#also it’s so funny to realise that after a certain point i measure my life in fandoms really not in years

[roncheg]

as i’m suddenly feeling massively nostalgic today, i’d like to share some of my CrowsZero fanart circa 2011 (it was before i had tumblr, so those were stored on deviantart previously) - ahhh i was so young, all that artistic experimenting with a drawing styleXD (but not like in concious way, i was just in a loving daze of a new fandom - and it was the start of my “woodcut” style probably))))

[ibijau]

chap 4 of the modern xisangyao, also on AO3

Meng Yao faces his past and his future

Meng Yao screams upon seeing the face of those two intruders, and nearly stabs himself in the cheek with his tiny knife as he brings up his hands to cover his mouth.

He knows these men.

They killed him, once.

The one in blue chopped off his arm.

That one in red destroyed his reputation, exposed the darker sides of him for all to see, leaving him no choice but to die.

And Lan Xichen, of course, dealt the fatal blow.

Three men in this desolate house with him. Three murderers. Or is it really three? After all, none of this would have happened without…

Meng Yao, who refuses to fall to his knees like Lan Xichen out of sheer pride, sobs. He doesn’t know when, exactly, he started crying. But his face is now wet with tears and snot under his hands and his breath fogs up the blade of his knife. He hasn’t cried like this since his mother died.

In every life he’s lived, she has died too early.

A curse bound to repeat itself, a punishment for everything Meng Yao ended up doing after she died in that first life, and the second, and the third, and…

Somewhere a thousand miles away, heavy footsteps climb up stairs two, three at a times, rushed and loud as they never are usually. Meng Yao can’t see through his tears, but he still knows it must be mister Shanzi. A suspicion confirmed when a moment later his employer speaks up, breathless from running up those stairs.

He never was an athletic man, mister Shanzi, not if he could avoid it.

“Don’t hurt him!” Mister Shanzi cries out, trying to run again, only to settle for stumbling along until he’s in front of Meng Yao.

It’s a surprise, and it’s not. Either way, it startles Meng Yao out of his tears. He blinks a few times, until his vision clears. Mister Shanzi is there, shielding him from the other three, arms spread wide as if to better protect him. Meng Yao can’t see his face, but he can imagine the fierce, determined expression on his employer’s face.

His fourth murderer, and yet now Meng Yao feels less scared at last.

The newcomers aren’t impressed with mister Shanzi. The man in white and blue, kneeling next to Lan Xichen, glares up at mister Shanzi. Meng Yao feels he should know his name. He knew it, once, but they haven’t met in many lifetimes.

“You didn’t say,” the man says coldly, eyes darting toward Lan Xichen, still prostrated on the floor, as if he’s remembering as much as Meng Yao does, and enjoys it as little. “You know how much I’ve tried to find…”

“I’ll buy you lunch, Wangji,” mister Shanzi cuts him. “Deal with your brother, I’m taking care of Meng Yao.”

Lan Wangji frowns at this answer.

That’s his name, Meng Yao recalls. Lan Wangji, the one who goes where the chaos is. And the other, then, is Wei Wuxian. Two parts of a whole. Meng Yao thinks he hated them, once. Even before they destroyed him, he hated them for their freedom, for their right to be careless, when he had to measure his every word, his every action. Or perhaps it is just that a part of him always knew they would kill him.

As Meng Yao tries to remember which came first between hatred and murder, he feels mister Shanzi reach for his hands. The knife is taken from him and put away on the nearest surface, which ought to scare him. He knows, though, that no weapon he might yield could protect him, should mister Shanzi have it in mind to murder him again. Meng Yao has never once been successful in defending himself against him.

With this certainty in mind, Meng Yao doesn’t resist as mister Shanzi pulls him away, back to the basement. This, too, reassures him. Mister Shanzi loves his paintings more than anything in the world, more than scamming powerful assholes and overconfident idiots. If he had to kill Meng Yao, mister Shanzi wouldn't do it somewhere that would taint his precious art.

Once they reach the workshop, mister Shanzi gently brings Meng Yao inside and invites him to take the chair while he closes the door, locking it behind them. This too should scare Meng Yao. It doesn’t.

“How are you feeling?” mister Shanzi asks, coming closer but stopping at few steps away from Meng Yao. Giving him space, so he can feel safe. “How much do you remember?”

“I remember dying because of you,” Meng Yao says, falling onto the chair which rolls away from his employer. 

Mister Shanzi is unphased, his face showing only polite interest, the way he does when meeting sellers and buyers. With him dressed like this, the neutral expression feels wrong. Funny, almost. Meng Yao would laugh, if he remembered how.

“You killed me several times,” Meng Yao says. It should make him angry. When he looked at Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, he felt unfathomable rage over what they did to him even if he doesn’t understand what, exactly, it is that they did. They only killed him once, though. But mister Shanzi, who he can remember towering over him, holding a blade wet with his blood… “You also saved me, didn’t you?”

Mister Shanzi smiles, if you can call it that.

“I had to find a new way of dealing with you,” he casually admits. “After the first few times, killing you wasn’t as fun anymore.”

“I was a child the last time you killed me,” Meng Yao protests, and maybe there is some anger to be felt over that. He was just a child that one time.

A toddler really, playing in the street with other kids, Meng Yao suddenly remembers. His mother hadn’t quite died yet in that life, but her health had been declining, so he’d been left to his own devices too often. Someone had offered him sweets and he’d been too young to know he should refuse.

He hadn't even gotten those candies before getting his throat slit.

“It was a low point for me,” mister Shanzi admits with a shiver. “At that time, I was... You see, you had killed my brother in the first life in which we met, and in a truly horrible manner too,” he explains, and Meng Yao nods. It rings a bell. A corpse butchered, a melody... “and since he had never reincarnated, I didn’t see why you should get to. I’d always found you as an adult before that, and it was easy to find some failings of yours to excuse killing you. A child though…” He grimaces in disgust, looks down as his hands as if they're still stained with the warm blood of a three years old. “After that, I started reconsidering the way I was doing things. My brother had believed you were worth giving several chances, once, so I thought I’d honour his memory and do the same.”

“I suppose I should be grateful?” Meng Yao asks. “Just as I was supposed to be grateful toward Mingjue.”

Hearing his brother’s name makes mister Shanzi jump. But he’s not mister Shanzi, Meng Yao realises. That was never his true name.

“You’re Nie Huaisang,” Meng Yao says, mostly to himself. “You’re… after so long, and you’re still doing all this for him. I’d murdered the wrong brother, back then.”

Realising what he just said, Meng Yao tenses and throws Nie Huaisang a sharp glance, terrified that he might lash out at the reminder of that crime which has entangled their fates through centuries.

Nie Huaisang turns away, curling up on himself, shoulders shaking. Meng Yao braces himself for an attack, verbal or physical, but instead after a moment Nie Huaisang bursts out laughing, loud and unrestrained.

“Every time!” Nie Huaisang giggles. “Every damn time, you end up saying that! And every time I say that…”

“Da-ge would have been just as fierce in avenging you, so there was no right brother to kill, no right brother to spare,” Meng Yao finishes in a whisper. “I’m not saying that I want to kill you now,” he quickly adds. “I don’t. Not after what I owe you.”

Of course in that very first life, he owed Nie Mingjue, and that hadn’t stopped him. Meng Yao can feel the reek of the terror he’d felt then, stuck between a rock and a hard place, certain he didn’t have a choice. Perhaps he didn’t. Those were different times, and he had promised his mother to be a good son so his father would give him the status he deserved. So she hadn't suffered in vain when raising him.

Meng Yao had tried to be a good son, which had turned him into a poor friend. Not to Nie Mingjue exactly. They weren’t friends anymore by then. But to Lan Xichen, who had suffered first the loss of Nie Mingjue, and then years later the horror of having helped it happen.

And then Lan Xichen had killed him.

Maybe he hadn't been a very good friend either.

“I’m really sorry for this,” Nie Huaisang says. “You’ve always remembered, whenever I’ve taken you in, but it’s never been quite so fast and brutally. And it’s the first time that…”

He trails off, looking over his shoulder toward the door with a mix of dread and longing.

“Lan Xichen,” Meng Yao guesses.

“Lan Xichen,” Nie Huaisang agrees, before chuckling sadly. “Did you… does he… did he know before coming here, or…”

Meng Yao thinks on it, and shakes his head. He might be deluding himself, but he doesn’t believe Lan Xichen knew, not until they arrived to the Hanshi, not until he saw Nie Huaisang, not until he was confronted by his own brother. It took both of them by surprise.

Meng Yao wants to ask about Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, but doesn’t. It’s not necessary, he realises. Having been in their presence, he can guess that they are more like Nie Huaisang than like him or Lan Xichen. There is just something about those people who no longer die that sets them apart from ordinary humans, even at first glance.

“He was just here about the painting,” Meng Yao explains. “He’s writing a book on… well, on you, I guess.”

The expression on Nie Huaisang’s face is a complicated one, equal part regret and relief.

“Wangji had been looking for him,” he says. “Quite desperately. Well, he found him now, good for him. As for myself, I don’t think I should… well. Well. It doesn’t matter. Lan Xichen made it clear once how he thinks of me, and I know better than to impose myself where I am unwanted. I’ll just disappear for a while, make sure we don’t run into each other. The antics scene was getting a little bothersome anyway. Damn technology, ruining my life. I’ll have to find something else to keep me busy. I guess I’ll have to leave this house, too.”

As he speaks of abandoning the Hanshi, Nie Huaisang looks truly sad. Almost in spite of himself he raises a hand to touch the nearest wall, brushing his fingertips against it as one would a lover.

He's owned this house most of his life, he once told Meng Yao. At the time, Meng Yao had thought his employer had bought it young, or inherited it somehow, meaning he’d lived there for maybe twenty years.

He wonders how long “most of his life” really means.

“Am I fired?” Meng Yao asks instead. A more practical question, and one to which he’s more likely to get an answer.

“Fired?”

“I… I betrayed you. I took someone here without your knowledge.”

Nie Huaisang blinks a few times, then laughs softly and comes to kneel before the chair, taking Meng Yao's hand. His skin his warm, his touch grounding, and Meng Yao, stupidly, wants him to never let go.

“Oh, A-Yao,” Ni Huaisang sighs, squeezing his hand. “Neither of us would ever know how to refuse Lan Xichen anything that he asks. How could I blame you for this? No, you’re not fired.”

Meng Yao lets out a deep exhale.

“I still can’t keep you around anymore,” Nie Huaisang adds, tilting his head slightly. It makes him look like a curious bird. He’d like the comparison, Meng Yao thinks in a panicked effort to not delve on what his former employer just said.

“I won’t betray you again,” he promises, grasping Nie Huaisang's hand tightly, as if that could keep him here.

“If Lan Xichen asks, you will. I don’t think he’ll ask, mind you,” Nie Huaisang says with a smile. “I haven’t seen him since that first life we all shared, and we didn’t part on good terms. You wouldn’t know, you were dead already, but I… well. He did not take kindly to being used as my weapon to kill you, to put it mildly. And now you’re in love with him again, in a world where… well, it’s easier to love him these days, isn’t it?”

“I’m not in love,” Meng Yao says, but the protest sounds hollow as it leaves his lips.

If he’s not in love with Lan Xichen, he’s more than halfway there already. Why else would he have betrayed Nie Huaisang, whom he does love, in spite of how stupid it is? Even without realising exactly what 'mister Shanzi' was, Meng Yao could tell there was something off about the man, something unnatural and dangerous. He's an idiot, though, and loved him all the more for it.

“I’m not in love just with him,” Meng Yao corrects, which startles Nie Huaisang. Good. Meng Yao isn’t quite as cruel as he was in that first life or some of the following ones, but he wouldn’t call himself kind either. If he must suffer, why shouldn’t others do too? “Take me with you. Wherever you’re going, take me with you.”

“No.”

“Do you really think Lan Xichen would still have anything to do with me, now that he remembers?” Meng Yao insists, rising from the chair. Nie Huaisang lets go of his hand and stands up as well, takes a few steps back as if putting distance between them will do anything. “It’s pointless to leave me behind. Take me with you.”

“No. You’re mortal,” Nie Huaisang sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You… I’m not doing that. I’m not involving myself with a mortal. I’ve seen what it does to people like me. I won’t… I can’t allow anything to destroy me like that. Not until I’ve found da-ge again, not until I’ve seen him safe and happy.”

Meng Yao nods, because he understands, because he’d give everything for a chance to see his mother again, would sacrifice anything just to make sure she’s happy. And still, he says again: “Take me with you.”

“No.”

“You’ll need an assistant. You need one. You're useless on your own. You suck at keeping track of appointments, and you still haven’t figured out social media, and… just that, just your assistant.”

“No.”

“I can keep things compartmentalised.”

“I can’t,” Nie Huaisang snaps. “I… I would have let you go soon, anyway,” he adds, more quietly, as if confessing a terrible secret. “You are… I got attached, more than planned. You’re good, in this life. I think the world is finally changing enough to allow you to exist and you’re… but it doesn’t matter. I was always going to let you go, it’s just happening sooner than I’d planned.”

“So I am fired.”

Nie Huaisang grimaces. For a moment, just a second, he looks exactly as old as he is. There’s an exhaustion in his eyes, so deep and ancient it is almost frightening to behold. Centuries after centuries of looking for the same person, of never finding him, of meeting instead his brother's murderer over and over and over again.

“You’re not fired,” Nie Huaisang tiredly insist. “I’m going to continue paying you until you find another job, and I’ll make sure the right people know you’re on the market again, if you want to stay in that line of work. I also don’t mind paying for any school you like. I’ll write you letters of recommendation, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re good even without me, but… but after today you won’t see me again. I just can’t risk it.”

“And if you found your brother again,” Meng Yao suggests, because unlike Nie Huaisang he’s good with new technology. If Nie Mingjue is alive somewhere, he can find him. He will find him. It can’t be a coincidence that Lan Xichen and him met like that, so maybe…

Nie Huaisang shrugs, and shakes his head.

“I’ll never stop looking for him. But I don’t think he’s coming back. I think the damage to his soul was too great, and it was just the end for him. I’ve got to keep looking, but I think there’s nothing to find. So I won’t make promises to you, Meng Yao. I’ll have that decency, at least.”

It’s funny, Meng Yao thinks, how little Nie Huaisang has changed since that first life. 

By which he means, Nie Huaisang is still the same dramatic asshole as he used to be, still so wrapped in his own problems that he doesn’t really care about the effect his decisions have on others, because he’s a Nie so of course he’s always right.

It used to drive Meng Yao grazy, in that first life, when he thought all Nie Huaisang had going for him was a good inheritance and a pretty face.

It still drives him crazy right now, when he knows Nie Huaisang is perfectly capable of being more than this, should he feel like it.

Before Meng Yao can insist, there is a knock on the door. They both startle, having half forgotten there are others with them in that house. Nie Huaisang looks panicked for a moment, but quickly gets himself under control. He probably guesses, as Meng Yao does, that it cannot be Lan Xichen, who surely would never reach out to either of them.

That guess turns out to be right. When Nie Huaisang goes to open the door, he finds Wei Wuxian there, who looks… not quite angry as such, but ready to be pushed there if anyone says the wrong thing.

“You still want us to take you away?” Wei Wuxian asks.

Nie Huaisang nods quickly, than shakes his head, looking up at the ceiling.

“Zewu-Jun can’t… If he's coming too...”

“He needs time to digest, and he says that one…” Wei Wuxian nods toward Meng Yao, who flinches on instinct “...called him a taxi, so he’ll make his own way home. Lots to think about. Did you fucking know, Huaisang?”

“Not until today, and I called you right away. You think I wouldn’t have told you, if I’d known? You think I’d have gone anywhere near him by choice?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs, in a manner that seems to imply he doesn’t really know what Nie Huaisang might do about anything.

“What about that one?” Wei Wuxian asks, nodding again toward Meng Yao.

Nie Huaisang shrugs. “He has his car. Wei-xiong, I just want to leave now. Please.”

They do leave. Wei Wuxian glances one last time at Meng Yao, but Nie Huaisang doesn’t look back as he exits the room.

Just like that, Meng Yao finds himself alone, with only paintings and a broken game console for company.

He allows himself a moment of sorrow because, and he can admit this to himself now that it no longer matters, he’d been hoping to spend the rest of his life with either Lan Xichen or Nie Huaisang. Both, if fate chose to be kind to him.

Fate has never chosen kindness, when it comes to him.

So Meng Yao dries his tears, and picks up that shattered console on the floor.

The paintings in this room are worthless to him. Over half are fakes, and even Nie Huaisang, who painted them, doesn’t always recognises just from looking what’s real and what’s not. But the console… well, there’s a guy who lives in Meng Yao’s building who’s made a business of buying broken electronics and either repairing them or scavenging them for parts.

Maybe Nie Huaisang really will continue paying him, or maybe he won’t, but Meng Yao hasn’t gotten where he is in life by counting on the kindness of others.

He’ll sell the console when he gets home.

[honestandsincere]

Grayson and y/n have a deal. If neither of them are married by the time he reaches thirty-seven, they’re tying the knot.

They’ve been best friends for years; witnessing each other’s ups and downs first hand. He was there when she was voted class president, she watched him score the winning touchdown of his first high school game and Ethan took an excessive number of polaroid photos of them at homecoming. Grayson was also present when y/n got asked out for the very first time. He couldn’t say he was surprised, she’s always been smart and attractive and funny, but something about the whole predicament induced a lump in his throat. They were stood by their lockers on a Wednesday afternoon, when a boy from her English class sauntered over to her so casually that Grayson didn’t bat an eyelid. Before he could fully comprehend what was being said, y/n had agreed to go for ice cream after the football game that evening with Matthew.

Grayson Dolan is not a jealous person. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t one. He’d never considered y/n, his childhood best friend as anything more than just that and yet his palms were sticky and his stomach hurt when he thought of her getting ice cream at their spot. Ethan on the other hand, couldn’t have been more elated for the girl who used to eat dirt in their backyard, even offering to help her pick an outfit for her first date. Grayson couldn’t fathom how Ethan wasn’t even slightly irked, not even mildly annoyed by a guy they hardly knew waltzing in and snatching their y/n from them. He pushed this alien feeling to one side and tugged her into a warm embrace before the game, giving her a kiss on the forehead for good measure. Y/n and Matthew didn’t last, much to her disappointment. The twins watched as her smile dropped when he told her in the cafeteria a month later that ‘it wasn’t going to last’. Grayson could’ve hit him, Ethan sent him a stern look of disapproval and y/n persuaded herself not to cry. Matthew was an inconsequential blip in the grand scheme of her life, yet there was something about being wanted, even if it was for a miniscule period of time that made her happier than it should have.

Little did she know.

Grayson spent the following weeks that eventually bled into months that somehow snowballed into years trying to comprehend what he felt for y/n. She had been a constant in his life as well as Ethan’s and their bond had never been questioned until the concept of her being with someone else had manifested in his mind. It was inevitable that she would find someone and despite his lack of acknowledgement, he was a catch too. However, Grayson couldn’t quite determine whether or not he wanted y/n as a platonic constant in his life or even if he liked the idea of himself being with someone else that wasn’t her. So on the night before he flies out to Los Angeles with his brother to chase his dreams whilst she stays to pursue her studies, he conjures up their little deal. They’re sat in his backyard, their childhood selves’ empire, talking nonsensically about their futures as Ethan’s sound asleep inside. He needs to make sure she’ll be his constant. It’s an almost desperate plight to anchor her to him somehow, make her consider him romantically even for a split second. It works. “So, if you’ve not settled down by the time you’re forty-” “Thirty-seven.” “Ok thirty-seven, we have to get married?” All of a sudden this feels like a very bad idea, a stupid plan that makes him seem needy and weird, “Uh, yeah I guess.” “Ok.” She smiles her kilowatt smile he’ll never grow bored of and takes his pinky in hers.

Years pass as years have the tendency of doing and Grayson feels himself falling into the habit of waiting. Not so much for the day he turns thirty-seven, but waiting for someone who fills the y/n-shaped void in his life. They’ve stayed in touch since he and Ethan left home, she’s even flown out to visit them a few times and each time she leaves, goodbyes are more bitter than sweet. Of course, Grayson understands that the odds of him finding a girl that could replace y/n are slim to none, he’s also realised that he doesn’t want to replace her. Nonetheless, Grayson wallows in this seemingly interminable state of waiting. Ethan isn’t blind to his brother’s weird aversion to any romantic attention. Grayson is a successful nineteen-year-old being invited to party after party in the Hills, and he couldn’t be more repulsed by the idea of mingling with the girls that fall to his feet. The older twin can sense that perhaps this weird grudge against pretty Cali girls might stem from his brother’s obsession with the girl that ate dirt in their backyard when she was five. Ethan’s not stupid, he put two and two together fairly quickly. “You’ve gotta tell her, Gray.” He states randomly on a Sunday morning as they’re loading the dishwasher together. Grayson is taken aback by his twin’s forwardness having blissfully unaware of Ethan’s acute observation over the years. “I highly doubt she doesn’t feel the same.” “I don’t think that’s how these things work.” Grayson takes a seat on the kitchen counter, “This isn’t something you just tell someone.” “The longer you leave it, the harder it’s gonna get.” “Yeah I know.”

Determined to prove a point, Grayson doesn’t follow Ethan’s advice. He pushes his feelings aside, almost certain that she’d never want him the way he wants her. He draws all these conclusions in his mind as to why she hasn’t texted him in the past few days, assuming the guy that commented on her Instagram post last week is now her husband and they live on an adorable farm with adorable kids and an adorable dog that Grayson can’t pet because of his allergies. Y/n’s no longer his constant in the sense that he no longer knows her like the back of his hand. She wasn’t there for his first LA party, he missed her first day at her internship and he’s pretty certain Ethan’s broken his polaroid camera.

It’s a Saturday night in Los Angeles. Ethan is out with some friends getting food. Grayson’s sat at home because he can’t bring himself to leave the house. He’s lying face down on his bed, lost in his head. Suddenly he’s struck by this bizarre wave of adrenaline; heart-pounding, damp palms. It’s one of those weird feelings where pretty much anything seems somewhat justifiable, like getting a lower back tattoo or skinny dipping on the beach at midnight. Grayson reaches for his phone, calling her before his inhibitions interfere with logical reasoning. She picks up sooner than he was expecting.

“Grayson!” he can practically hear her smile. “Hi.” “Are you ok? What’s up?” And then he goes blank. Words feel like a thing of the past, he’s unable to formulate any proper sentences. “Um, so you know our deal thing?” he stammers. “The whole marriage one, from like years back?” “Yeah that one.” “Uh yeah I know that deal thing.” she laughs out of confusion. “I don’t think I want to wait until I’m thirty-seven.” Grayson’s certain she can sense his nerves. “Gray,” She chuckles breathily, like you would at a child who’s crying for no reason, “That’s fine. It was never a proper agreement to begin with, I never signed any paperwork.” It’s his turn to laugh at her now. There’s a lull in conversation and he knows what he wants to tell her but doesn’t know how to do it eloquently. “Look y/n, it’s not the deal that’s the problem-” “There’s a problem?” she sounds concerned and his heart swells. “No! No, I’m fine and E’s fine. It’s just I don’t think I can wait any longer.” “Wait?” “I don’t want to wait eighteen years to be with you. I’ve wanted to be with you for as long as I’ve known what love feels like. I get it if you don’t feel the same about me because I’ve left it so long to tell you and-” 

Y/n interrupts him. She tells him that she’s waited long enough to hear him finally tell her what she’s wanted to hear. She tells him that she thinks she’s in love with him too and that she’s not considered dating anyone that isn’t him. She tells him that Ethan had advised her to tell him, saying that she didn’t have to eat dirt anymore to impress him. When Grayson hangs up the phone, he exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Ten minutes later his phone vibrates with a text from his brother;

Hate to say I told you so...

Thank you so much for reading! I had such lovely feedback on my first post which has only motivated me to write more. Please feel free to send me concepts or any ideas you have, they’d be much appreciated! - K <3

[myfriendpokey]

easy like sunday morning

I know it sounds funny but I just can't stand the pain.. Given the volume of critical writing on difficult games in recent years isn't it time to talk about some easy ones?  Everybody loves talking about, 'Sekiro', but no-one ever talks about, 'Felix The Cat (NES) (1992)', a delightful game with many levels that stands out in my childhood memory as being one of the very few games I was ever able to complete within the Xtravision rental window. In these notes I try to lay down a preliminary basis for felix the cat studies.[1]

1. Firstly what is easiness, is it a quality or the absence of a quality, of a texture? I'd like to focus here specifically NOT on games which deliberately avoid the idea of 'challenge' altogether (Proteus, etc) but instead on games where challenge is both theoretically present and totally perfunctory, where it's both possible to die, and just easier not to.

2. And the strange sense of waste that this creates - the waste in having something and not needing it, of having some productive capacity lie fallow. The dream is to always have both an affordance and something to flex it on, in perfect sync. There are situations where exercising some affordance might give a bad outcome (use sword on king to increase crime meter etc) but in general the universe is set up so that your acting, your being, your bodily striving has a useful and productive effect on the world at large – we hope, ha ha ha. We have no reason to doubt that we use our affordances, rather than that our affordances are using us. In an easy game this relationship becomes more uncanny - we get a sense of how an affordance can be baggage, a kind of painful excess of productive energy that comes with a vague, felt obligation to use it all up in some manner. The machine speaks through us just as much as if we were playing any bullet hell - but it does so less through an overload of stimulus than through lack of it, through opening a space, which the ambient noise of the body then rushes to fill. The aimless, stupid twitching of our flesh as it burns off all the energy which is socially and economically surplus to requirements is directed and made visible, jumping back and forth onscreen in the mocking form of a smiling platform cat, a form of automatic writing.

