#In a roughly end-poem core way | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

junghelioseok · 4 years ago

Text

aubade.

↳ it was supposed to be one night—no more, no less.

◇ seokjin x reader ◇ smut | one night stand!au ◇ 9.9k [1/1]

⇢ aubade (n; oh-bahd): a poem or song, usually sung at dawn.

⇢ full summary: it was supposed to be one night—no more, no less. but when your city is hit with what newscasters are calling a once-in-a-lifetime storm and the blizzard of the century, you realize that mother nature isn’t going to let you leave that easily. and neither is kim seokjin.

notes: a jinfic? couldn’t be me! 🤣 this fic is weird and wacky and idk how i feel about it yet but it’s been in the works for far too long and it’s already jin day in some places so... here it is! hope you enjoy!!!

warnings: smutty smut. minimally edited. (soft)dom!jin, bit of spanking oops, bit of choking ooPS, just a lil touch of implied exhibitionism, jin cums on u (oops again), oral (m receiving), a good bit of emotional constipation on reader’s part, some truly terrible puns and even worse poems, lots of wacky cracky humor courtesy of mr. kim himself 🤷🏻‍♀️

Winter has arrived.

There’s no longer any doubt about it—no more oddly warm days during the week, and no more stubborn leaves clinging to skeletal black tree branches. The brisk air stings your cheeks and dries out your eyes, and every breath you take feels like you’ve just swallowed ice—the cold burning down your throat before you release it again in a puff of white that quickly disappears into the velvety night sky.

But no matter how cold the weather, it’s nothing compared to the heat emanating off of the man standing before you. Strong arms cage you against the wall as his plush lips work along your neck, his kisses gentle but insistent. You can’t even find it in yourself to care that there’s poorly laid brick digging into the small of your back, or that you’re pinned against an apartment building on a very well-traveled street. The only thing that matters right now is—

“Jin!” you gasp when there’s a sudden nip at your earlobe.

Said man chuckles, soothing over the skin with his tongue. “We should go inside,” he breathes, and you shiver at the wash of hot air before nodding your agreement. His hand twines with yours, and you eagerly let him lead you through the front door of the building, following him through the lobby and into the elevator on the opposite end.

It’s easy to fall into your routine from there—easy to brush against him suggestively and trace the growing bulge in his pants. Jin’s head falls back with a groan and you take full advantage, pressing a deliberate line of kisses down the exposed column of his throat. The elevator dings before you even reach his collar, and Jin impatiently ushers you out and down the hall to his apartment, fumbling to fit his key in the door as you fumble with the buckle on his belt.

With a click, the door swings open. Jin is quick to grab your hips and wrest you inside, pressing you up against the entryway wall and kicking the door shut behind him. His hands find the curve of your rear, squeezing at the soft flesh before sliding down to the back of your thighs and hoisting you up. Your coat falls, forgotten, to the ground as you wrap your legs around his waist, your skirt hiking up around your hips. All the while, he mouths fervently at your clavicle, his teeth catching on the junction of your shoulder and blossoming tender purple bruises there.

“Jin—fuck,” you keen, and Jin chuckles lowly before moving down to the generous neckline of your dress, tugging it down so he can access the swell of your cleavage. Your back arches off the wall when he envelops a pebbled nipple in his mouth, and he hums appreciatively at your sharp intake of breath. Plush lips stretch into a pleased smirk against your skin, and you whimper when he reaches up to roll your other nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

“So sensitive,” he murmurs, sending a shudder through your entire body. “I wonder if that means you’re sensitive in other places, too.”

The last word is punctuated with a sharp snap of his hips, his rapidly hardening cock grinding against your clothed core. You gasp his name again, your fingers scrabbling for purchase along the broad expanse of his back, and he groans deeply when your nails dig into his shoulders.

“Guess that’s a yes,” he breathes, chuckling, before capturing your lips in a kiss.

Jin is quick to discard your dress after that—hiking up the already-short hem so you can shimmy out and tossing it away carelessly as soon as you’re freed from the fabric. Your panties are the only thing left shielding you from Jin’s wandering eyes, and you exhale shakily when he slips a finger into the elastic waistband and snaps it teasingly against your skin.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, running a fingertip along the silky little bow that decorates the front of the lacy material. “So pretty, wrapped up all nice for me.”

You laugh breathlessly when he descends upon your neck again, sucking a fresh bruise into your collarbone. His hips rock into yours mindlessly, the bulge of his cock grazing your clit until it becomes impossible to ignore the growing dampness there. “Jin—” you begin, injecting as much purr as you can into your voice, “—where’s your bedroom?”

He doesn’t need to be asked twice. You squeak as he hefts you up, wrapping your legs tighter around his waist, and make good use of the time it takes him to carry you down the hall by fumbling open the buttons of his shirt. By the time he kicks open the door of his bedroom and lays you atop the plush mattress, his chest is bare and heaving, the flaps of his shirt swinging loose at his sides. “Jin,” you say again, pushing the remainder of the material urgently off his shoulders. “Want you. Hurry.”

Jin huffs out something that’s halfway between a chuckle and a groan. “Someone’s eager,” he breathes as he discards his shirt and starts on his pants. They fall to the ground, his belt buckle clinking dully against the hardwood floor, and you immediately wind your arms around his neck as he joins you on the bed, caging you against the mattress with his body. His lips slant roughly across yours, exploring thoroughly before he trails downward to swirl his tongue around a pebbled nipple. One hand finds its neglected twin while his free hand slides down to the junction of your thighs, and you exhale sharply when he cups your lace-covered mound, his warm palm molding the damp material to your folds.

“You’re so wet, baby,” he rasps. “This all for me?”

You roll your hips, grinding lazily against his open palm. “Are you expecting an answer that isn’t yes?”

Jin laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Mouthy little thing,” he says, amused. “Why don’t we see if I can make you change your tune, hmm?”

In one smooth motion, he’s hooked his thumbs into the waistband of your panties, pulling them down and off your legs. His grin is crooked as he descends upon you again, and you sigh as he kisses his way up your body before finding your lips, his breath intermingling with yours. You reach up, sliding your hands along the breadth of his shoulders before trailing down his back, admiring each dip and ridge of the taut, muscular expanse. Between your legs, you can feel the blunt head of Jin’s cock, hard and hot and slick. You reach down to give it a light squeeze, relishing the sharp intake of breath from your companion, and slowly begin stroking up and down his shaft as you sit up.

“Where are your condoms, Jin?” you ask sweetly, brushing your thumb across the tip of his cock.

Jin’s head falls back. “Nightstand. Top drawer,” he answers, and you smile.

“Perfect.”

It’s easy—mindless, even—to tear open the foil wrapper and roll the condom down Jin’s cock. Easy, kissing his neck before getting on your hands and knees and asking him to fuck me like this. All of the pleasure and none of the intimacy. None of the saccharine kisses that Jin seems to be so fond of bestowing, and no time for you to think about how nice his pillowy lips felt against your own. Just the slick glide of his cock and the lewd squelch that accompanies each thrust, his hips slamming against the curve of your rear as you beg him to go harder in a voice that quivers and breaks when he obliges your request.

Slippery fingers find your clit, pinching the nub before rubbing harsh circles around it. Jin picks up his pace, and you keen out a garbled curse as your back arches under the onslaught of pleasure, the coil in your tummy tightening with each thrust. Jin leans forward until his chest is flush against your back, his tight grip on your hips a stark contrast to the soft words of praise he murmurs—words that sink into your skin like ink and leave you aching and pliant.

Your breath is coming in ragged pants by this point, and Jin is faring no better. The room is beginning to feel stifling, and yet you want him closer, deeper, harder. You grind against him, presenting yourself like an offering, and know he’s accepted when the flat of his palm comes down on your ass with a resounding smack. Your body jolts, a whine escaping your lips, but when you feel his rhythm slow and stutter, you reassure him by sinking backwards onto his cock.

“You don’t have to treat me like a doll,” you tell him, pushing back until he’s seated fully inside you once more. “I can handle it rough.”

Jin chuckles hoarsely, soothing over your impacted skin. “You want me to be mean to you, baby?”

You answer him with a deliberate swivel of your hips, relishing the way his cock presses against your walls in all the right places. Jin’s chest rumbles with laughter again, and the sound sends a shiver from your crown all the way down to the end of your spine. Then he’s tugging you up, one palm splaying against your stomach while the other finds its way to the base of your throat. You gasp when he squeezes, just enough to momentarily cut off your air.

“Tell me to stop if it’s too much,” he breathes against the shell of your ear. And then he rocks forward, filling you up to the brim and setting a brutal pace that has the headboard clattering against the wall and creaks the mattress springs.

You are no longer capable of coherent speech—only a mess of whimpers and shaky gasps that sound suspiciously like Jin’s name. Every push of his hips winds you up tighter and tighter, and when his fingers drop from your throat to rub at your clit, you finally fall over the edge, arching against him as you ride out your orgasm. Jin lets you grind mindlessly against his palm, thumbing across your clit lazily in slow circles, and you clench around him as the pleasure blazes through your veins.

“That’s it,” Jin encourages, his voice deep and cavernous in a way that has electricity dancing across your skin. “That’s it, baby. Fuck. Can I cum on you?”

Your pussy clenches at the thought. “Yes,” you murmur, letting his cock slip out. Jin turns you around almost tenderly, pressing you back against the mattress, and you shiver when he discards his condom and takes up residence between your legs again. He takes his leaking cock in his hand, and with practiced strokes and the occasional flick of his thumb across the tip, he finally reaches his high. Warm stickiness splatters against your stomach and paints the swell of your breasts, and when a stray drop lands on your bottom lip, you are quick to lap it up.

“Fuck,” Jin rasps, admiring his handiwork before his dark gaze zeroes in on your mouth. “You’re a work of art.”

You flash him a grin, ignoring the uncomfortable way his cum is beginning to dry on your skin. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

That earns you a laugh. Jin leans down to kiss you—a short, sweet peck that has your heart skipping a beat, and leaves you breathless even as he sits back up and rakes a hand through his mussed hair. “Look,” he says, nodding at the window. “It’s snowing.”

You follow the trajectory of his gaze. Through the gap in the curtains, you can just barely make out the fat snowflakes flurrying down—white against the pale gray sky. Eager for a better look, you roll over, fishing Jin’s discarded shirt from the pile of clothing on the ground and slipping into it as you rise to your feet. You forgo the buttons, and Jin chuckles softly when you pull it closed around your body and pad over to the window. “I love snow,” you murmur, running a fingertip down the cold glass.

“Me too.” Jin rises to his feet and joins you, tugging the curtains aside so you can get a better look at the flurrying skies. “My buddies and I have a snowball tournament every winter, and my team’s never lost.”

“Oh yeah? Your teammates must be really good then.”

“They are,” he agrees easily, before the underlying insult behind your remark sinks in. “Hey!”

His indignant shout has you giggling and laying an apologetic hand on his arm. “Just kidding,” you reassure, letting your fingers drift up to the solid muscle of his bicep. “I’m sure you’re more than capable of handling yourself.”

Jin catches you by the wrist, stopping your hand from straying further with a playful little smirk. “You’re not wrong,” he murmurs, walking you backward until your knees hit the mattress. “But right now, I’d much rather handle you.”

///

It’s hard—near impossible, really—to leave the warmth of Jin’s bed. But dawn will be here before you know it, and you have no intentions of sleeping here. You’ve never spent the night at a guy’s place, and you aren’t about to start now. Not even for Jin, who’s currently singing a show tune in the shower, his voice pleasantly melodious even when masked by the sound of running water.

Commitment isn’t really your thing. Relationships aren’t really your thing. They weren’t during your school years, and they certainly aren’t now. You’ve spent your entire life flitting from meaningless hook-up to meaningless hook-up, never learning anything beyond their first name and never revealing anything about yourself. But here with Jin, you can already feel yourself beginning to slip, so the sooner you leave, the better.

Quietly, you slip out from beneath the comforter, tiptoeing to where your clothes have been hastily discarded. In the darkness of the bedroom, you fumble with your dress until you finally manage to put all the right limbs through the right holes, wincing when you accidentally stub your toe on the edge of the dresser midway through the process. You’re just about to grab your purse and check that your phone and wallet are still safely inside when the bathroom door opens, letting out a cloud of warm steam.

“{Name}?” Jin asks, and you curse inwardly at how good he looks with his damp hair pushed back from his forehead, a gray towel sitting low around his hips. “What are you doing?”

“N-nothing!” you say quickly, trying and failing to hide your purse behind your back. The bathroom light casts a rectangle of warm golden light onto the floor of the bedroom, illuminating you and your surroundings, and you blanch when Jin narrows his eyes at you.

“Are you leaving?”

You blink, debating whether or not it would be worth it to lie, and decide against it. “Yes,” you tell him, locating your phone before shouldering your purse. “I can’t stay.”

“I sincerely hope you’re kidding,” Jin says flatly. “It’s almost two in the morning. And have you looked outside lately? I’m not letting you go home in this weather.”

You frown. “I don’t recall asking for your permission.”

He doesn’t even flinch. “And yet here I am, telling you.”

You sigh, exasperated. “Jin—” you begin, but he clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

“Do you want to freeze to death? Because if you leave right now, they won’t find your body until spring. I don’t want your death on my conscience.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” You roll your eyes and make to walk away, but Jin steps forward until you can feel the warmth radiating off his chest and see every stray water droplet dripping off his hair.

“Stay,” he murmurs, and you belatedly realize that he’s wrapped his fingers around the strap of your purse. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

For one brief, insane moment, you debate the viability of making a break for it. Maybe if you twist in his grasp while tripping him up with a well-timed kick in the shins—but you quickly scrap the idea. After the events of tonight, you know for a fact that Jin’s musculature isn’t just for show. You’d be lucky to make it to the bedroom door before he inevitably caught up and hauled you back to his bed—and you hurriedly cut off that train of thought before it can progress any further than that.

“Fine,” you huff at last. “Dictator.”

“I’m a real penis potato,” he says affably, and you stare at him blankly for a second before the joke dawns and you’re forced to suppress the disbelieving giggle that threatens to escape.

“Do you have a spare towel I can use?” you ask instead.

“Hall closet,” Jin replies, already heading toward the door. “I’m done in the bathroom, so go on in. I’ll bring everything to you.”

Hesitantly, you do as he says, stepping inside the bathroom and easing the door shut. It’s surprisingly tidy inside—the toilet lid is even down, much to your shock—and you scrutinize your ruffled reflection in the mirror for a few seconds before sliding open the glass-paneled shower and turning on the water.

You’re slipping out of your dress for the second time tonight when there’s a soft knock on the door. “Room service,” Jin’s voice calls from the other side. “Mind if I pop in for a sec?”

You cross your arms over your chest, suddenly shy. “Don’t peek.”

“I was balls deep inside you thirty minutes ago,” Jin says bluntly. Nonetheless, he cracks the door open and passes you the promised towel. He’s included a smaller washcloth in addition to a large bath towel, and you’re pleasantly surprised to see a neatly folded t-shirt and oversized flannel pants included at the bottom of the pile.

“Oh.” You swallow. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” he replies. The door clicks shut behind him, and you lay the clothes and towels down on the counter before stepping into the shower and letting the warm water drown out your anxieties. Jin is on the other side of the door—presumably changing and getting ready for bed—but you push that thought away as soon as it’s materialized.

It’s just one night, you tell yourself sternly, splashing some water on your face. One night won’t kill you. And you can sneak out in the morning before he even wakes up. This doesn’t mean anything. This is fine.

With a sigh, you turn off the water. Grabbing the bath towel off the counter reveals the folded pajamas underneath, and you swallow down the odd warmth in your chest as you dry off. And after several steadying breaths and a prolonged staring contest with the clothing, you finally pick up the shirt and tug it over your head, following it up with the flannel pants and pulling the drawstrings tight. Jin’s clothes smell like flowers—no doubt thanks to his laundry detergent—and something dangerously fond bubbles up in your chest at the realization.

When you exit the bathroom, Jin is lounging in bed, leaning up against the headboard with his legs sprawled out in front of him. He glances up from his phone at the sound of the door, and you smile wanly as you approach. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He gives you a quick once-over, his lips quirking when he sees the way you’ve cuffed his too-long pants at the ankles. “Sorry about the clothes. I don’t really own anything in your size.”

“It’d be weird if you did,” you tell him with a shrug.

He hums. “Very true.”

There’s a beat of silence—one that you occupy by picking at a loose thread on your oversized shirt while avoiding eye contact. Jin clears his throat after a few moments, and you glance up when he rises to his feet and grabs the pillow he’d been laying on.

“Do you want the bed?” he asks. “I can sleep on the couch, if that would make you more comfortable.”

Your jaw drops. “What? No way. I’m not about to kick you out of your own bed.”

Jin puts the pillow back down. “Well, I didn’t want to assume that you were going to sleep with me. You were trying to sneak out on me twenty minutes ago.”

Your cheeks warm at the accusation. “So I like sleeping in my own bed. Sue me.”

“Neither of those are really options right now, so come on.” Jin nods at the opposite side of the bed—the side he doesn’t sleep on, if the location of his phone charger is any indication. “Hop in.”

“You really are a penis potato,” you mumble, just loud enough for him to hear. Nonetheless, you do as he says, lifting up the edge of the comforter and crawling underneath. Satisfied, Jin climbs in on the other side, turning to flip off the bedside lamp. “Ready for me to turn this off?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you murmur back, staring up at the ceiling and determinedly ignoring the warmth he’s radiating beneath the covers. The room falls into darkness, and you return his murmur of goodnight with one of your own. He falls asleep long before you do, his breaths evening out, but your heart continues to race long into the night, hammering away in your chest.

You’ll get up early tomorrow, you decide. You’ll leave before Jin even notices you’re gone, because you have rules and you aren’t about to break them. Not for Jin, who sings show tunes in the shower and uses floral laundry detergent. Not for Jin, who somehow manages to look positively angelic in the darkness of the bedroom, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks as he dreams.

With that decided, you roll over and get as comfortable as you can, trying to ignore the sleeping man beside you. And after what feels like an eternity, you finally fall asleep, drifting off into a dreamless, restless slumber.

///

You aren’t sure what exactly wakes you up, but you’re suddenly being dragged into wakefulness, blinking blearily at the white stucco ceiling. Clumsily, you seek out your phone on the nightstand, your fingers fumbling across the smooth screen.

7:23am.

