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ucflibrary · 4 years ago

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Women’s History Month began as a week-long celebration in Sonoma, California in 1978 which was centered around International Women’s Day on March 8. A year later during a women’s history conference at Sarah Lawrence College, participants learned how successful the week was and decided to initiate similar in their own areas. President Carter issued the first proclamation for a national Women’s History Week in 1980. In 1987, Congress (after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project) passed Pub. L. 100-9 designating March as Women’s History Month. U.S. Presidents have issued proclamations on Women’s History Month since 1988.

The Libraries will be hosting two virtual events to celebrate Women’s History Month for 2021. The first is a talk by Nicholson School of Communication faculty member, Dr. Kimberly Voss, called “Make No Mistake, Florida is Crucial”: Sen. Lori Wilson and the Equal Rights Amendment, which discusses efforts to ratify the ERA in Florida. The second is a panel discussion called Women & Academia in the Time of COVID where five UCF faculty and administrators will discuss the impact of the COVID pandemic and remote learning on their teaching, scholarship, service loads and personal lives. Both events are free and open to the public. Click on the links to register to attend.

We have created a list of books about women, both history and fiction, suggested by staff. Please click on the read more link below to see the full book list with descriptions and catalog links. And don’t forget to stop by the John C. Hitt Library to browse the featured bookshelf on the main floor near the Research & Information Desk for additional Women’s History Month books.

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter Elnora Comstock grows up on the banks of Limberlost Swamp in Indiana with her bitter mother, Katharine. Unable to afford an education, Elnora develops a plan to sell artifacts and moths from the swamp. Suggested by Pat Tiberii, Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services

A Woman of No Importance: the untold story of the American spy who helped win World War II by Sonia Purnell Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall--an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity. It is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war. Suggested by Dawn Tripp, Research & Information Services

All the Horrors of War: a Jewish girl, a British doctor, and the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by Bernice Lerner Drawing on a wealth of sources, including Hughes's papers, war diaries, oral histories, and interviews, this gripping volume combines scholarly research with narrative storytelling in describing the suffering of Nazi victims, the overwhelming presence of death at Bergen-Belsen, and characters who exemplify the human capacity for fortitude. Lerner, Rachel's daughter, has special insight into the torment her mother suffered. The first book to pair the story of a Holocaust victim with that of a liberator, it compels readers to consider the full, complex humanity of both. Suggested by Katie Kirwan, Acquisitions & Collections

Data Feminism by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein This book offers strategies for data scientists seeking to learn how feminism can help them work toward justice, and for feminists who want to focus their efforts on the growing field of data science. But it is about much more than gender. It is about power, about who has it and who doesn't, and about how those differentials of power can be challenged and changed. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

Field o' My Dreams: the poetry of Gene Stratton-Porter compiled and edited by Mary DeJong Obuchowski In her introduction to Porter’s work, Obuchowski argues that the natural and spiritual themes of Porter’s poetry mirror the self-same concerns regarding nature and social issues found in her fiction and nonfiction. Reflecting and in some cases reacting against, current social attitudes at a time of political and demographic change, she was in demand as a columnist for popular magazines and a widely read fiction writer. Porter wielded considerable influence over her reading public, and in that role she acted as a reformer, particularly regarding the environment but also on behalf of women, children, and education. Suggested by Pat Tiberii, Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services

Finish the Fight!: the brave and revolutionary women who fought for the right to vote written by the Staff of The New York Times Who was at the forefront of women's right to vote? We know a few famous names, like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but what about so many others from diverse backgrounds—black, Asian, Latinx, Native American, and more—who helped lead the fight for suffrage? On the hundredth anniversary of the historic win for women's rights, it's time to celebrate the names and stories of the women whose stories have yet to be told. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment by Eleanor Clift In this riveting account, political analyst Eleanor Clift chronicles the many thrilling twists and turns of the suffrage struggle and shows how the issues and arguments that surrounded the movement still reverberate today. Beginning with the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention of 1848, Clift introduces the movement’s leaders, recounts the marches and demonstrations, and profiles the opposition–antisuffragists, both men and women, who would do anything to stop women from getting the vote. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee Casey Han's four years at Princeton gave her many things, "But no job and a number of bad habits." Casey's parents, who live in Queens, are Korean immigrants working in a dry cleaner, desperately trying to hold on to their culture and their identity. Their daughter, on the other hand, has entered into rarified American society via scholarships. But after graduation, Casey sees the reality of having expensive habits without the means to sustain them. As she navigates Manhattan, we see her life and the lives around her, culminating in a portrait of New York City and its world of haves and have-nots. This fresh exploration of the complex layers we inhabit both in society and within ourselves. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

From Equal Suffrage to Equal Rights: Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party, 1910-1928 by Christine A. Lunardini The woman's movements and work in American history during the second two decades, was dramatic. It dealt with the past, with pageants and politics; with different organizations and with conflict from within. It took on the Democrats, founded a National Woman's Party; it waged a home front war. It dealt with prison, and resolution. It went from equal suffrage to equal rights. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

Indelicacy by Amina Cain A cleaning woman at a museum of art nurtures aspirations to do more than simply dust the paintings around her. She dreams of having the liberty to explore them in writing, and so must find a way to win herself the time and security to use her mind. She escapes her lot by marrying a rich man, but having gained a husband, a house, high society, and a maid, she finds that her new life of privilege is no less constrained. Not only has she taken up different forms of time-consuming labor - social and erotic - but she is now, however passively, forcing other women to clean up after her. Perhaps another and more drastic solution is necessary? Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

See Jane Win: the inspiring story of the women changing American politics by Caitlin Moscatello After November 8, 2016, first came the sadness; then came the rage, the activism, and the protests; and, finally, for thousands of women, the next step was to run for office—many of them for the first time. More women campaigned for local or national office in the 2018 election cycle than at any other time in US history, challenging accepted notions about who seeks power and who gets it. Journalist Caitlin Moscatello reported on this wave of female candidates for New York magazine's The Cut, Glamour, and Elle. In this book, she further documents this pivotal time in women's history. Closely following four candidates throughout the entire process, from the decision to run through Election Day, readers are taken inside their exciting, winning campaigns and the sometimes thrilling, sometimes brutal realities of running for office while female. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Taking on the Trust: the epic battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller by Steve Weinberg Long before the rise of mega-corporations like Wal-Mart and Microsoft, Standard Oil controlled the oil industry with a monopolistic force unprecedented in American business history. Undaunted by the ruthless power of its owner, John D. Rockefeller, a fearless and ambitious reporter named Ida Minerva Tarbell confronted the company known simply as “The Trust.” Through her peerless fact gathering and devastating prose, Tarbell, a muckraking reporter at McClure’s magazine, pioneered the new practice of investigative journalism. Her shocking discoveries about Standard Oil and Rockefeller led, inexorably, to a dramatic confrontation during the opening decade of the twentieth century that culminated in the landmark 1911 Supreme Court antitrust decision breaking up the monopolies and forever altering the landscape of modern American industry. Suggested by Dawn Tripp, Research & Information Services

The Book of Gutsy Women: favorite stories of courage and resilience by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, share the stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them—women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done. Ensuring the rights and opportunities of women and girls remains a big piece of the unfinished business of the twenty-first century. While there's a lot of work to do, we know that throughout history and around the globe women have overcome the toughest resistance imaginable to win victories that have made progress possible for all of us. That is the achievement of each of the women in this book. To us, they are all gutsy women -- leaders with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done. So in the moments when the long haul seems awfully long, we hope you will draw strength from these stories. Because if history shows one thing, it's that the world needs gutsy women. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

The Good Fight by Shirley Chisholm Chisholm describes being the first woman, and first black woman, to run for President, and how politicians operate. She writes about her relationships with black political leaders Walter Fauntroy, Louis Stokes, Ron Dellums, and Julian Bond. She gives her views on what direction black politics should take in the years to come. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Unapologetic: a Black, queer, and feminist mandate for radical movements by Charlene A. Carruthers Drawing on Black intellectual and grassroots organizing traditions, including the Haitian Revolution, the US civil rights movement, and LGBTQ rights and feminist movements, Carruthers challenges all of us engaged in the social justice struggle to make the movement for Black liberation more radical, more queer, and more feminist. She offers a flexible model of what deeply effective organizing can be, anchored in the Chicago model of activism, which features long-term commitment, cultural sensitivity, creative strategizing, and multiple cross-group alliances. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal In this retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in modern-day Pakistan, Alys Binat has sworn never to marry--until an encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider. A scandal and vicious rumor in the Binat family have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that many of her students won't make it to graduation before dropping out to marry and start having children, Alys teaches them about Jane Austen and her other literary heroes and hopes to inspire them to dream of more. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

#ucflibrary #featured bookshelf #women's history month #booklr #reading list #tumblarians

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reachexceedinggrasp · 4 years ago

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So the majority of the shows I’ve seen lately can be charitably described as ‘light entertainment’, including the ones with dark elements or more weighty, ponderous plots. They might be entertaining or interesting, they just... don’t stand up to scrutiny. Turn your brain off because this isn’t that carefully or skilfully made and you’ll only be annoyed if you start thinking about it as a whole. Including the last couple 'tragic’ historical dramas I’ve watched, which were not effective tragedy for that very reason. If you’re going to kill off the main cast, you have to earn it, and overwhelmingly writers don’t. Anyway, I’ve been getting despondent about whether stories which actually hang together and form a coherent narrative unit with consistent themes are the exception rather than the rule.

(And I feel like that should be a pretty low standard to meet, it’s sort of Step 1 of ‘being a story’: be about something! Communicate something, no matter how basic it is. Dead simple stories with rock basic messages can be revelatory! Just do it well!)

I’ve seen very little genuinely focussed or meaningful storytelling in my ventures for what feels like a long time. Basically, I can kind of count on one hand the number of films or dramas or whathaveyou I’ve seen from the last few years where it felt like the filmmakers were in complete control of their story and everything in it was purposeful and intentional. Most things have felt slapdash or shallow or fleeting. Story elements and character choices come out of nowhere just to derail already concluded arcs and fill screen time with empty repetitious drama, not to serve a meaningful narrative purpose. I would be watching with zero confidence anything in particular was going anywhere or that the writers knew where that should be. It’s just throwing shit at the wall, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type writing all the time and it fucking shows.

But then I watched Money Flower.

Money Flower is different. Money Flower is towering head and shoulders above every modern drama I’ve ever seen. Titanically good writing which rises above its genre and makes conventions seem radically new and fresh not by reinventing them or deconstructing them, but by playing them straight, taking them seriously, and committing 1000%. This is all your familiar rich family tropes but with masterpiece execution, infused with consequence and meaning because they’re all driven by the psychology of complex three-dimensional characters. So many moving pieces and none of them are random or unmotivated. Just... GOOD WRITING. And I want to make the point that it is this wherein art lives. The difference between a rank Lifetime movie and Romeo and Juliet is not novelty or tropes or plot twists- it’s execution.

This show is such a perfect example that it is not ‘mere events’ (aka plot) or novelty or shock value or cool ideas which separates something brilliant and timeless from forgettable schlock; it is solely and entirely execution. It’s writing itself, if you know what I mean. You can describe many of Shakespeare’s tragedies and history plays as soap opera plots. What makes Macbeth a deathless masterwork and Death Wish Hollywood wank isn’t a fundamental difference in subject or genre. It’s Shakespeare’s characterisation and purposeful storytelling. It’s the poetry of the dialogue. It’s the craft of writing. Most of Shakespeare’s plots are based on existing stories or on historical events and that has never mattered because novelty is not an inherent good or of any inherent artistic value.

Like, this is the problem with storytelling right now blah blah GOT, shitty endings everywhere etc. because power over the audience (can’t let anyone guess the plot, looking ‘clever’ with meaningless callbacks) and novelty are valued over narrative structure or things making sense or emotional verisimilitude. We have so many writers thinking being ‘shocking’ is all it takes to be a genius. It’s easy to be shocking if your story makes no goddamn sense because things that don’t make sense are literally unpredictable. Not in a good way, though. A great twist or sudden swerve needs to be unexpected but inevitable in hindsight or it does not work. I should be able to rewatch your thing and think ‘oh, of course! you can see it was [x] all along!’

