying younger through the use of rapamycin remains a fascinating avenue for exploration in the quest for healthier aging and extended human lifespans.
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Plymouth Pet Breed of the Week: Basset Hounds
Despite being bred for the “aristocratic” (and brutal) sport of small game-hunting and seeking out other prey, it’s hard to associate that brutality with the cute, chubby, droopy-eyed appearance of any hound, especially the loveable Basset Hound. These odd-yet-charming and cute creatures aren’t always a great fit for every home (relative to many other breeds), but don’t count them out so quickly! Basset Hounds are a sometimes tricky breed, especially to maintain health-wise, but can bring great joy and companionship into your life.
Basset Hounds are friendly – sometimes TOO friendly! Basset Hounds are an emotionally intelligent and social breed (stemming from their close physical work and companionship with humans for centuries). They will be ecstatic to see you come home or bring over a human or canine friend. Bassett Hounds are great with humans and animals of widely varying ages (especially children!) and sizes.
You will definitely HEAR it from their loud, barking voices. Don’t be afraid – while Basset Hounds can get excited and bark VERY LOUDLY, they are just probably excited to see you. Basset Hounds are rarely aggressive and while their barks have been reported to scare off home intruders and other unwanted guests, they cannot really hold themselves off physically. They have other interesting skills though – their sense of smell is among the best of all dog breeds (from centuries of hunting, which they still do at least in parts of the UK and USA).
They also have a good sense of direction and building cognitive maps – they love to seek out adventure! Basset Hounds don’t need to walk as much as a herding or thin-framed dog, but it is recommended you do for their sense of adventure. If you don’t walk your Bassett Hound regularly it will likely try harder to escape from its home/enclosure to go roam the area. Bassett Hounds can be stubborn due to their intelligence too – they often don’t want to walk even when you offer, and will soon after try to escape and rummage through your neighborhood. Make sure to keep a good enclosure!
But overall, the most important thing to keep in mind, especially in the long-term when it comes to Basset Hounds, is their general health and sanitation. The droopy flaps of skin, ears, and pudgy feet can be cute but also can collect a lot of filth as the Hound walks around indoors or out. Keep these areas clean at all costs – you are not only preventing mucous and fleas/mites from developing, but more serious infections that can seriously harm or even kill a Basset Hound. Being a (generally) purebred Hound for very specific purposes in its day, Basset Hounds struggle with a myriad of health issues, too many to list in their entirety here. Arthritis, bone issues, and obesity (which all make it harder for the Basset Hound to walk and maintain its health) are some of the most common issues, not to mention glaucoma, spinal issues, and various forms of cancer. Make sure to take your Basset to a vet regularly to catch such issues as early as possible!
But if one can bear with the stubborn nature and piercing bark of the Basset Hound, one will find this breed to be just as loveable and adorable as they naturally appear. If raising a family or just having a pet for yourself, a Bassett Hound is a great companion if you are willing to make the effort. Just take extra precautions when it comes to its health and stay attentive in general, they will love you all the more for it!
By Dina Soussesie
#dogs#boston#massachusetts#new england#dog walking#pets#pet owners#hikes#vacation#travel#petcare#pettraining#furbabies#furmoms#furdads#puppy#puppies#puppers#doggos#cutedogs#cats#christmas#holidays#new years eve#basset#basset hound#hound#hounds#hunting dogs
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Yann LeCun’s vision for creating autonomous machines
We are excited to bring Transform 2022 back in-person July 19 and virtually July 20 - 28. Join AI and data leaders for insightful talks and exciting networking opportunities. Register today!
In the midst of the heated debate about AI sentience, conscious machines and artificial general intelligence, Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at Meta, published a blueprint for creating “autonomous machine intelligence.”
LeCun has compiled his ideas in a paper that draws inspiration from progress in machine learning, robotics, neuroscience and cognitive science. He lays out a roadmap for creating AI that can model and understand the world, reason and plan to do tasks on different timescales.
While the paper is not a scholarly document, it provides a very interesting framework for thinking about the different pieces needed to replicate animal and human intelligence. It also shows how the mindset of LeCun, an award-winning pioneer of deep learning, has changed and why he thinks current approaches to AI will not get us to human-level AI.
A modular structure
One of the most important elements of LeCun’s vision is a modular structure of different components inspired by various parts of the brain. This is a break from the popular approach in deep learning, where a single model is trained end to end.
At the center of the architecture is a world model that predicts the states of the world. While modeling the world has been discussed and attempted in different AI architectures, they are task-specific and can’t be adapted to different tasks. LeCun suggests that like humans and animals, autonomous systems must have a single flexible world model.
“One hypothesis in this paper is that animals and humans have only one world model engine somewhere in their prefrontal cortex,” LeCun writes. “That world model engine is dynamically configurable for the task at hand. With a single, configurable world model engine, rather than a separate model for every situation, knowledge about how the world works may be shared across tasks. This may enable reasoning by analogy, by applying the model configured for one situation to another situation.”
LeCun’s proposed architecture for autonomous machines
The world model is complemented by several other modules that help the agent understand the world and take actions that are relevant to its goals. The “perception” module performs the role of the animal sensory system, collecting information from the world and estimating its current state with the help of the world model. In this regard, the world model performs two important tasks: First, it fills the missing pieces of information in the perception module (e.g., occluded objects), and second, it predicts the plausible future states of the world (e.g., where will the flying ball be in the next time step).
The “cost” module evaluates the agent’s “discomfort,” measured in energy. The agent must take actions that reduce its discomfort. Some of the costs are hardwired, or “intrinsic costs.” For example, in humans and animals, these costs would be hunger, thirst, pain, and fear. Another submodule is the “trainable critic,” whose goal is to reduce the costs of achieving a particular goal, such as navigating to a location, building a tool, etc.
The “short-term memory” module stores relevant information about the states of the world across time and the corresponding value of the intrinsic cost. Short-term memory plays an important role in helping the world model function properly and make accurate predictions.
The “actor” module turns predictions into specific actions. It gets its input from all other modules and controls the outward behavior of the agent.
Finally, a “configurator” module takes care of executive control, adjusting all other modules, including the world model, for the specific task that it wants to carry out. This is the key module that makes sure a single architecture can handle many different tasks. It adjusts the perception model, world model, cost function and actions of the agent based on the goal it wants to achieve. For example, if you’re looking for a tool to drive in a nail, your perception module should be configured to look for items that are heavy and solid, your actor module must plan actions to pick up the makeshift hammer and use it to drive the nail, and your cost module must be able to calculate whether the object is wieldy and near enough or you should be looking for something else that is within reach.
Interestingly, in his proposed architecture, LeCun considers two modes of operation, inspired by Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow” dichotomy. The autonomous agent should have a “Mode 1” operating model, a fast and reflexive behavior that directly links perceptions to actions, and a “Mode 2” operating model, which is slower and more involved and uses the world model and other modules to reason and plan.
Self-supervised learning
While the architecture that LeCun proposes is interesting, implementing it poses several big challenges. Among them is training all the modules to perform their tasks. In his paper, LeCun makes ample use of the terms “differentiable,” “gradient-based” and “optimization,” all of which indicate that he believes that the architecture will be based on a series of deep learning models as opposed to symbolic systems in which knowledge has been embedded in advance by humans.
LeCun is a proponent of self-supervised learning, a concept he has been talking about for several years. One of the main bottlenecks of many deep learning applications is their need for human-annotated examples, which is why they are called “supervised learning” models. Data labeling doesn’t scale, and it is slow and expensive.
On the other hand, unsupervised and self-supervised learning models learn by observing and analyzing data without the need for labels. Through self-supervision, human children acquire commonsense knowledge of the world, including gravity, dimensionality and depth, object persistence and even things like social relationships. Autonomous systems should also be able to learn on their own.
Recent years have seen some major advances in unsupervised learning and self-supervised learning, mainly in transformer models, the deep learning architecture used in large language models. Transformers learn the statistical relations of words by masking parts of a known text and trying to predict the missing part.
One of the most popular forms of self-supervised learning is “contrastive learning,” in which a model is taught to learn the latent features of images through masking, augmentation, and exposure to different poses of the same object.
However, LeCun proposes a different type of self-supervised learning, which he describes as “energy-based models.” EBMs try to encode high-dimensional data such as images into low-dimensional embedding spaces that only preserve the relevant features. By doing so, they can compute whether two observations are related to each other or not.
In his paper, LeCun proposes the “Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture” (JEPA), a model that uses EBM to capture dependencies between different observations.
Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture (JEPA)
“A considerable advantage of JEPA is that it can choose to ignore the details that are not easily predictable,” LeCun writes. Basically, this means that instead of trying to predict the world state at the pixel level, JEPA predicts the latent, low-dimensional features that are relevant to the task at hand.
In the paper, LeCun further discusses Hierarchical JEPA (H-JEPA), a plan to stack JEPA models on top of each other to handle reasoning and planning at different time scales.
“The capacity of JEPA to learn abstractions suggests an extension of the architecture to handle prediction at multiple time scales and multiple levels of abstraction,” LeCun writes. “Intuitively, low-level representations contain a lot of details about the input, and can be used to predict in the short term. But it may be difficult to produce accurate long-term predictions with the same level of detail. Conversely high-level, abstract representation may enable long-term predictions, but at the cost of eliminating a lot of details.”
Hierarchical Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture (H-JEPA)
The road to autonomous agents
In his paper, LeCun admits that many things remain unanswered, including configuring the models to learn the optimal latent features and a precise architecture and function for the short-term memory module and its beliefs about the world. LeCun also says that the configurator module still remains a mystery and more work needs to be done to make it work correctly.
But LeCun clearly states that current proposals for reaching human-level AI will not work. For example, one argument that has gained much traction in recent months is that of “it’s all about scale.” Some scientists suggest that by scaling transformer models with more layers and parameters and training them on bigger datasets, we’ll eventually reach artificial general intelligence.
LeCun refutes this theory, arguing that LLMs and transformers work as long as they are trained on discrete values.
“This approach doesn’t work for high-dimensional continuous modalities, such as video. To represent such data, it is necessary to eliminate irrelevant information about the variable to be modeled through an encoder, as in the JEPA,” he writes.
Another theory is “reward is enough,” proposed by scientists at DeepMind. According to this theory, the right reward function and correct reinforcement learning algorithm are all you need to create artificial general intelligence.
But LeCun argues that while RL requires the agent to constantly interact with its environment, much of the learning that humans and animals do is through pure perception.
LeCun also refutes the hybrid “neuro-symbolic” approach, saying that the model probably won’t need explicit mechanisms for symbol manipulation, and describes reasoning as “energy minimization or constraint satisfaction by the actor using various search methods to find a suitable combination of actions and latent variables.”
Much more needs to happen before LeCun’s blueprint becomes a reality. “It is basically what I’m planning to work on, and what I’m hoping to inspire others to work on, over the next decade,” he wrote on Facebook after he published the paper.
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Do you think those cat/dogs learning to talk with buttons thing is actually accurate? I know even primates apparently dont know how to parse human words (with regards to sign language) so i struggle to understand why dogs or cats suddenly understand complex english
They don’t actually understand what the buttons mean. These animals aren’t capable of processing language like we humans do and they tend to react more to your tone and visual cues then the actual words you’re saying.
The buttons are just very basic operant conditioning. I very basic form of cognition in animals. They press the buttons because they are rewarded for doing so, not because they actually understand the meaning behind the buttons.
You can see in those videos (they do usually edit it out, but sometimes the creator of these videos just outright admits it) that it can take their pet something like 15 - 20 minutes to respond via the buttons.
