#at least the Kyoto one had five or so in their selection

[yridenergyridenergy]

I went into four different Tower Records so far and there was little to no Dir en grey. HOW.

[ignis-scientia-estrogen-brigade]

~ISEB in Japan: A Photo Journal~

If you’ve been following me on Twitter lately, you’ll know that I’ve been traveling through parts of Japan the last couple of weeks with my Ignis Play Arts Kai figure in tow. I posted a few pictures over there during the duration of my trip, but those barely scratched the surface of everything I got to do while in Japan. So I thought I’d put together a blog post of my journey while it was still fresh in my mind, featuring everyone’s favorite strategist in what I’ve been dubbing my Great Final Fantasy XV Adventure of 2019!

[Image-heavy content + commentary under the cut]

A brief backstory: I’ve wanted to go to Japan my entire adult life. For years, I’ve watched friends make the trek while I’ve been stuck at home with a severe case of FOMO. The only thing that ever stopped me from going was money (or a lack thereof), so I made the decision last summer to buckle down and sock away every dime I made to make it happen. My only concern before hopping on the plane was that I had missed the wave of FFXV popularity by about a year, but I would quickly learn that—other than not getting to eat any of Ignis’ recipes at the Square Enix Cafe—I had little to worry about.

Literally the only reason I brought my Play Arts Kai figure was so I could take this picture of Ignis at the Citadel (a.k.a. the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building), which was the very first place I stopped at on my first full day in Tokyo. The building + the surrounding plaza, while not 100% accurate, is a fairly impressive facsimile of the one in the game. It’s located in Shinjuku, which also boasts a lot of similarities to Insomnia. Having finished Episode Ardyn mere hours before jetting off on my trip, it felt like I had stepped off the plane and right into the game!

There just so happened to be an Animate right near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, so I popped in to get a feel for what kind of FFXV merch I’d be able to find two years after the game’s release and a year after its height of popularity. Turns out, there was quite a lot of swag to be found! Truth be told, I’ve never been one to chase down official merchandise (unfortunately my job doesn’t really afford that luxury), but I gave myself special permission while on vacation to buy anything I wanted. So I did! Including everything you see above. ^^;;

The next thing I did was take the train to Ginza to meet Lyle/@landscape-gonna  (@landscape_gonna on Twitter), and I simply cannot say enough nice things about her. If you don’t know who she is, there’s a 99.9% chance you’ve seen at least one of her Ignis costumes, and they are A. M. A. Z. I. N. G. We had chatted a bit previously on Twitter before I went full-on stan mode, asking her if she'd be willing to meet up with me (a total stranger) to have lunch and talk Ignis and Final Fantasy. Not only did she say yes, but she gifted me with copies of her incredible cosplay zines and was not the least embarrassed when I busted out my Play Kai Arts figure in the middle of a busy Japanese dessert restaurant haha.

See? Zero embarrassment here.

We even did Noct’s ultimate pose! In public!

I can’t begin to articulate how special meeting Lyle was for me—being brought together from opposite sides of the world to share in our love for Ignis/FFXV is a memory I will cherish my entire life. So Lyle, if you are reading this: どうもありがとうございます ! ٩( ᐛ )( ᐖ )۶

Lyle wasn't the only friend I had in Japan. Another friend of mine, Asuka (who happens to be well-versed in anime/video game culture), volunteered to be my guide through Ikebukuro/Otome Road the next day. Quick otaku lesson: Kbooks is a chain of stores that specializes in the resale of licensed merchandise. For example, if you missed out on some of the limited availability items from the Movic and the Square Enix Cafe collaborations, you might be able to find them at a Kbooks. Otome Road in particular has something like seven different Kbook shops in a 3-block radius, each one specializing in different products (sports anime, idols, cosplay, etc). I, of course, beelined for the video game shop...

...which is where I found this fucking thing:

I’m not gonna lie, I almost bought it. I just didn’t know what I would do with it besides scare the living daylights out of people when they least expected it lol.

Yoooo Adam I found ya boi in Ikebukuro

We popped into the cosplay Kbooks shop since it was right across the street and I found an Ignis costume for sale! Please enjoy this picture of me pretending to come up with a new recipeh (since this is likely the closest I’ll ever come to cosplaying as Ignis).

One of the things Asuka introduced me to was Hanami (picnic under the cherry blossoms, basically). I had timed my trip to coincide with the blooming of the sakura, and the experience of being in Japan during that time was indescribable. I took a bajillion pictures of the sakura while I was there and unfortunately none of my photos ever quite captured the beauty and magic of them in person, but here’s a lil’ pic of a tree in bloom at Yoyogi Park (with the Movic Ignis charm I bought at Kbooks earlier that day).

Another item on my Japan checklist was to stay at a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) in Hakone, a town famous for its onsen/hot springs. Nothing in Hakone is cheap (at least, not during peak sakura season), and I had spent an absurd amount of money on a night at one particular ryokan with a private bath (shy husband haha). The private bath could only be reserved in 30-minute increments, and by the time we finally rolled into Hakone the bath we wanted only had one slot available for the rest of the night. So what did I do?

If you said, “Waste the first 15 minutes of your 30-minute, super-expensive onsen experience taking the perfect Ignis-in-a-hot-springs photo” then you would be absolutely correct lol.

I actually wasn’t planning on taking a bunch of photos of my Ignis figure on this trip, but after my husband tucked Ignis into my futon while I was in the bathroom, documenting my trip vicariously through Ignis ended up taking on a life of its own. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I popped back over to Tokyo after my stay in Hakone, which is when I finally got to make the Great Nerd Pilgrimage™ to the Square Enix Cafe! Had the FFXV collab been going on while I was there, I might’ve forked over the cash to eat at the cafe, but I opted to skip out on lunch so I could spend more money in their shop. They still had a small collection of FFXV merch...

...including this acrylic Ignis stand that I wanted but thought I would never own after failing to find it at Kbooks earlier in the week. Huzzah!

Also, I just feel the need to let everyone know that this is what the outside of the Square Enix Cafe in Tokyo looks like lmao.

Our next stop was Kyoto, which we arrived in on Gladio’s birthday (April 2nd). Unfortunately I didn’t have time to draw anything for his b-day, but we did stop for a Nissin Cup Noodle in honor of Gladio!

One of the most memorable moments of my trip was when this boating incident happened, and it requires a little bit of backstory. On my first full day in Kyoto, I attempted to field two of the most popular tourist destinations in Kyoto: the bamboo forest in Arashiyama, and the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Both places have their beauty and historical significance, and I suspect during the off-season are inspiring sites to behold. In my case, both places were absolutely swarming with tourists, which really put a damper on my enjoyment of them. Defeated, I followed a local canal back toward my hotel, which is where I spotted a miniature boat enthusiast controlling a boat that looked eerily similar to the Royal Vessel. I pulled my Ignis figure out with the intention of simply taking a photo of the boat in the background; when the man saw me holding my figure and fumbling with my phone, he flagged me over and gestured for me to put Ignis in the boat. I wish I had documented how it all went down a little better, but as I was literally wheezing with laughter, the above was the best I could capture.

One of the more off-the-cuff decision I made was to dress in kimono for a day while in Gion (Kyoto). As the cherry blossoms were at their height during my stay there, you couldn’t sneeze without hitting someone who was dressed traditionally for the numerous festivals that were taking place throughout the city. As a white foreigner, I initially had reservations about wearing a kimono (for fear of cultural appropriation), but I did everything I could to be as respectful and reverent whilst wearing the garb (and the rental shop was certainly happy for the patronage). It was an amazing experience and I would definitely do it again!

Speaking of being respectful, I made it a point not to take pictures of Ignis while visiting any shrines (because nothing screams ‘douchey American’ quite like whipping out an action figure on sacred grounds), hence why I don’t have pictures of any of the major shrines we visited in this post. I did, however, spot this miniature shrine arch in an alleyway, and thought it would be okay for my equally miniature strategist to pay his respects.

Literally, a tiny shrine in an alleyway. I suppose even alleys have their deities!

Osaka is about 20 minutes away from Kyoto by train, and since I had already traveled all the way out to Kyoto, I went the extra few miles to stop by the Square Enix Cafe in Osaka. They actually had a smaller selection of FFXV merch than the one in Tokyo and I didn’t end up buying anything, but I would’ve never stopped wondering if I had missed out on something if I hadn’t gone and seen it for myself!

My last day in Kyoto was a week into my trip, and I still had five days left to go. After walking ~10 miles every day (no joke, I have the GPS screenshots to prove it!), I was really starting to feel the grind. I’m sure Ignis was also desperate for an Ebony after being lugged around in the bottom of my purse for a week lol.

Back on the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo!

Weeeeeee (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

Said hi to Fuji-san!

Stopped for a delicious matcha parfait! (Shout-out to my husband who never once got annoyed with me whenever I busted out my figure in public spaces lol)

This was without a doubt the craziest and most unexpected find of any of my merch runs. I had gone to the video game Kbooks in Ikebukuro earlier in the week and had sifted through all their Ignis merch with a fine-toothed comb. This particular Movic charm was one I had been on the lookout for, but it was a rare pull even when they were readily available a year ago, and the only Ignis charm I came across in my first trip to Kbooks was the normal Ignis one (see my Hanami pic). I had no real reason to return to Ikebukuro after I got back from Kyoto, but on a whim I went one last time and BAM—this guy was hanging out there in his lil’ baggie, just waiting for me to get my grubby little hands on him. Jackpot!

All in all, I spent way too much money and I couldn’t be happier for it. The only thing I couldn’t find for the life of me was the Ignis cologne by Movic, but after searching through several Animates and Kbooks, I began to suspect it might be an online-exclusive item that wasn’t available in stores. (Which was probably a good thing for me cause I was already stretching my budget to the limit by this point haha.)

On my last night in Japan, I went back to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building—only this time I went at night when it was all lit up! I also went up to the observation deck on the 45th floor (something I didn’t know you could do the first time I was there) and enjoyed a fantastic view of nighttime Insomnia Tokyo. It was the perfect bookend to a perfect trip, and my heart is absolutely overflowing right now with love for both Japan and Final Fantasy XV!

[impracticaldemon]

❄️  Author’s Note: Written as my Hakuouki Holiday Gift Exchange Fic for @akiko-natsuko​ (tumblr)  ❄️

This fic is based on the following prompts from @akiko-natsuko

1) Saitou! [I solidly support this choice] 2) Yamazaki [again, excellent choice] and just a smidge of 4) Hurt/ Comfort /Angst [this story came out as somewhat reflective with hints of action]

Overall, this is a slightly oddball, mostly serious story about one of my own very favourite brotps, Saitou / Yamazaki (with more than a little Hijikata thrown in, because I enjoy writing about these three guys).

This story is intended to be set more or less within canon, and takes place in late autumn, shortly after the assassination of Serizawa Kamo at the end of October. It’s AU to the extent that I doubt that Saitou and Yamazaki could have been absent from Kyoto for the length of time required by a trip to a “suburb” of Edo and back (Kondou and Hijikata’s original village of Hino is now a suburb of modern Tokyo).

🍶  A Special Gift, or The Pride of the Farmer’s Sons  ⚔️

Words ~ 3000 |  FFnet  |AO3

They rarely used, or needed, words. In fact, Saitō had trained Yamazaki and had been an unofficial shinobi (or spy, or assassin—the semantics were irrelevant to Saitō) for the Shinsengumi both before and after the other man had joined. Despite being eager to prove himself as a warrior, Yamazaki had given up the limelight and glory of the bushi without protest once Colonel Sannan and Vice Commander Hijikata had selected him to be an Inspector—a man who spied on his comrades as well as his enemies. If he ever guessed that his impassive, silent-footed sword-master had recommended him for the position in the first place, it had never been discussed.

An almost invisible nod and a quick hand signal told Saitō that there were at least two men in the large house that they sought to infiltrate. They had already had to scale a wall trapped with hidden, wickedly sharpened stakes and topped with shards of stone, and had narrowly avoided being found out by a well-muscled watch dog—an unusual luxury in food-poor Japan these days. The whole set-up was bizarre, since this was a farmhouse, not a samurai’s manor house. Fortunately, they had been warned ahead of time.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the elder Miyagawa brothers [1] still harbour a strong grudge against Kondō-san,” Hijikata had told them, face unreadable in the dim light of the brazier. It was late fall, and the weather had grown noticeably colder over just the past week. Winter was a tougher proposition in Kyoto than in Edo.

Saitō had simply nodded and waited for whatever other information his commanding officer deemed important. Yamazaki had suppressed his natural questions—it was a very strange assignment—and striven to emulate Saitō’s apparently unshakeable calm. He respected Saitō-san a great deal, and it was clear that the Third Division Captain was absolutely loyal to Hijikata-fukuchō, whom Yamazaki admired to the point of hero worship.

“Don’t underestimate the bastards,” Hijikata had continued, the usual crease between his high-flying black eyebrows becoming more pronounced. “They really hated that their bookish, day-dreaming younger brother managed to get himself adopted into a higher-status family and subsequently inherited both the master’s family name and his dōjō.”

Yamazaki had been unable to restrain his surprise. Kondō Isami-kyokuchō’s ability as a warrior was well-known. If nothing else, the tremendous skill of the men who followed him was a testimony to more than charisma—Yamazaki couldn’t imagine that charm alone would have been sufficient to attract the likes of Hijikata Toshizō, Okita Sōji, Saitō Hajime, Nagakura Shinpachi and others. Colonel Sannan was a well-educated, well-trained man from a samurai family, yet he had become a member of Kondō-san’s small dojo and then followed the man to Kyoto. Mind you, the friendship between Commander Kondō and the Vice Commander was obviously something special, as was the Commander’s deep bond with the First Division Captain. It was a pity that Okita-kumichō was always so disrespectful to the Vice Commander.

“Yamazaki?”

“Ah… Sumimasen deshita, Vice Commander.” The shinobi-medic had flushed a little, and could only hope that the gloom had concealed most of his face. He had worked hard to achieve the proper expressionless countenance of a true samurai. “I had never heard or imagined that there was trouble between the Commander and his family.”

“Small town, small minds,” Hijikata muttered tersely. He continued, in a more normal tone, “And it was really just the older brothers. I mean, farmers work hard and they’re supposed to know their place. Ambition and a good imagination aren’t really welcome. They didn’t take his playing around with a katana seriously, and they objected to the way he spent so much time reading instead of doing chores like a proper farmer’s son.” Normal had given way to perceptible bitterness. Hijikata had also been the youngest son of a moderately prosperous farming family.

“I understand, Vice Commander.” Yamazaki, who had been born the son of a practitioner of traditional Eastern medicine, did indeed understand better than many. He knew that a large part of his devotion to the Commander and Vice Commander was that they had given him the longed-for opportunity to become a warrior, despite not being born into the samurai class.

“Well, then…” Hijikata had paused, and then sighed. “Seriously, I know this side-trip is a little unusual, but this will be our first New Year’s celebration with Kondō-san in sole command of the Mibu Roshigumi. I want to make it special for him.”

Yamazaki, who was observant both by nature and training, had noticed what seemed to be a fleeting smile on the Vice Commander’s face, but he hadn’t been certain. Had there also been the slightest pause before the word ‘special’? In his peripheral vision, he had glimpsed a small shift in his companion’s otherwise motionless seiza.

“We will leave immediately, Vice Commander.” Saitō had bowed and risen on the words, picking up his katana from the floor. He always seemed to know when Hijikata-san was done briefing them, and managed to be efficient without being impolite. (He also got along well with Okita-san, which still puzzled Yamazaki, although he attributed much of that to the fact that they needed each other as opponents as well as comrades.)

“Thank you Saitō; Yamazaki. Make the best time you can. This is only feasible because of other urgent business in Edo, after all.”

“Hai.”

“Oyasumimasen.” [2]

Yamazaki was working quietly on the shutter of an upper floor window. Saitō crouched nearby, keeping watch. Confident in his companion’s ability to silently pry open barred shutters while hanging upside-down from an overly-ornamented roof-edge in the middle of the night, the senior officer of the pair was content to scan the courtyard and laneway below. He didn’t so much as twitch when Yamazaki crept up beside him and indicated that they now had a way in. The roof had been trapped—this time with a variety of spikes and even hunting traps—but the intruders were no longer surprised by such extreme measures. On the way across the roof to the window, they had also had to avoid two nearly-invisible strings of scrap metal and ceramic shards, but those had merited no more than an exchanged glance to confirm that the other man had noted of the alarm system.

Saitō had been the first into the room, as previously arranged. Yamazaki still found it odd to see the captain’s katana secured to his back, rather than on his hip, but night-work of this kind required free hands and as few encumbrances as possible around the waist and hips. It was difficult to swing down through a window or other access point with five feet of blade and hilt just waiting to get tangled in your legs or jammed in the opening. Yamazaki hadn’t even considered suggesting that Saitō leave his longsword behind, although he himself usually opted for no more than a wakizashi and a handful of throwing spikes and four-pointed shuriken.

