#is it bad if i read this to my therapist like poetry slam she didn’t agree to or want? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

therainbowwillow · 3 years

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Oh yeah, here’s part 3: https://therainbowwillow.tumblr.com/post/640227062984130560/therainbowwillow

I’m tired of school, so I’m going to write now. This is part 4/?? of my Hadestown AU.

Here’s the premise/what happened last time so you don’t have to read it all: Hades is having a midlife crisis about the fact that his wife would rather be hungover than speak with him. Instead of getting a therapist, he decides murdering a very tired teenager is a far better coping mechanism. Hermes is so tired of his travel companions, Dionysus and Apollo, he gets hella drunk. Orpheus is blaming himself for the difficulty of their journey. He’s kinda losing it. He feels terrible that he let Eurydice die and now he must ask her to drag him out of Hadestown, given that he was shot in the leg by a would-be assasin. Eurydice is trying to keep Orpheus motivated to get out of Hadestown. It is going about as well as the rest of their escape attempt. Achilles is worrying about Patroclus, who was shot in the shoulder while defending Orpheus. Patroclus is trying to get him to shut up. The workers are taking sides. (Which must be fun because their choices are losing-it Hades or losing-it Orpheus. Then again, Hades wants to murder a kid and Orpheus just wants to not get murdered.)

Here we go:

“Orpheus, how are you doing?” Eurydice asks again. They hadn’t made it very far. In fact, the greenhouses were still in sight. She tries to ignore this fact.

He looks up at her with sunken eyes. “Please... can we... can we rest soon?”

“A little farther,” Eurydice tells him. “How’s your leg?”

“It hurts. Please, Eurydice... can we sit down?”

“Soon, baby, soon.” She’s afraid that if he sits, he won’t stand again.

“I’m so tired, Eurydice. My stomach hurts. I can’t remember the last time I ate. Explain again why I can’t eat with you? I can’t remember what you told me.”

She sighs. “The living can’t eat the food of the dead because they’ll end up stuck down here.”

He swallows. “I... I don’t care.” His legs buckle under him and Eurydice catches him before he falls. “I’ll work for Hades. I’ll do anything. Just something to eat. Please...” he implores her.

“Hold up,” Eurydice calls to Persephone. “We can sit, Orpheus.” She lowers him to the ground. He winces. “Please don’t talk like that. I can’t lose you down here, love.”

“I can’t do this.” She pulls him into her arms.

“We’ll do it together, step by step.”

He shakes his head against her chest. “I... I can’t. I can’t. Every step is torture. I just want to close my eyes and...” he sighs softly. “Never... open them... again.” His voice trails off.

“I know it’s hard, but you can’t give up now! You came all this way!”

“I’m too tired to walk any more. Let me sleep... please...” His eyelids are heavy. So heavy... he closes his eyes.

———————————————

Orpheus blinks. He’s laying on a cold stone floor. Eurydice is nowhere in sight. He calls out to her.

‘Eurydice... Eurydice... Eurydice.’ The walls echo.

“Hello?”

‘Hello? Hello? hello...’

“Orpheus.”

Orpheus shudders at the sound of the cruel, almost harmonic voice. It doesn’t echo as his does. “Who’s there?”

“Who’s there! Who’s there? who’s there...’

“There is no escape.” His breaths are slow and strained. The air is rancid. It smells of death. And his leg hurts. Gods, his whole body hurts. “You belong to Hades now.”

“I’m not dead!” Orpheus begs.

‘I’m not dead! I’m not dead. I’m not dead...’ his echo mocks.

“The King of the Underworld will see you now.”

The door to Orpheus’s cell creaks open. He tries to scramble backwards, but his wrists are shackled to the ground. Hades stands in the doorframe. He smirks. “You failed.”

Orpheus shakes his head. “No... no... I don’t understand! I didn’t break your rules! I didn’t sing.”

Hades strides to his side and takes a knee. He lifts Orpheus’s head to face him. “What don’t you understand? No one leaves Hadestown.”

“Please...”

“Your little muse watched you turn to dust. Must’ve broken her heart.”

Orpheus buries his head in his hands. He lets tears streak down his cheeks as he curls up on the floor. “Let me go. I’m not dead. I’m not dead!” He shouts.

“The girl, Eurydice. And your protectors, Achilles, Patroclus, my wife, they’ve still got a chance. I could call off my shades, boy, if only you’ll agree to my terms.”

“Don’t hurt them. Don’t hurt them... please...” he moans.

“That’s up to you, Orpheus.”

“Let me out of here!” He wails.

“Enough!”

Orpheus clutches his head. “Argh!” he cries.

“Do you want to be agreeable, or do you prefer this?”

Orpheus rolls onto his side. His head feels like it’s going to explode. “S-stop...” he groans. The pain fades.

“Do we have a deal or don’t we?” Hades growls.

Orpheus gasps for breath. “What... terms?” he chokes.

“You,” Hades presses a finder into his chest. “Help me get this place under control. Your song’s powerful, boy.”

“H-how?”

“Write a song for the shades. Make them listen to you. And I’ll let your friends go.”

Orpheus shakes his head. “Why should I trust you? You gave me one rule. I didn’t break it, so you killed me.”

“Because if you don’t, Eurydice is mine. Patroclus and Achilles will never see each other again. And Persephone will be left all alone. She’ll be forced to return to me.”

“I’m not yours to control. The workers aren’t yours to control!” Orpheus sits upright. His head spins. “Let me go.”

Hades smiles. “Fool.” He rises and slams the cell door behind him.

“Wait!” He shouts. There’s no reply.

Orpheus strains against his chains. His ankles are bound, and his wrists. He tries to pull the shackles off over his hands, but to no avail. He sinks to the ground. Every breath burns his lungs. He feels like he’s suffocating. The cell is dark as pitch and he can’t see an inch in front of him. The bandages around his leg had been torn off at some point. He feels his blood pooling under him. He wraps his hands over his head and sobs. He rocks back and forth against the icy floor until he has no more tears to cry.

————————————

“Orpheus?” Patroclus places a finger against the poet’s neck. “I can feel his pulse. It’s slow. He’s barely breathing.”

