#a beautiful and large ham was found in Japan.

[wouteke]

x / x / x / x / x / x

[flyingkiki]

A Very Merry Christmas (4/4)

We're ending this little series with a steamy little Christmas celebration for our favorite little birbs. Thank you all for following this series. I had a lot of fun writing this story.

Chapter Three of A Very Merry Christmas is here.

I'll focus on a few other TimRae projects and finishing a few other stories. Would you be interested in an AU?

Here's a steamy Christmas celebration, my loves!

~~~

Christmas dinner was a sin, really. It was the most delicious meal Raven ever had in her lifetime – Alfred truly did wonders in the kitchen. She still silently marveled at the normalcy of the Wayne family celebrating Christmas with a Christmas ham, creamy mashed potatoes, and array of vegetable dishes and sides, and a delirious amount of desserts. It felt strange to watch Bruce Wayne carve into the ham and gingerly place a rather large slice of ham on an annoyed Jason’s plate. The emotions in the room were strange – hurt still bubbled low and raw underneath the surface, but there was a level of protectiveness, forgiveness and care she could feel all at once with the family.

While everyone was still full and dutifully placing dishes into the dishwasher (“Alfie should not wash dishes, you little shits,”), Raven, Cass and Alfred carefully portioned off leftovers into containers for everyone to take home tomorrow.

The house smelled like Christmas as Cass steered her back into the sitting room where the large Christmas tree was bright and warm. If she blinked, Raven thought she was in an old Christmas movie as she watched Dick and Bruce settle a few more gifts under the Christmas tree. Their movements ruffled a few sprigs of the tree and Raven could smell the fresh scent of pine.

“Presents time,” Cass whispered into her ear and pushed her into the plush rug next to Tim, who easily caught Raven by the elbow and helped her settle in next to him. Cass pushed a plate stacked high with desserts into Raven’s hands, “Eat,” before bounding up to the couch to settle next to Bruce.

Raven stared at the gingerbread men and colorful thumbprint cookies warily before shooting Tim wry smile. “This is so much food,” she whispered to him, while watching Tim chuckle and pluck a colorful peanut butter Christmas cookie, his favorite, off her plate. Alfred had taught her how to make them, which thankfully turned out passable by Alfred’s standards. Tim didn’t seem to mind the burnt edges.

“We’re growing superheroes, we need our calories,” Tim said teasingly before quickly devouring the cookie.

Raven leaned into Tim, pressing into his side as they settled comfortably against each other. Curling her legs under her and feeling just a tiny bit drowsy from all the food, she carefully balanced the plate on her lap. “I don’t think I’ll fit into my uniform after all of this,” Raven breathed in resignation and took a careful bite out of a gingerbread Batman.

Tim made a dismissive sound and grabbed another peanut butter cookie while the rest of the family was busy pouring themselves glasses of eggnog and hot cocoa. “I definitely do not mind you out of your uniform,” he whispered discretely into her ear, earning a blush and exasperated eyeroll from Raven.

“Shut up,” she shoved Tim lightly, and she smiled at his amused chuckle as he plucked another cookie from her plate and crawled towards the large coffee table to grab them some hot eggnog. He carefully crawled back to her, half a cookie in his mouth, balancing two glass mugs of eggnog in his hands. Raven accepted the small glass mug and took a careful sit and immediately felt the warm rush of alcohol and spicy, creamy sweetness coat her tongue. Delicious.

“Okay, presents!” Dick announced after Alfred finally joined the family, not after depositing a large Christmas log on the table much to everyone’s delight. Bruce dove right in and began handing out slices.

Raven settled back and watched in a mixture of fascination and amusement as everyone eagerly handed out gifts. Bruce received a Green Lantern shirt from Jason, much to his chagrin. Damian received a new easel stand from Bruce. Jason got a new holster with tech upgrades from Tim. New ballet shoes for Cass from Dick. Alfred received some incredibly fancy pair of gloves from Damian. Dick chuckled in amusement at the Hufflepuff scarf he received from Cass (Both Dick and Cass seemed to have taken quite a liking towards Harry Potter).

There were more gifts that were passed around and opened and Raven took great pleasure to take in the domesticity of the scene in front of her. She ignored how her stomach leaped and warmed at the occasional ‘Thank You’ and the hug she received from Cass for the ballet tickets (“We can go together!”). She still was not entirely used to having this kind of doting attention directed towards her. This year she and Tim signed the tags of all the gifts for the rest of the Wayne brood with their names together. It was a surreal act, a first in their relationship (since last year they just kept to themselves), making this feeling of inclusion into this little bubble very real. She watched as Damian carefully unwrapped the silvery wrapper of their gift for him, her gaze briefly catching sight of the familiar tag she and Tim meticulously cut out and signed. She felt her heart leap briefly and marveled how a simple strip of paper could affect her.

They gifted Damian with leatherbound sketchpad and graphite pencils which Tim had carefully picked out for the younger boy. She watched as the corners of Damian’s lips curled slightly into a smile as he lifted the large sketchpad and inspected the lettering of Damian Wayne carefully pressed into the leather. She knew that Tim and Damian were not always at best terms, but Tim still was very thoughtful of his younger brother’s interests.

“Thank you, Raven, son,” Bruce smiled kindly over at the couple, holding up a large leather satchel. Tim had mentioned that Bruce needed a new bag for work, so he and Raven tried to find one and worked on customizing it with a few more hidden panels and locks.

“Welcome, B,” Tim beamed and quickly went through the codes and panels with the older man.

Raven was busy making plans with Cass to catch a performance at the New York City Ballet Company for their Spring season with the promise to use a portal to pick the younger woman up in Gotham. Tim returned and sat down next to her and gently pressed a small present into her lap.

“Oh,” Raven looked at the small red package in surprise. She caught Tim’s bemused smile and playfully rolled her eyes. “Wait, let me get yours,” she said and hurried towards the tree and grabbed the medium-sized gift. “Here,” she offered him a stern look. “Don’t shake it,”

“What is it?”

Raven settled next to him and placed her own gift into her lap, curiosity piquing slightly at what could be in the box. “Just open it,” she nudged him gently while watching his fingers pull at the ribbon and meticulously unwrap the giftwrap.

“Oh,” Tim pulled out a Sigma camera lens from the box. He blinked and stared at the new model, surprised at the gift. They briefly talked about getting new lenses for his camera a few months back, Tim was touched that she even remembered that conversation. “This isn’t even out on the market yet,” Tim marveled.

Raven shrugged and smiled mischievously. “I have my ways,”

Tim carefully returned the lens into its box. Leaning in he pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. “Thanks, Rae,”

Raven hummed, a warm blush dusting her cheeks, and she ducked her head. Focusing on her gift, she unwrapped the gift carefully and stared curiously at the grey box. Carefully lifting the lid, a small smile spread across her lips as she stared at the little note she found on top of a pair of very fuzzy blue socks. ‘For your cold feet.’

She released a soft huff of laughter and pulled out the impossibly soft and fuzzy socks. She shot an amused look at Tim, who quickly returned hers with a familiar boyish grin of his own. Pushing aside the colorful box stuffing, she pulled out a portable mug heater and a beautiful kabuki mask from his last trip to Japan.

“Thanks, Tim,” she pressed a soft kiss onto his cheek.

“There’s one more,” Tim gentled nudged her shoulder, prompting her to look back into her gift box and rummage through colorful paper before fishing out a small velvet pouch. She cast Tim a curious glance, before turning back to the little pouch and carefully opening it. Turning it upside down, she knew it was jewelry when she felt the light weight of a chain slide down the pouch and drop into her hand. “Tim,” she breathed.

It was gold necklace with a little bird in flight pendant. The pendant looked delicate and finely made, Raven could see the details of feathers on the little bird’s outstretched wings. The little pendant slid down her palm as she shifted her hand in the warm light, the delicate weight of the necklace tickling her palm. She never really thought much of jewelry, but her heart warmed at the thoughtfulness of the gift.

“Do you like it?” Tim asked carefully, leaning into her space, and gaging her reaction. He knew that he shouldn’t be all too worried over her not liking the gift, he already knew that she appreciated small tokens and trinkets. Early on into the relationship Tim learned that Raven did not seem to care over expensive and lavish things, but she enjoyed simple treats and gifts from his business travels and missions. She did the same by bringing rocks or other strange trinkets from her off-earth missions. Yet the little golden necklace seemed to unwittingly rattle him just a little bit, he thought.

Raven smiled and nodded. “It’s pretty,” she mumbled, careful to keep the little conversation between them as the rest of the Bat family busied themselves with their own presents and conversations. Leaning into his space, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You shouldn’t have,”

“Well,” Tim chuckled and took the necklace out of her hand and gently pushed her shoulder to turn her around for him to put the necklace around her neck. “I would have wanted to get a bat pendant, but that would have been weird,”

Raven released a huff of laughter as she pushed her hair out of the way and allowed Tim to fasten the necklace around her neck. The little gold bird settled against her red reindeer sweater. Absently fingering the little pendant, before turning back to Tim to show him how it looked. She smiled as she watched him beam at her, blue eyes bright in mirth. He looked happy and content, bathed in the warm Christmas lights and wrapped up in his dorky Festivus Christmas sweater. Raven’s heart warmed at the sight, the Tim she met so many years ago was so different – much darker, and she enjoyed seeing this new light in him. Leaning in, she kissed Tim. “I love you, you dork,”

Tim hummed and offered a mumbled ‘I love you’ back before gathering her into his arms for a quick hug. Aware of others around them and the curious glances they shot their way, he released her and pressed a quick kiss to her temple before they settled next to each other. While Raven busied herself with Cass, Tim caught Bruce staring at them, his gaze warm and there was a small smile on the older man’s lips. Tim felt a little flustered at being watched but felt relieved to find himself in a better place with Bruce and the rest of the family. Offering the older man a small smile, Tim was glad that he and Raven decided to spend Christmas together with the family.

“We should take a family picture,” Dick announced, his Gryffindor scarf clashing terribly with his cat Christmas sweater. There was a loud cacophony of agreements and grumbles (“So many dramatics, dickface”) as Dick herded people to the small couch by the Christmas tree and had everyone settle around Bruce and Alfred.

Raven blinked, suddenly unsure where to place herself in the middle of people moving around the living room for the family picture. She awkwardly stood up and made a grab for Tim’s camera. “I’ll take the picture –”

“No!” Cass jumped to her knees and stopped Raven from picking up the camera from the table. “You sit with us,”

Raven felt heat rush to her cheeks at the invitation. “But I –”

“You’re one of us now,” Dick chirped from his perch on the couch’s armrest. His arm was slung over the back of the couch behind Alfred and he smiled warmly at Raven.

“Sit,” Tim mumbled warmly into her ear, gently pushing her lower back towards the couch. He easily caught on her sudden discomfort, catching the way her brows drew together in worry. Smiling gently, he gave her another gentle push before he took the camera and worked on setting up the tripod and timer.

“Come sit with us, Raven,” Bruce said while wrapping an arm around Damian next to him. Bruce easily caught her flustered glance and tilted his head towards the side where Cass had settled down next to the Christmas tree.

Raven tried to hide her surprise and embarrassment as she ducked her head and hurried to sit down next to Cass by the foot of the Christmas tree. You’re one of us now settled low in her stomach and surprisingly sent warm jolts up her spine – she had not expected that invitation. She felt Cass’ hand wrap around hers and she looked up at the younger woman in surprise. Cass offered her an encouraging smile and nudged her shoulder. Raven offered a small one in return as she allowed these new feelings to settle in.

“Hurry up, Timbers. Let’s get it done within this year’s Christmas maybe?” Jason’s annoyed voice drifted through the living room and Raven listened to Cass giggle next to her. “My hot eggnog is getting cold, and I’d like it warm, thank you very much.”

“Hold on, one sec,” Tim mumbled. He was busy tinkering with the camera settings, making sure that the lighting was perfect, and the exposure was just right. After making sure that everyone was in frame, Tim pulled out his camera remote. “Okay, got it.”

Hurrying towards Raven and Cass, Tim settled down on the floor next to Raven and gave her gentle smile. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer to his side, he squeezed her shoulder encouragingly. “Okay, everyone. On three, smile. One, two, three!”

“Wait now? Or on three? Or after?”

“On three, Dickface!”

“Boys!”

“Three!”

As the sounds of the camera shutter filled the room, Raven smiled and leaned into Tim. Whatever discomforts and flustered feelings she may have had early on, seemed to have slowly dissipated – like a weight she had been carrying on her shoulders had lifted. She belonged. Leaning into Tim more and feeling his arm just tighten a little bit more around her, Raven basked in the warmth of belonging.

The picture turned out great.

~

They all settled into their own rooms later that evening after everyone had their fill of eggnog, hot cocoa, and the Christmas Yule Log was miraculously eaten up. (“When you raise boys, leftovers are rare,” Bruce told Raven with a chuckle) A round of ‘Merry Christmas’ filled the living room followed by amusingly stiff yet warm hugs among the men (except for Alfred, who warmly hugged his brood) and a promise of Christmas leftovers for breakfast for everyone.

Raven and Tim silently shuffled back to their room carrying their gifts. Raven was surprised she even received gifts that evening considering that none of them even knew that she would be coming. The cashmere scarf from Alfred was beautiful (“I wasn’t sure who Master Tim would bring, but I would think every young woman would need a beautiful scarf”) and the Christmas-themed Batman sweater was funny (“We didn’t know who you were,” Dick shrugged apologetically). Bruce gifted her with a first edition Mark Twain book, undoubtedly pulled out of his personal library, but she loved it. (“You’re welcome to come and visit the library, or our home, anytime.”). Damian surprised both Tim and her when he silently offered them a thick rolled up paper before scurrying back to Bruce’s side and stuffing his face with cookies. When she and Tim unfurled the paper, they were surprised to see a beautifully drawn pencil drawing of both of them asleep and curled up into each other in one of the many sitting rooms of the house. It was beautiful.

Just as they carefully deposited all their gifts on Tim’s study table, Raven heard a little huff and scuffle by their door. Titus’ head peaked through the open door, obviously on his way to Damian’s room down the hall. The large dog whined, begging for Raven’s attention. Leaving Tim to change and get ready for bed, Raven released a soft chuckle and went over to the large dog.

“Hey boy,” she whispered and knelt to offer some scratches. Titus huffed loudly and promptly plopped down on the floor and rolled onto his back for some belly rubs. Raven eagerly complied, rubbing the dog’s soft fur.

Raven chuckled as Titus gave a low huff and whine as she scratched just the right spot. She heard Tim move in the background and slowly appear next to her, watching them in amusement. “Titus is going to miss you,” Tim chuckled while rubbing his face with a towel.

Raven hummed and she briefly looked up at Tim, noting that he had already changed for bed. Taking that it was her turn to get ready, she gave Titus one last pat on the belly and finally stood up. “I’ll miss him too, but not his sheer force of a dog,” she said with a small smile and stood up. They both watched Titus whine and get to his feet, watching Raven curiously. With a sneeze and a huff, he sat by their door. “Night, boy,” Raven gently patted the dog on his head before gently nudging Titus out the door and closing and locking it.

Pressing a kiss to Tim’s temple, she slowly shuffled off towards the bathroom to wash her hands and get ready for bed. She could hear Tim climb into bed and tinker with his phone as she heard the distinct tapping of keys, she was sure that Tim was busy checking emails and some work-related project from WE. She could feel the gentle push of his stress and it was a little surreal how well she knew Tim. While admittedly, there was still so much to learn from each other, Raven oddly caught herself surprised at how well they complemented each other despite the physical distance between them at times.

Despite her earlier hesitations of coming to meet Tim’s family officially, Raven was glad they made this trip. She understood his hurt a little bit better. She got a glimpse of how much he cared for his family, despite the tension that often bubbled low beneath the surface. She understood and saw Tim more, a rawness she was privileged to see, and her heart unconsciously warmed to have shared those moments with him.

Frank Sinatra’s ‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas’ crooned softly from the bedroom and Raven smiled. Feeling warm and full, Raven was glad she was here with Tim. She silently hoped for more of this. These quiet, raw, moments between them. Funny how she now found herself wanting this kind of raw intimacy.

