in-dire-need

[in-dire-need]

more to come.

#writing #creative writing #My writing #original content #original writing #Original Concept #the blanchard circus

[in-dire-need]

Declan Roosevelt-Rivers stood at the base of the lecture hall, dozens of unenthused and dozing faces staring back at him. Or through him, for that matter. He was fully aware that each and every one of them abhorred music theory, and that nine of ten were here more for obligation than interest. It drove him insane, almost as much as Shauna did. 

Don’t think I didn’t hear that, you pathetic welp. I’m probably the only one who can hear you over all your muttering.

He glanced over at his wife, her limp and perfect figure safely secured inside her wooden display case. He didn’t know why he kept her around, he just did. Maybe the students weren’t the only ones here in obligation to someone, or something, else.

He forced his attention back to the lecture at hand, at the sheets of music and notes scrambled and strewn over the surface of his desk. It made no sense to him how he was to teach music theory in an environment like this, all stifled and controlled. You couldn’t teach music without music. You just couldn’t.

You can’t.

Glancing back up at the students for a split second, Declan’s eyes caught sight of an unfamiliar face- a boy sitting in the back of the room, perfectly relaxed like he had always belonged there. He wore a white button-up and a red blazer, sticking him out like a sore thumb in the midst of Willow’s black and brown uniforms. The boy- no- the man’s eyes widened for a second as a smirk spread across his face, like he was welcoming Declan to his own seminar. Declan had taken roll, he had seen every student enter and sit. This wildcard came from thin air.

He forced himself to ignore the unease of the intruder as the bell chimed, dismissing all students from class, legitimate or otherwise. But as the sea of teenagers dispersed, the wildcard stayed still. Declan sank into his papers, praying that he would leave. Instead he stood and gradually advanced on Declan.

“You don’t belong here,” Declan said hastily. He was a teacher, a professor. This boy should have been scared of him, not the other way around. 

“Ah, so you did notice,” the wildcard grinned. “For a second I thought I was swallowed by the masses.”

Declan considered pointing out the absurd outfit that set him apart, but decided that it would be best not to test the waters just yet. The forming bruise around the boy’s eye and formerly bleeding nose told Declan that this was not a game he wanted to be playing. He reached into his pocket and felt for the security remote. One press of that button and the wildcard was as good as done.

“Okay, Declan, I don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “A very interesting seminar you held, though unfortunately I think I am the only one who would say so. Do you like it here?”

Declan didn’t know how to answer that. He was beyond grateful for the opportunities provided to him by the Willow’s Academy, but surely he couldn’t live like this forever. Day after day, class after class, all that stared back at him were blank faces and empty heads. The monotony drove him crazy, and the repetitiveness made him want to tear what hair he had left from his scalp. The food was worthy of ridicule, almost as much as the staffing choices and uniform policy.

“N- not necessarily,” Declan hesitated. Why was he telling this boy this? Who even was he in the first place, and why was he here?

“Would you ever consider leaving?”

“Excuse me?”

Of course you would consider it, you pathetic welp of a man.

“I told you, I don’t have time.” The wildcard gripped the side of Declan’s desk and hoisted himself up, his black boots crinkling his stanzas and scribbles. Declan tensed, and his hand reflexively pressed the button in his pocket. “I have a proposition for you, Mister Rivers.”

Declan’s words jammed in his throat, but his wife was ever-talkative.

Why are you even giving this fool the time of day? You don’t have anything better to do with your life?

“I’m sure your dearly beloved sitting peacefully in the corner would like an escape from this drivel just as much as you do.”

Declan froze, his blood running cold. Not one person had ever paid a second thought to the doll slacked in the corner of his classroom, her blonde hair always pristine and her grey eyes always shining.

“How do you know that?” Declan asked nervously.

“Get up on the desk and I’ll tell you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Get on the desk,” he demanded again.

“I can’t!”

“Then I guess you’ll have to take my hand.”

The wildcard extended his hand, his bony fingers beckoning to Declan. The edges of his fingernails were blackened, like arsenic poisoning in the making.

Don’t even think about it, Declan.

Declan reached out and allowed himself to be pulled atop his desk. The papers crinkled beneath his feet, and he couldn’t deny the tinge of satisfaction that followed. However, if he was going to hear what the wildcard had to say, he was going to have to do it quickly.

“How do you know about my wife?” he asked again.

“Mister Rivers, I understand that you can hear things that nobody else can, correct?”

Declan nodded.

Gossipping about me, Declan?

“And those things would be the utterings of your supposedly dearly departed Shauna-Jeanette Rivers?”

Again, Declan nodded.

