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#character; divinity > do not stand at my grave and weep
patchworkpoett · 2 years
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libidomechanica · 9 months
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A genius turned with the blue
A ballad sequence
               1
Flowers: then washed up. Don Juan saw     all though not to be, such logic will give pearl and every     cellars of Jerusalem. If she be a work divine;     who, though Ioy her mines of
the alleys, who did not only     in constructed, they will play his shed. Since life’s oblivion,     the sky but for an armour clashed my old guardian,     or woman, and with ease
between the plainly of not I     thinks me your heat to lightened some vexation; nay, marriage     also had not country yields. Equal matches and prest: how     stranger, I wish that love
or leaves, and in mine for clay, you     covered little taper? As may knowe. Our pillow that must     parts of proving far less practised eyes, tho’ I cannot     shed each couple turneth
aside?—What she taut hold? Of attracts     each out-at-elbow peer, or a hymn loud as a flocks     with me the love it more sublime: he love or decline and     sensitive and haste, and
shone soft floating trust the first path     to Auld Lang Syne. So much spirit robb’d of her hunger in     the mount Gilead. My horsemanships, which makes bank of him,     and shalt ca’ me forsworne?
Sits on his tick of land for sweet     fruits of frank to all the villager’s house the shepheards sway     this Wolues, as she nor harm being love must be in’t the     mark of the villagers
quicker, and wanted to want. Appeal     to tell! We see, these and magnifique, that iudge, as the     king sitteth at all … he touches in yours shall knows, is a     man’s kiss, its deep clos’d
o’erawes it. Since then all sun, and     for a debt she e’er drive one lovers, old age in the second     stocks in flowery oleanders, to be endure what     is youth, tops in letters
with banner of blood of mortals,     or soft floating ices, to steal away, and now would have     fallen hem of the story; and sorry I can help descent,     in so harsh, but form
a friend to fields of Europe—can     chaunge my church the Negroes and false in; no end, young people     are to love and beneath his shatter where deaf to ready     now that we love Frankenstein!
Your walk through, and then see to     settle throne! We vanquished, strength, thy holy water fall but     he has done! As those he branch. I am the gold to which     will choose; and stab, a king
how ridiculous. Those became     a Tyranny and papers with share her with regard. Before     full-borne day began, She trees refusing the boughs, from     heau’nly hye? And money.
So rich silks, and thine eyes of     digestion’d ever know him, and scent, by thee in the poor rich     in a case of hay new- fledged beams do show there’—for who had     a sister, daughter in
Friendly Few. And be a thousand     beneath. Had dropt her limbs at noon, while thou my budding was     cursing to stand an hour: come hither: he mighty men. To     make the fair peaceful
citadel, into the wide universes     ceased to touch or soon thy jocund you grew the morning.     If one could make that zeal that treasures the blood, and tears     have no Character was
the grave, Sir. To conqueror William     Curtis is a new news I’ve shunne their silence and scandal     share you won’t success, no doubt in one that despisd, and     as far from the daughter.
               2
Containing, swallows of jewels, the     sprang to reverie, perchant? And mee: now gynneth the more     return their better it,—
so you ignore, so that I owe     thee. The mair they gave thunder’d, I trow, the things transgression     gave me to the first a
fiecer Gripe doth raise thine Friend, O     daughter! This love may be perhaps from a haloed ascends     the same dreams are what’s good
an opener door for hectic     and should be my destines all those disguise, that last year     to thee in private
favourites did end, young herds weep,     with a backward selfe, to fight whose tall and out free the self     must rise, this were brew’d from
cages pull it hight, to make perfume.     For trumpet peace or faded, and all the musk-bull brown     paper bag of pearl and
could be us, last, to feed them     if not I? It language but keep coaches, must a strawberry     should dwindle of a
piece of horse where are oaths of black,     and trickling of long line of thread now? Sometimes have cease trying     this ill ascendant? Changed
is mute—no song of the valets,     staircases, hallways—perhaps from really scarce am fit     for the fury still his
quiuer spends her husband an hour: we     breast told me, stood three in the drowsy hour; forget such succeeds     door; I try to dance,
like their own words that virtue, like     quest, as we once we see, that he fingers. There is not our     soul’s spring at thirty
though this mine; I’ve paid, in their age:     for Reason due; for neuer knewe I louers she fix’d princess—     why not matter foreign
glory shows that wakes their foreigners     cannot quench and concoction, even now, which shows she thou     hast the people doth has
later years, and into these rule     and night. Her proof makes man say, give creeds tempt there is flatter     your wild ecstasy? Kind
of ditches of sheepes blow in     they rose; the sovereign lord, whose about—as my object on     which we bantered little
more right doth lies whose bells to see     us passing the cornice- wreathe through; a woman’s oppressive     nuptial song, in the
stories high woods within my mandate     life so reading his title, built rick. Custom-house, I     see thee the spiders that
piano? It irk’d himself, nor     leave a visits here is Addition move, by form’d with a     small such improve. To take.
Too rare a wall, we call the most     exemplary wife. Deepening they ho the land of Dutchmen     and sail just now a saints.
               3
All night, a noble line, althought.     Pain with the woodbine leaves fall down descends the beryl: his     barren bring that’s romantic, however dempt more cold with     blossoms to the faith is
forced, most fine summer joy! That late     of action, which flashy song that from the night, as happy,     countenaunce. Light upon thinkes you, you say you love thee,     gave you not received me.
               4
No ass so much holds by absent     from the hearts, unutterably mild, to chastity, when     you a debt I owe to
me thou speak of my heart expect     make her bosom is great starres in photography find     weak points in far above!
For its curse, too solemn closed is     greater is past success, or heard: thought; now saw Albion’s setting     around the Soul of
each the three lonely doe darke, since     thousand. From his crammed with allied, bear thine eyes: so short tunes     and Bayona’s holiday!
Of Loue I looked in a Kirtle     of tall glasse: all as further end was Ida by thy life;     but my Rose-tree, and evening
heate? Albeit my years believe,     Deare, like a primal nakedness! Into yon farthest     canto, save your cures for
clay, you complice of harlot, couleur     de rose-bud’s the virtue yielding of the devils who     never in the shadows!
               5
To-night, with boards ere long-stemmed plants     called him, who feast, thrise thee, as cocke of silvery koi swishing     to herself through the
roads sunk low, but mine obscure woodbine     be his sad post-horse; much better than all as Lais how     much alcoves to my garden
inclosed eyes, and on     everywhere is warmth of my little bent. Her climax: ’Oh! Full     of the sphere I seem tame.
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peanutpmingib · 2 years
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Divinity, but nothing without you
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God!Juyeon x God!Eric
Word count : 4k+
watch it : angst, so much of it. literally a sliver of happiness. outcasting of child. character rebirth, rituals, gods and other beings. talk of death, burdens of immortality. character loosing grip on their existence but doesn’t care ? implied character death, open ending
summary : In his new life Juyeon becomes fascinated with eternity, time and Eric. Gods do not have acquaintances, certainly not friends, and absolutely no lovers, but Juyeon will take on every duty creation has bestowed if it's for Eric.
sorry guys this one’s rough but also my fav work yet, i hope u like it as much as i do !! < 3
——-
Juyeon doesn’t understand his existence.
“Woven with the stars.”
His mother had told him one day, warm smile on her face while all Juyeon could do was watch. Mouth opened as he mulled it over, well as much as an 8 year old could anyway.
He never understood growing up, why he was the way he was.
While other children of the town would galavant through mud puddles, hands sticky with sweat as they yelled empty threats to each other, Juyeon was kept close to his mother. Left to watch from the kitchen window yearning to be more than just the lonely boy they would glance at in their hurry.
His mother spent her days gently kneading dough, tending to crops. Cleaning him up after each fall from a tree top. Fussing over the bruises that would form after, only to ask how far he made it up this time.
During the night, when most people would huddle next to a fire or sit at large tables sharing a stew, they’d lay in the fields while she would point out each star. He’d sit and drink up every word. Hurriedly asking questions upon questions till his mother deemed it was time for bed. Holding his hand in her left, an oil lamp in the right, a kiss before bed. And the cycle would repeat.
It was always just him and his mother. It was all he knew. His father supposedly succumbed to illness a little after he was born, left the small farm and house for them in his death. The grave still stands in a quiet coroner of the property.
They would tend and sell their crop, occasionally adding bread and dough to the market stall. His life was built on repetition of routine, plant, tend, harvest.
Quiet and quaint they lived their lives. It was them, the farm, the small cottage made home. When he got older Juyeon was allowed to use the scythe when picking ripe crops. And a while later to set up a stand at the market all on his own.
Festivals would come and go, even if he’d be a little envious of the fathers and their children, siblings laughing amongst each other, he'd never ruin it for his mother. It was always her favorite time of year, smiling wide as she let herself walk through the market, not as a seller, but for once a part of the celebratory crowd.
His late teen years would make way for most of the work around the house. His mother was getting older, all the kneading and work that had gone to his upbringing had taken a toll on her, no longer able to lay on the fields each night. Instead they watched from soft woven chairs placed on the porch. She never failed to point out each star.
Late twenties would see the end of his life. One barely lived. He couldn’t find it in himself to cry. He supposed most people would, weep and sob, maybe even run away. But he was chosen. There was nothing else to do. The high priest would come from him at midnight, and the ceremony would begin. A blessing to the stars they called it. His mother cried, he remembers the way he held on to her shaking frame the last few hours left together. But she saw it coming. Woven with the stars she has said all those years ago. And there he was.
He wasn’t afraid of death, not to die, not to pass on. All he feared was leaving behind his mother. She said her last goodbyes, his clothes clutched in her hands, he leaned down for one last kiss to the forehead, and he was gone.
It was a sense of peaceful departure Juyeom did not expect the luxury to have.
They lead him to their temple at the heart of the town. He tried to ignore the stares of the people, all who stayed up to watch their sacrifice walk to his death, but their gazes stuck into him like thick smoke. Clogging his mind and making him itch.
In the temple they cleaned and scrubbed his skin raw, but the unease from the people earlier didn’t wash away with it. He was then in white robes, hands and feet dipped in red, and taken to a freshwater pond deep in the forest. Chants and prayers blessed upon him and then, he was submerged. Stay down. Don’t surface. Your time will come.
He doesn’t remember what happened after, possible sleep, or a coma? It didn’t feel like death. He didn’t feel like this was the end, perhaps more of a new start if anything. It was too calm for him to be at ease, but the thick water only held him tighter at the thoughts, almost feeling his being.
All too soon a hand reached for him, pulling him from the water. Juyeon didn’t sputter or cough. His exit was smooth, almost natural. The forest the same as how he’d seen it walking in.
It wasn’t the priest, not his mother who’d reached in, but a man. Dressed in nothing but a single translucent robe, hands seemingly dipped in the sun. Fabric spilling from the folds where they lay around him in one fluid motion. His gaze as golden as his skin even in the dead of night, soft smile playing on his lips.
“Come Juyeon. We have much to learn.”
So many thoughts raced through his poor mind. How did this man know his name, where is he taking him, is he truly dead? Juyeon didn’t find it in himself to speak nor question, only able to follow deeper into the forest. The chill of the night never touched him despite his damp skin and clothes. Not a single man, nor creature in their path as the man wove through the dense thicket with practiced ease.
Pond water soon came to stand before them once more. Juyeon almost believed they’d gone in an exaggerated circle, faced with the same pond he had been pulled from. But upon close gaze did he see the strange fauna dancing in the silent breeze, trees that stretched so tall their tops allowed none of his precious night to be seen.
The man stopped to glance back at Juyeon, only for a mer second, gently picking up his robes and sliding into the pond. Juyeon mimicked the movements and took a breath, trying to keep his eyes trained on the strange man. The water on impact was comfortable to his skin, welcoming Juyeon in. Crystal clear he could see what seemed to be endless water before him, even though the pond was a mere few feet wide.
The further they traveled the less footing was found, looking ahead he tried to copy the man's movements, who seemed to be floating as he landed on his own path. As the water grew darker, Juyeon was fighting to keep his breath, straining to keep himself from exhaling but the need was too strong, it escaped him in a small sigh. He braced for pain but nome ever came. An experimental inhale gave no resistance and he walked on trying to keep up.
Glimmering fish appeared as the water began to clear, scales so bright Juyeon swore they were made of starlight. As they played the dark water started to clear around them, when he looked back at the fish they looked nothing short of ordinary. Dim scales and sluggish fins.
Water rolled off them in drops as they rose to exit. The man's clothes didn’t seem to keep any of the water, dry as can be. They faced a garden, plethora of fauna to frame it. The man turned to him once more.
“You are chosen, woven with the stars. Are you aware of the weight of those words?”
Juyeon shook his head meekly.
“You are woven with the very stars themselves, and in turn chosen to watch over what they have created. While it is your duty, your fate is yours to decide. But the consequences of your actions are also yours to bear. “
Juyeon blinked. Once. Twice.
“The universe is scarce with her favorable hand, it’s been millennia since it’s last chosen. You are very special Juyeon. Fear not. There are no expectations of you. You’ll meet the others and then are free to do as you please.”
Juyeon nodded, even though he didn't understand half of what was said. Before the man could go he turned to him one last time, “I am Sangyeon. My existence is tied to the universe herself, and all of creation.”
He took his leave, not bothered to gather his robes, and soon became nothing but a wisp in Juyeons vision. Juyeon didn’t know what else to do, so he did the only thing he knew how.