Claims that the pets are asking questions ect. feel very staged / trained (like the below for example). Remember these videos are all coming from people on tiktok and people will do anything for a bit of internet fame. Scientific research has shown that dogs do not pass the “mirror test” but the mirror test is a very outdated way to show self-recognition in animals.
You compare this to the language studies done by Pepperberg with African Grey Parrots like Alex; in which they were able to ask questions they weren’t already trained to ask, form sentences they weren’t previously trained to do, display self-recognition (via asking what colour they were), could understand syntax and form their own words eg. Alex called apples “banerries”, a combination of "banana" and "cherry", two fruits he was more familiar with.
I prefer not to touch on koko the gorilla because that research is already pretty widely criticised with a lack of actual data, and there was evidence of the Clever Hans effect (her trainers' unconscious cues were prompting her to display specific signs).
#science#biology#zoology#cats#dogs#cognition#neruobiology#neuroethology#ethology#those talking buttons annoy me so much#its really really basic cognition stuff#but they edit and cut out the parts were they repeated hit the button they want the dog to touch then speed up or cut out#the fact it takes the pet like 10 minutes to react#it all looks very trained and faked#not at all interesting or exciting in terms of animal cognition#zoo ask#Anon
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Gundham & Yasuke
Summary: The Forbidden Tanaka’s FTEs in the SDR2 Protagonist Matsuda Yasuke AU. YES.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Language and blood/injuries.
Notes: Unsurprisingly, Tanaka was the winner of the poll for which FTEs were to be done next. So his FTEs, quite hilariously, are getting posted on the anniverary date for sdr2′s initial release. That feels pretty...fitting. Writing Tanaka’s dialogue was really hard but I did my best. Despite my best efforts, these two don’t get along the best that they could. Cursed.
Read this fic among others HERE
Main story is HERE
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It went without saying that he didn’t have a normal middle school experience so he didn’t interact with a lot of people who exhibited the so-called eighth-grader syndrome. But he knew that once kids had the cognitive ability to identify their lot in life and long for more, such desires could get...twisted, to say the least.
Just about everyone wants to be fucking special if they’re not too focused on surviving. And most people grew ashamed of the lofty aspirations and special interests they developed in that delicate era. Matsuda understood that much, even if he was considerably detached from it. In some ways, those people were like animals. Strange beasts that acted on impulses and instincts. That still had intelligence but not, like, awareness. When it came to engaging with these types, Matsuda had no choice but to accept them even as he shook his head at their delusions of grandeur.
He understands he’s supposed to do that in theory.
In practice, however...
“Sharp-tongued fool!” Tanaka bellowed. “You draw too near to the barrier of the Ice Kingdom!”
It’s a beautiful day outside. It’s always a beautiful fucking day. Clear, sunny sky. Warm but with a pleasant breeze to keep it from being too sweltering. It’s such a nice day—and Matsuda Yasuke does not want to be here.
Without another word, he turns on his heel.
“Aha!” Tanaka sneered. “To think just the warning prose would be enough to make you turn tail and run. A cowardice I did not expect, but perhaps... I should have.”
While walking away and listening to that guy cackle to himself, all Matsuda had in response was to flip him off.
He proceeded to avoid Tanaka for the rest of the day—and would’ve avoided him for the rest of his life had fate not had something else in store.
--
It was another beautiful day. The perfect day for a walk. He was thinking by the ranch so that he could admire the chickens as he passed. Unfortunately, he not only came across chickens but also the cow that used to be a chicken he quite liked.
Also Tanaka Gundam.
And their eyes ended up meeting.
There’s no real point in reasoning with someone who exhibits grandiose delusions, he reminded himself. It’s no good to denounce them, but it’s also no good to enable them. It’s a delicate line that I do not want to fucking bother with.
Matsuda does look away, intent on ignoring the other. Despite that resolve, his thoughts don’t shut up.
I didn’t have any peers in middle school for obvious reasons. I never actually spoke to someone my own age who felt this way. I was too busy being fixated on my own goals and lofty aspirations.
A couple of steps forward. It’s fine. If he continued the way he was already going, he can just pass Tanaka. It’d be easy. Simple.
...
Fuck.
He pauses. He turns. Tanaka has already turned away, but as if guided by the third sense of a fucking Evil All-Seeing Eye, he turns back to Matsuda. His brow quirks.
“Has the barrier truly weakened so?”
“I don’t know,” Matsuda replied intelligently. “For some reason, I feel too worn down to go through the effort of pretending you don’t exist.”
Tanaka cackled lowly.
“Such an insolent remark. It seems you do not truly know your place. But that is just as well. Even now, your true name is one that seems out of my grasp.”
“I’m Matsuda Yasuke. Nice to meet you.”
Tanaka clicked his tongue, scowling at Matsuda’s blank expression and his deadpan tone.
“That,” he snarled. “Is merely a brush against the surface. It does not encompass the deepest depths of your rogue soul.”
Alright. So he wants to know what makes me tick. If I had to guess.
“Your true name,” Tanaka requested impatiently. “I have no need for superficial titles.”
“That’s cold,” Matsuda huffed. “The name my mom gave me isn’t superficial.”
...even if it is ironic.
For some reason, Tanaka does perk up. He gives a nod of approval.
“A fair retort,” he concedes. “That maternal bond is its own scarring shackle.”
That admission was the first true crack in the wall between them. Or so Matsuda supposed, and he felt himself slip just a little bit further.
What a headache...
“Anyway,” he went on with a wave of his hand. “It’d be incredibly foolish to give you my true name, right? If telling a demon my name gives them possession of my soul and telling them my birthday gives them control of my life... Then telling someone like you...”
Tanaka nodded again, grinning so widely it was damn near grotesque.
“I see...the sharp-tongued fool is still retaining a sharp mind...”
I shouldn’t have played along even in jest. Fuck.
“What special abilities do you possess?” Tanaka purrs, drawing closer now. “What hidden capabilities have you acquired?”
Tanaka stalks even closer, his eyes are flashing with curiosity and hunger. Probably because this fucking weirdo wouldn’t understand a normal interaction if it bit him in the face.
I still hate that stare. I fucking hate that stare.
“You already know that,” Matsuda snapped, forcing himself to stay relaxed. “Neurology is my talent. You even know my name and birthday because of those damn student files...”
Calm down, calm down. It’s just fucking Tanaka—
Tanaka does halt. His head tilts quizzically.
“Hmph.” With nostrils flaring, Tanaka seemed to duck into his own scarf. “I suppose you are human after all.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Simple.” Tanaka chuckled. “I sensed your apprehension, Matsuda Yasuke. I sensed—and yet, I could tell it was not a chill brought about by the Ice Kingdom.”
Matsuda does flinch at that.
“I shall take my leave for now so that you may re-gather your peace,” Tanaka declared. “Till next time, sharp-tongued fool.”
Tanaka gave him a salute. Matsuda barely had a chance to wave back before Tanaka flipped his scarf and coat so that it would dramatically billow behind him as he made his overly dramatic exit. So fucking extra, and yet—
He left so that I could take the time to calm down.
And how the hell was he supposed to feel about that?
--
“Even now, I can hear the crackling of the Ice Kingdom’s barrier.” Tanaka was cackling. Another beautiful day. Yet somehow this weirdo was set on shrouding himself in asinine mystery as well as his own dark layers. How the hell was he not burning up?
Tanaka noticed his staring and merely smirked. “What brings you today, Matsuda Yasuke?”
Aah. Even with that pompous fucking tone, it’s an understandable question.
“I don’t like things to be unbalanced,” he said which was a bald-faced lie but sounded persuasive enough. “Since you interrogated me last time, I thought I’d ask you a few questions of my own.”
“Hmph!” Tanaka snorted. “You seek a comprehension that may underlie a deep terror that cannot be contained! Do you not fear for your sanity?”
“No, I’m insane already,” Matsuda said flatly. “I drove myself insane years ago.”
“Is that SO?!” Tanaka boomed, incredulous or admiring, Matsuda wasn’t sure. “Your humanity is one that only hangs by a thread, then?!”
I...can’t disagree with that, huh.
Matsuda shrugged.
“We’re not supposed to be talking about me. Let’s talk about you.”
Tanaka remained guarded but gave a nod.
“Very well. Demi-human or no, I shall not lose to you.”
That’s more like it. You’re much less annoying this way.
“What talents do you have?” he settles on since it’s only fair. “Even if it’s not the full roster, I’d like to know some...special abilities.”
“You shall only get a portion,” Tanaka said, sniffing. “Despite my appearance, I’m an active fiend. Between sorcery and human hunting, I manage my website.”
Matsuda blinked, trying to imagine this guy at a computer. Actually, it was really easy to imagine. There’s no way Tanaka learned to talk like an edgelord on his own.
I bet he spends a lot of time looking up stupid shit like Norse mythology. But, if he has a website, then...
“I have encrypted my research with magic,” Tanaka informed him. “Thus, only those worthy can gain access.”
...if he means through password then I could probably hack in with ease.
“If I had to guess what kind of research it was,” Matsuda mused. “Then—probably something like a pet diary, right?”
There were a series of muffled squeaks from Tanaka’s scarf. Tanaka burst into a boisterous boom of laughter.
“Even with your wits, you would only be able to access the dummy site!” Tanaka grinned victoriously, even though no conflict had taken place. “Your skill level would only open the gates of the Exciting Breeding Journal.”
“...Alright. That’s fine by me.”
You’re literally here because of your talent in animal husbandry.
“Favorite food?” Matsuda asked next. Tanaka stiffened. Growled, even. Because he was pissed off about getting such a lukewarm response? Matsuda didn���t bother inquiring, instead pressing, “Do you have one?”
“The orange melon that bears the face of the devil,” Tanaka huffed, put out. “No other food compares in terms of high nutrients or versatility in cooking methods. More importantly, its seeds are the most effective food source for my Four Dark Devas of Destruction.”
...a pumpkin. He’s talking about a pumpkin, right?
“However! Those seeds must be carefully washed, carefully dried, carefully peeled,” Tanaka rambled on. “And lightly fried.”
“How meticulous,” Matsuda muttered. “But nothing less for...them.”
“Indeed. A difficulty that beguiles pain and pleasure alike matters not in the face of a grand purpose.”
I can agree with that even if I hate how it’s worded.
“There is more when it comes to the caring of beasts,” Tanaka rumbled. “Shall I lead you deeper?”
“Uh.” Matsuda waved his hand. “Next time. Let’s talk more next time.”
Tanaka gave him a truly wicked grin. For once, it actually felt malicious.
“Take as much time you need to prepare yourself, sharp-tongued fool.”
Matsuda made a face but bit his tongue.
Piece of shit.
--
Tanaka wasn’t out and about today at the ranch. He wasn’t in the diner, either. It went to reason that he was likely in his cottage.
It’s only because I found some pumpkin seeds that I’m even going...
When he knocked on the door, he found it unlocked. Since he wasn’t an animal, he was going to wait for Tanaka to answer the door rather than barge in but...
“Ku—!”
He heard a noise. A sharp, strangled sound that was undeniably made through gritted teeth. Matsuda opened the door immediately.
“Is everything alright?”
And indeed—Tanaka was holding his bloodied hand in a death grip. The hamsters were chirping and chittering, but unaffected. What happened was clear, especially in how Tanaka’s shoulders were hunched.
Thankfully, Matsuda carried around packets of wet wipes. He rummaged through his pocket for one, stepping forward and reaching out.
“Let me...”
“NO!” Tanaka shrieked, and like a startled beast he scrambled away from his hand. He was panting, still gripping his injury with a wide and wild-eyed stare. Seeing Matsuda there did little to calm him down, as he growled, “The blood that flows through my veins bears a fearsome curse. You must step away now to spare yourself their potency.”
