#Everyday is a struggle for Stanford

[acerobot]

Hiiiiiiiiii I’m back LMAO

I’ve been cooking stuff up for fankid content which means I am once again asking for your financial support if you have canon designs for Caesar and Dora yet

If you do HAND EM OVER

If not continue going about ur day LMAO

I'm very happy to hear that!! Your artwork across my dash always brightens my day! Your artwork is hella good, and I love your silly goobers of ocs you have.

I had to whip up Caesar's real fast, so he might look a bit strange? Unsure, idk. He was rushed though. And Bella's was drawn like over a month ago so could be better but eh lol

I can't wait to see what you do!! And obviously expect some art of your guys in return

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Bret Stephens

Published: Jun 25, 2024

The notable fact about the anti-Israel campus demonstrations is that they are predominantly an elite phenomenon. Yes, there have been protests at big state schools like the University of Nebraska, but they have generally been small, tame and — thanks to administrators prepared to enforce the rules — short-lived. It’s Stanford, Berkeley, Yale, Penn, Harvard, Columbia and many of their peers that have descended to open bigotry, institutional paralysis and mayhem.

Two questions: Why the top universities? And what should those on the other side of the demonstrations — Jewish students and alumni most of all — do about it?

Regarding the first question, some argue that the furor over the campus protests is much ado about not much. The demonstrators, they say, represent only a small fraction of students. The ugliest antisemitic expressions occasionally seen at these events are mainly the work of outside provocateurs. And the student protesters (some of whom are Jewish) are acting out of youthful idealism, not age-old antisemitism. As they see it, they aim only to save Palestinian lives and oppose the involvement of their universities in the abuses of a racist Israeli state.

There’s something to these points. With notable exceptions, campus life at these schools is somewhat less roiled by protest than the media makes it seem. Outside groups, as more than one university president has told me, have played an outsize role in setting up encampments and radicalizing students. And few student demonstrators, I’d wager, consciously think they harbor an anti-Jewish prejudice.

But this lets the kids off the hook too easily.

Students who police words like “blacklist” or “whitewash” and see “microaggressions” in everyday life ignore the entreaties of their Jewish peers to avoid chants like “globalize the intifada” or “from the river to the sea.” Students who claim they’re horribly pained by scenes of Palestinian suffering were largely silent on Oct. 7 — when they weren’t openly cheering the attacks. And students who team up with outside groups that are in overt sympathy with Islamist terrorists aren’t innocents. They’re collaborators.

How did the protesters at elite universities get their ideas of what to think and how to behave?

They got them, I suspect, from the incessant valorization of victimhood that has been a theme of their upbringing, and which many of the most privileged kids feel they lack — hence the zeal to prove themselves as allies of the perceived oppressed. They got them from the crude schematics of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training seminars, which divide the world into “white” and “of color,” powerful and “marginalized,” with no regard for real-world complexities — including the complexity of Jewish identity. They got them from professors who think academic freedom amounts to a license for political posturing, sometimes of a nakedly antisemitic sort. They got them from a cheap and easy revision of history that imagines Zionism is a form of colonialism (it’s decidedly the opposite), that colonialism is something only white people do, and that as students at American universities, they can cheaply atone for their sins as guilty beneficiaries of the settler-colonialism they claim to despise.

They also got them from university administrators whose private sympathies often lie with the demonstrators, who imagine the anti-Israel protests as the moral heirs to the anti-apartheid protests and who struggle to grasp (if they even care) why so many Jewish students feel betrayed and besieged by the campus culture.

That’s the significance of the leaked images of four Columbia University deans exchanging dismissive and sophomoric text messages during a panel discussion in May on Jewish life on campus, including the suggestion that a panelist was “taking full advantage of this moment” for the sake of the “fundraising potential.”

Columbia placed three of the deans on leave. Other universities, like Penn, have belatedly moved to ban encampments. But those steps have a grudging and reactive feel — more a response to Title VI investigations of discrimination and congressional hearings than a genuine acknowledgment that something is deeply amiss with the values of a university. At Harvard, two successive members of the task force on antisemitism resigned in frustration. “We are at a moment when the toxicity of intellectual slovenliness has been laid bare for all to see,” wrote Rabbi David Wolpe in his resignation announcement.

That’s the key point. More dismaying than the fact that student protesters are fellow traveling with Hamas is that with their rhyming chants and identical talking points, they sound more like Maoist cadres than critical thinkers. As the sociologist Ilana Redstone, author of the smart and timely book “The Certainty Trap,” told me on Monday, “higher education traded humility and curiosity for conviction and advocacy — all in the name of being inclusive. Certainty yields students who are contemptuous of disagreement.”

And so the second question: What are Jewish students and alumni to do?

It’s telling that the Columbia deans were caught chortling during exactly the kind of earnest panel discussion that the university convened presumably to show alumni they are tackling campus antisemitism. They were paying more lip service than attention. My guess is that they, along with many of their colleagues, struggle to see the problem because they think it lies with a handful of extremist professors and obnoxious students.

But the real problem lies with some of the main convictions and currents of today’s academia: intersectionality, critical theory, post-colonialism, ethnic studies and other concepts that may not seem antisemitic on their face but tend to politicize classrooms and cast Jews as privileged and oppressive. If, as critical theorists argue, the world’s injustices stem from the shadowy agendas of the powerful and manipulative few against the virtuous masses, just which group is most likely to find itself villainized?

Not even the most determined university president is going to clean out the rot — at least not without getting rid of the entrenched academic departments and tenured faculty members who support it. That could take decades. In the meantime, Jews have a history of parting company with institutions that mistreated them, like white-shoe law firms and commercial banks. In so many cases, they went on to create better institutions that operated on principles of intellectual merit and fair play — including many of the universities that have since stumbled.

If you are an Ivy League megadonor wondering how to better spend the money you no longer want to give a Penn or a Columbia — or just a rising high school senior wondering where to apply — maybe it’s time to forgo the fading prestige of the old elite for the sake of something else, something new. That’s a subject for a future column.

==

Intersectionality is a "luxury belief"; that is, it signals a form of elite status. It's a form of academic masturbation which has no alignment with reality.

Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes. – Rob Henderson

[mochaesartcorner]

Research 4/6- Carrie Mae Weems 

Born in Portland, Oregon in 1953, Carrie Mae Weems is most notable for her work through staged black and white photogaphy, and her connection to her identity, personal experiences and overall racism in society. Weems work is a showcase of activism, protest and the lives that we live everyday. Because of her powerful works of art, Weems has been a part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Iris & B Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University; the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Centro Andaluz De Arte Contemporaneo in Seville Spain, She has also recevied a plethora of awards that include the Hasselblad Award, a Bernd and Hilla Becher Price, A MacArthur Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, and many more. Her most famous pieces include the Kitchen Table Series and Roaming where she sheds light on facing racism across the world and a story of a black woman's complexity, strength and beauty.

Here are a few of her pieces below--

Black Love, 1990

Kitchen Table Series, 1990

Roaming, 2006

These are just a few of the many notable works Carrie Mae Weems has created. I really gravitate and honestly adore/love her photography. It's filled with so much power, strength and struggle. It's beautiful in so many ways that go beyond the surface. I think the reason why I do gravitate so much towards her work is because of her subject matter that she includes. It all tells a story; her story. Each photograph feels so raw in emotion and gives a sense of vulnerability within Carrie's work.

[stanfordlifestylemedicine]

Explore the Strategies of Managing Long-Term Stress

As the gears of modern life grind ceaselessly, long-term stress becomes an unwelcome constant for many. This unrelenting pressure, stemming from the intertwining of professional responsibilities, personal challenges, and societal expectations, can significantly erode one's sense of well-being. Unmanaged, it can lead to a cascade of health issues, both mental and physical, clouding one's outlook on life. This comprehensive guide is designed to navigate the stormy waters of prolonged stress, providing straightforward, actionable strategies to foster resilience and tranquillity. The aim is not merely to survive the onslaught of life's pressures but to thrive despite them by integrating habits and practices that promote a balanced, stress-minimised life.

Building a Foundation with Routine

Stability often begins with structure, and a well-thought-out routine is the cornerstone. Establishing a daily rhythm can act as an anchor, keeping the unpredictability of life's stresses at bay. It's about crafting a schedule encompassing necessary tasks, allocating time for self-care, and still leaving room for spontaneity and joy. Through this balance, one can build a sense of control and predictability, potent antidotes to the feeling of being overwhelmed that accompanies long-term stress.

Nutrition: Fueling the Fight Against Stress

The adage "you are what you eat" holds regarding managing stress. A diet rich in essential nutrients supports the body's complex network of stress-response mechanisms. Foods high in antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamins can fortify the body's defences against the detrimental effects of stress. Avoiding excessive caffeine and sugar, which can exacerbate anxiety and contribute to mood swings, is also crucial. Proper hydration supports every cellular function, including those that regulate our stress levels.

Quality Sleep: Non-Negotiable for Stress Management

Quality sleep is an essential, non-negotiable element in the fight against long-term stress. During sleep, the body undergoes repair and rejuvenation, processes that are compromised when anxiety interferes with rest. To enhance sleep quality, one must establish a pre-sleep routine that includes dimming lights, disconnecting from electronics, and engaging in relaxing activities such as reading or taking a warm bath.

Time Management: A Skill Against Stress

Mastering time management is an effective strategy for mitigating the pressures of prolonged stress. It's about prioritising tasks, setting achievable goals, and learning to say no to avoid overcommitment. By understanding that striving for perfection often increases pressure, we can develop more realistic standards for ourselves and find satisfaction in our accomplishments.

Professional Support

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, stress can become overwhelming. In such cases, professional support can be invaluable. Reaching out to therapists or counsellors specialising in stress management can provide a tailored approach to dealing with prolonged stress. These professionals can offer insights, techniques, and support systems that might not be immediately apparent or accessible to someone struggling.

Conclusion

Dealing with stress over a long time is like running a long race that keeps going. It takes steady work and being open to change. To handle stress well, it's essential to have a regular daily plan, to move and exercise often, to eat healthy foods, to take time to relax and be in the moment, to make sure you sleep well, to keep up with friends and family, and to use your time wisely. Getting help from places like Stanford Lifestyle Medicine can help. They share many tips and ideas that can quickly become part of your everyday life. Check out their website for more information Longevity.stanford.edu/lifestyle.

[artisiumstudios]

GAH STOP NOOOO-

HIM HOMDING HIS HAND FOR COMFORT 😭😭😭 ouch

(He absolutely would, he would even add a heat feature just to feel a bit more of comfort to add to the illusion that his brother would still comfort him)

Also is this audhd Stan I’m looking at (making products that help the little man because he wished products were easier to use, because he knew the struggle of everyday objects being difficult to use or understand because his brain was wired differently)

And ford being mostly known (once again) by his brothers efforts and not his own? UGH MY HEART- Stanford was supposed to be known, admired even by his own research. And he was, but the people knew “Stanford”Co technologies, not his years of research in weirdness, or his four years where he studied and worked to get his 12 PhDs, they knew “Stanford” but not the Stanford he had always dreamed of. Worst of all? No one would know Stanley, because he was dead.

And oh god the fact that the only time he changed anything was for the twins, that the only time he slept was in the has was FOR the twins. And yes maybe the first few nights he slept on the floor, but after Mabel barged in and caught him sleeping there he at least made the effort to sleep on the couch (so many bad memories were brought back that night, so many nightmares)

And the twins bringing out “Stanley” for the first time in years? A terrifying moment because if the kids could that easily bring that old part of him out, what would happen if one day it all came crashing down? If one day he let “Stanley” out a little too much and everything, all his hard work, his efforts, his love came crashing down? Maybe the last couple of days before the portal reopened he began to distant himself for the fear of messing up. Because he loved those kids too much but he loves his brother too and he can’t let himself hurt or betray his brother, not again. He can’t do it again.

And yeah sure maybe “Stanley” doesn’t exist anymore, not his habits, his personality, his hobbies— nothing might be real about him anymore; he might be nothing but a shell of his former self to embody his brother and it terrified him but…

Does it even matter anymore?

Stanley pines is dead, and dead men don’t get to live.

Stanford Pines is back and with a swift punch to his twin's face, the next morning he's up and gone.

For some reason no one notices, they talk to him like they've known him for a long time and the kids, who he meets much later, call him Stan. They clearly mean his brother Stanley and yet when he mentions a Stanley they never seem to know who he means.

(Or: Stanford doesnt get the chance to kick stan out. Stanley kept acting like Stanford all those years, dressed like him and lived like him to the point no one notices when he leaves.

[moviemunchies]

Ever since it became a hit on Broadway there were attempts to turn In the Heights into a film, but studios stalled because they figured that they needed a big name bankable star to lead the movie. It ended up not going anywhere until Lin-Manuel Miranda hit super stardom because of Hamilton. With the direct of Crazy Rich Asians and Miranda’s name on all the marketing materials, they hoped this movie would be a smash success.

It… wasn’t. 

The movie got rave reviews, and to be clear, deserved them, but it did not make the oodles of money. There are think pieces on why, exactly it didn’t make that much money–the pandemic didn’t help of course, some people blame that it was streaming on HBO Max at the same time, and you have weird conservatives decrying it as “woke” because… it features Hispanic protagonists, I guess? But really I don’t know. There are a butt ton of reasons any good movie can do badly in theaters.

So.. I dunno, who cares why, should you see the movie now?

Yes.

In the Heights is meant to be a slice-of-life story about the community of Washington Heights in New York City, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, as it struggles through the summer. Our narrator and main character is Usnavi, the Dominican-American of a corner star who wishes to go back to the Dominican Republic. He’s also got a massive crush on Vanessa but can’t work up the nerve to tell her that. Vanessa herself is desperately trying to move uptown to become a fashion designer, but is struggling to make that plan a reality. Usnavi’s friend Nina just got back home from college at Stanford, but the news she brings (that she’s planning to drop out) isn’t what everyone expected. And Usnavi’s cousin Sonny wants to be politically active, but soon finds that he’s got his own problems blocking his dreams.

As you can probably tell, this is not a Plot-heavy story. Yes, there is a Plot, but the story is driven more by character than it is by Plot. Unlike Hamilton it isn’t as if we’re leading up to the founding of a nation or anything like that. If you aren’t interested in a story which, in its own words, is trying to show you what everyday life is like in Washington Heights, then I don’t know that you’ll have much fun with this movie.