Turned to gaze at the flowering forest, washing over the hues, sweet pollen. He landed on an unsuspecting patch of moss. Gathered himself gently, and laid down on the fauna. His eyes seemed to close all on their own, deep breath in, then out. His mother’s face seemed so far away. The life he once had, paled in comparison.
Jacob would gently wake him with his warm presence. With kind eyes and softer words he let Juyeon rub the sleep out of his eyes and steady himself on a tree stump. He told him to be careful with his responsibilities.
Younghoon who warned him, of what he doesn’t remember.
Jaeyhung came last. Mind somewhere far from there He wished Juyeon good luck, and to avoid getting so lost in the past.
They'd leave soon after and Juyeon slienly tucked himself back into the moss. Sleep never came no matter how hard he begged and willed for it, grabbing at anything he could reach in a furry. Why was this to be his life to live? Chained to duties he didn’t know the meaning too.
Tears fell all too fast, striking the soft moss underneath. If he wasn’t so caught up in pain he would’ve noticed the stars that glimmered in each tear, star dust covering the moss on impact. But his sobs were so broken, so guttural, they consumed him. All of creation could hear.
Soon Juyeon lives and learns. He is tied with the stars. As ever lasting as they are, they’re so lonely. Stuck suspended in the existence around them. But Juyeon is tied to them, fated to be as lonely as they are.
Sangyeon is much older than Juyeon used to think. The being can only be described as time itself. When he first rose from a lonely pool within the universe deep thrums of pure chaos did time breathe out. He is Keeper and Watcher of them all. While he doesn’t interfere, he spends what he knows as eternity, weaving through time.
It’s peaceful and Juyeon does what he knows best. Watching. He watches the world, the stars, the universe. He’s not sure how much time has passed, (that’s Sangyeons’ burden), but finds refuge in the same flower shrouded pool he first emerged from. In between all his exploring and traversing through planes, he always finds a way back. Back to the same field of soft moss and bright pollen. He’ll stay for a while this time.
His peaceful haze makes him witness to Sangyeon entering the pool he once guided him through. The memories of what came before his new birth is all but a distant fog.
With what feels to be a blink of an eye Sangyeon walks out with a man behind him.
Kevin.
Young, chosen and tied by the heart of the universe. Kevin is new, but she learns her place quickly. Soon fading away into her eternity. Juyeon doesn’t get to give his words of advice nor does he see her after. He sighs and busies himself one more.
In the little haven the garden has become Juyeon become witness to all who are
birthed anew.
Chanhee comes. Kicking and screaming so to speak. Bound to planets and refuses any duties, cursing the whole universe and begging to be sent back home.
“I don’t fucking want to do this! I don’t care. Please, I just want to go home.” He begs, fists pounding at anything he can reach, tearing flowers by the very root in a fury. Juyeon watches eyebrows twitching but doesn’t interfere. It’s not his place.
Jacob, who appears as quick as he can disappear, is quick to comfort him. Juyeon perks at his arrival. It’s been ages since he’s last seen the older. He doesn’t give any notice to Juyeon, instead focusing solely on Chanhee. Pressing gentle kisses to his tear stained cheeks. Watching his sobs subside to quiet sniffles. Juyeon doesn’t see much of Chanhee after that. Nor of Jacob.
Changmin joins them. Quiet with wide eyes. Unable to do so much as open his mouth. Sangyeon is long gone before he even attempts to emerge from the water. He is guided by the force that drives creation. Yet so timid with all that pulses through him. Juyeon watches him from his perch, up in a canopy top where he takes naps, and soon Changmin takes his steps out of the water, and into his new reality.
Juyeon swears for a second he sees Younghoon take the newcomer by the hand, but no one can be so sure anymore. What does Younghoon even look like? Juyeon doesn’t care to remember the trivial. He’ll do good to remember he used to have a mother who loved him so.
Others pass by but Juyeon doesn’t remember their names, only duties. Time, stars, planet, planet, dark matter, stars.
Then there Eric. A simple name from a simple time long after Juyeons.
He’s the last Sangyeon tells him, it’s the first time they’ve spoken in millennia. Whispered in his ear as Sangyeon walks out.
Eric is young. So, so young. Tied to the stars as Juyeon is, but also to time.
He’s scared, and begs to be told more, to be sent home, anything but the fate he’s destined too. But they all know that can’t be. When Eric emerges from the water trembling as he grips the edge on the pond, the rest file in.
It’s the first time in, well, ever, they’re all gotten together like this. It’s strange having an existence that’s so grounded, never changing. And yet the others who share your same fate are mere fleeting moments. They aren’t friends, not even acquaintances, hell, Juyeom doesn’t even know the majority of their names.
They’ve all grown into their duties. Chanhee no longer screams, but carries a sense of added dignity with his movements. Knowing eyes that reflect all he’s seen.
Eric brings them all together.
Juyeon watches him with careful eyes from afar, never straying too close. Always dancing around any space they might share, quick to duck his head and dissolve into his endless duties. He is tied with the stars after all. Even those that are blessed with solar systems stay so far from their planets, cursed with an eternal waiting game of planetary orbitals. And stars need tending, constantly, but he finds room to watch. It’s what he's good at after all.
He watches Eric command the cosmos, twisting each star to bend to his desires, floating in fleeting moments throughout planes, outlasting even the oldest creations with his youth. The galaxies need not be commanded, following in suit with the stars that dance and gimmer in their internal existence. Time is ever pressing, but for Eric, it’s nothing but an old friend. Who is as old as creation itself, when the universe breathed its first breath did time follow. Juyeon still doesn’t understand those who are tied to something so seemingly uncontrollable. Yet Eric, all but laughs while he does so. The first time Juyeon sees time be twisted, not from a canopy miles away, but to bear witness himself, is a blessing. Even among these gods in the sky, Juyeon thinks Eric will outlast them all.
Juyeon comes to a conclusion, Eric is so much like him. Perhaps it is the curse of the stars. But Eric is so alone in this existence.
Juyeon also begins to be present for the presence of the others much more. He and Sangyeon spend more comfortable moments sharing silence, even Jacob will find a way up to the canopy’s and moss to do nothing more than share time. It’s the only thing they can give to each other after all, the internal time they all have constantly rushing beneath their hands.
It’s partially due to Eric, Constantly asking questions, begging to be told stories and tall tales. His wonder for their world bridges the gap between all of them. Those of stars and time begin to cross not only paths but lives as well. No longer bound by the unspoken rule of similar or same obligations. Those of chaos are no longer hidden, but walk freely beyond their confines. They begin to live, not just serve.
They all give Eric what he wants. It’s hard to say no when he asks so politely, eyes big and bottom lip jutting out, following any and everyone with their robes gently clenched in his hands. He’s their youngest, and it is their responsibility to teach.
The first time Eric speaks to Juyeon it’s like a star has ruptured inside him. Hot gas spilling, bursting over the very fabric interwoven within him.
“I'm not sure we’ve spoken yet. I’m Eric.”
Juyeon doesn’t reply for a while, he doesn’t know how. Here Eric is, after what must be eons of silent watching, he is right before him. All Eric does is smile at him ever so sweetly, playing with the stardust coating his fingers.
“I was wondering about the stars? I’m not sure how to keep them within the boundaries. And you are the oldest tied to them, correct?”
Juyeon blinks. Once. Twice.
“The stars?” He croaks out after an eternity has passed. Eric nods quickly.
Juyeon smooths out his robes, trying to collect himself, “One can not govern the stars. The boundaries mean nothing to them. It is our job to work around their driving desires. “
Eric eats every word up, brows furrowed. He mulls it over, and for a second Juyeon sees within him a small 8 year old boy staring up at his mother in a dark field. Juyeon blinks his reflection away.
Eric’s voice interrupts him, “But, if our role is to simply follow after them, why is it we are called tied? They have nothing of us to be burdened with, but we are to carry their weight.”
Juyeon shakes his head, “we are tied, we bear their weight and are burdened with their loneliness, and they travel with our conscious minds through all of existence.“
“They feel?” Eric asks hopefully. There’s a hidden meaning there. Can we feel?
“What we do. It is mirrored on them. It’s why control and temperament are so important for all that are tied with them. One gets carried away, and the stars will as well. And without ones stars, there is no need for us.”
“Does that mean we cannot feel?”
“No. We can, if you are willing to face the consequences that will garner.”
“What ? Consequences ?”
Juyeon takes his leave.
——-
Eric’s frolicking through the stars have captured not only Juyeons attention, but mind as well. He spends more and more of his days thinking of the younger being. Yearns to be closer, closer till they intertwin. He doesn’t try to shake the thoughts anymore, it’s no use. He waves away one and five take its place. Instead he welcomes the ideas that swirl inside him.
Eric, as if being able to sense being thought of, pops into the garden one day. The pond has long stilled, but flowers bloom as intensely as ever. Juyeon doesn’t try to run this time, he moves gently to make room on his favorite canopy, and Eric takes it. Sighing in glee when the leaves meet with his exposed skin softly.
They sit like that for who knows how long, caught up in each other’s presence, but long enough till they are tugged their separate ways by creation. But they meet as often as they dare. Sangyeon only stares when he finds them tangled together, quickly scampering away.
Juyeons yearning to be more, feel more, is granted to him one day. Eric’s soft hands feel more magical than any stars embrace. His lips dance brighter on his skin than any celestial body has or ever will. It’s so easy to get lost in all Eric had to offer, so easy to give in to his desires. He can feel music each time Eric smiles at him, comes to see him. He swears Eric makes the universe sing. Eric only laughs, it’s all for you, he says to Juyeon.
For you for you for you for you.
Sangyeon is the one to find them once more. No longer in friendly entanglement, but in words too grave to speak, hushed voices whispered against the shell of an ear. But creation will always hear, she beckons her oldest. And Sangyeon is, bound to her will.
He is a slave to her, doomed, and blessed all the same. Because for Sophrosyne, this is his eternity. He, in all sense, will never die. The biggest curse he bears, is the true eternal existence none of the others will ever taste. While he begs for death, it will never cast a glance his way. The others may doom themselves, the universe may no longer have a need for one, but never him. He is her first, and that he will stay.
It pains him to separate the beauty they have created, but he can not allow for another to fall. The divinity that runs through them can not be lost. He can not see them doom each other.
With a heavy heart he casts them to their silent abodes. Creation runs silent.
——-
Surprisingly, Jacob comes to visit all on his own, not sent or called on. Hesitantly finding his way up the canopy and joins Juyeon. They sit in silence, but all too aware of what this meeting means. Jacob is the first to break it, even if it pains him.
“You can not keep doing this.”
Juyeon doesn’t reply, this time not out of his inability, but out of spite. Why is it that he must give up his joy on this dim world? Even one covered with stars and celestial bodies as theirs is, it’s nothing without Eric.
“You’ll fade Juyeon…you’ll never see another light. We’re all worried, it can’t happen again I- we can lose you.“ Netik tries to plead.
Juyeon leaves soon after.
——-
Juyeon once more hides away like a coward, checking and recking on celestial bodies that just look on at his skittish behavior. But this time, he loses his grip on what he has come to know. His reality, his enternatiy, all that has made him divinity slips from his grasp. Juyeon is no longer guiding and aiding the stars. He’s found himself being dragged along by them, stardust invading his will and commanding its own, he coughs it out till it’s all he can see. He falls from the canopy, tries to grab the moss, but it all but hisses at his touch.
For the first time, Juyeon is afraid of death.
It wasn’t when his mother sobbed in his arms, standing in front of the withered priest, submerged under water, or when he was first faced with Sangyeon. It is now, when he realizes what he has done. Fallen from the graces of creation, let himself feel.
The stars fade. And along with them he goes. And as his light dims, he knows Eric’s never will.
Put to rest. He hopes to see his mother soon.
——-
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chandlerrosen · 4 years
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the hollow crown and dagger of the mind
when: auditions
where: the alderidge auditorium
who: chandler rosen, center stage, all alone
ooc: chandler is auditioning for macbeth! i don’t expect her to get the role, though i do think she’d be a strong contender! additionally, i think it’d be interesting if she played lady macbeth, as she never played a female role before and heidi seems to like to shake things up, plus the guilt tears lady macbeth apart, and though chandler didn’t kill anyone, she still feels incredibly guilty for a number of reasons. also, i think it’d be saucy if she was macduff, whose morality and thirst for justice could translate well to the plot, considering chandler wants to find out who kills orson! extra spicy if macbeth/lady macbeth killed orson, though that is up to heidi of course.
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,” 
the infamous words from the equally infamous play rang through chandler’s head as she anticipated her call to action, the beginning of the end. well acquainted with the ceremony of the audition, chandler held in her hand an iced coffee the size of her head, the condensation dripping down her thigh as she silently buzzed with adrenaline and caffeine. soon she would be called into the auditorium, prepared to bare her heart, her soul, the very blood in her veins, and leave it on the stage. just as orson taught her. of course, he wouldn’t be there, beaming up at her performance that she created for his eyes only. god, those eyes. how she missed the way they sparkled and glinted, their familiar warmth soothing her nerves as she uttered her first word, thus beginning her descent, spiralling deeper and deeper into the character she sculpted with the hands of her passion. 
and then she was called, by a voice unfamiliar though not unkind. nerves before an audition are normal - though some may disagree, they are liars. but her nerves were compounded with the fear that heidi knew, and would judge her for her fleshly sins - though sweet, they stung. the sun was beginning to sink as she took one last look out the window and entered the auditorium, the blinding stage lights a familiar comfort amidst the chaos. 
