#(by which i mean go j.o. over it) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

poisonlove · 9 months

Text

Miss Ortega | j.o

Part 12

Just as all her students enter the classroom, Jenna excitedly stands up from her desk, ready to explain a new topic.

"Good morning, guys! Today we're going to start exploring the application of differential and integral calculus in physics," Jenna says enthusiastically.

Murmurs of disapproval fill the room, and Jenna feels slightly uncomfortable. "But teacher... we just got back from vacation," our class representative says. Jenna rolls her eyes in boredom and heads towards the chalkboard, picking up a piece of chalk.

"Well... if you don't want the explanation, we can just go straight to the exam," Jenna shrugs indifferently and genuinely smiles. "After all, I recall assigning it over the holidays," she concludes.

A silence takes over the room, and Jenna smiles triumphantly. Leaning on the desk with one elbow and supporting my head with a hand, I watch amused by Jenna's display of power. To be honest, I recognized this topic almost immediately, as it was one of the first explanations Jenna gave me privately.

My eyes rest on the figure of the brunette, and I take a moment to analyze her. This morning, the teacher was wearing a skirt that reached just below her thighs, a light pink crop top, and a leather jacket covering her shoulders. I bite my lower lip and cross my legs.

"As I thought," Jenna says, not receiving a response, she assumes the option to explain. "Let's take an example of a bullet fired vertically upwards. We want to find out its maximum height and the time it takes to reach that height."

Jenna draws a simple diagram of the bullet moving upwards.

"To start, we know that velocity is the distance traveled in time. In our case, velocity decreases due to gravity's acceleration as the bullet moves upwards. The equation describing the bullet's velocity will be v = -gt + v₀, where g represents the acceleration due to gravity and v₀ is the initial velocity," Jenna writes the velocity equation on the board.

"Now, to determine the maximum height reached by the bullet, we need to find the equation for its position over time. We can do this by integrating the velocity equation with respect to time. The integral will give us the position equation. Do you know what it means to integrate a function?" Jenna looks at the class, waiting for a response. Her amber-colored eyes briefly land on mine, almost inviting me to participate, but I decide to respect her role even though my classmates haven't opened their books during the holidays.

"No, I don't," a student behind me says.

"I appreciate the honesty," Jenna sighs and starts jotting down some notes on the board. "Integrating a function means finding the area under the curve of that function with respect to the horizontal axis. In our case, we're looking for the equation of the projectile's position over time. The equation will be x = ∫v dt."

Jenna writes the position equation on the board.

"Now, to determine the maximum height, we need to find the point at which the projectile's velocity becomes zero. We can do this by setting the velocity equation equal to zero and solving for time t. Once we have time t, we can substitute it into the position equation to find the maximum height reached by the projectile," Jenna continues explaining the process step by step, providing numerical examples, and helping the students understand differential and integral calculus in the specific context of the projectile problem.

"Now that we've understood the concepts of differential and integral calculus in the context of projectile motion, I want to give you an exercise to solidify your understanding. Take notes!" Jenna raises her voice, recapturing the attention of her now-awake students.

Jenna writes the exercise on the board.

"Given a projectile fired vertically upwards with an initial velocity of 40 m/s, I want you to calculate: 1. The equation of the projectile's velocity as a function of time. 2. The equation of the projectile's position as a function of time. 3. The maximum height reached by the projectile. 4. The time it takes for the projectile to reach its maximum height."

I start taking notes, writing down each part of the exercise, yawning slightly.

"Do you have any questions about the exercise? Make sure to use the formulas we've learned and show your complete steps in your work. Once you're done, we can review your answers and discuss them together," Jenna smiles at the class and sits at her desk, starting to scribble something on a piece of paper.

Jenna gives the students time to work on the exercise. During this period, she walks around the classroom to answer questions and provide assistance if needed. Once the students have completed the exercise, Jenna can review their answers, solve the exercise together, and provide additional explanations if necessary. This allows the students to apply the concepts they've learned and consolidate their understanding through practical exercises.

As I continue writing the exercise, I sense Jenna's presence behind me. The teacher leans towards my body, analyzing my calculations, and tentatively lets our fingers brush against each other, seeking minimal contact between our bodies. I glance sideways at Jenna and nervously smile. A strand of her hair obscures our faces, and I timidly lean towards her neck, pressing my lips against her skin.

Jenna slightly startles as she feels the contact of my lips on her neck but quickly regains composure, not wanting to draw attention. "What are you doing?" Jenna whispers through her teeth, and with a smile, I return to writing, feeling the echo of the kiss on my lips.

"It's okay, no one's watching," I smirk mischievously, and Jenna slowly moves away from my desk, breaking the contact between our fingers. A folded piece of paper enters my field of vision, and furrowing my brow, I read the message.

"See you here after lunch, we need to discuss the contest." The note wasn't signed, but the neat and orderly handwriting immediately makes me understand it's from Jenna. It seems the teacher had finally decided to resume our private lessons in the afternoon.

Honestly, I had completely forgotten about this contest.

"Alright, guys, we'll review this on Wednesday," Jenna declares after hearing the bell indicating the change of period. I grab my backpack and walk towards the door, waiting for my best friend, who is still packing her things.

My eyes catch Ajax approaching me.

After Jenna's class, Ajax approaches Enid in the classroom and sees her organizing her belongings. Ajax is saddened by what has transpired between them and wants a chance to clear things up. Kindly, he approaches Enid and asks if they can find a quiet place to talk.

I observe their interaction with a sense of embarrassment, not wanting to intervene.

"Hey, Enid, can I talk to you? I'd like to clear things up between us, and I think finding a quiet place might help us sort out our differences. Can we find a private spot where we can talk?" Ajax says softly, almost bashfully.

Enid looks at Ajax and notes his sincerity in his expression. Despite the sadness she's feeling, she decides to give the conversation a chance. Her blue eyes glance in my direction, conveying with a look that everything is alright.

"Alright, Ajax. We can go to the library. There, we'll be quiet enough to talk without distractions," Enid takes her backpack and slings it over her shoulder. "Don't worry, t/n, see you later," she mutters quickly before catching up with her boyfriend.

Ajax smiles slightly, grateful for Enid's willingness. Both of them head to the library, hoping to resolve their issues and get closer again.

I smile to myself and sigh as I head off to find my friends. After all, I missed Erick, Spencer, and even Diego.

(...)

Returning from the cafeteria, I walk quickly and nervously scan the surrounding environment. With quick eyes, I ensure that nobody is watching me, trying to avoid indiscreet glances. Once convinced that I've gone unnoticed, I approach the entrance of the famous room, the place where I knew I would find Jenna.

I slowly close the door.

As I approach, a pleased smile spreads across my face. A mischievous expression forms in my eyes, anticipating the encounter that is about to unfold. With my heart racing from excitement, I silently move closer behind Jenna, who, unaware, is focused on something in front of her.

I can't contain the happiness filling my chest, and I smile widely. My lips curve upwards in an expression of complicity, while my eyes shine with excitement. I feel like I'm about to make a daring or playful move, and my gaze becomes even more lively and intense.

My fists clench, as if I'm preparing for something. My breathing becomes shorter and faster as I get closer to Jenna. Everything around me seems to slow down, as if time is elongating, waiting for what's about to happen.

I'm just a few steps away from Jenna. My heart races, and with a determined motion, I reach out and gently touch Jenna's shoulder. A shiver of excitement runs down my spine as I eagerly await Jenna's reaction.

The teacher turns around and looks at me with a smile on her lips. "You've finally arrived," Jenna says as she places what seemed to be documents on the desk. With a smile on her lips, she gazes at me intently. Once confirming that we're alone and that no one is watching us, Jenna approaches and plants a soft kiss on my lips.

I smile against her lips, placing a hand on her waist.

"Sorry for the delay, I was chatting with Spencer," I murmur absentmindedly, and Jenna raises an eyebrow in confusion. "Who's Spencer?"

Spencer Hastings has an elegant and sophisticated appearance. She has a slender, well-proportioned figure with graceful curves. Her height makes her stand out in a crowd, giving her an aura of grace and style. Her movements are agile and confident, revealing her determination and intelligence.

Her facial features are delicate and harmonious. She has an oval-shaped face with perfectly smooth and radiant skin. Her complexion is luminous, with a slight tan that gives her a healthy and vibrant look. She has large, penetrating eyes that can range from dark brown to green, conveying intelligence and intensity.

Spencer has a mane of dark, glossy hair that falls in soft waves. Her hair is usually impeccably styled, reflecting her organized and precise personality. She sometimes ties it up in elegant hairstyles, showcasing her ability to look perfect on any occasion.

Her smile is radiant and contagious, lighting up her face with genuine joy. She has white and regular teeth, giving her smile a luminous appearance.

Overall, Spencer Hastings embodies the image of a charming, confident woman with great appeal. Her beauty and impeccable style contribute to making her a notable presence in any context she's in.

