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the-monkeies-girl · 6 years

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My Love. [Roger Taylor.]

me? the angst queen? don’t even get me STARTED. Reblogs / Likes are always appreciated. Stay awesome. Love you. - Miss Em.

Title: My Love. Pairing: BoRhap! Roger Taylor x Fem!Reader. Words: 3,405. Rating: T. ( Very angsty, language, cheating. ) Summary: Roger was what a lot of people called a serial cheater. You thought he’d changed. But, did he really? [This is Part one of two.]

READ IT ON MY AO3.

It was strange. You genuinely felt like you should have yelled, thrown something, shoved the girl off of your ‘boyfriend’ as they both came drunkenly stepping into the hotel room you were waiting in. His hotel room. Freddie had given you a spare key so you could properly surprise Roger on tour, knowing just how hard being thousands of miles apart truly was because you were one half of the relationship that the miles were taking a very serious toll on. You were coping by letting yourself be lonely, letting yourself cry yourself to sleep some nights after he’d call you just to chat between the end of the show and the eagerness to leave on the tour bus to get to the next city, you walked around your flat, almost helpless at the way you were feeling. At the bitter sensation that you could almost feel Roger’s arms ghosting around your waist and dancing you towards him like you so often did. He himself… Very obviously coped in one way that you were warned about from a few other girls, which could have caused your lack of reaction as you looked at the girl holding onto Roger’s bicep, her clean and well done nails pressing into his skin, the make-up clad look she gave you out of confusion, her red lips parting as if she were going to as Roger who you were, the high heeled feet stumbling a bit in a drunken state that if she moved forward or made any sort of action, you’d be sure to smell the alcohol. Physically, you saw Roger’s eyebrows raise in shock at the fact that you were there, sitting on his bed-- well-- now standing and grabbing a small bag off the floor which he deduced slowly was in fact your luggage. A nine hour flight for this bullshit, you thought, refusal to even associate yourself with him any longer blundered into your actions. You hadn’t intended to stay long, only one or two days with the very foolish notion that perhaps, Roger was missing you just as much as you were. You were a fool to believe anything he said anymore, now or in the past.

I miss y o u.

Okay? But, did you really, Roger?

I had a dream about y o u.

That’s a lie, Roger. Stop lying to me.

I can’t want to get home and kiss y o u.

You’re not allowed to kiss me anymore.

This tour is killing me, I just want to see y o u.

I never want to see you again, Roger.

There’s only y o u.

There never was just you and me. I just let myself fall in love and lulled myself to believe that it was just us.

I love y o u.

That is the biggest load of bullshit.

Numb, that was a good way to put it. You were very numb and you had no instant recollection of grabbing your things, looking at the girl holding onto the arm you knew so well that your fingers twitched as you remembered how it felt to trace the muscles he’s built up from years upon years of beating a drum, walking passed the two of them with Roger’s blue eyes holding onto your body, searching for something that you were no longer going to give him. He had lost everything from you. He had lost those early morning laughs when the two of you were too tired to get out of bed and do anything, those last minute kisses from you as you refused to let him leave the flat without saying a proper goodbye, those late nights when he’d come home from the studio on the verge of tears because he knew what he signed up for, but it was still hard and frustrating… The chance to leave a nasty thing behind for a loving and reciprocating relationship.

All it. Void in that moment. Oddly, as you looked into his eyes finally and let one of your hands push the semi-opened door all the way so you could leave, you felt like a receipt. Transaction completed, next in line, you heard Roger’s voice in your head as his pink lips parted in desperation to say something. But, he couldn’t think fast enough. Couldn’t manage an excuse as to why he had brought a very obvious girl who knew who he was because Roger had a tendency of talking himself up to be more important that he was, who knew what they were going to get into even if it was going to be mediocre. He was never as great as he wanted to believe when drunk, in fact, he got sloppy and impatient. Roger brought all of this back to his hotel room at nearly one in the morning.

“Who was that?” Your ears picked up on the sound of the ditzy girl before the door clicked shut completely. You didn’t get Roger’s answer but you could still imagine what he said for you stood by the oak door, waiting, your face null of any emotion. You almost felt dead in the sense that all your memories with Roger felt like they were flashing before your eyes yet you found almost no sympathy for them. All of the kisses were a lie, all of the times you told him you loved him, while true to every letter of the phrase, very well could have meant nothing to him. You knew Roger’s answer to the girls inquiry and it was plastered in your skull like a banner because you had heard it so many times, in different varieties. It’s nothing, love. I’m doing nothing, love. I’m going nowhere, love, just out and about. ‘That was no one, love.’ Love this, love that.

Lifting a hand, you made an almost orchestration gesture with your hand as if you were throwing those phrases carved into you by Roger himself away. You were never his love, you were never his. You wanted to push that door open and shout at him, but even that wasn’t good enough for what Roger had done. You wanted one thing and one thing only. To tear him down into tiny pieces fluttering into the air carelessly, almost like ash from a fire as you watch him burn into oblivion. You wanted to crush him into those tiny shards of glass that he was never going to be able to pick up without bleeding. They’re going to sink into his skin and cut him deeper, straight to the veins of his heart, more hurtful and bitter than any word or phrase was going to be able to captivate because there’s always going to be a small part of him that belonged to you, whether he wanted to admit that to himself now or live with the guilt that he had lost you.

Your fingers twitched with want to grab him by his collarbone and slice into his chest, grabbing his heart and force him to watch you as you danced around with it in your hand, your grip getting tighter and tighter every time you caught eyes with him just to encapsulate the feelings that he gave you in this very moment. You would made it last though. This… What had happened only minutes ago took what seemed like an age to process, in fact it was still processing vividly in your mind as the scoring fact that he hadn’t opened the door behind you to go after you sunk deep into the crevices of your dead mind, and you’d make his payback last just as long, if not longer.

You wanted to, oh god you wanted to…

A lump in your throat that you hadn’t felt before rose and seemingly blocked your way from swallowing, giving you the sensation that if you took a step or moved in any sudden way you would automatically get sick. So, you stood there awkwardly in the dim-fluorescent lights of a hotel that was on the cheaper side, but still, nice if you cared about that sort of superficial things. The weight of your bag held down your shoulders like an anchor to the ground otherwise you were sure some sort of irrationality would bang on the door of your mind and you’d recklessly let it in, strangling you into doing something ridiculous out of retaliation. While there were so many things you were craving to do now, alone and frozen, you wanted to sleep more than anything. Maybe, if you slept, you’d forget all of this happened and you could go back home without saying anything, without being there for Roger anymore and just let him slide under the table as another lover as he so thoughtfully done for you over the space of your relationship. A sniffle escaped your body, the first sound that you finally made since seeing Roger’s face, still heavily ingrained into your thoughts.

‘What are you so surprised about?’ You wanted to ask him when his lips parted even more than they were, the cigarette between them dropping to the floor. ‘If it didn’t happen now, I’d have found out eventually.’ You imagined yourself saying as you recalled his slight sputtering upon seeing you, taking that extra step forward and almost covering the girl who was with him as if that wasn’t going to raise more questions. ‘She’s pretty, just your type.’ You wished you had the courage to actually say these things, just to hurt him more in the faux fashion that you didn’t care as much as he wanted to think. That would hurt him, you thought to yourself and wiped at your nose with the back of your sleeve.

Roger felt he was special; everyone and anyone wanted him because he was indeed talented and very good looking, but when you took those away, you were left with an insecure boy who lashed out any opportunity he got because he was so deathly afraid of anyone getting to know the reality of who he was. The severity of who he truly was. You had the opportunity to knock him off his high horse and say ‘hey, I didn’t actually love you after all this time because our relationship was built on lies and deception and I see that now. Have a good life whoring yourself out to any girl who gives you the slightest bit of attention. I’m through.’ You wished… Goodness, you wished you had the guts to have said that to him, to pretend that you didn’t feel your heart shatter into a thousand sand pieces right onto the floor of that hotel room.

“(Name)?” That was a very familiar voice that enunciated well, smooth and proper. Your mouth popped open as you glanced to your left to see if it was who you thought it was. Brian. The mess of curls caught the light and shone lightly, his face feigned concern and mild confusion as to why you were standing so silently like a statue outside of Roger’s hotel room. Why weren’t you inside with him? “Oh, god, you’ve scared me! Thought you were a ghost, just standing here all stiff. I didn’t expect to see you here---” He stopped speaking upon seeing the expression on your face.

A dropping face where the smile you managed to give him was so forced that it was painful for Brian to experience second-hand, redness around your eyes as you were still trying desperately to keep the tears from rolling down your cheeks and dropping off your chin. But, that was long forgotten when he caught eyes with you, the charade was over. It had been done and processed and it was time to break down in the only way you knew how. Crying. Your neck convulsed with the wall of tears that suddenly stung at the back of your throat and eyes, one more pitiful attempt to stop yourself from crying but it was all in vain. “Oh, fuck, (Name).” Brian himself was never great with girls who cried in front of him. He never knew what was proper etiquette in his attempts to calm them down unless he were dating them because that gave him more freedoms and more opportunity to touch and soothe in any way possible. The tears came flooding from your eyes though in fat rolls and Brian panicked momentarily, “What’s wrong? What happened? Do you- do you need me to get Roger?”

Hearing his name made it worse, you realized, hiccuping and raising your hands to cover your face as you shook your head no. No! You wanted to tell Brian, don’t get Roger, I don’t want him to see me like this, it’ll only give him more power to know that he broke my heart! No, no, no, no… “Here---” You felt his arm shroud you as if he were protecting you from anyone else seeing you in such a state. Brian was a friend and had been since you started dating Roger a year ago. He’d always been there for you during your arguments with the drummer which were consistent enough that you considered Brian’s couch back home a second bed. He’d console you in the best way he knew, telling you what you wanted to hear before reminding you that well… If you were going to be with Roger, you needed to remember that he was very difficult and not just a walk in the park. There was always going to be turmoil whether you wanted it or not, or some sort of never-ending drama because Roger had a knack for attracting it. “My room is down the hall, can you make it or---” There was nothing but a wordless nod as you let Brian take the lead. Tears were spilling onto your lips and as you peeked your tongue out to wet them properly, you tasted the saltiness and cringed just a bit. You’d never like the taste of tears, especially ones with such bitter intent to remind you of all that had happened tonight and presumably all that was going to happen as you knew you had to push your way through sobbing to explain to Brian what had happened.

