Some background information: https://www.reddit.com/Crushes/s/zAFgpNEOWb
We are both girls.
The “——“ parts are people’s names.
know this appears to be a long letter, and what I am about to say might be surprising, but I have spent a long time on this letter, so please take your time to read through it before saying anything.
I like you, since 7 months ago. When you first got moved to my table you are just a normal plain girl to me, but over time I realized how pretty and kind you are. I can’t help to look at you whenever I get a chance, trying to interact and get to know more about you. I can write 10 pages about my feelings towards you and how they developed, but I don’t want to annoy you. I know we haven’t got a chance to know each other very well, and you probably don’t feel the same way as I do, regardless of why, you may don’t like girls or just don’t like me. But I still want you to know how important you are to me, how my life has changed because of you. I also apologize if my feelings or this letter has scared you or made you uncomfortable in any way. I hesitated a long time on whether telling you or not. But I just believed that even the smallest chance would be worth taking. I also don’t want to rethink and regret about it years later, life is too short not to take chances, especially when we probably won’t even get into the same classes in next year and stuff.
I don’t want to make this letter any longer, but there’s two things I really want to tell you. First, that rose on Valentine’s Day, —— didn’t just give me the rose she got from her boyfriend, I asked her for it so I can give it to you. Second, that sonnet I showed you for ——‘s class, I picked that theme and showed it to you on purpose, the “you”s in that poem is actually referring to you, ——. (Of course that poem is really exaggerated) I know I don’t even talk, and don’t really have any good qualities. So I totally understand if you reject me for any reason. But I just want to say that you are beautiful, intelligent and kind (I’m not bothered to use figurative languages so I really mean it) and if you ever choose to be with me, I would genuinely care and be there for you as the best I can. I wrote all those based on my true feelings, it’s okay if you need some time to think over. Also sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes.
Please tell me what you think and what I can improve on. I also want to know is this letter too long? If so how can I shorten it? Thank you.

I've always been a girl who loves animals, and now that I have two pet rabbits, both adoped within the last year, I am extra excited about the return of Nui Cobalt's Critters collection! This collection isn't entirely sweet cuddly woodland creatures, but it does have a lot of those, including three of my all-time favorite Nui Cobalts: Little Brown Rabbit, Little White Rabbit, and Lilac Rabbit. When Forest posted in the Facebook group asking which Critters we'd like to see return, or which animals we'd love to see emerge as new Critters, I waxed rhapsodic about the Rabbits and suggested a bunch of other colorings of rabbits that could become amazing perfumes... so I'm hopeful that we might even get a new Rabbit this year. I would just about die of happiness if she really did make a Blue Otter Rabbit after my sweet bun Hazel. She also teased a Ladybug scent for this year, which would be SO CUTE!
Anyway, the Critters are due back this Friday, with the newsletter announcing them on Thursday, and I am excited. As usual, I thought I'd post my thoughts on all the past Critters I've tried in case that might help you formulate your wishlist. And if you've tried any of these, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Was your experience similar to mine?
My preferences: I especially love snuggly scents, incense, golden amber, cardamom, black tea, beeswax, non-gourmand vanillas, and white florals (particularly tiare, honeysuckle and tuberose; sadly I am allergic to lilies and jasmine doesn’t work on me). I don't like hay, overly sweet gourmands, excessive musk, dragon’s blood, leather, patchouli, labdanum, or any really dark scents in general. To my great devastation, Nui Cobalt’s apricot and pear notes don’t tend to work on me, though I haven’t given up hope and I continue to try new blends with those notes occasionally.
Most of these perfumes were provided as press samples by Nui Cobalt in exchange for an honest review.
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Rabbits

Little Brown Rabbit [Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against fluffy marshmallow, cottonflower, pink pepper, and a trace of carrot seed] (this perfume is so popular that it is also in the Continuous Collection and available all year 'round!) - This is one of my absolute top perfume oils. It comforts me on hard days, it cozies me on laid-back evenings, it cheers me on rainy days. My husband recognizes it immediately and honestly I think he finds it cuddly too when I'm wearing it, and it's also his primary frame of reference when he sniffs a new sample I'm trying - "that smells a bit like Little Brown Rabbit" is high praise from him. Wet, it's very strongly nutmeg and caramel, almost mapley, but also with just a bit of pepperish bite from the carrot seed - this is as gourmand as I'm willing to get. Once it dries, the caramel dissipates and it becomes the most marvelously snuggly scent. Having a bad day? Little Brown Rabbit can cheer you up. Having a cozy day? Little Brown Rabbit will make it that much better. Wanting to unwind in the evening? Little Brown Rabbit is my go-to snuggly evening scent. And I think it's the absolute must-try from Nui Cobalt.
Little White Rabbit [Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against cottonflower, white peppercorn, clove, vanilla marshmallow creme, pale blue cashmere, carrot seed, and honeyed almond] - When the news broke that NCD was releasing a new little rabbit variant two years ago, I was SO excited (little did I know that it would seemingly become an annual thing!), and I blind-bought a full-size (something I never do). Especially because Little White Rabbit adds that wonderful cashmere note to Little Brown Rabbit, this one was a no-brainer for me, and my trust was easily rewarded. Nui Cobalt has outdone themselves with this, their most snuggly of perfumes. I expected this to be a lot like LBR only less mapley and perhaps more cashmere-y (and yes, it is both of these things), but truly, LWR feels even more like it's built on a base of Spidersilk vanilla (Starlight and Spidersilk: [Slender strands of cotton flower hung with trembling dewdrops, cold crystalline musk, and tiny black vanilla beans]), with some of the LBR spices (the peppercorn and carrot seed, but I don't sense any cloves) plus the comforting warmth of the cashmere and almond of Silver Fox (see below), another favorite of mine. And then finally, the marshmallow ties it all together into a pillowy cloud of coziness. It's frankly astonishing. Love at first sniff even just from the vial, and on my skin it blossoms into the most comforting scent. Do I love it even more than LBR? I still can't tell, even years later. I love them both. One final note that may be helpful to some of you: the cottonflower is pretty strong with this one, which is part of why it reminds me so much of the Spidersilk vanilla, but if you're not so much a fan of "clean" laundry-like scents, this one might not be quite your cup of tea - go for LBR instead.
Lilac Rabbit [Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against toasted marshmallow, carrot seed, summerweight cotton, allspice, and pale lilac in a smooth fur accord] - Oh friends, I hoped and pleaded for another new Rabbit last year, and the universe (and Nui Cobalt) answered! I'm not actually all that fond of lilac and I think I have ended up destashing all of my perfumes with lilac notes, but I was willing to risk it for the chance of a floral Rabbit. Lilac Rabbit is gorgeous - but really, did you expect it to be anything else? I get primarily marshmallow, allspice, and cotton. It sits exactly halfway between the other two Rabbits, with the allspice and peppery carrot seed spices of Little Brown Rabbit (but without the maple quality), and also with the silky, slightly soapy fabric aspect of Little White Rabbit. There is perhaps just a touch of musky lilac, but it doesn't really read to me like a floral perfume. Lilac Rabbit is comfortable. The closest metaphor I can think of is a day when you're wearing a new outfit, one that fits perfectly and really suits you, but it's also completely comfy, with no itchy spots or seams that dig in, and it moves with you. It's like a day where you feel perfectly yourself, fully at ease, and completely put-together. This new Rabbit is everything I could have possibly dreamed of, and it immediately became one of my favorite spring & summer scents.

Squirrels

In past years, they've offered a complete set of all the Squirrels, which was how I tried them all a few years ago. (They've since been discontinued, but sometimes discontinued things return again, or perhaps you might run into one in the swaps, so I'll include all my Squirrel reviews here.) All of the Squirrels are built on the same base of almond + apricot + benzoin, and then each one has different additional notes. Like the Spidersilk variants (all built on the same Spidersilk vanilla base but with different additional notes - my reviews HERE), the Squirrels each have an entirely different vibe. Interestingly, the actual proportion of almond to apricot also seems to vary by Squirrel, perhaps because of the interactions with the different added notes, or perhaps because they actually use different proportions in the Squirrel base for each one. It means that they don't feel anything like near-exact copies of each other, but each have a really distinct identity.
Black Squirrel [A playful blend of almond and spiced apricot, grounded in rich benzoin and copaiba balsam, deepened by black oak, black currant, vanilla bean, and myrrh] - When I first put it on, it's very strongly and exclusively almond - a warm almond that reminds me of baking almond cookies, and it must be the vanilla that helps to make that association. The almond veers slightly towards cherry. As the oil warms on my skin, the apricot emerges and then overtakes the almond. It's apricot skin, soft and velvety, rather than the fleshy fruit of the apricot. These two notes, paired with the woodiness of the balsam and (presumably) black oak, makes this a very bookish scent, perfect for the dark academia aesthetic of my wardrobe in autumn. It's not really an incense-heavy perfume; the myrrh just grounds it and gives it a beautiful dark richness. On me it's not terribly fruity (though I know some folks get mostly dark stone fruits; isn't skin chemistry fascinating!) It's the longest-lasting of the Squirrels, too - the second time I wore it, its throw was a bit too high at bedtime so I washed my wrists, and even so, I could still smell Black Squirrel the next morning!
Flying Squirrel [Raw almond, spiced apricot, and rich benzoin borne aloft by lavender, cotton flower, and tart kumquat] - This one reminds me a lot of Napping in a Flower [Tender ripe apricot, Bulgarian lavender, spiced summer honey, plum blossom, daylily, honeysuckle, and ylang], which makes perfect sense since they share a lot of the same notes, but without the honey and honeysuckle that made Napping too candle-y on me. Husband said this reminds him strongly of Little White Rabbit - he said it's the spices that make that association for him, and I suspect he was also picking up on the shared cotton flower and almond notes. I'm finding it easier to compare Flying Squirrel to other NCD scents than to describe it on its own; its combination of notes feels quite erratic and the concept doesn't feel terribly unified. I couldn't classify this as a "cozy" perfume even though it does have a strong cotton flower note, nor is it citrusy enough for me to think of it as a fruity perfume (even though it has the strongest apricot of all the Squirrels), or herbal enough for it to go in my lavender section (in fact, I'm hoping that some aging brings out the lavender more). If you like Napping in a Flower or Little White Rabbit - two perfumes that are really nothing alike! - you'd probably enjoy this one too.
Grey Squirrel [A playful blend of almond and spiced apricot, grounded in rich benzoin and copaiba balsam, softened with cotton flower, cashmere, and teakwood] - This one gives the effect of eating an almond cookie while snuggled in a wool blanket. This one is super cozy - the autumn cousin of my beloved wintertime snuggly scents (Silver Fox, Snow Cat, Chionophilia, all of which also feature almond and fabric notes - see their full notes lists and my comparative reviews HERE). Grey Squirrel stays pretty static, not morphing like Black Squirrel, and the apricot is only barely present.
Red Squirrel [A playful blend of almond and spiced apricot, grounded in rich benzoin and copaiba balsam, warmed with red musk, red sandalwood, and smoldering amber] - This one is pretty heavy on the red musk, and was in fact partly responsible for me finally figuring out that I don't personally enjoy red musk. The almond, apricot, and sandalwood combination does give this a rather gourmand-adjacent feel to it, more so than the other Squirrels. It's a very rich and warm perfume. It's funny how actually "red" this scent feels - it feels like the experience of watching a bonfire die down, even though there's no smoke note at all. "Smoldering" indeed.
White Squirrel [A playful blend of almond and spiced apricot, grounded in rich benzoin and copaiba balsam, cooled with aloe, white musk, and smooth white amber] - Even without looking at the notes, it was easy to identify the white amber in this one, even though Nui Cobalt only infrequently uses white amber as a note. White Squirrel is very like Grey Squirrel, equally cozy but lighter and airier, with that white amber instead of cashmere. White Squirrel is cooler, more standoffish than Grey Squirrel - that "cool" effect must be the aloe - more a wintertime snuggly scent rather than an autumnal cozy scent. Even the now-familiar almond + apricot base feels daintier and even less foody here in White Squirrel.
Overall--

• Grey Squirrel and White Squirrel are the snuggly ones. Wear Grey Squirrel for cozy blanket vibes, and White Squirrel to be even daintier.
• Wear Red Squirrel for sexy outdoorsy gourmandy vibes (is that a thing? I think Red Squirrel makes it a thing)
• Black Squirrel is the dark academia sibling, and Flying Squirrel is the playful cousin