Thankfully, Matsuda carried around disposable gloves. He slipped them on, tearing the wet wipe packet open, and made his way closer.
“Come on. We really don’t want that bite to get infected.”
“This is not my first blood sacrifice,” Tanaka snarled, even showing his teeth. Gross. “I have no need for your medical sorcery. And furthermore, that meager covering...!”
“Oh my fucking god, shut the hell up.” Matsuda snatched up his hand, prying the other off as Tanaka shrieked some more. Thankfully, Matsuda was able to pull it away and got to work dabbing and cleaning the wound. Tanaka had completely frozen now, but Matsuda was still fuming.
“Don’t ever fucking call me meager,” he snapped, and thankfully Tanaka had spare clean bandages for him to re-wrap his hand with. “Crude and foolish I’ll take. Meager I won’t.”
Tanaka finally scoffed as Matsuda made sure the bandaging was secure.
“A demi-human like you has such pride.”
Look who’s fucking talking.
“You should not have endangered yourself, however,” Tanaka went on. “I was not telling falsehoods about my poisonous blood. It is only by a thread that you have not already deteriorated. As crude and foolish as you are, I do not desire your demise.”
“I’ve dealt with my fair share of poison, so you’re worrying too much,” Matsuda replied but winced from a sudden headache. As he rubbed removed his gloves to rub his temples, Tanaka stood up.
“You once again face the ramifications for your hubris!” he exclaimed and rushed back to deal with his hamsters. “I grant you relief, and I advise you to take your leave immediately.”
“I’m fucking fine, it’s just a migraine,” Matsuda griped and disposed of the gloves and wipes. “Should you really be handling those hamsters again so soon?”
“They are not mere hamsters!” Tanaka bellowed. “The fangs I have taken are that of the Crimson Steel Elephant, Maga-Z!”
Maga-Z blinked its bright beady eyes at Matsuda.
“For the sake of the Invading Black Dragon, Cham-P,” Tanaka went to coo over the largest hamster which was orange, not black. “A golden demon, one who understands fear all too well... Much attention should be heeded to make sure they do not get overly stressed out... While many devil beasts of this ilk are aggressive and fearfully territorial, the golden variant is the most docile and intelligent. They recognize me as...”
He trails off. It’s as if he’s too moved to speak.
I have heard hamsters had an unnaturally high rate of cannibalism, Matsuda thought. But I suppose like with dog breeds, they come in all sizes...and temperaments...
It was obvious Tanaka knew his shit, being an Ultimate at all. But seeing it firsthand, watching him dote on the beasts with a cottage interior largely dedicated to their cage and tube, the guy definitely loved animals. Like, a lot. Despite his delusions of grandeur, he at least seemed to love animals a healthy, non-obsessive amount.
“They’re living well,” Matsuda commented blandly.
Tanaka scoffed at him.
“For demons that live a mere 1095 days, the luxuries in life mean everything. I would never settle for less.”
“I see...” He scuffed the end of his shoe against the wooden floor. “That’s good.”
Shouldn’t have worn open-toed shoes, but I don’t have any alternatives. Oh, right.
“I got pumpkin seeds.” He tossed the bag and it landed on Tanaka’s lap. The hamsters jumped, and even Tanaka flinched. Matsuda, however, turned on his heel. “Sorry. Bye.”
With that insincere apology, he headed out. He could feel a disproving stare on his back but that didn’t lessen his steps in the slightest.
--
His favorite chicken-turned-cow was in a good mood today. She was accepting pets and even nipping at his fingers. All he had on him was candy. Not any fruit much less hay although...
“If you plan to feed that creature, you should be wary of apples,” Tanaka rumbled from behind. Where the fuck he came from, Matsuda wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t surprised to be hearing from him. “You can risk over-eating which will cause a bloated stomach for the animal.”
“Ah, thanks for the advice,” Matsuda said sincerely, turning back and frowning when he noticed the other’s own hanging head. “What’s with the long face?”
“I would hope that you do not consider that creature to be your familiar, Matsuda Yasuke,” Tanaka murmured sullenly and solemnly. Like he had come across something truly pitiful to the point of depressing.
Although he seems more focused on the cow itself...
“I don’t have a familiar,” Matsuda huffed.
Tanaka quirks an eyebrow at him. Furrows it, even, as if Matsuda is the one not making sense. How seriously annoying. But rather than inquire further, Tanaka just shakes his head.
“Creatures like that one are born to be slaughtered,” he said, turning on his heel. “What a wretched fate, one that cannot be escaped even with the use of the Evil All-Seeing Eye. If one is to form a bond with such an unfortunate beast, they will invite only calamity.”
“That’s...” Not necessarily true. There is livestock out there allowed to live full lives. But they’re exceptions that prove the rule, I suppose. And the fact that I even thought to use a word like allowed... “Woof.”
Tanaka barked back. “This sentimentality only arose because I have not encountered any new beasts. I shall go searching as to put my mind at ease.”
He walked on, and Matsuda found himself following. Tanaka didn’t seem to mind at all. The opposite, in fact.
“There are many creatures I’ve tamed, sharp-tongued one,” Tanaka went on to say. “The Cerberus. The Phoenix. Even then Midgardian Serpent.”
Looks like I was right on the money about him looking up Norse shit. That’s just another fucking word for Earth, asshole. I’ve read enough shitty fantasy manga to know.
“I saw a toucan one time,” he commented in lieu of verbalizing his thoughts. “And I guess there are the seagulls. Or those mascots.”
“Those uncute fiends cannot be trusted with their speech,” Tanaka hissed. “As for the others... Ah, the ravenous, feathered beasts.” Tanaka nodded sagely with approval at that one. “They are a perilous project as they are quite fearless and impulsive. Even when greater threats arise, they gather like a court waiting to hand down judgment.”
I think...that’s more something that crows do rather than seagulls.
He does think about it though, birds judging one another. If he looked up, he’d even see a seagull or two soar overhead. A phrase rose to his mind, unbidden.
When the seagulls cry...
“Hm?” Tanaka paused when he noticed that Matsuda had stopped dead in his tracks. He turned, and whatever expression was on Matsuda’s face—whatever that was had Tanaka clicking his tongue. “What is on your mind?”
“Something stupid,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “Even in peaceful times, I can’t help but worry about how easily things fall apart. Sometimes for something as petty as a broken promise.”
Is it speech alone that gives us the means of betraying one another?
Tanaka did stiffen.
“It sure is fortunate for us that we’ve yet to deal with any storms,” Matsuda went on to say. “In fact, it’s perfect weather every single day. Isn’t that strange? It almost doesn’t feel real, and if it’s not real... Does anything that happens here matter?” He paused again. “Like I said. It’s stupid.”
“Your inane ponderings still have an air of malice,” Tanaka muttered darkly.
Huh.
“Are you saying I’m someone to be on guard around?” He cracked a dry smile. “I’m not that fucking interested in messing with people. I just lack patience.”
Tanaka gave him a look. Wordlessly, he shook his head.
“I think... I will seek solace elsewhere. Do not follow me.”
Matsuda didn’t. Simply watched the other go. It might’ve been one of those annoying situations where the person was saying the exact opposite of what they wanted, but even if he could tell that was the case, he still wouldn’t have followed.
After all.
He lacked patience.
--
Tanaka seemed especially moody today. Although no matter how sullen his air was, the island sun wouldn’t let up in the slightest. In a way, that was pretty cruel, right? In that much light, it made it difficult to hide. Or something like that.
Wonder what he’s being so fucking temperamental about...
Matsuda makes his way over, waving as he does. He stops, however, when Tanaka regards him coldly.
“Matsuda Yasuke,” he rumbled in a gravelly tone of voice. “The sharp-tongued fool whose practices engage in the constitution of the mind... Would you like to duel?”
Huh?
Matsuda dropped his hand.
“...have you finally fucking gone actually insane?” He sighed. “Don’t answer that. No, I don’t want to duel. And if you push it, I’ll leave. I don’t have time for that bullshit.”
Tanaka’s cold stare became more of a glare.
“I’m afraid I do not have such luxury around you,” Tanaka said sharply. “You grind down my defenses with this continued, unsightly association. Despite wearing the face of a human, you, Matsuda Yasuke are...!”
“I’m just human,” Matsuda replied before he could finish. With an unimpressed shrug, he added. “And if you wanted me to stop bothering you, all you had to fucking do was say so.”
“I allowed these exchanges out of a sense of curiosity, arrogantly unheeding the danger,” Tanaka went on, muttering as he did. “Truly, I have been foolish.”
The sun shone down on him. On a day this bright, there wasn’t anyone to hide. Tanaka ‘Gundam’ looked a bit ill. When Matsuda took a step closer, however, he recoiled. With a sharp hiss, Tanaka held up his hand in warning.
Like an agitated cat.
Matsuda drew back with a sigh.
Someone like this—really is so needlessly fucking difficult. And for what? An inflated sense of importance? Wasn’t getting into Hope’s Peak enough?
...if he complained too much, he’d veer uncomfortably close to hypocrisy.
Hope’s Peak was just another step for me, but I wonder what it was for someone like this? Where the hell would he be if he didn’t get in? Honestly—I doubt it would’ve been all that significant.
“Alright,” he said. “Did you get anything out of our interactions at least?”
Tanaka stared at him, but being a normal fucking person without magical powers, Matsuda was more than capable of staring back, unaffected. For some reason, Tanaka did shy back a little.
“I have keenly observed you,” he said lowly. “Namely how your regard only shifts when directed towards creatures already marked for death. I suspect—you are a creature of calamity. The eye of the storm.”
“So, what,” Matsuda drawled. “Like a demon?”
Tanaka hummed, seemingly considering it. “No... That is not quite right.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, then,” Matsuda huffed, waving his hand dismissively. “But—I think I get what you’re saying. I just think it’s funny coming from you—and that you don’t understand.”
Tanaka’s stare blazed with an offense, and Matsuda paid no heed at all.
“How I regard creatures marked for death...” Matsuda snorted. “I’m a fucking doctor. Obviously, I treat them differently. It’s part of my fucking job.”
Although he’s referring to the cow, isn’t he? Seriously...
“I guess it’s weird,” he admitted. “With how shitty of an attitude I have. But I take my job seriously. If you can’t get something that simple, then your Evil All-Seeing Eye is pretty fucking lacking.”
“You...” Tanaka growled. “You’re truly impertinent. You wield your blade recklessly and foolishly. You and I both know—that it runs deeper than mere duty for you, Matsuda Yasuke.”
...so what if it does?
He supposes he should be impressed that Tanaka isn’t that fucking dense. That the animal freak is, in fact, a little perceptive.
Smiling mirthlessly, Matsuda reached out to pat the flinching other’s shoulder. He gripped him for just a moment.
“That’s all you need to know about me,” he murmured into Tanaka’s ear before pulling back. “I think we’re at enough of an understanding. Thanks for your time.” He gave a salute as he headed on his way. “We don’t need to talk again. We especially don’t need to duel. Have a wonderful fucking day.”
“One day,” Tanaka swore. “You will meet your cruel, disastrous end. That is the decree of the Tanaka Kingdom!” As Matsuda got further away, Tanaka boomed after him. “Mark my words, sharp-tongued FOOL! You are MARKED for des—!”
It was such a headache that Matsuda tuned him out. But as he found himself alone, he did wonder.
Marked for destruction? Or something else? Despite all that time, rather than growing close, that weirdo is now convinced that I’m hopeless. He might be right. Actually, I’d still consider us closer if he can recognize that. I still don’t really care. I don’t.
