#so then he got the recognition of this like higher power that idk how to concisely describe | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fallingforfictionalcharacterss · 2 years

Note

Hiii, I really liked Cookies and I was wondering if you could write something similar. I thought about enemies to lovers where Dracos friends slip potion into his drink and he starts to be all over her and she's really annoyed. But when the effect of the potion fates he doesn't stop behave like this because he is actually in love with her. And she realizes she is too. IDK, this is hard to explain.

Thank you so much for your request. This might have turned out as one of my favourite writings by now. I hope this is the way you wanted it.

The most powerful feeling

Warnings: implied mentions of suicide

“Damn it (Y/l/n), are you in every class I´m taking this year?”

“Of course, Malfoy. I couldn’t stand one without you.”

“Well, I can´t stand a class with you.” “I don’t think this is my problem, is it?” “You were really born to annoy me, weren’t you?”

“No, but I rather took your classes as well to do so, than take those that might help me with my future plans.”

“Is there space for anything but ruin my life?” “Oh yeah, you´re probably right. All my life is dedicated to you.”

You rolled your eyes. Malfoy just wanted to reply, when Professor Slughorn entered the classroom. The elder man greeted you cheerfully, while his students took their seats. You sat down next to Hermione, who was already listening to the Professor attentively.

After a short introduction, Professor Slughorn asked you to get closer to a table in front of him. On the table, he had placed some cauldrons.

“For the beginning, I have brought you some different potions. Who can tell me, which?” Hermione´s hand shot up immediately.

“Very well, Miss…” Professor Slughorn stopped and looked at her questionably.

“Granger, Sir.”, Hermione smiled.

You could see a flash of recognition on his face.

“Ahh, of course, Miss Granger. Mr Potter has already told me about you.”

You could see Hermione´s cheeks heat up in joy before she stepped forward and started to identify the different potions.

“I wonder how you even got in here.”, you heard a familiar voice sneering behind you. “I don’t remember you having any talent for this class.” “And I don’t remember the last time you were able to shut up.”

You sighted. But Malfoy was right. If Professor Snape would still be the teacher, you wouldn’t have been allowed to participate in the class, since he had some higher standards than the new Professor.

You brought your attention back to Hermione.

“This is Amortentia. It´s the most powerful love potion in the world.”

You could hear some gasps, but you were only slightly impressed. What was a love potion even good for? Why would you want to be with a person who you knew wouldn’t want to be with you if you hadn’t drugged them?

“Listen closely, (Y/l/n), this might be the only chance to ever get someone to love you.”, Malfoy continued teasing.

“Do you have a question, Mr. Malfoy?”, Professor Slughorn asked.

You could see Malfoy´s ears turning slightly pink, as the Professor called him out. You couldn’t help but grin in satisfaction.

“I am sorry Professor.”, Malfoy said with an innocent smile. “But I was just wondering why you said this potion is so powerful. Aren´t many more dangerous things in this room?”

Unlike you, Malfoy had seemed to be able to listen to the explanations of the Professor, while humiliating you once more. You sighted. This boy somehow always got his act together. Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson snickered in approval at Malfoy´s words. Professor Slughorn also smiled and nodded.

“My dear boy, I assume you have never truly been in love, have you?”

Malfoy didn’t answer and just shrugged his shoulders, looking at his feet.

“Because if you had been,”, the Professor continued, “You would know that love is the most powerful feeling in the world. It can make you feel as if you are the luckiest person alive, or the most unfortunate one. It can make time stop or make it go faster. It can make you feel alive, but it can also kill you.” Slughorn stared into the void with a dreamy expression on his face.

“If one is able to truly love, it is the greatest gift in the world. You will be the happiest you have ever been. But it´s also the things we love the most that can hurt us the most.”

Then, the Professor snapped back to reality and looked at Malfoy, who stared at him unimpressed.

“One day, you might understand, dear boy.”

Then he continued his lesson.

“Such a shame you´re not capable of such feelings”, you whispered at Malfoy with a fake pity on your face. “Well, maybe except for yourself.”

Malfoy just stared at you with a blank face and didn’t answer.

“See, you can´t even say something against it.”, you smiled sweetly.

Then you turned to Professor Slughorn again and listen to him explaining the effect of Felix Felicis.

When you returned to your seats, you saw Malfoy and his friends, whispering on the other side of the room, shooting you some glances.

“You could think he has something better to do, don’t you?”, you whispered to Hermione, while gathering up the ingredients for the potion you had to brew. But Hermione just rolled her eyes.

“I could also think you would have something better to do, (Y/n).” “What, it´s not my fault, he is so obsessed with me. I´m just defending myself.”

But that wasn’t exactly true. Sure, it had been Malfoy who had started this hostility in the first year, by calling Hermione a mudblood. You had to hex him for this, of course, earning yourself a month of detention. After that incident it hadn’t been about his aversion to muggle-borns or that he was jealous of Harry all the time. You and the blond Slytherin by now had your personal enmity. You hated everything about him. The way he treated not only the people he didn’t like but also his friends, his pride, especially regarding his family, the way his silvery eyes were sparkling whenever he knew he had hurt someone and the way he was for some reason the only one who was able to keep up with your sarcastic remarks, you rarely ever made in front of others, knowing it might scare them off. But not Malfoy. Sometimes you even caught yourself enjoying your bickering, but as soon as you did, you reminded yourself, that the tall Slytherin boy with the arrogant smirk always playing around his full lips was nothing but your enemy. Everyone knew that, even though your friends sometimes made some comments about the unusual amount of time and effort you put into this hostility. Just like they did now.

“You know, sometimes you behave like an old married couple.”, Ron said from the other side of the table, weighing the sloth's brain.

“Sometimes I think I might have to get jealous (Y/n), I always thought Malfoy´s my enemy.”, Harry added with a smirk.

You just rolled your eyes.

“You really have to decide. Are we a couple or enemies?”

“Those things might go hand in hand, you know?”, Hermione now joined the conversation.

“I thought at least you would be on my side Mione.”, you whined. “I´m not interested in Malfoy. Not at all! He´s a spoiled git and there is nothing attractive about him at all.”

You put down the infusion of wormwood a little harder than intended, making the liquid nearly slop.

“Well, you have to admit he´s kinda hot.”, Hermione said and watched with a smug grin how Ron choked on the air, not able to calm down again until Harry patted his back.

You refused to answer. You had to admit that Malfoy wasn’t bad looking with his grey eyes and the small crinkles around his eyes whenever he -what happened rarely- laughed. But that changed nothing at all. To confirm your thoughts, you looked over to the table of the Slytherins, where the friends were still whispering. Little did you know, they had a pretty similar conversation going on.

“By Merlin´s beard, Pansy. I don’t like her. She´s a Gryffindor. She´s a friend of Potter. She is a filthy blood traitor with an average talent for sarcasm. That’s all.”

“Well, she is really pretty too, don’t you think?”

“If you like her that much then go date her yourself, Parkinson.”, Draco growled, before perusing his potion again.

Pansy watched her friend with narrowed eyes, before turning around to Blaise, who watched the scene with an amused grin. He was already used to it and found those conversations rather entertaining. But when Pansy approached him with a mischievous grin on her face, he knew this time something would be different.

“Blaise,”, Pansy said, her voice sounding as sweet as honey as she whispered: “I don’t think we can let him talk to me like this, do you? I think we might have to teach him a lesson. And (Y/l/n) too. It´s so annoying to watch them, not being able to solve their own problems.”

Blaise raised an eyebrow.

“How?”

Pansy´s grin only grew wider.

“I might have an idea.”

It was nearly the end of the lesson -Harry had been the only one who had brewed an acceptable potion- when Pansy Parkinson raised her hand.

“Excuse me Professor, I don’t feel very well.”, she said in a shaky voice.

You watched Professor Slughorn walking up to the girl who had by now sunken down on her chair. When the Professor got to their table, Blaise Zabini backed off immediately, making space for him. Slughorn felt the pulse of Pansy Parkinson. Then he nodded knowingly.

“No worries. You probably just inhaled too much of the vapours.”

With a quick flick of his wand, he conjured a cup and filled it with some water.

“Drink that. And if it won´t get better, feel free to leave the class.” The Slytherin nodded and smiled thankfully.

“Thank you, Professor. I think it´s already getting better.”

Slughorn returned her smile before he turned around and committed himself to the other students again.

Neither you nor anyone else saw the questioning glance, Pansy threw at Blaise. And neither you nor anyone else saw the triumphant grin on Blaise´s face when he waved with the small vial in his hand.

You cursed under your breath as you rushed through the corridors. You had overslept, not that this was unusual, and was late for breakfast now. Just as you rushed around the corner, someone bumped into you.

“By Salazar, I´m awake for not even half an hour and you are already ruining my day!”

You frowned. Out of all the people you had to run into Malfoy. This day started absolutely amazing.

“Could say the same.”, you mumbled.

You wanted to pass him, not in the mood for a dispute that early in the morning, but Malfoy had different plans. He grabbed you by the wrist, making you stop.

“Let go of me Malfoy!”, you barked.

“I will. But first, you are going to apologise.”

You stared at him in disbelieve.

“Me? Apologizing? To you?”

“Well, you are not as stupid as you look (Y/l/n).”, he snickered.

“You bumped into me.”, you said, feeling your face redden.

Malfoy laughed.

“I´m not the one running around like I´m crazy.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then why you bumped into me?”

“I didn’t…” You stopped and took a deep breath. Then you smiled up at the boy in front of you. “You know what? You´re right. I´m actually sorry.”

Malfoy looked at you, confused why you gave in that easy. But as soon as his grip loosened around your wrist you freed yourself and walked away. Before you disappeared behind the next corner, you turned around once more, adding: “Sorry for everyone who has to deal with you!”

When you saw Malfoy at breakfast, he shot you a deadly glance, probably still mad you had had the last word. You saw him sitting down with his friends. Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini offered their friend a cup of pumpkin juice with a friendly smile. After he had emptied it, they burst into laughter, glancing over at you. As your gaze met theirs, you quickly looked away again, wondering why you had even looked there in the first place. Besides, you were late for class already. Luckily one, you didn’t share with the Slytherins.

When you got up and left the Great Hall, you resisted looking back to the table with Malfoy and his friends. But if you had done it, you might had seen the confused look in Malfoy´s eyes, when he watched you leave and Parkinson and Zabini high-fifing in a not-so-subtle way.

After your class, you walked into the courtyard, together with Hermione. Just as you talked about your DADA class with Snape, you ran into someone the second time this day. And for the second time, it was Malfoy.

“Godric, are you following me around?”, you frowned as you looked at the blond boy.

But instead of a counter-attack, he just stared at you, mesmerized. You returned his gaze, confused.

“Are you… okay?”, you asked carefully, when he didn’t react.

“You are so beautiful. You know that (Y/n)?”

You froze.

“What?”

“You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen in my entire life.”

You glanced at Hermione, who looked just as confused as you.

“Is that some kind of sick joke of yours?”, you asked, eying the boy in front of you distrustfully. But Malfoy just shook his head.

“That is nothing to joke about.”

“Aha?”

“I really mean it. You are so pretty. And I don’t mean your outer appearance. Even though it´s beautiful as well. I mean whenever I look into your eyes…” He looked at you dreamingly, like he would actually get lost in the way you looked at him.

“What´s wrong with my eyes Malfoy?”, you asked impatiently.

“Nothing, nothing is wrong with your eyes (Y/n). In fact, there is nothing wrong with you at all. You are just flawless.”

When he continued staring at you, a new thought crossed your mind.

“Wait, did you hurt your head?”

Malfoy looked at you irritated.

“What´s with my head?” But then a haze laid upon his gaze once more. “You are always so attentive. Do you worry about me?” His face lit up at that thought. “Is it because you like me? Because I like you (Y/n), I really do. And by that, I mean…”

“I mean did something happen to you? Did you trip? Maybe fell and hit your head?”

Draco shook his head.

“I didn’t fall. Well, I didn’t fall except for you. By the way, did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”

That was it. Hermione burst into laughter, while you just rolled your eyes.

“Okay, Malfoy, whatever is going on, get yourself together again. Can´t take you seriously like this.”

You turned around, together with Hermione, who by now whipped some tears from her cheeks, still giggling. But you didn’t get far.

“(Y/n), wait!”

You kept going.

“(Y/n), please!”

“What is it Malfoy?” “Why are you leaving already?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“I thought we could spend some time together. You know,”, he glared at Hermione, “just the two of us.”

You couldn’t help but laugh.

“If it had ever been just the two of us one had always tried to murder the other one.” Draco´s eyes widened.

“I could never do this to you (Y/n). I love you.”

You stared at him in disbelieve.

“Okay, now you are actually kidding me.”

Draco shook his head eagerly.

“I don’t. I mean it. I love you (Y/n).”

You could feel a strange aching in the area of your stomach. If this boy was playing games with you -which he obviously did- this wasn’t funny anymore. To play with the feelings of someone else in this way was just disgusting.

When you didn’t answer, Draco looked at you with puppy eyes.

“Please (Y/n), what can I do to make you believe me?”

You shrugged your shoulders.

“Just leave me alone for the rest of the day.”

You couldn’t deal with his behaviour right now. If he teased you, you knew exactly what to do, but when he behaved like this, complementing you and declaring his love, you had no idea what you were supposed to do.

“But I can´t. We are made for each other. Every second without you is one wasted!”

The sound of his voice nearly made your heart break. But that was the exact reason why you needed to leave. You couldn’t deal with whatever this was.

“C´mon Hermione, let´s just leave.”

Your friend obeyed and you left the poor boy standing there on his own, utterly confused about what had just happened. Did he do something wrong?

That´s what he also asked his friends who had watched the whole scene.

“I don’t know man. Girls, I guess.”, Blaise said, as he patted Draco´s back.

“Maybe you should get her some flowers. Every girl loves flowers.”, Pansy suggested, biting her lip to hold back laughter.

Draco nodded eagerly. Flowers. That was a great idea. Then you would finally understand that the two of you were made for each other.

