#and i was the customer in that story! it reminded me so much of Clover and I haha

[impawsiblecat]

100 Days of Deathduo

Customer Service AU!!

This is made for @mintyteasoup because they are so very cool. Happy birthday Minty! You are so beloved. I hope I did this au justice, even though I've never worked in customer service these are all real stories haha.

    Oh, this was exciting. Well, the job itself wasn’t, and Icee had originally wanted to work somewhere else, a library maybe, or a teacher’s assistant, or something, but this was a decent enough option. It would give them money at least. And Clover was here, worked here, and was an assistant manager here, which was the exciting part. Clover was so cool. Working at a store was just stocking shelves and bagging items right? So it would be fine.

    They were a tad nervous, it was a new job, a new situation, but it would be fine! Probably. And so, Icee walked up to the store doors and waited for them to open automatically. It made them feel like a jedi whenever it happened, and they sneakily looked around before holding their hand out to pretend they were using the force. Only for the doors to not open. Right. The store was closed.

    Icee got their phone out and texted Clover. They texted her on the app they had downloaded for work, instead of discord, which was a bit strange, but this was a work related thing! And so should be kept in the work app chat messages. Which was great. Amazing, really.

    Oh. According to Clover, Icee was supposed to go into the side entrance. Not the front entrance. That made a lot of sense, actually. Just as she said, when they got to the correct door, it was unlocked. And Clover was on the other side when Icee entered. Which was such great news.

    “Icee! Hello! Welcome to your new job. Here, let me show you where to clock in and then I can instruct you what to do. We haven’t opened yet but there are a few things we need to do beforehand. Any questions?” Clover asked.

    Icee shook their head, and headed to the clipboard, signing in and logging their hours. It was a fairly straightforward thing, really, just writing their name and the time they entered the building. What job would Clover assign them? Maybe Icee would have to restock some of the shelves, or put away some of the items.

    “Great, now that that’s done, I’m gonna show you to the cleaning supplies and the bathrooms, which you will be cleaning during your morning shifts. All the newbie’s do it.” And oh. Clover was assigning the bathroom duties to Icee. They made a face showing their displeasure.

    “Clover. Clover do I have to? Can’t I help somewhere else?” Icee asked. Clover just looked at them amused.

    “Sorry Icee, that’s not how it works. Bathroom duties don’t care about friendships.” She says, shaking her head and gesturing to follow.

    “Please Clover? What if I get you hot cocoa? And gummy worms?” Icee begs, a last ditch effort. Clover just laughs again.

    “No. And we both know you are gonna do that anyways. Even though you absolutely do not have to ever.” She smiles amusedly. “Now come on, follow me to the cleaning closet.

    Icee follows, grumbling under their breath. So much for Clover being the exciting part of the job.

—--

    It was a pretty average Tuesday, not the busiest but busy enough that there was a steady stream of customers at Clover’s register. It was nice sometimes, getting into the lull of scanning and bagging items, making pleasant small talk with the customers. Sure, occasionally there were a few rude ones, but today had been pretty calm in terms of the customers. 

    “Hello there.” Clover politely smiled as she started scanning the items, smiling at the customer in front of her while she worked. They let out a polite hello, but when Clover looked up, their eyes were focused on something behind her. Which wasn’t too strange, they were probably checking out some of the items required to stay back there.

    And then Clover felt a chill down her spine when she heard a voice directly behind her say “Boo,” as she felt someone poke her shoulder, and she yelped and swiftly turned, properly startled.

    “Icee! How could you do this to me?” She asked as she started laughing, seeing her coworker and friend in front of her. They just laughed in response and grabbed one of the spare keys from the counter behind Clover before waving and leaving, continuing to chuckle. 

    Clover shook her head fondly and looked at the customer who was also laughing slightly. “You saw them, didn’t you?” She asked, and she she grinned when they nodded their head. ‘I will get them back, don’t worry.” She responded as she gave them their order.

—------

It was Icee’s first day at the register without assistance. They were really moving up in the world. Kind of. Maybe just moving up in the store, but hey, progress is progress. It was going smoothly, really, and Clover was only a text away if they needed help, which was pretty nice.

They smiled at the man who was next and focused on scanning and bagging the items, making sure to put the bread on top and ask if he wanted a bag for his milk, doing all of the things that a good register worker did. It was perfect. And then the man’s card declined when he tried to pay, and he started walking away before they realized what has happened. 

“Sir? Sir, your card declined.” They called out, but the store was loud and a bit busier than normal, and they didn’t think he could hear them. So obviously, Icee did the only logical thing to do.

And jumped directly over the counter. They apologized to the next customer in line and started running over to the man. “Sir, your card declined!’ They said, huffing from the sprint. I’m so sorry, but would you, uh, possibly come back to pay?” They said, as calmly as they could while out of breath.

Luckily, the man seemed to only be annoyed instead of outright angry, and he came back without much of a hassle. And when they got back to their station, they saw Clover behind the register, smiling amusedly at them.

“You really shouldn’t leave your station unattended, you know. But it’s ok, you did your best and I'm proud of you.’ Clover said, letting Icee take their place back to complete the transaction. “Next time, you could always call me or the security guards, you don’t have to become an Olympian to try to catch someone.” She said, tapping the phone next to the register. “I’m always gonna be here if you need me.”

Icee just laughed, a bit embarrassed, and started finishing the transaction with the man.

[illusory-torrent]

Why I prefer the Genshin Impact fandom to the RWBY fandom.

I'll start off by saying what many of us are thinking. It's sad that the ships are nearly the only thing the RWBY fandom talks about because the plot leaves so many in a state of dissatisfaction. I've seen so many RWBY fans and non-fans alike say, "Oh, I don't care about the plot, I'm only watching for [insert ship here]" or "I'm going to drop the show if [insert ship here] doesn't happen". For those who doubt me, please believe me, it's a thing. 

Now, when I say that the RWBY fandom only really cares for shipping, you might ask, "Is that not what every fandom does though?"

Well... yes! You're right. However, I think the RWBY fandom takes it to the next level. 

First off, the theory-making side of the RWBY fandom has completely died. I remember there being videos theorizing if Yang was part-dragon Faunus or Ruby being a fox Faunus. These days, the fandom's theories boil down to, "What's up with the void that Team RWBY fell into?" due to V8's ending, but back during V5-V7, there were hardly any theories being posted. Most people just don't care anymore. 

Second off, Miles and Kerry struggle with writing characters outside of pairs. Not just romantic pairs, but pairs in general. Most characters only have interacts with their team partners, their love interests, their familial relationships, and... that's it. Blake is a prime example of this. Her best interactions are with Yang (her team partner), Sun (her former love interest), Ilia (another former love interest), and Adam (her ex-boyfriend). Her worst interactions are with Ruby (her team's leader, whom she hardly interacts with) and pretty much everyone else. Even her interactions with Weiss are few and far between. Another example would be Penny. Prior to Volume 3, Penny's best interactions were with Ruby. Penny hardly interacted with anyone else in a meaningful way. She dies and Ruby's tearful reaction is focused on. Why? Because she's one of the few characters Penny actually had a relationship with! Penny comes back in Volume 7, and she still only really interacts with Ruby. Her only new relationship that's developed is with Winter... and we find out why. It's because when Penny is killed by Jaune, her maiden powers are transferred to Winter, the rightful owner.

Miles and Kerry being unable to write outside of pairs is why we only have each of our characters only interact with certain other characters. Before Jaune helped kill Penny, did he ever even have a real conversation with her? We'll never know! Has Blake even talked to Jaune before? No idea! Did Yang even care that Pyrrha died? Probably, but we viewers literally never see the two interact prior to Pyrrha's untimely demise.

This type of writing (whether intentionally or unintentionally done) promotes shipping culture. Characters interact primarily with their love interests (who may or may not also be their team partners). This is why RWBY's fandom is so focused on shipping. Hell, even Blake's VA tweeted at Clover's VA with a joke regarding this.

Clover's VA: Has anybody heard of this thing, “shipping?”

Blake's VA: Welcome to RWBY.

[Photo for anyone who needs proof, in case these Tweets are deleted in the future.]

Blake's VA even once had to make a post saying, "Y’all, you know I love my Bees, but not everything is Bee related. Some is just RWBY hype in general. Calm yo’self.". The fact she even had to clarify that not everything she posts about RWBY is related to a ship is astounding. Imagine having to tell your audience that not everything you post is related to a fictional pairing. 

The RWBY cast even had an segment on The Ship-It Show where, you guessed it, they talked about their favorite and least favorite ships. Their tagline even was that "Shipping is a creative expression, so don't limit your creativity!", which went over with the fandom about as well as one would expect. 

Finally, Miles Luna recently posted a Cameo video where he stated, "Just remember: shipping is fun and pretend, and it’s just supposed to be a good time. Don’t be one of those people that attack other shippers and get real mean and toxic. We’re all just here having fun with wonderful make believe characters and make believe worlds, and I think that is a beautiful activity, as long as you’re doing it responsibly and kindly." 

So as you can see, shipping is a big part of the RWBY community. I'd venture to say that shipping is the most important part of the RWBY community. And that's fine! Shipping in itself isn't a bad thing. It's only when it gets completely out of hand where it becomes a problem. And I feel it is becoming a problem in the RWBY community. Rooster Teeth, if you need your show-writers to remind the fandom that shipping is supposed to be fun, you have a problem. 

Well, how does Genshin Impact avoid that problem? The fandom itself is large and the game is quite popular, so how does it handle not becoming a complete shitfest shipfest? 

For starters, Mihoyo doesn't confirm any ships at all. This is for profit reasons, the game is a gacha game designed for players to spend money on their "waifus" and "husbandos". Characters have outfit customization for this exact purpose. Mihoyo benefits from keeping characters canonically single. This is why, while people think soon-to-be-released characters like Ayaka and Tohma are dating, many people also believe these same characters to be single. 

Second off, VAs are unable to give their opinions on certain ships and on lore. For example, the VA for Lumine, the main female protagonist, confirmed that Lumine was 15, before apologizing and deleting her comments. The VA for Childe signed some Childe x Lumine artwork to sell, but blatantly stated that he only really shipped Childe with Childe. The VAs avoid discussing unconfirmed ships/lore and, in this way, Mihoyo avoids controversy. 

Finally, Genshin Impact only recently came out. This means that the theorizing part of the fandom is still alive and well. There's plenty to theorize about since there's so much us players don't know about the story. Lore tidbits are celebrated by lore junkies, folks who want to theorize on the characters' backstories or on the protagonist's journey to find their twin sibling are more than welcome to do so. 

So while the Genshin Impact community engages in tons of shipping, none of the ships are more canon than any other. A Zhongli x Childe shipper might argue that their ship is canon because Zhongli gifted Childe some chopsticks, but a Zhongli x Ningguang shipper could easily argue back that Ninguang is a reincarnation of Zhongli's former friend/partner Guizhong. And of course, a non-shipper could look at both of these arguments and believe them both to be false.

I think this allows shipping to remain a fun and lighthearted activity in the Genshin Impact fandom. You can ship what you'd like, or you can just enjoy the plot and lore like a normal gamer. 

So where am I going with this? Well, my thoughts are that no matter what the fandom, there will always be shipping. There's always gonna be some degenerates (like myself) who see two cute characters and want them to get together. However, it's up to the creators themselves to decide where to go with ships or to even entertain them at all. Mihoyo, in my opinion, handles the Genshin Impact fandom's shipping craze much more successfully than Rooster Teeth handles the RWBY fandom. 

So what are your thoughts? If you're in both fandoms, which fandom do you prefer and why? Let me know!

[sarahlevys]

SO YOU WANT TO GET INTO TWYLEXIS

(a fic rec post - last updated 10/31/2021)

11/25/20: I have been talking to a lot of people about The Good Ship Twylexis, and when @earnmysong asked me for some fic recs, I could not resist! Below are some of my favorites, organized by length. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, and is simply composed of some of the ones I’ve read. I hope you check them out!

10/31/21: Nearly a year later, the fandom has grown by leaps and bounds! I've been able to add many excellent Twylexis fics to the below list. I tried to keep these recs focused on fics in which they are either the only ship or a substantial part of the narrative, so while there are many fics nowadays that have Twylexis as a side pairing, those will not be listed below. Now that we can be more choosy, I've also removed fics that featured Twylexis as part of a throuple or moreple (so that I can hopefully do a fic rec list for that specifically in the future!)

So I see Alexis is getting back out there. (Short Reads)

in the middle of the deep blue night – T – 577 – by @hullomoon

Alexis is all alone at the party, that is, until Twyla joins her.

in the hack – G – 2K – by thingswithwings

After Ted, and before the Next Thing, Alexis joins a curling team. She's great at it, because, what, like it's hard?