Fuck. Much later than you’d intended, and based on the smells wafting from the direction of the kitchen, your host has already been awake for quite some time.

“Morning,” Jin greets when you stumble out of the bedroom, fully dressed in your attire from last night. “Hope you’re hungry, because I made way too many waffles.”

You glance at the impressive stack on the counter, which is piled nearly as high as he is tall. “I think you meant to say that you made an insane amount of waffles,” you correct dryly. “How long have you been awake?”

“Too long, apparently,” he replies, turning off the stove and grabbing two plates. “How many do you want?”

“Oh.” You glance toward the entryway—ignoring the flare in your belly when you remember how he’d pressed you against the wall there last night—and wonder if you can make a break for it. Jin is clearly distracted with rifling through the silverware drawer, and you’re pretty sure you can manage a short sprint to the elevator if it means avoiding an awkward breakfast, and—

“Hey, are you cold? I turned the heat up yesterday, but the blizzard’s gotten worse since then. My toes were practically frozen this morning.”

Jin’s words startle you out of your thoughts, and your heart sinks when you turn toward the window and see nothing but white. You can just barely make out the charcoal gray rails of the fire escape hidden beneath a thick blanket of snow, and wonder, vaguely, how difficult it would be to climb down.

“I—I guess it’s a little chilly in here,” you mumble, rubbing your arms. Your dress is thankfully long-sleeved, the knit material snug enough to keep your upper half warm, but you’d foregone any sort of tights or pantyhose yesterday in a rather spectacular lack of foresight, and your companion seems to agree.

“There’s no way you’re not freezing in that,” Jin says, nodding at your getup. “Club appropriate, yes. Blizzard appropriate? Not so much. You sure you don’t want to put those pajamas I gave you back on?”

You think of the oversized t-shirt and flannel pants you’d left folded on the foot of his bed, still smelling so sweetly of his floral detergent even after a night of wear. “I think I’m just going to put my coat on,” you tell him, edging toward the entryway.

Jin hums in acknowledgement and busies himself with piling waffles onto a plate, and you dart down the hall and toward the front door. Your coat lies crumpled on the carpeted floor, and you shake it off before slipping into it, casting one last backward glance over your shoulder. Gingerly, you put a hand on the doorknob, wincing at the audible click as it twists in your grasp.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

Fuck.

Guiltily, you turn, taking in the disbelief etched across Jin’s face. Now that he’s out of the kitchen, you can see the apron wrapped around his waist—pastel pink and printed with frolicking alpacas wearing red kerchiefs. He’s holding a plate of waffles in each hand, and your stomach rumbles at the sight of them dripping with syrup and loaded with strawberries and whipped cream that’s already beginning to melt down the sides.

“Look,” Jin sighs. “I’m not trying to keep you hostage. But no one’s shoveled around the front door of the building yet, and the landlord’s emailed everyone a warning to stay inside. You couldn’t leave even if you tried, so you may as well have some breakfast.”

You decide not to mention that you’d briefly dabbled with the idea of vacating his apartment via the fire escape, and instead take one of the plates off his hands. “Do you cook every one-night stand breakfast?” you ask.

Jin begins walking back toward the kitchen. “Only the ones I like, even if they do keep trying to run out into the snowstorm of the century. Have you even looked at the news lately?”

Reluctantly, you shake your head and pull out your dying phone, scrolling through today’s headlines. Even a quick glance is enough to confirm Jin’s statement, and you sigh as you take a seat at the dining table. “I guess I’m stuck here.”

“Don’t sound too excited,” Jin says, sitting down in the chair opposite you and pushing a fork your way.

Silence falls for a few minutes as you dig into your food, broken only by the clatter of silverware. You stare intently down at the syrup-filled squares that make up your waffles, and it isn’t until Jin sucks in a deep breath that you look up again.

“Fuck, marry, kill,” he says, setting down his fork with a clink. “Kim Jong Un, Abraham Lincoln, and Vladimir Putin. Go.”

You gape at him, watching as he walks into the kitchen and returns with the coffee pot and two mugs. “What the fuck?”

“You heard me.” Jin fills up the mugs, setting one down in front of you before taking an enormous swig from his own. “Fuck, marry, or kill. Do you need me to repeat the people?”

“I am not playing fuck, marry, kill.”

Jin crosses his arms over his chest. “Should we sit in silence, then? You’re stuck here whether you like it or not, so we may as well talk.”

A laugh escapes you at that, one that’s equal parts derision and disbelief. “So you decided that we should play fuck, marry, kill? Jesus Christ.”

“He’s not an option,” Jin says breezily, waving a hand. “Try again.”

You can’t help it—you laugh. “Fine. Marry Babe-raham Lincoln, obviously—he’s the only one who’s not a supervillain. Plus, there was the whole ending slavery thing.”

“Don’t forget the cool hat,” Jin interjects. “More points in his favor.”

You nod. “True.” Putting a thoughtful finger to your chin, you debate your two remaining choices and fight the urge to cringe. “Between Kim Jong Un and Putin though… that’s tough. Kill Kim and fuck Putin, I guess.”

“I’m pretty sure political assassinations are frowned upon,” Jin muses. “Not that I gave you any other options. Good choice, by the way. Vlad seems like he could show you a pretty decent time, and all the ladies want him, apparently. You’ve heard his song, right?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. Pulling out his phone, he taps a few keys before propping it up against his mug so you can see the screen. The song that filters through the tinny speakers is undoubtedly catchy—a techno-pop beat that you can’t help but bob your head to despite the bizarre lyrics.

“I’m… pretty sure this is propaganda,” you say after a few moments of listening. “Why do you even know about this?”

Jin shrugs and sits back down. “The internet is a weird place. What can I say?”

The song continues—filling the room with an entrancing techno beat and a feminine voice crooning about how much she wants a man like Putin. You quietly take a sip of your coffee, watching as Jin saws off another chunk of syrup-drenched waffle and shoves it into his mouth.

“Your turn,” he says once the song’s ended. “Three people.”

It only takes you a few seconds to come up with your choices, a slow smirk spreading across your face as you voice them aloud to your companion. “Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, and the Queen of England.”

Just as you’d expected, Jin’s eyes grow wide, bulging out comically as he huffs in indignation. “Seriously? This is cruel. At least I gave you bad options!”

“No complaining,” you tell him smugly. “Choose.”

“Fine,” he sniffs. “Fuck… Marilyn, I think.” Frowning, he scratches the back of his neck, ruffling his already tousled bedhead further. “Fuck, this is brutal. Are you really going to make me kill the Queen?”

You slap the table, and Jin nearly falls out of his seat in surprise. “You just said that political assassinations are frowned upon, you hypocrite!”

“You can’t possibly expect me to kill Audrey Hepburn,” Jin retorts. “She’s talented, gorgeous, and a humanitarian. Besides, consider this: if the Queen is gone, that means I become the new king. You should be bowing to me, peasant.”

“Wouldn’t marrying the Queen also make you a king?” you point out.

“Sure. But then I’d have to share the throne, and I don’t play nice with other monarchs.”

You snort out a surprised laugh and nearly expel coffee from your nose. “Oh my god, Jin.”

His lips twitch up at the corners. “My turn,” he declares. “Fuck, marry, kill… Timothée Chalamet, Chris Evans, and my eighty-year-old neighbor, Edgar.”

You blink, disbelief etching across your face. “Who the fuck is Edgar?”

“I just told you! He’s my neighbor!”

“Well, he’s gone,” you say flatly. “Done-zo. Six feet under. The bucket? He’s kicked it.”

“Seriously?” Jin picks up his coffee mug, his shoulders quaking with barely suppressed laughter as he shields his grin behind cream-colored ceramic. “I can’t believe you killed Edgar. He had a family.”

“Everyone has a family!” you retort, before the ludicrousness of your entire conversation becomes too much and you dissolve into giggles. Jin’s own laughter joins yours, squeaky and contagious, and you can’t help but laugh even harder. “Evans,” you finally manage to answer between breaths. “Marry Chris Evans.”

Jin nods sagely. “America’s ass. Good choice.”

“Glad you approve,” you reply with a grin.

This time, the silence that descends over the two of you is almost comfortable. Jin gets up to brew a fresh pot of coffee once you’ve both finished eating, and you gratefully accept the hot mug he hands over, the warmth seeping into your palms and warming you from the inside out. “Thanks,” you murmur, rather taken aback by his continuing hospitality. “Can I help you with anything? Clean up, maybe?”

Jin gestures at a stainless steel door beneath the counter. “No need—I’ve got a dishwasher. Besides, I kind of like doing dishes. The repetition is comforting.”

“To each his own, I guess.” You hug your mug a little closer, relishing the heat. “Personally, I think I’ll stick with the dishwasher. I can’t imagine baking without one.”

Jin tilts his head curiously. “You bake?”

You shrug. “A little bit, yeah.”

“That must be nice.” Jin opens up the dishwasher and disappears beneath the counter, and you can tell from the clattering that he’s popping your plates and utensils inside. “I wish I could bake, but waffles and pancakes are the closest I’ll ever get.”

You laugh. “Well, the waffles were delicious, if that’s any consolation.”

He straightens back up to his full height and offers you a small smile. “Thanks.”

Now that the meal is finished, you aren’t sure what to do. Jin rebuffs another offer of help, humming as he washes the waffle iron plates, so you take your coffee over to the wide windows lining the living area. The snowfall hasn’t slowed one bit—a continuous flurry of fat white flakes buffeted in every direction by the wind—and you shiver when the glass creaks under the onslaught of a particularly hard gust. Backing away, you instead meander over to the wooden bookshelf beside the television, browsing past a few familiar classic titles before alighting on something odd.

“Quickbooks?” you ask, reading the spine of what appears to be a thick manual. “Like, the accounting software?”

Jin turns off the faucet and dries his hands. “One and the same.”

“Right. And is this a boring hobby, or—?”

“Option B—it’s a boring career choice,” he replies, joining you at the bookshelf. “But the pay is good, and the hours are regular, so I can’t complain. Leaves me plenty of time for my actual hobbies.”

Turning back to the books on the shelf, you glance over the next few titles. “Let me guess. You like poetry?”

He grins. “I’m a regular sonnet-lier.” At your confused expression, he quickly clarifies. “Like sommelier? Get it?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Is that not punny to you?” Jin’s grin widens. “That’s fine; I’m much better at acrostic poems, anyway. Pick a color.”

The sudden request takes you aback. “Uh, blue?”

He shakes his head. “Pick another color.”

“White?”

“White? Seriously? Pick a different color.”

“Green.”

“Nope.”

You sigh and shake your head. Clearly, he already has a specific color in mind. “Fine. How about red?”

The smile that blooms across his face is nothing short of radiant. “Red? Can you spell that out for me?”

Lips twitching, you decide to indulge him. “R—”

He interrupts before you can say the next letter. “Revolution!”

“E.”

“Evolution!”

You have to bite your lip to keep from laughing. “D?”

“Drop in the ocean!” he finishes, following it with an exaggerated bow. “Well?”

“I think you should stick to accounting.”

Jin pretends to wince, clutching at his chest. “Ouch.”

The laughter bubbling up in your stomach finally makes itself known, escaping past your lips in an amused huff. Turning away from the bookshelf, you take a seat on the edge of the couch that occupies the majority of the living area—a cushioned gray behemoth decorated with well-worn and mismatched throw pillows. Now that you are looking, you can see that Jin clearly favors comfort over sophistication in his decorating—though you also have no doubt that the couch you’re seated on comes with a hefty price tag. There are several plants scattered around as well—including a neatly potted orchid on the end table closest to you. Gingerly, you reach out to touch the pink petals, admiring each delicate silken bloom.

“You left your coffee.” Jin sits down beside you with your mug in hand, and you belatedly realize you’d left it on the bookshelf. “It’s probably cold by now, but there’s more in the kitchen if you want it.”

Once again, you’re floored by his hospitality. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then you gesture back at the orchid, blurting, “I like your flower!”

At the same time, Jin jabs a thumb back in the direction of the kitchen. “What do you want for dinner?”

You gawk at him. “Dinner?”

Jin blinks. “Thanks?” He glances at the pink orchid on the end table before shaking his head and chuckling. “And yeah, dinner. The snow isn’t going to let up until two or three in the morning, so I’m assuming you’re staying the night again.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was a kidnapping attempt,” you tell him.

His answering grin shouldn’t make your heart skip a beat in your chest. “Maybe it is.”

For the second time today, you wonder if it’s too late to make a run for the fire escape. Slipping on the slick metal and falling to your potential death—certain injury, at least—would no doubt be better than staying here. Here, where Jin has already made you feel so much more welcome than you deserve. Here, where every single one of his terrible poems and cheesy puns constricts your chest with dangerous warmth.

“So… what were you saying about my flower?” Jin’s voice pulls you out of your thoughts, his tone light and teasing. “Were you complimenting my green thumb?”

You glance back at the orchid on the end table, gratefully seizing upon the change in subject. “Yeah, it’s beautiful. I mean, I’m the kind of person who can barely keep a cactus alive, so this is beyond impressive.”

Jin shrugs and leans back, making himself comfortable on the couch. “It all comes down to water and soil, at the end of the day. Knowing what kind to use—whether or not they need moss or bark chips—that kind of thing. You pick it up after long enough.”

“Not me.” You chuckle ruefully. “I didn’t even know there were different types of potting mix until an entire pallet of the stuff got misdelivered to me instead of the shop across the street. And here I was, thinking it was flour. I actually opened a bag before I realized what was going on.”

Jin’s brows disappear behind his tousled hair. “Were you expecting a massive flour delivery?”

You wince at your slip-up, but it’s too late to take it back. “Right. Well. Remember when I said I baked a bit? I actually meant to say that I bake a lot. In a bakery.”

Your companion perks up. “Really? Which one?”

“Stalker much?” You frown.

Jin laughs. “Okay, you don’t have to tell me. But I’ll have you know that you’re on the hook for dessert now. Think you can rustle something up for us?”

You nod toward the kitchen. “You have flour, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Then, yes. I absolutely can.”

///

Snow continues to fall through the afternoon and into evening. Slowly, the sky begins to darken—fading from pale gray into a deep charcoal that cuts a striking contrast with the icy blanket of white covering the city.

“It’s still coming down out there,” you murmur, breaking the silence that has fallen over you in the past couple of hours. Together, you and Jin have watched three episodes of House Hunters and two episodes of the international version, before settling into your own individual activities. You’ve borrowed Jin’s phone charger, and Jin has pulled out his laptop and set up shop at the dining table. And while the past few hours haven’t been uncomfortable, they haven’t exactly been comfortable either. It almost feels like you’ve been left alone with the friend of a friend, without the buffer that your mutual friend would normally provide, and at a complete loss as to how to maintain a conversation without veering into personal territory.

Jin hums and shuts his laptop. “Does it look like packing snow?”

You stand up from where you’ve burrowed into the couch and head for the window, groaning as your joints creak in protest. You’d changed back into your borrowed pajamas earlier in the day, and a good thing too since the temperature seems to drop a digit with each passing hour. “Looks like the fluffy stuff,” you tell Jin, peering outside.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out for sure,” he replies, shuffling over to join you. With a click, he unlocks the window and shoves it open, wincing at the blast of chilly air and the flurry of flakes that rush in to greet him.

You take a step back, watching in amusement as Jin grabs a handful of snow from the fire escape landing and successfully balls it up. He makes two more snowballs in addition—both smaller than the first—and you giggle when you realize what he’s doing. “Have any carrots?” you ask.

“Actually, yes. Check the fridge drawer,” he replies, flashing you a grin.

You oblige him, meandering into the kitchen where the stainless steel refrigerator sits. Locating the bag of carrots proves easy, and you find the smallest one you can before returning to the open window. “How’s this?”

Jin takes it, sizing it up in his palm. “Perfect.”

With the carrot and a few pebbles pulled from one of the succulent planters on the sill, the little snowman is completed. You help Jin prop it up on the fire escape, packing snow around the sides so the wind won’t blow it over, and admiring your handiwork once it’s upright. The pebble smile is a little crooked and its nose skews heavily to the right, but you still can’t help but grin.

“I haven’t built a snowman in ages,” you admit, rubbing your hands together in an attempt to warm them.

Jin laughs and shuts the window, his nose reddened from the cold. “If that’s the case, I wish we could’ve done a better job. I don’t even have a spare hat to put on him, since I just took a bunch of stuff to the donation bin. Next time, maybe.”

The thought of building another snowman with Jin—a real one, out in a field somewhere instead of on his fire escape in the middle of a blizzard—makes your heart and lungs feel too big for your chest. Quickly, you clear your throat to dispel the feeling and glance back toward the kitchen. “I think I saw some ribbon over there,” you murmur. “We can at least give him a bow tie.”

“A bow tie it is, then,” Jin replies, and you dart off to fetch the spool of red ribbon you’d spotted on the counter next to the fridge.

Now that the snowman is actually complete, you and Jin close the window and return the ribbon to the kitchen. Jin begins pulling produce out of the refrigerator, and you watch him for a few seconds before turning toward a narrow door you presume is the pantry. “Flour’s on the top shelf,” Jin calls, and you nod, grabbing the half-full canister.

It only takes you a few minutes to take stock of what else Jin has in his pantry. You spot the pastel pink apron from earlier hanging from a hook on the inside of the door, and giggle to yourself at the absurdity of the prancing alpaca print. Taking it off its hook reveals another apron behind it—this one plain white and emblazoned with the words Chef Kim.

“Kim—is that your last name?” you wonder aloud.

“Full name’s Kim Seokjin, yeah.” Jin appears behind you, plucking the pink apron out of your hand and pulling it over his head. “What about you?”

You offer up your full name with a sheepish smile. “I guess it’s only fair. We never did get past first names last night.”

“Nope,” he agrees with a chuckle. “Can’t say I’m complaining, though. I liked what happened instead.”

Your cheeks warm, but Jin doesn’t say anything further. Instead, he reaches past you to grab the other apron, carefully looping it over your head. “Don’t want you getting flour all over yourself,” he remarks playfully, urging you to turn so he can tie the strings behind your back. “What are you thinking of making?”

You shrug. “Do you have any preferences?”

He hums thoughtfully. “I’ll eat anything once, to be honest. What’s your favorite thing to make?”

“Well, the chocolate chip cookies are always popular. Lots of kids come in to grab some after the elementary school lets out. But I’ve always liked making croissants the most.”