3. I'd actually like to avoid making a moral or political case for easy games as having some intrinsic social value (that they resist the 'investment' of skill mastery, that they undercut feelings of power and control, or that they indeed actually represent a new form of meta-difficulty in testing your ability to reject false measurements of success and artificial scarcity and that therefore playing Goldeneye with infinite ammo cheats on is praxis or something.[2]) These might be useful qualities at some moment or another - but I think they also show the strange, magic-eye effect, of trying to write about easiness in itself, writing about absence without just converting it into another kind of presence (I'm sure I have failed multiple times and will fail multiple more). So easiness in videogames is constantly at risk of becoming just a different kind of difficulty, or some form of symbolic content - rather than the lack of such difficulty, or the lack of such content... In the context of videogames, a new media form busily involved with stockpiling content and meanings and symbolism and justification of all kinds, in trying to fill itself up and out, the idea of their emptiness is somehow quite threatening.[3]

4. Difficulty in games tends to be framed as a challenge to the primacy of the self, or as an estrangement, something that pushes you out of your comfort zone. It wakes you up, makes you more alert. Easiness by comparison is a sop to the self - indulgent, a narrowing of horizons. Easiness is mainstream, difficulty is avant-garde - and discussions of difficulty in games tend to draw a lot upon comparisons to older avant-garde art or literature. I'm in favour of avant-garde videogames but i think part of claiming that tradition should be a willingness to critique it, too. For example, difficult games are some of the most popular ones to stream - are these challenging the self? To an extent they allow the performance of the self, as manifested in angry outbursts, "reacting" in some characteristic manner, individuating oneself through accomplishment or distinctive playstyle, demonstrating personal qualities such as persistence and strength of will, very little of which could be said to come through in your average Felix The Cat longplay. And while Marvel movies and longrunning tv shows are seldom difficult in the same way as experimental art they do at least tend to gesture at the idea and feeling of a certain difficulty, an emotional strenuousness, a conflict to overcome. We don't just get a whole movie of Spiderman trying on 100 different hats. Some kind of difficulty is prized in both cultures, with the difference being that of location and degree. The idea of the modernist shock, the abrupt estrangement that jolts the (presumably bourgeois, etc) viewer out of their habitual comfort zone, sits awkwardly against comparatively more recent concepts like Naomi Klein's idea of the “shock doctrine” or Paul Virilio's writings on the bombarded, exhausted viewer - or indeed with that most modern form: the hot take, the truly gratuitous and combative opinion, tossed at the unsuspecting for the sake of wreaking minor carnage. The succession of shocks here don't so much disturb the self as confirm it as a thing apart, defined in negative against the tumult outside and valued as a refuge from that outside. Maybe we take it to the gym now and then, we test it out upon some pre-selected object of difficulty to keep it in shape, but afterwards the gate goes down and the wall goes up. I don't think difficulty is bad or illegitimate but if psychic reconfiguration is the goal then how about a modernist slackening instead? In the vein of Stein, Pessoa, Walser, Musil - "the game without qualities". Lured into roaming outside of its protective carapace the brain starts to dissolve, sprawl, melt into gloop, be devoured by ants.

5. Experience of playing an easy game: there’s no pushback, there's no skill check , a string of easy victories lead you forward without realising, or leads a part of you forward, there's no moment where you have to pull yourself together and decide just how much more of your time you wanna spend on this thing, a chirpy character onscreen is declaiming "GREAT!" and "SUBURB!" as you shoot pellets at more enemies, whatever aimless drive or impulse you flicked toward this thing to test it has not yet slowed down or returned, it's like dropping a pebble down a well, and waiting for the sound, and waiting forever - and then there's a plop! and whatever the process was, it's finished, you blink, try to remember what you were doing, wander off, still adjusting to the light.

6. The history of aesthetics is that of converting new kinds of necessity into new kinds of virtue [4]. Difficulty is a virtue in videogames, but it started out as a necessity, as well - as a prefab form handed down from the old mechanical amusements, a way to aestheticise (and commercialise) material resistance at a time when material resistance was almost all that videogames had to offer[5]. As certain kinds of difficulty emerge as objects of attention a reversal takes place: instead of difficulty being a way to engage with videogames, videogames become a way to engage with a certain kind of difficulty. Difficulty becomes a sign that unites a diffuse and heterogenuous field of garish electronic debris into a single medium and an aesthetic – this becomes part of what videogames *are*, and persists even when the original reasons for that difficulty become less and less present, and as 'difficulty' comes to exist mainly as a set of inherited structures and modes of representation (health bar, life counter etc). To make something that looks like a videogame in every way but has no difficulty is in a way to re-historicise it, to cut the thread which holds all the parts together - now the game collapses into a set of disembodied effects, sounds, gestures, machinery, which exist not so much as the expression of an aesthetic as an expression of the material history behind that aesthetic. The easy game is not a game but a kind of game-byproduct, an industrial accident that gives clue to the inner workings of the machine.

7. The mysterious purgatory that is the solved or near-solved state of a videogame, aimless and uncanny, an image of fulfilled desire: maybe not your desire, but somebody's, or some part of you. Think of playing with cheat codes: a few minutes ago you might have been desperate to get BLUE SWORD [RARE], now you can't get rid of the things. A routine complaint in popular longform games is that people just end up getting too much money and not having enough endless pits to dump it all into (thorstein veblen real??). And this is a known thing and trite to even remark upon and usually the point where the discussion turns into pop-psychology liturgy of how the human brain is "broken" and "hard-wired" to need new challenges and etc. I don't care, I'd like to spend more time within this twilight area, to construct as diligent and thorough a map of its empty rooms and blockages and tiny, shifting, hypersubtle moments of enjoyment or deep melancholy as the one we  already have for Diablo clones and similar. I think here of stuff like EJ Gold's games which claim to depict (indeed, allow you to perform rituals within) the bardo realms waiting after this world, where you roll around endless corridors collecting icons to accumulate money and charisma for your next life, and where for some reason there's a button to fire out pellets despite there being no enemies to kill. Videogames are depressingly, predictably excellent at producing new manifestations of inferno; I think, for the same reasons, that they could produce some very interesting paradises as well.

Is Felix The Cat a good game? Or is it in fact the only game, and also i'm dead and my spirit has been trapped inside of it? I hope the above comments make my feelings known. All i can do from here is recommend you watch Docfuture's Sonic Easy Mode video, and contemplate the world that could have been.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ef8SD9gUg

[1] Just imagine it - instead of endless essays on "how completing, not completing, not playing VIDEOGAME made me a better person, worse person, more divorced person delete as appropriate" we would instead get endless essays on "how playing VIDEOGAME left me more or less the same person, I suppose, I don't really remember. But I did like the beach level".

[2] Having said this I of course realise that this is totally inevitable and look forward to BABYMODECORE, the videogame movement for people who always instinctively pick the lowest difficulty setting and want to reclaim such powerful formative experiences as beating up on the test dummy character in Tekken (and being scared that one day he'd glitch out and hunt me down instead)

[3] I wonder if part of the hatred for "asset flips" that they just replicate the shape of a videogame without filling it up with justificatory content, abstracting it somehow.

[4] Mangled from a line in F. Jameson's "Marxism and Form"

[5] Like early digital forms of old mechanical arm wrestling machines and punching bags - which slowly became part of that mysterious stock repository of ancestral videogame dream imagery, the minigame collection.

[halogensleep]

pour your gasoline on me (let's torch the whole world down) [ch. 1]

Prompt: Assassin!Charlynch AU - After Charlotte wakes up ziptied to a chair at the mercy of a knife wielding Irishwoman who doesn't take no for an answer, her black and white life becomes colourful in every sense of the word as they begin a game of cat and mouse that won't end well for either of the hitwomen.

Charlotte awoke to a sore head and her good white shirt ruined. For a moment. For the briefest of instants. For the second before her wrists realised they were zip tied behind the chair, numb from the pressure, she was both nervous and impressed, simultaneously.

There was a reason clients handed her the cheque book and told her to write whatever number came to mind… she was supposed to be untouchable, invisible, the queen of shadows, the go to woman when problems needed to disappear. Apparently, somebody hadn’t just been looking in her direction, they had been watching her, learning her, picking apart her cloak of invisibility thread by thread.

Whoever he was, Charlotte became instantly certain that she would kill him the long way around. A bullet or knife would be too fast. A steam iron set to eco-mode on the other hand? Well, it would certainly be an interesting way to show him the scenic route of his own mortality once she got these zip ties off.

“Ah, the bruiser is awake!” A chirpily Irish—and definitely female—voice greeted from the warehouse door.

Charlotte said nothing despite her surprise, her unmoving stare fixed on the damp brick wall on the other side of the warehouse. She exhaled as the sound of footsteps crept around her immobilised position and suddenly became a tangible person to look at with big brown eyes and long gingery copper hair. If it wasn’t for current situation, the zipties, the abduction, the knife glinting in the Irishwoman’s hand, Charlotte would have been looser with compliments. The woman was beautiful, a present threat, but beautiful nonetheless.

There was no mask or disguise which was either fantastic news or terrible news. Charlotte was leaning more towards the latter. An old hitman with eager lips who had found himself the star witness of a federal prosecution had gone to the trouble of warning her once that this wasn’t a career that came with much longevity. In fact, it was the last thing he ever said before the slash wounds on his arms finally bled out—it was important the job looked like a suicide, Charlotte loved the jobs that required a feminine eye for detail the most—but now, immobilised, staring into the eyes of the woman who was no doubt getting ready to deliver a swift coup de grâce with the small knife in her hand, Charlotte couldn’t help but wish she had listened a bit harder to that old snitch.

“Well… not much of a talker, are you?” The Irishwoman pouted and twiddled the tip of her knife. “I won’t pretend I’m not offended.”

Charlotte smiled politely and said nothing.

“You realise I’m holding a knife?” The Irishwoman glanced down at her weapon, eyebrow craned by the oddness of the silence.

“You couldn’t spread butter with that thing.”

“Catty of you,” The Irishwoman didn’t skip a beat.

Charlotte smirked and busied herself with all the creative ways this pretty red haired woman was going to die at her hands as soon as she got loose. And by her own estimations, the Irishwoman with her long slender jaw and bright white teeth was more than just pretty… apparently she was quite the comedian too. It left her at odds with her experience and training. A successful career up until this moment had been based on the ability of reading people, facial expressions, speech patterns, involuntary movements, that sort of thing. Charlotte found herself slightly at a loss trying to pick apart the woman staring at her. There was no nervousness, no anger, no cynicism or bitterness, just overwhelming and abundant chirpiness as if they were two friends meeting after a long time apart.

She felt her disadvantage grow weightier.

“Ah,” The Irishwoman smiled suddenly, nodding her head a bit. “Thinking of ways to kill me?”

“It’s one way to pass the time,” Charlotte said coolly.

“I just want to chat, silly billy!” The Irishwoman rolled her eyes and straddled Charlotte’s restrained hips, plonking herself down on the jerking lap. “It would seem you know a friend of mine, Hadiq Sharma ring any bells?” Her lips curled into a smirk.

Her fingers danced over the white lapels of Charlotte’s shirt during the interim of silence that followed. Charlotte scowled at the cockiness and looked away.

The steam iron was going to be set to linen-mode for this troublemaker as soon as she figured a way out of this place.

“Can’t say I know him,” Charlotte lied.

“We can get to that in a moment.” The Irishwoman waved her hand. “I thought we could get a little better acquainted first…”

“Is that so?” Charlotte’s breaths became tight and measured as the troublemaker sitting over her lap pushed herself forward slightly.

“It is so nice to meet you, Charlotte. Well… officially meet you, I mean.” The Irishwoman jollily waved her knife at the miswording. “You’re considerably more dressed than the last time we were alone together. Speaking of which, you really shouldn’t use shampoos that contain parabens… absolutely terrible for the environment.” She gravely shook her head. “Also, you should make a habit of checking behind the shower curtain for intruders but I suppose that’s by the by now.” The knife was waved again like a plaything to punctuate her point. “After all, if horror films have taught us one thing it’s that you never know what sort of monster could be lurking behind the shower curtain, do you?” The Irishwoman breathed it out as a confession.

“You were in my bathroom?” Charlotte lifted an impressed brow.

“Oh, and the one in Connecticut too. Nice family pad by the way, was difficult tracking down the money orders and wire transfers with all of the fake names you used but I really do love a challenge.” The Irishwoman prodded, and Charlotte felt her blood run cool. “I didn’t put you down as the bleeding heart type but it was very sweet seeing how cosy you keep your sister and baby niece. They love you a lot, you know.”

“If you hurt them…” Charlotte didn’t need to finish the threat.

“Don’t be silly, Charlotte. Honestly, you make me sound like a sociopath! When your old battle buddy came knocking on the door looking for you, Molly insisted that I came in for a coffee and a sit down. Oh how we laughed as the baby photos came out of the cupboard!” The Irishwoman beamed with delight. “I didn’t have to so much as bend one of her fingers back… she told me everything I needed to know and then some.” The knife was traced gently along her straining neck.

The rage became visceral and embarrassing, humiliating even. Six years of doing this and nobody had so much as known the area code of her cell phone number. Charlotte realised this was an intricate torture in and of itself. The Irishwoman wasn’t gloating for the sake of gloating, she was inflicting a sense of claustrophobia, forcing a state of overwhelming stress, preparing her for an interrogation. Charlotte swallowed as the knife was traced along her jawline.

That was it, Charlotte realised. This was an interrogation, methodical and deliberate.

“I get it now…” Charlotte started to pick at the thread, the cogs turning as she closed her eyes. “You were part of the IRA,” she lengthily exhaled.

“Excuse me?” The Irishwoman laughed. “Suddenly a detective, are we? Sort of xenophobic that you assume I’m a terrorist just because of the accent but I suppose you’re not wrong...”

“That’s what you tell clients when they ask questions,” Charlotte opened her eyes and rolled them slightly. “That you were in the Republican Army. I’m sure you ham it up a little more than that, maybe talk about big jobs and political hits you and your cousins never actually did. It’s part of your cover story so nobody finds out you were a police officer, once upon a time at least.” Charlotte lifted her brows. “I’m getting warm, right?”

The Irishwoman’s smirk barely faltered, but barely was enough for Charlotte to know she was bang on the money.

“You are as formidable as they warned me you would be,” The Irishwoman pushed forward with a whisper and pressed her lips to Charlotte’s ear. “Do you know what a police officer never does, Charlotte?” She asked it so quietly, so hushed, almost flirtatiously.

“Retire with a pension?” Charlotte smirked.

“Funny,” The Irishwoman nodded and smiled too.

There was a flash, a small glint of steel in the air and then white-hot pain in Charlotte’s thigh where the knife was buried. She cried out. The pain reverberated through her extremities, only growing more substantial the more she twisted and twitched the limb. The Irishwoman just hushed and petted her cheek, making silly crooning noises that only made Charlotte want to horribly kill her all the more.

The Irishwoman continued her point, “A police officer knows to never leave witnesses, Charlotte.” It was said with a serious nod. “Now I’m willing to bet you know how this is going to end for you, so how about you give me what I want and I make this mercifully quick?” The Irishwoman talked over the sound of her pained grunts.

“If you really did your research...” Charlotte exhaled and caught her breath, wincing and lifting her chin. “You would know I’m really into this sort of shit.”

“Your sister mentioned you were captured behind enemy lines, there’s no need to harp on about it any more than she did.” The Irishwoman rolled her eyes in boredom, shuffling a bit on Charlotte’s sore and bloody lap.

“Nothing like being tied to a chair with time to kill.” Charlotte did the smug thing with her eyebrows and ignored the pain. “I really enjoy being a pain in the ass in these type of situations, I’d clear your schedule if I were you.”

“I am so glad you said that because I feel exactly the same way.” The Irishwoman leaned back on Charlotte’s lap, twisting the knife in her leg slightly to punctuate her point. “But this is just the warm up… my methods are far more brutal and psychological, love. Please don’t make me show you the hard way.” Her tone became severe and stern.

“If you’re about to threaten to kill my baby sister, go ahead.” Charlotte was prepared to roll the dice. “Honestly? She’s kind of a nag.” She nodded in exasperation.

“Funny.” The Irishwoman jabbed the knife again.

Charlotte hissed, glaring and irritated. “You know, I’m beginning to really not like it when you do that,” she said.

“Do you have a preference as to where I scatter your niece after I’ve chopped her up?” The Irishwoman pouted slightly and narrowed her eyes, as if she were deep in thought. “Anywhere of sentimental value? There’s something about tiny coffins that makes me feel a bit queasy. Unless you play ball with me, Charley-poo, that’s going to be the state of things.”

Charlotte snapped her head up.

“Ah, there we go, got your attention now.” The Irishwoman patted her cheek. “So here’s what I’m thinking, you can tell me what I want to know and I’ll make this as quick or slow as you like… or you can piss me about and I’ll visit that lovely house in Connecticut and put some colour on the walls. Lady’s choice?” She tilted her head, eyes glimmering with playfulness.

Charlotte thought of her niece’s smile and her little chubby fingers, the way she never shares with other children, the glimmer of rage in her babyish stare when things don’t go her way, all of the things that imbued her with a sense of pride, and she felt herself give up instantaneously. There were few things she cared selflessly about in this world—maybe half a thing on a particularly good day—but her niece and her cat were always up there on the list.

It was becoming more certain by the second that her card was finally up and it was equally as exciting as it was terrifying. Many sleepless night had been spent thinking about her perfect death; other people dreamed of passing away in their sleep, old and feeble, but she wanted to leave this world white-knuckled and spitting blood in the eyes of adversaries, taking world-altering secrets to her grave with nothing more than a final ‘fuck you.’

But, the Irishwoman knew about her stupid little perfect baby niece.

All things considered, today was racking up to be a bad day at the office.

“What is it exactly you want to know about Sharma?” Charlotte sighed and craned her neck, willing to play ball.

“You accepted a job to kill my client, a very bad move all things considered.” The Irishwoman wagged her finger disapprovingly. “Who paid for the job?”

“I have no idea.”

“I don’t like that answer.” The knife was yanked free and buried again instantaneously in the same spot. Charlotte gagged with the pain and threw her head back. “Shh, you big baby!” the psychopath crooned. “We can stop as soon as you give me something a bit more substantial, love. Shall we try again?” She offered, softly.

“How am I supposed to know who wanted Sharma dead!?”

“Please don’t make me press this knife in any deeper. I hate it when people spurt blood, it would be very selfish of you.”

“There’s who pays for the job and who orders it along with all the middle management in between! Even if I wanted to I wouldn’t be able to make an educated guess.” Charlotte grew frustrated with the line of questioning. “There’s a lot of people who want Sharma dead, he controls half the counterfeit trade and he’s a terrible driver!” Charlotte shrugged indignantly.

The Irishwoman tutted in disapproval, the knife was buried into the femur bone instantaneously. Charlotte threw her head back and clenched her eyes. Whoever this woman was, she deeply loved her work, and Charlotte was beginning to admire just how much she admired it, a professional approval almost.

“I’m beginning to think you’re just dragging this out because you like me.” The Irishwoman leaned in so close the warmth of her breath was felt on Charlotte’s lips. “It’s one of the more interesting come-ons I’ve had, I’ll give you that.” Her brown eyes twinkled mischievously.

“How many times did you rehearse that line in your head?” Charlotte rolled her eyes.

“Brave, you’re a tough girl.” The knife was pulled out and jammed in again. “It’s a little show-offy.”

“Jesus Christ!” Her tiny world became nothing but pain and the threat of more pain, and it left her more than slightly exhilarated. “What can I say?” Charlotte hissed sarcastically and gathered herself. “Maybe I just want to take you to a bar when all of this is over with?”

“You know the way to my heart. And unfortunately for you, I know the way to yours too.” The small glinting knife was pulled out of her leg and pressed into her breastbone. “I’m getting bored, Charlotte, and I’m starting to wonder what you look like without skin. Don’t make me find out…”

“Mr. Rabbit.”

“Is that your safeword?” A slender eyebrow piqued.

“It’s the name of the man who delivers jobs for the Collective, that’s what he called himself. Mr Rabbit. Codeword for the Hadiq Sharma job is, ‘the carriage clock has been fixed.’ I have a phone number for him and that codeword for when the job is completed but I don’t know how far up this goes and I certainly don’t ask questions. You think I give a shit who orders the jobs or balances the cheque books? I pick up the name, I name my price, I do the job, I take my money, that’s it!” Charlotte reared forward with adrenalin. “I’m telling you the truth.”

The Irishwoman pouted and huffed a long, disappointed sigh. “So you are,” she frowned and put the knife away. “You want to give me the number? It’ll go some way towards me not murdering your family...”

“It’s in the burner phone.” Charlotte nodded to the tray beside them where her things had been laid out. “If you think he’s just going to tell you who his master is just because you asked nicely… well.” Charlotte shook her head gravely and wanted to laugh at the thought, almost.

“You’ve been very helpful, this is the most fun I’ve had on a first date in years.” The Irishwoman smiled and patted Charlotte’s cheek. “Now, do you mind waiting here for a second while I make a phone call?”

“Please, take your time.”

“Gracious of you.” The Irishwoman shuffled and stood up from Charlotte’s lap.

Charlotte felt her body sink with relief as the Irishwoman grabbed the phone and scrolled through the contact list. The chance of her miraculously escaping were slim to none, but she would gladly take a moment’s respite from her current predicament. The phone dialed out and was promptly lifted to the Irishwoman’s ear, she blew out her cheeks and nodded her head side to side, impatient and playful.

“Hello is that Mr. Rabbit?” The Irishwoman chirped, and the noise of a deep voice speaking on the line was just about audible. “Well, that’s because I’m not the Queen. My name is Becky Lynch. Yes, I know it’s not what you were expecting but the Queen can’t come to the phone right now. She’s a little tied up.” The grin was gleaming and pleased. “Now as I understand it, Mr. Rabbit, you had some business with the Queen concerning a man named Hadiq Sharma...” There was a pause. “Yes, that’s the one! Nice fella! Smashing beard! Terrible driver!”

Charlotte closed her eyes and shook her head at the silliness of it.

“Now, Mr. Rabbit, sir, I understand you represent a co-operative of buyers who require the kind of services that I just so happen to offer. I have to tell you, it’s been impossible to get a contact number for you to submit my resume.” The Irishwoman played with her wet knife. “Anyway, I killed Hadiq Sharma last night. I made it look like a mundane accident, needless to say the carriage clock has been well and truly fixed. I was hoping I could collect payment for the job and that you will consider my services next time you go to market?”

Charlotte snapped her eyes open and felt them bulge out of her skull.

The Irishwoman just smiled coyly at her, fingers waving, phone tucked between her chin and shoulder.

Charlotte realised she had just been played like a fiddle.

“Wonderful to hear, I look forward to speaking to you soon.” The Irishwoman hung up the phone and strolled back over to Charlotte. “He was lovely, what a nice man!” She gushed chirpily.

“So let me get this straight...” Charlotte blinked and grinded her jaw. “You just screwed me out of a paycheck and went to all of this trouble…” She looked around at the warehouse, looked at her stabbed thigh, then looked back to her smiling captor. “All to introduce yourself to the Collective?” The fury became palpable.

“I like to think of it as female entrepreneurs helping one another up the corporate ladder.” The Irishwoman plonked herself back down on Charlotte’s lap, her weight awakening the pain in her pin-cushioned thigh. “Think of this as a chamber of commerce meeting.”

“You could have just went with that in the beginning!”

“You would have thought of a way to fuck everything up if you thought I was about to take over your patch. It was easier when you thought this was just a simple job gone wrong, especially with sweet little Emily on the line… as if I would ever kill a child.” The Irishwoman rolled her eyes, and the knife came to a menacing rest on Charlotte’s shoulder. “You know I have to kill you though, right?”

“I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

“It’s a shame, really. I felt like we had a connection, you know?” The Irishwoman whispered with mocking, saddened eyes. “Any last requests?”

“What time is it?” Charlotte narrowed one of her eyes, suddenly remembering.

The Irishwoman stared at her in disbelief, but she humoured Charlotte nonetheless and peered at the screen of the burner phone. “One fifty-eight, to be precise,” she answered. “Why? Are you running late for something?”

“Do you mind if we hold off for two minutes? I have a thing about odd numbers…” Charlotte sighed and was entirely serious. “A round two o'clock feels like a good time, right?”

“If movies have taught me anything it’s that you’re stalling for time before your old platoon buddies burst through the windows with guns—”

“Most of them are dead or married to codependent wives who never let them go anywhere fun, but you already know that.” Charlotte interrupted with a serious look. “Honestly, I just really don’t like odd numbers.”

“Well alright.” The Irishwoman blinked, slightly offset.

“So why did you give up being a police officer?” Charlotte blurted, determined to pass the seconds towards her death with small talk, curiosity getting the better of her a bit as the human conundrum remained precisely that. “You start killing for a living for any particular reason?”

“No. Just money, mainly,” The Irishwoman lied. “What makes a soldier with a gleaming service record and a bronze star to boot turn to this sort of thing?” Her nose wrinkled.

“Money,” Charlotte lied too.

The truth was far simpler; she just really enjoyed killing people. The squelch. The gasp. The last bit of life slipping from someone’s eyes. The way windpipes felt when they were crushed beneath her fingers. The creativity. The sacredness of it. They were such simple pleasures, really. The irony was that she didn’t stumble on her favourite pass-time until after leaving the Army. Her MOS was 35M, human intelligence collection. It was a vocation that made her an expert in picking people apart and getting to the source of secrets. It was interesting, but it wasn’t using an orbital sander at four in the morning to grind off tattoos and other identification markers before dumping a body downstream interesting.

“Do you miss it, being a soldier I mean?” The Irishwoman prodded.

“Do you miss being a police officer?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither.” Charlotte sighed. “What made you do it in the first place?”

The Irishwoman sighed too. “I quite liked the thought of having a gun. I suppose I could have joined the IRA, but I’m not much political. Also, I liked the sirens. Sirens are always fun.”

“Hm,” Charlotte hmph’d at the unravelled mystery. “Well, I think our two minutes are up.”

“Are you rushing me to kill you?” The Irishwoman became befuddled. “Aren’t you going to beg or try… something?”

“Death doesn’t scare me.”