“Unconscious?” Achilles asks.

“I... don’t know. He’s not getting in enough air to keep his heart beating, but he’s not dead.”

“What do we do?” Eurydice whispers. “He can’t die now... not after all he’s gone through.”

“We carry him?” Patroclus suggests. “I don’t see what else we can do.”

“With haste.” Persephone adds, “Like the plants in my greenhouse, he can’t hang on forever.”

“Where do we take him? We won’t be allowed across the Styx,” Achilles says.

“Away from Hades,” Persephone responds. “Hermes can help us get him home, if that message is to be trusted. Regardless, we can deal with the Styx once we get there. It’s a week’s walk. Longer, carrying Orpheus.”

“Can he hold on that long?” Eurydice asks.

Persephone sighs. “I hope so.” She lays out a blanket. “This’ll do for a stretcher until we find something better.” She lifts Orpheus onto it. She takes one end of the blanket and Achilles takes the other. “Eurydice, watch Orpheus. If anything changes, speak up. Patroclus, keep look out.”

——————————————

Hermes stumbles along the road, a much more bearable journey while drunk. Really drunk. So drunk that Apollo’s poetry brings tears to his eyes where normally, he’d probably want to throw himself off a cliff by this point, envying Hephaestus.

He half-remembers what he’s doing. Finding Orpheus. Where had the kid gone? He isn’t sure. He feels bad to come home drunk, though. Orpheus had always hated the scent of alcohol on his breath. The boy’s mother, Calliope, had smelled of wine last he’d seen her. A painful reminder of his childhood abandonment. Of course, Hermes didn’t blame the muse for leaving the boy behind. A single mother, all alone in the rain and storms, with Apollo as the boy’s father? It had been for Orpheus’s good that she’d given him up. Protection from Apollo’s unpredictably.

“Hey, Hermes! We’re here.” Dionysus says, waving a hand in front of Hermes’s face.

He blinks and his intoxication melts away. The railroad stretches out before them, spanning far beyond the horizon. A line of mortals stands along the track, slowly boarding the train. Thanatos takes their tickets. “I ask you again, Hermes, can’t you get out of those damn meetings?” He calls.

Hermes smiles. “I wish I could. Tickets for three, Thanatos.”

“Ah Dionysus, come to see your mother. Say hello to Hypnos for me, if you see him. I’ve been busy lately. And you, Apollo?”

“Working for Demeter,” Apollo says, “Persephone’s late again and she’s tired of waiting. Looks like I’m the only expendable Olympian these days.”

Thanatos nods. “If you plan of convincing Hades to send her back... well, best of luck to you. I wouldn’t cross him like this.”

“What’s happened?” Hermes asks.

“You don’t know?” Thanatos inquires. “Isn’t Orpheus your kid?”

“Mine, actually,” Apollo interrupts.

“Yes, I raised the boy,” Hermes explains. “Is he alright?” He already knows the answer.

“Listen, I’m sure you knew he was going to look for her. He almost made it but... Hermes, we should speak. Alone.”

Hermes nods. Dionysus takes over ticket collection, grinning at the shades.

Thanatos glances over his shoulder. “I’m not supposed to tell you anything, but you’ve done me plenty of favors. Don’t tell Hades, alright?”

“Of course,” Hermes agrees. “What happened?”

“Orpheus made it to the throne hall,” Thanatos begins. “He sang a song. I’d never heard anything like it. Hermes, flowers bloomed. Flowers. In Hadestown. Hades seemed moved by the boy’s melody. The poor kid was half-starved though. And I’ve never seen someone so exhausted. He passed out. It broke the charm of his song. He woke pretty quickly, but not fast enough. Hades told him he could leave, but his terms were meant to be impossible. Orpheus wouldn’t be allowed to look at his lover, nor touch her. And he couldn’t sing until he’d made it out.”

Thanatos sighs. “Poor boy. He didn’t have a choice. He was far too weary to stand on his own. He was leaned up against the girl. Hades called he deal broken and... I’ve never heard someone scream like that. Persephone talked him down and Orpheus escaped with his life, only singing was forbidden. Persephone left with him.”

“The order went out the day before last: kill him. To every shade in Hadestown, after I refused to do it myself. And yesterday... I wasn’t granted a second choice. It was kill Orpheus, or lose my home. Funny, I thought I commanded a little more respect than that. But I couldn’t refuse so I went and found the poor kid. I saw how desperate he looked, staring up at his lover.” Thanatos pauses for a second. “I gave Hades his soul, but I didn’t end the boy’s life. His mind is locked up in a cell somewhere, but his body is still breathing. I guess he’s somewhere between life and death. I don’t know how else to explain it. Gods, Hermes, I’m sorry. I live with my brother though, and his wife. Hypnos and Pasithea shouldn’t have to reestablish their lives somewhere else, not because of me.”

“That’s worse than I could’ve expected,” Hermes mutters. “Hades cared once. For his wife, for his realm, for his people.”

“I’ll get you as close as I can to your boy,” Thanatos promises. “Hades will eventually notice that he isn’t really dead. You need to move quickly. Apollo’s medical abilities should be enough to return him to life.”

Hermes nods. “Thank you, Thanatos.”

“Now, let’s get going. These shades can wait.”

———————————

Orpheus opens his eyes. It hardly matters. His cell is too dark to see a thing, eyes closed or open. His wrists are rubbed bloody by his repeated attempts at escape. His throat burns with his every breath of the awful underworld air. It’s more smog and death than it is oxygen.

His mind is hazy. He remembers a long walk. He’d been looking for someone. Further details are lost to the fog of the Lethe.

The first night, he’d desperately tried to escape his cage, Orpheus remembers. The second, he’d sang until he couldn’t make a sound. The third, he’d heard voices. He’d begged for food or a sip of water. He’d received nothing. Was this the fourth or the fifth? He couldn’t remember.

He’d forgotten his song, note by note. He’d scratched it into the floor with the edge of his chains, but when he draws his fingers across the lines of his music now, he finds it means nothing to him. Dots and lines, not notes. To think that it had once been a language to him... he vaguely remembers sitting by a fire, scribbling down those very same lines for the hundredth time on crumpled papers, soft from being folded.

