is it about marriage, devotion or rivalry?

[leeseokmin]

i’ve missed casual longform writing without purpose, i’ve realized. it’s fun to just throw some darts at a board and win some points and drag some people down with you. i posted a venn diagram of ship requirements (attached below) and tried to keep it evenly matched which is why certain ships snuck it’s way there (lewis hamilton/nico rosberg, altan trengsin/chaghan suren) but the rest of them are either fundamental to me (seokhao, dannymax, baeksoo) or becoming fundamental (thanzag, megzag, iwaoi, ushisaku, oikage, you get the picture). i’m bad at explaining the vibes in longform, but as abigail said, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was putting you & rsiken on the earth at the same time” which influenced the decision to unpack some of these ships with quotes that represent the core of my personal manifestos for them.

 

i. RIVALRY implies actual rivalries, lovers->exes->lovers again or ambigous, convoluted relationships, where both parties are playing 5d chess games
ii. MARRIAGE implies an actual endgame of marriage or domestic long-term partnership
iii. DEVOTION implies that even if the parties in the relationship split or were never together to begin with, there is a part of them always tied to each other 

 

RIVALRY:

seokgyu

“your love is too thick,” he said…

“too thick?” she said…

“love is or it ain’t. thin love ain’t love at all.”

—  beloved, toni morrison

 

oikage

a truth should exist,

it should not be used

like this. if i love you

is that a fact or a weapon?

— we are hard, margaret atwood

 

kagetsukki

of course i’ll hurt you. of course you’ll hurt me. of course we will hurt each other. but this is the very condition of existence. to become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. to become presence, means accepting the risk of absence
— manon, ballerina - antoine de saint-exupery

 

MARRIAGE:

jeongcheol

what am i, if not yours?
what do i do with my hands when they are just hands?

— the lover as a cult, olivia gatwood

 

atsuhina

if there is anything left to say it is this:

i would have found you anywhere.

i will find you anywhere

— orbitals, venetta octavia 

 

kurotsukki

...the idea of love as a violent act—not to the person that you love, but against the world. to say to somebody, "i love you; by extension, i hate all other things."

— hozier

 

osaaka

sometimes i’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. the way it stops and starts
— terrified heart, poe 

 

DEVOTION:

seokhan

the thought that you exist is so divinely blissful in itself that it is ridiculous to talk about the everyday sadness of separation — a week’s, ten days’ — what does it matter? since my whole life belongs to you.

—  letters to véra, vladimir nabokov

 

bokuaka

you are the only one who has understood even a whisper of me, and i will tell you that i am the only person who has understood even a whisper of you.

—  everything is illuminated, jonathan safran foer

 

atsukita

i think of all the things he has been to me…love. lodestone. my true north. i turn always to him.

— the tenderness of wolves, stef penney
 

 

DEVOTION + RIVALRY

baeksoo

we were arguing. you want love to be like this every day don’t you? 92 degrees even in the shade.

— written on the body, jeanette winterson

dannymax

the gaze, human or animal, is a powerful thing. when we look at something, we decide to fill our entire existence, however briefly, with that very thing. to fill your whole world with a person, if only for a few seconds, is a potent act. and it can be a dangerous one. sometimes we are not seen enough, and other times we are seen too thoroughly, we can be exposed, seen through, even devoured. hunters examine their prey obsessively in order to kill it. the line between desire and elimination, to me, can be so small. but that is who we are. there must be some beauty—and if not beauty, meaning—in that brutal power. i am still trying, and mostly failing, to find it.

— survival as a creative force, ocean vuong

 
 

RIVALRY + MARRIAGE

megzag

i love you with a love that reaches you on the other shore. that dark, unknown shore where, in order to follow you, my love stumbles forth blindly, bleeding, but always holding you tight.

— poem xci, dulce maría loynaz 

 

ushisaku

the unknowness of my needs frightens me. i do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, i only know that they are not being met.

— oranges are not the only fruit, jeanette winterson
 

 

MARRIAGE + DEVOTION

thanzag

but everyone had this patina

of slightly bruised longing, this shimmer of

i think i knew you when we were children,

this look of i’ve loved you ever since you

were born

and probably longer than that

― everyone was beautiful, paul hostovsky

seokhao

‘love’, this english word: like other english words it has tense. ‘loved’ or 'will love’ or 'have loved’. all these specific tenses mean love is time-limited thing. not infinite. it only exist in particular period of time. in chinese, love is '爱’ (ai). it has no tense. no past and future. love in chinese means a being, a situation, a circumstance. love is existence, holding past and future.

if our love existed in chinese tense, then it will last for ever. it will be infinite.

— a concise chinese-english dictionary for lovers, xiaolu guo, 

 

 

DEVOTION + MARRIAGE + RIVALRY

iwaoi

the more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.

— on love, alain de botton

 

Comments

[prizefig]

OK.............. the rivalry+devotion got me

[leeseokmin]

unsurprising... i figured you could be gotten by rivalry... society if i had a hockey ship in common with u & could quotespost about them

[capricornia]

Ahh I was hoping you’d expand on this chart!! I love that you did it with quotes. I’m secretly a really big quotes person. The jeongcheol quote got me—possibly because it’s a ship I’m more familiar with, but still. Okay!!!! The oikage one also really got me though and I don’t know that ship at all, so. Thank you for sharing your thoughts !! And in such a beautiful way, too!

[prizefig]

i just love it when people have very strong and very confused feelings about each other

we COULD have a hockey ship in common you know... although the only one i'm into rn is leon draisaitl/matthew tkachuk which is all rivalry no devotion (and....... [sigh] drw rookies, which is maybe all devotion and very little rivalry), but we could always just pick a ship and go in. i haven't had quotesposting levels of otp feels in years though 😔

but as far as non rpf ships go, both harrow♠ianthe and breq/seivarden are some level of rivalry+devotion (the former heavier on the rivalry, the latter heavier on the devotion although somewhat lopsidedly... good shit) oh shit wait i just remembered ianthe was like "i'm going to marry that girl one day," that definitely tips it into rivalry+marriage

[latespring]

the iwaoi quote has sniped me..... also the oikage one too???? i keep meaning to comment and now it's been too long and it's 1am but i am rotating these gently thank you for sharing if i remember i will be back later with more thoughts

[leeseokmin]

tee hee... you know my general tendency to lean into the language of lovers so like... as expected of realest truest love iwaoi. as for the oikage one, i keep thinking about them using their love for each other as both sword and shield... something about pro oikage knowing each other's weaknesses and strengths, as well as they know the shape of a volleyball in their palm, you know, so it's like on a stage where they're up against each other they love each other (fact) and they love each other (weapon).

also i'd love to hear your other thoughts! please always feel free to come back to this stuff!!

[leeseokmin]

ia... sometimes love just needs to be a thing that's experiencing transformation all the time. to me. also damn i genuinely haven't hockeyshipped in a bit ctfu.... i think quotesposting is fun regardless of personal investment in a ship etc. i personally feel like it exercises the part of your brain that draws conclusions/parallels while also being a test of effective communication? like what is it truly at the core, and how would you translate it, as opposed to i'm so insane abt this i must use existing art to explain myself, but that's just me

I've been meaning to read gt9, maybe I'll dig into it post finals n_n

[leeseokmin]

i hope the quotes made you understand the intent behind some of these better!!!!