“love"
by jack zimmermann || a zimbits fic || 3.3k
“Come
in.” Bitty thanks the lord for the legitimate reprieve from the essay he’s been
painfully forcing himself through all afternoon.
Jack
enters, looking happier than normal. Bitty sees why immediately, and the smile
that came onto his face when he saw Jack slips right back into a frown. Jack’s
holding another memory card.
“I’m got
some new footage,” Jack says in confirmation of Bitty’s fears.
“Jack,
you’ve got to stop giving me new material.”
Jack’s
smile drops at Bitty’s harsh tone, and his eyebrows draw together in a way that
would be adorable if not for the circumstance and the fact Bitty is the one to
make them that way. “Why?”
“Coz,
honey, it’s not gonna help.” Bitty’s too exhausted to bother being embarrassed
that the endearment slipped out.
Jack
opens his mouth lamely. He looks down at the memory card in his hand then back
to Bitty with sad eyes.
“Sit
down.” Bitty gestures to his bed, thankful that he made it earlier while
procrastinating. He rubs his sore eyes as Jack perches on the bed, then sighs
out.
“Your
assessment is to create a two-minute video based on love, yes?”
Jack
nods. Bitty rubs at his eyes again, thinking of how to be honest without being
hurtful.
“You’re
an amazing photographer, and it comes across.” Jack picks his head up,
looking hopefully at Bitty. It breaks his heart to have to continue. “But
there’s no story here. There’s no love. I mean, unless your story is
that you really love your camera. I can’t… I’m sorry, I can’t help you make
anything out of this.”
Bitty
tries to make his voice gentle. Jack turns his head away from Bitty anyway, but
not quick enough that Bitty can’t see the hurt.
Bitty’s
happily been helping Jack with his AV assessment after Jack asked. He gets to spend time
with Jack doing something that Jack loves. But now he owes it as a friend to
tell Jack the truth, even if it makes them both sad.
“Sorry,
Bits,” Jack mumbles, still not looking at him.
“It’s
alright.” Bitty already feels a little guilty for springing it on Jack with no
warning. He crosses his arms, then realises that may come across as defensive
if Jack ever looks back at him, so rests them back on his knees. “Look, I don’t
mean to be rude, I just want you to do well.”
Jack
gives a brisk nod, but still avoids looking back at Bitty.
Bitty’s
not sure what else he can do for Jack, so he simply waits.
Jack
clears his throat after a moment and stands up. He looks at the memory card
before putting it into a pocket.
“Thanks
anyway. Sorry for interrupting your essay.”
“It’s alright,”
Bitty repeats, but Jack’s already out the door.
Bitty
slumps into his seat and stares at his closed door. He really didn’t mean to
hurt Jack, but he didn’t think what he said would be that much of a shock either.
Jack’s not ignorant to emotion, no-matter what the news articles sometimes say
about him.
He swings
his chair back round to stare at his essay, starting up on it again as a
distraction.
this is actually hilarious “we are going to massively lower taxes” “we are also putting in a massive budget request for the military” and “we inherited a national debt that has doubled in eight years” what are you trying to double it in half the time bc i think ur well on ur way to that my dude
why has no one written the Chowder + Riley from Inside Out friendship fic that I so richly deserve
i hate republicans. not for the normal reasons, but because i’m formatting huge-ass excel files full of primary data and can they pick two frontrunners so i don’t have to get a damn phd to figure out who won the fucking race in each goddamn county, threeway races are literally shaving years off my life.
My name is Calfe & Im too young to know yet what do with my Toung!
So till my Mom say “Dont Do That!” Ill stick it out And lik this cat.
My little Calfe, Im proud of yu– yur living like the Big Cows do. Yur doing just what Mom have said– for yu lik cat, and cat
lik bred.
Bad meme execution. 0/5 stars.
These poems are supposed to be imitative of 17th/18th century middle English poetry (pre-dating dictionaries and formalized spelling conventions) not early 2000s chatspeak, not babytalk.
These poems are also supposed to be in iambic diameter, giving them a pleasing songlike rhythm. The above has inconsistent syllabic structure from line to line.
These attributes are clearly illustrated in the prime:
So tired of people on this website and their flagrant disregard for syllabic structure.
No respect for the craft.
1. first of all, how dare you. i would never, N E V E R, put forth a cow poem with inconsistent syllabic structure. these may not be my finest work, but the iambic dimeter is IMPECCABLE. check my scansion again and come back to me. I guess “know what do yet” is not ideal, but it falls within the constraints of the form. i’m genuinely appalled by this. i have SEEN inconsistent scansion in this meme, i do NOT approve of it and i have NOT done it. how dare you. HOW DAR EYOU!!!
Secondly: it is not absurd to suppose that the linguistic constraints of a Cow Poem would depend on the figure to whom Cow speaks. In the original (and perfect) “i lik the bred,” the narrative cow, like a Chaucerian non-characterized narrator, directs her speech to an imagined and unspecific listener; not to “the men,” who are characters within the poem, but to some more general audience. (See the Canterbury Tales prologue for an example of this voice in action.)
Later, poem_for_your_sprog has Cow address contemporaries like “dog.” You will notice that the voice of Cow varies slightly, in speaking to Dog, from her voice in the original “I lik the bred.” WHY, then, can we not extrapolate that Calfe – who is, after all, a narrator of limited capacity, being only a Baby Cow with a Baby Cow’s simplicity – would have its own variant voice? And why, too, would Cow not speak differently to her own Calfe than she does to an animal peer, or to reverent imaginary auditors? These are experiments within an emerging form – flawed experiments, certainly, but not mistakes ipso facto. Again: HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!
my name is Cow, and as yu see, its worth yor tiyme to studye me. but if yu dont like what yu red,
take 2 deep breths
and lik the bred.
I am willing to concede on second reading that the syllabic structure is passable, and in that regard I’ve wrongly impugned the integrity of your work, however I maintain that your Frankenstinian amalgam of fake middle English with fake modern American baby talk is thoroughly unconvincing as either middle English or as modern American baby talk.
It’s an aesthetic failure, IMH(inh)O*
You’ve created the linguistic equivalent of a spork — vitiating two perfectly serviceable tools by attempting to fuse them.
Writing ‘till mothere says / do not do that,’ would have conveyed roughly the same idea without feeling quite so awkwardly anachronistic.
My name is Rave, and I can see you’re bent on pa- tronizing me! ”Anachronistic” frankly seems a misplaced word to use of memes. But since you want to start that fight, let’s step outside and do this right.
Dude: if you want to not get wrecked you’d better get your facts correct.
Like, “Mothere,” friend, is not a word that Geoffrey Chau- cer ever heard.*
