#i feel like there could have been another reason to lockdown a park for 2 weeks other than. terrorists are in the area

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

In My Dreams

romcom novella

when the nature reserve she works at goes into lockdown due to dangerous fugitives in the area, an ace woman is stuck for two weeks with the childhood friend she was in love with as a teenager

[rachaelswrites]

The Past is in the Past

Chapter 2

Spencer Reid x Daughter!reader

Warnings: None (let me know if I miss any)

It had been a slow day at the BAU and the whole team was looking forward to an easy day. Spencer was especially looking forward to it. Between work at the office and teaching his seminars, he hadn’t had too much time to be at home and relax. He was already planning a quiet night in, with takeout, a book, and spending time with his daughter. 

All his plans were ruined when Garcia came barging into the bullpen, case file in hand, “This is a bad one,” she said as she walked by the desks. All the members of the team exchanged glances as they got up and headed to the roundtable room. 

“Luckily this is a local one,” Emily said as everyone filed into the room. 

“Yeah but the location is not so lucky,” Garcia replied, “It’s at Freedom High School,” Garcia said, glancing over at Reid.

The whole team knew that’s where you went to school and Reid didn’t like the direction this was heading. He reached for one of the files sitting on the table, hoping to ease his anxieties but his phone rang. He set the file down and reached for the phone and pulled it from his pocket. 

“I’m sorry, it’s the school,” he said. He stood up from his chair and stepped out into the hallway. 

“Garcia, who's the victim?” JJ asked. She had the same worry as Spencer did. What if it was you? Spencer had lost so much. He couldn’t lose the last good thing he had. 

“It’s not Y/n thank God,” she said as the whole room relaxed, “But another student, Georgia Andrews, was murdered and found about forty minutes ago,” she explained, “She was found in a janitor’s closet with multiple stab wounds.”

“In a school environment, it can’t be too hard to find the suspect,” Matt said. 

“The school went into lockdown about thirty minutes ago and they have a person of interest. No one has come in or out of the school,” Emily said, “There is a high chance that our unsub is in that building and we need to get over there right now.”

“Who’s the person of interest?” Luke asked, “It’s not in any of these,” he said as he flipped through the files. 

“It’s Y/n,” Spencer said as he re-entered the room, “They just called me and said she’s their person of interest.”

“Oh my God, Spence,” JJ said, getting up from her chair and going over to him, “Did they say anything else?”

“No but I need to get down there now,” he said, moving away from JJ and back to his chair, “I know she didn’t do it but I need to get her.”

“Go ahead Reid,” Emily said, “We’re officially on this case which means you can’t work it but you can be there for Y/n.”

