#meant to be for the poetry poll

[metalhoops]

Like a lesser hero in a fantasy tale, the night was cut clean in two by the dull glow of a flashlight beam, flanked by two boys. It was an odd pastime but a familiar one to them. They had grown at home in the strange dark places of the town, aware of what might be lurking in the shadows between the pines. 

Eddie, the first boy, with his hair and clothes as black as the forest floor, shook the silent woods with the intermittent clatter of his stainless-steel rings on the metal shaft of the light, his makeshift weapon. Each ring was a treasured yet well-worn possession. The ear of the pig ring and the temple of the skull were permanently scratched from the repeated action.

Steve, the other boy, was more prepared. He came brandishing a baseball bat, its wooden body a sister to the surrounding trees with a halo of gnarled nails, hinting at the more sinister air of their surroundings.  

Unlike Eddie’s fantasy games, the backstory didn’t matter. It was the reason the boys were there, of course, but it was also the imminent threat they didn’t wish to speak of. In their shared pasts, there had been portals to other worlds, monsters beyond human comprehension and near-death experiences that’d brought on the winter of Eddie’s life, and the spring of Steve’s. 

Eddie had spent the past month jumping at shadows in the corner of his new bedroom or in the woods beyond the trailer park. Steve, on the other hand, had bloomed beautifully and brutally before Eddie’s eyes. Before the Upside Down, he would look at Steve and all he’d feel was ire, righteous indignation and a small yet frustrating, pang of lust. 

When he looked at Steve in the yellow glow of the torchlight, he saw a man who’d come when Eddie called, in the middle of the night, with haste and a plan. He saw someone who believed in him or at least, cared enough about him to go willingly into the night when Eddie had reported seeing sinister shapes shift past his window.

It was enough to get Steve to leave the confines of his isolated mansion and slum it with the poor folk down in the proverbial trenches. Eddie now saw a man he very well might be in love with. Jagged shadows cast by stray branches sliced across his face, resembling the snaking vines of the Upside Down. The boys had barely escaped the place and every moment after felt as though they were living on borrowed time. 

“What’d you say we do one more loop past the old train tracks and call it a night?” Steve asked, at last, his body sticking close to Eddie’s side. He felt a pang of guilt for dragging Steve out of bed, again, just to find nothing. 

“We can head back now, I’m probably going crazy, man.” 

“No, I wanna check. Otherwise, it’ll bug the hell outta me. We’ve all been a little crazy after everything we’ve been through. I mean, I’ve almost died like ten times. Think the eleventh time might be the one that sticks- you know?” 

It reminded them of another night, in another world. It had been a quick yet intimate conversation with a stranger. If we get out of this, Eddie had thought at the time, I might actually want to get to know this guy. Months had passed. He still felt like he didn’t know Steve enough to say what he wanted to say, but Steve needed to hear it. 

“That’d be a real bummer, you know? If you died. I wouldn’t have anyone to go on long walks in the moonlight with.” 

The two boys had fallen out of step with one another. Steve had charged forward in the semi-darkness leaving Eddie a few paces behind.

“Nancy would come with you.  After the first time, when Will and Nancy’s friend went missing, she’d swing by my house, and we’d sit on the deck chairs watching the pool. Honestly, you might be better off with her. She’d bring a gun,” Steve spoke, tossing the jagged bat from hand to hand, with the skill of an ex-high school sports star. 

“Why is it you and I always end up in the woods trying to set each other up with Nancy goddamn Wheeler?” Eddie spoke disbelievingly as he jogged to catch up with Steve. He laughed, his hand bumping Eddie’s side as the two fell back into step. 

“She’s not my type, Stevie. You can have her,” Eddie tacked on, trying to defuse some of the tension that had arisen between them, skimming his light amongst the trees. 

“I don’t think she’s my type either. Well— not anymore. We tried it. It didn’t work out. We wanted different things,” Steve admitted.

Once they reached the train tracks, Steve surveyed the old wood and rusted metal. The place also had history. He could smell freezer burn and rotten meat on the breeze. When looking at Eddie’s profile he felt a sudden charge to the air like the calm before a thunderstorm. 

He thought of a conversation he’d had years before with Dustin on those very tracks. He knew with sudden certainty why he’d hauled himself out of bed in the middle of the night, once again to chase Eddie’s hunches. He and Dustin had been talking about love.  He gave himself the same advice he’d given the kid all those years before. 

Don’t fall in love. It’ll only break your heart.

“Right, you wanted that whole hoard of kids and an R.V. vacation thing? Three girls, three boys. A whole brood of Harringtons,” Eddie breathed, kicking up dirt and leaves with his shoes. Steve shot Eddie a perplexed glance, surprised he’d been listening and shocked he’d remembered the statement word for word.

“Right, yeah. I know, make fun all you want, dude. It’s crazy I know.” Once more, they fell out of step. 

Eddie stopped while Steve kept walking, playing the role of a funambulist, his hands outstretched as though standing at a great height as he walked foot over foot across the thin metal. 