Indeed, I suspect that contributed to the marketing problems. It was not a show very familiar to general audiences, and it isn’t as if the previews did a great job of telling you what the movie is about, instead focusing on “This is from the guy who made Hamilton and the guy who directed Crazy Rich Asians!” And it’s difficult to really tell people the Plot because it’s… kind of things happening

I wondered, given that this is also a musical, originally a play by Lin-Manuel Miranda as _Hamilton_ is, if like that play this story would be a series of musical numbers without much spoken dialogue. But that is not the case. Obviously there ARE musical numbers (though some from the play have been excised), but there’s also plenty of dialogue connecting them. So if that was something you too were wondering or were worried about, there ya go. Question answered.

The main problem I had with this movie was that I felt like it went on too long? There’s this whole conflict about whether or not Usnavi is going to leave Washington Heights. And this conflict gets old by the movie’s end. There’s a good half hour that the movie’s just kind of built on this and while I enjoyed the film, I think this could have been sped up. It probably didn’t help that I already knew what the choice would be before I started the movie (accidentally picked it up from an interview with Miranda several years ago).

If you enjoyed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s other work in musicals, I can’t imagine you wouldn’t enjoy In the Heights. If you were hoping for a serious, Plot-driven movie than I expect you’d rather watch something else. But for musical theater fans 

[sweetprettygeek]

Whumptober Prompt 3

STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES BUT…

taunting | insults | “Who did this to you?”

Fandom: Gravity Falls

Whumpee: Stanford Pines

Ford twists his wrist to look at the time on his watch. Stan’s detention should be done in about fifteen minutes. He doesn’t mind waiting. It’s easier to read here than at home.

He turns to the next chapter of his book on theoretical physics. He lets himself get lost in the complex sentences and the feel and smell of the pages. He leans back against the inbuilt bench and feels the stone dissipate as he’s sucked away from the deserted schoolyard and into another world: a world of dark matter, black holes, extra dimensions…maybe even a multiverse beyond that. He wonders if there’s a place—in the theoretical multiverse, or in any of the millions of galaxies beyond theirs—where he would fit in. Be normal. When he drifts like this, he can almost picture it: a world of anomalies, a world filled with the fantastic and unexplained. What would it be like to go there? To a world of mystery and adventure away from the mundane and everyday? Away from cigarette smoke, broken bottles, and disappointed frowns?

He can almost see it. Can almost step through the invisible rift and be there.

Then the book is ripped out of his hands and the dream world falls to pieces like a shattered window.

He blinks, confused by the loss at first, then looks up into an unfortunately familiar face.

Crampelter. The guy must have no hobbies for all the time he spends harassing him and Stan. His expression twists into a familiar sneer as he glares down at Ford. “Hey there, nerd.”

Ford’s brow furrows in annoyance. “Give it back, Crampelter.” He tries to grab the book back, but the bigger boy holds it up and out of his reach.

“Got left behind today? Only one seat left on the Loser Bus?”

“Give it back.” Ford stands and reaches for the book again. Crampelter holds it over both their heads.

“Why don’t you come and get it?” he taunts, waving the book back and forth. “You need your big dumb brother here to fight your battles for you?”

Ford’s cheeks burn. “He’s not dumb!” he shouts out Crampelter, focusing on that instead of the embarrassment coiling in his gut. He lunges forward, trying to snatch the book midair.

Crampelter catches him in the stomach with his foot, kicking Ford away and into a wall. The air whooshes out of Ford’s lungs and he doubles over, clutching his stomach and riding out a wave of nausea and breathlessness.

“Your brother thinks he’s a real tough guy now that he’s learned to throw a punch.” Crampelter spits into the dirt and rubs his jaw with the back of his hand. He rubs right over a dark bruise that Stan had given him a few days ago when they’d gotten in a fistfight. “We’re gonna show him what happens when he tries to be a hero.”

A cold prickle crawls down Ford’s neck. When they were kids, Crampleter’s antics never went further than insults and a bit of roughhousing. But they’re older now. Crampelter’s altercations with Stan have escalated to full-blown physical brawls. And right now, as Ford looks into their old bully’s face, he sees the logical progression of a kid used to pull the wings off bugs for fun.

Ford braces a hand against the ground. He has to get up and out of here. He’ll wait for Stan somewhere else, preferably somewhere with more people. He pushes off the ground and rises to his feet.

He doesn’t get far.

His face smashes into warm concrete. His vision blurs instantly; he’s lost his glasses. His mouth tastes like copper. There’s a sharp pain in his back, between his shoulder blades. He tries to roll onto his back. There’s a weight on him, above his waist, and a barrier at both his sides.

He’s trapped.

He struggles against whatever is holding him down, but it feels like his body has slowed down and the outside world has sped up. He can’t keep up. Before he can get his bearings, his arms are grabbed and pulled behind his back. He hears a loud ripping sound and laughter before something wraps several times around his wrists, securing them tightly together. He shouts something—maybe a stop! or a what are you doing? or even a someone, help me! The only response he gets are fingers in his hair, yanking and snapping his neck backward. The ripping sound again. Something rough and sticky covers his mouth and seals it shut.

“Let’s take this somewhere a little more private,” Crampelter’s voice hums. Ford hears heavy footfalls tread closer and closer. He sees two dark shapes enter his vision, just inches from his face. The weight lifts from his back and a moment later Ford is hauled to his feet by a pair of arms on either side.

Through the daze of shock and pain Ford’s panic suddenly cuts through. He doesn’t want to know what plans Crampelter—and his goons, presumably—have for him. His feet aren’t bound; he doesn’t have to go with them. When they try to drag him off, he digs in his heels and refuses to budge. When they try to lift him, he lashes out with flailing legs and feet. He hears a yelp and a curse and knows that he must have kicked one of them.

Slap

The hit is forceful enough to knock his head to the side. He feels his cheek stinging right before he gets another blow to the stomach. He chokes behind the gag. He can’t breathe. There’s a tight pang in his sternum. It feels like there’s a rubber band around his lungs. He already can’t get air through his mouth, and now his nose is rejecting every frantic breath he tries to take.

He feels so dizzy. He shuts his eyes, but that does nothing to help. The world spins like a tilt-a-whirl he can’t get off of.

He’s moving and bobbing and being jostled back and forth. When the temperature changes and the sunlight disappears behind his closed eyes, Ford realizes he’s been taken inside somewhere. The hands holding him upright drop him onto the floor. He whimpers and curls into a ball, trying to ease the fresh surge of pain. He’s hurting, but it’s better to be on the ground. At least he has a solid surface to brace against.

“Aw, is the nerd twin crying already?” one of Crampelter’s minions cackles at his sounds of distress.

“Your brother can’t help you now, six fingers.” The click of a lock turning into place echoes in Ford’s ears like a gunshot. His eyes shoot open and he tries to get his bearings.

It’s dark. There are lots of objects filling the space, but Ford can’t tell what they are. The air has a cramped feel to it that Ford recognizes from the pawn shop: the odor of too many things crammed into too small a space.

When he shifts, he feels an unsteady object teeter against his foot. He kicks at it, hoping for some kind of distraction so he can…okay, he doesn’t have a plan. But he feels more in control doing something rather than lying on the floor and letting his tormentors have their way with him.

Whatever he kicks falls with a loud clack and he can hear one of the boys jump backward. They recover quickly, though. They’re the ones holding all the power.

“That your best idea, loser?”

“Maybe he only looks smart ‘cause his twin’s an idiot.”

“You’d think you’d have learned your lesson the last time you waved those useless twig legs around,” Crampelter scoffs. “Looks like someone’s gotta teach you.”

The weight is back, now on his upper legs. He’s not been taken by surprise this time, so Ford can finally identify the pressure as another body pinning his down. He hears the dreaded ripping sound again—duct tape—and knows it means nothing good. He kicks his legs against the floor, but whoever’s sitting on him leans forward to press Ford’s shins into the ground. He’s helpless as the duct tape wraps once, twice…three times around his ankles. The weight shifts forward onto Ford’s quads so that the one with the duct tape can bind him above the knees too.

When they’re finished, when they’ve climbed off him, Ford flexes in his bonds. He can’t move. Can’t escape. His eyes do sting now. He tries to blink the tears away. He won’t give them the satisfaction of really seeing him cry.

“He looks like a chicken, all trussed up like that,” one of the bullies snickers, then begins bwoking loudly in Ford’s ear.

“He went down so easy, too! What a pussy!”

“Where’s your brother now, Stanford?” Crampelter asks mockingly. “Not coming to save you this time, is he? Finally realized what a weirdo you are and ditched you.”

It’s not true. Ford knows it’s not true. Stan would never ditch him.

“I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to be seen with a freak like you.”

Ford’s stomach churns. Freak. He’s heard the word countless times, but it always sounds exponentially worse in Crampelter’s mouth. It makes him feel like a creature, like something you would dissect in science class. It makes him feel worthless.

“That’s why you don’t have friends either. ‘Cause you’re disgusting.”

“You should do everyone a favor and disappear.”

Ford inhales sharply through his nose. You should do everyone a favor and disappear.

He knows he’s weird. It’s not just his hands, either. He likes weird things. He talks weird. He actually likes going to school and learning. He’s not good with people. His dad thinks he’s a wimp. His mom thinks he’s annoying. And Stan…

Maybe Stan wouldn’t draw so much bad attention if he didn’t have a twin. Maybe he wouldn’t get pummeled as often if he didn’t have Ford to protect.

Why couldn’t I have just been born normal?

Ford gets literally yanked out of his self-pitying mess. The lackeys pull him onto his knees. Crampelter crouches in front of him, close enough that Ford can smell tuna on his breath. They’re close enough that when Crampelter holds up an object in the narrow gap between their faces, Ford can tell what it is without glasses.

He squirms, trying to twist himself out of his forced position. He shrieks muffled protests into the gag.

“Stop moving,” Crampelter growls into his ear, “unless you want me to cut you on accident.”

The fear is enough to stop Ford from thrashing around, but not enough to keep him from trembling. He’s never seen Crampelter with a weapon before. Unless rocks and soccer balls counted as weapons. But those were nothing compared to a knife.

Crampelter shoves his head down and leans over the top of him. Ford feels a light pressure travel down his arm, over his sleeve. His breath hitches as he feels the knife push into the narrow gap above his bound wrists. For a terrifying moment he’s sure that the blade is going to dig sideways into his arm. That moment stretches on and on until he loses it and lets out an involuntary high-pitched while that would have been a please if he could speak.

The knife slices straight down through the duct tape, freeing Ford’s hands.

Ford blinks, confused. Why would they tie him up only to free him when he was finally defenseless? Was this some kind of twisted psychological warfare? If so, it was horrendously affective.

He brings his hands around, intending to rub some circulation back into his wrists. He doesn’t get that far. His left arm is seized and twisted behind his back, eliciting another cry of discomfort. Crampelter grabs his right, rolling up Ford’s sleeve with the dull edge of the knife.

“I’m gonna make sure you remember what you are. Gonna make sure your brother remembers what I can do.”

Crampelter presses Ford’s palm into the floor, holding his wrist in a crushing grip. The stooge twisting his other wrist pushes him forward into a hunchbacked position, keeping him bent and pinned.

The blade flashes and Ford screams.

---

Stan groans and stretches his arms over his head. Finally, freedom! Old Ms. Carbuncle sure knew how to make detention feel like an eternity. Ford probably hasn’t even noticed how long it’s been—too engrossed in some new nerd book to care about Stan’s suffering.

Stan thinks he’ll sneak up on him. Just for kicks. Just to even things out a little.

“Heyyy Sixer!” he jumps out from behind the corner, pouncing on the stone bench where Ford always waits for him.

But Ford isn’t there.

Stan turns his head right and left, thinking that maybe Ford heard him coming and moved to avoid the sneak attack. “Sixer?” he walks around the area, looking over and under and around everything that Ford could possibly use to hide. “Ford?”

No answer. He’s not there.

Stan flattens down the rising feeling of something like worry in his throat and replaces it with annoyance instead. So Ford hadn’t wanted to wait for him. Too smart and well-behaved to stay behind and walk with his delinquent brother. Stan sees how it is. Oh, he’ll get Ford for this later. He’ll hide his favorite telescope or eat the last pudding cup in the fridge and maybe that’ll teach Ford it’s not nice to ditch his twin.

He sighs and hefts his backpack over his shoulder, walking to the school entrance. He’s almost to the wire fence when he sees a figure sitting on the curb past it. The bubble of irritation and not-worry in his chest pops and he jogs down the walkway to reach his brother.

“Ford!” he exclaims, bending over to catch his breath. “You could’ve told me you were waiting someplace different today!” He lifts his head to look at Ford, expecting some dry quip or—more likely—a huh? Oh, there you are Stan as he blinks up owlishly from his book.

But Ford isn’t looking at him at all. Or at a book. His eyes are glued to the ground. He looks a mess: clothes rumpled and hair askew. His glasses sit crookedly on his nose. Bent again. Stan’s surprised their mom can still twist their glasses back into shape, considering the damage they’ve taken over the years. Ford’s hands are in front of him and he’s wringing them nervously.

“What in the heck happened to you?” Stan forces himself to laugh, ignoring the ache in his gut. “Alien abduction?”

“Let’s go home.” Ford sounds exhausted. He wobbles a little when he stands up. There’s no way sitting on the sidewalk took that much energy out of him.

“Hey, c’mon man.” Stan grabs his twin by the shoulder and turns him in his direction. Now that they’re both standing, Stan can see that the skin around Ford’s lips looks swollen. He’s about to either praise or scold Ford for getting some action while he wasn’t around, but then he feels his hand start shaking.

No, it’s not his hand that’s shaking. It’s the arm under his hand. In fact, Ford’s whole body is trembling like a leaf.

“Stanford…”

“Let’s just go home, please?” Ford’s voice is hoarse. He must be getting sick. Stan feels terrible for scolding him.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go this way; I know a shortcut.”

He reaches down to take Ford’s hand. Ford jumps and pulls his clasped hands out of Stan’s grasp.

“Don’t!” he shouts.

“What is wrong with you?” Stan yells back, a little annoyed and a lot frantic. “I just wanted to help! Why are you acting so…?”

He trails off as he takes a good look at Ford’s hands. He’s not wringing them. It’s just one hand pressed tight over the other, rubbing occasionally. And the fingers of the top hand are stained with something rust-colored.

“Ford, you’re hurt!” Despite his previous bad results, Stan reaches for his brother again.

Ford stumbles backward. “It’s nothing…”

“Like hell it is! You’re bleeding!” He can see in the panicked dart of Ford’s eyes and the tensing of his muscles that he’s about to bolt, but Stan is stronger and has faster reflexes. He grabs Ford’s wrists and pulls the top hand away.