After washing her face and brushing her teeth, Raven stripped down to her underwear – thankfully a matching lacy black pair. Not bothering to change just yet, she slipped out of the bathroom and leaned against the doorframe as she listened to Sinatra’s voice and watched Tim frown at his phone screen.

“I’m not sure Frank Sinatra will appreciate you frowning so furiously at his singing,” Raven teased, while playfully crossing her arms.

“There’s just a report –” Tim paused and openly stared at her figure, drinking in the black lace. “Oh,” He sat up, leaning against the headboard and watched her move towards the bed with piqued interest. “Hey,”

“Through the years we all will be together…”

Raven released a soft chuckle. “Hey,” she replied, lips curling every so lightly as she felt the familiar press of desire and attraction press against her. Drinking in his own boyish grin and the way his muscles rippled as he carefully placed his phone on the nightstand while not breaking eye contact with her had her own desires pool low in her stomach.

“Merry Christmas,” Tim said as Raven reached his side of the bed.

Raven hummed playfully. “Merry Christmas,” she replied and climbed into his lap, Tim’s hands immediately settling on her thighs as she sat down.

Tim grinned up at her boyishly and ran his hands up her thighs and over the swell of her hips. Fingers teasingly hooked into the sides of her lacy underwear and his lips curled further into a smile as he caught her amused stare. “May I unwrap my Christmas present?”

Raven released a thoughtful hum and ignored his fingers press into her hips. Leaning over him, she instead slipped her hands underneath his grey shirt and teasingly tugged it up his body while pressing a kiss to his neck. “I was hoping I could unwrap mine?” she mumbled into the underside of his chin as she pressed her body into him and felt his hands splay over her hips and butt. She tugged at his shirt once more and they fumbled to remove it while Raven lay over him.

They kissed languidly, both basking in a warm Christmas glow that settled low in their abdomens and left warm tingles up their bodies. Fingers were needy and gentle as they pressed into familiar curves and scars.

Raven felt nimble fingers run up her back and make quick work to unfasten her bra as she kissed him deeply. With a soft inhale, Raven sat up on Tim’s lap and allowed the garment the slide down her shoulders. Raven raised an eyebrow playfully as she caught Tim’s heated gaze, watching her remove her bra and drop in on the floor. For good measure, she teasingly rocked her hips into him as she felt his erection press against the apex of her own growing need.

Inhaling sharply at the steady rocking of her hips, Tim’s fingers dug into her hips and slowly slid up her waist for a steady trek up her chest. “Definitely the best Christmas, I must say,” Tim announced, hooded eyes eagerly drinking in Raven’s naked form.

Raven teasingly raised an eyebrow and ran her hands down his abdomen, watching in satisfaction as the muscles contracted in contact. She hooked her fingers into his sweatpants. “I still need to finish unwarp—”

Titus’ loud snuffling interrupted them as he sniffed the bottom of their bedroom door. Raven paused, lips lifted into an amused smile, and they both curiously watched as the silhouette of a large nose danced across the small crack at the bottom of their door. There was a low whine and a lot louder snuffling.

Tim shot an annoyed-amused look at this door. “Go away, Titus. You’re killing our Kinky Christmas mood,” he said, which of course did not achieve anything with the silencing charm still in place in the room.

Raven chuckled. With a little spark of magic that danced through the crack, Titus released a loud huff, before scurrying away from their bedroom door. With purple eyes dancing in amusement, she turned back to an equally amused Tim. “We should get a pet,” she said, tilting her head to the side thoughtfully and she regarded Tim’s surprised expression.

Tim blinked, surprised at the announcement. Scooting further up against his pillows to sit up better, he dragged Raven closer to him on his lap. The pads of his fingers pressed into her waist. “A pet?” he repeated, curious at this sudden announcement.

“Yes, a pet. An animal,” Raven rolled her eyes and squeezed his left forearm playfully.

Tim paused, gaging where this was going. He watched Raven curiously, waiting for her to explain but she seemed to wait patiently wait for his reply. He blinked. “Uh, okay? But we’re rarely together as often as we’d like in one location. So maybe a,” Tim paused and drew his eyebrows together. “A fish?”

Raven released a soft huff of laughter. “I’m pretty sure a fish needs just as much care as any other animal,” Her gaze softened a little bit as she took in Tim’s curious look and the corners of her lips curled up. “You always said you’d like a cat and I thought we could get one together?”

Tim’s chest warmed at Raven’s explanation. She remembered their conversations of wanting to own a cat as a child but never having been able to. Tim smiled warmly up at Raven, as a rush of emotions spread across his chest. It was always so easy to remind himself why he loved Raven because of her simple acts of kindness and thoughtfulness. “I’d like that,” he said. Curious, he pressed on. “So, it moves around with us? A few months in Gotham and Jump at a time? How do we –”

“I could be more in Gotham,” Raven cut in, tilting her head thoughtfully as she looked down at him.

“Oh,” Tim breathed, as realization slowly dawned on him. A pet – something they’d share together, the feeling of permanence bubbled low underneath his skin and the thought left him just a little bit breathless. “More time in Gotham?” he repeated, sounding terribly like an old record, but he needed to confirm what he was hearing and what it meant.

The corner of Raven’s lips lifted slightly, and she shifted in his lap as Tim sat up fully to lean against the headboard. Fingers pressed into the dips of her waist, and she felt a blush spread across her cheeks and neck as she felt his warm press of emotions against her – want, love, happiness.

“Yeah,” she replied and absently traced an old scar along Tim’s right forearm. “I’ve been thinking of getting a degree at Gotham University, have a life more outside of the Titans,” she shrugged nonchalantly. “I’d still help where I can, but –” Raven blinked thoughtfully and stared at Tim. “I’d like to have a life as Rachel as well,”

Raven watched as a smile grew on Tim’s lips. She returned his smile, her own emotions a whirlwind in her chest as she thought of the different prospects of the future. “That’s an excellent plan,” breathed Tim, eyes shining and his grin wide with excitement and happiness.

“Yeah?” Raven asked, unconsciously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. They occasionally talked of the future and their current arrangements, but her plans offered unspoken possibilities they both seemed eager to explore. “That is, if Batman is okay with having a half-demon resident in Gotham?”

“Fuck Batman,” Tim huffed and pressed forward to kiss Raven, muffling her bark of laughter. Pulling away from the kiss, he smiled “So, a cat?”

“We should look at shelters,”

In a rush of emotions, Tim kissed her again. The promise of so much more between them seemed to teasingly dance in front of them and he was eager to take what he could get. He felt Raven hum and melt into the kiss, leaning deeper into his embrace.

“I love you,” he breathed after finally pulling away and gently pressing another kiss to the corner of her lips. Basking in the joy of the moment and the unspoken promise of what lay ahead for them, a cat and so much more, Tim pulled away and carefully leaned towards his bedside table. “I have another Christmas gift,” he announced and with unusually clumsy fingers, he pulled the small item out of the bedside drawer.

Raven’s brows furrowed as she curiously watched Tim blindly fumble through the items in his drawer. She kept her balance on Tim’s lap, as he twisted and tried to keep his balance over the edge of his bed as he rummaged through the drawer. “Here,” Tim announced and turned back to her a little too quickly, eager to present to her what he pulled out of the depths of his drawer.

“What – oh!” Raven felt her heart stutter to a halt and her breath was knocked out of her lungs. She stared at the small black box in front of her with a wild mix of emotions. She blinked, wondering perhaps she was seeing things, but yes – the little black box was there. Her heart jumped into her throat. “Tim.”

Tim blinked at her tone and jumped as his own thoughts and stray emotions seemed to catch up with him. “It’s --- ah,” he breathed, and Tim was sure he could barely hear his own thoughts over how loud his heart was hammering in his chest. He shifted in bed, bringing Raven closer to him. Her eyes were wide, staring at the little box in his hand.

“It’s not an engagement ring,” Tim quickly explained, catching the panic and surprise that crossed her face. “I --- ah, yet.” He quickly added, heart beating like mad in his chest and he watched in relief as Raven released a soft huff of laughter and the confusion on her face disappeared.

He pressed the little box into her hands with a nervous laugh. “It’s not an engagement ring,” he repeated and offered her a small reassuring smile. “Yet – we didn’t talk about that. But --- yeah,” Tim wrapped her fingers around the small box and held her hands. “It’s just a ring I thought you might like,”

There was an inexplicable warmth that spread through Raven at the unspoken promise of something deeper. They had never really talked about how their future may look like – their work offering little stable foundation to a permanent future. But this tonight – these little promises and pictures of what may potentially be ahead of them painted a much clearer picture of the future for the two of them. It left Raven breathless. They were getting a cat, together, and they had this now – this little warm bubble they shared.

“Oh,” Raven opened the box and stared at the silver infinity knot ring perched in the velvet case.

“I thought you might like it,” Tim explained gently, taking in Raven’s surprised reaction. “I just – I like this, us, and everything we have together. It was a dangerous mission, but Lisbon and getting shot and getting paired with you was incredibly lucky for me – well, minus getting shot and losing a lot of blood, but,” Tim shrugged and watched as Raven chuckled softly. “I’m so lucky to be with you, and I honestly don’t think I deserve you or everything that you’ve given me. You’re the kindest, most loving person I know. The last year has been incredible and yeah --- I want more of this. These moments of us together, it’s been incredible. I love you, Rae,” Tim felt his stomach twist and he smiled gently at Raven. “I’d really like that cat with you,”

Raven laughed; eyes filled with unshed tears. “I love you too,” she breathed and dipped down for a deep kiss he eagerly responded to. There was a jumble of emotions that seemed to catch up on her – she honestly wasn’t quite sure if they were hers or Tim’s, but the feelings were pleasant, and she was in no rush to dissect them.

She pulled away when air became scarce and a deeper hunger pressed into her as their hips slowly rocked into each other and fingers pressed into the dips of her ribcage and brushed just under the swell of her breasts, a reminder of their nakedness. Sitting upright under Tim’s watchful gaze, she pulled the ring out of its box and slipped it onto her finger. It fit perfectly. Looking down at Tim’s face, she quirked her lips up teasingly. “Are you sure you didn’t just propose?”

Tim laughed and leaned forward to press a kiss onto her cheek, he felt her grin widen. “I want you to be my cat partner,” he teased and ran his hand down her bare back, enjoying how her warm skin felt against his hands. There was a little window that offered a little glimmer of being more than just cat parents that they both seemed to acknowledge but they did not bother to speak about – yet. “Besides,” he mumbled against the underside of her chin and teasingly ran his hand over her waist. “I’d rather propose somewhere else, not with a 200-pound dog standing guard outside our door and the rest of my family in the house,”

Tim flipped them over, Raven released a soft laugh as she was pressed into their bed and Tim hovered over her with a teasing smirk. Fingers teasingly hooked into the waistband of her underwear and he grinned boyishly at her, long hair falling into his eyes as they twinkled playfully. “And I’d like us to celebrate very loudly all over our apartment and not worry over nosy neighbors,” he said and playfully tugged at her panties. Pressing down for a breath-stealing kiss, Tim nipped at her lower lips and pulled his body flush against hers and gently started to tug her panties down. “For now, we celebrate us being cat parents. I’m going to unwrap my Christmas gift,”

“Yes,”

With a final tug, black lacy panties were thrown off their bed and Tim quickly dipped his head between her legs, tongue eagerly licking wet folds and burying into an addictive warmth. Raven gasped loudly, back arching off the bed, just as hot electricity shot through her body and desires pooled low in her abdomen.

“Tim!” she gasped, her thighs straining against his forearms as he pressed them wide open. Raven’s world seemed to turn into a blurry haze as heat just ignited her skin. Blindly grabbing the sheets to anchor herself and her reeling world, Raven buried her right hand into Tim’s hair and gave it a sharp tug as he hit a particular delicious note in his ministrations. Groaning, Raven felt her titter dangerously out of control.

Enjoying watching her coming undone, Tim continued with his careful ministrations of measured licking and strokes. Humming in delight as he felt her sharp tugs in his hair, he peered up at her and watched in satisfaction as continued to writhe in delight. Spreading her wider open and digging his fingers into her hips, Tim’s tongue buried deep within her and eagerly stoked a fire that made her sing.

Raven felt the world melt away as she felt herself quickly tumbling over the edge as Tim continued to stroke and suck, quickly sending her into oblivion. With a cry, Raven felt her body tumble over the edge. The world seemed to explode as she fell through the sky and her body roared at lick after lick after lick – continuously stoking flames and propelling her into the abyss.

The world came back around her slowly and the first thing she heard was her unsteady and rapid breathing. Her senses came back one of after another, her skin hot and sticking against the sheets despite the cold winter air that brushed over her legs. She lay spread eagle, all her limbs weak, and she gasped for breath as the heat within her belly still roared and her core throbbed deliciously.

“Fuck,” she breathed, blinking up at the old wooden ceiling and thanked the gods for their common sense of using a silencing charm.

“Hmm,” Tim made a humming sound of agreement from below and Raven lazily lolled her head in his direction to catch him still draped over her thighs and hips. He looked like the cat that ate all the cream – quite literally with the way his chin glistened. Raven blushed at the sight and her desires roared lowly for more. Nimble fingers danced over her heated flesh, dancing across her inner thighs and dangerously close to her throbbing core – teasing her with each stroke. Raven involuntarily bucked into him. Fuck.

“That was the best present to unwrap tonight,” mumbled Tim with a soft grin. He watched her sigh softly as he ran his hands up her waist. “Need to do one more thing before we move along,” he announced and quickly began kissing and nibbling on her hip bone.

“What are you doing?” Raven asked in between breaths as Tim nibbled and sucked on her hip bone, teeth scraping against heated flesh. She gasped as teeth dragged across her skin and she felt herself buck into him, cashing the delicious friction.

With a wet pop and a satisfied grin, Tim looked up at her, catching her blown blue eyes over her heaving chest. Tim felt his emotions hum in satisfaction, he loved watching her come undone and loose herself. “Just leaving a little mark to celebrate the occasion,” he said, eyes trailing back to her hip bone.

Raven’s brows furrowed together in confusion before releasing a soft huff of exasperated laughter as she saw the blossoming red bite mark on her skin – on her hip bone. “You didn’t,” she threw him an accusatory smile.

“Oh, I did,” Tim kissed her rib cage as he crawled up her body. Pressing a kiss to the side of her right breast, he dragged himself up her body and enjoyed the silky press of her skin against his. Pressing into her and enjoying the subtle roll of her hips against his own, he kissed the underside of jaw. “Thought it’d be a good touch to celebrate our Kinky Christmas,”

Tim had lost his sweats at some point earlier and Raven felt him brush against her inner thigh. Chasing the silky heat and his hot emotions, she laughed and wrapped her arms and round his shoulders, drawing him flush onto her. “You sap,” she whispered and caught his lips for a kiss. Feeling him brush against her, she whimpered softly and wrapped her left leg around his waist.

Tim rolled his hips against her teasingly, his cock brushing against her entrance and he released a breath he was holding in anticipation. Teasingly, he kissed the corner of her lips and smiled. “You like it, admit it,” he said while grabbing her leg around his waist and digging his fingers into her thigh. He grinned at the soft mewl and how their bodies rocked into each other.

“Yes,” She whispered, slowly loosing herself again. Her fingers danced over his shoulders and traced old scars. Rocking her hips against his and chasing the heat that was building up, Raven tapped his shoulder and hungrily brushed up against the silky skin of his cock. “But,” she whispered and her breathing stuttered as Tim started to kiss her neck and continued to teasingly rock into her. “I – I’d rather,” she mumbled, and she felt him nibble at the junction of her neck. “You fuck me into oblivion to celebrate our cat parenting future,”

Tim dragged his teeth along her pulse point and listened to her stuttered breathing. Allowing a fire to consume both of their desires, Tim promptly crawled over her and grinned down at her wolfishly. Rocking his hips into hers and brushing against her entrance teasingly, he spread her wider for him and pulled her in for long, bruising kiss. “Gladly,” he growled and all but impaled himself into her hot heat in one fluid motion.

“TIM!”