This time was different… While you had your bickers with Roger before, usually over petty little things like who needed to do the dishes or you wishing he were home more, this was off-the-wall for Brian to give advice on. What did you want him to say? The guitarist thought to himself, unlocking his hotel room door and swinging it open. With a hand on the small of your back, he urged you forward, flicking the light on by the door and letting it click shut behind the two of you once you were both inside. You seemed to linger almost lifelessly by Brian, hoping that in some way or another, he’d guide you into what you were supposed to do next. What were you supposed to do? While you had imagined going home and forgetting all of this, that, you were certain, would not happen. You lived with Roger. You shared a home, you shared domestic memories that were casually up-rooted by your idea of being spontaneous and surprising him on tour. He gestured to the bed as the two of you lingered for a second in that space between the actual room and the door. You didn’t dare look at yourself in the little mirror on the wall there, already hyper aware that you were jetlagged, tired and now sobbing uncontrollably and that was not something you wanted to partake in. Now, Brian was no fool, though he often times turned the other cheek when it came to Roger’s rather womanizing ways. He paid little attention to it for it was a lifestyle choice he didn’t find as appealing as the drummer. The prospect of having a woman and then throwing them away was something Brian didn’t seek to do; he had too much empathy. Upon seeing you in better light as you rested your bag down on the floor, taking a spot on the full sized bed of his, he felt something sink indescribably within his stomach, as if he had swallowed a large spoonful of the most ill tasting soup imaginable.

In a simple way, though he wouldn’t tell you this outloud for he was sure you already knew, you looked absolutely awful. While your eyes were so often full of happiness and joy whenever you were around Brian, they were almost cold and distant and he found it hard to read anything in them as you gazed up at him tiredly. Your lips refused to tug into a smile, even if you were forcing it. The one he had previously gotten from you in the hallway was hardly an expression of cheerfulness and was more agonizing on the eyes than you probably thought. It was the sort of face that you tried to give him right then and there but tears were still falling from your eyes. Your nose scrunched before your entire face balled up completely and Brian finally sought solace as he sat beside you, the bed shifting and squeaking a bit with the added weight. “You’ve got to tell me what happened if you want me to help you, otherwise I can’t do anything…”

You gestured nonsensically and if someone where to walk in at that moment, they probably thought you to be mildly insane as nothing came out of your mouth but a long wail, wavering in tiny vibrato. The sound stopped- you were left to cry silently, already to the point where you were crying too hard to make any noises other than the occasional gag as you caught your breath on the lump in your throat. Brian had rested a hand on your back softly, just to remind you that he was there and not going anywhere anytime soon, at least, until you stopped crying and maybe managed to rest on his bed. You were rendered speechless, holding your head in your hands and leaning into Brian without hesitation. There was nothing to lose anymore, nothing to bargain, nothing to bet or wager. You’d lost it all and at this point, you just wanted someone to hold onto you and mutter than things were going to be okay, that you would get passed this eventually, and that the world fucking sucked and that you had every right to be upset, even if that person didn’t know the extent of what happened.

Brian could take a hint. He trickled the hand from your back upwards so it was around your shoulder, coaxing you with the tips of his fingers to crawl properly into his touch. Which, you did. Your legs were up, you were in a ball on the bed, nuzzled into Brian’s side as he listened to you cry whilst trying to figure out what happened. Very obvious to him was the fact that you were here, in the United States. You were hanging out in front of Roger’s door with your bag, Brian hadn’t seen Roger since the beginning of the after-party for the concert, and now you were here, lonely, crying to him instead of crying to Roger. Something happened between the two of you, something… Something…. Brian tilted his head to the side and put his chin on your head, his other hand coming up to now rub your arm. Something happened between the time of the after-party to now. Had you surprised Roger and he got angry that you spent money to fly here to see him? Had Roger been drunk and stumbled into his hotel room, plastered and you were absolutely displeased with the state of--- oh.

With that thought hanging on by a thread, he put two and two together. You didn’t want to see Roger, you refused to see Roger, hearing his name seemed to trigger you even further into an abyss of tears… Brian’s eyebrows furrowed together as it locked and loaded inside of his mind. He knew what happened and he was indeed more foolish now than he had ever been for not thinking it firstly, as bad as that sounded. He knew Roger. He knew Roger’s habits and tactics. Brian knew what happened which spurred him to hold onto you that much tighter, uttering into your hair as you gripped his shirt and held him desperately. “Oh, god…”

//TAG LIST//

Permanent Queen Tag List: @flyforeverfree @adonais @brianandthemays @attatchment-issues @wine-and-bread @fixedonroger @filmvinyls @p-eaach-es @bucket-of-kittens @im-just-me-darling @wonderless-screwup @instantezra @rvndyscousegit @queensavedmylife @sleepretreat @dove-turned-destroyer @rogers-wristbands @brianmay-rogertaylor @annistrashbin @that70skiwi @storm-howlett @pablo-thiccasso @chonkyhambs

ROGER ONLY TAG LIST: @rissa067

If you want to be added to my tag list[s], HMU with a message!!!

#roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #brian may #roger taylor imagine #queen #bohemian rhapsody #ben hardy #adfkmdaklmskflmlk #emmy writes #fanfiction #fanfic #woohoo

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fmdtaeyongarchive · 5 years

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↬ do as your heart tells you.

date: january to early february 2020. some time around there.

location: ash’s apartment.

word count: 1,839 words, not including lyrics.

summary: n/a.

notes: creative claims verification. mentions of youngjoo because... yeah. if you thought i would proofread this and/or provide anything of quality, you thought wrong.

it’s been ages since he wrote something truly sweet, or it feels that way to ash. in truth, he doesn’t know that he’s in the right headspace to be writing anything sweet, but he’s supposed to come back in the spring and he needs to give bc something or they’ll give him something and that’s the last thing he wants if he’s to be honest. he knows he can call up one of the in-house producers he’s grown closer to in the past year, but he’s afraid to end up with another “romanticism”. he isn’t embarrassed of that song, but it hadn’t been the song he’d have written on his own, so he resolves to do just that for this one. it won’t be the first song he creates unaided by any measure, but it’s the first time doing it with the sole intent of proving himself in this way.

he starts it with a beat. as his sound has grown more and more inspired by rhythm and blues, ash has discovered how helpful starting with a beat can be. for years, at the beginning of his songwriting journey, he’d begun songs from the point he knew best. this meant creating chord structures based on a piano or guitar instrumental, but he’s a professional now and he doesn’t have a beatmaker simply for appearance’s sake. different songs call for different processes and a hit needs a good beat.

bc has never let him write one of his promoted singles entirely on his own before. they haven’t exactly given him the go ahead yet this time either, but he’s determined to do it on his own. every comeback, he sees the same comments about how his songwriting is an image they’re pushing. as an idol, and the claims that he must not have the skills to do it on his own. it’s not most people, but even a minority claiming that he’s getting credit when his collaborators, the serious professional producers, do all the heavy lifting, nag at his dignity as a songwriter. it’s not that he doesn’t appreciate all of the hard work others put in when he works with them, but, after a while, the comments have begun to get to him too. is he good enough or is he being hard-carried by those with degrees in music production and jobs earned by their skill at song making?

being an idol isn’t defined by being a pretty face alone like so many would believe. ash will argue that until the day he dies. songwriting ability certainly isn’t a requirement. in fact, ash thinks some companies would prefer their idols don’t express interest in the creation of songs at all beyond the performance, but stamping the title of idol onto his job description never sucked dry ash’s love of music and his desire to create it. if anything, being thrown song after song he couldn’t stand only pushed him more into a desire for control over what he’s putting out. he can pretend he’s unbothered by online commentators thinking they know more about the work he puts into one of the few passions he has left than he does, but even knowing he shouldn’t really care, his attempt at indifference had cracked almost immediately.

he’s only playing around at first, not set on the sound he wants for the song. it’s a song that’s supposed to represent the season of spring, though, and he does know what he wants spring to be. perhaps it’s cliche and he should try to avert expectations instead of falling deep into the pothole in the road they are, but, to him, spring is love, new and pure and passionate. following the cold push and pull game of winter, it’s the blossoming warmth of an embrace between new lovers and falling in love with love.

the beat he creates is slow and plodding, a classic accent on the type of slow jam r&b the song heads toward as he experiments with the composition. he lays held chords over it and the instrumental feels lazy in all of the right ways, like a slightly chilly morning spent in bed with a lover as the sun begins to spill in through the window.

it’s a fantasy. that experience isn’t one he has much anymore, not in the way he’s thinking of it. the last time he had, it had been with youngjoo, and what they are to each other… it doesn’t fit the song he’s trying to write.

that’s what he tells himself, and then promptly gets stuck trying to capture the feelings he wants to bring to life. he has a base, but there’s little more to it than that and he needs more than a skeleton to convince bc entertainment that he’s good enough on his own to have their promotion budget put behind the song.

it’s like his brain hits a roadblock and for days, no matter how hard he tries to write, nothing good comes to him. he neglects other songs he’s supposed to be working on and switches up keys and rhythms and a few alterations stick — they’re genuinely better than what he’d started with—, but all he winds up is a slightly different skeleton, not a fully-formed track.

then, he invites youngjoo over one night. he’s been locked up in his studio for days, not seeing anyone outside of the schedules he’s contractually obligated to attend, and he blames that fact and the drinks he has.

“it’s been a long week,” he confides to her, but quickly moves on so as not to lay the exhaustion of his creative block onto her. there’s nothing she can do to help. she has a way with music, but he’s too determined to do it all on his own to ask for help on this song.

she leaves and he finds himself drunk off of more than sweet liquor.

like he’s drawn by a force out of his control, ash’s feet pull him to his studio and he writes and rearranges and records. when he’s sober, he’ll cringe at his attempts at singing, but it’s more work on the song than he’s gotten done in a long while.

the fruits of his labor are there in the morning when he’s tending to his headache with his second cup of black coffee. the night prior isn’t a blur, but it’s not entirely clear to him either. he only recalls what he’d written when he finds the vocal files he’d recorded his lyrical ideas on.

they’re not bad.

and they’re not really about youngjoo, he tells himself. it’s about affection, infatuation, love… and if thinking of youngjoo the night before (that hadn’t gotten drowned out in his intoxication — he remembers vividly how the lyrics had come to be) had helped him connect to the emotions he wants to write the best, it doesn’t really mean anything.

he’d tried for days to write something romantic out of his imagination, but it had all fallen flat. he’d revisited his favorite romantic comedies and listened to his favorite love songs, but wasn’t until he’d spent an evening with youngjoo again that it had come easily to him.

it’s lingering memories of when they’d dated. yeah, that must be it because, yeah, he can admit he feels something for her, but it’s not that much — not enough to make him sound like he’s falling in love, something he hasn’t written much at all about since he’d ended his last relationship.

they’re sleeping together. of course ash feels something when they’re together. he’s never committed to the illusion of complete detachment from anyone he sleeps with. sex is inherently intimate, so, yes, he has words to write about the warmth of her gaze and the rose blush on her skin. sue him.

