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).
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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] the moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Science Fiction, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, the claymore and hou yi & chang’e mashup that no one asked for
Permission to remix: Yes
***
When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you love it.
- Caitlyn Siehl
Minghao has only known the cold comfort of the moon. Born and raised in the lunar colonies, he has spent his entire life in a domed city, Earth nothing but a sandy marble against the darkness of space. Someone had once told him that Earth used to be beautiful, used to be known for its water rather than fire.
“Really?” Minghao had asked, hands fidgeting with a pear. They were under the shade of one of the synthetic trees designed to make the moon feel more like Earth—not that Minghao would know. To Minghao, the moon was home, fake trees and all.
“Really,” said the boy who would sneak him pears from the food deliveries. “See all that beige? It used to be water.”
“Then how was Earth set on fire?” Minghao took a bite of the pear. It was crisp and sweet, fresher than anything in his rations. “How did the sanzuwu survive?”
The boy shrugged. “They’re monsters. When have monsters ever made sense?” Back then, he was still radiant, somehow sun-kissed on the moon, where everyone was pale and ashen.
When is a boy no longer a boy? When he grows up. When he becomes what he swore to destroy.
Earth was overrun by monsters that were aptly named after the mythological sanzuwu. They were living suns, three-legged monstrosities that scorched the land and burned everything in their path.
Every once in a while, an earthen patrol would discover the smoldering corpse of a dead sanzuwu. When Minghao had shown Junhui the news report of one such discovery on his holoscreen, Junhui had commented that the sanzuwu resembled a pitiful bird more than a monster.
“But then again,” Junhui had said, “I’m sure I would also look much different if you set me on fire.”
They no longer met under the synthetic trees. Junhui rarely had free days, spending most of his time training in the barracks near the capital, and Minghao was at university, drowning in assignments.
The felled sanzuwu would be sliced and cut up, then shipped up to the moon in containers, like stars returning to the heavens.
A few years ago, the lunar colonies started a project to defend humanity’s last bases on Earth and hopefully expand their holdings too. Scientists from the lunar colonies infused lunar soldiers with sanzuwu flesh and blood, which gifted them with abilities like heat resistance and strength, and then sent the soldiers down to Earth to kill sanzuwu.
Junhui volunteered. Of course he did, this stupid, brave boy who used to risk retribution to sneak pears from food deliveries just to split and share them with Minghao. And he was already so radiant.
Minghao saw him once after the transfusion, Junhui’s eyes like sunbursts and his black hair now golden. He was ethereal, a miniature sun. If this is how the sanzuwu looked, then Minghao understood why the Earth had let them set her on fire.
He wanted to kiss Junhui senseless. Instead, he held Junhui’s burning palms and gazed into his shining eyes, wishing him the best of luck.
“Come back,” Minghao said softly. Come back to me, he wanted to say.
Junhui’s armor was polished and smoothed to a shine. It hurt to look directly at him. And then he grinned, his smile still mischievous, transforming from a warrior to the boy that Minghao had first fell in love with.
“I will,” Junhui promised. He brought one of Minghao’s hands to his lips, his kiss a brand on Minghao’s skin, sealing the pledge. “I’ll come back to you.”
There would always be a risk when injecting monster blood into human veins, but the severity of the consequences was not yet known. Minghao assumed that the soldiers would simply die, their bodies too frail to handle their powers. Instead, by month six of the project, there were reports of soldiers overexerting their powers and burning up, supernovae. They turned into monsters themselves, somehow more grotesque than the sanzuwu they were sent to kill.
Now, the months have passed in a steady stream, accumulating into years.
Minghao glances at his companion android Yutu, who is projecting the latest articles on sanzuwu attacks. There’s a picture of Junhui—his face obscured by the surrounding flames—on the news, accompanied by a foreign name, but Minghao can recognize him anywhere.
The lunar and earthen residents call him Hou Yi. He shoots down the most sanzuwu and, unlike the rest of his cohort, remains untransformed. The bitter irony of comparing Junhui, the last survivor in his unit, to Hou Yi, who was left alone on Earth after his wife flew to the moon, is not lost to Minghao.
