Where Angels Fear
4 min readFeb 5, 2024

Jesus F**king CHRIST!!!

This one … the inverse of my usual Quote of the Day type affair for this kind of thing and, of necessity therefore, embracing my ‘all around the houses shaggy dog story’ style … is, for a variety of reasons, for Aura — not least in part because it concerns gaming, but principally because I’m going to swear and, for once, not going to self-censor.

So … if you are offended by the ‘F’ and ‘C’ words, look away.

I am not (not now, nor have I ever been, SouthpawPoet) Scottish myself, but my family is Irish, so there’s a total commonality to …

"In Scotland, the word "fucking" is just a warning that a noun is on its way" - Frankie Boyle

In fact, that’s just the tip of the iceberg: in fact, it precedes just about every other word when I open my mouth; I don’t reserve it for the purpose of indicating that a noun is due around about this point in the proceedings, just that another word of some kind is on its way and that it’s a word I fucking mean — it’s the bold italic of my everyday speech.

But, on public fora, I make use of asterisks instead of spelling things out. Ironically, it draws more attention to the words than if they’re explicit, but simultaneously absolves me of any responsibility for the sensibilities of those I despise (as it happens, people with sensibilities).

Not today, however, and not now.

The reasons for my emotional outburst are many, varied and of no concern here. The immediate catalyst for it though is the fact that I am getting shot to fuck and back.

Now, normally, when I play something like Sniper Elite, it’s because I’m not in the mood for manic Borderlands-or-Wolfenstein-esque mayhem but really quite upset about something and looking to vent my feelings in a way that only spending an hour of my real life finding the perfect vantage point from which to shoot someone in the face can — I don’t care if it takes me all day to off only twenty people, they are all getting a bullet in the fucking face!

So, as you’ll doubtless be unsurprised to learn, I have perfected the art of doing so over the years: the perfect loadout, the perfect route, the perfect order of execution — it’s a precision operation and all the more satisfying for the cold, calculating, vindictive nature of its psychopathically emotionless affect.

Today though … perhaps because I’m excessively tired (and probably also hangry) … I made an error of judgement: “I know,” I thought, “I’ll mix things up a little .. take a different route for once … tackle things in a different order.”

Consequently, I am getting shot to buggery on … actually, it’s not even my usually preferred Über Hardcore difficulty, just ‘Hard’. I had the presence of mind to recognise that I’m excessively tired and would probably underperform (leading to frustration and further fatigue) … which, in retrospect, probably explains the hubris with which I decided I could handle a spot of spontaneity — it’s only Hard, after all … not Impossible Nightmare… how difficult could it be .. what could go wrong?

Weee … eee … eeell …

Fuck off!

Who are these cunts who can see through fucking walls!?

How many of the fuckers are there!?

Really?

Seriously?

Jesus fucking Christ … they’re taking the fucking piss!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Ahem.

Right … that’s your lot for tonight — I’ve got things to see … people to do.

Where Angels Fear

There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live and too rare to die.