Spencer nodded as he gathered up his things and headed out the door. He stopped by his desk to grab whatever else he needed before making his way to the elevator and to his car. He was freaking out so he couldn’t imagine how you were feeling. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that you were innocent and this was all a misunderstanding. You could be being framed. He knew how that went.

~~~~~

He arrived at the school around the same time the rest of the team did. As soon as he parked the car, he got out and ran inside. Luke ran in after him, the rest of the team close behind. Spencer pulled open the office doors and walked in, looking around for you and whoever was in charge. He spotted your school’s principal and the chief of the DC police, “Why the hell is my child being held as a person of interest in a murder investigation?” he demanded. 

“Sir please calm down,” the chief said, “We have reason to believe your daughter-” Spencer cut him off before he could finish his sentence. 

“What reasons? Y/n hasn’t had a single disciplinary issue the whole time she’s attended school in this district and there is no indication of violent or criminal behavior in her past.”

“We believe family history should be taken into account,” the principal said. 

Spencer snapped his head over to him, “And what history is that? Y/n is too young to show signs of schizophrenia and since I don’t have it, her chances of having it are decreased.”

“I meant the incident in Mexico about three years ago. When both you and Y/n were arrested near the border,” he explained, “I believe you were arrested on a murder charge and drug possession?”

“He was but Agent Reid was exonerated after three months,” Emily said, finally making her way into the conversation, “So there is no reason to take that into account. We don’t think Y/n is our unsub.”

“Let me talk to her,” Spencer said, “I want to talk to her.”

“We can’t let you do that until we question her and get her official statement,” the chief explained, “But after that you can.”

Spencer seemed satisfied with that so he took a seat across from the conference room where you were being held. He could see you but you hadn’t noticed him yet. Those rooms were pretty soundproofed so it was hard to hear anything happening outside of them. He watched you and took note of how scared and anxious you were. You were messing with your hands, which were still coated in blood. 

He had a basic understanding of what happened. He knew you said you tried to save Georgia but you couldn’t and he knew that was eating away at you. He watched as you started to fold your arms on the desk, resting your head on it. He watched as your leg started to bounce up and down, getting faster and faster as time went. He saw movement in the room and focused back to your head, which you were now hitting against your arm. He knew you were beating yourself up over this and you were taking it hard.

Taglist

@thatsonezesty13

[bitchesgetriches]

Noble citizens of the aspirationally decadent Conglomerated Nation of Bitches Get Riches: let’s have a lil’ chat, shall we? It’s been a while since we chatted about our favorite topic: ourselves!

We hope you’ve enjoyed season two of the Bitches Get Riches podcast. Recording it was a bright spot for us during this dumpster fire of a year, so thank you all for listening.

As we wrap up another season, we had a few notes to share with you. Including some more personal reflections about how we’re doing, where we’re at, and what the future holds.

Let’s get into it!

Merch is back online

If you visited our Etsy shop in the last few months, you might’ve noticed the physical merch—tee shirts and coffee mugs and tote bags and such—wasn’t listed anymore. Basically, when lockdowns started, it caused a lot of disruption and delays on orders. Not wanting people to be stuck waiting for stuff, we decided to take it all offline, and only offer digital merch.

As of today, we’ve reactivated everything! But please keep in mind that there may still be delays, depending on what’s happening in the world! We appreciate your patience, if patience is indeed called for.

Visit Our Etsy Shop

Season one transcripts

Next, we wanted to let you guys know that we now have transcripts available for season one of the Bitches Get Riches podcast!

We’re committed to making BGR as accessible as we possibly can. We know that some people can’t hear, or struggle to absorb information aurally, so transcripts were something we’ve always wanted to offer.

… But, you know, at the end of the day, we’re just two people! Transcribing and editing audio is time- and labor-intensive work, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day for us to do it along with the fifteen million other things we have to do.

We were able to offer season one transcripts thanks entirely to A Purple Life, a peerlessly talented and wonderful fellow blogger who selflessly made it happen. (If you don’t already read her stuff, you’ve already disobeyed us, as we commanded you to in 10 Rad Black Money Experts to Follow Right the Hell Now. And for that, we’re strongly considering smiting you.)

We’re incredibly thankful to Purple for her hard work on this. But we also feel strongly that this DESERVES to be paid work! So the release of season two transcripts is dependent on getting more Patreon donors to offset funding it.

Season 1, Episode 1: “Should I Tell My Boss I’m Looking for Another Job?”

Season 1, Episode 2: “How Should I Behave on My First Day at Work?”

Season 1, Episode 3: “My Parents Have Bad Credit. Should I Help by Co-signing Their Mortgage?”

Season 1, Episode 4: “Capitalism Is Working for Me. So How Could I Hate It?”

Season 1, Episode 5: “I Don’t Love My Job, but It Pays Well. Should I Quit—or Tough It Out?”

Season 1, Episode 6: “I Lent My Boyfriend Money. He Took It to a Casino.”

Season 1, Episode 7: “I’m Terrible at Budgeting. Do I Suck It Up—Or Is There Another Way?”

Season 1, Episode 8: “My Mother Demands Information About My One-Night Stands.”

Season 1, Episode 9: “I’ve Given up on My Dream Career. Where Do I Go From Here?”

Season 1, Episode 10: “I Want a Pedigreed Dog. She Wants a Rescue Mutt. It Turned into a Fight… and the Fight Got Ugly.”

Season 1, Episode 11: “I Feel Cornered by a Friend Who Keeps Asking to Borrow Money.”

Season 1, Episode 12: “Should I Believe the Fear-Mongering about Another Recession?”

Bonus Episode: Merry Bitchmas! The 2019 Star-Studded Holiday Spectacular

For transcripts, scroll to the bottom of each episode and click “episode transcript.” Or read them directly in the podcast player of your choice!

Podcast reviews

We also super wanted to thank all the people who’ve etched their names in blood upon the dusty pages of our dark grimoire written reviews for the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and other places!

We are beyond flattered by the kind things you guys have said about us. Like MoonPetalLily, who described us as “the snarky older sisters [they] wish [they] had.”

FunshineKelly said our “advice helped [them] land a $20k raise and a signing bonus without crying even a little bit.” GOOD! We don’t support tears in the workplace! Not even in the sanctity of your car parked way in the corner of the parking lot. Keep it together!

And God bless MelHubbs, who said, and I quote:

They’re prepared, and still relaxed; informative, and still light-hearted; comforting, and still sexual. It’s everything you could ever want in a podcast, in an internet personality, in your sisters-in-arms against the terrible war between capitalism and what humans actually need to survive & thrive. One of my favorite things about them is that they don’t have any corporate sponsors or ads, so you know what they’re saying is what they mean, not what their advertisers want them to say. If you’re able, support them on Patreon! If you’re not, listen to their podcast, take their advice to heart, reflect on your options, make your moves, then, with your newfound financial independence, become a patreon!

MelHubbs, you joyful sonnet!

Your review is so good that it reads suspiciously like something we paid you to write! But we’re too cheap for that—IT REAL!

Bitches Get Riches at the crossroads

All right. Time to level with you guys.

In keeping with 2020’s overarching theme (“everything is pure shit”), this year has become a real “shit or get off the pot” moment for the two of us.

Although I’m comfortable and doing fine, Piggy is still unemployed. And last week she received the last unemployment check she’s entitled to. It sucks. And it’s scary.

Being a partnership is awesome in almost every way. But one way that it sucks is that we have to earn double the amount of money to be truly profitable! (And no, before you ask, it’s not possible for us to only pay Piggy. Believe me, that was our original plan—but it turns out that’s not allowed in a 50/50 legal partnership. We must pay ourselves equally, or Uncle Sam will spank us. And he doesn’t do it in the sexy way—only the traumatic way!)

Piggy is doing okay for now. She has freelancing work, and an intact emergency fund. But understandably, anxiety and worry take their toll. She’s pushing through it, but it’s hard. Creativity and passion can’t thrive for long without some measure of safety and stability.

During these scary times, our Patreon community has been a lifeline. As more and more of you have joined us, it’s slowly crept up from grocery money to grocery and utility bill money! So thank you, thank you, from the bottom of our hearts thank you to those who’ve stepped up and joined.

But we’re kind of at a crossroads. Because of Piggy’s situation, we really need it to become “paying the mortgage” money. And it’s gotta get there pretty fast. Otherwise, it’s just not fair to ask Piggy to invest so much of her time in Bitches Get Riches, when she could be taking on higher paying freelancing work to keep herself afloat.

And trust me, you do not want a BGR that’s too Kitty-heavy. I am longwinded af, slowly losing my abilities to think and spell, and take every possible detour to inject disgusting sexual comments wherever they are least germane (although idk maybe you’re here for that).

Our new goal for ourselves, and you

With all of that in mind, we have a new goal: to produce season three of our podcast, we need 500 total Patreon donors.

Today we have… 294. So that’s, uhhhhh… a really ambitious goal!

It’s probably too ambitious. We’re probably gonna fail. Who cares, it’s 2020! The planet is on fire and god is already dead, so we have no reason not to give it our all!

We are leaving this in your hands. We—Piggy and I—believe that the world would be a better place if people could hear reliable, relatable financial wisdom funded by regular people, untainted by corporate sponsors with deep pockets who want us to push their capitalist crap upon you. And 294 of you have already demonstrated that you believe that too. Thank you, thank you, infinity thank yous to all of you who are already a part of our Patreon community. You are shining stars that smell faintly of vanilla.

For the rest of you: if you like what we do and you want us to keep doing it, please show us that you believe in it too. You can do that by joining us at the Bitches Get Riches Patreon.

We hope to be back soon for a third season. Until then, stay safe, stay sane, wear your masks, triple-check that you’re registered to vote, and save room for dessert. (What’s for dessert? So glad you asked—it’s the rich!)

For now, Bitches OUUUTTTTT!

Join the Bitches on Patreon

Join the Bitches on Patreon

[saltlampsasuke]

Unfortunately, You Are Experiencing Symptoms of Falling in Love

Having your long-term boyfriend cheat on you is pretty bad, but you're lucky enough to have a rich, pro-hero best friend who lets you move in with him until you get a new apartment. Except lockdown happens. And you can't look for a new apartment anymore, and you can't go anywhere anymore, and neither can your best friend, and you think you might be falling a little bit in love with him. Or maybe you've been in love with him all along.

The story of how it takes a nationwide lockdown for you and Bakugou Katsuki to finally get together, part 2!

warnings: Coronavirus mentions

wordcount: 2,009

Here comes part two of my story! Please enjoy it!

The moment Bakugou hung up the phone, you collapsed on your couch. He had told you to pack whatever you wanted to take, but you couldn’t even begin to think about doing that right now. Yes, you had helped pay for the furniture, but you couldn’t bear to look at it now. What had Takumi done on your counter, your chairs, your desk? You had been so full of rage beforehand that the reality of your situation hadn’t truly sunk in yet. Calling Bakugou had used up all of your strength, and now, the emotions that had been stirring inside you finally boiled over as you began to sob.

You laid sprawled across your couch for what seemed like hours, soaking the cushions with your messy sobs as you mourned the wasted time, effort, and love that you had poured into your relationship. You cried until you began to feel drowsy, your eyelids starting to flutter closed, only to spring open when you heard your door slam shut. Had Takumi come back already.

“Oi, dumbass.” Bakugou had arrived. “Where the hell are you?” Realizing he couldn’t see you lying on the couch, you threw up a weak hand in greeting. You could hear the angry stomp of his boots as he walked over to you and sat on the arm of the couch, your body occupying the rest of the space.

“Hey, Bakugou,” you said quietly, your voice still trembling. He looked down at you from his seat, his eyes appearing softer than you had ever seen them.

“Hey, Shitty woman,” he replied cautiously. “You ready to go?” You slowly pushed yourself up off the couch, eyes red and puffy, hair a mess. You could feel Bakugou watching you carefully. He was uncharacteristically quiet, which you appreciated. There wasn’t anything to be said. Your eyes widened slightly as you processed his question. You hadn’t packed anything to take to the apartment. Would he be mad? Would he be willing to wait? Were you even capable of packing anything right now? You shook your head.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t pack anything. I didn’t do anything after I called you. I just sat here,” you confessed nervously. Bakugou moved so he was standing in front of you, with an unchanging tight frown on his face. The change in position did nothing to calm your nerves. If anything, you were more nervous than you were before. Which was ridiculous. This was Bakugou. Your best friend since high school. He had driven here, to your apartment, calling out of patrol and surely abandoning some fun nighttime plans. He was literally letting you move in with him. He wasn’t going to be mad about your failure to pack. Right? He wasn’t going to change his mind. Right? He put a heavy hand on your shoulder.

“Listen up, because I’m not going to repeat myself. You know I’m bad at this type of shit. Fuck. I mean stuff. You know, the comforting and the making people feel better sh- stuff. I’ve never been good at it. Probably never will be. Honestly, I’m sort of surprised you called me instead of Round Face or someone like that. But I’ll show up. I’ll help you with whatever you need. Hell, if you want to take some time off work that’s fine.” You tried to interrupt him.

“Bakugou, I-“

“Let me finish. I don’t know exactly how you feel right now. Probably not good. And I know I can’t make this better for you. Even heroes can’t fix this shit. Mess. But I’ll help you pick up the pieces. If you need something, I’ll make it happen. So take your time.” Bakugou took a step towards you, and pulled you into his chest for a rare hug. You allowed yourself to relax into him, and for the first time since you walked into your apartment, you felt like you could finally breathe again. How had he known just the right thing to say? You cracked a small smile, and mumbled into his jacket.

“Thank you.” He let go of you gently, a small smile on his face as well.

“C’mon, let’s get in the car. I’ll just give you some stuff from my place. I don’t want to be in this shitty apartment anymore.” You were in complete agreement. There was nothing more you wanted than to leave.

You locked the door easily, and followed Bakugou out to his car. It was sleek and black on the outside, and the inside was full of fancy little dials and gadgets you had never been able to figure out. And you called yourself a support technician. Still, the seats were comfortable, heated and plush, and that was all that mattered. Bakugou had escorted you into the passenger seat, and the sigh of relief you had breathed once the doors had been locked and you had left the parking lot was audible even over the roar of the engine.

“You good?” Bakugou asked quietly. You nodded, then spoke, realizing he was focused on the road and not on you like he had been earlier.

“Better now that we’ve left the building. I don’t ever want to go back there again. I don’t ever want to see him again,” you replied. At the mention of ���him”, you saw Bakugou’s hands tighten ever-so-slightly on the steering wheel. He spoke, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Well I can’t promise the first thing, but I’ll see about the second. We are going to have to go back, though. Unless you want to leave all of your stuff behind.” You didn’t want that. Most of the stuff you were more than willing to abandon, too reminiscent of Takumi for your taste, but there were many things back in your former apartment that you loved, and couldn’t bear to part with.

“How long is that bastard supposed to be gone for?”

“He said a few days. That could be anything from two days to two weeks. I couldn’t honestly say.” That was a problem. Running into Takumi again was your worst nightmare. You had said all that you had wanted to say, and now you just wanted a clean break.

“Alright, so we go back tomorrow. You don’t have to do anything tonight, just get used to the place, but tomorrow we’ll grab all of your stuff out of that shithole.” Bakugou turned towards you at a red light. “Is it ok if we ask Shitty hair and everybody to help out?” You nodded.

“Yeah. I’ll have to tell everyone sometime. But just Kirishima, and Sero. Midoriya too, maybe?” You asked carefully, knowing that Bakugou was still sometimes sensitive to mentions of the man blocking his way to the number one spot. Bakugou and Midoriya had made up a long time ago, in high school, and they didn’t fight at all like they used to. Still, you had spent too many nights back at UA in Bakugou’s room, sitting on his bed as he cried quietly over some small perceived mistake, after which he threatened to kill you if you ever told anyone, to not be careful. He had always been, and still sometimes was, afraid that he was a failure. Afraid he wasn’t good enough. He still had a hard time whenever he couldn’t save someone. You had never been able to convince him that you can’t save everyone.

“Why the hell do you want dumbass Deku to help you move stuff? And fucking tape elbows?” You smiled involuntarily again.

“Midoriya is strong, he’ll be helpful. Bakugou. His quirk is tape. I’m moving. He can help seal all the boxes.” You heard a sharp laugh.

“Damn, finally a real use for that dumbass quirk of his. We can call him the fucking moving van hero.” You shook your head, smiling wider.

“You’re terrible, Bakugou. I have no idea why everyone stays friends with you,” you said teasingly. Bakugou’s head turned sharply at your comment.

“The hell do you mean? I’m literally moving you in to my fucking house. And it was your idea to use him for his stupid tape. The real question is why I put up with you!” You knew he wasn’t serious. “And another thing! Isn’t it about time you started calling me Katsuki?” That was a shocker. Bakugou rarely ever let anyone call him by his first name. He would yell at anyone who tried. Yet here he was, all of a sudden demanding you switch, after so long.

“What?” you asked, bewildered and trying to make sense of this sudden demand.

“You’re going to live in my goddamn house, shitty woman! And I’ve known you since high school, it’s fucking weird that you still call me by my last name,” he replied angrily.

“Are you sure it’s ok? You hate when people call you by your first name!”

“I wouldn’t tell you to do it if I didn’t want you to! Just fucking do it!” Bakugou slammed his hands on the steering wheel. Clearly asking this of you had taken him a lot of strength. He was really going to let you use his first name. True, you had always been his closest friend but for some reason that was a line you had never crossed. It was fine for Kirishima to use Bakugou, no, Katsuki’s given name but for some reason it had never seemed right for you to do the same. You showed your bond in other ways. But he was right, you were going to live together. It only made sense.

“Alright.” You paused for a moment, afraid to speak the name. “Katsuki.”

“That’s more fucking like it, shitty woman” Katsuki parked the car outside of his apartment building, after passing through a security checkpoint. His building was so much nicer than yours, befitting the number two hero. You rarely hung out at his house, he wasn’t the type to have friends over that much, more so the type to go over to others or be in public, so you had only actually been inside less than ten times. It was exciting, but you still had questions about the sudden name change policy.

“Wait, if I have to call you Katsuki, you should have to call me something else too,” you stated as you followed behind Katsuki as he walked up to the main doors. He paused, and turned around to face you.

“The fuck you mean? I already use your first name.” You snorted.

“Only when you’re talking about me to someone else. I can’t remember the last time you actually called me by my name. It’s always dumbass, or shitty woman. I want a fun nickname like the ones you give everyone else, like Icy-hot or something! You can’t make me call you Katsuki and not call me something new as well” Your mouth almost slipped into a slight pout.