We have so many popular writers now who are so shallow they don’t think anything needs to make sense on a character or emotional level. They don’t think their story has to be about anything. Substance is irrelevant as long as the surface is flashy enough. That has no staying power, you can only watch it once and you will forget about it quickly.

However, if you have ever wanted to experience the constant heightened stakes and High Drama of a soap opera without being annoyed at how ridiculous it all is and while actually giving a shit about the characters because they feel like real human beings, if you’ve wanted to feel repercussions when characters make choices, and get the emotional payoff that is the entire point of drama- now you can. Watch Money Flower. And let me tell you, it is fucking riveting. This show is mostly made up of people sitting in rooms talking and yet it is heart-pounding excitement nearly every episode. It is profoundly traditional and by the book while being totally fresh. It’s the most engrossing and satisfying artistic experience I’ve had in a long time.

Like, THE TENSION, THE DRAMA, THE REVEALS!!! You can, in fact, spend most of 24+ hours on the edge of your seat about family problems and business mergers. It seems unlikely, but that is the power of this series, it creates insanely high stakes and mesmerising suspense out of the most commonplace ingredients. Familiar plot elements become brand new and surprising under the deftness and tightness of this narrative. The plot itself is certainly 100% melodrama but it never feels like a soap opera and is never ever soapy in in a pejorative sense because it handles its classic tropes with such maturity and nuance that it's like you've never seen them before. The writing is incredible.

It is on an entirely different level than the vast majority of dramas, with a total self-assurance that keeps the pacing relentless yet unhurried- taking its time to let the impact of events be felt, the narrative always knowing exactly where it’s going and how to get there. The characters are all multi-faceted and unpredictable without ever being incoherent, their motives and goals always being gradually uncovered in more detail that only makes the storytelling and characterisation even tighter, even richer. The twists and cliffhangers are always mind-blowing but always earned, never cheap or nonsensical, and I can't remember ever thinking that about another show. (There’s literally one exception towards the very end where something a bit random happens for reasons of pure symbolism- it’s a misstep imo but it’s minor in the scheme of things)

Every time I started to doubt the writing, started to think ‘oh no, they’re going off the rails’, they showed me I was wrong and they were in total control. The only 'problem' with the show is that the drama is also profoundly painful to watch unfold, particularly in the beginning, because it's a story where everyone makes terrible life choices and moral corruption is everywhere. It's hypnotic though, like a car crash. If you can handle something dark, insidious, cerebral, and character-driven there is nothing I've seen in the same vein that can approach its brilliance. It’s like The Magnificent Ambersons as a slick modern revenge drama. There is also (PRECIOUSLY!!) a core of stunning romanticism around which all the horrors revolve and that saves it from becoming hideous or cynical. There is a chance for redemption and a new beginning after all, in spite of all appearances.

The ending has apparently been controversial, and it is definitely not quite as climatic as you would have expected given how powerfully climatic almost every regular episode is, but it's a good ending. There isn't full closure, they don't provide final resolution in a bow, but to me it's an ending about hope. It suggests optimism for our characters and I was satisfied with that. It's extremely rare for a 'revenge story’ to allow this kind of room for healing and it can do that because, imo, we discover in the end that it wasn't ultimately vengeance in Pil Joo’s heart. He has not become a tragic hero who will be consumed by the cannibalistic darkness of revenge, his quest was for justice. He teeters on the edge of the abyss but he avoided falling in; he didn't sell his soul, at least not irrevocably.

He is nonetheless a very tragic figure and an anti-hero, but despite having dedicated his life to bringing down the Jang cabal, it’s not that he’ll stop at nothing. He will make any personal sacrifice no matter how desolate, he lives as a mere husk of a man, and he facilitates enormous emotional harm to others in service of his goals, but he has ethical hard lines he never considers crossing. His sense of decency and compassion is never extinguished; he does care about the collateral damage he is causing even when making justifications for it. It’s important to him to give people as much agency as possible in their choices, to mitigate the damage done by his schemes as much as he can. To try to prevent harm coming to undeserving bystanders. Not that this makes it okay that he uses people, which he does, but the point is he never completely surrenders his moral compass to avarice. He’s never okay with burning down the world or ruining innocent lives just to get to his target.

Pil Joo is less a vigilante and more an avenging angel, he wants justice more than retribution. He wants fairness and a better, safer world where what has happened to his family won’t happen again. The reason this story never becomes Sweeney Todd (aka: a full on tragedy where we see the inevitable outcome of lust for revenge) and the reason he can survive twenty years spent pursuing someone’s downfall is exactly that principle. Searching for retribution would have destroyed him, he would have become the very thing he hated, but instead he goes as far as necessary to publicly expose the Jangs for what they are and then willingly submits to penance for his complicity in their crimes and tries to atone with the people he hurt along the way. Purged, he’s symbolically reborn and takes back his real name to maybe finally have a chance at the life he should have had. He moves on, content, a positive force. He’s capable of healing from the ordeal because he realises he doesn’t need retaliation, just seeing them stopped and facing consequences for their actions is enough.

The love story is a superbly poignant part of this. Their love is the ‘victim’ of his revenge and it will forever be impacted by it, but it’s not something that can be killed, so there’s still hope. Mo Hyeon’s bookending rescues of Pil Joo from death mean first that he has a purpose he must fulfil and then the second time that he has freedom to finally live as himself, for himself. There’s a future. And maybe they can be together there. I’m emo about it.

Anyway, if there was the slightest doubt about me becoming a long-term Jang Hyuk fangirl, it’s been put to rest. This performance is easily one of the best I’ve ever seen, period. No contest it’s the best I’ve seen in a tv drama. It’s also the most subtle and masterful turn he's delivered in his whole career. He's so restrained, but he is giving absolutely everything; he has total control over every microexpression, every gesture, every molecule in his body. There is so much simmering under his surface, so much going on in his eyes; the layers and depths are endless. The intensity and sharp intellectual focus he brings to the character is breathtaking. Everyone else is doing amazing work too, but he is almost constantly on screen and has this spectacular command of such a sprawling story, such a complex character, and he makes it look effortless. All artifice has melted away. The fact that being so tightly contained is in stark contrast to the bombastic element in many of his other roles renders its delicate precision even more startlingly impressive. I thought he was a great actor before, but I didn’t fully appreciate what he was capable of until Pil Joo.

#money flower #kdrama #writing #jang hyuk #long post #I've written a bit before about revenge and how it will inevitably lead to tragedy #so I wouldn't without explanation even call MF a 'revenge drama' because it turns out it's a complicated yet beautiful 'hope' drama lmao #it's actually a 'romance' in the Shakespearean sense #like the Winter's Tale #I guess we just call that 'tragicomedy' now but I don't find that word very helpful or descriptive #I don't think anyone actually know what you mean when you say that #anyway the first writing that is every bit as good as the production/acting side I've seen in what feels like forever #I just feel like everything is great characters in a mess of a story or brilliant performances elevating a bad script or good start-bad end #like no one knows what they're doing any more or why #but this show is incredible #it's only not perfect because the last four episodes are not up to what you'd expect for the rest but they are still really good #just not perfect #the last episode has problems but they're not with the concept of the ending at all- the concept IS perfect #and apparently I'm the only one who thinks that lol #apparently a lot of people did not understand what was happening and some misread it as a dream sequence #(this is an insane take to me- it's really not confusing or ambiguous at all)#(bc God forbid the main character not die and have a chance to heal after his absolutely miserable life?)#but yeah it's the only time anything feels rushed or not quite smooth #and one major character's fate isn't as satisfying as it could be #but I felt like I was never going to see something as engrossing as this again for a while there #anyway anyway NEW OTP #I didn't even get into it because no one cares about my giant rant here but it's SO traditional while being VERY different idk #the romanticism was so unexpected in a show that seems like it's going to be intensely cynical- it's handled with such gravitas #romance with gravitas is PRICELESS to me #the best swerve ever is for a show to NOT be cynical when it seemed so dark- that's a plot twist I can get behind

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teriwrites · 4 years ago

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2020 Writing Wrap-Up

Something that I do every year on the 1st is go back through absolutely everything I’ve written throughout the previous year and compile it into one massive word document. Everything from outlining notes to unfinished short stories to my NaNo project wind up in that file, where I like to read back and reflect on what I’ve gotten done through the year.

Every year, I end up having written more than I expected, and this year was no different!

Total for 2020: 203,119!

This is the first recorded year (I think it’s year 4 that I’ve done this for?) in which I’ve cracked 200K! It’s also the first year I’ve ever actually followed through on my resolution to share some of my writing online! So as rough as 2020 has been, I still somehow managed to break some personal records in writing. Which probably has everything to do with the fact that I joined this community earlier this year, and it’s been incredibly encouraging and supportive!

I also branched out a bit more this year in a few ways. I worked on some poetry and prose, which is not something I’ve put a lot of time into before so tends to be a challenge. It’s nothing that I’ll be posting anytime soon, but it was fun to work on in the moment, which is especially important in such a wild year as 2020.

One snag that I definitely hit was the fact that I have a lot more unfinished work than most years. A majority of the short stories I started working on never got finished. But I can’t even be too upset about that, because I totally loved being able to read back on even the fragmented pieces I ended up with. And while I do think a large part of that (for me) is discipline over inspiration, I’m willing to accept that, sometimes, things will remain unfinished. And it’s okay to stop working on them.

My overall focus shifted a bit this year, too, which was interesting. I worked more on longer things than most years - started out the year by finishing my first draft of Castle on the Hill, continued making some edits and reworking its outline, did a large part of Beneath Alder Creek’s first draft in November. Right now, I’m working on what I expect to be a novella by the time I’m done with it. It’s a big contrast to the usual, short and snappy short stories that fill most of my previous wrap-up files. But I still definitely write those sometimes, and it’s nice to be able to try stretching and testing my own boundaries.

This is the part of my wrap-up where I go ham throwing in some of my favorite out-of-context quotes from a variety of different things I’ve worked on. Some of them might be familiar, a lot probably won’t. I’m going to post it beneath the thing so this doesn’t become even more absurdly long!

Some of the ~highlights~ of 2020:

First Thoughts in the Morning: wow the sexual tension between me and the alarm clock right now. Later Reflection: wtf? (a literal note on my notes app that I included because I Cannot remember writing any of this and it made me laugh)

Edriele’s gaze trailed down to the woman’s armor, and her stomach twisted. “Where did you find your attire?” The woman glanced down in surprise, as though she’d forgotten she was wearing it. “It was fitted to me when I gained my ranking. I suppose it draws attention, but after my confrontation at… you mean to ask me whether I’m impersonating a Knight!” “The thought had crossed my mind,” the Sister replied dryly. (novella WIP)

“Do you need to make a stop at your house before we head to the chapel?” Leslie asked as they started off. “What for?” Winnie asked. Leslie looked pointedly at the tip of her galoshes poking out from beneath her dress. With another roll of her eyes, Winnie sighed. “Oh, I suppose so.” (Beneath Alder Creek)

When the third meeting for the Society of the Hidden Immortal Tribe was called for the decade, I knew heads would roll. Gathering the entire society together took months. Everything had to be hush-hush; that was the entire point of spreading ourselves out. Plus, every time a letter arrived in the mail, it was a reminder of the idiot who had decided we needed a name change. Everybody agreed that being deemed the ‘S.H.I.T.’ was humiliating, but nobody could agree on a better title, so it had remained the same for nearly a full century. That was the problem with living forever. You always had more time to make decisions, and, in the end, nothing ever got done. (S.H.I.T.)