“Nothing better than a fresh croissant,” Jin agrees. “And pain au chocolat? Best of both worlds. Though I guess elementary schoolers probably wouldn’t have the right palate for that.”

You smile and glance back at the pantry once more. “Probably not. It looks like you don’t have any chocolate anyway, so pain au chocolat is out of the question.” Then your eyes alight on a colorful canister on the bottom shelf. “Are those rainbow sprinkles?”

Jin follows the trajectory of your gaze. “Oh, yeah. I attempted a funfetti cake for a friend’s birthday the other week. Box mix, nothing fancy. Probably nothing compared to what you could do.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a good box mix,” you reply, grabbing the sprinkles and placing them on the counter next to the flour. “Most can be improved drastically by substituting milk for the water and adding an extra egg.”

“Milk and an extra egg—got it,” Jin repeats. Turning to the cabinets, he pulls out a pot and sets it on the stovetop. “So what about dinner? Soup sound good to you?”

“Soup sounds perfect,” you tell him. “How do you feel about sugar cookies? I can whip up some frosting and we can decorate them with sprinkles.”

Jin beams. “That sounds perfect.”

///

There’s something painfully domestic about cooking dinner with someone else—a certain ebb and flow in the way you move about the kitchen. The aroma rising up from the simmering pot on the stove is already beginning to make your mouth water, and Jin inhales deeply as he passes by the oven on his way to the liquor cabinet on the other side.

“Those smell amazing,” he says, leaning down to peer at the sheet of cookies.

You nod at the soup. “That smells amazing.”

“We’re in for an amazing meal, then,” he replies, straightening up to his full height and opening the liquor cabinet. “So what do you want to drink with it? Wine okay?”

“Sure. Red, if you have it.”

Jin grabs a dark green bottle off the shelf. “Cabernet sauvignon, right? I remember.”

Cabernet sauvignon is what you’d been drinking at the bar when you first met. The fact that he remembers releases a flock of butterflies in your stomach, flurrying about like the snow outside in the wind. Accepting the glass he hands over, you offer him a grateful smile before taking a sip to quash the new residents of your belly. “You sure you’re not a stalker?” you tease once you’ve swallowed.

“Hey, this is what people do when they first meet,” Jin defends. “They get to know each other, try and see if they fit. Ever heard of such a thing?”

You take another sip of wine before bending down to check on the cookies again. “Maybe once or twice.”

Inhaling deeply, you savor the warm scent of vanilla wafting from the oven. The smell alone is enough to tell you that they’re close to being done, and when you take in the golden hue, you know it for a fact. “Not to toot my own horn,” you remark, donning an oven mitt and pulling out the tray, “but this might be the best work I’ve ever done.”

Jin peers over your shoulder, sniffing appreciatively. “I believe it,” he says. “Anything I can do to help?”

You shake your head and select a spatula from the array of implements in the decorative ceramic pitcher next to the stove. “I’m just going to lay these out on a plate to cool. Then I’ll start on the frosting.” Curiously, you glance into the simmering pot on the stove. “What about you? Do you need any help?”

“Nope.” Jin gives the pot a stir. “This is just about done, anyway, so do you want to eat now?”

You shrug. “Sure. It’ll take at least half an hour for the cookies to cool completely. I don’t want to cover your kitchen in melted frosting and rainbow sprinkles.”

“That wouldn’t be ideal,” Jin agrees with a laugh. “Go on then, take a seat. I’ll bring you a bowl.”

///

Evening fades into the velvety dark of nighttime. Dinner is done, the cookies are decorated and eaten, and you once again find yourself in Jin’s bed. He’s given you a fresh shirt to sleep in—this one bright blue with the outline of a cartoon whale—and you relax against the pillows as Jin climbs under the covers beside you and makes himself comfortable.

“Ready for me to turn off the lights?” he asks.

You nod. “Go ahead.”

In an instant, the bedroom is plunged into darkness. It takes a few long seconds for your eyes to adjust, but you don’t need your sight to enact your plan. Gently, you reach out, your searching fingers settling on Jin’s broad chest. You hear him whisper your name—his voice questioning—but you silence him with a soft murmur and a kiss to the hollow of his throat. Carefully, you shift the blankets aside, straddling his toned thighs.

From there, it’s easy to descend down the taut expanse of his abdomen. Greedily, you push his shirt up to explore each ridge and dip of muscle, trailing from his dusky nipples down to the sharp angles of his pelvic bone. You don’t miss the slow rise of his cock against your leg, and finally dip down to give it some attention when Jin groans, mouthing at the head through the soft material of his pajama pants.

“{Name},” Jin rasps. “Not—not that I’m not enjoying this, because I really, really am. But why are you doing this?”

You glance up, taking in his shadowed face. “I never did thank you for your hospitality,” you breathe. “So, why don’t you relax and let me give you a proper thank you?”

Jin groans again, his hands finding your shoulders, and you take that as acquiescence. Ever so slowly, you free his cock from the confines of his pants, suckling at the flared head and smirking when he hisses through his teeth. Determined to elicit a more vocal reaction, you sink farther down, tracing your tongue along the vein on the underside and relishing the way his thighs clench.

It isn’t long before Jin is cumming down your throat, his chest heaving with labored breaths as he watches you lick your lips in satisfaction. “Your turn,” he rasps. “On your back for me, baby.”

You shake your head, pushing him away when his hand grazes your knee. “This was me saying thank you, remember? You don’t owe me a thing.”

Jin’s palm finds your cheek, cupping it gently as he presses a kiss to your mouth. “I want to, though.”

The sincerity lacing his voice makes your heart lurch dangerously against your ribcage. “In the morning, then,” you tell him. “In the morning.”

///

It’s exactly 6:47 when you clamber out of Jin’s bed, stripping out of his oversized pajamas and back into your own clothing. You cringe as you pull your dress over your hips, trying your best to forget that it’s two days old at this point.

Outside, the blizzard has finally died down. A glance out the window confirms that the snowplows have started making their rounds, and you send a mental thank you to your city’s public works department for their quick action.

Jin is still fast asleep, his chest rising and falling with his breath beneath the thin white cotton of his t-shirt. His dark lashes flutter against the soft swell of his cheeks, his hair like spilled ink against the cream of his pillow, and it takes every ounce of discipline you possess to turn away. Quietly, you slip out of the bedroom, easing the door shut behind you. On your way to the front door, you catch a glimpse of the snowman you’d built yesterday through the window, covered in a thick layer of snow that obscures every detail of its face except the orange carrot nose.

The elevator ride down to the lobby is short, and you’re grateful to see that the snow around the door has been shoveled away. Past that, the city is nothing short of a winter wonderland, a blanket of white stretching as far as the eye can see. The sidewalks remain untouched at this early hour, so you opt to walk in the street, grateful for the durable leather and the sensible wedge heel on your boots.

The subways are up and running—you’d ensured as much when you woke up, checking the schedule on your fully charged phone. The nearest station is a mere three blocks away, and the next train in twelve minutes. You’ll make it with time to spare.

Three blocks and you can forget about all of this.

Twelve minutes, and you can leave all memory of Kim Seokjin behind.

///

As much as you love snow, you hate the aftermath. It’s snowed almost every day in the two weeks since the blizzard, and you hate how it’s all accumulated at the side of the road, exacerbated by constant plowing and blackened by grime. You hate how it seems to have brought out the worst drivers in the city in droves, stalling in the crosswalks and honking like distressed seals. You hate the excessive salt sprinkled on the sidewalks.

But most of all, you hate this—the wet, gray-black slush that customers mindlessly trail into the bakery, slicking the polished hardwood floor and soaking the cheery mat at the door that bids them to come again soon!

“More like come again never,” you grouse under your breath as the bell jingles, signaling a customer’s departure. Peering over the counter, you eye the slushy buildup that’s been left in their wake and sigh. “Jungkookie? Could you mop up in the front again, please?”

A mop of tousled black hair pops out from the back of the shop, framing wide doe eyes and a crumb-dusted mouth. “Be right there!” he calls, and you thank him before turning back to the front door with a slight pang of guilt in your chest. This is the third time he’s had to mop up since opening an hour ago, but you like to think you pay him well enough—both in wages and free donuts whenever he gets peckish. Besides, Jungkook loves this place as much as you do. His baking talent doesn’t go far beyond eating said baking, but he has an astute eye for detail and a skill with frosting that rivals your own. He’s a whiz with the cash register, too, and you have no doubt that the increased sales whenever he’s up front has everything to do with the influx of college girls that flock to the bakery when they see him there.

The morning rush seems to have settled. A few customers remain, seated at the little round tables that litter the front of the bakery, sipping on coffee and munching on their breakfast. Through the tall glass windows, you spot a few fat white flakes of snow spiraling down from the overcast sky, and glance down at your phone to check the weather when the bell over the door tinkles gently.

“Hi, welcome to Tu—” The words freeze in your throat. “It’s you.”

“It’s me.” Kim Seokjin grins and loosens the knot of his scarf, his head and shoulders dusted with white. “So, this is where you work? At Turbinado?”

“I own Turbinado,” you retort, the response automatic. “And you, apparently, are a stalker.”

“Hey, I didn’t know you worked here.” Jin raises his hands up innocently, his fingers sheathed in red-and-white striped wool. “Well, okay, I thought you might work here. See, I still owe you something, but you left before I could pay you back and I don’t think that’s very fair.”

Your cheeks heat up at the memory of your last night at Jin’s apartment, and the events that transpired. Still, you manage to maintain a flippant facade, huffing out a sigh. “So you resorted to stalking me? How did you even figure out I worked here, anyway?”

“Well, I knew it was a bakery,” Jin replies. “You mentioned that you get a lot of elementary schoolers coming in, and that you once received a mixed up potting soil delivery. And this—” he gestures around, “—is the only bakery in the city that’s within walking distance of both a flower shop and an elementary school. It was pretty easy to find.”

“So now you’re a detective too?” You snort. “That’s more interesting than accounting, at least.”

Jin’s grin widens. “Hey, look at that. You remembered something about me.”

You roll your eyes and glance back down at your phone where the weather app is forecasting more snow in the afternoon. “Trust me, I’m just as shocked as you are.”

Jin chuckles. He steps forward until he’s directly across from you, and with only the narrow counter separating the two of you, you’re reminded just how handsome he truly is. Slowly, the hibernating butterflies in your belly begin to stir.

“Are you even going to ask for my order?” Jin asks when you hesitate a moment too long.

You sigh. “Fine. What do you want?”

“One pain au chocolat,” he replies, gesturing at the display case. “And a date, if you’re willing.”

Your jaw drops, and when you find your voice again, it’s little more than a stammer. “A date? Are you serious?”

“Yep.” Jin fishes his wallet out of his pocket. “That’s what people do, you know, when they like each other.”

“But I don’t do that. Date, I mean.”

Jin grins. “But you do like me."

“You—I mean, what makes you think—” You trail off, your protests dying on your tongue. “God, you’re unbelievable.”

Another grin—this one tinged with mischief. “Unbelievable? I can make a poem with that.” And before you can sigh or roll your eyes again, he continues. “Unlikely meeting you here? Believe it, baby. Able…” He pauses. “Am I able to kiss you now?”

Irrepressible laughter bubbles up in your chest and escapes out into the open air, mingling with the scent of warm cinnamon and vanilla that suffuses the shop. “That was terrible.”

“But you didn’t say no,” Jin replies, cocking his head to the side. Slowly, he leans over the counter, his gloved hand coming up to cup your cheek and giving you plenty of time to pull away.

But you don’t want to pull away. Jin’s lips are cold, but warm up quickly as they mold against yours, just as plush and pillowy soft as you remember them.

“So, is that a yes to the date?” he murmurs, pulling away just enough to whisper the question against your lips. And you can only nod, your fingers closing around the knitted scarf around his neck to pull him into another kiss.

///

Bonus -

You’re pulling a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven, your lips still swollen from the memory of Jin’s kisses, when the man himself pipes up from the seat he’s taken at the round table nearest the counter. “Hey, {Name}?”

“Hmm?”

“My pain au chocolat is free now, right?”

“… get out of my shop.”

1K notes · View notes

notesaboutafarawayland · 3 years ago

Text

A short explanation of sufism and sufi love within the context of persian poetry

Lets talk a bit about sufism because it seems that while people like quoting and talking about sufis quite a bit, they don’t seem to know what their beliefs actually were. More specifically, I’d like to talk a bit about the concept of love in sufism.

A lot of people consider love to be a universal concept and while that might be true in an abstract sense, it is by no means defined or viewed the same way in every time period and culture.

Let me preface this by saying that I myself am not a sufi so I’m certainly not the most authentic source on sufism. With that said, I’m quite fond of persian literature in which sufism played an important part (which is why this post becomes entirely about literature by the end). Also, there are some sufi orders that fall outside of what I’ll be discussing here but this is a more general overview with a focus on the views of some of the significant sufi figures of the middle ages and popular thought in those times.

Introduction to the core concepts of sufism:

Sufism, at its foundation, has two concepts that all sufi schools share: Jihad-al-nafs and zikr.

For jihad-al-nafs, lets first see what nafs is; nafs can be translated as the “self”: The source of all carnal desires such as hunger and sexual appetite, the source of worldly attachment, which is something the sufis try to cut, and the source of self-importance, what separates us from the other. Jihad against it mean struggle against the self (nafs).

To illustrate this attitude, Zalal al-din mohammad balkhi (rumi), a 13th century mystic and poet, says this in one of his poetry books (divan-e shams):

...

بمیرید بمیرید و زین مرگ مترسیدکز این خاک برآیید سماوات بگیرید

بمیرید بمیرید و زین نفس ببرید که این نفس چو بندست و شما همچو اسیرید

یکی تیشه بگیرید پی حفره زندان چو زندان بشکستید همه شاه و امیرید

...

Die, die and don’t be afraid of this death for when you rise above this earth you will rule the sky

Die, die and cut ties from the self for this self is like a prison chain and you are like a prisoner

Take an ax to hit the prison lock, once you’ve broken the prison you are all kings and rulers

Zikr, which can be translated as remembrance, can be explained roughly as this: seeing god in everything, constantly remembering god, doing everything for the sake of god and seeing nothing but god. This term is also used for certain practices such as chanting the names of god but as a core tenent, it’s simply the constant remembrance of god.

A poem that illustrates this is the trajiband (a type of poem) by the 18th century poet and mystic, Hatef-e Esfehani:

...

جرعه‌ای درکشیدم و گشتم فارغ از رنج عقل و محنت هوش

چون به هوش آمدم یکی دیدم مابقی را همه خطوط و نقوش

ناگهان در صوامع ملکوت این حدیثم سروش گفت به گوش

که یکی هست و هیچ نیست جز او وحده لااله الاهو

چشم دل باز کن که جان بینی آنچه نادیدنی است آن بینی

گر به اقلیم عشق روی آری همه آفاق گلستان بینی

...

آنچه نشنیده گوش آن شنوی وانچه نادیده چشم آن بینی

تا به جایی رساندت که یکی از جهان و جهانیان بینی

با یکی عشق ورز از دل و جان تا به عین‌الیقین عیان بینی

که یکی هست و هیچ نیست جز او وحده لااله الاهو

یار بی‌پرده از در و دیوار در تجلی است یا اولی‌الابصار

شمع جویی و آفتاب بلند روز بس روشن و تو در شب تار

...

I drank a sip and became free from the anguish of the mind and the sorrow of consciousness

Once I became conscious I saw one, and everything else as lines and designs

Suddenly in the muteness of the heavens, sorush (here it means heavenly messenger) told this story to the ears

For there is one and nothing but him, he is one and there is no god other than him

Open the eyes of the heart so that you can see the world

So that you can see that which cannot be seen

If you enter the land of love, you will see all horizons as flowers beds

...

Whatever the ears cannot hear, you will hear and whatever eyes cannot see, you will see

So that it takes you to a place where you will see one from all the world and all within it

With that one fall in love with you heart and your existence, so that with eyes of certainty you will rawly see

That there is one and nothing but him, he is one and there is no god other than him

The beloved companion is brimming from the doors and walls without veil, oh you who have eyes

You search for the candle and the high sun, the day is full of light and you spend your days in the darkness of the night

With regards to the “secrets” that the sufi discovers, they are not to be revealed to the non-sufi for they will not understand them and misinterpret them; there is therefore a need for the spiritual guide (the morid/morshed) that will guide those who step on the path (will be explained later) towards the truth so that they may discover it themselves. The place of the spiritual guide is often emphasized in sufism because most sufi schools believe that a person needs initiation for the path and can’t find truth without guidance.

A verse from a poem about the revealing of secrets, by the 14th century poet and mystic, Hafez-e Shirazi:

...

گفت آن یار کز او گشت سر دار بلند جرمش این بود که اسرار هویدا می‌کرد

...

He said, that companion, from whose head the hanging rope was lifted (referring to the 9th century mystic, Hussein ibn Mansur al-Hallaj)

His crime was that he revealed the secrets

Another poem about the secrets by the 11th-12th century poet, Omar Khayaam-e Neishabouri:

اسرار اَزَل را نه تو دانی و نه من، وین حرفِ معمّا نه تو خوانی و نه من؛

هست از پس پرده گفت‌وگوی من و تو، چون پرده برافتد، نه تو مانی و نه من.

The secrets of creation (azal means something along the line of “the beginning of the time without beginning”, it’s a bit difficult to explain), neither you know nor I

And this script of mystery, neither you can read nor I

Our discussion is done from beneath the veil

Once the veil falls, neither you will remain nor I (refers to the destruction of the self)

I won’t go into other sufi concepts like Wahdat al-wujud (oneness of existence in essence) because they are complicated and are a part of the secrets, meaning that according to the sufis, a non-sufi such as myself will not understand them. Many of these poems do allude to it though.

The structure of sufism:

Now what exactly is this “path”. Sufi schools can be extremely systematic and they can also be more liberal in their approach but most of them believe in the three main steps towards “truth”; that truth being illumination, reaching god, becoming one with god, etc.

These three steps are built upon each other: Shariat, Tarighat, Haghighat. The middle one translates to the path and is the step between sharia and the ultimate goal of the sufi (haghigha which can be translated as truth) and it’s in this tarighat that most sufi schools differ (although there is also a difference of opinion about the relationship of these steps to each other).

I won’t go into the variations of this path because there are a lot, but a basic image of what these step are can be seen from the moth and the flame: Sharia is when the moth sees the flame, tarigha is when the moth moves towards the flame, haghigha is when the moth is engulfed by the flame.