Much later, when they lay spent against each other and basked in the afterglow of lovemaking, they’d agree that this was perhaps the best Christmas they ever had – the promise of more Christmases together, as a cat family, seemed to glimmer teasingly.

[envyplays]

HAMUTARO CAFE 2020

The 2nd iteration and second year in a row, this Hamtaro Cafe is Summer Beach themed and is open in 3 locations across Japan;

- TOKYO BOX cafe&space in Tokyo (30/7/2020 ~ 6/9/2020)

- BOX cafe&space in Saitama (30/7/2020 ~ 27/9/2020)

- Shinsaibashi contact in Osaka (31/7/2020 ~ 16/8/2020)

The cafe requires a reservation of around 300yen in order to visit, but you're given a special beach themed postcard illustrated by Hamtaro creator Ritsuko Kawai upon arrival at the cafe as a gift.

Each of the Ham-hams in this postcard are also featured on individual coasters you can receive at the cafe.

The menu features a variety of adorable summer and beach themed dishes and drinks;

Sunflower on the beach Yakisoba with bread.

A staple of a beach-side clubhouse, a dish of yakisoba and egg in the shape of a blooming sunflower featuring Hamtaro bread in the middle♪ Enjoy it together with a sunflower leaf inspired salad❤

Tora-Tora Surfboard sandwich.

Tora-ham-kun rides the waves on his sandwich surfboard as Tora-ham-chan floats upon the ocean. Noppo-kun looks on at the excited pair while in the middle of a book♪

Koushi-kun's "My sunflower seed fell in..." seafood curry.

Koushi-kun's dropped his sunflower seed into a seafood curry ocean...! While holding onto a pilaf life-saver, he tries to get it back~

Pescatore pasta, the boys gathered the shells?!

The boys have found many sea shells while searching the beach! A summer inspired Pescatore using the shells they collected♪

Ribbon-chan's cheerful parfait.

Cheerfully floating above the sparkling ocean in a life-saver♪ Please enjoy Ribbon-chans fruit-filled ice cream life-saver jelly.

Ukkyu~♡ High-spirted donut plate.

Chibimaru-chan and Muffler-chan float upon the ocean playfully together! A combined sweets plate of large donut life-savers together with fruit jelly and ice cream.

Playing hide-and-seek with a cone, Kaburu-kun's ice cream parfait.

Kaburu-kun's hiding beneath the ice cream cone! Enjoy Kaburu-kun's ice cream and chocolate banana together with fresh mint❤

Floating upon the water, a shooting star tiramisu.

Searching for star fragments around the ocean-side! Try searching for falling stars submerged inside the jelly ocean☆彡

HAPPY HAMU HAMU Birthday Cake

A special limited edition menu in celebration of Hamtaro's Birthday on the 6th of August! Enjoy Hamtaro's birthday together with this cream-filled pancake reminiscent of a blooming sunflower♪

with Hamtaro potato salad

Hamtaro's mashed potato salad. Inside the cone is a ham and potato!

with Ribbon-chan ice cream

Ribbon-chan's lemon sorbet.

The pairs sunny beach

A drink reminiscent of a sunny day on the beach-side♪ A refreshing summer mix of grapefruit juice representing the shining sun and blue caracau as blue as the ocean!

The pairs sunset beach

A drink reminiscent of a beautiful sunset on the beach-side♪ A mellow evening mix of mango and orange, it gives off the warm feeling of sunset.

A relaxing grilled corn pottage bed

Another staple of a beach-side clubhouse is this cold grilled corn pottage! On top of this bed of pottage is Neteru-kun sleeping soundly♪

Tongari-kun's watermelon float♪

A float featuring an image of Tongari-kun strumming his guitar and singing along♪ A refreshingly familiar summer flavor of watermelon!

2020CAFE 86-filled coffee (Wordplay in 8 (ha) and 6 (mu) - hamu)

A latte bowl filled to the brim with hot coffee♪

Hamu hamu glass drink (can include the glass as a souvenir)

A simple glass drink. You can choose between Hamtaro (orange) and Ribbon-chan (yogurt)!

---

I visited this cafe on the 10th of August 2020, the interior of the cafe was covered in Hamtaro posters and framed artwork. On the walls, TV's played the first episode from the anime, and speakers played various songs including the opening and ending songs.

On top of a special postcard, you'll also receive a limited time sticker with 3 possible designs, and a giant coaster(?) featuring one (or 2 in some cases) of the characters.

And as per usual, for each item you order off the menu, you receive a special coaster. The coasters for the Hamtaro cafe feature a special Ice cream-ified Ham-ham design.

As for the food, I ordered the 'HAPPY HAMU HAMU Birthday Cake' dessert, the 'The pairs sunny beach' drink, and the  'The pairs sunset beach' drink.

The Birthday cake featured a super cute sunflower design. It was very moist thanks to the ice cream and cream sunflower on top, and had nice fresh fruit and edible flowers surrounding it.

Both drinks were very refreshing on such a hot summer day, and the designs were both very cute and very creative!

All in all, the cafe hosted a very happy and nostalgic atmosphere and it was a wonderful time. I hope to see the Hamtaro cafe return next year!

[sarareynolds]

Random Questions Part 1

1. What is your middle name?

Rose

2. Do you have any nicknames that aren’t derived from your actual name?

My dad calls me bug. Pretty much everyone else calls me Sara. Nik sometimes calls me dove. :) 

3. Do you have any allergies?

Nope. 

4. What is the longest your hair has ever been?

I don't even know I measured it in high school once and it was 22 inches… it's longer now. 

5. How well can you write in cursive?

Not very? My handwriting is the bastard child of standard and. Cursive.

6. Name one item on your bucket list.

I don't have a specific bucket list laid out in my head, I just know I want to soak up what the world has to offer like a greedy little sponge. So I guess travel? 

7. Have you ever been on a blind date?

I have not. 

8. What is the oldest piece of clothing you still wear and how old is it?

I have a black sweatshirt from when I was like 13. It's got holes from bad laundry cycles and just being old af but it's still comfy so I keep it. 

9. How often do you eat out at a fancy restaurant?

Not often, actually. 

10. How grammatically correct are you when you text?

More than most but it's still terrible grammar. 

11. Can you drive stick?

Yes?

12. What foreign country would you most like to visit and why?

Probably, Japan. It just looks like a friggin good time. Pokemon is a legit weakness I have and I would love to play real life Mario Kart. Outside of the Nintendo stuff the food looks amazing and the sites look beautiful. It's so different from everything I know it just seems like it's be an epic trip to have.

13. Nutella or peanut butter?

Both? You cannot have Nutella on everything it's way too sweet but peanut butter is also not really a go-to for me. 

14. At what age did you have your first kiss?

12 or 13?

15. DC or Marvel?

Unaligned? 

16. Have you ever hosted a wild party?

Yes. For better or worse, I have. 

17. Name/author of the last book you read cover to cover. Do you recommend it?

Um… I honestly don't know. I am the queen of starting a book, getting a quarter to half way in and never picking it up again because I moved onto another book. 

18. How many of your Facebook friends do you actually hang with?

I actually dislike Facebook like a lot. Do not use it.

19. Have you ever donated blood?

I have. Once. 

20. From 1-10, how much do you like decorating for holidays?

What holidays? Because generally it's a 1, I don't care, but if we're talking Halloween if I'm given half the chance I will go ham. Christmas gets second place because it's Christmas and it requires decor.

21. Coffee or tea?

Again: unaligned. I tend to have coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon as a detox/pickup moment. 

22. What is your go-to Starbucks drink?

Venti Cold brew lite ice. Nitro cold brew has been finding its way in more than usual lately. Or a Venti iced tea/refresher. Simple and on ice is the go to for the most part.

23. Last show you binge watched?

Nailed it…. Stranger Things 3 is next.

24. Dogs or cats?

Neutral? I love dogs, they're so lovable but I have no issue with cats, I've found that if you don't care about them, they're pretty much going to leave you alone. If you love them: they don't like you, and if you hate them: they are all up on you. Cat 101 

25. Favorite animated Disney character?

Ariel. 

26. Have you ever cooked a big family meal by yourself?

Hahaha no. Omg that'd be terrible. I'd have to formally apologize to everyone who ate the food. 

27. Favorite winter activity?

Sitting inside by the fireplace curled up in a sweater just watching the flames with a tea. 

If we have to go outdoors, sledding is super fun. 

28. Have you ever butt dialed anyone?

In general, as a woman, I don't have butt pockets large enough to facilitate that problem. I have, however, boob dialed people. Which is worse, I think. 

29. Can you blow a bubble gum bubble?

I can but in general I try to stay away from gum. 

30. How early in the year do you start celebrating Christmas?

I do not do anything until the first of December. I do not like that Halloween goes away and Christmas is everywhere, but more accurately I probably don't really start until the second week of December. 

31. What emoji best describes your life right now?

���🥰🤯🌎🎶♥️

32. Are you fluent in more than one language?

No, I am not. 

33. What is the longest you’ve ever kept a New Year’s resolution?

Last year I went ⅔ of the year before I gave up. 

34. Have you ever successfully been on a diet?

 Did you gain any of the weight back?

I am constantly in flux when it comes to weight, but in general I keep to my diet pretty well. I don't really keep to one thing and I'm not afraid to have cake if I want to, but trying to keep things balanced is always a goal. 

35. Are any of your grandparents still alive?

Yes, my grandparents on my dad's side are still in Seattle but I never really get to see them. 

36. How good are you at communicating through facial expressions? 

I give everything away with my facial expressions. EVERYTHING. Literally, no poker face on me.

37. Have you ever gotten a commercial jingle stuck in your head?

All the time. As a kid I would sing the jingles like they were the songs on the radio. Now I just do that in my head. Well, mostly.

38. Have you ever left a movie theater before the movie was over?

No, I haven't. 

39. Do you consider rapping singing?

No, rapping is rapping. It's still music but it's not singing. That's not to say a rapper can't sing, because most can and do, it's just different. 

40. Does your home have a fireplace?

It does. 

41. Favorite non-chocolate candy?

Skittles

42. If you could have only one superpower, what would you want and why?

I don't know. :/ Most super power things I can find some way to accomplish with magic. So I guess I technically already have a super power. But if I didn't, maybe fly? 

43. Have you ever locked your keys in your car?

No, I have not as I do not own a car. 

44. Do you listen to any religious music?

Not really. I can appreciate a good gospel song, though, I just don't seek it out. 

45. Do you drink soda? If so, which one is your favorite?

Not really but my go too is Dr. Pepper if I do indulge. 

46. What was your ACT score?

I never took that test. 

47. Rice or quinoa?

Rice.

48. From 1-10, how good of a driver do you consider yourself?

7? I don't drive often but I'm not going to kill anyone doing it. 

49. Do you like horror movies?

I do. 

50. How easily do you cry?

Not easily. It takes a bit to make me cry. 

[yoshi4sushi]

(purupurupuru) (purupurupuru) (gocha!) (coo!) (coo!)

 Happy Fall Monday, minna-san! Summer is over so it’s back to school and work, but fret not. Fall season will be filled with fun stuff so w/o further ado, let’s get down to business. First off, last week’s chapter is increasing the situation into worse. Urashima was in shocked and angry to have his top knot cut off by Okiku that it got him into rage mode of wanting to kill her. However, Luffy steps in and challenges him. Luffy was avoiding all his attack so easily. Meanwhile, poor Tama is getting her cheeks pulled so hard with a pliers by the jerk Holden to see if her cheeks do produce dango. Poor Tama could only cry for Luffy’s help. On the other side, Hawkins is heading to Bakura town to resolve the situation of Luffy and the others. Just when things are bad, Law was about to head out to stop the guys, but poor Bepo collapsed b/c he ate the fish from the poisoned water which is bounding Law to either stop the guys or tend poor Bepo. Finally back in town, Luffy unleased his ultimate sumo move and sent Urashima flying across town. BAM! All the onlookers were so shocked to see that he was defeated. With that, Holdem’s goons start attacking Luffy and the others, but they were easily defeated. At the end, Luffy screamed for Holdem to show up, and that he did. He has poor Tama captured in the jaws of the lion in his stomach threatening that it will crush her should he make any attempt to fight back. The situation is getting more intense. Hawkins is closely approaching, and Law is against the wall. What is the outcome of it? Guess we’ll find next week. Yes, this week, no chapter so it’s another break, but be patient. Next, this past weekend’s episode, things are looking up and down at the same time. Sanji and the girls finally reached Chocolat Town, but before they arrive, Pudding chained up Chiffon to deceive the town thinking that she is forcing her to help knowing that she is married to Bege while Sanji is hiding in Labian, the talking carpet. The 31 chefs of WCI has gathered ready to bake the cake and Sanji got a head start of providing the exact recipe to make the cake. Everyone is ready, and they have two hours to prepare it. Meanwhile, Luffy is giving his all to beat Katakuri, but this man keeps knocking him down. He then tells Brulee to go burn Sunnny and the others. At the end, she and her siblings found the mirror that leads to Sunny ready to send burning arrows. Next time, the gang is still being chased by Big Mom, and a huge tidal wave is making their problems worse. Will they survive? Don’t miss it this weekend. Now on with the goods! FIGURINES! FIGURINES! NEW ONES! First, Premium Bandai will soon be taking reservations for this pricey and awesome figurine of Eneru. Reservation date will be announced later. The figurine will be released in February next year. Next, this Friday, Megahobby will accept reservations for the new POP Maximum figurine of Hancock and Salome. She will also be released next year in February. Next, all arcades will be stocking this new Lady Edge Wedding figurine of Perona in her white and black and red dress version. Get those coins ready if you wanna win this beauty. Next, new Gashapon figurines is revealed. This time, it’s the ASL brothers in their swim trunks. They will be released in December. When you buy it, you have to put it together. It’s the same with the girls gashapon. Next, new birthday goods of Hancock are in stock such as this tote bag and set of bromide cards. It is also available in Tokyo Tower. The tower is also selling this ceramic glass and straw hat good for drinking beer or just having it as a decoration. Next, more new anniversary goods will be in stock soon. First, we mentioned before they’ll sell this adorable mugi mugi tote bag, this awesome red color mug, stickers that come in two sets, neat double side folders, metal tag key chain of Luffy and Katakuri, large cloth flags of wanted posters and the jolly roger, and these adorable sticker set of mugi mugi which will be released on Oct.6th which a certain special birthday of a good looking pirate. Next, Fuji TV are selling new goods of Hollywood theme. They’ll have buttons, folders, stickers, and memo pads. Moving on, I hope everyone is ready for the New Year. The new osechi meal has been revealed. This only applies for those who live w/in Japan. The new osechi meal will have loads of goodies. It will have a double bento box filled with delish veggies, pork, fish, and ham. The cover will be decorated in a colorful print of the Straw Hats in their New Year kimono. If you order this bento meal, you will be given free stuff such as this colorful plate, two chopstick sets, and a wooden square cup that has Luffy carved in it. Payment can only be made in credit card or bank transfer. You will receive a receipt by email once you paid. The meal will be delivered by New Year’s Eve so be sure to be home so you can receive it. Next, all convenient stores, Straw Hat stores, and bookstores have stocked the new Jump issue that has Luffy eating a tasty burger. Inside will have a free ticket to get a free burger from McDonald’s. The campaign will last until Sunday so be sure to get a copy that has the ticket. Next, the Vivre Card fan book has been released at all stores. The booklet will contain many facts of characters that are listed. The next two will be released sometime in early October. Last, but not least, the OP game, Thousand Storm, will have a short event where you can now use Arlong as a playable character. Just level up and earn enough points to get it. Many, many more stuff is coming up this fall, but this is all for now. Tune in next week for more news and goods. Excellent job, muchachos!