The back of Ford’s right hand is crossed with angry red cuts. They don’t look super-deep, but they are welling with blood. Stan’s about to freak out and demand to know how Ford got his hand messed up, but then he notices something that makes his heart drop into his stomach.

The cuts aren’t just random lines. There’s an F shape along the ridge of Ford’s knuckles and an R disappearing under his sleeve cuff.

His own hand tenses, and Ford must know what he’s thinking because he shouts, “Stanley, don’t!”

But Stan does.

He pulls up Ford’s sleeve as far as it can go. Traveling up his twin’s forearm are the letters E A K.

FREAK

Stan freezes for a good second before he feels his blood boil over. His head snaps up and he looks into Ford’s pale face. It’s no better than looking at the bloody letters. “Who did this to you?”

Ford presses his lips into a tight line and shakes his head.

“Stanford Pines, you tell me who did this right now!”

He shakes his head again. Tears escape from the pinched corners of his eyes and run down his cheeks. Stan is horrified. Ford doesn’t always take pain or disappointment well, but he never cries. It’s a side-affect of being raised by Filbrick Pines.

“Tell me so I can go bash their faces in!” He’s furious and he feels sick and so, so guilty. This would have never happened if he’d been there. If he hadn’t gotten that stupid detention…!

“Please…” Ford’s fingers curl into his Stan’s shirt. “Please just drop it. I just want to go home.” He sounds so small and helpless and lost. “Please, Stan.”

Stan’s anger crumbles. He’s sure to revisit it later, but right now he has a brother to take care of.

“Okay. Okay. Let’s go home. Oh hey, hold on a second!” Stan reaches down and pulls his shoe and sock off. He stuffs his bare foot back into the shoe and wraps the sock around Ford’s injured hand. “Yeah, I know it’s gross. But it’ll do for now, right?”

Ford nods tightly. His body looks ready to fold in on itself. Stan wishes he knew what to do. All he can do is wrap an arm around Ford’s shoulders as they walk home and tell him that it’ll be okay. That they’ll be okay.

He’s not sure which of them he’s trying to convince.

[featherthiefdean]

Small Everyday Deeds

The day Jack is born something happens that changes everything. Cas survives just barely and Dean is forced to retire.

Sam and Eileen come to visit 3 years later and things are different than what they expected.

Alternating timelines between Dean's struggles from the day of the accident with a now human Cas and Baby Jack to Sam's week long stay three years later.

Start the story here!

Time was a funny thing.

The weekend Sam was supposed to spend helping Dean look for their Dad before returning to Stanford never ended. The divine apocalypse Sam and Dean stopped allowed the world to continue relatively unscathed. All the stuff after that with Metatron and Amara, tablets and trials, marks and spears, angels and demons never slowed time down. Time just kept on spinning.

Time was an especially funny thing when it took a small two-hour road trip to travel a distance Sam had been meaning to go for a long time. Almost two years and a half years, if Sam was remembering correctly.

The drive was smooth and about as picturesque as one could take on a warm June night. Eileen had the windows rolled down and her hair was blowing in the breeze as they pulled down the long lane that led to the farmhouse. The tires crunched over the dirt and rocks. Dusk was settling around them and fireflies illuminated both sides of the drive. The heat from the early summer day was slowly dissipating leaving behind the promise of a cool evening. It was the perfect night for a drive to visit family and Sam was so glad they decided to come tonight instead of waiting until the following afternoon like they had originally planned.

Eileen parked the car in front of the two-story farmhouse. Soft lights filtered through the windows making the house look cozy and serene. Sam could hear crickets and frogs singing from the nearby pond now that the crunch off tires overturning gravel had stopped.

The house had transformed since the first time he had laid eyes on it. Curling paint and broken shutters had once decorated the exterior of house. The house had looked sad and pitiful when he had first viewed it. A lifetime of neglect had made the house looked like it was hunched over in sadness and shame. Vines and bushes had overrun the place nearly hiding it altogether. Now, thanks to the gentle ministrations from Cas and long hours of repair from Dean, the farmhouse stood proud and emitted a warm glow. A true reflection of the little family that lived inside her.

Sam had barely gotten out of the car when he heard the front door open and out came Dean and Cas with Jack in tow. The smell of burgers wafted through the air as Sam and Eileen ascended the front steps onto the large front porch. Sam felt his stomach growl in anticipation. Yep, he was definitely glad they came tonight.

After brief greetings, claps on the back, and hugs to go around, Sam and Dean made their way back to the car while Cas and Eileen stood under the porch lights. They were too busy gossiping to care that the brothers had departed to start unloading the car. Cas was smiling as he signed one-handed to Eileen with a sleepy Jack perched in his hip. Jack’s eyes kept fluttering closed and his sandy hair was tucked into Cas’ neck.  Sam shouldered Eileen’s duffle from it’s place in the backseat and grabbed the handle of his own. They had a few more bags in the trunk but Sam was hit with another waft of the burgers and he felt the growl of hunger deep in his stomach even more this time.

“Dean, should I bring everything in tonight or can we wait until tomorrow to unload?” Sam asked.

“We can probably wait until tomorrow if you want. Just grab whatever you’ll need for tonight. Dinner’s almost done and I made a whole spread including burgers. After that, we’ll get you settled in.”

Dean glanced back up the porch and Sam followed his line of sight. A smirk hit Dean’s face and he continued, “I don’t know if Jack will last much longer unless we get some food in him anyway.”

Read the first and second chapter here!

[wonder-kid-pugh]

Remember the Night - (Kelley O'Hara x reader)

I smile as my phone lights up as it buzzes on the bed beside me as I'm getting ready. "Hey love". Her face lights up on my screen she's already dressed in her training gear and on the bus by the looks of it, "Hey Y/n. You nearly ready?"

I chuckle, "Shouldn't I be asking you that? I'm not the one about to play in a world cup final". "Yeah but I want to make sure your in the stands cheering me on" she gives me a cheeky smile. "I'll be in the front row cheering like mad as you plough through Dutch players the whole game" I roll my eyes. "So you think we're going to win?" She asks. I smile at her, "I know your going to win. You believe in your team and I believe in you".

A big grin spreads across her face but before she can say anything a blonde blue drops in her lap and snatches the phone from her. There a bit of a struggle before the screen focuses and I'm met with the face of Emily Sonnett, "Hey Mom!" I chuckle, "Hey Sonny". "Sonnett give me back the phone!" Kelley whines as she thumps Emily as she tries to steal back her phone. "Ow! Mom! Dad hit me" Emily whines. I laugh, "Sonnett give Kelley back the phone". She pouts but complies as Kelley soon replaces her on screen. "I better let you get zoned in on the game. I love you and I'll see you at the game" I tell her. She sighs but nods, "Okay I'll see you at the game".

I nod, "Yep I'll be in the front row wearing my favourite players jersey". Kelley's face is overtaken by a smile and she awes. "Yep my best friend number 23 Christen Press what a hero". I can see Kelley's look of shock while Christen climbs over the back of her seat and smiles at me, "Love you too Y/n". Kelley face turns sour quickly as we both laugh. "You should be thanking me Kels, remember I'm the one who introduced you back at that Stanford party" Christen teases.

I grin, "She's right Love. Christen told me about this absolute nut of a teammate she had and then introduced me to you". The people her laugh while she pouts at me with red cheeks. "And then I spent everyday after that falling more and more in love with you" I smile. Her frown is replaced with a smile while it sounds like the whole bus awes at us. "Anyways I better let you all prepare for the game. Good luck girls! Love you Kels". I hear an array of "bye" and "See you later" and a "bye mom!" from Sonnett. Kelley smiles at me, "Bye Y/n". I blow her a kiss before I end the call.

I take one last look around the room making sure I have everything I need. I pat my pocket one last time and take out the small box and open it. I bite my lip as I look down at the box in my hand and sigh.

Just a few more hours

----------------

I was on my feet when Kelley went down after going in for a tackle against the Dutch player. I guess it was clear I was anxious as Kelley's mom stood beside me, "I'm sure she's fine. She's tough". I nod mutely as I bite my thumb praying she'll be okay.

The crowd cheered when she got up but she was led over to the sideline by the medic and subbed off. I could see her scan the family section until she landed on me. I held up a thumbs up and mouthed at her, "You okay?" She nods with a small smile but I could see she was still annoyed but she still mouthed back, "Fine. Just a precaution".

I let out a sigh of relief thank god it's nothing bad. I pointed to my heart and tap it three times and she smiles and does the same. Our own little way of saying I love you.

The rest of the match was insane. Pinoe's penalty and then sweet baby Rose's goal had every US supporter buzzing waiting for the match to end and for the US to be two time reigning world champions. The whole of the family sections was on its feet as there was only a minute left in the game. When the final whistle blew everything went wild.

The atmosphere was electric and full of buzz. The subs charged the field in celebration the whole team jumping around the field. I spot Kelley hugging Julie as she whispers something to her before Kelley runs off towards Alex and Allie. I hug Kelley's family while Kelley celebrates with her team.

Before long I see my red head sprinting over to us and hops up on a box to talk to us. I let her family speak with her first before I'm pushed forward by her sister. I lean down over the barrier and hug her tight, "I knew you would win". She nuzzles into my neck before she pulls me slight and the look she gives me. She eyes glazed over and a complete look of love in her eyes, "Can I kiss you?" I smile down as I rest my forehead against hers, "Are you sure?"

But she just beams up at me, "Never been more sure of anything in my life". I lean down and cup her face and kiss her. I smile into the kiss as I shut out everything else around us. When we break apart we're both wearing matching smiles. "I'll see you later yeah?" I smile and nod rapidly, "Definitely". Kelley gives me one last kiss before she hops off the box and rejoins the team.

I move back so other family members could talk to their loved ones. My hand slips into my pocket as it plays with the box. Watch as they receive their medals and parade around the pitch for a victory lap. I bite my lip, the tiny box in my right pocket seems to be getting heavier and burning a hole right in my pants leg. I slip my phone out of my pocket as I send a quick text off to Kelley.

Do you think you could slip

away for a few minutes?

Yeah for sure

Meet me at players entrance

I make my way to meet Kelley as I push myself through crowds of people. When I spot her waiting for me I pick her up and spin her around in my arms. She giggles and gives me a quick but firm kiss, "What did you need to see me for?" I drop her back on her feet as I take her hand a drag her behind me, "Cmon I need to show you something!"

"Y/n where are you taking me? I can't stay away long from the team" Kelley slurs slightly obviously the effects of having a few drinks before meeting up with me. "I just need to show you something really quick okay. Just follow me!" I call as I drag her through the streets.

I pull her all the way to the bridge with locks decorating the wiring of the railings. "I could be getting drunk right now, why did you bring me here?" Kelley jokes. I grinned as I looked over my girlfriend. She was still wearing her shorts and jersey but she had thrown on her zip up over her jersey and she had traded her cleats for her trainers. Her baby strands were stuck to her face and her cheeks are flushed with a red tint.

"I know your suppose to be celebrating right now and I had planned to to this later but I just can't wait any longer" I admit. My hand slips into my pocket as I get down on one knee. Kelley gasp while her hands clasp over her mouth and I can already see her eyes start to water.

"I had it all planned out. I would take you here after dark and the street would be all light up and it would look like something out of a fairytale. But I honestly couldn't wait any longer to ask you and I wasn't sure if you would be drunk to remember" I laugh. She chuckles as the tears are now streaming down her face.

"We've been together a long time, way back since you were this cocky little hotshot in Stanford. And everyone tells me how much you changed after you met me but I don't think they give you enough credit because you changed me too. I become a better person when I'm with and I think we bring the best out of each other. I love how your so determined and passionate about everything you do but you always know how to get a laugh with your childlike behaviour. I want to want to spend the rest of my life waking up next to you and reminding you everyday how much I love you. So Kelley Maureen O'Hara will you please marry me?"

She doesn't say anything but instead tackles me in a hug which sends us toppling to the ground. I grunt from the impact but she doesn't give me time to recover as smashes our lips together in a heated kiss. We only part when air becomes an issue as we're both breathing heavily.

"Is that a yes?" I breath out as I stare into her hazel orbs. "Put that ring on my finger" Kelley lets out a watery laugh. I chuckle as I slide the ring onto her finger. I get up off the ground and lift her into my arms, "I love you so so so much Kel". She grins at me, "I love you more". I brush my nose against hers and kiss her forehead, "Not possible". "Well it is because I do" she fires back. "Everything's a competition with you" I roll my eyes. "Yep" she giggles and kisses me.

She holds my hand as we walk back to the stadium. "Do you think that they noticed I was gone?" She asks as she entwines our fingers. "Are you trying to tell me that they wouldn't notice their Frat Daddy Senior not there with them celebrating and getting shit faced drunk" I raise an eyebrow at her. She laughs, "True". We stop outside the door and we can still hear the massive party raging inside the dressing room. "You better go back inside. You got some catching up to do" I laugh. She shrugs, "I'll still be able to drunk everyone in there under the table".

I shake my head, "It will be a miracle you remember I proposed tomorrow between your head injury and the amount of alcohol your going to consume tonight". She wraps her arms around my neck, "Well if I don't it just means we get to celebrate all over again". I smile and pat the small of her back, "You better go back in there". She stands on her tippy toes and gives me a quick peck, "I'll see you at the party and then we can celebrate together".

I nod and watch as she skips back into the dressing room. I can hear everyone inside cheer as she walks in. I start to walk down the hallway when I hear a shout from the locker room

"WORMIE WHAT IS THAT ON YOUR FINGER!"

[architectuul]

Let's Build Pyramids: Why to Destroy Cities and Capitalism!

“We must fill our eyes and ears with things that are the beginning of a great dream. Someone must shout that we’ll build the pyramids. It doesn’t matter if we don’t. We must feel that wish. We must stretch the corners of the soul like a sheet.”  — from Domenico’s speech, Nostalghia

For a series of different reasons, Andrej Tarkovski’s Nostalghia seems very actual as it portrays the image of the cities during these days of lockdown. In the most emblematic scene of the film, Domenico, the old madmen who enclosed his family at home for seven years attending the end of the world, gives a public speech from the top of the Equestrian Statues of Marco Aurelio in the Campidoglio square in Rome. Listening to him are a very few groups of mad, foolish and ordinary people standing on the different monumental stairs of Michelangelo’s piazza. In the scene, actors are symmetrically positioned on a precise and identical large-distance from one another echoing, in some rhetorical but also poetical terms, a sort of future scenario on how we’ll have to imagine one of the most crowded spaces in Rome and elsewhere if social distancing becomes a new way of living.

