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
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- 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;
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Art/media
- Upload your work to any platform (twitter, imgur, youtube, soundcloud, google maps, etc.)
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[FILL] not waving but drowning
Major Tags: mentioned recreational drug use
Additional Tags: misuse of biblical lore, wonhan kenstewy, see s2 e1 of succession for more insanity, coworkers(?) to enemies(?)
Permission to remix: please ask
dear pb, i am fully aware your prompt has already been filled absolutely beautifully. in fact i’m not even sure this fits the prompt at all - it's the wrong succession couple for one thing. but i’m deranged now, so here.
***
"He's taking an important call?" Jeonghan asks. Although he doesn't ask, not really. His words are loaded with a sarcasm that curdles in Wonwoo's own mouth.
"I- yeah. He's taking a call. Like I said, he's very sorry that he couldn't-"
"He's taking a call and he can't miss it. How 80s, how quaint. How utterly charming of him. And now I have to deal with his offcuts."
Wonwoo doesn't flinch. He keeps his eyes firmly on Jeonghan's shoes. They're scuffed, just a little. Jeonghan should really put in more effort.
"You got nothing to say to me?"
Wonwoo opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. The air he breathes dries out his mouth, parches his throat.
"Of course not. You never have anything to say. Not even when it's your fucking decision, you never explain yourself. You've never needed to. You can get someone else to say the tough shit and you can run and hide under your little rock where nobody can find you."
Wonwoo squirms a little in his suit. Jeonghan's right, of course, more right than he even knows.
"And now you're not taking any of my calls."
Wonwoo blinks. He wasn't expecting that. He hopes he's imagining the plaintive hint in Jeonghan's voice.
"I'm not having it," Jeonghan continues. "We had a plan, we had everything set up, and then you cut me off with nothing. So now that you're here, I need you to say it. Tell me what fucking happened."
Wonwoo keeps staring at the shoes. "I- I mean, well- yeah, I guess-"
"Wonwoo, come on."
"Look, it's not exactly like you have any moral high ground," Wonwoo mutters weakly. "You fucked me over on that vote of no confidence about my dad. I was a dead man when I put it on the table and you practically stormed in and robbed my fucking tomb."
Jeonghan scoffs, just as Wonwoo thought he would. "You think either of us have any moral high ground? We just tried to et tu Brute your dad and now you're talking to me about moral high ground? This isn't about moral high ground anymore, this is about us."
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? Stop fucking around. We had the world in the palms of our hands. We had everything we could ever want, everything we've always wanted. But then you fucking bailed. So tell me. What did he offer you?"
"What are you talking about?" Wonwoo plays dumb, ignoring the lump rising to his throat.
"Your dad, asshole. What did he offer?"
"He didn't offer-"
"Or what did he do to you? He must have done something."
"He didn't do anything, I don't know what you mean."
Jeonghan's face twists for a second, lemon-sour and ugly in a way that Wonwoo thought was impossible. Then, he closes his eyes and sighs. When he looks back at Wonwoo, it's softer, it's moss on a river bank.
"There's a friend card here, if you want to play it. There's a living, breathing human that cares for you, that wants you to tell me things. You can tell me, whatever it is. What did he do?"
Wonwoo knows Jeonghan. He's clever enough not to fall for this.
"You don't mean that," he says. It's as confident as he can manage, brittle-voiced as he is.
"What, that I'm your friend? After all these years, is it that unbelievable that we're friends? Have I just been dicking around all this time?"
"Not- not that. Of course you're my friend, but you don't care. We're just- I mean it's only-" Wonwoo flounders, shifting in his suit.
Only what? What could possibly describe what Wonwoo and Jeonghan are?
Jeonghan rolls his eyes. Predictable. That doesn't stop something flaring up in Wonwoo, though.
"You know, you pretty much told me I shouldn't trust you. You can't tell someone not to trust you and then ask why-"
"That didn't stop you though, did it? You had no problem trusting me when it came to planning the whole thing. Why can't you trust me now?"
"If you cared about me, you wouldn't have hidden that you were working with one of my dad's biggest enemies for months."
"And it's because I care about you that I fought tooth and nail with those enemies to get a takeover arrangement that made you CEO! That's what this was all about, wasn't it? You wanted to be king of the castle and you wanted it all to yourself, so I worked to make that happen. You were so sure you could make everything better and set up your little fairytale and take away your dad's curse, but once I'd hacked through the fucking forest of thorns you bailed on me!"
Jeonghan's shouting now. He doesn't normally shout. He's sharp and acerbic and scathing, but he doesn't shout. The words land on Wonwoo like blows.
"You didn't care about that." Wonwoo curls, not blooming but wilting. "You d- You don't care about what I want. This was only ever about money to you, so I don't know why you're pretending-"
"Oh here we go," Jeonghan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Here's Wonwoo, martyr of all martyrs. He's suffered more than Christ. Everyone's against him, nobody's on his side, he's all alone in a sea of people that despise his very being. So eager to repent and be crucified that he won't even spare a moment, a fraction of a second, to look in the eye of the whore that cares about him."
Wonwoo looks up at that. Jeonghan doesn't say real things. But this feels too real, real enough to sear Wonwoo's suit and burn holes in his skin.
"You don't care," Wonwoo sputters.
"Just repeating something won't make it true," Jeonghan replies. It's gentle, it's light streaming through a gap in the drapes. "Now be honest. What happened?"
For the briefest of seconds, Wonwoo considers it. Once, back in college, Jeonghan told Wonwoo that he could probably never do something wrong. Wonwoo simply glanced at the coke that he was arranging into neat lines on the table between them. But Jeonghan laughed and said you know what I mean, I mean like really wrong. You're Wonwoo. You don't do the wrong thing.
And Wonwoo had believed him. It was hard for Wonwoo to do anything wrong, Wonwoo who thought so much and did so little. But he’s different now. Maybe Jeonghan isn’t, but Wonwoo is. Wonwoo has done the wrong thing, and now he’s paying the price for it. He’s treading water, barely managing to keep his head above the surface, saltwater spluttering in his mouth and nose. Just about able to gasp a few desperate breaths. One wrong move and down he goes, never to be seen again.
Wonwoo wants to call someone over, reach a hand out, tell someone. Anyone. Jeonghan. Jeonghan who makes everything sound so easy, who would help him raze an empire to the ground if he got a share in the rubble. Jeonghan who always knows better, but somehow still wants Wonwoo to be happy. Jeonghan who cares, apparently. Does he? Would he walk by Wonwoo's side? Would he wait by his tomb for three days? If Wonwoo fell down before him, would he help him up? Or would he sink to his knees and wrap his arms around him, tighter and tighter and tighter until-
(When every embrace is a snake's coil, you learn to live without.)
Wonwoo takes a deep breath.
"Well, I- I mean- I guess I saw your plan, and my dad's plan was better." Rehearsed to an art. Wonwoo can roll this sentence around his mouth and spit it out at will.
Jeonghan nods. "Yeah, yeah, I know. And fuck you too. Fuck you, you cowardly, selfish fucking daddy's boy, fucking glass ruby, fucking spineless maggot, grade A prick."
Words are air to Wonwoo, light and free-flowing. He bends and twists them whatever way his mouth can manage. But now they're stones for Jeonghan to fling, arrows to shoot, needles to jab right where it hurts most. Maybe it's because he's telling the truth.
Wonwoo looks down at Jeonghan's shoes again. Still scuffed. He can't see himself in them, at least.
"Now that that's out of the way," Jeonghan says, "what does your father need to tell me?"