#richard siken 'i wanted to be in love and he happened to get in the way'.txt
Text
Planet of Love (by Richard Siken)
Imagine this:
You’re driving.
The sky’s bright. You look great.
In a word, in a phrase, it’s a movie,
you’re the star.
so smile for the camera, it’s a big scene,
you know your lines.
I’m the director. I’m in a helicopter.
I have a megaphone and you play along,
because you want to die for love,
you always have.
Imagine this:
You’re pulling the car over. Somebody’s waiting.
You’re going to die
in your best friend’s arms
and you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down,
you’ve memorized it,
it’s all you know.
I say the phrases that keep it all going,
and everybody plays along.
Imagine this:
Someone’s pulling a gun, and you’re jumping into the middle of it.
You didn’t think you’d feel this way.
There’s a gun in your hand.
It feel hot. It feels oily.
I’m the director
and I’m screaming at you,
I’m waving my arms in the sky
and everyone’s watching, everyone’s
curious, everyone’s
holding their breath.
#poetry#richard siken#planet of love#this has been posted a lot probably but I want to pin it to my blog so :/#love this poem sososo much#and NOW I'M GONNA TALK ABOUT IT#I love the way that the imagine: bit is dropped for the last stanza as if it isn't a hypothetical anymore.#the last stanza really breaks the mold in a way that makes reading it feel like you're there. Like the pin's dropped.#Richard Siken suddenly splits sentences between lines#like (I'm the director/ and i'm screaming at you#which makes it feel.. Odd? disconnected from the rest of the poem#and he does it MORE with the everyones in the last few lines#it gives the last stanza a really cool and unique feel#and the first stanza is super cool too! it feels really nice for a bit#until you get to the 'smile for the camera' line#which feels kind of forced? Like there's a gun to your head#and there IS. The story is forcing you to play along#but then the 'die for love' bit hits and it turns that around#suddenly we know something very VERY wrong is happening#but it also makes it feel like we WANT to be going there#and it also kind of sums up a feeling I had a lot when I wasn't doing to hot irl#that.. desire (in a way) to be a real tragedy rather than just some guy who's too sad to keep going#that need to die FOR something#that was dark. anyways#the third stanza hits so hard. Because in this play you're the one with the gun. You're the one who is simultaneously without any agency#and in total control#you are without control because this is all you know. This ending is the only one you can concieve of.#you can't conceive of a world where things are different#but you are in control because it's an ending you've chosen. You're the one holding th gun#the one choosing to jump in front of it
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
quotes that i think are very trobed coded:
“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.” - Richard Siken
“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.” - Richard Siken
“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.” - Richard Siken
“If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.” - Richard Siken
“I’ve been rereading your story. I think it’s about me in a way that might not be flattering, but that’s okay. We dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up. Anyway: story received, story included. You looked at me long enough to see something mysterioso under all the gruff and bluster. Thanks. Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.” - Richard Siken
“You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened.
Your co-workers ask
if everything's okay and you tell them
you're just tired.
And you're trying to smile. And they're trying to smile.” - Richard Siken
“He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand.” - Richard Siken
“When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?” - Ocean Vuong
“I miss you more than I remember you.” - Ocean Vuong
“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined.” - Ocean Vuong
“What were you before you met me?”
“I think I was drowning.”
“And what are you now?”
“Water.” - Ocean Vuong
“You love him. The story still ends.
So please, I beg you,
he is all that I have,
and you have so many heroes,
and the world has so many more.
Let him be soft. And let him be mine.” - Pencap
“Yes, yes, yes, I do like you. I am afraid to write the stronger word.” - Virginia Woolf
“I’m always soft for you, that’s the problem. You could come knocking on my door five years from now and I would open my arms wider and say ‘come here, it’s been too long, it felt like home with you.’” - Azra T.
“Good news, I love you anyway. All the mess and fuss of you. All the stray hairs and uneven smiles. I love your laugh and your sigh and the way you sing along with the music. It’s all lovable. It feels so good to love you.” - Redinkskinned
“Tell me every terrible thing you ever did, and let me love you anyway.” - Edgar Allan Poe
“There is something wrong with you. There is something wrong with you that is also wrong with me.” - Hera Lindsay Bird
“I’m afraid of a lot of things, but mostly, most sincerely, I am afraid of being completely unraveled by you, and you finding nothing you want in there.” - L M Dorsey
“And I guess I realized at that moment that I really did love her. Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn’t matter.” - from “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky
“I just want you to know that you’re very special. And the only reason I’m telling you is that I don’t know if anyone else ever has.” - from “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky
“You are all the colors in one, at full brightness.” - from “All The Bright Places” by Jennifer Niven
“You make me lovely.” - from “All The Bright Places” by Jennifer Niven
“You know what I like about you? You’re interesting. You’re different. And I can talk to you. Don’t let that go to your head.”
“…You know what I like about you? Everything.” - from “All The Bright Places” by Jennifer Niven
“I love you.”
“It’ll pass.” - from “Fleabag” (2016-2019) by Phoebe Waller-Bridge
“I sit here on the couch, waiting.
Waiting for this to pass.
Days go by and I’m still here. Waiting.
You sit there, nothing changes.
I wait with bared teeth.
I wait.
I wait.
I wait.
I wait for you.”
“I’ll take care of you.”
“It’s rotten work.”
“Not to me. Not if it’s you.” - Anne Carson
“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” - Jane Austen
#this was HEAVILY inspired by my moot epidemiologyfan on twitter#poetry#community#troy barnes#abed nadir#trobed#the perks of being a wallflower#all the bright places#fleabag
128 notes
·
View notes
Photo
only one of you is going to make it and you’re afraid it's going to be you, or, alternatively: you are standing by the tragic hero and it is looking rough out there-
( @lasilhouetteinbianco i did it there’s moby. whoo)
A History of My Brief Body, Billy-Ray Belcourt | Antigonick, Sophokles trans. Anne Carson | The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | Doña Juana “la Loca” (1877), Francisco Pradilla | Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin | THE TRAGIC HERO UPON REACHING THE END OF THE SCRIPT REALIZES HE HAS BEEN DEAD THIS WHOLE TIME, Joan Tierney | Wishbone, Richard Siken | Orpheus and Eurydice, George Frederic Watts | Bitter Water, The Oh Hellos | Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare | YOUR LOVE FINDS ITS WAY BACK, Sierra Mulder | Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus (detail, 1905), John William Waterhouse | Wishbone, Richard Siken | Richard Siken, in an interview with James Hall | Moby Dick, Herman Melville | Weeping Nude (1913-14), Edvard Munch | Love and Pain (1895), Edvard Munch | Metamorphoses, Ovid
[ID: An assortment of various quotes, lyrics, and paintings from a variety of sources.