“Oh, so first I let you move into my house, and now you want a new nickname. What’s next, the fucking moon?” Katsuki grumbled. “I should let you live on the streets for being such a picky brat. You’re just like that dumbass story about that princess who couldn’t fall asleep on all those mattresses because there was a tiny little pea underneath. Maybe I’ll call you princess now, because of how fucking demanding you are.” He opened up the lobby door, letting you inside. You smiled. There was that trademark Bakugou Katsuki bluster. Translation: I’m glad you’re feeling good enough to joke around. You could tell that he was relieved that you were joking around with him again. You knew it would take time to get past Takumi. You had given that man so much, it would take a while. It had been less than two hours since the end of your relationship, and you had barely begun to process your emotions. But maybe it would eventually be ok. But you had Katsuki, your best friend, and the best man you knew. You had time.

“Princess is ok, actually,” you replied.

“Jesus fucking Christ.

[jaffacakerebellion]

I posted this on Saturday but I really need people to hear this

There was a protest in my city today, by a group called ‘white rose’. They were protesting lockdowns, masks and vaccinations. They’d stuck up stickers all over a certain area, outside a library, near a university campus, and around a park. It scared the shit out of me, seeing the people in town, with about 10 police officers keeping the 25-50 protesters in a tiny (and incovenient tbh) space, not too far from where they’d put up the stickers. As I was walking home, I found some of the stickers, and tore down as many as I could see.

Some of the stickers were obviously theirs- meme templates from reddit, claiming the government was lying about the pandemic to stop people from ‘living their lives’, saying ‘the media is the real virus’ and ‘if you tell a lie enough times it becomes the truth’ and all sorts of shit. Some other stickers were much more inconspicuous- little round ones with a pair of hands tenderly holding a blue dove. Around the edge they said ‘I do not consent to another lockdown’ and ‘I do not consent to get vaccinated’. This was very similar to some of the banners they were holding, and some were wearing ‘FREE HUGS’ t-shirts.

The one sticker which stuck out to me most is one which said something like ‘how do you think the German people felt when the Nazis were taking over, with no power to stop them?’ This is the same rationale the Nazi Party used at the time to gain ‘support’- convince people there is no other way, that their system is the strongest, the right system, how will you disprove us? They scared people into their system, turning vulnerable people into fascists. The White Rose is employing Neo-Nazi thinking. To be honest, it was fucking terrifying.

After they were presumably done, they started coming back to the park where they’d already posted plenty of stickers. It’s a hot Saturday afternoon, so lots of people are in the park, families, children, and I’m busy ripping these stickers (most of them about half the size of a bumper sticker) off bins and signposts. Now, at this point I’ve already been confronted by:

- a woman with red hair (dyed red) in a black suit. She asks me what I’m doing. I tell her that some people have been spreading misinformation, and she recalls the demo in town. She agrees ‘yeah, that did look kinda like misinformation. huh. well, cool, okay’. She may just be bad at interacting with people, but there was something pointed, and I don’t think that she could pluck up the courage to tell me to look them up and find out jus how wrong I am. She didn’t look much like the other supporters.

- a woman in a ‘FREE HUGS’ t-shirt. When she asked me ‘why are you taking those down’, I already had a headache and didn’t fancy an argument, so I said ‘they’re the wrong ones.’ She couldn’t hear me, because so many people were walking past. She yelled ‘what?!’ so I repeated ‘THEY’RE THE WRONG ONES’, nodded affirmatively, and walked in the opposite direction. This, of course, was nonsense, but it left her looking incredibly fucking confused, and she eventually just walked away, which I was thoroughly delighted about, as I wanted to return and take more stickers down. I later realised that the men walking past and making so much noise was probably most of the others at the protest, like 25 men and me and her in an underpass. If they’d have seen me taking the stickers down, who knows what would’ve happened. (yes I know I made some bad decisions today and it would’ve been my fault but fuck it, when a dog shits on the pavement someone’s got to clean it up)

-Two bald middle aged white men, both holding pints. One of them yelled ‘what are you taking them down for? Read what’s on them, you might actually learn something!’ I just said nothing and stared at him as he walked away, whilst continuing to crumple one up, which I’d just taken off a railling.

- Some old Scottish guy and his family. I pretended to be taking them down bc the QR codes didn’t work and the sticker had to be replaced. He asked me why I had a mask on, I lied and said my mum wouldn’t let me out of the house without it and took it off. He told me what to go and tell my mum, whilst standing way too close, with his family gathered around him (like 6 people in total, including 2 kids). He was the reason I took a COVID test when I got home, alongside the blaring headache.

-Another family, this time the patriarch was a skinhead in a black polo shirt and jeans, same height as me (kinda short). Just like the others I was confronted by, his regional accent was very strong. Again, I said the QR code didn’t work. I started to walk away this time, kinda scared, and all his family walked up into the park, but he left his teenage daughter behind for a bit to make sure I didn’t come back (how brave). I came back anyway, but they wanted to go into the park and have fun.

But the last pair is what got me. One of them claimed to have done a biomedical science degree at the local university back in 2005. He was the only non-white person involved, and the only one who had anything scientifically based to say. However, the more I asked him about the degree he said he had, the more he started backing physically away from the conversation, claiming he had to go. The discussion I had with him lasted maybe 20 minutes, during which he confessed a belief that big pharma was dishonest and covered up heinous activity, which I agreed was absolutely right, but these ideas came to the total wrong conclusion.

I’m not explaining this very well anymore, it’s late and I’ve still got a headache, but his strong short white skinhead friend kept walking away then coming back, even at one point claiming that he was going to go and get someone. When I asked the first if he agreed with the non-scientific way the first man’s ‘friends’ were talking, and the fact that he is coming at this argument from such a different angle, he just changed the subject. It was around that time that I noticed that he wasn’t blinking, and that he was wearing a ‘Guardians 300′ t-shirt. I’ve since looked them up. They’re a cult. Nobody’s talking about it. He tried explaining the science to me, and I said that I don’t know enough about science to understand what he was saying, but tried to change the subject away from science- it just clearly wasn’t about that for any of the protesters except him.

Anyway, after he was done talking to me and claimed he had to go (right after I claimed to know a few lecturers in the university (I don’t but it was worth a try to see if he was bluffing) and started questioning him on who he knew), I turned around and just kept on taking off those fucking stupid stickers, including two which the skinhead had stuck on while we were chatting. They saw me doing this. I wanted them to see it, but now I’m not so sure. It was a dangerous move.

When people feel certain of something, you have to listen to them to let them air their uncertainties and change their mind. They were aware of this. I was aware of this. Neither of us listened much to each other. I was, to be honest, freaking out all the way home. What the fuck? I’d only seen people say this online, usually Americans, I’d heard about them on the news too. Suddenly I was getting looks from strangers, whilst taking down these stickers, and honestly had no idea who was who, or what they thought of me. And anyway, I’m trans, and have the fear of being looked at funny for that compounded with the fear of what a member of this group could do, it was terrifying.

I think there are very few things which stand between a person coming to a logical conclusion about what’s going on and a less logical conclusion and getting sucked into dangerous territory, although in this day and age there aren’t many logical things left. I’ve experienced the Dunning-Kruger effect at school, but some may never have experienced that, to feel like their understanding of something can only ever go so far.  I’m alright with saying ‘I don’t know’ and admitting that I’m not an expert, but I feel like all these people feel like they do have to know everything, and their genuine, valid fears have turned them to these crazy ideas because they’re nicer than the truth. I got told by a lot of people to ‘do your research’, but I didn’t say that to them, because they may well do their own research, but not necessarily using reputable sources. 

This is how Fascism works. If I had the same beliefs as them, I know I’d probably be doing the exact same things- trying to spread awareness. They genuinely think that they’re making a positive difference when they ‘change people’s minds’. Either that or those stickers were put up to get ripped down, to show their followers that ‘everyone is out to get you’. I was definitely scared most, however, by how close we all are in this day and age, to being them. I’ve attended protests, argued online, sent people links, spread my views. Most of my friends and I share the same views, we share each others’ information, when something’s wrong we blame ‘them’, or ‘the government’. These radicalised people were people I’d probably passed in the street before, who I’ve bought bread next to or admired their dog in the park. I met the next Nazis today, and they looked just like everyone else.

[thejosh1980]

I was lookin' back to see if she was lookin' back...

Yesterday Alex, Mum and I celebrated...

It's been one year since Alex and I arrived at Mum's place in Ocean Shores, NSW Australia.

If you've read my earlier blogs in 2020, you'll know that we had a lot of trouble getting home. Between the government and airlines, at one point it looked like we'd never get here; we were stranded. I was living in constant worry, stress and hopelessness - in fact, we all were: Alex's family in Germany and Mum's family down under.

Our July 2020 flights were cancelled or rescheduled many times, and eventually we decided to buy new, more expensive flights, on another airline through an agency, which gave us some assurances we'd be on the flight. Our new flights booked and confirmed for early September.

We flew Frankfurt to Adelaide, which was not our original plan. Adelaide had no COVID, and the chance of getting on a flight and getting into the country was higher than say, Brisbane, or Sydney. We could quarantine in Adelaide for 2 weeks and then fly on to Brisbane, which is closer to Ocean Shores.

That was like.... so last year...

This area where we now live is known as the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, and when we arrived at Mum's there was no COVID in the area. We are only about 35 minutes south of the Queensland border, about 8 hours north of the big smoke, Sydney.

Now, a year on, COVID has arrived here.

It's been biting at the heals of tourists and essential workers travelling north since Sydney went into lockdown a couple of months ago.

It's not our idea of a good time.

Right now it's school holidays, which is meant to be 2 weeks of families holidaying in caravan parks and hotels, an essential part of this tourist attraction mecca. Byron Bay, Brunswick Heads, and surrounds are usually very popular places; so popular that most locals complain about how busy it gets here during the holidays. You just can't get a parking sport anywhere!

The Northern Rivers was locked down for about 6 weeks through August into September because cases from Sydney were getting into regional NSW. These regional areas affected by COVID weren't near here, but they made a blanket rule for everywhere outside of Sydney, just to be on the safe side.

Honestly, I don't blame them for the rule, regional outback Australia can't cope with COVID, there's few hospitals, beds, or COVID experience in the scrub and farm land.

Anyhow, I digress...

After those 6 weeks or so in lockdown, they lifted the restrictions here in the northern rivers (and other areas of NSW).

And now, after 2 weeks, lockdown is back on...

There are a couple of cases in the area. Snap lockdowns are the government's preferred method of containing outbreaks. Lockdown areas wherever cases pop up for a week or two (or longer) to limit exposure.

It reminds me constantly that life can change quickly at any time. I have decided I will not waste time once this current lockdown has ended (who knows when that will be). I will visit friends, family, and musicians who live close by. I want to see as many folks as quickly as possible, before another lockdown kicks in.

Besides the boring, never ending tale of COVID, there have been a few things happening this past year...

Alex has been working consistently in the real estate industry since her temporary visa kicked in late last year.

Her first job was a few more miles away than any of us locals would consider driving, and the position wasn't as enjoyable or rewarding as she had first hoped. She really dived in the deep end, and while she didn't drown, she probably needed a few swimming lessons before the attempt. It was a life lesson, one she took on board, and when a new job came up closer to home, she nailed the interview (as she always does), and hasn't looked back.

The 2nd job is less than half the distance away, strictly 9 to 5 and in a company which she enjoys. There's a strong company structure, good work ethic, and entertaining colleagues. Her supervisors, colleagues, and managers are all very supportive; I think she'll be sitting tight on this one for a while.

Alex has also found her creative side again, scrap book journalling, instant camera photography, and some kind of couples diary/journal/photo book too. It's become an almost nightly affair of focusing, creating, and having something to show for it fairly quickly. She's very proud of her work, and it's something she does just for herself. I don't expect you'll get a chance to see a photo of what she's done, and she likes it like that.

I had a bit of work late in 2020 and early 2021, nothing special really, but wait until the premier!! It's interesting to think that some day soon I'll be able to go to the cinema and see my ugly mug on the big screen (even if it will most likely be out of focus). I'll be on Netflix too.

Having the opportunity to be an extra on film and TV was a real boost for my confidence after being off stage for so long. I felt creative, met some great people, made some friends, and had a few bucks in my pocket. Happy days.

By jumping into an industry I hadn't been in before right after arriving here, it reminded me that Australia has a lot to offer. I found myself comparing Germany and Australia, and Australia often feels like it comes up short. This was a chance to prove to myself that there are adventures awaiting here down under.

So, I decided to go back to school.

The last time I was in a class room was in 1998!! I am studying a Diploma of Counselling, and am currently half way through my studies. I've found it very challenging, but have passed every assessment so far, and gained some handy skills too. I have a good connection with my teachers, and I really enjoy the company of my classmates; some of which I can even call friends.

I chose counselling for a few reasons, but the first step was really just a process of elimination. Besides being a freelance professional musician for several years in Germany, I had worked in offices, shops, warehouses, kindergartens and various other jobs. While I could go back into IT or something similar, I wanted to use this opportunity to try something new.

I had my fair share of mental health issues in the past (and present). I thought maybe those experiences could help me connect with folks who need support as well. When looking at course options, the counselling course stood out. So now I'm making a mid life crisis gamble that I'll pass the course, and feel confident and knowledgeable enough to take on the role that many others have taken on for me over the years.

The course has helped me find a routine too, one that I didn't know I needed, until it happened. When you're jobless and unfocused, the mind wanders, the days pass. Now my mind is focused on study, and I feel better for it.

Up until the lockdown hit, we were in class 3 days a week and then I'd study from home 1 to 3 days a week. When lockdown hit, we had to go online. However, being on the computer so much has worn me out, and I really start to enjoy those rare days where I am not looking at a screen!

To be honest, it's been challenging every step of the way, and I even thought about quitting several times in the past few months. However, my confidence has steadily risen to each challenge and I felt better for it.

That's the kind of vicious circle I enjoy.

In July I had my first live show in 13 months! In fact, to date I've only had 3 since the pandemic started! Fingers crossed I can cross the border next month and add a 4th.

I was approached by Cherry Divine to play guitar for her. It's a relatively easy gig for me. The songs are fun rockabilly tunes, Cherry sings great, and she already has a band and gigs. I'm helping her write a few songs too, for her next album. I can't thank her enough for sparkin' the fire in me to keep music alive in my life; for a while there I thought it was all a thing of the past.

With the spark has come the possibility of “The Josh” solo band coming together. While the band isn't moving at any great speed (the recent 2nd lockdown kicked in right as I was about to arrange a rehearsal), I'm finally eager to get a band together. I miss playing live, and I miss having musicians in my life. I miss the spontaneity of a show, life on the road, and crowd reactions.

I've even started to write some new material, and get those ideas on “tape”, well, on the computer. Slow and steady, between studying, family, pets and surfing, music is coming back into my life, and it feels good.

Our family unit here is doing well. Alex and I have been under mum's roof and mum's care for a year now. There are some ups and downs, but mostly I'd say they're ups... The house is big enough to give all of us space, all of us get time outside of the house (except during lockdown, I was mostly stuck at home, but that's OK for me)...

Last night we couldn't go out for dinner, but we did have take away from the local Indian which was really good, and a special treat for us, we don't eat out often.

Alex and I plan to get away every 5-6 months for a visit to somewhere we haven't been. In March we were on the “Sunshine Coast” and checked out Australia Zoo, and in June we went south to the mid north coast to pick up BB Junior.

It's nice to get out and explore. A bit hard to do at the moment, with the restrictions, but we've agreed another trip away (before Christmas if possible) is in order. Those trips are part of the reason why I came home, to see some of Australia, and I'm lucky I get to make those experiences with Alex.

It's also nice to get away from it all. I know we live in a beautiful spot near the ocean, but here, at home, there's the computers, the life and routine, and getting away keeps us fresh and focused on each other. It's definitely something I look forward to!

Speaking of BB Junior, he's almost 7 months old now, and a real character. While he's not the easiest cat to train, I've been getting a few tricks out of him, and he enjoys his time outside, with his harness and long lead. He visits his cousin each week for play time, Charlie, who is another ragdoll of a family friend who loves to play chase all day long with Junior. Alex adores Junior, and Junior adores Alex; they can't wait to cuddle when she comes home from work. He's very vocal too, so even when everyone is at work, I have someone to talk to!

Losing our little boy Mijo was a real difficult experience. I know I've written about him before, but he deserves a mention here, as he was a big part of our first year here. He was full of character and strength, he and I bonded very quickly and not a day goes by I don't think of him. He also brought Alex and I closer together. When she chose him for me, and when he passed, and all points in between, he brought us closer.

I've been focused on sport a fair bit since getting back and settling in. I bought a RowErg, also known as a rowing machine, and I row about twice a week, in addition to riding my bicycle about twice a week. I try to surf every chance I get, which unfortunately ends up being only a few times a month. It's my goal to do something sporty to get my heart rate up every day, and of late, usually I get there too. I don't really do it for any other reason than I love to snack and I can't snack if I don't do sport!

A benefit of my sport/snack workout routine is it helps me stay calm and focused and connected with those I ride and surf with.

I haven't asked Mum how she's feeling about having her middle aged son and his wife living with her recently. Maybe I should, but do I really wanna know the answer? Well, I think she's OK with it. After all, we drive her wherever she wishes! I suspect it goes a little deeper than that, and in all honesty, we enjoy each other's company.