He walked on, moving forward because he had nowhere else to go.
Decree. What a fucking riot. If I do die, it won’t be because of an idiot like him. But whatever makes him feel better I suppose.
Matsuda shook his head, brushing the whole thing aside except...
If I die... It won’t be until I reach the very fucking pits. I won’t settle for anything less.
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The Brain ‘Rotates’ Memories to Save Them From New Sensations (Jordana Cepelewicz, Quanta Magazine, Apr 15 2021)
“During every waking moment, we humans and other animals have to balance on the edge of our awareness of past and present.
We must absorb new sensory information about the world around us while holding on to short-term memories of earlier observations or events.
Our ability to make sense of our surroundings, to learn, to act and to think all depend on constant, nimble interactions between perception and memory.
But to accomplish this, the brain has to keep the two distinct; otherwise, incoming data streams could interfere with representations of previous stimuli and cause us to overwrite or misinterpret important contextual information. (…)
The memory representations were organized in what neuroscientists describe as an “orthogonal” dimension to the sensory representations, all within the same population of neurons.
Buschman likened it to running out of room while taking handwritten notes on a piece of paper.
When that happens, “you will rotate your piece of paper 90 degrees and start writing in the margins,” he said.
“And that’s basically what the brain is doing. It gets that first sensory input, it writes it down on the piece of paper, and then it rotates that piece of paper 90 degrees so that it can write in a new sensory input without interfering or literally overwriting.”
In other words, sensory data was transformed into a memory through a morphing of the neuronal firing patterns. (…)
This use of orthogonal coding to separate and protect information in the brain has been seen before.
For instance, when monkeys are preparing to move, neural activity in their motor cortex represents the potential movement but does so orthogonally to avoid interfering with signals driving actual commands to the muscles. (…)
Instead, they showed that the same general population of neurons was involved, and that the activity of the neurons could be divided neatly into two categories.
Some were “stable” in their behavior during both the sensory and memory representations, while other “switching” neurons flipped the patterns of their responses for each use.
To the researchers’ surprise, this combination of stable and switching neurons was enough to rotate the sensory information and transform it into memory.
“That’s the entire magic,” Buschman said.
In fact, he and Libby used computational modeling approaches to show that this mechanism was the most efficient way to build the orthogonal representations of sensation and memory: It required fewer neurons and less energy than the alternatives. (…)
They and other researchers hope to look for this mechanism of orthogonal rotation in other processes:
in how the brain keeps track of multiple thoughts or goals at once; in how it engages in a task while dealing with distractions; in how it represents internal states; in how it controls cognition, including attention processes.
“I’m really excited,” Buschman said. Looking at other researchers’ work, “I just remember seeing, there’s a stable neuron, there’s a switching neuron! You see them all over the place now.”
Libby is interested in the implications of their results for artificial intelligence research, particularly in the design of architectures useful for AI networks that have to multitask.”
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Okay Tumblr people seem to know more about this than I ever will so can someone just aid me by looking at my list of whatever fucking symptoms I can identify here:
Literally 90% of my day I will be dissociating either mildly or heavily and it's mainly just derealization/depersonalization neither of which are distressing but they can actually cause physical discomfort sometimes
Often the dissociation also includes sort of blurred identity like I can't tell if I feel like Alex or Bee or if I even feel like I'm a person at all (again, not distressing for me personally, it's just weird but it happens so much that ive gotten used to it)
There's no "headspace" that can be imagined or seen or anything and I really can't see into my own mind. Bee and Eve just sort of sit there in my subconscious and I can interact with them through speaking and (I avoid using system terms without knowing if this turned out to be OSDD or something so bear with me here as I make a way around it) if it's one of those two that's sort of presented on the outside or as I kinda say 'in control' I have very mild influence over them and they can have mild influence over me, they can push their way past me and mainly it's Bee who does that, and say if Eve is happy we can feel her happy stimming
The only one really distinct is Eve, Bee is sort of like a more energetic younger version of myself but still feels entirely like a different person, whereas Eve is nothing like either of us
None of us have any real control over who's presenting and sometimes don't even realize or notice it changed, if we do it just feels like easing into a different I guess 'personality/identity' with dissociation but nothing like blacking out temporarily or something
Also, there's no distinction between who sees what, I have no idea what Eve sees or what Bee sees or if they even see something different or if they see the same things as I do. My brain can't even begin to try and figure that out
There's no dissociative amnesia when it comes to shifting to someone else, mild short term memory stuff probably is unrelated
I've mentioned a decent bit that previous research showed I probably have undiagnosed ADHD, I seem to exhibit the emotional and more extreme negative behavioral symptoms of it whereas Bee exhibits the more energetic behavior symptoms and cognitive symptoms
Bee also tends to push their way past me when there's an opportunity to indulge in a special interest or when we get proper stimulation like in ag class when we go out to the barn Bee gets very excited to see the cows or I can be doing something random Mrs Wels will start streaming and there's a very quick shift to Bee (because while I absolutely adore Mrs Wels, Bee is the one who really exhibits the feelings and stuff from hyperfixations/special interests)
It isn't even like feeling more energetic later in the day it entirely feels like I've turned into a different person. Bee does not feel the same as Alex and Alex does not feel the same as Bee, needless to say neither feel the same as Eve. Again, Eve is the most distinct/different, so between Alex and Bee it's like two states Alex can be in split into two different identities almost
Bee and Eve only have past memories that I tell them about or that I think about at the moment, otherwise they just draw a blank, but Bee has more than Eve does. That's just for the far past though
This isn't something that I've really noticed happening for a long time. It always felt sort of like I wasn't always the same person but I don't know how long that was, and I guess I only really started noticing it a lot some number of months ago. It's really hard to say because I have the worst memory ever and can hardly even remember what I was doing an hour ago.
Eve is like the personification of age regressing with stuffed animals for comfort after emotional drainage, Alex is just default settings, and like I said Bee is like the personification of being/feeling happy and childish and all that stuff. Eve isn't in a constant state of sadness or drainage or anything, she's often happy
Sometimes I can't even feel or hear the other two but it tends to be in the very early morning and late at night as if they're sleeping in my mind but any other time they're very much there (I can still feel them a bit but they just don't feel active in the slightest)
Sometimes there's physical effects that come with the other two—Bee is really fidgety and stims a LOT and also feels a bit shorter, Eve feels really sluggish and feels even shorter than Bee does
Bee also tics more (I have like. One single tic that's like an aggresive neck twitch and sometimes comes with a little noise but Bee seems to tic significantly more than I do)
Referring to myself in first person doesn't always feel right and sometimes third person doesn't either neither even feel correct so it's weird mainly just referring to me, Bee, and Eve altogether. Referring to them separately feels right sometimes saying Bee feels odd because that's what everyone calls me even when I don't feel like Bee or ig am just not Bee—but yeah
I don't know if that's everything there is to this for me probably not but I can't really identify a whole lot here
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I’m really glad you like it!!!! Sorry that this took so long! I’ve actually been doing more than just SpIn stuff recently which is a change, haha.
(this one is more in-depth but hopefully it’s not boring?? I hope that’s okay. it’s also way longer, so, uhhhh, whoops.)
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In the early days, Virgil would just call in Roman to lay on top of him as a pressure stim. Roman was strangely the best choice because Patton always made it too cuddly and Virgil felt overwhelmed, and Logan found it very uncomfortable. Virgil was worried that Roman would be too squirmy, but he was actually very good at being still.
Eventually Roman bought Virgil a weighted blanket, which definitely made Virgil cry a little bit cause he’d been talking about getting one for ages. Virgil still sometimes calls Roman in to lay on top of him when he wants to spend time with someone without actually spending time with anyone.
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Logan makes notes of everything. He finds it difficult to remember all the many things he is expected to do by social conventions that just don’t seem intuitive to him so he writes them all down and files them. Things he’s filed include step-by-step instructions on how to deal with a panic attack, as well as contemporary slang terms and body language cues and their meanings.
He has a System for his filing and the one time Roman came into his room and grabbed a book off the shelf without asking, Logan screamed at him. Roman has since learned not to touch Logan’s things, as Logan has learned not to yell at Roman for singing in the hallways. They’re getting better at communicating.
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While most people with ASD tend to have low levels of empathy (specifically cognitive empathy, the ability to read other’s emotions) Virgil and Patton both have hyper-empathy. They’re always aware of the vibe of a room and it can heavily influence how they’re feeling. Highly emotional rooms can be just as overwhelming for them as very loud or bright ones, and they always look out for each other when they’re in them, ready to take the other out of the situation if they need it.
Roman and Logan both have low empathy, which bothers Roman in particular cause he always wants to help people (by slaying whatever’s burdening their life, you know the gist), but he can never actually tell when anyone’s upset. It also results in them both accidentally upsetting people quite often.
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Logan has alexithymia, or an inability to recognise what emotions he, himself, is feeling (which commonly overlaps with ASD). This also extends to having bad interoception - the ability to read internal signals such as hunger or thirst.
He follows his schedule super closely not just cause it upsets him to deviate from it, but also because he may forget to do important things like eating if he didn’t. He has alarms set on his phone for some things, as well as some of those apps that remind you to drink water and such.
When he was creating these alarms he initially forgot that drinking water was another thing he needed to have alarms for. He was wandering around all day with a headache, wondering whether it was lack of sleep or stress or something, until he mentioned it to Virgil and Virgil asked if he’d drunk any water today. He immediately informed Virgil he was an idiot and downloaded an app to remind him to drink water.
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Roman is the worst at taking care of himself when he’s upset or overwhelmed (see the previous ask where I mentioned he was the most likely to try and work through sensory overload) cause he’s very much of the faulty mindset that he’s strong enough to just push through and ignore whatever is bothering him.
One of the ways this presented was Roman eating whatever food was made for him even when he couldn’t stand the texture. He did this for ages, to the point where Patton made something with a very bad texture in it (say, avocado, cause avocados are just the worst texture ever) and Roman literally started crying at the dinner table.
They managed to get to a point where Roman was a little more okay and he explained. Virgil then pointed out that some days he doesn’t eat anything aside from frozen waffles and that bananas have been permanently banned from all meals because Logan can’t stand them. Roman feels slightly more okay about it.
Patton always runs dinner by Roman first now, or if Roman is busy, he’ll ask Logan, who has a running list of all the things Roman can’t eat.
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One of Logan’s special interests is space and astronomy (obviously). Once every so often when they feel like Logan is particularly down or stressed (always telling Logan and Virgil in advance so they know which day to expect it) they all go to the imagination and stargaze. They always pick a slightly different sky to look at so there’s some variation - some days it’s the day Thomas watched a meteor shower, or the day that there was a lunar eclipse, or even just an exceptionally clear Sunday evening.
It’s one of the only times Logan is so obviously happy. He talks nonstop about the science of starlight in relation to time or about the different influences on the naming of planets, the classification of Pluto etc. etc. He actually flaps when he gets super excited about something, which is uncommon for him. The other three love seeing him so carefree.
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Patton has echolalia, especially when he’s interacting with animals. Did that dog bark at him? You better believe he’s going to bark back. If a cat meows in his general vicinity he will also meow. It’s also the way he communicates to the others that there’s an animal if he sees one.
If he gets super excited about something like a line in a tv show or something he’ll just repeat it really enthusiastically to the others and they’ll repeat it back to him to show they know and are also excited. And he’ll repeat the beeping of the microwave or knocking on the door if he’s wanting to draw attention to it since he isn’t the one getting it. Patton is almost always the one who starts mindscape-wide vine quoting, but the others are always very quick to join in.