New Year meal: https://onepiece-osechi.com/

Figurine: http://megatreshop.shop40.makeshop.jp/shopdetail/000000000623/

[joel-furniss-blog]

Japanese Body Horror and Ero Guro

The entire sphere of popular culture revolves around recognisability. We are drawn to forms and symbols we can easily identify, clear cut representations of ideas in understandable formats that do not confuse. In essence we relate to what we know. It’s why abstraction as a concept has never successfully breached into the mainstream and why we have the idea of sensationalism of celebrity figures. One of the most recognizable forms we understand is the body, we see them every day and we all have them, they’re immediately relatable as their own empathetic vessels. What I mean by that is that we can relate to certain physical aspects that we see, specifically physical feelings like pain. When we see someone in pain we can’t help but feel sorry for them, or if we imagine an uncomfortable injury we automatically cringe at the thought, it’s a natural bodily reaction to help our fellow man and prevent the cause of pain in order to stave off the relation pain presents: Death.

Yet with the taboo of death comes the previously mentioned fascination with it, and its cousin pain. This is apparent in pop culture, with the horror fiction genre of body horror, a genre in which the horror aspect is derived from the graphic transformation, degeneration, and destruction of the human body through decay, disease, parasitism, mutation, and mutilation. This sub-genre of splatter cinema has been prevalent within western society since the mid 1900’s with movies such as George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. These films use the topics of pain and death to stimulate the audience’s emotions, to get their heart racing and then allow reassurance when they realise their objective safety. These films once again use the trope of recognisability to help them succeed, the all use human forms as their ‘villains’ as well as a driving force that we can understandably relate with whether it be fear of the unknown, supernatural malevolence, or the common man deranged. What I wish to focus on however is when we deal with the unrecognisable, fear through the indescribable and the hideously grotesque. This is where the genre of body horror truly shines, through its creation of abstract, Lovecraftian horrors that we cannot hope to understand.

These types of body horrors can be seen in works such as John Carpenter’s The Thing, David Cronenberg’s The Fly, and Ridley Scott’s Alien, films that leave us unsettled in their displays of inhumanity, where the full forms of these indiscernible pulps of flesh are so peculiar and impossible to describe that we find them immensely troubling. This level of abstract grotesqueness is not often seen within western societies, but in the east and most notably Japan, it is much more understood and even weirder. The most famous examples of the Japanese classes of body horror films can be seen in films like Katsuhiro Otomo’s anime Akira which sees a character mutate into a large, fleshy, all-encompassing mass which eventually settles in the form of a giant infant. Another example is Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man, in which an unnamed character (titled Salaryman) is cursed by having his body slowly form metallic growths until he is eventually almost entirely metal and begins trying to destroy humanity. In recent times the genre of Japanese Body Horror has taken on a much more humorous and spectacular approach instead of the bizarre yet enamouring storytelling of previously mentioned works. Titles such as Noboru Iguchi’s The Machine Girl and RoboGeisha to Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Tokyo Gore Police. The newer generations of films seem purposefully bizarre in an effort to seem both funny and grotesque but with their predecessors they share an often satirical underlying comment on Japanese media and society, a point I wish to expand on later. With the medium of manga (comics) the grotesque horror can be expressed through a more traditional visual art format as well, often with gruesome results. Notable artist Junji Ito has seen moderate western success with series such as Uzumaki, which tells the story of a city plagued with an affinity for spirals, so much so that they begin carving never-ending spirals into their own flesh or the disturbing Tomie, where the titular character’s beauty drives men and women to do unspeakable acts. While these films and mangas are useful in helping me research elements of death and the grotesque, I believe that they alone are not substantial enough to affect my work. Fortunately in my research I have managed to find a related element that can help me.

Ero guro nansensu often shortened to ero guro or simply guro, is a literary and artistic development found circa 1930’s Japan. The movement’s name displays its intent, with ero meaning “erotic”, “guro” meaning grotesque, and “nansensu” meaning nonsense, the genre literally means “erotic grotesque nonsense” seemingly perfect for my project. Despite the name implying a sense of the absurd abandon, the artistic movement is firmly cemented within real world Japanese social topics through representations of corruption and decadence. This relevance to the Japanese social and political landscape gives the works of the movement a difficult line to follow but allows for a larger field of artistic liberty, the work may not even include elements of sex or death but rather figures similar to the previously mentioned body horror, where the subjects are malformed, horrific and generally unnatural. In the opposite vein, items that do focus on the pornographic and gory are not necessarily to be classed as ero guro which in recent times has become bastardized within Japanese media to simply mean the combination of gore and porn in order to arouse, rather than to satirize the cultural climate.

The satirical elements of the period were set within the pre-war phenomenon that explored the deviant, bizarre, and the ridiculous, usually taken up by Japan’s bourgeois during the liberal Taishō period in Japanese history where the social atmosphere was described as being “skittish” and perpetuated in “nihilistic hedonism” by historian Ian Buruma, in simpler terms it was a calm before the storm that would be World War II. The art symbolized an intellectual rebellion within the tail-end of the Taishō period, when Japan as a country became increasingly militant, spawning an expanded sense of artistic revolution paired with the eruption of hedonistic sensationalism in exploring Japan’s long-standing fascination with the taboo. Inspirations for the taboo-breaking nature of ero guro can be found within Japan’s history, the most famous example being The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, a traditional shunga woodblock print completed in 1814 by artist Katsushika Hokusai, which represents an ama diver engaging in a sexual affair with two octopi. Other artists belonging to the traditional ukiyo-e genre began exploring elements of death and sexuality during the latter part of the 1800’s, usually with the theme of representing Japanese historical moments, examples are found in Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s representations of decapitation and disembowelment and Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s portrayals of bondage and sexual violence. The theme of the unnatural and surreal body horror also have examples here, with one of Kuniyoshi’s prints showing an anthropomorphic tuniki (commonly referred to as a Japanese racoon dog) with a large, bug-eyed monster emerging from under his robe, which is actually one of his testicles. While the Japanese respect for history and legacy does explain its recognisable relation to their predecessors, the ero guro movement is also steeped in present day context at the time, such as the 1936 Sada Abe incident, where a geisha and prostitute erotically asphyxiated her lover and proceeded to castrate his corpse and carry his genitals around in her kimono which was a key moment in the movements history, with the elements of bondage, sadomasochism and sexual mutilation cropping up in several ero guro works. As it is a difficult artistic movement to understand, especially for western audiences, their remains little research on the subject and few seminal pieces to analyse, but I think ero guro’s legacy far exceeds its humble status.

Ero guro’s explorations of the grotesquely unnatural and the sexual taboos in such an bombastic, radical and ground-breaking manner has gone on to cement it within Japanese culture in mediums such as pinku eiga (meaning pink film) a type of Japanese theatrical film that features nudity and sex as the main focus, to the previously mentioned body horror movies that all see their own satirical commentaries underneath, over-the-top and veiled representations hidden under the guise of fear or comedy, a way of expressing ideas not just limited to eastern media but visible in the west too. With the disturbing ero guro and bizarre Japanese body horror films they use their ridiculousness or moral abhorrence as a way of radical expression in a famously conservative country, a creative way to “stick it to the man” while also inspiring younger generations. These direct dealings with sex and death also act as draws, either sexual arousal or morbid curiosity help bring people in and create publicity. It makes people turn their head and gawk, either making them offended or, in some cases, inspired, a form of garnering attention we see in western media as well. It’s similar to a bait-and-switch, draw them in with the taboo visuals, the un-mundane exploration into the darkest parts of the mind, and when they pay close attention, they will realise that the piece is steeped in a deep history and contextual relationship with the current culture. Yet this approach can often be ham-fisted and lame, ero guro pulls it off simply, and while some of this interest might be manifested within the idea of the “orient”, I believe that with understanding its method can be utilised within my own work.

[sepdet]

My visit to Mount St. Helens, August 22, 2017

Johnston Ridge Visitor Center | Mount St. Helens north face, runoff from snow cutting through 1980s pumice plain

Close-up: melting snow rising as steamclouds from the still-cooling lava dome of 2004-2008 eruption that’s partly filled 1980 crater

Blown-down trees on surrounding hills show direction of blast | Spirit Lake in distance (human figures on trail for scale) | More blowdown trees in background

 Blowdown tree, possibly flew 5 miles from Mount St. Helens, with “Indian paintbrush” flowers and pearly everylasting

Bees in fireweed | Bees in pearly everlasting 

Johnston Ridge Memorial to those who died

Let me tell you a story.

When I was a little girl, there was a beautiful mountain.

Mount St. Helens behind Spirit Lake: U.S. Army Core of Engineers, 1978

The explorer George Vancouver had named her after some British diplomat. But native peoples called her Louwala-Clough, “smoking mountain,” or Loowitlatkla, “Lady of Fire,” or just Loowit. 

(cont’d with more photos below)

Loowit taught people fire; she guarded the Bridge of the Gods. She had been an old woman, but the Great Spirit transformed her into a beautiful maiden for her good deeds. Then two brothers, Pahto and Wyeast, fought over her, throwing flaming rocks and laying waste to whole forests. At last the Great Spirit turned all three of them into the mountains westerners call Mount St. Helens, Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood.

Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest knew volcanoes were shapechangers. Geologists knew. But by 1980, most people living nearby were barely aware of the sleeping giants looming over them. They didn’t realize just how dramatically they could change.

Most Americans’ notion of a volcano was shaped by TV images of Kilauea spewing red-hot lava. Fluid when it first erupts, lava cools rapidly in open air, so that its leading edge creeps rather than runs. Even I can outwalk it. Like millions of tourists, I’ve safely watched Kilauea’s lava fountains and flows from a few miles away.

(Sorry, Hollywood. Lava is usually not that scary, unless you’re a house.) 

But stratovolcanoes like Krakatoa and Vesuvius are different. Their magma (lava before it erupts) is sticky and stiff. It piles into rugged peaks, clogs their pipes and caps old craters with heavy domes. Stratovolcanoes can sleep for centuries, sometimes thousands of years. When they erupt, they explode.

Large chunks of the old summit get blasted out, some pieces as big as houses. 

Frothy, gassy magma flies out as blobs of pumice: hole-pocked volcanic rock that isn’t very dense but can bury a town (see: Pompeii).

Powerful explosions pulverize magma into volcanic ash, which is actually tiny jagged grains of glass. Fine ash can fill lungs, scratch eyes, clog machinery, or fuse into a glass coating if sucked into a jet engine.

Water seeping into hot rocks may flash to steam. Steam explosions are dangerous because there’s no warning.

Glaciers and snow and rivers mix with ash to form mudflows the consistency of wet concrete, able to flow as fast as water. Geologists use the Indonesian name for them, lahars. Some lahars are boiling hot.

Scariest of all are pyroclastic flows, hurricane-force avalanches of superheated ash, pumice, boulders, semi-molten rock, and hot gasses (including sulfuric acid), about 1000°C (nearly 2000°F). They travel at speeds up to 700kph (450mph). They flow over ridges and hills, and can even cross water on a cushion of steam, as the islands closest to Krakatau learned the hard way. 

Here’s lahars (Japan has remote cameras to watch for them): 

Pyroclastic flow in Indonesia (truly terrifying):

That was what geologists were worried about, when Mount St. Helens stirred to life with a flurry of moderate earthquakes on March 19, 1980. 

Trouble is, geologists didn’t yet have many active stratovolcanoes under their belt. They could reconstruct what St. Helens was capable of from the remains of ancient eruptions, but what would she do this time? More importantly, when?

Drawing on experience from Kilauea, United States Geological Survey scientists planted instruments around St. Helens to monitor her vital signs. They measured thousands of moderate-sized earthquakes with seismometers. They installed tiltmeters on her flanks to monitor the groundswell as magma rose underneath. (With one bizarre exception, there was no movement.) They measured escaping gasses, since other volcanoes’ SO2 emissions spiked before erupting. (Hers didn’t). They scanned with infrared cameras, searching for major heat sources near the surface (not much). 

A week after the first earthquake swarm began, St. Helens cleared her throat and opened a small summit crater, belching steam and ash that dirtied her snow. Spirit Lake near her feet was evacuated, and local officials set up roadblocks around a no-entry zone.

Same view as my photos. Note “bulge” in front of original summit, 1 day before eruption. Harry Glicken, USGS. (Also notice 150-200 foot fir trees on slopes.)

Loowit was living up to her “smoking mountain” name. Local vendors made a brisk trade in t-shirts and souvenirs. But after a few weeks, media and public interest began to wane.

Weyerhaeuser logging, the main employer and property owner in the region, couldn’t let a few earthquakes get in the way of million-dollar profits, not when the logging season was so short. Nor was the state’s fishing and game department happy about the closure of popular lakes and recreation areas. Their main source of income was permits, and it was the start of the hunting and fishing season.

So Governor Dixy Lee Ray shrank the boundaries of the “Red Zone,” the mandatory evacuation area that USGS scientists had advised. She drew in the exclusion zone to just three miles from the summit on the northwest side, along the Weyerhaeuser property line. Hundreds of miles of logging roads now offered public access outside the roadblocks.

Geologists warned about pyroclastic flow and mudflow, but most people still imagined lava like Hawaii’s. Besides, the geologists couldn’t tell when or even if these things would happen. All they knew was that St. Helens had done it before. 

Except this time, she was doing something new:

“Bulge” from the side a few days before eruption, photo by Peter Lipman. 

That bulge distorting Forsythe Glacier was swelling 3-4 feet towards the north each day, an unheard-of ground movement. Geologists guessed it would come down in an avalanche/landslide that could reach as far as Spirit Lake. Dr. David Johnston was one of the most outspoken on the danger, communicating eloquently to state officials and news media.

But the earthquakes and ash explosions had died down. Residents of Spirit Lake kicked up a fuss, and were grudgingly given permission to retrieve belongings from their cabins on Saturday, May 17. They were planning to return Sunday.

At 8:31 Sunday morning, David Johnston was on duty at the monitoring post the USGS had established on Coldwater Ridge, five miles north of the mountain. (Above, photo of David from the day before, snapped by a colleague saying goodbye).

At 8:32, one more earthquake, not much bigger than those before, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It triggered the biggest landslide in human history (frames 1-4):

[Animation stitched together from still photos by Gary Rosenquist, 11 miles NE]

Ham radio operators heard David Johnston’s last words as he shouted a warning: Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!

Within minutes, Mount St. Helens was 1300 feet shorter, with a huge crater over a mile across cutting deeply into its north face. The landslide ran out seventeen miles.

Another view, AP, from The Atlantic’s St. Helens photo gallery.

That landslide had popped the cork. An explosion more powerful than an atom bomb blasted out: an absolutely colossal pyroclastic flow. Every living thing on and near the mountain was blown away or incinerated, topsoil scoured right down to bedrock. No one ever found a trace of Johnston’s trailer. Beyond the zone of total destruction, trees up to 10 feet across were blown down pointing away from the mountain for dozens of square miles. Beyond the blowdown zone, standing trees were stripped and scorched.

Lakes were dashed out of their basins and sloshed back in miniature tsunamis, dragging debris down with them. Spirit Lake’s bed was raised 100 feet by landslide fill. More pyroclastic surges followed, devastating over 200 square miles of forest. Charred branches, needles and cones fell on awestruck climbers on Mt Adams and Mt Hood, watching from 30 and 60 miles away.

That was how geologists learned that, every now and then, volcanoes don’t blow up. They blow sideways.

USGS photo of blowdown zone (see scientists at lower right for scale).

St. Helens did it all: lahars that flooded river valleys and bulldozed houses and bridges, ash fall, pumice fall, mudball fall, and more. Immense clouds of ash caused white-out (or rather, black-out) conditions, blanketing and shutting down most of Washington State for days. The Columbia River’s shipping channel had to be closed for dredging after its 40-foot depth was filled in to 17 feet. Intermittent eruptions continued for months.

Ash cloud reaches Ephrata airport, Washington. Mike Cash/AP.

In her press conference, Governor Dixy Lee Ray said that those killed in the eruption had deliberately bypassed roadblocks and violated the “Red Zone.” President Jimmy Carter took her at her word and repeated the claim. That’s the story I remember from The Big Blast, a Scholastic book about the eruption that came out later that year.