This is his eternity, Orpheus knows. He’d given up hope of escape or rescue. Hades would keep him here, alone and in pain forever. No food, no water, his restless sleep woken by the echoing screams of his fellow prisoners. Hades. The only name he remembers. His prison warden.

What had he done wrong? Orpheus wonders. How had he ended up here? What great cruelty had he committed?

“Eternity.” Orpheus rasps.

‘Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity.’ The echo of his voice bounces down the hall.

He shivers. Sweat beads his forehead. His shuddering breaths are heard only by the stones. He lays there a moment, silent and unmoving.

Light washes across his cheeks. He shields his eyes. “You.” The voice that greets him is gravelly and cold.

“Who am I?” Orpheus whispers, desperately.

The man smiles. “A shade like any other.”

“No... I am someone.” Orpheus takes in a shaky breath. “Or... I was.”

“Now you are mine,” Hades states.

“All of those shades were people once.”

Hades nods. “And now they are mine.”

Orpheus blinks. The light spilling in through the doorway is blinding. His eyes slowly adjust to the new brightness. He recognizes his visitor now, Hades, king of shadows, king of shades, a red carnation in his front pocket.

His memories flood back to him suddenly. His song. He sits up, weakly, but he lifts his head and... “King of shadows,” he croaks, “King of shades. Hades is king of the underworld.”

Anxiety flutters through the god’s eyes. “You...”

“He fell in love with a beautiful lady. Who walked up above, in her mother’s green fields.” His voice cannot reach as high as it once did, but still he sings, quietly, in a lower tone. “He fell in love with Persephone, who was gathering flowers in the light of the sun.”

“Enough!” Hades snaps.

Orpheus continues. “And I know how it was because...” he remembers her face. Eurydice, the love of his life. “He was like me. A man... in love with a woman.”

Hades glares at him, but the god doesn’t move, he doesn’t react, so Orpheus doesn’t hesitate. “Singing... la la la la la la la.” He stops singing, smiling ever so slightly. More than he had for days. “You still love her.”

Hades nods.

“Why then, do you take everything from her?”

He is silent.

“Her wedding ring is as heavy as shackles around her wrists.”

Hades opens his mouth, as if to speak. No sound comes out.

The words fall from Orpheus’s mouth before he has a chance to consider them. “Let her go.”

“She would flee.”

“Perhaps.”

“I would be confined to the underworld. An eternity without solace,” Hades says.

“Maybe. But love is... love is doing what’s right. Even if it hurts.” He thinks of his walk to Hadestown. His long, long walk.

“There is no love if she is not by my side.”

“If you care so deeply for her, give her what she desires: freedom. Hades, she doesn’t want to be locked up, the only key around your neck.”

Hades says nothing.

“You do everything for her. You give her everything.” Hades nods. “Except for what she needs. She loved you because she had a choice. What became of your love, King Hades? What became of her choice?”

“She promised me eternity.”

“And you promised her six months up above. Promises are breakable. Now Persephone’s just another slave to your electric city.”

“You know nothing of my wife, boy,” Hades growls.

Orpheus sighs. “I know of your workers,” he rasps. “How they toil endlessly for no reward. Meager rations, and worse pay. They have nothing and you have everything. They flock to your wife because she is a light in the dark. The darkness you created. What happened to justice? Fair contracts? The man Persephone loved is gone,” he finishes. He sinks back to the ground, one hand laid across the music inscribed on the dusty floor.

Hades rises. The door clangs shut behind him.

#hadestown au #hadestown fanfic #hadestown #therainbowwrites

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riverboundao3ff · 4 years

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Riverbound, Chapter 17

All in all, Lanque’s a whole lot calmer about the whole thing than you thought he’d be, which makes you feel better about going to him right away instead of Daraya. Of course you love Daraya, but knowing the kid she’d probably run off to start a fight with Bronya, Lynera, and any other poor bastard who gets in her way.

“I want to believe Bronya’s doing this because she thinks she’s in the right, but I just can’t… augh! I just… can’t believe she’d ask me to do something like that.” You conclude your messy rant by flopping down on the carpet. There’s a dull ache in your skull from either exhaustion or anxiety, possibly both.

Lanque’s looking down at you from the loveseat in the corner like the universe’s most judgemental therapist, sprawled across the whole thing with his gangly self. “You haven’t known her nearly as long as I have. You heard me say once that she’s the craziest bitch in the whole cloister. I meant it.”

You want to argue with him; Bronya isn’t crazy, just a control freak, but that’s gonna have to be a discussion for another time. “You’re not surprised at all by this? Not even a little?”

“Not surprised. Just… disappointed.”

“What, does she make you to sleep at certain times and check your palmhusk, too?” you joke.

“Not anymore, she doesn’t. She learned her lesson after I filled my whole camera roll with the spiciest nudes you can imagine.”

You try not to imagine anything of the sort and fail miserably. Your last brain cell hangs on for dear life. “So, uh… w-what should I tell her the next time we go out?”

“Tell her that I’ve been taking Daraya to a slam poetry club. We’ve actually done poetry in the past, so it’s not like you’ll be lying,” he says with a smirk. “You should come sometime. Talk to people about all sorts of controversial alien opinions. Maybe throw in some rhymes while you’re at it.”

“Alright,” you agree.

“... Darling?”

“Yes, babe?”

“Don’t breathe a word of this to Daraya. She’s stressed out enough as it is.”

“Of course not.”

“Good.”

:::

The next night you spend with Polypa, vandalizing stuff with the Heiress’s face on it and even setting a billboard on fire. It’s a lot of fun, but between vandalizations you can’t stop yourself from thinking about the girl herself. From what you can tell she’d be around seventeen in human years, which meant she’d soon have to challenge the Empress, as all the Heiresses before her did.

Some teenagers like to play video games, some like to sing or dance or do sports; you even know a few who live all by themselves on an island in the middle of the ocean who can shoot guns better than most military personnel. But not Trizza Tethis. No, she’ll be off to duel for the throne… and her life.

In your hearts of hearts you know that Tethis is a monster. There’s no doubt about it. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still just a kid, a kid who is going to be murdered soon for the crime of reaching adulthood.