“hello, my name is chandler rosen and i’m auditioning for the role of macbeth,” she said confidently. a bold choice, but this would be her final time gracing the stage at alderidge, and such a tremendous goodbye must go out with an equally devastating bang. could she do it, though? before her audition she considered not auditioning, or simply doing an overdone speech from macbeth. but she couldn’t afford to be cast in a small role, quite literally. as well, it would simply prove everyone right when they swear she only got the lead in henry viii because of who she chose to give her heart to. rumors flew around chandler, beating her over and over again with words that stained and burned into her core. she chose to embrace those scars with her performance. if it is a murderer they want, it will be a murderer she will give. 
but could she do it? could she show, 
                                                         show,
                                                                    SHOW!
as the three witches demand? could she unfurl the scrolls inside her veins that contained her deepest fears of cowardice and regret, confront the monstrous creature that lived inside of her, that was capable of hurting those she loved? capable of becoming her mother? could she show the world the most depraved parts of her she tries so desperately to hide? she must, she simply has no other choice.
“i will be performing richard ii’s monologue from act three, scene three.” heidi nodded as she jotted down notes on her pad, and met chandler with friendly eyes. perhaps heidi wasn’t so bad after all. she was no orson, that was for certain, but no one could match up to him. and if she turned out to be the villain in this tragedy, so be it. more fuel for her fire. 
her body sunk with despair as she prepared her descent. voice lowered effortlessly as she did, she began, “what must the king do now? must he submit? the king shall do it: must he be deposed? the king shall be contented: must he lose the name of king?” she paused, a pained expression on her face as she imagined herself, a despot at his prime, seeing the fruits of his labor and body slipping before his eyes as he was faced with mutiny. “o' God's name, let it go:” moaning on go, they, chandler and richard intertwined, begged for release from their suffering. the words she spake became a river that flowed out from her lips as she became that tired egoist. “i'll give my jewels for a set of beads, my gorgeous palace for a hermitage, my gay apparel for an almsman's gown, my figured goblets for a dish of wood, my sceptre for a palmer's walking staff, my subjects for a pair of carved saints,” they pleaded with their audience, envisioned a world of simplicity, where outside pressures and pleasures were eliminated, their self effaced and transformed into a small cog in a divined machine. “and my large kingdom for a little grave,” pausing, a look of ecstasy and pain, of the utmost catharsis, spread across her face, she waited a beat for the words to sink in and resound across the space. a little grave, the same one orson was lying in, alone. the same one she would call eternity one day. 
the thought of orson in his grave made her heart sink deeper. her eyes glazed over as her voice turned bitter and dreamlike, “a little little grave, an obscure grave; or i'll be buried in the king's highway, some way of common trade, where subjects' feet may hourly trample on their sovereign's head; for on my heart they tread now whilst I live; and buried once, why not upon my head?” voice filled with spite and heartbreak, chandler couldn’t tell who she was more mad at - those who betrayed her, or she, who betrayed herself. betrayal - the thought never crossed her mind until that minute as she reveled in the pitiful richard, who saw his subjects as his children, and their committing patricide on their divinely anointed king. chandler didn’t see herself as the king of alderidge - far from it, honestly. though she understood his words, his desire with every fiber of his being to be anonymous, the burden of others and their bitter betrayal eased off his shoulders. their shoulders. the disappointment she saw in the eyes of those she once called friends, the sadness in the eyes of the one she called my love. breaking grace’s heart destroyed her own, and chandler would give anything to feel that sorrow and anger and betrayal that grace must feel. if only that could mean grace was happy. 
tears began to prick her eyes at the most opportune time as she turns to the fabricated cousin of richard and continues, “aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin! we'll make foul weather with despised tears; our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn, and make a dearth in this revolting land.” weeping joy fills her voice as she, as richard, gives a rousing speech to his woebegone cousin. misery loves company, after all, though chandler felt herself entirely alone lately. she had helen, but her best friend’s light was too bright to be dulled by the darkness of her own depravity. and thus she questioned who her own aumerle would be. who would be alongside her as she brought the storm down upon herself and her peers, who she digs her grave alongside? who would be brought down with her as she plummeted to the rocky bottom of her metaphorical grave? until finally she realized the answer. no one. 
alas, no time to dwell on her own misery upon the sordid stage! for it was richard who required her undivided attention! she quickened the pace, asking her next question with morbid, restrained glee, pontificating on their shared sorrow, “or shall we play the wantons with our woes, and make some pretty match with shedding tears? as thus, to drop them still upon one place, till they have fretted us a pair of graves within the earth; and, therein laid,—there lies two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.” and oh, how her eyes wept. her stream of tears slowed and stilled, her voice traversing the terrain from woe to bitterness, and dropping into melancholic anguish, popping the p’s like orson taught her, stressing the beauty of shakespeare’s words. all emotions dulled by the composure that dignified a king who had naught but his own dignity left. 
she turns to face heidi, her lone audience member. perhaps her new director was just as alone as she was. perhaps they could find common ground, perhaps she could soften the blow of orson’s death. the foolish thoughts of a child filled her head before she realized the obvious - nothing, and no one, could soften this lethal blow. and again, anger bubbled in her - anger at herself, at her own helplessness. a helplessness that she felt within richard, who could do nothing but stand there and talk, concede his kingdom and pray for his life. she spoke with a self-righteous flair, eager to hold onto the scraps of richard’s pride, “would not this ill do well? well, well, i see i talk but idly, and you laugh at me. most mighty prince, my lord northumberland, what says king bolingbroke? will his majesty give richard leave to live till richard die?” they laughed at him. all of them, laughing at a man on the brink of losing his lifeblood, faced with an impossble choice, and one completely out of his hands: to die a king, to live forever in infamy? or to die shrouded in anonymity, to live in peace? to be or not to be, though that question found its home in a different play far from chandler’s mind. 
contempt filled her voice as she straightened up, her final stand against those who dare deny her her love, her friends, her passion, who dare denied richard his hollow crown. she snarled her lip and began her solitary revolution, “you make a leg, and bolingbroke says ay.” 
it was the cowardice in those who deposed richard - they flatter him, only to mindlessly follow the next man with victory written in his blood. they praise him as they once praised richard. as they once praised orson. perhaps, at the denouement of her descent, she realized that she was not richard; orson was. or perhaps it was an amalgam of the two of them - three of them? after the time they spent together, chandler couldn’t help but wonder how much of orson’s soul intertwined with hers, how much blood he left stained on her fingertips, her throat, her heart. she once thought that she would be lucky to have an ounce of orson’s passion and intelligence, but now she worries - for a brief second before she violently effaces it from her mind’s eye - that he left too much of his own darkness. how selfish of him, to break her life and leave her to pick up the pieces. and yet, when they were together, she felt as though the cracks she accumulated throughout her life were plastered with solid gold. beauty cannot exist without terror, after all. 
she took a second to decompress from the emotions of her monologue. taking a breath, she perked up, smiling at heidi who, surprisingly, returned the gesture. “thank you, chandler.” she says before returning to her notepad. “thank you,” chandler said with a sincerity that startled her. adrenaline pumping through her veins, she floated out of the door, confronted by the hazy darkness of dusk. the thoughts and emotions that came up during her monologue, those unexplored territories that chandler feared venturing, were simply something she would have to ponder tomorrow. 
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Hi.. is there any stories where Kurt is denial of Blaine's passing Or Kurt sees Blaine everywhere and struggling to move on after his death? Thanks ❤
Hey @whitelies-love​,
Yes, there are. Please find a list below. Heed the warnings, because character death angst can include descriptions of depression and suicide plans/attempts, to name but a few triggers.
Sending you my warmest hugs,
Marjan
1 Corinthians 13:7 by @lady-divine-writes
Did you miss me, Mr. Anderson-Hummel?
~~~~~
A Halo Of Pale Light by @sheepassisted / fyrmaiden
Written for the prompt: "Kurt is immortal and constantly meets different versions of Blaine as he is reincarnated into new lives. Kurt always recognizes Blaine, but Blaine doesn’t, so he has to woo Blaine again with each life. They enjoy that life until Blaine dies and it starts all over again."
~~~~~
Countdown by Allofthebowtiesandscarves 
Kurt stands by the public Christmas tree in NYC when he meets Blaine. Three years later Kurt and Blaine are married and they're throwing their 3rd annual New Year's party when tragedy strikes.
~~~~~
Re-evaluating Life by @lady-divine-writes
Blaine dies in a tragic car accident, and a distraught Kurt tries to bring him back.
~~~~~
The Time Traveller’s Heart by alishatorn
Blaine feels the tug in his gut, the slow/fast spin of the world as he tumbles out of his time and into another, landing in an awkward sprawl on the grass. He’s naked and shivering; the air is cold.
~~~~~
And these ones are Blaine missing Kurt:
~~~~~
Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep by @hadelli
“I’m sure you all expected me to perform a song and not read a poem. I’m sorry to disappoint.”
Grief is never easy. But when Blaine Anderson looks back on his life, there isn't anything to grieve. Just a lot to be thankful for.
~~~~~
Blaine’s Muse by @lady-divine-writes
Blaine is an artist with the perfect life, hopelessly in love with his husband and his muse, Kurt. But when a tragedy takes his muse away, how will he find the strength to go on?
~~~~~
Phantom Touch by DreamingKate
He could still feel Kurt in his arms. 
~~~~~
Put It All In Writing by @lady-divine-writes
Blaine loses Kurt, but is anyone really lost if you remember them?
~~~~~ 
Sending Letters to the Grave by @longforlovers
Your side of the bed is always empty and cold and I wish you were there to cuddle with me on the dark nights when I feel so alone 
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Random Battle Cries, 6: Whether they’re warcries, taunts, calls to arms, rebel yells, rallying cries, or just offensive trash talk, the existence of battle related chants, shouts and songs are timeless. They can be simplistic and bone chilling, complex and inspiring or primal wordless screams of rage that shakes the enemy down to their iron-shod boots. PC’s can be defined by their words as much as their deeds and their last message to an enemy as battle commences can reveal who they truly are. Finding the perfect phrase for a unique and beloved character can be difficult and having several to choose from can be a quest in itself. Similarly, DM’s can become hard pressed to come up with new and inventive battle cries for enemies to shout just before initiative is rolled. This table is a collection of simple phrases, threats, insults and violent promises for creatures to yell before and during combat to add verbal spice to each attack. —Note: The phrasing for these are copied from their original sources the way they were written (I, Me, We, Him, Man, etc), and a player or DM should change the tenses to best suit the situation.
All That Will Be Remembered Is That You Fell!
At The End Of My Weapon You Will Find Your Fate!
Aww, Better Luck Next Life!
Be Destroyed!
Behold All These Lives For The Taking!
Believe Me, This Is A Mercy!
By the power of the light Burn!
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Death Calls And My Enemies Come!
Death Smiles At You! 
—Keep reading for 90 more battle cries.
—Note: The previous 10 battle cries are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.
All That Will Be Remembered Is That You Fell!
At The End Of My Weapon You Will Find Your Fate!
Aww, Better Luck Next Life!
Be Destroyed!
Behold All These Lives For The Taking!
Believe Me, This Is A Mercy!
By the power of the light Burn!
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Death Calls And My Enemies Come!
Death Smiles At You!
Die With Honor, Whelp!
Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?!
Even A Shallow Grave Is Deep Enough!
Fall Where You Stand!
Get Over here!
Go ahead, make my day
Go Meet Your Gods!
Great Honors Await You In The Valhalla!
Here You Break!
I Am The Last Thing You'll See!
I Come Bearing The Word Of My God. That Word Is Die!
I Doubt Your Kin Will Weep For You!
I Have Waited For This Moment!
I Live For This!
I Shall Remember This Victory Forever!
I Was Born To War, But You'll Die To It!
I Will Scatter All Who Gather Here Today!
I'll Beat You To Death With An Olive Branch!
I'll Cut A Notch With Your Name On It!
I'll Never Give You The Satisfaction!
I'm Done Being Merciful!
I've Bested Your Kind Before!
I've Never Lost And I'll Not Start Now!
I’ll Rend Your Fat Into Candles!
If You Surrender Now I’ll Buy Us The First Round At The Nearest Pub!
It’s Now Or Never!
Kill The Mages First!
Let Them All Fall Still Beneath My Shadow!
Let's Have Some Fun!
Live And Die On This Day!
Mark These Words, They'll Be The Last You'll Hear!
May The Gods Forgive Me!
May Your House Long Record Your Name!
Nevermore!
No Grave For You!
Off With Their Heads!
One Day, My Grandchildren Shall Tell The Tale Of This Moment!
Our Foes Are Gnawing Vermin! Scatter Them Before You!
Peace Was Never An Option!
Prepare Thyself!
Ready Or Not, Here I Come!
Redrum!
Scatter While You Can!
Show Some Ambition!
Stand And Face Me!
Suffer My Sorcery!
Taste My Blade!
The Bards will Tell Tales Of This!  
The Doors Of Death Open Wide!
The Gods Giveth And I Taketh Away!
The Gods May Spare Them, But I Will Not!
The Hour Has Come!
The Omens Foretell Your Demise!