Eruption seen from Toledo, WA, taken by Rocky Kolberg

In fact, only four of the 57 victims were inside the “Red Zone”, and three had permission: USGS official David Johnston and two scientists staying at Spirit Lake for field research. The only person who had defied evacuation orders was an old codger, Harry Truman (no relation of the president), who refused to leave his lakeside lodge. Governor Ray had sent him a letter congratulating him on sticking to his principles.

Unsigned on the governor’s desk lay a proposal for a revised hazard map devised by sheriffs and geologists in consultation with Weyerhaeuser, moving the restricted zone’s boundaries back out by several miles.

Day after eruption; vast pumice plain still steaming with melting fragments of the mountain’s glacier embedded in debris. AP.

Mount St. Helens was made an official national monument. It’s become an enormous laboratory for geologists to study deposits left by a well-documented eruption, and for biologists to study how life recolonizes an area sterilized by a catastrophe. 

(My photo, Aug 22, 2017, Toppled stump embedded in slope; Johnston Ridge Visitor Center behind.)

 A visitor center was built on barren Coldwater Ridge, renamed Johnston Ridge. There, 37 years later, I stood listening to a ranger who wasn’t born in 1980, telling tourists about mountain goats and hummingbirds returning to the crater. I watched bees buzzing among a profusion of flowers, ground squirrels chasing each other in burrows under the stumps of dead giants, fir saplings growing where a 200-foot-tall mature forest once stood.

Sightseers posed for selfies in front of Loowit, still lovely even with her scars. They gazed out at the spectacular, alien landscape, softened now by greenery creeping back. It’s a miraculous transformation, considering the bleak moonscape of just a dozen or so years ago.

The visitor center doesn’t dwell on those who died. Far better to focus on creation than destruction.

(My photo, Aug 22, 2017. Flowers on Johnston Ridge)

But some stories you learn as a child stay with you. 

So while I spent three hours exploring a flower-tufted ridge below that massive, strangely beautiful mountain, I also paid my respects to 57 names carved in stone, many of whose stories I know. I brushed fingers against the name of  David A. Johnston. I looked out at that huge scooped-out crater on the mountainside and whispered, Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!

[adyummydiary-blog]

As Europe’s 19th century merchants, missionaries and mercenaries cut their way through the world, no matter where they came from or where they found themselves, the truest sign of their success was whether they were eating French. Throughout the world, French cuisine had become the quintessential mark of civilisation, and it wasn’t only the French that thought so. Indeed, it had become the chief “escort to European diplomacy”, in the words of Marie-Antoine Carême, the world’s first ‘celebrity chef’.

Carême had in fact personally prepared the ground for the globalisation of French cuisine. Having survived Talleyrand’s challenge to prepare a year’s worth of seasonal dinners without repeating an entrée, and a spell serving Paris’s haute monde including the uncouth Napoleon, he eventually found himself invited abroad to prepare feasts for the likes of George IV in London and Tsar Alexandra I in St. Petersburg. He established a fortune and a reputation for himself, and a widespread appreciation for the beauty, bounty and opulence of the cuisine that he was in the process of transforming into an art form.

This is why a French chef accompanied the governor-general of India, Lord Auckland, on his mission to meet Afghanistan’s ruler in Simla in 1837. Monsieur St Cloup was there to preside over a small army of chefs who whirled up lavish breakfasts and dinners for the governor-general’s guests, and marching fodder for the 12,000-strong entourage.

But it wasn’t always thus. At the beginning of the 19th century, the wife of a British army officer passing through Lucknow in India noted that three distinct dinners were served at the nawab’s (nobleman’s) table. Those at the upper end were served food prepared by an English chef. The middle section, where the nawab sat, was graced by a Hindu cook’s fare. Meanwhile those in the lower third were served by a French chef. This seemed a fair reflection of Britain’s recent and decisive sweeping aside of France’s challenge to their hegemony over India.

But France won a separate battle, in large part thanks to Carême himself who had set about refining French cuisine by favouring quality and visual appeal over the brute force of sheer quantity. By the time St Cloup accompanied Lord Auckland on their epic journey, a French chef had become a necessity for any British household within the Raj that wished to distinguish itself. French cuisine had become synonymous with ideas of civilisation, and was heavily favoured by ruling elites all over the world, who were perhaps more comfortable breaking bread with one another than with their own lower ranked nationals.

It wasn’t just the novelty of refinement. The adoption of service à la Russe, with its ordered series of courses, lent itself very well to diplomacy, and the light and often fanciful entrées served to delight all the senses rather than simply loading stomachs before their owners moved on to business. French cuisine proved you really were someone.

Thus when Mexico celebrated their victory over the French in 1862, they dined on French cuisine. When King Rama V of Thailand held state banquets for Western diplomats, he served French cuisine. When the Emperor of Japan invited 800 guests to dinner in his new European style palace in Tokyo in 1889, the chefs prepared French cuisine. The courtiers had been training since 1887 in how to dress and behave at a French dinner, and resist being unnerved by the jangling of silverware on porcelain and obligation to make small talk.

In the case of Japan, France’s specific associations with principles of civilisation can only have served to attract Japan’s attention after the latter’s forced opening by the Americans in 1854. Japan’s mission to adapt Western culture, including cuisine, was carried out under the slogan “civilisation and enlightenment”, underpinned by a military, economic, legal and artistic partnership between France and Japan.

The French chefs were also modernists, embracing new inventions such as canning and modern processes that produced white flour and sugar. Escoffier himself was an advocate of commercially prepared stocks and essences, endorsing Maggi’s ham, anchovy and mushrooms essence. Without canning, French cuisine would scarcely have made it past Denmark.

Thus, when His Highness Nawab Sir Sadiq Muhammad Khan Abbasi V was made ruler of Bahawalpur State in northern India in 1907, a meal of soup, pâté, salmon in béchamel sauce, roast game birds and crème caramel were served in celebration. Aside from the birds, it was all canned. Conversely, without canned asparagus, now popular dishes such as Vietnam’s Sup Meng Tay (crab and asparagus soup) would never have emerged.

And while diplomacy was carried out by jaded diplomats, perhaps France’s truest ambassadors were in the legions of energetic young chefs who found their way out of poverty by training and travelling at the first chance they got. From Mexico to Madras, Turin to Tokyo, the world was hungry to savour what they had to offer.

At first, most of these young cooks came from France and trained in Paris, but they were soon joined by those acquiring their skills in Switzerland, Vienna, London and St. Petersburg. Escoffier claimed to have trained thousands of English cooks in the French style, and all of these in turn diffused their skills wherever in the world they turned up. By the 1890s, London alone counted 5,000 French cooks.

And as they went, they were assisted by another device whose attractions Carême had transformed, the cookbook. They were supported too, by a small army of waiters, butchers and bakers who set up shop in all the far-flung posts of the world. By the end of the 19th century, one could put on as good a do in Tokyo and Saigon as in Toulouse or Strasbourg.

And sometimes things just got all mixed up. Wherever it found itself, French cuisine was adapted to local tastes, often with the quiet addition of a few spices or herbs. In Algeria, l’Art de Bien Cuisiner (1933) set out specifically to give instructions on French cooking using local ingredients. Le Guide du Francais Arrivant en Indochine (1935) similarly added a few exotic flourishes to French cuisine (alongside setting out the prerequisites for successful integration, namely a serious professional background, an incontestable entrepreneurial spirit, a patient character and a highly developed sense of justice with which to moderate one’s own attitudes).

Thus we have Russian salads and beef stroganoff. Moussaka and lasagne are manifestations of the trend for adding béchamel sauce to anything to “frenchify” it. The Siamese played with chicken chaudfroid to create a visually identical dish made with minced chicken, lemongrass and coconut agar-agar. Even Escoffier got in on the game, knocking up an emincé de volaille au curry, which is just chicken in béchamel sauce with a smidge of curry powder.

However, as with salt, it paid to be judicious. The Hawaiian king who decided it was necessary to join the big boys by serving a French feast for his coronation, which in turn necessitated the construction of a palace and procurement of expensive linens and porcelains at a cost of $360,000, didn’t take long to find himself turfed out with a republic installed in his place.

But even today, while the French language has lost its supremacy as the lingua franca of diplomacy and we are all richer and closer through the globalisation of cuisines from all over the world, any of which is capable of being just as grand, French cuisine retains a unique capacity to endow any occasion with a certain otherness - a legacy of an adventurous past that we hope may never be lost.

Topaz’s Chef de Cuisine Sopheak Pov

[judgeredward]

A Night with Alex

When you walk through a street, it’s relatively hard to figure out what exactly makes the city or town tick. Is it the cars that power through the roads, sounding off their horns in a vague attempt to get through a traffic jam? Is it the buildings themselves, reaching ever higher into the city and filled to the brim with people living in many apartments? Or perhaps it’s the people themselves, walking down the pavements, watching their walls update every five seconds in a hope that someone would like that picture that claims they looked ‘disgusting’. In all honesty, for the mind of Alex Edward, all three examples were both correct and entirely wrong at the same time.

He himself was standing in his own apartment, looking out over the city of ‘Daxten’. It was a fantastic city, almost as large as Manchester, but with the technical advantages of cities one would find in Japan. The apartment itself was remarkable, with a single wall placed on the right-hand side that stood solitary from any other, and the sole separation from the bedroom and the rest of the apartment, which consisted of the lounge, kitchen, and another room to the left-hand side of the entrance door. Inside that was the bathroom, and perhaps it was the only place in the apartment that had privacy. This was due to the colossal window that the apartment had, set on one side of the apartment, which stretched from one wall to the other, almost fifteen metres long. However, privacy itself was not exactly a problem, considering the apartment was near the penthouse suites of the complex, and was almost fifty stories tall.

The city was calm, which was a rarity, even if the day had receded into the night sky. The ocean that was on the south-end seemed to match the calmness the city had. It most certainly helped to add to the almost-silent nature Daxten had. He could see in the window the pale reflection of his own face and body, and noted the slight tiredness lingering in his brilliantly deep-blue eyes. The whites surrounding the irises were beginning to turn a veiny red, and around the eyes themselves there was a small hint of the skin sagging down, like bags beginning to form. He reached up to pull back the messy black hair, letting it curl around his fingers for a brief moment before his hand slumped back to his side. He was dressed in a loose pair of bottoms that was tied around his waist, and a tee that was both creased and was obviously worn through, with both articles of clothing a faint grey in colour. There was a print on the front of the tee, with the words ‘The University of Tokyo’ both in English and Kanji characters, underneath an image coloured yellow and blue, almost like they were images of rounded leaves. However, there was some flaking of the larger image here and there, again hinting towards the age of the tee and how long the male had had it. Obviously something he had bought in a charity shop, or some cheap clothing shop that had caught his eye one day. He couldn’t remember where exactly he’d picked it up from, but it was remarkably comfortable and loose on his frame, so he had no complaints about it there.

Alex turned around at that, waving a hand upward towards the sensor that was situated in the far upper corner of the room. A couple of moments later, a slight hum came from the window, and the whole glass pane began to tint into a dark hue. He had some work to get on with, and he did not want the beauty of the city to go ahead and distract him. The male walked over to the lounge area, and hopped over the back of the couch. He reached to the side to grab a loose keyboard, and then entered a couple of keys. Soon, the large TV that was situated on the wall opposite whirred into life, and on it, the display of his computer. This was his office, in the most basic of terms. His work wasn’t exactly clear-cut or even the typical office paperwork, but it was still important… to some people.

“Call ‘Yegor Sidorov’,” Alex said then, looking up at the TV monitor. His accent was distinctly foreign, totally unlike the southern Japanese accent that Daxten people had. It was more along the lines one would sound if they were British, which was true, considering Alex was actually Welsh. He’d moved to Daxten when he was sixteen, alone, and had stayed here since. He made himself a fair bit of money, and was now living a decent life way up in the skies of Daxten skyscrapers.

A few moments later, an icon in the top right corner formed, with a picture of a middle-aged, white-haired man inside. There was the sound of a ringing phone for a few seconds, and then it stopped as the call was answered.

“Yegor speaking,” said the voice, in Russian.

“Evening, Sid,” Alex answered, also in Russian. The male knew a fair number of languages, with English, Russian, Cantonese and Japanese in his repertoire, to name a few.

“Ah, Edward. A pleasure.” There was a small rustle from the other side of the phone, then stopped as Sid went on, this time in English. “What do I owe you this time?”

“Nothing. Can’t a friend call another to see how they’re doing without being suspected at least once?” There was a faint smirk of smugness on Alex’s lips as he spoke.

“Considering you, Edward, I very much doubt so.”

“Yeesh… Alright, whatever,” Alex said after a small grumble and shake of his head. “I wanted to see if you’ve finished with writing up that article?”

There was a small pause, presumably as Sid thought up an answer. “Indeed I have. But right now I’m not at the office to email it over. I’m… in the middle of some business.”

“What kind?” Alex asked, a degree of curiosity in his voice.

“Oh, just the usual… the occasional torture,” Sid said, with not a hint of sympathy or remorse in his voice. “Found a target, who, apparently, knows about a particularly hotheaded woman who may, or may not, have killed one of my men.”

“Oh, her,” Alex added, with an equal amount of nonchalance. Indeed, this was the work Alex dealt with, and the reason he was able to acquire a considerable amount of money in the six or so years since arriving in Daxten. The raven-haired male was a bounty hunter.

He could recall the time he was introduced into the bounty-hunting gig. He’d become acquaintances with a Chinese man by the name of Heng Wu, a few years older than him at the time. Alex was nineteen back then, having just finished his education and had come out with less-than-stellar grades. After a night of drinking together by chance in a nightclub, Heng had questioned Alex, on a whim, about what it meant to end the life of someone else. While the question had taken him by surprise, it was more surprising to Alex at least on how easily he was able to come up with an answer to the man.

“If he deserves to die, then he shall die. If not, then it simply means he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

After that, Heng took Alex to meet a few of his colleagues, and the young man was soon educated in multiple ways, from gun maintenance and firing, knife and melee combat, and charming his way into being able to kill someone in the middle of a crowd and not having anyone even notice the death. Six years would pass, and there one would find Alex sitting in his apartment, having a strangely morbid conversation with a Russian who was torturing someone as they spoke.

“Any news about her then?” Alex asked then, the cursor on the screen dragging up a couple of windows up onto the screen. One of which was a profile about the target Sid spoke of: a short-haired redhead with a sinister-looking glare on her face and holding an ID sign. Strange, considering how rare it was to see people use ID signs, but he guessed that those who wanted her didn’t care much of which picture they used. She had, after all, murdered a significant number of people across the world, including some of Sid’s men. He had a lot of connections with the Russian mafia, and even had some work under him as henchmen.

“Apart from things we already knew, no,” Sid answered. There was a small whimper from the other side of the phone, as if whoever was being beaten to hell was crying. “She’s a slippery thing, that’s for sure.”

“Was that someone crying?” Alex asked then, almost laughing at the sound.

“Oh, this poor thing here. I think Mister Kanorik went a little too ham-handed with the sledgehammer and the man’s poor balls.”

“Ow, ow, ow, and more damn ow’s,” Alex added, cringing at the thought. “Please… that’s enough information, thank you very much.”

He moved the cursor to bring up a word document at that, then another that showed a shared drive. It was a drive that was distributed amongst a fair number of bounty hunters, a group of sorts that Alex, Sid, and the aforementioned Heng Wu was a part of. They were called the ‘Judgers’, and had a notable reputation for being efficient, clean, and precise with their targets. Some, like Sid and a woman in England by the name of Emily Brooks, liked finding their targets using torture, both physical and psychological. Others, like Alex, preferred working alone and eliminating bounties through a firearm. However, the whole group, which numbered to about sixteen people, all shared their information with one another.

There was another cry of pain from the other side of the phone, and then a small grunt coming from Sid. “Sorry, Edward, I’ll have to hang up. Don’t worry; you’ll get that article by tomorrow morning.”

“No worries,” Alex said then, letting out a small sigh. “Try not to kill him.”

“I’ll certainly try,” Sid finished darkly, before the call was ended and the apartment was cast into silence.

Alex moved the profile of the redhead off to the side, along with the other windows he had pulled up. His eyes cast upward to the screen, as if hoping for his work to suddenly start writing itself, but to no avail.

