An Eight Hundred Year Anthology;

[stations]

Contained within are the collected works of the Summoned of Abraxas. These may be works of fiction, semi-autobiographical exaggerated recounts, or they may be accurate retellings. They may be poetry, prose, lyric, art, or any other free-form expressive writing. Works may be published under a pseudonym to protect anonymity.

<b>Title:</b> <u>(name of piece)</u> <b>Written By:</b> <i>(character name or pseudonym)</i> <b>Summary:</b> (short description of work) <b>Content:</b> (you can either post the work itself here, or handwave the retelling by posting links to any applicable threads.)

Comments

ooops i rambled?? o_o'

[tedandroses]

Title: Summoned Hymnody
Written By: Teddy Roberts
Summary: A collection of -- mostly -- lyrics, some draft and being struggled with, others neat, complete, with tab/chords. In between there are more prose-y things that seem more like they could be taken from a longer piece or excerpted from a journal: vivid descriptions of a person or moment; diary-like, brief summaries of something objectively insane; a single line or handful of words that didn't make it to a song. There aren't a lot of third person names -- but there are a couple characterizations and events that are very evident who or what they are, especially if you were there for them.
There's definitely a "zine" feel to it, a sort of conscious refusal to edit that clashes with choosing and re-arranging the memories into a cohesive piece.

Content: [OOC: I may edit this to include actual excerpts because I think the way I've described this would be FUN, but for now...]

The story and description snippets for Teddy's portion are plucked from all over, but

• this echo and the implied adventure that followed are a full song with chords, written in a kind of...Hozier/Lord Huron "story/ballad but slightly more artsy" way with (melody of 'follow the drinking gourd' picked out) noted at beginning and end


• several descriptions of Brighthaven are scattered throughout, both more narrative/history, and more creatively, including the Brightest Days festival and some really-zoomed-in descriptions of friends and music and feelings


• a very not finished, vibes-y more than literal, song/poem about Jack's nightmare!land with Jerry and the zombie-raptors, and (what would have happened if we'd kept going, which is that Teddy would have been confronted by a very dead, very walking version of the girl in the memory she sees part of in the gas station: this is her first catalyst. The specifics are not at all obvious in the song, though; it IS clearly about memories and loss of control and apologizing.) Parts are scribbled and reworded, arrows indicate parts of the song should be moved around.
  
  • the song is called "apocalypse" and under the title is scribbled: revelation; to uncover. prophecy, vision, hallucination.
  
  
• their nature as a god (esp the parts under appearance and devotees) has a lot of influence: there might be a whole paragraph on having briefly been able to encourage the singular-multiplicity of an alder grove, the idea of found family as parts in a song, that really stupid Mothman reference I made, etc.

There's absolutely, throughout the things mentioned and other snippets, this push and pull: a sort of adoration of their friends and experiences and helping mortals -- vs a clawing for purchase on what reality is and if it matters: what to do with having had power like that. How to grieve losses that didn't happen and how to be forgiven for forgetting things that did. The love and amazement in some of the lyrics and writing is super cut with a bittersweetness.

Thematically there's a lot of playing with the idea of creating yourself and the world you want (sometimes very literally) and struggling with having the right to that; and also memory as reality, reality as perception (and vice versa). That uncertain reality being both empowering and also feeling crazy and maybe craziness being kind of fine. But it doesn't ever quite say those things as much as float them.