“I would ask what does scare you but some mysteries are worth keeping.” She patted Charlotte’s shoulder and got up from her lap. “For what it’s worth I was a big fan of you work. Johnny the War Dog? Two Teeth Billy? You made artwork out of those jobs. I mean, strychnine in the air vents? Poetic. If there was a Hall of Fame, you would be up there.”

Charlotte nodded and couldn’t help but agree, she was a damn fine soldier and an even better hitwoman. All things said and done, she had certainly lived life with a vengeful sort of passion for her work. It wasn’t a husband and children in the suburbs, but she stood by her life choices which was more than what most people could say.

“Let’s get this over with.” Charlotte lifted her chin and offered her throat. “Nothing too gory or creative.” A serious brow was raised. “Take my wallet, make it look like a mugging gone wrong. It’ll take a while but my sister will eventually put out a missing person’s report and someone will identify my body, you’ll be long gone by then but at least they’ll have something to bury.”

“Are you serious orchestrating your own murder?” The Irishwoman smiled slightly, impressed, her eyes gleaming with what appeared to be an instantaneous sort of fondness.

“You’ll understand, one day.”

“Goodness,” The Irishwoman shook her head and looked away for a moment, she stepped forward and looked at Charlotte again, far more sobered this time. “You really are growing on me.” The knife jabbed shallowly into the side of Charlotte’s throat, the blood spurting a bit.

Funny really, she had watched the process of death up close, an admirer of sorts. But now it was happening to her and it was nothing as she expected. Charlotte imagined the process of dying would feel like she was being forced out of her body, but this wasn’t that. Charlotte closed her eyes and tried to remain calm and dignified, the blood dribbling and pumping and leaving her quickly. She felt heavier. She felt as if she was slipping inwards. The process was… interesting.

“Saint Mary’s is three blocks north,” The Irishwoman whispered close to her ear. “Your Carotid is nicked, I’d give you ten minutes at best. Twelve if you apply hard enough pressure.” The surprise became dumbfounding as her wrists were snipped free from the restraints. “Consider this a one time gift. And if you die? Well... it was a mugging gone wrong.”

Charlotte collapsed forward and pinched the wound with numbed fingers, hissing as she dug inside the cut and forced the source of it closed as best she could. The Irishwoman was long gone by the time she got up and started dragging herself to the door.

She slung herself down the stairs, slung herself across the cement floor, threw herself out onto the street, each movement a gigantic push as her fingers squeezed and pinched the source of the bleed. Charlotte had never felt so alive before, not even a little bit, and it was growing more and more exhilarating by the second.

She got less than twelve steps down the street before passers-by were stopping and hollering and fetching help. Apparently, today, luck was on Charlotte’s side after all; one of the do-gooders was an off-duty EMT. Charlotte sighed in relief as the wounds on her leg and throat were tended to, a car whizzing up and parking along the side of the pavement ready to rush her to the hospital.

Twelve minutes wasn’t even a competitive amount of time at all. Charlotte thought the Irishwoman had definitely tipped the odds in her favour, either that or she was offended by the implication of the alternative.

Charlotte slightly smiled to herself as strangers bundled her into the car. A single name, Becky Lynch, was all she had. But she knew come hell or high-water she would find the Irishwoman again. Charlotte wasn’t sure what this now was. Maybe war. Maybe cat and mouse. Maybe nothing or everything. It was, however, unfinished business, and Charlotte had just the steam iron to make it neat and tidy once her cardiovascular system had been put back together.

…

Seven hours of surgery, two weeks in the hospital, and three new pink scars later, Charlotte had finally made it back home to her apartment. The police report read that she had been the victim of a mugging gone wrong and Charlotte kept the details as vague as possible. This was her mouse to chase, her woman to burn the world down in search of. Now that her sister and most importantly, her niece, were out of Connecticut and somewhere safe, Charlotte felt the urge to stretch out and immediately set to work.

The apartment was exactly how she left it as she opened the door and limped inside, which struck immediate alarm bells. There was no sour, pungent smell from the chicken breasts that had been left to thaw in the sink a fortnight prior. There was no two week accumulation of leaflets that had been shoved underneath the door. The litter tray by the bathroom door had been used which meant Fuzz Aldrin had been coming and going, somehow. The latter was as relieving as it was nerve wracking, she had worried the cat might have gotten himself into trouble over the last fortnight while she was away. His inquisitive happy purrs as he prowled around her ankles indicated he was more than okay.

Charlotte grabbed the loaded 9mm kept inside the hollowed bible on her bookcase before she limped any further inside.

The kitchen and living room were checked barrel first with the breakfast bar used as cover, then the bathroom, the bedroom, the balcony, and the bedroom once again just to be sure. Someone had certainly been in the apartment, Charlotte couldn’t shake the feeling. Things were left so perfectly that it felt out of place. Charlotte lowered her gun with a sigh and trod back to the kitchen, well aware of who exactly had been here.

If she needed a more concrete symptom that her suspicions were correct, the Irishwoman was feeling particularly generous. Charlotte found the post-it note stuck to the refrigerator door. She pulled it off and began to read.

Used your place as a base while you were in the hospital, hope you don’t mind. I replaced your groceries. Your cat is fat and disgusting but I’ve kept him alive and named him Big Bastard, he seems to like it.

P.S: Glad you survived.

P.P.S: Your vibrator needs new batteries.

Love, Becky.

Charlotte screwed the post-it note in her fist and threw it across the room. To add fuel to the fire of her bad mood, she now had to move out of her apartment, ideally today. The workshop out of the city where difficult problems were dealt with still remained a secret. It was an old mechanic shop out in the sticks with no heating, no hot water, and no listening ears for miles around... the perfect location for making bodies more manageable or getting information out of a person before a job could be finished. The owner was long since deceased which Charlotte knew because she was the one who killed him — rule number one of the smart business rule book, never accept a loan from the Hungarian mafia and then object to chopping stolen cars, a lesson the owner learned the hard way. The Hungarians took no issue with her using the abandoned building from time to time after he was dealt with, and in exchange she gave them a more favourable price when work needed to be done.

Charlotte sighed and came to terms with her frustration. For the foreseeable future, until the troublemaker was neutralised, the chop shop would now be her home away from home.

…

When Charlotte had asked on that fateful day what it was that made her join the police force, Becky told the truth and lied simultaneously. It was a little bit for the gun, for the permitted naughtiness of it. Mostly, she joined the Garda because above all things, she liked to hunt.

It had started as a wain when her grandfather would drive out to the Wicklow mountains with her sat on his lap the entire way there in the rickety excuse of a van to hunt the elusive Sika stags. Beautiful creatures. She wanted to weep for every single one them when the bullets rang out and they fell down in a heaped, huffing piles of horn and fur. It was without a doubt the only period of her life that she had ever felt a faint sense of empathy, the desire to weep for the beasts and yet never the gratification of following through with it.

To begin with, uncles and old men that she had to call uncle because they were friends of her grandfather had all disapproved of her presence. Mainly because of her sex, mainly because of her disposition. But with age she grew to understand the addictiveness of wielding power like that, hunting predators, outsmarting wild things, crouching in the warm wet night while the strumming and crooning insects sung the beasts to an unsuspicious state.

By the tender age of eleven, the men would walk quickly and crowd around the van as it returned from Wicklow, eager to see what the wee girl, the little hunter had managed to do. It was an unofficial test that bore more weight than her grandfather ever let her know. Her father had died in the troubles and she was without brothers, the only grandchild of the big man, and with that came expectation.

When he died, she didn’t feel much at all, she had loved him but that was that, she missed him because she was told to miss him, she missed him because the person who snuck her sweets and cleaned her gun when she was feeling too lazy to do it herself was no longer around. If her path had ever been clearly defined it was that she was expected to become a small vestibule of him and take up arms for the cause, one day. The stag hunter would grow up big and strong, take her smarts and put them to use as a leader for their people. Becky didn’t quite grow up big and strong, but she was the best hunter, the keenest strategist, insurmountable in smarts, hungry to hunt things other than stags and deer. There was a darkness in her, an unburdened urge to hunt and kill that was felt and noticed by the others, whispered about.

It was her fifteenth birthday when she watched from a blockade while a Garda shot down a man with a knife in his hands who had been causing trouble… it was love at first sight. By eighteen, her turbulent, passionate streak for strategy and blood had been placed in a uniform. The people called her a traitor, bricked her mother’s windows, did worse than that, but Becky didn’t care. For all intents and purposes, she had a license to hunt. When she entrapped some of the very men who had raised her, who had ate at her table, who had drank and raised arms with her grandfather, convincing them she was only part of the Garda as reconnaissance, the force went so far as to hand her a medal and promote her to the special detective unit after the trial came to a close.

Entrapping her people wasn’t a particularly difficult task to do, her cheerful and chirpy disposition were qualities that enamoured people and convinced them she wasn’t a threat but rather an ally, a constant and faithful friend. They were the beasts, and she was both the crooning insects that kept them unsuspicious and the speeding bullet that would put them down before they knew it was too late.

The job was enough until it wasn’t anymore. Then, she just disappeared into the night and found herself here — hunting for the sake of hunting, hunting at the behest of whoever paid the best money. She had eventually come to learn of the one called the Queen of Shadows, the woman without a name, the woman who made problems disappear, and it niggled her in places that she didn’t know could be niggled; it left her curious and infuriated by the intensity of her curiosity; until eventually she decided that she would have to hunt her too just for the sake of putting an end to it.

The trouble was that every bit of the hunt only left her with more questions. Every tiny piece of information only left her hungry for more. Every step closer towards capturing the woman she had come to learn was Charlotte Flair, decorated war veteran, keeper of secrets, lurker of shadows, mother of one repulsive cat, only made her wish she could take two steps backwards and draw it out a little more… it was infuriating, and it was delicious, and it was too much fun to let come to such an anti-climactic end as a fatal stabbing in a disused warehouse over little more than a paycheck.

After the cheeky post-it note in the kitchen, Becky imagined that the game would be reciprocated, chasing one another would be a fun way to pass the time between jobs but there was no take up on Charlotte’s part. It was offensive. It was maddening. It was above all things clearly a trap… but Becky couldn’t leave it alone.

God, she wished she had left it alone.

The Queen had been gone for some months, those who knew of her said that she must have got spooked and quit while she was ahead. They were wrong. For beasts like her and Charlotte, there was no such thing as quitting while ahead. There was only hunting, climbing, racing, jaunting and galavanting towards the next big thrill.

When the newspapers read that a newly-elected house representative had turned up dead, tragically stabbed in the throat during a mugging gone wrong in one of the only camera dark spots of the parking garage beneath his building, Becky knew the game was back on. Only the Queen would be ballsy enough to take on a job with heat and visibility like that. Only the Queen would be brazen enough to stick a message inside of the hit. And only the Queen would be smart enough to get away with it too.

After a few months of covert nosing, Becky found out through a low-level contact who ran with the Hungarians about the chop shop, conveniently named, where people went when someone wanted them to disappear. It was a lead, one that Becky enthusiastically felt put her at least four steps ahead of Charlotte Flair.

Like an unsuspecting stag beneath the crooning hum of insects singing the warm night to sleep, Becky didn’t realise it was too late until it was too late. She had trekked two miles on foot beneath the cover of early darkness toward the lone building down the road with unmistakable red gas pumps outside just like her contact had described. She was convinced she had the element of surprise… right up until a single barbed dart hit her in the chest from more than a hundred feet out.

The paralysis was almost instantaneous, the warmth and wooziness was coming more than it was going as footsteps from down the road grew closer. She tried to reach for her gun to no use, and so she huffed and kicked and moved like a wounded stag, dragging herself only a tiny distance before the tranquiliser took hold and rendered her completely immobile.

“Thank you for doing the hard part for me,” Charlotte whispered and crouched over her, grinning a bit as she slung the dart gun over her shoulder. “I was getting worried that I might have to come and look for you.” The words were chuckled out victoriously.

Fuck, she wished she had just left this alone.

“Cat got your tongue?” Charlotte prodded her slumped figure with her foot. “It’s alright, I put you down with enough Telazol to stop a lion in its tracks. Stop fighting and go to sleep… there will be plenty of time to catch up once you’re awake.”

Becky was reluctant, fighting the slumber with laboured breaths and everything she had until she couldn’t fight anymore. She faintly felt herself be picked up and thrown over a broad shoulder in a fireman’s lift, carried up the road with her slack head bouncing awkwardly against the dart rifle. Then, there was nothing but darkness.

Hours had passed by the time she came around, groggily, wincing into the bright light of flood lamp pointed directly at her eyes. The pain within her body was unreal, was impressive, was the start of something worth taking notes over. The most palpable points of dull throbbing agony were located on her shoulder blades and the backs of her arms where meat hooks punctured the skin and suspended her off the ground like a car that needed work underneath. Becky closed her eyes, unable to look at the uncontained joyful grin of her captor — which was by far the most agonising part of this whole ordeal.

“So,” Charlotte spoke first after a moment, pleased with herself. “What’s new in your life?”

Becky opened her eyes and watched Charlotte sit down on the chair opposite, folding her long muscular leg over the other with a content look on her face as the accoutrements of her work were lined up on an old, metal roller chest where tools had once been kept.

Whatever this was, the Queen wasn’t in any rush to move things along. It wasn’t surprising. Capital murder was an artform to the Queen. A lengthy creative process if her previous work was anything to go by. Becky just inhaled and tried to ignore her blistering headache.

“You’re awfully quiet today.” Charlotte posed it as a thoughtful acknowledgement.

“Just deep in thought,” Becky whispered through gritted teeth with narrowed eyes, her body swinging slightly from the suspension which only compounded the pain. “Wait.” The coolness of the breeze was felt in deeply private crevices, on stiff cold nipples that she was only now realising were exposed. “Did you…” Her eyebrows craned with absolute shock and the pain was briefly forgotten. “Well that is just completely unchivalrous and shameful!” Becky swung slightly from the ceiling with the outburst.

“You don’t need clothes where you’re going, babe.” Charlotte didn’t even bat an eyelid as she reached over to switch on one of her tools.

“You better be switching that iron on to press my delicates!” Becky hissed, a sudden apprehensive panic rushing through her.

Charlotte smiled and peered at her naked body with fluttering eyes, “I’ll iron your delicates, sure.” She craned a cheeky, unburdened eyebrow and glanced between her legs.

“That is not what I meant and you know that!” Becky flailed a bit more, the agony pulling and tugging at her sore, immobilised limbs. “This is me safewording, Charlotte! I safeword!”

“Well I really did not enjoy being stabbed multiple times, Becky.” Charlotte wagged her manicured finger. “Consequences, consequences.”

Becky became beyond exasperated. “You don’t get to whip out a fucking iron like Marie Kondo when I only used a vegetable knife on you! If I had known this would be the craic I would have at least took a steaming hot piss on you and cut a few fingers off for good measure!”

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda. I could make a joke right now about you not sparking joy, but I’m above that.”

“Get ta fuck.”

Charlotte grinned, her pearly white veneers beaming and on show like a snarling predator from the sheer enthusiasm of her smile. Becky suddenly noticed how strangely overdressed she was for the occasion. Her long blonde hair was coiffed and salon finished, her lipstick carefully applied and touched up, her manicure recent and well kept. It made no sense given that she was staying off the grid. It was as if she had prepared herself for a date, for a deeply important encounter with someone special, and had gone to some lengths to do so too.

Charlotte lowered her voice to a threatening tone, “I am going to hurt you in ways you didn’t know—”

“Why do you look like that?” Becky interrupted, which possibly was not one of her brightest ideas given her current predicament swinging from the rafters by the gristle of her arms and shoulder blades.

“Like what?” Charlotte blinked.

“Pretty, like you’ve done yourself up.”

“What?” Charlotte became defensive and screwed up her brow.

“Do you always get your hair and nails done to torture someone or is it special, just for me?”

“Excuse me—”

“Ah ah,” Becky interrupted again. “It’s polite to return a compliment with a compliment. Shame of my life, anyone would think you were born in a barn.” She rolled her eyes.

The Queen paused and blinked, as if deliberating on whether to hit her with a red-hot burst of steam iron or play along a little bit. Becky hoped it would be the latter.

“Well.” Charlotte cleared her throat, building herself up for it. “I guess you look nice too. I like that little tattoo on your thigh, it’s cute...” Her voice trailed and her eyebrows wiggled as if she hadn’t spent much time thinking about it.

“Thanks,” Becky blushed slightly, surprised by the playfulness. “It’s the coordinates of my first murder, do you have any keepsakes—” Becky stopped mid-sentence as she heard Charlotte grab something heavy. She glanced down as the Queen lunged at her, just as the scalding heat singed the sparse blonde hairs on her thigh. “What the fucking fuck!” The scream was a long bloodcurdling noise as the iron sizzled and bubbled her thrashing leg.

Charlotte pulled it away and sat herself back down, unbothered.

The troublemaker let out the tiniest little whimper, her body slipping into shock to protect her from the horrendous pain. She craned her head forward with a long sob, aware that this was no longer as fun as she had hoped it would be. The skin was seared off completely when she opened her eyes and looked at it, the flesh red and burned in a neat triangular shape where a tattoo used to be.

She had it coming, she knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier to process. For some unknown reason she thought Charlotte wouldn’t follow through, that she had managed to endear herself too much to the Queen for any sort of real damage to be done. It was hopeful. It was silly. It was beyond naive. And Becky suddenly realised just how fucked she actually was. This woman was more like her in all the worst ways possible than she previously accounted for. This wasn’t just a playful battle of equals… it was a war of sociopaths, it was untred territory, it was dealing with a creature that couldn’t be emotionally manipulated with any sort of ease and somehow that only made it all the more tempting to try.

It was, above all things, dangerously exhilarating, and it only added more layers to her profound curiosity.

“I really didn’t like being stabbed, Becky.” Charlotte reiterated her point. “And as for threatening my niece? Well, that’s a curling iron in one orifice of your choosing.” She lifted her brows, unimpressed.

“What is it you want exactly?” Becky asked.

Charlotte shrugged. “What are you offering?”

“To listen very carefully?”

Charlotte inhaled deeply and picked up the steam iron again.

“Wait!” Becky yelped and swung. “Mary Mother of God! Wait, wait, wait!”

Charlotte paused with an expectant look, the iron steaming in her hand.

“I’m just… trying to understand you.” Becky blinked and stared into her cold, unfeeling blue eyes. “I’m not asking what I can do for you. I’m asking what is it that drives you? What is it that you want?”

Charlotte paused, her cold blue eyes twitching ever so slightly. She huffed and put the iron back down for a moment, folding her arms like an exasperated teacher with an unruly, promising pupil.

“The Interlevin AF10, with all the bells and whistles,” Charlotte answered after a moment, entirely serious.

“Ah, of course.” Becky nodded. “And what exactly is an Interlevin AF10?”

“An act of God. Wireless digital temperature control, self cleaning, twelve adjustable shelves, a four compressor walk in industrial refrigerator unit that could survive a nuclear fallout.” Charlotte’s expression became fierce and impressed, as if she were describing an instrument of war. “There’s a two year waiting list.”

“That’s what you want?” Becky blinked. “A walk in fridge?”

“That’s what I want.”

“Seems achievable.”

“And you?”

“And me what?”

“What is it that you want? What brought you up here?” Charlotte inhaled and stared intently, her icy blue eyes carrying a weight of expectation for the truth. She slowly sat herself down in the chair, her fingers locking together over the ball of her knee.

When the dust settled, when the realisation sunk in that they were doing this for the time being instead of the steam iron, tight, taut, her sore and broken body still tensing, Becky licked her lips and sighed, at a complete loss for an answer.

“Well.” The beads of sweat ran the contour of her brow. “You never called me back.”

Charlotte laughed and picked up the steam iron.

“I’m being serious!” Becky hissed and made her stop. “I mean, don’t get me wrong I probably would have stabbed you a bit more once I got here…” She rolled her eyes and Charlotte seemed to appreciate the honesty, her hand lowering the iron ever so slightly. “But I just came for the sake of coming… because I wanted to see you, mostly.”

“Huh,” Charlotte raised her eyebrows.

“Sorry if breaking into your apartment was a bit much.”

“About that, you didn’t replace my eggs.”

“Sorry about that too.”

“I’ll live.” Charlotte smiled, and Becky got the hint that she might not.

“So you’re going to kill me?”

“Probably sooner rather than later,” Charlotte said.

“How boring,” Becky whispered and rolled her eyes.

The Queen got up out of her seat and fetched something off of the metal roller drawer. It was small, was concealed in her hand, was nothing but a green cap poking out of her fist. She stepped closer and Becky realised it was a syringe.

“Oh for fucksake,” she closed her eyes, exhaled sharply, utterly indignant that this was all that would become of the little hunter of Wicklow mountain. “How anti-climatic.”

“You expected more?” Charlotte lifted a brow as she bit the syringe cap off.

“I expected your best work.” Becky chewed furiously. “The hooks? The iron? All horrendous but second to none… this on the other hand?” She nodded at the syringe. “Pathetic.”

“What can I say? You’re annoying to be around.”

“Well I didn’t want to say anything but you don’t have the bone structure to pull off platinum blonde highlights,” Becky lied just to be acidic.

“My bleeding heart…” Charlotte frowned. “Any last requests?”

“Feel free to fuck my corpse before you bury me if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“What?” Charlotte blinked.

“What?” Becky realised it might have been a bit much.

“Did you just—”

“No.”

“Well alright,” Charlotte looked away, embarrassed, unable to move past it. She shook her head and stared at Becky again, “Did you seriously just ask me to—”

“No, you filthy pervert!” Becky lifted her chin.

“Oh, I’m the pervert?” Charlotte nodded mockingly, sticking a hand on her hip. “You need to relax.”

“Well hanging naked girls on meat hooks to torture them doesn’t scream well-adjusted childhood, does it!” Becky stated the obvious.

“Not girls!” Charlotte pinched her brow. “Girl. One. Singular. There is no plural! Stop making this weirder than it is!”

“Oh of course, pardon me, just a couple of girls catching up are we now?” Becky nodded mockingly.

“I can get the steam iron?” Charlotte nodded to the roller cart. “I’m not above burning your face off.”

“But it’s such a pretty face,” Becky whispered, frowning at the thought of being maimed like that. “Alright, sorry, I may have overreacted a little bit. Please, go ahead and murder me with your little syringe of cowardice.”

She watched the Queen look to the ceiling, then look to the floor, exhaling, shaking her head, utterly exasperated and livid by the imposition of the most unruly captive she had ever taken. It was a small thing to be proud of, Becky thought. Death was terrifying, was perhaps the only thing that truly frightened her, but this was a small platitude to take to the grave that made it a bit more bearable.

“Get on with it then, you big lump.” Becky tilted her chin.

The long hypodermic needle was slammed into her chest, the contents pushing inside her pulmonary system, her lungs shuddered, pushed and pulled, hyperventilated slightly and only made the few moments before her death incrementally shorter as a result. Becky held her breath and blinked hard, staring into those icy blue eyes for a symptom of… anything.

Charlotte just pushed a small smile and waited.

“What was it?” Becky felt her swallowing grow harder.

“Something fun.” Charlotte turned around and grabbed her coat off the back of the chair. “It was nice seeing you again, Becky.” She put the coat on and walked out of sight towards the door.

There was no kiss goodbye, no long victorious speech, just footsteps leading further away and then a door being unlocked.

“Wait, you’re not going to stick around?” Becky shouted, panicked slightly as the door opened.

“I want to remember you alive,” it was said almost gently, almost lovingly, lingering slightly before the door finally closed.

She felt drowsy, felt her head become heavier, felt furious that she was being overdosed on opioids and shit ones at that if her lack of high was anything to go by. Becky blinked and tried to stay awake, tried to think of something other than her furious infatuation because Charlotte did not deserve that kind of permanency.

Her grandfather, she remembered him, remembered his cumbersome hands, the smell of rolling tobacco, the flat peaked cap, the chunky knit cardigan. There was no love, no longing, no emotions of any sort really, but she remembered the little girl she once was when he was alive and that was something. She remembered the beasts and how she used to want to cry for them when they fell down. She remembered the way her uncles faces fell and crashed like buildings when the jury returned their guilty verdict. The former brought her more happiness than the later.

And then, slumping forward, she fell asleep.

…

The sound of birds chirping and cars whizzing up and down the street greeted her ears as she stirred like a lazy half-slumbering animal. Once again, she was sore, was bruised, was wincing into the tenderness of her burned leg, but she was alive and that was more than she had anticipated. Her throat was dry with inactivity and the room was too bright for her wincing eyes. She sighed and ouched as her arms and shoulders attempted movement, forgetting and remembering simultaneously the torture they had been subjected to.

“Ah, you’re awake,” a thick European accent greeted jollily.

Becky snapped her eyes open and looked to the man at the door. He was fat, middle-aged, hairy, badly dressed and wearing enough gold jewellery to put a drag queen to shame. He wasn’t just any Hungarian. He was the Hungarian. He was the crime boss, Laszlo Varga. And if the ancient seventies decor of the bedroom she was currently being kept in was anything to go by, she was in his family home.

Becky swallowed and stared at him, unsure of how or why she was here.

“Relax, little bird.” He smiled and came in, dusting the wooden desk with his hand to perch on the edge of it. “You’ve been asleep for more than a few days, take your time.” He smiled a bit.

“I was dead,” Becky blinked and ordered the events in her mind.

“No, little bird.” Laszlo shook his head. “You were sedated.”

“Sedated?” Becky widened her eyes.

“Well, not before you were punished a little bit.” He nodded at the bandaged thigh and the carefully tended shoulders that had been sewn up and seen to. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly did you do to piss the Queen off so bad that she… how do you say… ironed you?” He chuckled with gleaming, impressed eyes.

“I think she was just feeling frisky.” Becky craned a brow and winced as she sat up on the bed.

“Hm,” Laszlo nodded slightly. “She doesn’t usually play so well with others, little bird, you got off easy.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Then tell me your name?”

“Becky.”

“Ah.” His lips fidgeted. “No nickname, then?”

“I don’t need one.”

“Me neither,” he agreed and looked to the sunshine beyond the window. “You’re probably wondering why you’re here…”

“The thought did occur, yes.”