When Alex wasn’t off killing people for money, he was actually writing up codes for different programs. His ‘official’ job was a freelance programmer, and he was a surprisingly talented coder, considering that prior to coming to Daxten he couldn’t even work a mobile phone without somehow breaking it.

It would be a good four hours later that Alex finished off his work. By that point, the messy hair had turned flat and almost sweaty against his head, and almost had a slimy feeling to it. It was as if he had been wearing a beanie the entire time and now it was clamped against his scalp. What white in his eyes had previously remained was now streaked with red, and there was an obvious pair of bags under the male’s eyes. He looked physically drained of energy, typing up code for four hours straight, and there was more than one yawn escaping his lips. In short, the young man looked dead on his feet. However, with a quick refreshing in the bathroom shower and put in pyjamas, he looked a fair shade better.

He returned to the lounge and sunk back down into the large chair. There were a couple of clicks from his wireless mouse and keyboard, and soon enough, a film was playing on the large monitor, full screen, for Alex’s amusement. It didn’t take long though for the tired young man to have fallen asleep, the film still playing in the background, snoring lightly into the night. While Alex had plenty more in his life to see and ponder, it would seem that, while resting in the city’s night, the city itself would protect the young man for one more day.

[flipfundingstuff]

What Panic Buying Tells Us About American Consumer Mentality

First, they came for the hand sanitizer and disinfectant soap. Then in the 2nd week of COVID-19 pandemic shopping, buyers cleared retailers’ shelves of all the toilet paper. The 3rd week of widespread and ever-expanding shelter-in-place orders brought grocery shortages of baking yeast and spiral hams. And by the 4th week, CNN Business reported, “We’re in the ‘Hair Color’ Phase of Panic Buying.” 

“Lately, we’ve seen more grooming products [being sold], people are starting to need a haircut,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told the Today Show. “You start to see more beard trimmers and hair color.”

Massive runs on the seemingly random retail items named above would have been inexplicable a couple of months ago. But they make perfect sense now given our evolving adaptation to a new stay-at-home reality that’s creating unexpected new consumer needs. (The exception here is spiral hams. People do traditionally buy more hams in the lead-up to Easter).  

But many of the items have remained highly sought-after and difficult to find. It’s probably not news to you that retailers are having trouble keeping their shelves stocked with paper towels and toilet paper. But to those working behind the scenes, the scope of that demand is staggering. 

“In the last 5 days, we’ve sold enough toilet paper for every American to have their own roll,” Walmart’s McMillon said in that April 10 interview. “That’s just in 5 days.

What’s Driving Panic Buying During COVID-19

We do not use the term “panic buying” derisively or as a condescending insult to shoppers. COVID-19 is a global pandemic, so panic and fear are completely justified feelings. A terrible and unpredictable crisis is unfolding before our eyes, and buyers are coping with and responding to a public health and economic cataclysm the likes of which we have never seen before.

And technically, much of this is not even “panic buying.” It’s just a different pattern of buying when we all work from home, rarely drive, and almost never leave the house. Consumers are adapting to this new stay at home reality.

Survivalists may have thought that when the hunker-down times came, we’d be dealing with zombies, foreign invaders, or some sort of devious government takeover. But in reality, we’re dealing with unexpected home-schooling, overeating, binge-watching, and large volumes of sheer boredom.

“As people stay at home, their focus has shifted,” McMillon told Today. “It started out with food and consumables and then it moved on to puzzles and games.”

Some of our new buying patterns, like the new demand for flour, yeast, and hair clippers, are unexpected but completely sensible consumer responses to the shifting shelter-in-place landscape. Grocery stores initially ran out of bread, so people with plenty of time on their hands made the very practical decision to start baking their own. The cutting and coloring of our own hair was motivated by the spread and extension of stay-at-home orders and nonessential business closures.

Other new consumer behaviors, though, are a little less than rational.

Why People Are Buying So Much Toilet Paper

Some of the most striking images of the coronavirus outbreak have been of hauntingly empty streets and hilariously empty toilet paper and paper towel aisles. The paper towel shortage makes sense—we are disinfecting surfaces at a far more obsessive rate than ever before. But Walmart selling “enough toilet paper for every American to have their own roll” in just 5 days does not make sense in terms of household budgeting during a crunch, so we have to look at retail psychology.

“In times of uncertainty, people enter a panic zone that makes them irrational and completely neurotic,” University College London consumer and business psychology lecturer Dimitrios Tsivrikos told CNBC. “In other disaster conditions like a flood, we can prepare because we know how many supplies we need, but we have a virus now we know nothing about.”

He adds that buyers find something emotionally comforting about the bulky packaging, tactile softness, and relative affordability of a large 24-pack. “When you enter a supermarket, you’re looking for value and high volumes,” he said.

The toilet paper craze of 2020 is not just an American phenomenon. Business Insider points out that toilet paper is being rationed in Australia, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom thanks to similar panic-buying patterns. 

We cannot predict how these toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and spiral ham shortages will play out. But we have a pretty good sense of what other products are facing wild new levels of consumer demand—and the retail products whose sales are crashing.

What Consumers Are Buying Under Shelter-In-Place

Toilet paper demand is getting all the attention. But in general, most retail and grocery items have seen their sales either flatten or decline since peaking in that notorious mid-March week that many states and cities issued stay-at-home orders. Except one. Frozen food sales have continued to surge and have now hit double their average volume for this time of year, according to consumer analytics firm IRI.

Vices are also booming, a metric that is unlikely to surprise you. IRI found that liquor sales keep creeping up and are now more than 50% above their average sales volume compared to the same calendar period in previous years. Cigarettes are another enduring favorite, and while tobacco sales are only a few percentage points higher than previous years, that’s a reversal of the drastic decline that sector had been experiencing. And you may have heard about high business at marijuana dispensaries too, which tells us that vice sectors are well-positioned in a nervous economy. 

Analysts say that retail stores are seeing fewer shoppers as stay-at-home drags on but that stores are seeing a bigger “basket size,” or average amount of each purchase.

What People Are Not Buying During COVID-19

Obviously, people are not buying anything from stores that aren’t open. But even the benefactors of the initial stay-at-home sales boom are seeing a new downturn in demand for their products.

Household cleaning products like detergent, dish soap, and air fresheners have declined pretty dramatically after selling like hotcakes at the beginning of shelter-in-place orders. Over-the-counter healthcare products also enjoyed a huge initial sales surge but waning demand the longer we stay at home.

“We’re starting to see some of the nonfood items slowing down in terms of sales,” Larry Levin, IRI’s executive vice president of consumer and shopper marketing, said in a recent webcast. “We see a decline in general merchandise, a little bit of a decline in beauty [product sales] as people have already stocked up.”

Panic Buying Trends to Come

What’s going to be “the next toilet paper,” or retail item for which there will be sudden unprecedented demand? It’s a fair bet that protective face masks will be highly sought after in the very near future. Wearing face masks in public is now mandatory in the state of New York, and the cities of Los Angeles and Miami are requiring face masks for entering the premises of an essential business. Similar orders are likely to expand nationwide, making a run on masks a likely candidate for panic-buying status.

Again, the panic is justified. Even the wealthiest consumers are cautious and worried, and the likelihood of long-term recession is difficult to deny. 

Historians may compare coronavirus panic buying to previous panics, but this one’s different. The buying patterns are driven by the fact that we’re stuck at home in our pajamas, making bread and watching Netflix, riding out the storm in a voluntarily shut down economy. What we’re seeing right now doesn’t so much tell us about American buying patterns—it tells us more about the moment and how we’re rising to the moment by laying on the couch all day.

The post What Panic Buying Tells Us About American Consumer Mentality appeared first on Lendio.

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[gyrlversion]

Getting back to nature… its Kate, Queen of the swingers

The giggling Duchess of Cambridge recaptures her tomboy childhood as she plays on a rope swing slung from a tree – in the garden she’s designed for the Chelsea Flower Show.

The delightful picture was taken by a palace aide last week as Kate took a playful break from putting finishing touches to the garden before the world-famous show opens on Tuesday.

Her plot’s Back To Nature theme is intended to rekindle the magic of childhood, and underlines the work Kate has been doing to promote the benefits of being outdoors for physical and mental health. The mother-of-three wanted her garden to be a playground for children to enjoy, as well as a relaxing space for grown-ups.

She was, according to her co-designers, inspired by forest-bathing, the Japanese practice of walking slowly and thoughtfully in woodland to ‘bathe’ in its peace and beauty and recharge the body’s batteries.

The delightful picture was taken by a palace aide last week as Kate took a playful break from putting finishing touches to the garden

Her garden features a bridge over a burbling brook and a quirky wooden treehouse.

In a touching tribute to Princess Diana, the garden also features bunches of forget-me-nots, her favourite flowers.

And amid the wild foliage and arching trees is a small campfire for toasting snacks and a rustic den thought to be inspired by one she created with her children George, five, Charlotte, four, and Louis, one.

Kate, 37, has spoken fondly of carefree days playing outside as a child and hopes the garden will open a conversation about the effects of nature on mental health and its importance in a child’s formative years.

Speaking ahead of the show’s official opening, she said: ‘In recent years, I have focused much of my work on the early years and how instrumental they are for outcomes later in life.

‘I believe that spending time outdoors when we are young can play a role in laying the foundations for children to become happy, healthy adults.’

Her comments come ahead of this week’s first anniversary of the creation of an expert steering group on early years development to advise her on what can be done to ensure a better start in life for all children in Britain.

Kate’s spot on – forest bathing CAN make you live longer: The Duchess is embracing the new wellness trend for immersing yourself in trees and greenery – and scientists say she’s right 

By Harry Wallop for the Mail on Sunday 

Last week, the Royal Hospital Chelsea looked more like an HS2 construction site than a centre of horticultural excellence as hundreds of landscape architects and gardeners battled to construct their creations in time for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, which will be officially opened by the Queen tomorrow. 

But amid all the high-vis jackets, steel-capped boots, fork-lift trucks, and cranes there were pockets of peace and oases of calm that were already taking shape.

What caught the eye most, perhaps, was a treehouse, perching above an old stump of chestnut, just off the main avenue of show grounds.

Clad in stag horn oak and nestled in twisted branches of hazel, it looks like a super-sized bird’s nest. It is both impressively sculptural and a place you immediately want to climb into to play hide-and-seek. Under the treehouse a swing, made of a ball of rope, hangs invitingly over undergrowth, thick with ferns and huge leaves of gunnera.

Spirits lifted: Laughing Kate helps Adam White and Andree Davies create their Back To Nature Garden

The dream-like treehouse and swing are the centrepiece of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Back To Nature Garden – co-designed by the Duchess of Cambridge.

Landscape architects Adam White and Andree Davies are the two professional co-designers, and they invited The Mail on Sunday for an exclusive preview ahead of the grand opening.

White says that during the planning stages late last year, the Duchess would bring a scrapbook full of pictures, photographs and ideas to every meeting.

Their shared goal: to highlight the link between nature and health, both mental and physical.

A REMEDY FOR NATURE DEFICIT DISORDER

The Duchess, Davies and White had, quite independently, come across a book, Last Child In The Woods, by Richard Louv.

In it, Louv suggests that some of the most troubling childhood trends, such as the rise in obesity, attention disorders and depression, were linked to not spending enough time outdoors.

He even gives the ‘condition’ a name: nature deficit disorder, which reflects the emerging evidence that the health of youngsters in urban areas is far worse than those who grow up in the countryside.

The Duchess gets down to it with Andree as the garden is planted for the Chelsea show

And so the Duchess, mother to Prince George, five, Princess Charlotte, four, and Prince Louis, one, wanted her garden to be a playground for children to escape into – but also a space for grown-ups. She was, say her collaborators, also inspired by forest bathing, the Japanese practice of walking slowly and thoughtfully in woodland – ‘bathing’ in its peace and beauty to recharge the body’s batteries.

This isn’t just a new name for tree-hugging – although, as I discovered later, hugging trees can be part of it.

In fact, studies show that blood pressure, heart rate, mood and even the immune system can all be improved by spending some quiet time in forested areas.

Indeed, in Japan, where rates of heart disease are among the lowest in the world, forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, is a vital part of their national health programme.

An earlier picture of The Duchess of Cambridge with Andree Davies (C) and Adam White (L), of Davies White Landscape Architect, discussing plans for her ‘Back To Nature’ garden

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‘The Duchess suggested this,’ says White. ‘The challenge was to create an immersive experience, for visitors to feel like they are in the middle of a woodland, so that everyone gets their own little nature fix.’ And they have certainly achieved it.

As well as the treehouse and swing, there is a stream where children can play Pooh sticks and a large hollow log – sourced from a fallen tree on the Queen’s country estate at Sandringham in Norfolk – which they can crawl into for a moment of calm.

The garden will feature a wide variety of trees, including what Davies describes as ‘incredible edibles’, such as walnuts, apples and pears as well as Scots pine, the only truly native pine in the UK. ‘The dry cones can be used as kindling for fires, which is ideal if you are out exploring nature, building dens and a campfire,’ she adds.

There’s plenty for adults to admire too, not least the richness of planting and the stunning hornbeam trees that give the garden a jungle-like atmosphere. So can something as simple as a walk among the trees really have a direct impact on your health?

Pictured: Previous image of Kate with Andree Davies (C) and Adam White (L), of Davies White Landscape Architect, discussing plans for her ‘Back To Nature’ garden

Davies says: ‘If you are a stressed office worker, and you spend five or ten minutes of your day walking in nature, slowing down, looking at things in detail and feeling that atmosphere of being out in the woodlands – it brings your heart rate down.’

And how about hugging trees? ‘I’m always hugging trees,’ she laughs.

THE RISE OF THE TREE-HUGGER

The practice of forest bathing has, in recent years, made its way West. Wayward teenage pop star Justin Bieber and lover of all things alternative-health Gwyneth Paltrow were early adopters.

And now the Establishment – not just the Duchess – is embracing it.

Both the Forestry Commission and the RSPB conservation charity offer forest bathing sessions on their land, while health retreats and spas offering versions are popping up all over Britain.

I signed up for a session at Armathwaite Hall, a spa hotel on the shores of Bassenthwaite Lake in North Cumbria.

And so I found myself lying on a carpet of snowdrops – and feeling a bit of a wally, to be honest – as my instructor, yoga teacher Rebecca Shepherd, instructed me to ‘take a breath in and whisper the word ‘ham’ ‘. When I shot her a quizzical look, wondering whether the rasping noise I am making is correct, she says: ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s like Darth Vader.’ She explains: ‘The whole thing with forest bathing is that you go into woodland and you shut up.

Outdoor showers and medicinal herbs: Four other healing spaces 

The oasis that fights stress in city-dwellers 

Living in the urban sprawl can be stressful. 

The Green Switch garden, designed by Kazuyuki Ishihara, who has created 13 previous gardens for Chelsea, aims to help city-dwellers escape to an oasis of calm. 

Here people can switch from city chaos to a natural calm, thanks to the open-style Azumaya (garden house). 

The two-storey glass structure has an upper tea room, a lower parking space (with motorbike parked), and a glass shower room for outdoor bathing, surrounded by trees.

A family-friendly space to heal emotions 

The Family Monsters Garden celebrates imperfections in life, showing that from adversity, great things can grow. 

A joint venture between the charity Family Action, which supports families experiencing social isolation, and landscape architect Alistair Bayford, the garden of birch, hazel and black pine trees is a place where families can open up about anxieties. 

Alistair says: ‘The trees illustrate the journey of growth – and how families grow and recover from knock-backs.’

A sensory garden for motor neurone disease 

The ‘High Maintenance Garden’ for sufferers of the degenerative brain disease motor neurone disease serves as an inspirational metaphor. 

It represents the limitations people feel when their mind and senses are still active but their body is in physical decline. 

So while they can enjoy the garden’s sensory elements, the untended garden gradually slips back to nature, overtaken by roses and jasmine and with trees climbing through the roof.