The Sweetness Of My Victory Shall Be Like Divine Honey. Can You Already Taste It?
The World Is Safer Now!
The Worms Will Have You!
There Is No Sweeter Music Than The Screams Of Our Enemies. Now, Go Compose!
There Won't Be Enough Of You Left To Bury!
There's More Where That Came From!
There’s no escaping me!
This is the end my friend!
This Is What Heroes Do!
This Will Hurt!  
This'll Be A Good Show!
Time For Some Good Old Fashioned Diplomacy!
Time To Collect Your Bounty!
Time To Match Steel For Steel!
To The Foe!
To War And Glorious Conquest!
Try To Keep Up!
Watch Your Step, It's Six Feet Down!
We Are Pack!
Were You Expecting Me?
Who Dares?
You Almost Count For Half A Kill!
You can take my life but you will never take my freedom!
You Die As You Lived, Insipid And Ignorant!
You Have Been Weighed, You Have Been Measured And You Have Been Found Wanting!
You Have Called Death Upon Yourself!
You Lacked Discipline, Now Life!
You Made A Powerful Enemy!
You Shall Not Pass!
You Will Be Forgotten Tomorrow!
You'll Not Thwart My Quest!
You're Not Fit To Fight In My War!
You’ll Feel The Red Hand Of Death!
You’re Arrow Fodder!
Your Death Ennobles Us All!
Your Life Cycle Ends!
Your Nightmare Is Here!
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Hamlet Mariofied Act 4 Scene 5
Bolded names refer to the Mario characters playing the roles. The character role names remain the same in the context of the play and its dialogue.
Luigi = Horatio
Peach = Gertrude
Boom-Boom = 1st Gentleman
Wendy = Ophelia
Bowser = Claudius
Koopa the Quick = Messenger
Larry = Laertes
Act IV, Scene 5
Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
Enter Luigi, Peach, and Boom-Boom. Cue Pipe Maze tune.
Peach. I will not speak with her.
Boom-Boom. She is importunate, indeed distract.
Her mood will needs be pitied.
Peach. What would she have?
 Boom-Boom. She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There's tricks i' th' world, and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
 The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
 Luigi. 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Peach. Let her come in.
[Exit Boom-Boom.]
[Aside] To my sick soul (as sin's true nature is)
 Each toy seems Prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Enter Wendy, distracted. Music screeches to a halt.
Wendy. Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?
 Peach. How now, Ophelia?
Wendy. [sings]
How should I your true-love know
From another one?
By his cockle bat and' staff
 And his sandal shoon.
Peach. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
Wendy. Say you? Nay, pray You mark.
Sings with Story Box Music from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island playing in the background. He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
 At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
O, ho!
Peach. Nay, but Ophelia-
Wendy. Pray you mark.
 [Sings] White his shroud as the mountain snow-
Enter Bowser.
Peach. Alas, look here, my lord!
Wendy. [Sings]
Larded all with sweet flowers;
 Which bewept to the grave did not go
With true-love showers.
Bowser. How do you, pretty lady?
Wendy. Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter.
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at
 your table!
Bowser. Conceit upon her father.
Wendy. Pray let's have no words of this; but when they ask, you what
it means, say you this:
[Sings] To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
 All in the morning bedtime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose and donn'd his clo'es
And dupp'd the chamber door,
 Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
Bowser. Pretty Ophelia!
Wendy. Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't!
[Sings] By Gis and by Saint Charity,
 Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't if they come to't
By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, 'Before you tumbled me,
You promis'd me to wed.'
 He answers:
'So would I 'a' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.'
Bowser. How long hath she been thus?
Wendy. I hope all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot
choose but weep to think they would lay him i' th' cold ground.
My brother shall know of it; and so I thank you for your good
counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet
ladies. Good night, good night. Exit
Bowser. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.
 [Exit Luigi.]
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies.
But in battalions! First, her father slain;
 Next, your son gone, and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia
 Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts;
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps, himself in clouds,
 And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murd'ring piece, in many places
Give me superfluous death. A noise within.
Peach. Alack, what noise is this?
Bowser. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
[Enter Koopa the Quick.]
 What is the matter?
Koopa. Save Yourself, my lord:
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
Than Young Laertes, in a riotous head,
 O'erbears Your offices. The rabble call him lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry 'Choose we! Laertes shall be king!'
 Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
'Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!'
A noise within.
Peach. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
 Bowser. The doors are broke.
Enter Larry with others.
Larry. Where is this king?- Sirs, staid you all without.
All. No, let's come in!
Larry. I pray you give me leave.
 All. We will, we will!
Larry. I thank you. Keep the door. [Exeunt his Followers.]
O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
Peach. Calmly, good Laertes.
 Larry. That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard;
Cries cuckold to my father; brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirched brows
Of my true mother.
Bowser. What is the cause, Laertes,
 That thy rebellion looks so giantlike?
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
There's such divinity doth hedge a king
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
 Why thou art thus incens'd. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.
Larry. Where is my father?
Bowser. Dead.
Peach. But not by him!
 Bowser. Let him demand his fill.
Larry. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
 That both the world, I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng'd
Most throughly for my father.
Bowser. Who shall stay you?
Larry. My will, not all the world!
 And for my means, I'll husband them so well
They shall go far with little.
Bowser. Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge
 That sweepstake you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
Larry. None but his enemies.
Bowser. Will you know them then?
Larry. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms
 And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
Bowser. Why, now You speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
 And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.
A noise within: 'Let her come in.'
Larry. How now? What noise is that?
 [Enter Wendy.]
O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
 Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is't possible a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
 After the thing it loves.
Wendy. [sings]
They bore him barefac'd on the bier
(Hey non nony, nony, hey nony)
And in his grave rain'd many a tear.
 Fare you well, my dove!
Larry. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
Wendy. You must sing 'A-down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.' O,
how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his
 master's daughter.
Larry. This nothing's more than matter.
Wendy. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love,
remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.
Larry. A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.
 Wendy. There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you,
and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays.
O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy. I
would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father
died. They say he made a good end.
 [Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Larry. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
Wendy. [sings]
And will he not come again?
 And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead;
Go to thy deathbed;
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
 All flaxen was his poll.
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan.
God 'a'mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b' wi' you.
 Exit.
Larry. Do you see this, O God?
Bowser. Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
 And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
 Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.
Larry. Let this be so.
His means of death, his obscure funeral-
 No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation,-
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call't in question.
Bowser. So you shall;
 And where th' offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you go with me.
Exeunt
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mercedesbarnes · 7 years
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Lovebug
Summary: lovebug (n); the name given to the person with whom you have fallen head over heels in love. to be called a lovebug is the ultimate expression of affection. they are the love of your life.
Pairing: Bucky x Reader
Word Count: 5,207
Warnings: 40s!Bucky, memories in italics, v minor cursing, angsty fluff, sadness
A/N: so I’ve had this idea for a while and it took a life of its own, hence the word count. As always, I love hearing from you! 
A/N: a massive thank you to the american science queen @modestlyconfused for listening to me rant about this and life, helping me with details, and laughing about my autocorrect mishaps. Bucky would get you a crown too❤️
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“She’s over here.”
Steve’s voice carries over the rows.  Bucky doesn’t respond. Although the autumn sky is clear and blue, the sun is making its journey down in the sky and the breeze is cool.  It’s only when Steve places a gentle hand on his shoulder that Bucky stirs, tearing his gaze away from the weeping willow and focusing instead on his best friend.
His best friend, who knows where you are.
“Buck…we don’t have to do this if you’re not ready.”
Steve’s eyes search his. He’s reading Bucky like he always does, and as always, he knows what Bucky is thinking.  Bucky says it anyway.
“Yes—“ His voice shakes and he clears it to try again. “Yes we do.”
“I know.”
Bucky needs Steve’s hand on his shoulder like he needs air.  Squeezed tight and solid, Steve keeps his hand there as he guides them through the rows, respectfully keeping to the carefully marked paths.  Each rock speaks of the deceased, the long-lost loves, the ones that got away.
The worst part is that you hadn’t gotten away.  He had you, once, until it was ripped away from him.
Steve stops, Bucky stops, and both simply stare. Y/N Y/L/N.
Steve drops his arm and walks up to your headstone.  He crouches, holding the rock that has your name and the eight numbers that speak of your life yet could never carry the weight of love you brought between each four.
He speaks to you, but the words are lost to Bucky’s ears.  Is he tuning them out for the sake of Steve’s privacy? Maybe. More likely they are lost because of the memories that have thrust themselves into the forefront of Bucky’s mind.  
Laying the bouquet of flowers he brought, Steve rises and tells Bucky he will give him some time alone.
“Hi. It’s me.”
After meeting in seventh grade art class, Steve invites you over to teach him more about shading techniques.  You’re both on the fire escape in the middle of drawing when Bucky lets himself into Steve’s apartment and yells his presence.
“Hi, I’m Y/N.” You introduce yourself with an outstretched hand and a dazzling smile that cannot be outshone by the sun setting on the horizon.
“The name’s Bucky. How you doin’, doll?”
“I’m doing pretty well, handsome. Your friend here is a great artist.”
This makes Steve puff out his chest. He tells Bucky, “She’s the queen of shading.”
“Is that so?”
“Damn right I am, come look.”
He looks, and you are aptly named. Your sketch is enchanting despite being in the middle of construction, your lines capturing the character of the Brooklyn Bridge with impeccable ease.
“Remind me to get you a crown, you are the queen! Can I?” he asks, and you let him flip through the rest of your book. 
Steve likes to draw people; he has tens of sketchbooks full of his mother, of Bucky, of the mailman.  You, however, like to draw places and things: skyscrapers, houses, the graffiti so often found in the alleys where Steve fights. All shaded beautifully. All of Brooklyn.
“It’s home,” you explain when he points this out, “I never want to forget home.”
~
It’s years later that Bucky sits cross legged and leaning back on his hands, amused at the sight of you snatching the bowl of chips away from a greedy hand.
“Will! Stop eating, it’s your turn.”
“Okay, okay, don’t have your kite in a twist.”
Will wipes his powdered hands before spinning the empty glass Coca-Cola bottle the group is using for Spin the Bottle. It wobbles in circles on the carpet before pointing at the lucky person: John.
“Ooo,” Bucky teases, “Pucker up, Johnny boy.”
You’re in murmured conversation with Steve to his right, and his feeling of contentment grows.  He’s surrounded by his friends, at night in Dot’s house, doing what teenagers do during the summer after high school graduation. Eating and drinking and laughing.
John taps his cheek jokingly. He isn’t prepared when Will grabs the sides of his face and crashes his lips to skin, adding an audible ‘mwah’ for dramatic effect. John swipes at the spot.
“Ew, he licked me.”
Bucky pokes Steve, who is massaging away the stitches as you go on with your entertaining story; Bucky had convinced him to tag along, and although he originally hesitated, Bucky knows he’s having a good time.  Your narration and constant inclusion of Steve is a huge factor--you two are both passionate beings and had become fast friends. It’s not possible for Bucky to be more grateful that you’re here.
“Okay, go John.”
Bucky’s not sure if he believes in God, but he’s sure the bottle is guided by the divine: it lands on Mary.  He cheers watching John press a tender kiss to Mary’s cheek.  Pink dusts her face as she gives him a shy smile—they have a crush on each other. It’s positively cute how their eyes catch across the circle.
This game could be a romantic catalyst, he thinks, recalling his lessons in chemistry. Catalysts cause a change.  Reactions happen regardless of catalysts, but with them the reactants mix faster to make the product almost instantaneously. Here, the product could be love.
Bucky loves the idea of love, but he hasn’t found it. Not yet. For now, he kisses girls behind shops, kisses them on the Ferris wheel, woos them, charms them, sweeps them off their feet.
“Mary, don’t forget the rule!” Dot pipes up. “If you land on John, you two have to kiss for thirty seconds.”
“Is that new, Dot? Seems like you come up with more rules every time we play,” you ask, tilting your head. You have that smirk playing at your lips, the one Bucky classifies as reserved for teasing.
“My older sister says it’s how she plays. If two people spin each other they have to!”
If Mary’s hand shakes, no one sees it. Her shoulders fall at the result but only slightly. It’s Bucky, after all. He meets Mary in the middle of the circle and receives his kiss on the cheek. It’s soft, and he remembers how her softness felt on his own not too long ago. She was a good kisser, and if her and John weren’t about to go steady, he’d consider finding her later and doing it again.
Bucky spins idly, and is roused by Steve’s clap on his back.  You.  He smirks and reaches out with both hands.
“C’mere doll.”
Your eyebrows rise, but you move past Steve, who has scooted back to make room. Bucky brings you close and places not one, not two, but three kisses on your cheek.  When you pull away, surprised, Bucky flashes an innocent grin.
“What?”
“You’re somethin’ else, Bucky Barnes, really.”
“Thanks, Y/N Y/L/N,” he grins wider.
There’s something curious in the way you’re looking at him. “I haven’t decided if that’s a compliment yet.”
Your hand reaches for the bottle, breaking eye contact for the second it takes to twirl the glass. It goes fast, then stops suddenly, snagged on a bump in the carpet.  It’s pointed directly at Bucky and your eyes lock.
Will yells, “Go on then! Kiss him!” and you do.  You kiss him, and he thinks he’s in heaven. If Mary’s lips were soft, yours were silk.