Apart from the poetics of social distancing and its anticipation, what emerges from Tarkovski’s film is also a different perception of space and time opposed to our everyday-life habits: namely when Gorchakov, the protagonist, steps in his large hotel room, where it is shown only the bed and the sink, when he meets Eugenia in the hotel hall and when he visits the thermal bath of Bagno Vignoni. In two hours of film, all these few passages and dialogs are shown very slowly, slow shootings with only a few actors, offering a sort of dilated space, which again recalls how cities and metropolis have been spatially transformed from when silence and emptiness reigns supreme since Covid-19 spread globally. In these days, which seems that will last for a long time, seen from the point of view of domestic segregation (mediatically called quarantine), comes clear on how much we are used to and educated to live in cities and how we suffer it now. We all work in offices, study in schools and universities, consume in supermarkets and shops and do travel for all these reasons abroad, away from home, which we use only as a sleeping-place when we turn back from outside by car, tram or bus.

Assuming all these activities and rituals as fundamental aspects for reproducing life, while thinking also to the urban form of contemporary towns, historical centers, metropolis and megalopolis, it clearly emerges that the very reason behind these common rituals are mobility and circulation. As we all can observe, without working infrastructures, without metros, tram-lines, car roads and highways, cities would have no sense. I thus argue that this is related to a contemporary crisis of space, which is a very tangible condition in actual problematics such as climate change, pandemic crisis, scarcity of land in cities as also in the countryside, as well as the property issue and housing shortage, the problem of minimum dwellings and high rents, conditions that are strongly related to the existence of the city and its urban form.

Wuhan: No One Cares

Who did theorize well the dialectic between circulation and the crisis of space was Karl Marx. In his Grundrisse Notebooks, Marx argues that within the circulation process, which is part of the whole process of production, Capital through the concept of time destroys the concept of space itself: “Capital by its nature drives beyond every spatial barrier. Thus, the creation of the physical conditions of exchange – of the means of communication and transport – the annihilation of space by time– becomes an extraordinary necessity for it.” [1] The circulation process, namely the process of exchange of goods, labor force, money and capitals, is the process where products are transformed into goods and this takes place within the so-called global market. 

As Marx put it out, in order to surpass any barrier, the production of cheap means of communication and transportation is fundamental to capital, that is why their realization is promoted by capital itself: “The sea route, as the route which moves and is transformed under its own impetus, is that of trading peoples ϰατ᾽ ἐξοχήν [pur excellence]. On the other side, highways originally fall to the community, later for a long period to the governments, as pure deductions from production, deducted from the common surplus product of the country, but do not constitute a source of its wealth, i.e. do not cover their production costs.” [2] To say it in more simplistic words, it is capital alone or through the intervention of the State that needs to build streets and communication routes connecting cities (market centers) through the territory, and doing so as quick as possible.

As we think to the form of the city since its origins, as highlighted by Henry Heller in his book The Birth of Capitalism: A 21st Century Perspective, the urban fabric of the medieval town was a fundamental apparatus in accelerating the passage from feudalism to capitalism. Collecting different arguments of historians and researchers on feudalism, Heller tries to explain the role of the formation of towns in a passage that coincided with the rise of the town both as a marketplace and as a terrain of class struggles. 

From the contemporary point of view of its most sophisticated form that is financial capitalism, David Harvey have always asserted that this aspect of accumulation and exchange is embodied in the ideology of the political agendas of growth. As highlighted by Harvey in one his lecture at Harvard Senior Loeb Scholar, after the 2008 crisis, while the UE promoted austerity policies, on the contrary, countries like Brazil or China pointed towards extreme growth (and urbanization) implementing large investments in order to increase employments and escape from economic depression. Examples like the Chinese project launched in 2013 to merge together Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei into a megalopolis of 130 million people called Jing-Jin-Ji, demonstrates not a mere imperialistic geo-strategic plan, but it also reconfigures the logic of financial capital applied to an archetype which does exists as capitalism does too: the city. In such a context, criticizing the city means contemporarily criticizing capitalism and its logics of production and reproduction. For this reason, through the history of architecture and urbanism the unbearable aura of capitalism and its logics has produced many alternatives by proposing models that served as attempts to escape from, to govern and to destroy it.

University of North Carolina Campus (1860). | Source: Turner, Campus: An American Planning Tradition

Escape was one of the main reasons behind the invention and ethos of campus planning in the USA in late 1700s. When university and education in the United States became a political project, for many campus planners the only way to make education efficacious was to build them far away from the city, in order to avoid its corruption, distractions, profligacy and chaos. The word campus, coming from Latin campo that literally means an open field, according to Paul Venable Turner was first used at Princeton College in the 1770s referring to the property land of its first college building [3]. 

From then, putting a group of buildings within the idyllic nature enhanced an alternative to organize life differently. Eliphalet Not, president of Union College during 1804-66, became popular through college pioneers for having invented a way of living and a new governance based on family life principles. During Nott’s governance, each professor was responsible of his class and had to consider it as his enlarged own family. This model of less-control over students structured a new democratic life that corresponded also to the architectural form of the college designed by French architect and landscaper Joseph-Jacques Ramée: a rotunda at the center of the campus and symmetrical wings of dormitories and classes limiting a natural common space where students and professors could live and work together as members of a large family. 

Union College, Schenectady (NY), Project and drawings by Joseph-Jacques Ramée (1813). | Source: Turner, Campus: An American Planning Tradition

Revisiting the same architectural and organizational model, the spread over the American territory of almost identical models such as Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia University, first projects for the Davidson College in North Carolina, plans for a National University near Washington and the Stanford University, echoed in certain ways Robert Owen’s parallelograms for a socialist utopia where mutual-cooperation based on living, working and centralized education could be organized within self-sufficient bodies spread over a farming landscape [8]. Everything but socialism, American university campuses however represented a dilated spatiality inhabited by students moving around in groups, social distanced or close to each other, and with buildings placed here-and-there into an open field full of trees, lakes, forests and idyllic green.

Ville Contemporaine. | Source Der Stadtstreicher

Fascinated by this same depiction of university campuses, yet operating through the same ideals of nature, but more perverse and decisive, Le Corbusier’s plans of Ville Contemporaine for three million inhabitants of 1922 and Plan Voisin of 1925, strongly opposing urbanism as we are all used to know it, can be considered as one of the most radical attempts to destroy the city and its historical aura. 

Plan Voisin. | Source Charnel House

While in both the two proposals the Swiss architect insisted on demolishing an entire piece of historical Paris for erecting his prototypical settlement with towers and low-rise buildings into an enormous park, the very response to the logic of capitalism was his Industrial Linear City elaborated together with the CIAM-France group of the ASCORAL in 1942-43 [5]. In the latter, Le Corbusier imagined a series of territorial strips (with highways and railways) connecting European most important historical centers through horizontal and vertical territorial axis containing housing, productive buildings and free-standing agricultural settlements. 

Diagram of the Industrial Linear City through Europe and fragment of the linear city connecting two historical centers (1942-43), Le Corbusier + ASCORAL. | Source Le Corbusier - Œuvre complète Volume 4: 1938-1946

In his vision he literally stretched the typical industrial city assuming the highway, that became a greenway, as its structural form: thus, historical centers in Le Corbusier’s vision were reduced into ordinary administrative bodies and exchange hubs—likely in the same way we intend Amazon distribution centers operating today—connected to each other by highways bordered with a green belt and rhythmed through factories and isolated Unité d’Habitations, horizontal garden-cities and facilities. The linear form assumed the infrastructure by explicating it in a new architecture dispositive for a new dilated city, the habitability of which could be imagined by thinking to the point of view of an adventure foreigner-guy traveling and sleeping in highway motels when stopping in filling stations.Though, rather than a real alternative to the capitalistic city, Le Corbusier’s linear city can be considered as a design diagram to control and govern accumulation and to give a specific form to the logic of growth against that neoliberalist laissez faire model that came after Le Corbusier era.

Detail of the Industrial Linear City (1942-43), Le Corbusier + ASCORAL. | Source: Le Corbusier - Œuvre complète Volume 4: 1938-1946

What Le Corbusier presented as a mere opposition, the disurbanization of the world imagined by the Italian collective Superstudio with their Continuous Monument, an enormous infinite white-grid element cannibalizing the city, to quote a very potent expression used by the Italian architectural historian Roberto Gargiani, collects all the frustration of an entire young generation emerging from the political struggles between 1968 and 1977 against industrial capitalism in Europe. While in the first collages of 1969-70 this imposing element cannibalizes the city in the sense that it really penetrates it by destroying emblematic landscapes such as Graz, Madrid, Rome, Florence and New York, in the latest collages of 1970-72 this immense monument could finally run through in full liberty: into world’s nature, canyons, deserts, valleys and rivers [6]. 

As Gargiani and Beatrice Lampariello have carefully narrated in their book Il Monumento Continuo di Superstudio, tracing its origins, infrastructure highways and viaducts were crucial references on the Superstudio research discourse by images as these infrastructures really addressed them on how to use one of the most emblematic inventions of capitalism for circulation in favor to a new spatial alternative. Inside the Continuous Monument, echoing Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace interior,—there have to be no rooms, no labor-division, no hierarchies, no typology and no program—just a free and pure envelope of nothingness. Rituals and forms of life had to take form in the same way urban communes and hippies did and, perhaps, life inside has to be governed in the same way the Italian autonomists were politically organized: through their same historical effort that helped to understand and made visible the inhabitability of the city.  

Fragment of the Continuous Monument entitled Manhattan Empire State Building, Superstudio (1969-70) 

It was nevertheless auspicabile that such critics emerged in times of gran abundance, on the apogee—to put it with Adam Smith terms—of the wealth of the nations. Although during modern and post-modern history of architecture there were many other examples going on the same direction, even more radical and polemic (i.e. soviet disurbanism linear aggregation of individual cells with episodic collective buildings is the most emblematic example towards the destruction of the capitalist city) [7], the three strategies analyzed above should tackle not a new projective aura, but, on the opposite, a ferocious critic to what have been done till now. The point is not to advance specific solutions but to raise questions and to address a hysterical reaction to everyday obviousness: Why are we at this point? Why streets and squares are there and we cannot reach them? Why did we all build them if, in a snap of fingers, they become inhabitable? Perhaps, because they have always been inhabitable—inhuman.

Fragment of the Continuous Monument On the River, Superstudio (1969-70) 

Going back to Tarkovski’s message, the invitation to build Pyramids should be read not as a mere nostalghia of how we were living before the global lockdown. It should rather serve to think on an historical moment that is yet to come and could give the possibility to share that common anger that lays in our souls and spirits; to finally express it in the form of a common effort for destroying the command of capitalism and building marvelous pyramids for a new form of democracy.

- Marson Korbi

---

[1], [2] Marx, K. (1073). Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, London: Penguin, 442, 449.

[3] Venable Turner, P. (1984). Campus: An American Planning Tradition Cambridge, MIT Press, 47.

[4] Benevolo, L. (2005). Le origini dell’urbanistica moderna,  Laterza.

[5] Le Corbusier, eds. Willy Boesiger, Oeuvre Complète (1991). Zurich: Les Editions D'Architecture, 72-75.

[6] Gargiani, R., Lampariello,B. (2019). Il Monumento Continuo di Superstudio. Eccesso del razionalismo e strategia del rifiuto, Genova: Sagep Editori.

[7] Aureli, P. A., Martino, T. (2018). The Forest and the Cell: Notes on Mosej Ginzburg's Green City. Harvard Design Magazine, no. 45.

[skittles1229]

Old Expectations Die Hard (Dashie x Reader Fanfic)

Chapter One: Weird Circumstances

You know your life is complicated when the friend you always complain to says "you never have a dull moment do you?" I sigh as the weight of the world seems to make it impossible to breath. You see recently things have been rough. I lost my job and my fiance all in the same day, that itself was an unbelievable story. I was so upset and strung out on thoughts of what to do that once i got home early from work i didn't notice the extra car in the driveway. i stepped into my home and my own floors felt as if they'd given way when i saw the guy i thought i'd be spending my life with in bed, with my sister... my sister and i hadn't been on good terms for a while and for a good reason! The drugs she took either made her unreliable and selfish or crazy and murderous. He, of course, pulled the its not what you think, id never hurt you, it was a mistake, and honestly i could write a book out of the excuses i heard in the time of two minutes but maybe another time. Needless to say i left. I never thought about going back and to be honest my sister looked more hurt then i was. I took a job in California a few weeks ago and moved in with my friend (BFF Name). They always seemed to know what to say and honestly i truly believe They  knew me better then i know myself. 

California gave me the biggest culture shock I've ever had. I came from Mississippi, the bible belt and the most rural part of the world. California was sooooo different then what i was use to. The weather is awesome. There's lots of jobs for technical people, at least until you're 45 and then you're considered ancient and you can't possibly know anything when some 23-year old out of Stanford tells you that they know it all. (a little bit of sarcasm there) It's a great place to start a new company, money is available as is talent. The risk of starting a company is lower since you can always find a new job The politics are insane, if you aren't towing the progressive party line you should just STFU. If you even once say that Trump has done something positive, or that Obama did something negative prepare for the wrath. Read the stuff behind the recently filed lawsuit against google for a taste of what it's like. Seriously, don't say a word. The state if structurally bankrupt, although the finances look good because so much stuff is off of the balance sheet. The public pension liability dwarfs the "good" part of the budget, and some day it is coming home to roost. Watch out when it does. The cost of living is absurd, really absurd. I'm not talking just a place to live but gas, electricity, haircuts, milk, pizza, you name it. The traffic is absurd too. (can you tell i like the word absurd) The public transit, although usually on time, is a mess. People are pigs, they throw trash everywhere, the cars are overcrowded almost all the time. 

I've got to say, from how much it sounds like i hate California, i actually don't.  Mainly because its so far away from my original family, leaving really helped me start to grow up and feel like maybe i was getting a hold of my life again. Only problem has been getting to my new job on time. I work as a barista and a waitress at a brunch place a good minute away from the apartment. The money is good, otherwise i wouldn't waste my time with the commute everyday. i keep being late to work because i still haven't adjusted to how terrible traffic is and so my boss was "nice" enough to switch me to the later shifts. The hours are long and boring because my shift starts in the middle of rush hour to the slowest hours at the end of the day meaning you have to find things to keep yourself busy with. the only good thing is, we can wear pretty much anything we want as long as its black. all i wear is dark colors so i didn't have to spend any extra money on a uniform and i didn't have to wear the same thing everyday. Today i decided i wear a v-neck shirt that with an emperor waist (body forming) with black skinny jeans and my regular converse. i decided against driving to work and decided it would be far smarter to catch a bus to the nearest destination. My (hair color) hair was done is a fishtail messy braid, i always liked this style because it made me look like i had a head full of hair when in reality i thought i was going bald. 