he goes over the lyrics again and it’s harder to convince himself of his own theory of revisiting past emotions because the words don’t convey distant feelings he can’t connect with anymore. if they were supposed to be far off memories, they aren’t. the fact that he can finish the lyrics sober and without a reminiscent mind is evidence of that. she comes to mind when he tries to re-record himself and it’s not a romanticized version of the past, when she’d been his girlfriend. it’s youngjoo, wearing what she’d been wearing the last time he saw her, with her hair styled the same and the air of ash’s apartment around them.

he ponders it. he can’t help it.

why had it been so much easier to break past the barrier drunk? had he thought he wouldn’t have to take responsibility for the words that came out? had he supposed, in the aftermath, he could blame it all on his delusional drunk mind? had that security blanket been what he needed to figure out the end of the song? because the blanket’s been ripped away now and the self-realization is an odd mix of too cold and too hot.

the words he’d built to flow off the end of the bridge are the ones that cling to him the most. no matter how he tries to focus on other parts of the song, his mind keeps floating back to the one question he’d repeated like an echo at the closing of the bridge section.

do you love me like i love you?

does he love her? drunk, he’d apparently thought he did, but that doesn’t make it true.

love is a scary word now in a way he’d never thought it could be to him. love. he’d said it so easily to youngjoo in such a short time when they’d been together, but that is lifetimes ago now. even when they’d broken up, he’d never regretted confessing the depth of his feelings to her. they’d been true and, if nothing else, he was an honest man who’d given his heart proudly.

the ash he is now isn’t the same. he can’t say it so easily, not when they’re like this and not when the pieces of his worn out heart are kept locked away in cages to keep him from the temptation of gluing them back together again and sacrificing the bloody, beating pulp of himself again to anyone when it’d failed every time before.

does she love him? no, of course she doesn’t. he’d hurt her and now they’re friends with benefits. those benefits happen to include a lot more emotional baggage than sex alone, and ash isn’t detached from reality enough to deny that, but emotional dependency doesn’t make love any more than sex itself does.

it pricks him like thorns in his back and he can’t ignore the feeling that crawls up his spine. it’s wrong to go back into the chorus after a question as earth shattering as that, so, in an impulsive outburst of risky creative decision-making, ash cuts the final chorus.

that’s it.

it will end with a bridge going nowhere. how fitting of the messy, bitter brew of feelings that had turned into a love song.

#fmdverification #&& when you're screaming but they only hear you whisper | self para #&& queued

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supersoldier-of-asgard · 6 years

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Nodus Tollens (9/10)

•The realisation that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore•

Paring : Bucky Barnes x HYDRA!reader (gender-neutral) + Avengers

Summary : you’ve been practically raised by HYDRA and The Wintersoldier has been your idol, someone you looked up to. What happens when you’re send to kill him and get captured by the avengers? SLOWBURN

Warnings whole fic : language, detailed discription of fighting and blood, a whole load of torture, trauma and a lot of angst ( if you want me to add something then please message me!)

Warning this part : idk implied sex?

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Masterlist

At a location unknown

Consciousness slowly crept down Bucky’s body, first awakening his mind and slowly trailing down his spine as his limbs whirred back alive like the gears of a machine.

He forced them to lay as still as possible, his blues moving in panic behind closed eyelids as he tried to recollect his memories. He didn’t dare open them, afraid he’d be met with the rusty grey walls of his old cell in the HYDRA facility.

He remembered every single detail of it, from the scratches on the left corner he’d caused to the blood stains on the floor that had dripped from his mouth and ears. The pain he’d endured harshly entered his brain as he tried to identify where he truly was using his other senses.

Instead of the hard and dirty mattress he was so familiar with, his side sunk into soft leather. The smell of dust and coffee roamed his nose and the sickening feeling that had previously settled into his heart drummed as he heard the familiar voice.

“You’re awake.”

His eyes dared snap open, eyebrows bushing over them as he had to peak through a curtain of his hair to see. His body shot up out of the laying position in the blink of an eye and towered over the person that was the source of the voice, his metal fist closing around a neck in reflex and pushing them against the nearest wall.

He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his sight and mind as he finally took in the sight before him. He loosened his grip a tad when he noticed it was you, eyes raking over your new attire as his prosthetic whirred to life.

You were wearing a black suit, guns and knives strapped to every tactical place imaginable as little bottles and other contents hid under various pockets. Fingerless gloves held his wrist that was still blocking your airways but was loose enough for you to breathe.

“What the fuck did you do?”, he hissed, scanning the place he woke up in out of the corner of his eyes. A flood of relief washed over him as he realised this was not even remotely HYDRA.

“Goodmorning”, you smiled, seemingly not bothered by the lack of air.

Bucky pulled you off the wall, still holding on to your neck and making you look up at him with a faint spark of arousal.

“You’re going to tell me everything right now or I’ll break your neck”, he spat, threateningly looking down at you without a single drop of hesitation.

“I need air to talk”, you wheezed as he pressed harder, this time clawing at the plates you dreamed of holding you.

But not like this.

Okay, maybe like this.

He let go, his plates adjusting from his movements as you rubbed the probably red spot on your neck.

“I had a week.”

“Please don’t drag this on, just fucking tell me.”

You coughed with a chuckle, taking a deep breath before beginning.” I had a week to kill you. If I didn’t succeed or return in a week, they would take action and attack the tower.”

Bucky rubbed his face with his palms, running fingers through the tangled brown locks that rested on his head, the band that normally kept it together not on his wrist.

“You used that fucking word”, he growled, anger swirling through his veins as regret from the previous night fought for its place. How could he be so fucking stupid to think you could change.

“I had to. You would have never come with me if I hadn’t”, you softly answered, trying to keep him from blowing up. You were exhausted from the previous adrenaline drive, the added weight of an unconscious Bucky made it all the harder to escape the crouded compound.

“The fuck I would”, he sneered, agreeing as he finally allowed himself to fully take in the small room he woke up in. It had no more than a couch and a single armchair, a tiny wooden table filling the gap as creme colored walls surrounded them. “Where are we?”

“A place I thought safe, for now. They can’t trace us here.”

“They? Who’s they?”, Bucky inquired with an angry smile,” HYDRA? Steve? Because I have no idea who’s side you’re on!”

“I’m on your side,” you sighed deeply, letting yourself raise your voice. Everything was a mess, your once obvious destiny now a giant cloud of smoke covering your true fate.”There are many things I don’t know anymore, but one thing I will always be sure of. I want you alive.”

Dazed blue eyes searched your soul for the truth, only to be met with the surface of genuine certainty. He didn’t know what to believe, but you put your life at risk at this very moment by keeping him from the claws of HYDRA. That’s got to mean something.

“Why did you drag me out of there? I could have fought and saved myself. I had a whole team to back me up, for fucks sake, I don’t need your help.”

“They created a numbing serum much stronger and much more effective than mine. It could knock you out and torture you with a single shot,” you breathed out, memories of the numerous times they had tested it on you till they perfected it still vividly dancing through yor mind.

“Shit... Steve.” It was the first thing his mind leaped at, panic flowing his body at the thought of them grabbing Steve instead of him. A shudder set his body on alert, ready to dash out at any time.

“Don’t worry, they have too little for two people. They wouldn’t use it on them, it’s meant for you.”

At the compound

“He’s not in the cell, Tony!” Steve frantically shouted in the earpiece, kicking your now opened metal cuffs with his bare feet. He hadn’t had enough time to suit up when the normally impenetrable windows of the tower shattered to pieces, so he had fought in his pyjamas and bare feet. “ They escaped..They fucking escaped.”

“Okay calm down, Steve. Didn’t Barnes have a phone on him?” Tony sighed, the heavy clunk of his armour detaching recognizable through the piece.

“No he was in pyjamas.” He huffed, walking back towards the elevators as he had to step over numerous bodys of HYDRA goons littering the floors. “They fucking kidnapped him.. god knows what they’re doing to him right now.”

“Don’t think like that,” Natasha butted in, attempting to wipe blood off her white shirt,” I’m sure he can handle it if it were the case.”

But Steve knew he couldn’t. They wouldn’t just torture him this time, they had every motive to kill him on the spot. That was the whole reason you were here anyways.

You.

“Wait, Tony, do you still have that musicplayer?”

Some rustling echoed through his ears as he anxiously tapped his soar feet, the elevator not going fast enough for his liking. His blue shirt was stained with dirt and blood, hair tousled and sweatpants hanging low on his hips. He didn’t bother pulling them up, having had frustratedly yanked at them constantly during the fight.

“..No” Tony answered to Steve’s relief,” must’ve took it.”

“Good. Can you trace it?”

“Wow Rogers, losing Barnes really does hardwire your brain.”

“Shut up, Tony,” Steve chuckled, finally arriving at the main floor where everyone had gathered. Body’s littered the floor like dust, nobody flinching as they stepped on and over the blood covering every inch of the ground.

Everyone gathered around Tony to watch the screen as he typed furiously, blue shadows of the holograms casting on his face as he poked his tongue out in concentration when finally, a sound of triumph broke the silenced air. “ found it! Man, I’m good.”

“Either they’re stupid, or this is a trap,” Clint pointed out, squinting at the flashing red dot on the screen that was still moving.

“Does it matter?”

Back at the location unknown

“So what? You’re going to keep me here untill..?”, he challengingly looked down at you, eyes daring you to speak wrongly.

“Tomorrow,” you answered blankly, walking around him to the single chair in the room and sitting down.” Tomorrow you can go.”

Bucky chuckled in disbelief and amusement,” You really think I’m going to stay here with you for 24 hours? You can’t keep me here.”

You shrugged, uneffected,” Maybe I can’t. But I don’t have to. You will stay here.”

He rose an eyebrow, slowly walking to the couch and sitting with his elbows on his knees, leaning foreward with a squint,” And why is that?”

You mimicked his position.” Because I will tell you everything you want to know about HYDRA, in exchange.”

This made him sit upright, eyebrows furrowed incredulously.” Why would you risk betraying them? You could get killed.”

You only blinked at him, resting your back against the chair with a neutral expression. It scared Bucky, but at the same time a spark of hope ignited in him that maybe, you chose to change after all. Maybe you realised you didn’t need them and that they were the bad side.

“Unless.. you’re not going back?”

You let out a quiet snort at his hopefulness, an ache swimming through your veins at the reminder that it could never happen.” I have to.”

“No you don’t. You know more about HYDRA than possibly anyone in the world, you can help us take them down for good”, he pleaded, sitting at the edge of the couch as he tried to get through to you. To no avail.

You shook your head dismissively, worry shooting through your body at the mere thought.” No. No no no, I would never do that.”

Bucky furrowed his eyebrows.” You’ll still fight for them? After all that happened?”

You sighed,” it’s more complicated than that, but yes... I have to.”

“Stop with the ‘have to’ bullshit! They gave you a will! Something I never had! All you have to fucking do is trust me and you never ‘have to’ do anything!”

