Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills and comments, but prompts are no longer accepted.
About
The world is full of beautiful words. The tongue has no bones but is strong enough to break a heart. Words start wars and end them, create love and choke it, bring us to laughter and joy and tears. There is no falsehood in words, only in things.
Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. If you have a google spreadsheet of Metric/Marina/Mitski/Macklemore lyrics, now's your time to shine. What does Nobel Laureate Louise Glück have in common with the Future of Kpop Lee Chan? I don't know, but we can find out.
Examples
Junhui + The Archer
"Easy they come, easy they go
I jump from the train, I ride off alone
I never grew up, it's getting so old
Help me hold onto you"
Taylor Swift - The Archer
Verhao; "I loved him from the moment he walked in"
Just thinking about all the verhao soft feelings from the last week of November, especially the killer tweet from @literarykpop with the quote:
"I laughed and said, ‘Life is easy.’ What I meant was, ‘Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again." - Miranda July
95 line - R18
"Houston, we have a problem."
Rules
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- Fills have a minimum of 400 words for prose, haiku-length for poetry (3 lines), and 400px by 400px for art (memes are also art). Other mediums are fine too!
- There is no maximum cap.
- Tag and provide content warnings at your discretion, but a good guide are the Ao3 four (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage) and this list of common CWs (cr: SportsFest).
- NSFW/Explicit content should be tagged
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How it works
Prompting
- Click on [Post a New Comment] at the bottom of this post;
- Change the subject to something interesting and saucy;
- Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment and fill in the sections. Feel free to add as much detail as you want!
Filling
- Reply to the original prompt;
- Change the subject to [FILL], you may add a title or stay chaotic;
- Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment, fill in the sections, and add your text
You may also upload your fill to the AO3 Collection
Filling with art/media
- Do the same as above, also;
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[FILL] Don't know what else to try, but you tell me every time
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: vague handwavey idolverse, unhappy ending
Permission to remix: Yes
***
Taipei is muggy as a summer storm, and Jeonghan kicks Seokmin out of their hotel room.
He'd asked if Seokmin wanted to stop at the convenience store across the street and grab something for dinner, but Seokmin asked why they couldn’t just go together, and Jeonghan said actually never mind, he wasn’t really in the mood for 7-11 food after all.
So then they fell silent under the tired hum of traffic and their half-broken fan rattling all its parts like coins in a box.
Jeonghan asked, mouth twisting with frustration, “Isn’t there any place at all you want to go? Anywhere? Just tell me what you want to see, and then go and find it.”
And Seokmin wasn’t sure how to tell him that it wasn’t the place that mattered so much but only that they were together. When he failed to say anything at all, Jeonghan looked at him with something unreadable and said, “Maybe you should just try taking a walk by yourself.”
Seokmin still isn’t sure why Jeonghan chose him to come. What were his grand hopes? They only have two days, and anyway Seungcheol would’ve been a better option. Right now Seungcheol would be making plans to go drinking, or he'd be putting up a good fight against wherever Jeonghan might decide to drag him, or planning for dinner by himself, valuing the weight of his own opinion no matter how much he might be teased for it later.
But instead, Jeonghan chose Seokmin. And now he has realized his mistake and has un-chosen Seokmin, cast him out like an unwanted pet onto the streets.
The air is unbreathable and the fabric of Seokmin’s shirt is sticky all over him like a second skin. He stands in front of the hotel like a lost kid. He wonders why he is unable to escape the radius of Jeonghan's gravitation.
Maybe Jeonghan chose and un-chose Seokmin on purpose. Maybe this whole thing was meant to be a lesson in dramatic irony, and in being a braver person, in not being bewildered at the terrible prospect of having to become something other than a dependable friend or someone to laugh at or someone to lead into new places by the hand.
But this is terrifying. And Seokmin doesn’t want terrifying. He wants Jeonghan to tell him how to come up for air and what to want and where to go and how to love. He wants Jeonghan to let him stay inside their room until he’s ready, until he’s not terrified, until he can breathe again, until, until.
When Seokmin comes back into the room Jeonghan is napping on top of the sheets. His shadow is pale blue on the pillow. Asleep, he looks so kind.
Seokmin tests his weight on the edge of the bed, and when Jeonghan miraculously doesn’t stir, he puts one leg up, and then the other and lies on his side gingerly.
He and Jeonghan are, cruelly, like mirror images of each other. Seokmin tries to breathe, feather-light, steady, but it doesn’t work. His chest hurts. He is unused to having to take so much care. It’s like being told not to drop a glass bowl. Of course you’ll drop it. Of course you’ll be picking shards out of your feet weeks later.
“You make me so sad,” Seokmin whispers, and he curls forward and rests his forehead against Jeonghan’s for one unendurable, unendurable minute.
Then he leaves the room again because he has discovered, horribly, that air is even harder to come by inside with Jeonghan than outside without him. He walks to the Daan Forest Park five minutes away. The sky is dark but it refuses to rain. He sits down on a bench and tries not to cry.
***
Re: [FILL] Don't know what else to try, but you tell me every time
the use of the humid weather to convey mood AND MAKE THE BREATHING DIFFICULT was so good, and just like the way you twisted their relationship really pokes at what it is that holds them together, which makes the conflict more realistic? rather than arbitrary...
- i really love the technique of turning dialogue into the narrative voice "and Jeonghan said actually never mind"...
- "But instead, Jeonghan chose Seokmin. And now he has realized his mistake and has un-chosen Seokmin, cast him out like an unwanted pet onto the streets." also preying on seok's insecurity, and just like how he's unreadable to seok he is unreadable to the reader so you're just as lost and confused...
- "Asleep, he looks so kind." HELLO?????????????????/ yoon fcking jeonghan...
- "It’s like being told not to drop a glass bowl. Of course you’ll drop it. Of course you’ll be picking shards out of your feet weeks later." i really love your narrative voice it's very impactful, the right balance of drama
- “You make me so sad,” Seokmin whispers, and he curls forward and rests his forehead against Jeonghan’s for one unendurable, unendurable minute. this is emotionally the worst thing i hve ever read... i dont even know what else to say... but the emotional dread (coming to terms with the truth) just builds in the piece until the ending which is really, really... T___T why!!! it's a really good piece but how am i supposed to admit that!!!!
Re: [FILL] Don't know what else to try, but you tell me every time
Re: [FILL] Don't know what else to try, but you tell me every time
usually when i find fics atmospheric i do not mean the pre and post downpour atmosphere of being bottled up but i have clue how else to describe what this evokes. i said this on a different fill but Seokmin Sad! it hurts to read but it's also lovely to read and i'm feeling very well fed here.
His chest hurts. He is unused to having to take so much care. It’s like being told not to drop a glass bowl. Of course you’ll drop it. Of course you’ll be picking shards out of your feet weeks later.
AAAAH this is so brilliant I don't know how to not think about these lines. thank you!!
Re: [FILL] Don't know what else to try, but you tell me every time
Re: [FILL] Don't know what else to try, but you tell me every time
Re: [FILL] Don't know what else to try, but you tell me every time