"She's a close friend of Enid's... and your student, dummy," I smile, shrugging with indifference. "Why the question? Maybe you're jealous?" I ask, laughing.

"I'm not a kid, t/n, I just asked a question like your girlfriend would," Jenna admits.

It's the first time she openly acknowledges the nature of our bond. With a slightly trembling voice, she whispers the words that change the meaning of our encounter: "Because you're my girlfriend, aren't you?"

I'm surprised by Jenna's revelation, but I smile with love and tenderness. That sentence conveys a deep sense of awareness and mutual commitment that strengthens our bond. It's a moment of great significance, a step forward in our relationship.

"Yes, we are," I confirm, and Jenna looks at me with shining eyes.

Jenna clears her throat and looks at me with a smile. "Well... then... we urgently need to resume rehearsals for the contest," Jenna admits, and I smile mischievously. The teacher looks at me in confusion, and I bite my lower lip.

"How about we spend some time together now? We can make the most of it," I suggest, trailing a finger across her chest. Jenna rolls her eyes with a smile on her lips.

Jenna puts her hand around my tie and brings me closer to her lips, accepting my proposal.

POV OLIVIA RODRIGO

"Idiot," I smile softly at Dove's message, wondering just how foolish I could be.

I'm walking through the hallways towards the Science classroom, hoping to catch the teacher. I need to talk to him and ask when I'll have to give the presentation he asked me to prepare over the break.

A noise comes from a distance.

As I approach the empty classroom, a knot forms in my stomach, and a sense of unease envelops me. Something compels me to move forward despite the fear gripping me. The noises from the room grow clearer, making my curiosity unbearable.

When I swing open the classroom door, my heart stops for a moment. Before me stand Jenna, our charming math teacher, and t/n. Their compromising position and locked gazes hit me like a punch to the gut.

A feeling of betrayal surrounds me, accompanied by deep sadness. I can't believe that the person I've always desired, the girl I'm in love with, is involved in a forbidden relationship with our teacher.

The famous girl t/n had hinted at some time ago.

While I wanted to give Dove a chance, an incredible girl, I couldn't stop feeling something for t/n overnight. The hopes and dreams I'd hidden in my heart dissolve in an instant.

Tears well up in my eyes, but I try to hold them back. I'm paralyzed, unable to move or express the thousand emotions churning within me. I'm trapped in a limbo between the love I feel and the disappointment that engulfs me.

I watch Jenna and t/n quickly separate, panic and guilt painting their faces. Their words remain voiceless, but the silence speaks a language heavy with tension and pain. Jenna looks wide-eyed at t/n, and the latter looks at me in surprise.

"Liv, wait," t/n's voice sounds concerned as she approaches me, wanting to talk to me. My vision blurs, and I take a step back, leaving the room and closing the door behind me.

A damn déjà vu.

My legs weaken, and I lean against the wall to find a semblance of support. My heart is broken, unable to face the harsh reality I've just discovered.

"We need to talk," t/n's voice reaches me from behind, and in this moment, I wish she'd just disappear.

#wednesday addams x reader #jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega #jenna ortega x you #miércoles addams #jenna ortega x y/n #wednesday x you #jenna ortega x fem!reader #wednesday addams x you #professor #olivia rodrigo #love #enid sinclair

107 notes · View notes

rjzimmerman · 3 years

Link

Excerpt from this story from Patagonia:

In my various travels, I’ve often noted that if a country has trees, children will climb them. (The only place this appears not to be the case is in cities like New York and London, where the law forbids it, as do neurotic parents. I recently overheard a mother in Rockefeller Park shout at her daughter, who was scaling a tiny Macedonian pine, “You get down out of that tree. You’re going to get all sticky, and I don’t want to hear none of it!”) Despite the inherent dangers, many children regard the branches of a tree as a haven rather than a terror, a realm apart from the terrestrial, adult world. The psychologist J.O. Quantz theorized in 1897 that over the course of “a few thousand generations,” during which humans climbed into trees to escape predators and find sustenance, we evolved to regard trees as “natural protectors.”

Increasingly, the roles are swapped: we are the protectors of the trees (as well as their greatest predators). So it is fitting that, when all other forms of protection fail, climbing a tree remains our last means of saving it from being cut down. The act of “tree-sitting”—camping out high in a treetop as a means of protest—began in New Zealand in 1978. To protect against the logging of the Pureora Forest, home to sacred totara trees and rare kōkako birds, protestors followed the example set by Edward Abbey (whose The Monkey Wrench Gang had appeared just three years earlier) and resorted to disruptive pranks and stunts, but in the gentlest ways they could devise. First they attempted to block the logging road by planting native tree seedlings across it. When that failed, an activist named Stephen King (no relation to the author), who was known as the “barefoot botanist,” free-climbed up into a totora tree and strung up a wooden pallet high in the branches. He and five allies, including his 12-year-old brother, lived in the treetops for about a week. Ingeniously, they revealed their location only to reporters, but remained hidden whenever loggers were nearby, so the loggers never knew which tree they were in, and therefore couldn’t cut down any trees without fear of killing them. A public outcry ensued, and the logging was called off.

#environmental activism #tree sitting #preservation #conservation #forests

42 notes · View notes

recurring-polynya · 4 years

Note

Hi, I'm late to the party but if you are still interested in doing the bookish asks: 1 and 7 + 13 + 18. I hope you have a good day!!!

It’s never too late!! (the book meme was back here, icymi)

1. Which book would you consider the best book you’ve ever read and why?

“Best” is such a subjective term.

On one hand, every single person who has ever met me in real life would call me a huge liar if I didn’t at least mention Infinite Jest. I love Infinite Jest. It blew my head off my shoulders. I think about it all the time, I talk about it incessantly. I read it twice in two years and I imagine I was absolutely insufferable at that time. It is a work of genius, an achievement beyond the bounds of normal humans. It is simultaneously extremely prescient (I have thought about the section about masks for video calls literally every day of the pandemic) and spectacularly wrong (the rise of Netflix would make people go watch a duck pond turn over, REALLY?) That being said, DFW was a very troubled man and a deeply problematic one. The book is far too white and male, and it has been championed by a particular breed of Shitty Dudes. To be honest, it’s not even a book. It’s the negative space of a book, a Fourier Transform of a book. I wish everyone would read it, and I make it a personal point to never, ever tell anyone to read it. But if you do, I am absolutely here to discuss the filmography of J.O. Incandenza at any time.

I read The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison shortly after it won a Hugo in 2016, and I knew, upon reading it, that it was the most important speculative fiction book of my generation. It is everything specfic is supposed to be-- to challenge your place in the world, to make you feel both complicit and cheated by the systems around you, to make you rage at injustice, to make you want to change things. It is a very upsetting series-- many awful things happen to the main characters. I don’t recall it being particular gross or gory, just devastating. One of the central themes is the way that mothers try and fail to protect their children, and I read it at a time when I had small babies and I burst into tears constantly. Anyway, it’s an incredible set of books, but it’s not fun to read. As a bonus, as far as I can tell from interviews and her Twitter, N.K. Jemison is a very smart and cool person.

Finally, to round out the set: every time I read Howl’s Moving Castle, I am struck with what a perfect novel it is. It is small and cozy, exciting and sweet and weird and funny. If I could choose any novel in the world to have written, it would be Howl’s Moving Castle.

7. Have you ever despised something you have read?

Oh, boy, have I!

I can hold a grudge against a book much longer than I could ever hold a grudge against a person! In my old age, I have gotten in the habit of giving up on things that I am not enjoying, which has caused me to chill out a lot, but I do have some old hate-faves!

I used to hate Game of Thrones. I threw the second one across the room after some witch lady gave birth to some evil smoke. But these days, I just really feel for the fans, who seem like really nice folks. They got a shitty last season and they’re never going to get the last of those books. I also feel for G.R.R. Martin, because I can definitely imagine getting that far along with something and then pbbting on the floor, and I cannot bring myself to feel anything bad for him.

The Road was almost a good book. I will be honest, I only read it because I am deeply in love with the Fleet Foxes song White Winter Hymnal. The mechanics of cannibalism as so poorly envisioned in The Road. Look, I do not like thinking about cannibalism. I hate cannibalism. There are only two zombie movies I will watch and I want nothing to do with any Hannibal-related property. But The Road’s ideas about cannibalism is so bad that even I am offended by it. I was extremely gratified when my very specific complaints appeared in this classic The Toast piece.

The last book I hated was something by Brandon Sanderson that I hated so much that I refuse to look up the title. All the magic was color based, and there was one pretty cool lady fighter character who got upset because she trained so hard that she got really ripped and didn’t think she was pretty anymore. I can’t believe I finished that book.