It took them all a while to understand what Patton meant when he would use little phrases instead of clearly stating what he was trying to say (and then getting frustrated - “gosh, words can be tough”), but they’ve all adapted to it over time. Logan has several pages of notes dedicated to Patton’s speech quirks (e.g. duck out, “quack”; “beep beep”: move away and give me space; “second star to the right and straight on til morning”: Logan, you’re overworking yourself and you need to go to sleep, etc.).
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Listening to music is a whole thing with Virgil. Like, he’ll listen to it any chance he’ll get, but also if he’s Listening, you have to leave him alone. It’s so heavily tied to his emotions, it calms him down remarkably easily and it blocks out negative sensory input. The first and only time Roman unplugged Virgil’s headphones in an attempt to get him to play his music out loud, Virgil had a meltdown.
Listening to music is also a whole thing with Roman but in an entirely different way. To Roman, music is a Big Thing. Music needs to be stimmed to, music needs to be sung and danced to. Music deserves to be heard. Roman will play his music out loud in common areas and it pisses Virgil off for reasons he can’t fully articulate.
To Virgil, music is personal, to Roman, music is a shared experience. They both come to accept that they don’t understand how the other feels, but they respect it anyway.
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I hope this was okay!!! I spent over 3 hours writing all of this cause I got really excited about all the possibilities and then maybe I wrote too much??? I like it though.
#i tried really hard to make it even but like#logan is so easy for me to project onto so i feel like i did twice as much for him#patton is very hard for me to relate to so he was slightly more of a challenge#sanders sides#sanders sides headcanon#autistic sides#logan sanders#roman sanders#virgil sanders#patton sanders
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soliloquy
Jimin was a boy who had an affinity for flowers. You were a girl who liked to talk to them. It all should have been very simple. Except for the incredibly complex fact that Jimin was an angel and you were painfully human, completely oblivious to his existence and how he had somehow fallen deeply and foolishly in love with you.
soliloquy (n.) - the act of speaking one’s thoughts aloud when by oneself, often when oblivious to any listeners.
pairing: angel!Jimin x reader
word count: 7k
genre: FLUFFY FLUFF that is :) and :(
A/N: this is a spin-off from my Tempting series!!! So Jimin from that series is the Jimin used here. This one-shot contains no real spoilers so you can enjoy it without reading Tempting but you might enjoy reading it to see how it overlaps with setting and characters. Jimin is a flower angel in this.
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Angels were fond of familiarity. When things changed, chaos occurred; something angels tried to avoid at all costs. They were creatures of routine and rules; many of them sought out to do the same thing every day.
Jimin, however, was a fan of change. He liked how the changing of the seasons brought upon a need for him. Jimin was a flower angel; he gave the earth its color and vibrancy. His touch could bring on spring much like how his breath could spur on winter. It all sounded very grandiose and, objectively, it was, but Jimin was just one of many flower angels planted all over the world. He was just happy to do his small part.
Jimin’s job mainly consisted of tending to a flowering park near where he and his roommates lived, in a human town that hardly ever changed. If Jimin craved chaos, it could be found in the city, but Jimin found the concrete jungle unnatural and disheartening. He liked his park and he liked the people who roamed through it.
He never spoke to them; angels couldn’t be seen or heard by humans, after all. It was slightly lonesome to be in a park full of people but have no one to talk to, but Jimin had people to come home to at the end of the day. His roommates were angels as well so they could see and hear Jimin, thankfully.
Nevertheless, Jimin liked to watch the humans’ reactions as he made leaves on trees turn red and orange, as a signal for them to prepare for the upcoming winter. He liked the way the park was quiet and bare during winter, but come springtime, neighboring families would come to see the newly bloomed flowers he had given them. During the springtime, Jimin often sat up against his favorite tree, a Camperdown Elm, and watched the squealing children run around, chasing after butterflies. Every year those children grew bigger until they grew too old for the park and left Jimin alone to wait for the next set of children the town would bring over.
Even though Jimin liked change, he knew deep down that even the change he so happily sought after was still a routine. The seasons come and go in a cycle, much like how the children that once roamed the park became adults that then in turn brought over their children to run around the open grass.
The most disorderly thing that happened in the park were the occasional visits from a neighboring cat. Jimin was quite fond of it, as animals weren’t blind to angels like humans were. Often it sat beside him, underneath the great elm tree, seeking refuge in the cool shade. Jimin would scratch in between its ears until it closed its eyes and began to purr in content.
Even though the cat’s visits were sporadic, sometimes its visits were spread apart week at a time, Jimin could still count on the cat to show up.
And it did today.
Jimin made his way over to the park early one morning, eager to get to work now that Spring was here. He spotted the cat immediately; it was sat neatly under the elm tree as if waiting for him.
He called it over with a click of his tongue and a nudge of his head. The cat perked up immediately and made its way over to Jimin who was already on the ground and starting to tend to some flowers.
Jimin had never gotten around to naming the cat. He considered doing so once before he realized that it didn’t matter what he called the cat, it undoubtedly already had a dozen other names given to it by every person that crossed its path.
Jimin was picking at some weeds when the cat finally met him. It sat down beside Jimin, beginning to watch what it was that he was doing.
Jimin hummed along to a song that was stuck in his head as he worked. He usually had a song in his head. Normally, it was a song he heard playing somewhere, either overhead in a grocery store, or perhaps from a passing car that had its window down as it played the radio. But sometimes it was a song that he couldn’t cognitively recognize but rather just came to him naturally. He thought once that perhaps he once knew these songs, back when he was still a human.
Perhaps it was just wishful thinking. He, like all angels, lost all memories of his human life after he died, but it was still a comforting thought to think that his human existence wasn’t entirely erased.
Today, he hummed along to a song that sat somewhere in the back of his mind, just out of his reach.
“Here kitty-kitty!” A voice rang out.
Jimin paused his humming and turned towards the sound.
He raised his eyebrows at the sight of you slowly making your way through the grass, eyes focused on the cat. The cat had taken interest in you as well. It sat in place as it watched you approach, the tip of its tail flicking up and down lazily, intrigued but not enough to move.
“Kitty, what are you doing out here?” You laughed, crouching down once you reached it.
You didn’t see Jimin, of course.
Jimin watched as you sank to your knees and sat on your heels. You held out your hand in front of you as if proposing it to the cat as a peace offering.
Racking his brain for any previous image of you, Jimin quickly realized that he had none. He had never seen you before which was odd. Everyone that lived in this town had made their way to this park eventually, falling victim to the never-ending cycle of life Jimin spent his days watching.
He frowned. Who were you?
The cat sniffed at your extended hand experimentally before walking in between your legs. The cat pressed its head against your stomach and nestled its head into you, rubbing its face against the fabric of the sweater you had on.
You let out a laugh and pet its head, “Silly kitty, aren’t you supposed to be the one getting their belly rubbed?”
Without hesitation, you swooped the cat up and cradled it into your chest, placing a kiss to his head.
Jimin blinked at you in surprise. From what he had gathered, humans weren’t particularly affectionate to stray animals. Not that they were cruel, but certainly they didn’t pick them up and lay kisses on them.
Luckily for you, the cat didn’t seem to mind its sudden change in orientation, laying in your arms without protest.
“Are you lost, buttercup? Or do you live out here?”
The cat let out a simple meow and you put it back down.
“Really? Is that so?” You replied, sounding genuinely interested.
Jimin narrowed his eyes, unsure of what to make of you. He knew for a fact that humans and animals could not communicate so he found it odd that you were pretending like you could.
The cat meowed once again and you slipped your index finger under its chin, scratching generously, which caused the cat’s eyes to shut and for it to let out a grateful purr.
“It’s nice to meet you, Kitty. My name is Y/N!”
Jimin looked at you in confusion. You had just introduced yourself to a cat.
“You know, this is probably the most pleasant conversation I’ve had since I moved here. And it’s one-sided so that’s pretty sad.” You told the cat with a soft giggle.
You had just moved here. That made sense; that’s why Jimin didn’t recognize you. Curiosity ran through him as he began to wonder what your story was.
Everyone had a story. And for the most part, Jimin knew what everyone’s was. It was a relatively small town and the park seemed to be the designated gossip spot between adults. Jimin knew far more about everyone in this town than they probably knew about themselves.
You were new and strange which excited him. He wished now more than ever that humans could hear him.
Taking in your yellow sweater and loose denim jeans, he wondered where it was you moved from as the people here were already dressing up in less fabric with the weather warming up.
“Oh, these are pretty!” You thought out loud, turning towards the bundle of daisies that Jimin had been tending to just minutes ago. Jimin brought his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, watching you cautiously as you reached out to touch one.
Jimin panicked for a moment. If you plucked any of them out, he would personally follow you home and litter your front lawn with sand spurs so that the small spiked balls would stick onto your jeans and ruin your morning.
Much to his relief, you simply ran a finger down the white petals.
“I miss Daisy.” You thought aloud, with a sad smile. Jimin tilted his head to the side at the sound of your voice turning small. Who was Daisy?
You turned away from the daisies quickly, once again returning your attention to the cat.
“You don’t mind if I talk to you, bug?”
The cat merely blinked at you in response.
You moved into a more comfortable seating position, thinking to yourself for a moment.
“Right, so my grief counselor, Lisa, says I need to start talking more– scratch that, that’s not what I meant; I talk plenty. What I meant is that she wants me to express my feelings and thoughts more.”
You paused for a moment to lean forward as if to whisper to the cat, “But between you and me, she’s a real creampuff. She’s all about feeling and coming to terms with your feelings.”
A laugh escaped through Jimin’s lips at the sound of you referring to someone as a creampuff, of all things.
“Feelings are great, kitty. But the thing is that they are a very ‘inner thought’ kind of thing and I'm an ‘out loud’ kind of person. She told me to keep a journal but I’ve decided I’m just going to talk about my feelings to anyone that will listen.”
The cat tilted its head at you, ears perking up.
“Or I guess, in this case, anything that will listen.”
Jimin wondered for a moment if he should give you and the cat a moment. Sure, you had no clue he was there, but Jimin couldn't help but feel like he was invading your privacy. Then again, he did sit and listen to everyone else’s gossip so he supposed listening to yours wouldn’t be any different.
You stared at the cat for a moment before speaking again.
“I don’t want to be here. I know I just got here but still. My mom says I need to try and enjoy myself but what’s the point? I’m going home eventually, so there’s no point in getting attached to this place or anyone here... No offense, kitty! You are a great listener and are very cute.”
The cat meowed as if to say thank you.
You spotted a daisy that had fallen onto the ground and picked it up, placing it on top of the cat’s head.
Both Jimin and you laughed as the cat froze in alarm, its ears pressed flat.
“They’re not a fan of daisies, I guess.” Jimin spoke automatically, before realizing that you couldn’t hear him. He had forgotten the reality of the situation for a moment. He blushed lightly.
You closed your eyes for a moment. Jimin watched as a slight breeze ran through your hair. You let out a breath before opening your eyes and speaking again.
“Daisy was my best friend. I mean she is my best friend. She just left the program early. She got to go home so we don’t exactly talk anymore.”
‘So that's Daisy, huh?’ Jimin thought to himself. He didn’t understand what you meant by program but he was more bothered by how upset you sounded when you said the two of you no longer kept in touch.
“She said she was going to try and reach out to me once she left but I kind of figured that wasn’t going to happen.” You sighed, glancing over at the now napping cat.
Suddenly, you spun around and dramatically laid down onto the grass. It happened so quickly that Jimin had barely just enough to time to move out of the way, your head nearly crashing into him. Shuffling close to the flowers, he laid himself down on his side, perching himself upon a bent elbow, his head facing across yours.