Icarus had the right idea – T – 4K – by Luthor

In which Alexis convinces Twyla to take her to the beach, and has an okay-time I guess. 

never saw you coming, never be the same – G – Podfics! 15 minutes in total – by DelilahMcMuffin, GoLBPodfics, & Amanita_Fierce

Three different perspectives from Twyla Sands and Alexis Rose's first Pride spent together as a couple.

to be your harbor – E – 4K – by @doublel27

Twyla uses some of her money on things that are special to her. Alexis is special to Twyla. Luckily, Twyla is precious to Alexis.

and it's just around the corner darling, 'cause it in lives in me (no, I could never give you peace) – T – 3K – by beepbedeep

She’s what people call the worst, most pointless kind of celebrity, a socialite, and she does it better than anyone else. It’s good, she knows it’s good, she’s serving her purpose, playing her part perfectly, and if she doesn’t really know how to be alone with herself, how to handle the actual weight of her life when the gossip blogs get bored and the photographers stop showing up for a while, that’s fine.

i knew from the beginning (it was you from the beginning) – T – 1K – by @anniemurphys

Twyla and Alexis celebrate, at a distance.

i took an arrow to the heart – G – 3K – by @sarahlevys and @landofsonlali

Twyla calls Alexis in celebration of the fourth anniversary of their friendship, and the conversation shifts to their feelings for each other. Together, they start to explore the intricacies of love and relationships.

aflame – T – 4K – by @pretendtofly

Alexis has a few days left in Schitt's Creek after the wedding and Twyla wants to spend them all together.

could be your baby, ride the same whip (oh no, no, there's no slowin' down) – T – 3K – by @turningtimeinthetardis

Alexis doubts anything too surprising will happen when she and Twyla decide to go on a little shopping spree (such as they can afford, that is) at one of Elmdale’s boutiques. Maybe they’ll encounter some truly hideous blends of patterns, but nothing stranger than that.

After all, if there’s one thing Schitt’s Creek and the surrounding suburbs can offer, it’s quiet predictability.

I weigh a hundredandfuckingsomething pounds (that makes me almost good) – G – 2K – by beepbedeep

Her legs don’t look good, but half of the girls she knows have legs that look even worse, smiles that are even more shark-toothed or arms that are even less toned, and she reminds herself that these are just the rules', that she knows the rules and knows where she’s failing, but other people are failing more.

shining, shimmering, splendid – G – 1K – by @davidbrewer

Twyla finally starts spending some of her lottery winnings on things that make her smile, and learns how much she loves to travel. Who better to show her around the world than Alexis?

ask 'em my questions and get some answers – G – 1K – by @lilythesilly

Alexis and Twyla meet at Disneyland.

a handprint on my heart – T – 4K – by averita

Five times Alexis and Twyla visit each other.

Merry Go Round – T – 2K – by Perkalil

In her first days in town, Alexis is in a rough place; she finds kindness and compassion in the local cafe waitress.

feel you on my skin – E – 1K – by @hullomoon

Alexis notices what Twyla's wearing. She has a lot of feelings about it.

you make everything good – G – by @rosedavid

Twyla has to go and visit her gaggle of cousins for two weeks, and Alexis is pouty about her girlfriend leaving for so long.

didn't ask for this – you freely gave it (so now i watch your mouth for the both of us) – T – 6K – by @turningtimeinthetardis

Alexis chops her name down to three letters like it's nothing.

Twyla thinks about it a lot.

putting roots in my dreamland – G – 4K – by @lilythesilly

A twylexis flowershop au.

(but if baby, i'm the bottom) you're the top – E – 3K – by @sarahlevys

Five times Twyla tops Alexis, and one time she lets Alexis top her.

three o'clock – E – 2K – by @schittyfic

Two tipsy girlfriends thirst over the hot, bearded guy across the bar.

shivers – E – 5K – by @anniemurphys

Alexis has a long day in an airport, and Twyla wants to take care of her.

This Stupid, Wonderful, Boring, Amazing Job – G – 1K – by @lilythesilly

A cute lil 'The Office' AU.

in calm or stormy weather – T – 4K – by @anniemurphys and @landofsonlali

On National Siblings Day, Alexis spends the day with her favorite brother Patrick, and David bonds with Twyla.

all i need is to see your face – G – 1K – by @wild-aloof-rebel

Alexis has doubts. Twyla knows how to soothe them.

got a fistful of four leaf clovers – T – 1K – by iphigenias

Two weeks before Christmas Alexis calls David.

“So I think I like someone,” she says.

all i want is you – T – 1K – by @landofsonlali

alexis is too restless to cuddle and worries about being a good partner to twyla who loves cuddling. twyla reassures her.

Fifty Shades of Gruyere – E – 2K – by @schittposting

Alexis and Twyla eat cheese and fuck.

I dreamt about you last night – G – 930 – by sonichallows

Alexis has a romantic dream about Twyla and tells her about it the next day.

Mistletoe – T – 2K – by in48frames

Alexis and Twyla go ice skating.

--

Twy, what are you doing here? You could be anywhere, doing anything. (Medium Reads)

Twyla's Cafe Podcast, An Alexis Rose Production, Produced by Alexis Rose (with help from Twyla) – T – 6K – by @whetherwoman

Twyla and Alexis start a podcast, and accidentally have some feelings along the way.

Crystal Clear – G – 6K – by @imalittlebitgogirl

Twyla and Alexis meet at a Winter Solstice celebration and bond over being newcomers...with more connections than they first realize.

take me out (and take me home) – M – 7K – by @anniemurphys and @landofsonlali

When Twyla’s Thanksgiving plans fall through at the last minute, Alexis flies back to Schitt’s Creek.

know that i’m yours (to keep) – T – 8K – by @anniemurphys

Five times Alexis and Twyla talk at Café Tropical.

And one time they talk somewhere else.

I Offer You My Heart – G – 10K – by @landofsonlali​, with art and podfic by @sunlightsymphony

Twyla is the owner of a coffee shop in Schitt's Creek and Alexis is a frequent customer, featuring pining, flirtation, and a whole lot of beverages and baked goods.

Oh Please, Not Now – T – by in48frames

“Oh,” Twyla says. “Yeah. Schitt’s Creek is super haunted."

Ladies Night Inn – T – 15K – by @imalittlebitgogirl

What if Twyla had accepted Alexis' invitation to a ladies night in her motel room after she and Mutt broke up?

i'm your moonlight, you're my star – M – 14K – by @sarahlevys and @anniemurphys

Twyla and Alexis spend the holidays together.

and the stars look very different today – T – 12K – by @hullomoon, with art from @hagface

Teaming up with a group of talented women, Alexis plans her next job

Hide Your Diamonds, Hide Your Exes – T – 8K – by @middyblue

Alexis may or may not be a diamond thief. Twyla is the FBI agent tasked with finding her.

heaven is a place not too far away – T – 8K – by @sarahlevys

Alexis' soulmate mark – the ability to sing – triggers when she moves to Schitt's Creek.

Pretty Follies – T – 9K – by @treepyful

Alexis and Twyla team up to play matchmaker for Stevie and Ruth.

Unfortunately, the course of true love never did run smooth.

Everything That We'd Ever Need – E – 12K – by @middyblue

5 times Twyla went skinny-dipping and 1 time she wore a dress.

Rollin' With the Homies – T – 9K – by @sarahlevys

The Clueless AU.

Phasers Set to Stunning – T – 9K so far (WIP – 2/4 chapters published) – by @kindofspecificstore

Patrick wins passes to San Diego Comic Con, and takes his best friend Twyla with him. Alexis Rose, rising star of Galactic Sunrise Bay, is attending for the first time and has her eyes on a super cute cosplayer.

--

I was thinking we could have a little ladies' night at my place. (Long Reads)

you and i and nobody else - E – 124K so far (WIP – 7/10 chapters published) – by @sarahlevys​ and @anniemurphys​

Twyla Sands and Alexis Rose meet on Mutt’s season of The Bachelor.

Maybe If You Stayed – E – 14K – by @fraudulentzodiac

“Years down the line, this is the moment she will look back on as the moment she should have known she was in love.“

your body’s poetry (speak to me) – E – 19K – by @anniemurphys

Ballet AU.

I’ve Only Ever Wanted Fire – M – 26K – by @sarahlevys​, with art from @rhetoricalk

Written for the prompt: Twyla is a real estate agent specializing in properties that are haunted or possessed. Alexis is looking for a new apartment.

Silence Lay Steadily – E – 44K – by @davidbrewer

A ghost story loosely inspired by The Haunting of Hill House.

like glass from sandy ground – M – 18K – by @middyblue

Five times Alexis ran from grief, and one time she didn't.

Taste of a Poison Paradise – M – 15K – by @lilythesilly

Be gay do crimes but make it a Harley Quinn AU.

Half of My Soul, as the Poets Say – E – 20K – by mixtapesandsunsets

Yes, she imagines telling the Alexis of two years ago, who had felt so untethered sitting next to Twyla outside these very rooms. You believe in fate. Your fate is right in front of you, Lex, you just need to reach out to meet it. It’s her. It has always been her.

[twiceblackvelvet]

Soulmates?

requested! 

Early rises and strolls to work for the opening shift are far more pleasant than imaginable. The sun rising slowly over the horizon whilst the pathways are clear of other people and hardly any cars noisily taking up road space. It’s calming, beautiful, in fact, to see the change in hues in the sky from a deep orange to a lighter yellow once it’s high enough above everything else. A camera roll full of pictures taken with the beams blazing down could never possibly do it justice, but it does help take off some of the chills during the winter months just looking at them.

It’s quite an easy job, truth be told, the only complication that ever presents itself is through difficult customers and they are few and far between thankfully. Doing the rounds to turn on all of the appliances and the fridge lights is a welcomed routine compared to the never-ending cleaning that comes with a closing shift. It should be a world record how long it takes to hoover the floors, mop them, and then try not to mess up all of that hard work by creating a shoe path through the wet flooring.

For the last six months, Mina has been working at the convenience store, and taking on every single shift her schedule will allow whilst still trying to continue her studies. Serving customers isn’t the be-all and end-all but she is grateful to have been offered the position with no experience in hospitality whatsoever. The owners had recently had to let go of one of their original employees after he was caught taking money from the register thus she was hired before even sitting the interview out of desperation to replace him.

Whilst there are a few customers who are tough to deal with, there are also the locals who are always full of small snippets about their lives, or, will simply offer a courteous smile if their own day is not going as planned. Her favorite, however, is watching all the young and in love couples enter the store together, there’s something about watching their small yet romantic gestures toward one another, and whilst the green-eyed monster known as jealousy would rear its head for anyone else, Mina merely longs to feel what they are one day with her true love.

A soulmate is a difficult thing to explain to anyone which is why it is taught and told from such a young age. The idea that there is one single individual wandering this Earth who is meant to be just as in love with you as you are them, and no one else seems unreasonable or forceful at best. Every relationship in life is significant and can work if each of you put in the work to make sure that it lasts. Just look at how often people will get attached to celebrity relationships, only for them to break up a few years down the line and people are convinced love isn’t real. In fact, there are many people during her life who have told her it was a crazy idea to hold out for ‘the one’.

However, Mina has always been a hopeless romantic and never been able to grasp the concept of dating multiple people when there is a very clear sign on her right hand linking her to the one she’s meant to be with. The one who will offer her a tingling feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever they exchange so much as a glance. The one who she’ll meet for the first time and something inside of her will click, telling her that they are the one for her. The one who will offer her endless reassurance whenever things in life get difficult. She’s always wanted it all, and more. But, they’ve yet to enter her life and whisk her off her feet.

Her mother would often share tales about meeting her father when they were younger, both of them too scared to reveal their markings, both of which being on their legs in the shape of a tiny rocket, to confirm what they had believed to be true, that they are soulmates. But, one day her father invited her mother to a break from an intense study session by going into his pool. They had both completely forgotten about having not shown their markings but as it turned out, they were the exact same. It was always Mina’s favorite bedtime story to hear about how her parents fell in love with each other, their own firm belief in soulmates only furthering her desire to find her own.

There were plenty of people during her early years that Mina thought were going to be the one, and rather than following entirely in her parents’ footsteps, she’d find any excuse to look at people’s right hand, such as holding their hand as she grabbed a skipping rope from them, or even going as far as gifting the girl next door an orange every single day on the bus to school until one day she took it with her right one. All of which failed miserably but she never gave up hope that one day it would simply happen without her having to think too much about it.

A small four-leaf clover resting directly in the palm of her right hand. It’s beautiful, and Mina often finds herself tracing it back and forth whenever she’s bored. Her father had explained to her that it must mean her life with her soulmate will be full of luck, but finding them alone will require a lot of luck, Mina isn’t so sure she’ll be gifted any more beyond that.

Today is no different from every other morning shift, no one bothers to enter for at least the first hour which means restocks and ordering anything that appears to be running low. The higher shelves she has to grab the old wooden ladders from the storeroom in the back, which, she’s convinced are going to one day give way and break causing her to crash through the display behind her. However, the manager, Mr. Kim,  no matter how many times she asks him to get some new ladders simply states that he’s going to soon. When soon is exactly, Mina has no idea but she doubts it will be soon.

“Is anyone working?” A high-pitched voice calls out close to the counter. From her spot on the bottom rung of the ladders, Mina can only just say make out some brown hair.

The bell for the door to signal a customer had entered has clearly not done its job as Mina quickly rushes around to see who it is that’s waiting for her. Fortunately, it isn’t one of the angry customers who no doubt would have put in a complaint about her for not being at the counter, but instead, it’s Sana who works in the coffee shop just up the street and often calls in for a morning visit when they’re both on earlies. Mina thinks Sana has a sixth sense about this because they’ve never formally exchanged schedules with one another nor do they know each other beyond each other’s respective workplaces.