1. To love someone / is firstly to confess: I’m prepared / to be devastated by you.
2. Ismene: I can help you suffer. // Antigone: No. // Ismene: I can give you reasons not to die. // Antigone: No.
3. And he took me by the hand. But he was still worrying. “It was wrong of you to come. You will suffer. I shall look like I was dead, and that will not be true...” I said nothing.
4. A painting of a young woman dressed in black. She stands in blank despair beside a casket in an open field. She is surrounded by a procession of numerous mourners, as smoke from a behind her rises into the air.
5. What are we staying here for? How long do you / want to sit in this house, eating your heart out?
6. You are kneeling at the water’s throne / When preparing for an ending scene / It’s important that / Swords drop like anchors / Yours will never rise again / I am watching from the cowberries, or / From your mother’s curtains, as if / Through a burial shroud, or
7. And it’s another wrong-man-dies scenario / and we keep doing it, Henry, / keep saying until we get it right... but we / always win and we never quit.
8. A painting of Orpheus and Eurydice at the entrance to Hades. Orpheus, in a toga, reaches out to catch Eurydice as she goes limp and pale, soul having returned to the Underworld. In the background a dead tree trunk can be seen.
9. I am not a fool entire / No, I know what is coming / You will bury me beneath the tree / I climbed when I was a child
10. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
11. My throat is a beehive pitched into the river. Look! / Look how long my love can hold it’s breath.
12. A painting of Orpheus’ head floating down a river after being torn apart by the Maenads. His face is turned upward, with pale skin and long red hair. His lyre floats beside him, alongside numerous lily pads and lilies.
13. See, we’ve won again / here we are at the place where I get to beg / for it where I get to say, Please,
14. Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.
15. “...Sleeping? Aye, toil how we may, we all sleep on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amidst greenness; as last years scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut swathes — Starbuck!” But blanched to a corpse’s hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away.
16. A painting of a nude woman sitting upon her bed, hunched over with her head in her hands and legs sprawled. She appears to be weeping. Her long, dark hair, spills around her shoulders and into her lap.
17. A painting of a woman and a man embracing each other. The woman has warm skin and long red hair, which spills over and contrasts with the man’s pale, grey skin. She buries her face into his nape, and he into her arms.
18. But when she saw him in his hapless plight, / though angry at his scorn, she only grieved. End ID.]
#webweaving#web weaving#oh god this one was a MONSTER#christ.#woe be upon ye#you know the drill#retribution#thornwhirr#dustmill#hiuhcore#wubweaving
709 notes
·
View notes
Note
okay but pls say more about codependent situationship jopzer in purror & erebark, i crave lore.
you know that part in seaside improvisations by richard siken where its like "tell me you love this, tell me you're not miserable" well thats like the tagline of jopzier in my catboy au. "tell me the life we've built together is something that makes you happy, tell me i'm not a huge disappointment to you, tell me that being together is enough even if you can't tell me you love me" and this mutual desire for a happy ending but the inability to articulate those desires. lore under cut:
in this au crozier has decades worth of feelings that he's always turned a blind eye to in favour of work, and then all of that is over after the failed expedition. no more work, no more exploration, no more social climbing. even the possibility of marrying sophia has disappeared (though crozier refuses to voice this outloud) and all he has is a half renovated cottage in fuckall nowhere and 5 catboys that he never asked for, one of which might be the greatest thing that's ever happened to him (and thus something doesn't deserve). and jopson knows crozier is unhappy but he doesnt know how to fix it, and crozier is unhappy because he feels like he's holding jopson back. he saved jopson from the arctic, mutinied for jopson, quit drinking for jopson and left the navy for jopson, and now jopson's doing what? stuck taking care of an aging old man who can't even afford to get him a tea set that isn't secondhand. theres a part of him that wishes jopson would leave, that thinks he could convince fitzjames to adopt jopson and make him undergo lieutenant training, but there's another part of him where, if jopson himself asked to leave, would be so incredibly angry that he would probably start drinking again.
meanwhile jopson has what could be charitably described as a deep gratitude for the man that changed his life and uncharitably described as an oedipus complex (which is what hickey calls it at every opportunity) with full awareness that he can never act on his feelings because it would legitimately ruin crozier's life. and hes hidden it well from crozier (because crozier doesn't know what normal catboy behaviour is like) but his possessiveness is obvious to nearly everyone else, whether they interpret that as love or duty or both depends on the person. at one point in tasmania crozier is called away by sir john so sophia and jopson are alone together and sophia stares at the door crozier just left through and says smth like "i think his greatest fantasy is for me to be his wife and for you to be the creature who rests beside me, half guard-dog, half lap-cat, as we wait for him to come home" and then she looks at jopson and smiles and says "maybe that's your fantasy too" and jopson is too stunned to respond.
in summary its just a constant cycle of "tell me what you want" "i want what you want" "i dont know what i want" for jopzier here, neither of them can answer the "what are we" question, thats their codependent situationship realness
#ppl who are i/zzy enjoyers might claim e/dizzy plagarism here#but imo its different bc jopzier would never harm the other person#like there is no way crozier would ever shoot jopson#or vice versa#and they arent sick of each other#they arent afraid of change#they just dont know what their options are#in this world that makes loving each other#nearly impossible#purror and erebark
45 notes
·
View notes
Text
richard siken lines that make me lose my fucking mind -
look at the light through the windowpane. that means it’s noon, that means we’re inconsolable.
can we love nature for what it really is: predatory? we do not walk through a passive landscape.
someone has to leave first. this is a very old story. there is no other version of this story.
tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
i hope it’s love. i’m trying really hard to make it love.
there are many names in history but none of them are ours.
so it’s summer, so it’s suicide, so we’re helpless in sleep and struggling at the bottom of the pool.
what holds it together? glue. some kind of glue. the image remains as a body would. i turned the image over like a rock, but then the worms.
i clawed my way into the light but the light is just as scary. i’d rather quit. i’d rather be sad. it’s too much work.
the prayer of going nowhere going nowhere
words too small for any hope or promise, not really soothing, but soothing nonetheless.
and the eyes that remained eyes and not the doorways we had hoped for.
paint ghosts over everything, the sadness of everything.
we collide with place, which is another name for god, and limp away with a permanent injury.
but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.
to make something beautiful should be enough. it isn’t. it should be.
i prefer to blame others, it’s easier.
we’ve made a graveyard out of a bone white afternoon.
i made this place for you. a place for you to love me.
i wanted to explain myself to myself in an understandable way.
i want to tell you this story without having to confess anything.
i want to tell you this story without having to be in it.
sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how i ruined everything by saying it out loud.
we deduce backward into first causes - stone in the pond of things.
are you there, sweetheart? do you know me? is this microphone live?
you see, i take the parts that i remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what i say or love me back.
every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out you will be alone always and then you will die.
we clutch our bellies and roll on the floor… when i say this, it should mean laughter, not poison.
the dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs.
a man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he’s still left with the river. a man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he’s still left with his hands.
i will turn myself into a gun, because i’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. i’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue.
as everything is a metaphor for itself.
something’s not right about what i’m doing but i’m still doing it - living in the worst parts, ruining myself.
if the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water.
you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you didn’t do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesn’t matter anymore.
what is a ghost? something dead that seems to be alive. something dead that doesn’t know it’s dead.
you try to warn him, you tell him you will want to get inside him, and ruin him, but he doesn’t listen. you do this, you do. you take things you love and tear them apart.
do you love yourself? i don’t have to answer that. it should matter.
things happen all the time, things happen every minute that have nothing to do with us.
the boy on the bridge. the boy who always keeps me from jumping off the bridge. oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.
i am singing now while rome burns. we are all just trying to be holy.
the best part of spirituality is reverence. there are other parts. some people like to hear the sound of their own voice.
you are a fever i am learning to live with, and everything is happening at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.
you need it for the moment you need it, then you bless it.
there’s a black dog and there’s a white dog, depends on which you feed. depends on which damn dog you live with.
desire, like a monster, crawls up out of the lake.
there’s a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly.
evidence of evil but not proof.
a hammer is a hammer when it hits the nail. a hammer is not a hammer when it’s sleeping. i woke up tired of being the hammer.
the maiden flees or prays, depending.
this is the testimony of the deer: solitude, the long corridors, love from a distance.
if it hurts, we’re doing it to ourselves.
cut me open and the light streams out. stitch me up and the light keeps streaming out between the stitches.
take the light inside you like a blessing, like a knee in the chest.
he knows that when you snap a mast it’s time to get a set of oars or learn to breathe underwater.
if you don’t believe in god or fate you still must believe in narrative.
two brothers: one of them wants to take you apart. two brothers: one of them wants to put you back together. it’s time to choose sides now. the stitches or the devouring mouth?
he took the gods and made them human.
is that too much to expect? that i would name the stars for you?
in the wrong light anyone can look like a darkness.
god is the space between two men and the devil is the space between two men.
i make up things that i would never say. i say them very quietly.
the body of life is a nightmare.
she existed enough to be painted. she could have been an idea, but that’s another kind of existing.
we have not touched the stars nor are we forgiven.
a gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
Bunnyguard master post
July 1, 2023: in the spirit of shameless self-promotion here's a collective post for the Usagi Yojimbo/Rottmnt fusion Leosagi fic series I've been working on this year. somewhat celebratory because 1. I'm very excited to have hit the halfway mark on this project 2. my birthday is later this month and I can do a little treat for myself if I want 3. it's my first day off in ages and I can spend my time luxuriantly and frivolously. Prompts taken from Year of the OTP; titles from Richard Siken "Litany in which certain things are crossed out."
Post last updated December 22, 2023
Bunnyguard verse premise in three bullet points:
The cast of Usagi Yojimbo are embedded in the Hidden City
Draxum helped raised the turtles
Usagi gets hired as a bodyguard for Leo a month after the Krang invasion
January - "missionfic" - something other than the desperation
Usagi does his best to not embarrass himself while Leo tries to do the same and fails. (the hero shifts from one foot to the other)
February - "mermaid au" - no one will ever want to sleep with you
A first meeting sparks a series of increasingly dumb and desperate decisions. (the repeated image of the lover destroyed)
March - "mutual pining" - your heart, and it is painted shut
We skip ahead in the timeline to the point where Usagi has decided he's going to just quietly pine forever and Leo stops for five seconds of self-examination and immediately starts planning his wedding. (the same big and little words, all spelling out desire)
April - "No, I'm not dating your brother" - There is something underneath the floorboards
After a series of shenanigans, (some of) Usagi's misconceptions are corrected and Leo eventually gets a full night's sleep. (bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing)
May - "accidental pet/child acquisition" - Quit milling around the yard and come inside
Usagi uses his day off to be with his family, including his son, and Leo takes a turn being the babysitter instead of the babysat. (Inside your head you hear a phone ringing.)
June - "you're not what I expected" - These terms from the lower depths
After being chased by a demon, Leo and Usagi end up in the bones of both of their pasts, one after the other. (I have told you where I'm coming from, so put it together.)
July - "enemies to lovers" - recently we have had our difficulties
Leo screws up, Usagi gets hurt, and they have to work together to fix it. (the moment of epiphany, in gold light)
August - "au of your choice" (free space) - close enough to see the blue rings
Usagi fights a dragon and Leo has a bunch of minor problems happen all at once. (But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats)
September - "hurt/comfort" - Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me?
An unexpected attack forces everyone involved to reexamine their circumstances. (Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere)
October - "identity shenanigans" - I guess I can tell you that now.