Roosevelt.

“And I would also be correct to assume that that is her locked up in the corner?” The wildcard nudged his head in Shauna’s direction, and Declan nodded again.

“How do you know this?”

“Because I can hear things, too,” he admitted, his bright orange eyes piercing Declan’s soul. “I know what people are planning, how scenarios are expected to play out just before they go off the rails. I can tell you a person’s darkest troubles just by the expression on their face. Do you think I’m crazy?”

Declan didn’t have a reason to. After all, anyone who knew what went on in his head would lock him up in a padded room without a moment’s hesitation.

“Not unless I am,” he responded.

“Mister Rivers, I am endeavoring in a massive project, and I am currently in need of a music director,” he proposed. “Someone who knows what they’re doing, beyond the knowledge of anyone else. Someone the outside world would deem crazy in a second. Someone unnatural. Someone supernatural,”

Don’t even think about it.

Declan heard footsteps rushing down the hall and knew that his time was running out. “What kind of project?”

“A circus,” the wildcard responded.

A circus?!

The words were blocked out by three or four burly men barging through the door in the very back of the lecture hall, zeroing in on Declan and his visitor. 

“Are you in or what?” the wildcard asked, preparing to run.

Declan looked at security, at the painfully black and white frames of Mozart, Bach, and Tchaikovsky above their heads. He looked back at the wildcard, at his red vest and his extended hand.

“Declan,” he said, drowned out by the shouts of security demanding to know the meaning of all this.

Declan lunged off the desk, and the wildcard dashed for the door.

“My wife!” Declan shouted after him. He already had hold of the display case, wheeling it behind him as Shauna screamed protest after profanity. 

“Come on! Come on!” the wildcard shouted from the doorway, disappearing as soon as Declan came close enough to follow. Security trailed behind, demanding that Declan stop what he was doing immediately and surrender the man he was following.

He turned the corner just in time to see the wildcard stopped cornered at the side of one of Willow’s extravagantly overdone spiral staircases. There was no way on from here, and any attempt to do so would leave him splattered on the marble below. The wildcard gauged the drop before him, then watched as security locked in on all sides of him.

Declan watched as he plunged over the side of the railing.

His breath caught in his chest as all the guards froze, undaring to move or even speak. Then, clear as day, Declan heard a shout from below.

“Come on, just jump already!”

There was no way he had survived that fall, at least not without more than a few broken limbs. But yet he sounded perfectly fine. Declan had heard no crack, no crashing impact. He saw the guards glaring at him, turning their attention to the insubordinate teacher and his crazy puppet. 

He dashed to the staircase, hurling Shauna over the side and following with his own body. He tensed, his eyes squeezing shut as he prepared for the worst.

Then he stopped falling, and all around him he heard laughing. This was heaven, wasn’t it?

If these grimy little freaks down put me down, I swear to God, Rivers, there will be hell to pay. Hell, do you hear me?!

Definitely not heaven.

Declan inched open his eyes to see himself hovering inches above the ground, two women and two men standing beside him. They all laughed as Declan flinched, petrified of what he was seeing. The wildcard looked above the, and his eyes widened as he shouted through laughter, “Oh, shit!” 

He grabbed Declan’s arm, and started running.

“Run, goddammit, run!” he yelled at the people around him.

Declan was rushed along more so by the group than his own feet, not even bothering to check if Shauna was with him or not. Let her stay here, he thought.

You wouldn’t dare.

They didn’t stop running until they reached a riverbank, far away from the Willow’s Academy. 

“We made it!” one of the girls cheered.

“Reet!” The wildcard shouted.

The river opened in response, and in the center stood a tall, dark girl with an afro that moved more than Declan’s wife had in a year. 

The group took a collective glance backward before shouting curses at each other and gunning it down the newly formed pathway in the river. Declan followed, and behind him the water crashed back into order. If he didn’t move quickly enough, he was going to be swallowed. 

One by one the group reached land, with Declan trailing behind like the one fish with a broken fin. As the water closed in, the wildcard heaved Declan out by his arms and tossed him onto the hard, albeit soaked, ground. He glanced in shock at his new collective, his runaway troupe.

The one who had controlled the river stood still as a board, while all the others were collapsed on the ground just as Declan was. She was almost at attention, never letting her guard down or her gaze falter. She eyed Declan up and down, almost as if he was being judged.

Two girls with short brown hair clasped hands as they caught their breath, one adorned in bright colors and the other draped in black. The man next to them was in the process of tying back his long blonde hair. Clearly aggravated by the water witch’s stunt, he attempted to wring what water had splashed him from his baggy white shirt.