Sana’s own soul mark is directly under her left eye, a small golden star with sparks flying off of it. Mina adores it and finds that it makes Sana’s already beautiful eyes even more charming to look at.

“Ah, there you are Mina. Here, I brought you your usual. If the morning is kicking my ass, I know it is for you too.” Sana says as she hands over Mina’s usual order of an americano. Her eyes look tired and Mina can tell she isn’t fully present as of yet. “What were you doing? Do you know the bell is broken?”

“Restocks,” She quickly takes a sip of the piping hot drink, Sana subconsciously doing the same but regretting it when it burns her tongue a little. “Thank you for this. It was warm out on my walk-in but those clouds look threatening.” The pair of them look out the window to see the sky now lacking the sun-flamed sky that Mina adores and replaced by dark, overcast clouds. “No, I didn’t know the bell was broken until now, it seems everything is falling apart in here.”

“Did you get your new ladders yet?”

“Nope.” Mina pauses to look back toward where they’re just standing in the middle of an aisle and gives herself a mental reminder to move them once Sana leaves. “I’m thinking about just fetching my own in from home, we’re never going to get them and now, the bell probably won’t be fixed for the foreseeable.”

Sana’s eyes follow Mina’s toward the aisles and then drift up toward the bell above the door. She places her cup down onto the counter and taps Mina’s hand to get her attention back on herself.

“Don’t bring your own. I might know someone who can bring you some and fix the doorbell, you’ll still be here at 1 PM, right?”

“Yeah, I finish at 3, but you know he’ll never agree to pay for any repairs Sana, and especially not ones he hasn’t personally authorized”

“Don’t worry about it Mina, she owes me a favor anyway. Just take it as yet another act of kindness from your favorite and prettiest barista.” Sana chortles, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Oh, Jeongyeon is going to get some new ladders for me? I didn’t realize that’s what you meant.” Mina jokes knowing just how to make Sana a little jealous.

“Very funny, you know I meant myself, not her… Though now you’ve said it, you’re right, it could have meant her.” There’s a quick flash of Sana’s eyes unfocusing and drifting off likely to thoughts of her co-worker who she’s been dating for around a year. They aren’t soulmates but Jeongyeon isn’t a believer and Sana thinks she has too much love to give for one person. However, Mina has often caught Jeongyeon tenderly stroking Sana’s soul mark whenever they believe no one is around.

“Who is it?” Mina queries upon realizing Sana never said who it was that would be her savior.

“Hm? Oh… right. Don’t worry about it, just a friend of mine who can repair it for you.” Sana quickly looks up toward the clock on the back wall and picks her cup up from the counter before shifting toward the door, bell once again not working when she opens it.  “Okay, I gotta go but 1 PM, be here not hiding in an aisle, or next time I might just snitch to Mr. Kim. Bye!” She shouts heading out before Mna can say goodbye in return.

It’s a fairly easy day, the weather does indeed end up turning sour as a downpour quickly starts not long after Sana had left and doesn’t ease up even for a second. There are only a handful of customers who enter and the majority of them are simply trying to escape the rain, which Mina is supposed to ask whether they’re going to purchase anything or not but she doesn’t have the heart to force them out into the cold, thus there was at one point just a collective of people stood by the door hoping for a dry spell that never arrives. They do all fortunately shuffle off one by one, all of which running to their cars or the next building for shelter.

By the time 1 PM rolls around, Mina had completely forgotten about her conversation with Sana. The ongoing entertainment of watching people force their jackets up over their heads whilst trying not to walk into streetlights had provided enough of a distraction for her. So, when someone with their coat up over their head holding a pair of ladders enters the shop, Mina simply believes they’re a customer.

The coat comes down to rest around her shoulders and reveals a face that is small yet striking. Eyes dark and wide, nose bright red from the cold, and the rest of her skin an olive color. She’s tall, quite tall in fact as she stands above the very ladders she’s holding around her left arm. A toolkit rests in her right hand, it’s small but looks heavy, however, if it is, the girl doesn’t let on as she carries it easily. Her frame hidden by the huge coat slumped around her but Mina finds her breathtaking and can’t quite remove her eyes from her face.

“Um… hello?” The girl waves a hand in front of Mina’s face dragging her out of the hypnosis she’s sure this girl had just put her under. “Are you Mina?” Yet again, Mina drifts off elsewhere upon hearing her name exit this girl’s mouth so softly.

“Y-Yes... I am… Mina. Yes. Sorry. I’m Mina.” She stutters, quickly trying to make even a slight bit of sense.

“Yeah, I got it the first time. Sana told me you need some ladders and your doorbell is broke?” The girl poses as a question but quickly gets to work looking at the doorbell which isn’t far away from her head but Mina would struggle to get anywhere close to reaching it. “Those are yours, by the way.” She points toward the ladders. They’re brand new, metal. Far sturdier than the wooden ones.

“Thank you, um…” Mina hesitates, realizing she hadn’t asked for the girl’s name as of yet, nor did Sana tell her who she was.

“Tzuyu.” She states flatly, never bothering to look back toward Mina whose eyes are piercing through the back of Tzuyu’s head never moving.

It doesn’t take her long to fix the doorbell. The batteries inside had managed to corrode and damaged some of the inner-wirings but luckily, Tzuyu had some spare on hand in her toolbox and got it back to signaling the door opening and closing in no time. Mina has no idea what Tzuyu has just technically done as she’s never been the most gifted when it comes to repairs, however, watching her weave the wiring together and connect all of the pieces back together certainly looked impressive.

There’s an awkward silence for a second as Tzuyu steps away from the door to finally look at Mina once again, neither of them knowing how to finish off this unpaid transaction of services.

“Um… Thank you,” Mina starts, but is unsure how to continue, just knows that she wants to continue talking. “So, Sana said you’re doing this as a favor to her?” Mina tries to ask, Tzuyu, however, moves to retrieve her toolkit from the ground.

“Yes. She’s a good friend.” Tzuyu says coldly, turning toward the door to leave but then swiftly back to the counter. “It was… It was nice to meet you, Mina.” Her voice more upbeat this time, yet forced as she outstretches her right hand in front of Mina.

Without hesitating, Mina grasps her hand in her own in a handshake. However, her skin immediately feels an electric shock the second their palms connect with one another, and Mina is stunned into just standing there frozen. Tzuyu is the first to pull her hand away which startles Mina back to reality realizing she wasn’t alone in feeling it. But, before she’s given the opportunity to talk to the girl in front of her the small four-leaf clover resting in the center of Tzuyu’s palm quietens any words that were close to escaping leaving them stuck in her throat.

Tzuyu catches sight of Mina’s same soul mark and immediately rushes out of the door and away from her without a word.

A big part of Mina is telling her not to be stupid, telling her not to risk her job by chasing after her and potentially being seen as a weird stalker. However, the other side that desperately wants to figure out if this moment is the one she’s been searching for, the one she’s been seeking since the very first time she was even told about soulmates. With the consequences for her actions at the very back of her head, she dashes out of the door following Tzuyu and runs to catch up with her, stopping outside of the coffee shop where Sana works as she grabs onto Tzuyu’s arm to stop her, the same shock feeling coursing across her skin as she does so.

“You have it too and you feel it. Tell me… that you feel that.” Mina huffs out, breath struggling to catch up to her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tzuyu blurts out hurriedly upon noticing some eyes starting to watch on, her own eyes refusing to look at Mina. “Let me go.”

“No, I know you feel it. I saw you pull away just before… and you have the same mark like me. You know what this means, right?”

The silence between them returns as both Sana and Jeongyeon exit the coffee shop together to watch the interaction between the two girls unfold, a few people stop in the middle of the street to eavesdrop in, one of them even pulling out their phone to record it. Jeongyeon moves to ask them to put their phone away and they reluctantly comply.

“Is everything okay, Mina?” Sana asks.

“Yes, Sana, everything is fine.” Tzuyu answers for her. “Go back inside.”

The two girls shuffle back into the coffee shop, however, they remain by the door just in case whatever is happening between Mina and Tzuyu goes further downhill than it clearly already is even if neither of them will say why.

“Please, just say something… I know you have it too.”

“Look, Mina… I don’t know what kind of fantasy world you’ve created for yourself inside your head that you so clearly live in… but just because you have the same tiny little mark as someone doesn’t mean anything. Yes, everyday people rely on such a silly little thing to determine their entire lives, and good for them if that’s what they want. But it isn’t for me. You’re not for me.” Tzuyu’s voice cold and without any emotion whatsoever, and yet Mina can feel every single emotion inside herself all at once fighting for dominance over which one will retort back to her.

“But…” Mina barely whispers, unable to form a full sentence.

“But nothing, we just met.. You can’t really believe that we’re now supposed to spend the rest of our lives together because of that one single moment.” Tzuyu pauses, waiting to see if Mina will answer before continuing when she doesn’t. “Plus… I already… I already have a girlfriend.”

For the first time in her life, doubt about who she is supposed to spend her life with has managed to creep up and break down all of the previous standards for love Mina had put. Her hand uncurls itself from around Tzuyu’s arm and she sinks down to the floor because she’s right. All this time, Mina thought that having a soulmate or one set person who you’re supposed to always be with was how life is supposed to be, giving it far too much control and power over her to the point where she has likely pushed away plenty of others who would have no doubt made her happy, made her fall in love, and made her look forward to her future.

Instead, she’s given all of the power and control to someone she hadn’t even met yet. Now that she has, she realizes her mistake because Tzuyu could never be the one for her, even if the mark is there. They are not compatible whatsoever, not at this moment. Perhaps, during different times in their lives, they could be perfect for one another, and perhaps they could live out all of the things Mina has dreamed about. But Tzuyu is taken, and Mina is too much of a fantasist.

Mina can feel Sana and Jeongyeon slowly raise her up off the ground, however, her entire focus is on Tzuyu’s retreating figure walking away from her down the street. She can hear them talking to her and asking what has happened but her throat is unable to produce sound. Everything feels so cold and as if she’s surrounded by emptiness.

Perhaps, there is no such thing as soulmates after all. Perhaps, there never will be.

[aconboyindependent2021]

‘Now and Then’ - current state of play

My film is a re-imagining of the site of Brighton General Hospital next to my home. Until around 70 years ago, a workhouse operated on the site (for details, see: Gardner, J, (2012) A History of the Brighton Workhouses). Aspects of the austere workhouse are still evident on the site today. I began to think about the stories of the residents of the workhouse – what did they have to endure? With this in mind, I bought the above book by a local author about the history of workhouses in Brighton.

I have always been fascinated by the idea that traumatic events in a particular location can be recorded and replayed at a later time in history and that this might be a basis for ghosts and hauntings – for example, in the blockbuster, Poltergeist, and the BBC drama from the 1970’s The Stone Tapes (Sasdy, 1972). This is one of the key concepts behind the film.

After a lot of thought, I settled on the story of the workhouse being told by a single woman, Agatha, whose infant child was taken from her illegally and sold to a rich couple living in Brighton. This is a variation on the common Victorian  practice of unmarried women being compelled to give their children to a foundling home.

The film starts with Aggie telling her story in largely neutral terms and comparing the workhouse and the site’s positive use today as a hospital, but it climaxes with Aggie screaming with the loss of her child, and we see that she is a tormented spectre.The film ends with her anguish fading into a sign on the present site, promoting a nursery for infant children.

The film will be around 5-6 minutes long and will consist of edited original footage taken on the site in the present day. The film will be treated with video effects to alter the pacing, colour and atmosphere of the original footage. I have asked for a drama-trained friend to narrate the film as Aggie and will be using original and library sound effects and music motifs, or possibly drones to punctuate the soundtrack.

Now and Then – influences from other artists

1. Brian Percival - About a Girl

Female voice-over revealing a terrifying truth about motherhood at the end of the film. This film gives a cold dead feeling inside from the casual yet downcast demeanor as the leading character talks about her dysfunctional life and especially the ending, where the girl is revealed to have secretly miscarried a baby and we see her dump it into the canal (“I’ve become good at hiding things”). Both my film and About A Girl attempt to humanise the female main character outside of their tragedies.

2. Tobe Hooper - director of Poltergeist Paranormal activity centred around past events and the presence of aggrieved spirits. This was a film that made an impact on me from its non-stop tension, even before the presence of the supernatural becomes apparent. Tobe Hooper, ever since creating The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) has achieved many awards, and after this film, it is easy to see why. It also has a similar plot to my initial idea for my film - where a great wrong done in the past creates a ‘haunting’ by aggrieved spirit(s)..

3. Peter Sasdy – Director of The Stone Tape (1972)

The original idea from the film was stones “recording” traumatic events from the past. While the current draft has drifted away from this concept, it still lives on with how Agatha remembers everything about the past as if she died yesterday, despite the superficial veneer of the current day hospital. However, Agatha is a real soul though in my film.

4. David Lynch - Eraserhead, The Elephant Man His black and white films – particularly The Elephant Man In the latter, view of Victorian England shot in black and white featuring cruelty and time-specific sounds, sights and atmospheres. The film always seems to have a sense of foreboding, even when the scene is uneventful, and with a deeply engaging soundtrack. Eraserhead will always always be an influence due to its deliberate disturbing monochrome style, investigation of altered perception and the anxieties of parenthood.