13. How do you chose which book to read next?

I used to be a really well-rounded reader. I read a lot of non-fiction, mostly history of science, and the sort Malcolm Gladwell stuff that was popular in early aughts. Around the time of the first Ferguson protests, I made a practice of reading a lot of Black authors and non-fiction about Black people, for about a year. I would try to alternate books that met my reading aspirations with more “dessert” reading-- fluffy stuff, re-reading old faves, when something new by a beloved author would come out. I have had a couple of friends write books and I do make it a priority to buy and read them. Also, if a friend specifically asks me to read something because they want to talk about it, I will also prioritize it, this is my love language.

Anyway, after the 2016 election, my brain broke, I could no longer handle anything difficult and bad in my leisure time and I read exclusively YA for about a year. I kinda stopped reading books entirely in 2019 when I was obsessively writing fanfic, but I have gotten back into it lately. I choose what to read entirely based on whimsy. I have been reading Jane Austen books all summer, and I’m gonna read Sense and Sensibility next. It’s sitting on the coffee table, I just need to actually open it up.

18. Did you enjoy the Hunger Games?

The Hunger Games were... fine? I read a lot of YA, and they aren’t my favorites by any means, but they were exciting and I remember reading through them really fast. (I hesitate to say I *enjoyed* them, because they are not very fun books). Probably my hottest Hunger Games take is that I think they would have been substantially improved if they hadn’t been written in the first person.

The thing about Katniss is that she is honestly not a smart person. She’s a dummy. I... love this actually. Young women are so rarely allowed to stupid in media. It’s so much more common to see the Hermiones-- the girl who is smart and level-headed and sensible, where her male companions are fun and relatable and dumb as rocks. Katniss gets manipulated a lot-- that’s what the book is about, but it’s not in a dudes-trying-to-get-in-her-pants way, it’s in a society-trying-to-turn-her-into-a-tool, which is also a plotline that girls don’t get. Unfortunately, because it’s written in the first person, it’s pretty easy to get frustrated with the character, or feel like the book or the author is stupid, rather than that there is this dim bulb character getting led around by the nose. I think a third-person narration could give a more forgivable perspective on her. Katniss has a lot of good qualities-- she is brave and loyal and wants to do what’s right, and I think the books would be better served to make you, the reader, get righteously angry at the way she is being exploited, than to try to give you a view inside her head. I think this is also why the movies came out pretty good, although, to be fair, I think I only saw the first one.

#asks #book meme #i sure do have some opinions #bless you all for putting up with me

1 note · View note

dyscrasia-eucrasia · 4 years

Photo

<<Prev | Next (NSFW)>>

Part 29 (NSFW)

"He's soooo cute," Angel cooed, leaning down to nuzzle the goat's forehead. The baby animal was docile and willing to let himself be carried. "What are you gonna name him?"

"I'm thinking Nike," Demie said, reaching out and patting the goat's back.

"Like the shoe company?" Angel didn't even think Demie knew the names of shoe brands, considering he had hooves.

"No, like the goddess."

"Nike's a goddess?"

"Yeah. Greek goddess of victory."

Angel looked down at the goatling in his arms. "I thought he was a boy. Why name him after a goddess?"

Demie withdrew his hand and looked away. Angel thought he saw his face get a little darker. "Well," Demie mumbled, "she, like… had bird wings…"

"Oh my god," Angel's face broke into a large smile. "So you're saying she looks like an angel? Are you saying you're naming him after me?"

"Sh-shut up," Demie muttered, heading back to the shed behind the trailer. Angel followed after him, still holding Nike in his arms.

"So I was thinking," Angel said as Demie grabbed a hay bale, "about the phone issue. Do you think if you could save up money, you could get one?"

Demie scattered hay on the ground and the goats rushed towards him. Angel peered inside the shed. It was weird - it was a big shed, with one half of it storage for hay and goat feed, and the other set up like the most low-budget sound studio in the world.

"Yeah, but it's not like I can go get a job," Demie said.

"I was thinking about that," Angel continued. "Have you ever thought about doing farmer's markets?"

Demie cast him a side-long glance. "Selling what? I'm not a farmer."

"No, but they aren't just for produce. You make all sorts of food, you could sell cheese, or those goat treats that you make."

"And what do I say about the horns?"

"Well, I was thinking you don't even have to go to the markets. I could run a booth for you."

Demie shut the shed door and gave Angel another weird glance.

"I mean, I understand if you don't trust me with your money--" Angel began, but was cut off.

"No, I trust you. I just… I'll think about it. I don't make things for other people."

Fair enough, Angel thought. Though he had the feeling Demie wouldn't take too much more convincing to agree to the idea.

Demie headed back for the trailer. Angel set the goatling down and it pranced off to be with its mother.

"So, do you want to, like, listen to another musical album?" Angel asked as they entered the trailer through the back door.

"Um…" Demie stopped, looked over his shoulder at Angel, and scuffed one hoof on the kitchen linoleum.

"What?" Angel asked.

"I just… I got an idea, but you can say no…" Demie said, half muttering the words.

"Okay? What is it?"

"You wanna be, like… J.O. buddies?"

Angel was sure he misheard that. "Do I want to be what?"

"Like…" Demie looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. "Like, jerk-off buddies. It's not gay, it's just, y'know… just a guy thing."

That most certainly was not just a guy thing. But Angel wasn't sure what to say. It felt like Demie was propositioning him, but by dancing around the issue. Was this his way of trying to come out?

"Nevermind, forget it," Demie said, clearly taking Angel's stunned silence as rejection.

"I didn't say no," Angel said. "I'm just a little… surprised, is all. I wouldn't have thought you would want a gay guy to masturbate with you."

"I'm not homophobic," Demie stressed. "And it's not a gay thing, either."

"So you've said." Angel's mind was reeling. He felt like he should say no, if only because Demie himself seemed so confused. But he really wanted to say yes.

"Did you want to do it, like, right now…?" Angel asked.

"Uh…" Demie looked at the floor, resisting eye contact. "Yeah. Yeah, I mean... If you're up to it."

Angel cocked his head to the side, trying to get a better look of Demie's face. His face was definitely red, and he was fidgeting. Angel tried to remember if he'd been that nervous the first time he'd done anything sexual with a guy.

It still felt weird, but he'd also started to think of it as a way of helping Demie open up. Maybe Demie just needed a safe way to explore his sexuality. Angel would be okay with being his first gay experience.

"Sure," Angel said.

"Cool, cool," Demie said, not looking up. "Um… my room's over here." He headed across the living room without looking at Angel.

Demie's room was about what Angel had expected. It was cluttered, with a bed in one corner, multiple guitar stands in another, and a small, ratty couch and vintage TV pressed up against opposite walls. There were piles of dirty shirts next to the bed, and tons of band posters on the wall. The wall right above the bed was covered in Polaroids.

"I, um, I've only got straight porn," Demie said, crouching down in front of a small bookcase next to the bed.

"That's fine," Angel said. "I can deal."

"Cool," Demie murmured, selecting a VHS box and turning on the TV. He jammed the VHS into the VCR, picked up a remote, and crossed over to sit on the far end of the couch. Angel felt awkward - even by hookup standards, this was bizarre. But he sat down at the other end of the couch. He got the feeling that Demie would freak out if he got too close. Not that it mattered much - the sofa was a loveseat, and there wasn't much room between them.

A porno that looked like it was from the 80s started up on the TV. Angel glanced at Demie, but Demie kept his eyes glued to the screen. What was going on on the screen was almost surreal - the stiff acting, awkward almost felt like something out of Twin Peaks. The plot was minimal - something about a pizza boy and a babysitter. Angel knew the stereotypes about porn, but he was used to just finding free stuff on the internet, which cut out any pretense and went straight into the fucking.

As the pizza boy fondled the babysitter, Demie let out a loud breath through his nose. Angel glanced over to see Demie's dick slide out of the thing he'd called a sheath. It was weird how it did so. Almost alien.

Demie's dick was big. The biggest Angel had ever seen in person. Almost frighteningly so. And it was human. Demie had said as much, but Angel had kind of doubted it.

With his eyes still locked on the screen, Demie took hold of his dick and started to stroke it. Angel felt like he probably shouldn't stare, but Demie's dick was doing more for him than the porn. He wasn't sure about the etiquette - he'd never just sat and masturbated with anyone before, especially not someone who purported to be just a platonic friend - but he was cognizant of his own erection and unzipped his pants to alleviate some of the pressure on it.

The woman on the TV gasped and moaned as the man pumped his cock into her at a steady, rhythmic pace. Her cries sounded fake, and Angel wondered how anyone could find that sort of thing arousing.

But he wasn't really focused on the porn. Demie was working his own cock with his right hand, pumping up and down with little in the way of technique. He was quiet, but his breathing was starting to get heavy, his nostrils flaring. Angel imagined what Demie's breath would feel like on his neck, what his cock would feel like in his ass. Would his fur be ticklish, or would it just feel coarse?

He was curious, and he couldn't hold back his curiosity much longer. He reached over with his left hand and placed his palm on Demie's thigh. Demie paused, looking over at him.

His fur was coarse, but not wiry. Just not extremely soft. But it was nice.