It makes your heart hurt just thinking about that, and all of the other girls that came before her, and if this rebellion goes to shit all the girls who will come after her.

“Hey, Polypa?” you ask.

“Yeah?” She’s hanging upside-down on some broken piping while spraying THE REVOLUTION IS HERE on the side of a post office. You’re being a good moirail and keeping watch for anybody who might see her, even though it’s dark out and you can’t see much past the street lights lining the sidewalk. For some reason she refuses to tell you, she’s been in a mood ever since she came back from Tegiri’s, but you’re patient. You can wait for her.

“Do you ever wonder if Trizza might have been a good person if Alternia wasn’t the way it is?”

Polypa stops what she’s doing and stares down at you. “Honestly? I don’t really care how she might have turned out if things were different. All the things I’ve seen her do, the shit I’ve heard her say on social media… I just can’t bring myself to believe anything other than she’s one of the most horrible Heiresses Alternia’s ever had and that she deserves to die. Slowly and painfully, that is. And then she deserves to be forgotten.”

“That’s fair,” you tell her. “I dunno, I just kept thinking about how she’s supposed to go off and duel the Empress soon, and that she’s definitely not gonna win, because none of the fuschias who went up against her ever did.”

“... Does that make you sad?”

“It makes me sad that a kid is going to die, yes.”

She huffs. “Save your sympathy. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“Can trolls control who they sympathize with?”

“Of course we can. Can’t humans?”

You laugh. “No. Or at least I can’t. Empathy’s a blessing and a curse.”

Polypa chucks her spray-paint can into the nearby dumpster. “Empathy? Isn’t that like, feeling what other people are feeling? I thought that was just a myth.”

“Some humans can feel the emotions of others. I’ve always been able to.”

“That sucks.”

“Again, it’s a blessing and a curse.”

Polypa shudders, flips upright, and then drops down to the concrete. “If you say so. C’mon, let’s scram.”

You scram, or at least you try to before somebody bumps into you hard enough to nearly knock you over.

“Watch it!” Polypa hisses from somewhere behind you.

You look up at a boft looking (buff plus soft) rustblood guy, who flinches back when he accidentally looks you in the eye. “Sorry! Sorry. Bye.”

He shuffles off down the street, shoulders hunched in like he’s trying to make himself as small as possible even though he’s easily the biggest rust you’ve ever seen. Huh.

“Well, that was weird,” you say, and then you feel something crinkle in the hood of your jacket. Cautiously, you reach up and grab it, hoping that he didn’t just put a bomb on you or something. You aren’t that worried about dying, because you know your immortal ass is coming right on back, but if Polypa’s in the blast zone--

“It’s a piece of paper,” she says.

“Oh, yay. I thought it might be a bomb.”

“Definitely not a bomb.”

The paper’s been folded several times, so you smooth it out and read the letters that have been cut out and glued out in a note, like some kind of Nancy Drew shit.

“What the…” You read the message, and then you read it again, once, twice, thrice, four times before Polypa starts swatting at you and grabbing for the paper. You hand it over and stare out across the street.

You are not alone. Tomorrow at midnight.

“I’m texting the others,” Polypa mutters, shoving the paper into her pocket and whipping out her palmhusk.

“There’s more of us,” you whisper. “That’s what it means, right? We’re not the only faction out there fighting for-!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, let’s not believe anything that some stranger wrote down on a piece of paper and shoved into your hoodie--”

“But he came to me, Polypa--”

“Hey!”

Both of you turn around to see some cerulean girl you don’t know storming across the street to you. “The fuck you think you gutterbloods are doing, huh?”

“The revolution is here, bitch,” you tell her, and you grab Polypa’s sleeve and zap away.

Polypa does not hesitate to smack you upside the head the second you two appear on the roof of some building downtown. “The hell was that? She just saw an alien and an oliveblood teleport out of an alley with fresh graffiti on the post office!”

“Who’s gonna believe her?” you snort.

“She’s a cerulean, she’ll make somebody believe her.”

“Dude. Chill. We still have time before things get crazy.”

“Apparently not! Tomorrow at midnight--”

“I know! Isn’t it great? What if it’s like, a big post on Chittr, or a public service announcement from God knows where saying that it’s time for bigots to start shitting their pants, because the revolution is here and it is sexy!”

“Augh!” Polypa throws up her hands. You start to get a little concerned. “Aren’t you scared? Like, at all? We could all die tomorrow and you’re just… totally fine! You disappear for half a sweep and come back ready to lead a revolution!”

Alright, it’s time to bring out the big guns. Slowly, so she has time to pull away if she wants, you step forward and reach up to caress her cheek.

The effect is instantaneous. She visibly loosens up from horns to toes, leaning forward into the contact with a low chirrup rising up from deep in her throat. If you were a troll, that sound would have probably made you pale-horny to the max, but you’re human so all you do is just stand up on your tippy-toes to press your foreheads together. You imagine pulling away all of her fear and stress and releasing it into the open sky, never to be seen again.

“We’re not going to die,” you tell her. “We’re just not. And if we were, I’d tell you, because dying isn’t that bad. Doesn’t even hurt, really.”

“... You’ve been dead before?”

“Yeah. Feels like the best fucking nap you’ve ever taken.”

She snorts hard enough for you to feel her breath across your face. “Only you would say something like that and be completely unbothered.”

“That’s just how it be sometimes,” you say, because joking about your trauma and having anxiety are basically your only two personality traits nowadays.

“I’ll write that down for the pile,” she says, because she’s always been able to see right through you, even when you can’t see yourself. “Which we’re going back to an abandoned apartment building to do once I yeet this glass bottle into that window over there.”

She picks up the broken glass bottle at your feet and proceeds to do just that. It sails through the air with all the majesty of an eagle and crashes through somebody’s office window. You know enough about troll romance by now to be a little scandalized by how forward she’s being, but you both know it’s out of necessity. Troll language is far from just verbal-- it’s flattened ears or bared fangs or dilated pupils. It’s hissing and chirping and growling and all sorts of sounds you don’t even know the names for, and you can’t even hear most of them because they’re either too low or too high a pitch for your human ears to catch.