They ran into a problem when they reached the lower floor and cautiously observed the most likely passageway to take them to the below-ground store-room that was their goal. A weathered, muscular man somewhere between thirty and fifty was sleeping in a comfortable-looking alcove just off the corridor. The corridor beyond the alcove was set with more of the home-made alarms.

Even Saitō registered a moment of surprise. What was the purpose of building this rather ostentatious house, if at least one of the owners chose to sleep in an alcove instead of a private room? The man’s resemblance to Kondō-san was marked, and after a moment’s cogitation, the black-clad intruders [3] held a rapid—and silent—conference. Their orders had been clear on this point, if nothing else: no killing, no weapons, no lasting harm of any kind except in case of mortal jeopardy.

“And if I decide that you weren’t in mortal jeopardy, then you will be,” Hijikata had told them. “They’re farmers. If either of you needs a weapon to deal with them, then you need to reconsider your career choices.”

Neither Saitō nor Yamazaki had said a word in response, and the Vice Commander had looked almost embarrassed—almost. Then he’d cleared his throat and added: “Anyway, whatever happens, don’t get hurt, or worse, identified.” Another pause and then a grudging, but sincere, “Tch… just don’t get hurt, okay?”

Saitō covered the distance to the sleeping man in single, silent rush, and had a cloth and gag in the slightly open mouth before his victim could so much as twitch. Yamazaki immediately tied the man into his futon, securing his arms to his sides and immobilizing his legs. To his credit, the man displayed rage at the mishandling, rather than fear—Yamazaki was rather impressed—but after making sure that he was breathing moderately well despite the gag, Saitō slipped out of the room to reconnoitre further down the passageway. Near-amber eyes—very much like the Commander's—tried to burn holes in Yamazaki’s skull, but he had already taken up a defensive position several feet away. When he thought of the prize that Saitō was now hurrying to find, he almost shook his head in disbelief. Since that was not proper behaviour for a shinobi-medic-warrior of the Roshigumi, he contented himself with a frown.

It wasn’t until they’d reached their room and changed out of the dark, close-fitting clothes that suggested—well, announced, really—that they’d been up to shady things that Yamazaki finally asked the question that had been plaguing him since the beginning. He looked over at Saitō-san, who gave him a barely perceptible smile. His white sash stood out clearly in the dark room, and he was adjusting his scarf. Yamazaki recognized the almost-smile as permission to ask questions.

“The Vice Commander asked us to raid the Miyagawa farm for the purpose of obtaining this… special gift? Which is two bottles of Miyagawa-made sake? I apologize if I seem to pry, Saitō-san, but do you know why this sake is special? I have not heard of it before now.”

Saitō considered the question—the final one—and then sat down across from Yamazaki. As always, he sat in seiza, but they knew each other well enough now for Yamazaki to be aware that Saitō did not care if Yamazaki sat more informally under circumstances like these, or when off-duty.

“Kondō-san does not care for sake,” Saitō stated gravely. This was a common and socially acceptable way to say that a respected senior officer or high-ranking individual did not have a good head for alcohol. Yamazaki nodded; he was aware that the Commander rarely drank. “The last time that Kondō-san was pressed to take part in a drinking party, he explained that he has never found any sake that was as much to his taste as that made by his older brothers. Unfortunately, as they do not see eye-to-eye on certain important matters, he is no longer able to obtain his preferred sake. Rather than settle for inferior alcohol, he prefers not to drink at all.”

Yamazaki contemplated this in silence for some time. As usual, Saitō-san did not rush him, or appear to be impatient.

“So… Hijikata-fukuchō did truly want to obtain a gift that would be special to the Commander.” Yamazaki hesitated, but since he had—most unusually—asked such a direct question in the first place, he felt that the least he could do was to try to follow the path that Saitō-san seemed to be marking out for him. “However, it may be that—strictly as a jest between two men who have known each for a long time—Hijikata-fukuchō also means this gift as a way to, ah, convince Kondō-kukuchō to drink with him and the others on the occasion of the New Year.”

“It might be difficult for the Commander to refuse to drink, under the circumstances,” Saitō agreed. He noted a trace of concern in Yamazaki’s clear, violet eyes. Yamazaki didn’t want to see Hijikata-san as the kind of man who would risk his reputation and the well-being of his officers for the sake of a joke.

As though he could not suppress the thought any further, Yamazaki murmured, “That does not seem like something that the Vice Commander would do.” Then he added, a little reluctantly, “Well, he might—since he and the Commander know each other so well—but only if there were another, more important objective.”

Saitō’s smile was more noticeable this time, although just as brief.

“I believe you are correct. The Commander and the Vice Commander were having a discussion that I could not help but overhear, just a few months ago. It seems that during the final rupture with his brothers, the Commander demanded to know what it would take to convince them that he was both the boy with whom they had grown up, and Kondō Isami-sensei, the master of a dōjō, and a man who would one day be a warrior of great renown..”

“…I think I see.” Yamazaki turned it over in his mind a few more times. Yes, he understood it better now. “Whatever it was that they demanded of the Commander—to prove that he accepted his past while also confirming his elevation in rank—had to do with the sake. Those bottles were marked, which is unusual for home-made alcohol.” Saitō’s face gave nothing away this time, yet Yamazaki somehow knew that he was pleased. “Also, on top of forcing the Commander to meet their demands—which is something that no true samurai would ever tolerate from mere peasants—they were trying to shame him into taking something—sake—that could be viewed as as an embarrassment to him.. …Because the Commander doesn’t drink much, I means. I think… perhaps they were trying to make up for feeling inferior.”

Yamazaki became more and more thoughtful, and Saitō’s silence only served to encourage him to continue. “By refusing to take the sake by force—or to punish them for their insolence—the Commander proved himself not to be a true samurai. At least that’s how they saw it, and it salved their pride. …They would not be alone in such views.”

The name Serizawa Kamo hung in the air between Yamazaki and Saitō for a very long moment. He had been the real first Commander of the Roshigumi, even though Kondou-san had been theoretically his equal in rank. Serizawa-san had often ridiculed Kondō-san’s origins, and had implied—or said—that to be the true samurai he wished to be, Kondō-san needed to be willing to enforce his exalted, virtually untouchable social status—at sword point by preference. As an Inspector, though not a member of the Roshigumi’s 'inner circle’, Yamazaki knew virtually all of the circumstances of Serizawa-san’s assassination, which had been carried out by Hijikata-san and his most trustworthy adherents.

“The Vice Commander wished to remove a possible cloud hanging over the Commander’s honour, without forcing the Commander to order a strike against his own family. Moreover, he had somehow found out that the Miyagawa brothers had become completely irrational in their fear that Kondō-san would eventually return and force them to submit.”

“I have always found it interesting that two men as skilled and worthy of respect as Kondō-kukuchō and Hijikata-fukuchō came from the same small farming area just outside of Edo, murmured Saitō.

Yamazaki was embarrassed that he had forgotten that fact. The point was that Hijikata-fukuchō had grown up in the same area, and would have known, or known of most of the principals in the curious tale. In fact, it was not impossible that he’d had his own run-ins with the older Miyagawa brothers. Demonstrating the long reach of the Roshigumi—and therefore of Kondo-san—and shaming those brothers in some way, could have been the Vice Commander’s main goals all along.

"So the Vice Commander likely strove to accomplish several things at once,” Yamazaki remarked, with some pride in his superior. “First, he outwitted Kondo-kukucho’s elder brothers, and now they will have to concede that our Commander is indeed a great man who has moved beyond them. Second, the manner of our strike will be embarrassing to them: they may tell many people the tale of two masked men—two shinobi—who broke into their fortified home in the dead of night, but took only two bottles of sake. Most people will say that the brother we incapacitated made up the tale in order not have to account for the missing sake, which he drank himself of course. As a kind of a bonus, the Vice Commander will be able to have his jest when he asks Kondō-san to drink a toast with his newly obtained, special sake.”

In the darkness, deep blue eyes met inquiring purple.

“It is possible that the Commander’s brothers may not choose to tell the story at all,” Saito pointed out, almost apologetically. “Therefore, I believe that as part of our duties, we should mention the tale ourselves to one or two local gossips, and let it go on from there. We will say only that we heard if from a person who heard it from one of the brothers.”

”Hai.“

"Happy New Year!” Hijikata leaned toward Kondō. “I have a special gift for you this year, Kondō-san: I thought you might enjoy this particular sake.”

“Oh, well, you know me,” his victim said with a triumphant smile. “If I can’t have the stuff from home, I just don’t bother, these days.”

“Most understandable, but you are in luck! Look at this.” With that Hijikata brought out Miyagawa-made sake for Kondō-san.

“Now you can finally drink properly to all of this year’s successes! To your good health!”

[END]

[1] Kondō Isami was originally Miyagawa Katsugorō, the youngest son of farmer Miyagawa Hisajirō. This story refers to Kondō’s two older brothers, Miyagawa Otojirō/Otogorō and Miyagawa Kumezō/Sōbei. These men did exist, but this story is completely fictional; I made up everything but the names and basic facts (e.g., location).

[2] Good night.

[3] In fact, Saitō and Yamazaki knew that true black tends to stand out against shadows, and so on, and will often provide an undesirable outline instead of concealment. Consequently, their clothes were made up of dark greens and greys, which are actually far more effective for camouflage in dark surroundings. Black isn’t bad in a pinch, but it isn’t the best

All the very best of the season! @hakuyamazakisensei​ who joins us in favouring the Saito / Yamazaki BROTP and the two characters in general!

~Impracticaldemon

[weretigerkun]

Here’s a late post for Fic Writers’ Week Day Four: The Devil’s in the Details

I had already planned to annotate a history of me and you (Dazatsu Period AU) anyway, so here it is!

Selected lines are quoted and arranged according to their chronological appearance in the story. I suggest you read the Author’s Notes on the AO3 fic page itself, as I didn’t repeat some links anymore.

What’s under the read more? References to canon and future side-stories, a timeline of Period AU Atsushi’s life, info about the real Nakajima’s and Dazai’s lives, as well as historical background to explain several details in the fic. Okay? Read on~!

  The boy reads it carefully, attention fully captured by the words in front of him. A new character is introduced—it’s a young man whose kindness the protagonist tries to return for the first time.

A scene inspired by their first meeting in canon

Spring blooms, breeds flowers As I breed ink on these hands, Remember the shape Of your brightest smile, Your warmth in my cold embrace, Sunrise in your eyes Beautiful boy beside me For spring, summer, fall, winter— Let me taste your name.

One poem made out of three haikus (5-7-5). Except the third to the last line, because it wouldn’t fit in just five syllables. So have an outtake:

Beautiful bishie, you are my squishy.

Oh look, 5-5! lolol

“Oh no, that one’s private—for the eyes of mon amour only.”

The real Dazai Osamu enrolled in the French Literature department of the University of Tokyo but never attended any lectures. Several well-known contemporary Japanese writers also took up French Literature in their college years. I wonder why.

Instead, the man gives an awkward cough, eyes flitting away briefly. Atsushi yanks the collar of his yukata upwards, tightens it around him.

Dazai is shameless.

Once again, today I wake under frozen sky Trapped by memory But my lips warm with your name, Your body rising like the sun Like winter has passed

This time, I attempted a tanka (5-7-5-7-7) , albeit a modern and modified one.

He’s used to Western clothes, but this white suit feels too foreign, too expensive

Atsushi never buys his own clothes, so Dazai spoils him. To be expounded on in a future side-story.

“Ah, yes, I did hear rumors.”

“He’s doing very well under me.”

“Indeed he is.”

I can’t help slipping in fancy innuendo. This is how I roll, okay.

Also, about “He’s doing very well under me” (NSFW link)…

Kunikida grumbles, but a woman with short hair taps at his arm

It’s Yosano-sensei! She’ll appear in a future side-story.

…a new ballad oozing out of the nearby gramophone.

I wish I could link to an actual song from the 1930s here AHAHA (I really love big band jazz and swing tbh) but instead, I ended up listening to a bunch of 1930s Japanese music. They’re all… really interesting, to be honest.

The short-haired woman that had been with Kunikida laughs into her palm, listening in to the hushed words of the grinning man next to her.

Yosano laughing with Ranpo. He’ll appear in a future side-story too, along with Fukuzawa-shachou and the rest of the ADA. They all work together in the same publishing company, with Fukuzawa as the president and Kunikida as an editor. Tanizaki eventually interns here too after graduation (he’s Atsushi’s classmate).

He’s about to suggest getting a bite to eat when he turns and sees a gawking face in the corner—some middle-aged man in a Western vest, his hair slicked back. Atsushi swallows, hoping to shuffle away…

But then Oda Sakunosuke arrives next to him. He places a heavy hand on the other man’s arm, giving him a blank stare. The stranger looks at him, blinking, taking in murmured words as he’s led away. Oda’s grip is strong, quiet but firm, and so they make their way out of the room, almost as if nothing’s happened.

Oda Sakunosuke protecting his friends and his writer from seedy journalists. <3 Nobody’s writing anything hateful about these two lovers, not under his watch. (As proof: see “the very first article that mentions him publicly”)

One famous photograph of the young Nakajima depicts him in his home […]

Only he and Oda Sakunosuke were privy to some joke.

Wow, okay, I was supposed to write another scene to this BUT I LOST MY NOTES!! :((

By the 1930s, cameras were already smaller, lighter, easier to use, and cheaper. They had become available to the masses and were starting to gain some familiar features: an instant shutter, a timed shutter, as well as the start of color photography. Even folding cameras existed, which could fit into your pocket. I imagine Oda or Ango had one, and so they’d take lots of cute photos of Dazai and Atsushi (and their other friends) whenever they’d come around.

There’s a companion photo to the one published in the book. It was taken a few minutes before Atsushi’s portrait. It depicts Dazai and Atsushi seated side by side, with Dazai’s head on Atsushi’s shoulder, and the boy looking down at him with a bright smile. Very cute. Very sappy. Oda still has this photograph in his personal collection.

After hearing the click, Dazai had laughed and pulled away. “You should take one of Atsushi-kun instead, Odasaku,” he’d said. “He’s much more handsome.”

Atsushi batted him away, but Dazai only replied with something so charming and funny that Atsushi, caught off-guard, let out a wild laugh.

He tugs at Dazai’s sleeve, rubbing the fabric absentmindedly. Smooth and silky, dark against his skin. The edge of a crane’s wing embroidered on the side. “But at least… you like the present I picked out for you?”

Dazai’s kimono based on the Kyoto collaboration art. (1, 2)

I find this incredibly interesting, as the crane is a symbol of happiness and long life. I doubt Dazai would choose it himself (or if he did, imagine the irony), so I headcanon that Atsushi picked it out for him. That boy is so pure and loving <3

The sun rises.

But this time, there is no warmth or light. The sun rises on another day without Atsushi-kun by his side.

 No need to waste paper after all.

War effort.

Dazai pulls out a small, clean piece of paper from underneath a messy stack. In the process, he nudges the newspaper unfurled across the table, its headline notifying young men of required conscription.

Young men being drafted for the war effort wouldn’t be sudden news in 1941-1942, as Japan’s Conscription Law was already established in the Meiji Era 1873. This allowed men aged 20 to 40 to bear arms (any man, no longer just samurai) and required them to serve three years of active service, and then four years in reserve. Firstborn sons, students, teachers and widowed men with children were allowed to be exempted, aside from those who were physically unfit. Upper class citizens could probably pay their way out of conscription as well.

The real Dazai Osamu was excused due to his tuberculosis. I imagine this Period AU Dazai could pay his way out of Atsushi’s conscription as well, but Atsushi wouldn’t think it was right.

The real Nakajima Atsushi died in 1942 due to pneumonia. He was 33. I wanted Period AU Atsushi to die before he hit thirty (sorry, Atsushi-kun. I love you, I promise), so, um, here’s a potentially weird timeline of his life. Please keep your suspension of disbelief for a while!

1913: Period AU Nakajima Atsushi’s birth

1918: his first memory, being in the orphanage

1929-1931: his high school years. He discovers Tsushima’s works during this time (maybe a little earlier, maybe in his last year of junior high) and those works impact him greatly.

1932: Atsushi’s first year of university. Probably meets Dazai around this time, late in the year.

1936: Graduates university. Publishes his first short story.

1936-1940: His short literary career before having to fight on the front.

I was going to kill Ooba off in the latest chapter, but I know that as soon as you return you'd yell at me for it.

Ooba is the protagonist in Dazai’s novel No Longer Human.