Angel knew he was pushing the limit, but he wondered if the fur of Demie's groin was softer than that of his legs. He slid his hand up, going against the grain of the fur. Demie didn't say anything, but stopped masturbating.

"Do you want some help?" Angel asked.

For the first time since they'd entered the trailer, Demie looked at him and made eye contact. He nodded vigorously.

The fur on the inside of Demie's thigh was definitely softer. Not like a cat or a dog, but still softer than his thighs. Angel's hand went higher. His fingertips brushed Demie's. Demie let go of his cock, and Angel took the opening to wrap his fingers around the stiff, hot shaft. His thumb brushed the head, which was dripping with precum. Demie didn't stop him.

Angel moved slowly, almost like he was approaching a small animal, and any sudden movements would spook it. He circled the tip of Demie's cock with his thumb, spreading slickness around the glans. Demie twitched in his hand, and Angel could see him grasp the couch cushions.

Angel began to pump the shaft of Demie's cock, giving his wrist a little twist each time he brought his hand back down. Demie's breathing was getting heavier.

Then, Angel leaned forward and took Demie's cock in his mouth.

He heard Demie breath in sharply. He relaxed his jaw, moving his head down until he began to gag. There was no way in Hell he'd manage to fit all of Demie's length into his mouth, not without deepthroating him, and while Angel had a lot of talents, that was not one of them. So he grasped the base of the shaft with one hand, lifting and rotating his hand as he lifted his head again. He made sure to use his tongue to tease at the head of Demie's cock.

Demie's body language was stiff, but slowly, he raised a hand and set it on the top of Angel's head, ruffling his hair. Angel closed his watering eyes and tried to stifle a moan as Demie rolled his thumb across his forehead. He didn't make any attempt to force Angel's head further down, and Angel appreciated it.

He'd been at it for what felt like a few minutes, his own hard-on becoming painful as he ignored it to focus on Demie's, when the woman on the screen began to make fake noises of climax. Demie's cock twitched in Angel's mouth, and the next thing he knew, Demie's hands were on his shoulders, forcefully pushing him away. Angel's eyes fluttered open and he sputtered as his head jerked back, moments before Demie ejaculated, the stream narrowly missing Angel's face.

The two sat like that for a moment, Angel still leaning over, held an arm's length away, while Demie panted as if he'd just got done running a marathon.

Suddenly, Demie jumped to his feet, cock now hanging limply between his legs, a line of cum glittering against the fur of his left leg, and left the room, walking into the adjacent bathroom, leaving Angel alone with his thoughts.

#writing #writers on tumblr #original fiction #gay fiction #lgbt fiction #mlm fiction #wright's writing #w:demie and angel

2 notes · View notes

girlwiththestories · 6 years

Text

Waiting for Dawn (a GMW story)

Note: This entire story is about Riley's death, so if that will bother you, please skip out on this one.

for J.O. grieving with you and looking forward to the day your dawn comes

i. She had always had a pit of sadness, always talked about how her life had been shaped by hardship, but she hadn't truly known sadness until the day she watched her best friend's casket be slowly lowered into the ground. No, she hadn't been shocked to get the text that Riley was gone because she had just known. Why would she not when they had always been two halves of a whole, each other's extraordinary friendship? True, she had been expecting Riley to make a full recovery. But she had felt the connection between her and her best friend shattered forever, and she had just known that Riley was gone. Still, it didn't seem right that Riley would be gone so soon. They had promised each other they would go into the same retirement community so they could spend the twilight of their lives in rocking chairs side by side. If Maya had ever doubted that vision, it was because she knew that she put her future in her hands more than her fair share. She was not like Riley, the healthy living guru who tried everything in a quest to keep Farkle and her two precious children alive as long as possible. Yet, Riley had died, and Maya and the others had lived on.

Immediately after hearing the news, Maya's mind had gone to Farkle. His sun had set forever. How would he bear it? How could he continue to survive and face the challenges of life without Riley's light and love? Dear, dear Farkle—he had faithful loved and cared for Riley and deserved nothing short of happiness. But that wasn't how life worked. Life threw curveballs; Maya knew that very well. Farkle's was being left alone with his children and every glance at them only serving to remind him of the reason for her passing. She couldn't see how he would take it well. He always thought himself the mature one and took responsibility for everything. He would blame himself for not being content with two children, for making choices that had opened the door for the ectopic pregnancy that had cost Riley her life. It wasn't his fault; he couldn't have known, and Riley had been just as excited at the thought of another baby. It was no one's fault. It had just happened. Situations like this were the reason Maya could never believe in fate. How could fate have taken the one who had always believed that everything happened for a reason?

Maya had wrapped up her job in Hungary early and set off homeward for the funeral. Normally, she stayed with her parents or Riley and Farkle when she was in town, but she found herself taking a taxi to a hotel instead. She wasn't ready to see anyone to today. She had to prepare herself for what she already knew would be the worst day of her life so far—a life that had been far from easy. She tossed and turned in bed for hours before realizing that she needed to paint. That had sent her to the store to hunt for canvases feeling very lucky that she never traveled without her paints. She spent most of the night sitting on the edge of the tub and painting. The long repeated brush strokes were therapeutic, but in the wee hours of the morning, she looked at her painting and realized that no matter how excellent her work was she would never be able to capture the light in Riley's eyes. Without that light, there was no Riley. And Maya could not capture it—she would never see that light again. Riley was gone. She snapped the painting in half and stuffed the pieces in the garbage before turning on the shower and letting it run over her painty clothes and all wishing it had the power to wash away all the feelings. She would take bare and empty over this any day.

When she awoke, it was to her alarm ringing and the realization that she had overslept. She had to catch a taxi to the cemetery in just a few minutes. Glancing at the mirror, she saw that she looked terrible but as bad as she looked, she felt even worse. Outside, exhaustion pulled at her body, and inside, her heart felt like a heavy weight. She stepped into the cold, fall air wondering if perhaps she was the one who was dead. New York City had always been home, but she didn't recognize this. Everything was still and colorless gray. It seemed as if there were nothing but the empty shell of a city which had once been filled with life. Life—Riley's was gone. Maya could search the city from top to bottom and not go anywhere where she could hear Riley's sweet voice or see her shining brown eyes. The taxi ride to the graveside was a blur as she contemplated what it meant for the person who had always been there to be gone. She tried to block the thoughts of the future from her mind. She would live one step at a time, one moment at a time.

The sight of the cemetery sent chills through her body. This was no theoretical what if Riley was gone. No, this was real. The taxi stopped, and after paying her bill, she had to get out. She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and walk to the spacious pavilion where the funeral would be held. Too soon, the door of it stretched before her. As she ventured inside, she could see Farkle in a dark suit and yarmulke standing near the front. There was no Riley by his side like there always was. Riley was in the casket and would never be by his side again. Sad didn't even begin to describe it. It was nothing short of tragic. Maya put on her bravest face and walked forward. Farkle turned, and she would never forget how it felt when they locked eyes and his glance said everything his words of the next year would not. She ran up and threw her arms around him. He said no word of greeting, and she couldn't force herself to speak either. The hug felt stiff and robotic like the Farkle of middle school, and the tears streamed down Maya's face. They both let go after a moment, and she finally managed an "I'm so sorry". He replied with a "me too". After she let go, Farkle turned and walked away, and Maya wiped the tears from her face with her hand. She wasn't one to cry; she had been through far too much to cry at every little setback. But Farkle was so stoic, and she knew he must be hurting so infinitely much, too much to even be able to express it. Besides Riley, he was her oldest and dearest friend, and as much as she was weighed down by her own grief, knowing that he was in pain hurt infinitely more.

Farkle didn't cry all day. He sat still when the rabbi started the service, when Zay read the tribute he had written, when he dropped a rose on the casket, when he watched Riley's casket be lowered into the dirt. She felt torn apart inside to watch him walk away with his children around him. She wondered at his courage as he looked into their deep brown eyes and responded to their bright smiles and happy questions with no smile of his own. They looked so much like their mother, and she was sure he was keenly aware of that every moment he was with them. At the dinner at this parents, he barely said anything and hardly swallowed any food. She knew that because she was watching him from the chair in the corner hoping she too could avoid the words of their well meaning loved ones. For one moment, she made eye contact with him from her corner and just knew that they were thinking the same thing. Surely, this was just a bad dream, and they would wake up to their bright sunshine with them again. This was the kind of situation that always called for Riley, and she wasn't here.

ii.

Maya didn't take off right after the funeral but found herself back with her mom and Shawn. It was her fall vacation—time off from traveling and painting and taking pictures. She generally loved her times in the city remembering her childhood, hanging out with Riley and Auggie, being Auntie Maya to Riley and Farkle's kids, and getting some downtime. But this year, the days were torturous. Life felt so empty and purposeless without Riley. Maya knew she had to stay busy, but everything she could do reminded her of Riley. Sometimes, she would start something only to stop when the memories brought tears to her eyes; other times she would power through promising herself to stop next time. And everyone she knew was only trying to offer sympathy. It was in kindness, she knew, but that didn't keep her from trying to avoid them as much as possible. She didn't want pity. She was tough. She could do what she had to do. She forced herself to get up and dressed and see Farkle and Riley's kids determined to not let them down. But many days, she just sat around the house wondering if the sun would ever rise again.