He was slowly getting riled up, the understanding patience wearing thin as the start of a new war knocked on their door. He didn’t have time to convince you anymore, the fight already taking place while you were still conflicted deep within yourself.

His boldness caught you off guard, but you managed to compose yourself. It’s something you learned to do throughout all those years, memories resurfacing through he floorboards and scratching at your knees to make them bleed. But you refused to hold on to them, even as it was subconsciously Bucky’s only option.

“When I first saw you, real and breathing, on that bed a week ago,” you breathed out, almost not audible if it weren’t for his hightened senses,” I hesitated.. for the first time in my life I hesitated.”

Bucky listened intendly, utterly intrigued by your side of the story. He had always wondered if your experiences were as bad as his, if they tortured you and messed you up the way they did him.

You continued under encouraging blue eyes.” You were having a nightmare, tossing and turning in bed and I almost...”, you took a deep breath to regain composture,” I had a plan B. To take you away to a place like this and hide you from them. Maybe even run away with you...”

“You’d risk that?”

You nodded,” at the time. A different feeling went through me when I first saw you, a feeling I never felt before and never learned to control.”

“Longing”, he answered for you,” that’s my first trigger word.”

You could only gaze at him in pain, the word so familiar yet the meaning so foreign.

“Does it hurt?” You whispered after a long stretched silence.

Bucky met your eyes, knowing what you were talking about, but not knowing if he should speak about it— if he wanted to speak about it.

“Like several bullets to my brain as I slowly sink to utter darkness. Nothing around me but the screams and faces of the innocent as I put a bullet in their head.”

You let out a shaky breath.” Do you.. remember? After it’s over?”

Where were you going with this?

“Every single thing. I’m still me, just... without a will or a way.”

He wondered if your thoughts about him had changed at all, if you still viewed him as the powerful soldier with a metal arm. Did you still idolize him? Was he still your hero?

“...Do you blame yourself?”

The eternal question. One asked by every person he had encountered including himself. The question had slipped past Steve’s lips with sorrow and pain, scared of the answer. It had broken through the playfully stoic facade of Sam, curious and therapist-like.

But the way it rolled off your tongue made it seem like a different sentence. Like the answer didn’t really matter, yet mattered the most. Like he could talk about it till the sun set or just simply answer with a word and it either way wouldn’t matter.

“Yes.. do you?”

“Yes.”

“Does it change anything?”

“No.”

He could tell you were being honest, yet he knew you were starting to doubt it yourself. He knew the impact he had on you, things so different when you heard another side of the story. He knew talking about it made it all seem more real, your hard facade slowly crumbling as the truth reveals itself.

“I don’t want it to”, you finished shakily, shoulders visibly relaxing as you let your true emotions out, those cerulean eyes pulling your soul to expose yourself to it. It brought a certain warmth, cascading on your heart as it reassured you that you were safe

Safe. Did you even know what safety was? Had you ever dared stop subconsciously scanning your surroundings like you could be attacked at any moment? The constant need to know everything was in place and under your control while you always had your attention on every movement of every soul wandering the room, fear nibbling at your nose.

Even here, a place you deemed safe and sound, you scanned from the corner of your eyes without meaning to, multitasking by talking, listening and thinking all at the same time as you suspiciously eyed the walls for anything that could catch your eye.

No. Safe you never felt, but at this very moment, as he held your gaze so tender and full of emotions, making you momentarily forget the neverstopping panic flowing through your veins, you felt as if you were closed off from the world. As if it was okay to pluck the top from the bottle that you stacked your memories in, hidden away to never resurface until metal digits swiped a finger over the glass to make it clear.

´´I know you don´t. I know thinking about it pains you, but you have to let yourself feel.´´

´´If I feel, I will never be able to stop,´´ you confessed, not realising he had stood up and walked until you felt his thumbs over your knuckles.

´´You have a name now, Y/N,´´ he whispered, your glazy eyes forming a thin curtain to blur his face,´´feel.´´

So you felt.

You felt his stubble scratch your palms and his ears between your fingers. You felt his hair tangling your movements and his hands, one hot one cold, tracing up your body. You felt soft lips on yours and a warm tongue break through your teeth. You felt a cold breeze as he pulled your suit off, and cozy fabric as you pulled the hoodie off him. You felt his breath on your nose, his lashes fanning you like butterfly wings breaking out of a cacoon.

You felt metal and muscle, scars and bumps under your touch. You felt shifting plates, carefull hands and strong arms protecting you from everything that ever harmed you. You felt lust, longing, the matress causing friction on your back. You felt whole, completed, filled. You felt eyes caress you, nose bump you and legs tangling yours.

You felt him, every part of him, as he felt you. Every vulnerable part of you. He felt your desperation, desire, emotions seeping through your pores like he´d never seen before. He felt your skin, harsh and full of bruises. He felt your eyes, watching his every moment as he felt inside you.

But most importantly, you both felt your walls tumble to the ground. Brick by brick it shattered like glass and unveiled the true you that had been hiding for so long, locked in the darkest part of your mind to wait for this moment. It pushed itsway through and exposed itself to the rain, now clattering outside the single window in the lone room.

And as you both felt the high, the metal that was laced inside you both methaphorically and physically, rusted in the raindrops. The emotionless robot you were was no more, melting and washing away with the sweat glimmering your skin as the serum pumping through both your blood made it all feel overwhelmingly good.

But both of you knew this feeling wouldn´t last forever.

It didn´t matter. You both tried to feel as much as you could, holding onto every feeling that shot up your body and letting go of the ones shooting down.

- Part 10

A/N : This chapter was the one my idea all started with. Although I had a completely different conversation in my head, I´m quite satisfied with how this turned out. I was stuck on this for days to make it like I first had in mind, but I erased everything and went with a gentler version. I initially wanted them to scream at eachother and make a confession that led to the kiss, but this is sensual.

Up to write the final chapter! what a ride it has been.

Further Readings and Discussions:

In the philosophical field, this note can be considered under Determinism and furthermore in the philosophical position of Hard Determinism since it eliminates free will. Having mentioned the soul and a creator the note might lean more to theological determinism which states that all events that happen are pre-ordained, or predestined to happen, by a monotheistic deity. This still doesn’t conflict with an absence of free will, but merely attribute the entire cause and effect process to be supervised and designed by God. Further discussions about the different positions of determinism are beyond the scope of this note.

The awareness, not being bound by space, might mean that it can’t be separate from another awareness. The idea shared by many of the Eastern religions and philosophies that we are all One might be pointing at that direction. This can really alter the concept of the afterlife, it eliminates the individual experience, and suggests that we are all the same entity, and shall be conscious as one, perhaps we are no different from God rather parts of it.

Al-Farabi a renowned philosopher known as “the Second Teacher” after Aristotle adopted a similar view but left space for free will that resides in an immaterial soul that he divided into 4 faculties: “The appetitive, the sensitive, the imaginative, and the rational, which is the faculty of intellect. It is also the only part of the soul to survive the death of the body.” The first 3 are a consequence of the workings of our brain while the 4th can be considered the awareness we talked about in the note. He writes that any individual or distinguishing features of the soul are annihilated after the death of the body; only the rational faculty survives (and then, only if it has attained perfection), it will become one with all other rational souls within the agent intellect (God) and enters a realm of pure intelligence.

The idea that the universe is a simulation or a hologram is not a far-fetched one, it does not contradict with any of the logic used above. The awareness that lies in the place free of space and time can be the link to the world where the simulation is run, with every mind plugged in to the system through it. (The movie ‘The Matrix’ offers a great representation of such a simulation) The philosophy in that movie also states that free will is impossible and that our choices have already been made, but we are here to understand why we made them.

Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.” (R. C. Henry, “The Mental Universe”; Nature 436:29, 2005)

Maya, a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy is the believe that reality which is solely created by the brain must be an illusion, and that we are essentially deceived by the brain, through its perceptions, into believing that its reality is our reality. The word Maya means illusion in their language, and that was at the heart of their philosophy. Our awareness being free from space and time, yet our universe is not, suggests that the universe is but a grand illusion pulled upon us, and the brain is the tool that imprisons us with its perceptions.

“Our bodies are prisons for our souls. Our skin and blood: the iron bars of confinement. But fear not. All flesh decays. Death turns all to ash. And thus, death frees every soul.” -The Fountain

The more we contemplate about the essence of our existence the more bewildered we become, but I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m lost in awe over our creation.

#free will #writings #random thoughts #determinism #causality #the fountain #physics #biocentrism #the Matrix #al-farabi #god #creator #awareness #space #time #logic #human needs #_large

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brokenhayatim · 4 years

Text

the projectionist

[now playing: the projectionist & north by sleeping at last]

this has been a long time coming but i couldn’t put my words to paper screen.

when hands are tied and clocks are ticking an audience convinced: we’re leaning in holding our breath again

i can’t wait to go back to my place. i used to say that a lot, not out of spite or rudeness but because i genuinely couldn’t wait to be back to my own calm. its hit me now how i’ll no longer have that. and i wish i could feel finally sad or even say i’m still overwhelmed and confused, but it’s this sense of somber longing i guess. longing to keep something so good and somber at the reality that i just..won’t have that soon. i began calling this place home years ago and not because of the state (please, i would’ve anywhere but this state if not for the people i’ve met here) but because it’s my home. i more than just studied here, i built a fresh start, a life here. and i feel like i won’t have that again. is this what people feel like when they move out of their home of like 14 years that they raised 4 children and adopted 3 dogs in. it’s more tough than i thought, you know. every lease i’ve signed (shaking bc commitment may i add) i’ve always know i would be here the next, even though not in the same place and living with the same people, i’d still be here. i get emotional and nostalgic thinking of my former places every time i move, and i still think back to my first. i remember moments so vividly and what the apartment looked like from every square inch. but this is different. i moved an entire state away, essentially to be alone, and i love it. i love that i don’t depend on people for the simple things and less for the difficult things. i love that i have a routine. i like that i come home and i’m alone (roommates, i know, but it’s different). i go to the grocery store alone, i’ve learned the way and i’ve walked. i like that i could walk to target and walgreens, because i’ve learned the way. i like that i don’t have to depend on driving especially, i take a few ubers but even then, i’m comfortable doing that. something new york asiya would never have been. i go for mri’s alone. i walk to uni alone and back (except when i take the bus bc gurl i would sweat). i go the airport and fly alone, something i’ve loved. don’t get me wrong i love my siblings and miss them dearly but that’s what visits are for, and we have those every few months. no one has also came to visit me except my sister twice, and would i really want them too..i don’t know. **to expand on that first time at a later date** but now my brain is like ‘come. see the life i’ve made for myself. i want to show you all i’ve built’.