“(Y/n), there is someone outside of the common room for you.”, a fourth-year Gryffindor snickered, while her friend next to her nearly burst into laughter.

You raised your eyebrows. All your friends were here and even if they weren’t, they would have just come in. And you didn’t remember planning to meet one of the students from the other houses today.

“Who is it?”

“Why don´t you go and take a look yourself?”, the girl giggled, before she disappeared with her friends in their dorm.

Your friends looked at you questionably.

“Any ideas who this is?”, Harry asked who was sitting in the wing chair towards you.

You shrugged your shoulders.

“I guess there´s only one way to find out.”

You got up from your chair and went to the entrance.

When the portrait opened, you saw red.

Literally.

In front of you stood a huge bouquet of red roses. The strange thing was, that the bouquet seemed to have some legs, one of them bouncing nervously.

“What in the name of…”, you mumbled.

Then you saw a light blond shock of hair appearing behind the flowers, as well as some silvery eyes, glancing at you full of expectation.

“No!” You shook your head. “No, no, no. No!”

“(Y/n), what is it? Who…” Hermione´s voice broke at the view of the boy in front of you.

Quickly you backed up again and wanted to slam the door behind you, but Malfoy was faster. Quickly, he got a foot in the door.

“(Y/n), please, just listen to me.”, he pleaded.

“I don’t know what you could tell me that I would be interested in, Malfoy.”, you said in a cold voice.

“But I bought you flowers.”

“Probably poisoned.”

“No, they aren’t. I swear by the name of my mother.”

Well, that meant something. But you still had no intention, to believe him. You wanted to leave, but Ron stopped you. Harry and he had stood a meter behind you, obviously enjoying the scene.

“Let the man say what he got to say.”, Ron grinned.

You sighted and turned around to Malfoy again, arms crossed.

“You got ten seconds.”

“I love you (Y/n).”, bubbled out of the boy immediately. “I truly do. I adore you with every fibre of my body. And I am truly sorry for everything I have ever done to hurt you. And I want to make it up to you. Please just give me a chance. I swear I will…” “Time´s up Malfoy.”, you interrupted him.

The boy stopped and looked at you hopefully. You stared at him with a blank face, hoping nothing in your eyes would give away the confusion that blustered inside of you when you heard his voice sounding so vulnerable.

“So what do you say? Will you give me a chance?” “I don’t know what game you play Malfoy.” The tone of your voice was calm, even though you could sense the shakiness threatening to burst out with every word you spoke. “But to play with the emotions of other people like this is just disgusting. I don’t know what you´re up to and I don’t want to know. But let me make one thing clear. I don’t love you. I never did and I never will. You make me sick. That´s the only feeling you can cause in me. And now for the love of Godric just leave, before I´ll hex you so bad that you´ll never leave the hospital wing again. And take your silly flowers with you.”

With every word you spoke your heart tightened more when you saw the look in his eyes. Every fibre of your body screamed at you that he was genuine and that you might had just broken him. But your trust in him was irreparably damaged. And that´s why you turned around and left Malfoy alone, with his flowers in his hand and tears in his eyes, wondering how he deserved the pain his love had caused.

Pansy and Blaise had been standing behind the next corner, listening to every word you had said. Even though everything had started out as a joke, now they felt sorry for their friend. When Draco walked past them, Pansy grabbed him by his arm, causing him to stop.

“Draco, what are you up to?”, she asked him, trying to make her voice sound friendly and clueless.

When Draco turned around, she was surprised to see tears swimming in his eyes. They had been friends for such a long time, still, she couldn’t remember one time he cried in front of her.

“This doesn’t make any sense anymore Pansy.”, he said.

His voice sounded so hopeless, sending shivers down the spines of his friends.

“What are you talking about?” “She doesn’t love me. She told me. And she never will.”

“But you won´t give up that easy, will you?”

Draco shrugged his shoulders.

“Doesn’t matter anymore. If she doesn’t want me, I don’t want myself anymore either. She told me to leave and so I will. I will never bother her again. Just tell her I loved her. I truly did.”

Draco continued his way.

Pansy and Blaise looked at each other, now truly concerned about their friend.

“Draco, where are you going?”, Blaise yelled.

“To the astronomy tower.”

“And what do you want there?”

“If I can´t spend the rest of my life with her it´s useless anyway. Then I don’t want to live anymore at all.”

He wanted to leave, but Blaise, was quick to walk up to his friend, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

“Mate, you´re definitely exaggerating.”, he said, trying to give his voice a chatty tone, not showing off how much the words of his best friend frightened him.

But Draco just shook his head.

“I want a life with her or not at all.”, he said, trying to free himself of the tight grip of his friend.

“Maybe we could try to talk to her once more.”

“I tried. But she told me to leave. I´m nothing but a burden for her. And I don’t want to bother her anymore. Now let me go before I hex you.”

But Blaise refused to do so and Draco grabbed his wand.

“We gave you a love potion Draco.”, Pansy suddenly blurted out.

Draco froze. Then, slowly, he turned around, looking at her in disbelief.

“You did what?”

“We sneaked some of the Amortentia of Slughorn´s first lesson into your drink this morning. It was meant to be fun. We didn’t think it would be that… that bad.”

Draco shook his head.

“But I love her.”

“No you don’t. It´s just the potion making you think that.”

Draco thought about her words for a few moments. Then he straightened up again. His gaze was stubborn.

“And if you did, I don’t care. It only made me realize how I am really feeling for her. Nothing in this world could fake the feelings I have. I know I am truly in love with (Y/n). I belong to her. We are made for each other. But sadly,”, his voice lowered again, “she doesn’t think the same.”

“If you are so convinced by that, you won´t mind getting the antidote, will you?”, Pansy asked. “After that, you can do… whatever you think is right then.”

Draco furrowed his eyebrows. But then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Doesn’t matter now anyway, does it?”

Pansy nodded.

“That’s what I thought. Now, you will go to Professor Slughorn together with Blaise and I will follow soon. Okay.”

Draco gave his friend a short nod. Blaise patted his back.

“C´mon mate. You´ll feel better soon.”

And then their ways parted, Blaise and Draco walking to Professor Slughorn´s office, Pansy to the Gryffindor common room.

In the meantime, you let yourself fall back into your wing chair, burring your face in your hands. You weren’t exactly mad at Malfoy, more at yourself, for letting you feel so confused by his actions. And the fact that Harry and Ron couldn’t stop laughing about it, didn’t make it better.

“His face was just hilarious.”, Harry snickered.

“Bloody hell, I wish I had a camera.”, Ron laughed.

“Can you shut it for a moment?”, you hissed, not having the nerve for their jokes right now.

Ron raised his hands in defence.

“It´s just Malfoy (Y/n). Probably he is laughing his ass off right now. Don’t give him the satisfaction of making you feel like this.”

“Feel like what?”

“Guilty.”

You brushed it off. But Ron was right. You could still remember the hurt you had seen in Malfoy´s eyes when you had told him you didn’t love him. Your head was screaming at you that he was fooling you once more. But your heart told you otherwise.

“What do you think, Mione?”, you asked your best and smartest friend.

Hermione hadn’t said anything yet, just staring at you, lost in her thoughts.

“That was unusual.”, she said after long hesitation.

“Don’t you say.”

“No, I mean, I don’t think he was trying to make fun of you. I think he was honest.”

“You don’t actually think Malfoy´s in love with (Y/n)?”, Harry asked, furrowing his brows.

Hermione shook her head.

“Probably not. At least that´s not what caused this behaviour. But maybe he thinks he is.”

You stared at Hermione when suddenly Professor Slughorn's words echoed in your head again. “Powerful infatuations can be induced by the skilful potioneer.” So what if someone…

“You mean, someone smuggled love potion into his foot?”, you asked in disbelieve, feeling your heart drop at this thought.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders.

“Love potion, a powerful curse. Something like this.” She turned to Ron. “Your brothers are selling some love potions, don’t they?”

Ron shrugged his shoulders, now looking not so happy anymore.

“I think so. But mostly just create a small rapture. And it vanishes after a few hours.”

You just prayed this was also the case here. If Hermione was actually right and someone had actually poisoned Malfoy. But let alone the thought he actually had a thing for you, even if it was due to a potion and even if it was Malfoy, and you had treated him like this, made your stomach ache. No one deserved such a rude put-down. Not even him.

“I should probably go and find out.”, you sighted.

Hermione nodded in agreement.

“Do you want me to join you?”

But you shook your head.

“I think I´ll be fine. And if he wasn’t poisoned or hexed,”, you added with a fierce expression on your face, “he should better start running now before I´ll get him.”

But just as you got up, one of the other Gryffindors approached you.

“(Y/n), there´s someone waiting for you outside the common room.”

You nodded thankfully. You didn’t know whether you hoped it was Malfoy or not.

But it wasn’t Malfoy. It was Pansy Parkinson. And the look on her face made you suspect nothing good.

“What is it?”, you asked straight away, not in the mood for Smalltalk.

You could see her shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other before she said: I might messed up something.”

And on your way to Slughorn´s office, she told you everything. How she had been so tired of your constant bickering and how she thought it might be fun to mess the two of you up a little bit. How she had faked her non-well-being in class to give Blaise the chance to steal some of the Amortentia. And how they sneaked it into Malfoy´s drink this morning, not thinking it would get out of control to a point where he didn’t want to live anymore without you.

You were obviously angry at Pansy and Blaise for doing something that stupid, but also mad at yourself for not noticing the situation. But mostly you were concerned about Malfoy, hoping he got to Slughorn unharmed and hoping the Professor would be able to help him.

When you reached the office, Slughorn was already waiting for you.

“Very well, Miss (Y/l/n) and Miss Parkinson.”, Slughorn greeted you. “Mr Malfoy and Mr Zabini are already waiting for you.”

In a lower voice, he added: “Please be gentle with Mr Malfoy, Miss (Y/l/n). He is currently very unstable.”

You just nodded and Professor Slughorn let you enter the room.

Malfoy was sitting on a chair in a corner, slumped down. Blaise Zabini was standing next to him, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

When Malfoy raised his head and saw you, his face lit up for a second, before he sank back down again.

“I´m sorry (Y/n). I didn’t know you would be here. I didn’t mean to bother you again. I´ll just leave.”

He wanted to get up, but you quickly stepped in.

“It´s alright Mal… Draco.”, you said, forcing yourself to smile. “You don’t have to leave.” But this didn’t seem to comfort him.

“You don’t have to be so nice to me. I know you are a gentle person, but you don’t have to lie to me. I don’t deserve your compassion.”

But he had it. You felt terribly sorry for the boy in front of you, looking so broken because of you. No. This wasn’t because of you. This was because of Parkinson and Zabini.

“I didn’t lie Draco. I mean it. I want you to stay. Pansy had told me what happened. I´m not mad at you. I want to help you.”

Slowly, Malfoy looked up to you. You could see a small spark of hope glimmering in his eyes again.

“But you hate me.” “I don’t hate you. I just don’t like you very much. I mean I didn’t.”, you were quick to say when his face fell once more. “I didn’t like the things you did to me and my friends. But I think we might deserve a second chance, don’t we?”

Draco nodded eagerly.

“Anything you want (Y/n). I promise I´ll try my best to make it better this time.”

Even though you knew it was just the potion speaking and not him, you couldn’t help the warmth that flushed over you at his words.

“I think it might be a good first step to let Professor Slughorn help you with this… situation, don’t you think?”

Draco was quick to agree. You smiled smugly, but when you turned around to the Professor and saw his face, you immediately knew something was wrong.

“I´m afraid it won´t be that simple.”, he said. “Normally the antidote of a love potion is a hate potion. But due to the fact that all those Weasley love potions had been smuggled into the school, I´m out of those.”

You sighted.

“And how long will it take until you brew some new?”

“This takes some time. I have already started to brew some a few days ago, but it won´t be finished until next week.”

You looked at him in disbelief.

“Next week?”, you echoed, leaning to the wall next to you.

“Oh but no need to worry. The effect of the potion won't last that long. It will start to vanish very soon. Until the antidote is ready, Mr Malfoy will be himself again without any help. Right now, his obsession with you is very strong and controls everything he is doing, but it will start to fade within a few hours. Then he will still think he is in love with you but will be able to control his behaviour again.”

You sighted. Only a few more hours. You could do this. Just separate yourself from him and wait.

“He shouldn’t be left alone until, well at least tomorrow. And since it is the fault of the two of you he is like this”, he said, now addressing Parkinson and Zabini, “I assume you will take care of him in this time. I will think about what I will do with you after this. Stealing such a dangerous potion after I just warned you. I am very disappointed in you!”

The two students looked quite rueful, mumbling an excuse.

“Now off you go. And take care of your friend. If something feels strange, just get back to me.”

Blaise nudged Draco, so he would get up since he didn’t listen to the words of the Professor, busy with admiring you standing here, in the same room, looking so effortlessly beautiful and forgiving him for everything he had done in the last few hours. Oh boy, he loved you even more for this.

Before you left, you addressed Professor Slughorn once more.

“Professor, how long will it take maximally until he is normal again?”, you asked.

Professor Slughorn looked at you pitiful.

“It depends on the attraction of the target of desire and the relationship between the two of you. I think he will be mostly fine again tomorrow. The latest the day after. If any feelings are left then, you can tell me after our lesson. Then I will check him once more.”

You nodded and smiled thankfully.

“Thank you, Professor.”

Draco and his friends were already waiting for you outside. Everyone looked at you, quite overstrained with the situation. You cleared your throat.

“Well, I think I´ll leave now. If something is wrong, you know where to find me.”

But just as you were about to turn around, Draco spoke up again.

“(Y/n), wait.”

You took a deep breath and stopped.

“What is it Draco?”

“You said you wanted to give me a second chance, didn’t you?”

You cursed yourself for saying that earlier.

“I think so?”

“Well, maybe we could spend some time together then. To get to know each other, you know?”

Draco threw you a shy smile, making your heart beating faster.