Since Alex and I have been here, I'd like to think Mum has been living a little bit fuller life. I don't think her eyesight has deteriorated much in the past year, but we've been able to provide her with support, eyes to read the small print, driving and help with google, or something around the house. When Mum was diagnosed with celiac disease earlier this year, Alex took her shopping to check over the ingredients of Mum's favourite food, and when needed, found alternatives. It definitely made the transition to gluten free a little easier on Mum and it was a load off my mind that we were around to help her through that phase.

Winter 2021 was over before it even started. I forgot how warm this part of the world is, and I don't know why I own so many jackets! Returning from Europe, where I was wearing a jacket daily for about 9 months of the year, here it feels like, if it's really needed, and I mean if you're desperate, you might need one for 9 weeks of the year. I think the heater was on a handful of times, and the sun was shining just about every day.

I tell ya, it's some kind of paradise here.

It's been a bit difficult keeping up with our European friends and family. I sometimes find it hard to find the time to be proactive to contact the 20, 30 or more friends I'd like to keep in touch with regularly. I know our lives keep on keepin' on, but time passes by so quickly too, and next thing you know it's been 4 months since I last contacted you!

Sorry about that!

Don't take it personally, and I'll get back to you, eventually!

My overall mental health has improved over the year, I'd say it's become quite stable since I started the course. I mean, can't you tell? I write less and less in this blog, because I have less and less to process. I'm not sure if it's the fact there's a lot of self reflection that is inherently a part of doing that kind of mental health course, or if it's the routine of being a student or the new friends I've made and classmates I study with.

It could be that it's taken a year to come to terms with being back here, cause when I first arrived I felt uncomfortable, depressed and worn out... There were a lot of questions; is this a mid life crisis? What am I doing here? Will I ever feel good again? Is my music career over? What am I going to do now? Is Alex OK? Is Mum OK?

My journalling, blogging, and support from friends and family has helped a lot too this past year. Processing my thoughts in words, by clarifying and reflecting, has helped a lot. I've been trying to care for myself a bit more now and then too, I think people call it self care, sometimes I call it sport! Alex has helped me to recognise my achievements, however big or small, and focus less on what I haven't done.

I'm not perfect, but definitely improving.

I was hoping that Alex and I would be in a position to start looking at buying our own house around this time, a year in, but unfortunately, with one of us being a student and the ever rising cost of housing, we have to sit tight on that idea for a while longer. Sorry Mum, you're stuck with us.

There's been many smaller things happen during our first year here. Lots of moments of gratitude, love and support. There's some stuff we've forgotten, or that has been overtaken by something bigger. All in all, I'd say it's been a real rollercoaster home coming!

We're still here, a year on, still going strong, making motions, taking chances, being in love, talking shit, laughing, smiling, misbehaving and focusing... What more could we ask for?

Thank you for reading, for your support and love. I love you too.

Josh

[montosmadman]

I was tagged by @soy-celeste ages ago. This was hard but also super rewarding because I really got to take a deep dive in the murky depths of my own music library. Thanks for thinking of me, Cata💕

Task: choose TEN SONGS that describe your personal aesthetic / how you see yourself. Bonus points if you write a little explanation for each song, that‘s not a must though.

List under a read more because it turned out really long and includes some very personal and possibly triggering mental health stuff.

I'm tagging @capitanogiorgio @hendos @furiousflamewolf @checoswin and @diegoalvesisgod

1. Nakashima Mika - 僕が死のうと思ったのは

The title loosely translates to "The reason I thought I'd die" or "The time I thought I'd die". Yes, I went there right off the bat.

Let's get something straight: I'm not suicidal. I have never been actively suicidal, despite struggling with depression and anxiety most of my teenage/adult life. However, what this song captures for me is the feeling when you're not actively thinking about killing yourself, but you do have this empty feeling when you think there's no point for you being alive. And that's something I'm very familiar with.

There are a couple lines I wanna highlight, even though the whole song hits me very hard whenever I listen to it:

その木漏れ日でうたた寝したら、虫の死骸と土になれるかな

If I lie down beneath the sunlight streaming through the trees, will I become like the dirt and insect remains?

あなたのような人が生きてる世界に少し期待するよ

If people like you are living in this world, then maybe it’s alright to hope a little too.

The first line does what I talked about to above: it's the feeling when you just lie down and wonder if anything would change if you just disappeared. The second line -- last one of the song -- has more hope. It's when you find a reason to believe in the future and realize there is still a reason to live. Personally, I'm trying to hang very hard on that last thought even when the world seems to be against me.

(Full translation in a pinned comment under the Youtube video)

2. The Ark - Little Dysfunk You

No essay here. I just needed to have The Ark on the list because they're the official soundtrack of my life, the first band whose album I bought myself, and who taught me it was okay not to fit in. I even have a tattoo that says "a little dysfunk" because my best friend and I have been relating to this song long before either one of us realized we weren't neurotypical. It's the very dysfunctional ode to our friendship, and I love it.

3. Elton John - Rocket Man

I feel like this might be a universal experience growing up neurodiverse and/or an outsider. You spend years feeling like you're alone in space, on another planet, and you want to connect with people but at the same time know that once you come back, you still won't be the person others want or expect you to be. The challenge is to accept that and realize it's okay and you don't need to change yourself for others. And it really is hard when you're raised in a society where the odds are stacked against you.

4. Sanni - Jos mä oon oikee

Look, I'm giving you something in Finnish too!

Sanni is one of the Finnish artists whose breakthrough I originally missed because I was living abroad. I only properly discovered her a couple years after moving back, when I was driving a lot for my work and hence listening to the radio much more than I used to. Her songs just kept standing out from the rest: her lyrics had this amazing depth even when she was singing about mundane stuff -- like, she was finding these painful truths I hadn't ever spoken but felt very clearly.

That said, I had to choose the one song that's actually very upfront with this idea of being an outsider and not feeling like a part of this world. The title translates to "If I am real" and that pretty much sums it up. It's a song about feeling lonely in the middle of a crowded room, feeling like no one sees you or cares what you do. I personally have this habit of taking a step back and observing people rather than getting involved -- and even when I do, it rarely feels like it's really me out there, because I'm so used to masking and acting like everyone else just to fit in, you know?

I'll finish this off with my favourite verse, translated by yours truly. The last line especially hits home super hard no matter how many times I hear it.

Rautatieasema maanantaina ruuhkaisa Kaikilla tuntuu olevan kiire ja suunta Mä oon ulkopuolella vaik seison sisällä Jos oon jo kotona miten voi olla koti-ikävä

The railway station on Monday is crowded Everyone seems to be in a rush and have a direction I'm outside even though I'm standing inside How can I feel homesick when I'm already home

5. Shobha - Last Exit To Freedom

Full disclosure: Degrassi has been one of my comfort series for many, many years. When this song was first introduced in Next Class, it hit me really hard because it was woven into this whole storyline about depression and suicide, which at the time spoke to me a lot. I repeat, I have never been suicidal, but I do get the headspace that could drive people into it.

However, listening to it again now, it's mostly the message of hope that shines through to me. It's a song that can take two very different readings depending on what your own baggage is. And the series actually acknowledges that later on, which I think is not only beautiful but also extremely important.

There's empty places in my life and I need to breathe There's empty spaces on the map waiting there for me

I've never felt more free than when I actually drop my responsibilities and just go where I want to go. I need that space to breathe, and that's why it has always been such a relief when I could just pack up and start over in a new place. Some might call it running away from my troubles -- and they wouldn't be completely wrong -- but that doesn't change the fact that I've always valued my own freedom above any arbitrary societal norms.

6. Scandinavian Music Group - Näin minä vihellän matkallani

SMG is another one of those bands I grew up on and have seen live several times, so they needed to be here. This song is more on the "aesthetic" end of scale than how I see myself. In fact, I've many times hoped I could be like the narrator of this song. I'll give you a couple of verses to explain:

Kun minulta viedään kaikki Autan kantamaan Ja kun lopulta kaadun Teen sen näyttävästi

When everything's taken from me I'll help them carry it And when I finally fall I'll do it with a flair

Minä vihellän matkallani Näin minä vihellän matkallani Jos sen on oltava niin Olkoon sitten niin

I'm whistling on my journey See how I'm whistling on my journey If this is how things have to be Then so be it

It's this carefree attitude. Laughing in the face of hardship and controversy. There's another amazing line about getting back to the saddle after you fall and swearing you'd do it all over again. I've never been able to do that, because I carry all my old failures and pains so close to the surface, and could never just shake them off with a shrug, no matter how minor.

But on another level, I keep hearing from people who I thought knew me that I don't seem depressed. And who can blame them: on the outside, it probably looks like I bounce back from hardships really fast, because I'm so used to masking my issues that the moment I'm physically capable of doing it, I will. So you might say this song is a picture of my outer self, though it hardly mirrors what's really going on.

7. Queen - Don't Stop Me Now

I'm a firm believer that if my life was a teen movie, this is the song I'd have playing in the final scene where I'd just go "fuck that" and started dancing with @mirkwoodstock in the middle of the parking lot of something. It's my ultimate party anthem, the one that always has me dancing and singing along no matter where I am.

Back when we were at the university, Nanna and I used to go to this rock'n'roll club in town and they'd always play Don't Stop Me Now close to the end of the night, and it really became our song. Like, no matter how shitty I felt, when it came on, I'd be there, and so would she. And that's why it also deserves to be on the list.

8. Blind Channel - Died Enough For You

Throwing a rare newer song into the mix. The moment I heard this song, I knew I'd be listening to it a lot. There's also an acoustic version if you're not a fan of the genre or if you just wanna have a different perspective. Blind Channel is also representing Finland in Eurovision next week, and I'm living for it.

Advertising aside, Died Enough For You takes me to some really dark times in my life. I've been in relationships, both romantic and not, where I've been carrying the other person and giving so much of myself, risking my own mental health (which was not that good to begin with) and not getting much in return. There comes a point where you have to prioritize yourself and admit that dragging yourself into the same abyss is not going help anyone. Unfortunately, usually it takes more strength to admit that and leave than to stay in the relationship that's hurting you.

I'm still talking to some of these people, but I've learned to give myself a permission to sign off when I notice that by helping them I'm only hurting myself more. Someone else's wellbeing cannot be my responsibility when I'm struggling to keep myself afloat. And I truly hope everyone who is supporting me also knows that.

9. Aqua Timez - 真夜中のオーケストラ

Title translates to "Midnight Orchestra". Yes, it's from Naruto. I discovered it back when I was still more involved in anime fandom stuff, and fell for it again year ago when I binged the anime when to lockdowns started, because I needed an escape.

And what an escape it was. Have you ever heard a song and immediately went "I need a tattoo of this", or is that just me? I'm probably not going to get a tattoo because I don't trust non-Japanese artists to get the kanjis right, but the song still captures something very real about loneliness that's not really visible but still very much there. Like, the moment when you meet a person you can truly relate to and for the first time realize you'd been feeling lonely all that time. That's what this song describes to me.

Below are a few verses towards the end of the song. I've bolded the one that first caught my attention (and which I still have as the title of my Japan sideblog).

真夜中の詩が叫んだ「僕ほんとうは独りが　嫌いだ　大嫌いだ」 独りぼっちで　生きてゆけてしまうなんてこと

The song of midnight cried out "I truly hate being alone more than anything" I hate to go on living completely alone…

幸せなんて　小さなスプーンで掬えるくらいで充分なんだ 分け合える人がいるか　いないかだけ

All I need is being able to scoop happiness with a tiny spoon so long as I have someone to share it with

(Full translation)

真夜中の詩は叫ぶよ「僕ほんとうは　僕ほんとうは　淋しかった」 太陽の眩しさに　かき消されても

The song of midnight cried out "I was truly, truly… lonely" Even if I were to be erased by the sun's radiance

10. Jenni Vartiainen (Apulanta) - Mato

This song, named "Worm", was originally released by Finnish rock band Apulanta in 1997. The lyrics, while they might make sense as individual statements, are basically gibberish when you combine them into one piece and try to understand the meaning. There is none. Anyways, the version I chose is a remake by another artist, first performed on the Finnish version of The Best Singers format. It doesn't make any more sense, I just like it better because Jenni is hot and she made it so much fun.

And the reason it's on this list? Welcome to my brain, folks! Sometimes, especially when I'm overwhelmed by lots of external stimuli, my mind tends to just wander wherever the hell it pleases and make connections even I don't get. It also likes to forget the stuff I said just a second a go, so I can switch subjects on the go without even noticing. It's very soothing to have music that doesn't require me to make those connections when that happens.

And now, I shall close this massive post with the first verse of this masterpiece:

Minä tahdon ulos, tahdon ulos kattilasta Minä tahdon pelastaa vielä sinutkin kiehumasta Minä tahdon lentää ulos vessan ikkunasta Minä tahdon tietää kaiken teidän karkkimaasta

I want out, I want out of this kettle I also want to save you from boiling I want to fly out of the toilet window I want to know everything about your candy land

Stay safe and take care of yourselves my dears💕

[wellhellsbelles]

would you like to ever do a riarkle enemies to lovers fic? because i've seen only like 2 enemies to lovers riarkle fics and i think it'd be really cool to see them in a different dynamic

oh WOULD I 

yes i would and i loved every minute of writing this. it’s based VERY LOOSELY on my experience as a hostess in the popular chain italian restaurant we all know and love

anyway, enjoy!!

ao3 link or read below

//

Riley doesn’t intend on making any enemies when she starts working at the restaurant.

 It just sort of . . . happens.

She’d like to think she has the supposed “Big Five” personality traits on lockdown—she’s a very agreeable person, incredibly open with others, positively extroverted, astute in conscientiousness, and her neuroticism . . .

Well, she could maybe stand to work on it a bit, but can she be calm? Absolutely.

There’s just something about Farkle Minkus that makes her want to drive a spork into her leg, though.

It’s a weird sort of dichotomy they form together, despite not being too different from one another. They hold the same sort of power in the restaurant—she’s a host, he’s a busser, and they both get paid minimum wage. While she guides the guests around the restaurant, he cleans up tables and spills, and there should be no reason for the animosity that they harbor for another.

If you ask Riley, she’d chalk it up to her first busy night at the restaurant. The night had bogged her down as she ran around the restaurant, seating guests and refilling anything they needed if she happened to be passing by them. At one point, she’d been asked to help bus tables—something she knew she’d be awful at—and he’d strolled up to her while she was trying to pick up plates, taking them from her grasp forcefully.

“Look, if you’re going to help, then actually do something useful. You’re moving about as slow as a turtle and it’s infuriating,” he had grumbled to her. “Why don’t you go be a good host and greet people with a fake smile and annoying personality?”

Yeah, that’d cinch the nail in the coffin for anyone, she assumes.

How dare he say she had an annoying personality! She was a freakin’ charm to have around, and most of the people working at the restaurant already got along with her. Why was it so hard for him to accept that fact?

Riley didn’t wish to dwell on it, so she didn’t. But she did make enemies with Farkle that night, point blank.

 //

 “Hey Minkus, mind bussing those tables I asked you to bus twenty minutes ago?” Riley calls into the headset. She’d been fed up with another busy night, and Farkle’s attitude was not cutting it for her. She nearly startled when he rounded the corner, though, his permanent look of disdain greeting her.

“You know, bussers don’t just clean tables. In fact, they actually have to listen when managers ask them to do other tasks around the restaurant,” he says, adjusting the sleeves of his black button-up that he had pushed up his forearms.

“And you know I need tables, yeah? We’re on a wait,” Riley argues back. He gives her one last glare before disappearing back into the dining rooms, and Riley hears someone whistle behind her back.

“You know you egg him on just as much as he does you, right?” Maya, one of the servers who’s quickly become her best friend at the restaurant, tells her, leaning against the host stand. Riley shakes her head.

“Not true. He started it, anyway!”

“And you can’t let bygones be bygones?”

“Why on earth should I do that?” Riley asks, incredulous. Maya shrugs.

“I dunno. Besides the fact that the two of you have undeniable chemistry? Or similar personalities? Or the same friend groups around here?”

“What do you mean ‘undeniable chemistry’? We hate each other!” Riley exclaims.

“We often harbor love under the guise of hatred,” Maya states, earning her a disgusted expression from Riley.

“Don’t you have tables to serve?”

“After your boyfriend cleans them up, yeah.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!!” Riley shouts after her friend as she leaves, the sound of chuckling fading off around the corner.

 //

 “So Zay calls out and you’re the only person who can fill his role as a host tonight?” Riley asks Farkle, exasperated. It’s a little strange to see him sans apron, standing at the host stand like he’s the same level as her.

He’s not.

“Imagine, being ungrateful that someone was able to pick up his shift so you wouldn’t be on your own. Are you always this disagreeable in the morning or is that just how you are normally?” he counters.

Riley moves to continue their argument, but guests wander up to the host stand, so she drops it for the sake of doing the job she’s being paid for. She insists on seating them in the system and then guiding them to their table, sure that Farkle will mess it up somehow. When she returns, he’s got a smug grin on his face that causes her blood to boil.

“What’s the face for?” she prods.

“Well, if I didn’t have one it’d be quite disturbing, frankly,” he snarks back. Riley would throw things at him, if she didn’t have to keep her cool for the sake of the job.

“What’s the face for?” she tries again, this time more forcefully.

“I like that you won’t let me do anything. I could make your job ten times easier by seating tables for you, but you insist on taking care of everything. Are you really that stubborn?”

“Kettle meet pot,” she huffs, turning away from him with arms crossed and nose stuck high in the air. He simply laughs and the two of them return to silence soon after, refusing to engage any further in conversation for the rest of their shifts.

 //

 The restaurant holds a potluck for Thanksgiving two days before the actual holiday. It’s a tradition set by the general manager that a lot of people enjoy engaging in, and after further convincing from Maya, Riley decides to attend. Besides, Lucas is going to be there, and she may have the smallest, tiniest of crushes on him.

Whatever. Doesn’t matter.