“I need a job doing, a difficult one, a hit the Queen herself won’t take. She brought you here three days ago and said you were the woman for the job. At first I wanted to put you out of your misery like a broken little bird, less problems that way.” Laszlo chuckled. “But it would seem your work is impressive. My nephew, Andras, recommended you highly.” His tone became slightly displeased.

“Your nephew is Andras Wojcik?” Becky winced, and it felt like a detail that she should have known about before killing him as violently as she did.

“Yes, my sister’s boy.” He explained, nodding slightly. “Well, he was my sister’s boy. I believe you murdered him and put his balls in his mouth? Please, I don’t need to know which one happened first.” Laszlo raised his hands as Becky’s mouth opened to correct the order of things.

“And you’re not angry about that?”

“I hate my sister.” Laszlo shrugged.

“How lucky for me.” Becky breathed a sigh of relief. “So who is the mark Old Queeny is too scared to whack?” She lifted a curious brow.

“Andre The Cannibal.”

“He died years ago,” Becky chuckled to herself.

She was far from an expert in the field of European gangsters but when it came to Andre The Cannibal she didn’t need to be, he was a myth, an urban legend, a hitman who supposedly ate his victims, a big earner for the downtown morbid tourism scene that the Hungarians had their hands in, and he had died at least thirty years ago if she could just about remember the finer details of his Wikipedia page. Her laughter began to peter slightly as Laszlo’s expression remained fixed and serious.

“You’re not kidding,” Becky blinked in shock.

“Andre… he did a lot of work for us in the early days but he caused a lot of problems, made too much of a stir.” Laszlo shrugged and twiddled his thumbs in thought. “We paid him to disappear and he did just that, the whole thing was very civil.”

“So why now?”

“We made a lot of money with the tourists coming to see the old haunts, the restaurant where he cooked people, the street his burned body was found, these sort of things.” Laszlo mused and clasped his hands. “But… the last few years we’ve been lucky if we’ve filled two buses a week.”

“Wait,” Becky began to laugh in absolute delight. “Not only do you want me to track down a dead man but you want me to make the hit messy and loud so people know he was alive in the first place?” It was as if all her luck had come at once.

“Bingo.” Laszlo grinned and pointed his finger like it was a gun. “Andre lives, Andre dies again, someone writes a book, Netflix makes a documentary, everybody is happy, I get my tourists back. The Queen doesn’t like tracking people down and he’s been gone for a long time so it won’t be easy work. She brought you to me with high recommendation, said you would be the woman to get it done.”

“Well colour me flattered!” Becky singsonged. “How soon can I get to work?”

“Heal first, work later.” Laszlo stood up from the desk. “How much will your work cost?”

“Do what you love and you never work a day in your life, my mother used to say that.” Becky sighed happily and pushed a slackened smile. “Half a million, all of my expenses covered, and your loveliest smile.” She turned back to the Hungarian jokingly, anticipating that negotiations would start and he would work her down to the number she actually wanted.

“Done.” Laszlo smiled so wide his fuzzy red cheeks bunched and bulged. “Rest for now, I’ll call the Queen and tell her you’re off limits for a while.”

“What?”

“You didn’t think it would really be so easy, did you?” He nodded at the bandaged wounds. “She is a cat and you are her little mouse. Just because she let you live this time doesn’t mean she isn’t planning bigger things.”

“Well now that does sound exciting…” Becky felt herself fall in love with that bastard woman a little bit more.

…

Charlotte began to wonder if the little troublemaker was alive or dead, she had anticipated retaliation or maybe even a postcard at the very minimum. Laszlo kept tight lipped on the matter, said he was equally in the dark but that the pre-paid cards were being used and things seemed to be progressing as expected. It should have been easy to let go of, their last meeting had made them more than square by anyone’s standards. But Charlotte just couldn’t put the bitch down, still, now, months after the fact.

It was more than infuriating, and it had began to affect her work too, the preoccupation, the wondering, the slight infatuation of it all. She had barely enjoyed the last three kills and one of them was a Saudi Prince. A real life prince. The son of a king—albeit one of the middle ones with a penchant for bad business deals who weren’t too important in the grand scheme of things—but the son of a king nonetheless. It should have been one for the scrapbook but instead it felt like a chore, like a small way to pass the time until the troublemaker could crop up on her radar again.

Charlotte’s phone buzzed on the table of the airport bar that was now setting up to be home until her delayed flight was ready for departure.

Laszlo Varga, 1 message. ‘Turn on the news,’ it simply read. She exhaled and already knew what was coming. The phone was slung back down and her laptop was opened. She typed in the address of different news outlets in different tabs, all of them loading with similar headlines and gruesome, censored pictures.

Cannibal Hitman Thought To Be Dead FOR THIRTY YEARS Discovered Mutilated In Downtown Street Where His Infamous Slayings Took Place.

Pictured: The City Street Where Andre The Cannibal, Thought To Be Dead For Thirty Years, Was Discovered Dismembered By A GIRL SCOUT.

Reign Of Terror Comes To Final Close As Hungarian Mobster Famed For Eating His Victims Meets A Fitting Fate.

Buzzfeed’s Buzz Of The Day: Ten Reasons Why Trump May Give The Man Responsible For Murdering Andre The Cannibal The Presidential Medal Of Freedom.

Andre The Cannibal: The Failings Of A Police Investigation, And The City Commissioner Who Is Expected To Resign In A Statement This Afternoon.

The Irishwoman had certainly been busy. Charlotte scanned the headlines and chewed the inside of her mouth, infuriated by how impressive it all was. She closed the tabs one by one until a different headline all together caught her attention.

Police Search For Witnesses After Local Restauranter Discovers His Walk In Refrigerator Stolen After Closing The Business For A Period Of Mourning.

It made Charlotte smile and look away, she brought herself back and read the headline again, then once more just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She scrolled down the page and looked at the blurry images picked up by the security cameras.

Bingo.

She would recognise that ass anywhere.

…

“Tell me you’re not a little bit impressed!” Becky said chirpily to the shocked, disbelieving face at the door.

“Is that the Interlevin AF10?” Charlotte couldn’t take her eyes off of the bomb shelter in her workshop. “All the bells and whistles?”

“All the bells and whistles.” Becky nodded and clambered down from the workshop table.

Charlotte stood there and blinked, her expression mute, her brow furrowed slightly, her eyes registering reality but her brain disbelieving it, still. It was cute to watch. It was everything Becky had hoped it would be, which was a low bar of expectation to meet considering the only thing Becky had hoped for was the absence of steam irons and other mean things of that nature.

“How did you even...”

“I killed the owner’s mum,” Becky whispered softly, smile slackening, nibbling her bottom lip as if it was the sweetest gesture she could muster. “He closed up shop for a few days so I snuck in when no one was around.”

“You just snuck in and stole a walk in refrigerator?” Charlotte rubbed her chin, nodding as if it was comprehensible, nodded even though she still didn’t understand, completely gliding over the part where someone’s mother had been suffocated with a pillow.

“Well, Laszlo lended me a crane and a flatbed truck.”

“Of course he did.” It compounded Charlotte’s frustration. “You kill Andre The Cannibal, paint the whole of Ninth Street with his body parts, and then you steal a fucking walk in refrigerator all in the same weekend.” She thrusted her hand in the direction of her new fridge. “Of course you did that,” Charlotte quietly rubbed her temples.

“You’re right it is a bit impressive, isn’t it?”

“You’re not armed.” Charlotte suddenly noticed, looking her up and down, weighing up her chances. “Awfully presumptuous of you.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t,” Becky opened her leather jacket and her gun glinted the light.

“Is this you bringing me a gift or you looking for a mexican standoff?” Charlotte opened her own jacket and lifted an eyebrow, the handle of her pistol sticking out slightly.

“Maybe both?” Becky smirked and closed her jacket.

“I will shoot you.” It wasn’t said with any sort of meaningful conviction.

“I missed you,” Becky said it as though it were the easiest thing in the world to say. “Besides… you could have killed me but you gave me the Andre Sopa job instead, this is just me returning a gift with a gift.”

Charlotte hmph’d and seemed to become stuck. “It’s starting to become unsettling how you just show up like this.” The confession was exhaled earnestly.

“You could hide from me if you wanted to, my guess is that you don’t.”

“You’re easy to become interested with.”

“Ooft,” Becky became pleased. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Charlotte Flair.”

“What is it you want, Becky?”

“I honestly don’t know…” Becky exhaled and swallowed. “At first I wanted to kill you, and I think I still might. Right now I just want to understand you, I suppose?”

Charlotte became quiet and thought about it for a moment.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“I’d like that.”

[iraacundus]

REALISTIC

donghyuck x reader au genre: angst/fluff loosely based off of Romeo and Juliet

words: 4.3k+ warnings: bad language, slight violence

sometimes enemies fall in love, sometimes it works, but there is always a reason they were enemies in the first place so sometimes you just have to be more realistic

- i worked kinda hard on this, it is the longest thing I have written so I hope you guys like it even though my ending was badly written I feel - emily x

You felt his eyes burning into the back of your head, and in fairness you probably deserved it. You weren't usually bold but Donghyuck, he was next level irritating. Never in your life had you ever met someone with such an ego.

You turned around briefly, just long enough to see his face, his glare could have won in a competition for angsty facial expressions. The reason for his anger? You had thrown the entire contents of his locker out of the third-floor window.

You could sense his expression worsening as you started to smirk in satisfaction. Nothing made you happier than making him feel the way you felt most days of your life due to his own actions - beyond annoyed.

You carried on halfheartedly writing down notes in your book. You were quite sure by now that you were never going to be a biologist so you weren’t overly interested in the lesson as such, you were just pretending to be, in the hope that it would annoy Donghyuck further.

The bell was usually something you looked forward to but knowing what was going to happen imminently, changed that feeling. As the bell began to ring, you released a breath that you hadn't realised you had been holding. Gathered your books together and picking up your bag.

Your plan A was to speed walk out of the room and down the hall before he could follow you but alas you were stopped by the devil himself before you could even make it five meters. Unfortunately, due to your smirking break, you had yet to configure a plan B.

"So you think you're so funny?" Donghyuck asked, his outrage at the prank evident on his tanned features. You tried to side-step around him but he just stood in front of you each time, preventing your escape. After about four tries at this, you accepted your fate and began thinking of ways to talk yourself out of the situation.

"Don't you think it was just a little bit funny?" You asked in return, "and also a quick run to the basketball courts to retrieve your books is good for your health, so in the long term I actually helped you." This explanation of your actions had been intended to placate him but it turned out to have quite the opposite effect, which in hindsight wasn’t that surprising.

"I'm meant to prank you y/n, not the other way round!" He whined in protest. You raised one eyebrow in response.

"And how exactly is that fair Lee? You've been the cause of so many inconveniences to my life with your pranks, so surely I need to make up for it with a few of my own," You had decided to cut all of your losses at this point and so you patted him on the cheek lightly. This was meant for effect but also to give you sufficient time to escape from Donghyuck, aka public enemy number one.

As you began to leave he reached around and placed a hand on your shoulder stopping you. Unsurprising, as something you had learnt as your life progressed was that Donghyuck was a persistent person.

"Ah how about I take you to dinner instead and then we call it quits?" he proposed. You shook your head with a grin.

"As much as I admire that you played elaborate jokes on me for ten months just so you could ask me out, it's going to have to be a hard pass on that one," You replied. His face changed from a cheeky grin to slight confusion at this answer. Taking this opportunity to make your escape, you jogged speedily down the corridor.

"I played the jokes to annoy you not to ask you out!" He shouted at you down the corridor before finishing off with a quick shout of “idiot!” just for good measure. His cheeks had begun to blush a slight shade of red. You took this as a win as it signified that you had gotten into his head.

It was a ridiculous situation anyway, you couldn’t have gone out on a date with him even if you had wanted to, which for the record you didn’t,  and he knew this as well as you. So you were very aware that his offer was no more than a joke.

But as he walked away a thought lingered in your brain, you disliked Donghyuck immensely, not just because he went out of his way to piss you off but also because that's just the way it was. It was neither of your faults that your families couldn’t agree on anything; that your fathers refused to even speak to each other and that even being seen with Donghyuck outside of school would cause your family to punish you.

And so the lingering thought about a date with Donghyuck almost made you hate him more - because this was never something that could happen. You reasoned that you only had this thought because you could never date him, but you weren't so sure this was true.

You had enjoyed an unusually peaceful few days, coincidently Donghyuck had been missing from school on these days. But as the rain began to beat against the classroom windows, pathetic fallacy came to fruition as the one and only Donghyuck stood, grimacing slightly at the classroom door.

He was about thirty seconds away from a detention so he proceeded to his seat, without stopping to tease, taunt or physically provoke you in any way and at that moment you were thankful for the rigid school system.

He sat across from you just underneath the clock, so when the lesson you were in dragged on and you glanced to check the time, your eyes fell on Donghyuck also. You noticed that his eye was bruised and that he had a small cut on his right cheek, all of which had been covered by the hoodie he wore earlier.

Normally you would think nothing of this, boys at your school fought all the time, there was even a school fight club which everyone certainly talked about. However today, you had seen your brother come down to breakfast with similar injuries, just slightly worse.

Given the ... predicament between your two families you felt it was safe to assume that both of their injuries had been inflicted by the other, and so you had no regrets about your decision to scowl at Donghyuck for the remainder of the lesson.

When it ended you expected Donghyuck to come over and make a joke at you, to complain about your glowering, 'don't look at me so much, your eyes can't afford this beauty,' or something along those lines. What you expected was not what you got.

He completely ignored you. Donghyuck had never ignored you before. He took every single opportunity to annoy you.

You hurried after him and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to you and looked as if he was going to walk away before deciding against it. He raised an eyebrow, you suddenly realised you had no idea what you were going to say. As you coincidently realised that, 'why aren't you annoying be' is a rather odd thing to say to someone.

"Are you okay?" you asked him, biting your lip slightly.  Donghyuck half chuckled in a way that seemed almost as if he was being sarcastic.

"What do you care? I just watched you glare at me for forty-five minutes, and the vibe I received from that isn't that of someone who would ever be concerned about me. So my next question would be, what do you actually want?"

Your eyes flickered to the ground.

"Did you fight my brother yesterday?" you asked, Donghyuck sighed slightly in reply.

"So what if I did? He had it coming, your brother can be a real asshole you know."

This admission did not surprise you. Your families fought all the time and whilst you disliked Donghyuck, you agreed your brother wasn't always the greatest.

"If it makes you feel better, he looked much worse than you," you offered in consolation. Donhyuck's face suddenly contorted with pain, he grabbed your arm and began to drag you down the hall. His other hand was clutched to his side.

He pulled you into an empty bathroom in one of the hallways.

"If you think I won that fight because my face looks better, you would be very wrong. As you see I did not manage to stab anyone in that fight, unlike your darling of a brother," he said, lifting up his jumper.  He removed a badly applied bandage, underneath was a small stab wound in his chest, the knife hadn't been that big but the wound looked extremely painful.

Your hand moved to cover your mouth that had opened wide.

"Does your family not have a doctor you could have seen?" you asked with a certain alarm. Donghyuck nodded his head.

"Well yeah of course but I didn't tell my family, I can't tell my dad I lost to your fucking brother, he would never let me do anything ever again," he explained.

"You need to have that looked at, in the nicest way possible your first aid is shocking and you need stitches." Donghuck shook his head.

"I can't tell him y/n, I don't even know why the hell I'm telling you this." You stared at the wound a little longer, it wouldn't heal on its own without infection and excessive blood loss. You knew what you had to do, you were more concerned about his health than you were with family loyalties at that moment.

"I can help," you told him, "I know enough from helping my sister to fix that wound enough so it would heal." Donghyuck seemed genuinely shocked at your offer.

"Why would you help me? Is this some ploy to imprison me and hold me for ransom?"

"I just offered to help you so please refrain from accusing me of things. It's not my fault I'm more concerned by the sanctity of human life than our father's bloody feud."

You figured you would have to take him to your sister's apartment, she wouldn't be there and you certainly couldn't take him to your house. Your sister would also have all the medical supplies you needed.

"Hold that bandage back over it and come with me," you said. You took him out to the parking lot where your black range rover was parked out front.

"Get behind those tinted windows before someone sees you," you instructed him, shoving him into your car before running to the other side and climbing into the car yourself.

You placed a blindfold over his eyes so he could not ascertain where your sister lived, though it took much fighting on your part to get him to agree. Donghyuck was still immensely suspicious this was a kidnapping plot.

Once you got to the apartment the bandage Donghyuck was holding had become almost entirely saturated with blood. You had him put sunglasses on and you walked him as quickly as was medically safe into the apartment. Your sister lived here to hide from your father so you were fairly certain he wouldn't find you but you had to be careful, you were trying to save Donghyuck's life, not have him murdered.

You sat him down on the closed lid of the toilet in the bathroom as you pulled out a large variety of medical supplies from the store cupboard. Placing them on the floor, you knelt down to asses the wound further. You lifted Donghyuck's short up before standing back.

"Hey um.. could you please take your jumper and shirt off so that I can clean your wound?" you asked him. Donghyuck laughed slightly, which only caused him to wince more."At least take me out on a date first," he replied.

"I know you're in pain Donghyuck, but please come up with more original jokes."

"Ouch, that one hurt more than the stab wound babes," You just smiled at him as you knelt back down and lifted the compression off his wound. You grabbed the antiseptic from the ground beside you and placed it onto a cotton pad.

"This is definitely gonna hurt, I'm sorry," you explained. He just shrugged. You started to clean the wound. If Donghyuck was in any more pain, as a result, he didn't show it. Once you had cleaned the cut, you grabbed a needle and some thread to start the hard part.

You began to sew up the wound causing Donghyuck to tense up slightly.

"That hurts," he whined in complaint.

"No shit, I'm literally putting a needle through your skin,” you said as you finished his last few stitches.

It hadn't taken that long luckily, as stitches without anaesthetic were proving extremely painful to Donghyuck.

You wiped away the excess blood from the area before carefully dressing and bandaging him up. Once you had finished he let out an immense sigh of relief.

"So I won't die now?" he asked you as he pulled his jumper back on. You shook your head,

"Hopefully not, or I just risked my relationship with my family for nothing."

You could see that Donghyuck still wasn't really able to go anywhere, it must have hurt really badly to have it untreated for so long, you couldn't just let him leave. The chances of him reopening the wound were too high.

“Are you hungry?” you asked him. You were not really sure what to do, you had never hung out with Donghyuck before, but food was a safe option with everyone. “My sister has some pizza we can heat up?”

Donhyuck nodded his head, “sure, that would be great ... thanks,” You smiled back and went to get the pizza and put it in the oven. Once you had done that, you went and sat down next to Donghyuck on the sofa. He had turned the TV on and was flicking through the movie channels.

“It will be like five minutes to heat up,” you notified him. He smiled back at you and nodded, continuing to in his attempt to find something to watch. Eventually, he seemed to settle on the evening news. You raised one eyebrow, you didn’t have any issue with the news but it wasn’t the show you had expected a teenager to immediately go for.

“I like being up to date with current affairs, also it reminds me that people in life have it worse than me so I should always be thankful... even if I don’t feel as though I should be,” he said, answering your question before you could even ask it. He had glanced down at where he had been stabbed on the last bit.

“Ah well you should already know you have a good life, you have me as a friend,” you joked.

“We aren't friends y/n, I don’t even like you,” Donghyuck replied. This simple phrase caused a sting to run through your chest. You really thought that today it was different. That because of today you could perhaps be friends. Neither of you had that many friends because of who your families were, so you had really hoped you would have been able to find a friend in Donghyuck.

“Well even if you don’t like me, seeing as if I made one phone call you could be taken as a hostage, I would hope for your sake that we are indeed friends.” Donghyuck’s eyes lowered to the ground at your words. Luckily the cooker beeped, giving you an excuse to avoid the palpable tension in the air.

You lifted the pizza out of the oven and put in on a tray before grabbing two plates. You set it down on the coffee table by the tv, where you were both sitting. You picked up the tv remote from next to him, changing the channel to cartoons.

“Sometimes Donghyuck, you don’t want to be reminded of the bad things, sometimes you need to try and focus on the happy things.” You told him, settling down with your pizza to watch adventure time. Donghyuck didn’t reply.

You sat in silence through over an hour of cartoons before you watched Donghyuck stand up.

“Where are you going?” you asked him as he made his way towards the door, you knew full well he was leaving, your real question was ‘why?’. But you hadn’t asked that question.

“Away from here,” he said, before slamming the door shut. You didn’t go after him, you had tried your best to be nice, to help him. If Donghyuck didn’t want to help himself, that was his issue.

You hadn’t seen Donghyuck in a while - close to two months. You assumed he had either gone into hiding or had died somehow. You would have liked to have said you didn’t think about him. However much you tried, his face just kept appearing in your mind, but he was never really in front of you. It was driving you insane.

The weather had got worse, you reckoned it was pathetic fallacy, not only had Donghyuck disappeared but your father had got stricter, the gang fighting had increased and so you weren't even allowed to go to school anymore, you had a private tutor who doubled as one of your two bodyguards.

It wasn't that you couldn't fight, your father was just extremely concerned. Your tutor was called Taeyong and your other bodyguard was Jaehyun. They were both nice enough, you just missed being alone sometimes.

It was on one of those especially bad weather days that you sat, with Tae and Jae outside an ice cream parlour, there was a covering over your heads, so you weren’t getting wet but still, surprising most people had opted for inside, you were the only ones outside.

The street was also empty, but it was surprising as few people walked around at near midnight in the pouring rain. This meant that when your two lovely bodyguards noticed a person walking towards you they immediately were suspicious. Their heads snapped round to look at the man, trying to ascertain if he was a threat.

It was dark so you couldn’t make out his face under the hoodie he was wearing.  He kept walking towards you until he was about three feet away from your table. He reached into his back pocket to grab something. Tae and Jae, thinking he was reaching for a gun, quickly pulled out theirs and aimed it at him.

“Who are you!” Jaehyun called out, causing the man in front to almost fall as he pulled his hood down and placed his arms in the air. You had never seen this boy before, all you noticed about him apart from this was that he held an envelope in his hands.

“Way to cause a scene, guys. My name is Jaemin by the way, I’m a friend of y/n’s friend,” he explained, "this letter is from him,” he said looking at you.

Taeyong laughed slightly, “not a very good cover you got there Jaemin, y/n literally has no friends, let alone friends who go by ‘him’.” You reached over and hit Taeyong.

“I do have friends,” you insisted, as you took the letter from Jaemin’s hands. “In fact, I even know who this letter is from.” Well, you didn't know per say, but you certainly hoped. you hoped it was from Donghyuck. As soon as you took the note the boy made a speedy exit, Jaehyun prepared to run after him but you held him back.

“If the letter is from who I think, then that boy is someone I can trust,” you explained. Jaehyun raised an eyebrow,

“And what if he’s not y/n?” he began, “what if that letter contains anthrax?” You shook your head in disbelief of Jaehyun.

“No one has sent me a fucking anthrax letter you idiot!” You sat back down and opened the letter, the front of it had simply said - my friend.

Dear y/n,

I’m sorry. That had to be the first thing I said, it’s the most important. I’m sorry I annoyed you at school, I’m sorry I fought your brother, I’m sorry I walked off that night. Most importantly, I’m sorry my last name is Lee and that yours is y/l/n. I could give every explanation as to why I left that night, none of them would matter, none of these facts, change what is true. I said we were not friends because I was trying to be realistic. I didn't want to hope that we could ever be friends because I knew it would end badly. I left to try and actualise that realisation and I’m sorry. I know we were never friends, I don’t think you would still want to be friends with me. But I am back now and I won’t leave again unless you tell me too. I need you to tell me to leave. I will be by your house at soon after you read this letter. I know you would hit me and tell me it was dangerous, that I am stupid. But if you wouldn't risk your life for your friend who would you risk it for?

Even when I made fun of you I liked you,

Donghyuck

You read the letter about four times. You didn’t believe it was real. You also didn’t care, even the chance to see Donghyuck was enough. Though you weren't sure if you wanted to be friends.

You stood up and shoved the letter into the pocket of your jeans.

“Please don’t follow me, trust me when I say I am going home, and technically I am. I have never asked you guys for anything... and I will tell my dad that you guys are the best bodyguards in the family,” you added to sweeten the deal more. Jae and Tae gave each other a look. They weren't sure.

“We are going into the ice cream shop to help an old man who fell over, please stay inside whilst we go,” Taeyong said, after a minute. You looked through the glass window. There was no old man. You were confused for a moment before Jaehyun coughed. You realised they were giving you the chance to go.

“Thank you,” you called out to them as they headed inside and then you started to run. Your legs carried you faster than you had run before. You weren't far from your house so you arrived pretty quick, your eyes searching for Donghyuck, praying he hadn't been caught.

You saw him, he looked totally different and exactly the same. he had died his hair bright red and was wearing a black coat so he didn’t stand out in the night. But his face was as handsome as it had ever been. You walked over to him, trying not to draw attention before grabbing his arm and pulling him into the hedge.

“Why would you meet me here? Are you totally insane?” you chastised him, “what kind of crazy person does that?” Donghyuck only grinned when he saw you.

“Me,” he replied, “I knew it would annoy you, and I did always like doing that,”

“Annoy me? more like terrify me, what if they had caught you Hyuck?” He seemed surprised at this answer.

“You care about me?” He asked, “But I left? And before I left I just made your life hell,”

“yes you left... you left and what you said hurt because we are friends. I thought about you every day you were gone... every day!”

“What if I don’t want to be your friend?” he asked. You had to refrain from hitting him in the face.

“Then why in the name of God are you here?” you almost screamed. You could feel tears welling in your eyes. “Did you come to taunt me, because throwing pencils at me is one thing, wrecking my emotions is another.”

Donghyuck shook his head, still smiling slightly but worried. You were beginning to think he was sadistic but before you could say as much he carefully wiped the tears that were about to spill from your eyes.