After fall vacation, Maya was off to Cambodia to photograph a resort. She wasn't sure she was up for working; taking pictures felt so meaningless especially when she knew it was merely for promotional purposes. But she couldn't cancel at the last minute without tarnishing her reputation, so she went and found it better than she was expecting. Maybe the sadness had traveled with her across the globe, but it was good for her to finally be doing something. The busy days of shooting kept her from dwelling on her grief, and for brief moments, her mind completely occupied by her work she would forget what had happened. The consciousness of Riley's passing always returned very quickly, but those moments always provided relief and hope that she would someday be on the other side of the grief.

After that job, she made up her mind that she would keep herself busy; it was the only way forward she knew. Work had always been her go-to, providing stability in the hard times. She had long leveraged getting in the zone with her art and the way it made all of her worries except the task at hand disappear. She would take as many jobs as she could and fill her life with busyness if not purpose.

As the weeks became months, she realized that her work brought pain as well as joy. In if as in all of life, Riley had been her biggest cheerleader. Maya had always loved art, but it was Riley who had first taught her about its importance. Art captured beauty, she had always said. Maya simply must make art because the world needed artists—people who showed the world the beauty that coexisted with pain. Riley had been so sure that Maya's work would change the world one person at time. Maybe Maya had never made it big, but Riley's praise had made her simple efforts seem like the greatest success. Now, Maya couldn't take a picture of beautiful scene or paint a painting without hearing Riley's exclamation of joy and then remembering with a stab of pain that she was gone.

Normally, Maya took a long break for the holidays returning for Thanksgiving and two weeks around Christmas and New Years. In her eagerness to be busy, she scheduled a job on the day after Christmas and only was in town for a day for Thanksgiving and a few days for Christmas.

Christmas Eve, she finally had the time to see Farkle and the kids. Riley had not had the time to give last wishes, but Maya knew that looking out for Farkle and the kids was on Riley's heart and she considered that as binding as any promise she could have made. It was thinking of that unspoken promise that made her leave her parents' house and venture out into the December cold to face her fears. What if she couldn't handle seeing them? What if she couldn't stop crying or couldn't make herself say anything? Fears be darned, she knew she had to go. It had been months since she had seen them, and if she didn't go now, she would leave poor Farkle manufacturing excuses as to why the kids hadn't seen Auntie Maya in so long.

She knocked on the door of their penthouse with a feeling of trepidation even though she knew they were expecting her. She was met by the happy smiling faces of Aaron and Charlotte and Farkle's solemn, tired looking one. Farkle did not look well, but Maya felt relieved to see for herself that he was surviving. It had been so long with just random texts for Smackle to reassure that he was still alive. Along with her own sorrow, she had been deeply aware that across the world Farkle was sharing in her grief. Riley was beloved, and many were morning her death, but the others had merely had their lives brightened by her sunlight. Farkle and Maya by contrast had had the privilege walking through life with Riley and soaking up her light until it was part of them. That was something that the others would never understand.

Finally back in his presence, Maya felt supported by the knowledge that he unlike anyone else truly understood what she had been and was going through. After hugging the children, she pulled him into a tight hug and felt his ribs poked her chest. He had always been thin, but Riley had considered it her job to help counter his tendency for skipping meals when he was busy. Maya felt tears coming to her eyes at the thought of his being too busy and sad and tired to eat. She wasn't much of a cook, but she would coax him into the kitchen under the pretense of needing a good meal and make sure he got a good dinner.

Maya went home to her parents that night feeling encouraged to know she was not alone in facing a big world without the light of Riley's presence. Farkle too was nearly beside himself with grief, yet he too was surviving. Somehow, that gave her hope that despite the immensity of her feelings she would make it beyond them. She would keep being brave and surviving one day at a time, and here Farkle would be doing the same thing.

iii.

Leaving New York the day after Christmas, Maya knew that she couldn't wait so long to come back. Maybe staying busy was good, but she couldn't leave Farkle and the kids for so long. It wasn't good for them; it wasn't good for her. The kids needed to know now more than ever how much Auntie Maya cared, and she needed to grieve with Farkle. Maybe the presence of the kids kept them from talking about Riley or their feelings. Still, it was comforting to just be there and to look at each other and know that they were not alone. Farkle's pit of sadness was way deeper than her own, and the words were buried beneath layers and layers of thoughts and feelings he barely knew how to feel let alone express. And she could tell that he knew that she understood that and that she had no expectations only that his door would be open and his shoulder there if she needed something to lean on. He could do both of those things, and beyond that he need not talk or express until he was ready. When she left Christmas Eve, she could see a look of thankfulness in his eyes that filled her with warmth. She knew that Lucas and Zay were looking out for him, but they didn't understand him like she did.

She returned in February knowing that her time in New York would leave her feeling better about life. Looking out for Riley's dear ones gave her a new sense of purpose and a reason to face all the memories that threatened to make her cry. She picked Aaron and little Charlotte up and took them everywhere Riley used to—everywhere Aaron said they didn't go anymore. She knew why. Farkle simply couldn't hack it; taking care of the kids, Riley had been at her best always smiling, loving, caring, instilling hope, and savoring life with every fiber of her being. At the children's museum where Maya had been with Riley and kids only twice, all she could see was Mom Riley teaching her kids, full of happiness to see them having so much fun. Maya reached for her tissues a lot that day, so much Aaron asked about it. She didn't know what to say—Auntie Maya was just having a hard day. And he had told her he loved her with the biggest hug, and all she could think was that Riley would be proud. Maya had always considered the kids too much, been scared at the thought of having children of her own. Yet, here she was managing the two on her own and thriving despite her grief.

She left New York again with a sense that she needed to stay in touch. The kids needed her. They needed to know that someone was there and that it wasn't just about Mommy being gone. They needed to know that she cared and was deeply invested in their lives, so she sent postcards from everywhere she went and texted Farkle pictures of things she thought they'd enjoy seeing. And she returned in April for Aaron's spring break and spent the entirety of the week with them. Farkle unfortunately was busy preparing for a proposal at work, so she didn't see him until Saturday. She missed him but encouraged herself with the thought that he knew that she was there and that his children were well taken care of.

She left again with joy in her heart. Riley's children were the dearest people in the world, and getting to see her live on in them gave her hope for the world. Aaron had his mama's kind heart and couldn't bear the thought of anyone hurting, and little Charlotte had a love for life unlike anyone Maya had ever seen. And their dark eyes sparkled like hers reminding Maya that Riley could never completely be gone from this world.

Maya returned for two weeks that summer. Farkle had wanted to pay her for her trouble, but she reminded him that she was doing it for Riley. And they had compromised with her staying at the penthouse so there no taxi rides or meals for her to pay for. It was a glorious two weeks, and Maya found herself enjoying every moment knowing that she didn't have long. She took the kids to all their favorite places packing every day with fun memories she hoped would stick with them forever just like the days with Riley had with her. She came home from a day at Coney Island, dehydrated and sunburnt, but Farkle merely noted that she had a glow. It was happiness. One of the attendants, a kind older lady had referred to her as the kids' mother. She wasn't their mother, didn't want to be their mother. Still, her heart exploded to hear that someone else could see the love she had for them; it was love that she had because of Riley—love that she had both inspired and taught. In that moment, Maya knew that the sadness was only temporary. Everything that Riley had taught her would remain with her forever—people change people and lessons well learned are never forgotten.

Before she left again, she and Farkle had planned her fall vacation. She would stay with them again, and Farkle would take a few days off so they could visit a cabin upstate and enjoy the beautiful fall foliage. She departed from New York amidst tears knowing that she was leaving her heart there. She had never really missed it much before. She loved traveling, and she had always known that her family could get along just fine without her. But now a new vision of family was arising, one where she was the dear Auntie who took Mommy's place as best she could and was Farkle's best friend and the closest thing he had to a confidante. They needed her, and being away from them made her miss New York like she never had before. She counted down the days until Fall vacation longing to return to New York and go home. She wanted to talk to Aaron and Charlotte face to face and feel Farkle's arms around her neck.

iv.

The first Saturday morning of fall vacation found them up at the cabin making a big, hot breakfast. The weather was just perfect for cooking up delicious treats and and savoring the coziness of a kitchen filled with love. Farkle was by far the superior cook, but Maya loved seeing the kids smile and did her best. They made pancakes, standing around the stove together watching their creations turn golden brown. Charlotte and Aaron were on kitchen chairs and carefully following Farkle's instructions for flipping pancakes. Farkle's arm rested around Maya's shoulder holding her close to the warmth of his body. Maya stood silent completely lost in the beauty of the moment and wishing that Riley could be there to see it too. She was completely taken aback by seeing Farkle turn sideways and lean toward the corner of her face. Her reflexes were just as good as they had been when Farkle had first tried to kiss her in seventh grade; noticing and reacting quickly was what kept her safe while traveling alone. This time, she did nothing. She was safe, and his leaning closer merely made her feel warm inside.