The 12th century poet, Attar-e Neishaboury, illustrates this concept in his poem of butterflies:

یک شبی پروانگان جمع آمدند در مضیفی طالب شمع آمدند

جمله می‌گفتند می‌باید یکی کو خبر آرد ز مطلوب اندکی

شد یکی پروانه تا قصری ز دور در فضاء قصر یافت از شمع نور

بازگشت و دفتر خود بازکرد وصف او بر قدر فهم آغاز کرد

ناقدی کو داشت در جمع مهی گفت او را نیست از شمع آگهی

شد یکی دیگر گذشت از نور در خویش را بر شمع زد از دور در

پر زنان در پرتو مطلوب شد شمع غالب گشت و او مغلوب شد

بازگشت او نیز و مشتی راز گفت از وصال شمع شرحی باز گفت

ناقدش گفت این نشان نیست ای عزیز همچو آن یک کی نشان دادی تو نیز

دیگری برخاست می‌شد مست مست پای کوبان بر سر آتش نشست

دست درکش کرد با آتش به هم خویشتن گم کرد با او خوش به هم

چون گرفت آتش ز سر تا پای او سرخ شد چون آتشی اعضای او

ناقد ایشان چو دید او را ز دور شمع با خود کرده هم رنگش ز نور

گفت این پروانه در کارست و بس کس چه داند، این خبر دارست و بس

آنک شد هم بی‌خبر هم بی‌اثر از میان جمله او دارد خبر

تا نگردی بی‌خبر از جسم و جان کی خبر یابی ز جانان یک زمان

هرکه از مویی نشانت باز داد صد خط اندر خون جانت باز داد

نیست محرم نفس کس این جایگاه در نگنجد هیچ کس این جایگاه

One night the butterflies gathered

In a celebration they came in search of the candle

They all said that we need someone who has some knowledge of that who we seek

A butterfly moved towards a faraway castle, in the space of that castle he found from faraway, candle light

He came back and opened his book, and started explaining what he understood

A critic who had higher greatness than the rest of those present, said that he does not have true understanding of the candle

Another one went and got passed the light at the door, he hit himself against the candle

It floated in the glow of the one it sought, the candle became dominant and it became dominated

He also came back and said a handful of secrets, he told the story of him reaching the candle

The critic said “this isn’t the sign dear, just like the other one you know nothing”

Another one rose utterly intoxicated, he sat on the flame while stomping his feet (dancing)

He held his hands with the flame, he lost himself in the joy of its company

When the flame engulfed him from head to toe, his body became red like the flame

When the critic saw him from far away, that the candle has turned him the same color from its light

He said “only this butterfly is aware and no one else, what does anyone know? only he knows and no one else

That who became both without awareness (of themselves and everything other than the candle) and without sign, from everyone he is the one who knows

Unless you become disconnected from body and life, when will you find a sign of the one who is life

Whoever gave a sign of you through a strand of hair, has shown a hundred lines from your lifeblood

No one’s self is allowed in that position, no one has the capacity to fill that position”

This brings us to love is sufism.

The importance of love:

There is a story in the Quran where god asks the mountains, the skies, ... to hold onto and safekeep something for a while (amanat). They refuse and were scared of it, then humanity ends up carrying it and god comments that they were indeed unjust and foolish. You see this come up in sufi poems a lot and Sufis believe that the thing humans were entrusted with was love (this apparently happened during azal which is the beginning of a time that doesn’t have a beginning). Essentially, worship is something that all of existence can do and so is kindness, compassion, ... but love is something unique to humanity in sufi beliefs (Non-sufis don’t believe this and there is a consensus among Islamic scholars that the thing it’s referring to is the role of “ولایت” that humanity has been entrusted with (ruling the earth)).

Poem by hafez:

آسمان بار امانت نتوانست کشید

قرعهٔ کار به نام من دیوانه زدند

The sky couldn’t handle the weight of this amanat

The responsibility was written to the name of the insane me

Poem by Sadi-e Shirazi:

به جهان خرم از آنم که جهان خرم از اوست

عاشقم بر همه عالم که همه عالم از اوست

به غنیمت شمر ای دوست دم عی��ی صبح

تا دل مرده مگر زنده کنی کاین دم از اوست

نه فلک راست مسلم نه ملک را حاصل

آنچه در سر سویدای بنی‌آدم ازوست

به حلاوت بخورم زهر که شاهد ساقیست

به ارادت ببرم درد که درمان هم ازوست

From the world I am thriving because the world is thriving from him

I am in love with the world because the entire world is from him

Oh friend, value Isa’s breath in the morning

So that it may bring to life the dead heart because this breath is from him (God. In islam Isa (a) is only a prophet and all miracles are considered works of god with the prophets only working as mediums)

Neither the skies have it nor the angels

The secret that’s hidden in the children of adam is from him

I will sweetly drink the cup of poison because the wine bearer is the divine beauty

I will accept pain with devotion for the cure is from him

Khajeh Abdollah-e Ansari says in his monajat:

الهی اگر نه امانت را امینم، آن زمان که امانت می‌نهادی دانستی که چنینم

Oh god, if I didn’t keep the amanat safe (I have no idea how I’m supposed to properly explain the concept of amin and amanat)

The time when you gave me the amanat, you knew that I was like this

It is said that the heart (the home of love) is the only body part that comes from god (not created by but coming directly from god in a metaphorical sense, meaning it has divinity) and it cannot tolerate separation so it constantly longs to return to its source and is in agony due to separation. This is the reason why the sufis believe that the one who loves is constantly miserable.

Poem by Abu Said-e Abol Kheyr:

از شبنم عشق خاک آدم گل شد

شوری برخاست فتنه‌ای حاصل شد

سر نشتر عشق بر رگ روح زدند

یک قطرهٔ خون چکید و نامش دل شد

From the dew of love the soil of humanity became clay

A lot of chaos and enthusiasm came about in the world

They hit the tip of the sword of love to the vein of the soul

A drop dripped and was named the heart

Poem by Rezagholi Khan-e Hedayat:

آتشی شب در نیستانی فتاد سوخت چون عشقی که در جانی فتاد

شعله تا مشغول کار خویش شد هر نیی شمعِ مزار خویش شد

نی به آتش گفت کاین آشو�� چیست مر ترا زین سوختن مطلوب چیست

گفت آتش بی سبب نفروختم دعوی بی معنی‌ات را سوختم

زانکه می‌گفتی نی‌ام با صد نمود همچنان دربند خود بودی که بود

با چنین دعوی چرا ای کم عیار برگ خود می‌ساختی هر نوبهار

مرد را دردی اگر باشد خوش است درد بی دردی علاجش آتش است

One night fire fell on a reed bed (the reed is the symbol of the sufi), it burned like a love that fell in a life

While the fire began it’s work, each reed became the candle of its own grave

The reed asked the fire “what is this chaos?, what do you want from this burning?”

The fire said “I didn’t burn without reason, I came to burn your meaningless invitation

From that which you said ‘I’m a reed with a hundred sounds (I have no idea how to translate “nemood” in a way that gets the point across)’, you still stay in your own prison

With an invitation like this, oh you who is low value, how come you would grow green leaves each spring?

It is good for humans to have pain (pain of longing, they also believe you aren’t a human if you don’t love), the cure for the pain of painlessness is fire”

Another poem by saadi:

...

گویند روی سرخ تو سعدی چه زرد کرد

اکسیر عشق بر مسم افتاد و زر شدم

They say, saadi, what made your red face (healthy) yellow (sickly)?

The elixir of love fell on my copper and I became gold

The place of love in sufism is said to have started (in the form that we know it today) with Rabia al-Basri who really popularized the image of the sufi and god as lovers in the 8th century and then the popular image of the beloved (god) in sufi poetry gets heavily influence by Ibn-Arabi’s vision in the 12th century. The importance of the heart goes back to the early days of shiaism.

Hierarchy of love in sufism:

From all that has been said, it goes without saying that the only form of true love in sufism is love of god. True and pure love in sufism is love of god and only love of god.

Poem by Sadi-e Shirazi:

ره عقل جز پیچ بر پیچ نیست بر عارفان جز خدا هیچ نیست

The path of the mind is nothing but winding (confusing)

For the aaref there is nothing but god

After that we get the spiritual brotherhood (gender neutral) with the height of this being the relationship between the moreed (spiritual leader/guide) and moraad (spiritual disciple) as this is the relationship that helps the sufi reach the true beloved (god).

After that by a great margin is familial love, deep friendship of an unspiritual nature (what is now called found family in english), and profound romantic love (their inner hierarchy is irrelevant). These types of relationships are considered impure as they are either partially or entirely related to worldly and earthly things and are not for the sake of god. Now, here we have a difference of opinion because some believe that earthly love can be an initiator for a person to step on the path towards divine love, some see it as helping a person within the path, and others believe that earthly love is a distraction and some also shun it because it can cause worldly attachment which a sufi must not have. One thing that is certain though is that this isn’t the love that sufis strive for as what they want is that Haghighat.

Everything else falls to the lowest level and the lowest of the low is considered a relationship built around carnal desire which is entirely earthly and completely unrelated to god.

A piece of writing that somewhat demonstrates this is the piece of writing by Shams-e Tabrizi, a 13th century mystic, in his Maghalate Shams:

مقصود از وجود عالَم ملاقات دو دوست بود که رویْ در هم نهند جهت خدا دور از هوی.

The purpose of the existence of the two worlds is the meeting of two friends who face each-other in the path towards god/for the sake of god, far away from desire (havaa is worldly cravings and non-spiritual passion).

Conclusion:

I want to conclude that the sufi concept of love, along with their views on the world and its purpose, are not inline with modern secular beliefs and values (unless you go with some of the new branches that heavily separate sufism from its source), and if you really want to understand what the sufis mean, you will have to look at their work within context. They’re islamic mystics so it’s evident that they aren’t particularly compatible with modern western thought, especially that which is more secular.

Where to begin for people who like sufi poetry:

You should have a base knowledge of Islam, Islamic philosophy, the basic history of sufism and traditional persian philosophy (in the case of erfan) first before getting into sufi poetry if your goal is to understand it as intended. Remember that sufism is Islamic mysticism and the first step that the sufi must take is sharia so you will be left lost if you don’t know much about Islam when you read their work because they reference it constantly.

A lot of people first introduce others to poets like Rumi and Hafez but they are absolutely not a good place to start since they reference a lot of sufi concepts without much explanation. Rumi’s masnavi is a terrible place to start because it’s literally considered a commentary on the Quran, that’s how much he quotes the Quran and hadith and many of his poems are just him giving his take on the interpretation of different surahs, not to mention he goes into it expecting the reader to already know a ton of stuff about sufism. Hafez pretty much has the same problem where you must already be familiar with a lot of things before you understand his work properly, his poetry is very fundamentally tied to persian culture and language.

It also wouldn’t hurt to know a bit about sufi - orthodox muslim discourse because they argue a lot through poems (Hafez really likes taking jabs at sheikhs for being hypocrite and he likes to be sarcastic about the fact that many orthodox people often call sufis heretics). Most Sufi schools are firmly against rationality and the mind (the aarefs are different in this regard) and they often accuse the non-sufis of being short sighted and overly caught up in unimportant things. The discourse is more longwinded and complicated than that but having a brief idea of what was going on will help you understand more. I’m not going into discourse between sufi schools because that’s its own thing and I can’t think of a way to keep it brief but that tends to also be relevant. Many of them like arguing with each other through their poems and they also tend to indirectly praise each other through poems, so you get Shah Nematolah-e Vali saying “we will turn the soil on our path to gold with a look” and then Saadi writes in his own poem “can those who turn the soil on the path to gold with a look, send a quick look our way”.

Anyways, in my opinion, the best place to start is probably Attar-e Neishabouri (has influence pretty much every great sufi after him and actually explains stuff) and then Sanayi-e Ghaznavi (11th-12th century poet and mystic, credited with beginning the tradition of sufi poetry).

As a side note, keep in mind the difference in vocabulary in different time periods and languages because people tend to forget a lot of the times that words tend to change meaning over time, especially when they are adopted into a different language. The word mahabba in arabic, for instance means acts of general love while Ishq means romantic love. In farsi however, they change meanings; mahabba becomes muhabbat/mohabbat and comes to mean affections while Ishq becomes eshgh and comes to mean general love (could be any form of love depending on context). These words also make their way into the Indian subcontinent and take on a different meaning there as well. When and how vocabulary changes meaning is it’s own subject that I won’t go into here but it’s something to keep in mind.

Alternative suggestions for poetry lovers:

If you are among the people who like persian poetry but are not fond of islamic mysticism, I highly suggest you try the Khorasani school of poetry (its predecessor, sabke faakher, consists mostly of praise poems and its main feature is using big words so I don’t personally recommend it. The reason why it’s like this is that during that period, poetry was almost exclusive to the court and it was in later centuries that it started to become more common place among average people).

Popularized in the 10th century, its most renowned poet is Rudaki who is considered the father of classical persian poetry. This style is much more focused on the beauty of nature and earthly love, it has a much more happy outlook towards life than the schools that come after it, and it is very literalist; wine here means actual wine. In sufi and erfani poems which are very heavy on symbolism, it means divine love/love of god which is one of the things that people don’t like about them. Wine also tends to be symbolic of love in other schools of poetry after this (This style also has a lot of praise poems though). You won’t find much literalism in classical persian poetry after this because traditional persian culture highly valued subtlety and indirectness; if a poem lacked these qualities it was considered crude, unskilled and even vulgar. With the introduction of western values in recent centuries however, literalism and a direct approach have become preferred so modern persian literature can also be a place to look for this. That aside, the khorasani school is just as beautiful as the araqi school and doesn’t get much notice these days, it’s a very good place to start.

If you like lyric poetry with simple language but layer upon layer of symbolism and subtlety, you can try the non-sufi branch of the Araqi style which includes works like veis o ramin by Asadi-e Gorgani, the poems of Suzani-e Samarghandi, and some of Nizami-e Ganjavi’s works, but this style is by no means straight forwards despite its simple vocabulary. You will often hear people saying that persian poetry cannot be understood unless you learn farsi, persian history, the quran and hadith, and are deeply immersed in traditional persian culture; it’s usually the Araqi school that they are speaking of when they say this (although it can also refer to many works in the esfehani school). Keep in mind that this shift in literary style happened because of the political upheaval in what was then eastern Iran (greater khorasan) due to the mongol attacks which drove many of the poets and artists of that region to the west of Iran, which at that point in time was called Araq-e ajam (non-arab Iraq, hence the name). Arabic literature (as a part of religious education) was also taught in Iran during the Seljuk era which had its impact, and the araqi style came about as a result of many different factors that you can often see reflected in the poetry. This is the style that has that stereotypical lover who suffers without complaint theme. Let me clarify that the most renowned poets of the araqi style were sufis (or aarefs, which isn’t exactly the same thing but is closely related) and wrote mostly sufi and erfani poetry so it’s much easier to find non-sufi works in the next style.

The Esfehani/Indian style includes many poems that are often inspired by sufi works but are not explicitly linked to sufism, although there is plenty of sufi/erfani poetry in this style as well (this style is also very beautiful but I wouldn’t recommend it if you are just starting out with persian poetry). It started when persian poets, who had moved to India during the Safavid period (late 15th-16 century), were influenced by the culture of India and distance from the center of persian culture and language and created their own style of poetry. This style then became extremely popular in Esfehan which became its center. This style is also called the safavi style and if you’re searching for homoeroticism, Safavid love poetry is the place to look as they use sufi terminology outside of a sufi context and are mostly referring to page boys, young soldiers, young servants and young slaves. That aside, this school of poetry is by no means easy to understand, in fact it’s one of the more difficult styles (outside of love poetry) as a mixture of complex meanings and concepts is one of its main features.

Long tangent: Let me just warn you though, please don’t romanticize the Safavids as LGBT tolerant because this was absolutely not what they were, they were tolerant towards pedophilia (the sexual exploitation of little boys who have yet to develop their secondary sexual characteristics) and not grown adults having equal relationships (those two things are not the same and should not be treated the same way). They bastardized sufism as one of their tactics for justifying their behavior and although they started as a sufi order, they started suppressing and oppressing the sufis as soon as it didn’t match their political interests. The term ghulam that previously meant servant/assistant/disciple/follower, came to mean sex-slave during the abbasid reign but it was heavily normalized as this during the Safavid (and Ottoman) rule to the point where many people saw no need to differentiate between the two meanings (nowadays, most people think it just means sex-slave, specifically because they became synonymous during that period). They are also responsible for gazing at the shaahed (the divine beauty in Ibn Arabi’s vision) coming to mean ogling little boys. This should really tell you that they were not the shining beacon of LGBT tolerance and should not be treated as such because then we will be implying that pedophilia/rape and homosexuality are the same/closely related which is a harmful rhetoric that has often been used against us and lets not do that please. The Safavid period was a great period for art and philosophy but they were pretty awful in many ways and should absolutely not be revered (the horrific amount of religious intolerance, the serial rape and sexual exploitation of the working classes, slavery which in the history of persia before that point was nowhere near that bad, twisting religion to justify whatever horrid thing they did, (like in twelver shiaism starting armed conflict isn’t allowed, although fighting back is, but they twisted things so much to justify their warmongering), ... all of these are common among the ruling classes everywhere but I believe that under no circumstances should this commonness be a reason to revere and praise figures like this. Not as bad is also not really a good excuse when it’s this bad. There were certainly times in Islamic history where LGBT+ rights were in a much better state than now but this doesn’t mean we should be romanticizing dynasties like this. I’m not the most qualified person to talk about this as I’m no historian but either-way, I hold that pedophiles, serial rapists and warmongers shouldn’t be treated as respectable figures regardless of the times in which they lived (btw these thing being bad was not lost on many people in many societies where they were considered normal. We should consider context, sure, but I’m sure that had the faculties to understand that enslaving little boys and then raping them isn’t the most moral thing to do).

As for modern persian poetry, I’m not a fan and I don’t have much to say about it. There is great work there as well but I’m personally not too knowledgable about it so I won’t say much, but modern persian literature has taken influence from the west so it may be the style that best matches western sensibilities. Modern persian literature leans more towards societal and political criticism, romance and some descriptions of scenery; mysticism is almost entirely absent. The most notable figure of modern persian poetry is Nima Yushij.