“Hot damn, wildcat. You gonna take me out to dinner before you throw me down on somebody’s abandoned loungeplank?” you tease. Her face lights up in green, and you grin in satisfaction as she splutters something about saving it for the respiteblock.

You’re about to cook up something truly slutty to say when her palmhusk vibrates. Polypa reads it and snorts. “Aaaannnddd Daraya is losing her mind, Tagora says it’s a trap, Tyzias wants to know what the rustblood looked like, Stelsa is in agreement with Tagora, Lanque is asking how the hell it could be a trap when the rustblood didn’t even ask you to meet him anywhere, and Mallek is telling everybody to shut up so he can take a nap. Konyyl and Azdaja haven’t responded yet. I bet they’re making out in a back alley somewhere. Oh, Tagora is telling Lanque to shut his Troll Twilight-looking ass up before he fines him for wasting the rebellion’s time… and Tyzias just sent a bunch of hysterical laughing emojis.”

“I love my friends,” you say.

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

“I’m gonna get Mallek to hack the server so whenever people start arguing over stupid stuff a bot starts spamming the chat with gifs of fighting purrbeasts.”

“Do group chats have servers?”

“I have no idea. Come on, I’m fucking freezing up here.”

:::

Your memories of growing up on Earth are fuzzy at best. You have no idea if it’s from Scratch, or Ultimate Dirk, or hell, maybe it’s just regular old brain damage, but one of the few things you can vividly remember is when your grandma died.

You can’t remember her name, but you can easily recall her eternally-smiling face, that smile that always reached her eyes-- hazel, like yours. She’s the one who taught you how to braid your hair, wing your eyeliner, ask out a crush. She also taught you how to take down a grown man with nothing but your fists and a pocketknife. Old age hadn’t ever been a problem for your grandma. Or at least, that’s what it felt like.

The morning your uncle found in her lifeless in bed hadn’t felt any different than all of the mornings before. You just woke up and started to get ready for school, and then your mom… yeah, it was your mom who picked up the phone. She didn’t cry, but your uncle did.

It was a heart attack.

Your mom told you that you didn’t have to go to school, but you were still pretty young, and it still felt like every other morning before so you went to school.

You’re not sure why you’re remembering this when you first smell the smoke, or see the burning buildings from the roof of the abandoned apartment building you and Polypa crashed in. Maybe it’s because it still feels like every other night before this one.

Something deep in you that’s been irreversibly interwoven with time and space begins to tingle. This is a turning point in history, you just know it.

Polypa’s shaking her head like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. “It’s a riot. A riot. In Thrashthrust. We really aren’t…”

“Alone,” you finish with a smile so big it hurts your face.

“... Do you think this is really the right thing to do?”

“A wise man from my planet once said that riots are the language of the unheard.” You turn to her and take her hands in your own. “So let’s make them hear us.”

You’re not sure what you were expecting when you drop yourself and Polypa into downtown Thrashthrust, but you definitely weren’t expecting to almost get run over by Konyyl and Azdaja, both panting, sweaty, and smelling faintly of smoke.

Konyyl yelps and jumps about a foot in the air. “WHAT the-- oh, hi, guys. You didn’t scare me, I just… yeah.”

“Dude, what is all this? This is incredible!” you crow.

An explosion rocks the ground, followed by a giant plume of fire that shoots up into the sky just one street over. Azdaja whoops in delight, and Konyyl cheers even louder as a piece of flaming metal you think used to be a scuttlebuggy sails through the air and takes out a convenience store. Normally, something like that would have worried you, but seeing as the store’s already nearly burnt to the ground you think everybody’s already gotten out.

Not to be outdone, Azdaja telekinetically grabs on to a fallen lamppost and hurls that bad boy through the grocery store across the street.

“Show-off,” Konyyl scoffs.

“Where’s the main protest?” you ask.

“Like, a couple of blocks back that way. Some bronzeblood is leading the charge. Absolute mad lad,” she says, grinning. “I think a few more people you know might be there.”

That’s all the convincing you need to grab Polypa’s hand and take off running. You can hear the roar of a crowd chanting something.

“What are they saying?” you ask Polypa.

“Be silent no longer, when we’re together, we’re stronger,” she replied, glancing back at you with a twinkle in her eye. “I kinda like it.”

“Me too!”

The both of you turn the corner at the end of Hookedclaw street and find yourself face-to-face with a sizable crowd of about one hundred trolls. They’re all looking up to a pair of trolls standing on an upturned scuttlebuggy-- a bronzeblood, like Konyyl said, and the same big rustblood guy who you ran into last night.

You gape in shock. “Holy shit!”

The bronzeblood boy is yelling something, so you press closer into the crowd to hear what he’s saying. Most of the trolls here seem to be lowbloods, so when they see you and Polypa, an oliveblood, they gladly make room for you to join.

“... for what? A social construction that keeps us divided, because those who sit on thrones marked with the blood of our people know how strong we are together! They know that we’d be able to take control of our own destinies, and that terrifies them!” He pauses to take a short breath. “For fuck’s sake, I just want a world where I can walk down the street without worrying about getting killed! Is the bar really that damn low? Think about that, all of you!”

Another wave of cheering echoes through the streets, and you join in without hesitation.

“This guy’s spitting straight facts,” Polypa admits, looking impressed.

“He’s got balls, all right,” you agree. “That rustblood guy look familiar to you?”

She ribs you. “Yeah, yeah, you were right. I admit it.”

You turn your attention back to the boys, but they’re looking over the heads of the protestors at something behind you. A soft wave of hisses rise into the air as you turn to see a trio of purples stalking towards everybody, clubs dragging behind them with the awful scrape of steel against concrete. They’re twice the size of Polypa, except the giant fucker in the middle, who you think might be just a little bit shorter than Chahut.

“That’s a pretty sermon there, bronze brother,” he calls with a voice that crackles like burning wood. “Pretty for a load of treasonous fuckin’ shit.”

“Can’t be shittier than whatever they’re cooking up in that drug-hole church of yours,” the bronzeblood fires back with a smirk.

Even the rustblood standing next to him sucks in a sharp breath as the clown regards him with no trace of emotion. Polypa grabs your hand, and you squeeze it tight.