“This might surprise you Steve but for once I wasn’t going to give you shit,” Eddie replied, walking beside Steve, jumping from wooden beam to wooden beam. 

The metal track gave Steve a good half inch of height, making it so that for once the two weren’t eye to eye. Eddie kept flicking the light between the vast track ahead of them and the empty woods behind. He still felt as though any moment something could burst through the cracks in the earth left in the wake of the quake and drag them back down into Eddie’s personal version of hell. He couldn’t help but think of Steve’s words. The eleventh time would stick. Eddie didn’t know what he’d do without him. 

“So, what do you want?” Steve asked, shaking Eddie from his thoughts. When his answer didn’t immediately present itself, Steve continued.

“I mean, you know what I want. Six nuggets, touring the country. What do you want?” 

The question startled a scoff out of Eddie. It wasn’t as though anyone had bothered to ask him that before. He didn’t know. 

“I’ve got no clue. I’m not like you. I don’t sit around thinking about the future. I’m just trying to get through today,” Eddie confessed, speaking more candidly than he’d intended. 

“Alright. You don’t know what you want to do with the rest of your life. That’s pretty normal, but having nothing? Dude. You’ve gotta have something. Let’s start small. What do you want to do tomorrow?” 

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind having breakfast with my uncle and spending some time with the kids and the band. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get to see you, hopefully under some better circumstances,” Eddie explained as Steve misstepped, almost falling from his perch. 

He corrected himself, placing an outstretched hand on Eddie’s shoulder for balance. Eddie tried not to preen beneath the other boy’s touch. 

“I like the sound of that,” Steve confirmed, daring a glance at Eddie. 

The storm within him continued to brew. Eddie’s plans for whatever small future stretched out before them involved Steve, which was more than he’d gotten from anyone else.

Nancy wanted a career in investigative journalism. She wanted to change the world for the better. It was a noble goal. One Steve had admired endlessly but he couldn’t help but feel like a small child asking for a seat at the grown-up table when trying to compete with the hopes and dreams of Nancy Wheeler. For her, he would’ve changed his dreams to play a small part in her life, but he’d come to realise that wasn’t a good way to love. 

Every relationship Steve had went to hell eventually. He didn’t want the same fate with Eddie. He wanted to continue walking the fine line between friendship and whatever awaited them on the other side of the electric storm. Steve didn’t know if he was ready for all the complications being in love with Eddie would entail. It’d wreak havoc on his sense of self and take a hatchet to his dreams of white picket fences. That was on the slim chance Eddie felt the same way about him. 

When Steve looked at Eddie he felt as though he were back at the bottom of Lovers Lake. To love Eddie was to drown beneath the crushing weight of possibilities. 

“You okay?” Eddie asked, a hint of concern in his tone. 

It was only then that Steve realised he’d stopped walking, his knuckles turning white as his fingers dug into the fabric of Eddie’s jacket. 

No. Steve was far from okay, but he couldn’t voice it without ruining everything. 

“I need a minute,” Steve muttered, stumbling back from Eddie, removing his hand as though he’d grabbed the wrong end of a hot poker. 

He’d moved on instinct, forgetting where he stood on his precarious perch. He tumbled ass backwards off the train tracks, trying to save whatever sense of dignity he had left by scrambling to his feet quickly. He heard his bat clatter to the forest floor as he headed off into the woods, unsure of his direction. He needed space to sort his head out. 

There were only two ways Steve knew how to face a crisis; two base and primal instincts, fight or run. Eddie wasn’t a wayward creature that devoured cats or a schoolyard bully. He couldn’t punch himself loveless and doing anything to hurt Eddie was worse than torture. 

Steve wanted Eddie to hit him. It’d shake loose some of the tension in his chest at the sight of the boy’s brown eyes; the eyes that reminded Steve of the deep warm wood that was fashionable in homes during his childhood. The familiar floorboards of the entryway where he’d lay with Tommy after hours of swimming, drip-drying on the wood, warping it to the shape of their bodies. 

Eddie’s eyes reminded him of home. Not the place he’d grown up in, but the sensation one felt when they recalled a fond memory, years removed from context and complications. Steve couldn’t imagine a future where Eddie would hurt him, even if that’s what he wanted. 

He did what he did best. He ran away. 

Without Eddie’s flashlight, the woods were a gaping maw of some unseen creature. Even the breeze on the back of his neck felt warm. Steve collapsed at the base of a tree and searched his pockets for a lighter. He didn’t bring his cigarettes but there was something soothing about the weight of the object in his hand and the repeated action of sparking the flint and extinguishing the fire with a twist of his wrist. 

Steve heard approaching footsteps signalled by the crunch of leaves underfoot.  He prayed Eddie wouldn’t ask why he’d run. If he asked, Steve knew he’d tell him. Then they’d both be screwed. 

Steve tried to spark the lighter again, but no flame would ignite. It was out of lighter fluid. Just his goddamn luck.  

“Steve?” Eddie’s voice echoed through the trees. 

The direction was all wrong. Eddie’s call came from a distance. The footsteps were close. Right goddamn on top of him. Fuck. 