5. James Gardener- Author of: A Complete History Of Brighton Workhouses A detailed and easy-to-understand book centred around the original workhouse in my area. It includes the Brighton General Hospital Site. It helped give a real-life grounding to my supernatural tale.

6. Richard Boden - director of the Blackadder series 4 finale, Goodbyeee The series as a whole has very little to do with my film, but this is a powerful episode whose fade-out ending and closing-sound inspired the cross-dissolve effects and soundscape in my film - coincidentally both are centered with the cruelty of the past and atmospheric sound. Present and past merge at this point. One of the most popular scenes in TV drama/comedy and understandably so too.

7. Piotr Obal – various films and still images Obal is an independent artist who works with art, music and still photography. Occasionally, he teaches youths how to work at the computer like me (!) when he was helping out with an arts award I was studying for. Below is one of his images that has been an influence on me and the film. I love his Photoshop collages and the wonderful images he posts from his native Poland.

                                                        Work by Piotr Obal

8. Nalini Malani- for her immersive installations, ‘disgraced’ women under partiarchy, history and mythology, miscarriages of justice. I found out about Malini when I was writing my essay on her work in the  Diversity module: what started off as just finding out about an artist for the sake of my writing became a long-lasting admiration and inspiration from an artist who not only knows where she is coming from (from her upbringing hugely affected by India and Pakistan’s partition) but willingly sticks her neck out for those oppressed by society and history, and confidently shows her creations to the world. A particularly relevant aspect of her work is her use of the supernatural and mythology stories and myths to highlight aspects of women’s oppression throughout history.

9. Chris Butler- director of ParaNorman A key influence, supposedly aimed at children, I used the same of the spectre in this moving animation, and I was influenced by its themes about the cruelties of humanity and how we “moved on”. The spectre is a ghost of a falsely accused of being a ‘witch’ who wreaks her revenge on those who persecuted her.

It was also a strong influence that is more powerful at its climax and twist. In-depth look at how prejudice destroys lives that are never regained - even  death provides no relief. Butler is a part of Studio Laika, creating animated films that go beyond the norm.

10. Jacqueline Wilson - the writer of the Hetty Feather trilogy and other such Victorian novels such as Clover Moon.

A part of Jacqueline’s writings is her commentary about how unjust the past could be compared to today: even though her protagonists speak in ways that were customary to Victorians, she keeps them relatable the same way she keeps her modern-day protagonists relatable. The writing style of her books inspired certain characteristics of Agatha’s narration, because it was easy to understand yet engaging.

11. David Lean  - Director of Great Expectations (1946) This film, based on the Dickens book,  also brought to mind the cruel period of the Victorian era, and the acting and emotions continued that spirit and my inspiration around my project. I love that it is black and white as well as dialog-centred - I particularly like the formal style of speech - even to express negative emotions- for example:

“Let me point out the topic that in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth for fear of accidents. It's scarcely worth mentioning, Only it's as well to do as others do”.

Miss Havisham, an almost ghostly older woman, in a similar way to Agatha cannot move beyond the terrible wrong done to her - she was left at the alter and devoted her life to training her adopted daughter, Estella, to get revenge on men.I use s similar obsessive, sing-minded hatred to motivate Agatha.

12. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

This film involve a man becoming the object of affection of a former silent movie star, Norma Desmond who overtake his life little by little until she kills him. Norma suffered with the times when silent movies went out of fashion and she is unable to move on, alone in her great house: people told Norma that she had no value and it had an impact on her psyche. She loses all sanity when arrested for killing Joe Gillis as she believes she is back in show business. The film also explores facades; Norma may live a glamorous if not lonely life, but her mental state torments her, like Aggie has with hers as she wanders around the hospital site driven ‘mad’ with grief and anger.  

13. R D Laing: ‘anti-psychiatrist’

'Here was someone explaining madness, showing how the fragmentation of the person was an intelligible response to an intolerable pressure”

Quote from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/25/rd-laing-aaron-esterson-mental-illness

 In discussing the concept of my film with a member of my family, I was directed to the psychiatrist/anti-psychiatrist, RD Laing. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s Laing wrote about how a person’s so-called ‘mad’ behaviour was in fact intelligible when their entire situation and experience was taken into account. He and other writers (like David Cooper) talked about the concept of the ‘double-bind’ where a person’s opportunity to make a decision to resolve the way they were being treated was blocked – perhaps by a member of their family saying that it was not in their personality to be assertive or angry.

This reminded me very much of Agatha; she tries to express her outrage at the great wrong done to her, but she is judged as unworthy and undeserving, so the wrong is seen as justified and her punishment for being the ‘low-life’ who would have a child and have to live in a workhouse. It is circular – she is treated badly because she deserves to be treated badly and so this means that her hatred and insanity brings the great wrong up herself.

Laing is largely forgotten today, but his ideas resonate with certain ideas in feminism and anti-racism. ‘Gaslighting’ is everywhere, both back then and now.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NnBonXPLJM

[dayenurose]

A little while back @deadhermiteyes posted a lovely piece of Dick/Babs fan art she drew. (View it here! It really is lovely). And she happened to mention that she’d like it if someone would write something based off of it. Which, in turn, kick-started my writing brain and I was inspired to write this piece.

A couple of quick notes… The artist captioned her picture with the line: “We used to leave the galas and come here all the time when we were kids, Dick. They’re gonna find us!” I have included it in the story (with a minor edit). All credit for that line goes to her.

Also, she mentioned wanting something angsty, so there is angst.

[Read on ao3]

Enjoy…

Moving On

The gala was in full swing. Photo ops had been snapped and sound bites gathered. The charity had been praised—a foundation supporting adult literacy programs—and the family thanked for their continuing support. Especially in these trying times.... The evening had marched on at a maddening slow pace until Dick didn’t think he could stand another moment of this farce. Then, as it had always been the case since he was a child, there was a moment when the crowd ceased to pay attention to him and he might as well have been invisible. Taking advantage of this lapse of attention, Dick slipped away from the gala and made good his escape. He had a few minutes before he would be missed.

Leaving the party behind, Dick made his way to the roof. The access door shut behind him on groaning hinges, leaving him alone in the blissful silence of the rooftop garden. Listlessly he meandered along the path which wound in and out of various garden patches, while his thoughts wandered a less steady way.  

They had convinced him to come tonight. They had told him it was time, that this was important, but the gala had been too much. Too many people with too many questions. He had to get away. Even if it was only for a moment. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply and took in the cool night air heavy with the promise of rain. This he missed.

From this perspective, high over the city, Dick felt more at home than he did when he was on the ground below, mingling with people he scarcely knew. Playing a role and moving on. He hated that phrase. That was all anyone said to him anymore.

Dick sat along the low retaining wall, confident he would not fall despite being six stories above the ground. Shrugging out of his jacket and loosening his tie, he abandoned both on the ledge beside him. They were strangling him. He could barely breathe as it was. He needed...he needed her.

It had been too long since he’d taken to the rooftops. He couldn’t, not anymore. It would be foolish, irresponsible. He wouldn’t.  

Still, Dick could taste the freedom which leaping off rooftops and gliding through the air had always granted him before. It had been too long since he felt like the “daring young man on the flying trapeze.” Oh, how she used to tease him.

Shaking his head as though it were possible to clear his brain of the unwanted thoughts. Too many memories clung to his shoulders —clipped his wings and pinioned him to the ground. The wind bit through the thin silk of his shirt and ruffled his hair. Tomorrow, he told himself, I’ll go back on the trapeze tomorrow. From there, maybe things would look brighter. It had helped in the past. He just needed this tonight.

Retrieving the device from his jacket pocket, Dick turned it over and over again in his hands. He shouldn’t be doing this. He promised....

With a click, Dick turned on the device, set it on the ledge and waited.

“Dick? Are you up here?” Babs’ voice rang through the otherwise silent night. It was too close, while at the same time being far too distant.

Hesitating for only a moment, Dick pushed himself to his feet and stood as still as stone. He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be here. He needed to stop living in the past.

“Dick, where are you? This isn’t funny.” Despite the rebuke in her words, there was amusement in her voice.

He didn’t rush to her as had once been his custom. Instead he stayed his mark. If he wanted this, he needed to stay here. To endure the wait, Dick closed his eyes and breathed deeply. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t quite fill his lungs.

“There you are, Hunk Wonder,” Babs called as she rounded the corner of the path. Her movements were slow and a bit awkward. After the experimental spinal surgery started to fail, she had good days and bad ones. More often than not, she spent most of her time in her wheelchair than not. But, for this occasion, she’d felt up to walking.

“Yeah, here I am.” His voice almost sounded normal. Not that she would notice one way or the other.

Dick opened his eyes and openly stared at Babs, drinking in every detail. Her smile lit up her face and a teasing glimmer sparked in her green eyes. At the sight of her, his heart raced in his chest. His expression softened and his lips curled into a smile. This...he needed this.

Her eyes. They sparked with more excitement than they usually did when they met for these secret assignations. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Dick grinned. “I needed to get away for a moment.”

“I know. Me too. No matter how many times we do this, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to all this hobnobbing.” The breeze caught at her hair as she pulled out the pins and allowed the long locks to tumble about her shoulders. The loose braid which had formally accented the updo was quickly lost amid the red curls. She massaged her temples and exhaled a sigh of relief. “That feels better.”

He wanted to run his fingers through her hair, but held back.

Taking a step closer, she shivered and ran a hand over her bare arms. “It’s getting too cold for rooftop meetings.”

“But the view is gorgeous.” His gaze followed the deep v neckline of her dark charcoal dress.

A rosy flush coloured her pale cheeks as she followed the progression of his hungry gaze.  “Dick, not here. We used to leave the galas and come here all the time when we were kids. They’re gonna find us!”

“We have a few minutes before anyone will miss us,” he mumbled. Spinning her around so her back pressed against his front, Dick wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, interlacing their fingers. The pose wasn’t as easy or as comfortable, as it had once been. His left arm traced down the length of hers until he captured her hand in his. He tried ignore the missing cool metal of her wedding band. Babs giggled, the joy effusing every ounce of her being.

“The gardens look lovely. You did a great job.” Though he was trying to distract her from the cold and the thoughts of discovery, Dick truly meant the compliment. Babs had helped create this little haven of green in their city. Each of the half dozen or so plots contained a different colorful and fragrant offering.

Never one to forget the hardships of the No Mans Land quarantine, Babs had insisted they include vegetables among the gardens. There were tomatoes and peppers. Heads of lettuce and kale. Zucchini vines snaked their way through the neat rows.

Not far from where he stood now, a small patch of wild flowers grew nearby, offering a colorful bounty of flowers. A trio of beehives nestled among the daisies, clovers, and a myriad of other flowers he couldn’t name. The bee were quiet in the deepening night, though in the morning the buzz of an active hive would begin anew.

Closing his eyes, he dipped his head and tried to prolong the moment. Breathing deeply, he inhaled rose and lavender. The scent he loved—the one he longed for—was missing. Long gone was the subtle, sweet scent of vanilla. Babs had once admitted she preferred a perfume with a touch of vanilla. It reminded her of the old books she loved. She’d explained the chemistry—as the paper broke down, it carried the scent of vanillin. Her passion for books was one of the many things he loved about her. He could not count the number...

“Dick,” Babs’ voice interrupted his runaway thoughts. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Mmhmm,” Dick managed to choke around the lump in his throat, no longer able to pretend everything was okay. No longer able to stick to the script. Babs continued as though he had never missed his cue. He opened his eyes to see her face, needing to see it one more time.

Who was he kidding? Once more would never be enough. Her green eyes are bright with all the potential of bright tomorrows. She flickered in his arms.

“Dick...”

The access door creaked, breaking the moment before she could share the news.

“Daddy? Are you up here?”

Dick started. The image of Babs flickered again as he stumbled back and scrambled for the projector from its place on the ledge. He flicked it off, leaving him once again alone.  

“Annie, I’m back here.” Dick dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief, though he couldn’t hide the red. He didn’t mind if his daughter saw the telltale signs of his tears. After all, It’s okay to cry, had become a near mantra around their home since Babs’ death six months ago. Over that span of time he had cried enough to fill the oceans of the world several times over.

No, he didn’t mind if she found him crying. Rather the problem was that once she located him, his time alone would be over. They would need to rejoin the gala. Once more he would be subject to the pitying glances, the uncomfortable silences, and—God forbid—the empty condolences. People were beginning to move from the ‘I understand, take all the time you need’ to the ‘Why aren’t you over this yet?’.  

Their extended family was better, but none of them knew how to help Dick and his children grieve. They couldn’t adopt the family’s usual method for dealing with loss. Cancer left no enemies to beat up. No mystery to solve, no justice to enact. Death’s revolving door stayed firmly shut this time. He was no Orpheus able to charm open the gates of Hades.

Annie found him exactly where he had stood. She clutched a book in her hands, grasping the spine until her knuckles turned white. Allowing her to bring a book was the only way he could get her to come. Behind her glasses, wide, lost eyes searched the gardens. She ran the last few feet to him and threw her arms around his waist in an embrace. With her face pressed into his shirt, it was hard to hear her amid the muffled sniffles. “I was scared when I couldn’t find you. I thought I lost you too.”