“You’ve got a big-ass mouth for a critter the size of my motherfuckin’ left toe,” the clown on the big guy’s right says.

“And you’ve got a big-ass forehead for a bastard with such a tiny skull.”

Somebody lets out a loud snort. It might have been you.

The feeble tendrils of bravery holding everybody together begin to unravel as the purplebloods begin to approach once more. You instinctively back up and pull your jacket hood over your head.

“Get ready,” Polypa growls.

But before the clowns have the chance to attack or use their chucklevoodoos, or before the lowbloods gather their courage enough to storm the intruders, a deafening CRACK splits the air like a thunderclap.

The clown to the far left drops like a rock, and standing over him, bat raised, is Elwurd.

She’s wearing a mask to conceal her face, of course, but you’d recognize that crest of blue hair anywhere. Beside her is Remele with her oversized mallet-club thing, and bringing up the rear with shining dual blades is none other than Ardata Carmia.

“Am I fucking dreaming,” you ask nobody in particular, and then all hell breaks loose.

The cerulean girls lunge for the two purplebloods that are still on their feet. The bronzeblood screams for everybody to scatter just as drones begin to swoop down from the sky, opening fire on the trolls below. Half a dozen kids drop dead on the spot.

You and Polypa duck into the nearest alleyway just in time before bullet holes pepper the pavement. Behind you, Elwurd roars something that sounds like “Duck!” before another explosion blows out all the windows. You yelp and cover your head as glass showers down on you like rainfall.

“Zap us out of here!” Polypa yells.

“No, wait! We have to go help the girls!”

“I’m not going back out there and neither are you!”

You glance back just in time to see Ardata drop to her knees, holding her bloody arm. She’s shrieking in terror as a drone advances on her, culling fork glinting bone-white in the darkness. Remele and Elwurd are too busy getting their asses kicked by the last living clown to help.

In that moment you can’t remember her as the bloodthirsty murderer who tortured you in her basement. All you can think of is the time she broke down in your arms, overcome with guilt at the monster she’d become in the name of being accepted by highblood society. A monster who’d traumatized you, and then became your friend.

You’re moving through space and time before your brain can catch up to what you’re doing. Ardata is cold and hard when you tackle her out of the way of the drone. The two of you tumble across the street together as the culling fork hits the spot where Ardata just was with a SHUNK. Even with adrenaline racing through your system the sound chills you to the core.

Remembering what Dirk taught you about hand-to-hand combat with a larger opponent, you grab one of her knives and zap right over to the clown, getting right up in his business before burying the blade into an eye socket.

Unsurprisingly, he drops a squirming Remele and covers his face with a scream so horrible you almost pee your pants. Ardata’s wailing your name from the sidewalk like a terrified child. You want to yell at her to shut up and run before the drones spotted her again, but you never get the chance. One moment you’re twisting a knife into a purpleblood’s skull, the next you’re flying through the air like a ragdoll before a pair of strong arms wrap around you. You and your rescuer land hard on the street with matching grunts of pain.

You look up into Elwurd’s bewildered face and burst out laughing. “Hi!”

“What the--”

“Time to go!” Remele yanks the both of you up by your scruffs like a pair of naughty cats. “Ardata, stop screaming like a wiggler and get your arse over here now!”

“My arm!” Ardata screeches. “I’ll be scarred for life!”

“No, you won’t, idiot, not when you hit your adult molt-!”

You zap the three of them out of there and into the alley, grab Polypa on your way, and then get the hell out of dodge.

The five of you end up in the back of a Troll Dennys, because of course you do. Polypa falls on you, knocking you to the ground, and then she yowls in anger when Elwurd lands on her legs, only for Ardata and Remele to hit the concrete ass-first. Remele accidentally kicks you in the stomach. Ardata falls back against a dumpster and hits her head on the metal with a BANG.

Everybody stares at each other for a long moment with varying degrees and expressions of utter shock. Polypa glares at you, and you just know you’re in for a long discussion about putting your own safety first in dangerous situations, or something like that.

You decide to break the ice first. “Anybody want pancakes?”

#riverbound #pesterquest #hiveswap #hiveswap friendsim trolls #homestuck #ceruleans #c17 #mspa reader #the guardian

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news-monda · 4 years

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princepestilence · 6 years

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2017 in review.

Answering the questions from this post.

What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before?

A lot of things! I tutored a class for the first time, I lectured for the first time, I went to conferences for the first time, I ran a symposium for the first time, I went to a slam poetry event for the first time, I caught a bus to Canberra for the first time, I used a dating app for the first time (then quit like three weeks later), I saw a stage-play of Dracula for the first time, I went to my university’s queer space for the first time, I didn’t see my other family for Christmas for the first time, I played D&D for the first time.

Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Some of them. I never expect to keep all of them, because if something was easy to do, you wouldn’t need to make it a resolution. What matters is trying to keep as many as you can each month. By doing that, I’ve made a lot of positive changes to my life over the years. I’ll be continuing my tradition of monthly resolutions next year: they’re important to me.

What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?

Truthfully, I’m very lucky in what I have: there’s not a lot I want, materially. Things I wish for are usually riffs on the theme of “a lot less brain nonsense, please.” But to answer in the spirit of the question, I think the one big thing that I feel there’s space for in my life is a partner I love. I’ve been thinking lately that I’d sort of like a new crush for the new year, and honestly finding someone to date who I really like and get along with and can consider a future with would be wonderful--especially since sometimes it feels impossible (see above: brain nonsense, among other things). I think I’m ready and in a good place to actually give it a really good try now, though, if the stars align right, so from here, it’s in the universe’s hands to bring a kind, clever, interesting person into my orbit. (Wish on a star for me).

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

It’s a metaphysical thing, but the person I am now is an achievement on the person I started the year as, and that change is the thing I’m most proud of, which I think is how achievement should be measured.

What was your biggest failure?

Earlier in the year if you asked me, I would have said, “Not being good enough.” I still often don’t feel “good enough” but I’m better at not immediately believing that feeling as real. That said, I think my biggest failure is that I’m still so quick to compare myself to others, to the detriment of myself--by making myself feel bad for not being as good as/better than these people, and/or by resenting them and feeling intimidated by their success/cleverness/perceived betterness. I hope in the new year I can learn to be satisfied with who I am and how I am enough to celebrate the excellence of others, without ever having that shadow of worry about myself or thoughts of competition.