The moment Farkle's lips touched Maya's forehead, an image of Farkle kissing Riley on the forehead flashed through her mind. Maybe it was because he had done it all the time. Somewhere between junior high and adulthood, he had decided that he wasn't a fan of PDA and preferred to save most kissing for private. The times where Maya had seen her friends lock lips had been few, but she couldn't tell you how many times she had seen Farkle press a kiss to Riley's forehead. It was such a simple gesture, but it felt so sacred given Farkle's love for privacy. It told the greatness of his love in the grandest way he felt comfortable showing publicly. With those memories, chills ran up Maya's spine. Farkle had just kissed her forehead; he never kissed anyone's forehead except Riley's and perhaps little Charlotte's. In her panic, she managed a "I'm not Riley" to which he replied "I know".

She ducked from under his arm desperate to get away. She couldn't stay and face the confusion she felt. What was going on? Yes, Farkle hadn't been this friendly with her when Riley had been alive, but she had figured that he was merely lonely. She had thought nothing more of the hugs, the smiles of gratitude, the invitations to come and stay with him and the kids. She was Auntie Maya and his best friend now that Riley was gone—that and nothing more. She would have excused this as a careless mistake except he didn't seem confused, was too quick to reply that he knew she wasn't Riley. And he didn't apologize afterwards like he always did when he felt that he had done something wrong. Maybe he had taken his arm off the moment Maya started to move, but he had said he knew she wasn't Riley like what he had done was the most natural thing in the world.

Could he be hoping that she'd...she'd take Riley's place? They had become so close in the past few months, but she had assumed that it was loneliness that had rekindled the friendship that they had enjoyed when they were young. But maybe she had read it all wrong—the way he texted her to tell her everything, looked at her like her smile brightened him inside, always wanted her to be there. He had been so friendly with her, but she never once suspected that it was anything more.

What did she think of that? She honestly wasn't sure. Farkle had been Riley's for so long that she didn't know whether she could think of him any other way. It felt like the worst violation of girl code to get close to your best friend's man never mind that said friend had passed away and her husband and children were in need of a woman's love. The thought of Farkle wanting someone other than Riley was disturbing even if Riley was gone and that someone was her. It was supposed Farkle and Riley, and she doing her own thing. She sat on the bed of her room unsure how she'd face the rest of the weekend alone at the cabin with him and the children.

That night on the front porch, what she had been dreading happened, and he asked her what was wrong. What was she supposed to say? She didn't know what there was to say; it was possible that she had misread everything, and she didn't want to make it awkward by insinuating he had wanted more. So, she looked at him and merely listened as he apologized for making her feel uncomfortable and promised he wouldn't do that again. He paused, and the silence felt heavy with the important words she knew were coming. She thought he would say something about loving her or wanting her to be with him, but instead, his words took a different turn.

"You remind me of Riley", he began, and she had to look away. Tears filled her eyes. She didn't want to be Riley; she had always been Maya except that one blip in eighth grade when she had thought Riley was the only person to be. No, she was Maya, and there was only one Riley—the one who was gone from them forever. She heard his voice break and turned back to look at him. It was the first time they had ever cried together since Riley died, and she never wanted to forget it. She felt close to him, closer than she had in a long time. Tears streamed down his face as he told her her smile lines were like Riley's as was the way she wanted to always capture a beautiful moment and the love she had for his children. It was so beautiful to him, seeing Riley's kindness, hope, and love in Maya and knowing that she too had been forever marked by the woman he had loved. Her crying turned into sobbing; he was right. She would never be Riley, but her life would always reflect the beauty of Riley's light. Farkle was the only one who would ever understand that, and she would always love him for that. He called her over, and she sat across his lap. His arms snaked around her and pulled her close. He held her until her sobs grew quieter and the tears stopped falling from his eyes. With his hand in hers over her heart, he told her he loved her, and the tears returned to her eyes as he kissed the top of her head.

It was the beginning of something new. It would be the two of them together for as long as they had. She would share his heart, life, and home; become his second wife and the new mother of his children. It wasn't all for the best; she knew they would always feel like Riley was missing, they would be forever be grieving her loss. But they'd be doing it together hand in hand. It wasn't the future she'd dreamed for herself—she had been perfectly happy with the family she had found with her mom and Shawn, Farkle and Riley and the kids, and all the others. But she had always talked about the meandering path of life, and this was where hers was taking her. She knew that no matter what happened Riley would live on in the light and hope that streamed from their lives. It wasn't an easy road, but together, they had love and hope for the future, and she was sure she saw the sun rising. Dawn had come.

Author's Note: I'm not sure why I wrote this. I'm not usually into a sad fics, but the idea of this universe wouldn't leave me alone. I hope this left you feeling hopeful despite the sadness you had to wade through. I'm halfway through a fic that is based on Farkle's prospective within this same universe. I should be posting that sometime fairly soon. I'd love to know your thoughts on this and what if anything spoke to you.

1 note · View note

maximumdreamlandcollector · 4 years

Text

Idagio—the Spotify for Classical Music—Has Changed My Life

I really don’t mean to get all Music Appreciation 101 on you, but I need to ask: Have you listened to classical lately? On purpose, I mean. A local string quartet playing Vivaldi during cocktail hour at your college roommate’s wedding—or a Mozart piano concerto broadcast through the surprisingly decent sound system at your local gourmet produce market—doesn’t count.

Until quite recently, I listened to a ton of classical music—both live and, more often, on recordings: opera, symphonies, choral works, string quartets, piano trios, and solo pieces, for starters, from a wide range of orchestras and conductors and choruses and performers from around the world as recorded by scores of labels.

What happened? Quite simply, streaming music happened. And here’s where I hear a plaintive lacrimoso recitative: Don’t streaming music services have a wealth of classical offerings?

Yes—and, effectively, no. Both Apple Music and Spotify boast thousands upon thousands of all of the above and more. And they’re wonderful to listen to if you know exactly what you’re looking for. If you don’t—if you’re relying on either of these streaming services to help you discover new composers or new performers or new works, or if you’re looking to use their interface to explore these things on your own—you’re likely out of luck.

It all comes down to metadata. While metadata for most popular music is quite simple—there’s the artist, the song or track, and the album it’s from—classical metadata might encompass everything from the composer, the orchestra, the conductor, the choir (which may have its own director), various soloists, the title of the piece (along with perhaps some sort of number or nomenclature to indicate its place within a larger symphony or work), and an artist’s opus number, or, in the case of composers like Mozart or Bach, whose works are ordered by their own system, their Kochel or BWV number. Not simple.

This isn’t merely a matter for Juilliard students to debate while waiting for rehearsal space. If a streaming service doesn’t have more than three or more fields of dynamic metadata, any browsing or searching you do will be rendered largely pointless. There’s a larger issue of respect at play here as well. If you want to browse by genre in Apple Music, for example, you’re presented with 35 categories to choose from, including African Music, Bollywood, K-Pop, Latino, Música Mexicana, Música Tropical, Pop Latino, Reggae, Rock y Alternativo, Soul/Funk, Urbano Latino, and World—yet 15 centuries of music from around the world, from Gregorian chant and liturgical plainsong through Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Wagner, Stravinsky, Debussy, John Cage, musique concrète, Steve Reich, Iannis Xenakis, Gavin Bryars, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, and the Boston Pops are all neatly encompassed under a single genre: Classical.

And then there’s this: Browse “Ludwig van Beethoven” under Artists in Apple Music, and you’ll find what seems to be a helpful scroll at the bottom of the screen listing “Similar Artists.” Fair enough—there’s Tchaikovsky, Mozart . . . uh . . . The Philadelphia Orchestra. . . and then, oddly, Chopin. Click on that Chopin and you’ll find not the sublime work of the peerless Frédéric Chopin, who composed music of staggering, heartrending genius, but a song called “Circumstance” by the hip-hop artist J.O. Rodriguez, featuring “Chopin.” (Opening line: “Seems like lately you gotta do everything your daaaaamn self. Can’t ask for no daaaaaamn help.”) Molto agitato!

To compound the insults, have a gander at the “Top Songs” listed under any major composer. Who knew, really, that a highlight of Beethoven’s oeuvre was “Fur Elise Reimagined” by DJ cMellow & Ludwig van Beethoven? And who could have predicted that the second track listed for Mozart would be his “Piano Sonata No. 10 in C Major” as recorded by the virtually unheard-of Pennrose Orchestra on Classical Piano Lullabies Volume 1? (It’s the pastel-color album with a teddy bear on the cover.)