He had stood here once. In the same city and under the same sky. I pull my coat closer around myself and begin walking, hoping to get home before the roads pile up with snow.

The narrator means Tsushima, and she’s not wrong, but in the tradition of bookends, he would refer to Atsushi.

.

(Making this post was really fun! I’ll probably make one for every major Period AU side-story too)

[bangtan-bunny]

Sweet Apple Muffins [1]

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x Reader (ft. Taehyung)

Word Count: 4315

Genre/Summary: Angst and fluff / brief sensuality / light swearing / feels. Namjoon has been overwhelmed with work and while you are generally supportive, he’s gone too far and forgets a very important day. You begin to go through your memories of how you met him.

A/N: Hello everyone! I posted this fanfic awhile back, but upon revamping my blog and wanting to step things up, I decided to edit and re-upload this story (and actually finish it lol) This story is very special to me because I honestly drew a lot of y/n’s thoughts and opinions from my own. Anywhoooo enjoy!

~~~~ indicates a flashback/end of flashback

“So what do you think? I mean it is just a demo, so I can fix the producing and the instrumentals sou-”

You put a finger to his lips to quiet his nervous ramblings. Namjoon always felt his work never measured up to his sky high expectations. Despite the countless all-nighters and almost non-existent diet he endured, he had to make sure everything was perfect, especially when he knew you were going to see it. His incessant tapping and avoidance of eye contact was a clear sign of this paranoia. Namjoon had put the finishing touches Bangtan’s last track of the new album, and he finally felt ready to show it to you. Pulling out your earbuds and setting them and the laptop on the coffee table, you kick your legs up onto the couch and turn to face him. He refused to shift his downward gaze until you gave a light push to his shoulder. 

“Don’t start with that now, this song is really something special. The melody is catchy, but I know ARMY will love it because of the lyrics. You guys have been taking on more serious topics surrounding our age group lately, but in this song, you’ve been able to talk about young love again, but maintained a balance with the maturity you’ve developed. It’s so individually personal, but will still hit home to anyone that has ever loved.” You chose your words carefully because you knew Namjoon trusts your opinion.

He tilted his head and made the face he always did when he was touched by something, so you knew he really took what you said to heart. You kicked up your knees to your chest, pulling the blanket tighter around your torso and leaning onto Namjoon, resting your head on his shoulder. He reached behind your back and pulled you closer, his warmth having replaced the cold you’ve been feeling from the overly air conditioned studio. It’s hard to imagine all of the nights he spent here trying to finish the album. His determination was definately admirable. Relaxing into this position, you let your mind begin wander some more. How you’ve missed this comfort. How you’ve missed him. You reach up to him, lips just about to touch before you were rudely awakened.

You barely had time to register your surroundings as the loud smack of the bedroom door sounds against the wall. Shooting up in bed, you hope for it to be the person that had been ‘haunting’ your dreams almost every night. Your shoulders slump and you lay back down in disappointment at the appearance of your best friend.

“C’mon y/n, it’s your birthday!”

He stomps over and pulls off the covers you’ve recently grown accustomed to hogging. You groan in annoyance, longing to go back to your wonderful dream.

“It’s time to get up!”

You roll over from the bubbliness that is Kim Taehyung. He frowns, but then reaches across the bed to pull open the blinds. Anger billows deep inside your chest as you scrunch your face at the unwelcomed sunshines on either side of you.

“Why did you have to get here so early, Tae?”

You tried not to sound as miserable and well, as sexually deprived, as you felt. Instead, you reluctantly sit up, look him in the face and deliver your best fake smile. Sadly, this boy could read you like a book. That sympathetic look, the one he’s been giving you more often than you like to admit, makes an appearance as he plops down next to you. Putting an arm around your slouched shoulders, he attempts to cheer you up.

“Well it’s a big day and to spend it right, we have to start early! So get dressed, we’re going to Doni’s in ten minutes.”

Doni’s was your favorite coffee shop in the city. You and Tae personally know Doni’s son who sneaks both of you the two most freshly baked muffins every morning. The shop was a little space shoved between a popular hair salon and a liquor store. At first glance the place looks pretty cheap, but it’s the comforting and homey atmosphere that keeps people coming back. At least that’s what keeps you coming back. When walking in, your attention is usually diverted to the long glass counter where all of their delicious pastries and breads are lined up along three shelves. Doni’s wife, Lara, usually worked the cash register and she would greet you kindly each morning.

The rest of the café was to the left with large chalkboards along the walls that mainly listed their drinks, pastries, specialties and prices. Then there was the ‘customer board’ along the far wall by the windows. This special board was a large chalkboard where customers could draw or write whatever they wanted and as long as it was appropriate, it wouldn’t be erased. Since this shop was more of a stop and go for most, not many people hung out long enough to write anything on the board, so it was far from being filled up. Whether you were with Tae, someone else, or by yourself, you always looked for the table by the customer board. Reading the messages helped brighten the start for your day. The tables were pretty dingy as well, with chairs varying from three to five at each one. A small jukebox lay beside “your” table, but you could never stand the music selection Doni liked (mainly Skrillex and Diplo) so you routinely became the DJ. This place was particularly special though, as it was actually the place where you met Namjoon.

“Earth to y/n, we’re burning daylight!” Tae taunts while shaking your shoulders.

You sigh deeply and take your mind off of thoughts of Namjoon. Looking into Taehyung’s hopeful eyes, you can see that he’s genuinely trying to help you. Whether he’s doing this out of care or pity, you appreciated his efforts. The least you could do was put on a believable happy face this time.

“I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

His face lights up and you see his signature box-like grin. His happiness has always been contagious so you couldn’t help the corners of your mouth perk up at the sight of his childish excitement. Taehyung was right. Today was your birthday and you were going to enjoy it. If Namjoon still wants to ignore you, even on a day like this, well actions speak louder than words then.

The thought of him still makes your stomach turn, but also makes your heart skip. This confusing and uncomfortable feeling is all you’ve had of him for the past month and a half since he’s been staying at the studio. With WINGS’s success, you know he really needs to focus on this next album. However, he hasn’t taken the time to talk with you at all. You were extremely worried about him. He hasn’t answered any of your texts or calls and the other members just give vague answers that don’t help ease you at all. But the thought of Namjoon, at least for today, is not going to consume you.

Tae is already out of the room so you summon just enough energy to get up and get dressed. Even though it’s your birthday and you could’ve tried a little harder with your appearance, you chose a comfortable hoodie and sweatpants over a pretty dress. It was below freezing outside and you weren’t about to risk getting sick just to look presentable. Being a nurse isn’t a profession where you can just call in whenever you want. You had your patients to think about. In this way, you could relate to Namjoon. Both of your jobs are very demanding, time consuming and you have people relying on you. However, at least you still managed to let him know if you were staying late or if there was a problem at the hospital. Damn it, you’re not supposed to think about him today! If only your birthday wasn’t the hardest day to forget him.

There was no need to do your hair or makeup either. It was only Tae, Doni and Lara you’d be seeing, all of whom you don’t feel the need to impress. Glancing down at the desk of the vanity, you can’t help but stare longingly at the little collage of you and Namjoon. There you are on his shoulders, attempting to “hold up” one of the Zen Temples while traveling around the lakes in Arashiyama. The two of you celebrated your first anniversary by going to Kyoto, Japan because you both were fascinated by the landscape of Arashiyama. It’s known for its hilly landscapes, forests and lakes with the original Zen temples unaffected by WWII. Its untouched environment is said to give off an aura of peace and tranquility. Witnessing something seeming to be completely separate from the developing world with Namjoon was an experience you will always cherish.

Shifting to the next picture, you roll your eyes at the photo Tae took of you and Namjoon sitting in the practice room, unaware of his presence and mouths full of ramen. Passing a few family and award show pictures, your smile drops when you spot the picture taken the first day you met.

Though it was two years ago, you could still remember every detail of that bitterly cold morning. You were heading to Doni’s again, looking forward to a mint hot chocolate and one of their brand new glazed apple muffins. Also your friend Emily had wanted you to meet her new boyfriend who you’d soon find out to be Taehyung. This also being the day you first met Tae, however, you wouldn’t become close until she broke his heart and you were there to console him. Emily was a vlogger and photographer leading her to meet him while at one of BTS’s photoshoots. Though you love her, she’s known to toy with people’s emotions, and you didn’t have the heart to tell Taehyung at the time. At the time, she told you to meet them at Doni’s at eight and then you’d spend the day together. You chuckled to yourself at how it never went according to plan.

~~~~~~~~~~

Normally you’re at Doni’s by seven and are used to the almost empty shop, so you didn’t expect it to be packed less than an hour later. You knew most people started work by nine, but you didn’t think any of those respectable business people would go to Doni’s of all places. Lara wasn’t at the counter so you decided to search the tables. Your friend had vibrant reddish hair so it didn’t take long to come to the conclusion that you beat them here. Deciding to find a place to hold until they get there, you turned to look to see if “your” table was taken.

It sort of was. There was a man there, but he had pulled the chair away from the table to face the window. On any other day, you would have assumed that even though he sat a few feet away, the table was his and you wouldn’t have bothered. However, that day you had no other choice of a seat. So you walked over to the corner with the customer chalkboard and sat down in the chair farthest from the man. You felt extremely awkward being this close to a stranger and acting as if you just rudely sat with them. Trying to distract yourself, you turned to the chalkboard which had a few new words on it.

Why is there no opposite word for loneliness?

Were we born to die.

Were we born to live.

Are we living to die,

Or are we dying to live?

The name tag with my name on it,

Is that my life?

Or is it death?

…Who knows?

Rolling your eyes at the obvious attempt for someone to sound ‘deep’ and ‘compelling,’ you scoffed before debating what new drawing you wanted to add to your little collection in the bottom corner. You were interrupted by a deep voice speaking up from behind you.  

“You disagree?”

You jumped in surprise and spun around to find that it was the man sitting by the window. He had platinum blonde hair and his smirk revealed two obvious dimples. You found him attractive, but even then you weren’t one to get all flustered just because someone looked pleasing.

“I just don’t agree with this person’s outlook. Yes, it’s perfectly fine to question why we’re here. Honestly, I think about it more than I like to admit. However, I’ve come to learn that you shouldn’t look at life as just a loan on death. That just creates a miserable existence where you don’t appreciate the adventures life offers because you’re so focused on this big “end.” Whoever wrote this needs to realize their “name tag” or whatever isn’t something prewritten for you by death. Your name tag is something you design yourself.”

You smiled more at your little speech rather than at the man. You were remembering how far you had come since the days where depression and anxiety used to control your thoughts and actions. You still struggle sometimes, but mentally, you were at a much better place now. And looking at that quote reminded you of how you used to feel.

The man’s smirk deepened and he raised an eyebrow, perhaps in surprise. Feeling his sense of superiority slip had relaxed you and made you a little cocky. He pulled his chair closer to the table and leaned forward.

“From a realist’s point of view, I don’t believe that way of thinking works for everyone. Not all people can just live happy go lucky like that,” his tone slightly mocking.

The last part struck a nerve with you because you were very aware of the happy go lucky people in this world, and you did not want to be compared to them. Especially after what you went through, you found it difficult to keep your cool at this stranger’s arrogance.

“I don’t think that what I said is happy go lucky by any means. It’s more about survival. When you question things too much, your thoughts become overwhelming. Soon enough, you’ll realize that you could question every little thing in the world for eternity. That’s when the loneliness kicks in and you see how alone you really are in this world. You’ll go mad once you embrace this. So it’s not happy go lucky,” you copied his tone, “It’s thoughtful and rational.” You took a pause before looking him right in the eyes.

“Also, there is an opposite for the word loneliness. It’s called living. Speaking of living, one of those apple muffins are calling my name.” 

Feeling that you won this conversation with the stranger, you stood to walk over to see Lara back at the register. Hearing a chair scrape against the floor, you noticed the man get up and quickly stumble beside you. He seemed to have lost his confident composure which made you feel even more proud. You had to look up at him a little, as he was taller than you thought.

“So, apple muffins, eh?” It came out awkwardly, his previous deep and confident tone had completely vanished. 

“Yeah, they just got them in for the winter. Normally I just get a pumpkin one. A mint hot chocolate sounds really good too,” you replied as the cold wind from the opening front door sent a chill throughout your body and goosebumps down your arms. You also felt awkward by going from such a deep conversation to simple small talk.

“So you’re a regular here, then?”

“I come here everyday. Today, I’m waiting for a couple friends to come by,” you said, hoping he would get the hint and get lost. Even though you weren’t that excited about Emily’s schedule, she was trying to give you a fun day and you should appreciate her attempt at getting you out of the house. At the same time though, a small part of you kind of enjoyed the man’s strange company.

“Did they ditch you?” He scoffed, his confidence had clearly returned. You rolled your eyes yet again and decided to ignore him. 

You both reached the counter and Lara immediately walked over upon seeing you. She was getting up in the years, but her voice and smile were genuine and sweet.

“Good morning, y/n and …”

Exhaustion was clear in the older woman’s voice as she waited for the man to introduce himself. Her confused expression must have been from surprise to see you with another person for once.

“Hello, my name is Namjoon. May I order two apple muffins, one grande americano and a mint hot chocolate?” You turned to him with wide eyes, but snapped back to Lara as she addressed you.

“And for you, y/n?”

The man, now you discover to be named Namjoon, placed a hand on your back and spoke for you. Your body tensed at his touch.

“It’s my turn to pay for us today, right y/n?” Hearing him say your name with that self righteous attitude angered you in a way you couldn’t articulate, but you reluctantly smiled to not embarrass yourself any further.

“That’s right, thank you Lara.”

“You shouldn’t be thanking me, y/n. The new muffins are pretty expensive.” The older woman was enjoying this as her eyes shifted from you to Namjoon, waiting for you to address him. You rigidly shifted your body to look at him, realizing he was liking this as well.

“Right. Thanks, Joonie,” you replied while hoping the cheesy nickname would throw him off. It only managed his smirk to deepen. How had he been able to get under your skin so easily within just a few minutes? 

He put an arm around you and flashed a bright grin at Lara. His action made you freeze, making you unable to talk. You couldn’t tell if it was out of shock or anger. Regardless, you let him keep control of this stupid little role play. Meanwhile, in your mind, you were planning on when to knock this guy out for making you feel like such an incompetent child.

“Your total comes to $22.57″

Namjoon leaned onto the counter, and looked Lara in the eyes with a cockiness that made you bite your tongue so hard, you swear you could taste blood. He slid his card through the reader and when it asked for the amount he wanted to pay, you watched him type in $222.57.

“I can see how hard you work in this little place, so please keep the change for yourself,” Namjoon smoothly says while you and Lara stood there, dumbfounded. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t accept this!” Lara wasn’t wealthy by any means and you couldn’t remember the last time she took a day off.

“Yes you can. Go to the ski lodge with your husband, or that new spa hotel that opened up downtown, whatever will make you happy. Everyone needs to have a little adventure sometimes.”

Now he was mocking what you said earlier. Normally you wouldn’t have cared if your opinions differed from someone else’s, but you poured your damn heart out back there and this guy was being a total ass about it.

“You’re right, thank you sir!” Lara stutters out while stumbling down the counter to get the muffins. You turned to look at him in complete shock and he just shrugged. A moment of silence ensued while you were trying to process what just happened in the past couple minutes. That was, until he came up with another jab at you.

“So these muffins were like six bucks a piece, you didn’t tell me they’d be that much!” He crossed his arms and turned away, pretending to be annoyed. 

Was he fucking kidding? If your eyes were wide before, now they were saucers. He just gave Lara a $200 tip, if that can even be called a tip. You didn’t ask him to buy you anything, so why was this your fault? And why was he still even here!? Your mouth was agape, but of course, none of these thoughts came out.

“Wow, selfish and can’t even come up with a witty comeback? You’re not as smart as I thought.”

You were beginning to see red. You wanted to scream out and punch him straight in the face, but what the hell was holding you back? This guy needed to be put in his place.

This familiar feeling reminded you of your ex-boyfriend. Being the manipulative jerk he was, he knew how to play you and your emotions. He was able to make you feel guilty for things that weren’t your fault, forgive him for the shitty way he’d treat you, and still somehow convince you to love him. He was one of the main causes for the severity of your depression. It was only when you finally caught him cheating that you were you barely strong enough to leave. So there was no way in hell a man was going to make you feel insignificant and stupid again.

“You know what, Namj-” you tried to begin your rant, but Lara’s voice cut you off.

“Here you go, kids. One grande americano, a mint hot chocolate and two apple muffins. I made sure to put extra glaze on them,” Lara said as she came back with the tray.

“Thank you and have a lovely day, Ma'am. Let’s go, y/n,” Namjoon said as he turned to walk back towards the table. 