“I’m sorry sweetheart.” Dick gathered his daughter in his arms and held her to his chest. It hurt to look at her. She was so much like her mother with her bright red hair and the liberal sprinkling of freckles. Annie had his eyes—the shape and colour—but he always thought they shone with the same bright curiosity which had been Babs’. Before his legs gave way, Dick sank down to the ledge and resisted the urge to break down in sobs. He needed to be strong for her.

When Annie’s sniffling ceased, Dick relaxed his embrace. Annie slipped out of his arms. A Grayson through and through, his ten year old daughter showed no fear as she sat on the ledge beside him. Her leg bounced in an unsteady rhythm. Resting her head against his arm, they sat in silence listening for the hum of the traffic below.

“Where’s Henry?” Breaking the silence, Dick asked after her twin brother, the two were scarcely seen without the other. He slipped his jacket back on, but left off the tie.

Between all his siblings, Steph, Alfred, Bruce, and Jim—Dick and Babs had never worried about their children at events like these. With the training ingrained into each of them from their nights working together to keep Gotham safe, his family watched over his children. It was almost uncanny how the children passed from one set of watchful eyes to another without the explicit need to organize the process. But, like everything since Babs had died, that too seemed broken. She had held their little world together. When they had Oracle’s all seeing gaze watching their backs, the extended family’s self-appointed mission felt a little bit safer, a little more possible. Now, the Clocktower was empty, the Oracle was silenced.

A sob hitched in his chest. He pulled Annie close and held her tight.

Annie shrugged. “There’s too many people here, so he left with Aunt Cass. Grandpa Bruce knows...”

“You didn’t want to go with them?” He tried to keep his voice light. He didn’t care if she attended the party or not, just that she was safe.

“I wanted to find you first.” She worried her bottom lip. Silently she ticked off each member of their extended family on her fingers as she mentally recalled their locations.

Dick’s heart ached. His bold, vivacious children had turned quiet, never straying far from each other or family. Annie needed to know where everyone was at all times and Henry couldn’t stand crowds. If they hadn’t inherited Babs’ brilliance, there had been rumblings of holding them back a year in school. Dick was all they had now. He couldn’t be risking his life on a nightly basis. He couldn’t leave them orphans.

Annie picked up the projector and turned it over in her hands. “Is this Mama’s...?”

“Yes,” Dick plucked the device out of her hands. His fingers hovered over the switch. From diagnosis to her death, it had been nearly a year. It was all too short a time, but Babs had never given up hope. Even in her last pain filled days, Babs had never stopped trying to find ways to take care of them all. Trying to extend her reach beyond her passing.

In the time she had left, she and Dick had created the projector. Adapting her training room technology, they had created a way to record memories and play them back in lifelike vignettes. They had started with her memories, then his. It was all they had time for, before it was too late. He was suppose to continue adding stories—and the twins’, and her father’s, Bruce’s, his siblings’, her teams’, everyone whose lives she had touched. There had been so many. Once the collected stories were gathered and woven together, they would have a comprehensive record of Babs’ life.

“I miss Mama.” Annie ran her fingers along the spine of her book. It was the last book Babs had given their daughter. Though Annie carried it with her everywhere, she had yet to read it.

“Would you like to see what I was watching?” It was time to share this memory.

She nodded.

Dick flipped the switch. The image flickered to life (a sick feeling twisted in his stomach at that turn of phrase) and paused where he had left the scenario. This simulacrum of Dick and Babs were so young. Even his daughter noticed the difference. She ran a hand through her dad’s hair, now liberally streaked with grey. He no longer tried to hide the passage of time. Pressing the button again, the memory played from where he left off.

“Dick,” The memory-Babs repeated his name, making certain she had his attention. Their eyes locked and the love was unmistakable. Eager and hopeful. Even back then, he already knew what she was going to say. How could he not? Babs took one last deep breath, before announcing her news with a radiant smile. “I’m pregnant.”

The smile on Dick’s face was as brilliant as the sun. He swooped Babs up in his arms and spun her. When at last he set down his wife, he kept a steadying arm around her waist. Lightly pressing his free hand to her stomach, he leaned in and kissed her.

In the present, Dick allowed the image to linger for a moment before turning off the projector. Tears ran down Annie’s cheeks at the sight of her mama alive and vibrant.

“That’s the night we learned about you and your brother,” Dick murmured into his daughter’s hair, holding her close.

“I wish...I wish she could come back to us,” Annie whispered. “I miss her so much.”  

“So do I sweetheart. So do I.” Dick closed his eyes and breathed in the night. The subtle scent of vanilla was missing. Their world would never be the same. And it wasn’t meant to be. They would go on, somehow. He couldn’t see the way— yet—but he knew they would find it. Together.

[itsbuckysworld]

Hello Spring Day 13

Pairing: eventual bucky x reader Category: angst. for now. part two tomorrow night. Warnings: angst. Word Count: 2K Guest Appearance: mentions of Steef.

Summary: Bucky has a flower shop. Y/N has become a regular customer. Can they become more?

Day 13: bloom , for my Spring Short Story Writing Event

The bell dinged, welcoming in a new customer and prompting Bucky out of his hiding behind the counter.

The halls of the quaint shop were filled with flowers, illuminated brightly with the early sun passing straight through the large windows. In the mornings there was no need for lights to be turned on, only in the back with the storage and where other types of flowers that needed so, were kept.

Tying his apron, a tight knot behind his back, Bucky popped up from behind the dahlias to spot a young woman perusing the different arrangements with a soft grin on his face. He debated whether to interrupt her search by offering his assistance, he knew sometimes people didn’t want store clerks’ help. But still, he extended a good morning, after all he liked to be polite and kind to all his customers. The smile on her face widened when she looked up at him and then her eyes flicked over to the dahlias. Her face was bright and full of life, the light makeup complimented her wonderfully. A pep in her step as she inched closer, tip of her finger running delicately over the petals.

“Morning” she started “I’m looking for a small bouquet”

“That’s great, are you looking for something in particular?” the woman fixed her coat, pulling her purse up her shoulder as she turned to face him, immediately making Bucky’s cheeks flush red, maybe because of the proximity, maybe because she looked so young and bright and her happiness was possibly spreading throughout his shop, flowers immediately chirping up at the good vibes, seeming brighter and healthier. She shrugged.

“Don’t know. Something pretty, simple.” Bucky let out a small chuckle.

“May I ask what or who for?” again he received another shrug. 

“Myself.” eyes widening slightly, in happy surprise, Bucky found the thought rather nice. A woman in search to gift herself some flowers. Her cheeks reddened at the small pause “I just… I’ve decided to gift myself flowers every now and then–” she knelt a little, reaching to look at the sunflowers in buckets by the ground, closer, she gave them a short sniff, appreciating the scent. A warm smile that Bucky couldn’t keep at bay painted his features as the woman continued – “Why wait for someone to put something pretty in your day, am I right?”

“You’re very right” he said politely and offered his hand for her to stand up. “May I recommend something?”

“You’re the expert” and she follows Bucky to the next hall where he presents her with wonderful yellow daffodils, she gasps lowly, taking in the delicate flowers. 

“Daffodils. They represent new beginnings–” he picks one up from a basket, handing it over to her “simple, and very beautiful” she’s nodding her head, causing another chuckle to escape Bucky’s lips.

He prepares a small arrangement, pairing the daffodils with some greenery and a hint of blue, a very nice contrast, with some virginia bluebells – they symbolise humility and gratitude, he says, both things he already knows define this customer and her new journey to treating herself to something nice just because – wrapped with a pretty bow and the soft tissue paper with the shop’s logo, he hands them to her. As he swipes a small card with a code, she sees the total amount drop a few dollars, immediately questioning it, she receives a warm smile from Bucky. “That’s a gift from me. For this new beginning of yours” he doesn’t take a no for an answer and with a laugh and many thank you’s, the woman’s walking out his store and into the early day, a hop in her step as she carries her flowers with pride.

・‥…━━━━━━━ o ━━━━━━━…‥・

She’s back in a week, walking up to the counter and looking for Bucky who’s knelt under the table fetching some receipt paper. He almost hits his head when he hears her chipper “Good morning” so close to him. 

“Oh, hi!”

“So, here I am… again” he snickers

“I see that. How did you like the daffodils?”

“Wonderful. Managed to keep them alive for longer than I thought” and he laughs fully at this, her bright features and energy making him all warm inside.

“Sticking to making the gift yourself flowers a habit, I see. What are we in the mood for this week?” and there’s her cute shrug again. Putting down the papers he was looking for, he extends a hand as if saying follow me, and they run through the motions again. “Well then, allow me to formally introduce myself. I’m Bucky, hope to be seeing more of you”

“Y/N. And I hope so too.”

・‥…━━━━━━━ o ━━━━━━━…‥・

It turns into a routine, she stops by every Monday, bright and early, when it’s only him in the shop, before his employees even show up, so she’s surprised one week a month later, when she’s greeted by a girl named Wanda, and Bucky is taking fast steps from the back, removing his gardening gloves and thanking the young girl, saying he’s taking over – It’s probably the earliest Wanda has shown up to work, he explains as they walk down the aisles filled with lavenders, between smiles and laughter –

He gives her gardening tips, even recommends tools for beginners when she expresses her interest in starting a small garden in her very limited patch of front yard. Every week he runs her through a new flower, a new meaning, and each week she takes with her a different bouquet prepared by him. He even tells her tricks to keep her flowers alive longer, a little afraid that if her plants live longer he’ll see her less, but she still makes the visit weekly no matter what.

Every week they learn a bit more about each other as well, as Bucky insists to hear what she’s looking for or feeling, to recommend a flower fit for every occasion.

Zinnias, a reminder to never forget absent friends one week when she tells him her childhood best friend visited from Spain, and is leaving back there soon. Bucky in turn, talks about Steve, his childhood friend who despite physically changing from 0 to a 100 over the years, is still the same dork he used to run to school with in the mornings.

Lily of The Vally, they represent sweetness, one week when there’s nothing going on, but Bucky admits he’s pleasantly baffled by how sweet she always is, coming in and spending some time with him and always so polite. Plus she’s dressed in the cutest dress he’s seen. She’s blushing like mad when she steps out to the busy streets of New York, on her way to work.

Morning Glory, much like the two of them, awake early and ready to face the day. That one’s more on Bucky’s part, a way to say he appreciates these weekly encounters.

Purple Crocus, a representation of the first days of spring, youthful happiness, one week she’s extra excited over a project at work that is going perfectly according to plan. He throws in a little handwritten note tied to the bow – This is your week, don’t give up - B.B – And Chamomiles a few weeks later when things at work are getting scarily hectic, a reminder to maintain calm and to find the energy in adversity.

He fills empty spaces in a bouquet, one Monday before she’s off on a business trip, with forget-me-nots, the warmth in his cheeks so strong he tries to avoid her eyes, suddenly shy and terrified that it’s too much, that he’s not that important in her life to be asking her to not forget him and come back for her flowers when she returns. Two weeks later she’s back and he’s prepared a second bouquet for her, for the lost week, filled with daffodils, a little throwback to their first meeting that she takes home alongside the current week’s new one.

He spritzes clovers when he’s feeling more brave, and hopes she remembers he once told her they mean someone is thinking about you, he prays she understands that he’s thinking about her.

・‥…━━━━━━━ o ━━━━━━━…‥・

The bell dings one monday morning and Bucky’s palms are sweaty, his eyes nervously stare at the bouquet he’s prepared beforehand. He’s been thinking about it for two weeks now, selecting the best of the best and hoping that the meaning comes through. He turns on his heel to greet Y/N, who’s become a constant in his life. It’s been three months of seeing her every monday morning and walking with her down the seemingly endless halls of flowers, watching her face relax, her cheeks tint red and her features become happy each time, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t do something to his heart every time she gave him her signature smile before leaving the shop, making him wish to see her again right away.

They greet each other with hugs now, and she often places a hand on his elbow as they walk through the store, recounting their weeks to each other like long time friends, and Bucky would be lying straight through his teeth if he said it didn’t fill his heart with butterflies and petals and everything else.

They chit chat, unaware of the time, unaware of the people walking by, it’s just them in the little shop, with Bucky talking about which flowers will be in bloom next season, and Y/N listening to his every word with the sweetest smile on her face, it’s disarming really, he doesn’t know how he hasn’t fallen flat on his face already, always so lost in her eyes.

