It was a hit and run type thing, her apartment had been broken into. But, as criminals go, once you become one the police don’t particularly like to help. Alara gave a broken, raspy cough. Panicking would do her no good now. She wasn’t afraid of death, almost welcoming it. But she didn’t want to leave him alone to clean up her mess.
“What kinda problem exactly?” He sat up, swinging his legs off of the bed and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Normally he wouldn’t be quite so concerned about why she was calling at whatever godforsaken hour this was, but this time... this time something was different.
Her breathing grew shallower, and she bit her lip trying to hold back a whine of pain before completely breaking down in sobs, curling around herself. She pulled her hand away from her stomach and watched the drops of blood fall off of her fingers onto the floor.
“Alara?” His voice was sharp, all of the warning lights going off at once. “Alara what’s going on?” He flicked the light on, wincing at the brightness as he began the search for his jacket.
“Something happened...”
“I know that already.” He growled. “So help me tell me what’s wrong.”
“Someone broke into my apartment.”
He stopped dead in his tracks for one split second, before shaking himself out of it. She lived only a mile or two away, it would be alright.
“Are you hurt?” He asked carefully.
She hesitated in her answer.
“Y-you’re... Evan you’re not going to make it in time.” Her voice was soft, soothing. As if it would help.
A sat crying, finger hovering shakily over the call button. B would be asleep, and they didn’t want to wake them- they were a bad enough morning person as it was. But they needed help, and desperately. They didn’t think they had much time left.
The phone rang for a while, the tone echoing throughout the stone walls of the room they were in, before B’s croaky voice answered.
“What sorta time do you call this?”
“Hey, B…” A said, their voice small, “I’m sorry to wake you up… I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important…”
“It’s… it’s okay,” B replied groggily, “what’s up?”
“I have a slight problem…” said A, “I’m uh… in a little bit of trouble-”
“Oh…? That doesn’t sound good.”
“No…” A sobbed, looking down at the blood beginning to seep through their shirt. “It’s really not.”
my favourite thing about the story of hades and persephone is that the story grew up with us.
i think most of us, when we were young girls ourselves, heard that first, most tragic version of the story: persephone, the innocent child of spring, who wandered into a dark, terrible place, and ate of a cursed garden. hades, meanwhile, was cast as a shadowy, grasping seducer, looming from the darkness: here he stood, the god of riches, of gemstones and bones, of cold, dead things, who wanted to snatch a little bit of sunlight for himself.
and then came the second version of the story, when we were older, not so much a change in narrative as it was of perspective: we heard about zeus raping leta, we read the way medusa was cursed for being raped by poseidon, we read about athena’s jealousy when she was outwoven by arachne, about hera tossing little hephaestus down a cliff because he wasn’t as beautiful as a god ought to be.
once more, we considered hades: the youngest of the trinity, free of spite and hatred and fits of rage, running an empire greater than his brothers’ together, with little ego and quiet efficiency. a god who only took one wife, only loved once, and then too: wholly, completely.
like something not out of a horror movie, but perhaps, indeed, a fairytale.
then the third turn, when we had grown older, acquired a veneer of cynicism, suffered boys who never grew to men, when we realized that the only way our sexuality would not be annexed was if we conquered it ourselves.
then came kore, the woman of spring, who found in hades a quiet, dark refuge, away from demeter’s wrath and hungry possession, away from the squabbles of those tiresome, reckless gods. the girl who fell in love with darkness. the goddess whose spirit was of renewal and rebirth, and still flourished in the heart of the underworld, the duality of her nature only serving to highlight her strength.
hades remained as he ever was, unchanging, like death itself. but persephone grew, acquired facets and beauty in her change, spring given form in metaphor and mythology.
hades and persephone grew with us. that’s why they’re powerful. that’s why they’re loved.
It was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. Another day, another fight. Except...this time Eclipse had won. The alleyway was dark, abandoned. The girl ripped off her own mask, letting even more tears trace their paths down her face. “Stay with me- no, don’t you dare. Not now- not yet...” She clutched the body of her love, shaking in horrible cries. Small fires burned, not yet having burned themselves out. The villain didn’t care if the coals burned her, what did it matter. It had all been a game, of some sort or another. They had started out as friends, and then she would merely pull pranks on him and he would do them back. Until one day a line was crossed. After all, when two people are special and have powers, eventually it all goes downhill. Her sister died because of him. She still remembered his stunned face, even through the mask. He tried to say he was sorry, looked down horrified at himself. He tried to make it better. She shoved him away, snarling that she didn’t want any part in it. Sorrow and anger were easier to justify than mercy and remorse. That’s when it stopped being a game. She wanted his death, and she had gotten it.