Today was supposed to be special and here you are feeling played by this random guy. You could’ve walked right out that door, leaving Namjoon in his tracks. Emily would understand. You could start the day over, forget all about this and try to enjoy yourself. However, you somehow ended up going back to your chair. Before you started to walk away, Lara reached across the counter and placed a hand on your shoulder.

”Don’t let that one go, y/n. It’s hard to find real gentlemen these days, much less cute ones.”

Now your face was burning for an entirely different reason. All you could do was nod slightly before side stepping away from her and making your way towards the table.

Sitting back down, you grabbed your drink from the tray and took a large gulp. From many mornings of hot drinks, you became used to the scorching liquid. Namjoon looked oddly at you, but then turned down to open the bag. You chuckled at his perfectly groomed nails and pretty hands. Your ex was a rugged and dirty guy with a film of dirt always under his nails. Namjoon didn’t seem to notice as he took out the muffins and placed both in front of him. In response to your confused look, he spoke up in that arrogant voice again.

“Who said either of these were for you?” His tone and smirk made your skin crawl. This time you were determined to not give him the satisfaction of seeing you upset. 

“I assumed they were both for you. You do look like you need the extra carbs.”

“You’re calling me fat?”

“No, the opposite actually. You do look kind of scrawny,” Sarcasm practically dripping from your words.

You could see his tongue press against the inside of his cheek as he tried to keep calm. A smile spread across your face as this game was finally beginning to turn in your favor. Waiting for an opportunity, you watched his hands move away from the muffins. You then shot your hand forward and grabbed hold of the bigger one. However, he was faster than you thought because before even realizing it, his hand clasped tightly onto your wrist.

Masterlist 

[hello-cultreasure-blog]

Japan

During my two week stay in Japan in July of 2017, I stayed in Tokyo and Kyoto and was fortunate enough to travel all around the two cities, experiencing the architecture, food and overall ambiance of the two contrasting cities.

On my first day in Tokyo, I had my first experience with Asian street food, and let me tell you...it was delicious. From experiencing the meaty flavors of grilled crab, hotdogs and mushrooms in Asakusa to enjoying a vanilla ice cream near the Shinobazuno-Ike Pond, my nose and tongue were telling me that I was going to enjoy my time here. And boy, was I right.

The next day we decided to travel from Asakusa to Tsukiji. Tsukiji is known for having the biggest fish market in the world and is situated between the Sumida River and Ginza, an upmarket shopping district. We took this beautiful stroll down the market as the perfect opportunity to enjoy some sashimi and to observe the dish's preparation in its natural habitat.

Although I had absolutely no idea what I was eating, I knew it was delicious. The freshness could be smelled a mile away, the taste, oh the sweet, sweet taste, of the fish. Every bite was something new as if Poseidon had kissed the sea creature before it cascaded onto my taste buds. My mouth is watering simply thinking about it.

Oh, but don't think only the fish would be able to calm the summer heat, baking me like Biscotti. No, no, no, that is where you are wrong, dear reader, for the heat could only be suppressed by one thing: アイスクリーム.  And as the basic American that I am, I chose the most ph14 flavor of them all: Vanilla. I regret such a decision, as I should've taken the opportunity to eat black sesame seed ice cream when I had the chance. Now, my black sesame seed ice cream dreams have melted away, just like my vanilla ice cream that fell on the ground as soon as the nice lady handed it to me. I should've seen it as a sign.

Luckily, I got a second scoop.

On my third day, I decided to venture into the major shopping district and nightlife scene of Shibuya. Now, if there's anything I can say about Shibuya are these two things. One, it's filled with people, especially at night. Two, it's loud. Especially in the women's department mall, Shibuya-109. The fascinating thing about the two malls I went into were divided by gender, and went up, instead of out. The architecture of the place was pretty astounding. The stores were centered around the escalators, with about five stores on each floor and maybe 6 or 7 floors or so, but that's a very rough estimation. Walking around, all I heard was women shouting at me, and as the non-Japanese understanding foreigner I was, I could only assume that they were beckoning me to come buy products at their selective stores.

But, it didn't work, at least not for me. Their vocal talent, though, would've won American Idol any day.

Oh, but where's the food, you may or may not have asked. Well, here comes a refreshment that you can only get at one place and one place only.

Starbucks. Japan.

However, not just any regular old cup of Coffee with a double shot of espresso and two squirts of Caramel, that is where you are wrong once again, dear reader. This was the Chocolate Brownie Green Tea Frappuccino! Oh me, oh my, was I fond of the creativity in this concoction? The flavors of the green tea and vanilla swirled perfectly, with the chocolatey-ness of the brownie crumbs giving the drink an unmatchable texture. What a drink, what a drink. I personally feel that a petition should be started to bring this drink to the US. Afterward, we went to a restaurant, where I decided to order some delicious banana pancakes, of which I was able to take many pictures and videos that pleased my visual palette, leaving my gustatory palette to wait its turn.

Now, we are in Kyoto, a beautiful city filled with temples, shrines, cocooned in a valley of green mountains. The scenery of the city is an escape from Tokyo's busy atmosphere but takes one's breath away in the same way. The villa we were staying in was parallel to a river and path so my cousins and I would ride our rented bikes down there, inhaling the airs of summer and the relaxing breeze.

After exploring the Old Town and all there was in the mountains of Kyoto, we stumbled upon a large shopping complex, located to the immediate North of the Kyoto Tower: Kyoto Yodobashi. In it, we found the restaurant 日本橋からり or Ni-hon Bashi Karari, known for its delicious tempura.

But, did I order the tempura? No, no, no, that would be something that an informed tourist would do, but unfortunately, that wasn't me. I ordered a beef bowl, while my counterparts ordered chicken. Smart.

Nevertheless, the meal was spectacular, with the meat seasoned and grilled to perfection, the sweet undertones battling the savoriness. The complimentary rice let there be peace between the two nations, while the miso soup swept away the aftermath of the battle, once again satisfying my tastebuds in a way that only authentic Japanese cuisine could.

My first trip to Japan was one of the greatest trips of my 2017 and I will definitely never forget it. My mouth still waters just thinking of all of the great food I ate and I am especially thankful that I was able to have such an experience. And even if you can't travel all the way to Japan to have your taste buds experience such deliciousness, simply take the time to enjoy your meals. One of the things I learned in Japan is that it's considered rude to eat or drink while walking. You'd think the opposite considering the concentration of vending machines, but people tend to stand and finish their drink or snack and continue on their way. So try to enjoy your food, and really experience the flavors. Your experiences when eating will be 1000 times better.

[ravishankarsivasubramaniam]

Can We Ever Make It Suntory Time Again?

Aaron Gilbreath | Longreads | October 2019 | 23 minutes (5,939 words)

Bic Camera looked like many of the other loud, brightly colored electronics stores I’d seen in Japan, just bigger. Mostly, it was a respite from the cold. The appliances and electronics that jammed its interior gave no indication of its dizzyingly good liquor selection, nor did the many inexpensive aged Japanese whiskies hint that affordable bottles were about to become a thing of the past, or that I’d nurture a profound remorse once they did. When I found Bic Camera’s wholly unexpected liquor department, I lifted two bottles of high-end Japanese whisky from the shelf, wandered the aisles studying the labels, had a baffling interaction with a clerk, and put the bottles back on the shelf. All I had to do was pay for them. I didn’t.

Commercial Japanese whisky has been around since at least 1929, so during my first trip to Japan (and at home in the U.S.), there was no reason to think that all the aged Japanese whiskies that were readily available in the early 2000s would soon achieve holy grail status. In 2007, there were $100 bottles of Yamazaki 18-year sitting forlornly on a shelf at my local BevMo. One bottle now sells for more than $400 at online auctions; some online stores sell them for $700.

Yoichi 10, Yoichi 12, Hibiki 17 and 21, Taketsuru 12 and 17 — in 2014, rare and discontinued bottles lined store shelves, reasonably priced compared to their current $300 to $600 price tags. Those were great years. I call them BTB — before the boom. Before the boom, a bottle of Yamazaki 12 cost $60. After the boom, a Seattle liquor store priced their last bottle of Yamazaki 12 at $225. Before the boom, Taketsuru 12 cost $20 in Japan and $70 in the States. After the boom, online auctions sell bottles for more than $220.

Before the boom, Karuizawa casks sat, dusty and abandoned, in shuttered distilleries. After the boom, a bottle of Karuizawa 1964 sold for $118,420, the most expensive Japanese whisky ever sold at auction, until a Yamazaki 50 sold for $129,186 the following year, then another went for $343,000 15 months later.

Before the boom, whisky tasted of rich red fruits and cereal grains. After the boom, it tasted of regret.

I’ve spent the past five years wishing I could do things over. I remember my trips to Japan fondly — the new friends, the food and record stores, the Kyoto temples and solitary hikes — except for the whisky, whose absence coats my mouth with the proverbial bitter taste. I replay the time I walked into a grocery store in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro neighborhood and found a shelf lined with Taketsuru 12, four bottles wide and four deep, at $20 apiece; it starts at $170 now. I look at the photos I took of Hibiki 12 for $34, Yoichi 12 for $69, Taketsuru 21 for $89. I tell friends how I’d visited the Isetan Department Store’s liquor department in Shinjuku, where they had a 12-year-old sherried Karuizawa bottled exclusively for Isetan for barely more than $100, alongside a blend of Hanyu and Kawaski grain whisky that famed distiller Ichiro Akuto did exclusively for the store. Staff wouldn’t let me photograph or touch anything, but I could have afforded both bottles. They now sell for $1,140 and $1,290, respectively. I torture myself by revisiting my unfortunate logic, how I squandered my limited funds: buying inexpensive bottles to drink during the trip, instead of a few big-ticket purchases to take home.

Aaron, I’ve thought more times that I could count, you are such a fucking idiot.

To time travel, I look at photos of old Japanese whisky bottles in Facebook groups, like they are some sort of beverage porn, and wonder: Who am I? What have I become? There’s enough incredible scotch available here at home. Why do I — and the others whose interest spiked prices and made the bottles we loved inaccessible — care so much about Japanese whisky?

* * *

After the notorious Commodore Perry landed on Japanese shores in 1853 to open the closed country to trade, he gifted the emperor a barrel and 70 gallons of American whiskey, a spirit not well-known in Japan. As whiskey tends to do, it softened the nations’ encounter; one tipsy samurai felt so good he even hugged Perry. At the time, domestic spirit production was limited to shōchū and an Okinawan drink called awamori, made from sweet potatoes and rice respectively. Japanese companies tried to recreate the brown spirits that American and European companies had started importing, but without a recipe, the imitations were rough. The earliest Japanese attempts were either cheaply made locally or imported from Europe and labeled Japanese. When two boatloads of American soldiers stopped in the port of Hakodate in 1918, en route to fight Bolsheviks in Siberia, they found bars filled with knock-off scotch, including one called Queen George. As Major Samuel L. Johnson wrote in a letter, “If you come across any, don’t touch it. … It must be 86 percent corrosive sublimate proof, because 3,500 enlisted men were stinko fifteen minutes after they got ashore.”

It was in this miasma of bad imitations that Suntory’s founder Shinjiro Torii recognized an opportunity. Winemaker Torii had been importing whiskies and bottling them as early as 1911. He called his brand Torys. As whisky found a toehold in Japan, he realized that slinging rotgut like the other frontier opportunists wasn’t the way to create a market; he needed to learn to distill an authentic, higher-quality whisky. The way Suntory’s marketing materials later presented it, Torii wanted to create a refined whisky that also reflected Japanese natural resources and Japanese tastes, which he perceived as more attuned to delicacy and nuance than the Scottish palate and that paired with Japanese cuisine rather than overpowering it — anything that tasted of corrosive sublimate would overwhelm your food. In 1923, he used his wine profits to build a distillery near Kyoto.

Elsewhere, in Osaka, Masataka Taketsuru, the son of a sake-maker, had been working for shōchū-maker Settsu Shuzo. The company, like Torii, wanted to make whisky, so in 1918 its president sent Taketsuru to study whisky-making in Scotland. Taketsuru was a 24-year-old chemist and took detailed notes when the Scottish distillers finally showed him their facilities and techniques. After two years learning the art of cask maturation, pot stills, and peat-smoking, Taketsuru returned to Japan to find that his employer’s enthusiasm for making real whisky had waned. So Taketsuru took his Scottish knowledge and enthusiasm to Torii, and the two men pooled their skills to build what became the Yamazaki Distillery, the country’s first commercial whisky producer. Sticking with Scottish tradition, they spelled it without the ‘e.’

It must be 86 percent corrosive sublimate proof, because 3,500 enlisted men were stinko fifteen minutes after they got ashore.

Suntory gets all the credit for distilling Japan’s first Scottish-style whisky, but Eigashima Shuzō, the company that now runs the White Oak Distillery, actually got the first license to produce whisky in Japan in 1919, five years before Yamazaki. Founder Kiichiro Iwai, who later founded the Mars Shinshu distillery and designed its equipment, had been Taketsuru’s mentor at Shuzo and is often called “the silent pioneer of Japanese whisky.” But Yamazaki started producing whisky sooner, so the rest, as they say, is history.

Suntory’s Yamazaki distillery launched Japan’s first true commercial whisky in 1929. Ninety years later, around a dozen companies distill whisky in Japan, depending on how you count them: Suntory and Nikka. Chichibu in Saitama Prefecture, White Oak in coastal Akashi. Kirin at the base of Mt. Fuji, Mars Shinshū in the village of Miyada in the Japanese Alps. Upstarts like Akkeshi in Hokkaido and the Shizuoka Distillery near Shizuoka. All produce stellar whisky.

Whisky experienced a huge boom in postwar Japan, coming to represent success, the West, masculinity, worldliness, and Japan’s increasing importance on the world stage. “If you were to choose a drink to symbolize the rapid economic growth in the four decades after the war,” Chris Bunting writes in Drinking Japan, “it would have to be whisky.” In journalist Lawrence Osborne’s words, whisky was “the salaryman’s drink, a symbol of Westernized manliness and sophistication.” Initially, distillers flooded the domestic marketplace with mediocre blended drams and single malts that appealed to hard-working businessmen. Then Suntory relaunched Torys to reach the working-class masses; the stuff was cheap and tasted it, with a cartoon businessman mascot that the target demographic could identify with. Nikka also began producing different lines to offer Japanese drinkers an affordable Western luxury product. During the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, there was Hi Nikka, Nikka Gold & Gold, Suntory Old Whisky, and Suntory Royal. Many of these these brands used the same affectations as Scottish and English products: crests, gold fonts, aged labels, faceted glass decanters with boldly shaped stoppers, the British spelling of flavour. The approach worked. Whisky went from a drink of the well-to-do businessman to a drink of the average citizen, and it became common for working-class Japanese men to keep bottles at home. Production boomed.

In the mid-1980s, consumer drinking habits shifted toward shōchū, whisky lost its allure, and some distillers from the postwar boom years closed. But Keizo Saji, the second son of Suntory founder Shinjiro Torii, saw an opportunity: premium whisky. In 1984, the year domestic whisky consumption dropped 15.6 percent, Saji launched Yamazaki 12, Japan’s first high-end mass-market single malt, transforming a downturn into a chance for the company to outdo itself with top-notch quaffs that would raise whisky’s domestic reputation and compete with scotches in the global marketplace. Nikka followed suit with their own single malt. Historians usually date the true start of Japanese whisky’s global ascendency to 2001, when 62 industry professionals did a blind taste test for British Whisky Magazine and named Nikka’s Yoichi 10 Single Cask the year’s best. “The whiskeys of Japan proved to be a real eye-opener for the majority of tasters,” the magazine wrote. As the Japan Times reported the following year, “Sales of Nikka’s award-winning 10-year-old single-cask whiskey, which has only been sold online at Nikka’s Web site, surged from about 20 bottles a month in 2000 to 1,200 in November after several Japanese newspapers carried an article about the taste-test events.”

For a long time, the majority of Japanese whisky was made following Scottish distilling methods: Japanese single malts were made from 100 percent malted barley (mostly imported from the U.K.) with local mountain and spring water, distilled in pot stills, and matured at least three years in oak. Japanese single malts moved to casks made from American or European oaks and that once held bourbon to age further and take on color and flavor, usually for 10 to 18 years. Like scotch, these single malts were rich, wooded, and highly aromatic. But Japanese innovation also created an astonishing diversity of flavors that tradition would never have allowed. Distillers age their whisky age in casks that once held sherry, bourbon, brandy, ume, and port, and, on a more limited basis, expensive casks made from Japan’s native mizunara oak. Every culture has masters and apprentices, but the Japanese have a particular respect for craftsmanship, and many people, from coffee roasters to cedarwood lunch box makers, dedicate their lives to a single specialty. Whisky writer Brian Ashcraft told Nippon that there’s a word for this: “In the Meiji period [1868–1912] there was a slogan, wakon-yōsai, or Japanese spirit and Western knowhow. So even if a product made in Japan is superficially the same as one made overseas, it’s going to be something Japanese because of differences in culture, language, food, climate. … This applies to anything from blue jeans to cameras, cars and trains. There are elements of the culture manifesting in the finished product.” Sakuma Tadashi, Nikka’s chief blender, told Ashcraft that by liberating themselves from tradition and embracing innovation and experimentation, the company can continue to improve its whisky. “At Nikka,” Tadashi said, “it’s ingrained into everyone that we need to make whisky that is better than scotch. That’s why if we change things, then we can make even more delicious whisky.”