My personality was a little odd, you see some days i felt like the beautiful nerd who has no confidence and wants to hide away in a hole. other days i feel like a model from Victoria secrets, of course those are the days i get the most tips. today was honestly a mutual day, where id rather be at home in my bed asleep, or listening to music. The bus finally stopped a block away from my job and i sighed obviously not wanting to go into work. surprisingly there wasn't nearly  as many cars as there usually is around this time but i wasn't complaining. i walk in to see that most of the downstairs was empty but whoever was upstairs definitely had a loud mouth. i walk to the back in order to clock in and i bump into melany ( the girl im shifting with). "wow you actually got here on time! Maybe the boss's mood will cheer up." i huffed a little. "yea, i dont know why i thought id need a car in California, say whats with the low level of customers? its NEVER this slow." she looked at me in disdain, "some guys reserved the entire upstairs and we had to make this huge table out of all our tables up there, glad im not gonna be the one fixing it later." i rolled my eyes, i hated when a huge family came in and they just had to move everything around because little johnny wants the sit next to suzzie and suzzie HAS to sit by her parents bc she likes to throw her food on the floor, all fake names but a real situation ive been in before. "well have they at least been fed so that i only have to clean up after them?" she shook her head while hanging up her apron. "nope, they've only ordered their drinks and they are getting those onto trays now." so today was gonna be like every other day. "guess i better go help them take those upstairs then, have a good rest of your day." i walk away and slip on my apron, grabbed one of the trays of drinks while another waiter grabbed the rest of the drinks. Once i got upstairs, that's when i met him...

Chapter Two: Last Will and Testament

          He was sitting on the far end of the long table of people laughing and joking. everyone seemed to be loud and all had their own inside jokes. This guy, he stuck out. i changed my attention to the task at hand, finishing this shift. i hated when people moved all the tables and seating around. all the waiters and waitresses have to go back behind them and look at the layout of the floor to put them all back exactly as they were before. it was a struggle and because of this nobody actually wanted that job so usually the manager gives it to her least favorite workers and i happened to be one. "who all had coke?" nobody answered me so one of the men bellowed out the same line and somehow was able to get a show of hands. i walked around handing  out drinks, catching the lingering smell of strong liquor. i could tell by the end of tonight they would all be wasted and loud. please, just don't make more of a mess then you have to, i thought to myself. i had one drink left on my tray, "sweet tea?" the guy i saw before at the end of the table waved his hand and i dreaded going over there, i always seem to make a fool of myself when it matters. 

     i make my way slowly down the table with the tray under my arm and the tea in my hand. i lean over to sit his drink on the table.."here's your t-" *CRASH* while joking with one of his friends his elbow crashes into my hand sending the tea flying all over me and the cup crashing to the floor, thank god i wore black. he turned around and looked more horrified then i did. "i'm sorry! i'm so sorry!" his voice was deeper then i imagined it'd be. "no, it my fault i'm sorry ill get you a new one." i turned away to hide my embarrassment and walked away really just trying to get away from the situation. i could tell from the silence behind me that all eyes were on me. i ran to the back where the lockers were for the service. i went to the bathroom and stripped the sticky clothes off throwing them aside. i sat on the toilet  trying to catch my breath, my social anxiety had struck me  hard. a feeling of worthlessness and dread fell over me like a blanket. after the past few months i've had just one day without something terrible happening would mean the world to me. i heard a knock on the door, it was melany, she walked in with a towel from the kitchen. "hey, i heard what happen upstairs are you ok?" i covered my breast trying keep myself as unexposed as possible. "oh yea im fine, im just cold, and sticky, and... covered in tea." melany and i made eye contact and both laughed just to lift the dread in the air. "let me guess, all the guys are getting a kick out of watching me fumble again huh?" i said a little less concerned and more annoyed. she rolled her eyes "they are boys, they get a kick out of picking their own nose. we both slid to the floor beside each other, she hands me the damp towel. i get most of the sticky off as possible, throwing my hair up to make it look less clumped together by the sugar. "i have an extra black t shirt in my locker but i don't know how it will fit you. your breast are at least a size larger then mine." i shrugged my shoulders, "who cares ill make do. thanks for your help melany." she smiled her weird anime girl smile and ran to get the shirt from her locker.

     ill have to admit, she was right about the size thing. it was far to small around the chest area but the rest fit fine. after the incident my boss stuck me down stairs wiping tables and sweeping the floor, i dont mind though because i get to experience the day coming to an end with a beautiful sunset over California. i secretly kept the the window to watch as the sun fell from the sky. the sky seemed to burn and darken while the clouds began to glow with the last bit of sunlight left. the sky filled up with burning Burgundy and faded orange and yellows, the tallest buildings seemed to reach for the skyline as if it were a sunflower moving to the last drip of sunlight. moving here had been hard, and this had become one of the things i looked forwards to. living in the apartment with my friend was nice, buts its not the same as coming home to someone you use to lay with every night. sleeping alone seemed so much colder and emptier then i remembered from childhood. my mother would be so disappointed in the way i turned out, in the places id gone and the decision to spend my life with someone who was most obviously the wrong one. she would have told me to slow down and to take my time, that growing up wasn't everything. she would have said love isn't something you just wake up and have, its something you make. i wasn't anywhere close to where i thought id be by now, and i could see that. it tears at my heart everyday, not being able to see her or any of my family. sometimes it felt as if they'd all died in the fire that night. 

     i suddenly heard a boom of voices making their way down the stairs, i hadn't realized how close to closing time it had become. all of them walk out stumbling and laughing at their own jokes, seems they all got a good bit of drinking in, all except one. The guy i ran into on accident seemed as sober as ever, designated driver i think, he was much taller now. he seemed muscular but in such a fitting way for his body. his teeth sparkle because their so white, his smile complimented him best. his high cheekbones made his chocolate brown eyes his best feature. His skin was glowing with a sweet honey hue and before i could notice that i was staring he turned his head. his eyes met mind before i could think twice and that's when i felt the heat rise to my cheeks. weather it be from embarrassment or silly school girl shyness i didn't know . i turned my face away but it was too late, i turned my face a little just to catch a glimpse of him before he made his way out of the door and that's when i noticed his cheeks had gone from a burnt caramel to a rosy color. i felt my body shiver at the thought that maybe, just maybe he found me as attractive as i found him. i shook the thought from head realizing they had began locking the place down. as i helped close up shop and wash dishes i couldn't help but to let my mine wander to all different kinds of thoughts, funny thing was they always fell back to him and his rosy  cheeks. i couldn't help but smile as i felt my heart race at the thought of him, even though id made a fool of myself today i was glad i hadn't ruined my chances. Even if he'd never get with me or i wouldn't ever see him again, i'd still take it as a compliment that he even looked my way. 

     before long we were all outside laughing and talking about today. The manager locked the doors and said his goodbyes. i turn to walk towards the bus station when i see a man standing aside awkwardly between the restaurant and the parking lot. suddenly my eyes adjusted and once they did, the joyousness butterflies came back and the blush suddenly reappeared on my cheeks..

There are lots more chapter after this if you are interested you can find them here

https://my.w.tt/sosFRmianbb

[thewnchstrs]

ONESHOTS

PAIRINGS

*** = smut

Dean

Scarred: after a hunt gone wrong, the reader has to undergo surgery leaving her with a permanent memory of what happened that night.***

Meet the Family: meeting your boyfriend’s family for the first time at Thanksgiving is already a nightmare, but sprinkle in a little suppressed family drama and you get a recipe for disaster. (AU where Sam and Dean were never hunters)***

Hold On: the life of a hunter becomes too much for the reader to handle.

The Waiting Room: Dean and the reader’s world collide when they meet in a hospital waiting room.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: sparring practice with Dean turns into something much more.

Back in Black: it’s all fun and games until Dean Winchester catches you dancing in your room with his clothes on.

Twenty Years too Late: the reader has to come clean about the horrible things that happened to her in the past.

Friends: in times like these, it’s not safe to love who you love (based off of the song Friends by Ed Sheeran). *male!reader

Exorcist?: the reader uncovers something that leads Dean to have to reveal the truth about the Family Business. | Part 2

Hopeless: when Sam finds out about how the reader self harms, he urges her to tell Dean.

Not to Blame: reader has a history of self harm and is finally forced to open up about it.

Devil’s Backbone: the crucifix around your neck seemed to burn the moment you laid eyes on Dean Winchester, but you couldn’t find it in you to care (based off of the song Devil’s Backbone by the Civil Wars).

Wings: when the reader falls into a coma and is met with an unlikely circumstance, will she try to fix her rocky relationship with Dean or fall for someone new?

Just a Number: the reader and Dean are in an established relationship but there’s one aspect of it that Dean can’t get past.

Happier: even though Dean knows you’re happier now, he can’t help but miss you (based off of the song Happier by Ed Sheeran).

Sam

Death Wish: after Sam dies, Y/N knows what she has to do in order to bring him back.

O’ Death: a hunt gone wrong leads to the reader finding herself facing Death one last time.

Help Me Help You: after Sam finds out the reader has a prescription pill problem, he knows he has to confront her about it.

Underworld: Sam, Dean, and the reader run into one of the toughest demons they’ve come across in a long time. But she needs their help. male!reader

Here For You(Always): the reader struggles with anorexia, and when there’s an incident during a hunt, she has to come clean.

The Day: the reader is head over heels for Sam but doesn’t know how to act around him so Dean tries to help.

Chuck

More Than a Secret: when the reader finds out Chuck is God, she battles with how to deal with it.

NON-PAIRINGS

Sam & Dean & Reader

Multilingual: the reader has more skills than the Winchesters seem to know about.

Team Free Will & Reader

The Vessel: unaware that Lucifer is pulling the strings, Sam, Dean, and the reader have Castiel send Dean back in time to a doomed WWll submarine to retrieve the Hand of God. episode rewrite

It’s a Midwest Thing: TFW visits the reader’s hometown.

Sam & Dean

Barnum & Bailey: Sam and Dean meet a group of hunters who disguise themselves as a traveling circus.

Stanford: Dean finds Sam’s Stanford application.

FAMILY FICS

Daughter!Reader

Fifteen Going on Thirty: finding a box of condoms in your daughter’s room never goes over well.

It’s a Two Way Street: Sam’s seven year old daughter becomes possessed.

Runaway: when the reader tries to go on their first hunt alone, Sam is reminded of a time when he almost lost them. gender neutral!reader

Top Secret: Sam’s daughter is planning his birthday present until it all goes terribly wrong.

I Loved Her First: Dean reminisces on his life with his daughter on her wedding day. (based off of the song I Loved Her First by Heartland)

Winchester Sister

Dream On: after being captured by a demon, the Winchesters are faced with a decision to make. (OC Ellie)

Rescuer: when celebrating a hunt gone right, the reader receives some very unwanted attention from a man in a bar.

Fade to Black: after being injured during a hunt, Sam and Dean aren’t sure their sister will make it out alive.

A Very Supernatural Thanksgiving: what’s Thanksgiving without coming out to your family and then getting the sex talk.

#thinman: when a teenage girl is killed, the final selfie she took before the attack shows a shadowy figure in the background. Can Sam, Dean, and the reader find the ghost? episode rewrite

Burden: drinking and driving never mix.

Side Effects: the reader has been abusing her medication, and it’s only a matter of time before her brother’s find out.

Forbidden Love: the reader’s relationship with Lucifer is hidden for nearly a year until her brothers find out about it.

Torture Makes the Dead Man Talk: Sam and the reader are taken by Toni Bevell, a British Men of Letters who tortures them for information. | Part 2

Show and Don’t Tell: the reader has been with Charlie for almost six months, now comes the part of breaking the news to her brothers.

The Main Event: being a deaf hunter is just as hard as you’d expect.

Baby Blue: the reader gets caught doing something her brothers are less than thrilled about.

Mystery Spot: while Sam, Dean, and the reader are investigating a mystery spot, the reader is sent into a time loop where everyday is Tuesday. episode rewrite

Goodnight, Moon: when the reader runs away in order to get out of the Family Business, she finds herself ten years later in front of the two people she thought she’d never see again.

Home is Where I’m With You: the reader goes away to college, but leaving home is going to be harder than she thinks.

The Cure: watching after a demon is much harder when A) that demon is your brother, and B) when that demon escapes. | Part 2

She’s a Winchester: when Sam and Dean suspect that their sister is dating, they find something in the far corner of her bedside table that confirms their suspicions.

4 AM: the reader comes home drunk, but her brothers are up waiting for her.

Yellow Fever: the reader is infected with an illness that starts as anxiety, but moves to full-blown terror and stops the heart. episode rewrite

Dancing Queen: the reader gets an invitation to a school father-daughter dance, but John hasn’t been home in a few days.

The Babysitter: the Winchester brothers need a babysitter for their younger sister.

RPFs

Jared & Jensen & Misha & Reader

Captain America?: the reader has a secret boyfriend, and Jared, Jensen and Misha want to know who he is

Jensen & Jared & Reader

Lean On Me: all of the times the reader, Jared, and Jensen had to lean on each other when it seemed like they were all they had. (based off of the song Lean On Me by Bill Withers)

Jensen

(There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays: the reader’s first Christmas with her new family. (daughter!reader)

Midnight Dreamer: the reader hears something from Jensen’s side of the bed in the middle of the night.***

OTHER

Partner in Crime: Gabrielle meets the angel she’s been dying to meet.

Rock Never Dies: the reader intends to find and kill Lucifer except he’s now he’s international rockstar Vince Vincente.

With a Little Help From My Friends: a church sermon offends Lucifer, the angels and the reader defend him.

What Do You Expect?: Crowley is dragged to Comic Con. | Part 2

I Guess Angels Are Real: when Charlie is in a desperate situation, the reader agrees to help out, which leads to major flirting with the reader from Dean.

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

Article from The Atlantic “This Is Not a Normal Mental Health Disaster” (posted July 7th, 2020). Excerpt:

In any case, the full extent of the fallout will not come into focus for some time. Psychological disorders can be slow to develop, and as a result, the Textbook of Disaster Psychiatry, which Morganstein helped write, warns that demand for mental-health care may spike even as a pandemic subsides. “If history is any indicator,” Morganstein says of COVID-19, “we should expect a significant tail of mental-health effects, and those could be extraordinary.” Taylor worries that the virus will cause significant upticks in obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia, and germaphobia, not to mention possible neuropsychiatric effects, such as chronic fatigue syndrome.