As he ties a bow around the bouquet she’s prepared for the day – picked every flower and accompanying vine and fillers all herself thanks to his classes – he places it carefully in her hands, then he’s kneeling to reach under the counter, grabbing his bouquet. “And, uh, this” he says, trying to fight the nerves and the blush. His hands are basically shaking, spent all morning fiddling his thumbs and clearing his throat – when she had asked, he lied that maybe he was coming down with something, to which he almost melted when she delicately placed her hand on his forehead claiming he wasn’t warm, but should be careful, and then their leisurely walk resumed, Y/N completely unaware of his heart resembling a drum solo in a rock song –

“What’s this?” she asks, confused but the smile still remains. She eyes the pretty flowers, it’s a nice arrangement. Red tulips and some of her new favourites thanks to him, yellow daffodils. According to Bucky’s lessons these two don’t necessarily go together, due to their colors and whatnot, but he also says he likes to combine flowers to deliver a more complex feeling. “That one’s from me… t-to you” another clear of his throat, a hand scratching behind his neck, his cheeks becoming flaming red. She’s eyeing him cheekily, a laugh on her lips as she holds one finger up. “Ok wait… daffodils, new beginnings” she starts and Bucky nods shyly “and red tulips… a declaration…” her voice fades, and so does her smile, her lips now forming a slight ‘o’ after a short gasp has left her mouth. A declaration of love. Bucky’s breath is caught in his throat in anticipation as her fingers run down the stems and find the note attached. He knows what it says by heart – he spent his entire sunday night writing and rewriting and rewriting the note, until something sounded decent –

Daffodils for this new beginning you’ve given me, every week. Tulips for all the butterflies you continue to give me. Would you like to go on a date with me?

He waits there in silence, without a single clue as to what her face means, and with every inch of his body trembling in nerves.

He can’t hear it, but he sees it, how her lips form in the last word he was expecting and she’s babbling apologies, as if she can somehow fix this, whatever it is, whatever needs fixing. But it’s fine, he says, and he picks up the bouquet she’s placed down almost like it had burned her hands. He doesn’t say much, just tries his best to give her his usual smile, still replaying her saying “sorry, I’m sorry Bucky I-” and then she’s out the door with the bouquet she prepared for herself, and a big chunk of his heart. He’s left with tulips and daffodils in a trashcan, and all the flowers in the shop look a little sadder now. All he has now are these flowers to tend for and a hole in his chest, and the memories of mondays.

The bell on the door doesn’t ding bright and early next monday. Or the next.

allow me to explain how my brain works before @delicatelyherdreams​ murders me. Sometimes i have the fluffiest of pieces thought out and midway through writing my brain goes “what if one of them dies” or “what if one of them is engaged and you reveal it in the end, turn this fluffy pining into pain” and sometimes i just roll with it and end up writing 2 endings and having to choose. 

Since I haven’t done much angst on this blog here’s some more of it. Viva the diversity? BUT ALSO THANKS TO ELLE AND SINCE SOME OF U ASKED, THIS WILL HAVE A PART TWO WITH ALL THE FLUFF!

feedback is greatly appreciated and encouraged!

[lettersfromleslie]

INCH BY INCH, ROW BY ROW / WHAT TO DO WITH THE NEW & FREAKY / SPRINGY LEAPS & MONEY, HONEY

Agh! Raccoons! When people ask me what’s going on with my life these days it immediately sets me to frothing at the mouth. Raccoon warfare! That’s what’s been going on, goddamnit! It’s been a brutal and bloodthirsty spring, me hearties. Nothing is safe from the fuckers. Picture this: all winter long you’ve dreamed of turning your weird overgrown jungle of a backyard into, you know, a Garden, with flowers and clover and edible delights, balmy summer enclave, symbol of maturity and prosperity and all that... You clear out the giant weeds, bag em, trash em, you hammer together planters, you make complicated trips to Home Depot, you... adult, in short. If you can grow a tomato you must have your shit fairly together, is the idea…

Yeah, and next thing you know you’re out on your back porch on an angry drunk, brandishing a spray bottle of vinegar and cayenne in one hand and a slingshot in the other, screaming bloody murder at the latest fucking raccoon bastard who’s come to dig holes all over your paradise-in-progress - invariably, and with bewildering accuracy, right in all the spots you care about. Lil shit-weasels! And they’re breeding, at that! And it doesn’t help that they’re so goddamn adorable! I want to hug them and kiss them! But hands off, you little bastards!


They remind me too much of myself, is the problem. Or the way I used to be, at any rate. Cheeky lil freeloaders, that’s what they are. Christ, and what a lot of the same crap I used to get up to! Sneaking into people’s gardens, as it were, and stealing their worms. No regrets, of course, we cherish the old war stories, but this all stinks of karma. At least it’s a chance to improve my slingshot skills. Bound to come in handy once the apocalypse hits.

Takes up a lot of mental real estate, raccoon warfare. Keeps you up at night, their insane chattering. Well. But I’ve been busy on other scores, too. After the dust settled on the new record a lil I came to the regrettable decision to Get Weird with my music, and now I’m stuck with a load of weird shit I have no idea what to do with. Completely unmarketable in my current form. I deliberately don’t say “its” current form - nothing wrong with a bit of weirdness - but the messenger needs a makeover. That’s what you get for going all in on the folky balladeer thing. It’s not the only trick I got, people! It just kinda comes across that way if you’ve only ever seen me do that whole thing. Big changes may be hard to sell to all my loyal fans (dozens!) who’ve added me on their spotify expecting a nice woodsy escape from their hectic and frightening existences in the Age of the Spider, only to be dished up strange and electronically warped songs about bananamoons and the like. A new name might be in order. Then again, maybe I underestimate my potential for malleability. Might be insecurity talking. Hey, you - if you’re reading this, I know you must be a thoughtful type - come out of the woodwork, damnit, and shoot me a message! I’ll send you some tracks and you tell me what to do with em. I need a sounding board! I need input and advice! Lonely road for the pancake chef. The winter was a bit of a drag, but I guess it all slips by pretty quick if you’re hanging out with someone you love and you’ve got some semblance of good health & keepin the bad habits in check. Y’know, time, it goes. I’d like to think I kept busy but it somehow doesn’t bear thinking about right now. The weather has turned, we’re about to embark on another long hot New York stinker, and I couldn’t be happier - that means it’s park season again, and I get to feel like a real fancy boy till the cold comes back. Can’t wait! Winter has a way of bringing me low, if not in mood - I haven’t had to deal with any serious depression since I made my Great Escape in 2011, thank christ - then in spirit and self-esteem. I love what I do and I’d take serenading strangers in the subway over just about any other job there is, but it can blunt the ego a bit after a while what with all that cold and indifference you get down there during the grizzly months. Time to build it back up! And make a bit of cash, too.

Speaking of, I’m sure a lot of you (speaking generally about my busking customers) have some curiosity about the nitty gritty of this lifestyle, & how I sustain myself and how it all fits together. All things considered I’ve got a pretty sweet lil deal going, if you hold me up against the industry as a whole. I reckon I’ll have a think about it and write up a little story about it for my next post here - probably something I should’ve done years ago. It’s all become kinda routine for me but I’m still pretty proud of living outside of the machine. Makes for a lot of interesting twists and turns and enough financial insecurity to keep you from slipping too far out of the present. I’ve always thought a steady and reliable paycheck would probably make me even more lazy and complacent than I already am. But then I wouldn’t know, would I? If you’ve got some extra money lying about just send it my way and I’ll tell you how it goes. 
 Okay, I’ll choose some pics to stick on here and call it a day. I meant it about writing me. The line’s open. Would be nice if only to find out if anyone ever reads this damn thing.

Over & out!

[zipporahtravels]

The “quiet, radical, environmental act” of a meal at the Clover Food Lab

As a twenty-something college student in Boston, I, of course, knew of Clover Food Lab. I’d walked past its locations in Cambridge and seen the hoards of MIT and Harvard students crowding for the restaurants farm to table fare, but I’d never been myself. It was in that category of restaurant that I’ve found myself having repeated conversations about. I would mention that I’d never been and someone inevitably would chime in with a, “You have to try it!” 

I’m glad I finally did before the opportunity was closed to me for the foreseeable future. We’re currently living in a world where most people are staying indoors, and I have to say the thing I miss the most is being able to eat in a restaurant without the concern of potentially spreading a deadly disease. While thinking about the dine in meals I had before we entered this brave new world, I keep coming back to Clover. Even though I ate there just a month ago, thinking about its collaborative view of eating and recipe building feels so removed from our current landscape. 

Clover was founded in 2008 by Ayr Muir, an MIT material science graduate and environmentalist. The goal, from its beginning was to get people to eat and enjoy vegetables. He was motivated by a growing concern over climate change and the birth of his daughter to take a bigger step toward lowering carbon emissions. 

It started with a food truck that the owner referred to as a “lab” where he worked on new recipes and invited his customers to participate in the process by making recommendations and providing feedback on their meals. Their first brick-and-mortar location opened in Harvard Square. Today they have 11 locations in Boston and Cambridge. 

In the time that I spent at their downtown location, I found that their original spirit of open conversation is still very much alive at Clover. The waiters were more than eager to share stories about the dishes I ordered were developed and explain where the ingredients were coming from. They also told me that the restaurant regularly holds food development meetings and invites the public to share their thoughts. These meetings are foundational to Clover and reminds me why restaurants are as much about communal space as they are about eating. When you’re a fan, or customer, of Clover you’re taking part in a collaborative experience. It’s one I can really appreciate while in quarantine. 

Learning about the restaurant before I went was very easy to do. They’ve kept a detailed blog since August of 2008 when the owner made the post “Why the name “Clover”?” As a writer, and someone who keeps a journal, it endeared me to the restaurant immediately. I got the sense that Clover was the product of a young idealist who got lucky with a successful experiment, and imagining the fact that anyone could follow along on that journey of success is very appealing to the thousands of other young idealists in the city. 

Interested as I was in seeing what the hype was about, I was also skeptical. I’m not a vegetarian, and though there have been periods of my life where I’ve limited my meat consumption, I’ve never been one for imitation meat products. Things like Impossible burgers and tempeh pulled pork, have always felt like a masquerade to me — and an unsuccessful one at that. But knowing what I do about how the meat industry is negatively affecting our planet, I’ve recently decided I need to be more open to taking steps in the right direction. 

To me, Clover’s success represents the shift my generation is making. Members of Generation Z (born roughly between 1995 and 2010) are more likely to be vegetarians and more willing to try plant-based meats than generations before us. The fact that Clover is based in Boston is no surprise to me either. Many people may see the city as a classic New England town and focus on its history, but in a lot of ways Boston is a young person’s city as well. There are over two dozen colleges and universities in this city, making it one of largest “college towns” in the country and with that influx of 20-somethings comes the kind of innovation that would lead to a restaurant like Clover. 

With that in mind, I walked into the restaurant thinking I knew exactly what I was going to order. The menu changes slightly every day and from location to location depending on what the freshest ingredients available are, but I knew I wanted to try a Clover classic. They have a chickpea fritter plate that’s been on the menu since the start. It was inspired by a falafel stand Muir visited during a trip to Paris. Clover’s managed to recreate that memory and add a touch of New England. The hummus is made from organic chickpeas grown in Connecticut.

I was also looking for Mayor Menino “BLT,” a sandwich made of tempeh bacon, lettuce, tomato, and fresh pita made in store using organic and locally-milled flour from Maine Grains that exists only on the “secret menu.” I’d read that at the opening of the first location, then mayor Thomas Menino had cut the ribbon but as a self-described meat lover initially refused the food. With some coaxing from the owner, he took a bite of the BLT and loved it so much he regularly came by the store to order it. I related to Menino’s skepticism, so I thought I wanted to give it a try. 

But the day I went in I was also in the mood for soup so I asked my waiter which of the options he’d recommend. Without hesitation, he started to sell me on the Roman tomato soup. It was developed by one of Clover’s employee’s whose family friends own a restaurant in Rome where they sell a dish called frittata di patate, which he likened to cake made of potatoes and tomatoes. Clover’s soup was an homage to that food memory, much like the fritters and Muir’s trip to Paris, and made entirely from local ingredients. 

“It’s a New England soup that tastes like Rome,” he said, and I was sold. Today it might’ve won me over even easier, given the challenges actually visiting Rome would present. This soup could be the next best thing. 

I’ve never been to Rome or had that dish so I’d have to take his word on its authenticity but I say with confidence it was one of the best tomato soups I’ve ever had in my life. It also ended up being the best thing I ordered from the restaurant. 

My meal at Clover ended up being a relatively quiet one. The restaurant was decently full, but most of the people eating at the restaurant were like me — young and seemingly fresh off work from some office building downtown. A lot of them ate in groups with friends and coworkers, and like me chatted easily with the servers. For a restaurant that was meant to disrupt the status quo of the food scene in Boston, it seemed relatively calm. 

But then again, the whole motto of Clover is that it’s a quiet, radical, environmental act. It’s not about disruption as it is about changing personal habits as a way of changing your larger community, and what better place for revolutionary acts than Boston? 

[metamodel]

Lamb of God Returns From Pet Sematary as Zombie Content

This email is powered by the trouble between metalworkers, AI, scratched CDs and the cloud. Doing strategic design, I’m always navigating tensions around narratives of change, often ostensibly involving “technology” or some desired or feared “disruption”. What do such narratives mean? Is change always good? Is there anything interesting in the detritus left behind? I’m always drawn to ambivalence.

So it’s no surprise that in the wake of Easter, my thoughts hover above the border between death and rebirth, collapse and resurgence, obsolescence and renewal. And as Passover season led into May Day, I was reminded that in order to find new life, we sometimes need to do more than just hustle like good neoliberal subjects, and actually mess up the one around us, like the plagues visited upon Egypt, or industrial action. 