There were times when she didn’t have to be different. Days when she could just be herself. Narah. Days when she could just sit in a coffee shop and people watch, or walk her dog in the park, or attempt to do yoga for fun. But when her sister died, someone new came into her life.
Ronan. Tall. Funny. He had freckles on his nose that scrunched when he laughed, and red-gold hair. They met at the funeral. He had come up to her and said his condolences like everyone else. She gave the same response as she gave anyone else and moved about the room. But when they ran into each other again, in the park, that’s when something started. He asked her how she was doing, and she was honest. That was when their friendship started. He was the only one who knew, truly knew who she was. He found out when he knocked on the door of her apartment after she hadn’t talked to anyone, or left in days. All of the rooms had ice dripping from them, drawing into their source. Her. She had been sobbing for days, her grief unquenchable.
As months went by, the line blurred between friend and lover. They did everything together, and he knew all of her faults and loved her for it. He never tried to stop her from fighting her nemesis. Once, and only once, he asked her why. She stopped by his apartment and found him nursing a deep gash on his face. He just said he got in a fight and left it at that. But then, later on, while they were talking over coffee, he asked her softly why she fought her nemesis like she did. After a long time she answered, "Because if I don't, I feel like I will forget her."
But that was all gone, her future with him dripping through her fingers just like the blood did. She pressed herself to him, clutching his body and curling into it. Her sobs echoed against the stone in the ally, her body shaking.
“Don’t go.... don’t leave me alone.”
He didn’t answer.
“No,” they whimpered. “N-no, not you, anyone but you.” They slumped to their knees, cradled the hero’s face between the hands that had killed them. “I never knew- never even guessed- oh god, oh god. [Hero] was just my nemesis but I love you, loved you.” They choked on their own sobbing, their lover’s skin going cold under their fingers. “Don’t leave me, please, god, just don’t leave me-”
Fix (warning: substances, abuse, enslavement, self harm, suicidal ideation)
Pile up my substances
I want control
Obey my captors
The same old, same old
Countless masters I serve
Superficial reality
Rinse and repeat
Lies I tell myself to fall asleep
Cut up my willpower
And sell it to a fallacy
I want my life back
Tell me it’s not too late
Don’t want to say goodbye
Sick of paying for mistakes
Hallway (warning: horror, death, blood, gore, violence)
The PA system boomed
“They’ve made it into the school.
Lock and barricade your current room.”
I was in the hallway.
A stampede of bodies arose,
Living turning to dead to decompose.
Frightened and running through pools,
Slipping on blood in the hallway.
Beings crammed behind doors,
Quasi train cars as hopeful shields from doom.
Fearful faces cowered from windows,
Hiding from monsters in the hallway.
The growls approached.
The claws made their presence known.
Limbs and organs covered the floor.
The monsters were hungry for more than those in the hallway.
Blood-Singed II (warning: addiction, body horror)
Burnt red wine
Slinking down to slender fingertips
As sweet blood
With bite.
Wholly tremoring
With a fragile gaze
And blurred existence.
Lovers
Velvet blood coursing through intertwining paths
Supported by ebony pillars of bone
Supporting us in dance.
Your tender flesh, your cradling warmth
Clasped around my waist
Like it was made for your hands to rest on.
My limbs hung over your shoulders, around your neck
Like a garland made to grace your collar,
Pull you closer,
Hold us together, lovers.
Night Choir
Night choir,
Songstresses of the dark,
Serenade with your warm melodies.
Soothing screech,
Piercing hum,
Smooth vibrato,
Harmonize with the lights—
Twinkle, fade.
Untitled (warning: death, trauma response)
Dead horse, what have you done?
Traumatized into complacency,
Sat down,
Allowed to continue the charade.
Bloated carcass,
Needing to decompose
To nurture something—someone—anew.
I’m painting my nails to Queen and thinking about queer history (warning: hate crimes, violence, homophobia, transphobia)
I’m painting my nails to Queen
And thinking about queer history,
Bloodied,
Beautiful,
Weather-worn.
The artists that allow
My type in men to sparkle,
Gorgeous,
Pretty,
Free.
Don’t talk,
Save me.
Fights over love renewing
With people’s being
Free perceived
Threatening.
I want to break free.
Pink Kitchen Table (warning: illness)
The Advent wreath is erect but cockeyed; it wasn’t lit during the recent season. The pink kitchen table is littered with masks, bottles, medical notes; doctorly linguistics beside Latin religiousness. Sundays smell like medicines instead of makko-powdered ether, rosaries in the windowsill with therapy aids. Images of Christ surround a rented bed, a vessel for healing holding a vessel, weakened.
Advent wreath lit,
Pink kitchen table littered,
Latin Sundays smell like makko.
Rosaries with images of Christ surround,
A vessel for healing.