Riley does prepare a dish at the behest of Maya (Maya could probably goad her into anything at this point, really). She wants to do macaroni and cheese, but when she hears that Darby is going to she attempts to figure something else out, but Maya reassures her.

“Darby makes it from the box,” she explains, “And it’s always the worst. I love her, but she finds a way to ruin even the simplest of foods.”

“So it’s really okay if I make macaroni and cheese? My grandma really does have an awesome recipe for it . . .”

“Riley,” Maya says, stern, “I think I speak for everyone when I say please, for the love of god make that mac. We need quality mac this year for once.”

She doesn’t work that day, so Maya tells her she’ll pick her up right before the potluck. Riley sleeps in and then spends the rest of her hours preparing the macaroni and cheese fresh, spending a little bit of the extra time for showering, dressing, and maybe putting on a little bit of makeup.

Riley pulls the dish out of the oven with a minute to spare, grabbing a box to hold it in so it doesn’t burn her and the rest of her things, heading out the door when she receives a message from Maya telling her that she’s waiting outside. She pulls together all her things and makes a mad dash for the door, joining her friend inside the car so that they can drive off to their workplace.

Riley has to admit she’s a bit nervous—she’s been working there only a couple of months, and while she does get along with everyone, she knows she’s still new, still not quite a perfect fit in this little carefully constructed family. She hopes that this will aid to ease her anxiety and make her feel a little more solidified in their group and that she’ll just have a good time in general. This job . . . she’s grown to care for it, more than she’d care to admit.

They pull up outside the restaurant and Riley jumps out once they’ve parked, grabbing her macaroni and cheese and tailing behind Maya once she’s retrieved her own dessert from the back seat of the car. The doors click as they lock and the two of them walk inside, Maya with confidence and Riley a tad skittish behind her. They greet the two hosts manning the front, having to miss out on the celebration for a moment, and then head towards the back dining room where their party is taking place.

“Maya! Riley! Glad you two could join us,” their general manager Jon greets them. “You two can go ahead and set your food down at the tables over there and we’ll get ready to eat in a few minutes.”

They nod and do as they’re told, Riley splitting off from Maya to set her food on the table closest to her while Maya sets her dish down on the dessert table. She waits to take cue from Maya, embarrassed to be tailing her like a dog, but shakes the feeling as Maya takes a seat at one of the booths. Riley joins her, realizing one moment too late that Maya’s chatting up Farkle Minkus of all people.

“You bring anything for us, Minkus?” Maya asks, engaging him in conversation. Farkle snorts.

“God no. The last thing we need is me exploding a kitchen from my poor cooking skills. There’s a reason I’m a busser and not on the line.”

“Don’t you have a cook or something rich people can afford who can do things for you?” Maya snarks.

“Would you laugh if I say yes?” Farkle sighs, earning him a cackle from Maya.

Riley tries to restrain her curiosity, but it’s already been piqued—if Farkle is rich, then why is he working as a busser at a chain restaurant?

Whatever. Riley doesn’t care.

She spends the rest of Maya and Farkle’s conversation on the outside listening in, not really wanting to participate in conversation with Farkle because he’s, well, Farkle. Maya seems to respect her feelings, not pestering her to join, and for that Riley is thankful. She just waits in her seat patiently, ready for the eating portion of their get-together to start. Unfortunately, she has to wait another fifteen minutes for that, but half-way through she gets distracted because of Lucas’ appearance, trying her best to work up the courage to talk to him. He’s still in his work uniform—black button-up and black work pants, the sleeves rolled up mid-forearm—and it shouldn’t work for him but it does.

Right as she finally rises from her seat, deciding that she will talk to him, their general manager announces that it’s time for them to eat. He pulls them all into a quick little prayer before allowing people to start grabbing food, and by then Lucas is caught up in his own conversation with the people he’s friends with at work. Riley sighs, giving up as she joins Maya and Farkle at the buffet line their manager put together. She piles the food on her plate and then sits back down at their little booth, uncharacteristically quiet as Maya and Farkle sit back down.

“Okay, I swear to you that Yogi’s changed the recipe for this green bean casserole. It actually tastes good this year,” Maya says.

“I’ll take your word for it. I don’t do mushrooms,” Farkle tells her, wrinkling his nose at it.

“Do you not like mushrooms either, Riley?” Maya asks her, finally inviting her in to start talking. Riley shakes her head.

“No, I just don’t really like green bean casserole.”

“Holy shit,” Farkle interjects through a mouthful of food, “Darby’s really stepped it up with the macaroni and cheese. This stuff tastes like heaven.”

Riley stops, her mouth dropping open in surprise at his words. Maya’s mouth turns upwards into a brilliant, shit-eating grin that Riley just wants to wipe off her face but knows she can’t. It’s too late; the damage is done.

“That’s because Darby didn’t make it,” Maya tells him, the excitement unrestrained in her voice, “Riley did.”

Farkle registers her words, his chewing slowing down as realization dawns on his face. She half-expects him to spit it out, to retract his statement or do something else drastic, but he doesn’t. He swallows the mouthful of macaroni and cheese, sets his fork down, and meeting Riley’s gaze says, “This is really, really fantastic macaroni and cheese, Riley. Some of the best I’ve ever had. Good job.”

Riley will admit, she didn’t think Farkle would be the one to extend the olive branch between the two of them, but he does it all the same. She recognizes that her response to him will make or break the situation, but she’s not one to drop a compliment, especially one that has her blushing furiously. She can’t control it, not really, and she definitely can’t control the bashful smile that graces her face, so what the hell.

“Thanks, Farkle. I’m glad you enjoy it,” she tells him sincerely, her words startling him, too. But then he beams a grin back and Riley knows she can no longer be mad at him, not after that.

 Damnit.

 //

Friendship with Farkle after Thanksgiving is practically flawless. Riley doesn’t want to tell Maya she’s right because Maya will hold it over her for the rest of forever, but Riley and Farkle really do have a lot in common. He makes it easy to be his friend, so much so that she forgets she was ever mad at him and that she didn’t like him at all. They spend a good portion of their day complaining about someone or something from work and when they aren’t talking about that, they’re talking about outer space or their favorite tv shows or just anything.

It’s kind of ridiculous, but then again, Riley absolutely loves it. It makes working at least ten times easier now that they get along, but if anyone notices it, they don’t mention it aloud. The restaurant moves on with its day as if nothing has changed, but Riley is privy to the shift.

Regardless, their friendship is still brand new, still hanging on by a tumultuous thread. It’s something Riley can’t quite define, but it feels like the foundations are still shaky, like there’s something else that rests in the air between them when their conversations reach a lull during a slow day.

Maya voices her opinion on the subject after Riley mentions it while they’re getting ready for a costume party Sarah’s holding (“Halloween in December,” Sarah tells Riley, “It’s kinda my thing.”) Maya’s finished putting on her sexy ringmaster costume and has moved onto applying her makeup while Riley tries to wrangle and curl her hair into submission.

“It’s because you like him,” Maya tells her, working on her winged eyeliner with Bobby Fisher-like intensity.

“What? No I don’t,” Riley insists. “Farkle and I just became friends.”

“And this is supposed to deter my opinion on that? I already told you before that you had undeniable chemistry. But now you two actually get along, so now you can’t hide it.”

Riley has half a mind to make Maya mess up her eyeliner, but she’s not cruel. She’ll just remain disgruntled about the matter for the rest of the night.

Maya helps Riley with the rest of her angel costume after her hair is curled completely, and once they’ve pulled Riley’s wings on, they grab their things and leave Maya’s house. Maya drives them to the party and when they pull up, Riley has to admit that while she knew a lot of people were going to attend the party, she didn’t know this many people would be here. Cars line the empty space around Sarah’s place and partygoers are already hanging out on the lawn, enjoying themselves as the music blasts from inside the house.

Riley feels a nervous energy course within her as they walk up the sidewalk to the house. She’s excited for the party, she really is, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t anxious about it, too. All of that washes away the moment she and Maya step inside, their friends greeting them happily and complimenting their costumes.

“Oh my god, you guys finally made it!” Zay exclaims, a wide grin on his face. “Those costumes are dope as hell!”

“Thanks, of course they are,” Maya says, winking at him slyly. “But what are you supposed to be?”

Zay flashes his teeth, revealing a set of pointed fangs on the top and bottom.

“Teen Wolf!”

“That is both lame and fantastic,” Maya laughs, then turns to search the room. “Farkle here yet?”

“Yeah, last I saw he was playing beer pong with Lucas and couple of others. Why don’t you two get some drinks and then we’ll head that way,” he suggests. Maya nods and they follow him to what Riley supposes is the kitchen. He mixes them up a couple of drinks and hands them off to them, chuckling when Riley sniffs hers and scrunches her nose in disgust.

“Jeez, how much alcohol did you put in this, Zay?” she asks.

“Enough. Now drink up and let’s go, Matthews!”

She sighs and gives in, stealing a sip as they make their way to where Farkle and Lucas are. She almost gags at the pungent liquor smell again but drinks it anyway. It’s a good thing, too, because when they find the supposed beer pong tournament, it’s not Lucas who has her heart racing.

“Maya,” Farkle greets her when he spots her, but when his gaze lands on Riley, he practically beams. “Riley! I’m so glad you could make it!”

Words seem to fail Riley right now. She’s not sure why she’s feeling so off but seeing Farkle dressed as gladiator has sent her off-kilter. He looks so damn good in his costume and she starts debating whether or not she should abandon the drink Zay gave her altogether if it’s making her act like this.

“Hey, Farkle, good to see you, too,” she finally manages awkwardly, huffing in embarrassment before backing her drink like there’s no tomorrow. So much for abandoning it.

“Whoa,” Maya gasps, rushing over to Riley’s side, “What are you doing?! I thought you told me earlier you were going to take it easy.”

“I lied. Wanna make me another drink? I’m gonna need it,” she insists, ushering Maya back to the kitchen. As soon as they’ve made it, Maya shakes Riley off of her, glaring at her.

“What the hell was that about?!” she yells. Riley opens her mouth to say something, but then closes it again as she goes through the five stages of grief in her mind. After a moment of silence and Maya waving her hand sporadically in Riley’s face to bring her back to earth, she says,

“I couldn’t be there anymore. I need more alcohol if I’m going to get through this night.”

“I don’t get why you’re acting like this? You were fine until we—” Maya pauses, then realization dawns on her face, “Oh!”

“Maya—”

“Holy shit, you don’t wanna go back there because you think Farkle looks hot in his costume. This is hilarious.”

“No it’s not! I don’t have feelings for him, I just think he looks . . . really good,” Riley tries, but Maya’s already grinning like an idiot.

“Now we have to get back there. I’m going to try so hard to set the two of you up it’s not even funny.”

“I don’t need your help! I don’t wanna be set up!” Riley exclaims, but it’s too late. Her decision has been made.

“I’ll make you a drink and then I’m gonna get you alone with Farkle. It’s gonna be fantastic.”

Riley groans, knowing she’s fighting a losing battle.

She does loosen up a bit after she’s finished off the second drink, but that doesn’t mean she’s gonna give into her friend’s plan.

And Maya does follow up on her promise despite Riley’s every effort to make it hard for them to be alone—after many failed attempts, she forces them in a spin the bottle circle. Riley only agrees to it because she’s borderline drunk and doesn’t care about a quick kiss with anyone, but when she finds out that whoever the bottle lands on is sent to the closet for seven minutes in heaven, she tries to run.

But it’s too late.

Maya’s spinning skills are off the charts, the bottle ends landing between Riley and Farkle. Everyone whoops and hollers at them except for Riley and Farkle themselves, but they still go follow the rules begrudgingly, allowing themselves to be shoved into a closet for everyone else’s entertainment.

“Go get ‘em, tiger!” Maya’s muffled yell erupts from beyond the closed door. Riley sighs.

“You know we don’t have to do anything in here, right?” Farkle tells her. “I’m not gonna force you to do something you don’t want to do.”

“Really?” Riley asks, spinning to turn and look at him, but that ends up being a mistake. She’d misjudged just how small the closet was, and she ends up pressed against him, his arms gripping her biceps when she stumbles a bit from the alcohol.

Whatever words Farkle wanted to say have since died on his lips, if his comically large eyes were anything to go by. Riley knows she’s gone though when she finds herself lost in the stormy gray irises of his, her brain actually entertaining the thought of kissing him.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I did, right? her brain asks her.

Right, her heart agrees.

Testing a theory, Riley’s hands rise to rest gently against Farkle’s cheeks. His breath stutters as soon as her fingers grace his skin, and she knows there’s no going back when she glances at his mouth before leaning in.

This is such a bad idea, she tells herself, But I don’t think I care enough to stop it.

Right when mouth is only centimeters away from Farkle’s, close enough that she can feel his breath ghosting her lips, the closet door swings open. Farkle and Riley jump apart, and whatever spell befell her has washed away, leaving confusion in its wake.

“Alright you two, get out so the rest of us can have some fun!” someone shouts. Riley nods and ditches Farkle, grabbing Maya by the arm and tugging her outside urgently.

“What the hell, Riley?” Maya grumbles as soon as they stop in what Riley deems is a quiet area.

“I think I have a crush on Farkle. I have a crush on Farkle, don’t I?” Riley asks.

“No shit,” Maya says, rolling her eyes, “You kind of made that abundantly clear tonight. But after all that hard work I went through you didn’t even follow through!”

“How can you tell?” Riley frowns.

“Because your lipstick is still perfectly fine, red as can be. If you kissed him, it’d be smudged and all over his mouth. Plus, I don’t really think Farkle would’ve survived it. I think he’d probably need to sit down for the next century in order to process it all.”

“You’re the worst,” Riley whines. Maya pats her shoulders sympathetically.

“I know, Sunshine. I know.”

 //

 Riley’s never been one to know how to act around crushes, but her crush on Farkle has rendered her absolutely neurotic. She still talks to him, of course, but she has a harder time starting conversations. What would he even want to talk about? Does he even want to talk with her?

It’s Riley’s favorite pastime, going into the land of overthinking. She excels at it a little too well.

After two weeks of utter turmoil and downright awkward interactions with Farkle, she thinks that maybe she’s just eternally hopeless. Whatever she might feel for Farkle doesn’t matter, because she can’t even figure out how to just be around him. She may as well just quit while she’s ahead and just give up on the hopes of ever being near him again.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t get that option.

Her manager suggests one morning that Farkle help her unload the boxes of wine they just got in, and when Farkle asks if she wants help, she says yes. Normally, she’s used to unloading it all on her own, but the thought of spending quality time with him is just too tempting to pass up and her brain is just dumb dumb dumb.

The restaurant is quiet as they unload each case of wine, save for the never-ending music selection on repeat with eight versions of the same five songs. But it’s nice, sharing a moment with him where they don’t have to talk about anything, just stock wine in the coolers.

Nice, of course, up until their fingers brush up against one another’s, sending electricity coursing straight through Riley’s system. She wonders if he feels it, too, but she doesn’t have to worry any longer when his gaze finally meets hers, the shock apparent on his face. They endure a long moment of silence until Riley can bear it no more, the words falling out of her mouth unbidden.

“Farkle, I really really like you. As in like like you,” Riley blurts.

“Oh thank god,” he breathes before pulling her in for a kiss.

It shouldn’t be great kiss, by all means—they’re both kneeling behind the host stand, the cooler doors open and bottles of wine still waiting to be stocked while a jazzy version of Wonderwall plays in the background. But that doesn’t matter to Riley; she’s with Farkle and they’re kissing and she never wants this moment to end.

It does, though.

“Ahem,” a voice clears their throat, causing Riley and Farkle to split. She has an oh shit moment when she thinks it might be their manager who’s caught them kissing while on the clock, but then it’s even worse when Riley realizes who it is.

“Oh. Hey, Maya,” Farkle greets her sheepishly, earning him a cackle from Maya.

“This is fantastic! I love being right!” she shouts.

Riley buries her head in Farkle’s shoulder in embarrassment, but she smiles secretly—

She loves that Maya was right, too.

[arsonist-chicken]

Lockdown Tag game; I got tagged by @we-are-not-amoosed thank you! I keep forgetting you know I exist, also I hope you had fun being drunk at midnight on a Tuesday hjhjhj.

First of all, a big FUCK YOU to tumblr, because I was at the LAST QUESTION and opened ONE NEW TAB to look up the word windmill, and when I went back to tumblr, my post was GONE, so here we go again. If an answer seems short of half-answered, it’s because I didn’t feel like typing everything again.

Are you staying home from work or school?

HA. Yes. Love that for me. Not at all. My university opened for 1 1/2 weeks in March 2020, then for another 4 weeks in November, and it has been closed ever since. I’m in my dormitory in the town I study in, not home home at my parents’ place though, because that would Not end well. The internet connection sucks though, that’s really annoying with distance learning. When I go into The City for A Thing, I usually cycle past my department and it makes we Yearn to go back in there, which is a thing I didn’t think would ever happen, but one pandemic later and suddenly everyone would kill for the change to go back to work/school in person, wouldn’t we?

If you’re staying home who is there with you?

I live in a dormitory, so technically, there’s a lot of other people there, but I don’t really talk to any of them except for when we meet in the hallways or the kitchen or wherever, so really it’s just me, the stuffed animal my friend got me last year because I kept whining that I didn’t have a cat like her at her boyfriend’s place where she basically lives now, and the birds who come to eat from the bird house I put on my balcony.

If it makes you feel any better @we-are-not-amoosed, not that I think it will but hey, who knows, my twin sister is moving out in December, so I will be the only child at home with my parents during summer/Christmas/Easter break, which will be Not Fun. I’ll take another 1 ½ years for my degree, and another 2 if I do a master’s, so that’s about... 1-3/4 years I’ll be alone with my parents while my perfect sister gets to move out and move on and live Adult Life fully respected as an Adult working with renewable energy, as opposed to the Disappointment who takes 5 years for a 3 year degree in a field that’s hard to find employment in and never Does Stuff like my mother wants me to Do Stuff.

Are you a homebody?

I’m with @we-are-not-amoosed there, I didn’t know what that meant, but Pons says “Stubenhocker”. A bit I guess? I’m definitely fine being home by myself if I’m unbothered there (read: not at my parents’ when they are home) and I do need time by myself to recharge. But probably like everyone else, I crave and enjoy social contact a ton more than Before. I meet a friend fairly often (aka the only friend still here instead of home for distance learning), and today we worked together (handing out flyers which idk why the company pays us to hand them out, like 95% of them get thrown away immediately, but hey, we’re getting paid 🤷) and then went to sit by the river, and there were SO MANY people there, it was not *entirely* corona-compliant (but outside with town-typical wind, so it’s fine I think, with my non-existent knowledge about spreading of viruses and such), but honestly? I just couldn’t be bothered to care in that moment: it was warm and sunny, I was there with a very close friend, people were laughing and dancing to good music, it was just so GOOD to be there, almost as if Corona didn’t exist. The police even drove by like they always do to check for people smoking weed and didn’t say anything like usual, so hey. It was just so good, okay? So, homebody? Within reason, I guess, but less than Before, probably.