“Let me rephrase, what if what I feel for you is more than friendship? I know we haven't hung out much but you, you are the kindest person I have ever met, I always thought you were funny at school and you are beautiful. I don’t care about being realistic anymore. The real world hurts, I did what you said, I tried looking for the happy things, but I couldn’t see them, because I was away from you, and you were always the happiest part of my day.”

You began to cry again, this time because you were happy.

“Well in that case fuck being realistic Hyuck, we will run away together, I don't care how ridiculous or cliche that sounds.”

“It sounds very cliche and ridiculous, but the amount I like you y/n, that is also cliche and ridiculous,” he said. His hands had rested on your shoulders as he had given his speech, and now he placed them on your cheeks softly. He was looking straight at you, but his eyes were flickering from yours to your lips.

“Can I kiss you?” he said. You nodded slightly, he leaned down and pressed his lips to yours tentatively. Only for a few seconds before he pulled away. Bright lights began to signal from outside your house, you could hear people coming. He grabbed your hand tight as you both started to run. As you sprinted away from the fights and the family codes, Donghyuck shouted something as you went.

“You were always meant to be my girlfriends, not my friend anyway.. and also adventure time definitely beats the news.”

[eldritchsurveys]

153.

[[ Random Survey Questions // By x-hallie-x]]

1. Have you ever been in an unconventional relationship (long distance, polyamorous, same gender, age gap, etc)? if so, what challenges did this relationship present, and were they worth overcoming? >> I’ve been in all of the examples presented. The challenges remain the same across the board -- communication errors and competing access needs.

2. Would you ever consider something like a poly relationship, assuming everyone involved was alright with it? What are some things you think you would or wouldn’t like about it? >> My relationship is already non-monogamous, although neither of us is actively seeing anyone else in meatspace currently. (”Polyapathetic” is the word I use for it sometimes, lol.) There isn’t anything I don’t like about it.

3. What is the most unhealthy relationship (whether friendship or romantic) you’ve ever had? What made it so unhealthy? Do you still talk to each other? >> Probably the one with the creator of this survey, incidentally. I used to not say anything for the sake of “not causing drama”, but I see where I did myself a disservice in the attempt of doing him a service, one that I don’t necessarily owe him after what he put me through. People can make their own decisions about whether to be friends or lovers with him, after all, and it’s not like I’m running around telling people not to be friends or lovers with him. By all means, if y’all get along, I’m actually glad. He’s sorely in need of healthy interaction, he just definitely can’t get it from me.  It was unhealthy because for me he was excessively clingy, demanding, and emotionally manipulative, whereas my attachment style is distant and avoidant, and neither of those styles work well together except, I’d imagine, in unique cases (probably aided by therapy, tbh). He made great demands upon my time and energy and made me feel like I wasn’t allowed to reclaim that time and energy. And so on and so forth. 4. Have you ever been abusive in any way? Were you able to change or make amends, or, in general, what do you think people should do to make amends in that situation? >> I don’t think I’ve been abusive. I know I’ve been accused of being such, and I wouldn’t argue with it because that... doesn’t solve the problem. But from my point of view, having repeatedly educated myself on what abusive behaviour looks like, I can’t see myself fitting into that model. I’ve been unhelpful, reactive, aloof/distant, and callous -- but not abusive. I think the best way to make amends for abusive behaviour is to change one’s behaviour. And change it consistently. And, most importantly, realise that the person you hurt is under no obligation to forgive you or let you back into their lives. If they do, great -- do not squander their forgiveness. If they don’t, that’s their right. You still owe it to yourself, and the people who are in your life, to be better.

5. Have you ever forgiven someone for being abusive or allowed someone toxic back into your life? Did this person change for the better or not? >> Yeah. No.

6. Do you feel like your age matches your emotional development? If not, what age level or maturity level do you feel best represents where you’re at? >> I don’t know, because I’m not sure how that’s measured. I just am where I am, and am doing my damn best. 7. Do you feel like you’re lagging behind your peers in terms of development or do you feel that you’re more ahead of the bunch? >> I think I’m supposed to see myself as “lagging behind”, but that’s all bullshit. I just am where I am, like I said. 8. What is one thing about your personality that embarrasses you, but you can’t seem to change it no matter how hard you try? Have other people called you out on this embarrassing thing? >> I don’t know, really. It embarrasses me to want attention and reassurance and solace, but I don’t think that’s like, a personality trait that needs changing. I’m just embarrassed about it because I was taught to be. 9. When was the last time you did something “meant” for children? Do you think it’s okay for adults to do these things (ie. watch cartoons, have stuffed animals, dress in cute clothing, etc), or do you think there’s an age beyond which it becomes unacceptable - and if so, why? >> Man, I do and enjoy a lot of things that people who’ve bought into the bullshit would say is “for children”. If you seriously believe it’s unacceptable for an adult to do something as fucking benign as watch cartoons or sleep with a teddy bear, then your opinion ain’t worth squat to me anyway. 10. What was the last thing to “trigger” you (as in, in a true mental health sense, I’m being serious here) and how did you cope with it? What kinds of things do you tend to find triggering? What do you do either avoid or face your triggers? >> I don’t remember. I don’t often acknowledge my triggers when they actually occur, which is a separate issue. 11. If you’re diagnosed with anything, do you feel that it accurately represents what you’re experiencing? >> I don’t know what my diagnosis is. I’ve been diagnosed as a number of things over the years, either because of incompetent mental health professionals or a lack of transparency on my part (but most often an awful combination of both). I think any “disorder” I have would have to be a developmental or neurological one, because a lot of who I am has been like this for as long as I can remember (and has only been exacerbated by events that happened later). 12. What is a complaint you have about the mental health industry or about the type of treatment you’ve received from a mental health service? Have you ever had any particularly bad therapy experiences? >> One complaint is that a lot of mental health professionals don’t... like, do the work. They’ll just see someone once or twice and go “oh you clearly have [x]” just based upon some cursory questioning and observation. That’s not logical or ethical to me. I’ve had so many negative experiences in MH that at this point I now have trauma related to that -- which makes it a fucking riot to try to go to therapy! “Hi, first you’ll have to work through my trauma related to therapists before we can get down to the actual therapy.” Ha! 13. When was the last time you realized you might be the source of a problem and NOT someone else? >> Actually, I usually take that possibility under advisement (it’s an awkward but sometimes useful side effect of having been treated as a scapegoat). Unfortunately, sometimes I’m not the problem, and I have a hard time really convincing myself that no, I didn’t necessarily do anything to deserve the treatment I got. 

14. In an average week, how often do you leave the house? Generally, how many miles would you say you travel in that time? >> Usually on the weekends because we go grocery shopping and down to Wayland to do laundry. During the week, maybe once or twice, on a good week. There’s really just nowhere to go. 15. Have you ever made a mistake or did something you were too embarrassed or ashamed to tell anyone else? Did you eventually tell anyone? Did their reaction help you feel better or worse about your secrets? >> Probably, but I don’t remember any specific examples. 16. Do you think you’re easy to open up to or do people confide in you often? >> No, I’m apparently not easy to open up to because people generally don’t. I guess. I don’t know how any of this shit works. 17. When was the last time you felt accomplished? When was the last time you felt like you failed at something? >> I don’t remember the last time I felt accomplished. I mean, I remember the last time I did something that I needed to do, but I didn’t feel better once it was over. I guess that’s part of why it’s so difficult for me to do things I need to do but don’t want to -- I don’t get the reward feedback from my own brain afterwards. >:| 18. When was the last time you worked really hard on something only to have it get ruined in some way? Did you start over and try again, or did you give up entirely? >> I don’t remember. I haven’t put that much effort into anything lately. 19. What are some minor physical discomforts that really bug you (eyelash in your eye, a wedgie, rumpled socks, etc)? >> All of the above, and also dry skin and chapped lips. 20. Are you prone to talking during shows? Does it bother you if other people talk? Is there someone you know with a television-watching style so different to yours that you can’t stand to watch with them? >> I’m not prone to it, necessarily, but if I’m with someone who doesn’t mind it or also does it, then I’ll do it. I can go either way. Except when it’s a show that requires a lot of focus, then I need it to be quiet. And I don’t like watching things with people that just like to make negative commentary like they’re a movie critic or something. 21. Are you ever afraid to admit to liking something because you’re afraid other people will judge you for it? What is the worst that’s ever happened as a result of you liking something different from the crowd? What about the best thing that’s come as a result of a unique interest? >> I mean, being judged for things I like has been happening for so long that I’m mostly just used to it. But sometimes if I’m really excited about something, or in a certain mood, I won’t talk about it because if someone says one negative thing I’m going to fucking explode on them, lmao. Let people fucking like things, god damn. I don’t know what the worst thing is, but this is kind of funny in retrospect (but in the moment it was hella aggravating): when I was in high school I was really obsessed with the band Creed, and as we all know, Creed was Nickelback before Nickelback existed as far as popular opinion goes. So on the school bus, the kids at the back of the bus would sing that song Higher in the most exaggerated voices possible to heckle me. SMH. 22. If someone judges you, are you more inclined to react defensively, offensively, or indifferently? Do you often judge other people in an overt way, or do you keep most of your judgments to yourself? >> I’m either defensive or indifferent depending on what mood I’m already in and who the person is. I actually make an effort not to judge what other people are into or what kind of people they are, because I feel like it’s an improper and rude way for me to spend my time. Also, Golden Rule. 23. What kind of image, if any, do you hope you project to the world? Like, what qualities do you hope other people are able to see in you? Do you ever feel like you’re coming across all wrong? >> I don’t know what kind of image I want to project. I’m not sure I care about that as much as I care about being valuable to individuals that I want to be valuable to. And one person might value one thing about me while another person might value a completely different thing, so I can’t just pick a trait or two and say “these are the valuable traits”. It’s all relative. And yeah, I feel like my intentions and my actions don’t match up a whole lot, mostly because of the 5966589 layers of trauma-based behaviour I’m operating through. But, you know. It be like that. 24. When was the last time you felt like someone was completely misunderstanding your feelings or intentions? Were you eventually able to explain and clarify? How do you react when you feel seriously misunderstood? >> Constantly, lmao. I don’t remember the last specific example, though. Sometimes I get an opportunity to explain and clarify, but honestly, a lot of the times I don’t even bother because I assume the person either doesn’t care or won’t understand. I usually shut down or withdraw when I feel intensely misunderstood. 25. Have you ever remained good friends with an ex? >> I tried it, it didn’t work. Only with Anubis, who I only dated for like a month and a half anyway. 26. What was the last reason you decided you didn’t want to do something? >> Probably poor executive function, as usual. Or low confidence. 27. What is something about you that makes you feel very different from other people (and I don’t mean like a food preference like pineapple on pizza, i mean core level different, where you can’t find this quality in many others)? >> You know, I’m not sure. Because I do feel intensely alienated and not at all like other people sometimes, but all my traits and experiences taken individually are traits and experiences I’ve seen elsewhere. I know other people who have shared consciousnesses, and even people who interact with their inworlders similarly to how I interact with mine. I know that my terribly broken attachment style and inability to connect is not uncommon, especially among other people who were also emotionally neglected as children. And I know that the feeling of alienation, of feeling Very Different from others, is equally common -- many of us feel that way, and we all have well-worked-out justifications for that feeling. But, really? I really believe that’s just part of being alive and sapient. And it’s a foundation for art -- trying to find a means to connect with someone, anyone, when we don’t feel like it’s ever going to be possible. 28. Do you have a negative view of mentally ill people, or are you mentally ill yourself? Do you ever call others crazy, insane, etc? Do you ever call yourself those things? >> I don’t have a negative view of mentally-ill people, although I unfortunately am often driven to have a negative view of myself for being mentally-ill. Stupid brains. I do call myself crazy and insane but “mad” is actually my preferred adjective. I try not to use those terms for others unless they’re explicitly okay with it and I’m fucking around with them or something (which is still an iffy thing, but you know). 29. What is one way you often put yourself down? What is one compliment you often give yourself? Do you think you compliment or insult yourself more? >> I put myself down about being an intensely lonely and vulnerable person, because that makes total sense, right? SMH. I also put myself down for being sensitive to noise and light and all that other stuff that I really can’t control even though I wish I could. And for other random shit that I can’t remember just now. I don’t usually compliment myself a lot, but Can Calah does that work for me, which is one reason why I’m intensely grateful for him -- someone’s gotta do it in order to teach me how to do it to myself, and he seems more than up for the task. It’s a pretty common thing inworld -- I berate myself for something, and he counters with impeccable logic and compassion. Never fails. 30. Does it bother you to have people comment on what you’re eating, or do you not care? What are some comments that would bother you, if any? Do you ever comment on what other people are eating or make assumptions about their intakes? >> People don’t usually comment on what I’m eating. I’m not even sure what someone could say that would bother me -- maybe making fun of me for not cooking full meals all the time, or something, in which case fuck right off. I don’t comment on what other people eat, that’s none of my business and I actually don’t even fucking care. Eat whatever you like, it’s your life and your body and your business.

[exquisitley-obsessed]

The Three Women Of Durin - Erebor Arrival (37)

MASTERLIST FOR THS STORY

(not my gif)

Bilbo plunged around the corner, slightly pink-cheeked and came to a skidding stop when he spotted the group.

“Mr Boggins!” Kili called happily, if this was a few months ago, the girls might have smiled.

“Yes, yes,” Bilbo heaved as he bent double trying to catch his breath. “Look, you’ve got to come quickly, you’ve got to see this,” Bilbo said, pointing a finger to the direction he just came from.

“See what?” Fili asked, pulling his arm away from Cece.

“Thorin,” Cece spoke up, looking at the floor.

“What about him?” Oin asked. As if on cue Bilbo, Cece, Frankie and Rosie all spoke at the same time.

“He’s sick,” Bilbo gave Frankie and Rosie a weird look as if he didn’t understand how they knew.

“Let’s go,” Cece said quickly and began jogging back through the halls, everyone not too far behind. They wove their way through the dwarven halls until they entered a balcony with an overlook of the jewels, they came to a halt.

The small group watched as a form emerged from the shadows and made its way across the thrumming gold of Erebor. Without the light even falling onto his features, you could tell it was Thorin. By the way he walked and moved around the piles and piles of gold it was obvious. But it wasn’t just that, something radiated from him, something dark and unknown that caused your stomach to twist and turn.

“Gold,” Came a whisper and for a moment Rosie wasn’t sure that was the mountain talking or him. “Gold beyond measure,” Squinting slightly into the darkened halls she watched as her friend’s body moved into the light, looking at one thing. “Beyond sorrow, and grief,” It was in this moment that Thorin acknowledged their presence, as he stared up at him, his blue eyes now dark and unrecognizable. “Behold, the great treasure horde of Thor,” Thorin continued as if it was something to be in awe of.

Then in a flicker of movement, something whizzed through the air, aimed at their group. Fili brought his hands up just in time and caught the red ruby which Thorin had thrown. He looked down at it with a pause before up at his uncle.

“Welcome, my sister-son, to the kingdom, of Erebor! Thorin breathed cried raising his arms as he basked in the sickness of his grandfather. The small group did not say anything in return, simply looked down at their friend with confusion and despair. Slowly, Fili, Kili and Oin began moving away leaving the three girls and the hobbit to look down at Thorin.

Rosie thought that Thorin wouldn’t be too appreciative of his nephews walking in another direction from the gold but as Rosie once again looked down, she saw that Thorin did not even notice their departure. Something within her cracked. Slowly, Frankie and Cece turned and left, leaving Bilbo as Rosie’s only company.

“What are we going to do Bilbo?” She sighed, keeping her voice low, Bilbo looked taken aback.

“We can do something?” Bilbo asked, surprised.

“Of course we can,” Rosie said, a touch of sadness in her voice, “He needs us, and we’re going to be there for him,” She continued whilst watching as Thorin picked a large clear jewel up, laughed to himself before chucking it carelessly back. The two stood for a moment, each of them thinking their own thoughts before Rosie turned to go. The Hobbit also turned around and began heading back down the halls, but not before Rosie caught him patting his coat slightly, just a flicker of the hand. And Rosie was reminded of what they were supposed to do.

The small group re-joined with the others with hugs and cheers before they were each sat down to rest their aching feet and talk of what happened the previous evening. Once, all stories were told and accounts spoken of, the company found themselves chatting about less important things and more things of friendship and inside jokes. Frankie at some point found her body become droopy and her limbs heavy and decided that it was in fact time for bed. Bidding her farewells, she started to make her way back through the halls before realising she had no idea where she was going. Sighing she was just about to give up all hope when someone spoke up from behind her.

“It is dangerous for pretty girls, such as yourself, to be walking around alone so late at night,” Came the voice of Kili as she spun around, prepared for an attack. “Sorry,” He said eyeing up Frankie’s drawn bow, “I did not mean to startle you, however, may I point out that you’re getting rather good with that bow,” He smiled and Frankie found herself smiling too and lowering her bows.

“I got lost,” She said simply, “Know how to find a bed around here?” She asked, and didn’t notice the blush which arose in Kili’s cheeks.

“I would love to impress you with my mountain knowledge but I know just as much as you do,” Kili sighed as he walked down a corridor, Frankie right behind him.

“Wait, didn’t you…” She trailed off.

“No. I was born in the Blue Mountains, a few years after the battle for Moria,” Kili hummed and Frankie was surprised by the fact that she actually knew what he was talking about.

“Ahh,” She said sleepily as they walked into a brighter room, where streams of moonlight pierced the room. They stood in silence for a while, simply looking up at the beautiful architecture of the dwarves.

“But I did hear all the stories and songs about this place,” Kili broke the silence as he placed a hand on an old wall as if he had lived here his whole life.

“I’m guessing there were lots of those,” Frankie hummed as she font herself sliding down onto the floor.

“Oh yes,” Kili said as he too joined Frankie on the floor. “Songs of good things and bad, I grew up with them you know. Mother would always sing them, not to me or Fili though, to herself,” He paused, lost in thought, “I think she blames herself,”

“Blames herself for what?” Frankie asked, intrigued.

“Father’s death,” Kili said curtly and Frankie understood. Another pause. “I wish she didn’t though,” Kili continued, “I wish she would just let him go, but…she refuses. I guess that’s why it’s so important me and Fili make it home,” Kili wondered aloud. Frankie felt something hard form in her throat as she thought of Dis, no husband, no brothers, no parents, no sons.

“Blame is a funny thing,” Frankie spoke up, it was now Kili’s turn to be intrigued.

“How?” He asked.

“Not funny ha-ha, but funny as in peculiar,” She explained as the moonlight moved and illuminated some shadows. “Blame is taking responsibility for an action, good or bad, and sometimes it does not even have to be true for it to be…” She trailed off, “Sorry, I must be making no sense,” She hummed, she was opening a side of her that she had never really opened to anyone but Cece and Rosie before, “I’m quite useless at this hour,”

“No, no,” Kili surprised her by saying, “See, there’s no way mum could have in any way caused dad’s death, yet she still feels she could have done more,” He said almost as if the link between his brain and mouth had crumbled away. As if every thought that formed and moulded in his head, immediately tumbled from his lips.

A silence once again blanketed the room but this time a silence of thought and wonder as the two sat alone in the dark on the cold floor, their bodied keeping each other warm.

“I’m happy you understand,” Kili said softly, “Some people, because I’m the heir to the throne, would just tell me to stop thinking of such things,” Frankie frowned.

“Just because a certain blood runs through your veins does not mean you are de-humanized…or de-dwarfinised?” She said loudly and clearly. “You have feelings and thoughts just like the rest of us,”

“Yeah…” Kili trailed off. Frankie smiled in the darkness and once again found her limbs growing heavier and heavier and her eyelids slowly closing. It is a shame that this happened. A shame that she could not see the young dwarf prince reaching out for her in the dark.

A few days had passed since the small group had arrived at Erebor, and the company has spent the entire time on their hands and knees searching for the Arkenstone. Thorin would stand above them the entire time, constantly calling out, asking if anyone had found it. Hope began to run thin and people began to wonder whether the stone was truly in the halls. However, it did not matter what they thought, only what Thorin’s sick mind came to decide.

The girls were meeting in secret, late at night when everyone was supposedly asleep. They were planning what they should and shouldn’t do. So far, they had decided that they would only place something in action when Bard came to the mountain (Bard left to travel back to the town and find his children a few days ago).

In the meantime, they would make small attempts to try and talk to Thorin, to somehow lure him out of this horrific mindset. However, their attempts were always cut short by Thorin’s short replies and lack of participation in the conversations. It appeared that they had no other choice but to give up until Rosie managed to catch him when he was alone and away from the gold.

“Hey, Thorin!” She called causally as she saw his figure move in one of the hallways. The figure stopped in its tracks and turned to her, almost in a guilty manner.

“Rosie,” He replied as he stepped out into the light, “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing. Just wanted to talk,” She falsely smiled as she moved closer towards him. “Walk with me,” She motioned as she began to shuffle down a corridor, Thorin paused before following. “It’s weird to think that we’re actually here, the quest is over,” She pondered.

“Yes,” He answered curtly and Rosie felt her chest ache, she didn’t know if she could part-take in another one-sided conversation. “I will miss those late nights around the fire though,” Rosie’s heart sped up as she turned and looked up at Thorin, it was the first sentence she had heard from him that did not have the words ‘gold’ or ‘Arkenstone’ in them.

“Yes,” She found herself almost laughing, “I would love to do another karaoke night,”

“Karaoke?” Thorin questioned a small chuckle in his words, Rosie’s heart skipped a beat.

“Yes, it’s singing without the recorded lyrics…it’s doesn’t matter,” Rosie shook her head.

“It matters to me,” Thorin said softly and Rosie instantly felt a bolt of happiness hit her body.

“The actual word ‘Karaoke’ means empty orchestra in a language called Japanese,” Rosie continued, “Oh sorry, an orchestra is- “

“I know what it is, you told me, remember?” Thorin stopped at smiled at her, Rosie felt something grow in her cheeks. “Empty orchestra,” Thorin wondered aloud and continued walking, “It’s beautiful,” He smiled again, “How many languages does your world have?” He then asked.

“Oh, hundreds and thousands I’m guessing, I mean I don’t know the exact number but, there are lots,” Rosie replied, “Where I grew up, we were taught any four languages of our choice we could take French, German, Spanish or Italian,” She smiled.

“What did you take?”

“Well I took Italian because I thought it was beautiful but I probably ended up knowing more in French considering I took it for so many years,” she said.

“Say something,” He said.

“What should I say?” She smiled back.

“Anything,”

“Um. Bonjour, je m’appelle Rosie et j’ai dix-huit ans aussi mon anniversaire c’est le cinq juin,” Rosie said, pausing where she was unsure, “J’adore les films de science-fiction comme Star Wars et j’adore ca parce que c’est interessant,”

“That language is spoken beautifully,” Thorin smiled.

“Thank you,” Rosie blushed. “That was in fact, French,”

“You’re going to have to teach me someday,” Thorin smiled.

“Only if you teach me Khudzul,” Rosie laughed playfully before jumping up and sitting on a stone wall, Thorin laughed.

“Fine, I’ll teach you right now,” He said joining her.

“Wait…seriously?” She asked excitedly.

“Yes,” He said.

“Okay, go for it,” She smiled.

“Okay, repeat after me. Vem,” Thorin said.

“Vem,” Rosie repeated.

“Good, that means hello,” Thorin said whilst Rosie nodded, “Okay, gamut manan,” Rosie once again repeated what he said exactly. “Very good, that means good day,” A few hours later and Rosie had managed to pull together enough sayings to start off a conversation.

“Vem,” She said.

“Vem,” Thorin replied.

"Targ menu bundul gazaru (Your beard speaks of wisdom)," Thorin smiled.

"Gelek menu caragu rukhs (You smell like orc dung)," Rosie said with a smile and Thorin tried to hide his own.

"I think you've got the wrong phrase," He said, an ache growing in his cheeks from trying not to grin. Rosie's looked confused for a moment and the realization swept her features.

"Oh! Men gajamu (I apologise)," She said a grin slipping on her features.

"Men kemgu gajum menu (I accept your apology)," He smiled back, his grin now free from restraint.

"I'll pick it up in no time," She laughed as she stretched out her legs.

"Sure you will," He laughed leaning back on the stone behind his head. They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying each other's company. "Can you tell me something?" He suddenly spoke up, his voice now serious, "When you fell into the water and Frankie needed to save you, she talked of...a promise. Can you tell me..." He trailed off a question in his voice. It appeared that the king had been thinking of this moment, I mean, why else would he remember it?

"Of course," She said softly, her own voice too growing quiet. "You know that Cece was...sick...a few years ago," She said quietly and Thorin shook his head but Rosie continued, “Doesn’t really matter, isn’t really my place to tell to be honest…anyways…me and Frankie, we toughened up, you know? We were like her bodyguards or something, we wouldn't let anything, and I mean anything, hurt her during this time. We couldn't, we felt like it was our responsibility you know," She said and Thorin let her soft words wash over him. "Well, around this time...a lot of bad things just sort of starting happening I guess. I mean these were all bad events that could have really happened to anyone, a family member dying, a bad test at school, but for me, they just seemed to all start happening at once. And I guess I just didn't get the time in-between bad events to grieve and...sort myself out. I guess that’s why jam-packed schedules in hopes of going to Yale aren’t really helpful.

"So, I began just not wanting to wake up and go outside, not wanting another bad thing to happen because, to me, that happened every day. And soon I did, I just stop getting out of bed I mean, I stopped doing a lot of things actually...But the problem was, I never told anyone. I never chose to share problems, to allow myself to be weak for once. Because I felt like I needed to be the strong one, I needed to be the one who was there for her friends, who was the shoulder to cry on, you know? I didn't allow myself to, hurt.

"I kept everything to myself, I pushed my thoughts and feelings to the pit of my gut and moved on. And eventually, I stopped feeling the pain, because everything just...kind of went numb I guess. And that's scary, you wouldn't think it was, but it is. It's scary for something to happen and you just, don't react, you just don't feel. So, I made myself feel, I made, myself...hurt. Because, pain, out of all the emotions, is the one that we feel the easiest. I'm not going to tell you how I did it, but I did it, and that's the problem. I was only forced to stop when Frankie found me one day, she found me in my bathroom, I was...

"Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if she didn't find me...if she didn't stop...That's when she made me, make that promise. She picked me up and brushed me off and helped me, and so did Cece, when she found out. I've kept that promise, I intend to, for as long as I can," Rosie wasn't looking at Thorin anymore, she was looking at her hands as she turned a small rock from the floor over and over, Thorin, however, could not pull his eyes from her. He wanted to talk, he wanted to help, he wanted to take away these thoughts and feelings and throw them into a black labyrinth of darkness. "I was sick Thorin," She continued and Thorin now felt these words directed towards him, as if they were in his ears, "I was sick in the mind, I couldn't tell what was good and was bad, what was health and what was illness. And on the day Frankie found me, I made a promise, but this one was to myself. And it was that I will never let that happen to me or my friends...ever,"

Thorin looked away.

TAG LIST: @britney8793

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Crash Bandicoot 4: Better Than You’d Expect (a Review)

Right, you horrible lot. I promised you a review of Crash Bandicoot 4 and, as I appear to be the last stable person and/or thing in the chaos of modern Britain, I suppose I had better deliver. I would say something about Xmas, but what with this being International Year of the COVID Virus, there sort of wasn’t one. With that in mind: Crash 4- what, why and is it any good?

As a kid, I used to really like the Crash Bandicoot games on the old PS1: the levels were beautiful and imaginative (although, to this day, the ‘Road To Nowhere’ level and its sequel in Crash 1 can fuck right off), the characters were funny and compelling and the move-set was entertainingly bonkers. Naturally, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time (and yes, that is the real title) pushed my Nostalgia Button even faster and harder than I’d push Boris Johnson down and endless flight of stairs, given half a chance. It helps that it’s superbly well-made by a developer that clearly cares deeply about the games and not just the selling power of their brand name.

The game is a direct sequel to the original three Crash games and sweeps the intervening efforts from lesser developers under the great rug of history. For the most part, this is probably wise considering that their quality usually hovered somewhere between ‘sewage’ and ‘being trapped at a Beyonce concert without a cyanide pill’ (yes, Internet, I still hate Beyonce. Just because I haven’t mentioned it in awhile, doesn’t mean I’ve warmed to the catawalling bint or her irritating ubiquity on otherwise-acceptable supermarket mix tapes. That would require a frontal lobotomy and the removal of my ears, but I digress). I do think it’s a bit unfair on Crash: Twinsanity, which at least had an interesting core gameplay concept and some funny dialogue, even if it wasn’t very well-realised on the mechanical level. But ho-hum: I can nit-pick later during the loose ‘what I didn’t like’ section- these early paragraphs are meant to be mainly praise.

The actual plot concerns an escape attempt by Neo Cortex and N. Tropy, who were apparently trapped at the beginning of time after the events of Crash 3. News to me: I guess you had to collect all the hidden extras to see that ending and, while the 90s were a much slower decade, I still didn’t have time for that shit, even back then. Anyway, they break back into the timeline, in the process shattering reality itself and forcing Crash to make his way across the multiverse and different worlds at different points in history in order to stop them. There’s not a lot of complexity there, but as a justification for having the levels all be radically aesthetically different and providing a jumping-in premise for fan favourite characters, it’s a plot that does its job. Despite it’s simplicity, it’s also offered up with a surprising number of twists, fun cut-scene asides and surprising little narrative flourishes. The re-introduction of Tawna (Crash’s girlfriend from the first game who was tastefully removed after the original developers fired Kevin The Furry from their team) is kind of sweet and handled pretty neatly. And I mean that in the sense of ‘aww, that’s sweet’ not ‘Ah, sweet, bro’, just to be clear. She’s obviously not the same character from the original games, but the developers have taken care to give her enough quirks and entertaining lines that she’s not just the standard ‘Badass Action Girl’ trope made flesh. The levels that where you get to play as Cortex and get into the head of a cartoon evil genius are fun, too, even if they don’t tell us anything about the character we couldn’t have figured out for ourselves.

As with the original games, the worlds and levels have a really idiosyncratic and stylish look. Just looking at the scenery is a blast. My personal favourites are a level clearly based on New Orleans in the middle of Mardi Gras, the planet Bermagula and basically all of the levels set in a Crash-ised version of Feudal Japan.

As nice as the levels are to look at, they’re mostly pleasant to play through, too, with a staggering variety of different gameplay elements coming together to create intricate challenges. That said, I should stress that the phrase ‘mostly pleasant’ comes with a massive, throbbing caveat, which brings us neatly to the designated gripes and nitpicks section of this review.

You see, while the levels are mostly well-designed, there are individual platforming challenges that just lump too much together for any normal person to keep track of and then demand that you solve them at speed and they break the delicate, wafer-thin boundary between ‘fair challenge’ and ‘taking the piss’. Actually, the incidents of this phenomena towards the start of the game take the piss. By the later levels, they’ve graduated to demanding other bodily fluids, too, such as tears and blood. I feel like the developers were a bit too in love with the original games’ reputation for punishing difficulty and got into a bad habit of opting for design choices that emulated it over design choices that were fun.

I also feel that, considering the game takes place across a time-shattered multiverse, the levels might have been a bit more varied. Don’t get me wrong, there are some gorgeous and brilliantly creative worlds on offer in Crash 4, and every level is a visual blast. However, with the single, solitary exception of Bermagula, every alternate universe you visit is ultimately a reflection of something familiar from our own world or culture. N. Sanity Beach is… well, it’s just a tropical beach with generically tribal ruins a bit further inland. The Hazardous Wastes are just an off-brand post-disaster planet Earth that owes more than a little to the Mad Max franchise and where you’ve definitely seen every individual component before (even if they’ve never been assembled in such a Crash-y way until now). Then there’s the made-entirely-of-pirate-tropes world, the Japan-but-not-really world, the Inevitable Fucking Ice World (which keeps getting included in games despite the fact that uncontrollable sliding is even less fun in precision platformers than it is in real life) and the Generically Futuristic City world, because the old Crash games had them so this one has to as well. None of these worlds are bad- like I said, I enjoyed all of them, and the others that didn’t quite merit an honourable mention besides. It’s just that I feel like greater flights of fancy could have been taken: we could have seen some truly alien geography and architecture; viewed whole of evolutionary timelines, all through the lens of Crash’s brilliantly slick, cartoony art-style. The only truly ‘out there’ world we visit is Bermagula, which takes up precisely one fucking level, then that’s your lot: it’s back to Crash-y versions of Earth locales.

I’m also not a big fan of the ‘gems’ system. Yes, it’s great that developers chose to use the gems that were such a big part of previous games to unlock funky little cosmetic bonus costumes for the playable characters. On the other hand, the outfits you unlock should be tied to the number of gems you have overall, not your ability to collect certain numbers from specific levels. That way, your wardrobe would be a measure of your general skill at the game, not of which levels’ platforming challenges you were most willing to put up with for multiple play-throughs.

I’m tempted to compare all this to the superlative one-two punch that was Rayman: Origins and Rayman: Legends- two of the best platforming games ever made. With the exception of a couple of fuck-off unreasonable boss fights, the platforming challenges in those games were perfectly, legitimately fair. Insanely tough sometimes, but fair. Their level and world design also nailed the ‘weird-as-fuck flight of fancy’ vibe as well. Even the Inevitable Fucking Ice World in those games had the decency to throw in some giant cocktail umbrellas and slices of lemon to make you feel like you were ice-skating your way through the world’s biggest Martini while a fucking dragon in a chef’s hat tried to bit a mountain in the background. They also tied cosmetic unlocks to overall performance.

None of this is to say that Crash 4 isn’t good, it’s just that it doesn’t quite measure up to the gold standard set by the Rayman: Origins and its sequel. If it helps, think of it like comparing The Talos Principle to Portal. Yes, the former is good, but it’s never going to outshine the latter’s star. I recommend Crash 4, but if the last platformer you played was the undeniable high water mark of either of the Raymans, just remember to adjust your filters going in.

Before I go, does anyone else find it funny that these games have such colourful, kiddy-friendly aesthetics and characters yet demand a level of competence and coordination that’s usually only achieved by more seasoned, grown-up gamers? I mean, there are challenges in Crash 4- admittedly optional ones- that might one day be completed only if a being comes into existence that has the reflexes of a supercomputer crossed with a surprised feline and is made entirely out of thumbs.

And on that horrifying mental image, I must say goodnight. Tune in next time for my usual end-of-year roundup.

[mayviolet]

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How Long Does It Take For An Ex Boyfriend To Want You Back

[picturesinlove]

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT: a *super* unoriginal ‘best films of 2017′ list

In life, we’re constantly asked what we learnt from things. It’s one way of measuring a completely immeasurable experience. Most films are built on this- ’character arcs’- how do they change and grow? What do they learn? (That’s not a negative thing, just the mechanics of this stick out when it’s done badly). With that in mind, I asked myself, from everything I watched this year, what did I learn?

THE BEST 12 ‘FILMS’ of 2017:

The first thing I learnt- films and TV series have become indistinguishable. It didn’t happen solely this year, but 2017 is definitely the ‘flag in the road’ point. Films are increasingly designed so they can be watched on a small screen with headphones, and most TV should really be watched on a big screen with proper speakers. And TV is sort of the wrong word. Netflix isn’t TV. I don’t know what it is. Just Long Form Storytelling perhaps? It’s certainly becoming less and less episodic. More and more feel like 10 hour films split into 10 parts so you can digest it better. So, this list is really the best 12 *things* of 2017.

The second thing I learnt- how you watch something is almost as important as what you’re watching. What headspace you were in, what time of day it was, if the room was totally dark, if someone a few rows in front of you was talking through the movie, if you’d seen the previous instalments in the series, hell- even if you’d seen the trailer. It all adds to how you think about the film. So, on the list, I’ve included where I saw it.

12. THE DISASTER ARTIST (directed by James Franco)

True story about the making of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, the best worst film ever made.

I cried like I haven’t cried in years watching this. I don’t know what it was. Just something about the last act hit me so hard I couldn’t contain myself. And when you’re trying to contain yourself BECAUSE THIS IS NOT A SAD FILM AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE CRYING EVERYONE ELSE AROUND YOU IS LAUGHING PLEASE STOP CRYING it’s really hard to stop. It’s a story of ambition, heart and following your dreams no matter what.

Green screen! Lovely green screeeeen! Purely on an aesthetic level, whenever they’re shooting against that unmistakable, vibrant colour I just loved it.

You know when films do that thing and show pictures of the real people the film’s about before the credits so you can go ‘wow this film’s so accurate and got that detail right’?? This does a version of that, and it’s the only one that’s ever mattered/will ever matter.

The real Tommy Wiseau also has my favourite film related tweet of 2017:

Seen at BFI Southbank.

11. ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK SEASON 5 (created by Jenji Kohan)

The lives of the women at Litchfield Penitentiary, a minimum-security prison in upstate New York. (the annimalllsss the animalllls, TRAP TRAP TRAP till the cage is fulllll...)

This show is about everything the opening titles suggest- women, decisions and time. What’s striking about OITNB is the characters never serve the plot. Plot *is* character. It’s there to serve them. It gives us a framework to waste time with these characters, because ‘all they’ve got is time’.

Season 5 is brave in terms of content and form. There are thousands of people more qualified to speak about the content, so I’ll leave it to them. Form wise: Orange is the New Black is Netflix’s most watched show, and probably it’s major tentpole along with Stranger Things. It has a well-oiled structure. Each season takes place over a few weeks, each episode focusses us in on one character, complete with flashbacks that inform us how they ended up in prison. Season 5 tears that to shreds, setting it basically in real time over 3 days. When it works, it *really* works. There’s no looking away. You feel the grind of what they’re going through. It sometimes leaves them too much time to pad out and we get some boring side plots- but on ambition alone I loved it.

It’s the perfect continuation and accumulation of previous seasons in many ways. The characters you know and love are in extraordinary circumstances. It brings out sides to their personalities that you never knew were there, but fit perfectly. Where all the characters are situated within the prison after the inciting incident is the best use of character geography *as* character I’ve ever seen. Tonally the series has gradually been getting nastier and nastier for a while, but there’s a scene towards the end of this season which is so nasty and so long and REFUSES to cut away even though you desperately, desperately want them too. It’s raw. It hurts. It’s a scene the show has always been heading for tonally and building towards dramatically. 

Season 5 slots in just under 4 for me in terms of ranking them all- but it’s still damn good. One things for certain, 5 changed everything for OITNB. The game is different. 

Oh, and Nicky’s the MVP. 

Netflix.

10. BAD GENIUS (directed by Nattawut Poonpiriya)

Thai Heist-Thriller. A genius high school student makes money after developing elaborate methods to help other students cheat.

WHAT A FUCKING RIDE!! The most fun I’ve had in a cinema all year. More stakes in this than most ‘end of the world’ superhero movies. Genuinely unpredictable.

The filmmaking is so good it makes you forget plausibility is sometimes being pushed. Amazing set-pieces. Expertly choreographed. Form and content perfectly married. This is the best way to tell this story, like a Michael Mann thriller, a Steven Soderbergh Oceans-style heist.

Every character is so rich and textured in their own way. So fully realised. You’ve met them all at some point in your life. It’s whimsical, but painful and genuinely emotional when it needs to be. Never pulls it’s punches.

2 years time, there will almost certainly be an American remake… and it’ll suck so hard. It’s rooted in Thailand, the socio-economic situation of people, the time zones, the pressure to succeed, and honestly- just hearing it in Thai. 

SEE THIS FILM. SEE THIS FILM. SEE THIS FILM. SEE THIS FILM. If you take anything from reading any of this, SEE THIS FILM.

Seen at Vue Leicester Square.

9. NATHAN FOR YOU: FINDING FRANCES (directed by Nathan Fielder)

The feature-length finale of Nathan For You’s 4th season. It’s a show that’s difficult to describe without saying ‘trust me’.... but honestly, *trust me*. Nathan Fielder graduated from business school with ‘really good grades’. He offers outlandish solutions to solve problems for struggling small businesses. In Finding Frances, Fielder uses all the resources of his successful show to help an old Bill Gates impressionist track down his high school sweetheart. Trust me.

Nathan Fielder has accidentally and totally on purpose made one of the best documentaries of the last 10 years.

It’s funny how we remember things. Reality and fiction are blurred. Truth is irrelevant. What does real mean? Does it even matter if we remember it how we want to?

Laptop.

8. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (directed by Martin McDonagh)

A mother takes desperate steps to pressure local law enforcement to find her daughter’s killer.

Perfectly woven and layered characters. I fucking hate the phrase ‘the character arc’, but if I were teaching a class in it- I’d show this film.

A film about relationships, and every relationship between every character or creature or inanimate object is perfect.

McDonagh loves theatrical sensibilities. Nobody does grand, rich set-pieces quite like him… makes highly stylised situations feel real in the world he sets up.

I could have watched hours more of these characters interacting.

Seen at Embankment Garden Cinema.

7. BLADE RUNNER 2049 (directed by Denis Villeneuve)

Neo-noir, sci-fi sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1981 classic.

I’m not a fan of the original Blade Runner. I appreciate it! It’s beautiful! and groundbreaking! but I just find it so heartless and cold. I just can’t connect to it. The best sci-fis are amazing stories with really fun furniture (the gadgets, tech etc.) The original is too much furniture for me. In other words, I had no reason to like this one IP wise. 2049 takes everything that could have been interesting from the original and expands on that. The furniture is just that- furniture. An amazing setting that enriches and serves the story. Everything is there to tell the story. I left the cinema feeling I’d experienced something the way that everyone talks about experiencing the first one.

The most expensive art film ever made. I literally cannot believe this exists. I cannot believe they gave Villeneuve £185MILLION to make a 3-hour long, philosophical film that has no blockbuster tropes: no loveable rogue hero; no ‘off-beat’ quippy humour to keep you interested; no CGI extravaganza 3rd act; NO.FUCKING.SKYBEAM with floating garbage spinning around it that threatens to destroy the world and the heroes have to stop it before everyone in the world dies; no setting up 5 other already planned sequels in the franchise so nothing important happens in this one. It’s a rare type of blockbuster in 2017- one that trusts it’s audience is intelligent.

Denis Villeneuve really is the most exciting director working today. This is just further proof. Arrival (2016) still my favourite of his, but I’m almost more in awe of him for this. Taking such a well-loved franchise and doing something new with it in a way that still feels respectful of what’s come before. It’s his film.

The only use of Hollywood’s new trend of digitally recreating actors (ala Peter Cushing in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) that will ever matter. THIS is how you do it well.

Gender politics (we’re gunna’ go there, SPOILERS AHEAD and I know my opinion doesn’t really matter or count for anything on this just thought it’d be silly not to bring it up, feel free to disagree, v. interested to hear what everyone thinks about this!!) Lots has been written about the treatment of female characters in 2049. Most apt example I can think of to explain how I feel- Taxi Driver (1976), there’s a cafe scene in which the camera lingers on some black characters for uncomfortably long in a kind of parading manner, a ‘look at how terrible these guys are’ manner... it’s very understandable why one could interpret the film itself as racist. I’d argue the film is completely aware of what it’s doing- it’s putting us in Travis Bickle’s eyes, who is a racist character. I mean, we’re literally in his head the whole thing, hearing what he’s thinking and seeing what he’s seeing... I guess what I’m saying is- ‘it’s a decision.’ It’s not an offhand random shot where the filmmaker’s own gaze comes through, it’s a skilfully planned decision to make us question and think about something, in Taxi Driver’s case- what kind of man Bickle is. The treatment of women in 2049 *IS* a decision. It’s not Villeneuve lazily commodifying women, it’s him saying a world where women are only a commodity is a fucking bleak one. It’s a world where real women have been rendered obsolete because the height of success in our society (the CEO of a large corporation), an egoistical white guy with a god-complex manufactures life so women aren’t necessary for continuing the human race, and creates holographic partners for everyday men so they’re emotionally fulfilled without having to engage with actual women. And it’s so horrible. I mean, is anybody happy in this film? Is the picture of the future this film paints bright? It’s a film about how the arrogance of men will destroy everything. And on a base story level, it’s literally about guy who thinks everything is about him... but it turns out to be about a woman. Perhaps it’s lazy for the film to make the decision ‘it’s a patriarchal world so all the women are prostitutes and are treated badly so we’re just gunna’ do that’, but I dunno’... I think there’s more going on. I think Villeneuve is too good for that. I mean his last film was literally about a genius female linguist being the saviour of the world and how a mother’s love is the most precious thing. Would he really do such a U-turn and make a film where the female characters are just objects to be gazed at? I mean- maybe?? If any other aspect of the film felt like it was the studio meddling with Villenueve’s vision I’d buy that... but it’s just SO his film. And I think he’s clever enough to know who the primary audience of this film is- geeky 20 year-old guys. He draws them in with the surface (and all too familiar) images of the female characters, and then turns all of that on it’s head. Just my opinion. Obviously I can never be completely impartial- very happy to be converted the other way. 

Seen at Picturehouse Central.

6. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (directed by Luca Guadagnino)

Somewhere in Northern Italy, Summer 1983, Elio’s life changes.

Sun-drenched Europe, the smell of warmth and twirling cigarette smoke, deep blue sky- pure, breakfast with a glass of apricot juice and an espresso, the sound of bike spokes spinning lazily.

I wish I could live with these people.

‘Later.’

The rawest and best final shot in the last 10 years.

Seen at Odeon Leicester Square.

5. THE BIG SICK (directed by Michael Showalter)

A Pakistani-born standup comedian/Uber driver and a grad student strike up an unlikely relationship.

MAGIC. The perfect retort to use when someone says ‘all rom-coms suck’. A genuine slab of gold that’s as funny as it is heartfelt. And it’s just SO the kind of thing I like.

I’m unbelievably bored of films and just art in general that’s terrified of being sincere in fear of being labelled sappy or over-sentimental. The Big Sick says ‘fuck you’ to that school of thought and goes for it. 

Comedy, romance and drama are effortlessly blended- sometimes all in the same scene. And it never feels off-kilter, mainly due to the amazing performances. Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Ray Romano, Holly Hunter and the rest of the cast always play the truth of the scene- not the humour, the romance or the drama, just the TRUTH of the moment.

The perfect antidote to the year 2017 in general.

Seen at Aldeburgh Cinema.

4. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (directed by Lynne Ramsay)

Gulf War veteran Joe rescues children from trafficking rings.

This is a horror. And more terrifying than any jump scare, this whole film is populated by ghosts.

Deeply troubled, deeply disturbed. Beautiful. Precise. Scatter-brained. Focused. A violin strung too tightly, then played by a madman. How can something so stripped down and raw feel so symphonic and wholesome?

There are things in this that will play on loop in my head for the rest of my life. Images and sounds so seared into my brain they find me at the strangest of moments in a day, and I’m always left thinking about them for the rest of that day. It’s clever like that. Joe can never escape what he’s seen. 

Francis Ford Coppola famously told press at the 1979 Cannes premiere of Apocalypse Now - ‘My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.’

You Were Never Really Here is not about PTSD... it is PTSD.

Seen at Odeon Leicester Square.

3. LOGAN (directed by James Mangold)

Wolverine’s last outing.

I’m not a huge fan of superhero films. Most are fun. Most are also lazy. Few will survive the test of time. Those that will use all the tricks in their genre box and do something interesting with them, transcend- Rami’s Spiderman 2 (2004), Bird’s The Incredibles (2004), Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008)... and Mangold’s Logan. 

So aged. So weary. Everyone is tired. Tired of running, tired of fighting, tired of living. Like three sharp metal claws jaggedly tearing through flesh, nothing is polished about this. Bloodshot eyes, skin like leather. He feels so much regret. Like most real heroes, he mourns those he couldn’t save rather than celebrates those he did. And it’s eaten him up inside for the hundreds of years he’s lived.

Here I go talking about furniture again... but every piece of furniture (superpowers etc.) is there to serve the story (and here the characters are story). Like so many blockbusters and superhero movies fail to do, this film is about something other than the furniture... e.g. how do you tell a story about dementia that gives someone who hasn’t experienced a family member suffering from it *that* feeling of sadness, loss, embarrassment, empathy and frustration? You give it to Charles Xavier (played by Patrick Stewart), a character you’re use to seeing as the leader, who always has a clever plan up his sleeve and has the ability to control other’s minds. You give it to him, and you force everyone watch the person they respected the most have to be lifted into bed while screaming about fast-food. It’s heartbreaking. Complex. It’s actually about something other than how in superhero world teamwork saves the day. Every ‘plot point’ and moment tells us something about these characters, even to a fault sometimes. SUBTLE: Logan pulling them jammed claws the way an old boy down the pub with arthritis feels his fingers. UNSUBTLE BUT STILL INTERESTING: making Logan fight the only thing he’s truly scared of- literally the version of himself that blindly obeys orders.

Everyone is SO fucking real. Just *watch* the way Daphne Keen eats that bowl of cereal.

Would highly recommend watching the ‘Noir’ Black & White version. 

mild spoilers: It also features the best single edit of the year, from Laura stabbing the shit out of some dude to a flurry of scattered drum beats in the score... then that piercing animalistic roar rips through and all is silent... she spins.... from this:

CUT to this:

An empty forest, the roar echoes out... a low bass note tolls like a funeral. Something is coming. Help is on the way, but it’s an untamed, ruthless, violent help. He’s near...

No one single cut has ever given me chills like that before.

Seen at Odeon Leicester Square & Picturehouse Central (Noir version)

2. TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (directed by David Lynch)

Agent Cooper’s odyssey back to the small town of Twin Peaks. The original series of Twin Peaks that aired in the early 90s is often cited as creating ‘prestige’ television as we know it today- your Game of Thrones’, HBO high-quality, Netflix and so on... 25 years later, David Lynch and Mark Frost have returned to kill it. 

Earth-shattering. Groundbreaking. An 18-hour film (split into 16 parts) so layered, so complex i’m not even sure where to begin... and most of what I have to say has probably been written by someone else much more eloquently. 

For the first 9 hours, I found The Return mostly frustrating. I love the original series so, so much (and the prequel film Fire Walk With Me is one of my favourite films of all time). When I hit hour 10, it was like all the clouds in my head suddenly cleared. I ‘got’ it. What I thought I wanted was all my favourite characters back again talking about cherry pie and coffee with that soft romantic filter. Lynch and Frost (the creators) knew I wanted that. They also knew I didn’t *really* want that... because, the original series will always exist. They knew nothing would disappoint more than a soft reboot. The Return is it’s own thing- within the universe of Twin Peaks, and... within the actual universe. Seriously, how can you categorise this? It jumps from screwball slapstick comedy to silent black and white existentialist horror to 10 minute live band performances... what is the point of even trying to categorise it?

On some of the individual parts: Part 3 is a low-fi, surrealist, near silent masterpiece. Part 8 is... ‘Pure Heroin Lynch’ and has already changed TV forever. Part 11 is the most satisfying instalment, fulfilling storylines from the original series in a measured and poignant way. Part 17 is the conclusion we wanted, sort of... Part 18 is the start of a new mystery, and one of the most haunting things I’ve ever seen.

Twin Peaks will change you life.

Seen on Laptop.

1. THE FLORIDA PROJECT (directed by Sean Baker)

In the shadow of Disney World, 6 year-old Moonee and her friends spend the summer playing around the Motels they live in, while her mother Halley struggles to find a new job.

Pastel bright colours. Every person has survived a storm. Explore the wasteland of failed corporate America. Become a child again. The endless spinning of helicopter blades, a constant reminder of what they can’t do- escape. 

Doesn’t ask you to like the characters. Doesn’t need to. Moonee has seen too much. Halley’s anger at herself and her life bubbles underneath every word and action, but she just doesn’t know how to fix it.

It is *SO* achingly beautiful it hurts. I find it hard to even watch the trailer without crying.

For the problems that face Moonee, honorary queen of The Magic Castle Motel, and the impending darkness that’s sure to come, she has the most powerful gift of all- finding hope where there is none. 

‘See, I took you on a safari.’ 

Seen at Odeon Leicester Square & ICA.