Our heroes go on a date to a mob warehouse and find out things that were not exactly secrets but definitely unknown. (I walk through your dreams and invent the future)
November - "be careful what you wish for" - You want a better story. Who wouldn't?
A confrontation, a choice, a number of things undone. (It should mean laughter, not poison.)
December - "forgiveness" - so maybe I wanted to give you something
Our heroes reckon with their actions, and choose to try again. (I want more seats reserved for heroes. Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.)
84 notes
·
View notes
Text
'snow & dirty rain' by richard siken is so aziracrow-coded (the good omens brain-rot is so strong and so crippling)
Close your eyes. A lover is standing too close to focus on. Leave me blurry and fall toward me with your entire body. Lie under the covers, pretending to sleep, while I'm in the other room. Imagine my legs crossed, my hair combed, the shine of my boots in the slatted light. I'm thinking My plant, his chair, the ashtray that we bought together. I'm thinking This is where we live. When we were little we made houses out of cardboard boxes. We can do anything. It's not because our hearts are large, they're not, it's what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It's a potluck, I'm making pork chops, I'm making those long noodles you love so much. My dragonfly, my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw, and this is the map of my heart, the landscape after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me tight, it's getting cold.
We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it. The lawn drowned, the sky on fire, the gold light falling backward through the glass of every room. I'll give you my heart to make a place for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger. Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there? The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube? We've read the back of the book, we know what's going to happen. The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left broken in the brown dirt. And then it's gone.
Makes you sad. All your friends are gone. Goodbye Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all in Heaven. But there's a litany of dreams that happens somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling on the bathroom floor. A page of the book where we transcend the story of our lives, past the taco stands and record stores. Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one. We have been very brave, we have wanted to know the worst, wanted the curtain to be lifted from our eyes. This dream going on with all of us in it. Penciling in the bighearted slob. Penciling in his outstretched arms. Our father who art in Heaven. Our father who art buried in the yard. Someone is digging your grave right now. Someone is drawing a bath to wash you clean, he said, so think of the wind, so happy, so warm. It's a fairy tale, the story underneath the story, sliding down the polished halls, lightning here and gone. We make these ridiculous idols so we can pray to what's behind them, but what happens after we get up the ladder? Do we simply stare at what's horrible and forgive it?
Here is the river, and here is the box, and here are the monsters we put in the box to test our strength against. Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here's the desire to put it inside us, and then the question behind every question: What happens next? The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I'm alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling, and they're only a few steps behind you, finding the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren't stitched up quite right, the place they could almost slip right through if the skin wasn't trying to keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side of the theater where the curtain keeps rising. I crawled out the window and ran into the woods. I had to make up all the words myself. The way they taste, the way they sound in the air.
I passed through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made this place for you. A place for you to love me. If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is. So how would you catalog it? Dawn in the fields? Snow and dirty rain? Light brought in in buckets? I was trying to describe the kingdom, but the letters kept smudging as I wrote them: the hunter's heart, the hunter's mouth, the trees and the trees and the space between the trees, swimming in gold. The words frozen. The creatures frozen. The plum sauce leaking out of the bag. Explaining will get us nowhere. I was away, I don't know where, lying on the floor, pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you but the victory is that I could not stomach it. We have swallowed him up, they said. It's beautiful. It really is. I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want. You said Tell me about your books, your visions made of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube...
We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want, so I said What do you want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
obsessed with how richard siken has recycled some lines from older works and given them new life later on.
like
"I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but that’s the dealio—you’re a train and I’m a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story." ("The Long and Short of It," 2002)
vs.
"All day the snow falls down, all night the snow.
I try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story.
We left footprints in the slush of ourselves, getting out of there." ("Landscape with Black Coats in Snow," 2015)
--
"Here is a place for it to happen. A place where I can love you. The letter delivered, the year decembered, the river swum." ("The Long and Short of It," 2002)
vs.
"I'll give you my heart to make a place
for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger." ("Snow and Dirty Rain," 2005)
--
(more tucked away under the cut because boy oh boy!)
"He could build a city, has a certain capacity, makes a little bird and then they say it's not a bird and he says Okay, it's not a bird and he and the bird just laugh. I could be talking about anyone." ("Ornithopter," 2001)
vs.
"He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chest
where a heart would fit perfectly
and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place —
well then, game over." ("Road Music," 2005)
--
"History repeats itself. Somebody says this. History throws its shadow over the beginning, over the desktop, over the sock drawer with its socks, its hidden letters, its bottle of gin. History is blue. History is a little man in a brown suit trying to describe a room he is outside of. History says So, we meet again. History says Let me tell you just a few things, maybe. I know history. There are many names in history but none of them are ours." ("Ornithopter," 2001)
vs.
"History repeats itself. Somebody says this.
History throws its shadow over the beginning, over the desktop,
over the sock drawer with its socks, its hidden letters.
History is a little man in a brown suit
trying to define a room he is outside of.
I know history. There are many names in history
but none of them are ours." ("Little Beast," 2005)
--
"Like Hansel, we'd like a map, some landmarks, a trail away from doom, more knots in the rope, a ratchet that catches and holds so we don't have to start from scratch each time we want to rise from the floor." ("Ornithopter," 2001)
vs.
"Drew and I are still Hansels lost in the woods, looking for maps, looking for a trail away from doom, but we did what we could for as long as we could." ("Six Point Goodbye," 2007)
vs.
"Together we trace out the trail away from doom. There isn’t hope, there is a trail. I follow you." ("War of the Foxes," 2015)
--
"There are so many things I'm not allowed to tell you.
I touch myself, I dream." ("Dirty Valentine," 2005)
vs.
"There are so many things I’m not allowed to tell you. That’s another reason I’m a liar. And a poet. And very good at my job." ("The Ethics of the Taxonomy," 2006)
--
"Another friend says the local body is a fallacy. Yet another friend says Aw sweetie, you have your own body so you can do what you want without me." ("Love from a Distance," 2001)
vs.
"His insides and
his outsides kept apart with an imaginary line—
thick and rude and imaginary because there is
no separation, fallacy of the local body, paint
on paint. I have my body and you have yours.