Steve acted fast, fumbling in the underbrush, trying to find a weapon. He grabbed a stray branch with enough heft to wield. He was good at making use of what he had. He held the wood aloft, scrambled to his feet and fumbled with the lighter, desperate to get one last spark out of it. He knew how much the creatures hated fire. In a way, he was thankful that he knew what he was dealing with for once. 

The swiftness of the footfalls and the length of the shadows cutting through the blackness let him know within seconds he would be face to face with a full-sized Demogorgon. 

Steve felt the creature before he saw it. A sudden force collided into his body knocking him from his feet. He had just enough time to get the jagged end of the stick between himself and the creature. He felt the branch wade into the creature’s soft flesh. 

Eddie called his name once more, drawing the creature's attention away from him. Steve had an opening.

His trembling hands flicked the lighter again. This time, for a brief and brilliant moment, it sparked. He shoved the naked flame against the creature's wound. He wasn’t sure if he’d hurt it or just made it mad. It thrashed and writhed, grabbing at Steve’s body, and pounding him into the damp earth. Now Steve had its attention. 

He tried to strike out but this time the monster was too quick, its body bared down on Steve and before he knew it, he was face to face with the monster's strange unfurling flesh mouth and razor-sharp teeth. So, this was how he’d die. 

“Mother fucker,” Eddie muttered as two shifting figures caught his attention. 

Steve was pinned to the ground by something that looked fresh out of his nightmares. The others had told him there were more things out there than the bats and demonic, skinless hell-wizard they’d faced but Eddie’s mind had never been able to conjure a creature that would match the true beast before him. 

Steve was doing his best to keep the creature at arms-length. A rotted wooden branch cut at the palm of Steve’s hands and had gone straight through the thing’s body.  Eddie scoured his brain, trying to remember everything he’d been told about the creature. Heat. They hated heat. 

Eddie had grabbed Steve’s bat as he followed him. He’d wanted to be the kind of person who could give Steve space but every fibre of his being had told him to chase after the boy so he had. 

He dropped the flashlight to free up a hand and searched the pockets of his jacket, thankful he always had his lighter handy. He knew Steve would be pissed if Eddie torched his favourite weapon, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He’d rather have Steve pissed than not have him at all. 

He set fire to the bat, throwing more hellish shadows over the wicked tableau of the snarling beast and the desperate boy pinned beneath its grasp. The smell of burning wood and flesh hung heavy in the air. He had the element of surprise on his side. 

The flaming bat collided with the creature’s skull sending it reeling. It let out an inhuman whaling that scattered the nightbirds. Eddie readied the bat to swing again, expecting the beast to charge. Instead, it ran off into the blackness of the night. It’d finally happened. What they all knew had been inevitable. The Upside Down, and in turn Vecna was back. Though for now, he and Steve had brought themselves time. 

Eddie watched as Steve sat wide-eyed but seemingly unharmed. He guessed Steve Harrington had more lives left in him yet. Thank Christ. 

“Please tell me that looked as badass as it felt,” Eddie breathed trying to alleviate some of the tension between them. 

He dropped the bat, snuffing out what was left of the flame and moved unthinkingly to pat down Steve’s body, checking for wounds. He had a gash on his forehead and a split lip, but he’d live. 

“It looked pretty badass,” Steve confirmed and froze as Eddie’s hands raked through his hair. 

“You’ve got something in your...” Eddie’s voice trailed off as he pulled a leaf out of Steve’s hair, holding it aloft in front of his face. 

Steve’s eyes glanced from the leaf to Eddie before tentatively reaching out, his hands searching the planes of his body, dancing cautiously over the barely healed wounds that’d once littered his side. Steve was checking him over.

“I’m okay. You okay?” Eddie assured holding up a hand before reaching into the back pocket of his jeans. 

He pulled out his bandana and inched forward to wrap it around the gash on Steve’s head. The boy cringed beneath his touch. Eddie muttered an apology. 

“I’ll live,” Steve confirmed leaning back, trying to get some space between them. 

Eddie hadn’t realised how close they were. He shifted back, remembering with sudden clarity that Steve had practically begged Eddie to give him a second alone. He wasn’t willing to do that, given they’d already run into one hell beast that night. There could be others. He did something uncharacteristic. Eddie Munson sat with Steve in silence. 

They sat in stillness for so long that the birds and insects returned to the woods around them. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie spoke when the silence was too loud. He didn’t know what he was apologising for, but he couldn’t think of anything better to say. 

Steve looked up at the boy with alarm. 

“What’re you sorry for?” He asked, feeling as though he was caught in another echo of the past. 

He remembered a seemingly endless car ride to Nancy’s house, trying to find ways to apologise for some transgression he wasn’t sure he’d committed. He’d wanted to apologise because he’d loved Nancy and he’d been scared of losing her. 

He wondered what motivations were behind Eddie’s apology. He worried that The Upside Down’s strange relationship with time had leaked into Hawkins, that some pasts were destined to repeat. 