When she leaves, I’m not sure I remember a word of what she’s said. But as the stresses of the semester wash back in, and my mind clears like being pulled out of a dream, I suddenly understand how one could crash upon the rocks without realizing they’d ever changed their course. (A Modern Siren)

When Georg arrived later, he found Klaus leaning forwards onto the table, staring vacuously at one of his textbooks. "Studying hard?" he taunted as he approached and dropped into the seat Ingrid had been occupying. "I talked with Ingrid," Klaus explained. Georg's eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise, but he quickly recovered and looked pointedly at Klaus' posture. "Go that well, then?" "She said I'm arrogant and completely self-involved and that I never take what a girl says into account whenever I'm on a date." With a haunted gleam in his eye, Klaus stared up at his friend. "I think she's right." "Well then it's a good thing somebody pointed it out," Georg offered, and he turned to his work. (Castle on the Hill)

Takemoto Hana rested a hand over her face. She couldn’t see the swirling of darkness over her head, but she heard the whine behind its words. With a wry smile, she asked, ‘Do you not know how to brew tea?’ ‘Of course I know how to brew tea!’ The dark spirit’s voice boomed with a defensive defiance that rang false in the funny little woman’s ears. (The Funny Little Woman)

“None of us want to be here right now,” Edgar called out to the hall. “None of us want to go back through the handbook and listen to the steps of proper etiquette in immortality. But it seems that, once again, it’s necessary.” “Dammit, Dave,” muttered the man next to me. I said nothing, but I couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. Dave was… how do I describe Dave? To call him an idiot would be underestimating his craftiness. To call him a genius, I’d have to ignore all of his dumb antics. Cruel was too strong. Misguided was too innocent. Mischievous fit best, but even that fell short. Dave was a trickster god, if ever one existed. (S.H.I.T.)

Ridiculous, he told me with a self-conscious laugh of someone who didn't expect to be believed. I smiled, but I didn't join in. (The Little Roads)

“Hey, where did Alina go?” Lorelai asked. Zoe shrugged, but Jaiden cleared his throat. “I think you crossed one of her boundaries, Lo. She specifically asked not to involve her girlfriend in this, and then you did anyways. I know we needed the help, but friendships have to be built on mutual trust, my dude. You should’ve at least let her know your plan before you went behind her back.” The two women stopped and shared a look. “Hey, Jaiden,” Zoe asked. “Do you know the capital of Canada?” He shook his head. “I dunno, Ontario?” “Amazing.” (Mirror, Mirror)

"We had a bet going over whether you'd make it in time," Hans told him. "Did you win or lose?" Josef replied. Hans flipped a 5-Deutsche Mark coin over to Peter, who grinned as he pocketed it. "I'm glad you have so much faith in me." Josef's voice dripped with sarcasm. (Castle on the Hill)

Taliesin reached over his head and grabbed at one of the low-hanging bows, picking leaves from it. “I’m not sure.” Winnie stopped. “What do you mean?” “I mean that I don’t know.” (Beneath Alder Creek)

While she attended to these, the man beside her began to stir. Ella could see him out of the corner of her eye, attempting to push himself up into a sitting position. ‘You may want to lie back down,’ she told him, scrubbing uselessly at her skirt. The man continued to sit up anyways, pressing a hand against the side of his face. ‘Am I killed?’ ‘No, but your savior may be.’ Ella threw her skirt back to the ground. ‘When the Madame sees the state of me, I’ll be spending my future afternoons off making a new dress out of the fabric scraps.’ A frown crossed the man’s face as he considered her words, followed by a scowl of understanding. ‘You work for them. The bourgeoisie.’ (Cinderella)

Ingrid took the seat and began digging through her bag for a book. As she did so, she explained, "There were no other tables open in the building - even in the quiet section upstairs - so I figured that I would just ask the first person I recognized if I could sit with them, and well... here we are." "Don't worry about it," Georg answered when Klaus found himself dumbstruck again. "Just ignore the oaf, he'll leave you alone." Ingrid shot a grin at Georg, and Klaus suddenly wondered whether it was a good idea to have the two of them sit together. (Castle on the Hill)

Up ahead, I could see the glass walls of the bus stop. Usually, I waited for the bus leaning against the metal frame of the stop, leaving the seats inside open for children on their way to school. But the seats were empty now. I still avoided them. (Flo’s Magical Emporium: The Pandemic)

Now, I ask that you do not feel too much self-pity. For as easy an error as it may be to mistake a visiting aristocrat’s son for the hired help, the true talent in such a display causing his immediate departure lies within you alone. And to think that the meeting was the work of your father’s tenuous sway over the court! Well, I am sure the time away will do him some good, lest you begin to consider that you’ve ruined his position as well as your prospects. (Dearly Detested,)

Edgar was at the front of the lecture hall, and standing beside him was Dave, smirking as though at some private joke that only he was in on. He was wearing sunglasses, despite the dim lighting of the room, probably because he thought he looked cool. I rolled my eyes. What a tool. (S.H.I.T.)

The work is different now. Countryside pathways winding through the forest lie forgotten for years without the familiar steps of a traveler. Off beaten paths in the city are never unknown for long, and sometimes streets that were once crossed by thousands a day fall back into obscurity. (The Little Roads)

“How much time will you give me to think on it?” she asked suspiciously, wrapping her arms around herself as though afraid they’d reach out to him if not kept in check. “You have all the time in the world,” the golden man said. “The boy’s, however, runs out with every passing second.” He extended his hand. (Beneath Alder Creek)

You ever met a rich person? Not comfortably wealthy. Not ‘my Uncle Kenny is a lawyer’ rich. Not even ‘widow answering the door to her manor on a hill dressed in fine silk’ rich. No, I mean proper, so-much-money-you-literally-can’t-spend-it-fast-enough rich. They say it isn’t worth Bill Gates’ time to pick up a $100 bill off the floor because he’ll have earned more in the time it takes to grab it. That kind of rich. They seem to be bred for times like these. Their houses are a source of endless entertainment – movie theaters, bowling alleys, personal gyms with a view of the sprawling landscape they overlook like cruel dictators. There’s no need for them to leave during a pandemic; they have access to the equivalent of a luxury resort most families have to save up month to visit. Necessities can be stockpiled in one of the useless extra spaces in the house. I mean, I once had to hide out in a luggage room for a contract. That’s right. An entire room dedicated to holding luggage, bigger than some of the apartments I’ve rented. I thought their residential labyrinths were my greatest source of grief. But social distancing? I’m one bad contract away from retirement. (Bounty Hunter During a Pandemic)

Shaking his head, Detlef pulled a new sheet from his notebook. “Look, I’m just saying, if we can get the satire right, we can be a modern Jonathan Swift.” “I don’t want to be a modern Jonathan Swift, I want to be a student actually passing his debate course!” Peter snapped. (Castle on the Hill)

Moonlight illuminated the German’s fair hair and pale skin, the effect more malevolent apparition than man. (Face on the Other Side of a Dark Window)

Back then, he’d been known for commissioning the exact same portrait of himself every hundred years, hanging them in a hallway in his manor and trying to pass them off as his line of ancestors to any of the locals. It had been a far less skeptical age, and Dave had earned himself a small band of worshipers before Jeff Goldblum himself had been forced to intervene. (S.H.I.T.)

Clara stood before the board of advisors assisting with her thesis. She was one, very intense paper away from her M.A., and she wasn’t about to risk it all by being too proud to ask for help. When she’d made the appointment to meet with them, she expected a series of questions surrounding her topic. Instead, they’d opened by offering her a job. “You want me to steal from the school?” Dr. Pye wrinkled her nose at the suggestion. Next to her, Dr. Pritchard said, “Don’t think of it as theft, dear. It’s merely redistribution.” Clara hadn’t amassed tens of thousands of dollars in debt to be lectured on the definition of robbery. “Either way, it involves me sneaking into the Chemistry department and taking a huge risk to get you some new toys to play with.” (Origins: The Ghost)

“Why is undermining Pryderi so important to Queen Ceridwen that she would risk breaking a timeless alliance just to dismantle them?” Her stomach twisted into a knot, protesting against the answer. “There are few members of the Dusk Court that we know by title.” A shadow passed over Enid’s expression. “The Lord of the Undernell is second only to the Queen.” “Great deeds build the reputation of one in their own court. Cruelty builds it in both.” Taliesin buckled under Winnie’s weight as she suddenly leaned against him. (Beneath Alder Creek)

“Why are all my friends so quick to endanger themselves?” I muttered as I packed up Midas’ crate. Natalie swiveled around from the candy aisle. “So you’re finally willing to admit that we’re friends?” “Save it.” (Flo’s Magical Emporium: The Pandemic)

#writeblr #writing #my writing #writers of tumblr #teriwrites #writing wrap-up 2020 #my wips #I forgot just how much I missed my boys from CotH until I was reading through it #wow I would die for those funky little dudes #also feel free to ask about anything for some extra context since I've never talked about half of these projects #anyways that's all folks

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apenitentialprayer · 4 years ago

Photo

Bishop Hassan Dehqani-Tafti (bottom left), with his wife (Margaret, bottom right), and children (daughters Shirin, Sussanne, and Guli; son Bahram). Source. The Right Reverend was the first ethnic Persian to hold to office of Bishop of Iran in the Anglican Church. Dehqani-Tafti was technically a convert to the faith, but Christianity was an interwoven element in his life from before his birth. A gradual process, Dehqani-Tafti’s conversion highlights how blurred the lines Christianity and Islam can be. The outline of this relationship, given below the cut, is derived from the doctoral thesis of Sister Agnes Angela Wilkins, “From Islam to Christianity: A Study in the Life and Thought of Hassan Dehqani-Tafti and Jean-Mohammed Abd-El-Jalil in the Ongoing Search for a Deeper Understanding Between Christianity and Islam,” itself heavily reliant on the Right Reverend’s autobiography.

Childhood and Education

Hassan was the son of Mohammad, an illiterate but pious Muslim, and Sekinah. Sekinah, the daughter of a ‘Mulla Zahra,’ who received that honorary title for being able to read and recite the Qur’an, was a convert to Christianity. She had worked as a nurse with her mother in a missionary hospital, and it was there that she decided to be baptized. She also learned to read and write. After being married to Mohammad, she had three children, the middle one being Hassan. For the first five years of his life, Hassan, despite being raised a Shi‘a Muslim, remembers visits from the missionaries and singing songs with Biblical themes. This changed after his mother died, when he was about five years old. Before her death, Sekinah had requested that a friend of hers help raise at least one of her children to be Christian; this friend, a Ms. Kingdon, spent about a year and a half trying to convince his father to allow it. Ultimately, the boy was allowed, spending about a year in an otherwise all-girls school. There, he learned The Lord’s Prayer and memorized a few psalms, in addition to learning the Persian alphabet. Once he beeccame too old to stay at an all-girl’s school, the boy was sent to a missionary school in the former Safavid capital of Isfahan. It was there that he studied calligraphy, poetry, and Scriptures under the headmaster Jalil Aqa. Jalil Aqa was of Cossack descent, but had fully integrated into the Persian culture of his upbringing. As a young man, he was a Sunni Muslim, but with a strong mystical bend. He converted to Christianity through conversations about the relationship between Christ and the body of believers with missionaries at a hospital. Jalil Aqa represented a kind of Christianity that “digested the best of Persian culture, and then had baptized the whole into [itself].” Nonetheless, the young Hassan would oscillate between the Christianity of his schooling and the Islam of his family life. By the time he was 15, his father wavered over whether he should continue to allow his son to go to school, but ultimately allowed him to; by 17, Hassan had written a list of 77 resolutions he wished to follow; by 18, he was a baptized Christian. Many friends no longer spoke to him, he could no longer eat from the same bowl as his family, and contact with him made his loved ones ritually impure. His father described watching his son convert to Christianity as akin to having his hand cut off.