All the other Critters

Akhal-Teke [Fine ecru suede, raw silk, pearl musk, white amber, precious Hawaiian sandalwood, and creamy pistachio] - As someone put it, "super shiny horse". Silky yet fuzzy and soft, sophisticated yet snuggly. I recognize that pearl musk + sandalwood combination from Cancer [Cotton flower, steamed rice, soft sandalwood, vanilla orchid, coconut milk, and pearl musk] and I love it here too. All of these notes, suede + silk + pearl musk + white amber + sandalwood together, are gentle and just the epitome of softness, yet with just enough body and presence to be soft-on-purpose, assertively soft if that makes sense. This is not a wallflower scent. On to more specifics about the literal smell. At first, the nutty pistachio is pretty present, but it melds beautifully with the gentle suede. The silk and white amber give an elegance. I also definitely get the pearl musk and sandalwood, which take more prominence in the drydown when the pistachio dissipates a bit. This is my favorite stage - just soft, gentle, creamy, and absolutely lovely. Akhal-Teke has low throw but high longevity. I should note that after a year of aging, the pistachio amped quite a lot, overpowering that gorgeous pearl musk/sandalwood base that I loved so much. I'm hoping someday Forest might make one that's basically just pearl musk and sandalwood, without any gourmand elements!
Black-Capped Chickadee [Dogwood saplings, cedar resin, the tang of young stone fruits: still tiny and green, sugar maple, pine nuts, and barely-thawed soil] - I'm not one for dirt notes, so I completely passed this one up for several years, but enough really glowing reviews finally convinced me to try it. In the vial, it smells of wood, honeyed fruits, and hay. On my skin, it's soil, slightly nutty and incensey, with plush fruit and some very cedar-forward wood notes - and yet it's surprisingly dainty, and a perfect encapsulation of a black-capped chickadee. There's something about this scent that reminds me of snow-covered pebbles, and also of Shakespeare's poem "The cloud-capp'd towers" from The Tempest. After much sniffing and pondering, I finally figured out why I made that snowy association - the fruits read to me like cranberry, making this feel like a wintery scent. As for "The cloud-capp'd towers," I think I'm getting that Shakespearean reference from the combination of daintiness and dirt.
Blossom Bat [Humid rainforest blossoms laden with nectar, dense moss, passionfruit, black fig, and bamboo] - This was an order freebie that I wouldn't have picked out for myself, but it's so fun, and it went straight into my "Aloe and dewy" section of my summer perfumes, next to Waimea Mist and Aloha from the Big Island summer collection. Blossom Bat is velvety flower petals against a lush background of aquatic notes. I don't often enjoy moss notes (they often turn into honeydew melon on my skin), but here the moss contributes to the especially verdant feeling.
Blue Jay [Sturdy blue spruce and young oak support the bold elegance of white peony, angelica, blackberry bramble, and rhubarb] - In the vial, it's extremely fruity with a hint of trees. On my skin, it matches the description much more closely: evergreens and forest floor, brightened by fruity sweetness and a hint of floral. If you loved None of Your Beeswax [Thorny brambles of blackberry, elderflower, violet, fennel seed, sacred benzoin, and unfiltered honey] from the Bees collection, do give this one a try - Blue Jay is like None of Your Beeswax's summer cousin. I once wore this to a community theater production of Into the Woods and it was perfect.
Copper Fox [Warm chai with steamed almond milk nestled in sumptuous cashmere, crimson musk, sarsaparilla, and budding birch] - I once went on a quest to find the perfect chai perfume, and of course I had to try Copper Fox! Immediately on application, Copper Fox is root beer, spicy root beer - there's that sarsaparilla in a big way. As it quickly dries, the overwhelmingly root beer-ness of it backs off somewhat, and it becomes much more chai spices + the woody birch (and still with an undercurrent of root beer). Chai latte this is not - it's all the spices of chai (cinnamon and black pepper especially, and probably a bit of ginger as well) without any sweetness or milky creaminess. I should note that at this point my skin has a slight reaction to this perfume; this perfume ended up being part of my discovery that like many others, I too have a slight skin reaction to cinnamon. It didn't hurt a bit and the redness went away fairly quickly, but be forewarned, if you're a person that has a reaction to cinnamon, this might be a blend worth steering away from, or at least planning to wear in a scent locket or in your hair instead of on your skin. Finally, several hours later, Copper Fox has a third stage, and to me the most lovely: chai spices backed by gentle almond and cozy cashmere (and at this stage it's clearly a "Fox" like Silver Fox).
Elf Owl [A bright concoction of liatrix, yellow sandalwood, beach-tumbled teak, solar musk, crushed coriander, and a scant pinch of pale cinnamon] - With the teak and cinnamon, and of course the obvious cue of the "solar musk", I was expecting this to be in the same family as Nui Cobalt's Sun, Heliophilia (Love of Sun), and Sunrise on Spidersilk (comparative review HERE!). Those sun-themed perfumes can be a bit too sharp and masculine on me (I tend to prefer snuggly scents or white florals), but as a great lover of owls (and a huge fan of Nui Cobalt's Snowy Owl [Dried coconut flakes, pale woods, frozen tuberose, vanilla orchid, and fluffy feather musk], with which it admittedly shares not a single note), I absolutely could not pass up Elf Owl. I'm so glad I didn't. This actually isn't in the sun-themed family, nor, of course, does it match the highly white-floral Snowy Owl. Instead, Elf Owl turns out to be much closer to Squash Blossom [Cocobolo wood, orris root, carrot seed, sunflower petals, mandarin zest, and acorn squash baked with brown sugar] from the Autumn 1 collection, though much less vegetal. It's a very well-blended perfume and nothing in particular stands out. The overall effect is gentle: gently floral and slightly vegetal, with vanilla and baking spices but without any sugary sweetness. (Liatrix, for anyone who doesn't know what that note is--I had to look it up myself!--is a "sweet, coumarinic, herbal, tobacco-like floral and offers a pleasant vanilla-like scent".)
Fennec Fox [Blush sandalwood, amber resin, antique Egyptian cotton touched with saffron, spiced peach preserves, and sweet cedar resin] - It's gentle, warm, and spiced, with that snuggly feeling that you get with anything that has NCD's cotton note. If you really look, you can distinguish the wood, saffron, and peach, but they meld together extremely well. Surprisingly, I actually get quite a lot of the same sand note as in Flying South [Pink lemonade, warm sand, tiare blossoms, and a flowy cotton sundress] even though sand is not listed. I wear Fennec Fox in autumn on days when I don't feel like a pumpkin.
Glasswing Butterfly [A diaphanous veil of coconut water, elderflower, moonlit gardenia, silver musk, green lavender, and a slender twist of lime] - Nelophilia (Love of Glass) [Elderflower, silver musk, coconut water, cardamom, silk tree, lime blossom, and smooth hinoki wood] is one of my favorites from the Valentine's collection, but it's been discontinued for some time. So I was delighted to see this one because its notes read like a combination of Nelophilia and Queen Bee [Creamy white gardenia and fluffy whipped honey], both among my favorite NCD perfumes. It's not quite - it's not the same almost-spicy gardenia as in Queen Bee - but it is absolutely divine. Glasswing Butterfly is basically Nelophilia with all its smooth, cool, rainy, white floral nature, but here the cardamom is more present (YES! I love cardamom), and with a bit more floral. After a year of aging, it became quite a LOT more white floral; the heady gardenia came out with a KICK, and it's nearly but not quite indolic.
Honey Badger [Black amber, raw honey, smoked maple wood, and cardamom-infused cream] - I mean, duh, I had to try this one just for the cardamom cream. This is somehow so recognizably a NCD scent. Honey straight from the comb, dripping and golden, rich and sweet, backed by maple wood (but not really maple syrup) and a whiff of cardamom spice. Not nearly enough cardamom for my taste - but then, we all know what I'm like! I'm so glad I tried this one. Since its notes list starts with "black amber," I expected this to be quite a dark scent, but while it's quite rich, it's not ominously dark. Husband really likes this one, which is always a special success.
Hummingbird [Darting from oleander to orange blossom with ripe nectarine, hibiscus tea, and traces of tuberose] - White florals with orange and nectarine fruit notes, chirpy and cheerful. It's a juicy but not sugary scent. I love it for warm spring days - it's an absolute staple of my springtime perfumes - though I find it a little cloying in very hot weather.
Opossum [A bold nocturnal potion of Hatian amyris, soft black suede, red patchouli, freshly-turned earth, copal resin, and Peru balsam] - I get suede, red musk, and brown patchouli; meanwhile Husband, sniffing my wrist, gets pine and petrichor. Yet the combination of all these things is surprisingly gentle, not a shouty, in-your-face kind of scent. Absolutely none of the notes we're picking up on are my thing, but just about all of them very much are Husband's thing, so guess what - he immediately snaffled this one.
Orchid Mantis [Ripe Philippine mango, dragon fruit, tamarind, Indonesian teak, clove bud, sandalwood, tuberose, and a touch of ylang] - This one is bit too sweet for me on application - at first it's all sugary mango - but as it warms on my skin, the other notes creep in: more fruit (but less sugar), a bit of sharp clove for balance, and hints of woodiness and florals. As it dries, those hints of clove and woodiness amp further (and at this point, all my husband smells is cinnamony clove). For some reason, this is one of the very strongest of my NCD scents, with high longevity and even higher throw.
Raccoon [Sepia cashmere, guaiac wood, Egyptian amber, Copaiba balsam, golden musk, a twinkle of coriander, blonde oudh, resinous Himalayan cedar, and myrrh] - It's so well-blended that I can't pick out a single note individually, but something about this feels so quintessentially NCD. Right on application, it makes me think of Cheat Code [Windswept teakwood, cedar, coriander and tea are grounded in black tonka with a hint of fine leather], another one I had trouble describing, and it has a similar level of elegance and polish. Meanwhile, Husband smelled a bit of cola or sarsparilla, and noted an almost chocolatey undertone. As it dries, the cashmere and musk come forward, quite woolly and plush and just a touch animalistic. It seems a similar cashmere musk as in Arctic Fox [Soft amber nestled in sumptuous cashmere, steamed rice milk, winter white musk, and snow-covered fir trees]. If Arctic Fox worked for you, you absolutely must try Raccoon. Since Arctic Fox doesn't work on me (my skin amps that cashmere to unpleasant levels), Raccoon ultimately won't win a place in my collection either - which is a bummer because that opening is so pretty. I'll have to stick with Cheat Code for my polished, sophisticated vibes.
Robin's Egg [Dainty forget-me-nots and lily of the valley, a dollop of whipped blueberry creme, and a cozy birch nest tucked into a flowering dogwood tree] - This one has the same amazing blueberry as Grey Cat [Dry smoked vanilla, fluffy marshmallow creme, fresh blueberries, the gentlest touch of lavender and a warm cup of Earl Grey], House of Transcendence [Top notes of wild blueberry and morning fog, a heart of pale lilac and cashmere, with a base of orris and white amber], and Choreophilia [Wild violets, warm Earl Grey, Dominican blue amber, orris root, a handful of blueberries, and a touch of lime marmalade]. This iteration of the blueberry note is juicy and floral. After a few years of aging, Robin's Egg has become even more gorgeous and creamy, with that stunning blueberry and a vision of dainty blue flowers. This one is discontinued and I'm really sad about that (but you could maybe find some in the swaps if you ask around).
Silver Fox [White tea with honey and rice milk, almond macaron, soft grey cashmere and cool woodland musk] (this perfume is so popular that it is also in the Continuous Collection and available all year 'round) - Stunning. Sophisticated yet snuggly. The cashmere is the most prominent, followed by fir, the sweetness of white amber, and NCD's gentle whipped honey note. I also wouldn't have been surprised to read that copal was a note - there's just that little bit of resinous almost-smoke. When it dries, the sweetness goes away and the fir comes forward. This was a freebie with one of my orders - I hadn't actually bought a sample of this for myself, worried that I wouldn't like the rice milk (which, as it turns out, I don't actually smell), but it has since become one of my favorite wintertime scents.
Sugar Glider [Raw cotton, sugar cane, flannel flower, macadamia nut, pearblossom, palest musk, and dandelion puff] - So here's the thing, I'm wary of gourmands (in fact I always sit out most of the April Fool's gourmand collection). Sugar is listed in the notes description in the very second place, but I am a sucker for cute woodland animals, so that's how I ended up with this sample. After a first sniff in the vial, I got a little nervous about it, because it smelled very sugary, but I figured I'd wear it once, review it for you all, and then in a worst-case scenario, destash it to someone who does love sugary dessert scents. But wait! There's something strangely intoxicating about this one, and it's not really a gourmand. Immediately when I put it on, it reminded me a bit of the Sweettart-ness of my beloved Somniphilia (Love of Sleep) [Lamb's wool accord, orange blossom, barely-budding lavender, melissa, green fig, clary, cloud musk, and weightless vanilla marshmallow meringue]. I was pleasantly surprised that Sugar Glider is not at all dessert, instead more sugar + wood, and really rather cuddly. And then when it dries down, it reminds me so strongly of the blue raspberry note in Dewdrops on Spidersilk [Cerulean strands of cotton flower bejeweled with dewdrops, cold crystalline musk, tiny black vanilla beans, frozen blue raspberry, and gentle incense], except it's not "blue" (nor is it raspberry, but neither is "blue raspberry"). How did they achieve this effect? I have no idea, but it's so addictive: such a delicate, cheerful, springtime scent. It really does remind me of the experience of picking a perfect white fluffy dandelion and making a wish as you blow it. Definitely a springtime favorite.
White-Tailed Deer [Soft brown suede, golden musk, wild forest berries, and roasted chestnuts dusted with maple sugar] - I am always hesitant about suede, but was very happy when this was included as a free sample because I'd heard lovely things about it but wouldn't have purchased it for myself. It's an interesting one because my experience is of it is very different depending on distance. When I'm just smelling it as it wafts around me, it's such a warm, cozy scent, the suede mingling with chestnut and brown sugar. When I bring my wrist directly up to my nose to sniff, the suede does get a bit overwhelmingly leathery, and overtakes the other notes. Once it dries, though, that unpleasantly smoky leatheriness dissipates (even right up under my nose), leaving only the highly autumnal coziness behind. It is indeed very "golden" - or maybe a really rich, warm brown. I don't get any berries at all. It reminds me of the very stylized acorns and hedgehogs that fellow autumn-lovers love to idolize. (And for some reason, Husband gets saffron!)