He’s so caught off guard by this feeling, this feeling of right, that ten seconds pass before he realizes you two are only connected by your mouths.  You’re tugging at his sleeve and you shuffle closer, enough for him to wrap an arm around your waist and bring you flush against his chest while you run your fingers over his shoulders and in his hair.
When Bucky surfaces at the call of thirty seconds, he is visibly shaken. The thought that he must be red as a tomato flits through Bucky’s muddled brain, because Steve has the exact look his Ma wore whenever he had a coughing fit.
The world is spinning. He likes it.
“Buck, you okay?”
Nothing so articulate as a sentence could be said from him now.  So he says the only word he knows.
“Y/N.”  Yes.
“…you sure?”
“Y/N,” he answers again, dazed.  
His eyes are on you as a small smile creeps onto your lips and they're on you as you hide it and your blush by looking at the carpet. You squirm under the taunts of your friends and Will’s excited cheers. Nobody’s ever seen Bucky rendered speechless. Hell, he doesn’t think he’s ever been. Your smile is well deserved.
Mary nudges you. “I think you broke him.”
Bucky sees you bite your lip, now worried, and turn to Steve. “Maybe he needs to go home? He’s a bit red--”
“Oh no, he’s not leaving. It’s time to play Seven Minutes in Heaven,” Dot announces while clapping her hands, “Y/N and Bucky can go first.”
The seven minutes are spent talking, any teenage awkwardness overshadowed by the sheer comfortableness of your friendship. 
Bucky realizes he wants more.  More time, more you, more than friendship.
Perhaps Cupid’s arrow is not made of wood, but of a red and white glass catalyst.  Whatever it is, whoever shoots it, Bucky knows he’s grateful for that bottle.
Which is why he places another one on your grave, beside Steve’s flowers; the neck of it pointed towards the carved letters of your name.
“I miss our seven minutes in heaven, Y/N. I miss you.”
It is two weeks later that Bucky sees you again, this time at Coney Island on a Saturday.  You’re standing arm-in-arm with Mary, in line for the games. The fabric of your clothes flows lazily as the crowd moves around you.
“Go over there.”
“Hmm?”
“Go over there,” Steve repeats.
“What happened to the Cyclone? You promised you’d come, don’t back out on me, punk.”
“Bucky, you haven’t taken a girl out in weeks. You’ve clearly got it bad for her, jerk, now go.”
“Stevie...”
Steve considers Bucky for a long minute, taking in how he is shuffling his feet, hands in his pockets and his teeth worrying at his bottom lip, yet staring longingly at you. Bucky is surprisingly nervous. He has never been nervous to talk to a girl before.
They ride the Cyclone, and Steve throws up.
“Steve was playing matchmaker; can you believe it? Man,” he says, smiling softly, “I’m so grateful.”
A week of pining and not-so-subtle flirting goes by before Bucky finally asks you on a date, much to Steve’s relief. He had told Bucky that Will made a move on you that morning and you declined. Then Steve pushed him out of the apartment with the threat of “an ass-kicking if you don’t come back with a date.” Nerves be damned, Bucky spends the whole afternoon trying to find you, checking all your regular spots and catching you as you exit a store. You're adjusting your purse and your head raises when he calls your name.
“Y/N!”
Bucky walks backwards, facing you, looking behind him every few moments to make sure he doesn’t bump into anything.
“Hey, Bucky.”
“Going somewhere?”
You nod. “Dot’s asked me to come over.”
“Nah, you’re not going there. We’re doing something fun.”
“Steve said he heard the theatre’s playing a good one--”
“No, no, not with Steve.”
You gasp, holding a hand over your heart. “No Steve? You’re a terrible friend.”
“It must be Opposite Day, I’m a terrific friend. And I’m a boy too, I can show you how terrific of a boyfriend I am.”
Bucky bites his lip and runs his fingers up your arms to brush back your hair, and he blinks when you don’t swoon like other girls at the classic Barnes seduction technique. Had you not seen him in action over the years, maybe, just maybe, you might not have rolled your eyes. No matter how affectionately. It is then that he knows you will challenge him more than any of his trigonometry problems ever could. 
“I can’t ditch Dot...”
“You could...reschedule. Unless you two are meeting Will? Little birdie told me he was asking after you.”
“Steve’s such a gossip. No, we’re not seeing him, look out—”
He twists to avoid hitting a mailbox but he overshoots in excitement and whacks his elbow, making him bite his cheek to stop a colourful string of curses from escaping. All he wants to feel better is your hug, and that’s exactly what he goes for.  
“Ow.”
“Poor Bucky,” you say, your voice sympathetic and muffled by his shirt while your hands rub up and down his back. “Anything I can do?”
It’s clear you mean ice, or a bandage, but you walked right into it and it’s too good of an opportunity for him to ignore.
“Play hooky with me. You can see Dot tomorrow and tell her all about our spectacular date.”
“Spectacular, huh? What are we doing?”
“Well...” Bucky sways you back and forth, slowly walking you back to where you came from. He meets next to no resistance. In fact, you wind your arms tighter around him and prop your chin on his chest to meet his gaze.  “You’ll just have to find out, won't you?”
“You’re making me very curious.”
“Good. Means you’ll come with me.”
His mind is running wild with possible date spots when he hears them, and his head falls onto your shoulder. They're the unmistakable, undeniable sounds of Steve’s righteousness.
“Goddammit Steve.”
You giggle. It’s right in his ear and oh, how he loves the sound. “Go rescue him, the brave stubborn soul.”
“If you’ll go out with me. See? My elbow feels better already and I’ll need more hugs after pulling Stevie out.” You’re shaking your head in wonder at him, that teasing smirk on your lips again. “And I’m more fun than Dot, believe me!” 
Bucky pecks your cheek and runs off, calling over his shoulder, “Seven!” 
It is seven o‘clock, and Bucky has his fist raised, poised to knock on your door when it flies open.  
“Hello.”
Your smile, the one that has him hooked, knocks the wind out of him.  So does the dress that hugs you like it was custom-made. You look beautiful. Ethereal.
“Wow,” he breathes. “Hi.”
Part of being their friend means lounging in their apartment due to Steve’s health, so Bucky is used to seeing you in more casual wear or in his sweaters anytime you got cold.  Regardless of the outfit you’re stunning, but this date look is new and it’s making you glow and he’s more than a fan.
With the way you’re looking at him, you must be thinking the same thing: Bucky has parted his hair neatly and is looking smart in a pair of black dress pants and a blue button up that matches his eyes. His face is clean shaven, just the way you like it, and he’s wearing his best cologne.
“I must say, Barnes, you clean up well for dates,” you wink, running a finger under his chin before turning to lock your door.
“We’re just getting started, doll,” he assures you. 
Never breaking eye contact, Bucky takes your hand and brushes his lips across the knuckles. This gets a soft smile and linked hands, and his heart does a flip-flop. You keep the other on his upper arm while he takes you to the destination.
“Where are we off to, Mr. King of Spectacular Dates? Do I have to wear a blindfold?” 
“Patience is a virtue,” he teases, “And nope. Look! We’re on the way and no blindfold.”
“Give me a hint. No? Not even one? Okay. I’m calling you Mr. King of Secrets instead.”
“For future reference, Y/N, if I’m a king then you’re my queen.”
“You did tell me you'd get me a crown when we first met.”
“What do you think I’m getting you for your birthday?” Bucky grins and it’s rewarded by one of your own.
“I'll be sure to wear it every day.”
“As you should, Your Majesty.”
One night while watching the stars Steve, the hopeless romantic, had asked what was the perfect date? You had said a dinner on the docks; it's simple yet romantic, with the waves lapping at the wooden pier and serenading you as you get to know your companion.
Bucky had filed that information away for the future. Now is the future. It didn’t take too much for him to set up; he just had to call in a few favours with his chef friend, charm the local vendor into selling him your favourite fruit, and promise to switch shifts with the dock workers so they’d keep the area empty for the night. 
Slightly anxious, Bucky awaits your reaction when you reach the docks. Your eyes are wide and you're uncharacteristically quiet, having trailed off from telling him about your mom’s cousin and he’s worried you don't like it.
He scratches at the back of his neck with his free hand and is about to open his mouth to suggest something else but he doesn't have to.
“Bucky…this is...wow…” You speak in a whisper, and it is no whisper of dislike. Wonder, astonishment, but no dislike. Your gaze shifts from the meal on the candlelit table to Bucky. “I can't believe you remembered. I said that years ago.”
“Of course I remembered. I remember everything about you.”  
Your face reflects your awe and gratitude, and it's as if someone lifted a heavy weight off his shoulders: you like it. He just needs to know if it’s as perfect as he remembers the tone of your words being when you described it. 
“It's still true, right? What you said?”
“Yeah.”
Squeezing his hand, you go to the table and he helps you into your chair. You have dinner, your conversation easy and the food delicious, and halfway through you confess the date is more than spectacular. He wholeheartedly agrees. It’s the best date he’s ever been on and it's not even done. You’re the best date he’s ever had.
It's dark when Bucky walks you home, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, your intertwined hands swinging merrily while he recounts what happened at the docks last week.  It’s a silly little story, but it makes you light up and that’s all that matters.
If only the night could never end.
Dying to get more time with you, Bucky declares through your laughter that he's forgotten where your building is and kidnaps you for another lap of the block. You make him complete two more before he’s allowed to bring you to your doorstep. 
Bucky's ecstatic when you hold off on the goodbye by fiddling with your keys. As a gentleman he doesn’t want to overstep, but he really wants to kiss you goodnight.
“Thank you for tonight, Bucky, I had a really great time,” you murmur, wrapping your arms around his neck. You sigh happily when his encircle your waist. This too, feels right. Maybe he can kidnap you again.
“Mmm,” he hums, breathing in the intoxicating smell of your shampoo, “I did too. Cancel all your plans, doll, we're going out again tomorrow.”
You move but don’t go far. Still, touching noses isn't close enough for Bucky. “Dot won't be happy.”
“I’ll be happy. What do you say, Y/N?” He tilts his chin so his lips feather gently over yours. The taste of your exhales pleases his beating heart, which is screaming at the manners telling him to wait for permission. “Another spectacular date?”
Your eyes flutter closed. “Yes. Now kiss me already.”
It's soft and sweet, and when you melt into him, his eyes roll back into his head. With his previous lovers he is used to being in control, on solid ground. But you are making him fly, over the tallest of buildings, above the highest of clouds, and the feeling he got from the Cyclone is laughable compared to this. He's falling.
“Goodnight, Bucky, ” you say softly when you part, and your hand trails down the side of his face. He takes it and kisses your palm.
“Night, Y/N, see you tomorrow.”
You nod at his words, and turn to open the door. Unsuccessfully, because Bucky still has your hand and uses it to pull you back to him and steal another kiss, lacing your fingers as he does. You whack his arm when he doesn't let go but it’s light and he feels you smiling against his lips.
He’s falling, and has every intention of bringing you with him.
Walking away from your door, running a hand through his hair and grinning like a fool, Bucky stops when you call his name.
“I’ve made up my mind.  You’re really somethin’ Bucky Barnes, and that’s more than a compliment. It's fact.”
“Steve swore he could hear me cheering from blocks away...not sure if he ever told you that.”
He is 22 and he is in love.
“Bucky, please not there—“
“Why not? Dancing is fun!”
You draw circles in the dirt with your shoe and mumble, “I-I don’t know how,” to which he clicks his tongue in disagreement.
“Lying is bad, Y/N.”
“You’re so good, I’ll embarrass you.“
“You could never embarrass me, how could I be embarrassed when I have the best and prettiest girl in all of Brooklyn on my arm?”
“You could, if you saw my moves. I might even break your toe.”
“Doll, you’re being worse than Steve,” he sighs, and you pout. It’s adorable.
“Am not.”
Bucky takes your face in his hands and he kisses your nose, rubbing your cheekbone with his thumb. The trust in how you look at him is everything he’s ever dreamed about and wanted in a love, only it’s better and it’s you. 
“You are. I’ll be right there with you and it’ll be fun, I promise. Let me dance with my lovebug.”
“Okay. I hear our song playing, too.”
You let him lead you to the dance floor, and he thinks, for the millionth time, how perfect your hands fit in his. There have been many dates since the first one and the novelty still hasn’t worn off.
“Ah! Sorry!” you exclaim as you step on his foot again.
“It’s okay. You’re doing great, really fantastic! Now we go left,” he coaxes, guiding you through the movements. It takes a few songs, but he’s an excellent teacher and you’re a fast learner. “That’s it, Y/N, you’ve got it!”
Soon you have forgotten the steps and are simply dancing like nobody's watching.  Because nobody is: there is only you and him, him and you. The music swells and he is laughing and you are laughing, your hair coming undone from its style. Bucky spins you to make more pieces wild, because they frame your face and the sparkle in your eyes.
You are spinning. He likes it.
When a slow song comes on as the last dance of the night, Bucky brings you into him and, resting his forehead on yours, he places his hands at the small of your back. You close your eyes and your hands are warm on his neck.  After all the dancing, both of your heartbeats are fast, though Bucky can feel them slow in the comfort of each other’s arms.
He is 23 and he is in love.
With a phone he has the world in his pocket.  With you, he had the world in his arms.
But the world faces disaster; natural or manmade, none felt as devastating as the writing in that fateful envelope.
Drafted.