“I´m not sure if this is a good idea…”

“But I do. I know I actually love you (Y/n). I don’t care what the others say. It´s not that stupid potion. I just know it. Please give me a chance. I´m begging you.”

You sighted. But maybe it was better to stay with him for some time. Just as long as he had calmed down again and wouldn’t do something stupid. Well, as long as you wouldn’t say something stupid.

“I still have some homework to do. We can meet in the library in half an hour if you want to.”

Draco nodded eagerly.

“I would love to. This is going to be great!”

You highly doubted this but smiled anyway. After you said goodbye to the three friends, you went back to the common room, to grab your books.

Half an hour later, you were at the library. You had quickly told your friends what had happened, earning some laughter from Harry and Ron, and some disapproval from Hermione about Pansy´s and Blaise´s behaviour. You had made them promise that they wouldn’t follow you, since you suspected this “date” would be awkward enough without your best friends laughing behind your back. Hermione had promised you, she would take care of the boys while you were gone.

Now you saw Draco already waiting for you, some books in his hand, waving at you in excitement.

“Hey (Y/n)!”, he yelled, making some students turn around, confused by his friendly tone and the bright smile on his face since everyone knew how much you hated each other.

But you just ignored them and returned his smile.

“Hey Draco. Ready?”

“For you? Any time?”

He smiled stupidly, making you laugh.

“Let´s go then.”

Studying wasn’t that easy when you had someone watching you the entire time. Because that´s what Draco did. Instead of doing his homework, he had placed his arms on a book on the table and laid his head upon them, looking at you in admiration. The only thing he had been helpful with was your potion essay since Draco was actually way better in this class than you. But then he fell back into his state of staring at you. At some point you gave up, trying to learn anything, while you felt his grey eyes lingering on you and started a conversation with him. When Draco started to relax it was -apart from many cheesy compliments- actually quite fun to talk to him.

And when the library closed and it was time for dinner, you found yourself being a little bit sad that the time with him was over already. But you thrusted this thought aside. Tomorrow, Draco would hate you again and everything would be back to normal. It was better if you wouldn’t start to enjoy the time with him at all than missing it in the future.

When you said goodbye, Draco smiled at you sweetly.

“You aren’t that bad you know? For a Gryffindor I mean.”

You couldn’t help but laugh genuinely. This was the first mean comment he had made since the whole thing started. And Godric, you had missed it.

“I like you way better like that, you know that Malfoy?”, you smiled.

His cheeks flushed.

“If I would have known that I wouldn’t have bought you flowers.”, he mumbled.

He raised his hand to brush a loose strand of hair behind your ear, before leaning in for a kiss, but you quickly took a step back, leaving him embarrassed.

“Love potion, you remember?”, you said, trying to keep your face from heating up.

Draco nodded. Then a cocky grin appeared on his face.

“Wait, does that mean you would have kissed me if it wasn’t for the potion?”

Now your face definitely reddened.

“Keep on dreaming Malfoy.”, you grumbled.

“Oh I will (Y/l/n)”, he laughed.

“Well, see you tomorrow I guess.”

“Yeah, see you.”, he smiled. “And (Y/n)?”

“Yeah?”

“I´ll still love you then, no matter if the potion will still be working or not.”

You threw him a small smile.

“We´ll see about that.”

“What do you think? Does he still think he´s in love with you?”, Ron asked for the hundredth time this morning, making the knot in your stomach only tighten.

“I don’t know Ronald.”, you hissed.

You had slept badly that night, Draco´s last words still echoing inside your head. You didn’t even know why you were thinking so much about it. By now, the effect of the potion had most likely disappeared and you would go back to normal. Or at least you would try to.

“But you will find out soon.”, Hermione said, when she saw Draco standing in front of the Great Hall, looking around as if he was looking for something. Or someone.

“I think I´ll…”

You made an ungainly gesture into his direction. Your friends grinned.

“Have fun with your boyfriend.”, Harry grinned.

You just rolled your eyes, ignoring his comment, before you left your friends and headed towards Draco.

When he saw you walking to him, Draco´s face lit up. You could see it from a few meters away, even though he tried to hide it.

“Hey.”, you said, smiling carefully, slightly scared of his reaction.

“Hey.”, he smiled back, his cheeks flushing.

“So… how are you?”, you asked.

“You mean if I am still in love with you?”

You nodded.

“I´m afraid I am. Seems like this stupid potion is still working.”, he mumbled.

You raised your eyebrows in surprise.

“So you think it´s the potion now as well?”

Draco just shrugged his shoulders.

“I mean it has to be, doesn’t it? We never got along and the fact that I suddenly feel like this for you…”

He didn’t dare to look into your eyes and looked at his shoes instead. You didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed at his reaction. A part of you was glad he had finally realized his feelings for you weren’t real, but there was a small voice in the back of your head telling you that you wouldn’t have minded if all of this had happened for another reason. But you brushed it off.

“Well, at least you sound more like yourself again.”, you tried to cheer him up.

Draco scoffed.

“Not like a love drunk idiot anymore?”

You couldn’t help but laugh.

“Something like this.”

Draco looked at you with an unknown intensity in his eyes.

“Your laugh is still beautiful, you know that? I´m wondering how I could ever not see this.”

You couldn’t help but bush.

“Seems like the effect hasn’t totally vanished yet.”

“Maybe I don’t want it to.”

“Why so you could follow me around like a puppy, not capable of controlling your emotions?”

“No, so I can be around you without you telling me how much you hate me.”

You swallowed hard.

“I don’t hate you Draco. I never did. We just never got along that well.”

“Well, I wish we would have. Then it may not have taken a potion to make me realize how I feel for you.”

“Maybe we should talk about it when you´re not under the influence of said potion anymore.”

“Why? Because you´re scared that I might do something stupid if you tell me now how you really feel? That you don’t like me the way I like you?”

And for the first time in your life, you didn’t know what to say to Draco Malfoy.

For the rest of the day, it felt like Draco had some strong mood swings, his real personality fought against the effect of the potion. At one moment he made some cocky remarks, making you think he was normal again, but in the next moment, he looked as if he wanted to kiss you right away, assuring you, that his feelings for you would never change.

But five minutes later, they did.

“Honestly, this is worse than any roller coaster.”, you sighted, when you finally gathered around the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room with your friends in the evening.

“I think it´s kinda adorable.”, Ginny said, with a small grin on her lips. “I think you two would actually make a great couple. Maybe we should mix both of some potion into your cereals every morning.”

Harry laughed at her comment.

“I think maybe we don´t even have to.”, Hermione responded, smiling as well.

You raised an eyebrow.

“What are you trying to say, Mione?”

“I´m just saying that the effect of the potion has by now nearly vanished, but Malfoy is still all over you. And you didn’t consume any potion at all and you´re still nice to him.”

“I can´t risk him doing something stupid just because I have been mean to him, can I?”, you scoffed.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders.

“By now I don’t think he would anymore. At least not because of the potion. When you talked to him after dinner, you two looked perfectly normal.”

Even though you hated to admit it, Hermione was right. If you wouldn’t know how Draco was before he had consumed the potion, you would by now just think he was truly into you. He was still nervous around you, making you some compliments, but just as many sharp comments. You felt comfortable around this version of Draco Malfoy. The one who was nice to you, but still able to keep up with your sense of humour. You wouldn’t have been able to stand him as this foolish hopeless romantic boy he had been yesterday, but the version of him that smiled proudly when he realised his sarcastic comment had made you laugh, made your heart somehow beat faster.

“Don’t tell me you started liking him (Y/n).”, Harry said teasingly.

But soon he realized, that his comment might have not been that wrong.

“I don’t like him. Not at all. It´s just… It´s all so confusing.”, you tried to explain. “But Professor Slughorn had told me that the effect will be gone completely by tomorrow.”

“And if it doesn’t?”, Hermione asked.

“Then he told me to reach out for him once more.” “No, you got me wrong (Y/n). What if this isn’t about the potion anymore?”

“Don’t be foolish Mione. Of course, this is about the potion!”, you snapped.

But the thought of Draco actually liking you in the long run as well, made your heartbeat fasten.

The next time you saw Draco was shortly before potion class started. He was already sitting at his place, fiddling at some of his belongings.

You took a deep breath, trying to prevent your hands from shaking, before walking up to him.

“Draco?”

The boy in front of you froze. Slowly, he looked up at you.

“How is it?”, you asked.

But Draco just looked into your eyes, completely mesmerized.

“Draco?”

“Mhh?”

“How do you feel?”

Draco shrugged his shoulders.

“Don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”, you asked confused.

“Damn it, I´m not sure (Y/n)!”, he snapped back, clearly tensed.

But then he sighted and leant back in his chair.

“I… When I woke up this morning I thought it would be better but when I just saw you… It´s probably not normal that I still think you´re the most perfect human being, is it?”

You could feel a single butterfly in your stomach area, carefully spreading his wings, flapping one or two times.

“Probably not.”, you mumbled. “We should ask Professor Slughorn about it after the lesson.” “We better do. I don’t want those stupid feelings affecting me any longer.”, he grumbled.

After the lesson, you waited until most of the students had already left the classroom. Then you went to Professor Slughorn, Draco following you, secretly admiring your light walk.

“Professor?”

“Ahh, Miss (Y/l/n). Mr Malfoy, how are we feeling today?”

Draco just shrugged his shoulders, refusing to answer.

“I´m afraid the repercussion of the potion is still visible.”, you explained to the Professor.

Slughorn nodded.

“Well, well, dear boy. Tell me what you´re feeling. What is different than before?”

Draco hesitated for a moment, before he answered.

“I… I´m not sure. It´s not that bad anymore, but I still have… feelings.” He pronounced the word like a sickness. “(Y/n) and I were never exactly close but now… I can´t stop thinking about her. I mean I know it´s just because of the potion, but I feel this strong urge to be with her all the time.”

Draco´s voice was low as if he was embarrassed by what he had just said. You could feel the little butterfly in your stomach now fluttering around, exploring more and more of the room inside your torso.

“Do you still think you love her?”, Professor Slughorn asked.

Draco slowly nodded.

“Very well, let´s see.”

Professor Slughorn raised his wand, mumbling some incomprehensible words, but nothing happened.

After one or two minutes, he stopped, nodding knowingly, while a small smile spread across his face.

“My dear boy, I´m afraid I won´t be able to help you with that.”

“What? Why? You are the potions master. You are a teacher. You are supposed to help me.” Draco´s voice sounded harsh, yet also desperate.

“This has nothing to do with the potion anymore.”, Professor Slughorn explained. “Its effect vanished hours ago. There are no unusual traces of magic to find on you.”

“That is impossible. I can still feel it. Do it again!”, Draco demanded.

You could hear the panic in his voice. You, on the other hand, were just standing still, your thoughts were racing. A second butterfly joined the first one. Slughorn put his wand back into his pocket and smiled at Draco patiently.

“There is nothing to do anymore Mr Malfoy. If you say you love our lovely Miss (Y/l/n) here, then I have to tell you those feelings are coming from nothing else but yourself. You simply fell in love.”

The Professor chuckled as he saw the shock clearly written on your faces.

“I think my job here is done. I might as well leave you alone.”

“Thank you, Professor.”, you mumbled, when Slughorn left the room, unable to tear your gaze apart from the boy in front of you, whose eyes were still fixed on the point the potion master had been standing.

For a few minutes, neither of you said a word. Then, Draco cleared his throat.

“That has to mean nothing. Probably only some aftermath. Just like you said.”

You nodded.

“Just like I said.”

Slowly, Draco turned around and locked your gaze with his. You could see the insecurity shimmering in his eyes.

“I still hate you, just like I did before. I was just tricked into loving you.”

“You hate me just as much as I hate you.”, you agreed.

Draco stepped closer until the tips of his feet nearly touched yours and you could feel his hot breath on your face.

“I´m just confused. Because you had been so nice to me lately.”

“So am I.”

You looked into each other’s eyes, completely hypnotized. Draco raised his hand and gently brushed over your lips with his thumb.

“There is no way I actually want to kiss you.”

“There is no way I would let you.”, you whispered under your breath.

His lips brushed against yours.

“We will never be anything but enemies.”

“Obviously.”

And then he pressed his soft lips on yours, cupping your cheeks with his big hands, while you returned the kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck. An entire army of butterflies was now set free in your body, flapping in excitement, making your whole body tingle.

You didn’t know how long you were standing there, embracing each other, but when you finally pulled away again, your lips were swollen and your breath heavy.

“You have no idea how long I wanted to do this.”, Draco mumbled against your lips.

“Since your friends sneaked some love potion into your drink?”, you suggested, making Draco chuckle.

“Maybe. But maybe even longer.”

You hummed in agreement, brushing with your fingers through his soft hair.

“I think I might actually love you.”, Draco whispered, still caressing your face with his hands.

“What about nothing but enemies?”, you teased.

“Oh, we still are (Y/l/n). But that doesn’t mean I can´t be madly in love with you, can it?”

You furrowed your brows, acting as if you had to think about it for a second.

“I don’t know Malfoy, can it?”

“I could also send you a bouquet of roses once more if you need proof…”

“Don’t you dare.”, you laughed. “You´ll need another way to convince me, I guess.”

As a response, Draco pulled you close once more, his kiss this time even softer than the last one.

“Convinced.”, you smiled, when you pulled away again.

“Maybe Slughorn was right.”, Draco said. “Maybe love is the most powerful feeling in the world.”

“Didn’t take you for a softie.”

“I´m not.”, Draco said, sounding slightly offended.

You laughed.

“Even if you were; I love you just the way you are.”

Draco raised an eyebrow.

“You love me?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Don’t you say.”

“Oh just shut it.”

“Well, make me Malfoy.”

Taglist: @xodracomalfoyxo @marigold-morelli @writingwitch007

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essektheylyss · 1 year

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WWE Methodology Rundown

Because if there's one thing no one can accuse me of, it's sure not a lack of thoroughness.