Personally...

Robin's Egg, Sugar Glider, and Elf Owl are some of my TOP favorite perfumes for spring; Fennec Fox for fall; and Silver Fox for winter. Black Squirrel is my favorite of the Squirrels (in fact I ended up destashing all the others since I continue to have some issues with NCD's apricot note) - it's so beautifully dark-academia. And in my opinion, the three Rabbits are absolute must-tries (and I hold so much hope for a new Rabbit this year!). If you try nothing else from this collection, try whichever of the three Rabbits most calls your name - they're all different but all absolutely stunning.
What are you hoping for this year? Any particular animals you're keeping fingers crossed for? Do we think it'll be mostly woodland creatures this year, or perhaps we'll get some oceanic or other Critters too?

Score Vid of all the submitters: https://youtu.be/Hl1sqeSgM5I?si=K4epN2G2yuy86iQ2
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The very first Composition Challenge is HERE

For this challenge the premise is very simple, write a Spring themed Ground/Chaconne/Passacaglia that utilizes some existing melodies/motifs about Spring. The melody/motif does NOT need to be the ground bass/ostinato itself and does not need to be a main theme. It could also be altered
It could be any tonality, any style, any instrumentation, and the melody can be from ANY GENRE
AND HERE ARE THE SUBMITTERS
Note that the arrangement of the pieces are not my ranking of qualities, but just how I would arrange them if it was a concert.
Notes from composers in the comments
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If you are interested in more events like this, feel free to join my discord server:
Classical Music Discord: https://discord.gg/hTpJqVXD8d
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0:00 BMBMBM - SUPER DUPER YOU YA, for Piano Trio
Note from composer:
A cute little dramatic piece for piano trio.
It is a ground (maybe theme and variations)
Spring melodies I used:
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons: Spring (I. Allegro & II. Largo e pianissimo sempre)
Takashi Yoshimatsu- 4 Little Dream Songs (1. Spring … Dream Song on May)
These melodies I used are mainly altered, they are sometimes being extended and served as main melody.
This piece is made out of 4 parts, 1 main theme and 3 variations. I put many spring sounds especially in the first variation.
Sorry for the shitty strings playback, I use musescore :(( have fun listening to it :DD
3:38 kingfishy or Charley Shi - Chaconne in F major, for Piano Trio
Their YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/P0nG-wJr2Jk?si=ejpaB1BbARQyfpLn
Note from composer:
This is my submission for Zewen Senpai's composition challenge:
This composition uses the main theme of the 3rd movement of Vivaldi's Spring. It is in the key of F major because F major evokes the feeling of Spring (Beethoven 6th symphony and Beethoven Spring sonata) and is close to the key of Vivaldi's Spring (E major).
In this piece, I have employed numerous violin techniques: scordatura, harmonics, spiccato, ricochet, and left-hand pizzicato. I am learning violin so it was really fun trying out the stuff on the violin (albeit way under tempo). I have no idea how to notate scordatura properly on Musescore since the scordatura plugin for Musescore 3 doesn't work in Musescore 4.
The piece commences with the piano playing the bassline by itself. The cello joins in with an outline of the main theme, which is then echoed by the violin. The violin shortly introduces the main theme in full. After moving towards the first climax, the music shifts to F minor. The F minor section, in my mind, represents a storm which is brewing; the F minor section drives towards a big climax which portrays the thunderstorm that arrives. There is a burst of light when the F minor climax suddenly leads back to F major, with the violin dancing above the cello and piano in celebration.
In the coda, the music dies away, evoking an atmosphere of peacefulness, restfulness, and stillness. I quoted from the beginning of the last movement of Beethoven's 6th symphony.
9:37 Andrej Dedík - Chaccone in G minor, for Piano
on the Themes of Fašiangy, Turíce & Po nábreží koník beží
Note from composer:
"Fašiangy" (Shrovetide) is the period before Lent in the Christian calendar, characterized by vibrant festivities leading up to Ash Wednesday. It serves as a celebration heralding the end of winter, where snow begins to thaw, and the climate softens, yet we remain in the chill of the colder months, with spring waiting just around the corner.
"Turíce", a vital part of Slovak folk tradition, is celebrated during Shrovetide with community gatherings, traditional music, and dances. This tradition involves vibrant costumes and masks, and door-to-door processions, symbolizing the farewell to winter and the welcome of spring. It's a time of communal joy and cultural reaffirmation, deeply rooted in the anticipation of renewal and the celebration of Slovak heritage.
"Po nábreží koník beží" is a captivating piece of Slovak folklore, evoking the lively image of a horse galloping along the riverbank. This traditional song or tale is imbued with the essence of nature and freedom, reflecting the beauty and spirit of the Slovak landscape. It symbolizes movement and the timeless connection between land and life, often interpreted through dance or music. This folklore piece resonates with themes of adventure and the pastoral idyll, celebrating the simple yet profound joys of rural life. Its narrative captures the imagination, transporting listeners to scenes of natural splendor and the rhythmic beauty of life in motion.
17:15 Tapeworm Saga - Spring's Arrival, for Synth Septet
Their YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/W2wCZhCwRcY?si=tRYD3kqu1eOlFClK
Note from composer:
Loosely in the form of a passacaglia (more 20th century than baroque), it starts with an original theme for the ostinato, but slowly introduces the Georgian song "Gazapkhuli"/"Spring" (https://youtu.be/ou8TfiRQAFU?si=2J-MbgWD\_Uauoc4U) into the texture, starting with fragments and slowly blooming into a full statement of "Gazaphkuli" near the end. In addition to this, I intended for the overall change in character through the piece to reflect the changing of seasons as the still of winter slowly gives way to spring.
26:25 Francium - Chaconne in E major, for Piano
Note from composer:
This Chaconne is in the key of E major because it's the brightest key for me personally. Also "Spring" by Vivaldi is in the key of E major.
I used various German folk songs about spring in this one (and Vivaldi's Spring, of course!)
The themes I used are (in order of appearance):
Es tönen die Lieder (translated: The songs resound)
Der Kuckuck und der Esel (transl.: The cuckoo and the donkey)
Vivaldi - Spring from The Four Seasons
Kuckuck ruft's aus dem Wald (transl.: Cuckoo calls from the forest)
Die Vogelhochzeit (transl.: The bird wedding)
I just translated the German song titles roughly so that everybody can understands the song titles.
29:40 Aoi or Azura - 春節 Haru Bushi Op.42 for Orchestra
Their YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/VTVhhurKC0A?si=GSx4cQozaVml7o1\_
Note from Composer:
A tale of Nature, the Sea, and the Forests.
The piece makes various quotations from the works of other composers.

1. Haru Bushi
   
2. Ondo no Funauta
   
3. Michio Miyagi- Haru no Umi
   
4. Astor Piazzolla- Primavera Porteña
   
5. The Flowers of Spring
   
6. Dies Irae
   
7. ryo- Black Rock Shooter
   
8. Sergei Rachmaninoff- Piano Concerto No.2
   
9. Shiro Sagisu- unknown piece
   
10. Neru- Tokyo Teddy Bear
    
11. Charles-Valentin Alkan- le Chemin de Fer
    
12. Bela Bartók- The Miraculous Mandarin
    
13. Antonio Vivaldi- Spring
    
14. Hector Berlioz- Sinfonie Fantastique
    
15. J. S. Bach- Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1065
    
16. Henryk Górecki- Harpsichord Concerto
    
17. Igor Stravinsky- The Rite of Spring
    
18. Antonio Vivaldi- La Follia
    
19. La Bruja
    
20. Seina- Starlight Wonder
    
21. Tormented by Grievous Bondage
    
22. The Flowers of Spring
    
23. As I roved out on a bright may morning
    
24. Joe Hisaishi- Princess Mononoke
    

Special thanks to bee5156@discord.com for helping me understand time signature modulation
49:04 Sißel Ng or Sissel Ng - Spring for Strings, Piano and Organ
Their YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/UvxjqpVpJnU?si=48cKl40QfY5B7s7g
Note from Composer:
Well, a dull name sure, but it's referring to the text I picked for the work — "Spring" by Christina Rossetti.
Frost-locked all the winter,
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
What shall make their sap ascend
That they may put forth shoots?
Tips of tender green,
Leaf, or blade, or sheath;
Telling of the hidden life
That breaks forth underneath,
Life nursed in its grave by Death.
Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly,
Drips the soaking rain,
By fits looks down the waking sun:
Young grass springs on the plain;
Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees;
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
Swollen with sap, put forth their shoots;
Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane;
Birds sing and pair again.
There is no time like Spring,
When life’s alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing,
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
Along the trackless track, –
God guides their wing,
He spreads their table that they nothing lack, –
Before the daisy grows a common flower,
Before the sun has power
To scorch the world up in his noontide hour.
There is no time like Spring,
Like Spring that passes by;
There is no life like Spring-life born to die, –
Piercing the sod,
Clothing the uncouth clod,
Hatched in the nest,
Fledged on the windy bough,
Strong on the wing:
There is no time like Spring that passes by,
Now newly born, and now
Hastening to die.
First, second and last stanza of the poem are used for this work.
This time, instead of providing a largely Spring-style work, I decided to diminish the importance of the actual Spring element.
Thus, in 11 mins, there's only 2-3 mins that's really "Spring" (corresponding to second stanza of the poem).
The work itself shows how Spring is started, flourished, and how Spring is died.
I deliberately chose 2 existing themes for this work: opening ofJoachim Raff's Symphony No.8 ("Spring Sounds"), which corresponds to what before the Spring, and Carl Reinecke's Violin Concerto in G major, which do the opposite.
With unusual time signature (cut time) and lengthy bassline, and even some elaborations (depicting the text), this work would show a dampen nature instead of the active, bouncy Spring.