Believe it if you can. Negative space is silly." ("The Way the Light Reflects," 2005)
--
"Why make a map? Why do anything at all? Not how, because hows are easy, series or sequence, one foot after the other, but existentially why bother, what does it solve?" ("The Definitive Version," 2006)
vs.
"Why paint a bird? Why do anything at all? Not how, because hows are easy—series or sequence, one foot after the other—but existentially why bother, what does it solve?" ("The Language of Birds," 2015)
--
"Fact is, the world is full of things that are trying to kill you. We do not walk through a passive landscape and sometimes you need a map to find the food, the hiding places." ("The Definitive Version," 2006)
vs.
"Can we love nature for what it
really is: predatory? We do not walk through a passive
landscape. The paint dries eventually." ("Landscape with Fruit Rot and Millipede," 2015)
--
"If we wanted to tell you everything, we
would leave more footprints in the snow or kiss you harder." ("You Are Jeff," 2006)
vs.
"So here’s the open window where we pranced around and did our tricks and left these footprints in the snow, performing in this puppet show." ("Close Parenthesis," 2007)
--
"There are two birds in your head, raven and crow, and only one of them is yours." ("Black Telephone," 2001)
vs.
"A man had two birds in his head—not in his throat, not in his chest—and the birds would sing all day never stopping. The man thought to himself, One of these birds is not my bird. The birds agreed." ("The Language of Birds," 2015)
32 notes
·
View notes
Text
elektra natchios aesthetic
/
Villain - Searows / Never Love an Anchor - The Crane Wives / The Oresteia - Aeschylus / Antigone - Jean Anouilh (tr. Lewis Galantiere) / Planet of Love - Richard Siken / @moldavite / H of H Playbook - Anne Carson / Anecdote of the Pig - Tory Adkisson / @exigencelost / Things haunt - Joshua Jennifer Espinoza / Wishbone - Richard Siken
[ID under cut]
[Image ID:
Picture 1: Two sets of lyrics, one from the song "Villain" by Searows, and one from the song "Never Love an Anchor" by The Crane Wives. The lyrics from "Villain" say, "I started a war / I'm gonna fuck it all up / And I'll probably pay with my life / And I know you told me / That everything's fine / But I wrote this story / Before it was mine / And I know there's a villain / But I'm worried it's me this time." The lyrics from "Never Love an Anchor" say, "I am all the things they might have said to you / Do you ever think of me and my two hands, and wonder why? / They never soothed your fevers / And wonder why / They never tied your shoes / And wonder why / They never held you gently And wonder why."
Picture 2: Two quotes from the Oresteia. The first one says, "1. Enter here knowing that she is already dead." The second one says, "Orestes: (highlighted) This was always going to happen. She's been dead since the beginning."
Picture 3: An excerpt from Planet of Love by Richard Siken. It says, "so smile for the camera, it's your big scene, / you know your lines. / I'm the director. I'm in a helicopter, / I have a megaphone and you play along. / because you want to die for love. / you always have. / Imagine this: / You're pulling the car over. Somebody's waiting. / You're going to die / in your best friend's arms. / And you play along because it's funny, because it's written down, / you've memorized it, it's all you know. / Isay the phrases that keep it all going, / and everybody plays along."
Picture 4: A quote from Jean Anouilh's Antigone. It says, "In a tragedy, nothing is in doubt and everyone's destiny is known. That makes for tranquillity. There is a sort of fellow-feeling among characters in a tragedy: he who kills is as innocent as he who gets killed: it's all a matter of what part you are playing. Tragedy is restful;…”
Picture 5: A headline that says, "Calf born with third eye on forehead--but still destined for slaughter."
Picture 6: A quote from the H of H Playbook by Anne Carson. In normal text, it says, "Brief pause. I'm walking backward into my own myth." In strikthrough, it says, "I was trying to walk out."
Picture 7: A excerpt from Anecdote of the Pig by Tory Adkisson. It says, "Do you still believe myths / can save you? Foolish creature. / Let me be clear: every version of the story / ends with you being slaughtered."
Picture 8: A post from @exigencelost. It says "She's dead she's immortal she's haunting you she doesn't care about you she's muzzled she's screaming at the top of her lungs she's unnoticed she's unforgettable she doesn't have control over the story she doesn't have control over her body she doesn't even have control over her voice. And I'm obsessed with her."
Picture 9: A quote from Things haunt by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza. It says, "Things haunt. / Things exist long after they are killed."
Picture 10: A black silhouette of a man's bust with red lines extending from a gunshot hole in the middle. This silhouette is layered on a red background, the same color as the lines extending from the center of the man's bust. In fragments, a quote from Richard Siken's "Wishbone". It says, "I'll be your / slaughterhouse / your killing floor / your morgue / and final resting."
End ID]
#elektra natchios#web weaving#tragedy#im normal about her#greek tragedy elektra natchios fic#now with image ids!! apologies on how long that took i was on my phone
57 notes
·
View notes
Text
Steddie + Richard Siken Quotes
If you're wondering about some other nice Siken quotes to go with these boys, since i have most often seen the jacket one, here's a bunch more:
"The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling, and they’re only a few steps behind you"
"You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him"
"I’ve been rereading your story. I think it’s about me in a way that might not be flattering, but that’s okay. We dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up. Anyway: story received, story included. You looked at me long enough to see something mysterioso under all the gruff and bluster. Thanks. Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them."
"He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand." (hello Steve looking intently at Eddie while Eddie tries to tell him about Nancy)
"I crawled out the window and ran into the woods. I had to make up all the words myself. The way they taste, the way they sound in the air. I passed through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made this place for you. A place for you to love me. If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is."
"You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened.
Your co-workers ask
if everything's okay and you tell them
you're just tired.
And you're trying to smile. And they're trying to smile."
"Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more."
"Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other."
"Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story."
"Because people die. The fear: that nothing survives. The greater fear: that something does."
"I wanted to hurt you
but the victory is that I could not stomach it. We have
swallowed him up, they said. It’s beautiful. It really is.
I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room
where everyone finally gets what they want.
You said Tell me about your books, your visions made
of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is
the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you
there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar
cube… We were in the gold room where everyone
finally gets what they want, so I said What do you
want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am
leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome
burns."
"For a while I thought I was the dragon.