we'll tell our stories on these walls. every year, measure how tall and just like a work of art we'll tell our stories on these walls

i’m not ready for so many unknowns. where will i live soon? how many jobs will i have to apply for and which ones? even simplest things like where will i do my laundry? i’ve babbled about this but i’m so incredibly grateful for the apartments that i’ve had with amenities. my sisters are always shocked to know how i live at such a small price, but student housing [chef’s kiss]. but things like central ac and in home laundry, i’ve never thought of that, but new york i’ll have to. i’ll probs have to buy my room ac and walk for laundry if i live in the city. i can’t imagine i’d get a graphic design job or something similar anywhere near where i live, so the city i shall be. how far will i have to go to the store? what may happen on the way? i’ve sometimes worried about walking to the store here, mostly when they have kidnappers on the loose, but i always feel more safe than not. i walk 20/30 mins to target and walgreens on foot on the side of the main road and i’ve taken public transportation too. story on that, i told my first roommate how to get to the store from the bus and she was terrified so i went with her and she was like ...i can’t do this alone, i’ll just call a car. would new york asiya have done that too? probably not. because florida me is more independent (idk if bold or courageous is the word) and probs just a little crazy. ubers also are way more expensive in new york, just to add on that. i’ve taken the subway and train alone in new york and have walked blocks alone around nyu and parks. i know new york well, where i live and a bit of the city, but it’s not the same. my dream would be like keeping what i have here and copy and pasting it into the state of new york. i’ve always been and felt like a new yorker here, not once a floridian. i definitely don’t even do that school pride thing, some people actually never knew where i went to college. new york is also home for me, but it’s like my baby home. sometimes i think i was genuinely crazy coming here alone and not even knowing anything about the state nor ever seeing the university. but it was the best thing. i’m always depressed, yes, and i hate people, yes. but despite all of me being a constant emotional tragedy, i really love what i have here. it’s my own. i’ve become that person that tells you directions or tells you where to get what where. and now i’ll have to go back to someone that has to ask 89 questions and gets lost 14 times. ah, but if only i was rich and i could have it all.

so we’re leaving, we’re leaving our shadows behind us now we’re leaving, we’re leaving it all behind for now

i can’t wait to go back to my place. i’ll no longer have a home to run off to for months when i don’t feel right. i’ve actually booked flights earlier than i and my family planned/expected just to jet sometimes. i always come back with my suitcase(s) and feel at home walking into my place. i know, inshallah, i’ll have that again in new york or wherever i am, but i HATE CHANGE. its such a big shift that i’m like..can we do baby steps?? i haven’t even been avoiding it for months, i’ve genuinely forgotten until like march when i had to decide on graduation stuff. and now i’ve opened my suitcase and feel like i’m doing my my clothes wrong by putting them in a suitcase to travel a state away and not a few streets. my 3 apartments have essentially been in between two streets, you see one, turn right and drive down, there’s another, turn left and then another left, drive down the road and there’s my current one, which is about two minutes from the first if you drive up a little down. it’s legit a square..but irrelevant. i know i can always come back to visit, but it won’t be the same. my social interaction meter already runs out in like 24 hours as it is then i need to come back home, imagine if i have to stay at someone’s house for like 3 days, lord. i don’t really know if it’s leaving that’s unsettling or going back knowing i won’t be fully alone from people that know me.

(not so) tangent I: i always daydreamed of traveling to another state and getting a place there. my friend is thinking of coming from germany to practice dentistry here and we could find a place together. i know moving half way across the world for someone seems like a terrible idea, and i’ve lowkey done that coming here between states, but almost seven years of adoring each other’s existence makes you mushy and a little crazy. i feel like i’ll be awkward living with friends bc i’m such a loner, but who knows. the only thing getting her through these months of her final year in dentistry school is this idea and we’ve said inshallah every other week basically so inshallah, if it’s best for us. wild also that i knew her before she even started uni, way before she started dentistry school, like damn i hadn’t realized it’s been that long.

ACTUAL tangent part II: late 2020/2021 was gonna be my planned travel year. rose was gonna have her dentistry school graduation in february so i was gonna go with more bouquets than my hands could hold. but before that i really wanted to see noor in like late december/january (shoutout to her getting her license i will never not be proud. am i smiling right now typing this? yes). i would find a way to not die in one of those taxis for this surprise, wait outside in the rain (if the sky allows) and play a neighbourhood song outside her window with my iphone that would get water damage and die, then i would sing it (i memorized the lyrics on the flight over, duh). point is, i wanted to see her first and also in one of the least hottest months bc although i would die for her, i’m not going out from heat stroke. thank you miss covid-19, i must postpone that to 2041. i would say i could move to dubai, but i love wearing black and not like..oh yeah..dying. with germany, (ironically enough where my cousin and i were gonna go, me for uni) i can barely speak english let alone learn another language. i wouldn’t subject anyone to murica so alternative options are encouraged. anyways, it’s like the virus knew i was an absolute loser. and it’s as if i have a bug to just keep hopping on planes to avoid having to deal with myself for more than twelve minutes. additional tangent, sometimes i think about how i’ve known noor for five years and like four of those years, we’ve spoken like every day..like how the hell do we do this??? we’ve exhausted every topic humanly possible and still find something new. imagine if we met and it was just [crickets] jhfghfg. i would say we share a braincell and she has it, but i feel like she has five at least. i always have the same tangent topic that literally should just be it’s own solo post..ANYWAYS.

let the years we're here be kind, be kind let our hearts, like doors, open wide, open wide settle our bones like wood over time, over time

i’m gonna continue this later bc the tangent sent my mind in a whole different direction ,, what are thoughts

#imagine how many typos this house #will update at later emo date #and yes my suitcase is open and no i have not packed anything #asiya's thoughts

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chwpromoblog · 7 years

Photo

TATE AHADI. college sophomore; nineteen. cengiz al. OPEN.

and, as travis birkenstock once said:

“I joined this program and there's steps. There's...uh..”

BEFORE THE PARTY;

If you had to describe Tate Ahadi in any way, it would be the human equivalent of a puppy. The guy was a great big ball of positive energy. He was one of the rare people who lived in Rosewood that didn’t find themselves thrown into any of the childish teenage factions that came up. He sort of just floated over all of that, that being because no one could tie him down with that ridiculousness. If he wanted to talk to someone, he was going to do it. Their financial background, the number of followers they had on instagram or what they wore on their body wasn’t going to stop him from being kind of his fellow man. Sure, there were people who hated the fact that he was this great big ball of energy and they wished to stomp that out of him but Tate refused to be anything but the cheerful person that he was. In fact, he didn’t feel anger towards those who went out of their way to be mean to others. No, he felt sorry for them. They were obviously acting this way because they couldn’t find a decent dealer.

You see, Tate lived quite the mellow life. All he needed in this life was his trusty skateboard and weed. How he saw it, why be mean towards people when you could just save all that energy and light up a spliff? That seemed like a better time for everyone involved. And trust him, he knew this for a fact.

Just take a look at his last name. Ahadi. It wasn’t his original last name, merely one given to him when Mr. and Mrs. Ahadi adopted him at the young age of two. Sure, he along with his adoptive brothers were highly regarded by his father. The heirs to his kingdom, the men that would keep the Ahadi name well and alive long after his death. But Tate knew that his adoption had solely been a product of business and tradition. Before Tate and his two young brothers had joined the Ahadi family, his father and mother had already been blessed with a child. A daughter, by the name of Jupiter. Tate often referred to the eldest Ahadi child as best sister anyone could ask for and she truly was. But his father wanted sons, because no one could take away their families name then. So rather than risk the chance having more daughters, he took luck in his own hands. He adopted three sons, all of Middle Eastern decedent to raise in his image. Now, it wasn’t that Tate was thankful for the life that he’d been given because he indeed was but as he got older, he just saw his adoption for what it was. Rather than allowing Jupiter, a perfectly capable and intelligent woman take on the mantle... his dad had given him this amazing life so that he could take on the a business.

One that Tate didn’t even want. Not that Tate would ever say this aloud— he was scared to even think how it was that the man would react at the news. He was sure that to his father, he was indebted to him. Whether he wanted the family business or not, Tate would have a hand in it.

So how was a kid to deal with that overwhelming pressure? With weed, of course. He still remembered the first time he’d taken a pull. It was at a Rosewood party that Jupiter had dragged him to, she could tell that he’d needed it due to the fact he just couldn’t put the words to paper. What better way to clear up some writer's block than with a party? A party in which his sister and the coolest guy to ever walk the streets of Rosewood, Pink Floyd lit him up. Sunny Sativa was what he’d been given. He would never forget that night. Not would he forget how good everything was when high. Music was better, food was a whole lot better, life was better.

That night he’d been introduced to his escape and truth be told, he’d never let it go. Tate probably hasn’t been sober since that night when he was sixteen and he liked it that way.

But don’t think that just because he’s lived this mellow life, it means that he’d slacked off and became some sort of bum. Not at all. Mostly because the Ahadi’s wouldn’t have accepted that from their son. While Tate was a bit of a spaz— when it came to school, he was definitely intelligent. The guy was more than capable to hold his own with the smarter students that Ravenwood University had to offer. Don’t worry, the student body and faculty had been just as shocked as you probably are right now. No seriously, they had been so skeptical of his intelligence that they made him take his SAT twice just to be sure he hadn’t cheated his way to his score. But his scores had only improved the second time he took it. Tate Ahadi was actually really smart, genuinely so and that intelligence had allowed him to create such things like the cross joint, not only a beauty to behold but an innovation to the joint game.

Actually if you venture underneath the house that that Tri Lamb built, you’ll find that he’s been putting those agricultural and civil engineering majors to good use. He’d was growing his own strains of marijuana in the basement, solely for scientific purposes. And yeah, sure he sold it to a couple of his friends every so often. But it was strictly for science and he would stick to that.

Tate refused to surround himself with anymore shady activity, he had enough of that trying to navigate the family business. Not only that but he had a lady to win over. And sure, his own weed lair could probably do that for him but he’d rather win her over with his gentlemanly charm. Oh and his jokes, of course.

Who was the lucky lady? Taissa Manaying. Just like the day he’d smoked his first blunt, he remembered the day the two met vividly. In the dining hall, during lunch on September thirteenth. They bonded over a sick drawing of Usagi Tsukino on display on the front of her notebook. As their eyes met, Tate felt something he’d never felt before. His heart began to race out of his chest, his hands suddenly got clammy and he couldn’t stop smiling. It was like love at first sight, he swore he felt that fat babies arrow and everything. For a while there, the two were inseparable. But like most great things in Ravenwood, that didn’t last for very long. Taissa had also become friends with Chanel Horowitz, who had basically made her her personal Barbie doll. Everything he’d come to like about Taissa was suddenly gone. The awesome band tees were replaced with expensive blouses, her crazy curly hair he’d stick messages in was now super straight.... and sure, Taissa looked beautiful but at what price? Making her yet another one of those rich girl types that looked down at guys like him?

If anything had the power to mess with his high, it was that.

