Song-Related Writing Challenge!
Song: ARTIST LEMONADE by atsuover
Favourite lyric: "Artist lemonade/ give it a try/ Artist lemonade/ drink before you die/ all of this attention can be used as compensation for the artist / lemonade"
He poured out his entire heart and soul, only for his idea to be rejected.
One script, after another, after another, written initially with enthusiasm were now being penned with bitterness. With hate. Video ideas and musical fantasies had been rejected, leaving him dejected and crushed.
Furthermore, they'd been verbally spat on, and he had left the group feeling a weird sense of humiliation.
Blood, sweat, and tears poured into hours worth of writing, and yet Roman kicks a crumbled up piece of paper, holding a glass of lemonade in his hand.
Sour, and sweet.
Sour.
And sweet.
In a weird moment of impulsivity, Roman wants to dump it all out. No, no, he wants to hurl the glass at his wall. He wants to see the pieces flying everywhere. The stains and shattered glass would make a brilliant art piece in itself.
What comes of an artist who's undervalued? What happens to the loudmouth who's voice isn't heard? The comedian met with silence? The prince with no authority?
The prince with no authority.
Roman's face scrunches up as he huffs. He was worth something. He was worth more than what they were crediting him for.
He had once demanded their attention, and he will again, regardless of what he has to do to get it.
Tears pricking his eyes, his arm rears back, knuckles white from how hard he grips the glass. Lemonade sloshes out of the cup and onto the floor, but that's not what Roman's focusing on right now.
Let's see the kingdom function without the royalty, he thinks, before he's pushing forward.
So caught up in his own emotions, he fails to notice the peering eyes looming in the darkness in his room, as well as the wide, toothy grin, that only spreads wider as the sound of shattering is heard.
The word manipulation has such negative connotation surrounding it.
Whenever anyone hears the word, they automatically assume it’s somebody using somebody else as a plaything; as a means to get themselves to the top regardless of who ends up on bottom. Puppeteers have become a common representative for those who manipulate, as if they’re playing with people like dolls.
But, it doesn’t always mean that.
Sometimes it means over analyzing a situation and manipulating a conversation to stay away from you in order to protect yourself. Sometimes it’s joking about your trauma so that nobody else can use it against you and get the upper hand.
Both things Janus Dolion was notorious for doing.
He knew he had manipulative tendencies, and admittedly he has used it to bypass a few teachers and get a few things throughout his life, but he likes to believe he’s grown since then, and was expressing such, only for his therapist to tell him otherwise.
“You’re manipulative,” was how he started it off, before he quickly clarified “not in a bad way! You just know how to lead a discussion in a way that will keep the attention off of you. You did it a lot when we first started therapy.” Mr. Picani, Janus’s therapist, laughs, as if he didn’t just lay down news that pulled Janus’s breath from him. “When we first started, you had issues opening up to me. That’s often normal, but even now, when we talk about the incident, you make jokes about it.”
Mr. Picani clears his throat, as Janus sits there in silence, hands fidgeting with the pop-it he’s holding, fingers pushing the small orbs down, only to push them back on the other side.
“People who joke about their trauma often do it as a quote-unquote ‘coping mechanism.’ However, they also do it so that they’re always in control of it. If you joke about it, you can control the laughter, and you can therefore control whether or not other people talk about it.” Mr. Picani taps his pen to his notepad, before adding “plus, every time I simply smiled or tried to press on something further, you’d conveniently get side tracked and unveil some new trauma or incident that we’d get fixated on instead, this thing significantly less bad than the accident.”
Janus’s hand shoots up to his face, smooth fingers bumping across rough scars, before he lets go of the pop-it. His hands clasp together, fingers brushing against the same scarring over his hands. With the scorched hand, he can’t feel his normal one, most of the nerve endings having been severed.
He looks uncomfortable as he fidgets.
Instinctively, he feels the urge to say something else. Something such as “you’ll never believe what the medic said to me after the incident” or “guess who asked me to Homecoming,” but he doesn’t, because this is exactly what Mr. Picani was talking about.
He’s never cared about whether or not he’s a good or bad person, seeing as morals can be easily manipulated by religion, but now he feels a sinking feeling in his gut. Is he as bad a person as some claim he is?
“I can read the look on your face,” the therapist says, and immediately Janus’s eyes snap up and his lips press into a straight line. Any emotion previously displayed is immediately wiped away as soon as attention is brought to it, and even though Mr. Picani is smiling, he exhales through his nose.
The insistent tapping draws Janus’s eyes to that, and things are silent for a moment, before Janus looks towards the clock.
“It’s three’o’clock,” Janus says, standing up. He sets the pop-it back on the table beside him, before standing up. Mr. Picani stands up, and opens the door for him, following him out of the office.
Outside, a man with scarring up his neck and over his face is waiting for them. It reaches over his lips and basically covers his entire lower half, plus a patch over his forehead. Unlike Janus, both of his eyes are unharmed.
He leans on a cane, limping towards them when they walk out.
“Thanks, Mr. Picani,” the man says, and Mr. Picani nods, offering a sympathetic smile.
“It’s no problem. I’m working at the hospital on Friday, so I won’t be able to see you until next Tuesday,” he directs that statement towards Janus, but is looking at the man. “Thanks again, Mr. Dolion. I’ll see you later, Janus.” He waves, and heads back inside the office, leaving Janus and his father outside.
“Did therapy go well?” Mr. Dolion asks, as he leads Janus back to his car, limping to the driver's side. Janus momentarily stares at the golden head of the cane.
Janus climbs into the passenger side, refusing to acknowledge the panic that he’s filled with as soon as he’s shut in the car. Trapped; enclosed.
“Yeah,” he lies, when his father inserts the key into the ignition. He offers a small smile, one that appears real enough to wash away any doubt his dad may have had. “Therapy was great.”
so, a while ago, my therapist informed me that i’m manipulative, and told me (in way better detail) that i utilize my ability to read people in order to protect myself. when first hearing that, i knew she was right. i knew that i could direct a conversation away from me and wipe away any worry surrounding my feelings if i didnt want to talk about them, in order to keep myself from being vulnerable, and thus keep myself safe
im still guilty of doing this now, but when first hearing it, i reacted poorly, and had a breakdown over whether or not i was a bad person for deceiving my friends constantly. its because of the negative connotation surrounding the idea of manipulation that i thought of this, and thinking it back on it now, i really wanted to show that manipulation isnt all bad. sometimes its done to protect yourself, which is often an inherently good thing
so take this short piece of writing to basically express that
