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sakura-ame-no-ai · 3 years ago

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"on caffeine."

pairings: kenma kozume x reader

genre: fluff

a/n: i felt a little kenma today, so this one is a little more "spaced-out" or just "randomly-torn-out-from-the-notebook" kind of feel if you get what i mean... anyways, enjoy! :) (i'm a little surprised that there were some people who liked my last fanfiction i wrote lol)

"kyanmaaaaaa?!" kuroo screams.

kuroo currently stands in the doorway of kenma's room, eying the see-through containers on the floor. they're obviously coffee jugs used to fill up coffee in the coffee machine.

you sit beside kenma, watching him trying to beat the difficult level of the game repeatedly as he quickly chugs the content of another coffee jug. his eyes are glued to the screen, focusing on every action of his small character, who is jumping and dodging about in order to evade the fire pellets spat out from a plant-looking monster sitting on the right side of the screen.

at this moment, kuroo scrambles over to the computer and forcefully turns off the pc system by jabbing the power off button on the screen forcefully. the screen instantly blinks into a pitch-black, making you and kenma look at kuroo incredulously.

"kuro! we were about to beat that boss!" you whine angrily, looking back at the now dark screen.

kuroo doesn't care though. instead, he swipes away the coffee jug that kenma is about to take another swig from and collects the remaining jugs from the floor.

"both of your eyes need a break," he lectures, wearing a stern expression.

"you two have been superglued to that computer since high school started like glitter glued to paper."

"kuro, at least we do what we're supposed to," kenma retorts, his eyebrows furrowing into a mad frown.

kuroo frowns back.

"cut the lies, kenken. you've been skipping meals with n/n and you know it. you two can't survive off of caffeine, tannin, xanthine, or any of that shit. you two are literal coffee addicts."

"ahem, it's not me drinking the coffee?" you point out, mad at him about being accused of drinking coffee.

you watch the bedhair march towards the trash can and lift it up, showing you its contents that contains unhealthy sugary drinks. obviously, you were the only suspect who would drink them.

"well, n/n, if you're trying to live by eating glucose, then become a tree and photosynthesize. even plants do better than you."

with that, kuro places the jugs and trash can down on the carpeted floor. the next thing he does pisses you and kenma off. he checks the wiring behind the computer screen, unplugs the wire cable that is supposed to project anything that was inside the computer system, and pockets it.

the two of you stare at him in silence as he lifts up the things he placed on the ground and exits the room, closing the door behind him.

"goddAMMIT, TETSUROU!! GET THE FUCK BACK!!" you screech, rushing to the door.

"COME BACK YOU LITTLE- eh?"

you are taken by surprise as the doorknob won't even budge no matter how much you try to turn it.

with the help of kenma, you try other ways to bust the door open, like pulling the knob, pushing the door, and even slamming into it. every attempt you make is proven unsuccessful and you sink down onto your knees in exhaustion.

eventually, the two of you give up.

"looks like he stuck a knife in the door since he knew there's no lock on it," kenma states, peeking at the crack between the door and the door frame.

"and he knew he'd be dead as hell if he stole the cable for the computer," you sigh, plopping on the bed.

you live in the same apartment as kenma, but your room is down the hall and nothing connects it other than that hallway. because kuroo locked you inside, there's no way to even make an escape down the hall.

"damn it, that sly feline..."

"maybe, we play games on your phone?" suggests kenma, his eyes looking hopeful.

you sit up excitedly.

"that's actually a great ide- wait, no. my phone's in my jacket, which is in the living room."

kenma exhales in despair.

"my phone isn't in my room, either. i left it in the kitchen, i think."

good grief, now both of your plans are ruined, unfortunately.

kenma plops onto the bed next to you, and you stare at the ceiling boringly with him.

"man, is there anything else we can do other than doing absolutely nothing?" you ask, closing your eyes.

kenma only shrugs, making you groan sadly.

now that you're fully aware of the room you're in, you begin to realize the chilly air surrounding you since you're wearing short-sleeves.

"i'm cold."

kenma notices you wrapping your arms around yourself and the slight shivering of your body. if he had been wearing his nekoma jacket, he'd lend that to you. however, he isn't wearing it, and he was too lazy to get up and take a walk to the closet and back just to get the jacket.

he takes a moment to examine the soft and fluffy covers that both of you are currently laying on before lifting it up, making a hole that's enough for him to slip in.

he holds the blanket cavern open and looks at you, which you understand without him speaking. you fit yourself inside the covers with your body squeezing against his as kenma closes the entrance to the cavern to your shoulders.

with the covers enclosing kenma's warmth around you, you feel a sense of security.

the feeling that everything is going to be alright.

kenma usually isn't that inviting though. deep inside you know it. he's usually reserved and he doesn't really give a crap to kuroo. he usually doesn't really care for you, too, even though you're his best friend.

maybe it's because of the caffeine that kenma is willing to give you such an intimate opportunity. he usually doesn't get too hyper when he drinks coffee, but he's usually a little more welcome and emotional after consumption.

but, that doesn't matter now.

you feel the soft feeling of an arm wrap around your shoulders, and a small push that makes the side of your face lean against his chest.

there, you experience the soothing sound of his heartbeat pumping at a steady pace ever so peacefully.

"i guess staying like this while not having video games is not that bad," kenma points out. "even though it'd be better with video games though."

you are about to agree with him out loud, but a light drift of exhaustion takes over you. your thoughts become fuzzy and your eyelids gradually close.

there was nothing you could do, other than to agree with him silently as you drift off into a peaceful slumber.

nothing can be ever so inviting without him by your side.

suddenly, you get jolted awake by the clack of a doorknob. although your vision is still blurry, you are still able to see.

a crack of light shines into the dark room from the door as you hear someone sing in a low voice, "kenkeeeeeeeeen... n/nnnnn-"

but, the singing gets cut off and before you know it, you realize it's kuroo who has just come into the room, staring silently at you and kenma on the bed in a cuddling position.

he blinks at you.

you blink back at him. and then, you start clearing your throat, trying to resolve the embarrassing scene.

"ahem. kuro. i can explain."

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2dmenenthusiast · 4 years ago

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I can't remember if I sent this to you already but could I request headcanons for aizawa, hizashi and Toshinori finding their s/o that has a chipmunk quirk that makes her fall into hibernation when it's too cold (kinda like tsu) but when the guys find her with her heart rate low and her breathing shallow maybe they freak a little bc she didn't tell them about that part of her quirk yet

omggggg this idea is literally so cute I got so excited when I first read it. Also thank you love for comin through with the requests, I really appreciate it! <3 I also hella struggled cuz like, what can someone with a chipmunk quirk do? Stuff their cheeks? Climb up trees? Also I legit forgot what a chipmunk even looked like I had to look it up lmaoooo im so dumb it hurts

Aizawa is an intimidating fella, okay

So when you first told him about your quirk, you were lowkey embarrassed?