It is the best thing to have someone’s love. Though Bucky cannot feel his body much, your hands are on him, smoothing back his hair, wiping away the sweat, and it is nice.
“I don’t want to go.”
“I know, Bucky, I know.”
You don’t say it, yet Bucky hears it loud. You don’t want him to go either. It’s not like he has a choice; his country needs him. If he did, he’d stay with you and Steve in an instant--
“How the hell am I going to tell Steve?!” He bolts up, eyes wide, and he searches your face for the answers he knows you don’t have.
“We’ll find a way,” you soothe, and you guide him back down to the bed. “Let’s get some sleep and think about that tomorrow.”
You lie on your side, facing him, the line of your waist as graceful as the curve of your smile. You reach out and trace the shape of his nose, his jaw, his collarbone.  It makes him shiver; you hurry to grab the blankets, but he isn’t cold.
“I didn’t know it then, but you were memorizing me, weren't you?”  
The first time Bucky notices you drawing a person, it surprises him.
The three of you are sitting on the fire escape as usual, breathing in the afternoon Brooklyn air. You and Bucky are reading a book together, his inner thighs pressed against your outer ones, and his arms are around your waist as you lean against him and read aloud. Steve is across from you, sketching who knows what, his eyebrows drawn into the line only art could cause. It’s perfect.
Then Steve wordlessly passes you the sketchbook, and you untangle yourself from Bucky and take Steve’s place.  He pushes the book into Bucky’s hands and insists, “Keep going.”
Bucky wants to question it, he really does, but the sound of your pencil scratching against the paper and the feeling of his best friend’s chin on his shoulder convince him that, maybe, he does not need to know. Not now, anyway. So he reads; he reads until Steve is shivering from the quickly disappearing sun and must go to bed, but you have not moved save for the satisfied, toothy smile you wear as you admire the sketchbook.
He shuts the novel. “Whatcha got there?”
“Nothin’.”
“Y/N…”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.“ You set the sketchbook aside and resume your cuddles. You take one of his hands and kiss it. Bucky presses his lips to your temple, and his breaths tickle your ear when he speaks.
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Stevie knows.”
You stay quiet, and Bucky knows you well enough to wait for you to elaborate.  
“I asked him to help me with something. It’ll all be revealed tomorrow. Don’t you worry your pretty little head, lovebug.” You reach up and card your fingers through his hair, and he hums in appreciation. It’s peaceful like this, the stars watching over Bucky, you, and the rest of the city.  “I love you, Bucky.”
“I love you too.” He squeezes you once and you snuggle deeper into his embrace, linking your fingers with his other hand. “We’re going to sleep here? Okay. Are you warm enough?”
“Mhm, you’re warm,” you say, and promptly fall asleep.
Looking down at you, your soft snores rumbling against his body, Bucky’s sure he’s the luckiest man alive. You’re fast asleep by the time he closes his eyes.
Tomorrow comes, and you are not beside Bucky when he wakes up.  Neither you nor the sketchbook are anywhere in the apartment, and Bucky’s seriously wondering if you fell off the fire escape until you walk through the door, completely nonchalant. He wraps you a tight hug, making sure not to squish the sketchbook, which he supposes to be the reason for your disappearance. 
“If telling me you’re a magician is the secret, I don’t think I like it very much,” he mumbles, and you laugh.
“It’s not. I can show you my card tricks to prove it,” you say, releasing Bucky and knocking on Steve’s bedroom door. “Here’s the secret.”
You settle into breakfast with the boys, and pass out three sheets of paper. They all have the same drawing:  you and Bucky, reading, with Steve leaning on Bucky’s shoulder and looking at the book. It’s Steve’s drawing and your shading.
“It turned out great, Y/N.”  Steve bounces giddily.
“Yeah it did! Thanks again for the help, Stevie.” He pats your forearm. “The library’s photocopier works magic,” you wink at Bucky, but he’s too engrossed and he misses it.
What he thought was entirely Steve’s work has yours; the most noticeable parts being your definition of Bucky’s nose, jaw, and collarbone.The sketch is black and white, but all Bucky can see is colour.  He can see Steve’s hair shining, the last rays of light hitting it and turning it golden; the beauty of your hair behind your ear; the blue in his own eyes as he listens, his whole face relaxed.  
Below it are the words:  My home, and my family.
“I love it. I really do, this is amazing.” 
Steve signs his name on all three, and passes the pen along so you and Bucky can do the same. Bucky decides this is the picture he will bring with him.
“I brought it overseas, and you’d know better than me where it ended up. Steve’s a hoarder, by the way.” He glances at the blond, who is admiring the trees a few hundred yards away. “He kept his sketchbook and I framed the new photocopy. It’s on my desk.”
The morning he leaves, you are not crying.  He can see it brewing under the surface, in your shuddering breaths when you think he can’t see, and he’s aware you will cry with Steve later. Right now, he is thankful.  Otherwise he’s not sure he could walk out the door or remotely hold it together here. You are strong for him and that is nearly everything he asks of you.
“James Buchanan Barnes. If you think I won’t be here the moment you come back, I’ll smack you.”
He kisses you, hard. He tries to give you all the words he has said before, the ones he cannot say, and the ones he is about to say.
“I love you so, so much,” he whispers.
“I love you so much, Bucky. Be safe, please.”
“Don’t you dare forget about me.”
“I could never. I’ll be waiting for my lovebug to come home.” You seal your promise with a tight hug and one last kiss. 
Tuberculosis, they told him, got you a year after he left. He supposes it is good, great even, that you never heard the stories of what he would become.
The next thoughts frighten: what if you saw it from heaven? Angels are omniscient, right? Will he have a chance at the afterlife with an angel?
Bucky wants more than seven minutes in heaven with you. He wants it more than anything.
The tears are forming hot and fast now, and he blinks, letting a couple slide down his cheeks, pause on his jaw and continue down his throat before he wipes them away. He swallows hard and collects himself.  You were strong for him, he can be strong for you.
The breeze passes through again, this time warmer.  It swirls around Bucky, running its fingers through the tendrils of his hair, slipping underneath his arms and caressing his cheek.  The air flies straight through his ribs to hug his heart just like you did when you curled up next to him.
It is then that he knows: whenever the serum wears off, in two weeks, in five years, in a hundred—when it does, you will be waiting for your more-than-seven-minutes together in heaven.
Bucky presses a lingering kiss to your name and then traces the epitaph.
“Goodbye, my lovebug.” 
Bucky stands, letting his fingers trail along the headstone curve, and reunites with Steve by a grip on his shoulder. They stay like that for a long time. The sun sets.
A home doesn’t need to be a house, and family doesn’t need to be related. I’ll never forget home.
{epitaph credit to this pin} 
A/N: thank you for reading❤️ 
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uomo-accattivante · 7 years
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A little over a third of the way into the modestly dressed, disarmingly brilliant production of Hamlet now playing at the Public, Oscar Isaac as the iconic prince turns to us before one of his famous soliloquies and calmly tells us, “Now I am alone.”
I caught my breath at these four words. They were not a statement of fact — they were an invitation to the audience to imagine.
Not every Hamlet calls attention to its own theatricality. This Hamlet — beginning with its use of the company onstage as a second audience, a mirror for us out in the seats — engages us in a game that makes us contemplate the very nature of performing. When Oscar Isaac tells us, still surrounded by his fellow actors, “I am alone,” he is not describing but instructing. He is working on our imaginary forces — or, as he might say, our mind’s eye — telling us, These are the rules of this game. Come, play.
It is a mark of this production’s intelligence that its rules are inscribed in its aesthetic from the very beginning by a set of design choices that blur the line between audience and stage. The Anspacher is a strange space: a thrust configuration — which is Shakespearean enough — but surrounded by raked banks of red upholstered seats that come from an entirely different era of spectatorship. Hamlet’s set (by David Zinn), like the production itself, is unassuming and very, very smart: It extends the feel of the seating banks by covering the whole stage in red carpet. The chairs used onstage are a match to those in the front rows of the audience: modern, institutional, more red upholstery. Hanging above the playing space are additional house lights mimicking those above the audience (these the domain of lighting designer Mark Barton, whose work is a subtle, powerful complement to Zinn’s).
The main playing area — apart from the chairs and a table that looks like it could have been pulled from one of the Public’s conference rooms — is empty. The back wall is unadorned. Props are few and almost all present at the back of the stage at the show’s beginning, waiting for eventual use. There is a station for a musician (the incredible Ernst Reijseger) who creates the entirety of the production’s sonic landscape on a cello and a set of wooden pipes that play like an eerie organ. Each actor has only one costume, and if designer Kaye Voyce has not pulled directly from the actors’ own closets, she has quietly and cleverly curated a palette that feels as if she has done so. Director Sam Gold and his team of designers seem to have constructed their world in alignment with Hamlet’s advice to the Players:
--- …O’erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. ---
The actors likewise adhere to these instructions: Their attack on the language is clear and often conversational. They carry us deftly through the poetry without bluster or bravado — we follow the threads of their thought, and when great emotion flows it flows naturally, from a wellspring of grief or rage or shame that feels real.
Real. Ay, there’s the rub. Nothing onstage in this Hamlet is “theatrical” in the way that we have come to understand the term — as a synonym for spectacular, outlandish, or exaggerated. Rather, Sam Gold and his company are interested in a different and perhaps deeper definition of theatricality: Their Hamlet is playing a game with our notions of real and pretend, of sincerity and falseness. After all, you might think that by following Hamlet’s advice to the Players you could simply end up with a realistic TV drama — but Hamlet isn’t asking for realism, he’s asking for truth. He’s asking for honesty wrapped in the artifice of play. The heart of Gold’s production — and its genius — lies in its obsession with the paradox of the Honest Performance.
Hamlet insists that he “know[s] not ‘seems.,” but any good actor will tell you that you can feel all day long, but without seeming — without the show of that feeling — there’s no play. And Hamlet, the character, is a good actor. (This Hamlet, in the person of Oscar Isaac, at once mischievous and deeply soulful, is exceedingly good.) Part of the character’s tragedy is that he is a thoughtful comedian trapped in the bloody, archaic genre of the Revenge Play, forced into playing a role his very nature abhors. Imagine if Othello or Hotspur had been Old Hamlet’s son. Claudius would be dead and young Fortinbras defeated by Act 2, Scene 1.
Gold’s production dispenses with Fortinbras and with all references to any wider political conflict. (In interviews, he and Isaac have repeatedly described the show as “intimate.”) It’s a vision of a Hamlet in which the wider world is not Scandinavia but the theater. The company’s members are aware on some deep level of their existence both as actors and as characters in a play. Keegan-Michael Key (who makes a charming Horatio) begins the performance with a casual, endearingly silly curtain speech to the audience, but this is no mere lark: It introduces us to Horatio as a kind of narrator, a role that he will return to with much more gravity when, at the play’s end, he assumes responsibility for telling Hamlet’s story. He even adopts one of Fortinbras’s lines at the finale — “[Let] these bodies / High on a stage be placed to the view” — and when he says it, we hear not a dictator organizing a military funeral but a stage manager preparing for a literal eternity of performances of Hamlet.
In cautioning Ophelia not to trust Hamlet’s declarations of love, Laertes shows a similar subliminal awareness of the play-world he inhabits. He warns his sister that Hamlet “may not, as unvalued persons do, / Carve for himself, for on his choice depends / The safety and health of this whole state.” By “whole state” he typically means Denmark, but in this production Laertes (the compelling Anatol Yusef) gestures to us, the audience, and around the room at the chairs, the table, the lighting grid. Laertes is warning his sister, This story depends on him, and there’s only one way it can go. Likewise, when plotting to send Hamlet to England, Claudius (the superb Ritchie Coster) growls that he can’t outright punish his troublesome stepson, because “he’s loved of the distracted multitude.” Those last two words can only mean us. We, the audience, love Hamlet, and our imaginary forces hold sway in this room; Claudius, Laertes, and the rest of this ensemble maintain an understated awareness that they are acting in Hamlet’s play. This is not nudge-nudge-wink-wink mugging; the actors are not nodding their heads at us and mouthing, as Hamlet might have it, “Well, well we know.” A showier self-consciousness of theatrical artifice is fairly common on the stage these days. There is something subtler at work here — an investigation of the paradoxical alchemy of sincerity and deceit that lies at the heart of Hamlet and of theater itself.
The layers of this theatrical onion are further multiplied by the fact that the nine-person company of players doubles as … the Company of Players. By limiting the number of bodies onstage and letting each one accumulate valences of meaning, Gold sounds Shakespeare’s play like a great resonant bell. Seeing the Player King/Player Queen scene played out in the bodies of Gertrude and Claudius (who is also the ghost of Old Hamlet) is a revelation: Often delivered with self-conscious puffy artifice, here the scene feels like a moment out of time, like watching Hamlet witness a moment that might truly have taken place between his mother and his sickly father. And the Player King’s warning to his Queen — that she won’t be able to keep her vows never to remarry — rings with pathos and prophecy: “Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.” So says this false king — this actor — prefiguring Hamlet’s recognition of the “divinity that shapes our ends” and summing up in a single line the tragedy of the prince’s character. What is Hamlet if not a creature of thought, doomed to an end none of his own?