Crisis

The first few years after baptism were relatively easy. He attended the University of Tehran as a closeted Christian. Most students were more interested in secular philosophy and Western culture to really care anyway, but a couple people that he did tell were supportive or disgusted. When he had to join military service, he had to out himself, and was dismissed by his superior for being untrustworthy for having apostasized from Islam. Problems arose, however, when he considered ordination. His military service had given him a good salary, and his family -who also did not like the idea of the social suicide he would undergo as a pastor- attempted to convince him to remain there. Instead, the local missionaries encouraged him to go to Cambridge University, where he felt a loneliness he had never felt before. He began to resent God for his mother’s death, blame the missionaries for the widening gap between himself and his family, and even consider suicide. This crisis was resolved through forming a relationship with Bishop Stephen Neill, who seems to have taken on a fatherly role to him. Although they only met in person six times, the two would continue to correspond through letters. It is around this time that Hassan developed a strong attachment to the Book of Job, and felt a calling to a deeper sort of repentance, a total reorientation of his life. Though offered a job at Cambridge, he wanted to continue his ministry in his home country.

Returning to Iran

Though he was frequently visited by the Detective Bureau of Police, an frequently dealt with minor harassment, the early years of Hassan’s return were happy ones. In 1949 he was ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church (an organization whose theological leanings Kingdon did not approve of, though she was happy for him). In 1950, he was made a priest, and in 1952 he married the daughter of the current Bishop of Iran (Margaret, pictured above). In 1960, he was consecrated the Bishop of Iran. Hassan’s father died in 1970, and his attempt to attend the funeral only highlighted how large the rift between his family and himself had become. His brother did not want him there, and a group of mullahs refused to let him enter, forcing him to pray for his father outside the mosque. The growth that the Anglican Church in Iran would experience, including the establishment of more hospitals and programs to help make the blind community more self-sufficient, was reversed in the early weeks of the Revolution. Although the land that the hospitals were built on was waaf, a semi-sacred gift under Islamic law, they were seized by Revolutionaries after a senior priest was murdered. His house was ransacked, and threatening messages sent to his house. The anxiety and stress left him bedridden for three weeks. During this time, he decided that taqiyya, pretending to assimilate into the larger religious majority, could not be a strategy for the threatened Christian community: “Christ was almost ruthless about being and showing who you are.” Hassan found inspiration from the life of Saint Thomas Moore, an English Catholic who was killed for refusing to renounce his faith during the Anglican Reformation, and attributed his recovery to a “new infilling of the love of God.” If he were to be killed, then he would be killed; “The important thing is to continue God's work with utmost loyalty to the end.” This was a good attitude to have, because he was soon arrested and interrogated for access to a diocesan bank account. He was forced to stay in a yard where public executions by firing squad happened, he was brought to a revolutionary court, and was the victim of an assassination attempt - an attempt that ended with his wife being shot in the hand after she threw herself in front of him. The two were ultimately sent to Cyprus, with the hope of reuniting with their family. Unforunately, the situation in Iran became too much, and after his son was assassinated (an act that Hassan forgave the killers for), the family was permanently moved to England.

A Persian Christian

The nineteen year exile that lasted from 1979 to his death was very hard on Hassan. The Bishop of Iran was an Iranian who loved his country and his culture. In the early years of his bishopric, he had worked with thinkers like Kenneth Cragg in an attempt to reconcile his Islamic Persian heritage with his Christian faith. In his writings, Dehqani-Tafti wrote for a mixed Christian and Muslim audience. His largest influence in the formation of his faith was a man who did not see Christianity as something at odds with Persian culture. The name of Dehqani-Tafti’s memoir, The Unfolding Design of My World, is a reference to the Naqsh-i-Jahan (Design of the World) Square, a prominent landmark in his beloved Isfahan. His gravestone has a Persian translation of Ephesians 2:19 (“So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God”) engraved onto it. His pectoral cross has been returned to Iran, where it is displayed in the Isfahan church he spent so much time in.

#figures of note #Anglicanism #Christianity #Hassan Dehqani Tafti #conversion #Islam

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juleswolverton-hyde · 5 years ago

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Confessions of a Coffee-Eater | 01

Genre: Smut, College/University AU

Pairing: Student!/Poet!Namjoon xStudent!/Poet!

Warnings: Public male masturbation, sub!Namjoon, allusion to smoking and poverty, swearing/cussing

Summary: It is in hard times beautiful things can occur and the addiction of primal instincts be suppressed in their proximity. However, when two souls from different social worlds meet in a poetry class, any former urges gain a new direction.

Some of which are sensual in emotion.

And may not be reciprocated.

Masterlist

Next part

Not everything starts off smoothly, time occupying more of the mind than the designated task or destination. Students tend to deal with this occurrence more often than it would like to be admitted, especially on the first day of the new academic year when everyone has the silent resolution to begin with a clean slate. Withal, there remain some who, nevertheless, manage to sneak into the classroom as the introductions have almost come to an end and thus go from being an absent first to a present last.

Hence is why regardless of the few remaining students introducing themselves all eyes in the vast yet bare space shift to the tall man entering the room in a wake of smoke and cologne. It is not unlikely to think they are as intimidated by the painted canvas on well-defined arms as the girl sitting right next to them after furiously wishing to be left alone, the desire denied as it is the sole empty chair left.

Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact.

Nevertheless, the thought does not mean a glance at the artwork covering alluring honey-toned skin cannot be stolen. And the gained treasure is the sight of an intricate tribal design flowing over from bright turquoise into sleek black on the left arm and a Victorian clockwork overlapping with a nautical map and a compass, the former element stopping at the wrist after peeking out underneath a feather. That is all that can be picked up on from the side.

But almond eyes immediately sneakily take revenge by also looking at a source of interest for it is the natural thing for an individual to estimate the nearest person when being in an alien environment without a point of support consisting of friends. Unfortunately, each of them from private personal circles has chosen a different direction within the study, none of them daring to take on or simply interested in poetry.

‘And who might you be?’ The round of rapid-fire introductions ends at the newcomer, who flinches as if waking up from a dream with the heavily blushing cheeks of a crumpled composure.

Which are mirrored in the flustered expression of an embarrassed heart futilely trying to cover up the chest area more by means of pulling up the slightly see-through white loose top thinly striped with lines of black. Regardless of the attempt, the pastel pink push-up bra decorated with a beautiful flower pattern in onyx remains visible very much so from above and a tad less from the front. Thus, when realizing the uselessness of the endeavour, the worry of coming across as an indecent person increases as now not only the professor is taken into account but the still nameless newcomer as well.

‘Oh, ehm, I’m- I’m Namjoon, an exchange student from Dongguk University.’ Eyebrows rise at the baritone voice trying to speak in a composed manner, miraculously managing to do so to a fair degree though fiddling fingers give away the surprise of suddenly being called to attention. Oddly, a thought pops up which almost encourages hands into action to calm tanned nervous ones but just in time can they be lowered into the lap while watching the speaker politely. ‘As for poetry, I believe it’s an expression of a person’s mind. However, this also means they are puzzles to be solved because a thought is chaotic and can have a double meaning.’

‘Very well. It’s funny you should mention poems being like puzzles. My son is currently in high school, also studying poetry and he and I had a conversation about it recently. He could not for the life of him figure out what any poem meant and was astounded I do this for a living. But, as any fifteen-years-old with a literature professor for a father, he wants to become a game designer.’ Chuckling arises in the classroom at the enthusiastically told analogy and all tenseness disappears thanks to the dry humour of the resident Manchester man. At the same time, eyes which swiftly avoided each other find one another again only to repeat the rapid break of contact, those of the too-exposed girl wavering instantly after strangely wanting to make sure Namjoon is more at ease like the others. Why the deep-voiced man looks back with the intention - if there is any intention at all - to lock gazes instead of, fortunately, accidentally letting focus wander lower to bared skin, shall remain a mystery.

For blushing cheeks to never unravel.

Get yourself together, Y/N. I don’t know him and he’s clearly more interested in my chest than myself. Although... just now he looked at me. And he’s kinda adorable. And handsome. No, no, no! Jesus, what am I thinking?

Professor Brown happily continues, pacing the room. ‘But if we think about encoding and poetry, they are similar on the grounds they are both, indeed, essentially the same in the manner they are carefully composed in order to work.’ Steps halt in the middle of the space, academic sight switching from one face to the next as hands fold behind the back clad in a neat black jacket. ‘There is something I would like to ask you. Does any of you write poetry?’

The majority of the students' palms rise in response, including one of which the arm is decorated as if by a traveller of old and one which finds purpose after being mentally prevented from ridiculously serving as a means of soothing. This risen pair does not go unnoticed by the minds which control them, the air in the narrow space between bodies filled with silent curiosity pertaining to the written work. The possible style, the possible words, the possible message.

The possibility to hear it being spoken.

The possibility to connect.

But neither says anything, focusing intently on the empty pages of the notebooks lying on the elongated table and clumsily fiddling with pens between fingers. Notwithstanding, every move is carefully composed to not make a wrong impression, both parties trying to prove a point which is supposed to be interpreted without any double meanings. Certainly so when rejoining each other’s company at the end of a swift ten-minute-break to allow room for breathing something else other than poetry in four hours dedicated to it.

Nevertheless, it cannot be helped but let shoulders relax when smelling nicotine mixed with sharp cologne and sensing two intricate paintings in contrasting styles settle on the empty chair again. It can even be admitted the presence is liked, certainly when from peripheral vision perceived americano irises follow the movements of the pen noting down a random lyrical thought.

And thighs have to clench together in slight awkwardness when unconsciously sensing them looking away swiftly after likely having been distracted anew by the revelation of the shirt that does not want to stay in place. However, the emotion changes when remarking upon an almost anticipating shiver disturbing the fairly intimidating man’s aura as knees accidentally touch.

Panic.

But something undefinable and incomprehensible forms its undertone.

‘I’m sorry.’ Clenching the jaw, the contact is immediately made undone by crossing legs and focusing on the penning down each poem, any poem that comes to mind.

But nothing appears at hearing the shy stumbling over words, picturing all too well how Namjoon’s face is adorably flushed with timidity. ‘Ah, i- it’s- doesn’t matter.’

Which only worsens the uncomfortableness of a consciousness slowly turning corrupted as the long hours of the seminar pass, wondering what lies at the heart of the cause to behave so jittery and rush out of the door to smoke. Wondering is the wrong choice of words for it are more sensual ungrounded fantasies which rise one by one while listening to the flustered ocean deep voice answering a question here and there.

Fancying how it would sound when being completely controlled by the girl keeping up an innocent façade.

Me.

God-fucking-dammit, focus on class and not your own perverted imaginations. You’re here to learn, not to lose control like this.

This warning spins around a chaotic mind at least every quarter of an hour, swirling among the perversion and bringing common sense back for perhaps a good ten minutes before either Namjoon’s voice is heard or a glance is thrown in the man’s direction. Then the whole circus starts anew without hope of redemption.

Henceforth, it comes as a relief when the class is over at last and everyone packs their things to rush to the nearest bus station to make it home.

The first to disappear are arms made of ink and smoke.

Restraint is one of humankind’s most difficult issues to face on a daily basis, seeking refuge in what brings tranquility to a tempted consciousness. Withal, the nicotine purchased with the little money put aside from working the night shift at a nearby gas station did not help erase the vivid memory of pastel pink embroidered by lace as black as night. If anything, it was all in vain as the confrontation with it happened as soon as walking back into the room to which all of us are confined for four hours once a week.

Igniting a type of hunger which has not been felt towards any other girl in Korea, too busy working the same job as now to help make ends meet and send the little brother with big aspirations to high school because the sibling deserves a proper educational basis as well. Hence is why there was no room for letting attention stray towards anything but the means necessary to help pay for the rent.

Three people could barely manage to bring it up each month. But out here on foreign soil and alone, being kicked out of the rented place nearby the university is not so much a surprise. Fortunately, the boss does not come in until seven in the morning which allows for two hours of sleep before packing up the makeshift bed consisting of a jacket for a mattress and rucksack for a pillow. It is difficult, but hardship is inevitable for those who are seen as pariahs, the people who do not fit the norm in one way or another.