Herb garden that helps ease headaches

The Kampo no Niha garden takes its inspiration from Kampo, a traditional form of Japanese herbal medicine dating back to the 7th Century. 

The plants in the garden grow in the Hokkaido region and are all used in Kampo medicines. 

The buds of the Magnolia Kobus help reduce fever and the roots of the Paeonia lactiflora can relieve headaches.

‘You absorb the colour green, you listen to the birdsong, you smell the natural scents and you take in nature – which is astounding.

‘Rather than staring at our phones or a computer screen, you actually have a look around.’

I spend some time examining the moss on a fallen branch, to see how many different shades of green it contains, its texture, and how it feels beneath my fingers.

Once I stopped thinking about the fact that I was stroking a tree branch, I was indeed overcome with a sense of calm.

The key, I’ve discovered, is not to take yourself too seriously. If you can master that, it really does work.

TREES CAN BOOST IMMUNE HEALTH… AND THE HEART

Research from Nippon Medical School in Tokyo suggests that forest bathing could have a direct effect on the immune system, specifically our natural killer, or NK cells, which protect us from viruses and the formation of tumours.

Patients saw a significant boost to their NK cell activity in the week following a forest visit, with positive effects lasting a month after.

A separate study, by experts at Japan’s Chiba University, measured levels of the stress hormone cortisol, blood pressure and heart rate in volunteers during a day spent in the city, repeating the tests during a 30-minute forest visit.

All health measures improved during the time spent among the trees. But why?

University of Derby psychologist Professor Miles Richardson has studied forest bathing in detail.

He says: ‘Our systems are attuned more to the natural world we evolved in than the bleeps, clicks and lights of modern-day living.’

In short, he says, it comes down to evolution. We have spent only a couple of centuries living in built-up environments surrounded by brick, glass and tarmac, yet spent many millennia among the trees.

Another fascinating theory involves organic compounds called phytoncides. Trees emit them into the air to help protect themselves from parasites and disease. There is evidence that phytoncides really could benefit humans.

Experts at the University of Helsinki revealed that the rapid increase in allergies, asthma and other chronic inflammatory disorders in the past few decades has been caused by the death of plants and loss of animal life. This reduces human exposure to beneficial microbes that are essential for a healthy immune system.

They also found allergies in youngsters were significantly reduced if they lived near greenery.

A GENTLE WAY TO EASE TRAUMA

It is not just physical health that forest bathing can boost but mental health too – and the NHS is increasingly interested in the link between nature and mental health.

Psychiatrist Tim Kendal, the NHS’s National Clinical Director for Mental Health, says: ‘There is a growing body of evidence of the benefit of being in a natural environment, be it a sculptured version of nature or a more wild version.’

After the Chelsea Flower Show, much of the Back To Nature garden will be uprooted and replanted at an NHS Mental Health Trust, where it is hoped patients will enjoy the benefits of the trees.

Andrew Kingston is recovery service manager for Camden & Islington NHS, and his psychiatric hospital was the recipient of last year’s Chelsea garden after the show. Many of his patients are elderly, with conditions including schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder. He says: ‘Tending to the garden gives them a focus. There’s no doubt most people who forest-bathe feel it boosts their health.’

Caro, 69, a retired teacher, once a month joins a forest bathing group in Highgate Woods, North London. Caro told me she started coming to the group after her home was burgled last year and a man stole some of her jewellery.

She says: ‘I was traumatised. But coming to this was just so calming. I just thought, well – these are jewels, these things in nature. That feeling of trauma just ebbed away.’

She describes the sessions as ‘magical’ – a word Prof Richardson uses too, when describing a Japanese study from 2017 which suggests just stroking a bit of wood could lower your blood pressure.

‘It’s science, not magic. But it feels magical, doesn’t it?’

It certainly does. The Duchess of Cambridge’s father-in-law, the Prince of Wales, was once mocked for being a tree-hugger.

But, it turns out, if we all spent a bit more time hugging trees, we would be healthier and happier.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show runs from May 21 to 25 at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. Tickets, costing from £75, are still available from rhs.org.uk.

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[gamingtipsandtrickshacks]

The new bloom of Q-Games • Eurogamer.net

Every spring, when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, people in Japan gather to celebrate in an ages-old tradition known as hanami. It's a celebration of nature's beauty, and a chance for friends and family to get together in the first blushes of spring. This year, Q-Games has assembled alongside its Kyoto compatriots on the banks of the Kamo River, laying a blue tarpaulin down beneath the tree that boasts the most impressive blooms for miles (a spot that a junior member of the team was sent down to secure some hours before the event started) before piling into a supply of beer, wine and other assorted booze.

Galak-Z creators 17-Bit are in attendance, as are Vitei, the studio headed up by former Nintendo EAD man Giles Goddard. And watching over it all is Goddard's one-time colleague back in the days of Star Fox and Argonaut Software, Dylan Cuthbert, cutting a fatherly figure as he slices into an improbably large leg of ibrico ham. The party goes into the night, the drinking until sometime the following morning. A couple of days later, I catch up with Cuthbert at his Kyoto office - a neat, warm little studio that looks out over the neat, tidy little streets of the city - at what feels like a fitting time. After a couple of years of relative quiet, it feels like Q-Games is about to break into bloom once again.

The studio's last high-profile release, The Tomorrow Children, was perhaps the developer's most ambitious project to date. It was certainly its hardest to parse; a strange, nebulous and arrestingly beautiful waking dream of a game, it struggled to define itself upon launch in 2016 and ended up being shuttered just over 12 months later.

Under Cuthbert, Q-Games has produced a fine run of talent that's gone on to its own efforts - Dakko Dakko's one, while last year's splendid Wonder Boy revival was overseen by alumni Omar Cornut.

"I wouldn't say it's been turbulent," says Cuthbert of the last few years. "It's certainly been busy. Making The Tomorrow Children involved quite a big team. We made that, and at the end it was a small team maintaining it - so it was fine from our point of view. In general, I don't think Sony was ready to do a free-to-play game. It wasn't our idea to do a free-to-play game - around halfway through development, they said we want to make it free-to-play, and I said, well, do you know what that takes? It takes a lot of marketing, data, research, analysis - and, for me, I felt that they didn't really do that. It always felt they hadn't quite got the grasp of that, and I think Sony is much more efficient at making a game and selling it. It's not a big shock - their whole engine isn't geared for that."

Indeed, Sony's track record with its own free-to-play titles hasn't been great - take KillStrain, another effort that released with little fanfare and was just as quietly closed down a year after its own release. For Q-Games, the end of The Tomorrow Children saw a five year chapter at the studio come to a close, and it now sees the developer returning to what it does best.

"We went back to the way we worked before," says Cuthbert. "The Tomorrow Children was a fairly big team, and it was actually kind of fun - the game itself was very experimental, it had all kinds of sections that were fun to work on with the weird systems in place. As a game creator it was so much fun being able to work in that sandbox set-up. After that we just went back to multiple smaller teams and experiments - which was exactly what we were doing before."

That new, old approach is manifesting itself in PixelJunk Monsters 2, a follow-up to perhaps Q-Games' most beloved title, and the best received of the PixelJunk series. The sequel will have been in development some 18 months by the time it comes out next month - a fairly typical schedule for previous entries in the PixelJunk series, but a mere fraction of the amount of time it took for The Tomorrow Children to see the light of day.

Dylan is, quite rightly, proud of the table that's the centrepiece of the studio's rest space. It's a fine piece of wood.

Why choose now, then, to return to PixelJunk Monsters? "Because it's the 10th anniversary, really," says Cuthbert. "And because everyone asked for it. Last year when we started the project, we thought let's see if we can do it in 3D, and see how it looks. And our first tests, we nailed the look really nicely - it looks like PixelJunk Monsters, and because we found that look it kind of spurred us on."

It feels like a good time, too, to return to the PixelJunk Monsters' formula. Releasing in the midst of the heady year for video games that was 2008, it came at a time when downloadable, digital-only games still felt like something of a novelty on console. It came, too, when the tower defence craze was truly heating up.

"It was kind of just before it," says Cuthbert of a concept that began by attempting a modern remake of Sabre Wulf, Ultimate Play the Game's ZX Spectrum adventure that first released back in 1984. "When we came out there was only one or two other tower defence games. The main difference, for us, was that when we first saw the tower defence genre, we looked at it and thought it'd be great to have on console on HDMI at 1080p - and tower defence as it stood was very simple, mouse-controlled and very PC-oriented. And we thought if we're going to do a game based on these dynamics, we want to make it more Nintendo-like."

With the sequel, that Nintendo-like feel has only deepened. You're still controlling Tikiman, and still partaking in a characterful spin on the tower defence genre, but it feels so much more alive; the visuals, with their tilt-shift focus effect and an emphasis on textures that feel like wood and clay, give it all a hand-crafted look that's all the more gorgeous when you zoom in for a closer look at the field in play (a view that, unfortunately, it's hard to play effectively from, but good lord is it great for screenshots). On the Switch's portable screen on which PixelJunk Monster 2 is demoed, it simply pops.

There's something warmly nostalgic, too, in playing a game whose genre feels like untapped territory these past few years. "Yeah, it's like you're getting a nice modern remake of the genre," says Cuthbert. "It's ten years on, so it should feel nostalgic really. I've played a few of the popular tower defence games, and they don't seem to have evolved at all.

"There's a lot of content in there - it's what they call triple-I." Triple-I? I admit, that's a new one on me. "Yeah, it's like triple-A overall quality, but not the same level of content as triple-A," Cuthbert explains. "Indie, but that level of quality. And I think Monsters 2 has that - it looks like a really nice polished Nintendo-quality game, and it plays really solidly. But it doesn't have loads of story cutscenes and all the other trimmings triple-A products have."

PixelJunk Monsters 2 is coming to PC, Steam and Switch towards the end of next month - courtesy of publisher Spike Chunsoft this time around - and beyond that there's plenty more on the horizon for Q-Games. Eden Obscura, a mobile game, is being dated soon, while Monsters Duo - a mobile take on the PixelJunk Monsters formula - is also being worked on. There are other, more secretive projects, and now that the team that worked on PixelJunk Monsters 2 is free it'll soon be put to another game.

"In the theme of Monsters 2 what we'll primarily do is try to keep that triple-I feel to our games," says Cuthbert. We don't want to go on the retro bandwagon too much - in general, one of our skillsets is that we do have experience in 3D, making the games look really nice, and I think we can keep finding new ideas. They won't be long projects - a maximum of two years, and we're doing multiple ones at the same time. In the next few years, you'll see some really nice boutique quality games from us."

[nancyxvalentine]

Senso-ji Temple, Asakusa, Tokyo At this point of my stay in Japan, it feels as though time is an illusion. I’m writing this on day 3 while on the bullet train to Ishikawa, and yet it feels as though I’ve been dwelling in this country for a few weeks…but let’s rewind: On the morning of day 2, Charolette (the vocalist/musician), Patrick/Hei Hei (the realist painter) and I made our way to meet up with Aiko in Asakusa, a neighborhood of Tokyo known as the home of the oldest temple in Tokyo, Senso-ji Temple. After maneuvering the tram system, we located a bank where I was able to exchange the rest of the cash I brought along to Yen (for a much better rate than at the airport). We wandered the streets until we found the designated meeting place and waited for Aiko behind a large temple-style arch. When she arrived, we walked the main drag of Old Tokyo (Asakusa) and allowed ourselves to absorb all the new sounds, sights and smells. One thing that has stuck out to us all since the moment we arrived was the fresh scent of the city of Tokyo. There are many brief fading aromas (both pleasant and not), but the city as a whole is pretty tidy and scent-less (as opposed to London, New York or Paris where the streets tend to forever waft an under-scent of piss and trash). Along the main drag, Aiko purchased a small package of sweet bean paste filled spongey cakes for us to try. They came in 4 different shapes (lotus, bird, temple, mystery animal) and were made right in front of us by a man that looked like he’d been doing this his whole life. As we snacked on the sweet treats, we came to the entrance of the Senso-ji Temple area. Aiko informed us that we were incredibly lucky to be there that particular day because it just so happened to be Budda’s awakening birthday! Because of this, the temple was hosting extra special ceremonial traditions that only come around once a year! We followed the line of visitors (dressed in all variations of casual to traditional formal kimonos) and were handed an informational paper and some free commemorative bookmarks in the shape of leaves from elderly volunteers. As we entered into the temple area, I noticed the air felt different. Sacred. We noticed large quantities of people shaking metal octogonal cylinders and pulling sticks out of a tiny opening on one end. Aiko explained to us that this is a form of temple fortune telling. Basically, a person gives an offering of 100 Yen then shakes the foot long cylinder until a stick pokes out, the person then matches the symbols stamped on the end of the stick to the grid of drawers adjacent and pulls out a fortune from that drawer. The fortune is typically a mix of a proverb as well as some practical predictions, and after reading the fortune, a person has the option of either keeping the fortune (usually when it’s good…which mine was, so I did) or folding it up and tying it up to a wire/rope structure as a gesture to the gods or the spiritual realm in hopes that they will turn it around and grant a better fortune. We then made our way to the fountain to cleanse ourselves before entering into the temple. Aiko demonstrated for us the traditional steps to properly cleanse our hands and mouth from he water then invited us to join in. We then turned our attention to the incense hut to cover ourselves in the healing smoke and ladled sweet water over a buddhist idol (which symbolizes the outpouring of gratitude) before entering into Senso-ji Temple to give an offering and say a prayer. Senso-ji Temple itself is an immaculate structure. The ceilings are beautifully decorated with ornate paintings of spiritual symbols, my favorite of which was an enormous dragon holding a precious dragon ball. I felt like I had a very strange internal experience while we were in the temple because as I looked around, I felt many of the feelings and spiritual yearnings of those around me. Each person praying was either asking for something or expressing gratitude for something and witnessing such an intimate spiritual act filled me with empathy and overwhelming emotion to the physiological point of soft tears. It was a beautiful experience. We then headed to a side street to fill our tummies with delicious street food. Charlotte and Aiko split a vegetable pancake (which looked more like a mixed veggie hash browns) while Hei Hei opted for a fluffy pork pancake/quiche and I nommed on takoyaki (batter-balls filled with octopus tentacles) and Japanese fried chicken on a stick. It felt SO GOOD to eat. After we disposed of our trash, Aiko shared with us that traditionally after one visits temple, they are then permitted to drink alcohol if they desire. Hei Hei took this as a prompt and we all decided to head in the direction of a vendor of liquid gold. We wandered for a while enjoying the neighborhood streets, then eventually found a spot at a woman-owned street cafe. As the owner served us, Aiko shared that drinking culture in Japan is much different than in the US. Rather than going out with the intention of getting sloshed ASAP, in Japan, small plates/meals are almost always served along side drinks so as to slow down the inebriation process (but with that being said, we’ve already witnessed quite a few Japanese going HAM). The companion dishes for our beers were some sweet cucumbers with garlic paste, raw cubed salmon and edamame - YUMMY. Once we paid, we entered into a handful of street shops, then headed to a shopping center that sells exclusively made-in-Japan goods. We only perused the first 3 floors, but we saw everything from sweets and edible treats to various spices to ceramics to instruments to clothing, etc. I purchased a few goodies for my family as souvenirs, then we headed back to the main entrance of Old Tokyo to meet up with Starr & Ptah (a Jamaican performance artist residing in New York).

[evolutionoftastitude]

New Post has been published on http://www.evsmanagement.ca/clients/evolution/2017/02/02/a-world-of-sinful-sandwiches/

A World of Sinful Sandwiches

It’s fun to do a world tour of foods especially when it involves delicious things that you like to eat. Last time around we talked about soup and identified so many ethnic groups by the hot and yummy flavours that were in the bowl. This week I thought it appropriate to delve into soups best friend and perfect match… the almighty sandwich!

    We’ve touched on the history of the sandwich before but to give a quick refresher the savoury sandwich is believed to have been named after John Montagu 4th Earl of Sandwich. The Earl liked his cards and didn’t want to take a break during a game and ordered his staff to bring him lunch between two slices of bread so he could eat while continuing his game and so the sandwich was born. It obviously has since caught on and has a foothold in almost every country on the planet.