I keep thinking of that awesome first-season finale of American Gods: wily old Odin tells Ostara, the ancient pagan goddess of Easter, that she’s sustained only by the meagre echo of Spring festivities that survive in our contemporary chocolate egg rituals. It’s time to demonstrate her true power to the New Gods, he says. So in the devastating penultimate scene, Ostara decides to withdraw Spring from the world, leaving the land withered and gnarled.

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

Easter (the ever-delightful Kristin Chenoweth) withdraws her labour.[/caption]

Says Odin:

Tell the believers and the non-believers. Tell them we’ve taken the Spring. They can have it back when they pray for it.

Such chutzpah: it's the Earth, going on fucking strike against the World. So if a Norse god union organiser calls on you next Passover/Easter/May, on which monstrous powers will you draw? How will you Show Them Who You Really Are?

Happy May.

• • •

STATION IDENT: After returning to design after a year away, I find that Everything Now Looks Very Strange Indeed™. This is another one of my updates on restarting a creative practice, with added cultural and design commentary.

(If someone’s forwarded this thing to you in the hope you’ll find it interesting, you can subscribe here to secure my everlasting love. And please, pass it on if you think it might be of interest to anyone.)

🔂🌏 The eternal return of post-human-centred design

Giles Lane from Proboscis took some time to wrestle with my recent ambivalence about human-centred design. Recapping: back in Issue #2 I asked, “Isn’t putting humans at the centre of things what got us into this climate disaster?”, to which Giles replied:

I have a very different understanding of Human Centred Design based on needs rather than desires, including the need to co-exist within a healthy environment/ecosystem. It draws on its 1970s roots, based in radical response to exploitation of people & communities by privileged elites.

Those of us whose work has always embraced a dialogue about ethics, values and been infused by a genuine concern for human centred, participatory design will always be on the periphery of the mainstream.

The thing is, Giles and I don’t have a very different understanding of human-centred design — I completely understand where he’s coming from. When onboarding new designers at Digital Eskimo, I was always at pains to emphasise how the heritage we were inspired by — the Scandinavian participatory design tradition, amongst others — was a truly radical seam of practice that had been papered over by the rather less exciting idea that “listening to customers is common sense for business.” 🤮

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"From Fra Burmeister og Wain's Iron Foundry" by Peder Severin Krøyer, 1885.[/caption]

I would argue that contemporary design methods, whether they acknowledge it or not, owe a massive debt to organisations like the Norwegian Union of Iron and Metalworkers, who in the 1970s were disruptively intervening in debates about automation and computerisation. Rather than simply being “for” or “against” the machines that were threatening to replace them, workers became high-level designers of workplace technology systems. Now that debates about automation have again recurred in this age of AI, we would do well to pay attention to these traditions. 

But I’d still argue that in spite of the traditions Giles and I both still cherish, the balloon of “human-centredness” has nonetheless semantically burst, and was never completely tenable in the first place. An analogy: “Third World nationalism” presided over some heroic moments in the struggle against colonial domination, but I nonetheless think that nationalism was never exactly a good thing in the first place, and also tends to yield ever-decreasing returns as a corrective to very real global inequalities. 

I think we simply need new beacons for navigating our more-than-human design landscape. These landmarks might include the work of people like Anab Jain from Superflux (see this talk at the IxDA’s Interactions 18 for a good overview of her work), Anne Galloway from the More-Than-Human Lab and others. Let’s all watch that space, and please let me know if you find anything interesting — I’ll feature it here in a future issue.

🐕🤖 Old dogs, new

I was at the City of Sydney’s latest CityTalk, “Our Future With AI and Its Rise In China”: a keynote from Robert Hsiung, chief of the online tech education platform Udacity in China. I found the evening singularly unimpressive. Rather than indulge in wide-eyed liberal panic about Chinese authoritarianism by mining a seam of yellow peril rhetoric, the subsequent conversation went in the other direction entirely, studiously avoiding any discussion about machine learning’s use by the Chinese surveillance state. 

Hsiung emphasised the importance of “mastering the machine” to staying relevant as humans in an AI world, citing case studies in which “even” blue collar Chinese workers with a mere secondary education were successfully retrained by Udacity as AI programmers. Sure, they want to democratise tech skills, and I agree that adaption is preferable to sticking one’s head in the sand, but when Hsiung characterises people on society’s periphery as “people who didn’t study enough in school” (actual words used), I’m not seeing Norwegian metalworkers taking power into their own hands. I can’t help but wonder there’s an implicit element of patronising, tut-tutting disciplinary action in this imperative to retrain before the Singularity overwhelms the uninitiated. 

Hsiung’s keynote ultimately devolved into a stiff, extended advertisement for Udacity, reminding me of nothing so much as a dystopian propaganda spot for a corporation like Omni Consumer Products in Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop. If this deeply uninteresting event is the best the city’s public sphere can do on the AI front, Lord Mayor Clover Moore ought to be embarrassed. 

💿☠️ Obsoletely nothing

I’m alive / I’m dead 

— The Cure, “Killing an Arab”

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Image by Rishi Deep at Unsplash[/caption]

When I realised not long ago that some of my primary school art students were habitually getting stuck in their creative endeavours, I got them to look for stimulus in unlikely places. “Look at what’s been thrown away at your feet,” I told the class. The next day, my own advice returned to me as a gift.

Local government rubbish cleanups are the rhythmic heavings of the suburbs. A few times a year, we find the unwanted and the outmoded disgorged onto the street (and more often than not, you can find me rummaging through the junk). As I got off the bus that afternoon, an object on the pavement suddenly came into focus as having joined the the ranks of the obsolete: a CD tower. A tall, narrow shelf, made solely to hold a large collection of compact discs. 

A few years before, it had been cathode ray tube TVs and VHS tapes on the nature strip. Today, a piece of furniture had lost its one purpose. Next to it, victims of the streaming moment, were endless shiny platters: redundant CDs and DVDs. I felt a pang of melancholy at this diorama of churn, but couldn't muster up any actual nostalgia for CDs. I suspect that I’m not alone in this. 

In 1998 I wrote a short science fiction story that touched on the possibility of being nostalgic for media formats that were then only just beginning to be challenged by new forms of media like the Internet. Mirroring what I was then seeing with the fetishisation of vinyl records, my 21st Century protagonist, Sebastian Tan, was a CD fetishist. While I gave Seb the ability to hack into streaming media services to get lasting access to the discrete music files themselves, this streaming pirate still preferred physical media. 

And the act of opening the digipak and sliding the antique CD in place was a ritual. Trainspotting. When he first found Silver Rocket, it was a revelation. It was a place. He’d just stood there, soaking it in – the lost garage punk compilations, the late ’90s Skint family, the Anokha artists. All the music physically in the same room. Old silver platters and everything. 

Since this was 20 years ago, I don’t remember how much I actually believed how likely “CD fetishism” would actually be in the 21st Century, but the idea certainly seems ridiculous to me now. Naked optical discs like the CD and the DVD seem to be missing the qualities that would guarantee their fetishisation. There’s something fragile, bare and unromantic about them. It strikes me that this is perfectly illustrated by two Kanye West album covers:

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On the left is his 2013 masterpiece Yeezus, which unfortunately affects the style of a blank CD. To the right is its recent sequel, the not-so-great Yahndi, which makes up for its mediocrity by aping a magnificent Sony MiniDisc, a fabulous storage format that was largely outmoded by the turn of the millennium. 

Don’t be fooled by the similarities, because these two things are chalk and cheese. MiniDiscs were cool. CDs are not. In addition to enclosing a rewritable magneto-optical disc inside a permanent case, giving them a more tactile quality, MiniDiscs were also smaller in the hand. And in the cinema of the mid- to late-’90s, they were a shorthand for “vaguely futuristic storage media”. 

MiniDiscs played a significant role as storage for VR contraband in Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995). Ralph Fiennes furtively stashes old VR recordings of happier times with Juliette Lewis in a shoebox of MiniDiscs, but one particular disc that comes into his possession becomes the MacGuffin in the film’s thriller plot.

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Gotcha: VR proof of racist police brutality… captured on disc! (See how actually compact it is in the hand?) And in the Wachowski’s The Matrix (1999), MiniDiscs return as contraband, this time stashed heavy-handedly inside Neo’s copy of Jean Baudrillard’s Simulation and Simulacra. By this time they’d become almost retro-futuristic, somehow at home with the acoustic coupler modems and Bakelite handsets.

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There’s something reassuringly tangible about the MiniDiscs in these movies. Their secret hiding places are enticing. And the sight of these contraband objects being exchanged for physical cash is just too delicious.

In short, I wish I could be nostalgic for CDs like I am for MiniDiscs (which, truth be told, I never used that much). It’s as if MiniDiscs occupy in my imagination a subjunctive road-not-taken that would have made disposable optical media less crass. I almost feel like mad old King Denethor in Lord of the Rings, wishing that it was his less favourite son who died in battle.

🧟‍♀️💾 Zombie content

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There are folders on my laptop that owe their structure purely to having originated on random old floppy disks that I found in the cupboard. Some of these files are unreadable, despite being Microsoft Word documents. Microsoft are amongst the most slavish followers of backwards-compatibility in the technology industry, even to the extent that they replicate the behaviour of ancient bugs in newer versions of Windows in order for apps to run smoother, but it seems that documents created in versions that predate Word 98 are lost to me. (I’ve learned my lesson: these days, everything’s in plain text Markdown.)

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I’m intrigued by the file titled “WHOREBOY.doc”. From what I recall, it contained notes for a graphic novel I was planning about an undead sex-worker-of-colour in the antebellum South. A black 19th Century superhero, Whoreboy kicked arse. At least, that’s what I remember. 

Update: turns out that plain text editors can glean most of the content from old binary Word files. My memory proved largely correct. Whoreboy was a runaway slave rent-boy who could sprout tentacles from his back and rise from the dead. In moments of crisis, the old slaver’s brand on his shoulder would glow, perversely triggering latent superpowers. (I’d flagged the branding of African American slaves for further research. These days I’d be in Wikipedia rabbit-hole instead.)

A snippet:

Whoreboy’s mentor, an old “witchdoctor”, mentions Jimbo in the Mirror, the terrifying folk spirit that you can only see at midnight. 

“Really?” asks Whoreboy. 

“No, I made it up,” he says. “Them white folk love that shit. Brown Eye for the White Guy, I call it.”

Okay, perhaps it needs more work. But think of the possibilities! 

What’s the funniest skeleton in your digital closet?

🎼🔁 Refrain, with key change

It’s apparent that I often think inordinately about the past while navigating change, even if it involves a kind of “meta-nostalgia” (as above: when nostalgia doesn't seem possible, I feel “nostalgic” about “feeling nostalgic”). As I’ve said earlier,

I often look to the past when I think about the very idea of the future, not just so we can avoid repeating “the mistakes of history” (as important as that might be), but because as designers trying to make the world a better place, we really should honour the creative friction that happens when the weird fragments of the past we continue to live with rub against the potentials of the present moment. (For a future-oriented person, I do an amusing amount of hoarding! In my view, forgetting to deal with legacy systems, even if “dealing with them” involves actively destroying them, is tantamount to vapourware dreaming.)

But I’m also realising that to hover in the futurepast in the way I do means more than just coming to grips with the past, with all its traumas and potentials. I suspect that my own retrofuturistic tendencies are an instinctive way to express the bind we find ourselves in as makers of newness (designers, strategists, “change-makers”) under late capitalism: so much of our work these days seems to involve making organisations more adaptable, resilient, nimble and innovative, but how this might also be a friendly form of neoliberal shock therapy? How much is the agility of the contemporary design-led organisation a way to produce subjects who compliantly flex with the ever-shifting sands of the market?

I love to tell people about my work facilitating cultures of design possibility in organisations. After a productive co-design session, a client team-member will express joy about the concepts they’re helping to flesh out. 

“You realise, don’t you,” I say, “that you’ve nominated yourself as a key part of the leadership for this project, right?” 

The resulting look of terror on their face — the one that says, “B-BUT THAT’S NOT IN MY 12-MONTH WORK PLAN!” — is one that I always relished. And so I drag them kicking and screaming into the future. While I’m not about to defend calcified organisational cultures of bureaucratic planning, I’m now a bit more equivocal; I can see some continuity between my own gleefulness and the forces that are casualising workforces around the planet. 

Perhaps my hovering, with my face turned to the past as I explore futurity (and like Lot’s wife as she looks back at Sodom even as she flees), is an admission that security and belonging are worth something in these times. So as we experience the churn of obsolescence and innovation, let’s keep our wits, sympathies and sense of revolt about us. 

A sustainable portion of all my love,

Ben

[gethealthy18-blog]

12 Tattoo Designs That Will Be The Perfect Addition To Your Bracelet Stack

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12 Tattoo Designs That Will Be The Perfect Addition To Your Bracelet Stack

Saumya Gaur March 13, 2019

Just last week, we gave you plenty of tattoo inspirations with our post on the upcoming trend of watercolor tattoos. However, the idea for this one came up as we sat with a group of friends, discussing the most exposed yet least conspicuous body part to get a tattoo on. With mutual agreement, we all decided that it was the wrist.

But since body art is not an exercise in meaning-making, and it also doubles up as a cool accessory, some of our friends argued that any tattoo on the wrist is bound to either clash with the accessory that we wear daily such as a watch or a bracelet, or get covered under it. So there was really no point in getting a tattoo on your wrist.