Yet, strangely, Y/N - the name glanced from the improvised name tags the professor asked to be made to make it easier for everyone - was not as tense as the rest of the students. In fact, intrigued is perhaps the best description to give the overall attitude of the girl caught occasionally glancing sideways.

I did fuck up great time, though. Why did I stare at her boobs?

The painful twitch below that had to be awkwardly shielded against all the eyes of the room, certainly the pair of newly met ones on the adjacent chair for they are the cause, makes the memory of flesh resurface as a rapid turn is made towards the abandoned unisex restroom. Swiftly, the lock to the tiny space is turned.

Alone.

God, I really blew my chances with her. I should apologize.

The phantom of touching knees makes lashes flutter shut and teeth bite down on the bottom lip as a hand brushes over tight grey denim.

Obsidian with a pearl undertone.

A cute black bow from which a small diamond dangles between breasts.

‘She’s so pretty.’ A squeeze sends the mind reeling further away from sanity, recalling the warm scent reminiscent of the autumn which hangs in the air. Wild berries, dark plum and bergamot.

Her.

‘I could be so good to you. For you.’ Tanned fingers barely possessing a sliver of logic undo the zipper concealing heated hurt, firmly enveloping the source for distraction when slipping past the rim of plain grey boxers. To suppress any sound, their counterparts fold over the mouth on the brink of falling into whimpering submission, trembling like during the seminar in the sudden craving to be touched.

By Y/N.

If only I’d push my thigh a bit more to the side, she’d have caught on. What am I thinking? You’d never do that.

After all, what does have a poor man from Ilsan to offer to a foreign woman who is better off without an outcast glued to her? Moreover, there are financial priorities that have to be taken care of and it is highly improbable there is a willingness to help a wretched soul out of the gutter with money.

She does not know me.

I do not know her.

We are strangers.

But lovers in this fantasized instance, having pretty small hands replace clumsy desperate ones as ears naturally attune to the echo of what little has been heard from a charming voice. Howbeit, it is speaking in a sweetened tone furiously wished to ever be heard truly in private. ‘Namjoonie, why didn’t you tell me you were so needy?’

‘I- I didn’t want t- to- we’ve just met and- and- fuck~’ The curse comes out on a breathless whimper as the chin is flicked up to gain access to the neck, glossy lips kissing the warm skin at random as the thumb circles the heavily leaking part of corrupted fancy.

‘If I’d known you’d be submissive like this, I’d done this to you sooner. You wanted to grab my hand earlier, didn’t you? Place it in your lap to rut against during the rest of the seminar?’ A cheeky grin chisels itself onto the coy mistress’s delighted expression at the unashamed nodding confirming the intention dismissed in the last second after the second smoking break. ‘Make sure I know what I do to you? Who would have thought that such a big buff tattooed boy,’ a whine falls into an appreciative growl when the stimulating palm tightens its hold significantly, the reaction eliciting a chastising click of the tongue, ‘would be such a mess. So cute, all submissive.’

‘O- only for you.’ Hips snap in time with the movements below, aching for release from the building tightening in the lower stomach. Breath comes at a greater difficulty as speech becomes harder to manage as well, feeling too heated to think properly and dwindling further and further into the urge to please the one who ignites a sense of safety. ‘Wan- Wanna be goo- ngh, ah, ehm, b- be good for you.’

‘As you should be as my baby boy.’ Y/N stands on the tippy toes of obsidian and alabaster Puma sneakers, arms suggestively snaking around the back of the neck and nails digging wonderfully into skin when whispering. ‘If you actually do grab my hand next time in class to rut against, I’ll jerk you off under the table but make you cry in overstimulation for being impatient. Am I understood?’

‘Y- Yes, M- Miss.’

‘That’s what I like to hear.’

‘C- Can I- Need to- shit!’ All attention of action shifts wholly to the most sensitive part, erasing every last sliver of sense while barely refraining from coming undone without permission. ‘Plea- Please, ah, ah, Miss, m- may I!’

However, the request remains unfinished as the stimulation becomes too much to handle and the world is sucked away into pleasant nothingness, taking fantasy along and leaving a poor man from Ilsan alone in perverted satisfied warmth.

Together in an imaginary self-made world.

Alone in a bathroom in reality.

Stained in more ways than with solely thick ivory.

Yet having to say sorry.

#hyunglinenetwork #thekimlinenet #ksmutclub #BTS #BTS smut #BTS x Reader #Namjoon #RM #Kim Namjoon #Joon #Confessions of a Coffee-Eater

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ro-mantik · 5 years ago

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[Chapter 60] Years upon years

A foreword PSA of sorts -- my posting frequency has been abysmal over the last year and a half, so thank you to those kind people who continue to follow (or perhaps just let me rest and gather dust in your “following” lists) and those new faces who have clicked on my blog in recent months.

Thank you. Truly.

---

I’m not really one to make New Year’s resolutions (maybe that means I lack resolve), but here are some observations as we reach both the end of 2019 (conclusive) and the decade (debatable but an annoying debate).

(1) If you’re a long-time follower of this blog, then you’ll know that the concept of time, as a force, fascinates me. I love visualizing time as a river--eroding, influencing, shifting the very landscape of our lives. Time, with a relentless pull or drag not unlike gravity, has the ability to distort perception, change memory, and, ultimately, affect how we choose to live.

What’s also powerful is the concept of time as a resource and the impact that “free time” has on one’s own vitality.

I’ve learned this year that having time for myself and to myself is tantamount to breathing. If anything, working in an environment where time was never my own became a suffocating experiment. Being able to sit here and type this post is a wonderful privilege, courtesy of time.

Reader, your time is precious. Use it with caution and care.

(2) This blog’s changed greatly since its inception. From Rupi Kaur-esque attempts at poetry to some writing of which I’m fairly proud, it’s apparent how much I’ve changed over the past 7(!) years that this blog has been alive.

I’ve decided not use the word, “grown,” because life, at this point, feels less linear than it does amorphous.

Sure, time continues to march forward--aging is a relatively straightforward concept (see (1)). But, #adulting, is certainly no longer akin to the tiered scavenger hunt that was academic life. Gone are the stages and accomplishments of exams, semesters, internships, and jobs. For now, we just float in the proverbial pond, jumping from lily pad to lily pad, until we get offed by the predator known as death (further digression: it is increasingly disturbing to me when I read about people dying and then those people are identified as 28 year old’s or younger).

I digress, but what I am trying to say is that I’m happy to have kept this capsule of memories through the years. Writing was, and continues to be, a place of solace for me.

It’s funny because when I’m with friends that I met through Tumblr, we always remark about the “death of gaysian writer tumblrs.” We’re being dramatic, but certainly, it’s a different place from way back then (NSFW content ban, included). Many of us have moved on with our lives, and for the dusty blogs that remain, they’re simply snapshots of the past.

Here’s to writing and choosing to sit with my thoughts. Memories, memories. They’re powerful things.

(3) The 2020s loom, and already things appear to be thornier and more difficult to navigate than originally anticipated.

Let’s just say, Mother Life has conspired with Lady Time, and they both continue to keep me on my toes.

I have no adages or aphorisms for you, dear Reader, because I, too, have no idea what is coming next. A couple of years ago, this may have given me great anxiety and distress. These days, I’ve learned to give fewer fucks. That said, the unknown isn’t a fun place to be.

Perhaps through character building or, more likely, the weathering down of my will, I’ve learned to be more flexible in life. Rigidity sows dissonance sows anxiety sows stress sows aging sows death (see (1) and (2)). It’s better to just accept the things as they come, as they are, for life is too short to always battle when things aren’t in alignment with expectations, ideals, desires.

Sometimes we lose more by refusing to lose (I guess I did have an aphorism).

---

Reading has been my other place of solace. I didn’t seek it as often this year, but some books to share (in no particular order):

- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino - Bloom by Kevin Panetta - On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong - The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg

---

Happy 2020 to you~

#chapters #reflections #writing #gaysian #happy new year

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ghostsofmemories · 5 years ago

Note

What piece have you written that you're most proud of?

I’ve written a couple poems I really love, which I’ll put under the cut because I don’t want to be obnoxious, but the one I’m the most proud of to this day is The Universe In You (that’s a link to the Tumblr post with the poem), which I wrote several months ago and actually won some contests with. Unfortunately, none of them got me any money, but I do have my biggest contest with this poem coming up where I actually have to show up in person and read it in front of an audience for a chance at scholarship money. I never did show it to the person who I wrote it about, which is kind of easy to understand once you read it. Here are a couple others I’m a little proud of:

I think this is the only one in another post, titled Children Like Melting Pots. I love it because it was one of the only poems I wrote that included not only my fear of being like my parents, but that my parents will be like each other. It also ended with an actual resolution where I realize I am my own person. Also, I love the title.

- - -

Origin:

My hometown.Every corner of every streetHolds a memory for me.A pair of shoes hanging from the skyFor three Thanksgivings.

Born here,Raised here,I was nearly buried here,Everything about meTraces backAnd backTo the poorly kept up park,To the woodland’s hidden hills,To the trees with our names carved deep,To the water,To the street,Climbing hills with bare feetAnd hand-me-down sweaters.

This town.The only roads I truly know,The only place I want to goBack to.You know I can’t stay,But you do know I love you.

My hometown.Every corner of every street,I walked it all with aching feet,A pair of shoes hanging from the skyFor six Thanksgivings.

I love this poem because I feel like it’s the only way I can truly express where I grew up and my love for that place. I wouldn’t ever want to live there again because of all the pain I experienced there, but I’ll always miss it and it’ll always be my home. Additionally, there’s a family joke in here from when my cousin threw a pair of shoes up at the powerlines on Thanksgiving years and years ago, and they’re still there. This one is also entered in the contest!

- - -

I didn’t steal anything, I swear.

I am nothing if not clayIn the hands of the world—In the hands of a universe.Mold me,Shape me,Write meLike the stories of thoseJust like meThat they never got the chance to tellBecause they were cut short.Because they were cut open,Words and blood falling outOf their bodies,Unfiltered yet unspoken.An illegal love forAnother womanWho knew it would kill her?Who knew it would hurt so muchTo exist?She was born like this,And yet she will pay for itAs if it were a pair of sunglassesFrom a department store - a stolen kissAnd not the love of her life.I am nothing if not clayBut make no mistake,I will write this story with every acheThat I feel for the people like me.

I wrote this poem after I had finally gotten over a lot of my internalized homophobia, and I spent a year coming back to it and changing things. Probably my most edited poem of all time.

- - -

A Portrait

How do you Capture such beauty?With paint, with pens, with poetry?It’s just so impossibleMy problem? Unsolvable.But I try to make something you’ll see.

I’ve tried and I’ve triedTo draw or describeThe way that you make me feel.But despite what I do,My portrait of youWill only continue to fail.

Paint and paper just Don’t seem to fit you,I can’t put all my love in one piece.So I’ll pick a lyric,And I’ll let you hear it,And then I’ll paint that, at least.

My words come up shortEvery damn time,And most disappear when I blink.Spoken or written,Whatever I’ve givenIs half of what I truly think.

You’re far too infiniteFor someone like meTo capture in something so small.You’re far too expansiveFor this dopey romantic,I just don’t have a catch-all.

Poem and picture,Rhyme after rhyme,Hoping to get it all down.But I never run out ofWords for you, love,I can only pray to get decent ones out.

This poem is sometimes very hard to look back on because it’s from not only the happiest part of my relationship, but the happiest part of my life. I wrote it in July of 2019, and in several of my other poems from my collection I reference July. “Starry nights under a July sky,” and “Every time I see you smile / I’m reminded of July / And I’m reminded of who I used to be.” It also has a very specific rhyme scheme and took me a very, very long time to write.