“I literally just bored a cat to sleep.” You laughed in disbelief, shaking your head slightly. The cat in question was still asleep, resting now in between Jimin and you.
You turned your head to the side, looking directly at Jimin.
“Will you listen to me?”
What?
Jimin froze, eyes widening in shock as his stomach did a flip. Could you see him?
You turned your head over again to stare directly up at the sky.
“Why I’m even asking? It’s not like flowers can say no.”
Jimin let out a breath of relief.
You hadn’t looked at him, you had looked right through him at the daisies behind him.
“Well, flowers, let me tell you about the pickle I’m in.”
Jimin let out a snort at the funny way you worded that. Did you always refer to food when you spoke?
“I really want to go visit Daisy. But my mom doesn’t think it’s a good idea, which I get. I mean, she hasn’t come down to see me or anything, so it’s not like she’s going to talk to me if I go see her.”
Jimin reached out to pet the top of the cat’s sleeping head.
“I can always wait until I go home. I know I’ll see her once I leave the program. But, I dunno. Things are just different now. I’m kind of mad that she left.” You laughed, before falling silent. Jimin took in your sudden change in expression.
“Does that make me a bad person for wishing I was the one who left the program first so that I wasn’t the one who got left behind? I feel alone here. I know there are others in the program but I feel alone. Daisy left me alone. Gosh, I don’t want to do this alone.” You confessed with a shaky voice.
There was so much Jimin didn’t understand but still so much that he wanted to tell you. Even now, you weren’t alone. You thought you were but Jimin was proof that you weren’t as alone as you felt. He wanted to reach out and hold your hand, to comfort you, but such gestures would be pointless as you wouldn’t feel him.
You let out a deep sigh.
“Huh? What was that?” You questioned, placing a hand to cup around your ear as if to listen to the flowers.
If there was anything that Jimin had gathered so far, it was that you were very expressive in the way you presented yourself. Your face and hand movements almost always expressed what you were about to say before the words even left your lips. It was almost theatrical.
“You guys think I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and just get through this silly program? Hm, I agree! How hard will it be, honestly? I’m sure going home will be a piece of cake!”
It was in that moment in time that Jimin decided he quite liked you. You spoke a lot but he found that he enjoyed listening to you. He noted the way you went painfully optimistic after every negative thought you expressed as if that would nullify how you felt.
So Jimin spent the next hour with you, just listening to anything and everything that crossed your mind as he lay beside you.
You eventually left, of course, and Jimin watched you do so in disappointment. The change you had brought with you lasted not nearly as long as Jimin would have liked but he was still grateful for the hour of change you had granted him.
Even though he couldn’t speak to you, you helped him feel just a little less lonely and he hoped to see you again as he watched you walk further and further away from him.
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Much to Jimin’s excitement, two days later, you marched your way into the park again with a book pressed against your chest. This time you chose to sit in a different location and Jimin almost ran to you, eager to see what you had to say today.
You didn’t say anything for a few moments, opting instead to sift through the book you had placed on your lap.
By the time Jimin had reached you and sat down beside you, you had become quite fixated with a particular page, your eyes flicking up occasionally to the purple flowers that were planted near you.
“Aha!” You exclaimed suddenly, causing Jimin to jump slightly.
“Chaste Tree!” You proclaimed confidently, pointing at the flowers that were, in fact, not Chaste Tree. Jimin laughed.
That must have been a book of different types of flowers and it appeared as if you were trying to identify those near you.
Jimin felt a gust of wind approaching and quickly flipped the book a page back as the wind hit you, so as not to draw attention to himself.
You let out a shiver in response before glancing back down at your book. You looked at the new page for a moment before glancing back up.
“Oh, just kidding! I meant Catmint!”
Jimin chuckled to himself as you corrected your classification. The two plants looked similar so he didn’t blame you for being confused.
Looking at the page you spoke out loud, “So says here you're like catnip, huh? Is that why that cat was here the other day?”
Jimin wanted to tell you that yes, catmint and catnip were in fact related, but no, the cat seemed unfazed by the catmint that Jimin had grown in this park. Not all cats seemed to feel its effects it would seem.
“Sorry about that, Catmint, I’ll get better at this flower thing soon or later. Fun fact: I’ve decided to pick up floriculture! Lisa says I need a hobby so this is going to be mine.” You exclaimed, excitedly.
Jimin sighed in realization; he had been wondering why you were holding an encyclopedia of flora.
“I found a flower shop not too far from here and the nice girl that worked there gave this to me for free! Who knew the people in this town were so dandy?”
Jimin shook his head; he was positive that humans nowadays didn’t refer to things as being dandy.
Jimin was familiar with both the girl and flower shop you spoke of. Naturally, he was drawn to it, being a flower angel and all. He often got seeds from there. Not that anyone who worked there knew that, of course. Jimin would just lay some money on the counter while whoever was working that day, be it the girl or the owner of the shop, had their back turned, before taking a packet of whatever seeds he needed.
He hadn’t been to the shop in a while– not since last spring. He made a mental note to go visit sometime.
“Anyway, enough lollygagging. I’ve got some reading to do.” You sighed, as you made yourself comfortable and began to read.
Jimin stared at you for a minute, wondering if you truly were done talking. When it appeared as if you indeed were just going to be spending your time at the park reading, Jimin decided he might as well be useful.
Turning towards the Catmint, he reached out and held a wilting stem, smiling in accomplishment as he watched the plant spring back to life. He went on like that for a few more minutes before he heard you hum.
Turning back over to look at you, he saw you sitting upright, your eyes scanning the park.
“I don’t see any daffodils here.” You thought aloud.
“Shame.” You said, turning your head back to the page in front of you, which just so happened to read ‘Daffodils’. “I quite like them.”
“I need to have a word with whoever oversees gardening around here. Daffodil representation is seriously lacking here and I refuse to allow it to go on for any longer!” You declared suddenly, before giggling to yourself, continuing to read.
There was no doubt that you were odd. You were extremely chipper and loquacious; Jimin had never encountered someone who spoke to themselves as often as you did.
And with that, once again you fell into silence and Jimin went back to his gardening, trying not to stray too far from you in case you spoke again.
And of course, you did.
Jimin was by the butterfly weeds when you began your next soliloquy.
“Back when I was still in high school, I was in a play. It was called Little Shop of Horrors. I played the main character’s love interest, Audrey. I’ll spare you the details, Catmint, but basically, a giant alien plant comes down to earth and eats everyone.”
‘Oh, God.” Jimin thought to himself.
The fact that you were an actress made sense to him. He always thought that you often spoke as if you were reading a scene.
You looked over at the Catmint plant.
“So just imagine a Venus flytrap,” You paused for dramatic effect, “gone horribly wrong.”
Jimin snorted before falling into laughter, joining your own. Humans were so peculiar in their forms of entertainment.
“It’s just as weird as it sounds.” You laughed.
Jimin liked the way his laugh overlapped with yours. It made him feel less like an outside listener to your stories and more like he was someone you were actually talking to.
“Anyway, Audrey works in a flower shop and I just remembered that one of the fake flowers we used for a prop was this.” You stated, pointing down at the page you were currently open to. “A foxglove!”
Foxgloves were beautiful and Jimin would have them growing in this very park if it weren’t for the fact that both the flowers and berries of the plant were extremely poisonous. They were colorful flowers of purple, pink and cream, but Jimin worried that its beauty would attract the mouths of curious children that visited this park.
“I owe my first kiss to that play, you know.” You revealed shyly. Jimin stared at you, waiting for you to go own.
“Seymour, the main character, and Audrey had to kiss, of course. I got to kiss Kim Seokjin. He was older than me so you can imagine everyone in my grade thought I was as cool as a cucumber.” You sighed dramatically, placing a hand over your chest as if you were swooning.
“I wonder what he’s up to these days.”
Before he could stop himself, Jimin began to wonder what it might be like to kiss someone. Angels weren’t usually one to engage in romantic activities, as it often leads to sins such as Lust. But still, Jimin watched as couples in love strolled down his garden, sometimes interlocking lips, and wondered what it might be like to have someone you cared for kiss you.
He felt himself grow pink in the face at the thought.
“I was so happy back then. I can’t remember the last time I felt that happy.” You smiled, despite the weight of your words. “I’m sure I’ll get to be that happy again once I go home.”
That was something Jimin noticed you did a lot of; smiling. You wore a smile often despite not even having anyone to make you do so. Jimin quite liked your smile, and he hoped his flowers gave you a reason to smile.
But more than your smile, it was your eyes that really piqued Jimin’s interest. He didn’t understand how someone who always smiled had such sad eyes. He could see the grief in them no matter what it was you spoke of and Jimin wondered about it often.
There was something about you Jimin couldn’t quite shake. He found you endlessly interesting and looked forward to what you had to say.
As the days turned into weeks, that interest in you turned into something else.
You continued to show up to the park, nearly every day. That much hadn’t changed. You still spoke to the flowers and read your book. You still spoke in the funny way you did and still yearned to go home.
Rather, it was Jimin who had changed.
He left his house more eagerly and went home more reluctantly. The thought of seeing was you always somewhere in his mind.
He used to watch you speak to the flowers in bewilderment, but now he listened to you readily, growing to look forward to the sound of your voice.
Jimin had grown fond of the way you spoke with your hands. Fond of how you talked to the flowers as if they were people. Fond of the way you spoke of sad things in the loveliest of ways.
Jimin had grown fond of you in more way then he could count. You had rooted yourself deeply into his heart before Jimin had even realized.
The first time he mentioned you to his roommates, he had done so casually, even though his heart was racing as he did so. He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to tell his roommates about you; he had known you for a month already, even though he felt like he had known you your entire life. You were his best-kept secret and as funny as it seemed, even though he was the invisible one, talking about you to the people he cared about made you seem all the more tangible.
It was an awful thing really, for him to grow so fond of you. Jimin pretended not to mind most days, but he would give anything to be able to speak to you.
You spoke words that ran through his very soul while all he could do was sit back and watch you with feelings unheard.
It was as if Jimin and you stood on two different parallel lines, doomed to stand by one another but your lines never meant to touch.
Still, every thought of you brought a smile to his face; Jimin was the happiest he’d ever been and all he wanted was to make you happy too.
Jimin had woken up early one morning and gone to the flower shop. Lately, you seemed more down than you usually were, so he set out to do something special for you.
With a handful of seeds, he made his way onto his park, scanning the area for the perfect location to plant some daffodils.
You spoke of daffodils often, almost as often as you talked about your friend Daisy. You had made your way through the entire book of flowers by now, and you had declared aloud to the entire park that Daffodils were your favorite flowers. There were a fair number of other people in the park at the time, and they all stared at you curiously, but you didn’t seem to mind.
Reaching his destined location, Jimin fell to his knees and placed the seeds on the grass. He placed a palm over them and felt as the earth shifted under his hand, allowing for the seeds to sink in and bury themselves into the dirt.
The cat was here today sitting beside Jimin. Ever since you showed up, the cat began visiting more frequently, clearly quite fond of you as well.
A call for the cat is what informed Jimin of your arrival and he smiled automatically before turning to look at you. You looked tired, as you often did, but the smile on your face didn’t let up.
“I’m so glad you’re here today Kitty! I have big news!” You said once you finally reached Jimin and the cat.
You bent over and sat down with a heavy breath. You were wearing your favorite yellow sweater and Jimin wondered if you were sweating underneath it with the way the sun was beating down today.
Jimin got up suddenly and ran to the shade that the elm tree provided. With a click of his tongue, the cat burst into movement, running over to the tree to meet Jimin. He hoped you would move yourself to the shade.