DURING THE PARTY;

You could only imagine how disappointed Tate was when his best friends, Egan Uppal and Rowan Wang had bailed on the party. Not that he wouldn’t have fun at the party without them, but there was nothing like a party with your best buds by your side. But his disappointment would soon be the last thing on his mind as he’d somehow gotten the attention of Taissa.

Taissa, who looked like a total babe that evening. Not that she didn’t always, but man... tonight, he was just speechless at the sight of her. He got over it after a shake to his head, but still... he was in awe of her that evening. Luckily, for him, it seemed like she felt the same way. So often, Taissa and him were interrupted by Chanel, Dylan or one of the meatheads that were into her but tonight, it was just them. No one was coming between them and he couldn’t be happier with how the evening that turning out.

Actually, he found a way to be even happier. He was not only getting to spend time with Taissa but he was getting to smoke on a roof with her as well. He couldn’t wait to tell his friends all about this, they would probably tease him and tell him that he was lying but this was real. He’d pinched himself, he was still right next to Taissa enjoying the finest weed he’d grown. Tate had been staring at her for a moment, she was really beautiful. How was someone this stunning? He’d turned away from her, for only a second to pull out another joint to find that Taissa was no longer next to him.

Rather, the shingles on the roof had began to slip and they were taking her with them. Tate didn’t hesitate to spring into action, grabbing her arm before she fell over the edge of the party. Below, a crowd had began to form. They screamed at him to pull her up, not that he intended on letting her go. Never. He mustered whatever strength he could, which wasn’t much given he was all bones but he’d managed to get her over the edge and into his arms. The crowd below broke into applause, but he didn’t care about that due to the fact that his heroics had gotten him a kiss from Taissa Manaying.

It’d gotten him several actually.

It only cemented what he already knew, he really loved parties.

alternate faceclaims and prompts.

#cengiz al #clueless #rp #roleplay #active rp

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littlehastingsliar · 7 years

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Hunted- Pack imagine- Part 2

A/N: OMG IT’S A PART 2. It’s been around 2 years, I never thought I’d post this but here it is! Unrequested but I know some people wanted it  I just home I do it justice xxx

part 1 is here

Words: 1687

It was not as dark inside as it was outside, somehow the moonlight seemed to refract to enter every corner of the room. You were stood in a hallway, a grand staircase hugging the edges of the wall as it slowly spiralled up to the first floor.

Your eyes followed it upwards, noticing the faded red carpet, the shoots and vines growing out of the cracks in the wooden panels. Everything seemed neglected and old. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, cobwebs coating the majority of it. It looked a dull gold, fitting with the rest of the room. You couldn’t help but wonder what this entrance had been like when it was in use. Stiles walked a little further ahead towards the light switch. He flicked it a couple of times. Nothing happened.

“I don’t think it works” he stated with his eyebrows raised, his finger still moving the switch up and down.

“I wouldn’t expect it to, everything is so old.” You replied. Even the wallpaper had faded, peeling of the wall in various places to reveal the plaster underneath.

Your head shot up as small pieces of dust fell down from the ceiling. It wouldn’t have surprised you if the dust wasn’t accompanied with a low thud.

“hello.” Stiles called out, making his way to the stairs. Grabbing his arm, you pulled him into you.

“Are you crazy?!” you hissed, your voice only a bit louder than a whisper. He ignored you, slipping out of your grasp and jogged up the stairs. You felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You felt like you were being watched and you weren’t about to find out why, so without a second thought you followed him.

It was a lot dimmer when you made it to the top where stiles was standing. He seemed glued to the spot, his eyes focused on something at the end of the corridor. You peered over his shoulder, noticing a small flickering yellow light seep through the bottom of one of the doors.

“Do you think there’s someone in there?” he asked, trying to sound less scared than he actually was. Nodding your head, you walked in front of stiles.

“You better get your baseball bat ready.” You ordered, as your fingers curled around your pocket knife. You placed your ear against the door, yet silence was the only thing on the other side. Reluctantly, stiles opened the door, his bat raised behind him, ready to swing.

With wide eyes you stepped in wielding the pocket knife defensively in front of you. Rattled, you spun around, checking every possible area of the room. It was empty.

“I don’t understand.” Stiles spoke in a low hum, his stance returning to normal. You held a finger out, silencing him. Just because you couldn’t see anything didn’t mean nothing was there, you told yourself, deciding it was better to be extra cautious than vulnerable. You opened every cupboard and checked every possible hiding place. Nothing. As you made sure it was clear, stiles had begun searching through the scattered notes that lay on a writing desk by the window.

“Look at these.” He called to you, holding up a photograph. The photograph was of a stern young couple dressed in Victorian style clothes. “I doubt they still live here.” he smiled quirkily. You took the photo from him, holding it up to the old oil lamp that was the source of light in the room. You tilted the page, noticing how it was indented. Someone had written something down with this underneath it.

“There’s an indent.” you notified stiles. “I can’t make it out in this light, it’s too dim.” Stiles rummaged through the desk while you flipped the card over. “But there’s writing on the back.” Stiles perked up, stopping what he was doing, urging you to carry on.

‘Dear-

We’re writing to inform you of the death of your son. His death was quick and peaceful. We’re sorry for your loss.’

“It’s a bit morbid.” You commented, taking a deep breath in.

“Just a bit. ‘writing to inform you of the death of your son’… maybe those gloomy people on the front killed him.” You gave stiles an unimpressed look. The situation you found yourself in was not the right time to make jokes about death. But you brushed it off, continuing your search.

“Someone had to have been in here. Maybe even the person who was by our tents” you leant over the writing desk and looked out of the window, the glass too dirty to see clearly through.

“Yeah oil lamps don’t burn for years. It had to have been lit recently and it wasn’t one of the pack.” Stiles agreed. You used your sleeve to wipe the dirt, giving you a clearer view. You could see the faint outline of a hill, most likely where stiles first saw the house. “Nothing here looks recent.” He concluded, giving up the search. You stared out the window a second longer, like you were on the lookout for something. You swivelled around to look at stiles who had paced over behind you. You leant against the desk, your eyes trailing along the edges of the room.

“It’s not dusty.” You said to yourself. Stiles folded his arms, asking what you meant. “The rest of the house is covered in dust. The window was dirty but everything else in here looks reasonably clean.”

“Reasonably used.” He added with a worried expression. You looked at each other for a few seconds, the unnerving feeling that sent shivers down your spine was back. “Shall we go? I think we should go. Yeah. Now. Let’s go now.” He urged, frightened, he gripped his baseball bat so tightly his knuckles turned white, dragging you by the sleeve of your top behind him. When you made it out of the room he closed the door gently. You scowled at him, opening you mouth to speak when he continued to drag you. Except he didn’t drag you back to the stairs, he dragged you down the corridor, straight past the stairs into another room.

“Wha…”

“Sshh” he whispered. You listened out intently, shaking you head when there was no sound. However you could see the sheer terror in stiles’ eyes and decided to comply. You must’ve been stood there for five minutes. Maybe ten, you didn’t know. Finally, stiles decided it was safe enough to whisper. “I saw someone out of the window. They were by the trees. I don’t know if they saw us.”

Wide eyed, you let out a shaky breath. Your throat became dry, an ache radiating down your neck as you swallowed. You lifted your head up, rubbing your forehead.

“Are you sure?” you quizzed in disbelief. You wanted to be one hundred percent sure before you made a break for it.

“I wasn’t imagining thing.” Stiles feigned offence.

“I’m just making sure. I mean we’re tired and things are happening and it scary.”

“I saw someone y/n.” you could hear in his tone of voice that he was getting annoyed. Stiles was hardly ever genuinely annoyed with you. You nodded your head, believing him. ‘We have to be cautious anyway’ you told yourself. Another few minutes flew by and reluctantly you both decided it was time to leave, not knowing where exactly you were going. You just knew you wanted to get away from this place.

You crept down the stairs until you reached the bottom. There was no sign of anyone. The entrance was more open and there were patches of mud on the floor that weren’t there when you entered. You both noticed and sprinted out of the front door.

“Let’s go round the back and as far away as possible” you panted, already headed down to the side of the house.

And so you kept running through the woods, until you had to break for air.

“I think… that’s far enough.” Stiles gasped, crouching on his knees. You nodded tiredly, the moon hanging low in the night sky. The stars were vividly lighting up the sky, no light around to block the view.

“It’s beautiful” you admired, the first time you’d felt calm since you woke up.

“It is. That’s a positive thing I suppose.” He grinned at your optimism during the situation. You were glad you got paired off with stiles, even if you could’ve been going around with a heightened sensed, strong, fast werewolf.

“There has to be some other buildings nearby. Who lives in a house miles away from anything with no roads or paths.” You had caught your breath, your heart thumping less violently behind your ribs.

“Maybe there was a path. I mean it was dark. Who knows? Let’s just head as far away as possible. We have to come across something sooner or later. Plus the others could follow our scent.” Stiles struggled to catch his breath, the adrenaline still pumping fiercely around his veins.

“Back at the house...” you began, thinking more clearly now than you were before. Stiles nodded at you to continue. “It’s entirely possible we dragged in that mud when we entered.” Stiles chuckled, shaking his head.

“I like that. Let’s go with that. That’s better logic than I was going to go with.” You started to laugh too. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the sheer terror of the night that had sent you into hysterics. “Fingers crossed the others smell us out soon.”

“Well only Scott and Liam. Unless Kira and Malia are running around here somewhere.” Your face dropped as you came to the realisation that anything could’ve happened to Kira and Malia.

“I completely forgot. So much has been going on. We have to find them.” Stiles’ expression turned sour as well, guilt evident in his eyes.

“We need to keep going forward, maybe the others have found them. Maybe we will find them ahead. They can defend themselves. They’ll be ok.” You were trying to convincing yourself just as much as you were trying to convince stiles.

“forward it is.”

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wordsmiff-blog · 7 years

Text

I take drugs every single day of my life.

… and these days… it is very much EVERY single day without fail - if I can help it.

Truth is that my drug-taking has become so engrained in my routine and so normalized over time - that sometimes I forget to even take them.

I imagine that those statements above may sound a little shocking to some. To those lucky souls who don’t need drugs to improve their experience of life… but read on… I’ll clarify.

My drug of choice? Well these days - it’s 20mg of Paroxetine - once a day.

Yep.

After spending …. hmmmm… a fair amount of my time here on planet Earth self-medicating - I have finally stumbled upon something that sufficiently scratches my itch - so to speak… without any significant dire consequences.

The harsh truth is that the default setting of my brain appears to be pointed towards ‘Impending doom/fear/anxiety’ and things have always been that way since I can remember.

I cannot speak for other people, I certainly can’t speak for those that I imagine must wake up with a positive feeling of gratitude in the mornings (do those people actually exist?) because my experience of Life is certainly nothing like that.