Tired-Eyed Girl (The Homecoming Poem)

This particular poem isn’t one I’m comfortable sharing on a platform that the person I wrote it about also uses and follows me on, and having it in my collection makes me anxious enough. This poem has several references to poems my ex wrote about me, specifically one called Teary-Eyed Girl and another one called Tiger Lily, and it’s basically me being confused after being asked to homecoming, then un-asked, and then spending that night together anyway but not in a romantic context. It talks about the hurt of being completely abandoned in a romantic relationship, but that person still being your best friend. Basically, taking what you can get. I’m proud of it but reading it also makes me cry every time.

- - -

Hers

She holds the sun,She’s walked the moon.The world’s in the palm of her hands.

She owns the night,She swims in the stars,And her world is made of silkThat you’ll never touch.

It’s too good to be true.She’s too good for you.Even if you could win,You’d try not to.

She rules the world,And you live a lie.And no matter how much you do for her,She won’t even try.

You’ll give up your whole lifeFor a girl and a knife?

Bend to her will and her way;She rules the world, she saves the dayDon’t see the little things she does that hurt.

You’re nothing,You are nothing,

If not hers.

I wanted to include this one so it could be in writing somewhere on the internets before my collection gets published next year. This poem is not about my ex. First of all, my ex is not a girl. Secondly, my ex was never this toxic. There may have been what felt like power imbalances at times, but those were never taken advantage of and this poem isn’t about that. It’s about toxic friendships, and doing what people say because you’re not sure what else to do. Maybe you aren’t being threatened, but you don’t have anywhere else to go, either.

- - -

Red, Like You

To be perfectly honest,I didn’t used to like red.But when you became so incredibly adamantThat red was the greatest color,I saw it in a whole new way.

Red is different now.It’s no longer the color of blood,Of anger,Of pain.

Red is love.Red is excitement.Red is the color I turn Every time you use that smile.Red is you.

I don’t even know if this countsAs poetry.There’s no rhythm, no rhyme, nothing.Just thoughts in verse.Just thoughts that burn.Just simple wordsThat never workQuite how I want.You’re all I want.

I find in youThe most essential type of beauty.The primary red.I used to think I was blue.Blue because I don’t even know why.But you told me I was grayAnd it all made sense.The contrast feels nice.

[I think red might be my new favorite color.]

This poem isn’t necessarily one of my best, but I’ve always loved it because it’s the most honest poem I’ve ever written. It’s a stream of consciousness and to me, this poem is what love feels like. It’s a change in perspective that burns, sometimes, but it’s necessary. There’s also some primary color wordplay and the implication that the person this poem is written about is bright, exciting, warm. Which he was. The line in brackets at the end is a line that used to be in the poem, but I later removed it because it just didn’t seem to fit. However, it is graffitied under a highway near my house. I wrote this poem in September when I was under a fervor of emotions and felt nothing but love, and to me, the world felt totally and completely red.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got! I have a ton of poems set aside from my collection and these are a couple of my favorites that I think sum up the collection better than I could. I also wanted a couple of the explanations down in words so people can’t turn some of these around on me later.

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write-as-raine · 5 years ago

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From Dreams We Must Wake

I could write, for hours upon hours; I could spin consonants and vowels into beaches covered in a thousand tiny pearls of sand, I could write moonlight onto cherry blossoms, I could even write you here into my arms. Eventually, all that is written must come to be. Maybe not today, maybe not in this world, on this plane of existence, but in some form or another, it will happen. It’s a dizzying knowledge to have, that with blank space and one long sleepless night I can push this world over the edge of existence and recreate it. But all I have in the time being, is a page, and a pen that is low on ink, and a sky that is turning gray and light and now. I cannot write myself. I can only write that which exists beyond me. So you see the limits of my power, my vast and hollow kingdom, where everything is paper and echoes and you.

-excerpt from my mind

Who knew that snappy blog posts and ramblings about my goings-on would come to a rather severe close? I certainly did. It’s pretty normal for me to live my life on a cycle of ups and downs, and this whole blog thing has been much the same, as I expected. But while the blog pauses, my brain does not, and if I am thinking I am writing. Sort of. Part of what makes a writer is not only what they have written, but what they will write. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

This post will be a time machine of sorts, and we will go back to January, when the year was not yet even a week old, then maybe to February, and perhaps even into the future. Buckle up, as always, and thank you for travelling with me today ;)

-jess, 03.05.20

12.31.19

I keep seeing the phrase “New Year, New Me” everywhere, but the problem is, I don’t want a new me. I want to fully embrace the me that’s here, even though she doesn’t know what’s next, or what will be happening on new year’s net year, and those things stress her out a lot. I don’t ever want to lose this beautiful radiant soul that never stops singing or humming, who befriends small creatures and puts so much love into the world.

In the new year, I want to excavate some of the ruins I have let her fall into. I want to dig past the cynicism and find the softness I used to have before the blunt edge of life’s gentle toils buried it beneath layers of pessimism. I don’t want to be jaded, I want to be wise, kind, a positive light. I want to radiate joy, not negativity. But I also want to accept that not every day will be a happy day, some days will simply be days, and the joy will occasionally have to be manufactured, or worked for, and that is okay too. I want to practice the self-love that I preach.

01.05.20

As the days following the hubbub of Christmas roll toward the impending year, my brain becomes a flurry of planning and thinking, and most of all, stress. My worry for the uncertainties of another year clouding all of my excitement for what could happen. I know this is a flaw, to always fear the unknown, while putting aside the imminent joy that I could harness should everything go right. This year, instead of wrangling together a list of 'resolutions' I didn't really want to make, like losing weight or sticking to some arbitrary life track plan, I made my goals for the new year a bit softer, hazy around the edges. My list of resolutions resembles a very soft manifesto.

The problem I began to see with my past resolutions, and why I always ditched them is because they were usually something that wasn't going to make me happier (i.e. getting super swol) and they weren't going to make everything magically fall into place (i.e. planning out my every move). Neither of them addressed the real problems I had faced in the previous year, like being too tired for physical activity because I was running myself into the ground with work and school, or that I wasn't able to keep with my personal timeline because I was fighting an uphill battle against depression that I was stubbornly ignoring. Instead, I pinned these shortcomings on myself, thinking I was too lazy and lacked motivation, which actually made those problems much worse. This led to a lot of sleepless nights, which led to a lot of snooze buttons hit, a lot of classes daydreamed through, and a lot of naps, which kept this wheel of misery rolling straight downhill. I set myself up for failure. This year, after learning so much about myself and the deeper workings of my mind, a lot of things became much clearer to me.

I always put so much expectation on myself, that failure could only ever have been the final outcome. I never had compassion with myself, I was too busy giving it all away to friends and family until I was bankrupt of all emotion. Secretly, I think my subconscious did this on purpose. My brain knew that my fear of failure was not as great as my fear of trying my best and it still not working out properly. I almost never wrote anymore at that point in my life, unless it was for a class. Just my struggle to make it through most days kept me so busy that I didn't want to write. I never read things that I enjoyed, too busy slogging through reading that I didn't allow myself to enjoy for class.

We live in this strange world that is changing faster than we can really keep up with, and it's hard to deal with the emotional repercussions of that. I'm only writing this to say, that this year, I took emotional stock of myself and kept tabs on how things impacted me, and I did a lot of digging around in my own mental toolbox and figured out how to use more than just duct tape and a sledgehammer to do general emotional maintenance.

My very soft manifesto, which is by no means perfect, and is, of course, completely tailored to my brain and heart and soul so may not work for you, is about observing the world around me, but also observing myself in response to it. Instead of physical self-scrutiny, it is finding good things about my body each and every day, while acknowledging that I am not perfect (who is??) but I have legs that let me dance, and arms that give good hugs, I have hands that are just right for rubbing the soft nose of a horse and plucking discordant chords on my guitar. I have eyes that allow me to see the raindrops slip down the window, mostly unaccompanied, and I have a mouth that lets me convey my emotions through speaking and smiling and singing and weird sound effects. I have a body that is soft and warm and loves to be piled on a couch with my friends in a cuddle puddle.

I also included in my manifesto, that I would accept the days as they come, knowing full well that they will not all come with happiness in tow, and that is okay. It will not always be fun, it will not ever be perfect, but it will be my reality, and it will allow me to grow. I will not stop trying to be the best version of myself that I can possibly be, to extend kindness without fail to others, even especially those who do not extend it to me, because that is the only way I know how to keep from becoming cold and hard and cynical.

Oh, and also to maybe drink less caffeine.

These 'resolutions' are really more of a change in mindset, and I think these will help me immensely, not only in the coming year but throughout the rest of my life.

February

Small white-capped mushrooms popping through waterlogged soil, a chip in the rim of my fifth favorite mug. A new leaf breaking through on my ivy. The certain and never-failing goodness of strawberry jam on toast. Hot tea on cold nights. No less than fifteen pillows, blankets, stuffed animals on my bed at any given time. Bullfrog eyes resting watchfully on the rims of puddles. Wispy ringlets against the nape of my neck in the steamed bathroom mirror after a midnight shower. The ragged edges of my anxiety fingernails. The mosaic jar in my window that throws a shower of pastel light into my bedroom right before sunset. The sweet fragrance of nostalgia dabbed against the thin skin of my wrist in the form of Floral Street’s London Poppy perfume. The stop-and-stare brightness of the moon. Lavender scented everything. The poetry of ordinary days.

03.05.20

Here on the farm, our compost bin has just been completed and has excellent approval ratings from the hens. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out despite my brother’s grumblings and my own battles with the drill. Toulouse has become quite the guard goose, and though I think that if it came down to a fight with an actual attacker she wouldn’t do much harm, she certainly sounds the alarm and waddles into the driveway when a car pulls up. She also successfully laid 8 incredibly large eggs. As for our three silkie bantams, aptly dubbed Coco Puff, Cheeto Puff, and Powder Puff, well the poor dears have yet to figure out this going back into the coop business. At sunset, they huddle up against the side of the hen house and wait dutifully for someone to come along and place them in their special pen. Such silly and delicate creatures. Our newest addition to the family, Cleo, a rescue cat, has acclimated well, and even sneaks into my bed at night now. Moo moo, our calf, has gone on to greener pastures. Quite literally. After his time with us, he was thrilled to join a herd of other cows, where he now has a friend his own age and species. The goat kids are growing in leaps and bounds, pun intended. You would think they have electric currents shooting through them the way they hop and skip so. I can’t imagine what magnitudes of joy they experience.

I think that’s all I have in me for now, until we meet again,

jess

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politicalmamaduck · 7 years ago

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food for the soul

Rey struggles with new food and the knowledge that Kylo Ren is her soulmate.

A gift for @southsidestory in honor of her donation to @reylotrashcompactor‘s GoFundMe. Read it on ao3 here. My deepest gratitude to @southsidestory for her generosity, and to @galacticprideandprejudice for her beta help in making this fic the best it could be. <3

(Please mind the tags.)

The Force works in mysterious ways.

The Force works in mysterious ways, Rey kept telling herself.

She repeated it over and over as she threw up the remains of her dinner, emptying what little remained in her stomach as quietly as she could. The walls on the Resistance’s new base were thin, and she didn’t want anyone to know how much trouble she was having with new food. Finn was away, having accepted a new assignment from General Organa. Poe was busy with the new pilots, including a recovered Rose, who was learning to fly to honor her lost sister. Leia was as busy as ever, and Rey did not want to add another burden to the general’s already lowered shoulders. Food and troops were scarce enough on their small moon, removed as they were from the central hyperspace lanes. They were not far from Crait and D’Qar, but far in the Outer Rim, removed from the Core and the destroyed Hosnian system.

She tried to meditate like Master Luke taught her on Ahch-To, but she couldn’t concentrate. She was shaking, whether from the lack of food or from the knowledge she couldn’t process, she did not know.

At night she tossed and turned, alternating between shivering from cold or burning up, sweating in a hot flash. She was aware that her body needed time to adjust to new climates, new environments, but even on her hungriest days on Jakku she never hated her body so much for betraying her.

And beneath the physical struggle was the mental, spiritual, emotional. The turmoil in her stomach compared to the battle she waged with her own mind.

