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
- Sign up is not required.
- 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
- NSFW art should not be visible. Please provide a link to the art. You may crop the artwork and embed a SFW preview.
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;
- Upload your work to any platform (twitter, imgur, youtube, soundcloud, google maps, etc.)
- Insert the link to your work, done!
- Optionally, you can embed a picture into your comment. Please use the following code instead.
(To explain, the HTML resizes your picture to 400x400px so that it fits on most screens, users can view the full size if they click on it. You can also add a link to your work on twitter so that others can share it, or to any other website you want)
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[FILL] and if i didn’t know better
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: ambiguous r/s, angst
Permission to remix: please ask!
***
On a bright winter day, a stranger drops into a stool at the bar and determinedly asks the bartender to make him the heaviest drink he can. Says he wants it to pack a punch, wants it to feel it burning at the back of his throat, a kick in the teeth — only the words sound clumsy coming out of his mouth, like he’s not really used to asking for what he wants.
Needless to say, Jeonghan is intrigued.
He clicks his tongue sympathetically. “Tough day?”
The stranger lets out a disbelieving scoff, grin sharp and bitter and angry before he realizes he’s being talked to. It settles down into something softer. Nicer, on the whole.
“Yeah, sorry,” the stranger says, hands curling around the glass, and it’s almost as if he visibly shrinks in size, neatening out. Packages himself smaller and smaller, and becomes easier on the eyes, more palatable, so that Jeonghan doesn’t get cut on his edges.
How terribly considerate. How terribly kind.
Jeonghan’s interest grows.
He idly wonders what it would be like to tug at the strings, to watch it all come undone. He thinks that he’d want to be there when it happens. Not because he wants to watch a spectacular crash, but because he remembers what it’s like to realize that the world doesn’t remember kindness. It’s an entirely different beast, one that devours any traces of softness and leaves nothing behind but heavy metal. You’re never as lost as you are then.
Jeonghan scrapes out a sympathetic smile and extends his hand. “Need a friend?”
The look that the stranger gives him is full of emotions Jeonghan can’t quite place, too slippery to get a feel for in the half-dimmed lights of a dingy bar that has way too many patrons in it for midday. He clicks his teeth in annoyance. He used to be better at this.
Damn, he must be getting old.
The stranger takes his hand and shakes it haltingly. His name is Lee Seokmin. He isn’t half too bad, in this lighting. He’s certainly not too bad in bed either: the comically oversized jacket gives way to deceptively broad shoulders and strong thighs that demand their own devotion, a religion in its own right.
Oddly enough, Jeonghan feels like a sinner.
—
It’s only a coincidence that they found each other. Jeonghan doesn’t believe in love, or fate. Doesn’t feel the need to, because they’ve never done him any favors — there’s no need to keep a tab open now.
He doesn’t have to ask Seokmin to know he thinks otherwise. He knew it from the moment the other man walked in that he was different.
And despite all that, Jeonghan finds himself wanting to keep him in his hands for a little while longer, captivated by the way that Seokmin is painfully transparent, his entire body becoming a vessel of feeling and thinking and worrying. He both envies Seokmin and pities him.
(He loves him even more for it.)
Jeonghan had gotten angry once, infuriated at the way Seokmin turned placating and pliant in the face of conflict, taking each of the barbs Jeonghan had tossed out at him. It felt like punching a wall.
Jeonghan is nothing if not clever, and every comment is malicious, armed with the intent to kill. When he gets angry, he forgets to be the same Jeonghan that sat down at the bar that one fateful winter day with Seokmin, or the same Jeonghan who sings to Seokmin long after he’s fallen asleep because he enjoys the way Seokmin looks under moonlight, or the same Jeonghan who sits and massages Seokmin’s feet after long days at the restaurant even after a long day of his own.
He’s so much worse.
Jeonghan had broken down then, when he realized it, these horrible sobs that he forgot he could make. Aren’t you mad I’ve tricked you, Seokmin-ah? I’m not as kind as you think I am.
Seokmin, unfailing good, unflinchingly kind, had wiped his tears. No. You’re so much better.
But by then, he had already made up his mind.
Jeonghan glances at the boy sleeping in his bed, face free of any worries and achingly young. He wonders if he ever looked like that in Seokmin’s eyes.
Jeonghan isn’t cruel or stupid. He just wants more time. He’s gotten so greedy now, swallowing up every last bit of Seokmin’s kindness, tilting his face up up upwards, towards sunlight. The solace of sturdy arms. A steady heart.
Maybe in another life he’d be able to use those things to carve himself a home.