Like, here’s this grown-ass man with a badass quirk who is more than capable of taking down villains and defending himself, and here you are just-

🐿️

But you know what’s great about this man? He couldn’t give less of a shit about your quirk or anything like that. He strikes me as the type to care more about personality than anything else

concealing your quirk is fairly easy. People probably wouldn’t even know you had one if it wasn’t for the small fluffy ears popping out of the top of your head, and even then you could just cover them with a hat

But that doesn’t mean you don’t experience the effects of your own quirk just because it’s subtle

You have a mutant type quirk, so you experience certain things that actual chipmunks do

Sometimes you won’t even notice that you’re stuffing your cheeks to full capacity with whatever you’re eating before Aizawa has to cut you off and just be like

“y/n. Chew.”

Or when you’re rushing, you’re usually going so fast that Aizawa can barely even see you zooming from room to room

you can also get kinda skittish at times, your ears twitching whenever you hear a noise that sounds weird or out of place, and you’ll just look at Aizawa with wide eyes until he checks out what made a noise that he could barely hear

“y/n, it was just some kids outside.”

“Oh... sorry, Sho.”

he wants to be frustrated, but he knows it’s not your fault. And honestly? He finds you so cute that he can’t really stay mad at you

So he’ll just let out a huff before patting your head lovingly, grazing his fingers over your ears (Which he KNOWS are sensitive, that asshole)

Experiencing long periods of deep sleep is also a thing. You wouldn’t call it hibernation cuz you still have to do normal, everyday things, but there are times during the winter where you’ll sleep for a few days in a row and only get up to go to the bathroom or eat

And since you can’t actually burrow into the floor of your home, you usually make a blanket fort in the corner of your bedroom and stuff all of the pillows and blankets you can in there until it’s nice and warm, ready for you to bury yourself in

and you might’ve left that little part of your quirk out when you moved in together. whoops

So when Shouta comes home and sees the living room couch void of all of its pillows, he’s not expecting to walk into your shared bedroom and see you curled up in a blanket fort

he’s a bit curious at first, just kinda looking at you like “All right, I guess this is normal?”

and he’ll crouch down and kinda examine you for a bit before he eventually wonders if you’re even breathing? You’re burried under blankets, so he can’t really see your chest moving

eventually he’ll check and see that your breathing is abnormally slow and he kinda just... pauses and checks again to make sure he’s not going crazy.

and he wont deny that he kinda freaks out at first, his immediate thought being that he needs to get you out of there, but the second he grabs the blankets to pull them off of you he’s like wait... hold up.

then it all clicks

you’re a mutant with a chipmunk quirk...

c h i p m u n k

safe to say he’s relieved, so he just lets you be and goes about his day.

When you wake up a few hours later to go to the bathroom, you come out of the bedroom with your clothes practically on backwards, rubbing at your eyes and stumbling past Aizawa like he’s not even there. And when you’re done, it’s right back to sleep you go

“Back to bed?” Aizawa would ask as he watches you with an amused smirk on his face

“Mhm.”

“Okay. Goodnight, y/n”

“Mm’night.

Listen, when he first heard of your quirk, he thought it was the cutest shit ever

“Your quirk is Chipmunk?! That’s SOOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUTE!”

No he’s legit your number one hype man. If you think your quirk is lame, he’s literally shouting at you how cool he thinks you are.

“You can stuff so much food in your mouth, y/n! And that’s pretty dope if you ask me! I’m totally jealous!”

speaking of food, he’ll just randomly ask you to shove as much as you can of one thing in your cheeks until they’re at full capacity.

“Hey y/n, think you can shove this whole pack of jumbo marshmallows in your cheeks?”

“But... I just bought those :(”

“I’ll buy you more, LET’S DO THIS!!!”

also asks you the dumbest questions omg. You don’t know if he’s genuinely curious or if he’s just doing it to piss you off

“So do you just eat nuts all day?”

“You’ve seen me eat, Hizashi. No.”

“Do you prefer to sleep in trees?”

“That would be extremely uncomfortable.”

“Ooh you’d probably be great frieds with Kamui Woods then.”

“Did you not hear what I just said?”

He also REALLY likes your ears. Like an unhealthy amount? Whenever you’re around he literally wont stop touching them and even tugs on them playfully until you’re swatting at his hands and telling him to go away

He can’t help that they’re so cute :(

so on a particuallry cold day in winter when he has to go to work at the school, he leaves your home while you’re sleeping, only to come home hours later to find you... still sleeping?

You haven’t moved an inch the entire time he’s been gone, so needless to say, he’s a litle concerned.

and when he checks to see if you’re still alive only to discover your heart rate is super slow, he’s A LOT concerned

His brain just goes to the most dramatic thing he can think of, which is that you’re in some weird coma and need to wake up

so rather than, i dont know, gently shaking you awake like a normal person, he grabs you buy your shoulders and starts shaking you violently while shouting your name loud as fuck

“Y/NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN”

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”

you literally wake up so violently, you sit right up and shove him off of you before asking what’s wrong with him, pretty sure you’ve officially gone deaf

He then explains that he thought you were in a coma or something cuz your heartbeat was so slow, and at that point you just roll your eyes because of course he would come up with this ridiculous conclusion

“Hizashi, my quirk is chipmunk and it’s a mutation quirk.”

He doesn’t even get what you’re getting at, just tilting his head in confusion as he squints at you.

“What do chipmunks do in the winter, babe?”

Cue more confused squinting

“Oh my god, they hibernate, you headass.”

it finally clicks and the look on his face makes it seem like he just learned the secret of the universe, and afterwards he’s going on about how cool that is while you just roll your eyes and lay back down to try and go back to sleep, bringing the blanket over your head to try and drown him out

He eventually gets the hint and leaves, but after a while, you kinda feel bad for blowing up on him. He was just concerned and didn’t fully understand your quirk

so letting out a huff, you pull the blanket down and call out his name, to which he immediately runs to you at the sound of, asking you what you need

you just wordlessly lift up the blanket to expose the empty side of the bed, and oh boy, the size of the grin he gets on his face is unmatched

immediately throws off his hero costume so that you can both be comfortable and jumps into bed with you, holding you impossibly close

you fall asleep in a matter of minutes while he just looks at you fondly, hand soothingly rubbing your back.

Just like the other two, he finds you incredibly cute. Like mans is in love, okay?

everytime he sees your little ears twitch, he just gets the strongest urge to touch them, but he never does without your consent becuase he knows how sensitive they are.