An event you were looking forward to that eventually got cancelled?

Oh boy, SO MANY. The one I’m most bitter about was a very prestigious international interpreting event, that would have involved me interpreting in the actual European Parliament building in Strasbourg. But there was also a festival week with my best friend I was looking forward to, maybe even a second festival with another friend, my company’s ten year anniversary party, etc. And Prides! I came out to my family in 2019, and was like “Yay, I can finally go to Prides now!” but well 🤷

DUDE SO MANY ARE YOU KIDDING ME

CONCERTS: 5SOS (I SHOULD HAVE heard “Old Me” in a crowd full of other people getting nostalgic for their past selves, but NO), Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Rock im Park aka GREEN DAY AND RISE AGAINST (I have been trying to see Rise Against for YEARS and ALWAYS something gets in the way!), one or two small local artists.

ERASMUS: I should have gone to Russia for a semester to improve my not-too-great speaking skills but Corona said FUCK YOU you will study ALONE and LONELY in your ROOM like a child on TIMEOUT

PRIDE: none in particular, just generally it would have been nice to go, maybe even with a friend to the one in Vienna

Also just general stuff like birthdays and get-togethers with friends, and my club’s annual get-together was cancelled too, and it would have been my friend, sister and my’s 10-year-anniversary, so that sucked to get cancelled.

What movies have you watched recently?

Movies? Pfuh, I don’t know, I’m not really into movies anymore, tbh. TV-series and games are more my jam.

Descendants 1 +2, I finally watched those after I read so much fanfiction that I knew the plot without having watched a single scene that isn’t a music video that youtube kept showing me. They’re nice enough, if you overlook the fact that they make a 16-year-old king while there’s still perfectly capable adults but whatever, there’s a lot of cute moments (Carlos and Jane omg) and a lot of funny ones (UMA. Is HILARIOUS), the music kind of slaps ngl, and arguably Mal + Evie are queer and in love. I still want to watch the third soon, and rewatch The Hunger Games since it showed up on my dash recently.

What shows are you watching?

Rewatching Julie and the Phantoms forever until the end of time (or until season 2 comes out @netflix, and I started Brooklyn 99 again for background noise/low-energy background watching. A friend recommended Ginny & Georgia and it’s okay enough, but it’s written in a way that makes you want to keep watching because there’s just such whack stuff happening that you want it explained; it’s 1h episodes though, that’s a bit hard on my attention span. I want to rewatch FMA:B some time, too.

What are you reading?

@we-are-not-amoosed said “tumblr posts and the texts I translate at work” and if that isn’t a Mood. I’d love to read more, but my attention span is shit and my reading comprehension even worse. I *am* reading “Explain to me like I’m 5” atm which explains stuff easily, like, well, you’re 5 years old, so you’d think a 23-year-old could understand, no? No. I read it, I vaguely understand some stuff, I close the book, and it’s G-O-N-E, not a single thing left. Literally the only thing I remember – and this is why I had to re-write ^^^all that because I needed to look up the English word for Windräder, if that’s even what they’re called in German but whatever I’m tired – is that insects and birds die a LOT in windmills when they get too close and get sucked in and can’t escape anymore, which is one of the reasons windmills aren’t as environmentally friendly as we thought when we built them. Anyhow, I’d love to read more, but idk, there are a lot of posts on here, some I’ve reblogged, that are like.. something something reading fanfiction is easier because you already know the characters and universe something something less mental energy something something idk. Yeah I mostly read fanfiction these days. I hope I’ll get back to reading books sometime soon-ish, I have a long list.

What are you doing for self-care?

Hm. I meet my friend I mentioned above pretty regularly, and I have a notebook that I write stuff in that was nice or made me happy when that happened (like today: working with my friend and then sitting among people by the river in the sun with said friend). I’m getting a tattoo next week (3 cat paws + 1 dog paw = technically my two cats and my late cat and dog, but well, two of them are dead, so I asked two friends for a paw print of their cat and dog, so I’ll always have those two with me, too). I try to make a to-do-list each day, but I rarely stick to it. I apply eyeshadow and body glitter if I want to, I dye my hair bright colors (think pink, purple, blue, red, maybe orange next). I always have chocolate in my room meaning I stopped depriving myself of food I like/food in general because it’s “healthier”/”I need to lose weight” etc. all that you know all those great reasons. I went to a doctor about my knee and it ended up being useless but I went, so.

I also went to see a therapist but she is very useless, like “ended our first session telling me well she doesn’t know how to help me/if she can help me at all/if therapy would even help me” kind of useless; I’ll go again next week and see if that changes or if next week will be the last week and I’ll go back to Dealing Like Before, which is not great but whatever. I’ve lived until 23 without therapy, surely I can keep doing it. Therapy’s expensive if it’s not covered (which this doctor IS which is why I went to her but it’s still a waste of time) and if it’s not gonna work/not gonna help me apparently or if there’s nothing actually wrong OR that therapist is just like, bad at her job, what’s the point of going yk?

Uggggh, I hope the swimming pools and Zumba class will be open again soon, Zumba (also with said friend) is AMAZING, easy fun exercise you don’t need any knowledge or skill for and you can hang out with your friend by the street after for an hour and say goodbye five times and then remember one more thing you wanted to actually still mention and stand there for another 20 minutes hjhjhj. Best times, truly.

Idk this is probably not self-care but I got a small job working with Austrian German and it gnetflix the chance to save up a bit and add it to my resume and also hopefully get my mother to shut up about my non-existent job prospects for a bit, so that’s kind of helping in making me feel a bit more like I’m Being An Adult (also because it means I have to learn how to change my insurance and finance department stuff now, yey).

Tagging: @languages-and-else @psychicbouquetblaze-stuff @the-real-daddy-van-der-bellen @sunsetcurveofficial if you feel like doing it, also sorry @we-are-not-amoosed it became such a rambled long answe on almost everything hjhjhj

[mostweakhamlets]

genuine question: why is staged cringe?

I want to preface this by saying that I loved Staged initially. I thought it was a super cool concept with actors I’m fans of. I still think that it is a really cool concept! I think it’s great that these actors hatched this idea of acting from home over video chat. I love it when people are experimental. I love it when people break the status quo with art. 

However, I think that this is one of the downfalls with Staged. There’s so much potential there, and you really notice how much of that was squandered when you start noticing the things about the show that don’t sit right with you. At least, that’s how I felt. 

It really is a matter of, “I feel like this show aged poorly. For the love of God, make series two different.”

I have a lot to say about this, so I’ll put it under the cut and in sections haha

Superwomen

This was my biggest peeve with Staged. I felt like the women (mostly Anna and Georgia) couldn’t just exist. It felt so unnatural and so forced. Like “Look, these women are just any women.” 

I know that Georgia Tennant already has this sort of public image of being this super productive mom (which I have more feelings about but won’t go into it here). I think that’s awesome! But Staged hammed that up. I know that it was supposed be a satire version of her, but come on. She’s Supermom to the point that her husband is incompetent? That he really can’t make dinner for his own children? That he has to just reheat something she made that week? 

We see Georgia as the perfect woman—helps a friend with childbirth, writes a book, she apparently does all the cooking and cleaning (judging by how surprised she looks when she notices all the laundry folded and put away when she returns from the childbirth), and is the perfect mom and wife. And I know that she had little screentime, but why couldn’t we see any actual flaws? Why does she have to be Supermom every time we see her while her husband seemingly dicks around on Zoom all day? 

And then there’s Anna. She’s much more private than Georgia is irl, so she doesn’t already have this crafted public persona. We see less of her in Staged. The Tennants have more of a story than she and Michael do. And with that time, they really made sure to make… smart. I guess you could call it that. 

It felt like there was an attempt to make her smart when she had all this information about—what was it? Italian fascism?—on the top of her head. But it definitely felt “smart” in the way that men often think people are “smart.” They can just regurgitate facts rather than actually say anything constructive. It felt like she had just played Trivial Pursuit a lot or binged watched every single episode of QI. I’ve no idea why they felt the need to just awkwardly shoehorn that in when there are so many other ways to show that a woman is intelligent. 

It makes me wonder what the creative team thinks of women—at what point is a woman valuable in front of a camera? Could a character like me, who doesn’t know a lot of trivia or isn’t an exceptional cook or can be a birthing partner, earn screentime in a production by these men? Are women allowed to be flawed beyond “Haha yeah I’m eating cake while watching yoga videos” and agreeing to put recycling in someone else’s bin? 

Is there an oversaturation of the male ego in Staged? Kinda. It was all about three men’s shit show while girlfriends and wives stood in the background as flawless house partners. It feels like that bland brand of feminism that’s like, “Women can do anything! And that includes compensating for their male partner’s shortcomings!” 

Covid Insensitivities  

Back in March, we were all different people! We thought we saw a light at the end of the tunnel. We were watching TikToks and staying home and supporting essential workers. But things got very much worse. As an American, I’m terrified of what’s going to happen in my country alone. Much of the world has been hit hard, and government leaders all over are proving to be incompetent. 

But early summer/late spring was a different time. And when they filmed Staged, they had a Covid subplot with Michael’s neighbor. At the time, it felt fine. But now it feels icky, in my opinion. It feels wrong for rich people, safe in their homes, to craft a storyline where a fictional woman has Covid, and “It really affects me, Michael Sheen. I’m worried about this.” 

At the time, I felt like, “Is this really the angle they should have taken with such a serious global issue?” And now I feel like, “This is definitely not a subplot they should have gone with. Oh my God, I physically cannot watch Michael Sheen fake crying while on the phone with a doctor.” 

Their hearts were probably in the right place, but it aged terribly. I really hope that they don’t return to subplots like that in series two.

Which brings me to my next point: 

The Oh So Relatable Lives of Celebrities

The Covid-neighbor subplot felt wrong for another reason: it felt like a misguided attempt to look relatable to an audience who is probably a bit more exposed to the virus than these people sitting in their massive homes. 

I won’t go into this much because I don’t see it as a major issue. Again, at the time it felt fine. We thought we were all in this together, and these rich people really did get the common struggles: dealing with childcare, being cooped inside all day, etc. 

But again, things changed. 

I’m honestly tired (and a bit bitter) of seeing rich people trying to pose as having the same set of problems the rest of us do right now. Sure, it must be hard to raise five kids right now. But when this is over, the Tennants get their nanny back irl. Yes, it’s hard to stay inside all day with little outlets. But Michael Sheen irl 1) has actually been acting quite a bit during this, as we’ve seen now, with plenty of press and 2) has a huge garden and a magical little park he could always walk to. 

I can’t help but feel bitter as I sit in debt, unemployed, watching very well-off actors get irritable over lockdown. 

In General 

In general, Staged was fun at the time. It was cute, and I enjoyed watching it when it came out. It was during the “hopeful” stage of the pandemic, as I like to call it. Loans payments and rent payments were paused. Eviction was illegal. People who could, stayed home and watched TikToks. But now we’re in a different stage. 

A lot has happened, and a lot of places are refusing to shut down states/countries again for the sake of the economy. People are starting to realize how little their individual livelihoods matter to our governments. There are tense elections all over the world. There’s no relief being provided for people who desperately need it. 

I think that the sort of quirky Covid stories like Staged aren’t going to be necessarily enjoyable right now. Really, the last thing I want to see is rich people pretending like they’re struggling in their huge homes and with their presumably unlimited resources. 

I’m really holding my breath with series two. I hope that they go in a different direction than they did last time, or it’ll be a completely tone-deaf show to me. 

Like I said, there is so much you can do with a setup like Staged, but I think that they dropped the ball so many times that it just feels like someone else should take over this format. 

I’d completely understand if people disagree with me. These are just my criticisms of the show.

[dansnaturepictures]

23/03/2021-Snake’s head frtillaries and more at Lakeside and home: Part 1 of 2 - 5 pictures in this photoset are different to the ones I tweeted tonight and they are the first, third, fourth, seventh and ninth in this photoset 

This blog has most of the story of my day and 10 wildlife photos I took and then my next post shortly has 10 landscape and other pictures all exclusively to the Tumblr post from today as I took just over 40 pictures again so it was a way to post 15 exclusively on Twitter. 

I took the second and third pictures in this photoset of a lovely flower and greenery in our front garden as I went out for my lunch time walk. It was nice to take in blossom and buds again as I walked into Lakeside at the north eastern kissing gate entrance and along into the area north of the steam railway station. My mission today for something I might be able to see at Lakeside on the walk was one I had had for a few days trying to see if the snake’s-head fritillary flowers that I was taken aback by the past two years were here. The past years as I learnt these flowers the first ones I saw was 24th March in 2019 and the second 29th March in 2020 so I knew the time was coming. Today I walked from the area north of the steam railway station into the fenced off nature reserve area (the one of the two you can walk through) where these flowers seem to be, the most notable group had lurked on a sort of slope in a wooded area here. I had originally planned to walk south of the fenced off area along the path north of the car parking area and use my binoculars to see if they were there and then walk over through the other gate to the south if so. I think they are further up the slope than I remembered, so I am glad I didn’t do this as I might not have seen them today. 

In reality today once in the nature reserve fenced off area instead of going all the way round to the other side of the trees where this slope is I walked on a subtle path through the trees. As I walked in I was astonished and overcome with joy to see a group of snake’s-head fritillaries on the floor. Numbering probably well into the 20′s at least including some that had not quite yet developed/grown the bell shaped flower fully. I just loved taking in this beautiful sight, they really did adorn and add a splash of colour to the small patch of woods as I saw them do the last couple of years. They really are the most splendid and magnificent of sights. They’re what the festival of colour and life that is spring is all about, and I just loved seeing them and spending time to really take them in to the beautiful backdrop of a Great Tit calling and a Robin or Blackbird singing. I took the first, fourth, fifth and sixth pictures in this photoset with my macro lens of these really stunning flowers. 

And I mention it was with my macro lens, the closeup lens so probably something quite obvious, for a couple of reasons. When I first ever noticed these in March 2019 a flower I had never seen before it was the day my original macro lens which I’d had for eight years and really got me into the macro side of photography and capturing insects especially mainly butterflies and then fungi and flowers started to go wrong and do something where it wouldn’t focus for ages for no apparent reason. I missed the chance to photograph a Small Tortoiseshell on blossom earlier on in a walk with both dogs back when we had Ruby two years ago tomorrow as my Mum and her husband were in Scotland. So I sort of worked out what was happening with my lens by seeing this flower and successfully trying for the picture. And then last year I took a photo of a white snake’s-head fritillary that I was really pleased with and it made my calendars its on one of my calendars beside me right now that I make out of my photos this month and that was the start of me being stunned by the quality and detail my new macro lens offered which I have said so often as this went on all year to a degree and this year so far too. So this is an important flower for this integral lens for me. 

But the other story is with it cloudy when I left for my walk and me not knowing I would definitely see these I very nearly didn’t bring my macro as its the sunnier days I know I am likely to go for insect pictures or flowers and some others which I need the macro for. I was going to go just with my big lens as I quite often only bring the one lens on these brief lunch time walks. But the pockets on my tracksuit bottoms had both fallen through and were just massive holes so I needed a backpack for my phone and keys. So I brought my macro lens just in case because if I had a bag I may as well have another lens in it. So I was so glad I brought this as yes I’d have got a picture with my big lens I would not have resisted the urge but it would have then been a case of making sure I did have the macro in a future day to use the proper lens on them I may still take more these flowers this year as I showed with daffodils and the crocuses I found a few weeks ago I have taken pictures again and again of flowers, and I just feel I was glad I could get the right lens on and take the pictures at the same moment of getting that inspiring first taste of spotting these beautiful flowers. As it happened the sun came out as I was watching them, so I was very glad. 

These flowers really did enchant the woods in a way a fly agaric mushroom does in the autumn, they just looked so beautiful and I could not take my eyes off of them. I have well documented my year of revelation of learning flowers a lot more helped by these times, I started the journey with this species a year previously even if I didn’t know what they were the first year and my interest in flowers is so different and way more detailed compared to when I photographed the snakes-head fritillary this time last year. And I have also always documented for a birds, butterflies, dragon/damselflies and mammals when I make additions to my list of favourites and B lists for two of them. I don’t have an official list of favourite flowers but its always been the star of summer the foxgloves as one of the first flowers I really knew and photographed. I love them very much and all they represent but I think its high time I start saying that the snake’s-head fritillary is a favourite of mine too. Nicely reaffirmed by this very exiting moment which I wanted to see soon today. But in honesty both this and the bee orchids I found at Lakeside later in the year in my first year of working from home (its been a year today, a post I shared from my Instagram earlier and tweets I did today marked my thoughts on the important and much needed day of reflection) have gone to my heart and have become favourites before today. I was so in aw of these flowers today and what a fantastic way to connect to nature. 