She managed to close the Force’s bond between them on Crait, but after delving into the ancient Jedi texts with the help of C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8, whose memory banks she slightly altered, she now knew a deeper truth.

The Supreme Leader of the First Order was her soulmate, and his fate was indelibly linked with her own.

The Force works in mysterious ways.

Rey was so hungry the next day at dinner that she ate nearly everything in sight, then spent the evening throwing it up again, just like the day prior.

As she lay in bed again that night, once more unable to sleep, her thoughts drifted across the galaxy. Somehow, she knew he couldn’t sleep either. Putting him out of her mind once more, she resolutely determined to visualize the island, to feel the salt spray on her skin, to breathe deeply and become one with the Force. She would find her balance again, she just had to keep trying.

She finally fell asleep, her thin blanket tangled around her legs, her throat sore from throwing up, and tears crusted in her eyes.

As a child Ben Solo read ancient Alderaanian love poetry and dreamed of the day he would find someone he could love as much as the poets loved their muses. They yearned for their soulmates the way he yearned for his parents’ attention. As he grew older, he gave up on the idea that he would be his parents’ first priority, but dreamed of writing Alderaanian poetry for his soulmate.

Kylo Ren barely thought about his parents, his soulmate, or Alderaanian poetry. When he did, it was only to lament how he never truly possessed that which he wanted. The Supreme Leader was too busy for such trifles anyway. He had to deal with the interminable Hux every day, and an endless litany of problems. The First Order had invested most of its capital in the Supremacy, the Fulminatrix, and Starkiller Base, and all three were gone, destroyed by the Resistance, which they in turn failed to destroy. Flames of rebellion had lit across the galaxy, and there were not enough competent officers to control and put out the fires.

At night he struggled to sleep as he always had, but his dreams were queer of late. He dreamed of Rey, no longer at peace on her island, but ill, in bed and shaking.

She had not appeared to him in his waking hours since Crait, but he knew it was only a matter of time. The Force worked in mysterious ways.

…

It was Rey’s third day of eating to make up for everything she had lost the night before, then voiding it in the same fashion, when she heard a voice behind her as she knelt in the refresher.

“You can’t keep doing this, Rey, and you know it.”

It was a voice she thought she would never hear again, that she thought she had closed herself off from; the last person in the world she wanted to see.

Her soulmate.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, not looking behind her, but only down at her own reflection in the toilet.

“I know,” he replied, more gently than she expected. “But I’m here whether I want to be or you want me to be or not. The Force isn’t done with us.”

“I know,” she responded, getting up from the toilet and washing her face and hands. She caught a glimpse of him in the mirror; he looked as exhausted as she felt.

“Rey, you deserve more than this,” he said, at which she finally turned to face him.

“What do you know about what I deserve?” she spat back.

“You’re strong with the Force, stronger than you want to admit. You’re wasted here with the Resistance, hiding, running, pretending to fit in with everyone else. You’re not alone, but you can’t tell them about what happened, can you?”

“Did you tell the First Order the truth?” she asked, narrowing her gaze at him.

“No,” he answered, looking at her, then down to his feet. “I blamed you.”

“Good,” she replied.

Kylo disappeared, looking sadder than ever.

…

I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.

The ancient Jedi library in the Temple on Coruscant was not entirely destroyed by Emperor Palpatine; ever the pragmatist, though he disdained Jedi teachings, he realized the value of such an archive, as well as its utility as bait to trap any Jedi who may have survived the purge.

Ben Solo went there once, with his uncle Luke. It was a sad, desolate place since the fall of the Empire; the New Republic guarded the site, but since Coruscant was no longer the galactic capital, its priorities laid elsewhere, and it was not as well preserved as it should have been.

Kylo Ren knew it would hold the answer to his question, however, and to appear with the support of the citizenry, to do homage to the ways of old on Coruscant would do much for the First Order’s propaganda machine. He hated politics, but his mother taught him well. He hated to admit it, but Hux’s pompous, bombastic speeches served their purpose. He too could play his part for the Order’s greater good. And so he met with Coruscanti officials, appeared in public, all while hearing the Temple’s siren call. It was a temptation, a lure of the Light, but he would do what needed to be done.

It was in the dark of the night, a night that could never truly be dark with Coruscant’s trillion lights, that Kylo Ren howled with rage and would have destroyed the entire chamber in which he was sitting if only his scholar’s heart would have allowed him to do so. The text he was reading was nearly four thousand years old and irreplaceable.

Snoke had lied, as he always had.

He had not created the bond between Rey and Kylo.

They were soulmates, as Revan and Bastila Shan had been before them.

Kylo Ren stalked the halls of the former Jedi Temple, the plundered Imperial Palace, the empty home of the Force, crying for the love he could never have, for the boy he had been, for the galaxy that was as broken as his soul.

…

Rey awoke once more with a hollow stomach and cheeks, aching all over. She could feel profound anguish in the Force, and she couldn’t help but wonder what on earth could have happened to make a man who killed his father and his master and abandoned his family for galactic dominance so profoundly sad.

She sat down in her small room and realized again that she and her soulmate were not so different after all.

She ate breakfast slowly, carefully, sipping on some Gatalentan tea and spent the morning meditating and training. She felt the ghost of a sparring partner dancing with her in the training room, matching her blow for blow, aggressive, tenacious, and powerful. Her equal in the dark and the light, her counterpart, at once her strongest enemy and closest friend, the one who knew her secrets. She knew his body as intimately as she knew her own, his mind was open to hers, he was her soulmate and she was his and they were one, just as they were in Snoke’s throne room.

The Force flowed through them, buoying them despite their exhaustion. They drew on its depth and on each other, swinging their blades ever more gracefully, ever more intensely, testing each other, learning from each other as they had twice before.

It was a song, a dance they both knew all too well. He would strike there, and she would strike there. Their hearts, their breathing, their movements perfectly in sync, complementing each other even as they fought for dominance.

Rey was the predator, and Ben Solo her prey. Here, she saw no hint of the darkness that followed him, no pretense or vanity. Here, he was hers, and hers alone.

…

Kylo Ren returned to the Finalizer without sleeping. After he left the Temple on Coruscant, he went hundreds of levels down to a seedy, dark cantina filled with various species and as many smoke hazes to match. The liquor certainly wasn’t top shelf, but it was cheap and burned the way he liked it. An Aqualish bounty hunter made the mistake of attempting to pick a fight with him after Kylo had downed a few drinks, and soon the cantina floor obtained a few more bloodstains and the proprietor obtained a few more credits.

Upon his return, he swept Hux and the other generals out of the way with the Force, and let loose in a training room until he was laying on the floor, drenched in sweat, his vision swimming. He was exhausted, but could not sleep; his body was too full of nervous energy, and his heart raced from his training. He looked up to see Rey also practicing her forms.

He joined her deadly dance, with her through the Force in the way he could not be physically. Their blades met over and over, casting purple lights on the floor and walls and deepening the shadowed hollows under their eyes.

She was as thin as ever, but looking better than she had the last time he saw her. Her fighting had certainly lost none of its intensity. She pursued him as she had on Starkiller, as she fought Snoke’s Praetorian guards. She was an angel of death and destruction, and he had never seen something so beautiful, so perfect, so deadly, in all his life.

The ancient Alderaanian poets could not compare with Rey of Jakku whirling his grandfather’s rebuilt saber in the darkness of a decrepit Resistance base in the middle of nowhere, across the galaxy from him.

He swung low, towards her waist, and she parried his blow, spinning away from him.

They stood, breathing heavily, looking at each other, not saying a word.

Rey faded away from him, and Kylo Ren sat up on his training mat, covered in sweat.

…

That night, Rey was able to eat a manageable amount at dinner, and kept it all down. She felt refreshed after stretching and showering before bed, and slept the whole night through, dreaming of the island, the porgs cooing to her and the scent of saltwater.

She dreamt of a lover’s kiss, of a gentle hand undoing her buns. She felt desire curling her toes and pooling in her core, of a body entwined with hers, a heart beating with hers, lungs breathing with hers.

She awoke feeling relaxed and at peace for the first time since Ahch-To.

…

Kylo Ren hadn’t slept a whole night through since he was a child, if ever.

That night he collapsed in his bed almost immediately after stepping out of the refresher, feeling exhausted from the day’s events and those of the day prior.

He dreamt of Rey, at peace on her island, reading ancient Jedi texts. He dreamt he was writing Alderaanian poetry once more, reciting it to her and his mother. He taught her the ancient braiding art, plaiting her hair in honor of her Force sensitivity and to show that she was the partner to the heir to the throne.

He awoke the next morning, and ordered his ship readied.

He had never been to New Alderaan. He wasn’t sure how to get to Rey’s island, if she would ever share that information with him. She was still in the middle of nowhere with the Resistance; his nightly dreamscape visits to her had not revealed their location. But he was sure that the mountains and balmy blue skies of what should have been his homeworld would help him obtain the peace he sought, even without her by his side.

He thought Rey would like it there, if she ever chose to visit.

She would find him again; she always would. She was not yet ready to accept his offer from the Supremacy, and he had to find his own peace. They had accepted their truth with their last duel, and he had no doubt the Force wasn’t yet done with them.

#reylo #rffa writers #rey #kylo ren #soulmate au #tw disordered eating #tw vomit #fan fiction #my writing #southsidestory #tumblr friends

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deepmappingdumfries · 7 years ago

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Introduction to Deep Mapping Dumfries

"... the deep map attempts to record and represent the grain and patina of place through juxtapositions and interpenetrations of the historical and the contemporary, the political and the poetic, the discursive and the sensual; the conflation of oral testimony, anthology, memoir, biography, natural history and everything you might ever want to say about a place …"

Mike Pearson and Michael Shanks, Theatre/Archaeology (Routledge 2001) p. 64-65

The Deep Map

Maps can be useful, interesting, often beautiful. But any map can only ever portray a particular aspect of a place – and because they are always partial, maps are inherently biased and therefore political.

This is an experiment. An attempt to make a ‘deep map’ of Dumfries - an interdisciplinary, multi-layered, multimedia portrait of the town, from a ‘centre’ that is Oxfam Books and Music Dumfries, where I’m based as writer in residence. The eventual product will depend on how much and what kind of response I get from others. I will work on the deep map using as many other perspectives as I can and the more other voices I’m able to include, the richer the map could be – so how the map ends up shaped depends partly on you!

Are you someone who has known Dumfries your whole life? Or someone who moved here recently? Do you, like me, live outside Dumfries, but know it as the main town? Maybe you’ve only ever visited but have some particular important memory associated with it. Or do you have some expert knowledge – perhaps historical, archaeological, botanical, zoological, even mythological? Each will have quite a different perspective of the same particular places. If we could gather many of these, what could we build?

Throughout the project, I’ll be providing prompts – perhaps photos of particular places, or interesting facts about them or poems on particular themes, hoping to get people’s memories and connections to particular places reawakened. I’ll also be running some place writing workshops to help get folks’ writerly juices flowing! And I’ll be attempting a ‘Poetry Map of Dumfries’, similar to the Stanza ‘Poetry Map of Scotland.’

The project is somewhat fluid, and will be further shaped as it carries on – look out for further developments on how to get involved, here and on the Oxfam Dumfries Facebook page.

Why Dumfries?

I studied in Dumfries as a mature student, at the University of Glasgow’s School of Interdisciplinary Studies. I graduated in 2017 with an MLitt in Environment, Culture and Communication. On this taught degree, amongst other things, I learned much about how previous writers have written about place, about being in particular place and what that means for being a human and trying to live well. I also began developing a creative practice which attempts to incorporate my skills as a writer, artist and researcher, to portray particular place in a profoundly layered and multiple way - just as our experience of the world is always profoundly layered and multiple.