I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was
the princess,
cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,
young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with
confidence
but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,
while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,
and getting stabbed to death.
Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal.
You still get to be the hero."
"You just wanted to prove there was one safe place, just one safe place where you could love him. You have not found that place yet."
"And no one can ever figure out what you want,
and you won't tell them,
and you realize the person who loves you isn't the one you thought it would be"
"I don't really blame you for being dead but you can't have your sweater back."
"This is my favorite part. It starts and ends here. The pebbles shine, the plan worked, Hansel Triumphant. Lesson number one: be sneaky and have a plan. But the stupid boy goes back, makes the rest of the story postscript and aftermath. He shouldn’t have gone back."
"Don’t leave the room until I come back from the dead for you. I will
come back from the dead for you. [...] Leave the lights on. [...] I’m in the hallway again, I’m in the hallway. The radio’s playing my favorite song. Leave the lights on. Keep talking. I’ll keep walking toward the sound of your voice."
Anyway. Enjoy.
39 notes
·
View notes
Text
Supernatural Post-Finale Fix it Fic Recs
Fanfiction set after or during s15e20 that changes the ending in some way.
This list will include all ratings and tags, so read at your own discretion! :)
Of Loss and Love by BadassCompany - Rated E
“You saved me,” Cas says.
Dean wants to crawl inside that low rumble of a voice and curl up there forever. Delirious, he says, “Yes.”
Then Cas says, “You kissed me.”
Dean swallows. “And?”
Cas kisses him. Something burns at the hem of Dean’s shirt and his eyelashes flutter darker and it’s much, much later when he realizes he’d felt a spark from the lightbulbs blowing out.
*
Dean barely talks since Cas died. Even once they save him, it's too damn hard. In which fucked up coping styles leave both Cas and Dean convinced the other doesn't really love them. Cas thinks Dean is offering to sleep with him out of the goodness of his heart, or so Cas won't leave. Dean is trying to be less of a dick and ends up crying all the time. Cas just wants Dean to let him be the big spoon. They get to heal and be in love.
Local Cryptid?? by chlodobird - Rated T
Carry On by TheWeepingMonk - Rated G
In an imaginary world where the finale was emotionally satisfying, Team Free Will got to grow old. Dean and Cas settle down and run a bar-slash-diner, and Sam decides to go back to school. Law just isn't his thing anymore, but with the amount of lore he knows, he figures he could make a pretty decent history or mythology teacher.
Essentially, his weird knowledge and weirder family means that rumors spread. Local Man becomes College Campus Cryptid, more at 9
what they deserve (it's better this way) by sobsicles - Rated M
"That was weird."
"What was weird?"
"Dean," Sam answers. "He's gotten really happy out of nowhere and now he's taking a roadtrip so Charlie can meet his dog? I just don't buy it. He's up to something."
"Up to what?"
Sam struggles to makes a guess then finally says, "I don't know...maybe he's trying to find a way to bring Cas back."
Dean and Castiel have some unfinished business. Heaven is as good enough of a place to settle it as any.
Wayward Son by masquerade97 - Rated T
so weird how the spn finale was just an hour of dead air. that was weird right? anyway this is what i think happened
for which no words exist by MediaWhore - Rated T
'a prayer for which no words exist' // richard siken
"Dear Cas who art in my bathtub, give me the strength to be honest about how I feel. For your sake and for mine. Forgive me all the times I wasn’t in the past, all the words I should have said but didn’t. And please stay. Please stay with me when all is said and done. Amen. "
Dean rescues a newly human Cas from the Empty. That's the easy step.
all the things yet to come are the things that have passed by cosmicocean - Rated T
“I mean, listen, we’re not good at the huggy feely crap. Any of us. And I get that, you know. And I get, I mean, I could’ve said something, you know, I know that. I get it. I get all of it But you just, you give this whole speech, and you telling me that you just, you want what you know you can’t have? You never asked. And it was always, you know, it was always-“ he grits his teeth, taking a breath.
“We always came back to each other. I said terrible things to you and you said terrible things to me and we fought and we killed and we died and always, always, we came back to each other. We figured it out. So you’re gonna come back. You’re gonna come back, Cas, so help me god, and we’re gonna figure it out. And I would have said yes. If you’d asked, I would have said yes.”
AU after 15x19, where Dean has a little place in the middle of nowhere, a dog, and is trying to figure out a plan.
Keep Your Love Alive by dothraki_shieldmaiden, FriendofCarlotta - Rated E
Dean gets to spend eternity sharing beers with Bobby on the Roadhouse porch and riding around in his Baby with Sam. He’s at peace… or he feels like he should be. But a few things nag at him: Where is Cas, and everybody else Dean had been hoping to see in Heaven? Why does he feel like he’s stuck in a loop, reliving the same memories over and over again? And who are the strangers wearing Sam’s and Bobby’s faces?
#supernatural fanfiction#destiel fic rec#destiel fanfic#supernatural#dean winchester#castiel#veryace recs#ao3 fic recs#ao3
53 notes
·
View notes
Text
I got tagged in some questions from @callivich and while I didn't answer all of them, I've got some! (I also kept these answers Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich centric, though I did have a couple thoughts about just the show generally haha). Anyway --
What’s a fic you’ve read more than once?
makes a cathedral, him pressing against me and then the companion piece and we will be like sailors, swimming in the sound of it by misandrywitch and intimatelyrearranged respectively -- they're just really good post-mickey's-coming-out-fics which I tend to love every rendition but those ones are really good (also I, like many tumblr people, love richard siken, so it had me hooked from the start)
What’s a headcanon you can’t stop thinking about?
I love the idea that Ian gets really into photography. I think when he's settled in life he takes a lot of photos He's a sentimental guy, I think he's someone who would definitely have photos of his family in his wallet, and would just love taking pictures. (I also like the idea of when he is struggling, maybe going through a manic phase, this propensity to take photos is helpful for his family to find him and figure out what mental state he's in because the photos are kind of all over the place or of things that aren't there).
And then ever since finding out Noel Fisher actually plays the piano, I love the idea that Mickey always wanted to play piano. (and that after expressing this desire that was when Terry tattooed his knuckles as an attempt to quash this dream). It's something I may explore in a fic later on.