“Uh... y/n, do you mind if I... touched your ears?”

Baby probably feels so awkward asking ugh PLEASE REASSURE HIM

“Oh? Yeah, of course, Toshi. Knock yourself out.”

oooh he’s excited. He’ll be super gentle about it, just lightly grazing them with his fingers before gently rubbing them between his thumb and forefinger

and at that point you’re littlerally melting, practically falling into him because him caressing your ears like this feels absolutely amazing

When he sees how it’s affecting you, he immediately becomes a blushing mess and apologizes, but you just hug him and tell him it’s okay and that you liked it

yeah he definitely rubs your ears whenever you’re feeling stressed or anxious because it’s become a quick way to relax you

only when he does it though. If anyone else randomly touches your ears, you get kinda uncomfortable

Just because they don’t look human doesn’t mean they still weren’t a part of you, dammit

Anyways, one day when you’re waiting for Toshi to come back home, you’ve got yourself wrapped up like a burrito in your blanket, sitting on the couch as you watched tv

it had been snowing all day, but luckily Toshinori had turned up the thermostat before he left, remembering how you mentioned that you’re not a huge fan of the cold

unfortunately for you, the harsh weather had no trouble taking out the power, leaving you in the dark and the cold

it didn’t take long for the cold to start seeping in through the cracks in the windows, and you quickly began to grow tired before you inevitibly passed out on the couch, still wrapped tightly in your blanket

When Toshi gets home and sees you on the couch, his first reaction is “aw, how cute.”

but then when he comes up to you and starts calling out your name to try and wake you up and you just won’t, and then he notices how much your breathing has slowed down, he quickly growns concerened.

He’s not in full panic mode yet, but he’s getting there, and he’s quick to crouch down to your level and grab your shoulders to start shaking you to wake you up

which you do, blinking groggily at him like you weren’t just in full hibernation mode

“Oh... Hey, Toshi,” you mumble, and you reach up to wrap your arms around his neck to pull him down so that you can nuzzle yourself into his warm chest

He’s not able to ask you about what happened to you before you’ve already fallen back asleep, and when the power comes back on a few minutes later, he does a quick google search on chipmunks and mutant quirks before putting two and two together

Now he’s thinking of all the ways he could make you something to burrow into during those especially cold winters

#mha headcanons #mha x reader #all might headcanons #toshinori headcanons #toshinori x reader #aizawa headcanons #shouta aizawa x reader #present mic headcanons #present mic x reader #hizashi yamada x reader #bnha headcanons #eraserhead headcanons #eraserhead x reader #request #ask

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syubub · 4 years ago

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2021 Reading for BTS and the collective!!

Wow wow wow! I didn't disappear or get dragged away by a demon. No no, I just got thrust into unexpected shadow work and I now have an unhealthy obsession with sea shanties and a love of pasta.

I had this idea planned to be early in January but that didn't pan out so I'm doing it now. I have another yoongi reading in the works and another fun thing coming soon as well!!

I promise I won't bore you to death any longer but I hope you've all been doing well!!

Disclaimer: This is for entertainment purposes only and not to be taken as fact.

If this message doesn't apply, let it fly!

Cool cool cool.

Let's get it.

💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Oki. I first want to say that this I gonna be long lol. I did a meditation and gathered some little pieces of things y'all might need to hear and then I pulled cards for every month. The fountain tarot deck is the cards for us, the collective, and the rider-waite cards are for bts. It'll make more sense when I add picks and stuff. I did a little extra card pull for yoongi for the month of May too :) I'll make sure to type out all the cards in text so you know what they are (the pics are kinda wack.) I also used my pendulum to ask if there was a bts related event for every month and that's at the bottom. It's just to take in the possible energy for the month and something that could result from that energy!

LETTUCE BEGIN (hehe)

Starting with the section for the channeled messages. I want to reiterate that this was collective so if it doesn't resonate with you, the message might not be for you! Use your intuition.

(Enough talking. Damn)

So. As I said this was through meditation and connecting to the big column tree thing (I told my cousin about the tree/pillar and they were like,, "so basically a big energy dildo in the æther?" .... I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. h e l p m e) and asking if there was any messages or advice that needed to be delivered and it was... intresting?

Things came fragmented. So there was little messages like, "Its gonna be okay" and "things are changing for everyone" and "open your eyes if you want to see" (that's sassy.) There was one particular thing that was confusing me though. Straight up it was just "flower" on repeat and like a really bad picture of a flower? Like you could tell what it was but it was bad quality. Anyway, I was like "okay. Kindly shut the fuck up. Pls." And I wrote down flower, pink flower and rose. Sooo.... idk but there you go.

More messages were things like, "the block isn't in your head", "try calling forth that which you seek" and... February. Possibly there is specific (very very very loose) connection to the 10th-19th? I'm not to sure what or why but I'd say maybe look out for opportunities on these days and also maybe external events.

Continuing with dates. In the last this 21 and January 21 came up. It came up again but with 2 messages. So first, either 21st is a day where something is put into motion (possibly private or public) or announced and the second was "add them together dumbass" that's not very kind but 3. Again this has been discussed too but but but... maybe a signal of a third mixtape 👀 (not necessarily on the 21st per say but possibly in March? I'm really not sure).

Oki. I got side tracked like I always do and started thinking about tattoos and stuff and I really want koo to have a peony tattoo. I feel it in my BONES. It would suit him so well. and as I was thinking about tattoos I heard, "don't be surprised if yoongi gets/shows a tattoo this year" ??? What the fuck? I think maybe they messing with me but now I have hopes and I don't want them to be crushed and thrown to the wind :(

Back to normal stuff, "the theme is growth" I think that fits very well with the reading. "Blue might be a lucky color" self explanatory. It might be lucky. "Start practicing grounding and centering" this was LOUD. This will help you in how you react to events in the future. Really do practice this if you haven't.

This is where it gets a little weird. So, I got a message that said "start living as if you never existed." I am not a 100% sure what this means but I think I have a pretty good guess. I hate to make it sound weird like this but by sort of focusing on something that is so hard to comprehend (because our brains can't comprehend not existing very well) you kinda break the 4th wall? Like in Deadpool when he addresses the audience and is aware that he is a character played by Ryan Reynolds? anyway, focusing on something that seemingly impossible you kind of accidentally open up the floodgates for a lot of other things. I would say if you are not in the right headspace to do this don't do it but it can be a powerful way to break up the monotony of reality. The theory that everything happens simultaneously bc time isn't a linear progression events blah blah we are energy blah blah the multiverse blah blah.. Theres so so so so so so so so so much about this and how it applies to things that I could probably write you 10+ dictionaries worth of material but for the sake of simplicity and not wanting to write a novel right now, I will continue. The main lesson is to start challenging your perception of the world around you. Ask why and why and why and why. Essentially seeing cracks in the matrix. Pulling your head out of your cosmic ass, realizing that rose you're smelling is actually daffodil ect. It's not supposed to bring you fear but just kinda encouraging you to question all the things that you perceive as given truths.