Just like soup the sandwich can very easily let you identify its place of origin with some countries having many sandwiches linked to them. Here a few of the culinary greats from around the world:

USA: Muffaletta / Lobster Roll / Po’ Boy

Poland: Zapiekanka

Japan: Yakisoba

India: Vada Pav

Singapore: Roti John

Italy: Panini

Belgium: Mitrailette

South Africa: Gatsby

Trinidad and Tobago: Doubles

Turkey: Doner Kebab

 Of course there are endless others all just waiting to be explored but the aforementioned list might keep your taste buds busy and satiated for at least a little while. I’ve enjoyed some of the world’s great “sammies” and some of them in the country they originated from, but one of my all-time favourites is the decadently delicious Cubano.

It’s pretty easy to guess where this one is from simply reading it by name and it is truly a simple sandwich to make but there is just something special about the Cubano and it definitely delivers on Tastitude!

I don’t know if it’s the beautiful crusty Cuban bread, the slow roasted pork loin, the salty deli ham, the brininess of the pickles, the earthy Swiss cheese or the slight bite of the mustard that makes it so tempting but it’s definitely a winning combination. Of course the fact that it’s smothered in butter and grilled on a plancha until it’s perfectly golden and melty doesn’t make it any less enticing.

There is some debate as to whether this sandwich actually originated in Cuba or was actually created in Tampa or Miami by the Cuban immigrants that had migrated to the region and had just brought along the flavours of home but wherever it got its start I’m just thankful the Cubano found its way to sandwich lovers everywhere.

Whether you’re a fan of a straight up ham and cheese, love a classic grilled cheese or are sandwich aficionado that revels in the thought of a Croque Monsieur the Cubano will probably make your top three the very first time you sink your teeth into one. So to help you along with your flavour exploration of the great sandwiches of the world here’s a classic recipe so you can build a Cubano of your very own.

– Chef House

Classic Chef’s Cubano

  3 Tbsp butter, softened 8 inch portion of Cubano bread, cut in half lengthwise 3 Tbsp yellow mustard 6 deli slices Black Forest ham 2-3 slices slow roasted pork loin 4 slices Swiss cheese 1 whole dill pickle cut into slices, lengthwise

Spread mustard on both sides of interior of bread slices and layer on sliced cheese and ham, pork and sliced pickle.

Close sandwich and butter outer crust on both sides of sandwich like you would prepare a grilled cheese.

Using a Plancha or Panini press, grill sandwiches until lightly charred, and cheese is melted, 6 to 8 minutes. If you don’t have a Plancha or Panini press you can use a cast iron pan and a weight grilling one side at a time with the weight on top or by applying continuous pressure on sandwich with a large spatula as you grill each side.

Remove sandwich and cut into two pieces on a diagonal corner to corner. Serve hot

Classic Chef’s Cubano

Chef House

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[myendlesshorizonstuff]

I don’t know if the Japanese are a particularly religious or spiritual people but the sheer number of religious affiliated historical sites would lead one to believe they are. In the other two and a half days I had left in Kyoto I went to five separate shrines or temples. Five, and that barely scratched the surface.

Fushimi Inari shrine, this is a particularly famous place and has been in several movies. The first time I saw it on film was in Memoirs of a Geisha. The only movie magic necessary for that is kicking everybody out, because that place is packed. Though again, the further into the shrine you go the less people there are. It’s full of large orange arches for more then a mile or so and never more than a few inches apart. It’s sort of a sight that you can’t really explain beyond amazing. Is it amazing that someone built wooden arches no not really but at the same time its fantastic and beautiful and just wow! I even got to see an adorable little kitty kat who was sneaking food from the altars. The trail climbs up a very picturesque hillside with plenty of pretty sights to look at a long the way. Some of the paths through the arches were blocked off, I don’t know why though I assume it’s for repair reasons.

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When you get there from the subway station you walk a kilometer or so to almost the shrines site. Along the way you will see a bunch of food stalls that smelled delicious but I abstained on the way up to not get sick on greasy food while hiking. I then  abstained on the way down as well because it was bloody expensive.  There are a lot of other touristy things, people selling foxes, or even Yakutas to wear, or if you are really fancy there was a stall to rent kimonos as well. It was… I don’t know, weird? Yeah I kinda thought so. Then again I did buy a little stuffed foxy before heading out so what do I know.

From there I headed to Kiyomizu-dera. I get a bit lost first though and take the train going the wrong way from Inari. It takes me more than one station to recognize this and when I get on to the right platform for the training going the right way I sit next to a women yelling about designer bags. I imagined she sells them and yet she had no merchandise so… You know, always an adventure. I chose to walk a the rest of the way to the temple rather than figure out the bus system. Which is lucky I do for I happen upon two things; 1 Rengeo-in and a kimono rental shop.

Rengeo-in is called the Hall of the Lotus King and has like a hundred or so hand carved statues of buddhavistas. I have pictures of the outside but none of the inside other than post cards because they don’t allow it. Noticing a trend? This particular temple may have been the most expensive. I know it was more than Kiyomizu or Kinkakuji but its been awhile since I went, sorry. I think it was worth and I did buy some post cards on the cheap that I am keeping for myself. Yes, I know I am selfish. Tough.

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After that I kept walking all the while thinking to myself “I know it’s super touristy and maybe a little bit cultural appropriation but I really REALLY want to wear a kimono.” I would look in a kimono rental store and sigh at all the pretty things and then I would remember the hanbok experience.

That makes it sound much more traumatic than it actually was. The people where I borrowed a hanbok was very nice and tried hard to make it work and it did, sorta. I do not resemble in any way shape or form a typical Korean girl, or for that matter a Japanese girl. So in order to wear a hanbok and be decent I had to wear a mens shirt because the women’s short jacket wasn’t long enough.  I liked it, lots of my friends said I looked good and a staggering amount of Chinese tourists wanted to take pictures with us. Kimonos are not so easily alternated. Not to mention that people take classes on how to put on a kimono correctly, it’s very serious business. I expected that if I went in there they would try really hard to find something for me to wear. Would find something almost right but ultimately not enough and then would turn me away like, sorry we don’t have anything in your size. Suddenly I would become a tourist version of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman but I wouldn’t be able to come back and be like big mistake; because it wouldn’t be a perceived lack of funds but a reality of too much mass.

What actually happened was they found a robe for me no problem and it was a pretty one. They got me into and were almost finished, just one last step, the Obi. I have never worn a a corset but I imagine it most be like how wearing that particular Obi felt like wearing. I am sure it’s just because you need enough fabric to tie the thing in the back. So they pulled it so tight that I felt like it was supporting my back and I had to stand up straight. It was both nice and uncomfortable. I put my things in this bag and left them there and headed out in some wooden shoes. I know that the shoes of my people were not all that great either but  I am sorry those shoes are ridiculous. I slowly, because I couldn’t take a step bigger then the tiny width of my dress, walked up to Kiyomizu-dera

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My awesome selfie skills

Me in Kiyomizu

From the back, still in the shop.

Dang! that is really pretty. You get to go in quite a ways before you have to pay. Unfortunately do the fact that I suck and took four freaking months to write this i don’t remember how much it was. Totally worth it though!

Look at all those people. 

Built right over the hills that over look the valley of Kyoto and near a water spring/pool thing. Real talk I am not entirely sure. Aren’t I just the greatest travel blogger ever, so informative! Whatever. That makes sense because apparently the name  means Pure Water. After you walk through the main temple pictured above there is a little path and along the path there is a stone pool with drinking cups. There was a long line so I didn’t drink any of it.

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I think that was it for day two in Kyoto, I might have gone to the Philosophers Walk after a yummy dinner of Ramen. Though um real talk I think I like a good dressed up cup of instant noodles better. GASP! I know. Bad Alera, bad bad girl.

The next day was my last day in Kyoto, I went outside of the city first t

Ham slice ramen with egg seaweed and um stuff 

hing to Byodoin which is actually in a a city called Uji, which I have no idea how to pronounce. I got managed not to get lost on the way there, yay!

So I went here on the advice of a friend of mine who is Japanese and who went lived here for a period of time. I will admit that it is a completely beautiful place and not llike I had somewhere I else I would have rather gone but it was kinda on lower end of things i enjoyed in Japan. In the places defense I was in a bit of a time crunch and there was a rather long wait time to get to go inside. Which I think is definitely the sticking point of the place. So I am not an accurate judge of this place as I only saw part of it. I will of course say that the place is really beautiful and well thought out. Also, if you are confused about Buddhism and want to know more without like reading about it or talking to someone about or some sort of actual meaningful way of learning about a religion then this place is quite informative. You will of course still leaving with plenty of questions.

They do have a museum on the place which has many of the original pieces of artwork from inside the temple as they are only reproductions anymore for preservation purposes. However, and this is a big however, the museum has lots of explanation and writings with only Japanese. This would not bother me if this was some podunk museum I stumbled upon. Podunk this is not, it’s a World Heritage Site! Do you need to provide a translation in every language, no I am not a crazy person. I realize that Japan has a huge intra country tourism so I am sure that most of the people don’t have a hard time with it but it was just really really annoying is all I am saying.

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After this I made it back to the train station wherein the cops stopped me, asked for my passport and checked something I don’t know, they didn’t tell me apparently it was important enough to stop me but not inform me. I am being over sensitive, yeah probably. I had about 30 minutes till the train came. This guy asked me to fill out this survey, I tried my best then I ate some Ice Cream.

Then I headed to Osaka!

        Temple shrine temple shrine…. I don't know if the Japanese are a particularly religious or spiritual people but the sheer number of religious affiliated historical sites would lead one to believe they are.

[gamingtipsandtrickshacks]

The new bloom of Q-Games • Eurogamer.net

Every spring, when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, people in Japan gather to celebrate in an ages-old tradition known as hanami. It's a celebration of nature's beauty, and a chance for friends and family to get together in the first blushes of spring. This year, Q-Games has assembled alongside its Kyoto compatriots on the banks of the Kamo River, laying a blue tarpaulin down beneath the tree that boasts the most impressive blooms for miles (a spot that a junior member of the team was sent down to secure some hours before the event started) before piling into a supply of beer, wine and other assorted booze.

Galak-Z creators 17-Bit are in attendance, as are Vitei, the studio headed up by former Nintendo EAD man Giles Goddard. And watching over it all is Goddard's one-time colleague back in the days of Star Fox and Argonaut Software, Dylan Cuthbert, cutting a fatherly figure as he slices into an improbably large leg of ibrico ham. The party goes into the night, the drinking until sometime the following morning. A couple of days later, I catch up with Cuthbert at his Kyoto office - a neat, warm little studio that looks out over the neat, tidy little streets of the city - at what feels like a fitting time. After a couple of years of relative quiet, it feels like Q-Games is about to break into bloom once again.

The studio's last high-profile release, The Tomorrow Children, was perhaps the developer's most ambitious project to date. It was certainly its hardest to parse; a strange, nebulous and arrestingly beautiful waking dream of a game, it struggled to define itself upon launch in 2016 and ended up being shuttered just over 12 months later.

Under Cuthbert, Q-Games has produced a fine run of talent that's gone on to its own efforts - Dakko Dakko's one, while last year's splendid Wonder Boy revival was overseen by alumni Omar Cornut.

"I wouldn't say it's been turbulent," says Cuthbert of the last few years. "It's certainly been busy. Making The Tomorrow Children involved quite a big team. We made that, and at the end it was a small team maintaining it - so it was fine from our point of view. In general, I don't think Sony was ready to do a free-to-play game. It wasn't our idea to do a free-to-play game - around halfway through development, they said we want to make it free-to-play, and I said, well, do you know what that takes? It takes a lot of marketing, data, research, analysis - and, for me, I felt that they didn't really do that. It always felt they hadn't quite got the grasp of that, and I think Sony is much more efficient at making a game and selling it. It's not a big shock - their whole engine isn't geared for that."

Indeed, Sony's track record with its own free-to-play titles hasn't been great - take KillStrain, another effort that released with little fanfare and was just as quietly closed down a year after its own release. For Q-Games, the end of The Tomorrow Children saw a five year chapter at the studio come to a close, and it now sees the developer returning to what it does best.

"We went back to the way we worked before," says Cuthbert. "The Tomorrow Children was a fairly big team, and it was actually kind of fun - the game itself was very experimental, it had all kinds of sections that were fun to work on with the weird systems in place. As a game creator it was so much fun being able to work in that sandbox set-up. After that we just went back to multiple smaller teams and experiments - which was exactly what we were doing before."

That new, old approach is manifesting itself in PixelJunk Monsters 2, a follow-up to perhaps Q-Games' most beloved title, and the best received of the PixelJunk series. The sequel will have been in development some 18 months by the time it comes out next month - a fairly typical schedule for previous entries in the PixelJunk series, but a mere fraction of the amount of time it took for The Tomorrow Children to see the light of day.

Dylan is, quite rightly, proud of the table that's the centrepiece of the studio's rest space. It's a fine piece of wood.

Why choose now, then, to return to PixelJunk Monsters? "Because it's the 10th anniversary, really," says Cuthbert. "And because everyone asked for it. Last year when we started the project, we thought let's see if we can do it in 3D, and see how it looks. And our first tests, we nailed the look really nicely - it looks like PixelJunk Monsters, and because we found that look it kind of spurred us on."

It feels like a good time, too, to return to the PixelJunk Monsters' formula. Releasing in the midst of the heady year for video games that was 2008, it came at a time when downloadable, digital-only games still felt like something of a novelty on console. It came, too, when the tower defence craze was truly heating up.

"It was kind of just before it," says Cuthbert of a concept that began by attempting a modern remake of Sabre Wulf, Ultimate Play the Game's ZX Spectrum adventure that first released back in 1984. "When we came out there was only one or two other tower defence games. The main difference, for us, was that when we first saw the tower defence genre, we looked at it and thought it'd be great to have on console on HDMI at 1080p - and tower defence as it stood was very simple, mouse-controlled and very PC-oriented. And we thought if we're going to do a game based on these dynamics, we want to make it more Nintendo-like."

With the sequel, that Nintendo-like feel has only deepened. You're still controlling Tikiman, and still partaking in a characterful spin on the tower defence genre, but it feels so much more alive; the visuals, with their tilt-shift focus effect and an emphasis on textures that feel like wood and clay, give it all a hand-crafted look that's all the more gorgeous when you zoom in for a closer look at the field in play (a view that, unfortunately, it's hard to play effectively from, but good lord is it great for screenshots). On the Switch's portable screen on which PixelJunk Monster 2 is demoed, it simply pops.

There's something warmly nostalgic, too, in playing a game whose genre feels like untapped territory these past few years. "Yeah, it's like you're getting a nice modern remake of the genre," says Cuthbert. "It's ten years on, so it should feel nostalgic really. I've played a few of the popular tower defence games, and they don't seem to have evolved at all.

"There's a lot of content in there - it's what they call triple-I." Triple-I? I admit, that's a new one on me. "Yeah, it's like triple-A overall quality, but not the same level of content as triple-A," Cuthbert explains. "Indie, but that level of quality. And I think Monsters 2 has that - it looks like a really nice polished Nintendo-quality game, and it plays really solidly. But it doesn't have loads of story cutscenes and all the other trimmings triple-A products have."

PixelJunk Monsters 2 is coming to PC, Steam and Switch towards the end of next month - courtesy of publisher Spike Chunsoft this time around - and beyond that there's plenty more on the horizon for Q-Games. Eden Obscura, a mobile game, is being dated soon, while Monsters Duo - a mobile take on the PixelJunk Monsters formula - is also being worked on. There are other, more secretive projects, and now that the team that worked on PixelJunk Monsters 2 is free it'll soon be put to another game.

"In the theme of Monsters 2 what we'll primarily do is try to keep that triple-I feel to our games," says Cuthbert. We don't want to go on the retro bandwagon too much - in general, one of our skillsets is that we do have experience in 3D, making the games look really nice, and I think we can keep finding new ideas. They won't be long projects - a maximum of two years, and we're doing multiple ones at the same time. In the next few years, you'll see some really nice boutique quality games from us."