“I don’t know,” Eddie admitted after a breath, letting out a nervous laugh. 

“I’m sorry for doing whatever I did to make you go all space cadet on me. Tell me what I did, and I can tell you I’m sorry,” he continued. 

Steve was certain at that moment, Eddie loved him too. It was already too late to change things. They were trains on a track, their futures seemingly already locked in place.

“You know if you want someone to talk to about whatever’s going on in that head of yours, I’m here Steve,” Eddie kept pushing, unable to take Steve’s silence as an answer. 

His tone was so soft, sincere and unlike anything that Steve expected from the boy that he couldn’t help but speak the words out loud, despite his better judgment. 

“I love you.” 

Eddie had thought he’d been prepared for anything, but he hadn’t been prepared for that. It was then that Steve let out a strangled sound between a scoff and a groan. 

“And it's screwed now. I always mess it up.”  

Eddie could hardly hear the boy’s voice over the rush of blood in his ears. His heart was a high-strung choir, singing the same repeated tune, ‘Steve loves me’. When his common sense kicked into gear, he noted the panic in Steve’s eyes and knew he needed to say something. 

“I love you too,” Eddie managed, feeling both heavier and lighter. 

He’d never said it before. He sure as hell hadn’t pictured a world where he’d admit he loved a boy before they’d started dating. Steve was moving at a breakneck speed and Eddie was desperately trying to catch up. To his surprise, Steve hardly stirred at the confession. 

“I know,” Steve admitted sounding broken as his eyes met Eddie’s. He gave the boy a tight-lipped grimace. All of Eddie’s momentary joy fell just as it’d begun to soar. 

“Please tell me that was a Star Wars reference,” Eddie whispered, earning a real smile from Steve. It was soft and fleeting as freshly felled snow on a warm palm. He knew despite all of Steve’s posturing, he was a huge nerd when it came to science fiction. 

“Eds, my track record...” Steve’s voice trailed off. 

Eddie realised the thing Steve had been dancing around. They were still talking about Nancy goddamn Wheeler in the woods. 

“Stevie,” he breathed, for once at a loss for words. 

He was a storyteller, but he didn’t want to give Steve a story. He couldn’t promise him a world where everything was perfect. They lived in a land of blight and monsters, a time of trouble. The town was still after Eddie’s head on a pike and Steve was running out of goodwill with those that’d once called him king. He wanted to show Steve what they were. 

Damn the past. Kill all possible futures. All they had was the brief and infinite present. 

Eddie wanted to show Steve what they could be at that moment. 

He crossed the space between them, pausing for a breath, leaving room for Steve to push him away. When no such protest arose, he placed one hand on Steve’s cheek, the other cupping the nape of his neck. 

“I’m not good at this either,” Eddie admitted tentatively. 

He’d kissed guys before. It’d always been desperate and sloppy. He didn’t want loving Steve to feel like an afterthought as it had with the other men. 

“But I think it’s worth a shot,” Eddie concluded. 

He’d laid everything out on the table, all that was left was for Steve to pick it up or turn it down. 

Steve didn’t surge forward. Instead, he moved achingly slow. One hand landed on Eddie’s thigh, the other tangled in his hair. He gave a gentle tug to pull him that last inch closer. 

Eddie’s lips were wind-chaffed and cool, melting ice on bare skin, shocking and a good kind of painful. Steve’s face had the faintest hint of stubble, it was rough as the rocks, and forest foliage beneath their bodies. He smelled of wet earth, blood, and faded cologne. Their hands traced each other’s topography with fingers, lips and tongues, toppling over in the process. 

When they pulled apart the whole world seemed to hold its breath. The wind was still. The night was silent. An invisible audience waited with bated breath for a conclusion. 

“Christ,” Eddie choked, hand fluttering dramatically to his heart. It was a kick drum in his chest. 

Steve’s hand followed, sliding beneath Eddie’s shirt. 

“Christ,” Steve echoed with a goofy grin. Eddie loved him. The thought came easily. It was the only thought populating his mind. 

“We should probably, you know, shelve this and try to stop the world ending... again,” Eddie proposed, trying to think straight. 

“Only if you promise to take me on a date after,” Steve countered. He pulled himself to his feet and extended a hand to Eddie. 

“Me take you? You’re meant to be the ladies' man with the killer dates,” Eddie argued, falling into step with Steve easily. 

“Exactly. It’d be nice to be the one getting the flowers for a change. Technically you’re the one who wanted to give this a shot. I’ll get the second date.” 

Eddie scoffed disbelievingly. The cocky bastard.  He’d never picked Steve as someone who liked flowers. He’d give Steve a garden, a forest, a kingdom. 

“Alright, save the world. Buy you flowers. Go on a first date. Go on a second date. Seems like I might actually have a plan for the next few days down pact.” 

“And after that?” Steve prompted. 

“If you want me to say six nuggets and a Winnebago you’ve gotta buy me dinner first.” 

[composeregg]

edit (10/23/2024) now that the poll is over: Original version, with 10 questions, from April 2023 here

And, given that the original is from April 2023, that means I can very easily say:

No, this was not an ISAT reference!