No…

Since I was a child, it would seem that my brain has been programmed to constantly tell me … from the moment I open my eyes in the morning … that something terrible is about to happen, to try to convince me that an unspecified disaster is just around the corner - and that… because of that threat… perhaps I should just shy away from 'Life’ and not get involved.

After all, if you don’t sign up for The Army… you probably won’t have to hide in a trench and dodge bullets 24hrs a day … right?

Wrong.

The problem with Life - is that you cannot avoid it.

Try as you might, invariably, at certain points… it forces you to get involved.

As fearful and as timid as you may feel, Life gives no fucks about your emotional fragility and just mercilessly shoves you in the back … and pushes you out into the big wide World…

So … how does someone with anxiety, a sensitive nature and zero understanding of brain chemistry deal with that conundrum?

To summarize … the issue that presented itself to a young man full of fear, insecurity, and a severe lack of serotonin in his brain - was that - despite being shit scared… Life just refused to piss off and subsequently keep forcing me to get involved.

The main reason that this problem seemed impossible to solve at the time was that I did not realize or even understand that the balance of chemicals in my brain was totally fucked up.

Dopamine and serotonin are fundamental chemical building blocks for enjoying this experience of 'Life’.

These chemicals, amongst others, are responsible for making you feel 'happy’, 'excited’ and all that shit.

It since transpires that my brain produces the square root of fuck all in these particular departments.

I always suspected as a kid that my brain worked slightly differently to the people I knew… though back then I didn’t know how to communicate or express that concern… I just thought that I was 'weird’ or 'different’ - an outsider, doomed to a life of isolation and constant worry.

What I realize now is that even as a child, I was effectively… what would be diagnosed in an adult as … anxious and depressed.

Unfortunately at the age of 11, something happened - which at the time seemed like a complete miracle … but turned into something of a curse … I found a total cure for my symptoms - and it happened in an instant.

I smoked my first joint.

The only way I can describe it is … imagine when you were a kid and you were trying to trace a picture … if before the spliff … the tracing paper had been off center with the image below, I couldn’t hold the tracing paper still and the lines I wanted to follow were not in line with the image underneath… well - once I had taken two puffs of this joint… suddenly the tracing paper and the image underneath it were now perfectly matched and effortlessly in synch.

So whereas beforehand Life had always been a struggle and a huge effort to go along with, out of nowhere - after smoking this joint, (and what I now know to be the very first introduction of THC into my brain box), Life suddenly made sense. In fact, suddenly 'everything’ made sense.

Music sounded better, I was instantly more at ease inside my own skin and inside my own mind, colours were more vibrant, I understood more, my perception of time slowed down, my concentration levels were intensified and I had a more Spiritual understanding of the matrix of how life works … and on top of all of that… the absolute master key… I no longer felt sad, worried, fearful or anxious. At all.

Everything was completely as it should be, how it was always meant to be and I was filled with a surge of relief and a peace of mind that was so powerful and seductive - I recognized it as the feeling that had been missing from my existence for as long as I could recall.

Looking back now, I am able to recognize that the chemical imbalance in my brain has always been evident and had always been a huge barrier to my ability to enjoy Life… at 11 - I did not have the awareness to realize that there was a serious underlying mental health problem that I needed to address - I had only the very limited knowledge that if I smoke a joint, I felt normal.

… and so I did that.

A lot.

Fast forward to when I’m 18, even at the time, I am completely mindful as this experience unfolds - that I am boring a poor barmaid to death - as my skinny insecure, wiry human shell struggles without the required level of mental fortitude and self-confidence to pull myself up and out of that inevitable nose-dive into teen angst and awkwardness… it’s painful even now to think of that conversation.

I remember it vividly though, because moments later, I tried my first line of cocaine - and if smoking puff made me feel comfortable… then sniffing gear made me feel invincible…

You know the old telephone box scene where Clark Kent enters and exits seconds later as Superman… that’s what happened in that toilet cubicle on that particular evening in an empty bar in a foreign land. I might as well have fucking kicked the door off and stood there with chest expanded and my fists resting on my hips. Imaginary cape billowing in the wind.

I had seemingly stumbled upon the perfect prescription to successfully self-medicate … well enough to go forth and confidently battle with my mental dis-ease at just being alive, I self-medicated so well that I was even functioning to a rather high level for the most part…

This caused a host of problems… in fact more than I could ever even wish to list - but here are 3 important ones.

1/ I now know that I am different to most people in that I suffer with a three fold illness known as 'addiction’. No ability to take it or leave it for Bob once he likes something.

2/ As I was doing so well at masking the genuine mental health issues that were the underlying cause of my reliance on drugs and other things I could use to change the way I felt, I could just ignore those really deep issues … for the most part. Ahhh… so you are scared of your own shadow… so what? Have a puff of this spliff…. feel better? Of course you do…

3/ Drugs stop working. Eventually. First though, you start to become a little more immune to them bit by bit - and so before they turn on you completely, you find yourself upping your dosage.

This knowledge and a million and one other things I have learnt so far in recovery has given me a different perception on things, it has taught me more than I could ever even express let alone hope to encapsulate in a single blog entry.

What I know about myself now, with the continued support and love of people around me, means that rather than getting half a gram or two on a Friday night or smoking two joints before work every day (which I maintain improved my performance, it was the crippling paranoid delusions and near on psychosis towards the end that really ruined weed for me) - I am now letting a trained medical professional diagnose my symptoms and decide on which medicine I should take.

The point of this post is this….

Drug addicts are everywhere… YOU are a drug addict … your Mum is a drug addict… as is your Nan… whether you change the chemical composition of your brain with a cheeky bar of cadburys fruit and nut… enjoy those couple of glasses of rosè when you get in from work… or treat yourself to a take-away on a Friday night… you are using chemicals/drugs to change the way you feel. That is no different to the man who smokes a joint or the kid slipping down the slippery slope into addiction.

The difference? Stigma.

We laugh about having a little sugary pick me up throughout the day… and we raise our eyes knowingly in collusion with someone else’s story telling tale at work about the half a bottle of wine the night before … that’s how they cope.

That’s okay though, because that’s socially acceptable.

Yet it’s not okay to say that you woke up feeling so scared you didn’t want to get out of bed.

It’s not humorous enough a subject to just nonchalantly mention that you never asked to be born - and truth be told - unless you have a line of gear, you’d rather put a bullet through your incessant mind, stop the fucking rollercoaster and clock out of this incomprehensible, overwhelming, seemingly futile existence - where the aim seems to be to try to see how much you can love other people - whilst all the time being simultaneously and completely aware that the unforgiving certainty of death for either you - or the people you would struggle to be without - is just around the corner.

No… you can’t say that.

Wine is okay. Drugs are bad.

The problem being - someone who is self-medicating with 'illegal’ drugs is clearly … if we are measuring by societies standards… mentally unwell. Yet, if they cannot talk about their reliance on their drug of choice in relation to how it helps them to cope with the magnitude of being alive, how can they receive the help they need to transfer themselves onto more manageable medication whilst they do the necessary work on themselves to hopefully… learn the cognitive behavioral tools that recovery teaches… to be able to one day live and even …God forbid … enjoy life … without any chemical assistance?

Mental health problems account for so many lives lost, so many lives shattered.

No one should be so unhappy that they decide to punch out early and take their own life.

No one should be walking around filled with so much fear and hate and rage that they use violence against another person - ruining families and costing themselves their own freedom.

No one should be so intimated by life and be so full of fear and insecurity and anxiety that they spend their entire lives trapped in a miserable solitary prison cell of addiction and lies, existing… but never really living.

Yet we do.

All of these things are a consequences of untreated mental health problems.

Drug addicts are not well… people in prison are not well… people who are suicidal are not well… and that will always be the case, until we stop fucking judging people and start finding it in our hearts to learn to love each other unconditionally, and allowing an environment amongst humanity to develop where it is okay not to be okay.. an environment where is it okay to tell people about the complete and utter madness that goes on inside your head.

Before I walked into a recovery meeting… I was certain that I was insane… and it turns out that yes.. I am… but so a lot of other people … and that means I am not alone. I have people who help me, and I have people who I try to help.

So yes… I am a drug addict. Happy to admit that: but I am a 'recovered’ drug addict… in the sense that I no longer take drugs that cause my life to become unmanageable and cause my soul to wither away and want to die.

Yes, I am a drug addict and I take drugs every single day of my life.

Fortunately, because of having people around me that I could openly talk to about this stuff and because I have maintained an honesty in my life since those dark times … these days… my drug of choice is 20mg of Paroxetine - once a day. Every single day without fail. If I can.

#anxiety #addiction #mental health #communication

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general-bear · 7 years

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Talk about A L L O F T H E M