Shauna’s case lay on its side thrown haphazardly onto the ground. Declan couldn’t help the twinge of satisfaction that accompanied the thought of how fearful that entire experience had made her.

Bastard.

Declan had heard worse.

The wildcard righted himself almost effortlessly, somehow looking even more chaotic than when he had first stumbled into Declan’s classroom. Still Declan wondered why the wildcard had plucked him out of every other teacher int he building, but he figured that was a question for another day.

“Declan, meet Sofia, Winona, Austen, and Rita,” the wildcard said, introducing them one by one. Be it a wave or a nod or a smile, each of them acknowledged Declan’s presence before them. This was already better than Willow’s, though he knew he wasn’t going to retain any of their names. “I am Morgan Blanchard, your new proprietor and confidante.”

“Proprietor and confidante?” The one with the long blonde hair scoffed. “What, like he’s some kind of business man?”

“Shut up, Austen.” Rita splashed him with a small wave without even needing to touch the water. In response, he blew a gust of wind at her that just barely managed to throw off her impeccable balance.

“Oh, will the two of you stop bickering like unwilling siblings for five minutes?” Morgan Blanchard groaned before turning his attention back to Declan with a smile. The girls, finally bringing themselves to their feet, couldn’t help but snicker.

Morgan Blanchard had just broken him out of prison, accompanied by nothing more than ego and ramshackle teammates. He was either insane or insanely daring, and Declan had grown to know the difference.

“Welcome to the Blanchard Circus, Declan,” Morgan smiled.

#theblanchardcircus #AP Literature #ap lit #My writing #writing #original content #original writing #Original Concept #creative writing

[in-dire-need]

SOTD

#ap lit #concept #original concept #original content #original writing #the blanchard circus #writing #ap literature #my writing #Spotify

[in-dire-need]

Finally got a phone with enough storage for me to download Tumblr, so prepare for an onslaught of new posts.

#ap lit #concept #original concept #original content #original writing #the blanchard circus #writing #ap literature #my writing

[in-dire-need]

What I really remembered was the vibrant thrill of doing something you only heard of in fiction. The bright lights blinding all of my insecurities, without a care in the world. No pressure to succeed, no weights to bear, no responsibilities to keep, just life as plain as it could be.

The Magician.

#the blanchard circus #writing #My writing #original content #original writing #Original Concept #concept #AP Literature #ap lit

[in-dire-need]

“Little Rabbits Feed Our Habits”

Is there always just that one thing that, despite however hard you try, however many times you may fight it, you always go running back to? No matter how many valiant fights you win, it’s never the war. It’s never the war. Me, I’m always fighting against the grand scheme, against the idea that my ideals are pointless, against the will to stop moving and stall.

It’s a pleasant thought, but it’s not a reality; it could never be. I’m too stubborn. Apparently that’s a bad thing, or so I’ve been told. I always push myself until I physically cannot bear to move anymore, then I keep going. It wound me in the hospital once, but sacrifices must be made for the greater good. This isn’t about me; my life isn’t about me- it’s about what I leave behind. Maybe that’s not a good way of thinking, but it’s my way. 

I’ve also been told that I work too much, and I overexert myself to the point of burning out. Be that as it may, it’s better than stagnance. Anything is better than stagnance. I can’t bear to stand still, to “let it be,” to leave something alone. Call me a control freak if you will, because that’s what I am. That’s not entirely a bad thing. I’m driven, I’m productive(on a good day), I’m hardworking, and I’m persistent. 

That’s why I don’t need the things that weigh me down. All I need is this. This is the thing that will save me from failure, from slump, from death. This is it. My absolute, my end goal. Nothing will get in my way; nothing will interfere with this. 

Nothing.

Now.

You tell me.

What’s my name?

#writing #my writing #original writing #original content #original concept #concept #ap lit #ap literature #the blanchard circus

[in-dire-need]

The Blanchard Circus of the Unnatural and the Supernatural Presents: Unbelievable Stunts Unexplainable Sights Undeniable Magic Enjoy!

the man who never stopped believing in something bigger than himself

#writing #my writing #original writing #original content #original concept #concept #ap lit #ap literature #the blanchard circus

[in-dire-need]

A Special Type of Bond

There are many different relationship archetypes in this world. The inseparable twins, one a reclusive bookworm and the other a molotov cocktail. The older and younger sibling, the matter gifted and the latter enraged. The forgotten middle child. The hard-shelled yet sympathetic father who rarely opens up, but crumbles when he does, and the child with all of his baggage. The dramatic mother that pushes all of her own problems onto her children as some odd result of decades of vicarious living, and her irrevocably damaged offspring. The good girl and the bad boy, like the modern-day Romeo and Juliet; just the same as the brain and the athlete, the bully and the victim, the voice and the action. The star-crossed lovers themselves, destined to resign their grasp on this mortal coil in love’s warm embrace. The mister and the mistress. The fork and the spoon. The husband and wife. The lovers who drifted apart, the friends who came all too close, and the enemies who couldn’t bear to hammer in the final nail.