Translation and ending remarks:

I can’t recommend any translation because all of the ones that I’ve seen were below standard (and I’ve seen a lot) and quite frankly, translation just doesn’t work for persian poetry because so much of it is tied specifically to the qualities of the persian language and culture specific concepts with no english equivalent that it’s just not properly translatable, more so than many other forms of written work.

Take this poem by Mowlavi for instance:

آن یکی شیر است ا ندر بادیه و آن یکی شیر است اندر بادیه

آن یکی شیر است که آدم می خورد و آن یکی شیر است کادم می درد

One is shir in baadiyeh and the other is shir in baadiyeh

One is a shir kaadam mikhorad and the other is a shir kaadam mikhorad

Explanaition:

Shir = lion and milk

Badiyeh = field and cup

So the first verse is “one is a lion in a field and the other is milk in a cup”.

The second bit changes meaning based on where you put the stress while reading, so it become “One is the lion that eats humans and the other is the milk that humans drink”.

The whole point of the poem is that they are written and pronounced the same way but are not the same thing. It’s from the story of the parrot and the merchant where the parrot drops an oil barrel, the merchant hits him and he goes bald, one day a bald man walks by the shop and the parrot asks “did you also drop a oil barrel”; basically saying that when things look the same on the surface, it doesn’t mean that they’re the same in context.

Or take these two verses by Hafez:

چشمم از آینه داران خط و خالش گشت

لبم از بوسه رُبایانِ بَر و دوشش باد

The meaning here isn’t really anything amazing or ground breaking, the first verse is essentially saying that he was in aw of his beloved’s beauty and the second verse is talking about kissing.

What makes this poem special is that while reading the first verse, after the first word, the reader’s mouth never closes, showing the aw. The second verse is about kissing and the mouth shape is “o”-like through out reading it, creating an image of kissing lips.

This sort of thing is pretty common in Hafez poetry and much of the appeal of his poetry is in his clever and masterful use of poetic devices.

Or this other poem from the story of Shirin and Khosrow:

نام بت من اگر بخواهی سیبی است ��هاده بر سر سرو

If you want the name of my idol

It’s an apple sitting on a cypress

Explanaition:

Sib = apple and sarv = cypress

The verse is read as sibist (is an apple) which can also be read as si =30, bist =20

So 30 x 20 which is the ajvaf number for the letter kh (خ)

سرو can be read as both sarv and sro, so her idol’s name is خ above سرو (Khosrow).

This type of thing is extremely common in persian poetry and we have poets like Shah Nematollah-e Vali who is famous for his book of predictions, coded entirely in poetry verses that have very shallow meaning on the surface, but you will have to do 10 layers of decoding to get what he actually meant and the meaning becomes something else entirely (predictions about socio-politics leading to the end of time). And that’s putting aside all those poems that have multiple meanings or have different or complementary meanings depending on whether you read them from right-to-left or top-to-bottom.

In some cases you can get the general meaning across through translation but the poem looses all beauty, and in other cases writing a translation is simple not possible and you will have to write a whole essay to explain a single verse.

If you want a free and semi-comprehensive source for persian poems in farsi, I recommend the website ganjoor which was initially a project by Iranian literature students who sought to make persian poetry more accessible to persian speakers; it includes multiple forms of recital as well as other notes about poem such as their metre. Users also often comment alternative verses because many of these works were not fully preserved or entirely legible and were reconstructed via the efforts of scholars.

I want to finish this off by stressing that poetry had a different place in persian culture compared to the cultures of the west. Iranians wrote almost everything in verse, even Ibn sina’s canon of medicine is written half in verse. More than half of our conversations used to be through the medium of poetry, and the extent that persian speakers quote poetry in day to day speech would be considered utterly obnoxious in the west. Poetry in the persianate world was not reserved solely for or associated primarily with romantic sentiments, angst and artsy and sentimental people (the general common associations it currently has in the west). Understanding the place that poetry had in persian society is absolutely crucial to the understanding of the persian poem as you will simply not understand much of it through a western lens. What was discussed in this post was specifically divan poetry (poetry written for poetry books or as poems for the purpose of being poems, as opposed to, say scientific books being written in verse, daily conversation like urging someone to buy bread being in verse, etc). This is also one of the reasons why poetic devices are heavily utilized as that is one of the main factors that really differentiates a poet’s poem from a day-to-day speech poem.

#persian poetry #sufi literature #farsi poetry #persian literature #sufism #iranian poetry #iranian literature

53 notes · View notes

thewhitefluffyhat · 4 years ago

Text

Bernkastel

What is this guide?

<< Previous (Witches and Fragments in Umineko)

Reading List: Highlights

Umineko Episode 2/Turn “??? Tea Party” [ Video / Text ]

Bernkastel explains some of her origins. And does Rika’s “nipah~”

”The Witches' Tanabata Isn’t Sweet” [ Video / Text ]

Lambda cajoles Bern into granting a wish, which Bern does in her own way. (A good introduction to Bern’s personality.)

Umineko Episode 6/Dawn "Logic Error Backstory" scene

Video [Scene starts roughly 16:04, stop before 28:07]

Text [Skip the first two scenes by searching on “Erika, who wanted to savor the memory of her perfect victory”. Scene continues to end of the page.]

Lambda explains her and Bern’s origins to Erika. (This one scene contains the majority of information we have on all three witches’ connections to Higurashi.)

Umineko Episode 8/Twilight “Tea Party” [ Video / Text ]

[Spoilers for several characters' fates at the end of Umineko, though not the solution to the core mystery.] Bern and Lambda in the aftermath of a hard-fought game. (A look at what the witches are like when not actively playing a role in a game.)

Reading List: I want it all

”Whose Tea Party?” [ Video / Text ]

Bern gets invited to a tea party. (A simple and silly scenario, but also a window into the differences in how Featherine and Lambda think of Bern.)

”Bernkastel’s Letter” [ Video / Text ]

Bernkastel writes a letter to (maybe) Featherine, explaining what she’s discovered about the rules to Beatrice’s game. (This is a bit of a strange one - to me it feels like some details of Bern’s relationships in this early work were retconned by the time of Umineko Episodes 6-8.)

Brief appearances/mentions in “Memoirs of the ΛΔ”, “The First and Last Gift”, and ��Jessica and the Killer Electric Fan”

All of Umineko, but particularly Umineko Chiru.

07th Theater and the Last Note of the Golden Witch from Umineko Saku.

Like Higurashi, Umineko has a questionably-canon fighting game (Golden Fantasia). Bern has playable routes and dialogue there.

If you really want to be thorough, and consider Higurashi’s Rika to be the same character as Bernkastel in Umineko, congratulations! All of both Higurashi and Umineko are now on your reading list. You should probably toss Ciconia on the pile just in case too. Good luck~!

(Also, I know there’s a Rika/Bern lookalike in pretty much every Ryukishi07 work, but unless someone tells me otherwise, then for the sake of everyone’s time I’m going to assume lookalikes are different characters.)

Wiki Links

https://07th-expansion.fandom.com/wiki/Bernkastel [Not recommended: major Umineko spoilers!]

Quick Facts

-The Bernkastel of Umineko is heavily implied to be the same character as the “Frederica Bernkastel” in Higurashi. You can theoretically construct a reading where she isn’t but… now you have two Bernkastels in the same Sea of Fragments.

Here’s Ryukishi07’s comment on the matter:

Q: What is the relationship between Rika and Frederica Bernkastel? A: Bernkastel is composed of all the negative emotions and memories from the Rika that endured 100 years of torment in Higurashi. On a side note, he mentioned that Rika was BT’s favorite character, so he greatly enjoyed making Rika evil to see BT’s reaction.

(Source: ACen 2015 07th Expansion Panels) [Warning: major Umineko spoilers!]

-In Umineko, the character always goes by her last name or a shortening thereof; the "Frederica" part is only ever referred to indirectly in some PS3 art and as the author of a poem in “Bernkastel’s Letter.” (This was actually true in Saikoroshi as well.)

-Physically, she has same eye/hair color as Rika, though her eyes lack highlights and she seems slightly older.

(Bern and her piece Erika share several physical similarities, and in Umineko Episode 5, Erika is described as a high schooler who looks more like a middle schooler. So that description may be true for Bern’s “age” as well.)

Personality

-Bern has completely dispensed with the cutesy Rika act - she’s all dark Rika, all the time. At her best, Bern is as cold and cynical as Rika after she's given up on a timeline. At her worst, she's a vicious and abusive bully, arguably even more sadistic than Takano.

There are some interpretations you can take that soften her behavior, but she is not, under any stretch of the imagination, a good person.

(When people say "maybe Gou is a Bernkastel origin story!" this abrupt change to her character may also be what they're referring to - not just the story behind where Bern came from, but potentially the story behind "when and why did Rika turn evil?")

-In the present of Umineko, Lambda is repeatedly noted to be Bern’s only friend. (More on their relationship in Lambda’s section.) Part of that is, well, the above bullet points, but the second part is that she just tends to avoid other people. She’s mostly retreated back to being an observer, not an active participant on the stage. (Another difference from Rika.)

-Bern’s relationship with Featherine is less affectionate than that of Rika and Hanyuu. Bern is much harsher and more disrespectful towards Featherine, but on the other hand, Featherine isn’t bothered by it and instead appears amused by her antics.

-Despite all these differences, Bern does keep some of Rika’s minor quirks - her love of extreme foods, her narration’s fondness for odd and/or longwinded metaphors, and of course her trademark emo poetry.

-Still, Given Gou Episode 19, it’s worth mentioning that there’s a bit of a gap between Rika’s tastes and Bern’s. Bern acts more reserved/refined, she’s more often seen drinking tea than wine, and her “home” (in as much as she has one) is in a giant library.

I’d previously chalked these differences up to merely the change in aesthetics between Higurashi and Umineko (all witches love their fancy tea parties), but now...

That being said, in Umineko, Bern’s just as scornful of high society markers as she is everything else. Champagne tower bowling, anyone?

Abilities

-Bern’s title is the “Witch of Miracles,” and she has the power to “cause success without fail, 'as long as the odds are not zero'.”

-What exactly that means in practice is hard to define. Could Bern use miracles to cause someone to, say, die of a lightning strike? Probably. But what she’s actually doing is sifting through millions of Fragments until she finds a world that matches what she wants. It’s a power that functions at the meta level.

(So your guess is as good as mine as to whether she could pull off Rika’s “I literally caught a bullet barehanded while inside a Fragment” miracle at will.)

-Bernkastel and Rika are both associated with black cats. Unlike Rika, Bern can and does literally shapeshift into one. She and Featherine also use black cats as messengers.

-In magical battles, Bern usually fights with a black scythe and summons hordes of aforementioned black cats. She also really loves her teleports and that “dodge via interposing magical duplicate” trick.

-When acting as Featherine’s miko, Bern is able to grant “Theatergoing authority” (basically the ability to compel and watch other characters’ significant flashbacks) to pieces on a game board.

-Bern can kludge multiple worlds together into one Franken-Fragment, a perhaps less elegant version of what Hanyuu does to create the Matsuribayashi Fragment.

-In the silly 07th Theater crossover stories, Bern is also shown to use the “power of voyage” to pluck pieces from one game and place them in others. (If you thought Featherine was unlikely in Gou, note that technically, even Beatrice has been to Hinamizawa!)

Next (Bernkastel’s Umineko Origins) >>

#when they cry #higurashi #higurashi gou #umineko #bernkastel #furude rika #my ramblings #higurashi guide to witches #unfortunately due to said teleports #it is now much more difficult to take bern home with you #points for trying though lambda #i bet rena could still do it

32 notes · View notes

ever-searching · 4 years ago

Text

Companion piece to FFXIVWrite #30

Since my writing for the FFXIVWrite prompt #30: Splinter (which can be found here) included a lot of different AUs which I’ve never talked about, I thought that I could write a companion piece which tells a bit more about them. I decided to also add short descriptions of each character's “main universe” versions for clarity.

Short summaries can be found below. Be warned that the text may contain minor story spoilers for the FFXIV main scenario story line until the early bits of Shadowbringers, though.

(MU = "main universe" (roleplay-verse), WoL = Warrior of Light (canon storyline), First = Norvrandt version)

Cain

MU Cain: An adventurer/odd-jobs from Thanalan who is trying to make his mark and struggles with impostor syndrome a bit. Lived on the streets from Calamity until roughly 7th Astral Era. Somewhat snarky at times, but at his core an awkward nerd. Thaumaturge with basic knife-fighting skills.

WoL Cain: Starts off very enthusiastic but gradually gets tired of everyone expecting that he solves their problems and nobody giving him even a small break. Got off the streets a year or two earlier than the MU Cain but still inherited his self-negligent ascetic lifestyle. Possibly snarkier than the other versions. Black Mage / Dark Knight.

First Cain / “Kayneth”: Son of a miner couple from Twine who left to seek better life in Eulmore; he either wasn't taken along or didn’t manage to become a bonded citizen. Eventually, his path lead him to Crystarium, where he became an adventurer. Lost his eyesight at some point when something clawed him in the face but navigates using aether.

Narangelel

MU Narangelel: A wanderer/hunter from the Azim Steppe who came to Azeroth to sate her wanderlust and find something that would fill the emptiness she feels. Placid and polite but sometimes a bit apathetic, perhaps. Lancer, though also somewhat effective with knives.

WoL Narangelel: Leaves the Steppe a few years earlier than MU Nara. Still hasn't found what she is looking for, but although her work is hard, she feels oddly at peace with it. Possibly fascinated by dragons after acquiring a dragoon soulstone. Represents Kha tribe rather than Mol during the Naadam (possibly negotiating a temporary alliance between the two tribes beforehand) and turns down Magnai’s proposal, though politely (because he'd definitely make one). Dragoon / Rogue.

First Narangelel / “Naldia”: Adventurer who hunts monsters and sin eaters as her profession. Has traced her origins to the Kingdom of Voeburt but hasn’t yet managed to visit Il Mheg. A bit more world-weary than the other two versions.

Storm

MU Storm: Former magical murder machine / Garlean conscript from Gyr Abania, current book merchant / artisan living in Ul'dah. Nicknamed ‘Stoneface' for a reason. Aether sensitive. Has a fairly strict code of honour. Helps the downtrodden when he can, particularly if they are magically capable. Arcanist with elemental spells and no carbuncles.

WoL Storm: Ends up helping Momodi with something, and somehow that leads to Storm becoming the Warrior of Light. Has a lot of conflicted feelings for a very long time, particularly when the events take him to Gyr Abania; eventually, the Ala Mhigans (some of who might recognize him) forgive him for his past deeds. Possible dad figure for some Scions. Summoner / Gunbreaker; still rarely uses egis or healing spells.

First Storm / “Forgiven Remorse”: An unfortunate Hume who got turned into a sin eater. Might have been a powerful mage and/or a powerful soldier, but he is doomed to get struck down. (A short post about this version can be found here.)

G’ilas

MU G’ilas: A cheerful adventurer/treasure hunter from Abalathia’s Spine who served the Maelstrom as a field medic until Cartenau. Usually an optimist and even something of a joker, but dislikes being pressured and doesn’t take it well if he is unable to save someone. Conjurer, though he does carry a knife.

WoL G’ilas: As the MU one, except that his adventuring path lead him to meet with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. While he remains fairly cheerful and smiles often, the losses and failures he has suffered in the course of his journeys have given his optimism a slightly desperate edge at times: he might not have met any of his closest companions in this timeline, which gives him a shakier foundation. White Mage, and possibly a Samurai.

First G’ilas / “Gae-Satt”: A relaxed Mystel living a life of luxury in Eulmore. Still friendly and happy-go-lucky, but doesn’t seem to be interested in adventuring in the least.

Merces

MU Merces: Allagan bodyguard/soldier clone who slumbered in Azys Lla for millennia before getting freed by a band of adventurers (namely G‘ilas and his friends). Chose G’ilas as his new master, but is slowly learning to live without constantly serving someone. Still sometimes feel like a fish out of (temporal) water. Polite, somewhat curious and very serious-minded. Gladiator, but adequate with more or less all melee weapons.

WoL Merces: Rather than having been forgotten or left in Azys Lla, this version of Merces was placed in the Crystal Tower and awakened after the beginning of the 7th Umbral Era. As he never found a master, he might feel and act even more detached from the world than the MU Merces. Gladiator / Lancer / Samurai.

First Merces: Doesn’t exist. Allagan Empire never existed in Norvrandt, and the person he was based on probably lived and died centuries earlier.

Sasameru

MU Sasameru: A Dunesfolk researcher with a passion for studying magic, though his own aetherial capabilities are almost non-existent. Amiable but a bit absent-minded at times. Runs a bookshop. May or may not do some shady business as an informant and a code cracker as a side-business, encouraged by his family.

WoL Sasameru: Doesn't exist. Would require Sasameru more capable in manipulating aether, and if that was the case, his backstory might have taken quite a different turn.

First Sasameru / "Samugg"?? "Samsard"??: A researcher working at the Cabinet of Curiosity in Crystarium. While I originally intended to keep his race the same, Lalafells/Dwarves are quite rare and reclusive, which made me reconsider... so it's also possible that First Sasameru would in fact be a Galdjent (as their naming scheme would work well with his name).

Lumien

MU Lumien: A soft-hearted, somewhat clumsy and insecure Elezen from Gridania who struggled and failed to become a Wood Wailer, then ran from home and tried to become a Gladiator in Ul'dah, and then became a retainer. Has some aptitude with conjury but doesn't (yet) know how to utilize his potential nor fully believe in it. Writes poems and likes cats. Gladiator / Conjurer, though both only on very basic levels.

WoL Lumien: Didn’t give up on Gladiator training before he encountered Thancred and so remained one. After he gets introduced to the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, he doesn’t initially realize (or accept) that he is the Warrior of Light. Learns to control his nerves to a degree, which makes him less clumsy in battle, and that in turn helps him to become a bit more confident; still writes poetry and remains fairly shy. Knows that he can't save everyone but still tries, even though it hurts. Paladin / Conjurer.

First Lumien / "Lyriath": The son of bandits/poachers who has been dragged into the life of crime; hates what he is doing but doesn't think he can escape it. Insecure and downhearted, and has an occasional tendency to make a martyr of himself.

Haldswys

All three versions follow roughly the same theme of "boisterous bruiser", though the WoL version and particularly the First version have probably gained quite bit more scars than the MU version.