I tried to make that sound cohesive but really it's such a big concept that I can't really wrap it up all nice and neat.

Oki. May and March are also important times.

Listen to your intuition and try not to take everything so seriously. I'm not saying to check out and go squat in the Himalayas but it's important to find joy in the now. Life is already tough enough so don't forget to watch a silly show that you like or change your hair to a style you've never tried, wear makeup in a very loud way. Just have fun and don't worry so much about things that you can't control. Listen to yourself and your intuition.

Well that was all over the place. Let's get on to the actual tarot part now.

For the record, the pictures are right to left.

January for the collective

We have the empress, the sun, 7 of swords and a fortune that says "act well your part; there the honor lies"

Hmm. Ngl I was a little confused to see the empress and the sun for January... I mean it hasn't been great. So I pulled clarity card 7 of swords. The 7 of swords is all about betrayal. It's about the deception and and actively getting away with things. This is people lying, cheating, sneaking and the works.

This makes much more sense!! The Sun card is usually about joy and success and happiness but in this case I see it as illuminating the betrayal. It's shining light on the deception and keeps the spotlight there. Its also an energetic card so I think that shows passion for uncovering the truth.

With the empress card too I think January is all about getting creative in all forms. Creative ways to protest, to mourn, to celebrate, to connect. Also taking in the abundance that we DO have. The beauty that surrounds us. I like to think of aphrodite energy for this. Its not just love and passion and creativity but is also asserting yourself and having strong passion for what you love and fighting for it. Did you know aphrodite was also called upon in ancient Greece in times of war? She was honored as a goddess of war but still a goddess of love, the sea, fertility ect. What I'm trying to say is that being a creative and "feminine" energy is in no way weak. Sometimes the most powerful things come from this energy. Love aggressively with good intentions. The point is that you should take whatever you're feeling and translate it into something creative or something you care about. The fact that covid is still a thing really sucks but take any rage, hurt, sadness, joy, love whatever and use that shit to make something amazing. Bake bread and punch the fuck out of it, paint your frustration, play hopscotch in higheels while you listen to heavy metal. You get the point.

Now January for BTS!!

We have the death card. (I only pulled one card bc I have things planned from this)

January has been... strange? To say the least.

This card can be a lot of things for them. I think this points to more maturity in their music? Like they've finally ditched the "shiny kpop boy band" label and are being taken seriously in the west. I also think that they're going through a musical/concept transformation~ I think it also signified the change in plans bc of the Grammys perhaps they had things planned an that fell through so they were forced to rapidly change plan/course.

For January: possible mixtape or announcement.

February for the collective

We have 8 of coins reverse and hanged man reverse.

The 8 of pentacles reverse talks a lot about self improvement. Doing that good good inner work and self care. Working on developing parts of you that you've maybe neglected. It's also learning how to work with how you are instead of wishing you weren't the way you are. If you have a therapist its a great time to maybe ask for any extra tips that you can practice daily to help you even more. Maybe exploring more into insecurities relating to finance or jobs or your passions. If you don't have a therapist but you have the means to get one I always highly recommend. You don't have to have "problems" to see a therapist. Everyone could use a non biased point of view that is literally trained to help you be you best self. If you can't get therapy, I get it. Shits tough rn but there's still things we can do to better ourselves like Journaling and reading therapy blogs or self help books (not the taky shit) or trying a hobby you fell out of touch with. There's also a lot of places where you can get therapy promise on the internet. Most importantly, better yourself in the way that you need. Take time in February to take notice of what you want to improve upon. The 8 of coins reversed does come with the warning not to get stuck in perfectionism. Go easy on yourself and if you find yourself getting frustrated when working on projects, try to take a step back and practice whatever it is in a fun way and then come back to it later

Hanged man reverse talks about knowing that you need to chill but you don't. You'll need too. Maybe you'll find yourself swept up in work and tasks and you're over whelmed and know you need to stop and catch your breath but you resist. Why? Well, perhaps you're trying to ignore reality by filling the empty spaces with things and stuff so you don't have to face what's bothering you. Not wise. Take time for yourself. There's also the flips side where people are just kinda stuck.. creative block. Maybe you want something to turn out one way and it just isn't, so your stuck and frustrated and can't move past it. Let go of your expectation of how it should be and let it be what it is. Go with the flow and maybe you'll see a new way to overcome your problem. You'll eventually get that break through that you need! The theme of February is about self improvement. Listen to yourself.

February for BTS

We have judgment.

Hehe yeah. This card is about rebirth and the inner calling. Letting go of the old to step into the new version of you. This is also a very spiritual card lol. This can talk about a new decision that you have to trust your gut on. This is a very significant card that screams comeback to me. It also can talk about sharing your struggles with a group of people and that to me sounds comeback ish. Maybe this will be an announcement in February, maybe they'll be working on it idk but this is ultimate comeback energy so I hope they utilize this for a big group project!!

February: possible BTS comeback (even my pendulum knows)

March for the collective

The chariot and justice

This plays directly off of February! With the chariot you're taking the self improvement that you've done and putting it to action! Now is the time to act on the dreams and passions that you have don't wait and hope for the best. March is about action and standing in your power.

Justice card is cause and effect and truth. What you do will have consequences good or bad. Not doing anything also has consequences. Cease the moment and make the best of it. You'll be taking responsibility for what you do. You start a business? Now you have the responsibility of running it and you get the credit. Stuff like that. Stand by your decisions with conviction and trust yourself.

There's also the side of justice that talks about bringing justice. If you've been wronged, you'll be brought justice if you stand up for yourself.

We also carry the continuous lesson of learning what we truly believe and challenge those beliefs!

March for BTS

Oki we have the hermit and the 6 of pentacles reverse.

Well... let's start with the 6 of pentacles reverse. This can really talk about being so generous and giving to everyone else that you forget about yourself. I think that maybe they might be over exerting themselves and giving so much that they're exhausted physically and emotionally as well. I think too, they take on so much of our pain like its their own? Idk but this would be a good time to do a large scale fan project to show them a little extra love!

With the hermit card it talks about a self introspection so they could be looking inward as a team and kinda evaluating their bond.

I also see this as maybe being alone as in they maybe can't physically go to the grammys? Or maybe they had been planning the rescheduled concerts and they had to be pushed back even further? Things like that. Regardless this signals re thinking/reevaluating the goals that they have and considering what direction to go in!