{Previous Chapter} ~ {Chapter Library} ~ {Next Part}
“If anyone is out there listening, please respond. We are in desperate need of help. We are from the Fairway community but have been separated due to an attack. Only four of us remain now from when we fled, and we are in dire need of assistance. We are currently holding out at the Damascus bus garage and are quickly running out of resources to survive. If anyone is hearing this, please… please, send help.”
Six sits there with a hand on the bottom of her helmet as if it was her chin. She stares to the floor while Val and I keep our eyes glued to her.
“Well?” Val eventually asks as the transmission starts to loop again.
“How did you two find this?”
“Wes was working on fixing up those helmets you gave us. He managed to turn it on for a bit.”
“Why were you fixing those?” Six turns to me.
“Just for fun.” I tell her, “Need something to do since we can’t go out anymore.”
Six doesn’t respond to that. She just sits up and turns down the radio, “We usually only switch between our own frequency or the city. This is running off an unlisted one. That’s why we haven’t heard it until now.”
“So… what can we do?”
“Well, we can send a report into the city, but that’s about it. It’s like I told you last time. We don’t have the people or resources to send out a rescue team.”
“You said that about a search party, though. They have an exact location now. They can just go straight there and back.”
“And that might happen, but it’s not for us to know. The city only gives us orders on running our compound and events that could potentially affect us. They don’t tell us about the ops they carry out. Hell, for all we know, they could have already heard this signal and sent out a team. The survivors might not even be there anymore.”
“What if they are? Can’t you check with somebody at HQ?”
“Look, Valentine, if it would really make you feel better, I can send in an info request, but that’s all we can do, alright?”
“They said they were running low on supplies, captain.” Val warns, “Who knows when this message was made. They could have run out by now.”
Six stands, “You care about people, Val. That’s a trait we need in the world, especially how things are. But we’ve always done our best to protect everyone, so I need you to trust that the right calls will be made.”
“Six, you don’t even have faith in the City. You question their orders all of the time. They were just going to leave our compound to die until we started giving them intel.”
“Val.” Thirteen suddenly chimes in from the corner of the room, “It was a long day. We’ll put in that request, then we can talk more about this later, okay? But now isn’t really the best time.”
Tension grows over the room, and a look of guilt takes Val’s face as she makes a connection, “Did… The breach earlier…”
“Don’t worry about it.” Six dismisses. “Just get home and go to bed. It’s late, and we have to be back to our posts in a few minutes.”
I can tell Val wants to press for more info, but she just nods her head, “I’m sorry to be so abrasive, captain. I’m just worried, is all. C’mon, Wes.” Val tells me.
We both stand and then cross to the barracks door. We step outside, look at one another, then start down the stairs.
“It was Ten.” We hear a voice call from below us. Eight leans against the deck support and flicks her knife open and shut. As we reach the bottom of the stairs and get closer to her, she continues, “One of those blanket creatures found a gap under the fence near the North side that was big enough to writhe through. We were low on fuel for the thrower, so it couldn’t shoot far, and, Ten… well, she got too close.” Eight flicks her knife out one more time before hucking it into a nearby tree. It sticks perfectly.
“Eight, I’m… that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.” Val tells her.
Eight crosses to the tree and yanks out her blade before shrugging, “That’s just the job. She knew what she signed up for. That tough lil’ bitch took that thing down with her, though.” Eight chuckles. “I am going to miss her.” Neither Val nor I know how to respond, but that doesn’t matter as Eight speaks again anyways, “The city ain’t going to send anyone to get those ‘civs.”
“Yeah, I know.” Val sighs. “Are you guys going to be okay? Just the five of you now?
“We’ll have to be. We’re not going to get any more guards before the transfer. We’ll just… make do, I guess.” She looks at us, “Not unless you two wanna join the watch.” Val and I look at her in surprise before Eight breaks into laughter, “Nah, I’m just screwing with you. Six would never let you anyways. She still sees you as civs and not fighters.” The guard returns to flicking her knife and staring off toward the wall.
“What do you mean by that?” Val asks.
“She just doesn’t see that you two know how to handle yourselves. We’re trained soldiers with tools and weapons, and we still get the shit kicked out of us constantly. You two are a couple of high school students with a knife and machete that have been injured, what, like maybe three times severely?”
“To be fair, we aren’t directly fighting like you are.”
Eight shakes her head, “That doesn’t matter. If you two can survive out there as long as you have… Well, six should take you more seriously, is all I’m saying.”
“Thanks, Eight. Although, we don’t really need her to anymore. It’s not like we need to go out now that we’re transferring.”
“Sounds like you might.”
“What do you mean?”
“You really gonna play coy, Val?” When Valentine doesn’t respond, Eight throws up her hands, “Look, I’m not saying you should go; I don’t want to see you two hurt or… y’know, worse. But I know just like us, and just like Ten, you know the risks that come when you try to protect others.” The guard slots her blade back into her belt and then starts forward, “Anyways, I’ve gotta get back to my post. Alone this time…”
We watch as she walks down the sidewalk between streetlights and houses and out of sight.
Val and I don’t say much to each other on the way home. We just walk in melancholy silence. As we make our way past Claireese’s house, despite everything going on, I can’t help but pull my phone from my pocket and glance. When I see no texts, I feel a pit in my stomach and slide it back into my jeans.
‘It was one visit, Wes, and it was against her will. Do you really think she’d be all buddy-buddy with you again?’
We finally reach our homes, and Val hugs me.
“Goodnight.” She says plainly.
“Goodnight.” I return. I start to head for my house but stop when I see her begin to cross the street. “What are you doing?” I call out.
“I’m not ready to go home yet.” She responds.
I look at my house, then back to her, “You want to come over for a bit instead? More comfortable than the garage.”
She hesitates, then nods, “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”
The two of us enter inside and remove our boots before heading to the sofa and falling back onto it with heavy sighs. Neither of us bother to turn any lights on. We’ve practically become nocturnal at this point. Val slumps her head over to my shoulder.
“What do you miss?” She asks after a long while.
I think for a moment, then chuckle to myself, “I never thought I’d be saying this, but you remember the ‘Rhine Co. Diamonds’ commercials that never stopped playing on the radio?”
Val snickers fondly then quotes, “Now you have a friend in the diamond business! Rhine co.! off Highway 217.”
“That’s the one. I honestly miss hearing them.”
“Why’s that?”
I shrug, “I’m not sure. I guess because hearing it, I’d always wonder what ol’ ‘Shane Rine’ was up to. Like how well was his company doing? How good was his jewelry actually?”
Val giggles, “What on earth are you talking about, weirdo?”
I laugh, then continue, “I don’t know. It was just a reminder that life was moving, you know? That somewhere out there, apart from the people I knew and the places I saw every day, other people were just living their lives. Having their own experiences and struggles. Now the world just seems empty, I guess. There’s really nobody else out there other than the people I know and the places I see. This neighborhood is pretty much it, and life feels so small now.”
“Kind of makes you appreciate what you have left, huh?”
I rub my arm, “What about you?”
Val turns her head more into my shoulder, then takes a deep breath, “Is it too early to say Ten?”
“No. Not at all. She was one of the kindest guards, for sure.”
“Sometimes I think the city was right in trying to make them hide their personalities from us.”
I shake my head, “It hurts to lose her, but I’m more glad we got to know what we did about her.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“No, I’m probably not. I just don’t want to give the city credit for any of their stupid ideas.” I chuckle. Val laughs softly too. There’s a long pause, and I can sense Val’s troubled mind lingering on the thought of the city. I reach over and lace my fingers into hers, “You want to try, don’t you?”
She takes a long time to respond, “Wes, what I said the other day… About losing you? I meant that….”
“Why did it never matter before?”
Val sighs and throws a hand up before letting it slam against her leg, “I don’t know, denial, I guess? But seeing you almost get your back clawed open really just made me realize that we aren’t invincible out there.”
“You didn’t answer the original question, Val….”
She sits up and looks at me, then to her lap, “Yeah, Wes. I wanna try and save those people.”
“Okay.”
“No no, not okay. Damascus is far, Wes… that’s the farthest we’ll have ever traveled.”
“You don’t think we can do it?”
“I mean, I don’t know. Probably? But that’s so damn dangerous….”
“Then we don’t have to. I don’t want to see you get hurt, either.”
“Then why are you pushing so hard for it?”
“I’m not trying to, but I know that you want to do it, and if you really want to go, then I’m ready to as well.”
“You’re really willing to go on a possible suicide mission just ‘cause I want to?”
“Well, I mainly want to save any innocent people out there, but yeah. I know it will eat you alive if you don’t go, and I would hate to see you like that.”
“And you’d be fine with dying?”
“I’ve always been.”
Val winces, then softly grabs my left arm, “Wes….”
“No, Val. I mean, I’ve always known we can die when we go out. We both know the risks.” She stares at me, unconvinced, so I swallow hard and push into difficult terrain, “Do you remember when I had this same conversation with Leigh? When I first found out about the journal? I didn’t want her to go out, but she pushed back and insisted anyways. And I didn’t come to terms with it until she told me what?”
Val looks to her knees, and nods. “We’ll all probably die soon anyways….” She quotes.
“We may as well try…” Val won’t give me eye contact, so I squeeze her hand, “Hey, please look at me.” She obliges, and my eyes meet her own in the dark, “I haven’t followed you out into the night for this long just to stop now. Don’t let me be the reason those people out there die.”
She swallows hard, “You’re really up for this? You really think we can do it?”
“I have no idea. But I’m willing to try. It’s what Leigh would have done.”
She takes a long second before nodding, “Okay. Okay, let’s do it then.”
“Okay.”
Val smiles and leans against me again with a tiny laugh.
“What?” I ask her.
“I just always like it when you talk a lot like that. You’re always so quiet; sometimes I forget you have good things to say.”
I smile but then swallow and stare straight ahead. Whether they were good things or not is up for debate. I just convinced Val to go back outside the wall, and while I wanted to save those poor people, I couldn’t help but feel like, deep down, there was a selfish motive.
“Well, we’d better get some rest.” Val says, starting to stand, “We’re going to have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. We need to do some fast prep work to get over there in time.”
I nod and stand before Val hugs me, “Goodnight, Wes.”
“Night, Val.”
~
Leigh sits on a log in a clearing ahead, rapidly jotting notes down in the journal and glancing up occasionally at her subject. It’s sunny out, with light being grated into sharp blades that pierce through evergreens above. I slowly walk toward my sister, and as I do, I glance at where she keeps looking. All that I see is empty space between towering trees.
“What’re you up to, sis?” I ask.
“Oh, hey.” She smiles, “I’m just studying that thing over there. We’re going to get a lot of credit for this one.”
I stare at the empty space again, then down at her journal. There’s nothing on the page but shifting blurry scribbles. I raise my brow, “And what’s this ‘one’ that you’re talking about?”
“You don’t see it?”
I shake my head.
Leigh chuckles to herself, “Seriously? It’s huge! You literally can’t miss it.”
My eyes trace the clearing one last time but, again, find nothing.
She sighs and smiles, then stands and walks over to me. She angles behind my back and points her arm past my face to the horizon.
“The… mountain?” I ask.
“Yeah! Isn’t it incredible? Don’t worry, though; it can’t see us. Not from this far away.”
That sentence rings weird in my ears, and I ponder it for a second. My brain finally snaps into place that it’s dreaming, and everything in the forest stands abruptly still. I feel excitement rapidly begin to swell in my chest, but I quickly get a grip on it.
‘Okay, slow and steady.’ I tell myself.
I focus on the scene around me moving again, and at the thought, everything bursts back to life. Trees sway, birds chirp, and Leigh turns to look at me.
“You okay?” She asks.
“Oh, yeah. I’m great.” I tell her, no longer bound by the tracks laid out before me. “You wanna go on a walk with me? We haven’t gotten to do that in a while.”
“Sure. There’s too much to take down about that thing anyways. I’m all done here.” She beams, binding back up the journal and tucking it in her satchel.
Together we start walking through the forest, and I take a deep breath. There’s no immediate scent, so I quickly think about how everything would feel. A slight breeze blows through, and the smell of pine and fresh air fills the space at the demand. To my surprise, Leigh suddenly seems to break off her tracks as well, most likely a product of my brain-changing gears.
“I missed this.” She states, looking around, “The woods were always our escape when we were younger. It’s funny how it became our biggest threat.”
I nod, “I definitely miss them too. I mean, I still go in them all the time, but you can’t really just enjoy them anymore.”
“You’re going to head into them soon, it sounds like.”
“Yeah. We are.”
“Are you scared?”
I think for a moment, then tilt my head, “Not exactly. I guess I’m always scared of what might be out there, and I’m terrified for Val as usual. But both of those things already happen inside the wall. The only difference between the two places is that we can knock on each other’s doors in one of them. The danger is still always there, though.”
“That sounds like you’re scared,” Leigh smirks.
I chuckle, “Nah, not scared. Just worried all the time, I suppose.” Emotions start to weigh heavy on me and quickly leak into the moment.
“What’s wrong?” Leigh asks.
I look at her before shaking my head, “Why am I like this, Leigh?”
“Like what?”
“Why am I so dumb?”
“You aren’t dumb.”
“Okay, discontent, then. Why am I so discontent?” I ask. She stares at me, waiting for me to continue, “I should be grateful that I’m safe inside the wall. I should be grateful to have people around me to talk to and keep me company. I should be grateful that I still have Dad around, and yet… When I’m outside the wall, why do I feel more alive? Why does it feel so much easier when I’m surviving out there in constant danger than it does to just try and live normally inside?”
“I just think you don’t let yourself be happy, Wes. You’re always so hard on yourself. I know Dad makes you feel like you have to be sometimes, but you know he’s wrong, right?”
I shake my head, “I’ve just always been this way. I’ve always preferred the rain to the sun. It’s messed up, but I actually think I like things better now that it’s always dark. I feel like I can just disappear easier.” I look up, and above us, we watch as the sun rapidly sets and gives way to a breathtaking starry sky. That’s something I miss these days too.
“And so, being young and dipt in folly, I fell in love with melancholy,” Leigh speaks wistfully.
“Huh?”
“Edgar Allen Poe. The really old writer guy you like? That was in a poem of his, wasn’t it?”
“Why are you bringing it up now?”
“Because he was really dark and edgy like you.” She giggles. I shove her arm and chuckle as well. “Seriously though, there’s nothing wrong with you, Wes. You really think there’s nobody else in the entire neighborhood who feels that way?”
“How could they? Nobody else has been outside the wall.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean the connecting part. Feeling like it’s easier to just be alone and close yourself off. I think that’s really the part you like about being out there. You don’t have to think about anyone else. Just be alone with the person you care for the most.”
“Isn’t that selfish of me, though? To bring Val out there too?”
“I mean, she wants to go; It’s not like you’re forcing her. Unhealthy? Probably. Dangerous? Yeah. But I don’t think you would force her if she didn’t want to.”
I think about how I tried to convince her to run away with me before the transfer comes. How badly I still wanted to. How I still planned to… But as quick as the thought comes, I dismiss it. This figment of my brain representing Leigh sees something good in me, and it’s nicer that way. It’s how Leigh would’ve been.
“Hey,” the figment beckons. I turn to her, “Don’t focus on the specifics, okay? Just go out there and save those people for me. If you happen to feel more comfortable out there than in here, then just enjoy that little bit, okay? Even you deserve something small every now and then.” She smiles.
I look at her eyes and feel a strong sense of longing. They’re clearer to me, less faded than Moms in my dreams. Taken from me a lot more recently than Moms… All I want is to have them back in my life so I can know she’s still there. To know that I didn’t fail when she needed me most. But for now, this is all I had. Just a dream of something that once was.
“I love you, Leigh,” I tell her. “I miss you so much.”
The forest around us has shifted from woods to the hallway of the old school, lockers flanking us on either side. Leigh smiles, but holes begin to appear in her body as she leaks blood like a faucet. “I love you too, Wes.”
I snap awake and lay there, recuperating for a few moments before getting up and pulling my dream journal out. I slowly write down all the details and then lay back again. The ending may have rattled me, but overall, the dream was still everything I wanted. Just a moment to spend again with someone I loved. It’s so close to morning that I lay awake until my alarm goes off. After that, I force myself out of bed right away, despite every part of me wanting to lay there longer. There’s a lot to do today, but not much time to do it.
~
“Hey, you got your jacket fixed,” Val notes as we walk toward Myra’s house.
“Oh, yeah, Mrs. Bauer fixed it for me,” I tell her.
“Did she also give you that other one you were wearing yesterday? I thought it was cool but never got a chance to say.”
“Mhmm. When I went to pick up this one, she gave me that one too. It’s a long story.”
Val raises a brow, “Wow, you went and visited someone? And all on your own?” I don’t respond, which causes a laugh from her.
I stop the timer running on my phone as we reach Myra’s door and knock. She answers a few moments later, “Oh, hey, you two! How are you doing?”
“Hey, Myra, sorry to bother you so early. We’re good. How are you?”
“Oh, y’know, just hanging in there. And don’t worry about it; what can I do for you?”
“We were hoping to use your library if you have a moment,” Val tells her.
Myra lights up like a lottery winner, “Oh! Of course! Come on in, please.” She lets us inside and guides us into the parlor, where she gestures to the bookshelf. “Help yourself. If you’re looking for something specific, just let me know.”
“Do you have any road atlases of the area?” Val says with a tilted head, “It’s dumb, but Wes and I were reminiscing about this one restaurant we used to go to but couldn’t agree on where it was at.”
“Oh, sure. That’d be….” Myra drones as she scans the bottom corner of the shelf, “Right here. ‘Oregon Road and Recreation Atlas’.” She declares, handing us the weathered old thing.
“Thanks! Do you mind if we look over this for a bit?”
“No, not at all! Take your time, loves. I’ll be in the other room if you need anything.”
Myra leaves us alone in the parlor and shuffles off to the living room while Val and I sit at a table. We flip the book open to the back, find the pages we need, and then set to work. We start in our neighborhood, and I use the legend to get the distance from my house to Myra’s; block to block. From there, I multiply the time from my phone by the blocks in a mile, and from there, we carefully map out a route to Damascus. The distance we come up with is around 4 and a half hours to walk, and that’s if we didn’t stop at any point. We could cut corners in a few places, but even still, it was pretty clear that it would be a journey no matter what we did.
Val looks at me again like she did the night before, “You’re still sure about this?”
“We’ve done hour walks before.”
“This is four times that, Wes.”
I nod, to which Val sighs.
“Okay. Let’s get geared up then.”
Val and I talk briefly with Myra before heading out and going to the red house. We bust into our remaining stash of survival equipment, packing up most of it in the process. Food, water, batteries, flares, matches, and lighters, everything we might need. Whether we make it back or not, this is most likely our last mission out. There’s no longer the need to hold on to everything. I finish by changing the filter in our helmets, and while I do that, Val checks on her mom. I finish with the filters and check my phone one last time to see that Dad texted me.
I got word there was a wall breach yesterday. Are you okay? After a few minutes, he texted again, Wes?
All good. I reply before hitting send. My fingers linger over the keys before hashing out the words, I love you, Dad.
Val returns before long and meets me at the back door.
“Alright, She should be taken care of till tomorrow night. If all goes well, we should be back before then.” She says with shaky breath. “Are you all set?”
I nod.
“You sure? Nothing else we need?”
“I think we got it all.”
“You don’t have to go to the bathroom or anything.”
“I’m fine, Val.”
“Wes, you really don’t have to do this-”
“Val.” I say softly with a smile, “It’s gonna be okay.”
“Okay.” Val caves, glancing to the top of the wall. “Better get moving then.”
~
Outside the wall, my muddled shifting thoughts turn focused and clear. Every detail around me is observed, and every possibility is worked through in an instant. Val and I head off the grid toward the back side of town until we hit the old country roads and keep going. Our trip ahead is several paths like this; snaking, winding asphalt fossils that stretch for miles through the void. Everything is pure silence as we travel, and Val and I stick to the soft soil on the sides of the road as we move. It helps muffle our boots and keeps us lower in the ditch. Occasionally we pass the driveways of old country homes, rickety skeletons staring at us with vacant windows. In the metro, even when you were in the country, you could still find life every mile or so. Now even these solemn corners were dead.
The apocalypse our world fell to was a strange one. In movies and shows, it’s always chaos depicted. Decrepit buildings and bombed cities with looters in the streets. For us, there was no time for that. Buildings didn’t run down because those who didn’t vanish were still hiding inside them. Cities weren’t bombed because the threat came from every corner; nobody knew specifically where to attack. Nobody was out trying to loot because if you stayed outside too long, you’d become the prize of something even worse. Our cities didn’t fall to ruin; they were just still, perfectly preserved in time when everyone was spirited away. Apart from the overgrown shrubs and bushes, if you showed someone from the past what things looked like now, they might not even know the world had ended at all. They’d probably think it was like any other night.
We reach a spot in the road where Val pulls out her dimmed phone and checks her pictures of the maps she took. There’s a shortcut through the woods ahead. We signal back and forth, confirming our next actions before stepping into the tree line.
We walk between the towering trunks, and I can’t help but think back to the snag that we had been attacked by. Val and I had seen plenty of snags in our surveillance runs before, even some that still had live human hosts. For that reason, I didn’t know why this one specifically bothered me so much, haunting my dreams and mind for the last few days. It was still out here somewhere, and Redland wasn’t far from where we currently were. What if it found us again? Knowing that I had been able to partially fix the helmets kind of sucked now that we were out on this trip. With a little more time, I probably could have figured out more and got them fully functioning. Then maybe we’d be able to see more than a couple dozen feet ahead…
Suddenly though, we don’t even need the helmets. A warm glow emanates from a space in the distance. Orange light bounces off the trunks ahead and shines an ominous light on the branches far above. Once we get closer, the entire scene reveals itself.
An old wood-slatted, white church sits in a clearing with a dirt road winding off somewhere to our left. The lot around it that was once soil and grass has now been overwhelmed with sundance as far as the eye can see, lighting the area from below like soft floodlights. My stomach grows tight as I turn to Val, who doesn’t return the stare.
‘There’s no time to stop; we need to keep moving.’
‘Don’t let her take any, Wes.’
‘Come on, Val…’ I think.
Let’s move. I signal to her.
She finally makes eye contact, but before I can snap her out of her trance, a sound to our left does it for me. A rustle in the flowers. We duck low beneath the field and peer over to the direction of the sound. My adrenaline-filled muscles ready themselves to bolt off, but they quickly relax when the source of the sound emerges from the flowers.
A tiny raccoon family comes bounding out onto the dirt path, two adults leading three little ones. I look to Val and can sense she’s smiling just as I am. The two of us slowly stand, to which the raccoons stop and turn, spotting us instantly. Despite seeing us, they really don’t seem to pay us any mind. It’s almost as if they sense that we aren’t any real threat compared to everything else out here. They simply turn away and continue walking across the path with their young in tow. The little bandit in the lead sniffs the ground as it moves, but it suddenly halts again as it vigorously smells one spot in particular. The little being stands up on its hind legs, sniffs the air a couple of times, then, with its family following, quickly veers off away from the sundance patch. My mind is immediately set back on alert.
Val and I cautiously continue forward in a low stance, heading for the spot where we just saw them sniffing. Something clearly just sent them off, and if there’s a clue of what it might be, we need to know. We reach the dirt path, and I immediately recognize two things. The first takes me a moment to process. A chunk in the field of flowers ahead looks to be… dead. The glowing orange petals of the sundance have become withered and black in a large area. It takes me a second to process because sundance doesn’t wither or wilt, and it certainly never dies. In the last year and a half of the flower's existence, I’ve never seen what it looks like when it’s not alive, and yet here, before my eyes, it's undoubtedly dead sundance. I turn to Val to get her reaction, but she’s already noticed the second thing I haven’t.
She stares at the ground, still as a statue, and I look down to see what the problem is. As my eyes take in the soil before me, my body feels cold and numb, and sickness begins to brew in my gut. Holes. Tiny, perfect holes burned into the forest floor. The same kind of holes made by the-
“Wes?” A voice calls out behind me. I see Val jump in my peripheral and snap her head toward the church. I can’t bring myself to look, though. I just keep staring at the holes. “Wes, honey, is that really you?”
I finally peel my eyes away and hold my breath as I turn to the decrepit white-painted church. In the dark maw of the doorway, the faintest outline of a figure stands there. The bright flowers around us help to barely light the visage of my mother.
“Wes…” She continues, sounding like she’s about to cry, “Honey, it’s so good to see you; I- I’ve missed you so much.” I take one small step back, and Val reaches out and snatches my hand in hers. “I- I don’t remember much; I just woke up here… Come here, darling. I want to see you. Come here and let me hold you….” She sounds so natural. So genuine. But even obscured by the darkness, I can tell that something is off about her appearance. Still, My body is completely frozen as I stand in shock at the sight before me. Luckily Val isn’t, and she takes off running forward through the field, dragging me with her.
My legs which have been on autopilot to keep up suddenly regain their feeling, and Val and I bolt off through the forest.
“Wes, wait, please!” The mocker taunts in my mother’s voice, “Please don’t leave me here! Don’t leave me all alone!”
I know it's fake, but it doesn’t stop chills from running through my bones. The sound is so authentic that I can almost imagine it coming from my mother’s mouth if she were here. Like if she did appear again, it’s what she would actually say. The thought tumbles violently around my head like a rock in a dryer as I struggle to keep Val’s pace.
I don’t know how long we run for, but I know we reach the road again and continue running alongside it for a long time before we finally stop. It looks like we’ve hit the outskirts of a smaller town as I look around. Valentine drags me up the road and across the lot to a nearby building before trying the doorway. When that doesn’t work, she tears out the screen and tries the window. It slides open with ease, and the two of us climb inside. Once I’m through, she shuts it behind us and locks it. I tear off my helmet while panting hard and looking around. Seems like we’ve ended up in an old dentist’s office.
Val takes her helmet off too, and crosses over to me, taking me in her arms and squeezing me tightly. It’s a long time before she lets go and speaks.
“Are you okay?” She asks.
I nod.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, are you?”
“You don’t look okay.”
I’m not. I feel like I’m gonna throw up and I can’t stop shaking, but I push on anyways, “I’m fine, Val. Don’t worry. Let’s keep moving. We don’t have time to stop.”
“Wes…”
“Where are we now? Do you have the pictures?”
Val purses her lips, takes out her phone, and opens the pictures. She follows the road for a while before her eyes light up, “Holy crap, we just covered a lot.”
“How far is a lot?”
“Well, we still have a few hours, but we’re here in Carver. We just have to head north now, and we’re in Damascus.”
That helps clear my head, and I smile, “Alright, sweet. We’re making good time.”
“Well, the running definitely helped.”
“Yeah, maybe we should run into things more often.”
“Wes.” Val warns, “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Yeah.” I say, rubbing at my neck, “Sorry, that wasn’t funny.”
“You sure you’re okay, hun?”
I nod and smirk, “Sure as a sea bass.”
Val rolls her eyes and chuckles, “Don’t you start that too. What does that phrase even mean?”
“I have no clue.” I chuckle, pulling out some food and bottles of water.
The two of us eat a small lunch before returning to the road. We cross through the dark open streets of the town, sticking close to buildings and walls when able. We’re almost back to the tree line when a strange squelch under my boot stops me. I look down to see a clear slimy mucus stringing up from the ground. I wipe my sole against the asphalt as Val inspects it closer. My head goes on a pivot, scanning the area before returning to her.
She holds up a gloved hand and moves it in a wave-like pattern, signaling, ‘Slither.’
I nod, and we quickly continue at an angle away from the trail, my hair standing on end. Almost every creature outside the wall is one that you wouldn’t want to run into, but some are more unsettling than others. Some are like the slither. I use the feeling telling me their soulless black orbs are watching me from behind to propel myself forward with focus and caution. This is followed by constant turns over my shoulder just to make sure. If they are really somewhere out there, we can’t afford to let them get too close. This is more from my own mental reassurance, however. If you can see them from as close as the visor allows in the dark, it’s probably too late.
We travel this way for a reasonable distance before finally deciding the coast is clear again. If I’ve been keeping my time right, we should only have an hour or so left of travel. The only good part about being on constant alert for threats around you is that you hardly notice the aching you start to feel in your feet after nearly three straight hours of walking. I almost kick myself for having the thought, knowing the risk of jinxing it, but I can’t help but be relieved at how easy the journey has been so far. Well, other than our run-in with the mocker… But the expedition wasn’t over yet. Even if we made the next hour of travel, we had no idea what awaited us at that bus garage. There was a chance that we were too late, and the people who were once there were already long dead. More importantly, there was the matter of if they weren’t. We would have to guide a group of survivors back through the dark to safety. If anything happened along the way, it would be Val, and I’s responsibility to fix it. We took on the task to save these people, so now it was our job.
Despite my jinxing, an old road sign eventually approaches from the shadow. In white reflective letters that glow behind my visor, it reads, ‘Welcome to Damascus’. Val and I give each other a look before proceeding forward.
The city was a relatively small one for the Portland metro, with most of the town being on one road with other smaller buildings spread among the surrounding country. I never had much reason to come out this way before the vanishing, except for maybe passing through to a bigger city. Even still, I always found the place charming in its own right. Despite its small size, it was always bustling with cars and people at the small shops along the main road. Now it was just desolate.
Val and I checked around on the atlas for the bus garage before coming out, and while the view from the ground is a lot different, we have a general idea of where it is. A little bit down the main road, a turn-off led past an old used car lot that the garage was right on the other side of. As we find the road and make our way toward it, Val signals to me and gestures to the used car lot.
This way?
I nod in confirmation. The rows of vehicles give good cover, and the space exits out right behind the garage. Through the front gate we slip as we start down the lot and make our way to the back. When we hit the cars, I switch to a lower stance and begin moving below the sightlines around us. As I do, I feel something come from my pocket. My phone vibrates. At first, I think I’m imagining it, but long gone are the days when that’s a regular occurrence. When somebody texts now, it’s so rare that it's pretty easy to notice. I signal Val to slow down and retrieve my phone to find I’m not crazy. A text from my dad that never made it through before we left the grid.
I love you too.
The message isn’t what’s weird to me. It’s the fact that I received it at all. We’re miles off the grid away from any established towers. How on Earth was I getting a signal? My distracted mind is startled as Val places a hand on my arm and points ahead. I slip my phone away to solve the mystery later, then shuffle forward more to see what she’s gesturing to. Ahead, draped over parts of the asphalt and blanketing several cars, a thin web glows through the visor. Snag that has yet to find a host. The patch is large, probably growing for quite some time. Val reaches into her coat pocket and retrieves a lighter before holding it up to get my opinion. I’m usually never one to pass up burning away growing snag, but even with how fast it ignites, I don’t want the flash to attract anything that may be nearby. Not when we’re so close to our destination.
I shake my head, then signal to flank around. She nods but still keeps the lighter in her hand, just in case. When we finally reach the offices at the back of the area, we shuffle around the side and open a side gate that leads out. On the hill in front of us, a few yards away, dozens of still busses sit lined up and staring down at us with their dusty, water-stained windshields. We made it.
{Next Part}