As you may have noticed in our wizard bracket, there isn't really a mandate on how to vote—this comes down to how I built the rankings. I decided that a purely popularity-based ranking system was not going to be as interesting, because it was probably going to fall precisely the way it was ranked, and why play a game where you already know the outcome? So I weighed, in order, popularity as well as name recognition, and then a bit of power level (hence why wizards who are very powerful for reasons other than their class were not included, such as Raishan and Vecna and a few assorted fey wizards from c1). Which means that if you're voting for Trent over Eadwulf because you're like, "There's no chance Eadwulf wins in a fight," that's valid! But since it's not specified, you can vote based on whatever you feel like, which also means that a larger voter pool who aren't necessarily paying attention to methodology won't drastically wreck the bracket.

This ranking was done mostly based on vibes, and a lot of the lower half of the bracket could've been in varying orders. Lilith and Lyra are higher though they're not particularly strong because they're guest PCs, and Eskil and Vera, who are recurring PCs in main campaigns, are higher than, say, Doolan or Micah, who were present very briefly in content other than main campaigns. Tuldus is last despite having been on screen within the last couple of weeks, because, let's be honest, he's kind of established more as "that weird cultist" rather than Tuldus, actual wizard. (Maybe he's got stans though, idk all of your lives.)

Which brings us to our bracket itself. I did a straight reverse order, matching up the upper bracket with the lower bracket, with a little bit of altering within a couple of rankings to build the most interesting or funniest pairings—i.e. Laerryn against Micah, even though she is ranked first and in a strict lineup, would've been against Tuldus. Similarly, Veth got Doolan instead of Vera, because she's got that handkerchief. I won't go into every bracket I switched a bit, but there was a general method to my madness.

And as a general bracket note, a popularity-based 32-ranking bracket is gonna have a lot of easy sweeps in round 1, because usually you want the ones with lower name recognition to get cut in the first round, but you also want to give the opportunity for upsets. Someone like Athesias Uludan getting to the final because of an upset is fun as hell, but him getting to the final because the heavy-hitters were paired up in round two is not interesting.

Plus it's fun to see how the lower-ranked folks are doing! I am personally hoping for a Jenna Iresor upset but I'm not holding my breath. I'm also surprised to see that Micah Cormorant or Loras have gotten enough votes to hold any percentage, which is hilarious and exactly why the rankings are the way that they are.

#world wizard entertainment #I will put this one in the tag for anyone interested

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thedeviljudges · 3 years

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the devil judge + the seven deadly sins

so, i made a gifset about who i thought falls under the seven deadly sins. and also shameless plug - please go reblog the gifset i made for this. took me ages to do.

but i figured i might as well make a meta post to correlate. so this is that post. it’s not everything i could discuss. i could be here for hours more, truth be told. but i hope it’s enough to chew on.

while i feel like a lot of these are going to be a no-brainer, i still want to talk it through because idk. i can, and i want to, and i feel like it, lmao.

gluttony

the elite are privileged and have an opportunity to indulge so much more than the general public, but in many different ways. this is shown throughout the show in the fact that they can indulge on luxury food, have political power, they can make a phone call or snap their fingers and everyone must follow their orders.

and the thing about gluttony is that there is always more to be had. you take a little and then realize it’s not enough and so you ask for more. case in point: in episode 11 when sunah suggests that yohan could be the new president, the current one gives her an alternative: dictatorship. because it wasn’t just enough for him to be an actor and the presiding president.

you’ll also know they turn in on themselves - the two other guys in the elite group. one who owns the company and the other dude - i really cannot remember their names and what they do, but y’all know who i’m talking about. it was so easy for them, when threatened, to fabricate documents to give to yohan about each other in order to get ahead. gluttony is only shared in the relationships we have until one realizes they can take a little extra of the pie. it’s the selfishness of having all the leftovers. gluttony cannot necessarily exist without someone else’s sacrifice.

lust

i kind of had an ah-ah moment when i was talking this over with @technitango. i was trying to decide who was going to be lust because lust is portrayed very, very differently in this show than what most of us are used to. we, of course, know sunah who lusts after a life of indulgence and riches because she equates that with respect more than actually wanting it because it’s monetarily worth something.

but then i realized the public is lust because of their need for justice. i won’t say revenge necessarily because they’re doing as they’re told when given the judge show. but we can quickly see how that evaporates into something akin to bloodlust, for criminals and people who normally get away with shit, to have their fair taste at conviction for their misdeeds. we even see it with yohan’s fanboy club - the lust that comes from adoration and dedication.

and even more so, the public is easily swayed and so is the nature of lust. it follows in the vein of needs and wants, and as soon as new information is presented, however may false, so does the wants and desires of what people want sway. how easy was it for them to turn on yohan for a split second on two occasions - on two accounts of bribery.

envy

envy, above all, is about wanting what others have because you do not have it yourself. it may not be exactly what they have, but a form of it. some people don’t necessarily want money - they want what it can by, which is time, health and material goods.

sunah is the perfect example of this. she envies respect and recognition. she talks about bright and shiny objects, and that’s true to her kleptomania tendences, but more than anything, she wants to be seen as an equal because being poor with a vastly different upbringing means she’s looked down upon by those she thinks matters.

which also begs the question why she feels the need to seek validation from people in higher statuses to begin with when she can be the exception and not the rule - form her own understanding and environment to show others that the typical way of the elite is not actually all it’s cracked up to be - to which we see when she has no one to celebrate her victory with. it’s lonely being at the top. you get to your goal you thought you wanted but then what?

more importantly, sunah also envies family, relationships and simply put, human interaction. she wants to be cared for and treasured, and she looks for that in her position of power. because then all eyes are on you. because then that’s what people care about. what she fails to see is that those eyes are just as fruitless and just as wavering. to be a leader means people loving the idea of you but not you as a person.

“people of envious nature are sometimes stimulated to seek to emulate those who have completed some great achievements and in doing so achieve something great for themselves,” according to Understanding Philosophy.

wrath

while i realize that gaon not might entirely fit the wrath trope, he certainly has his moments, and i think he’s lived with a tampered flame since his parent’s death. he just learned to briefly put it out in the form of distractions and a false sense of righteousness and justice. it isn’t until he meets yohan that someone finally gives him the okay to feel the entirety of his emotions, that lets him breath and tells him it’s okay to feel anger and hurt. and while gaon ultimately chooses not to exact revenge, his wrath is what led him to becoming a judge and walking away from his teenage crimality.

gaon transposed his wrath into seeking justice, transformed it into livelihood, and reformed his narrative so that he was no longer angry and a teen with rash emotions. it was simply redirected and never really forgotten. yohan turned that redirection back around onto gaon’s ultimate heartache. fueled with that, it became easier to justify himself and his actions.

the most pivotal moment of turning his back on this mindset is, of course, the minister’s suicide, where he takes a good look at himself and doesn’t like what he sees. at this point, gaon’s upset isn’t necessarily at yohan but at the situation in which they got themselves into. because the thing is, gaon doesn’t absolve himself from what they did. he doesn’t turn a blind eye to that and try to dismiss it. he owns up to what happened and confesses how he feels to yohan and how he has to leave for his own good, and in some indirect way, for yohan’s, too.

with yohan, his ultimately weakness, despite never admitting to it, is family. his wrath comes in the form of anger when the ones he loves are threatened. yohan lives by a moral code of loyalty because that means you won’t be abandoned, and as a child who lived with that verdict since the day he was born, it’s an ever-pressing theme of his.

thing is, wrath comes in two particular forms for yohan. again, one is family and the second is the rose-colored glasses he’s given himself in his revenge story. he’s always had a goal to presumably make right the wrong for taking away isaac, but within that, 10 years is a long time to plot revenge, to the point where it becomes so much easier to lose yourself to that, to become enraged with it and forget the initial goal all along. we see this in his inability to form the bonding moments needed with his niece and his casual throwaway comments over people’s lives - the comment he made to gaon about moving on to the next plan, and the ultimately nail in the coffin of pushing gaon to leaving him.

his fury has also led him to convince himself his own humanity is nothing short of a lie. therefore, it’s easier to justify the means to an end because of his own self-worth and self-deprecation. it’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy: he even admitted to gaon’s mentor that he is an abyss. he’s referred to himself as nothing but an animal or a monster - all characteristics of despondency to survive and to justify what he’s doing. sort of like a catch 22, yohan claims he’s an animal/monster and behaves as such, but because he behaves as such, it means he’s an animal/monster.

wrath for gaon and yohan are very different yet the same. they are slow-burning, and that’s a dangerous type. it’s actually interesting when you think about the fire imagery surrounding the two of them because flames are quick to lap at anything in its wake, to destroy within a matter of minutes. and yet for the two of these men, their internal fire eats them from the inside out, painfully, until they’re almost unrecognizable to others and to themselves.

sloth

sloth was a little more difficult to pinpoint because of its characteristics. it was either the minister versus the mentor, both of which i think could work in this role. however, i chose the minister simply because she’s featured more and intertwines heavily with the plot line.

soth is a medieval translation of the Latin term acedia, meaning “without care.”

the ultimate characteristic of sloth is often identified as laziness, and while it’s easy to argue that the minister hasn’t been lazy in her ability to get where she is, she became as much when she started lying to get to her position. isn’t lying known as the easier way out? it absolves you of responsibility, of putting in the hard work, of apologizing and making things right. in the end, she had a goal and found the easiest solution to get there through her lack of responsibility for the roles she more than likely swore an oath to.

but that also translates into the other attributes of sloth: a failure to do the right thing, lack of emotions for people or of the self, and the fact that it “hinders man in his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of man’s undoing” according to The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil.

while i think there are a lot of components of sloth that may not necessarily fit the minister, the apathy and carelessness are enough to showcase her aggression, despondency and restlessness when what little efforts she does put in do not go her way. another interesting thing to note is that many of sloth’s traits correspond with symptoms of mental illness, such as depression and anxiety. it’s an interesting thing to note given the way the minister chooses to end her life.

greed

i don’t know that jinjoo would’ve had any provocation to the limelight if it wasn’t for sunah’s direction, but she’s eager to please and wants to be useful. it’s only natural for her to want more because it’s clear she’s a career woman, loves her job and has a heart for serving the people.

but like gluttony, greed is also that little thing that plants itself and can take on a life of its own. you start looking for justifications as to why you can’t have more than what you do, and in jinjoo’s situation, she’s already overlooked through no fault of her own. and it’s not that gaon and yohan are doing it purposefully, which is what makes their neglect heartbreaking, because truthfully, they’re after the same thing jinoo is. sure, it looks different and the foundation of it is different, same with their motives. but they’re all three judges on a residing bench working to exact justice - even if all three of them have their own personal agenda.

i don’t think jinoo fully aligns with greed, but she does want more for herself, and i think that’s only natural. you can tell she has a heart, and she’s keen not to be overlooked. this isn’t her pain point so much as it is she knows her worth and is more than ready to do what it takes to get where she wants. this, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad trait, but we can see how it leads to being deceived, especially for someone who’s been left in the dark for so long.

she is enticed by the glitz and the glamour of being a head judge, but you can tell she feels some remorse and guilt for those thoughts at times. i think her sense of greed is a battle within herself more than it is extremely outwardly.

pride

soohyun’s pride comes in the form of her imbalance with right and wrong. her sense of righteousness and justice is so far leaning, even more than gaon’s. it can be chalked up to her being a cop, but we’ve seen instances of this outside of her role within that agency. her pride doesn’t let her see beyond saving gaon and getting to the bottom of every mystery that comes her way.

it also comes in the form of impulsiveness and her savior complex, putting elijah in danger, for example, instead of waiting for backup. it’s not necessarily from a belief that she can fix things all on her own, but she sees injustice and immediately jumps in. another case in point is her and gaon watching yohan wreck the minister’s son’s car. she’s ready to go stop him, but gaon pulls her back, most likely because at that point, they hadn’t been observing the situation for very long to get a read on it. also the fact that at that point, neither of them truly knew yohan and his capabilities.

but as to where her characteristics come from, we simply don’t know beyond that of gaon. it’s unfortunate because we don’t have much of her backstory, so there is no real understanding why she so firmly believes in entities of regulation beyond keeping her friend out of jail. she prides herself on her work and what she’s able to accomplish, which is why it’s devastating to her to have to protect gaon by cleaning up his bloody handprint.

aristotle is of the belief that, “pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character,” from Nicomachean Ethics.

but pride for soohyun isn’t about honors or rewards. it’s for herself and her capabilities, her ability to protect gaon, and the virtues she’s set as the precedent for herself. because sometimes it’s not even about establishing morals and ethics upon yourself. it’s about feelings/intuition, logic and observation. and no, i don’t mean the feelings she has for gaon. there are things that humans do, both actions and words, that we inherently know are bad without someone telling us as much and without the rules of the world seared into our brains. there are some things we know, for a fact, are wrong to us as individuals.

for soohyun, she knows that gaon’s actions, and even her own, have consequences. from what we’ve seen, i think it can be argued that it’s really about not doing those actions to prevent an outcome - not necessarily from a place of being just and right. that doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand good morals/ethics, but again, we have no background of what her internal guidance actually is.

to put this in layman’s terms, we’ll use gaon wanting to stab the conman in his youth. soohyun knows it’s wrong because it will incriminate gaon and therefore she stops it. gaon’s gone to her because he sees her as a moral compass. but is her own internal navigation rooted in justice the way gaon had to find it in the judicial system, or is hers rooted in her pride of keeping gaon safe? she stops him from doing things that will get him in trouble, but is she stopping him because the action itself is wrong or because the outcome will result in undesirable consequences for the two of them?

and of course, there is a flipped argument to be had there - i’m not arguing that gaon stabbing the conman would be right or justified. but what i am saying is that for her, her worldview is the only right one, and when anyone steps out of that, even gaon, it becomes a bit of an issue: the pride she has for that is palpable.

every character indulges

truthfully, every character has at least one form of these sins rooted in their characterization. some are larger than others, but the breadth of it can be explored even further for each. and that’s what makes them more realistic and not just characters written on a page or following a linear progression of their writing deity.

the seven deadly sins are also notoriously rooted in religion. they’re also a defining feature of aristotle’s works that represent the golden mean, in which each vice is parallel to a virtue.

the devil judge is so layered, but i think at the heart of it, it’s about humanity at its core. sprinked in are the philosophies and contradictions and what it means to look in the mirror, what happens when we’re blind to seeing our true selves and most importantly, how much changes when we’re swayed by our own misgivings. it really asks us to understand nature versus nurture, that people must find a belief in something to keep them going, and how futile our hopes and desires can actually be if we’re not carefully regulating ourselves, nevermind the entities established by society to regulate us, too.

the entirety of the show genuinely begs the question as to who is truly right, who is truly wrong, and if it’s even possible to find the correct answer.