Or take the doubling of Laertes and the Lead Player, who enters into a friendly competition with Hamlet over their shared delivery of the great Pyrrhus speech. The Player astounds Hamlet with his ability to “force his soul so to his own conceit” — he can make himself weep on cue! “For nothing! For Hecuba!” — which drives Hamlet to the frenzied contemplation of his own inaction. By this point, the Hamlet who could clearly separate performance from substance is gone: He now longs to act in all senses of the word, even if it means conflating those senses. In attempting to follow the Player’s example, Hamlet substitutes performance for the real action he so craves (and fears), winding up screaming melodramatically into the winds (“Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! / O, vengeance!”) and, here, doing great violence to a dish of lasagna. No wonder Isaac looks up afterwards — the clown who tried to play the avenger — and cracks a wry, abashed smile: “Why, what an ass am I!”
Though Hamlet knows in his most lucid moments that the performance of a thing is not the thing itself, he remains obsessed with the enactment of his own feelings, as if performing them paradoxically proves their honesty. When this Hamlet confronts Laertes at Ophelia’s grave (“What is he whose grief / Bears such an emphasis?”), we have already seen these two men compete in the performance of grief. First, it was for Hecuba, a mere fantasy, a play. Now, it is for Ophelia, a real woman whom they both loved. Laertes and Hamlet are both wracked by real anguish, and they are also playing at it: Who loved her more? Who can mourn her better? It’s a wrenching thing to watch — who among us has not felt something deeply and simultaneously felt ourselves performing the feeling? Acting is in our nature; we long to be witnessed.
Is such ore always there for the mining in this scene between the grieving lover and the grieving brother? Yes. But does every Hamlet mine it? No. It is the mark of a deeply intelligent production when it makes you hear anew a work encrusted with so many barnacles of historical, literary, and theatrical precedent.
They don’t call it “Poem Unlimited” for nothing. The glory of Hamlet is its unsoundable depth. Another director with another production might strike its great bell from a slightly different angle and produce completely different resonances. Another director might be as fascinated by kingship, war, and affairs of state as Sam Gold is by layers of theatricality. Still, while Gold might have stripped the play of its original political context, this “intimate” production has not been stripped of politics. Its seeming domesticity is deceptive; it has something pointed to say about the political state of our world, but its tool is a needle, not a bludgeon. By its indirections, we find directions out.
“Ay sir,” quips Hamlet to Polonius, “to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.” It’s a great line, always, but at this moment I heard it cut the air with a new sharpness. That word, honest, rings out over and over in this production. The politics of this Hamlet is a politics of performance, of being and seeming, of sincerity and hypocrisy, truth and corruption. In this way, Gold’s production may well be an abstract and brief chronicle for our time. After all, how many of our highest politicians might currently be asking themselves, “May one be pardoned and retain the offence?”
Hamlet is at the Public Theater through September 3.
###
@poe-also-bucky
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donalsgirl · 7 years
Text
A Hamlet Where Everyone’s Onstage
A little over a third of the way into the modestly dressed, disarmingly brilliant production of Hamlet now playing at the Public, Oscar Isaac as the iconic prince turns to us before one of his famous soliloquies and calmly tells us, “Now I am alone.”
I caught my breath at these four words. They were not a statement of fact — they were an invitation to the audience to imagine.
Isaac was not alone, not in this moment nor ever. Hamlet as written contains seven soliloquies, but the Hamlet who is now wrestling with his fate on the red-carpeted boards of the Anspacher Theater is never a solo figure: He always has an audience. During each soliloquy, members of the ensemble sit or stand strewn about the stage, still present, giving their prince a quiet, serious attention — a company of players, watching and listening.
Not every Hamlet calls attention to its own theatricality. This Hamlet — beginning with its use of the company onstage as a second audience, a mirror for us out in the seats — engages us in a game that makes us contemplate the very nature of performing. When Oscar Isaac tells us, still surrounded by his fellow actors, “I am alone,” he is not describing but instructing. He is working on our imaginary forces — or, as he might say, our mind’s eye — telling us, These are the rules of this game. Come, play.
It is a mark of this production’s intelligence that its rules are inscribed in its aesthetic from the very beginning by a set of design choices that blur the line between audience and stage. The Anspacher is a strange space: a thrust configuration — which is Shakespearean enough — but surrounded by raked banks of red upholstered seats that come from an entirely different era of spectatorship. Hamlet’s set (by David Zinn), like the production itself, is unassuming and very, very smart: It extends the feel of the seating banks by covering the whole stage in red carpet. The chairs used onstage are a match to those in the front rows of the audience: modern, institutional, more red upholstery. Hanging above the playing space are additional house lights mimicking those above the audience (these the domain of lighting designer Mark Barton, whose work is a subtle, powerful complement to Zinn’s).
The main playing area — apart from the chairs and a table that looks like it could have been pulled from one of the Public’s conference rooms — is empty. The back wall is unadorned. Props are few and almost all present at the back of the stage at the show’s beginning, waiting for eventual use. There is a station for a musician (the incredible Ernst Reijseger) who creates the entirety of the production’s sonic landscape on a cello and a set of wooden pipes that play like an eerie organ. Each actor has only one costume, and if designer Kaye Voyce has not pulled directly from the actors’ own closets, she has quietly and cleverly curated a palette that feels as if she has done so. Director Sam Gold and his team of designers seem to have constructed their world in alignment with Hamlet’s advice to the Players:
…O’erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
The actors likewise adhere to these instructions: Their attack on the language is clear and often conversational. They carry us deftly through the poetry without bluster or bravado — we follow the threads of their thought, and when great emotion flows it flows naturally, from a wellspring of grief or rage or shame that feels real.
Real. Ay, there’s the rub. Nothing onstage in this Hamlet is “theatrical” in the way that we have come to understand the term — as a synonym for spectacular, outlandish, or exaggerated. Rather, Sam Gold and his company are interested in a different and perhaps deeper definition of theatricality: Their Hamlet is playing a game with our notions of real and pretend, of sincerity and falseness. After all, you might think that by following Hamlet’s advice to the Players you could simply end up with a realistic TV drama — but Hamlet isn’t asking for realism, he’s asking for truth. He’s asking for honesty wrapped in the artifice of play. The heart of Gold’s production — and its genius — lies in its obsession with the paradox of the Honest Performance.
Hamlet insists that he “know[s] not ‘seems.,” but any good actor will tell you that you can feel all day long, but without seeming — without the show of that feeling — there’s no play. And Hamlet, the character, is a good actor. (This Hamlet, in the person of Oscar Isaac, at once mischievous and deeply soulful, is exceedingly good.) Part of the character’s tragedy is that he is a thoughtful comedian trapped in the bloody, archaic genre of the Revenge Play, forced into playing a role his very nature abhors. Imagine if Othello or Hotspur had been Old Hamlet’s son. Claudius would be dead and young Fortinbras defeated by Act 2, Scene 1.
Gold’s production dispenses with Fortinbras and with all references to any wider political conflict. (In interviews, he and Isaac have repeatedly described the show as “intimate.”) It’s a vision of a Hamlet in which the wider world is not Scandinavia but the theater. The company’s members are aware on some deep level of their existence both as actors and as characters in a play. Keegan-Michael Key (who makes a charming Horatio) begins the performance with a casual, endearingly silly curtain speech to the audience, but this is no mere lark: It introduces us to Horatio as a kind of narrator, a role that he will return to with much more gravity when, at the play’s end, he assumes responsibility for telling Hamlet’s story. He even adopts one of Fortinbras’s lines at the finale — “[Let] these bodies / High on a stage be placed to the view” — and when he says it, we hear not a dictator organizing a military funeral but a stage manager preparing for a literal eternity of performances of Hamlet.
In cautioning Ophelia not to trust Hamlet’s declarations of love, Laertes shows a similar subliminal awareness of the play-world he inhabits. He warns his sister that Hamlet “may not, as unvalued persons do, / Carve for himself, for on his choice depends / The safety and health of this whole state.” By “whole state” he typically means Denmark, but in this production Laertes (the compelling Anatol Yusef) gestures to us, the audience, and around the room at the chairs, the table, the lighting grid. Laertes is warning his sister, This story depends on him, and there’s only one way it can go. Likewise, when plotting to send Hamlet to England, Claudius (the superb Ritchie Coster) growls that he can’t outright punish his troublesome stepson, because “he’s loved of the distracted multitude.” Those last two words can only mean us. We, the audience, love Hamlet, and our imaginary forces hold sway in this room; Claudius, Laertes, and the rest of this ensemble maintain an understated awareness that they are acting in Hamlet’s play. This is not nudge-nudge-wink-wink mugging; the actors are not nodding their heads at us and mouthing, as Hamlet might have it, “Well, well we know.” A showier self-consciousness of theatrical artifice is fairly common on the stage these days. There is something subtler at work here — an investigation of the paradoxical alchemy of sincerity and deceit that lies at the heart of Hamlet and of theater itself.
The layers of this theatrical onion are further multiplied by the fact that the nine-person company of players doubles as … the Company of Players. By limiting the number of bodies onstage and letting each one accumulate valences of meaning, Gold sounds Shakespeare’s play like a great resonant bell. Seeing the Player King/Player Queen scene played out in the bodies of Gertrude and Claudius (who is also the ghost of Old Hamlet) is a revelation: Often delivered with self-conscious puffy artifice, here the scene feels like a moment out of time, like watching Hamlet witness a moment that might truly have taken place between his mother and his sickly father. And the Player King’s warning to his Queen — that she won’t be able to keep her vows never to remarry — rings with pathos and prophecy: “Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.” So says this false king — this actor — prefiguring Hamlet’s recognition of the “divinity that shapes our ends” and summing up in a single line the tragedy of the prince’s character. What is Hamlet if not a creature of thought, doomed to an end none of his own?
Or take the doubling of Laertes and the Lead Player, who enters into a friendly competition with Hamlet over their shared delivery of the great Pyrrhus speech. The Player astounds Hamlet with his ability to “force his soul so to his own conceit” — he can make himself weep on cue! “For nothing! For Hecuba!” — which drives Hamlet to the frenzied contemplation of his own inaction. By this point, the Hamlet who could clearly separate performance from substance is gone: He now longs to act in all senses of the word, even if it means conflating those senses. In attempting to follow the Player’s example, Hamlet substitutes performance for the real action he so craves (and fears), winding up screaming melodramatically into the winds (“Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! / O, vengeance!”) and, here, doing great violence to a dish of lasagna. No wonder Isaac looks up afterwards — the clown who tried to play the avenger — and cracks a wry, abashed smile: “Why, what an ass am I!”
Though Hamlet knows in his most lucid moments that the performance of a thing is not the thing itself, he remains obsessed with the enactment of his own feelings, as if performing them paradoxically proves their honesty. When this Hamlet confronts Laertes at Ophelia’s grave (“What is he whose grief / Bears such an emphasis?”), we have already seen these two men compete in the performance of grief. First, it was for Hecuba, a mere fantasy, a play. Now, it is for Ophelia, a real woman whom they both loved. Laertes and Hamlet are both wracked by real anguish, and they are also playing at it: Who loved her more? Who can mourn her better? It’s a wrenching thing to watch — who among us has not felt something deeply and simultaneously felt ourselves performing the feeling? Acting is in our nature; we long to be witnessed.
Is such ore always there for the mining in this scene between the grieving lover and the grieving brother? Yes. But does every Hamlet mine it? No. It is the mark of a deeply intelligent production when it makes you hear anew a work encrusted with so many barnacles of historical, literary, and theatrical precedent.
They don’t call it “Poem Unlimited” for nothing. The glory of Hamlet is its unsoundable depth. Another director with another production might strike its great bell from a slightly different angle and produce completely different resonances. Another director might be as fascinated by kingship, war, and affairs of state as Sam Gold is by layers of theatricality. Still, while Gold might have stripped the play of its original political context, this “intimate” production has not been stripped of politics. Its seeming domesticity is deceptive; it has something pointed to say about the political state of our world, but its tool is a needle, not a bludgeon. By its indirections, we find directions out.
“Ay sir,” quips Hamlet to Polonius, “to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.” It’s a great line, always, but at this moment I heard it cut the air with a new sharpness. That word, honest, rings out over and over in this production. The politics of this Hamlet is a politics of performance, of being and seeming, of sincerity and hypocrisy, truth and corruption. In this way, Gold’s production may well be an abstract and brief chronicle for our time. After all, how many of our highest politicians might currently be asking themselves, “May one be pardoned and retain the offence?”
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patchworkpoett · 2 years
Text
vin is so pretty and beautiful and kind and smart and he still doesn't have a partner. how dare
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the9tailedpangolin · 7 years
Text
O Fortuna
The Cathedral devoured me, it’s bell chimes rose,
as the Church service ended and I left the row,
beating heart left once again abandoned - once again alone.
Above me the gargoyles sneered, though they’d seen what I’d done,
they didn’t care, as the bats clung to their stone etched hearts in sync with Stephanie's,
whom had depart.
The cathedral arched above us all,
it’s stone cold walls gouged us more, the altar leered,
and the candles adhered to their grievance.
The dregs of horror were strewed among ogre stone dim floors,
whilst the bitter cobble greeted sinners from outside’s raw and shrewd stung bite.
The frayed pathway tempted my feet with mirrored glass melodies and moonlit macabre inside.
Steel features cast shadow demons,
whilst the eerie ringing of old church songs triggered mourning within my grotesquely tamed ears.
Beams reached to heights of penance, whilst alone I swept away the sinners,
with Grimm stained windows and dismal decay within.
The moonlight explored the wooden floors, distorted by glass galore,
and the sorrowful Cathedral taunted my slither inside.