https://imgur.com/a/tqmqABW
Thank you all for the wonderful Valentine's! 💌
Thank you u/relax455 x2 for the adorable goat Valentine's postcard! 🐐 And for the cool motorcycle postcard! 🏍️
Thank you u/spaaaaaacey for the kitty Valentine's card! 🐱
Thank you u/-random_ness- for the fun Valentine's goodies! I haven't done a paper fortune teller in so long, I've been using it to replying to my husbands questions all morning. 😂
Thank you u/DPClamavi for the homemade Valentines card. The restaurants are always super busy on Valentine's Day, and flowers are being sold on every corner. 💐
Thank you u/kittycatcon for the Stinkin' Cute Valentine's. It is seriously so adorable! 🦨
Thank you u/thecaledonianrose for the Valentine's card, I ate lots of yummy treats! I had my sugar intake for the month! 😆
Thank you u/skylineprophets for the amazing Valentine's happy mail! I loved everything, the Minnie Mouse card, the cute unicorn joke scratch off card and the extra LouPaper postcard! TYSM! 🩷
Thank you u/AlfredTheButt-ler for the wonderful Snoopy and Woodstock and cute mustached kitty Valentine's cards. 🐈
Thank you u/stephkempf for the butterfly Valentine's card. 🦋
Thank you u/shipping_addict for the funny Valentine's postcard! 💓
Thank you u/Rand_Ston for the lovely Valentine's card, I have "All Of Me" in my "Lovey Feelings" playlist! 🎵 and the cute dino holding a heart! 🦖
Thank you u/Adoreible95 for the sweet handmade Valentine! 🥰
Thank you u/Sufficient_letter883 for the Bee Happy Valentines Card! Thank you! 🐝
Thank you u/old-jellyfish-7664 for the Valentine's Day card, thank you so much! 💟
Thank you u/aepeyc for the Valentines Day card. I hope you had a wonderful day! 🌟
Thank you u/boyegcs for the spectacular Valentines card, I really loved it! I also enjoyed all the interesting things you wrote. I couldn't believe you when you said that this squirl looking rodent type thing called a hyrax is most closely replaced to the elephant and the manatee. And the pink fairy armadillo is so cute! I recently saw a pink axolotl at the Sacramento Zoo, besides pigs and flamingos I didn't know there were other pink animals. 🦩
Thank you u/mediocre_radish_7216 for the cute heart eyed puppy valentine. Happy to help you declutter any time 🐶
Thank you u/inconsolableonion for the Valentines postcard, your kitty Scrumble is so cute! 🐈‍⬛
Thank you u/Pumpkin-Spice-Witch for the adorable Pikachu Valentine card! And for all the stickers! 😍
Thank you u/turkishtacos for the V-Day card, I agree with you, I would rather have someone who looked more like a young Leonardo Dicaprio represent the holiday, and not the chubby baby cupid. Especially if he is supposed to be a God of love, passion, and fertility. Haha! 😅
Thank you u/babyraspberry for the beautiful Valentine postcard and for attaching the lovely poem! 💗

