Characters ♡ The OTP & Pairing Thread ♡ | Challenge #34 Posted: Sonnets Roulette! (4/17, p. 92, #2282)

And now one (1) week! Almost there!

 

And now three (3) days! Really almost there!

 

And I just finished my entry:
A Dinner with Friends

Featuring the pairings Ulrika Grau & Elena Kyr as well as Ilona Malek & Tobin Redan.

 

Excellent! Got your stories in the index, @Anedon and @devilinthedetails. Great to have you and your stories on board as we enter the final days of the challenge! (As in, today and tomorrow—so get ’em in, good people!)

 

And now it really and truly is the last day! Just over 16 hours (if my math serves) to wrap up and get it in before voting starts!

 

All right, everybody, time to VOTE on OTP Challenge #26! There are three (3) stories in the running this time:

• Two Twins by earlybird-obi-wan (OCs Tarko Sanek and Kaia Raamar, OCs Rihan Shellan and Jasyna Raamar)
• A Dinner with Friends by Mira Grau (OCs Ulrika Grau and Elena Kyr, OCs Ilona Malek and Tobin Redan)
• Love Sifus and Ice Sculptures by devilinthedetails (NSW: ATLA; Suki and Sokka, Aang and Katara)

Procedure is as usual. Send your vote to this sock (Captain Rakkaus). There are two (2) weeks for voting, meaning that your votes are due in by 11:59 PM (23:59) Pacific time on October 13. I’ll announce the winner(s) a day or two after that. And of course you know all the rules for fair voting!

 

And now one (1) week left to vote! See the post directly above for details. Looking forward to receiving your votes!

 

Just voted -- this one was really tough to pick!

 

And now three (3) more days left to vote! Get ’em in!

 

And today is the last day to vote, so definitely get ’em in!

 

And the votes are in! And guess, what, everyone… we have a tie! Help me congratulate our two winners…

A Dinner with Friends by @Mira Grau
and
Love Sifus and Ice Sculptures by @devilinthedetails ​

Give them both a big round of applause, everyone! And let’s thank all our challenge participants for a job superbly done!

If all goes well, our next challenge will be coming any time from the next few days to about a week. As always, I welcome any suggestions any of you may have! Thank you all for all you do.

 

Wow, didn`t see that coming. Buts its nice.

Congrats to @devilinthedetails

 

Here are my Star Wars OTPs

Anakin x Padmè (otherwise we wouldn't have gotten Luke and Leia)
Ezra x Sabine

Asajj Ventress x Quinlan Vos

Rey x Ben Solo/Kylo Ren

 

Ooh, two winners -- congrats to @Mira Grau and @devilinthedetails, and kudos to @earlybird-obi-wan as well. You all did an amazing job on your stories!

 

Cogratsto @Mira Grau and @devilinthedetails

 

And it's new challenge time in the OTP thread, everybody! I am absolutely stoked to present:

OTP Challenge #27: Love Poems by Women Roulette!​

We’re back to the good old roulette format for this one. I’ve put together a list of ten (10) poems, all in some way or another on the subject of love and all written by female Anglophone poets of various eras. Choose a number from 1 to 10 15 as of October 17! and I’ll give you a poem, and you can write a story that’s inspired by it in any way you choose (as long as it accords with the TOS, of course). If we run out of these ten and there’s more interest, I can add more!

Stories will be due in a little over eight (8) weeks, on 11:59 PM (23:59) Pacific Time on Sunday, December 11. Happy writing to all!

Challenge Index
1. Gabri_Jade

Spoiler: Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Modern Declaration”

I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having wavered
In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the rich or in the presence of clergymen having denied these loves;
Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having grunted or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of these loves;
Never when anxious to land a job having diminished them by a conniving smile; or when befuddled by drink
Jeered at them through heartache or lazily fondled the fingers of their alert enemies; declare

That I shall love you always.
No matter what party is in power;
No matter what temporarily expedient combination of allied interests wins the war;
Shall love you always.

2. Mira_Jade

Spoiler: Gwendolyn Brooks, "To Be in Love"

To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.

In yourself you stretch, you are well.

You look at things
Through his eyes.
A cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.

His hand to take your hand is overmuch.
Too much to bear.

You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.

