Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.
About
"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."
"What is grief, if not love persevering?"
"You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath"
Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. Quote collecters and lyric hoarders, unleash your archive. Each prompt must contain a quote - you can combine them, add commentary, link to articles, and more. Steal from a literary classic, or WeVerse drama. Have fun!
Examples
Minghao + Ocean Vuong
The most beautiful part of your body
is where it's headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world.
Ocean Vuong - night sky with exit wounds
Hoshi/Anyone; "Beauty is terror"
Thinking about these two quotes together and the idea of on/off-stage personas:
"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful we tremble before it. And what could be more terrifying or beautiful, to the Greeks to to our own, than to lose control completely?" - Donna Tartt, the Secret Histories
"I am calm in everyday life but when I put on my in-ear device and step on stage, I can feel the tension and hear the cheers getting louder as the music gets louder. When the staff tells me it's time to step on stage, I feel something boil inside me. I feel it steaming inside and I think I have to give a burst of something, spill what is inside me." - Hoshi in Hit the Road Ep. 04
Any ship; "It's been so many years"
Hello, hello there, is this Martha?
This is old Tom Frost
And I am calling long distance
Don't worry 'bout the cost.
'Cause it's been forty years or more
Now Martha please recall
Meet me out for coffee
Where we'll talk about it all.
Tom Watts - Martha
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 and a warning. 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;
- Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment and edit 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, edit the sections, and add your text.
You may also upload your fill to the AO3 Collection.
Remixing
- Post as a reply to the fill you are remixing, using the same HTML as above;
- Change the subject to [REMIX].
Art/media
- Upload your work to any platform (twitter, imgur, youtube, soundcloud, google maps, etc.)
- Using the same HTML code as above, copy the link into your fill or remix. That's it!
- 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)
Note!
On dreamwidth, you can't edit a comment once someone has replied to it.
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[FILL] This is not for tears
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Coworker/family/power dynamics, infidelity, vague successiony corporate world, implied sexual content
Permission to remix: Yes
***
“Mingyu-ssi,” Seokmin says softly, toeing the ground, his eyes pleading. “Don’t take this— please don’t take this personal.”
“Oh, okay. Okay, sure. Then how exactly am I supposed to take it? Are you fucking me up the ass right now, Lee Seokmin? On the roof of my father’s company and in front of the eyes of God?”
When it’s Seokmin, Mingyu takes everything personal.
Seokmin coughs, looks around like someone might be eavesdropping on them, an anxious smile biting at the corner of his face. He’s still not very comfortable in his own skin here, fumbly and too vulnerable. He has always been soft. Milk teeth. Nobody kid from Yongin who came begging to Mingyu for a job.
When he was still Mingyu’s personal assistant, he cried once in front of Han Sung Soo and the entire third floor just because Han Sung Soo got all up in his face and said, “You gonna cry, Lee Seokmin?” It was suddenly excruciating, this rote verbal humiliation that Mingyu was so used to, perhaps because it was Seokmin. Mingyu had needed to look away. But after the meeting was over he’d gone to the bathroom and there Seokmin was, head down, still crying, the elbows of his secondhand suit getting damp where they braced against the sink.
It did something to Mingyu’s heart. There. No, it did, it did. It made him want to offer Seokmin something better. Anything better. But he knew what was expected of him. He knew he needed Seokmin right where he was. The only person Mingyu could punch down to. He should've gone to slap Seokmin’s back, make a joke like Hey Seokmin-ssi you been jacking off into the sink or what for the last half an hour? Ought to have sent him on his way, tell him to make himself useful and go get a coffee.
Instead, Mingyu came closer, slowly, like approaching a terrified dog. He splayed his hand against the pale smooth back of Seokmin’s neck, under the edges of his overgrown cheap haircut. Seokmin inhaled sharply with surprise, turned his face up to look up at him.
Touching Seokmin always made Mingyu feel strange, trembly. Split-open. Seokmin was such a little nothing, still. Especially when he cried.
Mingyu said in a low voice, staring into his flushed, shining eyes, “Look. I’ll take care of you, Seokmin-ah. I said I would, didn’t I? I’ll take care of you.”
Seokmin whispered, “Do you really mean that? Is that real?”
And for some reason, Mingyu leaned down and kissed his damp forehead.
Mingyu had been very good at taking care of things back then.
He took care of Jeonghan. He took care of their house and their dog Aji. He let himself get fucked, by Jeonghan and by Jeonghan’s father’s company and his own father’s company. A few months later he even married Jeonghan on a winter morning in Cape Cod. Seokmin was at the wedding. Of course he was. It was the greatest merger this side of the Time Warner deal, and this was the symbolic cherry on top of it, a kiss to seal it. Good optics, rotten inside. Like most things in this world.