Hello @everyone,
❤️ Just a few days left for The STEPNLove Contest!!! ❤️ Hey #STEPN fam! This Valentine's Day, we're spreading love in the most creative way!
👉 Until February 21, 2024, showcase your love for STEPN through your unique crafts!!
🖼 🍰 🎨 👟 Poems, drawings, custom Sneakers - anything goes! 🥳
🏆 PRIZES: 🏆 🥇 1 winner gets an OG Valentine's Day Sneaker + 500 GMT - chosen by our team for the most heartfelt entry! 🥈 Plus, 4 random winners will snag 500 GMT each for participating with the #STEPNLove hashtag & sharing their artwork!
Get creative, share your passion, and let's celebrate our love for STEPN together! 🔥
⏳ DEADLINE: 21st February, 8am UTC Looking forward to your masterpieces! 👀
Share your entries here: https://twitter.com/Stepnofficial/status/1757734126482767947
Good luck, everyone!

Dear Poetry Friends, we are past Valentine's Day, but I saved you something special for the day after that is less sweet than sensual.
A poet that is so familiar yet still so shrouded in mystery. We have a direct line from January's selection of odes from Elizabeth Barret Browning, as she hung a picture in her bedroom of "that Foreign Lady". A daughter of the native-born Concord Transcendentalism movement, which draws a straight line from the Romantic movement that bloomed in Germany and flowered in English art to the United States. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) counted her compatriots in poetry as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman and her inspirations were Charlotte Bronte and the aforementioned Barret Browning. She was a consummate reader and read from both sides of the Atlantic, including George Eliot and Nathanial Hawthorne.
A limited selection of her poetry was only published after her death but circulated widely in society. A complete volume didn't appear until 1955. And a complete volume that was true to her punctuation and spelling wasn't published until 1998.
Dickinson was a scholar, a lover of nature, a reclusive and a rebel. Close to family, she eventually disdained the required social visits and found a kindred soul in her sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson, her friend, correspondent and intellectual audience until they grew apart. After shrugging off the Second Great Awakening, a religious revivalist fever that overtook Amherst, Massachusetts, she adopted the hymn meter in many of her poems. We can imagine how social visits were replaced with a rich set of correspondence, which allowed her to practice her craft while keeping the web of friendships and acquaintances fresh. There is much we do not know about the romantic side of her life, the "Master" letters- three such letters survived, and it is unclear if they were ever sent- and who knows what else was destroyed and censored by her siblings. But what we can know is the fervor of 19th- century friendships between women, especially those who got a taste of education and considered intellectual pursuits just as suitable, or indeed preferable to married life and who would soon turn to working on getting the vote and finding freedom outside tradition.
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Emily Dickinson writing to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a publisher of Atlantic Monthly, who published her work posthumously:
"Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?
The Mind is so near itself—it cannot see, distinctly—and I have none to ask—
Should you think it breathed—and had you the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitude—
If I make the mistake—that you dared to tell me—would give me sincerer honor—toward you—
I enclose my name—asking you, if you please—Sir—to tell me what is true?"
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" Dickinson’s endings are frequently open. In this world of comparison, extremes are powerful. There are many negative definitions and sharp contrasts. While the emphasis on the outer limits of emotion may well be the most familiar form of the Dickinsonian extreme, it is not the only one." -(link)
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" Wild nights - Wild nights!"
by Emily Dickinson
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Wild nights-Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
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Futile-the winds-
To a Heart in port-
Done with the Compass-
Done with the Chart!
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Rowing in Eden-
Ah-the Sea!
Might I but moor-tonight-
In thee!
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Dickinson poems are electronically reproduced courtesy of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: VARIORUM EDITION, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University of Press, Copyright © 1988 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)
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Some things to discuss might be the feeling this poem gives you. Go ahead, read it out loud con accarezzevole. Savor the individual words and each line. Why are some words capitalized? Which images seem to jump out at you? Is there a contradiction in a wish for "wild nights", perhaps the danger of rowing at sea, at the same time there is a longed-for safe harbor? Who is the "I" and the "you"-what, if anything, can you draw about the subjects? We begin with "were I" and end with "might I"- all theoretical proposals or fantasies or conjectures or hopes of throwing the instruments of safety (charts, compass) and heading into a wild sea but also of finding a port where affections may find safety, where the winds have no effect. Are you familiar with Dickinson's poems? How does this compare to her other work, for example, the Bonus Poem below? It's clear she was ahead of time with her poetry, breaking with tradition and expressing herself through a revolutionary version of poetry that anticipated modernity in many ways.
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Bonus Poem: The Bustle in a House (1108)
Bonus Link #1: More on the Master Letters by R.W. Franklin (1986)
Bonus Link #2: More about the handmade booklets of her poems made by Emily Dickinson and found after her death, named the fascicles, dating 1850-1860.
Bonus Link #3: You can visit both the Dickinson family home, The Homestead, and the home next door, Evergreen, that belonged to her brother, Austin and his wife, Susan, which make up the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts in the USA.
Bonus Link #4: The "Amplitude and Awe" episode of the PoemTalk podcast , hosted by Al Filreis, that discusses two Emily Dickinson poems (including Wild Nights in the first half) with two other poets and artists.
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If you missed last month's poem, you can find it here.
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1. Community - Early 21st Century Romanticism (2.15)