March: possible mixtape or solo project?

April for the collective

We have 6 of coins and 3 of cups reverse.

Let's start with the 6 of coins. It's about sharing. It can be about charity so sharing money via donation but also giving time, effort, energy to people as well. Giving knowledge is good too! It's an all round exchange. Maybe someone lends you money or you lend money to someone. It's give and take. It's a two way street. It's also a card of balanced finance. So money stuff should be looking promising around this time (for you U.S people this could point to more stimulus help as well)

And for the 3 of cups reversed... I see this as reopening of places and people struggling to find the balance. So think people who've been in lockdown celebrating by throwing a big party... yikes. This card reminds that we should be mindful of the long-term consequences that come with our actions.. maybe also people that are experiencing fear of being in public places now. This is only one facet though. Bc I think this also means in general, missing being with friends and having a renewed relationship because you've really realized how important it is to have these people that mean so much to you in your life. Don't forget that you have people that love you and want the best for you. Call them when you feel alone.

April for BTS

The heirophant

Mhmm. This one kinda gives me vibes that they'll be mentoring people? Idk but I see them more as the heirophant teaching what they've learned/ know to help guide others. HOWEVER this could also be them taking a new task under their belt. Learning something new. Since this is as a group reading I assume that this talks about the group as a whole. This card is also very tradition oriented so maybe they are taking lessons that are connected to traditional Korean culture? Maybe its for RUN or maybe its to incorporate into music and preformance. Think bts mma preformance but all of them learning together? Idk, it's just a thought (maybe wishful thinking). It also talks about seeking counseling so maybe they'll do yoongis idea from the most recent RUN.

This can also be them embracing this kind of leadership/ status.

April: I got nothing. It does feel like something though

May for the collective

Five of cups and queen of cups reversed

Five of cups is disappointment, regret and self pity. Now honestly this to me looks like possibly a tightening of restrictions yet again. Regardless of the situation that this is talking about, the best thing you can do is not wallow in the bullshit. You scrape yourself off the pavement and move foward. You'll need forgiveness of yourself and others and that if shit isn't going your way, you need to pull your head out of your ass and look around bc there's options out there. It's like drowning in a kiddie pool. Just stand up, dude. The water is like 5 inches.

Queen of cups reversed talks about self love and self care. It's more of that look inwards energy. Think about really taking care of yourself. May might be emotionally draining so you need to be ready to take care of you! Part of self care is making sure that your boundaries are well enforced.

Be on the look out for codependent behaviors. Check in with yourself.

The queen of cups is very intuitive and having it in reverse can talk about you not taking enough time to listen to it. Make an effort to meditate for like 5 minutes a day at least. Do something to let yourself connect to your intuition and higher self.

May for BTS

9 of pentacles

This about enjoying the fruits of your labor and absolute abundance and luxury. This could talk about them rolling in the dough after signing a new partnership or having a concert or something if the sort. This could also be a time where we see them buying new things like houses, cars and rings (lol) but also this could be them doing a very high production value project! Also namjoon and his bonsai army are thriving in this time!

May: possible concert or scheduled concert event. Activity of some kind.

Yoongi interlude

I asked for one card to give me an idea of what the mystical May 13th really is. I got: the star, 2 of cups, 4 of wands, the world and the sun.

Guys. I can't with this. 2 of cups is a card of union, romance, soulmate. 4 of wands is celebration, joy, homecoming, bliss. The world is completion and the sun is happiness, joy, marriage, enlightenment.

I've said it a billion times but that's some soulmate shit. So soft so cute and May will be eventful for his personal life.

June for the collective

Death and the heirophant reversed.

Wow wow wow death is transformation and a new chapter so a new way of life and something new/ different that changes how we see things. Again this could be relating to new covid things and new policies and stuff like that but also new as in new to all of us. Groundbreaking perhaps?

The heirophant reversed talks about teaching yourself. Being your own teacher and making your own path. This might be spiritual or otherwise. Challange what the world wants from you and instead listen to what you truly want bc you don't need anyone's approval. Continue to ask questions about why things are the way that they are.

June for BTS

Page of pentacles

Oki oki page of pentacles means a new creative venture and manifestation. Maybe something that they've been wanting for a while finally comes to fruition. This might be the start of a new project that they haven't done before or something cross genre? Idk but its a really good sign of being motivated for a new endeavor and manifesting any projects that they've ever wanted to do. Love this promising energy!!

June: idk

July for the collective

10 of swords and 9 of cups reversed.

10 of swords signals a painful ending. Also deceit. Its a necessary end to a long battle. The only thing you can do is control how you react in these situations. You just kinda gotta surrender into the pain and know that it's temporary. Take time to reflect on what happened and why and how it will help you grow.

The 9 of cups reversed talks about valuing stuff and material things over emotions and spiritual things. This can be talking about society in general, that we are becoming more aware to the fact that there is often more value placed on ephemeral items rather than humanity as a whole. This also can be talking about coming to the realization that we've been working so hard towards... something we don't really care about simply because we were told that it's what you do.

If you want something different to happen you have to put in effort. You can't be sitting in front of a water fountain being like, "damn. I'm thirsty. I really really want water so why isn't it in my mouth yet?" Like?? Hello? You have to take the first step, my dude.

Certainly don't try to do anything that would cost you finatial security or health.

You have the potential to find happiness within yourself. So try looking inside instead of looking outward.

July for BTS

4 of swords.

This is about rest and relaxation!

Taking time to meditate and take some time to look at what you've done objectively. Ots like the hermit in a way but much more focused on resting and relaxing so you can come back stronger and with better direction. Maybe they'll take a break for a couple days but I really see it as them reassessing options. Especially if July goes how I think it will. Maybe they'll film something like In The Soop again? Maybe we'll see bon voyage type thing? Idk. But it could be something kinda out of the spotlight? Maybe something more healing?

July: maybe something?? I'm not sure but it seems like something might be in store.

August for the collective

5 of coins and the wheel of fortune

Well let's see. 5 of pentacles talks about isolation and a negative mindset. This talks about falling on hard times but its a temporary set back. This energy can be talking about falling on hard times emotionally as well. In the card it shows a woman outside of a church shivering and cold but she's too busy thinking about all that she's lost that she doesn't notice the warm church that she could step into for shelter.

But then with he wheel of fortune that talks about fate/destiny, opportunity and luck so maybe this is a necessary loss so that a new door can open. This does kinda tie in with July as well. The end of something is painful but it's often a necessary thing. Might be a bit uncomfy but that's how things change. Again I see this maybe hinting more towards society but none the less it's definitely a theme for August to have doors closing and new ones opening so be on the lookout for that.

August for BTS

The devil.