My big lens was straight back on as I finally left the snake’s-head fritillaries behind to walk through the nature reserve to the lakes, as with the sun well and truly out just like last Thursday when I saw the butterfly I was guessing which I would see first out of it and the snakes-head fritillary flowers (the Peacock) I could hear a Ring-necked Parakeet. Then two flew two this time over and I just noticed one as it did last week fly into tall trees behind the railway station. This looked great, and I walked over to that area and saw them fly back out with their emerald glow looking dashing against the bright blue sky and in a fairly hazy light in the sunshine. They then flew over the nature reserve area towards our house really and called their eccentric high-pitched sound as they went and I went back that way just in case I could see them again but I couldn’t. But still fantastic to see them again today, just like last year where I saw them from my room once and then again and then possibly at Grantham Green another part of our town its turning into a little run of seeing them. And I have said before there are obviously differing opinions and positives and negatives of these non-native birds regular around London for years as I have enjoyed so much colonising here, but I certainly find it quite exciting and a nice thought to have them around regularly I am a fan of the birds and its been a lot more surreal seeing them waking around Lakeside then hearing them from my room and seeing them fly past the window last autumn interestingly. A brilliant time with these beautiful and special birds today. 

As I walked round to the lakes I took the seventh, eighth and ninth pictures in this photoset of Greylag Geese and a returning Mute Swan still going well here and a lovely Magpie it was brilliant to get close to in the area between the lakes. At this area too I enjoyed hearing another Great Tit and also with it to be able to tell the calls apart nicely the similarly sounding Chiffchaff. As the first Chiffchaff I have heard at Lakeside this year its quite important, and its about time as well actually as they inspired me so much with their constant singing in those first few weeks of working from home and lockdown as nature really comforted and inspired me at that time a year ago. I look forward to hopefully enjoying them more this year. I liked seeing the violets and daffodils in the area between the lakes which I had noticed before. I took the tenth picture in this photoset of a Collared Dove in the aging afternoon’s sun a nice angle of light I tweeted on Dans_Pictures a picture of one and a Woodpigeon getting nicely shadowy on the roof visible from my room which I enjoy doing too. I shall do my next post with more photos from today shortly. 

Wildlife Sightings Summary: One of my favourite birds the Great Crested Grebe, Ring-necked Parakeet, Mallard, Tufted Ducks nicely again, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Greylag Goose, Black-headed Gull, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, lots of nice Feral Pigeons together, Starling, House Sparrow, Goldfinch, Blue Tits in the garden this morning which was nice, very nice views of a Long-tailed Tit for a second day running, Jackdaw, a nice few Magpies today and I heard Chiffchaff and Great Tit. 

[queenofgotham800]

35

(Roman Sionis x Reader)

Requested by: @stardancerluv

Warnings: Gramatical Errors, Anxious soft Roman

Summary: Celebrating Roman's birthday will be different this year.

(A/n): I did Roman bit of OOC (out of character), hope you don't mind that. @stardancerluv, your fanfiction Gotham lockdown 2020 is awesome 😍, I highly recommend it to ya all!

It was 6 am and Roman Sionis was standing in front of mirror, looking at himself with worries. Tomorrow he was turning 35. He felt kinda old. On his birthdays he always took you to some fancy restaurant and you both did whatever he wished and wanted. But this day was not like he expected. He hoped that these worries will be gone soon.

He looked at you. You were sleeping peacefully. How did he deserved you?

He got dressed and walked out of the room to living room, which he also used as dining room and meeting place for friendly bussines.

"Boss?" Victor came to Roman and gave him two coffee cups.

"Thanks Victor," Roman mumbled and put one coffee cup down, "I'll bring that one to (Y/n)."

"Okay boss."

Roman turned and went back to bedroom. You were still sleeping and he put the cup down on bedside table, sitting next to you. He brushed his hand through your hair, kissing you on forhead.

"Babe, I brought you coffee. Victor made it."

You slowly opened eyes, just to meet Roman's beautifull ocean blue eyes.

"Good morning honey," you mumbled.

"Morning," Roman whispered.

"Oh, my god! I.. Forgot.." you suddenly yelled, getting up, running to bathroom to take a shower.

Roman walked to you, "What did you forgot?"

"Ehm..Nothing, I just have a lot for today," you turned and closed the doors.

Your oddly behavior made Roman think about his age again. Was he too old? Somewhere in his mind was lurking scary question, which he didn't wanted to bring to light: What if you don't love him anymore becouse of his age? There was few years difference between you two, but what if you preferred younger guys. What if somebody took you away from him? What if you left with that somebody?

With these thoughts Roman left down to club. There was few people, which was normal, becouse it was morning and this was night club. Tears were falling down from his eyes, so he just sat to the corner of the club, waiting for Victor.

After 30 minutes of waiting, Roman decided to call him through the phone.

"Victor? Where are you? I am waiting in club, I thought you would be here on time," Roman said.

"I.. I am sorry boss, I have terrible headache and I think it would be best if I stayed home for today," Victor said and after that, Roman cancelled the call.

"Did he bought it?" you asked Victor, giving him bags with gifts.

"Yea.. I.. Don't know he cancelled the call. Besides that, where you want to bake the cake?" Victor asked. You opened the trunk of the car for Victor who carefully put the gifts next to each other.

"That could be bad.." you entered the car and waited for Victor, "Roman has one safe house close to the Wayne building.. So there. I bought all ingredients that we need, flour and stuff."

"Yeah," said Victor. He was worrying about Roman too. You and Victor were preparing surprise birthday party for Roman, which you never did to him before so you were bit stressed about his reaction.

You started the car, leaving shopping center parking lot.

"But what if he's not going to like it? I mean.. he looked so anxious this morning."

"I noticed," Victor said and pointed to the right, "Here turn right, it's a shortcut."

"Okay, but seriously Victor. I'm afraid that if we leave him alone for whole day, he could do something bad," you said and turned to the right.

"We have to hope he's alright," Victor sighed and looked from window. When you parked your car near the safe house, your phone started beeping and you exchanged with Victor worried look.

"It's Roman," you whispered.

"Pick it up (Y/n)," Victor mouthed and you nodded.

"Hey honney, how are you," you asked Roman with a sweet tone, which you regreted afterwards, since it was very suspicious. Luckily Roman didn't noticed that.

"Hey, where are you? I can't find you anywhere, could you please come to apartment please, I am not feeling well and I need you today," Roman sounded desperate and sad. It poked your heart and you looked on Victor, putting the phone away.

"He's not feeling well," you whispered to Victor and then took the phone back to your ear.

"Babe, please, I'll be there, but I have some business to do now. But I promise i'll be back as fast as I can," you said and watched Victor to unlock the doors of the safe house.

"Okay," Roman sniffled and you wanted to run back to Black Mask club to hug him and comfort him.

"Victor, we have to be fast with baking that cake," you cancelled the call and told this to Victor who just nodded.

Whole afternoon, you two were baking birthday cake and then, when it was finished, you smiled and hoped Roman is going to like it. The cake was filled with chockolate and strawberies, decorated with flowers from sugar paste.

"Victor? Launch the operation party time," you turned to Victor who smiled and pulled out his phone, "from now on, it's mostly on you. I'll go for Roman."

You walked to the car, picking the phone calling Roman, "Hey, babe I am comming, could you please wait for me in front of your club?"

"Hey darling, sure," Roman sighed and cancelled the call.

You were sure you crossed the driving limit more than five times, but you had to be there first.

When you finaly saw the club and Roman waiting outside, you parked and exited the car.

"Roman," you hugged him, you saw that he had red eyes from crying.

"I missed you," he hugged you back and gave you quick kiss. Roman was usually confident, but when he was anxious he was either very angry or slightly depressed.

"I missed you too babe, but we have to go to the safe house, becouse I have some informations that somebody wants to attack the club today," you said, pulling him to his car.

"(Y/n)... I.. What?" Roman was upset, but exhausted.

"I'm taking you to safe house," you have him another kiss, but he moved away.

"Roman..What happened?" you cupped his cheeks. You didn't wanted to make your birthday boy sad or upset.

"Nothing, let's go," Roman entered to car, and you hoped that Victor and his friends will handle the preparations for the party.

Even after entering the safe house Roman didn't spoke to you.

"Babe, what's going on?" you asked him. Roman just hugged you and held you in his arms, "I don't want to lose you (Y/n). You mean so much to me. Please don't leave me."

You were surprised, but hugged him anyways.

"Why would you think I would leave you? Romy, you know I wouldn't leave you. I love you so much," you smiled, one tear dropped from your eye. Was this the reason he was sad?

"I just.. I'm getting old and today you have been so distant.. After a long time I felt.. Lonely," he sniffled into your jacket.

"Don't say that. I'm here now dear," you whispered and when Roman pulled away you fixed his suit, "What would you say on special dinner Mr. Sionis?"

"I would love that," Roman smiled.

These situations were so often, that neither of you were stressed. Situations where you had to hide in safe houses which were all around the Gotham.

You were calm becouse you knew this was just a distraction. Roman was calm, becouse he knew you both are safe here.

For dinner, you brought some frozen pizza in Roman's car, since you had to leave your car in front of Black Mask club becouse it was filled with gifts for Roman. Victor had keys and everything was perfectly planned. When you left the safe house 1, where Victor stayed, he called his friends to stop by, take the cake in refrigerated van. You had no idea from where those guys took it and in first place, why they had it, but you rather didn't asked. After you left with Roman to safe house 2, Victor and his friends would decorate the club.

"Babe, I think the pizza is finished," Roman looked into oven and tried to open it without burning himself.

"Ohh.. Handle it to me princess," you laughed and opened the oven to get out the yummy pizza. After it was out, Roman closed the oven and caught your hips, hugging you from behind.

"Who do you call princess, my queen?" Roman laughed and kissed your neck multiple times.

"So.. Before or after pizza?" you smirked.

Birthday day

"Romy, wake up," you whispered and gently tapped him on cheek.

"What?" he asked half asleep, half conscious.

"I am leaving you. I can't do this, I can't be with you anymore," you told him and Roman's eyes widened in fear.

Roman woke up, with drops of sweat on face. He immediately turned to your side of bed to assure you were there, with him. But you weren't.

"(Y/n)?" Roman got up, from bed. You just exited the bathroom, closing the doors behind you.

"What happened?"

"I.. Nothing, just a nightmare," Roman mumbled and went back to bed with you. You slept on his shoulder, since Roman insisted on holding you in his arms.

You weren't protesting, you felt safe.

"Love? Good Morning," Roman was sitting next to you on bed, giving you cup of coffee.

"Morning my king," you smiled and took a sip from hot coffee, "Thank you, and happy birthday Roman."

Roman smiled and gave you a kiss. You looked on clock to check time, it was 10 am. Party was planned at 8 pm and you hoped everything is going according plan. Few years ago, you asked Roman if he ever had surprise birthday party. He said that he never had one. You did not wanted to risk it back then, becouse you didn't know why he never had parties like these. Maybe he did not liked being surprised. As time went, you learned that Roman actually loved surprises and only reason why he never had this kind of party was becouse nobody ever prepared something like that for him. When you learned that, you were kind of sad for him, becouse you knew that Roman was always bringing you, but only you with him out on his birthday and he bought you expensive things. Of course you always gave him gifts, Victor did too, but sometimes you had that feeling that Roman is giving more than recieving. Once he told you that others are giving him gifts just becouse they are afraid of him. This didn't targeted you, but you knew that nobody would want Roman as an enemy.

After breakfast, Roman took you out for walk and lunch to most famous restaurant in town.

In restaurant troubles began, since Victor texted you that something is wrong with preparations.

"So, I told him to go back there and he.. (Y/n)?" Roman called your name, when he noticed you were texting with someone.

"What? I'm sorry, I.. Just.. Sorry," you looked away from phone, listening Roman's stories. You wanted to pay attention to him, since it was his birthday, but your thoughts were dwelling on the party problem.

-You have to fix it, fast. I'm with Roman in restaurant, I can't speak to you right now.-

You wrote Victor and gave a reassuring smile to Roman.

"Babe, what's wrong?" Roman asked you with raised eyebrows, slowly sipping from his glass of vine.

"I.. Got a text.. It's about bussines," you told, slipping your phone back to handbag, hoping that Roman is not going to ask anything about it.

"Can I help?"

"No!" you answered too fast and Roman noticed. You knew that his worries from yesterday didn't dissapeared and you had to hope that he's not thinking about you, cheating on him on his birthday. Roman was paranoid, of course he already thought of that, but still he wanted to enjoy his birthday with you. He frowned and put the empty glass down. He didn't wanted to think about losing you now.

"Babe, you know that if something bad happens, I'll help you with it," Roman caught your hand and you smiled.

"I know, thanks."

After lunch you both went to shopping place. Roman bought you 3 expensive dresses even when you didn't wanted him to give you gifts, becouse it was his birthday. But that was just how Roman was to you. After another coffee, you looked on watches, seeing that it would be ideal time to go back to club.

"Darling? We should go back to club."

"But babe, it's only six. At seven we have dinner in the restaurant where was our first date..." Roman started and you gave him little smile.

"Aww, that is so cute... But unfortunately we have to go back to club. Just to pick up something," you nervously hugged him, but Roman pushed you away.

"What's going on with you (Y/n)?" he was nervous and afraid.

"Nothing, just.. Please," you made puppy eyes at him and he nodded.

"Alright, alright."

Way to club was silent, but when you closed the doors on the car and went to check Roman, who was sitting in backseat as usual.

"Hey, are you going?" you knocked on car window.

Roman opened it and sticked his head out.

"No."

"Babe, c'mon, don't be so stubborn," you laughed, but already thought how are you going to get him out of the car.

"I said no."

You frowned and opened the doors.

"Don't you even think about locking yourself there, I have keys."

"Alright...I'll go, but for an exchange.. You will have to do somethi.." he leaned to kiss and you kissed him, in middle of his sentence. After you parted from eachother, Roman exited the car and you opened the doors into quiet and dark club.

"Are you sure it's safe here?" Roman asked.

"Yeah, sure," you put down your coat and ran to club.

Roman turned to you, but you weren't anywhere near.

"Babe?" he called into club, slowly approaching it.

As he entered the club, colorful lights lighted up and Roman saw group of people standing in middle of the dance floor.

"Happy birthday!!" everybody yelled and Roman covered his mouth with hands. He was surprised in a good way.

"Happy birthday babe," you slowly came to him and gave him hug.

"I... Thank you..." Roman was speechles, smiling on you, Victor and people who were there. He knew all of them very good, they were his good friends.

You gave him gift wrapped in golden paper. Roman opened it and found inside the box watches that he always wanted.

"Thank you (Y/n)," he gave you gratefull smile.

After he opened all gifts, in which were paintings and new suits, you brought cake. Roman loved it and that was when his worries about losing you dissapeared.

"Will you dance with me Mr. Sionis?" you came to him and offered him hand. Roman laughed and kissed your hand.

"Of course Mrs. Sionis," quiet slow music started to play and Roman took you on dance floor. Victor was running around with camera, assuring that there are gonna be lot photos from this birthday party.

As you danced, Roman pulled you closer and music stopped. Others clapped and you blushed, hiding your face in shoulder of your loved one.

Faster music started to play and others joined the dancing too.

Everything went good, and in late hours, when party ended, you went with Roman upstairs to shared apartment.

"Thank you. I loved this. I love you," Roman kissed you, holding you in his arms.

"I love you too," you kissed him too and he pulled you into bedroom, closing the doors.

[thedarkestsecretsblog]

My top 10 quarantine movies: Part 1

We kinda need to talk about this at some point, since we are locked up in a who knows how much time, been doing quarantine since february and i can't go out until there is a cure, because i'm a risky kind of person, so instead i have the need to watch the outside world through the movies, so i choose a top 10 of movies about reality or that has some sort of reality on them. First of them would be:

Who hasn't been bullied at school as a kid? I know i have, so i know how the main character here feels, even if the anger is real i didn't ended up doing what he did. Because i'm not that dumb, but yeah, reminds me my school years.

I haven't reviewed this one here, so this is about a satanic cult and the stereotype of guys who listen to metal has to be satanic kind of bullshit, makes you see how the world sees that kind of people, because we live in a world where pop is well received but rock it isn't, this guys here or a least some of them takea things to another level, because one of them ia crazy aa fuck, still good movie to watch.

Another movie i haven't reviewed yet, it has been years that i was searching for this movie because the only thing i could remember was the guy in the poster locked up in a psyward with hia body all covered on ink, i didn't even remembered it was the jurassic park guy in this movie, this movie starts being a certain case of reality until the main character lost it, he goes full time mad crazy, and start seeing crazy shit in a lovecraft way of seeing crazy shit, but shows you how easy is for a person to go crazy and is a really interesting movie.

On the edge is about a guy who had a meltdown and tried to commit suicide, then to not go to jail he opted for spending time on a psyward (yeah another movie on a psyward but this one is a drama, not horror... And with cillian murphy), so once there he meets the love of his life, make some friends, party a lot, one of his friends commit suicide, very emotional and interesting movie about real life and the world of a sad and depressed bunch of people.

You know about this one, what you didn't knew is that is based on real life events, and tbh there is a character called randy here, a movie geek, just like myself, even if i never got stabbed in any part of my body, like he did... I don't have to talk a lot about this movie because there isn't a person out there who haven't seen it, and if there is... What are you waiting for?

I have reviewed this one before, is somewhere in my blog, but damn, such a good movie and while this one doesn't seem too real, is about a girl who is in a coma and she is living a second life while in reality she is dying, so in his second life everyone is alive minus his boyfriend, and in reality his boyfriend is the only one alive. Both of their friends are dead, the 2 guys (and a girl) who crashed their car with the main characters car, are dead too, the main girl fighting for survive, a very crazy suspense/horror movie with amazing cast of great actors, i completely suggest it.

A classic of the 90's if you haven't seen it is about a undercover cop returning to his childhood neighborhood to do some undercover job finding an irish mob boss who happens to be the older brother of his childhood best friend and also the big brother of his first girlfriend, which he starts to or tries to date again, a very well done movie, filled with action and romance.

I also have reviewed this one, which is also about real life events. Plus here works one of my fave actors and actress, as you can see... Thora Birch plus the guy who plays thora"s best friend (daniel brocklebank) and a guy who looks a lot like nine inch nails singer tent reznor, and another guy who looks alike the guy who does vision in avengers, plus kiera knightley... the movie is about a girl addicted to the rockstar son (the brunette guy) and wants to spend the weekend with him but things go wrong when he invites his best friend (the blond guy), so she has to invite her blond friend (kiera) because thora's best friend knows about a hidden place and even has a key to a door of that said place which he gives it to thora and she ends up losing the key intentionally to spend a lot of time with the guy she likes, which shows how things turns to shit when they run out of food, people starts to get sick and or dying in horrible ways, just for the main character to blame his best friend for it, to clean her own ass of any guilt... A suspense/drama movie (not perfect for a lockdown situation) but perfect if you want to see a suspense movie.