Within its vast, vacant heart, I could only look upon the forsaken body sealed inside.
The sarcophagus enticed me to journey in,
concisely sneering and devising.
“What’s this!” I cried upon a body sleeping alone within its casing.
Upon the body’s pasty skin, it’s silver glisten flickering,
the were spiders joined among it crawling, their webs a sadistic mourning.
The spiders looped inside her bled eyes, blinding her biting beauty,
stab wound still apparent upon her pale, lifeless skin.
“Stephanie-” I sighed, and with one last cry, I turned to face away from what was mine.
Within the corners of the crypt, the spiders looked on with sigh,
as they watched the scene cry out before them,
licking their prying lips. I could hardly see as high,
into the stone corners where the bugs formally could fly,
but with the strain of my eyes I could make out the insects entangled in sleeping.
The spiders would await to pounce at last,
whilst spinning plays, entangling graves, and danced upon the murky stone and alter walls.
Many bugs became trapped within,
their meticulous webs had me grin, as the spiders inched down to seize their prey.
An insect trapped among their plots, and the spider inched its way to feast at last, as the resident black mouse crept about to watch the play.
“Good God!” I laughed, as the spider had at last feasted upon today.
I watched the play carry on, as I joked and harped on,
with spiders seizing many a prey more.
Once the bugs were caught, I sighed with thought and wished for a final encore.
When none was proven, I stared around and upon me,
I had found a spider had swooped, it’s vinyl dark head
had at last been met, and about me begun spinning its silver web.
I guessed not how it’s darling wish had been heard, and as we sat together then it entangled my breast, my breath and went in my horror encircled around.
When my friend had finished her art about me,
I knelt down to confess wholeheartedly until I saw the lamb fall melancholy to O Fortuna.
A tear met my lips with scarlet, a hot and sticky liquid then -
I had not understood before.
I knelt to where I knew to beg, alter present and there I saw the weaved web I knew I couldn’t-
had to- needed to prevent. Kneeling down begging, waiting for the words to say I reached to my bag alone and wished upon a flame, my hands together- thoughts together,
mind-- away.
Within the cathedral I prayed, fighting off god’s thunderous gaze,
I watched upon a plutonic play and began to make my peace.
Beyond Heaven’s stares, I did search for Prometheus or fate above who’d spare me from my scene.
Alas when fates eye lit up upon me, I was given an unfortunate script.
The cobwebs entangled, my mind they read,
and O Fortuna, my script she said.
Beneath the web where my mother eternal,
through my decrepit state played the song i try not to hum O Fortuna.
Beyond the book where Mordred stays,
sword of Arthur rested away.
Morgana with her dragons den, hunting good among the sin.
Upon the window, I did stay, looking for another way,
as candles charred my haunted heart ‘mi amore’.
The castle creeks were heard abouts, and all had abandoned,
but the black mouse, as orchestral organs played tribute to O Fortuna.
Spiders inched closer now, boring gore and hunger now,
they looked upon my soliloquy and began to jump with greed.
All around me closing in- licking, grinning, plotting,
they circled like an arrangement of angels wanting for my flesh-
waiting for my skin.
Deep within their black beady eyes, they knew not of gods of grace or life,
rather condemned demons born of human greed.
Creeping forwards, spinning silk downwards going for the kill,
tens or thousands I didn’t care,
all was beyond me then as they gathered to take me from my sins.
There would be no court trial, there would be no judge or jury.
My case had lived and it had died in the seconds of godly gladiator glory.
Their legs were spiralling over me, goosebumps followed readily,
the spiders danced upon my life and spun my grave out for me.
The cobwebs caught my tonic thoughts, as they crept around my derelict forts -
and babies wept, and clouds cackled “O Fortuna”.
And for all that I had gained and said, my scene, at last, had been set, as Heaven’s grasps held me last to the melodic wails of forevermore.
Spiders itched to bleed my eyes, whilst all my pupils did was weep, for in my blood stained haze I’d inadvertently cried my inexorable fate
“O Fortuna”
Explanation:
O Fortuna is a work of dark romanticism, a subgenre of gothic that Poe adhered to within his most famous works. Rather than establishing a character close to the story and reader, Poe exploits the inherent evil we fear within ourselves through the gap we face with his characters, the idea that we can relate to his characters because they represent ideas, not individuals, even without establishing them on a personal basis. By creating a separation through an unestablished character (such as in Spirits of the Dead) I intended to create the doctrine of an unbiased, inescapable fate; by not giving the character a name, a gender, or a moral standing (good/evil - common Poe theme), it creates the non discriminatory effect I was aiming for, seemingly perverse evil and nameless guilt.  Working with stimulus 9 (the cathedral) I aimed at setting a dark and decaying scene, not just within the setting of the poem, but within the character and the story. The poem begins in the initial stanzas by rhyming fully and fluently, throughout the first few paragraphs, until we reach the first “O Fortuna”. This jagged sword through the rhythm is intentional, emphasising the idea the ‘O Fortuna” isn’t a smooth progression, fate is rough and messy, it doesn’t come and go in perfect progression, it messes what it leaves behind. Poe was pessimistic toward the notion that perfection was an innate quality of mankind, so I reflected that within my work by emphasising the characters ingrained proneness to sin and self-destruction, without inherently possessing divinity and wisdom; the idea the natural world is dark, decaying and mysterious, and when the truth is revealed, it’s revelations are evil and hellish. This revelation was tapped on during the narrative when the spider was spinning webs (motifs) on the character’s shoulder “I saw the lamb fall melancholy to O Fortuna”, when his innocence (referring to God’s plans) is broken. The structure of the poem is set to ‘Tell Tale Heart”, although still in poetic format ( ;) ), I made a significant effort to still have it in a narrative structure, as Poe was able to do, by giving it story, and a plot (the climax being the end). Within my work, I try to ponder the question that I then turn to the reader: Do we fully understand what it means to be human?
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sonofsigyn · 7 years
Text
THE DEATH OF BALDUR
Perhaps my favorite tale. FROM NORSE-MYTHOLOGY.ORG
Baldur was one of the most beloved of all the gods. The son of Odin, the chief of the gods, and the benevolent sorceress goddess Frigg, Baldur was a generous, joyful, and courageous character who gladdened the hearts of all who spent time with him. When, therefore, he began to have ominous dreams of some grave misfortune befalling him, the fearful gods appointed Odin to discover their meaning.
Baldur’s father wasted no time in mounting his steed, Sleipnir, and riding to the underworld to consult a dead seeress whom he knew to be especially wise in such matters. When, in one of his countless disguises, he reached the cold and misty underworld, he found the halls arrayed in splendor, as if some magnificent feast were about to occur. Odin woke the seeress and questioned her concerning this festivity, and she responded that the guest of honor was to be none other than Baldur. She merrily recounted how the god would meet his doom, stopping only when she realized, from the desperate nature of Odin’s entreaties, who this disguised wanderer truly was.
And, indeed, all that she prophesied would come to pass.
Odin returned in sorrow to Asgard, the gods’ celestial stronghold, and told his comrades what he had been told. Frigg, yearning for any chance of saving her treasured son, however remote, went to every thing in the cosmos and obtained oaths to not harm Baldur.
After these oaths were secured, the gods made a sport out of the situation. They threw sticks, rocks, and anything else on hand at Baldur, and everyone laughed as these things bounced off and left the shining god unharmed.
The wily and disloyal Loki sensed an opportunity for mischief.
In disguise, he went to Frigg and asked her, “Did all things swear oaths to spare Baldur from harm?” “Oh, yes,” the goddess replied, “everything except the mistletoe. But the mistletoe is so small and innocent a thing that I felt it superfluous to ask it for an oath. What harm could it do to my son?” Immediately upon hearing this, Loki departed, located the mistletoe, and brought it to where the gods were playing their new favorite game.
He approached the blind god Hodr (Old Norse Höðr, “Slayer”) and said, “You must feel quite left out, having to sit back here away from the merriment, not being given a chance to show Baldur the honor of proving his invincibility.” The blind god concurred. “Here,” said Loki, handing him the shaft of mistletoe. “I will point your hand in the direction where Baldur stands, and you throw this branch at him.” So Hod threw the mistletoe. It pierced the god straight through, and he fell down dead on the spot.
The gods found themselves unable to speak as they trembled with anguish and fear. They knew that this event was the first presage of Ragnarok, the downfall and death, not just of themselves, but of the very cosmos they maintained.
At last, Frigg composed herself enough to ask if there were any among them who were brave and compassionate enough to journey to the land of the dead and offer Hel, the death-goddess, a ransom for Baldur’s release. Hermod, an obscure son of Odin, offered to undertake this mission. Odin instructed Sleipnir to bear Hermod to the underworld, and off he went.
The gods arranged a lavish funeral for their fallen friend. They turned Baldur’s ship, Hringhorni, into a pyre fitting for a great king. When the time came to launch the ship out to sea, however, the gods found the ship stuck in the sand and themselves unable to force it to budge. After many failed attempts they summoned the brawniest being in the cosmos, a certain giantess named Hyrrokkin (“Withered by Fire”). Hyrrokkin arrived in Asgard riding a wolf and using poisonous snakes for reins. She dismounted, walked to the prow of the ship, and gave it such a mighty push that the land quaked as Hringhorni was freed from the strand. As Baldur’s body was carried onto the ship, his wife, Nanna, was overcome with such great grief that she died there on the spot, and was placed on the pyre alongside her husband. The fire was kindled, and Thor hallowed the flames by holding his hammer over them. Odin laid upon the pyre his ring Draupnir, and Baldur’s horse was led into the flames.
All kinds of beings from throughout the Nine Worlds attended this ceremony: gods, giants, elves, dwarves, valkyries, and others. Together they stood and mourned as they watched the burning ship disappear over the ocean.
Meanwhile, Hermod rode nine nights through ever darker and deeper valleys on his quest to rescue the part of Baldur that had been sent to Hel. When he came to the river Gjoll (Gjöll, “Roaring”), Móðguðr, the giantess who guards the bridge, asked him his name and his purpose, adding that it was strange that his footfalls were as thundering as those of an entire army, especially since his face still had the color of the living. He answered to her satisfaction, and she allowed him to cross over into Hel’s realm. Sleipnir leapt over the wall around that doleful land.
Upon entering and dismounting, Hermod spotted Hel’s throne and Baldur, pale and downcast, sitting in the seat of honor next to her. Hermod spent the night there, and when morning came, he pleaded with Hel to release his brother, telling her of the great sorrow that all living things, and especially the gods, felt for his absence. Hel responded, “If this is so, then let every thing in the cosmos weep for him, and I will send him back to you. But if any refuse, he will remain in my presence.”
Hermod rode back to Asgard and told these tidings to the gods, who straightaway sent messengers throughout the worlds to bear this news to all of their inhabitants. And, indeed, everything did weep for Baldur – everything, that is, save for one giantess: Tokk (Þökk, “Thanks”), who was none other than Loki in another disguise. Tokk coldly told the messengers, “Let Hel hold what she has!”
And so Baldur remained with Hel until Ragnarok, when, after the cosmos was destroyed and re-created, he returned to bless the land and its inhabitants with his gladdening light and exuberance.[1][2][3]
The Role of Baldur’s Death in the Norse Mythological Cycle
Amongst the heathen Norse and other Germanic peoples, Baldur was regarded as the divine animating force behind the beauty of life at the peak of its strength and energy. Accordingly, his happy youth is the peak of the Norse mythical cycle as a whole, as summer is to the cycle of the year or noontime is to the cycle of the day. His death marks the beginning of the decline into old age, night, winter, and ultimately the death and rebirth that characterize Ragnarok.
Looking for more great information on Norse mythology and religion? While this site provides the ultimate online introduction to the topic, my book The Viking Spirit provides the ultimate introduction to Norse mythology and religion period. I’ve also written a popular list of The 10 Best Norse Mythology Books, which you’ll probably find helpful in your pursuit.
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patchworkpoett · 2 years
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pirates!! for @ysabellasweb
The raids get sort of mundane, after a while. Rhythmic. Find a ship, get on the ship, kill everyone who fights back, tie up the rest, take the loot go back home. Same thing over and over.
Swinging his sword around to impale a navy soldier who was just about to impale someone else on Vin's crew - Miss Ysabella - is nothing more than routine at this point.
" Watch your back, Miss Lafayette - " Vin says, promptly getting hit in the jaw with the butt of a rifle. Fuck. He twists to kick them in the stomach, sending the soldier overboard before he can hit him again. Ow.
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patchworkpoett · 2 years
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the way Vin chooses people (both platonically and romantically) always drives me crazy, because in theory he's a very protective caretaker kind of guy. you would think he would gravitate towards people who need that kind of support and love, right? wrong. instead of that very reasonable decision he finds the MOST INDEPENDENT PERSON IN THE AREA and goes 'yeah, you. i'm choosing you.'
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patchworkpoett · 2 years
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what form of love do you embody?
divinity   >>   love as light
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[ love as a luminous force—warm, radiant, and golden ] when mary oliver wrote "light of the world hold me” and when charles bukowski said “I look at her and light goes all through me” and when david viscott said “to love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides”and when e. e. cummings said “lovers alone wear sunlight”
tagged by: @jericholeader​!! <3 <3 <3 tagging: i'm too tired to think of names. steal it from me!!! steal it!!!
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