DISCLAIMER- things that are not out yet in the UK/I shamefully haven’t yet seen and would likely be on my list too: Lady Bird (further DISCLAIMER i would actually kill somebody to see this) A Ghost Story Raw Phantom Thread War for the Planet of The Apes Coco American Vandal Mindhunter

BEST SCENES:

The third thing I learnt this year- it’s impossible to talk about a specific scene in a film without spoiling it. So... SPOILERS.

The Stairway Fight - ATOMIC BLONDE (directed by David Leitch)

If someone could tell me what the fuck was going on in Atomic Blonde that’d be great but until then I’ll just marvel at how amazing the fight sequences are. Charlize Theron again puts herself at the centre of the progression of American action cinema following her iconic performance in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). From the first time we see her, lying in an expensive bath healing her wounds and soothing her bruises, we know at some point we’re going to see how she got them. CUE: The 15 minute stairway fight sequence, made to look like a single continuous shot. Leitch and Chad Stahelski (his frequent collaborator and director of the also brilliant John Wick: Chapter 2) are determined to show general audiences what good action scenes look like. This 15-min beauty harkens back to the almost dance like hospital shootout in Hard Boiled (1992), with the rawness and determination of a Children of Men (2006) tracking shot. Charlize Theron (as MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton) fights her way through swarms of henchmen over several floors of an abandoned block of flats, all the while trying to protect Eddie Marsan (who wouldn’t want to protect Eddie Marsan??) Every punch, kick and throw HURTS. By the end, she and the final henchman are so exhausted there’s a sense they might just call the whole thing off- but something pushes them on. Oh, and there’s a 5 minute car chase all part of the same shot to end. Also features the BEST LINE OF 2017. In retort to the final henchman strangling her desperately whispering ‘Take this, bitch!’, she turns the tables, stabs him up hard, then before delivering the final knockdown, pushes her nose to his and asks- ‘Am I your bitch now?’ She doesn’t wait for a reply.

The Eyeless Woman - TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (directed by David Lynch)

Lynch’s best nightmare.

Train Hysterics - LAST FLAG FLYING (directed by Richard Linklater)

2003. A Vietnam veteran recruits his two oldest buddies, who he served with, to accompany him on a journey no one should ever have to take. 

I liked this movie a lot- just missed out on the top 12 list. The standout scene happens little over half way through, the characters sitting in a storage carriage of a train talking about losing their virginities. It’s the best ‘characters uncontrollably laughing’ scene since The Intouchables (2011). 

The Snowball epilogue - STRANGER THINGS 2 (directed by The Duffer Brothers)

Stranger Things season 2 was super mixed for me. I enjoyed it a lot. Kind of. 

The first series is a perfect little story, with a perfect beginning, middle and end. I god damn *love* it’s characters so, so much. The plot was simple remixed 80s nostalgia beats, but really just a vehicle for you to get to know Mike and Eleven and Nancy etc. Think about how much each and every scene was practically designed to reveal more about who they were. It was so beautiful. Season 2 however had wayyyyy too much plot which was obsessed with itself and how cool it was and as a result left characters with nothing to do. In other words, in Season 1 all the characters had something to do because the plot came from them, in season 2 characters were given plot roles... like, explain to me what Mike did all season before he saw Eleven again at the v end of episode 8?? What did Jonathan’s storyline tell us about him we didn’t already know? Sure, they don’t have to set up who they are all over again, but the best sequels never take for granted we love the characters- they give us new reasons to love them. 

It’s clear to see whose storylines had natural progressions from season 1 and they knew where they were going, and those they had to think of something because Netflix desperately wanted another season quickly. The only original characters season 2 really worked for were Steve and Will. ‘Steve The Babysitter’ was the perfect progression for his character- him voluntarily discarding his Alpha-Jock status, seeing it was all bullshit, now his caring side comes out. Fuck, think how much you disliked Steve all of Season 1 compared to how much you love and deeply want him to be ok at the end of season 2. THAT’s good writing. His storyline was perfect for his character, it kept giving us new reasons to love him. And Will. Holy shit. His descent into Reagan-level possession was the most engaging part of season 2. Basically all of the story came from him. And Noah Schnapp is so damn good. I think simplicity is the key. His story was unpredictable till the last moments, when you realise it was inevitable. It has a clear premise, unlike most of season 2. 

In the first, there were very clear overarching premises from the start- Will Byers is missing, Eleven has escaped from the Lab, the Demogorgon is on the loose. Simple premises that allow our characters to manoeuvre around... Season 2 doesn’t really have one other than Will is clearly still connected to the Upside Down... the Mind Flayer doesn’t really start as a concept till the penultimate episode... Hopper and Eleven living together maybbe?? but we’re not really given enough time with them. Everyone else is left with nothing to do, or something that doesn’t really serve their character... UNTIL THE LAST 15 MINUTES.

The Snowball epilogue was like coming to the surface after swimming laps underwater- I sort of enjoyed the laps but I’d rather just be able to breath. All the self-indulgent 80s nostalgia *plot* is done, and all the characters have interesting things to do!! Steve giving Dustin tips dropping him off, and then that longing look he gives towards the hall. Dustin realising ‘I don’t look like Steve Harrington’ after being rejected by every girl at the ball and dejectedly crying... and in comes Nancy to save the day!! Genuinely one of the most beautiful moments in anything all year (notice how we learn more about Nancy’s true nature in this one moment that anything else she really did all season??) Jonathan nearby keeping an eye on Will and being his helpful self taking the Ball pictures. Lucas ignoring what the rest of the group think about Max and asking her to dance. Will actually going to the ball, acting as normal as he can and dancing with someone!! Joyce and Hopper nervously wait outside and reminiscently share a smoke as they did in their highschool days- contemplating on how they probably won’t ever feel like they aren’t worried about their kids... and finally Mike and Eleven just having a bit of happiness for once- actually going to the Snowball together, a beautiful conclusion after speaking about it at the end of Season 1.

As each moment passed in this glorious sequence, I loved the characters more and more. They aren’t doing anything supernatural or life threatening, but the stakes feel SO much higher than they had all season. It’s real. They aren’t shackled with ‘advancing the plot’, they can just be themselves. And I loved it.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:

Time’s Arrow, Episode 11, BoJack Horseman Season 4 (created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg)

BoJack Horseman has been the most visually beautiful cartoon for a while now, it’s breathtaking season 3 silent underwater adventure Fish out of Water helped to gain it much appreciated wide applause. Time’s Arrow is a different beast. Genuinely horrifying. A mind cracked into a thousand pieces and glued back together into something resembling crazy paving. The animation is disturbing. Really disturbing. The nightmarish images running through the failing mind of an old woman with dementia. Images of her regrets, the neglect and abuse at the hands of her parents. Memories burn and melt away like plastic in a fire. The faceless humans and constant scribble over Henrietta’s face haunts me. Beyond the obvious sinister imagery, it means something. A puzzle with too many missing pieces to really make out what the picture actually is. And we’ll never really know.

It’s not the first thing that pops into mind when you think of ‘cinematography’, but Time’s Arrow is the best visual storytelling since... the previous season of BoJack Horseman.

BEST PERFORMANCES:

Cate Blanchett as various in MANIFESTO (directed by Julian Rosefeldt)

Originally a critically acclaimed multi-screen video installation in which Cate Blanchett plays 13 different characters, ranging from a school teacher to a homeless man, performing artist’s manifestos in 13 different scenarios. Part of the financing deal was Rosefeldt had to cut a 90 minute, linear version of the piece for a cinematic setting.

NO one could have pulled this off like she did. She’s running on adrenaline and pure bravery. She makes interesting choices at every twist and turn. How does looking at her never get tiresome? Every jump from character to character feels genuine. She blew my mind- I knew I was looking at the same person over and over again, but I also *knew* I was looking at 13 different people. 

A masterclass.

Kyle MacLachlan as various in TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (directed by David Lynch)

2017 is the year of staggering ‘multi-character’ performances. Kyle MacLachlan’s involvement in the new season of Twin Peaks was basically the only thing anyone knew about it going in. And he is the heart of this season in so many ways. Returning to a character 25 years later must be a daunting prospect, but MacLachlan shows no fear. Not only does he play the pragmatic, joyful Agent Cooper we all know and love, he plays his steely, pure evil doppelganger Mr C, child-like amnesiac Dougie Jones and in the final episode... someone quite special. And he makes it look so damn easy. He is the fabric that holds together The Return.

THE ‘KIDS’ in EVERYTHING

2017 has been a bad year for Hollywood. Ultimately though, it will be looked back on as the turning point. THINGS CHANGE NOW. The old guard is running from their past scared. And they should be scared. Uma Thurman is coming to murder them all. There is no room left for the Harvey Weinstein’s, the rotting core of top-down abuse has been exposed. Brett Ratner can fuck off with his swaggering playboy image and terrible movies. 

What is truly uplifting is who is going to replace them. A new generation of pure, true artists that this year has shone a spotlight on.

The future is Brooklynn Prince and Bria Vinaite, stars of The Florida Project. The future is Timothée Chalamet, whose central performance in Call Me By Your Name is the realist, rawest thing ever. The future is Saoirse Ronan, the next Meryl Streep. The future is Daniel Kaluuya, who has finally gained world-wide recognition for his stunning leading performance in Get Out. The future is Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown and all of the kids from Stranger Things, who masterfully manage the horrific pressures of being thrust into the tabloid spotlight at the same age most of us just want to cry in our rooms. The future is Sophia Lillis and the rest of the Loser’s Club from IT (a film with the most oppressively terrible sound design ever yet they still manage to make it fun and watchable.) The future is Daphne Keen, the best on-screen cereal-eater who almost steals the film from Hugh Jackman in Logan. The future is Lucas Hedges, someone with rare human fingerprint over every word he speaks in Three Billboards and last year in Manchester By The Sea. The future is Donald Glover, the most creative, multi-talented young artist alive. The future is Caleb Landry Jones, who’s had maybe the most impressive year, with standout supporting roles in The Florida Project, Twin Peaks: The Return, Get Out and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The future is Tessa Thompson, the best thing about Thor: Ragnarok.  The future is Michael B. Jordan, Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong'o, all the team behind the upcoming Black Panther film, helmed by Ryan Coogler. The future is Barry Jenkins, director of best picture winner Moonlight. The future is Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver and Kelly Marie Tran, the new faces of the most popular franchise ever. The future is Alice Lowe, a force to be reckoned with. Writing, directing and starring in a feature film is difficult enough. She did all of that while heavily pregnant. Oh, and it was her debut feature. It’s called Prevenge and it rocks. The future is Ava Duvernay, a beacon of hope- cannot wait for A Wrinkle in Time, which drops early next year. The future is Sean Baker, the most empathetic filmmaker working today. The future is Patty Jenkins and Gal Godot who have revolutionised the superhero film and inspired a generation of little girls with Wonder Woman.  The future is Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan, who I’ll follow in whatever they do after The Big Sick. The Future is Jordan Peele, the most exciting new director. The future is GRETA GERWIG, mumblecore queen turned saviour of cinema.

So, what did I learn this year? Well, Agent Dale Cooper is certainly one of the best characters of all time. But most of all: amongst the darkness of everything that’s happened within the film industry in 2017... there’s hope.

The future is bright.

[lgbt-ya]

Unboxed by Non Pratt

Published by Barrington Stoke on 15th Aug 2016

Genres: contemporary, LGBT, YA

Goodreads | Amazon UK | Amazon US | Waterstones | Book Depository | Foyles

Blurb:  Unboxed is about four teenagers who come together after several months apart. In previous years, they had put together a time capsule about their best summer with a friend who was dying. Now that their friend has passed, they reunite to open the box.

Interview: [I did this interview with Non @nonthepratt last year and just realised I never posted it here!] 

Unboxed is an incredibly personal story of a group of friends reuniting to mourn the member of their group who died of cancer. Unboxed is one of the only books I’ve ever read which made me cry BUCKETS. So I jumped at the chance to interview Non about it!

The characters in Unboxed are out of school, and at a different place in their lives than is usually found in Young Adult fiction, yet it is the perfect YA novel in every way. Do you think that YA as a genre should be judged by the ages of the characters? What is YA? [Just an easy question to start with!]

Thanks for leading me in gently…! To me, YA is not a genre. SciFi/Fantasy/Contemporary arise from what is within the book, but categories like 9-12/YA/Adult are dictated by the readers. For a book to fall into the YA category, the only rule is for it to address the issues that affect and interest young adults (and the teen-minded) the most. As characters age their focus changes (Mortgages! Childrearing! Mid-life crises!) so that’s why most YA features teenagers. In Unboxed the characters’ are eighteen, but the focus is on their history as younger teens, so maybe that’s what keeps it feeling youthful?!

Alix’s coming out experience is very unique from anything I’ve read before, as she’s out at college and has a girlfriend, but feels closeted amongst her old school friends, who only ever knew her as a young teenager. Do you think that coming out is a continual process over a lifetime? Why is it so important to show these experiences in YA?

Much as I would like us to live in a Utopia where everyone accepted each other as people, we don’t. We live in a heteronormative society laden with gender prejudice (and the rest…) which means that anyone who deviates from what is perceived as ‘normal’ must constantly state their position as ‘other’. 

Having talked to people with more experience than me, you never stop coming out, and yet (understandably) most YA focuses on that first big step. But not everyone comes out to their first friends, first – Alix skipped that step, because she found it too hard… and because of my obsession with slipping back into certain roles amongst certain friends I wanted to look at how that might affect her.

Unboxed is one of Barrington Stoke’s ‘readable YA’, and the print edition has a special font and printing background to make it more readable for people with dyslexia. Did you know this was going to be published in this way before you started writing – and did that have any effect on the style in which you wrote it?

I’ve long been a supporter of Barrington Stoke since my Catnip editorial days so I knew exactly how the book would be formatted on the page. A well-spaced serif font is easier to read and the yellow paper offers a less jarring contrast that your usual black/white as well as the paper being thicker to avoid what’s called ‘ghosting’ of words printed on the other side of the paper. Barrington Stoke’s brief to all the authors who write for them is to write in your usual style. Any grammatical quirks that make it hard for a slower reader to process are taken out in a special language edit.

If you think about it, someone who is dyslexic or less-confident in reading must hold phrases in their heads longer than someone who reads faster, which means overly long sentences with lots of sub-clauses (like this sentence – on purpose!) is unnecessarily hard to read when it could be edited to be several shorter sentence containing the same information. Most writers (me included) haven’t got a clue about sub-clauses and hanging participles so there’d be no point worrying about them as you write.

Having said all that, first person present tense does lend itself to shorter sentences and when I chose Alix as my narrator, I deliberately chose someone who isn’t especially chatty, who is more practical than imaginative and keeps her thoughts naturally brief. The language edit wasn’t too heavy as a result.

What made you decide to make this story in particular a novella?

Actually it was the other way around in that I was asked to write a novella and this was the idea that came to mind! I sat down at my desk on a Wednesday morning and hunted for all the things I’m most interested in that would work over a single night/day and by lunchtime I had Unboxed.

Which is your favourite member of the group: Alix, Dean, Zara, Ben or Millie? 

Sorry, but the answer is easy – it’s Dean. When we first meet him, Alix tells us “He could riffle shuffle a deck of cards, skim a stone up to five times across the surface of the sea and raise one of his eyebrows into a perfect arch. He was everything I wanted to be…” That’s me talking as much as Alix.

Please tell us about your own ‘time capshoole’ mentioned in the dedication. What did you put in it? What would you put in a time capsule now?

So a group of about nine or ten of us made a time capsule (a word I didn’t pronounce correctly and got mocked for mercilessly, hence the spelling) when we were fifteen. I can’t remember much of what went in there, other than a tape of us singing “Basket Case” in the Hollywood Bowl and letters we wrote to our future selves. 

The thing about time capsules is that you should put something precious inside, but I’m so attached to all my precious things that I wouldn’t want to give any of them up! Assuming that I might sacrifice my favourite things, here are some of them – I’d also print some photos and pop in a memory stick of my favourite songs and a letter to my future self for good measure.

Are you still in touch with your friendship group from school? How do you find your friendships are different now to as a teenager?

I went to an all-girls’ school and six of us are still close, even though one of us has been living in Canada, one just moved to Australia and one is in the Navy and keeps going off to sea for ages. About a year ago I had an epiphany that these are the friends I will have for life, whatever happens. 

We all see each other at least twice a year, maybe not all at the same time, but in some combination or other.I am easily the worst at staying in touch and yet they’ve made the effort to travel to London for both my launches… In some ways we’ve changed, closeness and allegiances evolve with who you see the most, but when we’re together, I think all of us revert to how we were. Friends I’ve made as an adult think I’m enthusiastic and friendly, but the people who’ve known me since I was a teenager think of me as the anti-social sarcastic idiot most likely to get on the dancefloor and do my Ally McBeal dance. I’m both the same person, and yet someone entirely different.

As someone whose best friend died at the age of nineteen, I found the portrayal of young death almost painfully realistic, to the point where I don’t think I would have been able to read this book a few years ago. Was it daunting to write about such an emotional topic? Did you do any research into this? Are there any books/articles/websites you would recommend for people in this situation who might be struggling?

This question made me cry because it’s a huge honour for someone to say that I’ve got this right. Also, I’m a bit horrified by how undaunted I was by this considering how big this issue really is. 

I’m very lucky in that the only loved ones I’ve lost have been significantly older than me, but I’m a watcher, and I remember one of my closest friends at university grieving for the loss of one of their home friends.The thing about loss is that there’s no one way to process it – only your way of grieving will give you what you need. 

My best advice is actually for those supporting someone going through this: grief is private and necessarily selfish and you have no right to tell someone how to do it. Need trumps want: be there in the way they need, not the way you want. I’ve not always got that right. As for a helpful website, my recommendation in any situation is to check out TheMix.org.uk – a magazine-style website with a wealth of well-written, funny and relatable articles for any issues that might affect under-25s, or perhaps the NHS website for more clinical language and support.

Throughout the book I was desperate to see the events from Millie’s point of view. I think it was a really strong decision to keep that back, as it intensifies the reality that Millie is gone, and we will never know what she was thinking before she died. Was this why you decided not to include flashbacks? Why did you decide not to?

Everything we see of Millie is taken from Alix’s memories of her, because that is how people live on – we only cease to exist when there is no one left to remember us. 

(Also, and this is mundane in the extreme, my editors at Walker have always been so flashback averse during the editorial process that I’m now super strict with them in my writing! The only flashbacks/memories permitted were ones that served the present-day narrative and didn’t take up too many words.)

Review:  Non made me cry, goddammit. I never cry at books! It was so beautiful. She's done such a good job of making me really care about the characters in such a short length of time. Alix and Ben and Dean and Zara are just wonderful and complicated (and Ash is officially The Worst.) God I want a million sequels and a movie, that was so wonderful. I want to read it again from Millie's point of view. I want to go back to being 13 and make my own time capsule. I want to give them all a giant hug.

5 stars

[snakepointb]

Hiding the truth in jokes: Why it is not funny

There is this favourite joke of mine that a student in China once told me:

Imagine you are leisurely swimming in the sea on a sunny day. Suddenly, you see that you are surrounded by sharks. 

What do you do?

Think for a minute. Seriously, what do you do?

You are swimming in the sea, and then suddenly you see that you are surrounded by sharks.…

Answer (read backwards): .gninigami pots uoY

It appears utterly profane. It is. It is also deeply profound.

For the world of science and scientists the joke would go like this: Imagine there is an objective reality and an objectively existing material universe in which linear causality determine relationships between cause and effect and time is an arrow pointing forward. Imagine this universe is just a random assemblage of physical objects behaving according to constant laws of nature. Imagine this universe and the world we live on are just inanimate matter without consciousness or spirit or anything like that. Imagine that what we call our consciousness is just an aberration, some kind of delusion caused by the electric activity in our physical brains and nerve systems. Imagine that all individual separate physical objects are not connected to each other in any way beyond those that are measurable. Imagine that this material realism is really the way everything is.

Now, suddenly you are surrounded by problems: contradictory theories, research results (in quantum mechanics) that don’t make sense; endless and expanding knowledge, but less and less ability to bring it to use; runaway technology and loss of its social control. Suddenly we are surrounded by climate change, species extinction, resource depletion, growing antibacterial resistance, deforestation, soil erosion, nitrification, epidemics, abject poverty next to ultimate wealth, pollution, over-fishing, obesity pandemics, collapsing ecosystems, collapsing consensus narratives, collapsing economies, collapsing nation-states, and a host of other social, ecological, economical, and cultural crises that together evoke a nightmarishly dystopian zombie-apocalypse vision of the future.

What do you do?

Answer: Yes, you go it. You stop imagining.

Repeat: Stop imagining!

Remember, before this list of problems, we started with paragraph stating the premise: “Imagine…”.

The great unspoken human premise is always this: “Imagine this is real…”.My favourite lines from Thomas Hobbes’ 17th century classic “Leviathan” are these (paraphrased): “When I’m dreaming I consider myself awake. But when I’m awake, I know that I’m not dreaming.

”In other words, when we wake up in the morning and shake the sleep off; after we’ve sorted the few remaining thoughts buzzing around our mind into “real-life memories from yesterday” and “snippets of last night’s dream”, and settle back into waking life, we subconsciously attach the master prefix “Imagine this is real…” to everything that we experience that day, until we lie down again at night and drift off into dream world.

This applies to the religious devotee who says his prayer or gives his offering to his god, the secularist who is happy to wake up in a god-less universe, the paranoid schizophrenic who must live with the people who follow him and monitor his messages and phone calls, the child who plays with her imaginary friend, the soldier who is fighting the enemy of the state, and the scientist who is statistically modelling the spread of COVID-19.

Human brains universally prefix the lines “imagine this is real…” before anything they experience and do in waking life. Most people can’t even switch it off if they want to, for example when they go to see a movie.

We cry when we experience tragedy, clinch our fists from dramatic suspense, shudder from violence and gore, and shriek from surprise, even if it’s all just acting, fake blood, and props. And we know perfectly well that it is, because we’re in a movie theatre. However, we are operating in “waking-life-imagine-this-is-real mode”, so we have physical and measurable responses.

The few exceptions to this universal phenomenon of prefixing are enlightenend sages, philosophers, and artists, in other words, people for whom the questions of reality and imagination become their meditation, their raison d’etre, or their creative expression.

Anyways, to come back to the joke, which is really a joke but it’s also dead serious, the point is that we have vast powers of imagination. We can imagine one world and we can imagine a different world, no joking!

For my part, I would suggest imagining a world that is imbued with spirit, or consciousness, or intelligence, or life, however you want to call it; a world that is both material and measurable as well as immaterial and immeasurable; a world that is both objective (kind-of) and a subjective experience; a world that determines our reality and, conversely, is determined by our reality, described best as a dance, or a cooperation, or a living, adaptive, mutually negotiated relationship; Imagine a world that is not random, but that follows patterns and orders, some of which we can understand and visualise, and others that transcend our perception. Imagine a world that is the embodiment of the intelligence inside nature, which is reflected in all natural phenomena, including those that we define as life, those that we define as ecological or planetary processes, for example the carbon, water, nitrogen, and many other cycles, and those that don’t fit into our mutually exclusive categories of life and death, such as viruses. Imagine that the human consciousness is not an aberration or a random occurance, but the “logical” outcome of a conscious universe, like Alan Watts said: “An apple tree ‘apples’, and a universe ‘peoples’”, suggesting to use a verb to describe the apple tree rather than a noun. In other words, an apple grows from a tree not randomly, but because the idea of an apple is integral to an apple tree, and because apples aid in propagating the idea of apples and apple trees. Conscious humans (and all sentient beings) are not a random phenomenon in the cosmos, but reflect the tendency of a conscious (or living) universe to propagate consciousness. Finally, imagine that everything is connected with each other, through time and space, that, in fact, time and space, are our (biocentric) attempts to map the connections and relationships between disparate seeming things. Imagine further that humans are rather blind and ignorant little animals in a world they largely cannot understand because most of it is beyond their perception. There’s a whole lot more you could imagine and details you could add, but I’ll stop here. I think you get the point.

The point is this:

It’s time to stop imagining. It’s time to begin imagining. A better world; Reality 2.0 A #New Story.

The end.

Interactive part.

Self assessment: On a scale from 1-10, where 1 represents ”not at all” and 10 represents ”completely”, how well do you relate to the messages conveyed in this text?

Answer: ______

Answer Key:

8-10: Congratulations! You are definitely part of the vanguard. You have the privilege and share in the joy of being part of a bright and unwritten future. You are a cocreator and important agent in exploring this novel and exciting paradigm. Unfortunately, you are stuck in a rather backward and repressive present together with the rest of us.

5-8: You are on the right path. Being critical to existing dogma is a start. Being open to new and unsettling ideas shows your courage and reflects your passion for exploration and adventure. Find likeminded people and travel the road to the new story with good and loyal companions.

3-5: Having read this far shows that you are a true intellectual. You use your mind like a parachute: you know it needs to be open for optimal results. You have perhaps not yet stumbled over key thinkers or certain critical literature. I suggest you take a look at Thomas Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, all books by Fritjof Capra, “Changing Minds, Shifting Worlds” by Jeremey Hawyard, “Biocentrism” and “Beyond Biocentrism” by Robert Lanza, “New Dark Age” by James Bridle, and many others.

1-3: You like to stand on solid ground and think in terms of tangible and time-tested concepts. Thank you! Without people like you, the world would be a mess. However, you also realise the importance of challenging your thinking. If you seek further challenge, read up on the concept of “paradigms”, in science and culture. You could continue to read about challenges to the Cartesian paradigm and read “Climate Change – A New Story” by Charles Eisenstein. In addition, seek other literature (see above) and continue reading people who challenge your thoughts.

1-10: Continue to hide the truth in jokes. Don’t hide the truth in jokes. It doesn’t matter. Wherever it is, it won’t remain hidden for long.

E&OE

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Abdelhak Nouri: The Ajax prodigy who suffered permanent brain damage

Abdelhak Nouri of Ajax (left) suffered permanent brain damage after collapsing during a 2017 pre-season friendly

It is a Saturday afternoon in Geuzenveld, a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Three hundred metres away from the main station, children are playing football. On the fence behind one of the goals, a large banner dominates the scene.