Just because I use parentheses and 2nd person pov and love the same concepts of what a time loop can do to a person doesn't mean it's ISAT

(Yes, I like ISAT, the original poll is why I was recommended the game! But if you look at the original, you can see all the origins of the options to choose from, including what spurred me on with the moss option from the replies)

If I were going to make something for ISAT, I would never be so vague, you can simply look at my ao3 for proof of that

[imminent-danger-came]

The u quiz that is my MIND

[beachf4gz]

just here to say that you have the best takes on hdb/disco elysium ever. keep doing what you do man you're awesome

also that earlier poll on whether harry is schizospec: yeah 100%. personally as a person with stpd I hc him as schizotypal and I'd love to hear your own hcs/opinions on schizospec harry

eeeee thank u hes a v important character to me so i have a lot to say abt him

this is probs j waffle but abt him being schizpec, i have always very much resonated with harry as a depiction of a mood disorder schizophrenic comorbidity. the ways in which harry is shown to see the world and how depression specifically functions within him reads to me as psychotic depression- his understanding of himself and the world around him tends to be wholistic and follow specific themes or recurring ideas that depict a detachment from reality "as it is"- the position that kim occupies in contrast to him. i see a lot of the gameplay as essentially harry having to learn to accept reality as it threatens him over and over, learning to percieve and function in the small scale of a life rather than the larger framing of the world, or of laws above the world itself, contextualised thru history and political conflict and poetry. i've seen some ppl say that harry can be read as having did- personally i dont think the skills are a good depicition of did itself or of plurality in that sense, but i think that harry is meant to be above all a person victimised by the conditions of being working class- that of exposure to stress and danger and trauma and a forceful impending hurtling into the future without any ability to control or change his circumstances, and from that i think that complex trauma, osdd, bpd, a complex mood disorder or schizophrenia can all be read into him fairly easily (however i do think the game, in choosing not to be explicit with his symptoms, depicting them in comorbidity with metaphysical aspects of the world, is actively discouraging a 1-1 psychiatric evaluation of harry. i think it is instead encouraging the framing of psychotic thought within a materialist approach to living). while i dont think he has DID i do really think the skills depict fragmentation of the psyche into functions- so something along the line of osdd- and from that its fairly easy to expand how a fragmented personhood functions to produce a fragmented understanding of reality in which there is overlay between input, or the psychotic elements of his thinking. I think the pale is potentially useful here also- the concept of delerium or total thought disorder, as information across time and location is fragmented and combined and then this delerium is presented as the opposite of life, or the opposite of reality, or the tearing of the world apart, it reads very strongly to me as feeling of *being* in a psychotic state. since DE is (imo) very concerned with the players mode of interaction being that of *being* a person (thinking their thoughts, deciding their actions, interpretting and reacting to stimuli), it kind of knocked me out to play *as* a mind in totalising thought disorder.

the constant pressure against harry's way of seeing and interpretting and placing himself within the scenes around him comes from multiple perspectives- i think kim is positioned as the cbt/dbt type approach to disordered thought in which a person removes themselves from those ways of thinking altogether and repositions themself as a person alike other people, and as a member of the larger structure of society and of humanity- to deal with circumstances and "get your shit together" as a choice or as a "function first" approach to treating "illness". i think this is positioned as flawed, but fundamentally helpful and caring in nature. I think trant/jeans approach to harry- that of attempting to figure out what is broken within the machine and diagnose, or discard, is positioned as unhelpful, uncaring and wrong. I believe this is probably advocating in some way to the player to reframe disordered thought or the seeing of grander concepts in the mundane away from psychiatry and psychiatric labels and approaches towards materialism, which i think is the intended frame the designers seek the audience to approach the world through. i think this is part of the larger marxist nature of the game- communism, marxism, leftism in general comes with a degree of allowing oneself to exit the grounding nature of their own lives and to seek to understand or see patterns, vague spiritualistic or metaphysical forces, in the world at large- and naturally it attracts and cultivates disordered thought as a result. i think in some way harry serves to demonstrate and instruct the player how to navigate living in a way that allows for material action, and for survival and happiness and the modes of being one needs to occupy to achieve those, without dismissing or undermining ways of thinking and being. idk thats a lot of words but yh basically i do think that disco elysium as a text is very interested in thought and the framing of a persons perspective, and explores both the consequences that has on a life and person as well as the metaphysical aspects that frameworking and psychotic relationality to frameworking have on the experience of being a person. i think if this wasnt something they were concerned with, harry would have been a very different character- probably one who was more defined by substance use in a traditional "outside in" depicition and not by the deconstruction of the act of being him.

i have a bunch of wayyy more specific things abt him i would like to communicate at some point but thats probs better for a time when i cba to find quotes and examples and shit XP

[deafknell]

Following on from my previous poll, and in the wake of the season 3 air date announcement, I've decided to push back the fanweek to welcome in the new season!