Advent wreath lit pink
Kitchen table like Sundays—
Vessel for healing.
18 (warning: suicidal thoughts)
Blow out the candles, darling.
You might make it to 18.
After all the nights crying
Through gritted teeth.
After the day you thought
That if you killed yourself
Their lives would be more pleasing.
Congratulations, darling.
You’re almost 18.
Love
Touch me.
Caress me.
Shiver the dust from my bones
And patch the rusted holes of my organs.
Quell the drought of my valleys,
Ushering in the wildflowers and honeybees.
Breathe life back into this old clay
And make me whole again.
Lover
Melt your fingertips into my skin,
Honey dripping between limbs.
Ebony hands gripping porcelain hips,
Obsidian and howlite,
Evening and starlight,
Melt me with your tender kiss.
Oh, lover,
Sweet embrace among silken cloth,
Hovering like a moth
To your flame, under our covers.
Clean (warning: suicide, drugs)
Lipstick-stained syringe on the counter,
Constantly seated on the edge of disaster,
Round and round on a carousel of brain matter,
I know the spiral all too well.
Anything for the chemicals
When your mind drives you mental.
Push comes to shove and you’re in an office checking “No,” I’ve never tried to kill myself.
The doctor prescribes a pill off the pharmaceutical shelf
To make you feel more like yourself
But a pill
Cannot fill
What is left of your shredded psyche
With its hallucinations of lunacy.
I wonder if the 10,000 hours theory
Is true for suffering.
Have I mastered my craft?
I hope every writer who sees this writes LOADS the next few months. Like freetime opens up, no writers block, the ability to focus, etc etc you’re able to write loads & make lots of progress <3
@ fanfic authors: don’t apologise for writing filler chapters! i see this all the time!! filler chapters are so important to narrative pacing! a story needs downtime so the faster paced or denser elements have room to breathe! you’re writing a well balanced story!!! also, you’re giving me that filler for free! thats crazy!!! thats so kind of you!!! thank you for this gift!!!!!!
The Weekly Writing Update #25
1.21.23
Apology post. From now on, I won’t be updating weekly on a schedule. I’ve thought about it and even though I made it my New Year’s resolution and I want to put in the effort, I still keep making no progress almost a whole month into the new year. And I promised to show progress and having to post updates where I continue to say I have nothing to show for myself is stressing me out and making my inability to write worse.
I will post updates, just not as frequently and not for awhile, until I have something at least. So until further notice, there will be no updates on my wip.
The weekly writing update #24
1.14.23
No update this week.
The Weekly Writing Update #23
1.7.23
First update of the new year! And I actually have a bit of progress!
I’m in the process on deciding on a huge but slight change in the plot/character subplot, still deciding. But other than that, I actually did write a few hundred words of the first chapter! Which is a very good start. I need someone to harass me into keeping this one though, so I don’t chicken out and change this later. PLEASE (I’ll probably just get my boyfriendddd~~ to do it)
It’s slow progress this week but it’s progress, which is more than I can say for the past few weeks.
LOVE YOU ALL,
The Weekly Writing Update #22
12.31.22
Last update of 2022! With work slowing down, I hope to make better progress starting this upcoming year. That is my new years resolution. I want to push myself to make more solid progress, to have more to show for myself.
I tried several times to sit down this week and write but my writers block gets worse the more I'm not writing. And thanks to writers block in the first place, I'm not writing. :(
End of the year though. For everyone struggling with writers block, lets all hope the new year brings change, lots of inspiration and motivation, and clears away the blockage! I wish you all luck in your writing endeavors this new year.
The Weekly Writing Update #21
12.24.22
Last day before Christmas! Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!!
This is hopefully the last week with no progress. Going into the new year, I will have more time and (please god) more inspiration.
Speaking on coming up on the new year, I’m coming up on my wip’s two year anniversary! Kinda sad that I don’t have a full chapter written for it yet, but it has changed so drastically from the original idea,,, it’s insane to see how far I’ve come and how far I still have to go.
~Much love,
The Weekly Writing Update #20
12.17.22
Blasting Lovers Rock and thinking of my bf <3
Also just had the worst day at work but I have a semi update: I didn’t get much writing done AGAIN this week, but I managed to write a couple hundred words in starting sentences. Which is a start. I’m just glad I have something to show for the last week, even if it’s lame.
This may be obvious to everyone else, but the Holiday season is kicking my ass at work right now. Which is why I haven’t been writing,,, pretty much at all. You can count on me picking it back up after the new year though. Thank you to everyone sticking around, even if you’re few and far between. :)
I will try and get out of this rut asap! Ive started this thing to try and help me write even while I’m busy as work, even if it’s just a couple sentences with a cool aesthetic. I want to post more progress for those of you who are watching my journey!
Lots of love, Alex