The coronavirus may also change the way we think about mental health more broadly. Perhaps, Schoch-Spana says, the prevalence of pandemic-related psychological conditions will have a destigmatizing effect. Or perhaps it will further ingrain that stigma: We’re all suffering, so can’t we all just get over it? Perhaps the current crisis will prompt a rethinking of the American mental-health-care system. Or perhaps it will simply decimate it.

Shared in entirety under the cut for those who can’t access it:

This Is Not a Normal Mental Health Disaster by Jacob Stern

If SARS is any lesson, the psychological effects of the novel coronavirus will long outlast the pandemic itself. 

The SARS pandemic tore through Hong Kong like a summer thunderstorm. It arrived abruptly, hit hard, and then was gone. Just three months separated the first infection, in March 2003, from the last, in June.

But the suffering did not end when the case count hit zero. Over the next four years, scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong discovered something worrisome. More than 40 percent of SARS survivors had an active psychiatric illness, most commonly PTSD or depression. Some felt frequent psychosomatic pain. Others were obsessive-compulsive. The findings, the researchers said, were “alarming.”

The novel coronavirus’s devastating hopscotch across the United States has long surpassed the three-month mark, and by all indications, it will not end anytime soon. If SARS is any lesson, the secondary health effects will long outlast the pandemic itself.

Already, a third of Americans are feeling severe anxiety, according to Census Bureau data, and nearly a quarter show signs of depression. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the pandemic had negatively affected the mental health of 56 percent of adults. In April, texts to a federal emergency mental-health line were up 1,000 percent from the year before. The situation is particularly dire for certain vulnerable groups—health-care workers, COVID-19 patients with severe cases, people who have lost loved ones—who face a significant risk of post-traumatic stress disorder. In overburdened intensive-care units, delirious patients are seeing chilling hallucinations. At least two overwhelmed emergency medical workers have taken their own life.

To some extent, this was to be expected. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, substance abuse, child abuse, and domestic violence almost always surge after natural disasters. And the coronavirus is every bit as much a disaster as any wildfire or flood. But it is also something unlike any wildfire or flood. “The sorts of mental-health challenges associated with COVID-19 are not necessarily the same as, say, generic stress management or the interventions from wildfires,” says Steven Taylor, a psychiatrist at the University of British Columbia and the author of The Psychology of Pandemics (published, fortuitously, in October 2019). “It’s very different in important ways.”

Most people are resilient after disasters, and only a small percentage develop chronic conditions. But in a nation of 328 million, small percentages become large numbers when translated into absolute terms. And in a nation where, even under ordinary circumstances, fewer than half of the millions of adults with a mental illness receive treatment, those large numbers are a serious problem. A wave of psychological stress unique in its nature and proportions is bearing down on an already-ramshackle American mental-health-care system, and at the moment, Taylor told me, “I don’t think we’re very well prepared at all.”

Most disasters affect cities or states, occasionally regions. Even after a catastrophic hurricane, for example, normalcy resumes a few hundred miles away. Not so in a pandemic, says Joe Ruzek, a longtime PTSD researcher at Stanford University and Palo Alto University: “In essence, there are no safe zones any more.”

As a result, Ruzek told me, certain key tenets of disaster response no longer hold up. People cannot congregate at a central location to get help. Psychological first-aid workers cannot seek out strangers on street corners. To be sure, telemedicine has its advantages—it eliminates the logistical and financial burdens of transportation, and some people simply find it more comfortable—but it complicates outreach and can pose problems for older people, who have borne the brunt of the coronavirus.

A pandemic, unlike an earthquake or a fire, is invisible, and that makes it all the more anxiety-inducing. “You can’t see it, you can’t taste it, you just don’t know,” says Charles Benight, a psychology professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs who specializes in post-disaster recovery. “You look outside, and it seems fine.”

From spatial uncertainty comes temporal uncertainty. If we can’t know where we are safe, then we can’t know when we are safe. When a wildfire ends, the flames subside and the smoke clears. “You have an event, and then you have the rebuild process that’s really demarcated,” Benight told me. “It’s not like a hurricane goes on for a year.” But pandemics do not respect neat boundaries: They come in waves, ebbing and flowing, blurring crisis into recovery. One month, New York flares up and Arizona is calm. The next, the opposite.

That ambiguity could make it harder for people to be resilient. “It’s sort of like running down a field to score a goal, and every 10 yards they move the goal,” Benight said. “You don’t know what you’re targeting.” In this sense, Ruzek said, someone struggling with the psychological effects of the pandemic is less like a fire survivor than a domestic-violence victim still living with her abuser, or a traumatized soldier still deployed overseas. Mental-health professionals can’t reassure them that the danger has passed, because the danger has not passed. One can understand why, in a May survey by researchers at the University of Chicago, 42 percent of respondents reported feeling hopeless at least one day in the past week.  

A good deal of this uncertainty was inevitable. Pandemics, after all, are confusing. But coordinated, cool-headed, honest messaging from government officials and public-health experts would have gone a long way toward allaying undue anxiety. The World Health Organization, for all the good it has done to contain the virus, has repeatedly bungled the communications side of the crisis. Last month, a WHO official claimed that asymptomatic spread of the virus is “very rare”—only to clarify the next day, after a barrage of criticism from outside public-health experts, that “we don’t actually have that answer yet.” In February, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans to prepare for “disruption to everyday life that may be severe,” then, just days later, said, “The American public needs to go on with their normal lives,” then went mostly dark for the next three months. Health experts are not without blame either: Their early advice about masks was “a case study in how not to communicate with the public,” wrote Zeynep Tufekci, an information-science professor at the University of North Carolina and an Atlantic contributing writer.

The White House, for its part, has repeatedly contradicted the states, the CDC, and itself. The president has used his platform to spread misinformation. In a moment when public health—which is to say, tens of thousands of lives—depends on national unity and clear messaging, the pandemic has become a new front in the partisan culture wars. Monica Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me that “political and social marginalization can exacerbate the psychological impacts of the pandemic.”

Schoch-Spana has previously written about the 1918 influenza pandemic. Lately, she says, people have been asking her how the coronavirus compares. She is always quick to point out a crucial difference: When the flu emerged in America at the end of a brutal winter, the nation was mobilized for war. Relative unity prevailed, and a spirit of collective self-sacrifice was in the air. At the time, the U.S. was reckoning with its enemies. Now we are reckoning with ourselves.

One thing that is certain about the current pandemic is that we are not doing enough to address its mental-health effects. Usually, says Joshua Morganstein, the chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on the Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster, the damage a disaster does to mental health ends up costing more than the damage it does to physical health. Yet of the $2 trillion that Congress allocated for pandemic relief through the CARES Act, roughly one-50th of 1 percent—or $425 million—was earmarked for mental health. In April, more than a dozen mental-health organizations called on Congress to apportion $38.5 billion in emergency funding to protect the nation’s existing treatment infrastructure, plus an additional $10 billion for pandemic response.

Without broad, systematic studies to gauge the scope of the problem, though, it will be hard to determine with any precision either the appropriate amount of funding or where that funding is needed. Taylor told me that “governments are throwing money at this problem at the moment without really knowing how big a problem it will be.”

In addition to studies assessing the scope of the problem, which demographics most need help, and what kind of help they need, Ruzek told me researchers should assess how well intervention efforts are working. Even in ordinary times, he said, we don’t do enough of that. Such studies are especially important now because, until recently, disaster mental-health protocols for pandemics were an afterthought. By necessity, researchers are designing and implementing them all at once.

“Disaster mental-health workers have never been trained in anything about this,” Ruzek said. “They don’t know what to say.”

Even so, the basic principles will be the same. Disaster mental-health specialists often talk about the five core elements of intervention—calming, self-efficacy, connectedness, hope, and a sense of safety—and those apply now as much as ever. At an organizational level, the response will depend on extensive screening, which is to the mental-health side of the pandemic roughly what testing is to the physical-health side. In disaster situations—and especially in this one—the people in need of mental-health support vastly outnumber the people who can supply it. So disaster psychologists train armies of volunteers to provide basic support and identify people at greater risk of developing long-term problems.

“There are certain things that we can still put into place for people based on what we’ve learned about what’s helpful for PTSD and for depression and for anxiety, but we have to adjust it a bit,” says Patricia Watson, a psychologist at the National Center for PTSD. “This is a different dance than the dance that we’ve had for other types of disasters.”

Some states have moved quickly to learn the new steps. In Colorado, Benight is helping to train volunteer resilience coaches to support members of their community and, when necessary, refer them to formal crisis-counseling programs. His team has also worked with volunteers in 31 states, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Colorado’s approach is not the sort of rigorously tested, evidence-based model to which Ruzek said disaster psychologists should aspire. Then again, “we’re sitting here with not a lot of options,” says Matthew Boden, a research scientist in the Veterans Health Administration’s mental-health and suicide-prevention unit. “Something is better than nothing.”

In any case, the full extent of the fallout will not come into focus for some time. Psychological disorders can be slow to develop, and as a result, the Textbook of Disaster Psychiatry, which Morganstein helped write, warns that demand for mental-health care may spike even as a pandemic subsides. “If history is any indicator,” Morganstein says of COVID-19, “we should expect a significant tail of mental-health effects, and those could be extraordinary.” Taylor worries that the virus will cause significant upticks in obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia, and germaphobia, not to mention possible neuropsychiatric effects, such as chronic fatigue syndrome.

The coronavirus may also change the way we think about mental health more broadly. Perhaps, Schoch-Spana says, the prevalence of pandemic-related psychological conditions will have a destigmatizing effect. Or perhaps it will further ingrain that stigma: We’re all suffering, so can’t we all just get over it? Perhaps the current crisis will prompt a rethinking of the American mental-health-care system. Or perhaps it will simply decimate it.

In 2013, reflecting on the tenth anniversary of the SARS pandemic, newspapers in Hong Kong described a city scarred by plague. When COVID-19 arrived there seven years later, they did so again. SARS had traumatized that city, but it had also prepared it. Face masks had become commonplace. People used tissues to press elevator buttons. Public spaces were sanitized and resanitized. In New York City, COVID-19 has killed more than 22,600 people; in Hong Kong, a metropolis of nearly the same size, it has killed seven. The city has learned from its scars.

America, too, will bear the scars of plague. Maybe next time, we will be the ones who have learned.

[confusedqueergal]

Hardhearted

This is my story for the Secret Santa 2019 event  hosted by @itfandomprompts​

My gift goes to @nadurflaa​, I hope I did a decent job!

Pairing : Eddie Kapsbark/ Richie Tozier 

Wordcount: 3945

Summary: Eddie comes back home from college for the holidays and has a unpleasant surprise waiting for him.  

(trigger warning for homophobic comments) 

It was weird to be back, although it also felt good in a way. It had been more than 5 months since Eddie had seen any of his friends. If he was being honest, he had missed them quite a lot. It wasn’t as if they weren’t talking, rather they text everyday and call each other at least once during the week. It was nice to know that the distance hadn’t changed much to their friendship. Most of the Losers club had also gone away for college, except for Richie, who had taken his first year off to travel. Bev and Bill had both gone to Stanford, Stan had gone to NYU and Ben was studying in Colombia. Mike had gone to study in the community college, not so far from Derry itself. Besides Mike, Eddie was the one who stayed the closest to their home. 

Not that Eddie didn’t want to get as far away from Derry as all his other friends. He was afraid that if he left for college too fr y that he would lose sight of one particular boy. The one he had loved for so long. But now he was back, at least for a few weeks. As he got out of the cab he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding back. With determination he walked towards his childhood home. 

It wasn’t normal to feel so anxious to see your mother after a few months. That never happened to other people, right? Eddie knew that his mother was nuts, but she was still his mother and as far as he knew his only family. His mother knew that he would be coming sometime today, so she didn’t act surprised when he opened the door. 

“Eddie, good, you’re here! Bring over the milk, would you”, her sharp tone ordered him as soon she noticed his arrival. Eddie rolled his eyes and sighed as he walked towards the kitchen. “Oh hello Eddie! how are you, Eddie? How was your trip back?”, the young adult muttered to himself as he walked back to the living room, where he now noticed his mother sitting with the town clown, Pennywise.

His name was actually Robert Gray, but the Losers Club has been calling him Pennywise for years now. The name started when other people would say that the man was wise, because of his age. Of course, being 10 year old boys the losers club decided that he was as wise as a penny, therefor the name Pennywise was created. 

Yes, it was silly, but it stuck and the Losers club wasn’t about to change a 10 year old name.

After giving the milk to his mother, Eddie sat down on the sofa, right next to Pennywise. 

“You should be grateful your mom wants you back in her house, boy”, the old clown snarled as Sonia put some milk in his coffee. 

“It was a mistake, wasn’t it, Eddi-kins”, Sonia laughed and took a sip from her coffee. Eddie frowned, not understanding what the two old bags were talking about. 

“What was a mistake, mother?”, he dared to ask. It was better to ask than to make assumption on what had her mad, if he had to believe Pennywise. 

“Oh, Edward, I was talking about the things you said before you left of course. I knew you were emotional about the fact that you would be leaving me and Derry, so I didn't say anything”, the woman smiled, but as always her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Those eyes always looked bleak, as if she never felt any emotion.

“Do you mean my coming out?”, Eddie asked taken back from the comments his mom had made two seconds ago . He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It had taken him so long to accept himself and to be comfortable in his own skin and now that he had come out to his mother and peers, she batted it away as if it was nothing. As if his feelings weren’t valid. 

“If you want to call it that, then sure”, she said, indifferent to Eddie's distressed face. 

“Ha, coming out, that’s bullshit you young folks have invented. It’s ridiculous and you should just get your head out of your ass, boy”, Pennywise laughed and Sonia nodded in agreement.

“I am sorry if it’s bullshit to you, but coming out is a struggle for a lot of people not only ‘we young folks’”, Eddie snapped back. Okay, he is willing to accept backlash towards himself, but not when it’s about the whole community. Than he is going to say something.

“Sure, boy. It really is a struggle to chose to fuck around with another man. I am sure that if it was a real struggle you wouldn’t choose to do that shit.” 

Eddie was speechless, this conversation was starting to really bother him. He has to admit, he was tougher than he was two years ago, but the words coming from Pennywise, really pissed him off.