#x #the devil judge #the devil judge meta #*#*the devil judge #so i have some Thoughts #probably not very good ones but ya know

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amphtaminedreams · 4 years

Text

Paris Haute Couture Week S/S 2020 Plus a Little Jacquemus: Okay, Dior DID Suck (Part 2/2)

Hi to anyone reading,

First of all, thank you! I have never had a post do as well as the part 1 of my haute couture week review did and I am so overwhelmed with the positive feedback. This is probably funny to read for those of you getting thousands of reblogs on your posts, me acting like I won an academy award because I got a couple of hundred, but honestly I don’t expect any traction when I write on here (it’s basically just me word vomiting everything I’m thinking as if people want to hear it aka. mouthing off into what I thought was the void) so if you did read it, thank you! I do spend a long-ass time on these so it means a lot:-)

I’ll leave the self-indulgent ramble there though as it’s probably not what you came for and jump straight into part 2 of my thoughts, starting with Jacquemus. Yeah, I knew what I was doing when I tagged that in my last post. Simon Porte Jacquemus is the man of the *fashion* people right now; I’ve even found myself coming round to the Le Chiquito bag despite my original thought being “well, that’s fucking useless”. I know, I know, technically it’s not haute couture; it was part of Men’s Fashion Week, but it happened around the same time and everyone was talking about it on Twitter, so I feel like I have to include it.

In a way, it kind of reminds me of Bottega Veneta’s last RTW show, in that, especially with the women’s outfits, we seem to be sticking with simple, fitted garments and chunky, more statement jewellery. I’ve got to say I like the styling here a lot more though, and in general I’m a fan of this collection. The collared tops with cut outs underneath blazers are cool and I can’t wait until it gets warm enough for me to not feel dumb wearing my headscarfs like this; there’s a LOT of summer outfit inspiration. It’s not a mind-blowing collection or anything but it is effortlessly sexy and that’s something I wish I could say about myself. Most of us can only hope to look half as good as these models do whilst making the effort but at least Jacquemus is aspirational, lol.

I also fucking adore this colour palette. I’m sick of neutrals literally just meaning brown and white; the navy, sand and muted khaki is a fresh edition to what is usually interpreted as the colours you’d seen worn by Disney’s Riverboat Cruise staff and only Disney’s Riverboat Cruise staff. And I mean, come on-what is more neutral than typical English school carpet blue.

Next for the whole reason I had to make this haute couture week review 2 separate posts: Jean Paul Gaultier’s final show.

In the best way possible, it’s a lot. I don’t even really know where to start, except to say that I guess this is a fitting last show; a celebration of everything campy, messy, weird, performative, and punk is the perfect send off for a brand whose best known perfume of the last few years is called Scandal. More than anything, the final show represented the range of characters and cultures that have influenced JPG throughout his half-a-decade-long career, the lines that supposedly separate what is “masculine” and “feminine”, “old” and “young” and ultimately art and fashion blurred in the most exaggerated way possible. Sure, there are some looks which are individually a bit messy here but the way they were grouped into almost chapter-like segments meant that when you see them all together, they work. Nods to the patterns and structures that recurred from season to season were sprinkled throughout, from sailor stripes to corsets to the expected whirlwinds of colour. I’ll even allow the wellies in that one outfit; if I can get over bucket hats in Peter fucking Pilotto’s last RTW show, I can get over some questionable shoes here. Middle aged fishermen and boys who liked to pose with monster carp in their Tinder pictures as some weird display of masculinity everywhere rejoice.

Now onto a show that I personally found slightly disappointing: Margiela.

I think this one is a bit TOO weird for me. Like if you’re gonna go avant-garde, go all out. Chiffon gimp masks (I don’t know if that’s the intention here but that’s what I’m getting, sorry Maison) are something I’m not particularly fond of and I’ve never been a fan of the Tabi boots in the first place, let alone when they’ve seemingly been blown up to Michelin man style proportions. I didn’t find the show to be a total lost cause-I enjoyed the colour palette and I’ve always liked that contrast stitching detail, plus the bowler hats are interesting-but on the whole considering how much I liked the last RTW show, this is a bit of a let down.

The looks I included are salvageable but (I feel mean saying this) there were genuinely a lot of pieces that did just resemble bits of fabric draped over each over with no discernible rhyme or reason, so much so that they reminded me of some of the monstrosities I saw at a Drag Race pub quiz this one time where we had 5 mins to make some garms out of loo roll and then have a team member model them for points down a makeshift runway.

Ralph and Russo was alright. There were a few pieces that I really liked but again, I can’t help but compare this collection to the last, where it felt like the fussy details of bows and sequins and feathers and the Barbie Dreamhouse palette were utilised with a direction in mind. Here, I don’t get that. As ever, the gowns are gorgeous and I’d pay good money just to try one on for five minutes but as an overall collection I’d say there was a lack of higher vision, which is probably the snobbiest sentence I’ve ever written so forgive me.

As for Ronald Van Der Kemp, I could’ve done without including it to be honest, if it weren’t for the few pieces I’m in love with: the velvet cape, fur trimmed jacket and blue satin dress are probably my favourite pieces here.

So onto a collection I liked a lot more: Schiaparelli.

The influence of nature from flowers in bloom to insects to the organic structure of the human skeleton is as present as ever, though this collection includes a lot more delicate symbolism than usual. Honestly, the details make it for me; the brooches, earrings and facial jewellery are other-worldly touches to outfits that could otherwise be simple fashion magazine editor on-the-go. That’s not in itself a bad thing! The suits are gorgeous. I mean, I’m talking fashion editor in New York in a power suit yelling orders down the phone while she rushes along with a coffee. A Miranda Priestley in the making type woman. THAT’S a modern take on the divine feminine that Maria Grazia should’ve been going for; our goddesses aren’t women who sit around looking pretty (though that helps too) and place curses on mere mortals anymore, they’re women who get shit done.

With regards to Valentino, which was also a delight, let me start by saying this colour palette is EVERYTHING. It’s ugly sisters in Cinderella fantastic, and we know those 2 were the real fashion icons really. Other than that, I adore the Old Hollywood silhouettes from the gloves to the Liz Taylor-in-Cleopatra-level-dramatic earrings. Everything is opulent and expensive-looking and pretty much what we’ve all come to expect from Valentino. A strong 8/10.

For me personally, Viktor and Rolf was a standout and one of my favourite collections of haute couture week. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and I know it’s at the complete opposite end of the spectrum to what was probably my other favourite collection, Elie Saab, but this is just my style down to a T, the perfect balance of grungy and cutesy that I want to achieve.

There’s probably going to be a lot of objections to the temporary face tattoos and I get that, but I think they’re fucking sick. I obviously wouldn’t get a permanent one lest my mother murder me in cold blood however if I did, you bet I would be pairing them with frilly-ass babydoll dresses that you could pick up in Camden Market like this.

And last but not least (that would be Dior), there’s Zuhair Murad.

Sigh.

IDK, man. Seeing Zuhair Murad dresses on Tumblr and WeHeartIt (remember that site? It still exists!) as a 14 year old was one of the things that got me into fashion, so it sucks that almost every time a new collection comes around, I feel underwhelmed. Disappointingly, the brand hasn’t really progressed all that much since 2013. It goes without saying that the stoning and the embroidery and sequins are stunning and would make anyone feel like a princess but from a critical point of view, I’m just not seeing anything new here. Whereas I feel like Elie Saab, for example, reflected the growing fascination with East Asian fashion and recognition of the supremacy of the region’s street style in his haute couture last collection, Zuhair Murad seems to be stuck designing the same dresses he was 6 years ago.

To pick one example, the rounded stoned necklines are so outdated that they’ve been making their way onto department store prom dresses for years. I get that it’s supposed to be a reference to Ancient Egyptian style and I respect that, I was one of those 8 year old that was obsessed with mummies and the “Curse of Tutankhamun”, but couldn’t it be done in a more interesting way? It’s Maria Grazia’s spin on Ancient Greece all over again. Now I get how how the I imagine very niche subsection of people who are into fashion and Julius Caesar (okay, so I don’t even know if they still believed in mythology and all that malarky at that point in history but just roll with my comparison here) might’ve felt going through Vogue Runway. Anyway, I hate to end on a critical note and so be clear, these are still absolutely magnificent dresses. If we ignore those ugly round necklines, that is.

So that’s it for this post! If you read part 1 and 2, I hope you enjoyed it! As always, let me know your opinions and feel free to disagree. I’m literally just about to start trawling through all the A/W 2020 RTW collections though I imagine that’s gonna take me way longer to do than this, so I wouldn’t expect that for a month or two. In the meantime, I’m trying to fit shooting a Euphoria-inspired lookbook into my days off work which is looking atm like it’s going to be the end of March, so look out for that, and also a review of the red carpet fashion from this season’s award shows.

As ever, thank you so much for reading and again, thank you for the reception on part 1 if you were one of the people that read it. It makes staying up til 3am with the jitters seem worthwhile, lol!

Lauren x

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margridarnauds · 4 years

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I have an Irish ask! How did the regional kings hierarchy work - was there a high king irl? How did you rule, and what over, and how did you get to be high king, if so? (From - a descendant of the Kings of Desmond, but very confused about what's shit, and what's legit, in Irish History?

Kingship in an Irish context is an endlessly complicated topic, and it seems like for every question we get, someone’s written or plans to write a dissertation on it. You accidentally tripped over a landmine when asking me this one. Which is DEFINITELY not your fault, I don’t resent you for it, it just means you are getting a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG answer.

But. Anyway. Kingship. I will preface anything I say with the acknowledgment that I am a mythological literature person, not necessarily a law/contracts/history person. Also that, tragically, there are a LOT of law tracts that remain untranslated. (And a lot of things. In general.)

So, this is…complicated, since a LOT of the work in the legal tradition revolves around the notion of kingship (seriously, my closest friend in the department is a legal scholar and we have had some long bitchfests about how much attention is paid to kingship VS the common people, simply because…..guess who was paying for these manuscripts to be made? Yep, it ain’t Farmer Cormac. The single most important thing you can ever remember about these texts is that they were made by and for an elite audience); you have a lot of kings in a fairly condensed space, and it gets to the point of whether we should even really properly translate rí as “king” or whether a more generic term like “leader” is actually more accurate, though it IS cognate with Latin “Rex” and Gaulish “Rix.” (Aka “Vercingetorix”, “Cunorix”, “Asterix”…all the most important “Rix”s of the ancient world.) So. Kings. Definitely kings. But not really in any way we would generally consider “kings” to be. Fergus Kelly estimated that there could be as many as 150 KINGS throughout Ireland between the 5th-12th centuries (17), which….on a relatively small island that holds only about 5 million people in the present….**150**.

Traditionally, the idea of a singular high king of Ireland was….okay, so you have a LOT of guys who claim to be “King of Ireland,” but there’s a question of how real that power actually was, how much power they ACTUALLY wielded, and how stable they actually were. And, on one hand “King of Tara” is generally taken to be synonymous with “king of Ireland”, (hence the Uí Néill’s LONG claim to power), but there are a lot of issues with that one, and it’s something that’s a matter of debate, not the least because it seems like the Uí Néill…..might have influenced the literature ever so slightly as a way of bolstering their own claims (Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, 215). Basically, no evidence that the kings of Munster paid tribute to the kings of Tara before the 9th century, making the claim that the King of Tara = King of ALL Ireland doubtful.

And….well, I’ll let Bart Jaski explain the title of ardrí (high king), since he’s the man with the big book on it: “To keep up with [the political developments of Brían Boru’s victory at the Battle of Clontarf], the annalists of the tenth century introduce the title ‘high-king’ (ardri) as a title of recognition or flattery to denote a powerful king who achieved a remarkable domination over others. In later historiography, the old kingship of Tara came to be regarded as the ‘high-kingship’ of Ireland, which is both an anachronism and an inaccurate estimation of what the kingship of Tara meant, both in pre-historic times as in the documentary period. The title of rex Hiberniae given to the kings of Tara Domnall of Cenél Conaill and his grandson Loingsech does not lend support to the existence of a ‘high kingship’. as they were apparently subjectively awarded by partisan annalists and others.”

Fergus Kelly was more to the point, “The king of Ireland (rí Érenn), who figures so prominently in the sagas, is rarely mentioned in the law-texts. Though the idea of a kingship of the whole isalnd had already gained currency by the 7th century, no Irish king ever managed to make it a reality, and most law-texts do not even provide for such a possibility” (18).

Charles-Edwards disputed this conclusion in Early Christian Ireland (okay, technically, he disputed Binchy’s conclusions, but this line of thinking), discussing some further references to a single king of Ireland binding the other kings of Ireland to him, as Conchobar was said to have done with the men of Ulster, as well as the legal term tríath, with a line from an 8th century law text being “He is a burdensome tríath who penetrates Ireland of peoples from sea to sea” (519). Liam Bhreatnach suggested in his article ‘Ardrí as an old compound,” as the name suggests, that the term itself, while little used, is old. I can’t get ahold of it at present, but I’m going to presume he did make a solid case, given that Carey, Jaski, and Charles-Edwards all cite him, and they are all careful, respectable scholars. What John Carey would point out in “From David to Labraid” is that actually, several of those early references were in fact to the Christian as opposed to an earthly deity. AKA “The ULTIMATE high king, the highest of kings” (pg. 21-23). Something suggested by Carey in that same article is that the Church MIGHT have promoted the idea of high kingship as a way of appealing to kings who would be interested in it in exchange for their support of Christianity; a quid pro quo.