* * *

Like whisky aging in barrels, Japanese whisky producers’ international reputation took years to develop, but gradually medals started weighing down their lapels. In 2001, the International Wine and Spirits Competition awarded Karuizawa Pure Malt 12 a gold medal. In 2003, the International Spirits Challenge gave Yamazaki 12 a gold award. Hibiki 30 won the International Spirits Challenge’s top prize in 2004, Yamazaki 18 won San Francisco World Spirits Competition’s Double Gold Medal in 2005, and Nikka’s Yoichi 20 was named World’s Best Single Malt Whisky in 2008. The World Whiskies Awards named Yamazaki 25 “World’s Best Single Malt” in 2012. Hibiki 21 was named the world’s best blended whisky in 2013. And on and on.

I’ve harbored an interest in Japanese culture and history since fifth grade. When I discovered the anime Robotech — one of the first Japanese animated shows adapted for mainstream American television — I sat for hours in my room, copying images of robots, missiles, and sparkly-eyed warrior women into my sketchbooks. As I moved away from anime and manga, I read more broadly about Japan and fell in love with Japanese literature, food, smart technology, and the Toyotas that never died, like the truck that took me from Arizona to British Columbia and back two times. Naturally, Bill Murray’s now-famous line in Lost in Translation “For relaxing times, make it Suntory time” made me want to taste what he was talking about. So I ordered a glass of 12-year Yamazaki at a bar.

Lively and bright with a medium body, the Yamazaki had layers of orange peel, honey, cinnamon, and brown sugar, along with a surprisingly earthy incense aroma, almost like cedar, which I later learned came from casks made from Japan’s mizunara oak — Mizunara imparts what distillers call “temple flavor.” I kept my nose in the glass, sniffing and smiling and sniffing, no matter what the other patrons thought of me. When Bill Murray raised his glass of Hibiki 17, Suntory’s Hibiki and Yamazaki lines were not widely distributed in the U.S. or Europe, and Western drinkers who knew them often considered them a novelty, or worse, a careful impersonation of the “real” Scottish malts. What I tasted could not be dismissed as a novelty. I knew that the people at Suntory who made this whisky had treated it as a work of art.

I loved it so much that I wondered what else was out there. There was little information in English: a single English-language book, Ulf Buxrud’s hard-to-find Japanese Whisky: Facts, Figures and Taste, which cost too much to order. Instead, I found a community of blogging gaijin who took Japanese spirits as seriously as the distillers did, sharing information, reviews, and whatever information they could find. Some of them lived in Japan. Others visited frequently and had Japanese connections who could translate details and source bottles. Clint A. of Whiskies R Us, Chris Bunting and Stefan Van Eycken at Nonjatta, Michio Hayashi at Japan Whisky Reviews. And Brian Love, aka Dramtastic, who ran the Japanese Whisky Review. They blogged about the domestic drams that you could only buy in Japan. They blogged about obscure drams from the decommissioned Kawasaki grain distillery; about something called owners casks and other limited bottlings made for Japanese department stores; and about what remained from the mothballed Karuizawa distillery, now one of the most fetishized whiskies in the world. They were my education.

At home, I searched for whiskies online and in bars and liquor stores and soon discovered my favorites: I preferred the smoky, rich coal-fired Yoichi to the woody, spicy Yamazaki. I liked the fruity depth of Hibiki a lot, but had an irrational prejudice against blended whisky, so I didn’t buy any bottles of Hibiki when they cost a mere $70. And I preferred the crisp, herbaceous forest flavors of 12-year-old Hakushu to them all; I still do. Even after I became moderately educated and increasingly opinionated, I kept buying $30 bottles of my beloved Elijah Craig 12-year instead of Yoichi or Hibiki. That’s the thing: The bloggers couldn’t teach me that the years when I discovered Japanese whisky turned out to be their best years, and that I needed to take advantage of my timing. They didn’t know. Nobody outside the whisky companies did, and nothing about their posts suggested that this world of abundant, affordable Japanese whiskies would come to an end around 2014.

The fan groups and bloggers praised Yamazaki and Karuizawa malts, driving worldwide interest and prices. By the time the influential Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible named the Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask “World Whisky of the Year” in 2015 and San Francisco World Spirits Competition named Yamazaki 18 their 2015 Best in Class under the category “Other Whiskey,” U.S. and U.K. stores couldn’t keep Japanese whisky in stock. The student had overtaken the master. The $100 bottles of Yamazaki 18 no longer appeared on suburban BevMo shelves, and Hibiki 12 no longer cost $70. Everyone was asking stores for sherry cask, sherry cask, do you have the sherry cask? No, they did not. If you wanted a taste of Miyagikyo 12 in America, it would run you $30 to $50 a glass. The year 2015 was the first time Jim Murray named a Japanese malt the world’s best and the first time in the Whisky Bible’s 12-year history that no Scottish malt made the top five. Every drinker and their grandpa knew Johnnie Walker and Cutty Sark. Now they knew Suntory, too.

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In Japan, television fanned the flames further; a 2014 TV drama called Massan, based on the life of Nikka founder Masataka Taketsuru and his industrious Scottish wife Rita Cowan, helped the Japanese take renewed notice of their own products. Simultaneously, Suntory ran an aggressive ad domestic campaign to encourage younger Japanese to drink cheap highballs — whisky mixed with soda — fueling sales and depleting stock even more.

The buzz caught Suntory and Nikka off guard. After decades of patiently turning out top-notch single malts for a relatively indifferent domestic market, Nikka announced that their aged stock had run low, not just at retailers but inside their facilities. Unable to meet worldwide demand, they did what drinkers found unthinkable: They overhauled their lineup in 2015, replacing beloved aged whiskies with less expensive bottles of “no age statement” or “NAS” whiskies that blended young and old stock. Instead of Miyagikyo aged in barrels for 12 years, Nikka gave us plain Miyagikyo. Instead of Yoichi 10, 12, 15, and 20, there was straight-up Yoichi. Suntory had already added NAS versions of its age-statement Hibiki and Hakushu to conserve shrinking old stock and then went even further, banning company executives from drinking the older single malts to save product for customers. Yamazaki 12 still landed on American shelves, but in smaller quantities that sold out quickly, and Japanese buyers saw them less frequently back home.

Longtime fans greeted Suntory’s answer to the masses, called Toki, with skepticism and hostility. (In the words of one non-word-mincing Reddit poster: “Toki sucks. It’s fucking terrible.”) Time in wood gives whisky complexity. That’s how whisky works, but distillers didn’t have enough old whisky anymore, and they seemed to be rationing what remained in order to blend their core lines while they continued aging what they hoped to bottle again. They were victims of their own success, and they needed time to catch up. Nikka’s official press release put it this way: “With the current depletion, Yoichi and Miyagikyo malt whiskies, which are the base of most of our products, will be exhausted in the future and we will be unable to continue the business.”

On the open market, the news created a frenzy that fueled the resale business. Japanese citizens who previously bought few Nikka malts scavenged whatever bottles they could. Chinese investors flew to Japan to gather stock to mark up. Stores in Tokyo inflated prices to gouge tourists, selling $873 bottles of Hakushu 18 that retailed for $300 in Oregon. Secondhand liquor stores collected and resold unopened bottles, many of which came from the elderly or deceased, who had received them as omiyage gifts but didn’t drink whisky. Auction sites flourished. “We call this the ‘terminal aunt’ syndrome,” Van Eycken wrote, “you know, the aunt you never visit until she’s terminally ill.”

The boom times were over.

After the boom, foreign whisky fans took to the web to post about Japan’s shifting stock. Obsessive types like me — what the Japanese call ‘otaku — shared updates about which bottles they found where and which stores were picked clean. “The Japanese whiskys here are in short supply still, short of the cheap stuff,” said one visitor in Fukuoka. Another foreigner proclaimed “the glory days of $100 ‘zawa’s and easy to find single cask Hanyu’s are over.” Gaijin enthusiasts would search cities in their free time while in Japan on business; others drove out into inaka, the sticks, systematically searching for rare or underpriced bottles at mom-and-pop shops. “On the bright side,” the same commenter reported in 2016, “I went into the boonies and found a small liquor distributor who had 2 Yoichi 10’s and a bunch of dusties (Nikka Super 15, Suntory Royal 15, The Blend of Nikka 17 Maltbase, Once Upon a Time) all pretty cheap, between $18-$35 each. I know some of those dusties are not much more than mixer material, but it’s nice to have a piece of history.” Others found these searches pointless. “Well as a point of fact there is no point for any foreigner to come to Japan in search of Japanese whisky,” Dramtastic wrote in 2015. “You will in many countries almost certainly find a better offering at home and if not, one of the online retailers.” He titled his post “Buying Japanese Whisky In Japan — Nothing But Scorched Earth!”

It was right before the earth got scorched that I obliviously arrived in Japan.

* * *

When I finally got the money to travel overseas, there was only one real choice: Japan. For three weeks, I roamed Tokyo and Kyoto alone, where I shopped for my beloved canned sanma fish and green tea soy milk in grocery stores. I bought jazz CDs and Murakami books in Japanese I couldn’t read. I wrote about capsule hotels and old jazz bars. I photographed my ramen and eel dinners, and I photographed bottles of whisky on store shelves.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want them. I wanted them all: Yoichi 15, Hibiki 21, Miyagikyo 12. But as a traveler, practical considerations prevailed. I didn’t have much money. My luggage already held too much stuff, and anyway, the products would be there next time. I bought a few bottles of common whisky to drink during my trip and went about my business.

I unwittingly found the largest selection of Japanese whisky on my final night in Japan.

I was staying near the busy Ikebukuro train station and went out seeking curry. I wandered around in the cold, shivering and sad about leaving. As I passed ramen shops and busy izakayas, I spotted a cluttered electronics store. Music blared. The interior had a cramped, carnival atmosphere. Blinding white light spilled out the front door. Red lettering on the building’s reflective side said Bic Camera.

I didn’t know it then, but the Bic Camera chain had nearly 40 stores nationwide. The stores often stand seven or eight stories in busy areas near train stations where pedestrians abound. In 2008, the company was valued at $940 million, and its founder, Ryuji Arai, was the 31st richest person in Japan. When Arai opened his original Tokyo camera store in 1978, he sold $3.50 worth of merchandise the first day. Today, Bic Camera is an all-purpose mega-store that sells seemingly everything but cars and fresh produce.

Before the boom, Bic sold highly limited editions of whisky made exclusively for Bic, including an Ichiro 22-year and a Suntory blend. The stock is designed to compete with liquor stores that carry similar selections, though many Japanese shoppers come for the imported scotch and American bourbon. That night I couldn’t tell any of that. I couldn’t even tell if this was an upscale department store or a Japanese version of Walmart. In America, hip stories follow the “less is more” principle, with sparse displays that suggest they’re also selling negative space and apathy. Bic crammed everything in.

I rode the escalator up for no other reason than to see what was there. Cell phones, cameras, TVs — the escalator provided a nice view of each floor. When I spotted booze on 4F, I jumped off. They had an entire corner devoted to liquor and a wall displaying Japanese whisky. They had all the good ones I’d read about online but hadn’t been able to find and others I didn’t know. My luggage already contained so many CDs, clothes, and souvenirs that I’d have to mail some things home, but I grabbed two bottles anyway, I no longer remember which kind. I only remember gripping their cold glass necks like they were the last bottles on earth, desperate to bring just a bit more home, and I held them tightly as I wandered the aisles, studying the unreadable labels of aged whiskies and marveling at the business strategy of this mysterious store as I preemptively mourned my return to the States.

A clerk in a black vest approached me and said something politely that I couldn’t understand. With a smile, the man said something else and bowed, sorry, very sorry. He pointed to his watch. The store was closing, maybe it already had. He stood and stared. I looked at him and nodded. He stood nodding back. In that overwhelming corner, with indecipherable announcements blaring overhead, I considered my options and returned the bottles to the shelf, offering my apologies. Then I rode back down to the frigid street. The dark night felt darker away from Bic’s fluorescence, as did the winter air.

The high-end whiskies in a locked case. Tokyo grocery store 2014. Photo by Aaron Gilbreath

Like a good tourist — and like a dumbass — I photographed everything on that first trip, from tiny cars to bowls of udon to Japanese whisky displays. When I look at the photos of those rare bottles now, I see the last Tasmanian tiger slipping into the woods. The next season, it went extinct, and all I’d done was raise my camera at it. I had unwittingly visited the world’s greatest Japanese whisky city and I had nothing to show for it.

* * *

The trip ended. The regret lived on.

Partly, it was fed by money, or my lack thereof: Because I like having a few different styles of whisky at home, I wanted a range of Japanese styles, but I couldn’t afford $100 bottles of anything, which meant I’d never get to taste many of these whiskies.

Part of it was nostalgia: I wanted to keep the memory of my time in Japan alive, to prolong the trip, by keeping its bottles on display at home.

Mostly, it’s driven by something much more ethereal. When people ask why I like whisky, I tell them it’s the taste and smell. Scotch strikes a chord in me in a way that wine, bourbon, and cocktails do not. I spare them the more confusing truth, which even I struggle to articulate. Part of scotch’s appeal comes from scarcity and craftsmanship. Its spare ingredients include only barley, spring water, wood, and the chemical reactions that occur between them. And time: Aged spirits are old. For half of my 20s and all of my 30s — the time I was busting my ass after college, trying to build a career and learn to write well enough to tell a story like this — 18-year old Yamazaki whisky lay inside a barrel in a warehouse outside Osaka. That liquid and I lived our lives in parallel, steadily maturing, accruing character, until our paths finally crossed at a bar in Oregon.

That liquid and I lived our lives in parallel, steadily maturing, accruing character, until our paths finally crossed at a bar in Oregon.

But it’s more than age. Something magical happens in those barrels, where liquid interacts with wood in the dark, damp warehouses where barrels rest for decades. Aged whisky is a rare example of celebrating life moving at a slow, geological pace that is no longer the norm in our instant world. You can’t speed up this process, and that makes the liquid precious. When you’ve waited 12 years for a whisky to come out the cask, or 20 years — through wars and presidencies, political upheavals and ecological crises — that’s longer than many people have been alive. And in a sense, the whisky itself is alive. That potent life force is preserved in that bottle. The drops are by nature limited, measured in ounces and milliliters, and that limitation puts another value on it. When the cap comes off your 750-milliliter bottle, you count: sip, sip, uh oh, 600 mils left, then 400, then a level low enough that you reserve the bottle for special occasions.

The limited availability of certain whiskies adds another layer of scarcity value; when distilleries close, their whisky becomes irreplaceable. No more of those Hanyus or Karuizawas will ever get made. No more versions of the early 1990s Hibiki, since Suntory changed the formula. For distilleries that still operate, their whisky is irreplaceable, too. The exact combination of wood, temperature, and age will never produce the same flavor twice. Even when made according to a formula, whisky is a distinct expression of time and place. The weather, the blender, the barley, the proximity to the sea, and of course, the barrels — sherry, port, or bourbon? — all impart a particular flavor along with the way blenders mix them. For Yamazaki 18, 80 percent of the liquid gets aged in sherry casks, the remaining 20 percent in American oak and mizunara. That deliberation and precision come from human expertise that takes a lifetime to acquire, and expertise, like the whisky it produces, is singular and therefore valuable.

When you sip whisky, you don’t have to think about of any of this to enjoy it. You don’t even have to name the flavors you taste. You can just silently appreciate it; it doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

For me, Japanese whisky became more complicated, because I also wanted it to give me something more than it could: a connection to a trip and a time that had passed.

In Japan, everything looked a certain way. The way stores displayed bottles. The way restaurants displayed food. The way businesses signs hung outside — Matsuya, Shinanoya, CoCo Curry House — and the way all of those images and colors and geometries combined in a raucous clutter of wires and Hiragana and Katakana to create urban Japan’s distinctive look. When I returned home, I kept picturing those streets. They appeared in dreams and projected themselves on shower curtain as I washed in the morning. To stave off my hunger, I frequently ate at local Japanese restaurants, but even the most exacting decorations or grilled yakitori skewers couldn’t fully give me what I wanted. So I fantasized about creating it myself, and then I did: my best replica of an underground Tokyo bar, in the corner of my basement, the bottles lined up just so.