Now don't fret. The devil talks a lot about choice. Most notably the choice between instant gratification and and something more substantial and the devil leans towards indulgence. It also has a lot to do with the shadow side. This could talk about ~scandal~ sure, but I think its more of a time where you become aware of negative patterns and you shine a light on that part you've ignored. On a much lighter note this card talks also about an incredible bond between people. It can be unhealthy if not given space or boundaries. Listen to pied piper and come back to me.

I also REALLY REALLY REALLY hope that this card points to this: sexuality. The boys have always been pretty pg when it comes to the topic of sex and embracing sexuality so I really do hope to see something more daring and grown up and exploring a tastefully sexy concept. On the same vain as sexuality this card also talks about kinks and stuff like that so don't be surprised if we get more outfits like fake love Era bondage harnesses.

August: ???

September for the collective

We have the world and 10 of wands reversed.

The 10 of wands reversed talks about carrying burden. Doing extra work and taking on more responsibility. Doing everything by yourself and carrying this heavy load alone will get you burnt out quicker than anything. You might be taking on too much and you'll need to prioritize what you really need to focus on. I also think there will just be a lot happening in September for a lot of people. It's a lot of working hard because you know it's good work or because it's what's right. This could be social responsibility that's placed on you or work responsibility. For whatever reason this burden isn't something you want to share with others because you think its yours alone to deal with. It's not though bc you'll figure out eventually that if it hurts so much you'll find a way to lessen the burden. 10 in tarot is all about the completion of a cycle and going through the wands cycle is hard work because for anything to be made of passion, you need to put the work behind it. The burden isn't forever, the heavy work load will lighten but this is you seeing things out. It's a good thing!

Especially considering this is paired with with world. The world is all about completion and that's what you're doing here is finding completion. You are seeing things out until the end but you just need to learn to give up some responsibility, lessen your burden.

This also talks about hard work being put into wider social spheres as well. Things like the vaccines becoming more widespread through the whole globe or at least better planing and infrastructures not related to covid. Things are looking up!

September for BTS

Knight of swords reverse

This bad boi is restless energy. It's being so pent up that you're ready to burst and you really want to take action but you can't because something is keeping you from taking that action. Again I do think this is kinda covid related in regards to touring bc if they do tour in 2021 its gonna look a lot different. This energy can be a bit impulsive and directionless so I think maybe they'll channel this into album material something? I'm not really sure tbh. I'm suprised this energy didn't show up earlier because it almost seems inevitable.

September: no clue

October for the collective

Ten of coins and the star reverse.

Welp let's start with the 10 of coins. Its about wealth, financial security, and long term success so this is a pretty prosperous time. This talks about the obvious monetary wealth and material wealth but also an abundance of opportunities. So this is definitely a good time to enjoy whatever consistency you have. This energy is really really abundant in the career space as well. So October could be very prosperous in the job field and you'll have likely found what it is you really want and could be successful at. This could be the actual act or just the idea. This is could also talk about investing in something for your future, this could be time or money.

With the star reversed it can talk about a loss of faith and a disconnection. This often points to feeling like you've just been forgotten or left out. Like the universe doesn't give a shit about you and left you out to die. Things might seem unfair but always try to look for the lesson that you can take from the experience. Seeing the 10 of coins and the star makes me think that a lot of people have kinda lost faith in their manifestations and also just in the concept of not living in a state of need. Especially if you see other people doing well and you've been trying so fucking hard but you haven't gotten a break. I know we hate to hear it but this can serve as a test of faith. Or rather an opportunity to get your shit in line and take a second to breath. Do something good for yourself and then continue on. This star in reverse serves to show you what no longer sparks joy and helps you find what does and what that initial spark was in the first place. Helps you get back to the original vision/ spark.

October for BTS

5 of pentacles reverse.

This signals the end of difficult times and getting that groove back. The last month was restless energy with no where to go but this month that energy is certainly put to good use. They might be figuring out what has been missing In their lives and starting to rectify that. They are definitely reminded that material wealth doesn't bring spiritual or emotional wealth. Might be also feeling a bit alienated too.

October: something is likely but idk

November for collective

Six of swords reversed and the moon.

Transition and change is prevalent. The 6 of swords is about leaving behind the familiar. Maune this is leaving a job, a new change in the status quo, leaving a relationship ect. The thing you have to keep in mind is just how amazing this is in terms of what it will do. It will alow growth!! And bring clarity!! Thos can also be societal as well, something being left behind in favor of something new. It's letting go and reflecting so that you can move foward.

This is strengthened by the moon card. The moon card is the subconscious and all the things that come with it. The anxiety, the illusion, the uncertainty. You'll want to deal with whatever emotions come up. The moon can signify a confusing time where things aren't what they seem to be. That's the illusions so you'll have rely more on intuition at a time like this. Your dreams might hold significance in this time as well. Listen to your guides and your own guidance because it will help you understand more than you did before this journey began. Using moon cycles to your advantage in November might really help you!!

November for BTS

7 of wands

Challenge and competition. People are envious of bts. We know this. But people will be challenging them for what they've gained: music industry domination. This might co.e in the way that people will spread vicious rumors in attempt to disenfanchise or possibly it will be a fair fight. It could also be a challenge/ battle for some other aspect that involves legal matters.

My best guess though is good old competition. Bts has proven again and again that they will continue to do what they do how they do but they will not be trampled over. In the best way this could renew some of that spirit in friendly competition. They will tear eachothers throats out for a pack of ramen so maybe a bit of competition will be good for them. It keeps life intresting.

November: nothin

December for the collective

Two of cups and the emperor!

Let's start off with the emperor card talks about stability and order. It can also signify being the "breadwinner" so its a good sign that you'll kinda be on top of your shit. The emperor is also an amazing leader so you might find yourself taking on a leadership role too! This is very organized energy that works very smoothly!

two of cups is such a lovely way to end out the year! It's love and partnership and attraction so if you aren't in a relationship by this time you might meet someone who strikes your fancy!! On a none romantic relationship note though, this card is also great for business partnership bc it signifies that you're on the same page and have the same goals in mind!

It's harmonious relationships and trust between them!! Love love love this energy so much! Cups are the suit of emotions and this card is so promising.

If you are in a relationship, this can talk about "falling in love all over again" like you're just reminded of how good they are.

December for BTS

Queen of cups

Intuition, creativity and emotional stability. They're using intuition to guide their moves foward with emotional maturity. They are in a place of knowing what they want and why. This would be a good time to work on an album or a book or to release them. The queen of cups is like the friend that you can tell absolutely anything and somehow they have a helpful answer. This card is really calm and it can also talk about subconscious thoughts.