From 26th September to 2nd October, you'll have a series of prompts to choose from for each day up to the first episode release. Feel free to participate in as many or as few days as you like! Character analysis, fanart, fic drabbles, poetry---anything is welcome.

Fanweek prompts and rules down below:

Day 1:

Memories / Rivalry / “—Shut up and put on your war face.” Day 2: Injury / Role Swap / “What do I look like right now?” Day 3: Found Family / Heroes / “…just leave everything else to me!” Day 4: Names / Childhood / “That’s right. I am a monster who hunts monsters.”

Day 5: Flowers / Meant to Be / “Take up your sword.” Day 6: Alternate Universe / Absence /  “No one would blame you.” Day 7: Free Day / Season 3 release!

Rules:

Please ping me or use the tag #rzs3fanweek so I can track any participants!

Anything relating to each day's prompts, however loose the connection, applies. While each quote comes from a specific character, feel free to use these as inspiration for any other context outside of canon!

Late submissions are welcome without issue.

If you have any questions please send them my way!

[poetrysmackdown]

some informal thoughts

hello! hope the holiday season has been kind to all of you. and i hope all my jewish followers had a lovely hanukkah! anyways, since i said a few months ago that i’d pick poetry smackdown back up sometime around this time of year, i thought i should make a post. the gist of it is that i’m still quite busy, i have a break that’s about three weeks shorter than I was planning on, and i don’t currently have the mental bandwidth required to read, contemplate, and sort through poem submissions in a way that does justice to them, even if i were to recruit some friends to help out. since running a tournament format requires at least five weeks of continued engagement once it’s underway, and since i’m not at capacity to offer that right now due to the change in my schedule, i’m gonna have to bow out for now. sad bc i was looking forward to it!

my hope is that i’ll have some more time over the summer to hunker down with it, in which case you’ll be hearing from me. it’ll frankly depend on the kind of job i land in for the summer, but i find that my unemployed spirit can typically keep me doing stupid shit regardless of workload...to a point. i don’t want to make any promises because i don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up just to let them down again LOL. i do admit the amount of exposure the first tournament got has made me feel like more of a perfectionist this time around, doubly because i don’t feel that i’m very suited to being a public online presence (even a relatively quite small one)—i’m bad enough at responding to emails for my own real life responsibilities, let alone tumblr asks for the silly responsibilities i invent for myself lol. that’s not to say i no longer want to do it, or i don’t enjoy it, or even that i don’t feel capable of making a really interesting bracket—just that if i am working to put something new together, and if people are taking the time to submit poems they care about, then i don’t want to half-ass it.

my second admission is something like this. I made the original bracket as a celebration of poetry and our relationships to it. yes it was silly and competitive, and the poems were very tumblr, but still, celebration was the intention—I wanted to have conversations about poetry. I stand by the bracket format as a fun and valuable way to foster conversations about poetry, but truthfully, the poems i’m wanting to have conversations about right now—the poems that we should be talking about right now—are ones that i'm not comfortable putting in a bracket. I reblogged The Baffler’s Poems from Palestine collection on here earlier, and Najwan Darwish’s “Who Remembers The Armenians?”, which I still often find repeating through my head when I'm traveling from one place to another, walking home or riding the bus. I came across this beautiful thread recently where people have been translating Dr. Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die” into their own languages (this just makes my translator's heart sing!!!!!!). @havingapoemwithyou has been posting some great poems from and for Palestine as well—check out their tag here.

There's always more to add, and I'll be posting more on here as I come across it, but that's what I feel anyone should be focusing on right now when it comes to poetry. i think poetry can be an escape but it should never be a distraction. does that make sense? i wouldn't be against doing a one-off poll here or there, but it feels weird to be making a tournament for poetry right now, or anytime soon. i feel like what free time i have right now is still best utilized helping my friends with organizing in the real world. and god, a bit off-topic but while I'm talking, fuck poetry foundation—I have so much respect for all the poets keeping up the boycott, because while i think it's a simple decision, it's not always an easy one (Aurielle Lucier discussed that here).

anyways, if you read all of this, thank you for your time!! I could go on and on, but really this was just meant to be a message telling y'all that there won't be another tournament for a while lol. even so i'll be trying to use this small silly platform as best i can until palestine is free because that's the absolute least i can do.

[ozzgin]

Ozz you should've said earlier about Romanian folklore!! Well, which one do you prefer? Strigoi or moroi? I personally like strigoi because of the possibility of a tragic love story background. Imagine being in a forbidden love due to difference in classes and your lover get killed brutally.. oh what a misery.. this somewhat reminds me that painting called "isabella and the pot of basil"

Funnily enough, I had to research the difference myself when making the poll. I think the terms are used interchangeably in parts of the country, and to most people they’re likely synonyms. An article I’d found at the time used Vampire Diaries as a reference. So there’s an added confusion of what exactly is the traditional meaning vs what’s depicted in foreign or modern media.

For example, moroi are meant to be the souls of infants who died at birth, who then torment their mothers and wander the earth. Not exactly the most promising romance starter. But in the English sources it has a completely different definition, as the child of a woman impregnated by an incubus vampire.