When he
Shuts a door—
Is not there—
Your arms are water.

And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.

You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.

You remember and covet his mouth
To touch, to whisper on.

Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!

Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,

To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.

3. devilinthedetails: Two Were One (NSW: Rings of Power, with Durin and Disa)

Spoiler: Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

4. vader_incarnate

Spoiler: Sylvia Plath, “Mad Girl’s Love Song”

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

5. ViariSkywalker

Spoiler: Nikki Giovanni, “And I Have You”

Rain has drops
Sun has shine
Moon has beams
That make you mine
Rivers have banks
Sands for shores
Hearts have heartbeats
That make me yours
Needles have eyes
Though pins may prick
Elmer has glue
To make things stick
Winter has Spring
Stockings feet
Pepper has mint
To make it sweet
Teachers have lessons
Soup du jour
Lawyers sue bad folks
Doctors cure
All and all
This much is true
You have me
And I have you.

6. Pandora

Spoiler: Emily Dickinson, “You love me—you are sure—”

You love me—you are sure—
I shall not fear mistake—
I shall not cheated wake—
Some grinning morn—
To find the Sunrise left—
And Orchards—unbereft—
And Dollie—gone!

I need not start—you're sure—
That night will never be—
When frightened—home to Thee I run—
To find the windows dark—
And no more Dollie—mark—
Quite none?

Be sure you're sure—you know—
I'll bear it better now—
If you'll just tell me so—
Than when—a little dull Balm grown—
Over this pain of mine—
You sting—again!

7. Raissa Baiard

Spoiler: Emily Dickinson, “Wild Nights”

Wild nights—Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile—the winds—
To a Heart in port—
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden—
Ah—the Sea!
Might I but moor—tonight—
In thee!

8. earlybird-obi-wan: Scerra My Love (Nejaa Halcyon and OC Scerra Lamar; OCs Rostek Horn and Scerra Lamar)

Spoiler: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "If thou must love me, let it be for nought"

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
‘I love her for her smile... her look... her way
Of speaking gently, ... for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may’st love on, through love's eternity.

9. Kahara

Spoiler: Amy Lowell, “Venus Transiens”

Tell me,
Was Venus more beautiful
Than you are,
When she topped
The crinkled waves,
Drifting shoreward
On her plaited shell?
Was Botticelli’s vision
Fairer than mine;
And were the painted rosebuds
He tossed his lady
Of better worth
Than the words I blow about you
To cover your too great loveliness
As with a gauze
Of misted silver?

For me,
You stand poised
In the blue and buoyant air,
Cinctured by bright winds,
Treading the sunlight.
And the waves which precede you
Ripple and stir
The sands at my feet.

10. amidalachick

Spoiler: Christina Rossetti, “I loved you first: but afterwards your love”

I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be—
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

EDIT: Five more added 10/17!
11. TheRynJedi

Spoiler: Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose"

A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

12.
13.
14. WarmNyota_SweetAyesha: Indescribable Devotion (NSW: Star Trek, with Nyota and Spock)

Spoiler: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

15. Findswoman

Spoiler: Carol Ann Duffy, “Love Poem”

Far, we are near, meet in the rain
which falls here; gathered by light, air;
falls there where you are, I am; lips
to those drops now on yours, nearer…

absence the space we yearn in, clouds
drift, cluster, east to west, north, south;
your breath in them; they pour, baptise;
same sun burning through to harvest
rainfall on skin, there, far; my mouth
opening to spell your near name.

 

May I have #7, please?

 

All righty doo! Time to hand out some poems!

@devilinthedetails , here is no. 3:

Spoiler: Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

@Raissa Baiard , here is no. 7:

Spoiler: Emily Dickinson, “Wild Nights”

Wild nights—Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile—the winds—
To a Heart in port—
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden—
Ah—the Sea!
Might I but moor—tonight—
In thee!

Enjoy!

 

4 please!

 

@vader_incarnate here is no. 4—I think you’ll like this one!

Spoiler: Sylvia Plath, “Mad Girl’s Love Song”

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

 

YOU'RE RIGHT I LOVE IT <3 <3 You know me well

I was kinda hesitant to sign up for this, because romance isn't really my thing, but I can definitely make this work, and I love it, thank you

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