Chaz

MU Chaz: Self-proclaimed "wisdom hunter" who left Ishgard after he wasn't allowed to study in the Scholasticate. Loves books and does anything and everything to get them, including stealing. Somewhat bratty and arrogant, but still probably a jerk with a heart of gold. Rogue with some improvised Astrologian skills.

WoL Chaz: At some point, his paths crossed with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and one thing lead to another until he found himself being the saviour of Eorzea. Still sometimes puts an act of a know-it-all, speaks snarkily and/or refuses to do things that he doesn't like, but he is surprisingly dedicated to saving the world. Besides, being a hero has given him a way into some restricted libraries, so he can't really complain, can he? Astrologian / Ninja.

First Chaz / "Sawes": A guard defending Crystarium. While he doesn't exactly love fighting, has become somewhat nonchalant about fighting over the course of years, at least as long as he isn't in mortal danger. Visits the Cabinet of Curiosity on his days off and has probably read a large number of the books there.

Brenda

MU Brenda: A travelling minstrel who carries their father's Red Mage soulstone in the hopes that it will either react to them or that they will find someone worthy of it. A bit awkward but strives to look and act like a hero. Archer.

WoL Brenda: Runs into the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and accompanies them, thinking that one of them might be the worthy holder of the soulstone. In general, they probably spend a good while thinking that they're just accompanying the real heroes to record their story or being the replacement hero until the real one is found; they are convinced only when the soulstone ends up choosing them. Red Mage / Bard.

First Brenda / "Brinaette": A citizen of the Crystarium known to perform at the Wandering Stairs. Probably very knowledgeable or at least interested in the history of Norvrandt. Might also be an adventurer although singing and playing guitar are their biggest passions.

#FFXIVWrite 2020 #Cain #Narangelel #Nara #Storm #G'ilas #Merces #Sasameru #Lumien #Haldswys #Chaz #Brenda #(tagging all characters for possible future reference)#(also using the FFXIVWrite tag so I can find this with the prompt if needed)#hopefully this clarifies at least something #as this turned wayyy longer than I exptected #no pictures because I ran out of energy //orz #I guess I'm not that invested in Haldswys's AU ahaha...

2 notes · View notes

mia-cooper · 5 years ago

Text

2019 fanfiction in review

I usually put more effort into pimping my favourite fics of the year, boosting a few new writers in my fandoms, etc. This year, however, I have not, for reasons both within and beyond my control. Which is pretty much my excuse for not Doing Better with writing for the past month or so, but hey. At least there’s this.

.......................................................

1. Best fic(s) you read all year, and why?

How can I even begin to list all the beautiful, shocking, feel-good, feel-terrible-but-in-a-good-way, envy-inducing, page-turning, soul-destroying, fluffy, hilarious, infuriating and horny fics I’ve read this year? I can’t. So I will instead list three that come immediately to mind.

@curator-on-ao3 – The Dismissed Protocol (rated T, VOY, TNG, Janeway & Crusher)

This fic made me angry. So angry that I left a ranty and incoherent comment, slammed down the lid on my laptop and stormed around the house for a bit. Why was I so pissed, you ask? Because this fic hit a good few of my personal triggers around bodily autonomy and the right to make informed choices, and because although the fic ends triumphantly, it’s somewhat of a pyrrhic victory and it left a really bad taste in my mouth. Which, considering this is fiction, is the mark of some really good writing. When it comes to tackling difficult topics with a fresh and thought-provoking perspective, and without opting for the easy answers, Curator never disappoints. This story is just one of many examples of that in her work.

@love-in-the-time-of-kolinahr – it will take place without witnesses (rated E, DSC, Pike/Number One)

Okay so let me start by saying it was the author’s fucking EXCELLENT pun of a pseudonym that made me read this in the first place. Then it was the poem they quoted (Discovery by Wislawa Szymborska, which is like a portentous rocket in the guts). Then it was Una’s scales-off-the-eyes, we-are-true-equals, don’t-bullshit-me-lover candidness in the way she sees, talks to, knows Chris Pike. I adore Pike in his laconic-space-cowboy-with-a-heart Disco incarnation, I like him a lot as the CoolDad in AOS, but this fic? This fic gives me smart, forthright, deeply tender Number One, and Pike as the fractured and very human hero I hope like hell we’ll see more of because they are definitely making a Pike series RIGHT? It is written. Anyway… this fic is beautiful and harsh and deft and real and sexy and poetic and at its core it’s about love, and who doesn’t love love?

@captacorn – Stars in a Ruined Sky (rated M, VOY, Paris/Torres)

It took me a while to read this one because CaptAcorn was posting it at the same time I was writing my epic, and I had no brain space to maintain a hold on someone else’s dark and compelling plot. But when I picked this one up, I couldn’t put it down. It is AMAZING. A Timeless AU, set in a universe where Voyager crashed and most of the crew survived, this goes where no other 100k+ epic I’ve read before has dared to tread, and it does so without flinching. The details are what make this unforgettable – there’s no magic reset button, so when something bad happens to the crew, there are actual lasting consequences – but it’s the humanity of the characters (if I can use that word to describe a crew that includes aliens) that makes it unputdownable (fuck off, my nana said that’s a word). This is not an AU I want to think happened, but CaptAcorn makes it one that rings true. And I’ll definitely read this again when I have the emotional fortitude for it.

Wow, there’s no Janeway/Chakotay in my top three. What? So here’s a bonus:

Northernexposure’s trilogy – Soft Light, Aftershocks and Resolution (rated E, VOY, Janeway/Chakotay) – three for the price of one! I mean, when northernexposure posts a new fic I race to read it no matter what, but smut! Beautifully written, true to character, sexy sexy smut from one of my all time favourite authors! How could I turn that down?

2. Best fic(s) you published all year, and why?

Mmmyeah to be honest I kinda feel as though my writing peaked in 2017, but here we go.

Desperate Measures (rated E, VOY, Janeway/Chakotay and other pairings) – because there’s angst and smut and the plot is twisty as fuck and I feel like there’s a pretty satisfying payoff. And it’s really long and relies on the reader engaging with my OCs which people seem to have done, which makes me think that if I ever do want to go write another original novel, maybe I won’t want to burn it as soon as I’m done.

This Is The Moment (rated M, DSC, Pike/Tyler) – because these two have exhausting chemistry and I couldn’t not write this but it was hard to make it come out of my brain the way I wanted it. But I’m really happy with it.

And I have a soft spot for First Officer’s Log (rated T, VOY, Chakotay & Tuvok, implied Janeway/Paris), because I just really love Threshold, okay? And while the episode is wack on so many levels there are really dark and heavy themes to explore there which I feel have gone very unexplored and I hope my fic struck that same balance between moral philosophy and holywhatthefuckery.

3. Favourite opening line(s) in a fic you published in 2019:

From Bad Maquis (rated M, VOY, Janeway/Chakotay):

The only thing more restrictive – and bosomy – than this outfit, Kathryn mused as she stared at her reflection, was her holodeck governess costume.  

Still, at least she didn’t have to leave her quarters wearing this getup, and thank goodness for small mercies. Because she was on the verge of backing down from this challenge as it was, and Kathryn Janeway did not chicken out. Ever.

I mean, it sets the scene, doesn’t it? Who doesn’t love Janeway in leather.

4. Favourite closing line(s):

This is maybe cheating a little bit because this fic isn’t finished, but this first chapter can stand alone and I won’t be continuing it for some time (first, I have to finish the two prequels, haha). Anyway, these are the closing lines from Inertia (rated T so far, VOY, Janeway/Paris and others):

When the daze clears and Tom looks up to discover that his hovercar is parked in front of an address he’s never visited but has nonetheless memorised, maybe he should feel a little bit surprised.  

He doesn’t. No matter how far he tries to go or how long he stays away from her, turning up at Kathryn Janeway’s door is inevitable.

Why do I like it? Well, I have an everlasting appreciation for Janeway/Paris, for one thing. For another, if you read the rest of the story and understand what Tom has just learned, you’ll want to know what happens next. I hope. I sure want to know.

5. The fic that was best received, and your favourite comment(s) on it:

That would be Desperate Measures again. It’s my longest fic by far and I was absolutely bowled over by the response to it, but one of my favourite comments on it is this one:

It actually looks like Janeway is saying gimme and it cracks me up.

Honestly though… the depth and kindness of comments on that fic in particular, the time and thought and effort that people have put into their reviews … it made up for every moment I wanted to chuck it in and never look at that fic again, or any other.

6. The fic you wish had gotten more love:

Honestly, I was surprised there was so little response to my @voyagermirrormarch fic trilogy, Heaven in the Shape of Hell. I really thought they’d be crowd pleasers, but it shows what I know, lol. I haven’t even finished the third one because the lack of interest made me wonder if they were just really shite, but I’m not so butthurt about it anymore and I will come back to it someday.

7. How many fandoms you wrote for in 2019, and which inspired you most:

Does Star Trek in all its incarnations count as one fandom? If so, I wrote for two (Trek and Marvel). If all the different versions of Trek count separately, I wrote for seven (MCU, AOS (that’s Trek Alternate Original Series, not Agents of SHIELD), Disco, Mirror, Enterprise, DS9 and Voyager).

Anyway, I guess I’ll never stop being inspired by Voyager, so even if Disco season 3 and the Picard show do nothing for me, I’ll always have that.

8. Your favourite pairing(s) to write for:

I mean, Janeway x Chakotay, for sure. But I’m deeply, deeply invested in Janeway x Paris at the moment.

9. What you’re writing now/next:

I’m struggling through the second part of what was supposed to be my contribution to @25daysofvoyager. I’m actually going to post the first part once I’m done with this quiz in the hope it’ll kick my ass into gear. I’m also on semi-hiatus from Kinetic Friction, but I’ll be going back to it as soon as I’m done with my 25 Days fic. At some point after Kinetic there’ll be the sequel, and then the rest of Inertia. I’m also contemplating something for Threshold Day, possibly throwing something into @voytalentchallenge (don’t count on that one), and I have an idea for a pre-Enterprise D, pre-Voyager meeting between Picard and Janeway (with smut, obvs), plus all the other fics I’m definitely going to write …

And of course there’s my meat raffle. Time to pimp that one again. Donate to AO3 and if I draw your name out of the hat of randomness I’ll write you a fic to your specifications (roughly).

10. Writing goals for 2020 (word count? new fandoms/pairings? anything?):

Look, I’d just really like to actually write to some of the prompts I’ve had sitting in my ridiculously complex filing system without getting sidetracked by the newest shiny thing to catch my eye. In terms of fandoms, I hope I’ll write more for Discovery, I’m looking forward to Picard, and I would like to branch out from Trek a bit. More MCU, definitely, and maybe others if I get inspired. The main thing I want out of writing fanfiction at the moment is for it to continue making me happy, though, so I just hope I keep having fun with it.

#miamemes #miawrites #2019 fanfiction in review

29 notes · View notes

mightyfineblog · 6 years ago

Text

‘Stand By Me’ -4-

Ben Hardy x Reader

Ch. 4

Summary: You are moving in your boyfriend’s flat. As you unpack, you remember the long road you two have walked down from when you met to where you are now.

Chapter summary: This chapter brings back a thigh clenching memory from last year, when Ben was on set of Bohemian Rhapsody, and you accidentally called him Roger. Oopps. So embarrassing for sure, but wait a minute. Did he just call you a groupie?

And why is Joe so suspiciously asking you two out to dinner?

Words (this chapter): 2.2k Warnings: fluff, smut, oral, name calling. No angst or tears this time.

So here is. Enjoy:

“Mmm” you snort, as you shuffle around searching to get to the blanket “Mso cold.” You growl, as you try to get it off Ben.

He snorts, turning on his side towards you.

“C’mere baby” he curls his arms around your waist, pulling you in his brace, pulling the blanket over your entangled bodies “Betta?”

“Mhmm” you groan against his chest. The corners of your lips curl into a smile, as you nuzzle into the crook of his neck, while your hand is gently placed behind his neck. You close your eyes once again, feeling the moment.

Morning like these. Nothing in the world compares to the feeling of waking up in your boyfriend’s arms. His flushed cheeks and messy locks.

“I could stay like this forever” you murmur, planting gentle kisses along the side of his neck.

“Then let’s stay for a while longer.” Ben’s deep husky morning voice sends shivers from your head to toe.

“So sexy.” you sigh, biting your lip, at which he only lets a throaty moan.

“You’re the sexy one.” He flutters his eyelids open, rubbing them with his free hand.

You smile and climb onto of him straddling his waist, you lay you head over his chest.

“Your heart is pounding.” You lift your head to give his plump morning lips a chasteful kiss.

“All you baby” his hands brush over your hips.

“Shall we have breakfast and then unpack the rest of my things?” you draw circles on his shoulder.

“Glad you brought it up, I’m so hungry.” He growls, gently stroking your hair.

After another hour of snuggles, kisses and under the warm blankets, kisses and soft caresses, the two of you finally get up.

Opting for bagels with crunchy peanut butter and berry jelly, you get dressed.

Rolling up your sleeves, you open another box labelled ‘Accessories’.

“So I’d say these” you gesture the pile in front of you, “Go into the back of the closet, because I use them less.”

“Sure, baby, put them whatever you see fit. Just be careful with MY stuff.” He waves it off.

You push the box further, but stop at a plastic case at the very back.

“Hmm. What do we have here?” You bring the case into daylight. “A full on Roger Taylor costume. And, oh the wig.” You giggle.

The outfit reminds you of one particular moment from last year. It was the first few weeks of filming Bohemian Rhapsody. The set was just outside London. All crew members were settles in their trailers on the field, right next to where the stage for Live Aid was build.

You hum at the tingling feeling of that memory. Taking a seat on the bed, your hands brush along the shirt that was in the case. Closing your eyes you travel back to that particular day.

…

September 2017

Somewhere outside London, UK

Knock Knock

“I said I’ll be out in 5.”

Knock Knock

“Bloody hell, do you ever” Ben stands up from the couch and opens the door.

“Hope I’m not intruding.” I murmur, stepping back from his forceful gesture.

“Fuck, baby.” He chuckles shaking his head. “Noo. Come on in.” he extends his arm for me.

“Sorry I didn’t announce my visit Mr. Hardy, but the MI5 radio was broken this morning.” I playfully snort with snobby manner.

He chuckles, pulling me in for a hug “I’m glad you came over.”

“Are you now?” I give him a sweet pout with my lips.

“Msorry, I’m just so stressed out with this role.” His hands gesture his outfit.

“That’s why I came over.” I walk backwards pulling him by his vest, until the back of my legs touch the end of the bed. He takes a few steps with a shit eating grin on his face.

“Yeah?” he cocks his head to the side lifting an eyebrow.

“Come here, pretty boy.” I coo as I hop on the bed. He follows, snuggling me in his brace.

“Mmm” I moan nuzzling your head in the crook of his neck “I like these…” my fingers toy with the necklaces hanging on his chest. “Any your random shirt” I trace the collar,

“Opened just perfect” I murmur against his neck.

He hums with a big smirk on his face, as the hand wrapped around my back squeezes tighter, eventually making me throw a leg over his, giving me a half-straddled position.

I just can’t keep my hands off him. Something about this outfit is tingling a little something inside of my stomach. My hand tugs gently at his wig, as I nip on his neck.

His hand keeping my hip secure over him, traveling up and down until he finally slides it under the skirt. Brushing his fingers around my bum, he grabs ahold of it, earning a squeak from me.

“Fuck. Come here, baby.” He growls, as he roughly drags me on top of him. Placing wet and sloppy kisses all around my neck, his hands grind me down onto his lap.

“Aah.” I gasp burying my fingers in his wig keeping him pressed against my showing cleavage.

“You like that? Hm?” his husky voice melting me in his hands. “Grinding down on me?” he quirks a brow.

“Mmm Roger.” You throw your head back as my hips pick up the pace, bringing painfully slowly to the friction I’m craving.

“What?” he pulls away. “You just called me Roger, babe.” He pushes me by the shoulders.

“Shit, I’m so sorry baby.” I chuckle trying to hide down my embarrassment.

“Hmm” he licks his lips “Get over here.” He flips us over, making me lay flat on my back. Hovering between my legs he spreads the apart with his knee. Pressing down his hips he pins me against the bed, making me moan softly, as I stare between our bodies.

“Do you want ‘Roger’ to fuck you, petal?” he coos above my lips, barely touching them.

“Would I be such a bad girlfriend if I said yes?” I wriggle underneath him.

“Not a single bit.” He confides with soft voice. “In fact” he pins my hands above my head “I’ve always dreamed of having a groupie” he coos close enough for me to squirm under his breath.

“We gotta be quick, doll. I ain’t got long.” He grunts, as his free hand roams up and down your body. “And keep it down.”

“Please. I’ve always wanted to be fucked by a rock star, who also happens to play my boyfriend too.” Is all the wit I manage to pull off.

“You’re so fine, love.” His lips tremble on my chest.

“God. You’re squirming little existence is turning me on so much. I’m going to fuck you, and you won’t protest, will ya?”

“No. No it won’t” I shake my head in anticipation. His hand rolls my skirt up.

“So impatient. I love me a cute lil slut today.” He drags a finger on the outside of my knickers, making my head fall back at the new friction. And he does it again, earning a loud moan from my lips.

“Shh” his hand moves from my wrists to my mouth.

He stands up and quickly shoves down his pants and belt.

“Keep your clothes on B-Roger.” I lazily ask with a finger on my lips.

Grabbing my hips, he pulls me over to the edge of the bed. One of his hands glides over my stomach and waist. His hand firmly glides from my throat to my chest, slowing down around my breast. His finger pinches and rolls my nipple, making me squirm even more.

“How does that feel?” he continues to touch me over my t shirt.

“Mmgood” I whine squinting my eyes, as I push my chest up to his grip even more “Please, oh, yes that feels so good.”

“Look at you.” He coos over me. “Poor little thing. So needy.”

He pulls me even closer to him. I achingly look over at his erected shaft, while his hands work my breasts, making my nipples even more sensitive than they already were.

“Get down, love.” He commands, and I know what he wants.

“Suck me. Suck me good.” He smirks with his eyebrows furrowed.

I slip in his feet, the most obedient way I can. I bring my lips to his glistening tip. I place a few soft kisses, before taking as much as I can in my mouth.

He grunts “Fuck, your tiny little mouth! Damn. Made for blowing.” He hand grips at my hair pushing me further, making me groan from deep within my throat.