Basically, the question of the extent of the high king’s power, both in a Christian and pre-Christian context, is HIGHLY controversial and something I reckon will never fully be satisfactorily resolved, not the least because it also has the misfortune of featuring two favorite, perennial topics of many Celticists: Etymological arguments and kingship. What I think we CAN gather from the debate is that it was very far from a SOLID title, more a matter of individual monarchs as opposed to stable dynasties. Medieval Ireland did not have a Versailles and a Louis XIV, there was not a singular sun king who decided their fates.

Now, in general, kingship was not necessarily held with the same iron grip that you would see with, say, the Plantagenets in England. Primogeniture was not necessarily a thing here. You did have to be a nobleman to be king (Sorry, Farmer Cormac, you’re out, get back to your field, peasant), and you had to be descended from a king in either the first or the second degree to be king, but you did NOT have to be the firstborn son. If you have seven kids and the youngest is the only one who is qualified to lead….yep, Junior takes the lot. So, that’s the first thing. There’s a section of Mac Firbis’ Great Book of Genealogies (which is a LATE text, but includes basically a scrapbook of older material) that references that exact scenario. Youngest can take it, eldest can take it, eldest PROBABLY has a higher shot of it because…older, more time to be groomed for the kingship, more time to gather people loyal to him, etc. But. Like. All of the kids have a shot, and depending on where they’re fostered off to, their foster families will very likely support them if they want to make a bid for the kingship. (Irish dynastic politics were VERY turbulent.)

A king is elected to the tribe through the popular acclamation of their major clients/family members; their power, while it is something that is expected to some extent, is not a GIVEN to the same extent. (Jaski 212). Which. Is where the role of tánaiste comes in, which is a late development, but it irons things out so it’s like “Okay, when the old fuck dies, this dude is king.” In a literary context, this is also why Bres’ kingship is kind of doomed from the beginning. Because it’s the WOMEN of the Tuatha dé who support his kingship, not the men.

And, of course, even if Junior does take the throne, that does NOT mean that his brother’s kids are out of the running when Junior dies (or, more to the point, they might try to speed things along and arrange for a “hunting accident” to happen.) Because of the three generation requirement to maintain noble status, there was quite a bit of infighting (Jaski 197), as different offshoots of a given high king will want the throne in order to maintain their noble rank. Knives Out: The Medieval Ireland edition.

One story that deals with this is Echtra mac nEchdach Mugmedóin (Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedóin), which discusses how the future Niall of the Nine Hostages, born the son of a Saxon slave and the king of Ireland, hated by his stepmother, and the youngest of the lot of the sons ends up taking the kingship anyway. (Answer: He’s down to sleep with an old hag. Who is also the sovereignty of Ireland. And is like “Okay, that was some good D, here’s how you get the kingship now.”) Now, this is primarily a literary as opposed to a historical story, but…..well….that’s where a lot of our stuff for this. Does come from. For better or worse. And I’m not just saying that because I’m currently procrastinating on working on an edition of that very text.

So, on the question of “How to rule.” The main relationship was between an overking-client king. So, let’s say that I am an underking in….IDK. Munster. What can I say? I like Munster. I’m not even a pronvincial king, but I’ve got my tuath, I’m chilling out, I’ve got my cattle, I’ve got some Nemed-class people with me, I’ve got a bit of land, and a couple of those people we don’t really talk about because they’re not important (Aka “Commoners, slaves, etc.” The people who do the work that the more privileged classes CANNOT do, like chop wood.)

Now, let’s say that you’re a provincial king, King of Munster. Your father’s just died, you’ve become king, or, alternatively, you’ve beaten the shit out of the other candidates, and you roll up to my people. Now, I could probably fight, but like. That’s a way to. Die. And maybe I do want the protection that comes from a Lord-Client relationship, since, hey, that DOES mean that you’re responsible for me. And if the King of Connacht rolls up and is like “Hey, I want to attack you and steal your cattle” you can roll up and be like “Hey, want to die?” Also, if one of your OTHER subjects kills a man in my tuath, you are expected to mediate, with me taking a hostage from your court until everything’s resolved, and you and I both getting a part of the resulting settlement (Kelly 23). And, of course, I’ll support you as well. It’s a mutual client relationship, just….an inherently uneven one. Most of the powerful subject kings, who were free but still subject to an overking were related to that king by a shared kinship, but there was a double edged sword: I support you, and then your brother Eochaid comes to the throne, I’m up Shit River with no paddle (Jaski 206). If I’m particularly useful/powerful to you, you might even foster one of your kids with me, so I can support him politically later down the line. (And also strengthen the relationship between our two peoples; that kid is going to be more mine than yours by the time that his fosterage is over, he will call you athair and me datai; one is a more formal term meaning “father,” [cognate with Latin pater and English father] one is more like “dad” and is cognate with the Welsh dat. Which seems to be related to….yep, the English diminutive dad.) Peter Parkes rather magnificently talks about this system as: “Clientage dressed in a false plumage of kinship: Cuckold consanguinity.” (”When Milk Was Thicker Than Water?”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 6.3, pg. 606)

So, what would happen there? Well, the system of overking-client king was held together much in the same way as the relationship between individuals would be, ie through hostages. The giving of hostages is something that was EMBEDDED in the legal system. So, you and I would proceed to haggle over who I have to hand over. Now, I don’t want you to take someone too important, you will want to take the most important person you can. I’ll try to get you to take my third cousin twice removed who I might see once every few years, Conall, you’ll try to get one of my kids. And, let’s be real, since you have the most power in this situation, you’ll probably fucking win. “He who has the sword makes the rules”- NOT an official medieval Irish legal statement, but it might as well be. Now, it should be emphasized that hostages were HIGHLY respected and treated well, there was no particular stigma against someone who was a hostage at some point, and you do have accounts of hostages eating at the king’s table, in a position that denotes a degree of intimacy and companionship. And a couple who are brutally executed or maimed when their kings broke the terms of the agreement, but, hey, only a 2% murder rate or so; very good for the times. It could be that the king’s son had a role when it came to making sure the hostages were cared for. But there’s not been all that much work done on it and a lot of this is being remembered second hand from a PhD student in our department who did a STELLAR lecture on the topic; if and when he decides to formally publish it, I’ll probably make a big deal over it. Because….this shit is IMPORTANT.

This is also why it’s Niall of the Nine Hostages. Because that’s how many peoples he extracted hostages from, that is a sign of his power as a king. You could NOT be king of Ireland without hostages. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Like, how are you going to be sure that your supporters are going to stick with you? And even if they do, where’s the signs of your authority? Why do you expect anyone to take you seriously?

So, a king of Ireland’s reign would be held together by a similar system, whether it’s provincial or the famous ardri. A high king would take hostages from their client kings as a way of showing off their power and authority, and they would probably show them off when making a circuit of their territory. Your ancestor would definitely have had a group of hostages taken from the athech-thúatha, or client peoples. The Triads put it slightly more succinctly: “[220] Three things that constitute a king: a contract with other kings, the feast of Tara, abundance during his reign.”

Now, again, this is an idealized literary context, but we’ve discussed the first one, the contractural nature. The feis Temro, or the Feast of Tara, was something that a High King of Ireland HAD to do as a way of securing his reign, and in the early days at least it seemed to involve some sort of marriage/sexual ritual with a representative of the goddess of sovereignty, a living embodiment of the land, and it would involve imbibing some sort of drink offered to him by her as well. (This is why Eochaid Airem HAS to marry Étain, because he needs a queen to have his feis Temro and become a king. This is also why Niall of the Nine Hostages secured his reign via sleeping with aforementioned hag.)

And there were a number of different taboos and responsibilities tied to said kingship. For example, in The Tidings of Conchobar Mac Nessa, it is said that “Now Conchobar himself used to give them the (the feast of) Samaim because of the assembly of the great host. It was needful to provide for the great multitude, because everyone of the Ulstermen who would not come to Emain in Samain lost his senses, and on the morrow his barrow and his grave and his tombstone were placed.” The Adventures of Nera also features Medb and Aillil throwing a feast on the day of Samain for the entirety of the province. Baile in Scáil features Conn rising every day so that he can go onto the ramparts of Tara with his druids and poets to defend it from the possibility of otherworldly attack. Another obligation was “the Prince’s truth,” the idea that the king, when giving out judgements, should be able to INTUIT the true answer. Giving a false judgement = ruin for the land, everything goes to shit, the harvests fails, cattle die, aliens invade (okay….maybe not, but like. it would be cool if they did), the king of Leinster steals your wife, etc. until the bad king is replaced. (It has been SUGGESTED that that might be the reason for some of the bog bodies. Possibly.) He also HAD to go out with a retinue when he was out hunting, a king who didn’t lost his honor price, same as if he’d used an instrument of MANUAL LABOR (the horror, the shock) (Kelly 19). For what it’s worth, I do know of at least one case in….I believe the 16th century where a woman claimed that the king was the father of her child, there was no one who could dispute it since he was alone, he took a shine to the child anyway, and BOOM heir. Which further shows one of the social dangers of a king on his own.

More specific ones to each province are laid out in the Book of Rights, which Myles Dillon did an edition of in “Taboos of the Kings of Ireland”. An example (chosen at random) includes, “The five prohibitions of the king of Munster: to hold a court before celebrating the feast of Loch Lern from one Monday to the next; to spend a wet autumn night before winter in Letrecha, to camp for nine days on the Suir, to hold a meeting at the boundary near Gabruan ; to hear the groans of the women of Mag Feimin in their oppression. And his five prescriptions : to despoil Cruachain at the call of the cuckoo; to burn the Laigin to the north of Gabair; to chant the Passion in Lent at Cashel; to travel over Sliab Cua with a company of fifty after pacifying the south of Ireland; to go with a dark grey army on Tuesday across Mag nAlbe.”

Either way, in Ye Olde Days, there was definitely an element of protecting the people of the region from the possibility of supernatural attack. That would obviously die down a little with the coming of Christianity, I don’t know whether a king in the 15th century, for example, would be expected to keep to it that rigorously, I lean towards “no” personally since this is generally talked about as an outdated custom, but it remained a popular trope in medieval literature. Dillon himself points out that, given that many of the taboos mentioned in here were only recorded in the 14th century, they were likely considered to be an odd, antiquarian quirk. That being said…..it’s ALL tied into the kingship, the idea of the king being tied to a certain series of obligations, the mutual relationship between king and people.

Now, if a king failed in his duties and taboos, he could be ousted. Like “you fucked up, buster, get packing.” Some examples of kings who lost their sovereignty include Bres mac Elatha (my BOY, my SON, my ANGEL, my…..little piece of shit), who was satirized by a bard (this is why people REALLY tend to underline the power of bards, because like. This was an ACKNOWLEDGED power of theirs. They were held in a heady mix of respect and fear for this one), Fergus mac Roiche (didn’t lose it because of incompetence per se, but did hand it over to Conchobar, and the men of Ulster, inexplicably, liked Conchobar more, which….their mistake but.), and Congal Cáech (whose bid for king of Tara was, according to legend at least, ruined by an unfortunate bee sting. In his eye. Whether he was actually king of Tara is something that seems to be slightly disputed.) People often will ask me, when I mention how much I love Bres, why I love him so much, and I feel like the answer to that….there are a hundred answers, depending on my mood, and this is NOT a Bres post, but the one most relevant to the overall topic at hand is that he really experienced the full kingship experience: The rise, the fall, the absolute tumultuous political reality of a 9th century king, albeit a fictionalized one.

Bibliography:

Carey, John, ‘From David to Labraid: Sacral Kingship and the Emergence of Monotheism in Israel and Ireland’, Approaches to Religion and Mythology in Celtic Studies

Charles-Edwards, T.M., Early Christian Ireland, Cambridge University Press

Dillon, Myles, “Taboos of the Kings of Ireland,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History,Literature, Vol. 54

Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, Four Courts Press

Kelly, Fergus, A Guide To Early Irish Law, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

Mac Cana, Proinsias, Celtic Mythology, Littlehampton Book Services

Parkes, Peter, ”When Milk Was Thicker Than Water?”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 6.3

#celtic studies #irish mythology #celtic mythology #Anonymous

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bluemoonpunch · 5 years

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BigHit just announced today that BTS is going to be on an extended leave for a while now. What can you read about that? To me I'm extremely glad that they'll be getting some proper rest after all these years but at the same time I can't help but shake off that it might be an omen for something bigger [anonymous @ bluemoonpunch(.)com]

Anonymous: Do you see anything around the vacation the boys are taking now? I’m so happy they’re taking time for themselves (even though I already miss them lol). I feel like this is almost a test run to prepare ARMYs for when they enlist T_T [anonymous @ bluemoonpunch(.)com]

000

There’s an ungodly amount of stuff here to talk about, lol, so I’ll just start from the first set and work my way down.

The first set of cards out was The Lovers in reverse with The Devil, which is interesting as these cards are naturally inverses of the other. Immediately, I was seeing this as a Soul Body situation, something where they are disconnecting from the public on a soul level, disengaging those connections that make it feel RIGHT to constantly be in the spotlight, constantly be turned on for the sake of entertainment, and through that they (or some of them?) will consciously recognize The Devil where they once recognized The Lovers, meaning they will recognize the toxicity of living as a fantasy for mass amounts of people. They will be able to find themselves, the purer versions that are separate from what they’ve created to share with the world because no matter how deep they seem, there’s always a layer of protection that a human being will put around themselves in order to appeal to whoever they are trying to speak to, there’s always purpose behind it other than just simply speaking their mind.