‘Appie 4 Ever.’

Geuzenveld is not a touristic part of the Dutch capital. But this playground has sadly become a pilgrimage spot for Ajax fans and football lovers alike.

This is where Abdelhak Nouri, known as Appie, learned his first tricks and flicks in football. It was where he emulated Andres Iniesta, Kaka and Ronaldinho. It was where he honed his fine technique and ball control before making it as a professional.

“Appie still came back here even after being promoted to Ajax’s first team,” one of the kids says. He points with pride at a large flag depicting one of Nouri’s iconic moments – his first senior goal, on 21 September 2016.

Nouri, 22, was one of the most promising footballers of Ajax’s academy. He belonged to the same generation of talent that helped the club reach last season’s Champions League semi-finals. But his career came to a tragic end.

He collapsed in a friendly game against Werder Bremen during a pre-season tour in the Austrian Alps on 8 July 2017. He is now in a hospital bed with permanent brain damage.

Ajax later admitted their medical team’s treatment of Nouri was ‘inadequate’

Before that fateful match at the tiny Lindenstadion Hippach, about 65km from Innsbruck, Nouri had suffered stomach pains and had not slept well. Conditions in the Alps that day were very hot. Still, he played, replacing Hakim Ziyech after half-time.

In the 72nd minute, Nouri slowed and moved gently to the ground, turning back to look up at the sky.

It took 10 seconds for the referee to realise that he was down and summon for medical attention. Another 10 seconds passed before the Ajax physio arrived. Fifteen seconds later, the club doctor was at Nouri’s side too.

When Ajax striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar panicked, the Werder Bremen players reacted too and the German team’s doctor also rushed on to the pitch. They formed a circle around Nouri. Some players started crying. Others were praying.

After three minutes of treatment, the players around began to realise this was not a normal injury. Nouri was suffering cardiac arrest. It had taken longer than expected to understand that.

Two local medics arrived and connected a defibrillator around seven minutes after Nouri had collapsed. In the meantime, local doctor Daniel Rainer received a call and rushed to the stadium.

“The message I received was: person unconscious on the football pitch. When I arrived, resuscitation was in process and the patient was already defibrillated,” he told Dutch paper De Volkskrant.

“The patient had received medication to stimulate circulation. I continued resuscitation and after 13 minutes of treatment, we reached the recovery of spontaneous heartbeat and breathing.”

A helicopter arrived to take Nouri to hospital in Innsbruck. His family members would join him soon. It took longer for his dad to come, since he was in Morocco.

In hospital, while Nouri was in an induced coma, the first signs were positive – heart and brain tests were OK. But after a few days, when his family had arrived, further tests showed he had suffered serious brain damage.

Almost a year later, in June 2018, Ajax admitted that their medical treatment of Nouri was “inadequate”.

In a statement, Ajax chief executive Edwin van der Sar, the former Fulham and Manchester United goalkeeper, said cardiologists studying new evidence put forward by the family found too much time was spent clearing Nouri’s airways.

Van der Sar said the club medics had been “insufficiently focused on measuring the heartbeat, circulation, and resuscitation”.

A defibrillator should also “have been used sooner”, he said, adding: “Had this happened, it’s possible that Abdelhak would have come out in a better condition. This isn’t certain, but it’s a possibility.

“We recognise our responsibility and liability for the consequences of this.”

In the playground that now bears Nouri’s name, a young man playing basketball greets the visitor in Arabic. “As-salamu alaykum,” he says. He is used to seeing strangers, the many people who bring flowers.

The Nouri family live just around the corner. His younger sisters are outside, chatting with friends. Nouri is one of seven children.

Geuzenveld has plenty of migrant communities. Mohammed Nouri, his father, came from Morocco and for many years worked in a butcher’s not far from Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam’s trendy Jordaan neighbourhood.

“I can still see him playing with a small ball, all around where you are sitting,” Mohammed says, as Rabia, the player’s mother, offers mint tea and Moroccan delicacies. This has always been their home.

Frenkie de Jong (L) and Nouri (r) arrive with their Ajax team mates before the 2017 Europa League final against Manchester United in Sweden. Nouri was not named in the matchday squad

In Mohammed’s phone, with his son’s portrait as its background, there are plenty of pictures of football characters that have paid homage to Nouri. “So much love for him from all over the world, so many people asking for him, so many nice gestures,” he says in grief.

Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo sent him a ‘Happy Birthday’ video message. Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele played with Nouri’s name and number stitched into his boots. In his first season at Roma, Justin Kluivert chose to wear the number 34 – Nouri’s squad number – as did Manchester City’s Philippe Sandler, Napoli’s Amin Younes and Fiorentina’s Kevin Diks. They were all team-mates of Nouri at De Toekomst, the Ajax academy.

The Eredivisie title Ajax won last season – their 34th league success – was dedicated to him. With his dad and his brothers on stage at the victory ceremony, alongside the Ajax squad, the Nouri family was at the heart of celebrations.

Nouri had played with the number 34 since his senior debut. Growing up, he shone in many youth international tournaments, always accompanied by his dad. His name had already been shortlisted by several of Europe’s top clubs even at a young age. His vision earned him quick comparisons to Iniesta, one of the players he looked up to. He was always obsessed with attacking football.

But for Nouri, being at Ajax – the club he supports – was a dream. He started at seven years old and never left.

He was 19 when he first played for the first team, in September 2016. By the summer of 2017, he had been permanently promoted from the youth ranks to Ajax’s first-team squad, having been named player of the season.

“I still remember when he was a ball boy and he’d come to see the games with me, always asking first, in a very respectful way, if I wouldn’t mind,” recalls David Endt, who was Ajax’s general manager between 1997 and 2013.

“We didn’t need many words. After each good pass, each nutmeg, every special little thing, we’d just stare at each other. ‘Wow! Have you seen that?’ It was a conversation with our eyes.”

Nouri was considered among the best talents of his generation – not just in Ajax but across Europe. He was named in the team of the tournament at the Under-19 European Championship of 2016.

He always played as a number 10, the one who connected midfield and attack. A hook, as they say in Spanish.

In a very special way, he still brings people together.

He is Dutch, a proud Amsterdamer. And he is also a Muslim of Moroccan ancestry. Even if his name is Abdelhak, he carries a nickname that is short for Albert. He is an ambassador for a community that is often overlooked or misunderstood.

“When he was taken back to Amsterdam, something unique happened,” Endt says.

“The neighbourhood became an epicentre of grief, but also a place of communion beyond football colours or religion. You’d see just a grieving community, united, and in a way, it is what he does, he still unites.”

‘Stay Strong Appie’, the slogan that became a symbol of hope on social media, is also reflected in the entrance of Ajax’s club museum, next to the Johan Cruyff Arena. Three jerseys bearing number 34 compose the message. A shrine dedicated to him was inaugurated days before Ajax played their first game after Nouri collapsed, a Champions League fixture against Nice.

The game was interrupted in the 34th minute, as players and fans clapped in tears.

It was Davinson Sanchez’s last game for Ajax in Amsterdam before moving to Tottenham. After the game, he said: “Appie is such a funny guy, always bringing positive energy to the dressing room. That smile that he had… that he has…”

And then he paused.

“This is something very difficult to understand, such a young professional. It is a blow that life cannot explain.”

All of Nouri’s team-mates, along with former players and Dutch officials, visited the house in Geuzenveld when Nouri was brought back to Amsterdam. It was a heartbreaking moment.

Two of the best players from his generation, Frenkie de Jong and Donny van de Beek, are among Nouri’s best friends.

Van de Beek would spend some nights at Nouri’s house after the accident, next to his friend’s bed, just like when they were kids. When he scored the equaliser against Juventus, in the game that Ajax ended up winning 2-1 in Turin in April, Van de Beek pointed to the back of his jersey in tribute.

“I looked at the screen and I saw my goal was in the 34th minute. It had to be him, you have to think,” he said.

Mohammed Nouri no longer works as a butcher. He was suffering too much from a shoulder injury after years of chopping meat, and he has to take care of his son. He now spends 24 hours in the hospital, then comes back home and switches with Nouri’s brothers, Mohammed and Abderrahim, and his mother Rabia. The routine is performed every day of the week. There is always someone next to Nouri, talking to him, trying to communicate.

Since Nouri left his coma and gained a low level of consciousness, there have been some indications of improvement in his condition, including very limited communication – eyebrow signs used for answering questions with yes or no. The Nouri family are deeply religious and have faith that he will recover, despite what the science says: that recovery is extremely unlikely but not impossible.

Before signing for Barcelona this summer, De Jong visited him in the hospital, to break the news. Every stimulus is positive.

The Nouris are also renovating a house to accommodate their son so he can leave the hospital, and are developing the Nouri Foundation to promote sports and integration for people with disabilities.

“Here beats an Ajax heart” reads one of the flags placed close to Nouri’s house by one of the club’s fans.

In his home city and beyond, Appie will always be revered, and never forgotten.

Nouri’s brother acknowledges and thanks fans who gathered outside his family home in July 2017

Fans gather outside the Nouri family home on 14 July 2017 in Amsterdam

Nouri made 15 senior appearances for Ajax, scoring once and providing three assists

Ajax fans display a giant banner depicting Nouri before a Champions League qualifying third round match against Nice in August 2017

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Design your way http://j.mp/2AIRMHD

Breaking apart the subjectivity.

On my very first post on medium, a reader asked a question that really resonated with me. She started by saying that design is subjective and then wondered if someone could ever devise a list of principles that could define good design. So, I thought, “Why not give it a try?”, and here it goes.

There are two parts to the question, being the first one the affirmation that design is subjective. Personally, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of design but I understand where it’s coming from. People tend to mix design and art in the same bucket and the proprieties of one sometimes drip on top of the other.

Art is subjective, it’s like a game where there are almost no rules. Design is different, and the fact that someone can put together a list of principles should already tell you that there are some rules to the design game.

If there are rules, then we can tell whether or not these rules are being followed, which means that design is not subjective.

However, to be fair, I can’t really say that design is 100% objective, there are always things that come down to personal preference that is determined by your culture and experiences.

Now, this “tiny” level of subjectivity doesn’t mean that you can’t tell good design from bad, it just means that you might find a good design “ugly” or in the other side of the spectrum, you might find something that looks beautiful that actually is a pretty bad design. Let’s look at one example.

The famous Juicy Salif by Philippe Starck.

I think almost all can agree that this is a beautiful piece of design but the million-dollar question is, does that make it a good design?

Nope.

Why? Because it has so many functional problems that I won’t even bother to write them here (just go to amazon and read the reviews if you are interested and/or want to have a laugh, or read this), but in short, it doesn’t do a good job in the only thing that it’s supposed to do, help you to get that fresh juice.

This to say that it’s possible for something to be “good looking” but still be a bad design. You just need to look beyond the looks, and to help you do that I devised a list of 6 “check points” that you can use to filter the good from the bad. There is a lot of nuance involved, so I’ll try to expand each of these check points.

Based on the lemon squeezer, I think you can already guess the first one…

1. Is the design effective?

The need for design is usually driven by a problem that needs to be solved. It might be a website that needs to be easier to use, a product that needs to appeal to a certain audience or a new business that needs a logo, the problem can be literally anything.

This is the first check point to diagnose whether or not a design is good. If it doesn’t solve the problem, you don’t need to go any further, it’s definitely not a good design. It doesn’t matter how good it looks if it doesn’t even accomplish the main purpose of its existence.

I find this one of the main reasons why many designers get so frustrated with their clients/bosses. They tend to jump into “design mode” without fully understanding the problem and just try to make something cool, that will improve their portfolio. They forget that we’re not designing for us but for someone else, and we need to address their needs, not ours.

In order for your design to be effective is crucial to understand and empathise with your client/user. Before you start designing, ask “Why?” until you really understand the true goal that your design needs to accomplish. Sometimes the client might think that they need one thing but after a few questions you’ll realise that they actually need something entirely different. This is the only way that you can be certain that you’re trying to solve the right problem.

If your design is effective, you can move on to the next check point.

2. Does it reflect the right tone?

For you to be able to tell whether or not the tone is appropriate, first you’ll need to figure out two things, the brand and the audience.

The brand

The term “brand” is usually associated with businesses but it’s not limited to them, many things can have a brand, even you. Your brand is the perception that people have of you, the same applies to companies and pretty much everything else.

Good design helps a company take control of their brand, and shape the public’s opinion to match how they want to be perceived.

The audience

A company usually has a target audience and it might vary from something broad to a very small niche. If you know how the company wants to be perceived and who the design is for, the remaining question is, what is appropriate for them?

Generally speaking, the broader the audience the cleaner and more conventional the design needs to be, that’s why you see many companies losing part of their “soul” as they grow. This happens because certain design gimmicks that will work for small niches won’t stick with a larger audience, therefore the company “sacrifices” that to attract more people. On the other end of the spectrum, when your audience is smaller and very specific you can rely on those gimmicks to make the design attractive and engaging to them.

A good example to understand this is to compare McDonald’s with your local burger joint. They basically sell the same thing, but they communicate in very distinct ways.

http://j.mp/2AKUgFO

Your local burger joint usually capitalises on the latest trends in design that attract people who identify with that, like the funny illustrations you can see on Byron’s website. On the other hand, McDonalds communicates in a more conventional way to cover a more general public trying not to patronize or alienate anyone.

www.mcdonalds.com

In short, to understand if a design passes this second check point, you just need to know what is the appropriate tone and if the design is successful in communicating it. If it is, then you’re one step closer to a good design.

3. Does it stand the test of time?

Good design is sensitive to time.

Ideally, you’d want a design that is timeless, however, that is not always necessary or even advised. It really depends on what the design is trying to accomplish and its life span.

If you’re designing a webpage for a product that will be replaced or updated in two years, for instance, it probably makes sense to take advantage of the trends of the year to get ahead. This will help your design seem contemporary, modern and relevant. However, you should try to stay ahead of the curve and see where the trends are going. There’s nothing worse than catching the wave too late, this will only make you look bad, like you’re trying to catch up rather than being the one setting the trend.

In the other hand, if we’re talking about a logo that is supposed to last for years or decades, then yes, you should definitely avoid design fads that come with a short expiry date. If you look at well-known logo redesigns like the Starbucks logo, the trend is to make them simpler as time passes, thus the simpler you make it, the longer it will last.

Starbucks logo iterations from 1971, 1987, 1992, 2011

With this in mind, to pass this check point, you just need to understand what’s the life span of the design you’re analysing and judge it accordingly.

Is the design appropriate for it’s life span? If so, hang in there, there’re only three more check points to go.

4. Is it frictionless?

Friction is whatever is in the way of the person reading/using something. The more friction you add, the harder it is for them to get what they want from your design. Basically, friction is generated by things like text that is hard to read or a website that is difficult to use.

That moment when the text is too small.

This might seem like an obvious mistake, but you would be surprised how many times designers end up sacrificing readability and usability to make their design “look better”.

It’s important to measure the amount of information that you want to present very carefully. Avoid information overload, that will only add friction to your design. For that, you really have to understand what your viewer/user needs, and in a lot of cases, you even have to distill that information and make it digestible.

“A wealth of information leads to a poverty of attention.” — Marty Neumeier

If the design is well done, it will become invisible and people will easily find what they need. If it’s not, then you’re most likely staring at a bad design, because good design is frictionless.

You’re close. There’s only two more things to consider.

5 . Is it visually appealing?

Back into subjectivity land. This is the part that most people like to focus on, and the part that generates more discussions and controversy. This happens because it can be subjective at times and it’s hard to agree on something when all we have are opinions.

However, there is a way to break part of this subjectivity. You just need to learn the principles that make design visually appealing. These are the elements that you’ll find consistently across examples of good design. I wrote an overview about them in the post I referred in the beginning of this article, and will do a more thorough breakdown in the future.

Besides learning the theory, you should also enrich your visual culture. You can do that simply by looking at design that is featured by the design community in websites and books. If you do that, you’ll start to see the patterns that keep reappearing in good design like well-balanced compositions, beautiful typography, precise alignments, delightful colour combinations and many other things.

This should be enough to get you in a good path, nonetheless, in the end of the day, this check point will always be a bit subjective to go through, but since this is just one out of six, it shouldn’t disable you from distinguishing good design from bad. As I said in the beginning, good design is not always beautiful to everyone.

The next check points is not only the check point but also the finishing line.

6. 1+1=3?

If the design passed the previous 5 check points, you have already a really good design in front of you, this check point is what takes it from good to extraordinary.

To reveal if a design has more than the sum of its parts you just need to look closely. Essentially this is when a design goes beyond a combination of good typography and colours, it’s when there’s a brilliant idea that supports everything and takes it to a whole new level.

FedEx logo (1994)

A simple yet perfect example of this is the FedEx logo, just take a close look at it. Between the E and the X you’ll notice a small arrow cleverly hidden in the negative space. This arrow is meant to symbolise the company’s accuracy and speed.

This is what differentiate good from great designers. Good designers will rely on their technical skills and base their design on principles (a machine could learn that by the way), but great designers bring more to the equation. I think that this is what creativity really is.

Final thoughts

In a nutshell, good design has more than what meets the eye, it’s not only about how it looks, but a combination of a series of thoughtful decisions that are made with the end user/viewer in mind.

Alright! I gave it a shot. If you find this useful or interesting, please consider sharing it. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out in the comments or on twitter @zecarlostorre (I just recently got into that) I would love to know what you think, how do YOU identify good design? And what things do you consider more important?

Also, if you have any ideas or questions for a future post, I’m all hears. :)

Thanks for reading!

The post How to identify Good Design in 6 steps appeared first on Design your way.

http://j.mp/2ywmnlO via Design your way URL : http://j.mp/2arS45r

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How to identify Good Design in 6 steps

Breaking apart the subjectivity.

On my very first post on medium, a reader asked a question that really resonated with me. She started by saying that design is subjective and then wondered if someone could ever devise a list of principles that could define good design. So, I thought, “Why not give it a try?”, and here it goes.

There are two parts to the question, being the first one the affirmation that design is subjective. Personally, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of design but I understand where it’s coming from. People tend to mix design and art in the same bucket and the proprieties of one sometimes drip on top of the other.

Art is subjective, it’s like a game where there are almost no rules. Design is different, and the fact that someone can put together a list of principles should already tell you that there are some rules to the design game.

If there are rules, then we can tell whether or not these rules are being followed, which means that design is not subjective.

However, to be fair, I can’t really say that design is 100% objective, there are always things that come down to personal preference that is determined by your culture and experiences.

Now, this “tiny” level of subjectivity doesn’t mean that you can’t tell good design from bad, it just means that you might find a good design “ugly” or in the other side of the spectrum, you might find something that looks beautiful that actually is a pretty bad design. Let’s look at one example.

The famous Juicy Salif by Philippe Starck.

I think almost all can agree that this is a beautiful piece of design but the million-dollar question is, does that make it a good design?

Nope.

Why? Because it has so many functional problems that I won’t even bother to write them here (just go to amazon and read the reviews if you are interested and/or want to have a laugh, or read this), but in short, it doesn’t do a good job in the only thing that it’s supposed to do, help you to get that fresh juice.

This to say that it’s possible for something to be “good looking” but still be a bad design. You just need to look beyond the looks, and to help you do that I devised a list of 6 “check points” that you can use to filter the good from the bad. There is a lot of nuance involved, so I’ll try to expand each of these check points.

Based on the lemon squeezer, I think you can already guess the first one…

1. Is the design effective?

The need for design is usually driven by a problem that needs to be solved. It might be a website that needs to be easier to use, a product that needs to appeal to a certain audience or a new business that needs a logo, the problem can be literally anything.

This is the first check point to diagnose whether or not a design is good. If it doesn’t solve the problem, you don’t need to go any further, it’s definitely not a good design. It doesn’t matter how good it looks if it doesn’t even accomplish the main purpose of its existence.

I find this one of the main reasons why many designers get so frustrated with their clients/bosses. They tend to jump into “design mode” without fully understanding the problem and just try to make something cool, that will improve their portfolio. They forget that we’re not designing for us but for someone else, and we need to address their needs, not ours.

In order for your design to be effective is crucial to understand and empathise with your client/user. Before you start designing, ask “Why?” until you really understand the true goal that your design needs to accomplish. Sometimes the client might think that they need one thing but after a few questions you’ll realise that they actually need something entirely different. This is the only way that you can be certain that you’re trying to solve the right problem.

If your design is effective, you can move on to the next check point.

2. Does it reflect the right tone?

For you to be able to tell whether or not the tone is appropriate, first you’ll need to figure out two things, the brand and the audience.

The brand

The term “brand” is usually associated with businesses but it’s not limited to them, many things can have a brand, even you. Your brand is the perception that people have of you, the same applies to companies and pretty much everything else.

Good design helps a company take control of their brand, and shape the public’s opinion to match how they want to be perceived.

The audience

A company usually has a target audience and it might vary from something broad to a very small niche. If you know how the company wants to be perceived and who the design is for, the remaining question is, what is appropriate for them?

Generally speaking, the broader the audience the cleaner and more conventional the design needs to be, that’s why you see many companies losing part of their “soul” as they grow. This happens because certain design gimmicks that will work for small niches won’t stick with a larger audience, therefore the company “sacrifices” that to attract more people. On the other end of the spectrum, when your audience is smaller and very specific you can rely on those gimmicks to make the design attractive and engaging to them.

A good example to understand this is to compare McDonald’s with your local burger joint. They basically sell the same thing, but they communicate in very distinct ways.

www.byronhamburgers.com

Your local burger joint usually capitalises on the latest trends in design that attract people who identify with that, like the funny illustrations you can see on Byron’s website. On the other hand, McDonalds communicates in a more conventional way to cover a more general public trying not to patronize or alienate anyone.

www.mcdonalds.com

In short, to understand if a design passes this second check point, you just need to know what is the appropriate tone and if the design is successful in communicating it. If it is, then you’re one step closer to a good design.

3. Does it stand the test of time?

Good design is sensitive to time.

Ideally, you’d want a design that is timeless, however, that is not always necessary or even advised. It really depends on what the design is trying to accomplish and its life span.

If you’re designing a webpage for a product that will be replaced or updated in two years, for instance, it probably makes sense to take advantage of the trends of the year to get ahead. This will help your design seem contemporary, modern and relevant. However, you should try to stay ahead of the curve and see where the trends are going. There’s nothing worse than catching the wave too late, this will only make you look bad, like you’re trying to catch up rather than being the one setting the trend.

In the other hand, if we’re talking about a logo that is supposed to last for years or decades, then yes, you should definitely avoid design fads that come with a short expiry date. If you look at well-known logo redesigns like the Starbucks logo, the trend is to make them simpler as time passes, thus the simpler you make it, the longer it will last.

Starbucks logo iterations from 1971, 1987, 1992, 2011

With this in mind, to pass this check point, you just need to understand what’s the life span of the design you’re analysing and judge it accordingly.

Is the design appropriate for it’s life span? If so, hang in there, there’re only three more check points to go.

4. Is it frictionless?

Friction is whatever is in the way of the person reading/using something. The more friction you add, the harder it is for them to get what they want from your design. Basically, friction is generated by things like text that is hard to read or a website that is difficult to use.

That moment when the text is too small.

This might seem like an obvious mistake, but you would be surprised how many times designers end up sacrificing readability and usability to make their design “look better”.

It’s important to measure the amount of information that you want to present very carefully. Avoid information overload, that will only add friction to your design. For that, you really have to understand what your viewer/user needs, and in a lot of cases, you even have to distill that information and make it digestible.

“A wealth of information leads to a poverty of attention.” — Marty Neumeier

If the design is well done, it will become invisible and people will easily find what they need. If it’s not, then you’re most likely staring at a bad design, because good design is frictionless.

You’re close. There’s only two more things to consider.

5 . Is it visually appealing?

Back into subjectivity land. This is the part that most people like to focus on, and the part that generates more discussions and controversy. This happens because it can be subjective at times and it’s hard to agree on something when all we have are opinions.

However, there is a way to break part of this subjectivity. You just need to learn the principles that make design visually appealing. These are the elements that you’ll find consistently across examples of good design. I wrote an overview about them in the post I referred in the beginning of this article, and will do a more thorough breakdown in the future.

Besides learning the theory, you should also enrich your visual culture. You can do that simply by looking at design that is featured by the design community in websites and books. If you do that, you’ll start to see the patterns that keep reappearing in good design like well-balanced compositions, beautiful typography, precise alignments, delightful colour combinations and many other things.

This should be enough to get you in a good path, nonetheless, in the end of the day, this check point will always be a bit subjective to go through, but since this is just one out of six, it shouldn’t disable you from distinguishing good design from bad. As I said in the beginning, good design is not always beautiful to everyone.

The next check points is not only the check point but also the finishing line.

6. 1+1=3?

If the design passed the previous 5 check points, you have already a really good design in front of you, this check point is what takes it from good to extraordinary.

To reveal if a design has more than the sum of its parts you just need to look closely. Essentially this is when a design goes beyond a combination of good typography and colours, it’s when there’s a brilliant idea that supports everything and takes it to a whole new level.

FedEx logo (1994)

A simple yet perfect example of this is the FedEx logo, just take a close look at it. Between the E and the X you’ll notice a small arrow cleverly hidden in the negative space. This arrow is meant to symbolise the company’s accuracy and speed.

This is what differentiate good from great designers. Good designers will rely on their technical skills and base their design on principles (a machine could learn that by the way), but great designers bring more to the equation. I think that this is what creativity really is.

Final thoughts

In a nutshell, good design has more than what meets the eye, it’s not only about how it looks, but a combination of a series of thoughtful decisions that are made with the end user/viewer in mind.

Alright! I gave it a shot. If you find this useful or interesting, please consider sharing it. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out in the comments or on twitter @zecarlostorre (I just recently got into that) I would love to know what you think, how do YOU identify good design? And what things do you consider more important?

Also, if you have any ideas or questions for a future post, I’m all hears. :)

Thanks for reading!

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