But there’s one bond no one wants to talk about. 

A bond so strong, no matter how hard one fights it, it will always come back for you. It will devour everything you have until it is satisfied, but it never truly is. You push and you gouge and you lock, but it always comes back. Sitting, waiting in the corners of your mind, or engulfing it until it is all that surrounds, it is always there. Days, weeks, months, years you can fight it but it will remain, powerful as always. 

That is the bond formed by two teenage runaways united at Bunchover’s Nonsensical Circus. 

Then, six years after an explosive goodbye and a bitter ending, the taste still linger’s on one’s tongue. 

Benjamin Woods, destined to fall into repeating patterns of self destruction for as long as he may walk this earth. His counterpart, however, has learned how to vanquish any remaining traces of the past that follows him. He belongs to the future, but the future does not belong to him. Morgan Blanchard must die, and with it will any fleeting hope of a tomorrow identical to yesterday. 

Yesterday was buried alive.

It’s best not to get one’s hands dirty, but some don’t mind the rut. That’s what yesterday is about, after all.

The Rut.

Benjamin Woods and Morgan Blanchard are victims of The Rut.

They always were.

#writing #my writing #original writing #original content #original concept #concept #ap lit #ap literature #the blanchard circus

[in-dire-need]

A fan favorite Declan Roosevelt-Rivers, head of Musical Affairs and Instrumentals.

#writing #original writing #original content #original concept #concept #ap lit #ap literature #the blanchard circus #the decemberists #as i rise

[in-dire-need]

The Art of Decaying

Have you ever felt like if you just stopped speaking, if you stopped moving, breathing, existing... no one would notice? The entire world would just go on acting as if you never existed, and you’d be nothing more than a splatter of ink on the cold, unforgiving ground. And that’s if you’re lucky.

It’s almost as if I’m lacking any type of permeance, like the second I vanish from sight I fail to exist. If I’m not loud and in your face, you would forget me just like everyone else. Maybe it’s better than no one sees me, because then there’s nothing for me to lose. There’s nothing for them to lose. I have my writing, and maybe that’s all I need. I’ll pull a Salinger, collapse of the map and never be seen again. No one will be any the wiser, and I’ll be left alone.

Maybe, maybe not. It’s not like I know the answer

#writing #my writing #original writing #original content #original concept #concept #ap lit #ap literature #the blanchard circus

[in-dire-need]

You've got nothing to go back to- no home, no family, no sanity- your only remaining piece of humanity is in these walls now.

MAB

#writing #my writing #original writing #original content #original concept #concept #ap lit #ap literature #the blanchard circus

[in-dire-need]

aut Deus, aut malus homo

Either he is God, or he is a bad man.

#writing #my writing #original writing #concept #original concept #original content #ap lit #ap literature #the blanchard circus

[in-dire-need]

T-he mocking

Two words. Two words in a sea of rambling, packed in against hundreds of thousands. They mean nothing. Not to a single person in the world.

Save for you.

For some reason, you are so obsessive, so clingy, that the second something changes, you notice. And then you panic. For hours, days, weeks, you are uncontrollable. You don’t know why it matters so much, it just does.

It’s because those two words are a part of the miniscule picture that will describe you. Nobody knows your name, nobody knows what you do. You’re not on the honor roll, you’re not a sports god, you’re not on the council. Your name will be forgotten the second your body leaves the building. Those two words are the only piece of you that will be left behind, and they are tainted. They are broken, mauled, destroyed. Because you’re a problem-starter. You are mayhem. You are the thing everyone avoids.

That’s why the name left behind won’t be yours.

It will be mine.

The memory of every horrific thing, every unspoken curse, every god damned mistake, everything you wish you could forget.

“The Absolute

Come and See.”

I came, I saw, I stole and I pilfered, you name it, I did it. Drove me insane in the process.

Drove you insane, too.

Because we’re two in the same, aren’t we?

Yes,

We are.

:)

#concept #original writing #original content #original concept #writing #my writing #ap lit #ap literature #the blanchard circus

[in-dire-need]

NAGROM.