This is reflected in the set that “falls out of” The Devil, like The Devil drops these things as he runs away from their awareness. The Ace of Wands, which I was seeing visually as them physically reaching inside of their own bodies to grab onto the Solar Plexus, the default core projection, the base of the ego, the light that is always on. They grab onto it there, they feel it rather than just allowing it to constantly extend past them, and their perception of it shifts through the reversed Hanged Man. I thought this card was an interesting choice for the depiction of this as the reversed Hanged Man is actually upright. His perspective when upright is of the world upside-down, out of reality. He is a figure representing the point at which objective and subjective reality merge. When reversed, the man in the image is upright, he is seeing the world for what it is at face value, rather than from his own personal perspective which could be clouded by emotions and subconscious veils. He’s seeing The Lovers in reverse or seeing The Devil.

In seeing The Devil rather than The Lovers, he sees where he’s been trapped or where he’s been holding himself prisoner to expectations and connections. What felt like love and admiration from the angel was actually suffocation and the stripping of his own autonomy from The Devil. As that falls away and those ties are temporarily cut, things that were pushed aside come back into focus. The 7 of Pentacles is there at the end of this which I saw as the guys returning to passion projects, taking this opportunity of less obligatory travel and such to take time for more personal matters. This can be family and friends as well as solo music or other business dealings that they haven’t been able to do with so much time constraint.

From that comes a set with nothing but reversed cards that include the 10 of Wands, 4 of Cups, and the 4 of Swords, which to me said, this is not a time of rest and relaxation, it’s a time to heal, and to heal is to work. The reversed 10 of Wands shows no strenuous work, no work that leaves them completely drained and physically and mentally exhausted, but there is also no time to sleep or lie around dreaming. They’ve already been dreaming and those dreams were the blooms that were left behind in the 7 of Pentacles, and they are now having the opportunities to pursue them. No rest, just more work, but work that fulfills them on a personal level, something that charges them up rather than sucks the life out of them.

On the other end, extending from The Lovers in reverse comes The High Priestess in reverse, Judgement in reverse, and then the 9 of Cups. This mirrors the set of 10 of Wands, 4 of Cups, and 4 of Swords. The previous set is more about the conscious level work they are doing now, whether it be completely for the individual or something for the group that will come about later, it is more willfully done, not an obligation. On this end, from The Lovers, the same thing is occurring on a soul level, as in the Soul Body. The High Priestess and Judgement being in reverse show a complete separation from their Guides and Source energy. I don’t know if you guys remember all the details of the Soul Body healing and all that, but Namjoon was being used as a conduit and just kind of is all the time, in order to send information, activations, and codes through the others down into the physical space. That isn’t happening here. There is no guidance happening here, nor are they being watched and contained on that level.

With this I head “test run,” as in this separation that the soul body experiences now from their Guides is a test to see what they will actually do with it, what the individual souls do with that freedom — are they going to completely disconnect themselves from the body? Are they going to complete their integration processes? Or are they going to work purely on a soul level and just heal through soul-satisfaction? The 9 of Cups is the show of the soul — not even the Higher Self, just the soul — being in charge. It’s like their souls have been contained inside their energy centers, inside the Soul Body for a long time and they had been compressed together in order to bring the physical forms together in this particular lifetime. It was cramped and as I mentioned in other readings, they could only move together as a unit, but now it’s wide open, they’re free to move. Some of them are dying to move while others are hanging on for dear life, so it’s a test to see who does what and for what reason. It’s kind of cool, but I don’t know what the information gathered from this test is supposed to do other than maybe see how the body would actually break down. IDK.

Then in the center there, everything kind of converges, and this may answer my previous question about what this test is really meant to be for. There is the 8 of Swords in reverse leading down into the 6 of Wands. This would suggest that this opportunity was put into place physically (their vacation) in alignment with the current state of their soul process so that they would individually have the opportunity to take the blindfold off, see The Devil in place of The Lovers, and in turn see what within themselves they’ve been holding back for the sake of the group or the audience. There can be a weird thing where when working in groups of friends, people will sometimes hold back on their own talents in order to not outshine anyone else, and when you’re in a group where, amongst the audience, it becomes a big topic of conversation of who is better at this and that, it can become an emotional obligation to hide or play down talents and passions for the sake of staying on an equal playing field. But if EVERYONE is doing that, and EVERYONE is trying to stay down, you could assume they could all rise up together, support each other, and be supported in their individual paths.

That’s what the 6 of Wands is, it’s the individual, all seven of them on their own, coming around with the Ace of Wands, with their core, their passion, their talent, their pure soul on display, and they are being praised and supported by the others and the audience for it. Not mocked and shamed for “trying to get all of the attention” or whatever bullshit some people spew anytime someone who isn’t their fav breathes.

And BEAUTIFULLY, the set that follows this is all upright. The 8 of Wands is carrying energy directly down, as if the internal state that each of them find in the 6 of Wands through this process of disconnect, will manifest on a conscious level as The Magician for all of them, as individuals who are in complete and total control of the outcome of their paths and what manifests for them. They are neither tied to The Lovers or The Devil here, they are simply tied to their soul and the recognition of power they have. This then stems into the Ace of Cups which I was seeing as a complete recharge of creativity, a complete recharge of emotional strength and awareness, as well as a deeper clarity and awareness of the soul, or what would consciously be perceived as passion.

For good measure, I asked what energy would surround them when they come back from this vacation physically and from this process on a soul level, and they got The Star with the Ace of Swords… which is pretty bomb ass. I honestly don’t even know how to describe this because I’m not getting any visuals or words or anything, it’s just a feeling… and a smell? Lol? I don’t know what that means, but I smell mint or eucalyptus with it. But the feeling itself, which is much more prominent, is just clear water. Perfectly still, clear, cool, water just spreading out around them. It’s like they are The Star. The Star isn’t an influence that they will be under, they are literally The Star, they are the water bearer, and it’s coming from a state of clear-mindedness, the truth, the awareness of all that nonsense that I just talked about. There’s a sense of new purpose, but it’s individual and it’s not entirely controlled anymore the way it is now with the Soul Body. Again, this is an energy that they will carry so I don’t know how that would manifest or if we would see it, but it’s coming through as if it’s going to spread out from them. The water feels like it just pools and spreads out of the ground and just keeps going and going.

Shits dramatic as hell, I love it.

More Mini-Readings | Celebrity/Idol Readings

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serendipitybutterfly · 5 years

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Yoongi’s Birthday Tarot Reading

Happy Yoongi Day!!!

So... I’m not going to lie, what I got in this reading was kinda unexpected (idk what I was expecting tbh but it took a different turn than I was thinking it would) and I ended up using more clarification cards than I usually do cause I wanted to be sure I was getting the right message.

*All my usual disclaimers apply... this is just to put positive advice out there for the members on their birthdays and maybe help any of you who read this who might be going through similar things in the year ahead too. The future isn’t set in stone and someone’s mindset can change everything. This is simply a projection based on the current moment.

Anyway, on to the reading... Like I said, I ended up having to use more clarification cards than usual because I wasn’t really expecting the message I got and therefore was kinda confused by it at first. Because I used more cards, in order to stop this becoming way too long, I’ll try to be more succinct in my summary of the message.

First of all, the significator cards I got were the 5 of Cups and the Knight of Swords in reverse. Within the context of the whole reading I was confused because the year ahead seemed mostly positive overall for Yoongi yet the 5 of Cups and Knight of Swords indicate some unexpressed despondency or (and as I looked at the 5 of cups this sprung to mind) a feeling of “missing out” on something. The Knight of Swords being reversed told me that this feeling is not something he’ll actually want to talk about to anyone.

So the first two cards I pulled for the bulk of the reading actually ended up causing me the most confusion... I got the Queen of Wands and Knight of Swords and looking at the rest of the cards I was just like... who are these people? I felt very much that neither of them were Yoongi himself so I was confused as to why they were coming together and what their significance was in this reading... but I’ll get back to this..

With the next two cards the message was more clear, The Queen of Cups in reverse and the Nine of Pentacles in reverse I felt very much WERE talking about Yoongi himself. The message here seemed to be that he will soothe his feelings of emotional discontent with accumulating material possessions. This became more clear looking at the other cards.

Next were Judgement and The Emperor which I felt were very positive. I felt like these cards were saying that in this year Yoongi really will come into his power as a man. He’s reaping the rewards of all the efforts he put in the past. This was also reinforced by the last two cards of the reading (the Ace of Wands and Seven of Pentacles) which seemed to be a weaker echo of this same message with the additional message of this being in reference to his creative, artistic career (the Ace of Wands).

So I was like... in the year ahead Yoongi will come into his own as a man and feel very powerful and satisfied materially, creatively and in terms of career and the respect he gains socially... So what is the cause of his discontent? Is there even a cause? Of course, as an ARMY, I am aware of Yoongi’s struggles with depression and anxiety and I know that there’s not always a straight forward “reason” for flare ups of that kind. That said, my intuition was telling me there was a cause and I saw it in these cards; the Nine of Cups in reverse and The Lovers. “Oh,” I said. “He’s lonely.”

The Nine of Cups upright is one of the main “happy” cards of the deck. It is the wish fulfillment card and indicates being blissfully happy and content. In reverse, at least for me, it indicates that there is a wish or desire that is not being fulfilled and in this case, paired with The Lovers, it was clear... it was the desire for love and companionship. Yoongi is a grown 26 year old man now... it must be getting hard not really being able to date and experience romance in his life and it’s this that starts to get a bit depressing for him in the year ahead...

So back to the mysterious Queen of Wands and Knight of Pentacles... I firstly wanted to ask for clarification on what the message of these two cards was in the context of this reading. So I asked, and the Seven of Wands in reverse came out.

“Oh,” I said. “Defensiveness against something?”

But who was being defensive, and who or what was being defended and how?

I was still very confused as to who these people were and how they were related to what’s going on with Yoongi in the year ahead, so I asked for some clarification on this Seven of Wands from my Earth Magic Oracle Deck (Steven D Farmer) and got the Crystals card (Focus) and the Music card... My intuition told me that the defense against whatever this issue is will be literally to focus on his music... that simple. Ok... but I was still confused about who these people were because I still felt like neither of them were Yoongi himself so, to confirm that, I decided to consult my Archetypes deck (Caroline Myss). Who is this Queen of Wands and who is this Knight of Pentacles? The Femme Fatale card flew out for the Queen and The Mentor flew out for the Knight.

At this point, I knew we were definitely dealing with a literal male and female (note: the court cards don’t always definitely indicate the gender of a person but can simply indicated something about their personality or emotional or mental state eg:- in this reading the Queen of Cups in reverse came up to indicate something about Yoongi’s emotional state). However I wanted to ask for confirmation again that this “Mentor” isn’t Yoongi himself, because it was possible (although I wasn’t getting that impression) that Yoongi could be mentoring this Femme Fatale. So I asked again who this Knight of Pentacles was and if it was Yoongi to give me a card from the suit of Cups (as he is a Pisces and usually is indicated by the Knight or King of Cups for me). The Heirophant flew out... another card that indicates an older male mentor.

So now I’m getting a clear picture... To summarise... I think this year will be very good to Yoongi in terms of his career, making money, getting social recognition for his talents and working creatively on his music. However, he will probably at some point start having feelings of loneliness and despondency thinking about how difficult it is for him to have a relationship (and probably thinking about his desires for the future in terms of love and marriage and wondering if his career is at odds with these desires)... enter this Femme Fatale. It seems some kind of seductive female will enter Yoongi’s life at some point in the year ahead and there will be some temptation to get involved with her. However, and this is important, it doesn’t seem like she is good for him or that it would be connection like what Yoongi really wants, “The Lovers”, but rather something more materialistic and physical.

Luckily, it seems that this year he will meet an older male friend who will act as something as a mentor to him and help him through this situation. This person will encourage him to focus on his music and creativity in order to get through the feelings of loneliness rather than seeking comfort in this woman... who kinda seems like she might be bad news for him. I think this mentor is someone who understands exactly what Yoongi is going through... maybe an older male idol? And as they become closer he will be a really good guide for Yoongi so if he wants to talk to anyone about his feelings this person would be a good guy to go to rather than just trying to deal with it on his own.

So advice for this year for Yoongi... I really think if he opens up to this friend that is coming into his life he’ll be ok and this person will help defend him from anyone coming in to try and take advantage of his loneliness (Yoongi really is quite vulnerable emotionally...). There is a bit of a risk of him overspending in an attempt to fill the void of a meaningful romantic relationship in his life... but then a lot of money is coming in for him too and he’ll feel financially secure so it’s not too bad once he keeps himself in check. The numerology of this reading is 77, a higher vibration of the number 5 which represents Freedom. 77 indicates an expansion of consciousness, divine awakening, gaining knowledge from people from all walks of life and backgrounds and being open to it all and coming into one’s personal spiritual freedom and also sensuality.

I do feel from what I saw in the cards that this will be a year in which Yoongi really comes into his power as the man he’s going to be in this life so that resonates. However, the “dark side” of 77 is related to how the freedom to follow one’s impulses and curiosity can lead to reckless behaviour and getting overcome by physical desires. So... be careful of that naughty Queen of Wands character who seems like a bad influence I guess...

Overall, I think this will be a good year for Yoongi... he’ll just start to feel a bit emo over being #foreveralone and be tempted to indulge in a shallow relationship to fill the void but a sensible friend will advise against it... typical mid twenties stuff tbh. He’ll be fine. All the best wishes to Yoongi in the year ahead! You’ll have a great year! See all the positive! You’ll find love when the timing is right! 🙏✨💜💜💜

#min yoongi #Yoongi birthday tarot reading #yoongi tarot reading 2019 #happy birthday Min Yoongi!!!#this feels like a really long one... but I wasn't expecting to get hit with Yoongi longing for romance... it threw me off #honestly... same Yoongi #bts tarot reading

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aiiizawa · 5 years

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the aizawa and his parents headcanon post that i copypasted from discord. readmore for length

SO LIKE not to project just a little bit but I don’t think Aizawa has a super good/close relationship with his parents. Like I know it’s probably Horikoshi thinking it’s unnecessary but I MUST build on this bc I think it’s important to his character. Like...idk but I can’t really see his parents as being especially there. His preoccupation with logic (and, in a sense, control) I think stems from that. Like I don’t think he was especially neglected but I do think that he was an only child who spent a lot of time by himself and doing things for himself, and thus creating his own fun for himself. He never developed a big attachment to items and stuff bc either his parents just kind of threw stuff at him that they thought he liked or he was pushed into a focus-specific childhood meant to push him into a certain career so growing up he learned not to put attachment or want on things he doesn’t need. Like I just don’t think it’s really like healthy to have an almost completely empty living space according to Horikoshi. There’s simplicity and then there’s like. Damn you live like this.