You made a small noise of disappointment as the cat abandoned you but, ultimately, you followed it and sat underneath the hanging leaves of the tree.
For a moment, the three of you just sat beside one another watching over the park as the children ran around laughing. Even if you weren’t talking, your presence was loud and speaking to Jimin. He hummed in content at being able to enjoy moments like this with you.
“I’m going home.”
Jimin snapped his head over to look at you in alarm. What? You were going home? You were leaving?
Jimin felt his heart sink deep into his stomach and his breathing quicken. No, you couldn’t leave him.
“They say I still have a week or so left in the program but after that, I’m going home.” You smiled.
Jimin leaned himself back onto the thick bark of the tree, bringing his hands to run through his hair in disbelief.
“They’re going to want to monitor me constantly before I go to make sure everything is alright so I think this might be my last visit here, Kitty.”
Jimin’s world was falling apart right in front of him. Even if he hadn’t been rendered speechless, it wasn’t as if there was anything he could say to you.
What was so bad about this town? Why couldn’t you stay? Why did you want to go home so badly?
These were selfish thoughts that Jimin held but his heart ached far too much for him to care.
You turned your head to look at the cat and you surprise Jimin with the tear that rolled down your face.
“I messed up.” You sniffed with a sad smile.
“I told myself I wasn’t going to get attached to this place but I did. To you, the flowers, everything. I’m going to miss you so much.”
You gently picked up the cat, hugging it tightly. The cat let out a sad noise as if knowing what you were saying. You let it back down with a laugh.
“Please don’t leave me,” Jimin whispered to you pathetically, knowing that you would never hear him.
He loved you.
It was impossible and wrong but Jimin had never been surer of anything in his life. He had never spoken a single word to you yet he loved you more than he had ever loved anything in his entire life.
You stood up, smiling down at the cat as you did.
“I’ll try to come back to visit someday. I promise you, I’ll try.”
Jimin thought back to Daisy and how she must have promised you the same thing before failing to do so. God, he didn’t want you to leave.
“I’ve got to go. My mom and them are waiting for me.” She said quietly, shifting from foot to foot.
Jimin watched you walk away and out of his life through blurry eyes. He began to cry, tears running down his face for no other reason than himself, for being foolish enough to fall in love with someone who didn’t even know he existed.
The cat walked over to the weeping angel, nestling itself onto his lap.
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A week had gone by since Jimin last saw you. A kind of soundless numb had taken over him, his life falling apart the moment you stepped out of it. Everything was out of Jimin’s control and he knew better than to mope around and feel sorry for himself. But that didn’t stop him from doing so.
Jimin hadn’t the heart to go back and tend to the park after the first few days of you not being there. He refused to believe that you had just left him as easily as you did.
Your absence was present, however, as the cat once again stopped coming around.
When Jimin finally came back to the park, his heart fell at the sight of the dying grass and withering flowers. He had been so distraught after losing you that he stopped tending to the park, which before you had arrived, was the thing that he loved the most.
He almost turned around and walked back home, but a budding flower of yellow, barely tall enough to poke over the untouched grass, caught his attention.
Amongst a field of dying things, for whatever reason, the daffodils he had planted for you were still alive and growing.
The sight almost sent him into tears, and he decided at that moment that if he was going to do one thing right, it was to help those daffodils grow.
Because maybe you would come back eventually, Jimin didn’t care if it was years later, because if you did, he wanted those daffodils to be the first thing you saw.
Day after day Jimin took care of the daffodils, nurturing them to adulthood. The yellow reminded him of that yellow sweater you liked so much. He clung onto the image of you lying beside him wearing it as days turned into another week.
He worried once if he’d forget the sound of your voice, before dismissing the idea as impossible. He knew the sound of your voice like he knew the sound of birds chirping in the early Spring.
It was now nearly mid-spring and Jimin knew he should be helping the entire park, not just these daffodils.
Maybe he would do so some other day, but as for today, he was content with giving all his love and attention to the yellow flowers. It had been two weeks without you.
Jimin ran a finger down the soft petal of a daffodil, humming in content as he watched the petal’s color grow even more vibrant. Not a day went by that Jimin allowed its color to fade.
Suddenly, Jimin heard a song come from somewhere in his head. Since you left, his mind had been void of all music, so to hear a tune again, even if it was an unfamiliar one, made him feel like he could breathe easier.
He hummed along, for the first time in a long time, welcoming the change.
“Daffodils!”
Jimin froze, unable to move. It almost sounded like...
“Oh, I love daffodils!”
You.
It was you. Your voice was the song that played in his heart and he’d recognized its melody anywhere.
Jimin turned around quickly, just in time to see you run up beside him, falling onto your knees to smell the flowers.
The smile that broke out on Jimin’s face almost hurt his mouth. His heart soared at the sight of you. You came back. You said you would and you did. No change in the weather could ever top the sensation of having you beside him once again.
“Did you plant these?”
What?
“Or did you just stop by like I did to admire them?” You asked.
It was if all the air from Jimin’s lungs had been sucked out, leaving him speechless and unable to move.
You turned your head and stared at him expectantly, awaiting an answer.
Jimin could only stare back at you with eyes as big as saucers. You spoke to him. You were looking right at him.
Oh, God, you could see him.
You let out a noise of sudden realization, “Oh, I’m sorry! I just snuck up on you out of nowhere like some sort of lunatic. Let me introduce myself. I’m Y/N!”
He couldn’t wrap his mind around what was happening. Here you were, looking at him, introducing yourself as if your name wasn’t already etched into his very soul.
“What’s your name?” You asked politely, eyeing the silent boy cautiously. Jimin blushed when he realized you were waiting for him to speak to you.
“Jimin.” He squeaked out in a hurry. His voice felt so odd responding to yours.
“Nice to meet you Jimin! I just arrived a couple of days ago. I was on the way to see my new home when I saw the flowers and just had to stop by. I love flowers! I know you didn’t ask me about any of these things but I’ve been told that I tend to overshare, so, oh well!” You rambled. “Are you a flower angel?”
Jimin could only nod in response. Speaking to you felt foreign and strange. He had spent so long just listening that he struggled to find words.
His lack of effort to continue the conversation made you feel slightly awkward so you found yourself letting out a nervous giggle.
Jimin marveled at the sound before shaking his head to focus himself.
“Are you... I mean, how are you?” Jimin asked, clearing his throat. He didn’t understand. You could see him so you couldn't have been human.
You tilted your head to one side, “I’m just a little confused as to how this whole being an angel thing works. Apparently, I have to pick some sort of title? Well, you know that already since you’re a flower angel, obviously. I don't remember anything before arriving here which is weird, but from what I’ve been told that’s kind of how it works, huh?”
Jimin couldn’t help but stare at you. Looking at you felt as natural as breathing to him at this point. You looked different somehow. Maybe it was the way your smile finally met your eyes. Maybe it was the way you breathed easier now. Your cheeks had a reddish hue that you never had before.
“But, I mean, other than all of that, I’m fine and dandy like cotton candy. How are you?”
“I’m good.” Jimin laughed, tears welling in his eyes, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. He could’ve sworn he would never hear anyone use the word dandy again.
Your eyes widened in alarm, “Oh no, why are you crying? Did I say something to upset you?”
Jimin looked at your concerned face in awe, still in shock that you were actually here and talking to him.
“Sorry, it’s just nice to have someone to talk to, I guess.” Jimin said, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand.
You gave him a sympathetic look before smiling at him gently, “Well, I’ve been told I do a lot of talking so it must be your lucky day!”
Jimin laughed, sniffling slightly because wasn’t that the truth.
You watched at the way Jimin threw his head back as he laughed, his smile taking over his whole face. You felt your own lips quirk up at the sight, finding his laughter contagious.
Jimin ran a hand through his hair in disbelief. He once thought he was lucky just to be able to sit and listen to you talk to yourself but to have you in front of him, seeing and hearing him, was by far the greatest joy he had ever known.
“So did you plant these daffodils?” You asked once again.
“Yeah.” Jimin nodded, looking down at the flowers he had planted and worked so hard for.
“Daffodils are my favorite flower.” You informed him pleasantly. Jimin opened his mouth to tell you that he knew that but thankfully caught himself just in time. Angels weren’t allowed to know about their past lives, and by technical means, Jimin wasn’t even a part of yours.
“Why are they your favorite?” He replied instead, genuinely curious. He had wanted to ask you the day you announced it but couldn’t for obvious reasons.
You shifted off your knees and onto your behind instead.
“I like what they stand for.”
Jimin thought for a moment before frowning, “Unrequited love?”
Jimin knew for a fact that loving someone who couldn’t love you back was nothing to pine after.
“No, you dork.” You rolled your eyes, laughing.
Jimin faked hurt, “Dork? And here I thought we might be friends.”
You laughed lightly, shoving his shoulder playfully before continuing.
“Daffodils represent a lot of things, unrequited love being one of them, but I meant I liked the fact that they symbolize rebirth.”
Jimin blinked in surprise. He had forgotten.
“You know your flowers, huh?” He mused.
“I must have been some sort of florist or something before I died because there’s more where that came from.” You said with a boastful smirk, pointing to your head.
Jimin could only smile in response, unable to tell you that he watched as you laid down in the grass in this very park, reading through a gardening book you had one day picked up.
Jimin decided to change the subject.
“Well, welcome to the angelic realm and to my park, I guess,” Jimin began with a small chuckle. “I mean, it’s not actually mine, I’m just the only angel who takes care of it.”
“Really?” You widened your eyes in surprise. You looked around at the park as if to take it all in.
Suddenly, Jimin felt himself begin to panic. The grass had dried up in patches; some of the trees had fallen bare despite the fact that it was spring. Not to mention the wilting flowers that surrounded the entire park. Jimin had become so distraught because of what had happened these past two weeks that he had left much of the park untouched. Instead of helping the park bloom and flourish, he only bothered to take care of the very daffodils you were now admiring. If he wasn’t tending to them then he would lay under his favorite tree silently, just listening to whatever noise made its way into his ears, wishing he was listening to your voice.
The cat sometimes came to visit Jimin. It could sense that something was wrong, as animals often do. So instead of its usual resting spot, it opted instead to jump onto Jimin, resting on the sad angel’s chest, rising and falling with every hollow breath Jimin took. It rubbed its face into Jimin’s chest as if trying to heal his broken heart.
“Um– It doesn’t usually look like this! I’ve just been... busy lately. I promise you it’ll look nicer in a week! I don’t want you to think that I don’t take my job seriously, because I do. I’ve worked really hard on this park and I’m usually really dedicated, I’ve just been a little distracted–”
You placed a palm over one of the flustered angel’s hands, which had been fiddling with the another nervously. The small gesture left Jimin at a loss for word. He felt his cheeks turn pink at your touch.
You could see him. You could feel him.
“Jimin, I love it.” You assured him, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. Jimin felt his heart soar.
“You do?” He asked shyly, feeling himself shaking slightly with your hand still on his.
“Yeah.” You breathed, giving Jimin a gentle smile that took his breath away.
“Feels like home.”
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If you still have questions about soliloquy after reading it, this post might help :) haha Tumblr sucks ass and ruined links so to read the post please go to my masterlist!
#park jimin#bts jimin#jimin fluff#jimin smut#bts#bts smut#bts scenarios#bts imagines#bts reactions#bangtan#kim taehyung#bts v#bts taehyung#jeon jungkook#bts jungkook#kim seokjin#bts jin#min yoongi#bts suga#jung hoseok#bts hobi#bts jhope#jhope#jin#angel!bts#jimin#mywork
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Key to Happiness & Wellness: The Mind Gut Connection
More and more as a Naturopath I observe conditions that share an interesting trait. Conditions such as Fibromyalgia (chronic pain and fatigue disorder) that incorporate dual synchronised aspects. On one had the condition impacts emotional state and the mental outlook one has on the world. And on the other hand the emotional state of the person and their mental outlook is one driver of the condition. Of course there are also physiological drivers for Fibromyalgia as well.