As far as Spotify goes: Take much of the above, with a slightly more user-friendly interface. Tidal? Same, plus a virtually useless search function. Sounds complicated, yes?

The upside of all this: It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s 15 centuries of mind-blowing music out there waiting for you to discover it, or rediscover it, or obsess on it—and it doesn’t require a lick of expertise on your part.

Idagio, launched in the United States and Canada last fall, is a new streaming service focusing solely on classical recordings—but focusing on doing it right. It’s not simply a matter of what they offer (currently over a million tracks, with 20,000 more added each month), but, rather, how they offer it: Idagio’s interface is at once elegant, easy to navigate and understand, and robust in terms of what you can do with it. Searches are a breeze—or if you don’t know just what you’re looking for, you can browse by composers, ensembles, soloists, conductors, instruments, genres, and periods. Still at a loss? Use the Discover-button navigation to find featured new releases, look at what’s popular now, or listen to composer essentials, award-winning albums, or scores and scores of brilliantly curated themed playlists (from “Femme Fatales” and learned explorations of, say, the overture or the toccata to “Child Prodigies” and classical music for children) and exclusive performances and recordings. Save whatever you want to your own playlist, and download anything you want available 24/7. If you’re an audiophile who obsesses about sound quality, you can stream (and download) in lossless format.

Too complicated? There’s a button for that, too. Go to “Moods” navigation, and a circle appears on-screen. Simply put your finger down and twirl the circle to pick any one of the moods that arise: Passionate (a Schumann sonata for violin and piano); Melancholic (a Schubert string quartet); Radiant (some rousing Paganini for violin and orchestra); Gentle (a Scriabin piano sonata); and onward through Exciting, Nervous, Angry, Happy, Relaxed, Peaceful, Optimistic, Joyful, Powerful, Festive, Sad, and Tragic.

Me, I generally know what I’m looking for, though there’s no button for The Opposite of Punk Rock. I listen to enough (mostly) guitar-based music that’s passionate, radiant, exciting, nervous, angry, joyful, and powerful all at once that when I reach for classical music, I’m likely going for some sweet spot in between melancholic, gentle, and tragic—a combination that I consider radiant, joyful, and powerful. Specifically, this usually takes the form of sacred choral music from the 16th and 17th century (I have a 30-year-long fanboy obsession with The Tallis Scholars under the direction of Peter Phillips) and more modern piano music—mainly in forms a bit smaller and quieter than full-on concertos and sonatas—from the likes of Arvo Pärt, Bartók, Messiaen, Satie, Copland, Reich, and Barber.

But has Idagio actually changed my life, or just given me another music-streaming app with which to obsess over and build absurdly specific categorized playlists? A little bit of both, frankly: I’ve found that—particularly with a good pair of noise-canceling headphones—solo piano music is an almost ecstatic counterpoint to a morning-rush-hour subway commute. I’ve discovered that the high-volume, lossless streaming of The Tallis Scholars’s rendition of Allegri’s Miserere transports me to Merton College Chapel at Oxford, where it was recorded, in a way that sets the hairs on my arm on end.

I’ve also started buying more tickets to classical concerts (in particular the brilliantly curated and hauntingly site-specific splendors of the Angel’s Share series, held in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn) and fewer to everything else. And instead of playing air guitar, I’m listening to pieces I used to sing a long time ago—in particular, Mozart’s “Non più andrai” aria from Le Nozze di Figaro, under the weight of which I crashed and burned at state competition in high school—and air-singing them with sublime perfection. (Idagio offers 23 well-annotated recordings of this aria, in recordings from 1937 to 2015, not one of which is from Mozart and Baby Friends Playtime.)

In short: Bravo.

0 notes

reinventinghamish · 7 years

Text

J.O.

I picture you lying there in your bedroom, the same one you had in high school. Now at age 29, silent, a needle hanging out of your arm. I have so many questions that will never be answered. Who found you? How long had it been since it happened? Why weren’t you being watched 24/7 after getting out of rehab? When and how did heroin even enter the picture? I know that none of these answers would change anything but I can’t stop my mind from asking, asking, asking. You visit me in my dreams. You are always smiling and we are back in high school when we first met. ********** It was the end of high school and the beginning of the rest of our lives. I was new to school, my senior year, surrounded by cliques who had been together since kindergarten. I remember like it was yesterday, you following me after class and asking for my number. I think I blushed through the entire following class. We shared a class focused on the basics of life as an adult. How to balance a checkbook, file taxes, apply for jobs, etc etc. Looking back, I think these economics classes are so funny. They prepare you for all of this mundane bullshit but never for anything that really matters. It is not very difficult to figure out how to use a checking account. You know what is hard? Losing your first love to a fucking drug overdose and not being able to understand. The world is so full of trauma, waiting to tear us apart and no one fucking told us. I can remember everything so vividly. The smell of the leather in your silver Passat, the hint of marijuana and the spearmint covering it up. The sound of incubus on the stereo and your hand in mine. I remember sneaking into your basement through a very small window at night, and quietly escaping in the morning. I had a job in which I had to wake up at 5am on the weekends, but we’d stay up until sometimes 3 or 4am. I’d have to sneak up to the upper level to use the bathroom before we went to sleep and the entire room had mirrored walls, highlighting my flushed cheeks. I’d have just a touch of sleep but a smile on my face the entire following day. Every time I hear Bone Thugs N Harmony (which happens more than you’d think) I transport myself back in time. Those last few weeks of summer before we went to separate colleges across the country from each other, are some of my happiest memories. I cried so hard the day you left. My naïve, hopeful heart continued telling me we’d be able to make it work. We were young but strong. You came to visit me whenever you could. Whenever you left, I’d hide away and cry for hours. By the way, it’s hard to truly grieve when you share a 10x12 room with three other people. I felt like the world was an incredibly cruel place. You know that cliché kiss in the rain movie scene that everyone dreams of? We had that at the corner of Sheffield and Fullerton in Chicago. I will never forget it. I mean, it’s been 12 years and I’m here writing about it. That was our last physical moment together before we decided to call it quits. I still remember watching you walk into the turnstile to take the train to the airport, water pouring off the ends of your hair over your face. The water on my face blending with hot tears. When we finally went our separate ways, it was purely due to distance. You were in Colorado. I was in Michigan. I don’t even remember how we decided. It just seemed like it was something neither of us could manage at that time in our lives. However, it was clear that bond was still there. Year after year we’d check in on each other. I still have your phone number memorized to this day. Yours never changed and I liked that. I called your phone when I heard the news to let it go to voicemail just to hear your voice one last time. Your number and your voice, ever the same. The only thing different is that you didn’t pick up, couldn’t pick up. Ever again. So now we’re coming up on the anniversary of your death and here I am rehashing everything again. We weren’t close anymore, not by any means. However, you had called recently and I couldn’t talk. I called back and you couldn’t talk. Finally, we dropped it. I still wonder what you would have said. Would I have known you were battling some horrific demons? Every time I drive through the area where I was the last time we talked, I feel a pit in my stomach. Like I want to leap back in time and pull over and say, “Nope, I’m not busy. Not at all. I have all the time in the world right now.” If I had known that was the last conversation, I would have sat there in the pounding rain and talked for hours. All of this is hard to explain because I am married. Happily. However, that was the one relationship in my entire life that ended for reasons other than animosity. We simply couldn’t. And as years went on, you were still in the back of my mind. When I got engaged, you congratulated me. You respected that and our calls grew further and further apart. When I got pregnant, you called me after seeing the announcement on Facebook. You congratulated me but I heard something in your voice. Regret? Jealousy? You said, “I always thought it’d be us. I always thought someday, somehow, we’d be together again.” And deep inside my heart I knew that I had always thought that too. Well, Jake, we were wrong. We weren’t meant to be together. But that doesn’t mean you don’t occupy an enormous place in my heart anyway. It seems you may know that. Wherever you are, I feel like you and I are still connected. I hope that there is an amazing afterlife in which you get to essentially live again but without the pain of existence. There you are, smiling, the life of the party as usual. And it’s 2005 and we have our whole lives ahead of us…

#loss #love #memories

3 notes · View notes

trendingnewsb · 6 years

Text

The 6 Stages You Experience When You Try to Change Your Behaviors

There’s no doubt about it – change is tough. Old habits are hard to shift, and adopting a new lifestyle can feel like an uphill battle! In this article, you will learn about a simple yet powerful model: stages of change model, that explains the science behind personal transformation.

You’ll discover how and why some changes stick whereas others don’t last, and how long it takes to build new habits.

What is the Stages of Change Model?

Developed by researchers J.O. Prochaska and Carlo C. DiClemente over 30 years ago[1] and outlined in their book Changing For Good, the Stages of Change Model, also known as the Transtheoretical Model, was formed as a result of the authors’ research with smokers.