“I’ll miss you,” Jeonghan whispers to Seokmin, who mumbles in his sleep and curls his arm around Jeonghan’s bare waist. Blissfully unaware.
Jeonghan closes his eyes. Just for a little while longer.
***
a/n: nngh first time writing yjh pov but the lyrics are really haunting n beautiful i hope it did the prompt justice!! angst isn’t my strongest suit but i rly wanted to try my hand at it.. i just think the contrast of lsm being kind but not clever vs yjh being one but not the other provides rly good avenues to explore their relationship n breakup dynamics — the idea that what that caused them to get together in the first place is also what causes them to grate on each other, the eventual fraying due to the unknowns (ie “is love enough to keep us together”) is something that tugs at me so (ur undoing is also ur downfall!) so maybe one day ill have the strength to revisit this and make it longfic but for now xx also ive formatted this on my phone so i might fix it later when i wake up bc its like 3am oops
Re: [FILL] and if i didn’t know better
The way you write dk…. I am feeling so much pain (“like he’s not really used to asking for what he wants.”) especially in that initial bar scene where he tries to be Hardened but he is just. so full of emotions and soft and wonderful :(((( thats my Boy
Also, your yjh pov is amazing…that passage where he wonders what it would like to undo lsm is so interesting. This: “He both envies Seokmin and pities him. (He loves him even more for it.)” was incredible and told me so much about who he is, like what attracted him to lsm in the first place was also sort of the downfall of their relationship (familiarity breeds contempt etc), also him only believing in coincidences, not love or fate, and being so self-aware but being unable to change himself
The description of their fight kinda broke my heart and I love what u said in your author’s note and you wrote to my evil little prompt so so well. “Is love enough to keep us together” YEAH.. that was exactly what I was thinking when I prompted it, that the qualities that became emblematic of the problems in their relationship were what attracted them to each other in the first place...thank u so much for indulging my prompt u are amazing
Re: [FILL] and if i didn’t know better
and yeah that's our boy!!! he's tough when he wants to be but when he's most vulnerable/all layers removed he's really just the softest,,, oh i'm so glad u liked my yjh hhh he's probably the most slippery of all the seventeens for me to grasp n for u to say that u got what i was trying to do w his character.. mwah!!! many kisses for u!!
HJWEKHJSF great minds truly think alike when i read the lyrics and blasted marjorie on repeat i was like. this is the Only Way I Can Envision This Going.. my goal was to explore yjh heartbreaker B^) but not because he's mean but because he cares too much for dk and he's a little selfish for wanting a bigger piece of the sun and because ur often hurt the most by the people u know (or love or trust)
thank u for reading!!!! AGH I LOVE U AND UR COMMENTS SO MUCH. they always bring me such joy
Re: [FILL] and if i didn’t know better
Re: [FILL] and if i didn’t know better
Re: [FILL] and if i didn’t know better
- I’m not as kind as you think I am. / No. You’re so much better. SEOKMIN UNFAILING FORGIVENESS... i'm really in love w how u capture yjh here it's so reminiscent of how calculated everything he does is n how he seems to constantly measure himself
- Just for a little while longer. HOLDING ONTO SOMETHING(SOMEONE) U CHERISH FOR AS LONG AS U CAN EVEN AS U KNOW YOU'LL EVENTUALLY HAVE TO LET GO... i love the yjh martyr complex + not wanting to be selfish it just makes me Feel Some Way
- the contrast btwn seokmin transparent as plastic wrap + jeonghan purposely obfuscatory in a way that makes u feel like u can still read him is soooo good
- ur seokmin i havent talked abt him enough but the way he tries to front but his inner goodness kindness inevitably bleeds thru is EVERYTHING to me
i feel so unhinged thank u for writing this i adore u!!
Re: [FILL] and if i didn’t know better
THE PUSH/PULL WAS MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE (and challenging?) PART TO WRITE i'm so happy it stuck out to u!!!! U___U writing jeonghan is new for me and i'm excited n encouraged to do more of him bc i think he's a rly interesting seventeen (so much depth, so much more to him than the "lazy" or "trickster" label he's been given!) . extra info just because i think this type of stuff is fun: i was trying to write yjh as someone who is calculating n clever but also kind!!!!!! because those are things that aren't always easily associated with one another (hence, the lyrics) but i think jeonghan, from what i see of him, is v capable of being all 3. he's really smart w/ his words/actions but underneath it all is a boy who cares, who tries to be mysterious and blase and aloof but in the end is just as susceptible to matters of the heart :))
feeling equally deranged <333 thank u for sharing ur thoughts always.