“Robert is right, Eddi-kins, I know it’s cool to participate with all those trends, but you don't have to pretend with me", was what Sonia said and Eddie had to push the tears back. He wasn't going to cry in front of this woman who he used to see as his mother and that monster of a man. 

"Oh come one, boy, you are getting soft if you can't handle a few comments from your mother", Pennywise hissed out after he noticed the young man tear up. 

"You need to get out of here, now!", a voice urged him as he felt more and more pathetic in the presence of the two elderly. 

Pennywise was still talking, venting about how soft and weak he was, but Eddie couldn't take it anymore. He tried to block the conversation out, until something caught his attention. 

"You are right, Robert, when I heard that my Eddi-kins was friend with that useless boy, Richard, I knew he would be bad news", Sonia exclaimed as response to the last comment that Pennywise had made. 

"What are you talking about?", Eddie snapped for the first time since entering the house. 

"I always knew that that Tozier kid would be trouble. He is clearly one of those fags and that has been a bad influence on you", Pennywise outright attacked Richie and that is something that made Eddie furious. 

“You don’t know shit! Richie is one of the best people I know and you are a monster, nothing more than a fucking clown!”, Eddie cried out in anger as he hit the table with his fist. 

Shit, that hurt, but right now he only felt angry and upset. 

“Edward! How dare you say that to Robert!? Apologize, right now!”, Sonia ordered her son, as she always did. She always wanted him to do what she wanted, he had to be a clean, good boy and he couldn’t take it anymore. 

“No, mother! I won’t apologize! I am not about to apologize to a clown after he insulted me and not to mention insulted my friend!”, Eddie snarled at Sonia. It was the first time he really stood up against her, besides that time when he couldn’t see his friends anymore. It felt good! Shit, it felt really good! Sonia looked in shock, but really, she should have seen it coming. After all these years of repressing her son, of controlling him, so it was bound to happen. 

Eddie felt the adrenaline rush through his vein as he tried to figure out what he should do now. He came to the conclusion that he couldn’t stay in this house, with this woman and even less in the same room as this clown. So he turned around and started to walk out of the room towards the door, where his luggage had been abandoned not even an hour ago. 

“Eddie! Eddie! Where are you going?!”, Sonia squealed and started following him outside the door, “Eddie! Come back here!”

“Bye Mother!”, Eddie called one more time and he started walking down the road. God, how it would have been better if he had a car, right now. 

Behind him he could hear his mother, still calling his name, but Eddie was determined, he wouldn’t let her manipulate him anymore. 

Without knowing where he was headed, he continued walking as the conversation kept repeating in his head on a loop. Gosh, how stupid could I have been, Eddie thought to himself. He had really thought that his mother had accepted him after she hadn’t said anything about his coming out. 

Minutes could have passes, maybe even a few hours until his legs came to a stop. He recognized the building as one of the newer apartment buildings in Derry. After a moment he realized that this was the building where Richie lived. The man had send the losers so many pictures of his new home, he seemed so proud to have found a place on his own. Eddie had been glad that Richie had found a place for himself, why that was, he didn’t know. Eddie had thought that he envied the boy, because he could live alone while Eddie still had to share a dorm with two other people. Thinking back, it might have been more than envy, but really, it isn’t time to think of that now! Eddie felt stupid for standing there, with his bag, looking at a building. 

He was sure that if someone saw him, they would think he was a creep. He had turned around to leave, when he heard: “Eddie?” 

If Eddie was being honest, he didn’t think of the fact that Richie might see him and right now he didn’t know what to do. Play it cool and pretend that he was just passing by? Or admit that he is somewhat upset and that he kind of wanted to be comforted? Before Eddie could make a decision Richie had already reached out and now he was standing in front of the young man. 

"Eddie? Are you okay?", of course he would notice if something was wrong. 

Eddie nodded and looked his friend in the eye for the first time since he addressed him. 

Richie's eyes were filled with worry where usually there was mischief. He placed his Hand on Eddie's arm, hoping the man would see it as Richie being there for him. 

"Come on, Eddie Spaghetti, you can tell me if something is bothering you, you know that right?", the nickname came over as something reassuring. Eddie chuckled. 

"Nothing's wrong , my mother was being my mother, as always." He figured that would be enough explanation. 

And it was. Richie nodded in understanding and he pointed at his car. "Do you want to go for a ride?" 

"Ehm, sure. But where should I put my stuff ?", Eddie asked, referring to the luggage that was by his side. 

"You can put it in my apartment, I'm guessing you need to have a place to stay so you can stay with me."

"Oh, no, it's fine. I'll a motel or something…" Eddie murmured shyly, not wanting to impose onto Richie. Not that he liked the idea of staying in a motel, in a bed where multiple other people have slept in before. 

"As if Eddie Kaspbark is going to willingly stay in a motel where other people have slept!", Richie laughed, giving the impression that he had read Eddie's previous thought. 

Eddie laughed a long and didn't mind saying anything. He knew that he wouldn't stay in a motel, meaning that he would be staying at Richie's. 

Richie started walking toward the front door and after they had put Eddie's bag in the apartment, they went downstairs again and got into the car. 

"Where too, Mister Eddie Spaghetti?", Richie asked as he started the engine. 

"Where ever you want to go, Richie Trashmouth", Eddie smiled at the man and off they went. 

The ride was quiet, but Eddie liked it that way. He had to admit that it was strange that Richie wasn't blabbing on and on, but he figured he was concentrated on the road.

After a while Richie came to a stop at the side of the road, but there was nothing there, not that Eddie could see. 

"Why are we here, Richie?", Eddie wondered as he looked at the man in the driver's seat. 

"You'll see", was what he replied and got out of the car. Eddie was confused, but trusted his friend and exited the car too. Richie had walked towards the edge of the road and looked before himself. Eddie came closer to Richie and finally understood why Richie had wanted to come here. The view was gorgeous. Derry seemed so beautiful from up here. 

"Richie, what a beautiful view…", Eddie breathed put and Richie nodded in agreement. The both of them were just there and stared at the scenery in front of them. 

Richie turned back to the car and sat down on its hood. "Are we staying here, Rich?", Eddie asked. 

"If you want, Eddie", he replied with a smirk. 

Eddie laughed and sat down next to him on the hood. The two of them were quiet, but it was comfortable. It didn't take long before the sun started setting and to say that the view was breathtaking was the understatement of the year. 

Eddie was sure he was staring with his mouth open wide. Richie's laugh made him realise he must look ridiculous and he shut his mouth, his whole face red from embarrassment. 

The silence continued and for once Eddie missed Richie's rambling, so he decided to speak up. 

"You're kind of freaking me out with this silent treatment", Eddie joked, but it sounded forced and not genuine at all. 

"I just thought you would appreciate the quiet, you always complain about my Trashmouth", he simply said. 

Oh… That wasn't something Eddie had expected. 

"I… I never mean that. I thought you knew that it was a joke", Eddie murmured guilty. He never meant to hurt his friend. 

"It's fine", Richie reassured him. 

The silence came back and Eddie couldn't take it. 

"It wasn't just my mother that upset me", he started. 

"Oh, want to talk about it?", Richie suggests and Eddie nodded. He took a deep breath and kept his gaze away from Richie, knowing that he would break if he did look at the boy he loved. 

"I got home from university today and as soon as I got inside she started ordering me around. She didn't even ask how my trip was", Eddie said sadly. 

"She wasn't alone, Pennywise was there."

"Pennywise!?", Richie exclaimed. Eddie nodded. 

"And you know how Pennywise is, he was saying stuff, but what hurt me is that mum agreed with him. I know she isn't the nicest. But you know after my coming out she didn't kick me out so I took that as a win. But no, she just thought that it was a mental breakdown and that I liked participating with "trends". ", Eddie was now shaking, he clenched his hand in a fist. He then hissed in pain as it was the hand that he had used to hit the table.

"I also kind of hit my fist against the table in the spur of the moment", he muttered.  At that Richie laughed and took the hand into his own and pressed a light kiss on it. Eddie's face heated up and he avoided making any eye contact. 

"I am so sorry, Eddie, they both can suck it. They are old, bigoted people and they don't change their mind that easily. ", Richie then said, his lips still against Eddie's knuckles. 

Eddie nodded, but he felt so helpless. His eyes were tearing up and he knew that he wouldn't be able to hold tears a second time today. It was when Richie wrapped his arms around his frail shoulders that Eddie started crying. 

"It's going to be okay, Eds, I promise", Richie shushed to Eddie and the crying boy felt the need to tell Richie that they had talked about him too. 

"It isn't that that upset me, not really. But Pennywise made a comment about you, after which my mother replied that you were bad influence", Eddie whispered, scared that he would upset Richie. 

"What did he say about me?", Richie asked, not one ounce of worry visible on his face. 

"He called you "one of those fags" and a "bad influence", the words were barely audible and Eddie wasn't sure if Richie had hear what he had said, because there was no reaction for a while. Until Richie started to laugh. Eddie looked at him as if he was going mad. What was happening, he didn't know. 

"At least the clown was right about one thing" 

It took a few seconds for Eddie to process that one sentence and he immediately started arguing. 

"Of course you're not a bad influence, you are one of my best friends and one of the best people I've ever known, don't you dare to suggest that you are a bad influence", Eddie ranted, pissed off, not believing that Richie out of all the people would say that about himself. 

Richie started laughing once more and now Eddie was lost, completely and utterly lost. 

"Why are you laughing now, you asshole!?", Eddie yelled and hit Richard on the arm. 

"Because I meant that he was right about me being a fag, not a bad influence, which was never the truth, by the way. Have you met me, I am the best!", Richie laughed so much he almost fell of the hood of the car. 

Is he joking? What does he mean by that? Why the hell would he say that? The questions raced through Eddie's mind. 

"Eds, calm down, I can hear the gears turning in your head."

It was Richie that spoke up first and to be honest with you, it did calm Eddie down. 

"I didn't know you were gay?", Eddie settles for that, feeling that it would be better than any other questions running in his head. 

Richie chuckled: "I know, I didn't really realize I was until last summer."

“Oh”

That was the only thing that Eddie could say. He wanted to ask so many things, say so many things, but he couldn’t mutter anything except ‘oh’. 

After that there was silence, comfortable silence, but silence nonetheless. Both men looked at the sky that slowly turned into a night sky, the colors changing from blue to purple to soft pink and orange.

“You know what made me realize I was gay?”, Richie said after a while and Eddie shook his head. Expecting Richie to tell him, he didn’t know why he was met with silence . he turned to look at his friend and saw him biting his lip, a thing he used to do when he was nervous about something. 

“You don’t have to share it with me, it’s something personal and you shouldn’t have-“, Eddie’s sentence was cut of with: “It was you, you made me realize.”

Eddie did not expect that. At all. Richie looked over at his friend, wanting to see his reaction. His mouth was slightly open and his eyes wide. Damn, he looked cute, Richie thought. 

“Come on, say something before I make a fool of myself”, Richie laughed and Eddie wanted to say something, he really did, but no words came out of his mouth 

“Sorry if I made this shit awkward, Eds. Just forget-”

Now it was Richie’s turn to be cut off, not by something Eddie said. No, Richie was cut off by something Eddie did. He had pressed his lips against those of Richie.

Fuck, he is kissing me! Oh, shit, this is really happening!

 Eddie had picked up all the courage that was in him and did something he had wanted to do for years now. And that felt good! God, that felt so good. Richie’s lips were rough under his own, but it was the best kiss he had ever had. Not that it was hard to surpass that, he had only been kissed twice in his life. 

The kiss could have lasted a few seconds, minutes or hours, Eddie had lost all concept of time, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered besides Richie, who was here, kissing him back. 

It is Richie that breaks of the kiss, still holding Eddie’s face. He didn’t know when he had cupped is cheek, but right now he didn’t want to let go of him. 

“You are the one that made me realize too, you know”, Eddie said shyly, as if he didn’t just do the bravest thing he had ever done. There was a faint blush coloring his cheeks and gosh, did he look good! It was amazing how much the person you loved made you feel. And that is what it was, love, because this wasn’t a silly little crush. Richie loved Eddie and he has loved him for years now. It was only this summer, when Eddie was packing for college, ready to leave, that Richie could pinpoint his feelings for his best friend. The thought of losing Eddie had been so painful, he hadn’t understand it at first. It was weird because it didn’t hurt when he thought of his other friends leaving, only Eddie leaving, that hurt as hell. 

And now, Eddie had kissed him, had admitted that Richie was special to him too and that, that gave him enough courage to say: “I love you, Eddie”

No silly nicknames, no joking, just real feelings and for once the truth. 

“Really?”, Eddie choked out, his voice so quiet that Richie had almost missed it. He nodded, pulled Eddie against himself and kissed him, softer now. Tender and slow. Not hard and desperate as the first kiss. 

“I’ve been in love with you since we were 13”, Eddie said, a bit out of breath. Richie pulled Eddie closer, but didn’t kiss him this time. He just wanted to cuddle this amazing man that loved him too! How he got so lucky he didn’t know. They stayed that way and it was perfect. Stars started to appear and honestly, that was even more beautiful than the sundown. 

It is when Eddie starts to shiver that Richie suggested that they went back to his place and Eddie quickly agreed. The drive back was quiet too, but felt so different from the ride to the spot they would both see as their own. 

Richie held Eddie’s throughout the whole drive and god, did his hand feel good in Eddie’s. He still couldn’t believe that Richie was his now. Sure it may be dumb to assume that Richie wanted a relationship, but this is what it felt like. 

What if Richie didn’t want a long term relationship like Eddie wanted so badly? It is at that moment that the taller of the two spoke up again. 

“I can literally hear you think, Eds”, he laughed. Eddie blushed and looked down to their intertwined hands. 

“I know it’s stupid, but I got to ask . You want a relationship, right? Not just a one time thing?”

Richie looked over at Eddie, the man he loved, the one he had always admired, his closest friend. 

“Yes, Eddie . I really want you to be my boyfriend and to that extend, for me to be your boyfriend.” 

Eddie blushed again and smiled at Richie, his boyfriend. He knew that even though his mum would never change, even though there are some nasty people out there, he will be alright. 

Because he has Richie, just like he always had.

[prosteticanimals]

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[thesouthernpansy]

sacred geometry (2/?)

stanford pines/bill cipher chapter 2/? ford arrives at backupsmore university ready to put his head down and get lost in his classwork. his new roommate seems to have come prepared to haul him back out, again. that, and eat uncooked blocks of ramen. (it’s a college au, let’s crack some books!) don’t want to risk breaking the post by adding a link, but this story is also on ao3, same title, username thesouthernpansy ~

“’No more than two hours to complete’ my foot.” Ford quotes the physics manual with venom as he stalks out of the lab, doubling back briefly to shuck his gloves and slam them into the specialized waste receptacle. His lab partner follows him out, more subdued, wrangling the school-issued goggles over his glasses with some difficulty.