“A good little groupie you are!” he moans as I bob my head up and down on his hard.

“Easy, easy now.” He stops my head, taking a moment to study my face.

“All drooling and messy. But you don’t get to finish me off yet.” He brings me up and tosses me onto the bed.

Placing my legs over his shoulders, he licks his lips, and lines himself at my entrance.

“Please.” I grunt, but before I can say anything else I feel him slamming inside of me in one harsh move. “Fuck” I cry out, squeezing my eyes shut, while my hands grasp the sheets from each aide. At last, being filled by his cock, stretching me out, it almost hurts.

He hisses at the view underneath him, not spending another still second he starts fucking me mercilessly.

“Fuck. Baby.” I can feel him pooling in my arousal.

“What an amazing cunt.” He grunts. His words only adding to the heat building up inside of me.

“Do you like fucking me? Am I good enough shag for Roger Taylor?” I tilt my head to the side, squirming, trying my best to hold a normal voice from his hard ramming into me.

“So fucking good.” He whimpers picking up the pace. Yanking my hips to the sides, he cradles closer. Hovering over me, his lips find my neck. Nipping and biting over my pulsating veins, he reaches deeper in my core. Hitting one particular spot, giving me a heated burning feeling every time he presses against it. My hands release the sheets, finding their way into his hair, tugging on it, keeping his head on my neck and chest.

“Fuck, I’m so close. I’m so close.” I whine, as he bites on my collarbone.

“I’m almost there.” He growls, as his hand travels down between our bodies. His thumb finds my clit. Just from the pure friction of his dry thumb is enough to send my eyes rolling at the back of my head. I let a poem of cursing while my body is squirming and shaking, back arching, reaching my powerful orgasm.

“Aghh” he growls “You tight pussy convulsing onto my cock, shit, I’m coming.” He releases his long held hot mess with deep groans and toe curling motion. The way he closes his eyes is pure bliss for me, I can come again just from the flushes look on his cheeks.

“Baby. Baby” I pant.

“My personal groupie to fill up.” He gulps, before pressing a kiss onto my lips.

Ben stays still for a while longer, buried inside of me. I stroke the hair on his wig, as he places soft kisses all along my shoulder.

Finally pulling away, he grunts while putting his pants back up.

“Please.” I give him puppy eyes “Cuddle with me.”

“Hmm” he smirks shaking his head.

“Hey. You.” I throw a pillow at him to catch his attention. “I want my boyfriend back.”

He smiles warmly and crawls onto the bed, laying by my side. Stuffing a few pillows he rests his back against the wall. Pulling me in his arms, I sigh from exhaustion.

“I didn’t know shagging a rock star could be so…” I lift my shoulders.

“So, what?” he moves a few strands of hair off my face.

“Exciting. It was like, a stranger was screwing me.” I bury my head in his arm feeling the tiniest bit of embarrassment.

“Hey, it’s alright baby girl.” He lifts my chin up “We don’t have to do it again if you don’t want to.” He kisses my nose, helping me relax my tensed muscles.

“I think I liked it.” I bite my lip, trying to avoid eye contact. he chuckles and kisses my cheek.

…

“Love?” you hear Ben shouting from the living room.

“Baby?” you hear him again, quickly flicking your eyelashes open.

“Huh? What? Did you say something?” you shake your head.

“Joe is inviting us for dinner. You wanna go?” he lifts a brow as his graze traces from you to the case and back.

“Yeah, sure. Be there.” You nod.

“Oh and uuh, he said to wear something fancier, we’re going to the Clos Maggiore.”

“Okay…. S a bit weird. Joe isn’t into such posh places.”

“I know” he makes a grimace “something ‘bout a surprise, idk” he places his hand over the speaker of the phone.

“Alight, cool. Tell him we’ll be there.” You leave the case aside and stand up. Passing by Ben you place a kiss on his cheek and skip to the bathroom to get ready.

_____

199 notes · View notes

upennmanuscripts · 5 years ago

Text

Question of the Week: “What will you do when he comes at you with the sickle?”

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 31/52

Denis Faucher, manuscript additions to Hendrik Herp, Speculum perfectionis (Mirror of Perfection), Venice: Sabio, 1524; University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 1620, fols. 1v, miniature of a Nun on a Cross, and 3r, miniature of the Mememto mori, both by Denis Faucher, after 1524

As we approach the end of October, we interrupt our regularly scheduled blog posts to bring you a seasonally appropriate reminder of the grisly fate that awaits us all. This week, we delve into an item from the University of Pennsylvania’s holdings (not formally within the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis project but closely associated with it, and now accessible through the main BiblioPhilly interface), a sammelband or hybrid volume that consists of a printed book sandwiched between two manuscript gatherings. Despite the extraordinary morbid imagery present in these hand-written and illuminated sections, the book in question has been little studied to-date, despite the fact that we can name its author (who was also its scribe and artist) with great precision.

The printed core of the book is an edition of the fifteenth-century Franciscan mystic Hendrik Herp’s Mirror of Perfection issued in Venice in 1524. The two eight-folio manuscript quires that bookend it contain texts authored by Denis Faucher (1487–1562), a mystical poet and Benedictine monk with close links to the South of France. Faucher’s authorship was deduced by Norman P. Zacour and Rudolf Hirsch in their catalogue of the manuscripts of the University of Pennsylvania, published in 1965.1 They were able to locate the hymn to Saint Catherine, which begins “Festa lux mundo rutilans coruscat…” in the standard index of hymns, Ulysse Chevalier’s Repertorium hymnologicum.2 At numerous points in the manuscript portions, the rubrics tell us that the poems were written by a certain “Dionysius,” all but confirming Faucher’s identity.

Surviving information on Faucher’s biography is quite rich, and corroborates the notion that he actually transcribed and decorated his own devotional manuals.3 He was born in Arles and began his religious vocation in 1508 at the Benedictine monastery in Polinore, near Mantua, but was based for the majority of his career at the Abbey of Lérins off the coast of Provence, where he was elected prior in 1548. This storied island monastery was the subject of several early monographs, which discuss Faucher at length, and mention his activities as a spiritual advisor and provider of edifying religious texts to various mentors.4 Most fascinatingly, these sources also mention Faucher’s work as a scribe and johnny-come-lately illuminator.

The Abbey of Lérins, France (photo: Alberto Fernandez Fernandez, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)

The poems by Faucher present in the sammelband are mostly addressed to a scholasticate, a nun in the training period following the novitiate, and concern the attainment of spiritual perfection in the world. While hybrid books of print and manuscript could be useful for obtaining a customized set of literary texts, or for pairing mass-produced images with favorite prayers, they could also allow for spiritual advisors to add tailored content suited to pupils, in a manner reminiscent of the earliest thirteenth-century Books of Hours. Faucher’s interest in embellishing pre-existing books is conformed by an intriguing manuscript, signed by him, that surfaced on the market in 2018. Formerly in the collection of Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow (see Riverrun Books & Manuscripts, Hastings-on-Hudson, catalogue 2, 2018, item 1), and now in a European private collection, it consists of an apparently unfinished fifteenth-century Book of Hours that has had its miniatures and border decorations entirely painted by Faucher in a colorful style that can be described as a mid-sixteenth-century re-imagining of a century-old illuminated book. Faucher’s intervention is attested by an autograph inscription, dated 9 April 1554, in which he offers the book to his brother Jean on condition that it remain in the family in perpetuity (“Semper apud Faucherios maneant.”). Remarkably, this Book of Hours is mentioned in Barrali’s early-seventeenth-century biography of Faucher. Barrali even transcribed a portion of the inscription, and stated that the book was not only illuminated, but also written, by Faucher (“Haec sunt horaria preces manu propria ipsius Dionisii scriptae & miris figuris penicillo subtiliter adornatae….”).5

As seen at the top of the post, Faucher’s poems in the Penn sammelband are accompanied by two striking images. The style is extremely close to the miniatures in the aforementioned Book of Hours, confirming that Faucher’s hand was responsible not just for the images but also for the texts as well. The first image shows a nun in a black habit being crucified, with a snake biting a heart, representing sin, entwined around her left arm (fol. 1v). The lit oil lamp the nun holds in her right hand represents faith and refers to the parable of the Wise Virgins (who tended their lamps). This remarkable iconography merits further study, as apart from its brief mention (and illustration–thanks to digitaztion) in a recent article on the figure of the crucified abbess in the New World, it is totally absent from art-historical literature.6

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 1v, detail of miniature of a Nun on a Cross by Denis Faucher, after 1524

Arrayed around the nun are illusionistic scrolls with quotations from scripture: Matthew 25:41: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire;” Matthew 5:16: “So let your light shine before men;” Psalm 118:120: “Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear;” Psalm 118:37: “Turn away my eyes that they may not behold vanity;” Psalm 140:3: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: and a door round about my lips;” 1 Corinthians 15:56: “Now the sting of death is sin;” Luke 12:35: “Let your loins be girt;” Psalm 118:116: “Uphold me according to thy word, and I shall live: and let me not be confounded in my expectation”; Jeremiah 2:2: “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals;” Psalm 118:101: “I have restrained my feet from every evil way: that I may keep thy words/order;” and Galatians 2:19: “I am nailed with Christ to the Cross” (with a feminine ending in Latin).

The four-line poem below can be roughly translated as: “The heavenly bridegroom, so that he could appear beautiful / Made this likeness of a chaste girl for your eyes. / Do not be pleased by her face, or lose your shame in front of what is shown here, / only pray now for those who are dead.”

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 1v, detail of poem

The second image (fol. 3r) consists of a somewhat more conventional memento mori, at least pictorially. A medallion hangs from a stalk of lilies, its frame decorated with bones and pansies (pensées in French). At its center, a skull in a circular mirror is intended to invoke a sense of self-consciousness in the viewer’s mind. The scroll above the image bears a further moralizing extract from the Bible: “In all thy works, remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin” (Ecclesiasticus 7:40). Similar scriptural quotations are found surrounding a painted skull in a manuscript addition to a printed Book of Hours of 1491 now in Cambridge University Library (Inc.5.D.1.19 [2530], fol. 4r).

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 3r, detail of miniature of the Mememto mori by Denis Faucher, after 1524

The two vertical scrolls, however, bear a unique message, likely authored by Faucher himself: “If you tremble in fear looking at this image of death, what will you do when he comes at you with the sickle?” (“Si fremis inspiciens mortis turbata figuram, quid facies cum te falx truculenta trahet?”). Interestingly, the verb faucher in French means to mow, reap, or knock down, and it comes from the Latin root falx (sickle, scythe) used in the verse. One wonders whether the author was indulging in a macabre pun. The large scroll directly beneath the image contains a quatrain that, in Barrali’s early-seventeenth-century history of Lérins,7 was ascribed to Faucher and said to be dedicated to “Anna de Boufremont,” possibly Anne de Bauffremont-Sennecey Abbess of Tarascon, suggesting that this otherwise obscure figure may have been the recipient of the present hybrid book, early in her career.

The final scroll is an adaptation of Saint Bonaventure’s exhortation: “When death comes, no one accepts it willingly, except for he who prepared for it, while living, with good works” (“Mortem venientem nemo libenter accipit, nisi qui se ad ipsam, dum viveret, bonis operibus praeparavit”).

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 3r, detail of scroll

All good things to keep in mind in the run up to All Saints’ Day. Happy Halloween!

from WordPress http://bibliophilly.pacscl.org/question-of-the-week-what-will-you-do-when-he-comes-at-you-with-the-sickle/

#Fifty-two discoveries #University of Pennsylvania

15 notes · View notes

shadowolven · 6 years ago

Text

A Poem from Me to You

(AO3 link here!)

I find that the words that fascinate me the most are the ones that you speak.

They are melodious to my ears, soothing any anxieties and hesitance that I may have.

While to some I may sound like a fool, to myself I am in awe at the things you do to me.

I have admired you from afar so long now, but perhaps, if you are willing...

You’ll accept my bleeding heart?

His fountain pen lingered atop the parchment paper, the black ink seeping out into small edges radiating from the dot of the question mark with every passing beat of his quickened heart.

This was wrong. So terribly, terribly wrong.

The assignment was to write a poem for his English class, but before he knew it he wrote a confession letter instead. Let alone it didn’t even seem very poetic in his eyes.

Izuku sighed, throwing his palm onto his face as he set the fountain pen delicately beside the inked parchment paper. He couldn’t believe he even wrote this much in the first place. Sure, he had a poor habit of mumbling out streams of consciousness, but that’s verbal. That was easy to forget you were even doing.

But writing? Writing required thought from the brain into his fingers, into every movement of his wrist as he watched with his own eyes the letters that poured out in its black inkiness onto the faded yellow sheet of paper. Not only did he watch every stroke in every letter he wrote out, but he watched as those letters formed words which then formed complete, coherent sentences.

And he wrote it all without hesitating, without stopping and scratching any of it out. It was like he needed to get it off his chest, to expel it out of his brain before it poisoned the rest of his thoughts in a negative pool of stupid pining over his childhood friend who, undoubtedly, showed no returned interest that he could detect.

Izuku groaned, shoving the paper out of his way as he buried his head in his arms.

Why was he like this?

He certainly can’t turn in this filth to Present Mic tomorrow. No, that wouldn’t do. If he had to read it out loud in front of all his classmates, he would rather 100% One for All himself into dust right then and there.

Izuku peeked out over the top of his arm and through his messy curls, staring at the parchment paper, still unsigned. He grumbled, sitting upright as he gingerly took the thick paper into his hands. Then, with a pained hesitation, he crumpled it up and threw it into the trash beside his table.

It’s fine. It’s not the end of the world. He had time to write a new poem—one that isn’t a confession—before class tomorrow. Yeah sure, it was past midnight, but he can make time if he needs to. It’d still be better than turning in a confession letter.

With tired but renewed determination, he picked up his fountain pen and began scribbling furiously onto a new sheet of parchment paper.

--------

It’s been three days since he turned in his poem. It wasn’t anything special or anything, just about the cherry blossoms and how it made him feel. Some standard stuff, he’d say, because he wasn’t the only one who wrote about them it seemed.

He flopped onto his bed, tired from a long day of classes. Reciting their poems in front of the entire class was nerve-wracking since many (including himself) felt embarrassed about revealing their inner “poetic” thoughts to their fellow classmates. But it was also beautiful, because hearing others’ more private and deep thoughts were honestly such an eye-opener. Kouda, for instance, had the most wonderful poem about his experience with nature and animals and his growth so far, and Izuku would be lying if he said he wasn’t moved to tears by it.

Overall, today was an emotional adventure, but Izuku enjoyed every second of it. Especially Kacchan’s poem, even if it was surprisingly childish and basic at its core.

Izuku smiled to himself. He should go write his newfound appreciation for his classmates into his hero journals...

A loud knocking on his door jolted Izuku out of his thoughts. “Open up, shitty nerd!”

Speak of the devil...

“Coming, Kacchan,” Izuku rolled off his bed with a sigh, taking a few quick deep breaths to steady his beating heart as he unlatched his door and opened it up. “What’s wrong?”

“Your trash not being outside your door is what’s wrong. Now hurry up and give me your shit,” Katsuki said with a scowl as he motioned with his half-filled trash bag towards Izuku.

“Oh, right,” Izuku said, picking up his trash can and bringing it towards Katsuki. “Thank you.” He tilted the mouth of the basket towards the open bag when Katsuki snatched it out of his hands. Izuku blinked, confused. “Wha—?”

“What do we got here, hmm?” Katsuki said with a devilish smirk on his face, the trash bag fell onto the ground with a “fwump” as he fished something out of Izuku’s trash bin. Out he took a crumpled up piece of parchment paper. “Is this a failed draft?”

Izuku instantly turned red and flustered, scrambling towards Katsuki with flailing arms. “Ka-Kacchan, wait, what do you think you’re doing going through people’s stuff like that?!”

Katsuki grinned, his hand held above his head at a length that Izuku’s natural height couldn’t reach. Not like he was going to give Izuku a chance at stealing it back, not when he was curious to a fault. “I don’t see why it’s a problem, you were just going to throw it out anyway, weren’t you?”

“That’s not the issue! Give it back!” Izuku jumped, but Katsuki shoved him roughly away with a sweaty palm to the face.

“You really want it back after you were going to chuck it out without a second thought?” Katsuki laughed, unfurling the crumpled page. “’One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,’ isn’t that how the saying goes?”

“Kacchan, please, whatever you do, don’t read that!” Izuku begged, his face beet-red as he tried one last time to swipe at his embarrassing letter.

“Oh c’mon, it can’t be that bad of a draft,” Katsuki said, scoffing at Izuku’s overly-the-top reaction. “Here, if it helps, I’ll show you my failed draft too. Now let’s see...” His eyes scanned the inked paper.

“No!” Izuku’s body lit with green sparks as he dove towards Katsuki, determined to take that paper and shred it before it was too late.

But Katsuki was ready. With a small blast from his free palm, he pushed himself out of danger while leaving behind a cloud of black smoke to temporarily distract Izuku as he continued to read.

“Kacchan!” Izuku practically screamed as he pushed himself off the opposing wall, tackling Katsuki onto the ground. As he wrenched the paper free from Katsuki’s hands, tearing it into pieces in a quick second, he realized that the blonde below him was strangely quiet.

He glanced up, and the pieces of parchment that were in his clenched palms fluttered down onto his body and on the ground below. Katsuki’s face was of an expression that Izuku hadn’t seen on his friend in... well, ever.

Cheeks a warm pink glow, ruby eyes surprisingly soft despite his furrowed brows, lips pulled back in a half-snarl. “You...” Katsuki grunted out.

“You read it?” Izuku squeaked.

“You wrote that for me, didn’t you?”

Izuku’s heart skipped a beat. He hated how perceptive Katsuki was. But at the same time...

Perhaps this was what he needed. To get it off his chest and take the consequences as they came.

“... Yes.”

Katsuki fell back down onto his back, arm over his face as he groaned. “You idiot...”

“... Do you hate me now?”

Katsuki lifted himself up on his elbows, staring into Izuku’s eyes with a determined glint. “No,” he said.

Izuku pursed his lips, his heart rate increasing. His chest still felt tight as he managed to whisper a hesitant, “Then?...”

“I guess now’s a good time as ever... Here, a deal’s a deal,” Katsuki said, pushing Izuku off of him as he fished around in his back pocket for a few seconds. Once he found it, he presented Izuku a folded piece of paper, singed around the edges. “Just... read it. Okay?”