The strigoi at least is a little more consistent, in the sense that you can broadly describe it as the undead soul of an evil human who was not accepted into the afterlife.

If you go into really old definitions, you will find a lot of conservative and religious reasoning, which is why I’m not a massive fan of either, y’know? The Romanian Wikipedia article of strigoi mentions that they can be born as regular babies; sometimes because the mother goes out at night without humbly covering her head, as she normally should. (???)

If we are to take all meanings into consideration, then I share your preference. Fun coincidence, since you brought up the painting: it’s based on a poem by John Keats, whose grave I visited last year in Rome! I have a little poetry book bought as a souvenir from the Keats-Shelley House, though looking through it now, it doesn’t include said title. Alas.

[firstfullmoon]

Can I ask what you meant by saying in tags on that poem poll post that Mary Oliver has written “nothing else of note”? I have six years of teaching experience in English in high school and at the college level, and I’m on year 5 of my PhD in American Literature, and I’ve never met a colleague or scholar who spoke about Oliver with anything other than respect if not enthusiasm. I’m wondering if you’re in a different field of study where she is considered to have written nothing else of note? Always been interested in her because she influenced my early research on queer and environmental studies.

omg I did NOT mean mary oliver !!!! I also studied some english lit + am otherwise really interested in poetry and have done my own research into it and she is definitely a major poet of the 20th century and her work is so so important to me & lots of people. I was talking about laura gilpin (whose poem won against mary oliver’s) and andrew kane - both of whom I’ve never heard of apart from the poems in the tournament. I don’t know where my reflexion ends but I thought it was interesting to consider that aspect because it happened in almost all the rounds (against siken, o’hara, ada limon, etc)

[epicene-ennui]

𓆏 Heyo! I'm Reon. This is my blog for my interests.

I like splatoon, psychology, linguistics, vocaloid, cats, cephalopods, bugs, frogs, and lots of other things.

Some info:

𓆏 I am diagnosed ASD, NVLD, and am part of an OSDD-1 system. I share these because they might affect the way I interact with you, and I might like/reblog posts related to these conditions. The rest of my medical history is private and irrelevant.

I am one of three hosts, but I am usually the only one who has any sort of confidence to use social media. I use he/they pronouns. The other two hosts, of whom I will refer to as Lars and Luka, use they/them and she/they respectively. You can ask them questions if you wish, but it may take a while for them to answer.

I do not wish to engage in syscourse. I follow, reblog, and like things that are relatable to me/us. A post's original tags do not necessarily reflect my/our views. Please note the views of each original poster if you decide to go to their blog.

Here are some questions you might have, of which I will put here:

𓆏 Can I send you asks? 𓆏

Yes, but they will not be anonymous.

𓆏 How do I refer to you? 𓆏

If you are trying to refer to me (Reon), use my pronouns or say "you." If you want to ask or refer to my system, say something that indicates it is plural, such as "you all" or "you guys" or just write that it is for the system and not for me individually.

𓆏 How do you feel about [insert topic]? 𓆏

I wish to spend my time on social media interacting with things that I like, and I do not want to engage in discourse. If you really want to know, you can send an ask, and I might answer. My official syscourse stance is "endo-neutral". Our system-related posts are meant for those with CDDs.

𓆏 Will you do an alter list/introductions? 𓆏

No. That stuff is private. If I wish to refer to anyone in my system, I will use a letter and a number, or a pseudonym. If Lars and Luka wish to, they may post their interests, but this blog is mostly for me. I also refer to my system members as "parts," not "alters."

𓆏 Do you have a system name? 𓆏

I guess you can call us the Ennui System.

𓆏 Some userboxes :)

𓆏 Tags 𓆏

Reon talks on the internet ↪ Reon's posts

Conversations with lein ↪ Lein's posts

Lars' chat ↪ Lars' posts

Poll answering ↪ answering poll questions

Prompt answering ↪ answering prompts

Eden's longer posts ↪ longer informative posts

Eden writing ↪ poetry

※This post may be updated in the future

[tadpoleatemybrain]

Well That's One Way to Get Him Started

Drabble for the "Make Gabby Write a Thing" poll

Professor Ancunin AU (modern day au)

Words 620

Spoilers for Act 2 and Shadowheart's story

tw: lgbtqia+ erasure, historical revisionism

"Alright, who has a topic for today?" The professor asked dropping his bag into a chair and standing at the podium. He'd been in a bit of a rush this evening and had forgotten his collection of interesting journal entries. It was no trouble, from time to time he would answer questions or review material if someone had anything interesting. By now he had been teaching this course long enough that students knew what particular topics to bring up. Events from DR 1492 were always a favorite. The most interesting stories always came from that particular year. It was the most engrained in Astarion's mind considering without the events that transpired within it he wouldn't be standing in front of them today.

"I do!" Someone came prepared and jumped up with a book. He held out his hand and took it before he looked over the cover. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, a book regarding significant Selunites. There was an entry bookmarked and Astarion flipped to it assuming that was the point of interest.