We couldn’t help but think otherwise and hence decided to look for various tattoo ideas that would go amazingly well with typical wrist accessories such as bracelets and watches, and also work great on their own. So this is some new inspiration for all you ink lovers! Here are some new ideas for your tat fam:

1. These Birds Sitting On These Straight Lines Will Be The Perfect Companions For Your Bracelets

This tattoo of birds sitting on a branch is perfect for those who need some emo quotient in their lives. Done in traditional blank ink, it should perfectly complement all manners of wrist accessories.

2. This Lone Warrior

Dainty? Check. Stylish? Check. Goes well with bracelets? Check.

This little fellow proudly stands his ground making its teeny-weeny presence felt even in the crowd of those bracelets. Perfect for those who want something that is minimalist.

3. One That Reminds You Of Your Little Sidekick

Do you have a pet? If you have or if you had one before, this would be the perfect homage to your little pal. You were its perfect hooman and getting a tattoo like this would be the best way to declare your love for them. And it pairs really well with a watch too. Get creative and customize it to your heart’s content.

4. This One That Will Give You A Boho Vibe

A little different from the traditional, minimalist designs, this one has a more boho chic vibe. Done in a traditional manner, this tattoo manages to look uber modern while still retaining its traditional element.

5. And This One Which Is The Perfect Choice For A Dreamer

A little hybrid version of traditional blank ink and watercolor, this minimalist design packs in quite a bit of punch design-wise. Not very conventional, it makes for a perfect fit for those who sway to the beat of their own drums.

6. This One Which Makes For The Perfect Accessory

Ah! What do I say about this one? Just look at this and tell me that you don’t want to get inked with this one, right this minute. Not a very dainty or minimalist tattoo, yet it manages to be not very in-your-face.

7. This Lone Blossom That Revels In Its Beauty

No tattoo inspiration list can be complete without a floral addition, and this is ours. Unlike the more conventional lavender sprig or rose, this one has an ethereal beauty that can’t be matched. Perfect for those who want a mix of tradition with individual flavor.

8. This One Which Adds Value To Your Stack With Its Beauty

What’s a better addition to your jewelry stash? A new expensive bracelet that you will always have to keep a track of or this floral one that lends you its quiet charm. Our pick: the floral wrist band tattoo. For you cannot lose this one anywhere.

9. This One Which Will Bring You The Luck Of The Irish

The verdant green four-leaf clover not only adds a much-needed dash of color to your living canvas but also makes for a very unique addition to your bracelet stack.

10. This One Which Is The Right Amount Of Style With Substance

This very cute and sophisticated tattoo is perfect for those who are used to conveying a lot in very little. A semicolon denotes that there is more that is yet to come. Just like your life story.

11. This Lone Blossom

Another floral addition There is something about its dignified poise that draws your eyes towards it. And we are quite sure, it will do justice to your own effusive charm!

12. And Finally, This One To Bring Some Whimsy Into Your Life

A perfect ode to the man who created the happiest place on earth. This one is for all the dreamers, who breathe life into every day’s banal and monotonous life. Also, it can double up as a great conversation piece for your next date!

Wouldn’t these tattoos make for the perfect addition to your bracelet stack? Tell us which one inspired you to get inked, in comments below.

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CR Features Argues About Best Girl of 2018

*Anime Awards voting starts this Friday and WE'RE SUPER EXCITED! However we have gotten so loud with our individual opinions on who we think should win that we’ve been told to duke it out via written words instead of continually disrupting our coworkers (sorry fam).

  We’ll hit each category by the time we hit the evening of Anime Awards! Today’s piece gets down to the nitty gritty of Best Protagonist, Best Antagonist, Best Boy, and Best Girl. *Let’s down to business!

  Best Protagonist

Retsuko of Aggretsuko

The lady red panda’s life is starkly relatable in some way to everyone. She stresses the necessity of staying true to oneself and taking care of said self by any means necessary. Whether it’s with death metal in a karaoke bar or yoga with the girls despite being an awkward human, decompressing is highly important and she shows that through example.

-Ricky Soberano

Sakata Gintoki of Gintama

  Who better to lead the charge than everyone’s favorite lazy-ass, strawberry-milk-loving samurai? Even with war tearing Edo apart, Gintoki has stayed the same lovable jerk--he may have to grit his teeth a little more, he may have to take a harsher beating, but he’s still the same idiot we all cheer for, even when he’s being total slothful garbage.

-Nate Ming

  Saichi Sugimoto of Golden Kamuy

  Sugimoto is a breath of fresh air for protagonists; he’s vulnerable, but strong, determined, funny, and absolutely devoted to helping other people. I thought he would be a ruthless killer at first, and while he can be, Sugimoto’s relationship with Asirpa has really changed him as their journey went on. Watching Sugimoto change from the somewhat lost and aimless “I just need money” to “I am going to help you, Asirpa” has been amazing, and Sugimoto’s strong personality that grows and develops over time is one of the reasons that hooked me into Golden Kamuy, so him being my pick is a no-brainer!

-Nicole Mejias

Chise Hatori of The Ancient Magus’ Bride

In a year full of super powered heroes with abilities that could level mountains, my favorite protagonist is a bit more modest in her abilities. Chise Hatori does possess powerful magical abilities, but it’s something else that sets her apart--her empathy. All of the outlandish abilities in the world wouldn’t have helped her in her journey if she wasn’t able to feel the experiences of those around her so deeply. The Ancient Magus’ Bride told the story of Chise slowly learning to love herself, and it was only through her ability to love others that this was made possible. And that, for my money, is the most heroic character arc of 2018.

-Cayla Coats

Shirase Kobuchizawa of A Place Further Than The Universe

    Although starring an ensemble cast, it’s hard for me to think of any of the girls in A Place Further than the Universe as a lead besides Shirase. She’s the reason the girls end up on the expedition and, although they all tag along to experience their own self discoveries, it’s Shirase’s story about getting closure. Her shy personality that gets subsumed by stubborn determination in the face of doubters is extremely relatable.

-Peter Fobian

Best Antagonist

Vetto of Black Clover

Vetto was the most infuriating opponent that came out of the Eye of the Midnight Sun. He was a monstrously murderous sadist that made every person surpass their limits but not before making sure everyone experienced a personalized version of despair. The slam to Kahono’s throat was what solidified the anger that still makes my blood boil.

-Ricky Soberano

Lt. Tokushirou Tsurumi of Golden Kamuy

Tsurumi’s not someone you love to hate, which is strange for someone who is arguably Golden Kamuy’s deadliest and most important antagonist. In fact, we all kinda like him, warts and all, which makes him that much more memorable… and that much scarier when he shows us what he’s capable of.

-Nate Ming

Viruses, Parasites, Bacteria and Cancer Cells of Cells At Work

  Cells at Work was a charming and amazing show that I really learned a lot from in terms of how the body works in terms of fighting off disease and infection, but a large part of that was the unique ways that the show depicted all of those threats. Each one felt wholly unique and easily identifiable, given traits that fit their natural actions and behaviors, and it made me realize that there are some amazing battles going on inside of my body every day!

-Nicole Mejias

Joseph Cartaphilus of The Ancient Magus’ Bride

My protagonist and antagonist picks are sort of a 2-for-1 deal. Joseph is by far the scariest, most cruel presence in his series, but he is also the most tragic. Condemned to an eternity of suffering because of some misplaced kindness, simply existing for Joseph is unimaginably painful. He exists as a darker version of the traumatized Chise, someone who was transformed into a monster through immense suffering. The conclusion of the series resolves not in a fight to the death, but a surprising moment of tender kindness from Chise--making Joseph the perfect counterpoint to our heroine.

-Cayla Coats

Ladros of Black Clover

The best villains are always the ones with personality and Ladros has an excess. The magically deranged general of the Diamond kingdom made a huge impact in just a few episodes with his unexpected reactions and schoolyard bullying tactics with a huge voice performance from Takeshi Kusao. Within half an episode I went from thinking he was a jobber to falling in love when he screamed “MILLION LASER!”

-Peter Fobian

Best Boy

Goblin Slayer of Goblin Slayer

    Say whatever you want about the single tracked mind of the slayer of goblins: He’s motivated, supremely focused, and skilled. His mission in life to kill beings that not only rape and murder women but utilize women as playthings is admirable and justified. He provides comfort to goblin survivors and we may not know what his face looks like but we know what practically everything else looks like and I’ll take that.

-Ricky Soberano

Honda-san of Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san

Retail is a special kind of hell, staffed by a special, hard-as-nails kind of people. Honda-san is a refreshing retail lead in that he doesn’t hate his job--in fact, he loves it! By loving his customers and wanting to help them find the same joy in books that he does, Honda reminds me of the best parts of working in a bookstore… and a handful of the worst when everything’s on fire.

-Nate Ming

Gobta of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

    Okay, so hear me out here. Despite his appearance that didn’t even change when he was given his name, this little goblin seems to be indestructible! Strung up upside down and forgotten in prison? No problem, just summon a tempest wolf and rejoin your party. Be subjected to poisonous cooking? Dude gained the Poison Resist skill to survive, which earns the envy of Rimuru! To add to this, Ranga has unending faith in Gobta due to his quick-witted battling abilities. Gobta is certainly an irreplaceable asset to Rimuru’s group, so don’t make the mistake of underestimating him!

-Nicole Mejias

All Might of My Hero Academia

Deku’s great, but the end of the first cour of My Hero Academia Season 3, All Might absolutely stole the Best Boy throne from him. All Might threw himself into danger in order to protect the world and his body was left permanently stuck in his withered form. This was powerful stuff, but what sealed the deal for me was the beach scene pictured above--All Might punches Deku for his recklessness and then embraces him, dedicating himself to training and raising the young hero into someone truly amazing. He’s just SO GOOD.

-Cayla Coats

Rei Kiriyama of March comes in like a lion

I’ll say it again. Every year we get a March comes in like a lion, Rei Kiriyama is automatically best boy. He’s just a nice kid trying to get by despite some pretty unfortunate circumstances. He’s kind, thoughtful, and the way he experiences the world around him hints at an artistic mind that might never get the chance to express itself. He’s compassionate even to those who are cruel and preoccupies himself with finding ways to pay back the generosity he’s been offered. Rei Kiriyama for president.

-Peter Fobian

Best Girl

Mai Sakurajima of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai

Mai-san isn’t just a gorgeous, intelligent bunny girl senpai that works as a beloved actress. She also keeps her rascal, Sakuta, in check. Not only that, she’s incredibly mature, understanding, and trusting despite Sakuta’s life being constantly thrown in a loop by cute girls to the point that she didn’t object to Sakuta dating another girl. She makes Sakuta work for it but she can also be shy under that poker face.

-Ricky Soberano

Hina Kawamoto of March comes in like a lion

Probably the most criminally underwatched show this year, March comes in like a lion went right for the throat with an intense story arc dealing with bullying at Hina’s middle school. The complicit cowardice of Hina’s teacher and the professional frustration of her substitute teacher play against the casual callousness of the bully and Hina’s undying fire. She did absolutely nothing wrong--and if she just makes it to graduation, she wins.

-Nate Ming

Asirpa of Golden Kamuy

For me, there’s no argument that Asirpa is the best girl of 2018. She’s equal share protagonist with Sugimoto, but more importantly she’s a BADASS! Hungry? No problem, Asirpa knows how to hunt everything and cook it up. In danger? Her accuracy with a bow knows no equal. Need to track someone? She’s got it covered. There’s always talk about ‘strong female characters,’ and honestly I can’t think of many as good as Asirpa when it comes to anime. Asirpa holds her head tall and stands shoulders above the rest!

-Nicole Mejias

Lily Hoshikawa of ZOMBIE LAND SAGA

Lily is a spot of sunshine in Franchouchou, always beaming with a positive and infectious energy! The zombie idol group is comprised of plenty of eccentric and lovable personas, but Lily struck a rather personal chord with me--we’re both girls that used to be boys. It’s rare to find a trans character in any sort of media, rarer still to find one created with the amount of respect and love that was put into Lily. She’s the shining star of 2018.

-Cayla Coats

Nagisa Aragaki of HANEBADO!

  Nagisa literally stole the show in HANEBADO! Despite the subtitle of “Hanesaki’s play” and the focus on the forlorn badminton player, Nagisa got some great moments as she quietly worked on her own game in the background. The result was a redemption story surpassing that of the main character. Nagisa rose up to defeat the opponent who had previously shut her out so completely she’d almost quit the game. Seeing her triumph was a series-making moment for me.

-Peter Fobian

  Anddd that's all folks! Check back in to see us argue about who else we think should win the rest of the Anime Awards categories. Don’t forget to vote for your favorites starting on 1/11!

  Do you have a super intense devotion to a 2018 show or character or want your opinions shared to the world about Anime Awards? Send us an op-ed in written or video form. The nitty gritty details are in here and you may get published in a future article!

Who do you think should win: Best Protagonist, Best Antagonist, Best Boy, and Best Girl? Tell us in the comments below!

-----

Ricky Soberano is a Features Editor, Script Writer, and Editorial Programming Coordinator for Crunchyroll. She’s the former Managing Editor of Brooklyn Magazine. You can follow her on Twitter @ramenslayricky.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com