When my wife, Rebekah, and I took our honeymoon to Japan in 2016, I hoped to make up for past errors. Instead, I found the scorched earth. Japanese liquor stores and grocers sold few of the rare bottles they did just two years earlier. The fancy department stores had no Karuizawa or Hanyu. And the aged whiskies I did find had price tags too big to afford. I bought none of them on that trip either. For the cost of a $130 Yoichi 12, I could buy three great bottles of regular hooch at home. After we returned, I kept scheming ways to return to Japan for just a few days. Since I couldn’t, I satisfied myself with my display of empty whisky, sake, and Japanese beer bottles, and I kept scheming ways to get more domestic booze. A friend brought me a bottle of Kakubin while visiting her family in Tokyo. I asked a few friends in Japan to mail me bottles, even though regulations prohibit Japanese citizens from doing that. (They said no.)

There was only one way to get more whisky, and I couldn’t afford the ticket.

Then in January an email about a discount flight to Tokyo landed in my inbox. Flights were crazy cheap. I had to go.

When I proposed this to Rebekah, she said, “Seriously?” She lay in bed, staring at me like I’d asked if she’d hop on a plane to Amsterdam in 10 minutes without packing. “Just hear me out,” I said, and outlined my impractical business plan for recouping expenses by throwing paid, tip-only whisky parties for booze no one could find anywhere else in Portland, where we live. “Think about it as a stock mission,” I said. “I’m buying inventory.” She stared at me unblinking. It’s Japan, I said. It’s right there, next to Oregon after all that water. We were basically neighbors! The quality of the whisky I’d buy would be lower than all the now-collectible bottles I passed up on my first trip, but at least I would do it right.

It’s Japan, I said. It’s right there, next to Oregon after all that water.

I pictured myself flying to Tokyo in spring. The train from Narita Airport to Bic Camera in Kashiwa would wobble along the tracks, its brakes squeaking as it stopped at countless suburban platforms, with their walls of apartments and scent of fried panko. A 6 o’clock, the setting sun would cast the sides of buildings the color of summer peaches, and what little I could see of the sky would glow a blinding radish yellow. My knees would hurt from sitting on that plane for 11 hours, so I’d stand by the train door to stretch them the way I had during my first Tokyo trip, watching the 7-Eleven signs and giant bike racks pass, and posing triumphantly over time and my own pigheadedness. I’d buy as many bottles of domestic Japanese whisky as my one piece of rolling luggage would hold without exceeding the airline’s 50-pound limit. In a life marked by stupid things, this would be one of the stupidest. I’d feel endlessly grateful. The bottles would keep me connected me to Japan, to that trip, date-stamped by its ephemerality, just like the numbers on the bottles of aged whisky: 10, 12, 15, 20 years.

I never bought the plane ticket. There was little there to buy anyway. In 2018, Suntory announced that it would severely limit the availability of Hibiki 17 and Hakushu 12 in most markets. Soon after, Kirin announced it would discontinue its beloved, inexpensive, domestic Fuki-Gotemba 50 blend. Stock had simply run out. I’d bought a few good bottles for low prices before the boom and they stood in our basement bar, where we drank them, not hoarded them for future resale. Drinking is what whisky is for. The bottles stood as reminders that I had done a few things right. And maybe we should think less about what we missed and more about what is yet to come. In 2013 and 2014, Suntory expanded its distilling operations to increase production. It, Nikka, Kirin, and many smaller companies have laid down a lot of whisky, and when all that whisky has sufficiently aged there will be a lot of 10-to-15-year-old whiskies on the market — maybe as early as 2020 or 2021. “I always tell people not to worry about not being able to drink certain older whiskies that are no longer available,” Osaka bar owner Teruhiko Yamamoto told writer Brian Ashcraft. “Scotch whisky has a long tradition, but right now it feels like Japanese whisky is entering a brand new chapter. We’re seeing whisky history right before our eyes.”

Still, sometimes I can’t help myself. I’ll wonder if any Suntory shipments arrived at local stores here in Portland. They rarely do. Suntory doled out their remaining aged whiskies very carefully to try to satisfy their international markets. But when I checked Oregon State’s liquor search website recently, I found that a few stores had bottles of the very rare Yamazaki 18 for $300 apiece. Compared to auction sites, that was a deal. I still couldn’t afford that, but I was curious how many other interested, obsessive types were scrambling to secure bottles. When I called one store, a man answered the phone with, “Troutdale Liquor. We’re all sold out of the Yamazaki.”

“Ha,” I said. “Okay, thanks. I hope the calls end soon.”

He said, “Me too!”

I hung up the phone and got back to work.

* * *

Aaron Gilbreath has written for Harper’s, Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Dublin Review and Brick. He’s the author of the books This Is: Essays on Jazz and Everything We Don’t Know: Essays. He’s working on books about California’s rural San Joaquin Valley and about Japan.

Editor: Michelle Weber Fact checker: Sam Schuyler Copy editor: Jacob Z. Gross

[biofunmy]

Brexit, Iran, the Space Race: Your Friday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning.

We’re covering a new hurdle for a no-deal Brexit, the downing of an Iranian drone by the U.S. military and France’s creation of a space command.

The move, which received stronger support than expected, set up a clash between Parliament and Boris Johnson, who is expected to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May next week. Mr. Johnson has entertained the idea of shutting down the legislature in the fall to ensure that, with or without a deal, Britain leaves the E.U. on Oct. 31.

What’s next: Results in the competition to lead Britain will be announced on Tuesday, days before Parliament goes into summer recess. Anti-Brexit lawmakers said the vote against suspending Parliament raised the chances of a second Brexit referendum.

U.S.-Iran tensions escalate

The American military shot down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, President Trump said. The drone is said to have come “within threatening range” of the Boxer, an American assault ship. It’s unclear if the drone was armed.

The news closely followed an announcement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran that it had detained a tanker, which it claimed had been smuggling fuel.

While the two episodes escalate the conflict that has pitted Iran against some of its neighbors and the U.S., Iran’s foreign minister moved in the opposite direction, proposing modest concessions and new talks.

Reminder: Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have risen in recent months after Washington imposed new sanctions.

Since then, there have been attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran has exceeded the amount and the purity of the uranium it is permitted under the 2015 nuclear agreement.

France nudges Europe into space race

President Emmanuel Macron of France announced the creation of a space command within his nation’s air force. Emphasizing that French and European independence was at stake, Mr. Macron said the command would “ensure our defense of space within space.”

The move was the latest sign that the era of fighting in space — disabling or even shooting down satellites on which warfare on Earth is increasingly dependent — was getting closer.

Big picture: Pooling resources has helped Europe keep its leadership in the civilian use of space, experts say. But when it comes to militarizing space, Europe remains divided, with France facing resistance from Germany and other nations.

Challenges: The lack of a unified vision could constrain France’s ambitions for its space command. Mr. Macron hinted as much in his announcement: While he spoke of reinforcing France’s “strategic autonomy,” he added that it must take place in a “European framework.”

Trump’s party frets over ‘send her back’ chant

Nervous Republicans urged President Trump to repudiate the “send her back” chant that was directed at a Somali-born congresswoman during a campaign rally on Wednesday. They feared that it could hurt their party in the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump responded by disavowing the behavior of his own supporters. He claimed he had tried to contain the chant, which was directed at Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a freshman Democrat who is Muslim.

Video of the event clearly contradicted that assertion.

The politics: The cleanup attempt reflected the misgivings of political allies, including House Republican leaders, who have warned Mr. Trump privately that he was playing with political fire.

If you have some time, this is worth it

One small step

Five decades ago tomorrow, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the powdery surface of the moon in humankind’s first ever journey from one world to another. Those bootprints “could outlast the race that made them,” our veteran space reporter Dennis Overbye writes.

To mark the anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, The Times has produced ample special coverage, including a look at what life on the lunar surface would be like, a poem about the landing and a feature on Michael Collins, the astronaut who remained in orbit while Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. We also combined transcripts and select images to recreate the entire journey from liftoff to splashdown.

Here’s what else is happening

Japan: In what is believed to be one of the deadliest attacks in the country in decades, a man ignited a flammable liquid at an animation studio in Kyoto on Thursday, killing 33 people and injuring dozens more, the police said.

Morocco: Three men accused of murdering two Scandinavian hikers in the Atlas Mountains last year have been sentenced to death in an antiterrorism court in Morocco.

‘Unruly passenger’: Jet2, a British budget airline, said it had fined an English passenger about $106,000 for “aggressive, abusive and dangerous behavior” on a flight bound for Turkey last month. Military jets escorted the plane back to Stansted Airport, north of London.

Snapshot: Above, a prisoner flipping a sign to signify prayer time in the Detention Center Zone for the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. A Times reporter and photographer went inside the secretive prison, with tight restrictions on what they could see and photograph.

KLM: The Dutch airline found itself at the center of a heated online debate after a passenger posted on social media that a flight attendant had told her to cover up as she was breastfeeding her child on a flight last month.

Tour de France: Our columnist explores the vagaries — “the unexpected roundabout, the too-merry man waving a wine glass midroad” — that make this 2,162-mile race “so maddening and dangerous and, yes, enjoyable.”

What we’re reading: This essay in Vox. Jenna Wortham, a writer for the The New York Times Magazine, says it’s “a beautiful and meditative piece on the economy of ‘living your best life’ on Instagram, as told through the destruction of an indigenous landmark.”

Now, a break from the news

Cook: This weekend, try a galette — an open-faced tart — with nectarines and blueberries.

Watch: In “The Lion King” remake, our critic found “a lot of professionalism but not much heart.”

Listen: The Israeli duo Lola Marsh makes sweeping, cinematic music dripping in retro charm and reverb. “Echoes” is a lush beach-blanket bop, wiggling with energy, our critic writes.

Read: “The Nickel Boys,” Colson Whitehead’s first novel since “The Underground Railroad,” was inspired by the real-life story of a reform school in Florida where more than 100 children died from 1913 to 1960. It’s one of 11 new books we recommend this week.

Smarter Living: Trees suck up carbon and, while planting one won’t solve climate change, every tree helps. To have a meaningful effect, a tree must live at least 10 to 20 years, according to one expert. The right type of tree for your area and proper placement are among the things you should consider.

And a growing number of theme parks, hotels and special attractions are introducing training and sensory guides to accommodate travelers with autism.

And now for the Back Story on …

‘Sir Ed’

Edmund Percival Hillary, a New Zealand beekeeper who with Tenzing Norgay of Nepal made the first summit of Mount Everest, was born 100 years ago tomorrow.

Events in New Zealand will honor him, including the premiere of an orchestral work and the release of a special Land Rover. Nepal celebrates Everest Day on the anniversary of the climb, May 29, 1953.

Hillary and Norgay were the sole climbers from a Royal Geographic Expedition to reach the top of the world’s tallest peak, succeeding where 30 years of attempts had failed. A report in The New York Times centered on the fact that Queen Elizabeth II heard the news on the eve of her coronation.

The feat made the two men global celebrities. In the 1960s, Hillary founded the Himalayan Trust, which continues to work with communities in Nepal.

Known back home as “Sir Ed,” Hillary became synonymous with qualities his countryfolk prized: humility and steely determination. In 2008, he received a rare state funeral, and in 1992, his face replaced Queen Elizabeth’s on the country’s five-dollar note.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— William

Thank you Alisha Haridasani Gupta helped compile today’s briefing. Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford wrote the break from the news. Charlotte Graham-McLay wrote today’s Back Story You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” busing as a tool of school desegregation in the U.S. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: subway map dot (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • The New York Times has dozens of free newsletters to bring our coverage to your inbox, including news, arts, music sports, opinion, arts and lifestyle.

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[legit-scam-review]

The Incomplete List of People Speculated to Be Satoshi Nakamoto

Ten years ago, on Jan. 3, 2009, the Bitcoin (BTC) network was created as Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block, also known as block number zero.

However, the identity behind the Bitcoin creator has remained one of the biggest mysteries in the crypto community since the original white paper was published by Satoshi in October 2008.

Various journalistic investigations have attempted to unveil the person or group of individuals responsible for creating the top digital currency, but Satoshi’s real identity remains unknown to date. On his P2P Foundation profile — which went inactive in late 2010 — Nakamoto identifies as a 43-year-old male who lives in Japan, but he almost never posted on the Bitcoin forum during local daytime. Other clues, like the British spelling of words like “colour” and “optimise,” suggest he was of Commonwealth origin.

So far, the media and community have come up with numerous results of who might be the real Satoshi, none of which have been confirmed. On June 14, 2018 the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said that it could “neither confirm nor deny the existence” of Nakamoto after a Motherboard journalist requested information on his identity through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Here’s the (incomplete) list of potential candidates.

Vili Lehdonvirta

Suspect credentials: a 38 year-old Finnish professor at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology

Source: Joshua Davis, The New Yorker

One of the first attempts to reveal Satoshi’s identity dates back to October 2011, when journalist Joshua Davis wrote a piece for the New Yorker. During his quest to identify the Bitcoin creator, Davis found Michael Clear, a young graduate student in cryptography at Trinity College in Dublin, who had worked at Allied Irish Banks to improve its currency-trading software and co-authored an academic paper on peer-to-peer technology. Clear denied he was Satoshi, but offered the journalist the name of “a solid fit for Nakamoto” — a thirty-one-year-old Finnish researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology named Vili Lehdonvirta, who used to be a video game programmer and studied virtual currencies.

However, after being contacted by Davis, Lehdonvirta also claimed he was not Satoshi. “You need to be a crypto expert to build something as sophisticated as bitcoin,” he said. “There aren’t many of those people, and I’m definitely not one of them.”

Shinichi Mochizuki

Suspect credentials: a 49 year-old Japanese mathematician at Kyoto University

Source: Ted Nelson

On May 17, 2013, American IT pioneer, sociologist and philosopher Ted Nelson suggested that Nakamoto could be Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, who worked mostly in number theory and geometry. Nelson’s evidence was largely circumstantial, however, as it mostly rested on how Mochizuki released his solution to the ABC Conjecture, one of the biggest unsolved problems in mathematics.

A few days later, Nelson told Quartz that he would donate to charity if Mochizuki denied being Satoshi Nakamoto:

“If that person denies being Satoshi, I will humbly give one bitcoin (at this instant worth about $123) to any charity he selects. If he is Satoshi and denies it, at least he will feel guilty. (One month time limit on denial– bitcoins are going UP.)”

In July 2013, The Age reported that Mochizuki denied Nelson’s claims, but did not specify the source.

Dorian Nakamoto

Suspect credentials: a 68-year-old Japanese American man who has done classified work for major corporations and the U.S. military

Source: Leah McGrath Goodman, Newsweek

On March 6, 2014, Newsweek published a lengthy article written by journalist Leah McGrath Goodman, who identified Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese American male living in California as the original Bitcoin creator.

Goodman learned that Nakamoto worked as a systems engineer on classified defense projects and computer engineer for technology and financial information services companies. Nakamoto reportedly turned libertarian after being laid off from his job twice in the early 1990s.

There were other clues besides his birth name. Goodman argues that Nakamoto confirmed his identity as the Bitcoin founder after she asked him about the cryptocurrency during a face-to-face interview. “I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it,” he allegedly replied. “It’s been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection.”

However, in a following full-length interview with The Associated Press, Dorian Nakamoto denied all connection to Bitcoin. He said that he had never heard of it before, and that he thought that Goodman was asking about his previous work for military contractors, which was largely classified. Interestingly, in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” interview, he stated he had misinterpreted Goodman’s question as being related to his work for Citibank. Later on the same day, the Nakamoto’s P2P Foundation account posted its first message in several years, stating: “I am not Dorian Nakamoto.”

Nick Szabo

Suspect credentials: (supposedly) a 55 year-old American man of Hungarian descent and creator of BitGold, a predecessor of Bitcoin

Sources: Skye Grey, researcher; Dominic Frisby, financial writer

In December 2013, researcher Skye Grey published results of his stylometric analysis, which indicated that the person behind Satoshi Nakamoto was a computer scientist and cryptographer named Nick Szabo.

Essentially, Grey searched for unusual turns of phrase and vocabulary patterns “in particular places which you would expect a cryptography researcher to contribute to,” and then “evaluated the fitness of each match found by running textual similarity metrics on several pages of their writing.”

Szabo is a decentralized currency enthusiast who developed the concept of “BitGold,” a pre-Bitcoin, privacy-focused digital currency, back in 1998. In his May 2011 article on Bitcoin, Szabo wrote:

“Myself, Wei Dai, and Hal Finney were the only people I know of who liked the idea (or in Dai’s case his related idea) enough to pursue it to any significant extent until Nakamoto (assuming Nakamoto is not really Finney or Dai).”