After having a history with Fibromyalgia myself I know first hand the experience of these aspects simultaneously, and how each can influence the other. And this is why Naturopathically, and holistically we work on the mind, body and spirit together to achieve wellness.
The Mind Gut Connection
As we continue to learn, as a race scientifically, about the human body we increasingly discover more connections between the mental and physical. Gut health is one of those areas where science is catching up on what traditional healers have understood, and we are now discovering in detail how this connection exists. We know the health of the gut, and it's bacteria make up influence the mind, emotions and thoughts. And equally the mind, emotions and thoughts will influence the micro biome and function of the gut/digestion.
How empowering it is when we realise that our bodies are a complex interplay of quantum energy and biology all synchronised beautifully, if not painfully at times. And to understand that our health relies upon ourselves, not our practitioners, the government, our genes, society, it is the energy we use ourselves that create our wellness. How exciting it is to understand that we have so much more to learn about the relationship of our minds and bodies.
What is the Microbiome?
The microbiome is your individual ‘farm’ of good and bad bacteria, living in your digestive tract, a result of what was passed down to you from your mother, what has been planted, and what has been fed along the course of your life. The microbiome is the harmonious relationships of these bacterias (good and bad) and how they affect the growth/additions of other symbiotic bacterias.
The microbiome is essential to an effective yet balanced immune system, strong digestive function, healthy metabolism, optimal nutrient absorption, and positive cognitive and emotional wellbeing.
Did you know our brains are actually influenced by the bacteria in the digestive tract? For example, bifidobacterium are capable of secreting large amounts of GABA; a neurotransmitter that supports relaxation and sleep. In addition, lactobacillus species of gut bacteria have been shown to influence GABA levels in certain brain regions. Together they can have a significant impact on our nervous system, stress responses, mood and sleep.
Poor vitamin status and an imbalanced microbiome affects many of our neurotransmitters (chemical messengers), reducing the way they bind to receptors, thereby altering the communication network in the body. What does this mean? One example is serotonin; our ‘happy’ neurotransmitter. Many of the serotonin receptors are located in the gut, so gut dysfunction (often resulting from poor nutrition/imbalanced microbiome) reduces the ability for serotonin to connect (bind) to these receptors. In this way, gut health has a direct impact on mood, and mood will then directly impact gut function. The vicious circle that is Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Animal studies have shown that induced states of dysbiosis (imbalance of bad bacteria to good bacteria in the gut) can promote anxiety behaviours and cognitive dysfunction. And on the other hand, we know that psychological stress itself can lead to dysbiosis. This relationship between the mind and the gut is so integral to our wellbeing, and involves a holistic approach via both the mental and physical.
How are Intolerances Significant?
This is a big topic, but I’ll use gluten as an example. For those sensitive to gluten, its intake can decrease blood flow to the frontal and prefrontal cortex of the brain effecting neruotransmitter levels, focus, stress management, organisation and short term memory.
It’s true, not all people who avoid gluten are coeliacs, but some people who aren’t coeliac can still be intolerant. The intolerance of gluten can present in many ways, not always noticeable in gut symptoms. Many will experience increased inflammation, or mixed messages in the body that can lead to autoimmune flare ups, increased stress / anxiety, mental fogginess, headaches, and pain. The mind gut connection is strong and so heavily influenced by the food we eat.
What Else Can Alter Our Microbiome?
Water/hydration
Nutritional status
Environmental toxins, including heavy metals
Stress, Anxiety, Depression
Medications and antibiotics
Drugs, Alcohol, Food Additives, Preservatives, ingested toxins
Lack of movement and exercise
Lack of sunlight
Inflammation
In establishing a healthy lifestyle, some questions come to mind…..
What impacts the food choices you make? Or the length of time you spend on a wellbeing initiative?
What causes you to stumble along the way, to give up on a fitness program?
What raises your stress levels, causing your body to burn through extra amounts of essential nutrients?
What causes your uneasy emotions, that all but debilitate your digestive processes?
What causes you to crave certain foods?
Stress is one of the most prominent aggravators on health in current society. Taking control of your thoughts is a huge step in, not only reducing stress, but establishing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
My advice is to listen. Tune in to you, and truly listen. Your body is communicating all the time with your mind in so many ways (and vice versa). Once you hear what is being conveyed in these messages you can correct make empowered changes to your internal dialogue. If you are being hard on yourself, replace that dialogue with things like: “I am worthy”. “Let it go”. “I’m loved”. “I am successful”. And many more which you know you need to hear.
And remember if you are embarking on a wellness journey, it all starts in the mind and gut. Equally, what you are thinking will impact your success, and the health of your gut will impact your thoughts and abilities. Any factors that impact the gut such as parasites, yeast, dysbiosis, leaky gut, IBS, diet simply must be addressed in order to achieve success.
And lastly, please consciously feed your microbiome! The good bacteria in your tummy does not eat processed foods. It only eats fibre, pre-biotics, fermented foods, natural, nutritional foods that are all too scarce in the modern diet. If you’re not feeling full, you need to ask yourself, have you fed your microbiome the right food? It may still be starving! If, at every meal, you are feeding your microbiome, you will be moving ahead towards wellness in leaps and bounds.
Hopefully in some ways this has been helpful. Natural health practitioners see you holistically and treat accordingly. For more information on how Naturopathy can work for you, email me at [email protected]
#microbiome#healthy gut#gut mind connection#mind body soul#metabolism#digestion#IBS#intollerances#anxiety#depression#dysbiosis#leaky gut#stress#healthy#vitality#weight loss#diet#nutrition#naturoapthy
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Faits sur acheter NFT Revealed
“With play-to-earn models and asset ownership, gamers will become année integral part of the system rather than passive consumers. Blockchain gaming will Supposé que the most powerful tool conscience bringing the crypto-curious to Web3 and converting interest into participation.”
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A number of internet memes have been associated with NFTs, which were minted and sold by their creators pépite by their subjects.
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1333 Lil apes were separated from their troop and ended up je a bad ration of the blockchain. A radioactive waste spill oh caused some terrible mutations, and it démarche like they're continuing to evolve...
The games that are not yet playable are on that list, too, which means that their token and asset prices might still Sinon low before the pump moto. acheter NFT is also the rond-point to monitor the upcoming Termes conseillés ICOs.
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Liste d'un dessin dans OpenSea Lorsque toi-même listez unique éditorial, dans exemple, votre pratique, Celui-ci toi-même demandera de mentionner ce total ou bien cette liste à cause rare hurlement d'Ultimatum ensuite toi demandera avec valider votre traité initiale.
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As mentioned in gagner de l'argent avec NFT of this papier, each different NFT market on the internet will have a selection of features that it offers to its users.
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Small But Important Things to Observe in Infant Baby Toys
Your newborn’s first few months of life seem to be all about diapers, buying new clothes, feeding and sleep.
But did you know that playtime holds special importance in the process of your little one’s development? From cognitive and physical development to emotional and social growth, the role of play cannot be denied.
You understand the importance of toys in your cutie pie’s life, but choosing the one that is best for the development of your little champ is the most confusing part when you are surrounded by multiple toy options out there. Before you choose the infant baby toys, you should be aware of the fact that children of every age learn a lot through play.
Going to purchase newborn baby musical toys for your little one? Wait, wait! First, check how a toy that sounds good can boost your kid’s mental and physical health.
Interested to know, how? I will explain to you a few important points that will help you distinguish which toys are the best fit for your kid’s health & development and which ones are just a waste.
Age-appropriate:
You often hear a question as you enter a toy shop; How old is your kid? This is the question that we hear every time we enter a toy store. This is how we can find the right toy for our toddler as per his age. Most of the
infant baby toys
have marked labels with clear instructions that advise which toy is right for which age and whether it can pose a danger to your little honey.
Aligned with the child's interest:
Is your child very active, loves music, finds interest in animals or does he show inclined behavior towards bright colors. Choosing toys that relate to the child’s current interests is always a safe bet since it helps to fuel an existing interest in the child.
Encourage creativity:
Who wants his/her kid to be creative? Almost everyone! So, the best thing is to buy a
newborn baby toy for an activity
that specifically targets the creative side giving them a chance to explore.
Open ended:
Does this term confuse you? Fine, worry not! Let me explain to you in a simple way. Open-ended toys are ones that can be used in many ways.
Infant newborn toys
foster imagination, play and creativity based on kids' specific desires.
It would be wise to buy someinfant toys for brain development that will help your kid to use his/her mind actively making him mentally, emotionally and psychologically strong.
The more ways a child can play with a toy, the more he/ she will learn.
Educational value:
Make sure the newborn baby toys you choose, must be able to inspire some learning in your kid. There should always be some learning in a play that keeps your little buddy exciting, happy and also educates him/her at the same time. Make sure to buy some
infant toys for educational
purposes to induce some learning even when your kid is having fun.
When should you give babies toys?
During your baby's first two months, he doesn't need or want any toys. He doesn't even recognize his body parts until he's about two months old. Want to explore it? Good! Clutch him any small toy and he won’t be able to play with it. He may just enjoy looking at it or listening to it, but he would love more when you will make sounds with expression to engage him with you. He would love to listen to your voice more.
Your baby is three months old now! Wow! You will see him opening his cute little hands, discovering the things around. Introduce him to toys that can be the best learning tool. Toys that produce musical sounds are great at this stage, but make sure infant toys for 3 month old are soft and cannot cause harm by any means.
Soft rubber squeak toys, Bright light ball, rattling bracelets, lightweight rattles, spin and rattle teether, newborn baby crib toys and easy-to-hold plastic keys do more than just entertain your baby. They focus your little angel’s attention on what his hands are doing.
From about 10 to 14 weeks, your baby will enjoy some cute animal shapes as toys. Hang different textures, shapes and colors of toys; you can put a rattle, a fuzzy ball, a plastic or rubber ring, a small or stuffed animal above your baby's crib. He will start exploring different shapes, colors and patterns in these toys and will learn different sounds it makes.
When you pick out toys for an infant, keep in mind what he will be doing with them. From the third month on, your baby will take any toy-or anything he can reach and explore it. How does your baby explore an object? He grasps it, feels it, looks at it, perhaps bangs it against the floor (or himself), and invariably brings it to his mouth and sucks on it. Yum!!
Until he can move on his own, you are the filter through which your baby explores the world. He cannot explore anything unless you bring it to him. To encourage your baby's exploration, give him recommended infant toys that have varying textures, shapes, weights, colors, sounds, and even smells.Walk and ride elephant, numbering letter bead, digital blocks, numbering blocks, plastic ride-on cars,baby walkers, and bright light ball are all infant toys for 3 to 6 months old kids to explore, learn and have fun.
Remain flexible; let your baby make up the rules of play. If he seems bored with a particular toy or game, try something else. Let your child know from his first months on that his interests are important to you and that he can play, or not play, with whatever he chooses as long as it's safe, of course.
Where to buy Infant baby toys?
Now you understand the main points to be taken into consideration while buying toys for infant baby. But the problem is how to find the best brands for infant toys in the UAE. Explore kids and baby products at Bait Al Tarfeeh , the best store in UAE to buy online toys for little ones.
Fast delivery, top customer support, premium quality products, wide range of baby toys, better pricing are the reasons that make this store the best to shop from!
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