What’s an idea you’d love to create if you had the time/inspiration?
I have a bajillion but we'll stick with two that I'm not actually currently trying to write --
Kind of a strange idea, but I loved -- especially earliest seasons -- Sheila Jackson. Her struggle with agoraphobia was really heartwrenching (I love the scene where she finally leaves the house for the first time both for Liam and for Karen -- she's just someone who I rooted for then so uncomplicatedly). Anyway, I have an idea where Mickey, before Terry's dead but maybe safely with the Gallaghers, starts to develop agoraphobia like Sheila Jackson had. He finally feels safe at home and he starts to really fear the outside world, and it sneaks up on him, because he's supposed to be fine right? But he's not. He keeps repressing this fear and now it's coming out in this way of being unable to leave the house. And Ian -- from Fiona -- thinks to call Sheila Jackson. With Sheila's help, Ian and her and Mickey actually have interactions. I just think it'd be a really interesting dynamic, because Sheila was so motherly and kind and Mickey I think would hate that at first, but it's also kind of the care he should have had? Anyways, it's strange, but I'd love to explore it.
The other one I have is a North American Western Au. Usually I don't write modern-world-setting canon in other contexts but for gallavich I have ideas. And I love western aus, I've written one for another fandoms, it's just fun. Maybe a small town where Ian was a sheriff but he struggles with his disorder and so he resigned; and then Mickey is part of the Milkovich gang that's raising hell all throughout the state but ends up finding Ian and... well if I ever actually write it you'll see.
What’s a plot hole you wish had been answered or resolved?
I just wish the show would talk about characters that left more often. Or things that happened in their past more often. The only one they seemed to have done a decent job with in the beginning is Jimmy-Steve. But like, why the heck don't they mention Mandy? Or Karen? Or... ANYONE?
That and there are events that should absolutely be referenced again. All of the shit with 3.6 at some point could probably use a rehash of trying to process that trauma. The characters talk a bit about what happened with Monica, or Fiona when Ian and Lip were kids, in later seasons they should be telling the stories of what happened in the early seasons to Liam or Carl or Franny or whoever. I understand many shows drop things for sake of the future plots, but as Shameless is a family drama, things that are dramatic in the family I think could have maintained their relevance for longer. Especially since Shameless has such a brilliant focus on generational trauma and how the kids are, in many ways, going to become their parents in some aspects (but how much so is up to them) it would have been neat for them to actually discuss some of the scars they earned during the show.
What scene or moment do you feel isn’t discussed enough?
I don't know how much more it could be discussed, but I want to discuss it lmao -- but when Mickey says "missed ya", with the cigarette in his mouth and Ian responds with "really?"
To me, it's the first time that Mickey says something real to Ian about their relationship, really the first acknowledgment that there's something to miss. He says this, and it's something he's said with no ulterior motive that he knows will make Ian happy, really for only the sake of making Ian happy. It will probably get him laid because this is Ian and they're both horny teenagers, but there's no guarantee, and that's clearly not why he's saying it. The best part of the interaction, though? The way Mickey smiles because he knows Ian's going to be thrilled. That like preemptive "watch this" and then he says it. I just, there's something really sweet about the interaction in a way that Mickey never let himself be previously.
What line/dialogue/description from something else (a poem, a book, a tv show, a movie, or something else) do you feel describes Ian and Mickey’s relationship?
There's also a song aptly named "Goodnight Chicago" by Rainbow Kitten Surprise that immediately had me thinking about these two. Here's one verse:
"...I killed a man there, in spite, and when he died, I took his place/eighteen made you callous to the kisses that you gave/a course exchange, a cause for blame, and I stood out in the rain/You killed a man there, and I cried, but the rain masked the hurt behind your face/by the way dear, we're alive, and it hurts 'cause we survived."
I'm going to leave this as an open tag and also reference the original questions from callivich because there's some great ones! I did a reblog because I figured this would be overwhelming if I answered on their asks. But please go ahead and answer and hope you enjoyed what you've read here lol. <3
10 notes
·
View notes
Note
i take off my hands and i give them to you.
(send me a richard siken line and i'll write a mini-fic inspired by it)
A wintery morning, the world a blur of white. Soft light on James’ shoulders, his honey skin, eyes the colour of a tender dawn – he’s using a wet cloth to gently sponge the drying, rust-red blood off Sirius’ face, all the movements cautious and delicate. “What happened this time?”
“What always happens,” Sirius replies, in a dull, empty voice.
James sighs, slides the cloth over the constellation of fresh bruises on Sirius’ chest. “One of these days you’re going to pick a fight with the wrong person, and get yourself killed.”
Sirius doesn’t say anything, just sits there and watches James wring the towel dry into a nearby bucket. Memories of the previous night return to him, fuzzy around the edges – the blood in his mouth, sweat-slicked robes clinging to his skin, shattered glass flying into the air. Laughing madly as he took blow after devastating blow from the enormous stranger at the bar.
“Sometimes I think you like getting beat up,” James tells him, with a slight undercurrent of bitterness in his tone. “That you go out and ask for it on purpose.”
Sirius shrugs. He doesn’t want to admit it, that it’s easier to bleed from his body than his heart – that one kind of pain is capable of drowning out the other. It’s not James’ fault he wouldn’t understand; his soul is still clean, unscarred, and Sirius adores him for it.
So he just slips his fingers between James’ instead, intertwining them. Even James’ hands are beautiful; every layer, every crease of skin, every outline of bone. Hands that love collecting the scattered fragments of Sirius and making them whole again. Hands that have rubbed steady, grounding circles into Sirius’ back on the nights he couldn’t stop crying, hands that painstakingly piece him back together each time Sirius comes home covered in bruises. Hands that heal and hold and help. Hands that never tire of saving him.
James’ expression looks troubled. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Pads.”
There’s a terrible, incessant ache in Sirius' chest where he’s buried all the words he can’t quite make himself say: I love you. I wish I knew how to be better. Sorry that you’re always cleaning up my messes.
“I’m thinking that you have lovely hands."
“You know,” James’ gaze meets Sirius’, jewel-bright and vivid against the pale backdrop of morning, “I’d take them off and give them to you, if it would make you any less self-destructive.”