Additional research carried out by financial author Dominic Frisby, which he describes in his 2014 book titled “Bitcoin: The Future of Money?” also suggests that Nick Szabo is the real Satoshi. In an interview on Russia Today, Frisby said: “I’ve concluded there is only one person in the whole world that has the sheer breadth but also the specificity of knowledge and it is this chap [Nick Szabo].”

Nevertheless, Szabo has denied being Satoshi. In a July 2014 email to Frisby, he reportedly stated:

“Thanks for letting me know. I’m afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I’m used to it.”

Hal Finney

Suspect credentials: an American cryptographic pioneer who died in 2014 at the age of 58

Source: Andy Greenberg, Forbes (who eventually denied his own assumption)

On March 25, 2014, Forbes journalist Andy Greenberg published an article on Dorian Nakamoto’s alleged neighbor, a pre-Bitcoin cryptographic pioneer named Hal Finney, who received the very first BTC transaction from Nakamoto.

Interestingly, Greenberg reached out to the writing analysis consultancy Juola & Associates and asked them to compare a sample of Finney’s writing to that of Satoshi Nakamoto. Reportedly, they found that it was the closest resemblance they had yet come across — including the other candidates suggested by Newsweek, Fast Company and New Yorker journalists, along with Ted Nelson and Skye Grey. However, the company established that Nakamoto’s emails to Finney more closely resemble the style that the original white paper was written in when compared to Finney’s emails.

Greenberg suggested that Finney may have been a ghostwriter for Nakamoto, or that he used his neighbor Dorian’s identity as cover. Finney denied he was Satoshi. Greenberg, after meeting Finney in person, seeing the email exchanges between him and Nakamoto, and his Bitcoin wallet’s history, concluded that Finney was telling the truth.

On Aug. 28, 2014, Hal Finney died at his home in Phoenix at the age of 58 after five years of battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Craig Wright

Suspect credentials: a 48 year-old Australian computer scientist and businessman

Sources: Andy Greenberg, Gwern Branwen, Wired; Craig Wright (himself)

On Dec. 8, 2015, Wired published an article written by Andy Greenberg and Gwern Branwen that argued an Australian academic named Craig Steven Wright “either invented bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did.”

On the same day, Gizmodo ran a story that featured documents allegedly obtained by a hacker who broke into Wright’s email accounts, claiming that Satoshi Nakamoto was a joint pseudonym for Craig Steven Wright and his friend, computer forensics analyst and cyber-security expert David Kleiman, who died in 2013.

Wright promptly took down his online accounts and disappeared for several months until May 2, 2016, when he publicly declared that he is the creator of Bitcoin. Later on the same month, Wright published an apology along with a refusal to publish the proof of access to one of the earliest Bitcoin keys. Cointelegraph has published several articles on why Wright is most likely not Satoshi. Nevertheless, Wright continues to claim that he is Satoshi to this day.

In February 2018, the estate of Dave Kleiman filed a lawsuit against Wright over the rights to $5 billion worth of BTC, claiming that Wright defrauded Kleiman of virtual currency and intellectual property rights.

Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry

Suspects credentials: U.S. and German residents, occupancy and age unknown

Source: Adam Penenberg, Fast Company

In October 2013, journalist Adam Penenberg penned an article for Fast Company, where he cited circumstantial evidence suggesting that Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry could be Nakamoto. King and Bry reportedly live in Germany while Oksman was claimed to be based in the U.S.

Penenberg’s theory revolves around the claim that King, Oksman and Bry jointly filed a patent application that contained the phrase “computationally impractical to reverse” in August 2008, which was also used in the white paper published by Nakamoto in October that year. Moreover, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered three days after the patent was filed.

All three men denied being Nakamoto when contacted by Penenberg.

Elon Musk

Suspect credentials: a 47 year-old American technology entrepreneur

Source: Sahil Gupta, SpaceX intern

In what seems as one of the most absurd Nakamoto theories to date, Sahil Gupta, who claims to be a former intern at SpaceX, wrote a Hacker Noon post speculating that Elon Musk was probably Satoshi Nakamoto. Gupta emphasized Elon Musk’s background in economics, experience in production-level software and history of innovation to speculate that Musk could have invented Bitcoin.

The post was published in November 2017 and was soon disproved by Musk himself, who tweeted that Gupta’s suggestion “is not true.”

Government Agency

While there is no actual evidence that Nakamoto is a government agency, it makes for a great conspiracy theory that contains a vast amount of reasons as to why the U.S. (or any other state) would want to create Bitcoin. For instance, a 2013 Motherboard article theorized: “Bitcoin could be used as a weapon against the US dollar. It could be used to fund black ops.”

It then suggested a theory “that Bitcoin is actually an Orwellian vehicle that would allow governments to monitor all financial transactions.”

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[rollinbrigittenv8]

Tour Operator Context Nets $5 Million in Funding for Its Daunting Task of Scaling

The Sagrada Família. the emblematic Barcelona church of the late Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, is the kind of engineering and cultural work that Context Travel tries to unravel for its guests. Context Travel

Skift Take: Context is a scholarly tour business betting that digital marketing will let it replicate its model profitably worldwide. Other experiential tour businesses will watch with a skeptical -- but hopeful -- eye.

— Sean O'Neill

Lots of small travel companies get relatively small amounts of fundings. By that measure, news that Context Travel, a provider of walking tours and activities based in Philadelphia, took in a $5 million in investment from a private equity firm isn’t that remarkable.

But the deal becomes more notable when it is seen as being representative of something a bit larger: Many travel companies are wrestling with how to meet the demand for a curated selection of experience-heavy travel at scale.

It is easy for travel industry types to quote surveys suggesting that more people — especially luxury travelers and millennials — prefer experiential travel over checklist or package tourism. There’s a similarity to how to these middle- and upper-income people tend to prefer travelover buying physical goods.

It’s also easy to point to a growing demand for educational experiences, from the doubling of museums in the past couple of decades to the explosion of niche, skill-oriented workshops like cooking classes.

But it is harder for travel companies to figure out how to build a business addressing this perceived market with significant volumes.

Context Travel, which is a tour operator and not an aggregator, has faced a similar challenge of getting much bigger with its selective approach to tours, which emphasize very small groups “for the intellectually curious traveler.” It’s a problem that several of its tour operator rivals also face.

Context’s differentiation is in hiring scholars, professionals, journalists, chefs, and other specialist professionals to lead its tours, which are typically limited in size to no more than six people.

If you broaden the category from more than just afternoon walking tours to educationally themed package tours, this is a significant sector that includes names like Abercrombie & Kent, ACE Cultural Tours, Cazenove+Loyd and Martin Randall, National Geographic / Lindblad Expeditions, Remote Lands, and Smithsonian Journeys, among many others.

Founded in 2003, Context Travel only grossed about $8 million last year, an amount the company will need to ramp up for Active Partners, a London-based firm, to earn a multiple on its investment one day.

Just Add Cash?

Active Partners has experience in finding so-called product-market fits for consumer brands, and then adding the jet fuel in equity to help replicate the model in a broader market quickly.

Over a decade, Active Partners helped the clothing maker Rapha become a market leader for high-end bicycling gear via direct-to-consumer sales, and Evans cycles to become a popular brand among cycling enthusiasts. In the past few years, the firm has similarly helped rapidly spread the opening of Leon and Honest Burger franchises in London.

But can travel follow the same model? Nick Evans and Alex Gilmore of Active Partners hope so. They will join Context co-founder Paul Bennett on the company’s board.

Active Partners said that its thesis is that “Context has primarily drawn customers from the U.S. traveling to Europe, but we are building a team that can rapidly scale the number of cities in which Context operates and attract new customers from around the world.”

How viable is the strategy? Airbnb, for one, is investing large amounts of money in its Trips product,  which was launched late last year,  and aims to cash in on a growing interest in “authentic” tours and activities.

Airbnb’s gains appear to be meager, to date. Skift looked in depth at Airbnb’s experiences product, talking to operators/hosts who participate in Trips.

One issue: Airbnb has had to be high-touch in its involvement, and it has probably not been making a profit. — One expert estimated at the time that Airbnb only made about $10,000 in the Bay Area since launching Trips in November 2016.

Bennett, who cofounded Context Travel with his wife Lani Bevacqua, said that the competitive set broadly breaks down into two groups.

“We have local tour suppliers in each market who are competitors,” said Bennett. These include large companies like City Wonders as well as myriad small, mom and pop operators all over the world. This group is local or, at most, have five to six regional destinations.”

“The other group are global aggregators like Viator or franchises like Urban Adventures. These guys have large budgets and compete well on paid and organic search and digital marketing. They’re also global. While we have an advantage regarding quality control — we own the product — and differentiation, we still go head-to-head on customer acquisition.”

CEO IS MIA

At the beginning of the year, Context had 15 full-time staff. It added four people, including a sales director. With the funding, the plan is to add about 10 more positions in technology and marketing. The company has a presence in 42 destinations, up from 13 destinations in 2011. It has about 1,500 English-speaking tour guides who lead about 700 tours.

Context plans on hiring a new CEO based in Philadelphia or New York City to execute the business plan and help take the company to the next level, with the co-founders stepping into a more consultative role.

Scaling involves challenges on both the demand and supply sides of the equation.

On the demand side, the company will need to invest in digital marketing — an effort that it has largely avoided until this year.

It has work cut out for it. A year ago, on a trip to Rio de Janeiro during the Summer Olympics, this reporter took several Context tours with friends, and the tour guides said that there had been few customers coming in during the past year.

Most of its business appears to come in Italy and France, with travelers giving the company high satisfaction ratings but only associating it with that specific country as opposed to being a multi-destination brand.

Active Partners is betting that issues like that are a function of poor marketing and that shoppers are out there and can be reached cost-effectively. “This was the first year we ever paid for customer acquisition online and more sophisticated and automated email marketing, and we grew 50 percent in our sales,” said Bennett.

That suggests that, at least for a couple of years, the company has some “low-hanging fruit” that it could claim through applying best practices in marketing. Yet is there an upper limit to growth?

On the supply side, Context needs to produce tour guides, which it calls “docents,” that meet its quality standards. On a recent look of tour availability in Japan in November, there is a dovetailing in the availability of tours in places like Kyoto and Tokyo that have higher-than-usual numbers of English-speaking masters and Ph.D. students than elsewhere in Japan.

Bennett pushes back on the idea that there’s much of a supply problem. “No, we can’t mint Ph.D’s, per se, but the real problem is taking knowledgable specialists and turning them into people who can make points conversationally and vividly to people who are on vacation.”

[touristguidebuzz]

Tour Operator Context Nets $5 Million in Funding for Its Daunting Task of Scaling

The Sagrada Família. the emblematic Barcelona church of the late Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, is the kind of engineering and cultural work that Context Travel tries to unravel for its guests. Context Travel

Skift Take: Context is a scholarly tour business betting that digital marketing will let it replicate its model profitably worldwide. Other experiential tour businesses will watch with a skeptical -- but hopeful -- eye.

— Sean O'Neill

Lots of small travel companies get relatively small amounts of fundings. By that measure, news that Context Travel, a provider of walking tours and activities based in Philadelphia, took in a $5 million in investment from a private equity firm isn’t that remarkable.

But the deal becomes more notable when it is seen as being representative of something a bit larger: Many travel companies are wrestling with how to meet the demand for a curated selection of experience-heavy travel at scale.

It is easy for travel industry types to quote surveys suggesting that more people — especially luxury travelers and millennials — prefer experiential travel over checklist or package tourism. There’s a similarity to how to these middle- and upper-income people tend to prefer travelover buying physical goods.

It’s also easy to point to a growing demand for educational experiences, from the doubling of museums in the past couple of decades to the explosion of niche, skill-oriented workshops like cooking classes.

But it is harder for travel companies to figure out how to build a business addressing this perceived market with significant volumes.

Context Travel, which is a tour operator and not an aggregator, has faced a similar challenge of getting much bigger with its selective approach to tours, which emphasize very small groups “for the intellectually curious traveler.” It’s a problem that several of its tour operator rivals also face.

Context’s differentiation is in hiring scholars, professionals, journalists, chefs, and other specialist professionals to lead its tours, which are typically limited in size to no more than six people.

If you broaden the category from more than just afternoon walking tours to educationally themed package tours, this is a significant sector that includes names like Abercrombie & Kent, ACE Cultural Tours, Cazenove+Loyd and Martin Randall, National Geographic / Lindblad Expeditions, Remote Lands, and Smithsonian Journeys, among many others.

Founded in 2003, Context Travel only grossed about $8 million last year, an amount the company will need to ramp up for Active Partners, a London-based firm, to earn a multiple on its investment one day.

Just Add Cash?

Active Partners has experience in finding so-called product-market fits for consumer brands, and then adding the jet fuel in equity to help replicate the model in a broader market quickly.

Over a decade, Active Partners helped the clothing maker Rapha become a market leader for high-end bicycling gear via direct-to-consumer sales, and Evans cycles to become a popular brand among cycling enthusiasts. In the past few years, the firm has similarly helped rapidly spread the opening of Leon and Honest Burger franchises in London.

But can travel follow the same model? Nick Evans and Alex Gilmore of Active Partners hope so. They will join Context co-founder Paul Bennett on the company’s board.

Active Partners said that its thesis is that “Context has primarily drawn customers from the U.S. traveling to Europe, but we are building a team that can rapidly scale the number of cities in which Context operates and attract new customers from around the world.”

How viable is the strategy? Airbnb, for one, is investing large amounts of money in its Trips product,  which was launched late last year,  and aims to cash in on a growing interest in “authentic” tours and activities.

Airbnb’s gains appear to be meager, to date. Skift looked in depth at Airbnb’s experiences product, talking to operators/hosts who participate in Trips.

One issue: Airbnb has had to be high-touch in its involvement, and it has probably not been making a profit. — One expert estimated at the time that Airbnb only made about $10,000 in the Bay Area since launching Trips in November 2016.

Bennett, who cofounded Context Travel with his wife Lani Bevacqua, said that the competitive set broadly breaks down into two groups.

“We have local tour suppliers in each market who are competitors,” said Bennett. These include large companies like City Wonders as well as myriad small, mom and pop operators all over the world. This group is local or, at most, have five to six regional destinations.”

“The other group are global aggregators like Viator or franchises like Urban Adventures. These guys have large budgets and compete well on paid and organic search and digital marketing. They’re also global. While we have an advantage regarding quality control — we own the product — and differentiation, we still go head-to-head on customer acquisition.”

CEO IS MIA

At the beginning of the year, Context had 15 full-time staff. It added four people, including a sales director. With the funding, the plan is to add about 10 more positions in technology and marketing. The company has a presence in 42 destinations, up from 13 destinations in 2011. It has about 1,500 English-speaking tour guides who lead about 700 tours.

Context plans on hiring a new CEO based in Philadelphia or New York City to execute the business plan and help take the company to the next level, with the co-founders stepping into a more consultative role.

Scaling involves challenges on both the demand and supply sides of the equation.

On the demand side, the company will need to invest in digital marketing — an effort that it has largely avoided until this year.

It has work cut out for it. A year ago, on a trip to Rio de Janeiro during the Summer Olympics, this reporter took several Context tours with friends, and the tour guides said that there had been few customers coming in during the past year.

Most of its business appears to come in Italy and France, with travelers giving the company high satisfaction ratings but only associating it with that specific country as opposed to being a multi-destination brand.

Active Partners is betting that issues like that are a function of poor marketing and that shoppers are out there and can be reached cost-effectively. “This was the first year we ever paid for customer acquisition online and more sophisticated and automated email marketing, and we grew 50 percent in our sales,” said Bennett.

That suggests that, at least for a couple of years, the company has some “low-hanging fruit” that it could claim through applying best practices in marketing. Yet is there an upper limit to growth?

On the supply side, Context needs to produce tour guides, which it calls “docents,” that meet its quality standards. On a recent look of tour availability in Japan in November, there is a dovetailing in the availability of tours in places like Kyoto and Tokyo that have higher-than-usual numbers of English-speaking masters and Ph.D. students than elsewhere in Japan.

Bennett pushes back on the idea that there’s much of a supply problem. “No, we can’t mint Ph.D’s, per se, but the real problem is taking knowledgable specialists and turning them into people who can make points conversationally and vividly to people who are on vacation.”

[addcrazy-blog]

New Post has been published on Add Crazy

New Post has been published on https://addcrazy.com/waqf-the-next-first-class-thing-in-finance/

'Waqf' the next first-class thing in finance

Financial institution Indonesia (BI) announced lately its plan to trouble waqf (Islamic endowment) based totally bonds as a social welfare mechanism to aid struggling business property.