Prochaska and DiClemente were originally interested in the question of why some smokers were able to quit on their own, whereas others required professional help. Their key conclusion was that smokers (or anyone else with a bad habit) quits only when they are ready to do so.

Here’s an illustration done by cartoonist and illustrator Simon Kneebone about the different stages a smoker experiences when they try to quit smoking:

The Stages of Change Model looks at how these conscious decisions are made. It emphasizes that change isn’t easy. People can spend a long time stuck in a stage, and some may never reach their goals.[2]

The model has been applied in the treatment of smoking, alcoholism, and drugs. It is also a useful way of thinking about any bad habit. Social workers, therapists, and psychologists draw on the model to understand their patients’ behaviors, and to explain the change process to the patients themselves.

The key advantages to the model is that it is simple to understand, is backed by extensive research, and can be applied in many situations.

The Stages of Change Model is a well-established psychological model that outlines six stages of personal change:

Precontemplation

Contemplation

Determination

Action

Maintenance

Termination

How are these stages relevant to changing habits?

To help you visualize the stages of change and how each progresses to the next one, please take a look at this wheel:[3]

Let’s look at the six stages of change,[4] together with an example that will show you how the model works in practice:

Stage 1: Precontemplation

At this stage, an individual does not plan to make any positive changes in the next six months. This may because they are in denial about their problem, feel too overwhelmed to deal with it, or are too discouraged after multiple failed attempts to change.

For example, someone may be aware that they need to start exercising, but cannot find the motivation to do so. They might keep thinking about the last time they tried (and failed) to work out regularly. Only when they start to realize the advantages of making a change will they progress to the next stage.

Stage 2: Contemplation

At this stage, the individual starts to consider the advantages of changing. They start to acknowledge that altering their habits would probably benefit them, but they spend a lot of time thinking about the downside of doing so. This stage can last for a long time – possibly a year or more.

You can think of this as the procrastinating stage. For example, an individual begins to seriously consider the benefits of regular exercise, but feels resistant when they think about the time and effort involved. When the person starts putting together a concrete plan for change, they move to the next stage.

The key to moving from this stage to the next is the transformation of an abstract idea to a belief (e.g. from “Exercise is a good, sensible thing to do” to “I personally value exercise and need to do it.)[5]

Stage 3: Preparation

At this point, the person starts to put a plan in place. This stage is brief, lasting a few weeks. For example, they may book a session with a personal trainer and enrol on a nutrition course.

Someone who drinks to excess may make an appointment with a drug and alcohol counsellor; someone with a tendency to overwork themselves might start planning ways to devise a more realistic schedule.

Stage 4: Action

When they have decided on a plan, the individual must then put it into action. This stage typically lasts for several months. In our example, the person would begin attending the gym regularly and overhauling their diet.

Stage 4 is the stage at which the person’s desire for change becomes noticeable to family and friends. However, in truth, the change process began a long time ago. If someone you know seems to have suddenly changed their habits, it’s probably not so sudden after all! They will have progressed through Stages 1-3 first – you probably just didn’t know about it.

Stage 5: Maintenance

After a few months in the Action stage, the individual will start to think about how they can maintain their changes, and make lifestyle adjustments accordingly. For instance, someone who has adopted the habit of regular workouts and a better diet will be vigilant against old triggers (such as eating junk food during a stressful time at work) and make a conscious decision to protect their new habits.

Unless someone actively engages with Stage 5, their new habits are liable to come unstuck. Someone who has stuck to their new habits for many months – perhaps a year or longer – may enter Stage 6.

Maintenance can be challenging because it entails coming up with a new set of habits to lock change in place. For instance, someone who is maintaining their new gym-going habit may have to start improving their budgeting skills in order to continue to afford their gym membership.

Stage 6: Termination

Not many people reach this stage, which is characterized by a complete commitment to the new habit and a certainty that they will never go back to their old ways. For example, someone may find it hard to imagine giving up their gym routine, and feel ill at the thought of eating junk food on a regular basis.

However, for the majority of people, it’s normal to stay in the Maintenance period indefinitely. This is because it takes a long time for a new habit to become so automatic and natural that it sticks forever, with little effort. To use another example, an ex-smoker will often find it hard to resist the temptation to have “just one” cigarette even a year or so after quitting. It can take years for them to truly reach the Termination stage, at which point they are no more likely to smoke than a lifelong non-smoker.

How long does each stage take?

You should be aware that some people remain in the same stage for months or even years at a time. Understanding this model will help you be more patient with yourself when making a change. If you try to force yourself to jump from Contemplation to Maintenance, you’ll just end up frustrated. On the other hand, if you take a moment to assess where you are in the change process, you can adapt your approach.

So if you need to make changes quickly and you are finding it hard to progress to the next stage, it’s probably time to get some professional help or adopt a new approach to forming habits.

The limitations of this model

The model is best applied when you decide in advance precisely what you want to achieve, and know exactly how you will measure it (e.g. number of times per week you go to the gym, or number of cigarettes smoked per day). Although the model has proven useful for many people, it does have limitations.

Require the ability to set a realistic goal

For a start, there are no surefire ways of assessing whereabouts in the process you are – you just have to be honest with yourself and use your own judgement. Second, it assumes that you are physically capable of making a change, whereas in fact you might either need to adjust your goals or seek professional help.

If your goal isn’t realistic, it doesn’t matter whether you follow the stages – you still won’t get results. You need to decide for yourself whether your aims are reasonable.[6]

Difficult to judge your progress

The model also assumes that you are able to objectively measure your own successes and failures, which may not always be the case.[7] For instance, let’s suppose that you are trying to get into the habit of counting calories as part of your weight-loss efforts. However, even though you may think that you are recording your intake properly, you might be over or under-estimating.

Research shows that most people think they are getting enough exercise and eating well, but in actual fact aren’t as healthy as they believe. The model doesn’t take this possibility into account, meaning that you could believe yourself to be in the Action stage yet aren’t seeing results. Therefore, if you are serious about making changes, it may be best to get some expert advice so that you can be sure the changes you are making really will make a positive difference.

The Stages Of Change Model can be a wonderful way to understand change in both yourself and others. Start by identifying one of your bad habits. Where are you in the process? What could you do next to move forwards? Good luck!

Featured photo credit: Freepik via freepik.com

Reference

[1]^Psych Central: Stages Of Change[2]^Boston University School Of Public Health: The Transtheoretical Model (Stages Of Change)[3]^Empowering Change: Stages of Change[4]^Boston University School Of Public Health: The Transtheoretical Model (Stages Of Change)[5]^Psychology Today: 5 Steps To Changing Any Behavior[6]^The Transtheoretical Model: Limitations Of The Transtheoretical Model[7]^Health Education Research: Transtheoretical Model & Stages Of Change: A Critique

The post The 6 Stages You Experience When You Try to Change Your Behaviors appeared first on Lifehack.

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2F0rS0p via Viral News HQ

#IFTTT #Viral News HQ

0 notes

trendingnewsb · 6 years

Text

The 6 Stages You Experience When You Try to Change Your Behaviors

You’ll discover how and why some changes stick whereas others don’t last, and how long it takes to build new habits.

What is the Stages of Change Model?

Here’s an illustration done by cartoonist and illustrator Simon Kneebone about the different stages a smoker experiences when they try to quit smoking:

The key advantages to the model is that it is simple to understand, is backed by extensive research, and can be applied in many situations.

The Stages of Change Model is a well-established psychological model that outlines six stages of personal change:

Precontemplation

Contemplation

Determination

Action

Maintenance

Termination

How are these stages relevant to changing habits?

To help you visualize the stages of change and how each progresses to the next one, please take a look at this wheel:[3]

Let’s look at the six stages of change,[4] together with an example that will show you how the model works in practice:

Stage 1: Precontemplation

Stage 2: Contemplation

Stage 3: Preparation

At this point, the person starts to put a plan in place. This stage is brief, lasting a few weeks. For example, they may book a session with a personal trainer and enrol on a nutrition course.

Someone who drinks to excess may make an appointment with a drug and alcohol counsellor; someone with a tendency to overwork themselves might start planning ways to devise a more realistic schedule.

Stage 4: Action

Stage 5: Maintenance

Unless someone actively engages with Stage 5, their new habits are liable to come unstuck. Someone who has stuck to their new habits for many months – perhaps a year or longer – may enter Stage 6.

Stage 6: Termination

How long does each stage take?

So if you need to make changes quickly and you are finding it hard to progress to the next stage, it’s probably time to get some professional help or adopt a new approach to forming habits.

The limitations of this model

Require the ability to set a realistic goal

If your goal isn’t realistic, it doesn’t matter whether you follow the stages – you still won’t get results. You need to decide for yourself whether your aims are reasonable.[6]

Difficult to judge your progress

Featured photo credit: Freepik via freepik.com

Reference

The post The 6 Stages You Experience When You Try to Change Your Behaviors appeared first on Lifehack.

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2F0rS0p via Viral News HQ

#IFTTT #Viral News HQ

0 notes