"I know," Sirius says, and he does know.
#prongsfoot#james x sirius#this prompt was actually pretty hard to brainstorm ngl#writing#prongsfoot microfic#bambibelle#answered
49 notes
·
View notes
Text
“The love was there. It didn't change anything. It didn’t save anyone. There were just too many forces against it. But it still matters that the love was there.”
"Turn my eyes, I see you stare
'Cross the room and right at me
Now you're smiling like you've got
Like you've got something on your mind"
― Mehro, "chance with you"
and
"When you think no one's watching
I'm watching only you
When you feel no one's listening
I hear through the noise to hear you"
― Shannon Saunders, "Atlas"
and
"Feeling the way you breath down my side
I'll never escape you, I can never try
Seeing the way you look in my eyes
I'm lost in illusion, my world set aside"
― The Irrepressibles, "To Be"
and
"I wanna take you somewhere so you know I care
But it's so cold and I don't know where"
― Tom Odell, "Another Love"
and
“You're trying not to tell him you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.”
― Richard Siken, Crush
and
“Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we'll never get used to it.”
― Richard Siken, Crush
and
“We can't hold hands―
Someone might see.
Won't you please
Hold toes with me?”
― Shel Silverstein, Every Thing on It
and
"Does it seem too hard?
Does it seem alright
To keep in touch?"
― Mehro, "hideous"
and
"How was the world before the big melt happened?
How was the sun when it could touch your skin?
How was it all before the city died?"
― Black Casino and the Ghost, "How Was the World"
and
"Can't you look at me?
Am I that hideous to you?
Can't you talk to me?
Do I really mean nothing to you?"
― Mehro, "hideous"
and
"So this is the subterranean life.
If it can't be conjugated onto us, what good is it?"
― John Ashbery, A Wave
and
“Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known."
― Richard Siken, Crush
and
“With this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because
it’s all I have,
because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this
bullet inside me
‘cause I couldn’t make you love me and I’m tired of pulling your teeth.”
― Richard Siken, Crush
and
“If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.”
― Richard Siken, Crush
and
"How we got there, how we flew up
Heaven's doors are miles away
'Cause you're stuck to the ground
You have to stay"
― Panchiko, "Laputa"
and
“There are no happy endings.
Endings are the saddest part,
So just give me a happy middle
And a very happy start.”
― Shel Silverstein, Every Thing on It
#gary roach sanderson#simon ghost riley#Roachposting#long text post#poems and quotes#Sorry guys I'm a firm believer in “Don't ask don't tell” 09 Roast. They loved eachother and they died with the idea they didn't.#The confession came too late. One was already dead. He'd had never heard it over the flames if he were alive.#Very messy post but I feel like it's understandable
9 notes
·
View notes
Note
Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤️
Aww, I love this! Okay, thank you so much and thank you for the chance to do some navel gazing!
Also... my AO3 has 144 stories on it. When did that happen? For a question like this, I want to pick for quality of writing, but I'm finding myself going back mostly to the stories that either really stretched or defined me as a writer, or simply the ones that were a really memorable experience to write . . . which unfortunately means mostly my longer fics, as so many of the shorter ones were written in a single flurry that I barely remember after the fact! Even though there are some shorter fics that I think are better than the longer ones. So let's get started.
Finding a Voice - I mean, how can I not say this one? This fic, like a lot of my older work, has some passages and scenes that I think are so good I can't believe I wrote them, and some that make me cringe to look back on - but how can I not pick it, when it's the story that probably defines me most as a writer? It's the story that allowed me to stake out my own headcanons and gave rise to hundreds of thousands more in the same world. And, like all my LOTR stuff, I do want to return to it someday soon. <3
Ever Changing, Ever Climbing - still the longest thing I've ever written, and the thing I worked on for the longest time. I lived in the world of this story and these characters for almost a year, and probably came the closest I ever have to what non-fanfic authors experience when coming up with their own characters, because I got to make so much of it up! It similarly has bits that make me cringe, especially when I realize how much more deeply other people have thought about Mirkwood worldbuilding and how much lore I straight-up got wrong, but I think it also has some of my best prose and my best romance writing. And siblings. I got to write baby Legolas in this! And also I just love Laerwen so much and love that I got the chance to write her an origin story, so that it doesn't all exist only in the background of my head.
Only Through Surrender - come on, this is my current obsession; I was never not going to put it on the list! But in some ways, this is exactly the inverse of the previous story. I wrote this faster than I've ever written anything this long, and it's the most daring thing I've ever written in terms of plot. The romance is almost a subplot, which I don't know that I've ever done satisfactorily, and it's an AU, which is not something I'm great at sustaining, and even though I don't know that the writing style overall is my best work, I think that the structure and pacing of the story - and the things I did with characters - are pretty good, all things considered! The only non-LOTR fic on this list.
Velle - in terms of "fun to write," this story might be the very top of all of them. This was @deheerkonijn's and my early-covid project (we actually started it a couple months before, but I think working on it saved us in those early telework days of stress and angst); it's a form of storytelling neither of us had tried before, combining both of our skills, and it's probably the most rigorously edited and densely-packed thing I've ever written. We went over and over and over this story with a fine-toothed comb, making sure the writing and the art worked perfectly together, and we liked it so much we printed it as a physical book! *smooches my copy gently*
Having moved out of the most iconic ones, I wasn't sure what to pick for the last! This became a bit of a toss-up, but I wanted to have a shorter fic represented, so: the hunter's heart, the hunter's mouth. This is my only fic with a Richard Siken title, so I figured it was fitting given that he's everywhere right now. ;) Inspired by the title, this is one of my more deliberately poetic fics, and I had a lot of fun with the writing. It's also some of my more daringly explicit work! (still does not include any words for certain aspects of anatomy)
Thanks so much again for sending me this ask! So sorry for how much I ramble when talking about myself! ;) Off to go pass it on!
8 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
alwaysandrogynouscoffee
radca prawny sprawy spadkowe rzeszów
baeks-cane
baeks one and only cane ♡
nim-lock
Nim-lock
gracemolteniisnothome
gracemolteniisnothome