                                    First-class thing in finance

Very catalogue

The Indonesian Muslim Intellectual Association (ICMI) will even launch the first actual waqf challenge Financial institution this June. Can waqf become next satisfactory aspect in Islamic finance?

Islamic economics and finance projects initiated inside the early 20th century aimed for the “elimination of poverty and reduction of inequalities in the distribution of profits and wealth” (Siddiqi, 2006).

This mission became then actualized inside the form of Islamic banking and finance. Certainly, Islamic finance and banking have played a position in reaching the above vision of the founding fathers, being alternative establishments and devices selected by the previously untapped market.

Why must we count on waqf end up the new trend in Islamic banking?

The primary motive is the fact that within the records of Islam, waqf has performed a tremendous position in reaching welfare for the human beings. It’s far important, to the quantity that Hodgson ( 1974 ) postulated that the successes and the screw ups of the economic system within the Muslim international trusted the performance of waqf.

Waqf changed into the principle vehicle for financing each business and public ventures, a position that has been changed with the aid of banks and other monetary institutions (Hodgson, 1974; Kuran, 2001).

Secondly, waqf finances can be applied for fairness-primarily based financing, an economic structure considered perfect for Islamic values, however, undervalued in the present day Islamic banking and finance structure. A waqf Financial institution will permit us to actualize the “ideal” mode of financing, specifically maharajah and mus yarak ah.

Shinsuke Nagaoka of Kyoto University, Japan, as soon as attributed the early emergence of Islamic finance because of the “Murabahah syndrome” due to its dominant use inside the modern Islamic banking practices. This settlement is structured in a way wherein an Islamic Financial institution price range the borrower by using buying the capital items needed and promoting it at a marked-up fee.

Even though nevertheless categorized as new horizon 1.0 with the aid of the Japanese academic for Islamic Economics and finance actions, greater profound complaint changed into that many Islamic merchandises have been derived from conventional economic practices. They are “sharia-compliant” but fail to uphold Islamic values above the legalistic form.

To deal with this, Mehmed Asutay ( 2011 ) and Amartya Sen ( 1999 ) cautioned the “creation of ethical Islamic finance and investment institutions within the form of Islamic social banking as a part of civil society and the introduction of social banks be considered as the next level of monetary development”. For this reason, a waqf Bank ought to take this role because of the emergence of a brand new ethical Islamic finance and investment organization.

Thirdly, the character of long term waqf finances for funding will make a good source of funding for project capital and personal equity, a section of finance wherein Islamic finance has been little or no invested. task capital and private equity were broadly claimed because of the purpose for the terrific upsurge in monetary growth inside the evolved globally.

Jeng and Wells ( 2000 ) argue that project capital becomes crucial to creating dominant games in the excessive-tech industry, including Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Compaq and Solar Microsystems. We are able to agree “from Microsoft’s Home windows to FedEx’s in a single day delivery, technology evolved by VC-backed firms have changed the sector.” (Gornall and Strebulaev, 2015)

Newborn found in the stroller

A calculation of the impact of venture capital on America financial system determined that it had created 4 million jobs, almost fifty percent of the entire studies and development expenditure in US public corporations and round one-5th of total US market capitalization. In fact, three out of 5 of the largest marketplace capitalization companies inside the US have been funded with the aid of task capital of their early existence.

Therefore, if a waqf venture Financial institution initiated by means of ICMI can play the role of financing venture capital, a similar impact isn’t an excessive amount of to anticipate.

Fourthly, the amount of cash potentially generated under a waqf system is Indeed large. The fee of waqf land is anticipated to attain Rp 300 trillion or even higher for future series.

So as now not to come to be caught up in hysteria, we need to also notice some criticisms and guidelines on waqf. Timur Qur’an, as an instance, intensively explained the foundation, effect, and obstacles of the waqf device inside the provision of public goods. Historically, we have additionally discovered the destruction of the financial system because of wrong use of coins waqf after using Imam Zafar’s fatwa on waqf-based total loans, which create enormous riba-based transactions.

Generally, the waqf management of surviving waqf-institutions has been traditionally negative and far from using cutting-edge monetary instruments, no matter its giant ability. Indonesia, for an instance, has waqf land as a good deal as five times Singapore’s size, however, this is controlled absolutely as unproductive land.

In comparison, waqf control is the very identical Islamic legal organization that has contributed to the improvement of the charitably believe system within the western international (Gaudiosi, 1988).

Oxford and other English instructional establishments with college systems within the Uk, for instance; “in its early phases of development, Oxford may additionally have owed plenty to the Islamic criminal group of waqf charitable believe” (Gaudiosi, 1988, p.1231). This highlights the need for an expert and well-governed control to create a waqf Financial institution that capabilities properly and is effectively carried out.

The plan to undertake exact corporate governance ideas in Indonesia’s first waqf Financial institution, as mentioned by ICMI’s representative Yuslam Fauzi, Indeed might vicinity waqf as the next best component in Islamic Finance.

Locating the satisfactory funding Belongings Finance Charges

There are many matters to do not forget when making an investment in actual property. A pre-approval is always really helpful when bidding on homes. With many foreclosure offers, It is not possible to make a proposal without a assure of financing.

The first element I do whilst attempting to find the satisfactory investment Assets finance Quotes is to test my credit score rating. Then I get quotes from numerous extraordinary lenders. A touch greater time buying round can assist keep heaps of bucks. With splendid credit score and a large down charge, lenders will be much more likely to present the pleasant investment Belongings finance Rates.

creditors will want to peer solid proof that the down payment belongs to you. To show that it is not borrowed money, it’s going to want to be within the Financial institution for several months prior to making use of. Banks will need to see proof of your income from employment, in addition to how a whole lot the Belongings will growth your earnings. Rental residences with tenants already in the region are generally less complicated to secure loans on than vacant properties.

I’d now not want to see absolutely everyone stepping into trouble with the aid of shopping a funding Assets that they can not have the funds for to pay for on their own. Even if you expect to lease the Belongings out, there’s constantly a danger that you may come to be paying the loan out of your personal pocket. matters do now not constantly pass as deliberate. You need to by no means borrow more than 30% of your non-public profits, no matter how a whole lot you think the Belongings will growth your backside line.Since loan Quotes are at a historic low proper now, most long-term investors go together with fixed-charge mortgages.

in case you are making plans to buy a Belongings with the rationale to turn it speedy, you may consider an adjustable loan. Regularly the Charges are decrease than what you can secure with a hard and fast rate, but They’re a concern to change. With a balloon mortgage, the bills will be low, but you’ll have to pay off the mortgage in a shorter quantity of time. there is a higher threat with both balloon and adjustable mortgages.

The terms and situations of the mortgage, in addition to several other factors, will decide which mortgage is proper for you. You ought to think of all Bank rules and charges which include closing prices to figure out which plan is exceptional. I evaluate at least five extraordinary creditors when looking for the pleasant funding Assets finance Prices.

Thing charges Scam

I constantly study the first-class print before signing whatever. It may take longer to sign the contracts, (half of an afternoon give or take some hours) however I might have minimized my surprises at the stop of the day.

https://addcrazy.com/

[legit-scam-review]

The Incomplete List of People Speculated to Be Satoshi Nakamoto

Ten years ago, on Jan. 3, 2009, the Bitcoin (BTC) network was created as Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block, also known as block number zero.

However, the identity behind the Bitcoin creator has remained one of the biggest mysteries in the crypto community since the original white paper was published by Satoshi in October 2008.

Various journalistic investigations have attempted to unveil the person or group of individuals responsible for creating the top digital currency, but Satoshi’s real identity remains unknown to date. On his P2P Foundation profile — which went inactive in late 2010 — Nakamoto identifies as a 43-year-old male who lives in Japan, but he almost never posted on the Bitcoin forum during local daytime. Other clues, like the British spelling of words like “colour” and “optimise,” suggest he was of Commonwealth origin.

So far, the media and community have come up with numerous results of who might be the real Satoshi, none of which have been confirmed. On June 14, 2018 the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said that it could “neither confirm nor deny the existence” of Nakamoto after a Motherboard journalist requested information on his identity through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Here’s the (incomplete) list of potential candidates.

Vili Lehdonvirta

Suspect credentials: a 38 year-old Finnish professor at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology

Source: Joshua Davis, The New Yorker

One of the first attempts to reveal Satoshi’s identity dates back to October 2011, when journalist Joshua Davis wrote a piece for the New Yorker. During his quest to identify the Bitcoin creator, Davis found Michael Clear, a young graduate student in cryptography at Trinity College in Dublin, who had worked at Allied Irish Banks to improve its currency-trading software and co-authored an academic paper on peer-to-peer technology. Clear denied he was Satoshi, but offered the journalist the name of “a solid fit for Nakamoto” — a thirty-one-year-old Finnish researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology named Vili Lehdonvirta, who used to be a video game programmer and studied virtual currencies.

However, after being contacted by Davis, Lehdonvirta also claimed he was not Satoshi. “You need to be a crypto expert to build something as sophisticated as bitcoin,” he said. “There aren’t many of those people, and I’m definitely not one of them.”

Shinichi Mochizuki

Suspect credentials: a 49 year-old Japanese mathematician at Kyoto University

Source: Ted Nelson

On May 17, 2013, American IT pioneer, sociologist and philosopher Ted Nelson suggested that Nakamoto could be Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, who worked mostly in number theory and geometry. Nelson’s evidence was largely circumstantial, however, as it mostly rested on how Mochizuki released his solution to the ABC Conjecture, one of the biggest unsolved problems in mathematics.

A few days later, Nelson told Quartz that he would donate to charity if Mochizuki denied being Satoshi Nakamoto:

“If that person denies being Satoshi, I will humbly give one bitcoin (at this instant worth about $123) to any charity he selects. If he is Satoshi and denies it, at least he will feel guilty. (One month time limit on denial– bitcoins are going UP.)”

In July 2013, The Age reported that Mochizuki denied Nelson’s claims, but did not specify the source.

Dorian Nakamoto

Suspect credentials: a 68-year-old Japanese American man who has done classified work for major corporations and the U.S. military

Source: Leah McGrath Goodman, Newsweek

On March 6, 2014, Newsweek published a lengthy article written by journalist Leah McGrath Goodman, who identified Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese American male living in California as the original Bitcoin creator.

Goodman learned that Nakamoto worked as a systems engineer on classified defense projects and computer engineer for technology and financial information services companies. Nakamoto reportedly turned libertarian after being laid off from his job twice in the early 1990s.

There were other clues besides his birth name. Goodman argues that Nakamoto confirmed his identity as the Bitcoin founder after she asked him about the cryptocurrency during a face-to-face interview. “I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it,” he allegedly replied. “It’s been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection.”

However, in a following full-length interview with The Associated Press, Dorian Nakamoto denied all connection to Bitcoin. He said that he had never heard of it before, and that he thought that Goodman was asking about his previous work for military contractors, which was largely classified. Interestingly, in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” interview, he stated he had misinterpreted Goodman’s question as being related to his work for Citibank. Later on the same day, the Nakamoto’s P2P Foundation account posted its first message in several years, stating: “I am not Dorian Nakamoto.”

Nick Szabo

Suspect credentials: (supposedly) a 55 year-old American man of Hungarian descent and creator of BitGold, a predecessor of Bitcoin

Sources: Skye Grey, researcher; Dominic Frisby, financial writer

In December 2013, researcher Skye Grey published results of his stylometric analysis, which indicated that the person behind Satoshi Nakamoto was a computer scientist and cryptographer named Nick Szabo.

Essentially, Grey searched for unusual turns of phrase and vocabulary patterns “in particular places which you would expect a cryptography researcher to contribute to,” and then “evaluated the fitness of each match found by running textual similarity metrics on several pages of their writing.”

Szabo is a decentralized currency enthusiast who developed the concept of “BitGold,” a pre-Bitcoin, privacy-focused digital currency, back in 1998. In his May 2011 article on Bitcoin, Szabo wrote:

“Myself, Wei Dai, and Hal Finney were the only people I know of who liked the idea (or in Dai’s case his related idea) enough to pursue it to any significant extent until Nakamoto (assuming Nakamoto is not really Finney or Dai).”

Additional research carried out by financial author Dominic Frisby, which he describes in his 2014 book titled “Bitcoin: The Future of Money?” also suggests that Nick Szabo is the real Satoshi. In an interview on Russia Today, Frisby said: “I’ve concluded there is only one person in the whole world that has the sheer breadth but also the specificity of knowledge and it is this chap [Nick Szabo].”

Nevertheless, Szabo has denied being Satoshi. In a July 2014 email to Frisby, he reportedly stated:

“Thanks for letting me know. I’m afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but I’m used to it.”

Hal Finney

Suspect credentials: an American cryptographic pioneer who died in 2014 at the age of 58

Source: Andy Greenberg, Forbes (who eventually denied his own assumption)

On March 25, 2014, Forbes journalist Andy Greenberg published an article on Dorian Nakamoto’s alleged neighbor, a pre-Bitcoin cryptographic pioneer named Hal Finney, who received the very first BTC transaction from Nakamoto.

Interestingly, Greenberg reached out to the writing analysis consultancy Juola & Associates and asked them to compare a sample of Finney’s writing to that of Satoshi Nakamoto. Reportedly, they found that it was the closest resemblance they had yet come across — including the other candidates suggested by Newsweek, Fast Company and New Yorker journalists, along with Ted Nelson and Skye Grey. However, the company established that Nakamoto’s emails to Finney more closely resemble the style that the original white paper was written in when compared to Finney’s emails.

Greenberg suggested that Finney may have been a ghostwriter for Nakamoto, or that he used his neighbor Dorian’s identity as cover. Finney denied he was Satoshi. Greenberg, after meeting Finney in person, seeing the email exchanges between him and Nakamoto, and his Bitcoin wallet’s history, concluded that Finney was telling the truth.

On Aug. 28, 2014, Hal Finney died at his home in Phoenix at the age of 58 after five years of battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Craig Wright

Suspect credentials: a 48 year-old Australian computer scientist and businessman

Sources: Andy Greenberg, Gwern Branwen, Wired; Craig Wright (himself)

On Dec. 8, 2015, Wired published an article written by Andy Greenberg and Gwern Branwen that argued an Australian academic named Craig Steven Wright “either invented bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did.”

On the same day, Gizmodo ran a story that featured documents allegedly obtained by a hacker who broke into Wright’s email accounts, claiming that Satoshi Nakamoto was a joint pseudonym for Craig Steven Wright and his friend, computer forensics analyst and cyber-security expert David Kleiman, who died in 2013.

Wright promptly took down his online accounts and disappeared for several months until May 2, 2016, when he publicly declared that he is the creator of Bitcoin. Later on the same month, Wright published an apology along with a refusal to publish the proof of access to one of the earliest Bitcoin keys. Cointelegraph has published several articles on why Wright is most likely not Satoshi. Nevertheless, Wright continues to claim that he is Satoshi to this day.

In February 2018, the estate of Dave Kleiman filed a lawsuit against Wright over the rights to $5 billion worth of BTC, claiming that Wright defrauded Kleiman of virtual currency and intellectual property rights.

Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry

Suspects credentials: U.S. and German residents, occupancy and age unknown

Source: Adam Penenberg, Fast Company

In October 2013, journalist Adam Penenberg penned an article for Fast Company, where he cited circumstantial evidence suggesting that Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry could be Nakamoto. King and Bry reportedly live in Germany while Oksman was claimed to be based in the U.S.

Penenberg’s theory revolves around the claim that King, Oksman and Bry jointly filed a patent application that contained the phrase “computationally impractical to reverse” in August 2008, which was also used in the white paper published by Nakamoto in October that year. Moreover, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered three days after the patent was filed.

All three men denied being Nakamoto when contacted by Penenberg.

Elon Musk

Suspect credentials: a 47 year-old American technology entrepreneur

Source: Sahil Gupta, SpaceX intern

In what seems as one of the most absurd Nakamoto theories to date, Sahil Gupta, who claims to be a former intern at SpaceX, wrote a Hacker Noon post speculating that Elon Musk was probably Satoshi Nakamoto. Gupta emphasized Elon Musk’s background in economics, experience in production-level software and history of innovation to speculate that Musk could have invented Bitcoin.

The post was published in November 2017 and was soon disproved by Musk himself, who tweeted that Gupta’s suggestion “is not true.”

Government Agency

While there is no actual evidence that Nakamoto is a government agency, it makes for a great conspiracy theory that contains a vast amount of reasons as to why the U.S. (or any other state) would want to create Bitcoin. For instance, a 2013 Motherboard article theorized: “Bitcoin could be used as a weapon against the US dollar. It could be used to fund black ops.”

It then suggested a theory “that Bitcoin is actually an Orwellian vehicle that would allow governments to monitor all financial transactions.”

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