Then he squinted unable to believe the absolute horseshit he was reading right now. Re-reading it several times over. Even checking the previous page and the next page before looking at the student who handed it to him.

"This has to be a joke right? There is absolutely no way in any of the nine hells this was published uncritically." Yet here he was looking at it.

"Oh for fuck's sake! I know it was five hundred years ago but how did they miss the plot that badly?! Dame Aylin is literally Selune's daughter, this is practically blasphemy!" The anger was apparent in his voice, but his ranting didn't stop there.

"There's poetry, there's art! Hell's they invented the phrase "Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling." What did they think that meant?! Did no one think to consult me? It was in my writings! I'm still alive, somehow and I haven't been hiding." The vampire took a moment to collect himself. There were very few topics that pissed him off quite as much as this one.

Erasure.

"If I get smit-ed in the next...fifteen minutes or so try not to be too surprised, but do make sure it goes into my obituary." Certainly not a method of death he would have considered for himself, but vastly more interesting.

"Dame Aylin and Isobel were lesbians, without a shadow of a doubt. I have been alive for almost eight hundred years-" Astarion's lip curled remembering his age.

"And I have never met bigger lesbians in all my life. And I have met a great many people. 'My mate most high, my darling Isobel, my one and only love' the praises never stopped. It was almost sickening." Among other things.

"I was right there when Shadowheart...sorry Jenevelle Hallowleaf, I still can't believe that was her actual name, rescued Dame Aylin. Gods the day the two were reunited in not so many words Dame Ayline told us to piss off so they could 'make up for lost time'. Can't say I blame them. If I'd been separated from my true love for a hundred years I want to as well." Not that he had one, but it sounded nice. In theory.

"This isn't worth the paper it's printed on, but I am going to be borrowing it. And I thank you for bringing it to my attention." That phrase never boded well in an email and it didn't in person either.

Well, at least Astarion didn't have to ask what he was going to spend tomorrow doing. Writing a scathing review of garbage always managed to kill some of the time he had so much of.

[steelycunt]

hello beautiful do you already know what you’re gonna name the pride au? have you been enlightened? have you already had The vision…

hello bab!! annoyingly enough i do not..which is very strange for me and also frustrating because i LOVE coming up with titles and usually it is one of the first things i do!! i have a little list and ive been alternating them when i save drafts to my ao3…but i think the fact that none of them jump out at me especially means they’re probably not meant to be. i usually like to name things after songs/music but since the chapters are all named after songs (which are pretty locked in i think im quite happy with those) i don’t want to do that with the main title! which means coming up with something myself…id like something quite short and solid i’ve been playing around with stuff and looking into poetry etc but yeah! this is a very long way of simply saying, not yet : ^ ( unless something perfect comes to me i might leave it to the fate of a tumblr poll + then ignore the result of the tumblr poll except to see if that exposes in me which one im really rooting for. but i am still hoping i will come up with something where i know immediately that that’s what i want to call it : ^ )

[emersonfreepress]

Well, these two were just meant to be friends. I feel like that explains something… Somehow even more about Gabe. God knows I love them both to death, but I feel like Kile I could trust (I shouldn't, but I could!), whereas Gabe just gives me chills. I love the guy, really, but he scares me more than Kile with their baseball bat. All that rambling aside, I love how expressive your stick figure art is (Gabe's little confused face is priceless), and "Gabe, Kile, tree" is pure poetry

I agree, they were meant to be friends! Without getting too deep into backstory, when they first met, Gabe was a gigantic mess of anxiety and irrational fears and Kile was... well, Kile. Kile kinda forced him to adapt since they would do unsafe or wild shit all the time just to end up... fine. Things would be fine, Gabe would be fine, Kile would be fine... the world was just fine. It really shook up little Gabe's worldview in the beginning, Kile was almost a superhero to him.

I love that Gabe gives you chills over Kile! That's not as common as the reverse, I don't think... I'll need to run a poll some day 👀

none of this was rambling and thank you!! 🥰

[familyofpaladins]

So people want to hear my poetry from 9th grade! Wohoo! (I meant to make this poll yesterday and forgot WHOOPS)

Alrighty!!

I'll post like the top 3 (or more if people comment that they want to hear them) (and maybe the ones I like a little more lol)

[iscariotten]

hi jacks!!

just out of curiosity. what do the numbers you tag with mean

Hey Indigo!!

I’m not sure why I never explained this anywhere? I’m sure I meant to at some point but here’s my basic tag system

001 - aesthetic images

002 - art

003 - shortish textposts

004 - quotes (from poetry, books, songs etc)

005 - words, but from any source (so you might see me tag random poetic tumblr posts with this. If I’ve tagged something with 4 I’ll usually also tag it 5)

006 - political / more serious

007 - games and things? ie polls, in the tags, tag games

008 - original posts

009 - posts I strongly relate to

010 - favorite posts

And then I also have tags for themes that are usually quotes - for example, just keep swimming is for themes of endurance and survival.

Hopefully this makes sense??