What was the best thing you bought?

My new bed! A couple of months ago, I moved into my ex-roommate’s room (which is larger than my old one) and I could finally fit in a bigger, more comfortable bed, so I got one. I love it.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The slam poetry national final at the Opera House! I went to Sydney by myself for the evening, and it was a really amazing event. Other things included: the monster conference, the Patricia Piccinini exhibition at the gallery, the Cuphead release day.

What song will always remind you of 2017?

Hard Times, by Paramore.

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Work. Specifically: writing my dissertation. Holy hell. It’s not a disaster that I didn’t do as much this year as I had intended to--especially since I used my time doing other useful, important, enriching things--but I am annoyed with myself for being so... chaotic with my work. I want to be someone who follows a neat schedule, who keeps tidy notes, who sits down and writes the same amount every day, but I am not that person and I’m not sure if I can ever make myself be that person. I feel that being me the way I am makes everything much more stressful (and, frankly, less aesthetic) than it has to be.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Downward spirals. I’m just so over it all. It wastes so much time, so much energy, so much feeling, for no purpose at all.

Did you fall in love in 2017?

I sort of fell out of it, actually. (Although, for the record, I personally believe that “in love” is the specific experience of two--or more, I guess--people who are mutually constructing that space together. You can’t be in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, so. I was never in love, so much as hoping to be in love. Then I fell out of the hope of it).

What was your favourite TV program?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a strong contender, but because the theme of these questions is 2017, I’m going to say it’s knocked out on the grounds of being something I watched and loved before this year started. The real answer--using the criteria of “favourite that was first watched this year”--is probably Please Like Me or Takin’ Over The Asylum.

What was the best book you read?

It’s hard to remember everything I’ve read this year! But I think that Sara Ahmed’s Living a Feminist Life is probably the one that would take out the title on the most fronts. It’s very good and very much something I feel everyone should attempt reading.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

I don’t know about “discovery,” but I’ve listened to a lot of Dessa this year. And Hozier. And Benjamin Clementine’s song Nemesis.

What did you want and get?

Cuphead! But it was an agonising three-day wait before I could actually get it, because Microsoft for whatever foolish reason wouldn’t let me buy it and instead decided to crash and die every time I attempted to give them money. For three days! It was excruciating.

What did you want and not get?

There’s this one person I really want to talk to me and it hasn’t happened yet.

What was your favourite film of this year?

The best one was probably Hidden Figures! I don’t know if it’s my absolute favourite of all films I watched this year, but it was definitely excellent and I can still remember enjoying it a lot even though it was months ago.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I went to the night viewing of the Patricia Piccinini exhibition in Canberra for my birthday, which was super cool. I’ve loved her work since I found out about it back in high school art class, but this was the first time I saw it for myself in person.

What kept you sane?

Regular journalling and monthly visits to my beloved long-time therapist, to be quite honest. That’s my secret.

Who did you miss?

I’ve been thinking a lot about old friends this year and people I haven’t been in touch with for a long time. I miss them. I miss some of them an awful lot.

Who was the best new person you met?

My new supervisor/mentor/academic mum! I didn’t meet her until the beginning of this year, but she’s become so important to me and I admire her so much and I love talking to her about anything. She inspires me and I want to be like her when I grow up.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017.

It’s sort of life lessons all the way down, given everything that’s been going on this year, but perhaps the single most powerful sentence someone said to me directly, which has been echoing in my head for months now, is: you deserve more than scraps of love. I think that’s relevant to everyone. I think believing we are worth more and deserve more is the first step towards living like it’s true.

#not a sonnet #2017 resolutions

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rolandfontana · 5 years

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‘I See You’: Poetry, Dance Help Young Texas Detainees Overcome Trauma

Fluorescent lights beam down upon a group of 12 girls. They stand in a circle inside the gray walls of the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center. Their eyes follow along as each girl says her name and describes how she is feeling, accompanied by a pose or gesture.

Jessica whose full name is not being used, is feeling confident. She juts her hip to the side and puts her hands on them. Brittney, feeling energetic, draws an invisible arch in the air with fingers spread in jazz hands.

Lizzie shrugs and throws her hands in the air, a vapid look on her face — she is feeling moody.

Throughout the next hour, Lizzie’s face gradually softens as she focuses on learning a hip-hop dance demonstrated by Houston Ballet instructors Jennifer Sommers and Lauren Anderson. By the end of class, Lizzie is laughing.

The dance class is one of seven arts programs launched in various Harris County (Texas) Juvenile Probation Department facilities since January as part of a new collaboration between Harris County and Theater District Houston.

While arts programs have been implemented in juvenile and criminal detention facilities in Harris County and other districts in states such as California and Michigan, the rollout of these programs represents a widespread, coordinated collaboration. And the educational programs not only educate, say those involved; they provide a supportive, creative outlet for young people — many of whom have experienced trauma — to process their experiences, develop their characters and simply be kids.

“These programs are, for these youth, the hope that they can continue to reinvent themselves and find more productive and socially acceptable outlets for their energy and their creativity,” said Michele Deitch, an attorney and criminal-justice consultant who teaches at UT-Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs.

The collaboration began when Kathryn McNeil, CEO of Theater District, last summer approached then-Harris County Executive Judge Ed Emmett for funding to expand their outreach. The company received $82,000 from the county, McNeil said, to teach artistic expression to teens in the juvenile justice system through programs led by the Houston Grand Opera, Da Camera, Houston Symphony, Houston Ballet, Alley Theatre, Theatre Under the Stars and Society for the Performing Arts.

Empowering Expression

Applause and cheers followed Chris as he walked up to a podium at the front of a large, open room at Youth Village, a folded sheet of paper in his hand. Chris raised the microphone to his mouth, a half-smile turning into laughter as he stumbled over the first line of his poem.

He started over, describing through rhymes and prose how his father used to abuse his mother.

“You were my hero, then you turned into a villain,” Chris said.