I think that bts is maybe making more of a conscious effort to make sure that what they do is just as emotionally fulfilling for them as it is for us! They might be kinda pondering the future at this time and considering if this is what fills their emotional cup!

December: possibly a thing?

Now these cards are the vibe of the year and some advice.

For the collective (on the left)

Three of swords and judgment reverse.

The fortune says "accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory"

The 3 of swords is about disappointment and hurt and heartbreak. It's about the emotional release that we all need when shit gets tough. Don't pretend to be strong. If you need to cry, fucking cry. This year is about letting go of expectations and do what you have to do to release so you can move foward and not have these things pile up.

You have to make an effort to not let yourself take on what other people think of you. You aren't defined by what some asshole says. You define yourself.

Judgment reverse is about self doubt and ignoring your path. It's being stagnant and being harsh on yourself. This year has a focus on building yourself up and noticing when you are not. Bring light to the things that are holding you back without harsh judgment for yourself. You can't beat yourself up. If you make a bad decision you know not to make it again. Take accountability and move on.

The oracle card is inner temple.

Seriously all the focus of this year is in self improvement and dear god, please take time to work on yourself spiritually!!! Everything you want to know is there if you take the time to listen. This should be a place where you feel safe and welcome. It definitely should not feel like something you HAVE to do.

For BTS

10 of swords and page of swords

The fortune says "you create your own stage. The audience is waiting" (how tje fuck?? This is the perfect fortune)

The 10 of swords is a painful but necessary end. This is accepting the current situation. They maintain focus for 2021 for them is adapting and keeping their spirits up.

With the page of swords it talks about new ideas and that kind of creativity. It's also a lot about communication so I really think that they'll be figuring out new ways to connect and new projects that will be prosperous.

The oracle card is Pleiades

This is what we talk about all the time. Bts has helped so many people want to be better and do better. They are uplifting humanity and giving people a sense if belonging. Bts finds you when you need them most 💜💜💜

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wow I had to write this up over 2 days bc this was so fucking long. I need a nap. Idk if I'll proof read this before I post it so don't hate me for the mistakes (honestly, there's like 10,000 spelling and grammar mistakes in my other posts too 🙃)

I hope you guys enjoyed it and maybe this will be helpful to to have a forecast of some possible energy for you to look out for!!

Also bts bc I love them. I have another bts 2021 reading I'll do soon too!

Hope you guys are happy and well 💜

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winters-sugardaddy-zemo · 4 years ago

Text

Zemo's Weltenschmerz (Zemo's world pain)

( Weltenschmerz [ˈvɛltʃmɛɐ̯ts]. it denotes a deep sadness about the inadequacy or imperfection of the world.The translation can differ depending on context, in reference to the self it can mean "world weariness", in reference to the world it can mean "the pain of the world")

After Bucky saves Zemo from John, the new captain america, the baron hears the soldat scream at night and can't help himself but to find out why. It seems that he developed an unhealthy obsession about the man and can't explain himself why so he tries so suppress his emotions.

This is my first time ever writing in the Marvel fandom and I chose to write it in a diary style, which means I jump from scene to scene. Let me know if it is too unclear what is going on or if you want a part 2! xoxo🥰❤

part (1/?)

Word count: 4120

TW: Angst, Hurt, comfort, smut-ish?

"Are you here to watch and enjoy my suffering?"

"No-" Zemo did not hesitate to gently shake his head in denial but he felt caught. His eyes wandered through the room to stare at anything else than his soldat, too nervous to look him in the eyes. He wondered why his feet had led him to Bucky's room and why he did not simply ignore the screams he heard in the night. Zemo did not blame himself, he had a curious nature after all and the soldat was the biggest puzzle to solve for him. Bucky's eyes were still burning on him, even after a long pause of silence. He waited for the sokovian to explain himself, but somehow the other man's head was empty and he imagined the air was drained out of his lungs, that opening his mouth to say something would choke him to death.

"I just wanted to check on you and see if you are okay." Zemo whispered and looked at the man sitting on the ground, his chest soaked in his sweat. The sokovian did not just see the Soldat sweating, he could also smell him. And for a moment Zemo was not sure if he despised the smell, or were already addicted to it. Bucky really needed to take a shower and change his sheets. "Are you okay?"

"Do I look like it?" The soldat hissed angrily at Zemo, the sudden volume in his voice breaking the silence caused the sokovian to flinch a little. That was a dumb question, indeed, maybe nothing more than a reflex. A simple question to ask, in which the answer mostly resulted as a lie.

"Should I get Sam?" Zemo proposed and pointed with his thumb back into the hallway.

"NO!"

"Should I leave?" He then asked when Bucky was staring at him again, his eyes filled with unspoken words as if he would conduct this dialogue in his head. Bucky remained silent and after a while he shortly broke the gaze.

"What do you really want here?" Bucky asked with quite a concern in his voice, his beautiful blue eyes now piercing the man in front of him again. "Why did you come here?"

For the first time since Zemo had joined Sam and Bucky, he had nothing to say. He tried to grab a thought, to give the other man a quick and easy answer, the best lie possible, but the harder he tried, the less he could focus and started to stutter.

"Well, I-I… apparently-"

"Apparently you don't know how to fucking mind your own business!" The Soldat was yelling now and jumped to his feet to build himself up in front of the sokovian. Zemo almost imagined hearing him growl. As Bucky closed the distance between them two, the baron could feel his heart kicking at his ripcake like a drunken assaulting the bars of his holding cell. That he felt nervous now was no understatement, but why he felt nervous was another mystery to himself. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again when the vibranium fingers of the soldat touched his breast. Gently at first, then it got rough quickly: Bucky pushed his flat hand against Zemo and pushed him out of his room, almost causing the baron to fall backwards, right before the door was harshly thrown shut in front of him.

"Unhöflich." Zemo mumbled, still utterly perplexed about his own actions and choice of words.

The next night Zemo could not sleep. He was restless and could not stop thinking about sneaking past Sam's room to visit Bucky again, but he deeply doubted the man had left his door open after the last night. The sokovian felt strong, ashamed of himself, proud, feverish and a little plem-plem. There was no reason for wanting to see the broken man again- and to be hurtful truthfully, it was no lie to state the obvious about him.

When Zemo closed his eyes again, to push every thought of Bucky aside, the suffering growls of the man in the distance made him shiver from head to toes. He yanked the blanket aside, his body shot up and he found himself sitting bolt upright in bed. The solovian's eyes wandered down to his hands and saw that they were shaking.

"Stop this madness." He whined and grabbed with one hand his other wrist in an weak attempt to stop himself from shivering.

"I absolutely don't care." Zemo told himself and after a moment, when he was not sure about his own words he added,"Or at least I shouldn't care."