Okay buckle in kiddos it is now time for me to Overshare. Someone else asked for all evens so here are all the odds. Keeps it shorter anyway. Sorry this took me so long!1: Talk about the first time you watched your favorite movie. // The first time I watched Master and Commander, I was too young to actually understand what was happening. I remember getting really upset during some of the sadder scenes, and getting really grossed out by some of the gorey bits. The first time I watched it and actually understood it, I thought it was amazing, and I stood up during the last scene with my mouth open in amazement. There's not anything super awesome about the last scene but for some reason I just love it so much. 3: Talk about the person you've had the most intense romantic feelings for. // Um.... okay. So... we had known each other since first grade, but we didn't really become friends until fourth or fifth grade. I didn't have many friends at the time, so it was kind of a big deal that someone actually wanted to be my friend. We were best friends for a long time, and then we dated for two years in high school. He was--is-- incredibly intelligent, and is really good at science and math. And he's funny, too. He has a sense of humor that swings between morbid, sly, and just plain goofy. He's a complete dork, too, and while it was hard to get him excited about something, when he started talking about something that was genuinely interesting to him, he just lit up. He's also a brilliant writer, though he's not fully convinced of that. I still worry about him, though I know he can take care of himself. Anyway, so far, he's been the only one I've really had romantic feelings for. Currently, I don't really have intense romantic feeling for anyone.5: Talk about the best birthday you've had. // I've had a lot of really good birthdays, but my favorite ones were when I went to Water World with some of my friends. I have a lot of good memories attached to that water park. 7: Talk about your biggest insecurity. // I'm insecure about a lot of things. My weight, my voice, my height, my intelligence, my leadership skills, my mental illness. The list goes on. And on. And on. 9: Talk about little things on your body that you like the most. // I love the little half curls in my hair, and the way that it has at least three different kinds of brown in it. And I like the way my eyes turn the color of honey in the sun. 11: Talk about the best dream you've ever had. // Okay so it's been ten years and I still remember it vividly. I was a dragon, slinking over the rooftops in the dead of night. I saw a group of humans and hid in the shadows to overhear their plot to storm my clan's cave and kill all the dragons. They were whispering about a secret weapon. I raced back home and told our elders everything. But I was too late. The humans were upon us. Cue epic battle with shapeshifting from human to dragon, walls of green fire, and a powder that made the humans invincible to the heat of the dragon fire. It was so cool and I loved it. 13: Talk about the first time you had sex/how you imagine your first time. // I'm not really planning on the whole sex thing. So unless something drastically changes, my first time will be never.15: Talk about the time you were most content in life. // When I was training to be a counselor, I would get a hour break every day, and I would go down to my cabin and sit on the steps and read. It was warm, with a cool breeze that made the leaves of the trees sound like ocean waves. The only other sound was birds chirping and the turning of pages in my book. Whenever I was there, I felt totally at peace. 17: Talk about someone you want to be friends with. // I really want to be friends with my new roommate. Her name is Talia and she seems pretty cool, and I just really hope we become good friends.19: Talk about something that happened in middle school. // When I was in seventh grade, my sister and I had to take the public bus to the library a few blocks away to wait for our mom to be done with work. One day, I had the bright idea to race the bus. I left my sister at the stop and started running. I ran two miles, and got to the stop minutes before the bus. I was so proud, and got ready to brag to my sister about it. The doors opened, an old man got off, and the bus drove away. My sister was gone. I freaked out and called my mom, who called my grandma, and the search began. We finally found her wandering around by the library. Turns out she had drifted away from the stop and the bus missed her. Her phone dead, she decided just to walk to the library. I yelled at her for being so stupid but I was super glad she was okay. 21: Talk about a time you had to turn someone down. // When I was a kid, there was this little girl who lived down the street who always wanted to hang out. And every time I told her no at the door, she magically slipped inside and wouldn't leave. She was like a little, adorable demon.23: Talk about a time someone turned you down. // There was this dance thing at my summer camp, and for some reason most of the kids were asking out people to that activity. There was a kind of cute boy who I had talked to a lot, so after a lot of convincing from my cabin mates, I shyly approached him and asked him to the dance. He said no, and I hid under a bridge crying until dinner. 25: Talk about an ex-best friend. // Bella and I were really close friends in middle school, and we were always hanging out together and going on adventures. We caught crawdads in the river by her house, rode our bikes through the park, made stupid sing-along videos in her living room, went geocaching, and broke cattails by the creek. One time she brought a slug to class and showed it to our teacher and she almost fainted. It was awesome. Another time we were doing some dumb shit in the locker rooms during lunch, jumping from locker to locker and hiding inside them, and the gym teacher caught us. I stayed cool and lied through a sweet, innocent grin about how we were just trying to find a lost phone. It actually worked. It kind of fell apart when we went to an amusement park for a field trip thing. I couldn't afford a fast pass, and she could, and she just left me and ran to join another group. I was so upset. 27: Talk about your favorite part of someone else's body. // I love my mom's hair. It's so beautiful. It's black and curly, with a streak of silver cutting through it. 29: Talk about what turns you on. // Beautifully choreographed fight scenes accompanied by classical music or dubstep. 31: Talk about what you think death is like. // Death is something that scares me because no one really knows what it's like. It could be just straight up nothing. I hope it's not. I hope that.... I hope there is a heaven. And I hope that it isn't boring. I don't think I could describe heaven. It's too great for the imagination. 33: Talk about what you do when you are sad. // I usually eat a lot of snacks while curled up in a nest of blankets and listen to depressing music and/or movie soundtracks. Or I watch cartoons. 35: Talk about things you wish you could stop doing. // Being passive aggressive, for one. I do it a lot, especially when I'm upset but don't want to admit it. But it's a shitty thing to do. I also wish I could stop chewing my lip because it really hurts and it's a bad habit I need to break but can't. 37: Talk about someone you thought you were in love with. // I thought I was in love with this boy back in sixth grade, but it turns out it was just a crush I developed because I figured I needed to have one and he was good at track. Anyway the moral of the story is sixth graders don't know what being in love is and honestly I still don't think I've quite figured it out. 39: Talk about things you wish you'd known earlier. // One. Don't get angry with people just to be dramatic, because it just ends up hurting everyone and it doesn't make you feel any better. Two. You're not better than other people just because you've read a book or two. Three. People fall out of love far more quickly that they fall in love. Four. Don't be afraid to be a little weird. Everyone is weird, and life is to short to pretend otherwise. Five. Don't get too emotionally invested in people who won't do the same for you.

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nelsonwaldorfschool-blog · 7 years

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How Waldorf Overcomes Math Fear with Real-World Problems

Parents and teachers are often concerned about two things: First, how can we ensure that students will be adequately prepared for what faces them when they leave school? And second, with the apparent rise in the number of students with learning challenges, how can teachers manage to teach the full spectrum of students in their classes? Related to math, to complicate matters, parents can be sometimes fearful that their children will end up as math traumatized as they are. Inevitably, the fear seeps down from the adults to the students.

Math Anxiety Is Extremely Common

"Math anxiety: an intense lifelong fear of two trains approaching each other at speeds of 60 and 80 kph"

A research study from Spain showed that as many as 6 out of 10 university students present symptoms of math anxiety. Other research in the UK has shown that over half of adults can't do basic math at an 11-year-old level. It goes on to say that in terms of employment, people with poor math skills are twice as likely to be unemployed as those without. Another study reports that 1/5th of adults cannot do basic fractions or percentages and many cannot even calculate a tip at a restaurant.

Talking About Our Fears

What is the solution to the fear of math? We can start talking about this fear with parents, our colleagues, and to ourselves. With teachers and parents, we can create time for discussions about this. We can ask, “What math experiences would you like your students to have?” Rarely will Waldorf parents say that they want their kids to plow through a long list of topics as quickly as possible. Then we can ask what it really means to have our students prepared for their future math studies and the “real world”.

How Does Math Relate To Us?

Waldorf starts off the introduction to math by asking a seemingly simple question, “What is the largest number in the universe?” My son (aged 5) came home from school and asked me the same question. I answered, “Well, erhmmm, it’s infinity.” He said, “No, one is the biggest because I am one.” Other responses discussed in class may be, “One is the biggest because without it there isn’t any 2, or 3, or even a million,” “One is the biggest because everything there is in one Universe,” or “One is the biggest because it can be any number it wants.”

All sorts of philosophical and mathematical truths become evident through just this “one” discussion. This gets students thinking in a whole new way about numbers, and how they relate to us and the world. Eventually, the children arrive at “I am one!” - they see how their bodies are shaped like the number one, they relate themselves to the vastness of the Universe, and realize at that point that they are co-creators.

Waldorf Teaches Math Using The Whole Body

Waldorf Education does not teach math in isolation of other subjects. It is part of a holistic learning approach, which connects the child’s inner self (that Waldorf’s founder Rudolf Steiner refers to as “will”) and body through muscle memory exercises. For the Class 1 child, Waldorf Math is really a kinesthetic or whole body learning experience.

By moving to math in the early grades, even before reading and writing, the child develops a proficiency much like a musician memorizing their scales. It is a slow and unhurried approach that does not push the child to count or read too early (which has been found to taint a child’s passion for learning). Once a child is moving to math, he or she may begin to use beans or glass beads to better understand the relationships that additions and subtractions make with the whole. Imaginative math fairy tales are told, where the children get to participate in solving the same word problems the main characters do. This allows for a real “living” math to develop within the children. When children begin writing, they begin with roman numerals. They integrate this lesson within their form drawing block.

Drawing Roman Numerals

Each number, 1-12, is a discussion involved in this deep intensity of imagination. Waldorf begins with Roman numerals and incorporates geometry into the discussion of each number, scribing freehand the relative polygons and stars. The children work to master each of the stars, crossing the vertical midline over and over again as they practice on large sheets of paper. Eventually, a particular star will stand out as the class favorite which tells the Class Teacher an immeasurable amount about the class itself. All of this happens in the first grade.

Math and Music

Math is also closely related and taught with music, furthering the important connection between a child’s body, and their understanding of numbers. As an adult, I know that the most lasting memories for me are always those with more than one sense being used. I still remember vividly walking by a jam factory near my house when I was a child on the way to school and counting the metal fence rungs while breathing in the delicious aromas of the jams.

Stanford Professor Jo Boaler says that students most effectively learn "math facts" working on problems that they enjoy, rather than through exercises and drills they fear. Speed pressure, timed testing and blind memorization damage children's experience of math, she says. She finds that children who excel in math learn to develop “number sense,” which is much different from the memorization that is often stressed in school.

Problem Solving vs Memorization

And how do we generate enthusiasm for learning math and develop mathematical thinking? By carving out time in our classrooms for the students to have meaningful mathematical experiences. One math problem, which helps foster creative problem solving, is to find three numbers between 1 and ½ that multiply together to equal ½. This wonderful, open-ended puzzle encourages multiple solutions and is appropriate for a variety of ages.

Another problem is to discover a special relationship found with any circle and two inner tangent circles – specifically: how does the triangle which connects the three centers relate to the radii of the circles? A fascinating problem! The problem invites exploration, debate, and a depth of learning that we should all be striving for. Using art, colour and drawing geometric patterns and shapes further enhances the understanding and enjoyment of mathematic principals.

Math Can Be Very Imaginative

So from the start, children are aware of the significance of numbers and enter very deeply into them. When they have the imaginations of the numbers, they use their will to execute stars and polygons. They move their bodies through the math facts of all four processes (+ – / x) each day, and create personalities for each math function. Some children learn about Tessa Times, Mickey Minus, Penelope Plus and David Divide or other characters who are known by how they appear and act. For example, David Divide has a sword and always chops things up, sometimes in half or more. Children take part in music classes involving flute, voice, and lyre to illustrate the beauty of the voice of numbers. They use manipulatives (e.g. bean bags, chesnuts) to work through exciting math tales and classroom conundrums.

This multi-faceted learning approach continues into Class 2. Here is a Class 2 report summary of a math block lesson:

Column algorithms vertical addition 1, 10,100. By using the image of the chipmunks and their holes, rooms, and chambers to store and count the nuts, the children understood well by the end of this block. We practiced many sums and wrote some in our books. We worked the times tables in many different ways, always with rhythm: sticks, walking clapping bean bag throwing etc. We reviewed the 2 and learnt the 4, 8, and 11 times table. In circle we are doing lots of mid line work, expansion contraction, throwing and catching, and recently juggling! We have been walking squares, stars, and some eurythmy.

Class 2 Main Lesson Book Examples

A genuine love of math can only be enhanced by a practical approach in the mid to later grades. In the third grade curriculum, fractions are learned through cooking and building. At this stage, there is the introduction of the orchestral stringed instruments at that same time, which also leverages many math basics. Math is the key to participating in the music lessons. Math is everywhere. The sixth grader gets to experience this by working with the Fibonacci sequence and Euclidean to Platonic geometries. Waldorf Education seeks to help students develop and integrate math, music, building, movement, storytelling, and more all at once.