Up on the moon, Minghao waits for Junhui to either return a hero, or cut up into little stars.
Re: [FILL] the moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to
- This is insane I am blown away and Gobsmacked by your world building oh my goodness.. you managed to work in so many layers and themes into this short piece
- I’m somewhat familiar w Hou yi and chang’e and to have that come full circle at the end !!! (and the whole concept of just waiting for the person u love to turn into a monster and loving them despite AND because of that)
- U rly rly cut to the heart of this prompt (see above) but your language (stars and lunar metaphors and the imagery of the monsters themselves and junhui) is so striking both in its ferocity and in its beauty. The last line took my breath away!!
- Speaking of your junhui... he is Incredible.. I don’t want to quote your whole piece back to u but: “Back then, he was still radiant, somehow sun-kissed on the moon, where everyone was pale and ashen.” THE FORESHADOWING! AND THEN “Junhui’s eyes like sunbursts and his black hair now golden. He was ethereal, a miniature sun.”
- I’m feeling A Little deranged on the whole
- My favorite line (although I love all of them truly): "When is a boy no longer a boy? When he grows up. When he becomes what he swore to destroy."
Thank u SO MUCH this is beyond my wildest dreams it is truly beautiful and u are a gift
Re: [FILL] the moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to
- i adore the sci-fi retelling of the houyi/chang'e myth and i said this to u already but the inversion of them starting on the moon and junhui/houyi as the one leaving minghao/chang'e is so clever
- junhui is so utterly boyish it destroys me a little inside... And then he grinned, his smile still mischievous, transforming from a warrior to the boy that Minghao had first fell in love with. crying...
- “But then again,” Junhui had said, “I’m sure I would also look much different if you set me on fire.” THE FORESHADOWING IN THIS LINE??? INSANE. like i laughed at first but it takes on a whole different meaning once u finish reading
- Up on the moon, Minghao waits for Junhui to either return a hero, or cut up into little stars. as if the whole thing wasn't devastating enough already you really chose VIOLENCE with the ending
i can always count on u to reliably destroy me in ways i didn't even know i could be destroyed until now, i love u and ur sexy brain so much
Re: [FILL] the moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to
- the monster motif!!!!! the stars and the heavens!!!!!!!! (as well as the themes of humanity, loneliness, knowing someone in a past life n yet facing the fact that the person u once knew isn't preserved in time I AM CLENCHING MY FIST AT U!!!!)
- ur writing is insane
- INSANE
- i feel unhinged
- think the amount of worldbuilding that you manage to do in a short amount of time is really amazing!!!! u do Just Enough while not diverging our attentions to the details and tell us to focus on the 8jun of it all...
- what hurts the most i think is jun's boyishness and the naïveté that comes with heroes who think themselves Different From All the Rest. and reading between the lines and feeling xmh's anguish.... me being unable to peel my eyes away from the incoming trainwreck....
- what i know of chang'e and houyi comes from over the moon but i think this is a wonderful rendition (also the sci-fi, when "lunar colonies" was mentioned i immediately thought of the lunar chronicles by marissa meyer and was extremely esctatic)
- it hurt to look directly at him. mmmm i love my sun metaphors B^) i'm burnin up (4 u baby)
this is my favorite part ever, and i'm looking at ki's comment and i'm laughing because it's the same, but it is because it's magnificently written:
The boy shrugged. “They’re monsters. When have monsters ever made sense?” Back then, he was still radiant, somehow sun-kissed on the moon, where everyone was pale and ashen.
When is a boy no longer a boy? When he grows up. When he becomes what he swore to destroy.
i think there is something terribly ominous and ethereal about this. about everything, really. thank u thank u thank u
Re: [FILL] the moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to
Re: [FILL] the moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to
When is a boy no longer a boy? When he grows up. When he becomes what he swore to destroy. - your style is gorgeous and these lines in particular made me feel !!! and I love how this ended ambiguously, with Minghao still waiting, and we don't know whether Junhui returns or burns. The ending line is really bittersweet (cut up into little stars oh my god what an IMAGEEEE) and satisfying. thank you so much for writing and sharing!!