At the same time, I had begun to work on my own issues with anxiety and poor self-confidence by learning and practicing mindfulness meditation. This mainly consists of learning to notice – to notice what your mind is thinking and what your body is feeling, learning how to try to be really present in the world, rather than always absorbed in thoughts about the past or worries about the future, fears about how others see you. These things never fully go away, but almost like magic, the practice of noticing them (or trying to notice them as often as possible) without judgement takes away massive amounts of how damaging they are and helps you make a start at feeling at home in yourself. I didn’t believe it could happen until it did.

This practice of noticing, or remembering to keep trying to notice, also helped me to see how much our experience of the world is always filtered by what we know, or think we know. Our experience of place can be hugely affected by what we know about it and by what emotions and memories we connect with it.

My family moved to Dumfries and Galloway when I was 4. When I was a wee girl, Dumfries was the big town we’d get the bus to once a week, where my mum would get her fruit and veg at the market, where the swimming pool was and all the shops and shoppers in the High Street, the vennel – and where the fair would land twice a year, the wonderful, terrifying, sickening, money-draining fair. As a teenager Dumfries was a Saturday hang out, later a pub venue (though the lack of night buses meant this was a rare affair). It was where I went to college, later university, where I had both babies, where hospital visits good and bad take place. Now, it’s where I volunteer at Oxfam Books and Music, trying to be of some use to the world, finding I maybe can be. So even just to me, Dumfries is not a single place; it’s all of this and much more. Add in the memories and experiences of all the others connected to Dumfries and what a rich and complex picture you’d have.

But Dumfries is also all the things that ever happened to make it what it is now – how the rocks were formed that it’s built on and of, how the soil was formed, how the river flows and why, how the climate is and has been. What plants grow here, and what other creatures we share it with. Which powerful and legendary people made which things happen. And all of this is interconnected.

In recent years, all the towns I know have changed; shops have closed and charity shops, e-cig outlets and bookies are dotted about between boarded up premises. Many of us still want to visit towns but it feels as though we don’t quite know what they’re for any more. Dumfries is in the midst of finding out who it wants to be, what it can be. Many incredibly positive, innovative and community-based placemaking projects are ongoing – including, but not limited to: The Stove Network, the Midsteeple Quarter), Incredible Edible, MOOL (Massive Outpouring of Love) and of course Oxfam Books and Music Dumfries’s various projects, including the current ‘Art Beats Poverty’ summer programme. In order to add to this, I’m going to do what I can to try to build up a portrait of who Dumfries is and has been. I hope that this can be ongoing and include the voices and perspectives of as many folk as possible.

Cliff McLucas - "There are ten things that I can say about these deep maps.

First. Deep maps will be big – the issue of resolution and detail is addressed by size.

Second. Deep maps will be slow – they will naturally move at a speed of landform or weather.

Third. Deep maps will be sumptuous – they will embrace a range of different media or registers in a sophisticated and multilayered orchestration.

Fourth. Deep maps will only be achieved by the articulation of a variety of media – they will be genuinely multimedia, not as an aesthetic gesture or affectation, but as a practical necessity.

Fifth. Deep maps will have at least three basic elements – a graphic work (large, horizontal or vertical), a time-based media component (film, video, performance), and a database or archival system that remains open and unfinished.

Sixth. Deep maps will require the engagement of both the insider and outsider.

Seventh. Deep maps will bring together the amateur and the professional, the artist and the scientist, the official and the unofficial, the national and the local.

Eighth. Deep maps might only be possible and perhaps imaginable now – the digital processes at the heart of most modern media practices are allowing, for the first time, the easy combination of different orders of material – a new creative space.

Ninth. Deep maps will not seek the authority and objectivity of conventional cartography. They will be politicized, passionate, and partisan. They will involve negotiation and contestation over who and what is represented and how. They will give rise to debate about the documentation and portrayal of people and places.

Tenth. Deep maps will be unstable, fragile and temporary. They will be a conversation and not a statement."

http://cliffordmclucas.info/deep-mapping.html

Deep Mapping Dumfries on Wordpress here.

#dumfries #writing #scotland #psychogeography #deep mapping #placemaking #poetry #prose #photography #art #community

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o0o-chibaken-o0o · 7 years ago

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Could you tell me some drarry fics where Draco and Harry write letters to each other anonymously

Hello, hello!!! The @hpcommentathon is happening now, so I want to broaden this list to include ALL letter-writing as well as chatting/texting fics :D. Hopefully these recs will help you fill one of your categories!! And if you’re seeing this after the comment-a-thon is over, leave these brilliant writers some feedback anyway

Epistolary Drarry (letters)

Lettered (8K), Lush Life (19.5K), & Home Again, Home Again (22K) by pir8fancier- Harry has a secret penpal, whose identity is as plain as the nose on his face. Except he’s not wearing his glasses.I’ve only just realized today that the last work in this series exists, and I’m in a panic because I must MUST read it— the first two are amazing and perfect and they have EVERYTHING. Be aware that the sequel(s) are very different from Lettered because they take place years later, but Lush Life (and probs the other one too!!) is JUST AS BRILLIANT as Lettered, which you will definitely fall in love with!!!!

Catch 22 by jad (50K)- As if NEWTS weren’t enough, Dumbledore’s gone and had another one of his ‘bright ideas.’ If all ends well, the Houses will be getting along in no time. Or according to Harry’s correspondent, an Apocalypse will be in order.Okay THIS FIC THO. It’s exactly what anon is looking for, because they are writing proper anonymous letters back and forth, trying to guess each others’ identities, and it’s an amazing read! With a very dramatic reveal :D

Dear Diary by AWickedMemory (20.5K)- // This can’t possibly go worse than the last time I kept a diary. //After the war, Harry picks up a journal to write in… and it writes back. Luckily, it’s not a Horcrux on the other end this time.OOOOOH this one is just so delicious because Harry is asking his “anonymous pen pal” what he should do about his crush on DRACO MALFOY and that is a recipe for amazingness if I ever saw one.

#switching #owling #bumping into each other by @queenofthyme (~2K)- No summary because this one’s actually a drabble here on tumblr (although you will soon be able to find it as part of qot’s drabble collection on AO3!), but I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH and I thought of it immediately, so I couldn’t not include it! It’s beautiful and there may or may not be POETRY from one of the boys to the other!!!

I identify my star sign by asking which is least compatible with yours by Ingi (13K)- In Eighth year, Harry Potter’s new term resolution was not getting into fights with Draco Malfoy.It lasted exactly a month and two days.This is a wonderful, cute little fic with a ton of attractions!!! It seems like I’m always asking myself which fic this or that element is from, and somehow the bits I remember have turned out to be from this fic multiple times. Idk how it’s possible, but I do know you’ll enjoy it greatly

A Fluffy Little Olive Branch by @julietsemophase (5K)- Harry comes into work one day to find a box with a baby owl inside sitting on his desk, and a note from a mystery well-wisher.Just… really cute!!! ADORABLE, even. And very… fluffy *wink wink wink* (I’m hilarious shh). Featuring a very thoughtful, pining Draco and a sweet baby owl

Dear Enemy by @gingertodgers (69K)- An anonymous benefactor makes a generous donation to Harry Potter’s School for Squibs in exchange for a weekly letter from the Boy Who Lived.What begins as a chore soon becomes the only outlet Harry has to talk about the war, love, life, hope, redemption, his renewed obsession with a certain blonde nemesis and how he really, honestly, believes that this will be the year Puddlemere United reclaim the Quidditch League Cup.Okay, so my friends on the Drarry discord just told me today about this fic and about how everyone who reads it is obsessed, and I just (accidentally) read the first chapter and am already HOOKED so they were not lying!! 100% sure we will all adore it

On Our Way by Dynamic (30K)- Draco is trying to spend the summer keeping his head down, but a repair project and a certain snowy owl have other plans for him.This is an absolutely LOVELY, very touching!, not quite eighth yeah year fic that features DRACO FINDING AN OWL WHO IS HEDWIG’S CHILD AND TRYING TO GIVE HER TO HARRY WHO NEVER WANTS ANOTHER OWL!!!! Literally, how perfect???

And an Owl Named Romeo by Rickey (26.5K)- Draco breeds owls, Harry’s an Auror, and an owl named Romeo is going to bring them together.I’m noticing that a lot of these fics revolve around owls, which is amazing because I ADORE reading about them, but I must say this might possibly be my favorite Drarry owl fic!!! Harry buys an owl from Draco, then needs lots and lots of advice

Better Than an Origami Bird by @jadepresley and yours truly @o0o-chibaken-o0o (3.5K)- A series of letters in which Harry and Draco argue, play truth or dare, get kinky, and are a couple of very naughty (or very good, depending on who you ask) boys during class.This fic was literally the most fun thing ever to write, because @jadepresley and I got into a contest to see who could make the other one blush more — so if you want some very kinky epistolary smut, you will not be disappointed (hopefully!)

Starfall by Lomonaaeren (196.5K)- When the truth about a seemingly minor Dark hex Harry has suffered leads to the dissolution of his marriage with Ginny, Harry spins into a downward spiral. His private consolation is creating a fantasy life for himself in his journal as Ethan Starfall, a normal wizard with a big family. When he receives a random owl Draco Malfoy has cast into the void as a plea for help with his son Scorpius, Harry replies—as Ethan. There’s no reason, he thinks, for an epistolary friendship with Draco to go further. But Draco might have different ideas about that.This is obviously a HUGE fic full of angst and many many issues and plot devices besides letter-writing—but since the letters are pretty central to the plot, I’m including it here! This fic is a crazy ride, and you will get so invested. Great if you’re looking to read something longer :)

Chat/Texting Fics

Real Texts by @affectiionwrites and @jadepresley (2K)- Kingsley has decided all his Aurors need muggle mobile phones. Draco has finally learned how to use his, and gets a hold of Harry’s number.Drarry textiiiiing!!! And they’re so funny about it! WITH PICTURES!!! I adored the mop, and if you want to know what that means, you’ll just have to read it ;D

Howlr by @partialtopotter (15.5K)- Howlr is the new dating application enchanting Witches, Wizards and Everyone in between. Are you looking for the one or a one-night stand; it’s all here folks. Howlr is sponsored by Weasley Wizard Wheezes, the same team that brought us the Spellular just two years ago. Ginny Weasley, famed chaser for the Hollyhead Harpies, swears by the app, ‘guaranteed to make sparks fly,’ she says. The magic awaits you!This is actually another one I haven’t gotten to read yet, but I had to include it because I hear people gushing about it every time a new chapter is released and I am SO looking forward to reading it! Based on this amazing post

Must Love Quidditch by dracosoftie (103.5K)- Through a series of emails from an online dating site, Harry thinks he’s found his perfect match. Will the bond they’ve forged survive after their identities are revealed? This fic is a classic, and a great one for if you’re looking for a longer fic! Dating sites are just the best!!! RIGHT?? And there are some courting rituals in here that I greatly enjoyed as well ;D

Blind Date by JosephineStone (8.5K)- Draco’s been working with Harry for years when another one of his relationships goes stale. He has to be married within a year, and though the WizNet has burned him in the past, Draco finds a new possibility in man as desperate to marry as he is. Only then for Harry to see his last chance with Draco slipping away, and he refuses to let Draco ignore his advances any longer.Another dating site fic!!!! These always have me W E A K!!! And this one is especially amazing because in addition to chatting online, they work together toooooo

Group Chat by @jadepresley (2K)- A screenshot of a group chat conversation between Draco, Harry, Ron, Pansy, Hermione and Theo.Okay I know there are three fics by Jade on this list, but I swear I’m not (only) trying to seduce her; she’s actually just AMAZING at this format and you have to read them all because uhkdskjsaaslkdj!!! This is one of the funniest short fics I’ve ever read, NO LIE

#drarry #drarry fanfiction #drarry fic recs #epistolary #chat fics #letter writing #rec list #chibarecs #harry potter #draco malfoy #comment-a-thon #I hope you enjoy theeese #in true chibaken fashion I have ended up reccing way more fics than I originally intended #but there are SO MANY GOOD ONES #and I love this trope to death #<333

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