Only problem was, Mingyu really thought he loved Jeonghan. He really, really thought he did. And Jeonghan had rewarded it by whispering into his mouth the night before the vows, one hand shoved down his pants, “I just don’t think I’m a good fit for a monogamous marriage, Mingyu-ah.”
It was the only honest thing he’d ever told Mingyu. Honesty was the most efficient way to break a person.
It was especially good timing, too, because that very morning, when Mingyu had been out for a run, Seokmin came sprinting up behind him calling his name, his mouth pursed, his eyes wide, grabbed Mingyu by the shoulder and looked into his eyes and whispered, “I think Jeonghan-ssi is— I think Jeonghan-ssi and your step-brother— um, I think Jeonghan-ssi and Seungcheol-sunbaenim—” and Mingyu had said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” kept repeating it as he shoved Seokmin backward, wrestled him to the snowy ground and straddled his writhing mass, one elbow on his throat, the way he'd wanted to be near him for so long but now it was all wrong and he said it one last time with deadly calm:
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Seokmin-ssi.”
That’s what he says now, on the roof, when Seokmin says, “I’m really not trying to fuck you, I’m not. But you do remember those documents you had me get rid of.”
Mingyu keeps shaking his head stubbornly. The motions grow into desperation.
“You should know,” Seokmin says, sounding more careful than he’s ever been capable of before, “that Seungcheol-sunbaenim asked me about them the other day.”
Mingyu turns to look at him.
“Are you fucking asking me if you can kill me? You’re getting my permission before you carve my heart out? Thank you, Seokmin-ssi, what a truly nice gesture. Your coworkers are right. You’re the second kindest person after God.”
“No, no, I—” Seokmin takes a step closer. “Mingyu-ssi. Please. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want— I’m no good at this stuff. You know I’m not.” His voice has dropped into that quiet, soft cadence, trying to soothe, the way he’d talked to Aji the first and only time Mingyu had let him into his and Jeonghan’s apartment. “I’m really not smart. Maybe I’m good with people, but I’m not smart. It’s just… those documents. They could really help. They could… They could change things around here. Really.”
“If those papers get out,” Mingyu says quietly, “my father is going to send me to jail, Seokmin-ssi.”
“No, he’s not.”
“I’m the youngest son. I’m expendable.”
“You’re not expendable,” Seokmin says softly, like he really believes it. “You're a good person. You're better than all of them. Come with me. I want you to come with me.”
Abruptly, Mingyu feels his own tiredness.
That old thing sitting on his heart, so heavy. The exhaustion of having lived in this world since early adolescence. Of, for as long as he can remember, being pit like a fucking fighting dog against the people he loved and the people he wanted with all his stupid little heart to love him.
“I'm not very good,” Mingyu whispers. “You’re– you’re better than me. You’re full of hope. I’m full of nothing. I’m not a real person. I’m a straw doll. I got nothing inside me anymore. You know?”
“Well, then I’ll take care of you,” Seokmin says softly, kindly, in his talking-to-dogs voice, “Kim Mingyu.”
Seokmin is not a little nothing from Yongin anymore. He doesn't need Mingyu anymore. But he's still reaching a hand out. Mingyu touches his face because his eyes feel funny. He’s sort of crying. He turns away. Out of the corner of one eye, he sees Seokmin come closer, raise his hands up, careful.
“You,” Mingyu starts, when the large, warm hands are around his jaw, solid and anchoring.
The tenderness is out of place. Suddenly he wants those hands around his throat. He wants them to squeeze the life out of him.
“I. Seokmin. If there was some world. Where we weren’t here like this. If there was some world where we– I'd fucking marry you, you know. I'd lie awake in our bed, waiting for you to kill me. I really think I wouldn't mind being killed, if it was you."
Seokmin’s arms are around him now. Mingyu's shaking. Seokmin turns his face up to kiss his forehead. Mingyu knows Seokmin is smiling. He can tell. The knife is twisting. Mingyu's losing and he likes it. He's leaning into it.
“I’ll take care of you," Seokmin says again. "Mingyu-ah."
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(Anonymous) 2021-12-31 12:22 am (UTC)(link)fuck. eyes BLOODSHOT WIDE OPEN ready to witness the second coming of christ. wow.
Re: [FILL] This is not for tears
(Anonymous) 2021-12-31 12:25 am (UTC)(link)