I think he was probably, just a little bit, raised by the tv and watching heroes and that’s part of the reason he decided that’s what he wanted to do. I can’t see him wanting to do anything else or settling for anything else and if the spin offs are canon, Aizawa actually never REALLY even wanted to be a teacher, it just happened to work out that way. However, though his quirk is useful, all it did was Potentially level the playing field and I think that his parents, out of a sense of love, never wanted him to be a hero or thought that he could be one. Of course, Aizawa is smart and stubborn so he decided “fuck that” and did so anyways. Like I don’t think he entered the hero course until midway his first year or second year and even then he struggled a lot and only got average grades in the hero course. He’s canonly self taught with his capture weapon so it was probably something he asked to be made himself when he was finally in the hero course and didn’t completely master until his second or third year going pro.

And I think that All the While, he may have butt heads with his parents about it because it’s just, by all means, not logical. Aizawa has to work twice as hard for less than half the recognition. He probably doesn’t get paid as much either bc he doesn’t have that added income as well as the fact that he’s unable to take down big name villains bc of his need to be in relative obscurity and the fact that he is a normal guy. A stronger than most normal people guy but his power ranking is a C among other heroes. So his parents just don’t get it and they don’t get why, if he has a nice cozy job at U.A., why he continues to be a hero and do both?

Because to them, it doesn’t make sense. He’s proved his point. He’s shown he can be a hero and now he can teach other heroes so why doesn’t he just give it up? He’s had several close calls just in what we see in the anime/manga/spin offs and I am Very Sure that every time he gets hurt and they end up knowing it turns into “you Should quit this now.” So he keeps them at arm’s length at least. Doesn’t tell them about hospital visits bc “there’s no need” as he’s only ever in there a day or so (Despite probably needing to be there longer) We also don’t know the average career span of pro heroes as well. Aizawa has been doing this upwards of 12 years and while some heroes that are famous and VERY strong can keep going into their 40’s, there’s no guarantee and as it’s an incredibly physically taxing job with a flood of new talent that’s only getting stronger every generation on the market, why would he so stubbornly do this?

But all of it just really points to the fact that his parents don’t know him. They THINK they know him but they don’t and they only increase the distance between them even now as he’s a grown adult by thinking that they know him better than he knows himself and what’s actually important and “logical.”

Also Aizawa’s cooperativeness ranking in terms of working with others is also ranked C which I think fits bc he can work with others well enough bc he’s a versatile hero personality wise since he’s so pragmatic and his stealth makes him strong but I also think that it’s not higher bc he’s the type to take everything on himself, as is with canon as he often takes on the job of the Bad Guy, that he’s a person not used to being like....supported. Now that he’s an adult, his mother especially is trying to reconnect with him but I think they still have absolutely no idea how to communicate with one another.

#cursed content (tm)#txt #bnha blogging

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homieswithhades · 6 years

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BTS Analysis;

I don’t even know if I can call this an unpopular opinion bc I know some people agree with this, this is more of an in-depth analysis and personal experience I guess. It’s all about bts... and its lowkey a mess. I apologise in advance for any grammar/spelling errors, and times I may contradict myself a bit. This is something that REALLY bothers me. I just want to clarify that I love bts a lot, and that I was the HUGEST STAN for a good 5ish months. I still stan them but not as much due to the following reasons.

They just don’t make good music anymore. They love yourself era was when everything turned to shit. The actual core love yourself concept is very good but,,,, it was executed really poorly.

Dna was my first comeback with them, even though I’ve been listening to them since august 2016. But when actually became a stan in April 2017, I was obsessed with them. I was so damn excited for their September 2017 cb that my standards were through the roof. During the summer they changed the logo and did the beyond the scene thing,,, that’s the first thing that kind of irked me,,, and then they did the highlight reels in the style of I need u and they were redeemed.

When love yourself her started promotions and teasers, the bar was higher than the person who edited the DNA mv. The concept pics were so unfitting??? And just lacked that aesthetic element. I dint like them at all,,,, and the album cover was,,, below standard and looked rushed and lazily designed. But when serendipity came out I loved it (and I still do) so that fuelled my expectations for the music, even though they weren’t really that damaged by the odd first impression of the album. But then DNA came out and???? I was so disappointed?????? The beat was so annoying,,, the mv was so ugly,, the outfits were ugly,,, the lyrics were weird. In other words DNA was just a straight up flop... I hoped the rest of the album would have been better but,,,, it really, REALLY wasn’t.

After love yourself her I lost a lot of interest in bts. I missed their old music so much, and I was genuinely upset over it. I didn’t follow them as closely as I used to. I started to joke about them with my friends who lost interest in bts before me, but I still missed the old bts so much. The whole Ellen show thing, all the western media like Buzzfeed and Billboard making vids and articles about bts, all the rigged award shows, it pissed me off bc they were getting famous in the US bc of their worst album that didn’t display their full potential at all!!!!

Imma just go out and say it, armys are one of the most toxic fandoms ever.

Sometimes they’re just plain disrespectful and starting arguments where they don’t belong. I wouldn’t be able to count how many times I got attacked on Twitter, Instagram and even in the YouTube comments for expressing a different opinion. I remember all the fan wars and scandals. All the mobs at airports, All the times k-fans and i-fans tried to ruin another groups reputation (I’m not saying other fans never did this, bc it was always a thing, but it was never this extreme.) and the fuckin credit card thing oh my god,,,, a huge shitstorm caused by one fandom that lasts for years on end.

When bts got really mainstream, and gained more young western fans, they really ruined bts even further for me. Not to mention all the cringey tweets and memes, they hurt to look at. I absolutely don’t mind the “you got no jams” meme or the “ExCuSE mE” one, bc theyre just pure goof from the members, but when armys took it and overused it, that’s when it started to get annoying.

Some armys genuinely think bts is the only kpop group and that the world revolves around them. They comment “annyeonghaseyo any armys here???!!!” in the most unexpected places, I deadass saw someone on my overwatch team playing quick play with the name “army.FOREVER.saranghae” yall do realise it costs 10$ to change ur blizzard username, right?

Some armys also don’t respect other kpop groups in older gens (or any other ones for that matter) and assume that bts broke through into the western world themselves, which is complete bullshit, without groups like bigbang, shinee, tvxq, shinhwa, h.o.t, seo taiji boys etc etc (and other ones I don’t know of rip) kpop would have never gotten into the western world.

I never identified as an army bc I knew they were cringey bc of my friends who were HUGE armys back in 2016 and low-key koreaboos, and I knew what the bad stans looked like, so I never associated with them, and just called myself a bts stan. But the whole western situation just got so goddamn worse. I was sick of the Americans plaguing bts for me.

I also wanna say, I know not all armys are toxic and cringey. And I respect the level headed and chill Armys, yall are doing it right.

Moving on from Armys, I noticed a change in bts themselves. Namjoon changed his stage name, which absolutely sent me. I understand the meaning behind it but for some reason I felt that he did it to be fake deep? Or woke, and that he tried to completely cover-up his past self. The other members became cocky and were always draped in all that ugly Gucci and designer shit. I knew they were being forced to act the way they were acting, bc I know them well. I know how they really are. I know that they’re good people. I know they’re very humble deep down. They had that special connection with their fans before, that made u feel like u were good friends with them, and they absolutely ruined that. They’re being forced to put on this fake image to impress you filthy Americans.

I still stan bts atm. But I stan them for their old music and the people they truly are, not who they are portrayed to be. I can’t remember when euphoria came out, but I was kinda annoyed they tried to incorporate hyyh prologue into their shitty concept. And the song was also annoying and too edm-ish (like most of their new songs, idk why their style completely changed). Anyway, when tear came out, I was still kinda off the bandwagon, and I saw the concept pics and I was surprised at how nice they were. I saw the album cover, which was still ugly but better than the previous one. Then Singularity came out and!!!!! I loved it a lot. And then fake love happened. Oof is all I have to say. But some songs on the album, were actually good. Like the truth untold, paradise and OUTRO TEAR. Outro tear will remain the best song in the love yourself trilogy.

I also feel that I have to acknowledge that for all the love yourself albums only the intro and outro were genuinely up to standard (except outro answer).

Then came love yourself answer and idol. When I found out they were collabing with niki minaj I lost it. The concept pics were ugly once again, it was supposed to a controversial comeback???? And??? It wasn’t. I’m honestly glad it wasn’t promoted.

I noticed a repetitiveness with songs on answer. The beat was off with the singing. It was all just a mess. I also noticed the amount of godddamn auto tune in the songs (eg, mic drop, fake love, idol, airplane pt.2 and others I can’t remember atm) all of bts’s old songs all sound unique and different, and they all had this “emotional” element to them, to elaborate on that, compare dna, fake love or idol to save me, I need u or young forever. Notice how dna, fake love and idol convey absolutely no emotion through the lyrics or the actual beat of the song, unlike save me, I need u or young forever, that literally have more sentimental/emotional value in the few English lines that are in the song then all of the lyrics in their 3 new title tracks combined. I think this is my most difficult point to explain bc different songs make people feel different things, but it’s no doubt that you can tell the difference between a song that’s made to appeal to the masses with no unique properties to a song that coveys deep emotion (whatever the emotion may be) through the beat, the lyrics and the sound of the vocals/rapping alike. Listen to intro nevermind, and then listen to go go and just try to tell me that im wrong.

Alos, bts seem to have incorporated auto tune into songs, especially on their vocalists. bts don’t need the auto tune bc they’re good vocalists. Also, I have to mention, the vocal line isn’t the “best” per say. they’re good vocalists but it’s nothing special. Seokjin is the best vocalist period. Jungkook’s voice is generic, and in recent songs he has been straining it to reach the notes. Taehyungs voice isn’t even that special, it’s just deep, and it only really suits ballads and R&B songs like singularity or butterfly. Jimin has a very nice voice, but again, it’s nothing extraordinary. I feel that Jin has the most vocal potential, and he doesn’t get to show it, he has this really unique voice, idk what it is about it that just??? I really love it. But to clarify, I’m not hating on their voices or saying there untalented, because they’re very talented, but most of vocal line gets too much credit. As for rap line, I think they’re one of bts’s strongest points. Namjoons style is so smooth and just overall good? It amazes me that he rapped so well over the years with a breathing problem. Hoseok is a good rapper too, his sound is unique and his adlibs add to that uniqueness in older songs, as for Yoongi, I genuinely think he’s one of the best rappers in the industry, it’s not about the speed element, it’s about his flow, his power, his emotion, everything about his rap is just amazing.

Now I wanna talk about the member’s individual popularity. The maknae line has the most stans, and quite frankly, their stans are the worst. Treat all of the members with the same love and respect. Sure, it’s perfectly fine to have a bias but to disregard the other members is just plain wrong.

Bts are human beings, first and foremost, and then there musicians second. They’re being made into media puppets and clout bait, which they absolutely don’t deserve. They deserve recognition for their good stuff, which they have PLENTY of.

All in all, I’m sick of the American attention. It’s cringey, annoying and unnecessary. Sure, bts deserve recognition but not that much of it!!!!!!

And they were being recognised for the wrong thing for fucks sake!!!! I didn’t like ANY of the new songs on answer. I only liked epiphany. And then I found out it wasn’t written by any of the members. Rip. Fans will unfortunately blindly follow, stream and like whatever they put out like blind sheep because it’s accustomed to them, bighit KNOW that they’ll make more money in America. They know no matter what bts put out, no matter how shit it is, fans will like it and itll be revenue for the company. And all the mobile games and the bt21??? Was so unnecessary?? Capitalism amirite? Quantity over quality. It’s the sad truth.

Armys tend to mix up criticism and hate. Although there is a very thin line between the two, there is a difference. Criticism is the analysis and judgement of the merits and faults of something. Hate is blind and unjustified. Hate is disliking something for no reason, or for a very invalid reason. So for example, saying; “I don’t like this apple because its bitter and im not a huge fan of bitter things” is fine to say, unlike, “FUCK THIS APPLE BECAUSE ITS BITTER, FUCK ALL APPLES” you know? It’s okay to dislike a group. It’s NOT okay to hate on a group. No one’s is going to gain anything by hate.

So, all the youtubers are reacting to bts for clout, the fandom is a fucking mess, armys are attacking other fandoms for no reason, the members lost their TRUE humbleness and neglected their real personalities and they’ve put out 3 overall bad standard albums over the course of a whole ass year.

But I still have this spark of hope for them. Why? Because I love them, they have a special place in my heart. I know they have the potential to be amazing, unique and just overall good people with their own personalities, and truly special musical abilities.

After their tour I honestly, really hope the attention dies down and they put out another good, original, album like the hyyh albums, with nice concepts, good songs, and a pleasant to look at mv. It’s really all I ask for. The old bts. I know I’ll never get them back, and I absolutely cherish their old stuff, like the bulletproof logo, bangtan boys, rap monster, hyyh, young forever, no more dream, wings, them all goofing around together and not caring about their image, their wholesome interactions with fans, and all the songs and concepts and theories that never have, and never will be recognised.

On a final note, I realise I can’t blame bts themselves entirely for this. This stuff is only partially “their fault”. Its bighit’s fault, the army’s and haters fault and the media’s fault. But, America is to blame the most. That’s all for today.

#delete

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