Crazy movie, about crazy people living in a hotel, can you imagine how that could end up? A guy who believes he is john lennon, a bunch of old people, a native american guy, Bono does a cameo, mila is one of the main characters along with mel gibson (moody cop) and jeremy davis (not the paramore guy) amazing fun loving movie about a bunch of crazy people, tim roth as a secondary character who commits suicide, hence why mel pays a visit to that hotel and the main reason why this movie was made, which u2 and sex pistols soundtrack, things couldn't be better.

And the last movie of my suggestions for this lockdown is another based on real life events, some crazy guy who born to be evil, a murderer, with tilda as the mother and ezra as the son, you can not stop watching this crazy movie, very artistic colors and a real life story makes this movie a serious work of art, i highly suggest you to watch it if you haven't.

[diaryofanormalkid]

Ya girl FINALLY got her g2 license!

I literally have been waiting/preparing so long for this! Bc I was supposed to do it like 2 different times last year but just ended up having to changes dates bc of covid restrictions/lockdown and locations.

The first time, it had to do with an issue of location I believe or something? It was my driving instructors fault bc they told us we should be booking in one location instead of the first choice.

The real fault was them making us fend for ourselves [my siblings and I] when booking our road tests. So we only had two more chances at changing our road tests dates before we have to wait 6 months, right?

That’s like a rule for some reason, not really sure why when there could be multiple reasons somebody has to change road tests dates. But anyways, so we had two chances left!

So that first road test ended up getting changed from November 12th, 2020 all the way to December 29th, 2020. So I was extremely upset at my driving instructors bc I didn’t want my lessons to go in vain.

I ended up having to space out my driving lessons so that I would have some practice in between taking my lessons and actually doing the test. But... THEN THE FRICKING SECOND LOCKDOWN HAPPENED.

In Ontario, literally the lockdown happened 3 [THREE, YES I AM YELLING THE NUMBER] days before my road test date. So it was December 26th when they shut down EVERYTHING.

And I was so pissed because that meant all road tests were going to get cancelled and we would have to reschedule yet again. Soooo at this point I was a little panicked bc it would be my 3rd and last time.

Remember how I said there is only 3 chances to reschedule a road test and then you have to wait another 6 months before you can reschedule again? Well it wasn’t looking too promising for me.

Because not only did I have to wait and keep checking until the site spit up available dates to book the road (there was none because all road tests were cancelled), this was going to be the deal breaker!

So I finally after months of checking and waiting got to pick a date for July 16th, 2021, which is today (duh)! And I said this is like make or break bc if I don’t pass I have to wait 6 MONTHS AGAIN!

I put a lot of pressure on myself to really do my best to prepare mentally and physically for this road test because I definitely did not want to redo it again! So I was genuinely just so nervous up until this point!

And another factor, I was paranoid that this staging system for the lockdown wouldn’t lift to stage 2-3 in time for my last two driving lessons, because I still had two remaining to kind of refresh my memory.

So it ended up working out perfectly so that I could arrange two driving lessons within two weeks of my road test so I could practice in time! It worked out amazingly.

My shifts and schedule ended up lining up perfectly so that I could not only do those last two driving lessons, but practice many times with my mom and brother! They were such a big help!

I can’t thank them enough bc they really dedicated so much time to making sure I did things correctly and to the standards of how the driving instructors would evaluate.

My mom took me extra early today to the road test location. I actually ended up driving like 80% of the way, which btw is a super far location because I think we got there after and hour and a half?

It was a good drive, I was comfortable. My concerns when we got there (because we got there 2 hours early) mostly was to get familiar with the roads and speed limits quickly and practice parking!

So my parallel parking and reverse parking were my biggest trouble spots. I ended up going over those a lot right before the test. It was super tedious and frustrating because it was hit or miss mostly.

But I ended off on a good note and decided to end it around 10:50-ish so I could get checked in early since my road test was at 11:30. I chose a parking space and was waiting for a looooong time.

The whole time, I’m sweating and nervous with sweaty palms and I started needing to use the washroom and it was just a mess of a time waiting so long for them. I believe I finally started at 12:30-ish?

So when I started, she seemed pretty decent for an instructor and I tried my best not to look nervous but I had to use the bathroom sooo bad I just kept thinking I hope finishes quickly.

It was seriously the shortest test ever though, and I literally don’t think I messed up anything majorly at alll. I felt confident, and by the end of it she told me to finish off with reverse parking.

I was super glad I had practiced all that reverse parking earlier, however it all came down to if I was in the lines or not. So I took my time looking back and in my mirrors and ended off getting inside!

It was funny bc I was inside and not too close to either side, but I was crooked, and I told myself I don’t even want to correct it bc I don’t think I can get myself any straighter than this since I’m already in.

So I called it a day there and just said, I’m in so she can’t tell me I didn’t get inside properly. I was proud of myself bc I did my reverse parking on the first try and without having to correct myself!

At the end of it, she was very brief and short with me but she said I could go back inside to hand in my ticket number and license so that I could collect my license, and that’s how I knew I passed.

It was underwhelming to say the least because she didn’t really make it clear that I passed. She just walked off after. But I was so relieved, it’s like I could feel allll the anxiety release from me immediately!

My mom was so happy for me and immediately praised Jesus! As for myself, I just knew when I got home I had to thank God and then possibly cry bc this is a biiiig milestone for myself specifically!

I was super relieved just because I wouldn’t have to come back! I underwent far too much stress this first time and didn’t want to do it again, so I am just grateful to God!

I also couldn’t be happier that the day that I got my g2 was the day the lockdown was lifted from stage 2 to stage 3! So more places are opening and it was just a perfect time ‼️

[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.

[pyrewrites]

Thirteen Days

Entry number 2 into the @bechloe-week Weekley Bechloe mini-challenge. This for the prompt ‘quarantine’.

Ao3

Thirteen Days

It was only day 6 of lockdown but LA already had a death toll. The rising count statewide was actually what finally got the state government to act. It was scary as hell but Chloe was in lockdown with her favorite person in the entire world. Her roommate, up and coming musician, and the girl she had been in love with for nearly a decade, Beca Mitchell.

Chloe suspected that she would have been in a much worse state of mind if not for Beca. Chloe was suffering from information overload on a near-daily basis before lunch. Beca had on more than one occasion hidden both of their phones and laptops behind the locked door to what had originally been designated as Chloe's bedroom but quickly became a guestroom/Beca's home studio space, and removed the batteries from all the remotes except for the blu-ray player that had Netflix to keep Chloe from looking up any more doom and gloom. And Chloe was grateful. Yesterday had been especially bad. Chloe had come across a pair of reports of deaths that blew a hole the size of the 405 in the claims that 'only the elderly and immunocompromised had to worry'. The first was a college athlete without a single health problem. He was the same age Chloe had been the day she met Beca. The second was a 13-year-old girl. She had spent hours curled up in Beca's arms alternating between crying and having panic attacks as the reality of the situation set in. Beca had run a marathon of Disney movies in their shared bedroom the whole rest of the day until Chloe had drifted off to sleep.

The next morning Chloe was making a sizable breakfast of all of Beca's favorites to bring her in bed to thank her for everything she did the day before. She glanced at the clock figuring she had enough time to finish before Beca woke up. She had just finished plating the food and was turning to the fridge to get the orange juice when her entire world stopped at the sound of a violent coughing fit coming from the bedroom. Her mind immediately flashed back to the last time they had gone to the store to stock up when the rumors of the lockdown started getting serious. The store had been packed. Despite all the talk of social distancing, Chloe would have been shocked if there was a total of six feet of open space in the entire store. That had been a week before the lockdown order had been given. Thirteen days ago.

Chloe sprinted to the bedroom. She slammed the door open to find Beca doubled over, still coughing. The covers on the bed had been kicked away from her body. Her face was flushed, which could have been attributed to the coughing fit. But the sheen of sweat over every inch of exposed skin Chloe could see was not the fault of coughing.

“Oh god no,” Chloe whispered. She rushed forward nearly jumping onto the bed. “Beca!”

Her coughing continued. She tried to speak only to cough again before she could form any coherent words. Chloe placed a hand on Beca's forehead only to yank it away from her burning skin. Chloe ran into the bathroom and wet a washcloth with cold water. After a few moments of searching, she found a bottle of cough syrup and a digital thermometer. She dashed back to the bed. She opened the bottle and handed it to Beca then started running the cold washcloth over the back of Beca's neck as she tilted her head back swallowing probably more than the recommended dosage.

“Thank you.” Beca croaked as Chloe wiped over her forehead and face, then down her chest and arms.

  “I'm calling the doctor,” Chloe said. Not saying '  to find out where to get tested'   out loud. But Beca saw the panic growing in her eyes. She turned on the thermometer and waited for it to chime ready. “Open.”

Beca dutifully opened her mouth and closed it again around the annoying plastic and metal probe. As soon as it was in place she watched as Chloe tried her best not to run from the room to get her phone. After several moments she could hear Chloe's voice but couldn't make out what she was saying until she shouted.

“I know the symptoms! They are all over the news and the internet! The last time we were out in public for any reason was thirteen days ago!”

Chloe's voice dropped again but it was obvious she was coming back to the bedroom just as the thermometer beeped.

“Yes, she is running a fever,” Chloe said as she walked up to the bed and plucked it from Beca's mouth. “Shit. It's 100.8, we need to come in today. As soon as possible.”

Beca watched as the tension in Chloe's face started to relax.

“Yes. Both of us. We went to the store to stock up two weeks ago and have been in close contact with each other in our apartment since.” Chloe paused. “Ok. Thank you very much.”

Chloe took the thermometer and the cough syrup back into the bathroom. She swung the door closed behind her so she could lean against the counter and try not to burst into tears. She only managed to stay quiet when she did start crying.

“Chlo?” Came Beca's scratchy voice from the bedroom after several minutes of Chloe not returning from the bathroom.

“Yeah. Just a second.” Chloe called trying to keep her voice even. She wiped at her face and almost considered doing her makeup, but decided that would make it even more obvious since they had both stopped bothering days ago. She slowly pulled open the door and started towards the hallway. “Just stay in bed. I'm going to bring you the breakfast I was fixing.”

Beca started to shuffle pillows around so she could sit up. She had gotten herself set up by the time Chloe returned with her food. She made another trip to get her own breakfast and climbed into bed with Beca.

“What was this for?” Beca rasped.

“I was thanking you for yesterday and all those Disney movies without complaining even once.” Chloe smiled.

“You didn't have too. But I'm glad you did.” Beca said before coughing a few times.

“Our appointment is at one. They have a mini drive-up testing center set up to keep from exposing other people that have other reasons to go to the doctor right now.”

Beca just nodded, not wanting to talk much more than she had to with her throat hurting.

Chloe turned on the tv and started searching Netflix. She turned on something light and kinda mindless to watch while they ate.

After they finished breakfast Chloe went digging in their closet. At the time the lockdown order had gone into effect they hadn't had any orders about wearing masks in public yet, so Chloe hadn't gone looking since they had stocked up enough food for at least another week and a half. She found what she was looking for tucked into a side pocket of her suitcase. She and Beca had joined the Beale family ski trip last year over Christmas. Chloe had gotten them a pair of 'neck warmer ski masks' that looked like a turtleneck that had been removed from its shirt. It could be pulled all the way up over your nose to keep your face warm and Chloe figured that much fabric would be much better than cutting up a t-shirt like the internet was suggesting. But given they weren't even going to have to get out of the car to get tested they might not even need them at all.

Chloe made them some sandwiches and packed them both a lunch because she had no idea how long they might be waiting despite having an appointment. She gathered a clean change of clothes for Beca, who hadn't gotten dressed yet since waking up. All of this in-between sessions of panicked pacing in the living room.

Once Beca was dressed Chloe changed into clothes that were more acceptable to wear in public before hustling Beca out to the car. She ran back inside to grab their packed lunch and took a long slow look around the home that they had built together, fighting back tears again.

Chloe barely heard the music playing in the car as she drove. The trip took less than a quarter as long as she was planning. There were virtually no cars on the road.

  “Is it just me or does it feel like we are in the opening scenes of some post-apocalyptic movie and we are like the last people left on earth?” Beca was the one to say it, which itself said how deserted the roads were.

They pulled up outside the doctor's office at 12:15, a full half-hour earlier that Chloe had expected. She saw a small tent in one corner of the parking lot and every other parking spot around that corner blocked off. She drove over and was waved down by a person in essentially a hazmat suit holding a clipboard. Chloe opened the window less than an inch, just enough to communicate.

“Do you have an appointment?” The person said.

“Yes, we do. Mitchell and Beale for 1 o'clock. Sorry we are early, I honestly didn't give any thought to how little traffic there would be.” Chloe said.

“Don't worry about. Everybody has done the same thing. We will get you taken care of as quickly as possible. Just wait in the car and we will hold up a sign with your name when it's your turn. Go ahead and park over there.” The person pointed to the end of the row in front of them. “Should be about 10-15 minutes.”

“Thank you,” Chloe said as she put the car back in gear. “How are you doing Becs?”

Beca shrugged and reclined her seat a bit before curling up.

Chloe watched as Beca nearly dozed off then turned her attention to the team working their way through the few cars waiting. They moved with a practiced efficiency that both impressed and frightened Chloe. She zoned out watching their movements until the person with the clipboard waved to get her attention. They held up a small whiteboard with Mitchell-Beale written on it. Chloe's heart skipped a beat.

Chloe pulled up to the spot she was directed to and rolled down both windows. The workers checked their temperatures with laser thermometers, that Chloe thought were pretty cool. They had both of them stick out their tongues so they could check their throats. Then they performed the test, which was very unpleasant. Before they let them leave they did a second swabbing of their throats.

“We will call you when the results come in. Good luck.” One of the workers said as they stepped back from the car to let them leave.

Chloe could barely bring herself to smile at them as she rolled up their windows. She didn't say a word the entire drive home.

When they got home they both changed back into more comfortable clothes and Beca crawled back into bed and took a nap. Chloe wanted to climb into bed and just hold Beca, but instead, she quietly closed the door before retreating to the living room, turning on the tv for some sound, and began crying again.

Chloe jerked awake at the sound of metal clanging in the kitchen. She looked around in confusion. The sun was setting outside. A blanket slipped off of her as she sat up awkwardly trying to move with a sore back.

She shuffled out to the kitchen to find Beca setting a pot of water on a burner.

“What are you doing?” Chloe said, her voice still thick with sleep.

“I woke up from my nap and you weren't there. I found you asleep on the couch so I covered you with a blanket and watched some tv for a while. Then I was in the mood for ramen. So here we are.” Beca said. Her voice still rough but it was better than it had been that morning.

“Go sit down,” Chloe ordered. “You are sick. I'll fix your food.”

Beca looked like she was going to object right up until Chloe shot her a look that said Beca wasn't going to win this argument. She stepped away from the stove and headed for the living room.

“And thank you for the blanket,” Chloe whispered as she placed a light kiss on Beca's cheek.

The next two days went much the same. Beca slept a lot. Chloe cried a lot and tried not to think about the sore throat she was starting to develop. Beca continued to be stubborn and tried to take care of herself as often as possible. And Chloe almost as often either ordered or, on three different occasions, physically carried Beca to the couch or bed to get her to stop.

The afternoon of the third day, after an especially bad coughing fit, Chloe broke. She started crying in front of Beca for the first time since she woke up sick days ago.

“Hey hey hey. It's ok Chlo.” Beca said as she gathered Chloe into her arms and started stroking her hair.

“No. It's not ok Beca.” Chloe's voice cracked. “I can't do this without you.”

“Can't do what?”

“This! Everything. My whole life. I can't lose you.” Chloe said between sobs.

“You aren't going to lose me Chlo.”

“You don't know that! And I don't want to live the rest of my life without you.”

“What the hell Chloe?”

“Beca I am trying to tell you that I'm in love with you and I don't want you to die!”

Beca stared opening and closing her mouth for what seemed like an hour.

A phone ringing startled both of them. Beca reached over and picked up her phone from her nightstand.

  “Hello? … Speaking. … I see. … Both of us? … Ok. … Yes, the one on file. … Yes. Thank you.” Beca hung up. After she set down her phone she took a slow deep breath. “Chloe. I love you too. I'm  in   love with you too.”

  “On no. Nononononono.” Chloe started crying again. She grabbed her own phone and started furiously started typing. “Fuck!”

“What?” Beca asked as Chloe started typing again.

“Apparently the courts aren't considered 'essential services' right now. Maybe they haven't locked down Vegas yet.” Chloe said distractedly.

“What are you talking about Chlo?”

“If one or both of us is going to die in the next few weeks I want to die knowing I got to be married to the love of my life.” Chloe looked up at the sound of Beca gasping. And found tears running down her smiling face.

Beca slowly reached out and took Chloe's phone from her.

“How 'bout you take me on at least a few dates first? But first, you need to make a run to the pharmacy at the Ralph's down the street.”

“Wha...but the internet says there's no treatment yet.”

“They ran a preliminary test here, but they have to send it to the CDC to make sure.”

“And...?”

“They came back negative for both of us. The test that came back positive was for strep throat.”

“So you're going to be ok?” A smile started spreading across Chloe's lips.

“Yeah. After a few more days of this fucking sore throat. And you're probably gonna get it too so they sent prescriptions for both of us to the pharmacy.” Beca grinned. “Maybe you can pick up some pizza while you are out and we can have that first date. Unless you still want to jump right to getting married.”

“After all this time it still surprises me that I am in love with such a pain in my ass.” Chloe laughed.

“'All this time'? Just how long have you been in love with me?”

“Think I'm going to let you wonder about that for awhile. I have to make a trip to the store.” Chloe said as she hopped off the bed giggling.

“Now who's the pain in the ass?” Beca called after her as she skipped down the hall. The sound of Chloe's laughter echoed back into the bedroom and it was the most beautiful thing Beca had ever heard...so far.