Logline: Jeff gets in a fight with the study group and doesn’t attend the Greendale Community College Valentine’s Day Dance. Troy and Abed compete for the affections of the librarian.
Review: What a sweet closing voiceover! Jeff gets in a fight with the study group about the merits of BNL (Barenaked Ladies, preeminent Canadian rock band). When a simple invitation to watch a soccer game explodes into a rager at Jeff’s apartment, he realizes he misses the study group. He sends a group text about how scary it is to care about one person, let alone six, but if he can’t say it on Valentine’s, when can he: he loves them. Meanwhile, Troy and Abed both have the hots for the librarian, and decide to do it all above board: let her know they’re both interested and she should come to the dance and choose between them. She ultimately chooses Troy, who ironically can’t be with a person who doesn’t see how awesome Abed is. Britta is having a very Britta Valentine’s - she has a cool new lesbian friend, who is only friends with her because she thinks Britta is a lesbian. They only realize the other is straight after an impromptu dance floor make out to prove how comfortable they are with the others’ sexuality. If only we got the Dean in a Cupid’s outfit, bestill my heart!

1. Home Economics - Pregnancy Test, $12.98 (2.13)

Logline: Connor’s ex-wife and child crash his at-home Valentine’s date. Marina is worried she might be pregnant.
Review: Connor snags a reservation at an obscenely decadent restaurant, Silo, but his girlfriend, Jojo, has a different idea: she wants to treat him for a change, so why not a night at home with pizza and a movie? Connor ups the rezy to four, so Tom and Marina can double date with Sarah and Denise. Sarah can’t stop pointing out how over the top bougie everything is. Marina is nauseated by the smell of the seafood tower, which makes her think she’s pregnant, since the last time she had this reaction to seafood was due to pregnancy. Denise offers to slip out and get her a pregnancy test. Sarah is worried that her negativity is pushing Denise away, so she’s relieved when the pregnancy is revealed. Tom and Marina both freak out, but ultimately she isn’t pregnant. However - Denise wants to have a baby! Meanwhile, Connor’s date night with Jojo is interrupted when his ex-wife, Emily, swings by with their daughter, Gretchen, who doesn’t yet know Connor is dating Jojo. Luckily, Gretchen is cool with it. In fact, she already suspected it - they were spending a noticeable amount of time alone in the pantry. Jojo reads the subtext Connor is missing - Emily is lonely, and doesn’t want to be alone on Valentine’s Day. Jojo uses her social media savvy to help Emily up her online profile game, to the point where the women are bonding and Connor’s presence really isn’t needed. It’s just a delightful left turn in what could have been a lazy catfight. While I wish we had something special - a longstanding Valentine’s tradition, or even some gifts or more set dec - this is such a charming show.

1. Modern Family - My Funky Valentine (1.15)

Logline: Claire and Phil try spicing things up for Valentine’s Day. To celebrate the holiday, Jay takes Gloria to see a comic he loves. Another boy takes credit for Manny’s love poem.
Review: This is exactly what you’d want a Valentine’s Day sitcom episode to be - a little spicy, a little sweet. Gloria wants to salsa dance, but Jay is excited to take her to see a comic whose observational humor is spot on, until the comic starts observing the age gap between Jay and Gloria. Claire and Phil’s roleplaying was perfection - not too smooth, and very believable. I loved the moment when Clive slipped back into Phil when the waitress told him not to smoke. The set piece of familiar face after familiar face running into Claire when she’s trapped in just a trench in the escalator is incredible, and running into Jay and Gloria is the best and worst thing ever: embarrassing for her father to catch her in flagrante, but Gloria saves her by artfully shimmying Claire out of her coat and into Gloria’s trench. Mitchell and Cam’s plotline is lacking in the romance department, as they’re there to defend Manny and his pursuit of love.

1. black-ish - Big Night, Big Fight (1.13)

Logline: Dre and Bow start Valentine’s Dinner off on the wrong foot, and it only escalates from there. Meanwhile, the kids try to teach Diane how to be kinder.
Review: Stylizing a Valentine’s Day fight as an escalating world war is fantastic. Stage One: The Inciting Incident (Dre asks if Bow is changing before they head out to dinner.) Stage Three: Evasive Maneuvers (Dre pays the maitre d to get them a last minute table while Bow is in the bathroom.) Stage Five: The War Council (Dre gets advice from other men fighting with their wives in the bathroom.) Stage Seven: Mutually Assured Destruction (Reviving old, ugly argument.) Stage Eight: Naked Peace Talks. Dre and Bow come together over the bickering of smaller, annoying countries (AKA their children), and agree that it’s healthier to air their grievances. There is so much incredible specificity - from Bow being mad at him for buying gas station flowers to Dre pronouncing the holiday as “Valentime’s” - that makes the whole episode sing.

1. Fresh Off the Boat - Cupid’s Crossbow (5.14)

Logline: Eddie gets a note from a secret admirer. Evan comes to his father for advice on asking a girl out, which triggers his mother’s competitive side.
Review: Love is in the air… Emery has three dates, one for each meal of the day, Evan wants to ask out his lab partner, and Louis suggests bringing a third into their marriage (an accountant to do their taxes.) Evan, who always goes to Jessica for help, goes to Louis instead for help brainstorming a romantic way to ask out his lab partner. Jessica refuses to admit she isn’t the best at anything, not even romance, so she goes to increasingly desperate lengths, culminating in pretending to hold up the restaurant where Evan is on his date to trigger the chemicals that cause fear and love. Meanwhile, Eddie gets an anonymous note from a secret admirer, so he goes on a quest with Honey to revisit every house he has delivered to and see if he can’t figure it out. This was a fun and original take on a Valentine’s Day episode.

1. Parks & Recreation - Operation Ann (4.14)

Logline: Leslie uses a Valentine’s Day Dance to try and matchmake Ann. Meanwhile, Ben is doing his best to solve Leslie’s lengthy Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunt.
Review: Galentine’s Day is back! Ladies celebrating ladies breakfast-style. Ann is single this Valentine’s Day, so Leslie recruits everyone in the office to bring eligible bachelors to the dance for Ann. There’s dud after dud, and eventually April suggests Ann try going out with the only guy who’s made her smile all night: Tom. Leslie thinks Ann is sneaking off for a date with Chris, her boss, against office policy, and is floored when she realizes it’s Tom. In classic Leslie fashion, she has created an intricate scavenger hunt for Ben, which will lead him to a mystery location. The very first hint is a crytek unlocked by a five-letter word that captures the essence of their third date. Ben is already in over his head, so Ron and Andy help him. They split up to try and find the last hint, because going one-by-one will take too long. Leslie’s gifting has always been next-level, and Ron truly knows her. He says to Ben that Leslie loves love, but she also loves being right, so is there a location that symbolizes something she has changed his mind about? Ron is right: Leslie is there waiting for Ben at Lil Sebastian’s memorial.

1. New Girl - Operation: Bobcat (6.16)

Logline: Jess helps Winston put together a last-minute proposal. Cece takes charge in planning her Bone-aversary with Schmitt. Nick eagerly awaits his Valentine’s Day gift from his long-distance girlfriend.
Review: Winston has a dream: propose to his girlfriend and police partner, Ally, in a rest stop bathroom dressed as a bobcat as an homage to one of their first assignments together as partners. Jess helps him bring his dream to life, with mood lighting and a cop choir singing “Allison” to back up Jess reading Winston’s written proposal, as Ally kicked him so hard he can’t read it. It’s so fun yet so sweet - it made me tear up! Schmitt usually plans an elaborate sexcapade for the anniversary of their first coitus, but he’s been so stressed with work that Cece decides to surprise him. She plans a rooftop encounter at his work, but their clothes blow away. Nick brings them truly terrible clothing to change into - a pre-weight loss fit for Schmitt, and her wedding dress for Cece. Nick, meanwhile, has stepped up his Valentine’s game and has hourly surprises for Reagan, only to end up disappointed when all she gets him is a chain. New Girl is firing on all cylinders when it comes to romance.

1. The Big Bang Theory - The Tangible Affection Proof (6.16)

Logline: Leonard and Penny’s Valentine’s dinner is derailed when Penny spots an ex. Howard and Bernadette are bickering. Sheldon sends his assistant to pick out a Valentine’s Day present for Amy.
Review: This episode is a romance ninja (copyright: Leonard.) This show has always been critically overlooked - this episode is an indelible example of how well the writers understand each character. Leonard is psyched about Valentine’s Day, but Penny isn’t mustering up any enthusiasm. They go out for a lovely dinner, but Penny spots an ex that cheated on her, there with her former friend he cheated on her with. AND he proposes. Leonard is more and more hurt that she can’t shake it off. Back at her apartment, she confesses to Leonard that because their relationship is going so well, she’s starting to get freaked out because he keeps proposing. Leonard promises that he will stop proposing and puts the onus on her to ask for his hand if she wants to get married. It’s such a lovely way of making something that seems anti-romantic, truly romantic. Bernadette and Howard are fighting because Howard isn’t contributing to the chores around their place. Out of spite, she hid Howard’s X-Box because he hadn’t done the laundry like he’d promised. They’re at dinner to witness Leonard and Penny’s fight, and realize their squabble is petty. Howard apologizes and realizes Bernadette hid his console in the one place she knew he wouldn’t look - the washer! Sheldon farms out the task of picking out a Valentine’s present to his assistant, who succeeds in finding something so wonderful that Sheldon decides to keep it for himself. Amy shows up with the perfect Valentine’s gift for Sheldon: no Valentine’s celebration. Let’s order a pizza and watch a movie with “Star Something” in the title. Sheldon then gives Amy her gift and the episode its title: tangible proof of his affection for her, by making her his emergency contact. Poor Raj is single as usual, and he and Stu throw a party at the comic book store. Raj gives an impassioned speech about how it’s not shameful to be single, when a girl gives him one compliment and they immediately leave to get coffee together, completely undercutting Raj’s speech. May you all be struck by the romance ninja this Valentine’s!

1. Happy Endings - The St. Valentine’s Day Maxssacre (2.13)

Logline: Max is offering a Valentine's Day package for his limo service, and he picks up the man who dumped him last Valentine’s Day. Brad’s pre-Valentine’s Date dental appointment goes awry. Alex is an expert on all things St. Valentine. Penny wants to break up with the guy she’s been seeing, but it’s too close to Valentine’s Day, and she convinces Dave the girl he’s seeing is doing the same thing.
Review: Penny’s concept of “the break up window” perfectly encapsulates the awkward window around the holidays when you simply shouldn’t break up with someone as a courtesy. She is doing this herself to a guy whose annoying wink she can’t take anymore - delaying plans with him up it’s a respectful enough time after Valentine’s Day. When Dave’s crazy sex girl starts blowing him off, Penny convinces Dave the girl is just respecting the break up window. Dave sabotages the romantic dinner he had planned, only for the girl to reveal she would have had a threesome with him, if he had put in any more effort than canned beans for dinner. Brad and Jane are a sitcom couple trope I adore: married but still madly horny for each other (think Morticia and Gomez.) Brad pulled out all the stops: fondue, a horse-drawn carriage, dinner at an exclusive restaurant, even a predate dental appointment. Demanding the goofy juice when he finds out he has a cavity, Brad does not deliver on the aforementioned plans. (The sequence at the dentist’s office was incredible - the episode was directed by Joe Russo of Endgame fame.) Luckily, Alex is on a quest to help someone find love, and she helps Max win a second chance with the guy who broke up with him last Valentine’s Day for not putting in enough effort. Max shows up in a beautiful set piece outside an apartment, resplendent with candles, and Brad and Jane show up to lend them the horse-drawn carriage and the dinner rezy. As Alex says, it’s the happy ending Saint Valentine himself did not get. From new romance to old love to crazy sex, this episode covers everything Valentine’s celebrates.