Izuku took the paper into his trembling hands, staring at it and back at Katsuki’s reddening face. He didn’t understand what this was about. What was going on?

But he opened up the piece of paper, careful not to touch the delicate burnt edges.

For as long as I could remember, you were there.

Behind me, a follower trailing in my wake, an admirer from afar,

Until the sands of time made it clear as air,

That your company, unwelcome at first, became a presence I no longer want to bar.

Through pain and grief I have given you,

Only to find that they were misconceptions fabricated in my mind.

Forgiveness is ideal if we can redo,

But a part of me desires more than what I have defined.

So with heavy feelings I ask,

If I gave you the key to my soul, would you take it?

“It’s shitty, I know,” Katsuki said, his voice quiet and self-deprecating. “Too cheesy and shitty attempts at rhym—”

Izuku hugged him, tight. Tears stung his eyes as he buried himself into Katsuki’s shoulder, his voice fighting back choked sobs, “I love it. Kacchan, I love it so much.”

Katsuki fell silent. With hesitance, he, too, put his arms around Izuku. “So is that...?”

“Yes, Kacchan,” Izuku said, sniffling. “If you’ll take my bleeding heart, I accept.”

#bakudeku #bkdk #katsudeku #izukatsu #bnha #mha #kacchan #deku #i can't write poems for shit so plz dont look at my poems too much okAY #i wrote this on a whim as i usually do so JUST HHH TAKE IT OK #shadowolven writes #fanfic #drabble

65 notes · View notes

fontasticcrablettes · 6 years ago

Text

I’m not sure when I’m going to post more fic, but in the meantime, I was thinking “holy shit is Danse Macabre really a year old already?” (not from posting, but from when I did the bulk of writing) and I was thinking about the changes the plot went through and maybe if you liked that fic you’d be interested to hear how things could have gone down. So here are some Super Exclusive Behind the Scenes Alternative Plots for my fic Danse Macabre (spoilers in this post if you ever plan to read that)

1. Originally, Estelle was gonna get tortured first. She would have been accused of witchcraft before Yuri was. There’s some residue of this plot point in the resulting story in her role - an independent woman, able to read and write, midwife, knowledgeable... she is the archetypal witch hunt victim. When I decided Yuri would be the only victim, I had to arrange a blizzard when Yuri’s friend went into labour to justify Yuri’s presence at the birth (because in that period, men weren’t to have anything to do with childbirth unless a doctor had to be called in an emergency) in order to pass the “witchcraft accusation tied to the eventual death of the infant” plot point over to Yuri.

The reason this changed was in part to streamline events. Originally, Estelle would have been tortured for a few weeks before an accusation landed on Yuri as well. This prompts Flynn to decide to take the fall for it, because Yuri’s arrest proves that this is spreading and he wants to stop it before more innocent people suffer.

2. Yuri’s whole arc changed. The other reason I changed the Estelle getting tortured bit is because of a line from the poem “Half Hanged Mary” by Margaret Atwood, based on the allegedly true story of a woman who was beaten and hanged by vigilantes after being accused of witchcraft, but somehow survived. In the poem, she says, “Before, I was not a witch. But now I am one.”

Something about that line really struck me and it became one of the driving themes of the story, so it made perfect sense for Yuri’s story to also end with him being beaten and abused until he became the very witch he was accused of being.

3. Yuri becomes a witch? In the final story he doesn’t really become a witch after the torture. My idea had been that Yuri would inherit Flynn’s cloak and hat, and take care of one of Flynn’s ghostly horses, which would give him some Ankou powers while still alive. He could used this power to walk through walls or turn invisible in order to access Cumore to kill him. In effect, he becomes a witch to murder the man who wrongly accused him of being a witch.

This changed mostly because I reworked how the Ankou power works and what abilities Flynn would have (since, in the final story, he can’t walk through walls. And the reason for that is that it would be far too easy for him to sneak into the basement, pass Yuri his cloak, and Yuri could walk freely out of jail.)

Oh, and from a “the romantic relationship between Yuri and Flynn is the driving subplot of this story” perspective, it just made more sense to keep Flynn’s sacrifice entirely about Yuri.

4. That alternate ending where Yuri maybe dies. Yeah, this is a thing! I still kinda like this ending. So, in this ending, Judith helps Yuri break out of the pillory when he’s left there overnight. Yuri decides to leave town, but first he heads up into the ravine to find Flynn’s body, because he hates the idea of Flynn’s skeleton lying there for 30 years without a burial.

In the middle of the night on December 31st, Yuri slips on the ice making his way down the ravine and tumbles into the stream at the bottom. He manages to find Flynn’s bones under the snow, but he’s too cold and tired so he decides to sit down and take a rest. That’s when Flynn finally reappears after he’d been executed. He sits to talk with Yuri for a bit, and then helps him up and they start to leave. As they leave, Yuri remembers Flynn’s story, and how Flynn didn’t realize he was dead until he looked back to see his body. Yuri decides not to look and just holds on to Flynn tighter as church bells ring in the new year.

5. Different setting. I wanted to set the story in a real town because I am obsessed with historical details and accuracy. It very nearly was set in Kemper (Quimper), the town that ended up being Flynn’s former residence, but I couldn’t find any good historic maps of the town or details about it, so I decided that if I was going to make it up anyway, I might as well just call it Zaphias. The fictional Zaphias is located in roughly this area:

All other town names mentioned are real places, but they were referred to with their Breton names, since that was how they were known at the time.

6. That time I forgot how base 10 number systems work??? Ok so the battle where Flynn witnessed Alexei killing his brother was very nearly part of the Italian Wars in 1559. Alexei would kill Flynn very soon after the battle. But wait, you’re saying, how could it be in 1559 if Flynn needs to be the last person to die that century?

For like, a solid day and a half, I casually thought that 1559 was the last year of the century because apparently I thought centuries worked like minutes and they roll over at 60 rather than 100???? I don’t know man.

7. London? The very earliest iteration of this story was set in London in the 1660s during a plague outbreak, and Flynn would either be a witch, or perhaps an alchemist that they mistake for a witch. The core idea was he’s using magic to try to stop the plague, but the community gets spooked and turns on him even though he’s just trying to help.

It changed after I decided to base Flynn on the Ankou myth, which originates in Brittany. I did nearly set it in Cornwall though, because I could find a lot more resources on plague and witch trials and social history in the UK than France (because the best writing on niche subjects in French history is unfortunately only in French). Cornwall, like Brittany, was a Celtic nation and they had their own version of the Ankou.

Honestly one of the big reasons I decided against setting it in England is because witches were never burned in England, only hanged, and I really wanted to set Flynn on fire lmao. Of course, after picking my location and establishing a year based on historical plague outbreaks, I learned that witch hunting was de facto outlawed in 1625. But, I managed to work that into the story.

#Nightfoot writes things

11 notes · View notes

blakeschuck · 6 years ago

Text

Solemnly Depature

Solemnly Departure

A Poem

By Blake Schuck

—-

As quickly as she may, she passes into the purity of her journey termination.

It ended with a roughly number seventy, give or remove two times or more -

But now she must accept this gradual ending, of her sacred reconciliation.

This will matter for eternity because the power remains in her inner core.

—-

Hoping to forget the majority actually did persist, and defeat is inevitable -

But the rest of people, who are clearly and utterly affected to the very end,

Try to remember only the fond memories orchestrated by her nature amiable.

And to cease the remaining luxuries of life, never pertain to ever make amends.

—-

She is nearing the end, but shall that ever change such pretenses that she plays?

That is a largely unanswered and unimaginable way of interpreting the likes.

She can now, oh so clearly now, see the effect that people encompass for days,

Which begins to illustrate a couple of two of a forever burning fire that strikes.

—-

We must always remember the exact way she remains, and never under a deceit;

For the department shall not end in shattered glass for all to realize, relate, and retreat.

#author #my writing #poet #poetry #poets on tumblr #writeaway #writers #writers on tumblr #written #poem

1 note · View note

thesinglesjukebox · 6 years ago

Video

youtube

ARIANA GRANDE FT. NICKI MINAJ - THE LIGHT IS COMING

[6.36]

It's Ariana Gran-Day! Starting off with this Nicki duet, containing an unexpected sample...

Rebecca A. Gowns: The sample is fascinating. It reminds me of the baby coo in "Are You That Somebody"; a non-musical sound transformed into a musical refrain, then multiplied so often it becomes the beat itself. And seemingly not connected to the actual content of the song... or is it? Like, is "Are You That Somebody" really about making babies? (Not just euphemistically, but about conception itself?) And is this song really an anti-establishment taunt? (Not just the music industry, but the clowns in Congress, if you will?) Well, who the hell knows. The music here is so much more fascinating than the lyrical content; the man yells about not being interrupted between stringent beep-bop-boop sounds crossing over from Dan Deacon territory. Honestly, it's reminiscent of a certain other pop/rap song that could also be called equal turns annoying, political, and just plain fun. And like that song, I like it even when it starts to grate. Maybe even because it's grating -- like, thank God established pop artists take risks like this sometimes. [8]

Katherine St Asaph: Gather around, folks, for a recent history lesson! The man sampled all over "The Light Is Coming," Craig Miller, was part of a Tea Party-organized, "almost entirely white and irritable" crowd protesting an 2009 Arlen Specter town hall in soon-to-flip-red Pennsylvania. The protest was against Obamacare, but it devolved almost immediately into more general right-wing bullshit. You can watch the whole thing on C-SPAN, if you're short on despair. Lowlights include: "What about this Guantanamo closure? ... The [mispronounced] Koar-ann says that all unbelievers shall be executed, killed. That's why I cannot support Islam." "He's right." (43:56); cheering at "we can take the non-U.S. citizens and give them an airplane ticket and ship them back" (38:47); even louder cheering at "the illegals, they shouldn't even be here" (18:34), and, toward the end (1:13:13), a familiar refrain: "The people in this room want their country back." One of them felt the need to clarify that she didn't have "any Nazi symbols with [her]" (7:45), perhaps because the previous day, in Georgia, someone painted a swastika outside Democratic representative David Scott's office after his town hall. Do I think Pharrell -- who also sampled Specter's own remarks in "Lemon" -- is maliciously sneaking far-right propaganda into our children's pop music? No, of course not. Maybe he just thought it sounded cool. But including a sample this obscure, this prominently, must have some point, and choosing one so politically charged brings in connotations -- connotations that just don't play nice with the light/darkness/taking-back/theft imagery and taunting delivery of "the light is coming to give back everything the darkness stole." It doesn't help that the Manchester bombing, which every Sweetener interview unavoidably alludes to, was quickly exploited by the far right. It also doesn't help that Grande's verses don't rebut but echo Miller, targeting someone who's a "know-it-all" (see other protesters' gripes about "elitists" and a bill written above "junior high school" language), who's irrational and doesn't listen, who's "tellin' everyone, stay woke" -- sides clearly assigned. The beat is great, the most inventive and sinuous Pharrell's sounded in years, but it's wasted on -- what, exactly? Both-sidesing? A Producers-esque attempt to squash innovation in pop with a bizarre sample set up to fail? Or inadvertently (I hope) something more reactionary than anything Taylor Swift's ever released? It could be worse. The track's a "Sleazy"/"Dark Horse"/"Jewels 'n' Drugs" urban crossover attempt, for which Grande's team "auditioned eight rappers," one of whom may have been much-streamed XXXTentacion. Nicki's winning verse, self-promotion and fuckboy dissing written remotely, doesn't engage with the song at all, which is probably for the best. As for fan consensus? Seems to be: "Will that old guy please STFU?" [2]

Vikram Joseph: Ladies and gentlemen, 2018's most bizarre sampling decision! I've read the context behind the "You wouldn't let anybody speak, and instead..." quote, and it still makes minimal sense to loop it continuously behind what's otherwise a seductive, abrasive, very N.E.R.D. throb of a beat. Thematically, it seems to be an attempt to take down condescension and echo-chamber complacency in debate ("if it ain't your view, that's the bottom line"); this is ambitious, and only occasionally hits the mark, too often stumbling into jumbled nonsense such as "give you a box of chances, every time you blow it all". Nicki Minaj, meanwhile, is relegated to a brief, off-topic turn in the intro. And all the while, that shouty man keeps shouting (and, god, I really can't emphasise enough what a strange choice of sample this is). Good Beat, B.A.A.D. Decisions. [5]

Tobi Tella: I mean, you don't know how HARD I tried to like this. Coming off their three amazing previous collaborations, this should've been great. But there's so much about this I don't like: the repetitive chorus, the weird way she sings so you can't actually understand a word she's saying, the sample of a conservative yelling? It's all just off-putting and irritating to me. Nicki gets in the best line of the song with "Yo Ariana come let give you a high five", but even her solid verse can't save the trainwreck around her. [3]

Abdullah Siddiqui: Little about this track is normal for a Top 40 single. And I find that very refreshing. The hook is effective, in that it hasn't left the back of my mind in weeks. The instrumental is beautifully minimalistic; the drum sequence at the start reminds me of Björk's "Heirloom". I love when the track kicks into double time. Minaj delivers a few solid bars at the top. Grande doesn't rely too much on her vocal tricks for this one, and it works to the song's benefit. The track is not without its flaws, however. It feels somewhat structurally underdeveloped. The "you wouldn't let anybody speak" is a bit overused, and it feels particularly misplaced during the verses. But these flaws are not by any means fatal. This is definitely one of Grande's most adventurous releases, and I'd go so far as to say, one of her best. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Aside from Nicki Minaj, whose tacked-on verse sounds less like its own contribution and more like another mandatory installment in the "Chun-Li" cinematic universe, all the many moving parts here end up making a lot of sense. Ariana's vocal performance darts between the little open spaces of Pharrell's beat, expanding and contracting as he brings in bizarro-bounce elements (including a sample from an anti-Obamacare town hall, of all things.) It's almost interesting enough as a pure physical feat, the way she moves from taunting cadences to breathy whispers to damn-near belting on a second's notice, but fortunately there's a good enough song as scaffolding around her too, one that provides enough structure to support "the light is coming" in its pursuit of weird pop glory. [7]

Alex Clifton: Ariana seems to be reinventing pop this year; the work off of Sweetener so far is the most eclectic stuff I've heard on the charts in quite some time. Where "No Tears Left to Cry" refused to resolve in any particular tonality (major or minor? why not both!), "The Light Is Coming" stutters and glitches with a sample of an irate citizen from hearings over Obamacare paired with video game beeps and boops. On paper, it shouldn't work, and it doesn't overwhelm me the way that all of Ariana's best tracks have in the past. But in practice it ends up sounding like a dystopian dance song/spoken word poem, which in 2018 feels like a real mood. Ariana and Nicki work well together as always although once Nicki's initial verse is gone she's out of the song for good; she could've come back pretty easily, and that would've made for some nice vocal interplay. But the more I hear of Ariana's music the more I keep wanting to hear, even when it misses the mark. It's been a while since I've seen a Pop Diva experiment so boldly away from her typical formula, and I'm revelling in every moment of it. [6]

Ashley John: The dismembered corpses of pure pop hooks and Pennsylvania politics roughly stitched together with a Pharrell beat is as close to a summary of Me as a song can get, so I'm partial to and suspicious of it right away. "The Light is Coming" should feel gimmicky, like Ariana is rushing in a rebellious phase, but instead it hits closer to a teaser--of what I am not sure. A Lorde song without the specificity or the groove, a Gwen Stefani track without the whimsy, and in those places just a hollow, trembling core. The track feels like it could collapse in on itself at any point, and actually, how fitting for a chorus of chanted, demanded optimism. [7]

Alfred Soto: A gesture -- an attempt to coalesce Pharrellistic effects around a would-be aphorism. One of the effects is Nicki Minaj. [6]

Thomas Inskeep: The beat, the slightly off-kilter rhythm was nagging at me, and then once I looked up the credits it made sense: it's Pharrell. And what he's brought for Ariana here is Trio's "Da Da Da" cut with Hot Butter's 1972 smash "Popcorn"! And then, on top of that, Minaj drops a solid opening 12 bars before Grande cuts loose with a message of positivity -- the chorus is "the light is coming to give back everything the darkness stole" -- that's obviously another reference to Manchester. And it works. I hope this hits on radio, because it'll sound glaringly different, and radio needs more of that right now. [7]

Will Rivitz: Man, Pharrell can't miss, can he? No one quite does the minimal beat like he does, and the versatility of his productions -- fitting everyone from Clipse to Ed Sheeran -- is on full display here, addictive vocal sample and all. Of course, it helps that everything else clicks, too: Ariana's finally embracing her "sardonic" side in her music, Nicki's verse is serviceable and appropriate if not particularly memorable, and the eerie nonchalance of the chorus perfectly encapsulates the song's uncanny ambience. Dangerous Woman is one of the best pop albums of the decade, and if Grande's current singles are any indication, Sweetener could be even better. [9]

Stephen Eisermann: Pharrell's production has been a bit shaky lately, but here his experimentation works. Nicki gives a perfectly serviceable verse to Pharrell's noisy beat, but it's Ariana's commitment and sass that elevates the track. To take on a track this playful, you need an artist who is willing and able to dance along to the track and Ariana is no slacker; even if the song is a bit weird thematically, sonically it's a gem and I'll be dancing along all summer. [7]

Maxwell Cavaseno: The unlikely world where I can imagine if Ariana thought the kind of music that came out of Ghostly International at the start of the decade would be the perfect sort of music to top the charts. Nevertheless, she's utterly at home, crooning and yammering through the strange pinball playground of her design, and to make the retrofitting all the more complete, you have Nicki doing her best to remember when she last sounded interesting... way back at the dawn of the decade. [7]

Pedro João Santos: It's a idiosyncratic mix of atypical vocal restraint by Ariana, boundless structure and glitchy, angular production courtesy of Pharrell. The verses are amorphous and abstract; Nicki makes a perfunctory but reliable appearance; the circular hook is repeated ad infinitum. Somehow, it all amounts to moderate success, after the brilliant "No Tears Left to Cry", even despite the appalling sample, which might serve for texture, but not much else. At least, it led to interview gold: "Is Ariana Grande a Christian?", the man whose voice was sampled, unbeknownst to him, asks an MTV reporter; his wife Karen sensibly replies: "Craig, I think she's more like Madonna." [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Ariana Grande #Nicki Minaj #pop #music reviews

1 note · View note