“'No more than two hours to complete' my foot.” Ford quotes the physics manual with venom as he stalks out of the lab, doubling back briefly to shuck his gloves and slam them into the specialized waste receptacle. His lab partner follows him out, more subdued, wrangling the school-issued goggles over his glasses with some difficulty.

“All's well that ends well, right? We got it to precipitate in the end.”

Ford takes in a sharp breath through his nose. “I suppose. Still, it shouldn't have been like pulling teeth and you know it, Fiddleford. The equipment in this place is a disgrace.”

“Can't even figure why the stock room is still holding on to all those thermometers if they all have air bubbles in the mercury,” agrees Fiddleford thoughtfully.

“Exactly! And how are we supposed to blaze a trail of scientific progress when we're working from texts that are barely a paleographic step past cuneiform tablets?”

Fiddleford shrugs a shoulder, pats Ford absently on the arm. “Good thing we're geniuses, huh?”

“Good thing,” agrees Ford, feeling the ire start to drain from him. He offers Fiddleford a small smile. “I'm fairly sure the Bunsen burner would have blown up in my face if you hadn't been here.”

“That wiring was a nightmare.” Fiddleford shakes his head, drops his labcoat into the designated bin. Ford follows suit, collecting his bag from the hook by the door as he passes it. They leave side by side in a tired, victorious silence.

Fiddleford McGucket was the first unexpected spot of good luck in Ford's otherwise disappointing college experience. They'd met weeks before the official start of classes, sitting for many of the same exemption exams that would allow them to skip the tedious introductory courses their majors otherwise required. There hadn't been time for much more than cursory introductions back then, but their test scores saw them thrown together in several of their classes after that, both of them inclined to gravitate towards a familiar face when the time came to choose partners for their inevitable labs.

And, as it turns out, Ford and Fiddleford are an exceptional compliment to one another intellectually. Ford is good with concepts, at ease with proofs and equations and long stretches of silence lost in his own mental map of even the most complicated and abstruse theories. Fiddleford excels in the tangible, mechanics and practical applications, the translation of the abstract into something he can hold in his hands.

Plus, speaking of hands. Ford is nearly certain Fiddleford had noticed his abnormality during their first meeting, but it hadn't actually come up until much later, when Ford's cursing as he struggled with a pair of latex gloves had made it obvious and unignorable. Fiddleford had looked over, frowned a little. Then he handed Ford the jar of sodium bisulfate he was struggling to open.

“How about a little help? I'd bet you dollars to donuts you could get a better grip on this than I can.”

That, Ford recalls, was the exact moment he'd started to consider Fiddleford a friend. He isn't sure he's ever truly had one, before. At least, not one that wasn't related to him, and that is a train of thought he refuses to follow any further.

Late autumn darkness has fully set across the campus by the time they step outside, chill and brittle and already heavy with the smell of coming frost. Ford digs his chin into the collar of his coat and squints up at the sky.

“Headed back to the dorms?” Fiddleford asks.

“The observatory, actually,” says Ford.

“Sure is a good night for it,” says Fiddleford amicably. “I didn't think it was still open this time of night, though.”

Ford clears his throat. “It isn't, technically. Professor Neilson loaned me the keys. I have, uh, there's a personal project I've been working on.”

The expression that jumps onto Fiddleford's face is excited and puzzlingly sly.

“You taking a girl up there?” he asks, nudging Ford with his elbow.

Ford startles, sputtering. “I am most certainly not.”

“Plenty of girls would find it real romantic,” Fiddleford tells him. He probably means it to be encouraging.

“No doubt they would find it much less romantic to be ignored for an hour while I take astronomical readings.” It comes out with more bite than intended, Ford's hands clenching into fists in his coat pockets. He can't explain why Fiddleford's assumption has thrown him so badly, but his whole body is prickling suddenly with nervous energy.

To his credit, Fiddleford doesn't seem thrown in the least.

“Maybe she'd surprise you,” he suggests. “Won't know until you try.”

“There's no girl, Fiddleford,” insists Ford.

“Okay, okay,” laughs Fiddleford. “My mistake, never mind.”

Ford expects him to elaborate, wishes he would, but nothing else comes. It gnaws at Ford, itchy and awkward in the way so many subtleties of everyday human interactions tend to do.

“Do I—have I been acting like there's someone?”

Fiddleford glances at him sideways, smirks. It's all but audible confirmation.

“There's been a little extra pep in your step. I'm not about to force you to talk about it if you don't want to.”

“I wouldn't know what to say,” says Ford honestly.

“Girls can be like that, sometimes,” sighs Fiddleford a little wistfully, and this time Ford lets the assumption slide. They're technically still having the same conversation, but Ford feels like he's holding onto his half of it by his fingernails.

The domed roof of Dithery Observatory is a welcome lifeline, cresting just above the concrete silhouette of the library. Ford peels away with a hasty farewell and a genial dismissal of his friend's 'if you ever want to talk about it'. What he wants is the silent, impassive company of a refracting telescope, the still peace of an empty space to himself, a vast spread of stars ready to spill its mysteries to the brilliant mind capable of cracking it open.

Clutching his borrowed ring of keys, Ford half-jogs the remaining distance to his destination. The metal teeth bite into his palm; it's grounding, a completed circuit between his body and his racing brain. He counts out his steps as he slows, the even cadence, no room for any extra pep, whatever that's even supposed to be.

Ford crosses the courtyard, and stops.

Even in the dim yellowy glow of the observatory's single ancient doorlight, it's clear that the door is open. Just an inch or so, like the last person in had tried to slam it shut behind themselves without knowing about the way the deadbolt sticks. Not Professor Neilson, then, not anyone Ford can think of who ought to have the authority to close the building for the night. Ford's thoughts list out the possibilities: vandals, some kind of fraternity-born prank, an illicit rendezvous like Fiddleford had been alluding to. The prospect of such misuse puts steel in Ford's spine as he goes in, making sure to shut and lock the door properly behind him.

“Hello?” he calls, rounding up the stairs. “Who's there?”

Ford finds no signs of life as he makes it to the main observation deck. At first, the same seems to hold here as well. Then something in the instruments booth catches his eye. Through the window comes a brief, muted light, like someone clicking a flashlight on and off very quickly. A shape comes into view, unexpected and familiar, ugly sunglasses and artfully swept hair.

“Bill?”

“Hiya, roomie!” Bill saunters over, waving both hands in greeting. “Here for a little late-night stargazing?”

“What are you doing here?” asks Ford.

“What are you doing here?” Bill fires back.

“I'm allowed to be here,” replies Ford, feeling stunned.

Bill's hand goes to his chest in mock-outrage. “Well I never! I see how it is. You're allowed to scope the cosmos at unreasonable hours, but I'm not? Just because you're Mr. Science? That sounds like an unfair double standard to me, and I won't stand for it!”

“No, that's not—” Ford interrupts himself with laughter. “The door was supposed to be locked.”

“Ohhh,” says Bill, rocking back on the balls of his feet. “Oh boy, is somebody in trouble?”

“Possibly. It wouldn't be you, if you were worried about that.”

"I wasn't." Bill fires Ford a shit-eating grin when he looks over. Maybe it would be irritating, under different circumstances, but as it stands Ford is too overcome by the absurd coincidence of the situation to be anything but relieved. Of everyone who could have taken advantage of the unlocked door, it was Bill, who just wanted to look at the stars. It feels significant in a way Ford can't quite put his finger on, yet.

"Good to know." Ford leaves his things in a heap by the telescope platform, bends to retrieve a notebook and his leather-bound journal. Bill doesn't move other than to cock his head to one side, his gaze a palpable thing, expecting and exacting. He's waiting for something, that part is clear enough. If he didn't seem so fundamentally like he's never required anyone's permission to do anything in his life, Ford would assume he's waiting to be asked to stay.

For all his earlier eagerness for solitude, Ford finds that he doesn't mind the idea of that at all.

He looks up. adjusting his glasses. Bill looks back.

"Would you like to stay?" asks Ford.

"Fordsy, I thought you'd never ask!" Bill swoops closer, circling Ford to hover by his elbow. He hooks his chin over Ford's shoulder, tiptoed, angling for a peek at the books in Ford's hands. "Come on, let's see this exciting secret science business you're supposed to be here doing."

"Why do you sound like you don't believe me?" asks Ford, a little defensive. Bill leans into him, radiating a lazy line of warmth that settles in the hollow of Ford's chest.

"Psh, I believe you."

Ford can feel Bill's breath against his neck when Bill talks, little puffs of heat.

"That's not the point," Bill asserts, jabbing a finger into Ford's arm for emphasis. "Aren't we all paying schmucks in this for-profit institution? Supposed to be here, not supposed to be here--what a crock! Who decides this stuff anyway?"

"The head of the astronomy department?" offers Ford.

Bill barks a laugh, slaps a hand against Ford's back hard enough to make him stumble forward.

"Got yourself friends in high places, huh?"

"I didn't mean it like that," says Ford hastily.

"No, no, you're very impressive," says Bill, leering. "I'm very impressed."

It's a strange fractal of self-awareness, Ford overly aware of Bill's hand still pressed between his shoulder blades, aware of his own awareness like an itch, like the damp cuff of a woolen sweater, just the wrong side of comfortable. The full shape of it spirals away from him, down and down, no bright thread of logic to pick out and aid his tugging it apart. Just the twist of it in his gut, the awareness, the itch.

"I'm starting to regret asking you to stay," he says, and means it--not for the right reasons, the reasons he'd like there to be, something he could note and measure and cite. No proper scientist would take a simple feeling as proof of anything, as if Ford even knew what he might posit it to prove.

Bill cackles gleefully. "Too late! It's vampire rules, now, smart guy, you can't get rid of me that easy! Now make with the science already."

"All right, all right," chuckles Ford. He takes a heavily notated scrap of paper from his journal and unfolds it. "Wait here a minute."

"Not my strong suit," says Bill. "What am I waiting for?"

Ford gestures with the paper. "I have to set the telescope's relays to the optimal optical configuration for the current atmospheric condition."

"On it!" Before Ford can fully process the words, Bill snatches the paper out of his hand and dashes for the instrument booth.

"I--Bill, wait! You know how to adjust the relays?" Professor Neilson hadn't entrusted Ford with the keys to the observatory so he could let someone else loose on the building's intricate, frankly fussy control system. Sagan forbid if Bill breaks something--

Bill spins to face him, laughing, his awayward momentum unbroken. "What, like it's hard?"

It's not the reassurance Ford hoped for. "It is if you don't know what you're doing!"

"Luckily for you, Fordsy, I always know what I'm doing." Bill fires a finger-gun in Ford's direction, and the door to the booth slams shut.

Above him, Dithery's massive telescope shudders to life, the overtaxed, undermaintained structure creaking and popping its familiar protests as it eases into position. Ford holds his breath. Slowly, in playful fits and spurts that strike Ford as far too internally consistent to be accidental, it tilts up, swings sideways, right and right, then too far right, and left again. It pauses, just briefly, dips downward and bobs back up--like a bow, and under his anxiousness ignites a giddy relief that has Ford laughing into his hand.

By the time the telescope grinds to a halt, relief is too small a word for what Ford is feeling. He's impressed. He glances at his watch, at the stars visible though the slotted dome, compares what he sees to the table penned across the center fold of his journal. He does this because he's a scientist, and a scientist always verifies his data, even when he's been there dozens of times before, looking at the same graceful angle of glass and steel aimed at the same swatch of sky and knowing through the sheer power of familiarity that Bill has positioned the telescope perfectly.

It's a little, Ford thinks, like being in the lab with Fiddleford, the rare rush of knowing that his present company can be trusted to be competent, to keep up with whatever wild strides Ford has decided must be taken. Absently, he rubs at a spot on the side of his neck. A little, but not really.

Ford is smiling as he sets to his next task; he takes a thick packet from his bag and kneels to spread it out next to the telescope platform, several separate sheets of paper taped together to form a meticulously plotted chart of the visible night sky that takes up a considerable portion of the floor. He flips his journal open to the relevant page and leaves it where he can see it as a reference.

"Wow, graph paper? Really?" Bill appears at the edge of Ford's chart, peering down. "And here I was thinking you couldn't possibly get any nerdier than the Star Trek socks."

Ford doesn't respond beyond a laugh; any implications of his nerdiness have long since stopped carrying a sting from most people, and in the meantime Bill is looking over the chart with enough keen, genuine interest to suggest maybe there hadn't been much of a sting intended to begin with.

"This must've taken you a while." Crouching closer, Bill gestures towards the thick colored lines that curve across the visible pages of Ford's journal. "What do these measure?"

Ford's heart does a strange sort of kick-flip in his chest, excitement tempered by nerves. He fumbles with his ancillary notebook, briefly forgets the page he's looking for, then nearly smacks Bill in the face with it in his eagerness to show him.

"Watch the nose, smart guy, I like this one."

"Sorry," says Ford quickly, the surge of embarrassment he feels less important than the present opportunity to share his research with an interested party. He adjusts his glasses, points to the block of complex equations he'd inadvertently used as a weapon. "You see, these are functions--"

"Duh," sighs Bill. "That's not what I asked."

"Right," says Ford, hesitating. Past experience tells him this is the part where Bill's eyes start to glaze over with disinterest or derision, where their respective senses of enthusiasm shift suddenly into perfect inverse proportions of one other. It's happened often enough before--not recently, Ford has always been a quick study in aversion--so he doesn't understand the odd nerves that shallow his lungs now, the prickling sensation that the outcome of this conversation matters somehow. He hesitates, and Bill seems to pick up on it like a hound on a scent.

"Getting shy on me, Fordsy? Is it weird? Are you abusing the confidence of an authority figure for strange and unsavory perversions of the scientific method?"

“For--? Sweet Turing, Bill, what exactly do you think I'm doing, here?”

“That scandalized act won't work on me,” Bill tsks, “I know you.”

Ford bristles at the assertion, starts to protest; this chance interaction is the longest one they've had to date beyond the boundaries of their shared room, and those have been few enough on their own. They resemble friends, perhaps, in the way that Venus resembles a star to the untrained eye, but it goes no deeper than that. Ford can't name a single class Bill is enrolled in, what books he's read, where he comes from.

And yet, he thinks, at least Bill didn't assume he'd come here to impress a girl.

“What do you know about ley lines?”