1. 30 Rock - Saint Valentine’s Day (3.11)

Logline: Liz accidentally schedules a first date on Valentine’s Day, which she tries to keep casual to no avail. Jack has scored a reservation at the hottest restaurant in town, but Elisa expects him to come to church with her. Kenneth has a crush on a blind girl but can’t bring himself to talk to her.
Review: This is a show firing on all cylinders! My boyfriend joined me for the last five minutes, and even with no context, he was laughing. Liz makes a date with Dr. Jon Hamm, not realizing the date she picked is Valentine’s Day. She has him over to her place for a casual dinner, but first her boob pops out (date #4), then her bathroom door opens while she’s on the commode (date NEVER), then they agree to embrace what the world is throwing at them: they’ll get everything out of the way tonight, and if they still like each other, then it’s real. In rapid succession, Liz meets Dr. Hamm’s teenaged pyromaniac daughter, then his dying mothegrandmother. I appreciate the gesture at the awkwardness of a new romance around the 14th - it can get awkward, though not usually deathbed confessional awkward. Meanwhile, Jack is dating Nurse Selma Hayek, a fiery and very Catholic Latina. She always goes to church to celebrate the Massacre of Saint Valentine - Jack isn’t one of those convenient Catholics who just goes to church every Sunday, right? Jack has made a reservation at Plunder where he intends to order the Lover’s Delight: a one-thousand dollar dessert complete with black, white, and clear truffles as well as edible gold foil. They get in a fight when she realizes his true religion is business and she breaks up with him, only to find a McFlurry card in the donation plate and take it as a sign to reunite with her love under the golden arches for the world’s greatest dessert under one thousand dollars: an Oreo McFlurry. Meanwhile, Kenneth meets a blind girl and is so smitten he can’t say a word, so Tracy jumps in as his voice. It’s a great bit - they take her to a “restaurant” that is just the TSG stage with Grizz and Dotcom making background noise. It ends with Kenneth telling the girl the truth, then she touches his face and makes a quick exit. Not everyone can find true love on Saint Valentine’s Day!
​
Honorable mentions and more here.

This is an update to my previous post about a poem I was going to give her on Valentine's Day.
She responded positively!
I now continue to have hope that we can get closer and be more than friends. She couldn't talk long, was at the dentist for her kid, but it was a different kind of conversation than we usually have. Like, it felt more interest was there on her part. I could be reading too much into it, though.

This contest is closed.
Some of you have played Write Some Weird Poetry before. Well, now it's time to write again! Since it's Valentine's day, it must be a LOVE POEM.
Please read all instructions before submitting. People who don't follow instructions will be screenshotted, privately made fun of and yeeted from the contest.
You must write a short love poem about at least 3 of the random elements below.
You don't have to use the exact words listed below, as long as the subject is clear (eg, will accept rodeo or ranch in lieu of cowboy).
Poem must be relatively short, I'm too lazy to read a sonnet. You can use the familiar Haiku or Limerick,or try your hand at some other lesser known forms of short poetry: A shadorma, A nonet, a difficult tricube or a magic 9. You may submit a total of two poems (as separate top level comments) for consideration.
DBAP (don't be a plagarist). NO CHATBOT AI!! NSFW okay. Up to 2 entries per user allowed
Contest ends when responses trail off, but will choose one by Friday.
Subject list (Pick 3)
Any moderator (for clarification, the u/ is silent and doesn't count as a syllable)
Cerebrus
Ice dancing
A meteor strike
Hot dogs
A UFO
Ferret Legging (look it up)
Bob the Drag Queen
Ketamine
the KGB
Bernie Sanders
Backflips
Balut
The last remaining White Rhino
Aang
Shibaru
Chewbacca
Mimics (the D&D monster)
the Gold Rush
Base jumping
Godzilla
The US Women's Gymnastics team
The Hamburgler
Meryl Streep
A funeral
Mardi Gras
Clifford the big red dog
Saint Valentine in a Columbian prison

https://www.reddit.com/datingoverforty/comments/1aqp6yk/practical_valentines_day_gifts/
When I see things like this I not only cringe inside, but I'm reminded of when my long term ex gave me a toaster for my birthday. I am a Pisces, animal lover, a writer, reader, sensitive as hell. Tiny little loving gestures go a LONG way to me (sappier the better). In 2011, a man who'd known me since 1996 thought it was an awesome idea to give me a toaster. It was a cool toaster (red) but I remember looking at him incredulously, like, "you really thought THIS was the thing to get my smile to glow?" Really? Only one man in 45 years has ever given me thoughtful, handmade gifts. And they wonder why we don't date them. Can you imagine getting this poem from this bum?

 

Takasugi Shinsaku (barges into Ritsuka's room):
Hey there. Your one and only Takasugi Shinsaku has arrived. Can I sit next to you? Of course I can.
Anyways, I’m sure you know what day it is today? Of course, I know as well. Well, whenever you're ready. If you've got something to give to me, make it quick.

 
[Awkward pause]
 

Takasugi Shinsaku:
......
Hey, not that I doubt you or anything, but you did prepare something, right? I won't say what for, but it's for a custom that didn't exist in my lifetime. I missed out with all that craziness going on, so I was really looking forward to it, you know.
......
[inches closer]
So, which is it? Did you, or did you not?

 

Ritsuka:
1) Chocolate for you!
2) Who knows?

 

If option 1:
Takasugi Shinsaku:
That's how it should be! Come on, no need to put on a show, give it to me already.

 

If option 2:
Takasugi Shinsaku:
I doubt that. This has been a year in waiting. I'll even take it by force if I have to.

 
[Ritsuka gives the chocolate.]
 

Takasugi Shinsaku:
Ooh! And with that I've also unlocked the Valentine's Day achievement. Thanks, I appreciate it.
Well then, now that I've received chocolate from you, I've got to return the favor.
[stands up]
Well then, let's get going. Follow me.
[exits the room and stands by the door]
Hey, what are you waiting for? Let's get going. I've already checked to make sure no one's around, so there won't be any problems.

 

Ritsuka:
1) Somewhere without anyone around?
2) So suddenly? That'll cause some problems.

 

If option 1:
Takasugi Shinsaku:
Yeah, I took a peek earlier, so it should be fine.

 

If option 2:
Takasugi Shinsaku:
I have no problems with it so hurry up already.

 
[Ritsuka and Takasugi leave the room and go to the Command Room.]
 

Takasugi Shinsaku:
Alright, let’s make this quick. Let’s see, so this is the simulator console. If I connect my handheld PC to it like so...
The season...? I see. Spring, summer, fall... It’s cold during winter, so I’ll omit that.
And voila. Everything’s ready. Alright, time to set off.
Hm? Where to? In exchange for a little Valentine's Day gift,
――― We're going to visit my grave.

 
[Rayshift to a spring landscape.]
 

Takasugi Shinsaku:
Hahahaha! I've never visited my own grave before so I thought it'd be entertaining, but turns out it's surprisingly boring! We can't go directly to my hometown in this day and age, so I went through the trouble of recreating it in the simulator, but it looks like this was a huge waste of time.
[cherry blossoms fluttering in the wind]
But this ain't so bad, seeing all these seasonal flowers in bloom.

 

Ritsuka:
1) I was wondering what you were up to.
2) This is your...

 

If option 1:
Takasugi Shinsaku:
I thought, if I'm going to come here anyway, I might as well savor a year's worth of this view. It's only possible with the simulator, right?

 

If option 2:
Takasugi Shinsaku:
Chaldea's simulator has amazing performance. It feels so realistic, doesn’t it?

 

Takasugi Shinsaku:
......
I'm a little tired from walking. Let's sit there for a while. What are you doing? Come down and sit next to me.
[sits down]
Mm, this is nice. ...You see this? That’s right, this is the land of Chōshū as I remember it. Oh, my grave didn’t exist when I was alive, so I had it recreated from Chaldea’s database instead. They put up statues and monuments and stuff, and it's pretty well taken care of. Well, that's only natural, given I was the hottest guy in Chōshū.
......
I have so many memories of this place. Getting beat up by Shōin-sensei at Shōka Sonjuku, arguing with Kusaka and getting into fights with him.
I studied as hard as I could, I fought back as hard as I could, and I lived life as hard as I could.
We all had our start here.
This is where I started, and have returned to this day.
As your Servant, that is.
That day, I fell ill and died, but I never expected that such a miracle would happen to me.
......
─── Live interestingly in this uninteresting world.
Yeah, this is entertaining, truly entertaining. I'll try to make this world more interesting for my teacher and friends, too.
Together with you.
......
Hey, I'm getting a bit sleepy. I'm borrowing your lap.
[lies on Ritsuka's lap, staring at the sky]
Yup, this is pretty comfortable to lay on. Let's stay like this for a while. Don't sweat over it, just admire me and the plum blossoms.
[His return gift.]
My favorite plum blossoms and autumn leaves. I thought about reciting a poem while I was at it, but that would be a bit too much fanservice. I'll do it another time, so look forward to it then.
Yawn… Well then, I’m going to get some sleep.
......

 
[After a nap.]
 

Takasugi Shinsaku:
...ngh. Yawn... I really dozed off, huh.
Huh? You’re asleep? Seriously? Here am I sleeping right in front of you, yet you don't do a single thing? You're even more dense than I thought.
That being said, I can't move from this position. Whatever, I'll just stay like this for a little while longer.
......
You look like a fool in your sleep, you know. It's kinda hilarious, I'll stare at them some more. I never would have really looked at your face if it wasn't for this occasion.
......
Hey, Ritsuka... You better not get too close to anyone besides me.¹
......
Damn, bad habits die hard. Forget what I said just now. Not like you heard me, anyway.

 

Ritsuka:
1) I won't forget!
2) ...Did you say something?

 

If option 1:
Takasugi Shinsaku:
What, so you were awake? Well, that's fine too, I guess.

 

If option 2:
Takasugi Shinsaku:
If you're going to play dumb, at least act the part.

 

Takasugi Shinsaku:
...I guess it’s time to head back now.
[stands up]
Hnngh! Wow, I feel so refreshed after a nice nap. I was a bit nervous, going to visit my own grave, but coming out here with you actually made it pretty fun. You too, right? How could you not, with someone like me around?
......
Alright, let's start again, from this very place.
That’s right. You and I, shall live interestingly in this uninteresting world.

 
[Back in the Command Room]
 

Ritsuka:
Are you there? I’ve got something for you too, TAKASUGI.
[gives gift]

 

TAKASUGI:
I can’t believe I got caught. No, of course you would have noticed.
I may not be able to eat this chocolate, but I’ll accept your feelings with my utmost gratitude.
Oh, I'm sure you already know this, but please keep this a secret from Shinsaku.

 

Ritsuka:
1) Don't come up with any more schemes, okay?
2) I understand!

 

If option 1:
TAKASUGI:
You saying that makes me want to do the opposite, but now I can't since you brought it up first.

 

If option 2:
TAKASUGI:
You get what I'm trying to say. There are things that Shinsaku, or rather only I have anticipated.

 

TAKASUGI:
Well, I don't plan on causing trouble just yet, so I'll just watch over your battles in the meantime. I'll make something interesting in return for the chocolates, so there's something to look forward to.
So once again, Shinsaku and I are in your care, Master.

 
 
The First of Flowers
A return gift from Takasugi Shinsaku.
Plum blossoms and autumn leaves from Tōgyō-an, where Shinsaku rests. This mountain is the site of the former headquarters of the Kiheitai. There is a poem written under Tōgyō, Shinsaku's pen name, and it goes, "I yearn for those going westward, as the depths of my heart travel eastward; only the gods know."²
I like plum blossoms. Why? Because they bloom before any other flower, before anyone else.
As for the autumn leaves... Well, I like them just because.
So, instead of a single flower, let's have a hundred flowers bloom spectacularly all at once. Yes, with you and me together.
 
Translator's Note

1. You better not get too close to anyone besides me: Takasugi normally uses boku to refer to himself, but this one time he uses ore. Someone's feeling a bit possessive lol
2. I yearn for those going westward..." Another poem composed by Takasugi, voicing his desire to overthrow the Shogunate. West refers to the western nations, while east refers to Edo.