Throughout my life I have almost exclusively spent all of my time searching. Searching for myself, searching for love, searching for an escape, searching for answers. The latter has proven to be the most complicated and hard to achieve. I have searched everywhere. The alchemists had nothing, just some hen and the boy who lived. The witches gave me some rocks and rope, and some hope via divination. The necromancers were zero help, and the psychics were rendered useless. I checked for Malphas, Foras, Ose, and Beelzebul but they had all vanished from sight. The angels, risen and fallen, Watching and Thwarting, turned their cheeks and mocked me from their pedestal.  Every secret society and conspirator skulked under lock and key, shrouding their beliefs and evidence as to watch me suffer. So still I lay, stolid and cold, as my mind is devoured by cluelessness. It is then that I am struck with my answer- the final straw in a stack of needles.

The Absolute.

Come and See.

#writing #my writing #original writing #original content #original concept #concept #ap lit #ap literature #the blanchard circus

[in-dire-need]

Oh, how the tide crashed with the flick of his wrist, and the earth rippled at the blink of his eye, and the sky bent to his will, leaving behind not a single trace if it was what he desired.

Benjamin Woods

#concept #original writing #writing #original concept #original content #the blanchard circus #ap lit #ap literature

[in-dire-need]

Welcome to the Circus

A change of theme, a change of heart, a change of pace. The outside world moves so quickly, almost merciless to the thought of you falling behind. However are you to keep up with it all? Job, school, future, friends, family, relationships. I don’t understand how I’m the only one being driven mad from it all, but then again, no one’s brain functions in quite the same way that mine does.

The Blanchard Circus is a haven. It is a place for vagabonds and ne’er do wells alike, those turned away at society’s gate. It was stated by Erin Morgenstern that “the circus comes without warning,” and indeed it does. If you had asked me a year ago what I wanted to do with my life, what I wanted to become, what I wanted to create, you would not have received today’s answer. There’s an inner mechanism to it all, the bigger picture, the broader scale. The Blanchard Circus was always inside of me, it just took a grotesquely historically inaccurate film with catchy songs and flashy action to awaken it. 

His name is Morgan Blanchard, the mastermind behind it all. That is not my name, nor the name of anyone iI have ever met(though it sure feels real at the worst of times). It is the name of a man driven to the very edge of insanity, and when given the choice of retracting or falling, he jumped. It is his story that I will tell, from a distant place, a whole nother world. It is his words that people will remember, his memory that will live beyond mine, his life that will change others. It is his story that will be encapsulated in minds across the globe, eating away at the obsessive and the needy. It is a story of ambition. It is a story of change. It is a story of family. But most importantly, It is a story of...

revenge.

#the blanchard circus #my writing #writing #original writing #original content #original concept #concept #ap lit #revenge #the night circus

[in-dire-need]

Ok So

Not gonna lie, I’m not really into the whole music blog thing anymore. It was fun as a summer occupier, but I’ve got bigger projects now I prefer to work on and it just seems redundant after a while. I was going to continue during the school year, but things got busy and it got away from me. Now that summer’s back, I just don’t want to do it.

So I’m not.

I’m now officially a senior in high school. I’m nothing special, I’m not a sports kid or a national honors kid, not a council kid either. I’m just... there. But that doesn’t really matter to me. Though no one else cares what I make of myself once I leave those doors for the last time in a little under a year, I do. I care that I make something out of myself, but I don’t know how to even begin. I was beaten to the title of “the writing kid,” I was sent down one peg at a time until I was sitting at the bottom of the totem pole. So I try to make of myself what I can while I can.

This probably doesn’t make any sense, per my usual ramblings, but I’m just tired of monotony. This is an excessively long-winded way of saying that this is no longer a music blog. Instead, I will be focusing on my own personal work, the thing I truly care about.

I call it the Blanchard Circus Project. It’s a novel I’ve been writing for a year now, and I finished the first draft roughly two weeks ago. It’s my very own quarantine baby. The size of the project is absolutely massive, expanding over sketchbooks, notebooks, over thirty Google Docs, you name it, it’s there. I am using it as my propellor for Advanced Placement Art this year; it projected me into Advanced Placement LIterature, a course I was nowhere near on course to being accepted into.  It is all that encompasses my mind, and I don’t think it is fair to my own sanity to keep it bottled inside there all alone. So from now on, this blog will be a shrine to the BCP, and all that it contains. To keep me from going completely insane from anticipation, and to give me a reason to keep writing about it during the outlining and editing process. I can’t promise constant posts, consistent posts, or even enough posts to keep your attention. But I can promise determination and ambition. 

So, buckle up, I guess. 

#writing #my writing #concept #original writing #original content #original concept #the blanchard circus #ap lit #ap literature