During this slam poetry competition in March, other kids recounted sexual abuse from family members, hearing gunshots in their neighborhoods and finding cockroaches in their homes. The names of the children in the story have been changed to protect their privacy because they are juvenile offenders.

‘The kids are not necessarily bad because they want to be bad, but because we made them bad.’

To end up in this treatment-focused facility in Seabrook often means you have experienced extreme trauma, although mental health is an issue across the board for kids in the county’s juvenile probation department. According to the department’s 2017 annual report, nearly 2,500 of the 4,463 detained kids that year had been referred to the psychological and social services unit for therapy.

“A lot of my fights are about kids with mental illness,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, a juvenile justice lawyer.

He frequently urges colleagues to recognize the behavioral impacts of trauma and challenging environmental conditions.

*“The kids are not necessarily bad because they want to be bad, but because we made them bad,” Wu said.

The Girls Inspiring Future Triumphs Program participants came up with the words to describe their future, and used them as decoration for their graduation performance, “I Am My Future.” The girls spent 14 classes to learn and create this show with HGOco. soprano Julia Fox. Photo by Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle

This is where art can serve as a powerful tool.

Chris, for instance, said he signed up for the poetry slam program — put on by the Alley Theatre, with eight sessions leading up to the competition — so that he could express himself. Relaying his experiences through poetry, he said, was easier for him than just saying it.

“Art just allows you to express yourself differently,” said McNiel. “You can use your words differently to tell a story, and I think that frees up the kids to express their emotions, their feelings, in a way more accessible for them.”

Kula Moore, of Art Therapy Houston, said that art is particularly powerful for people recovering from trauma.

“Trauma erodes our ability to trust or feel safe in our own bodies,” said Moore, an art therapist.

“The art process can really help to integrate the mind and body, to recognize the ways that you coped with this and are adaptive.”

Highlighting Strength and Resilience

Using art to work through trauma is also empowering, she said, because art highlights each victim’s strength and resilience. It shows that the victims didn’t just survive — they thrived.

The slam poetry teachers, Vincent Johnson and Sharon Young (who goes by Rain), wanted to harness that feeling of agency and empowerment.

The pair came armed with poetic devices, games and personal stories. They would give the students cut-up poems, then have them put the poems back together to practice structure. They would have the students write group poems. They would take away their students’ first poem drafts, then give it back to them after they finished a second draft, so the students could combine both into the final product.

Most importantly, Johnson and Young told the kids to write about whatever they wanted — and they didn’t treat them any differently than they would students not in juvenile detention.

“I think they picked up on that,” said Young. “They would thank us every day. They loved the fact that they could express themselves.”

Johnson and Young also teach slam poetry at other schools in the Houston area. Disparities shine through when they compare the two groups of students.

“(The other students) have the same learning disabilities and (trauma) — but they ended up in a private school,” Johnson said. “Then you have these kids in the juvenile justice system. I know had they been guided the right way, they wouldn’t be here.”

Chris’ poem about his parents ended with him urging people to treat women well, saying, “Women’s lives matter.”

He won the poetry slam competition. Now, he dreams about writing an entire book of poems.

‘I See You’

Back at the JDC, the girls’ eyebrows furrow in concentration as they attempt to mimic the fluid movements of Sommers and Anderson, the Houston Ballet instructors. They pliéed, strode and kick-ball-changed their way past posters that read “Balance is Beautiful” and “Start by Starting,” to the beat of Flo Rida’s song “Troublemaker.”

Lizzie, no longer moody, repeats sequences alone when the group finishes them, silently mouthing the beat to herself as she tries to master each move.

Houston Ballet Education and Community Engagement Program Manager Program Manager Lauren Anderson shows the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center girls dance moves during a class. Photo by Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle.

The class took discipline and focus.

While studies have demonstrated lower recidivism rates for adults and juveniles who participate in art programs, the objective for the Theater District arts programs is to develop their students’ characters and enrich their lives.

“Art is introduction to empathy, it’s bonding, it’s all these things that we take for granted if we grew up in a stable environment and had role models,” said Chaney Tullos, assistant director of education at Alley Theatre.

When Sommers and Anderson teach hip hop at the JDC and at the Burnett-Bayland Reception Center (BBRC) in southwest Houston, their goal is to not only teach their students dance, but to also develop their cognitive, social and physical skills.

Sommers proudly recalled how her male students at the BBRC worked together to learn difficult moves, like popping and locking or shoulder stands. They helped each other, and despite their exhaustion, didn’t give up.

“The boys were in a place where they understood what good choices are and eagerly wanted to make them,” Sommers said. “I remember driving away and thinking that I hope they have an environment where they can.”

Many studies have shown that children who end up in the juvenile justice system often grew up in challenging, unsupportive environments, and may have learning disabilities and mental health issues.

Wu has witnessed those trends himself during his time as a juvenile lawyer.

“Most, if not all, these kids — their entire lives they’ve been told that they’re worthless,” Wu said, getting choked up. “They were told you’ll never amount to anything. So, after a while, they kind of give up.”

The Theater District arts programs work to build the students’ trust and confidence through supportive relationships and genuine connections.

Instructors create energetic and fun atmospheres, they open up to their students, and express how they’re proud of them. The end of each finished dance sequence, the final word of each poem, is met with a rupture of applause, cheers and beaming smiles from the teachers — and the students fail to hide the smiles they return.

Young wrote and performed a poem for her students, called “I See You.” She alludes to each one of her students throughout the poem, without using their names — but they know she’s describing them.

“It burns my soul to see your smile hidden behind sweat shirt walls…,” she wrote. “Accept your beautiful imperfections that makes you perfect at being you / The YOU, you have yet to see.”

Additional Reading: NYC Arts Program Helps Justice-Involved Youth

Youth Voices: ‘When Most of Us Struggle, We Just Need a Shoulder to Lean’

Massarah Mikati, a staff writer at the Houston Chronicle, is a 2018-2019 John Jay/Tow Juvenile Justice Reporting Fellow. This is a slightly condensed version of an article she completed as part of her fellowship project. Read her full story here.

‘I See You’: Poetry, Dance Help Young Texas Detainees Overcome Trauma syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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