His body moved on it's own when his bare feet touched the ground. The wooden floor was colder than he expected, but nothing to bother about. What really bothered him was the cold air that snuck in from the open window Zemo forgot to close before he went for his short sleep. As he closed the window, Zemo watched his empty reflection in the glass. He was no less broken than Bucky...

The baron has sworn himself to revenge his family at all cost, to stop Supe's, that they could not abuse their power for their self-righteous beliefs. Sam's question about Zemo's thoughts on Bucky had caught him off guard and the sokovian still did not know how to answer that. Not to Sam and not to himself. Since the soldat had saved Zemo's life and showed his sparing gesture afterwards, by dropping all the bullets in his gun in front of the sokovian, things had changed. Zemo could feel it deep inside his guts, that there was something wrong with him.

At first, Zemo shook the feeling off and assumed that everything he felt was guilt for being saved by Bucky. When Zemo had destroyed the small blue bottles, John freaked out. The new captain america almost killed Zemo in his outrage before he could save the last bottle of super soldier serum. After hitting him with Cap's shield, the man was far away with being finished with the baron.

"You really think you are a smart one." John grabbed Zemo threatening by the collar of his jacket. The baron's view was speckled with black dots that seemed to get bigger, but he was still conscious enough to realise that the new Captain pulled the corner of his lips up into a mischievous smile before he got stabbed. John's eyes moved aside to something blue that was barely in view.

"Not that smart at all."

Zemo closed his eyes for just a second and took a sharp breath. He wondered how he could still stand, yet the baron did not fall backwards from the pain. John was long gone, but Zemo was unable to even realise that. He did not even realise how Bucky stormed into the room next. The soldat moved his eyes from the broken serum bottles to Zemo's gun on the ground and at last to the baron, standing like frozen next to it.

"What the hell happened here?" Bucky asked and when the sokovian did not answer he touched his waist,"What happened to you?"

When he pulled his hand away bloody, Bucky widened his eyes and gave Zemo an unbelieving look.

"What happened?" He repeated his question in a hoarse tone.

"I am-" the sokovian could feel how the ground swayed away underneath his feet and he might have blacked out for just a second, because when he looked around with his eyes, Bucky was holding him in his arms. "-fine." .

"You're clearly not fine!" Bucky yelled and shook him a little, in fear, that if the baron closed his eyes, they would never open again. He was too important for this mission.

Zemo felt like he was fainting as his sight got darker and his body heavier, but the mercy of passing out was not granted to him. Bucky started to peel off the baron's coat and when he saw the bloody mess underneath he gasped.

Zemo felt so embarrassed to remember how Bucky had picked him up into his arms and carried him out to get medical treatment as fast as possible. If anyone would ever find out about this unexpected situation between him and the soldat, it was over with his reputation in the underground scene. Then he was not baron Zemo the mastermind anymore, rather the man who cuddled with his slave soldier. But in the end Bucky did save his life, nothing the sokovian would have ever expected after everything he had made the soldat do in his name. He hated himself so much for being in his debt, even though Zemo started to like the thought of being close to the other man.

The baron realised he could not sleep until he spoke to Bucky and thanked him for what he did for him- a weak excuse, that the baron was aware of. He got dressed quickly and rushed to his door, just to hesitate to even touch the door handle. He gulped. What am I doing? Zemo took a deep breath, then wrapped his fingers around the door handle as suddenly someone knocked on his door. He stopped and held on. His eyes widened and his heart beat paced up.

"Zemo?" It was Bucky.

"Zemo, are you awake?" there was a bitter note of discontentment in his voice. Zemo could not answer. How could he? The baron's cheeks heated up and he bit his lip to prevent himself from making any sound. Why was it so hard to talk to Bucky all of the sudden? He waited another moment and when Bucky finally left, Zemo let out a relieved sight, even though he still felt a little stabbed. Turning around, he leaned against the wooden door and stared over to the window. Still a broken man in a broken world. Zemo sank down until he sat on the cold ground. So cold.

It took him courage to rise to his feet again and move himself through the hallway towards Bucky's room. To his surprise the door was open and Zemo wondered if it were on purpose or just accidentally.

"What did you want?" Zemo caught the soldats attention after he stopped in the doorway and started to speak. The sight of him made Zemo nervous. Bucky was shirtless and probably went to sleep, or was already sleeping. Anyway he flinched a little by the creeping man and sat up onto his bed. Bucky tilted his head and looked over to Zemo.

"I wanted to know why you came to me in the night." Bucky explained. "I want the truth."

"I was worried." No lie. "When you scream at night, I know it is because of the Winter Soldier."

"You mean me?" Bucky asked with a sudden anger. "I am the Winter Soldier!"

A justified anger, but Zemo never abstracted the Winter Soldier from Bucky.

"I mean it when I say I care about you." The sokovian tried to soothe the soldat. His downfall.

"Do you, Zemo?" Bucky spat his name out as if it were poison. "Sam told me about your God-talk and how Supe's can not be allowed to exist."

"I never answered him."

Bucky snorted and rolled with his eyes.

"You talk hateful about the people that feel the same pain as you." the corners of his mouth wandered up into a short, cheeky grin. He was so

reproachful. "You see me as the monster despite the fact that it was you who did this to me. It was you who used the Winter Soldier to take loved ones from other's. It has never really been me."

For the second time Zemo did not know how to answer, so he avoided the other man's gaze. His throat tightened as he tried to find some words. Bucky had a point.

"I can never imagine what pain I caused you with the Winter Soldier program." Zemo mumbled and he meant it. "I am truly sorry."

The sokovian did not even give Bucky the chance to say something as he swiftly disappeared out of the room through the hallway to his own.

Avoiding Bucky was barely possible since Zemo was a prisoner and under both men's watch, still the baron fought with the idea to get too close with them. There was no need for friends, there never was and there would never be. Zemo was bitter. He was a petty person and he could not stand to have Bucky's words being left in the moment. On the other hand, Zemo still had no other answer to him than an apology. The sokovian was not mad that the only response he could think of was an apology, but that he truly meant it.

In all this mess, Sam kept observing the sokovian all the time and when he simply could not answer to himself, why Zemo showed Bucky the cold shoulder after being saved by him, he got curious. It did not take him long to develop the behaviour of squinting his eyes whenever they followed the baron. It did not leave him unnoticed that Zemo kept a sudden distance to Bucky but still seemed to be obsessed with him with every second passing by. In the evening, when Bucky changed his clothes and grabbed his keys before leaving the house without a word, Sam saw Zemo starring again, until the soldat was gone. He was almost drooling.

"You act strange." Sam said and furrowed his brows. Then he added,"Stranger than Zemo-strange."

"What do you know?" Zemo rolled his eyes and attempted to walk around the falcon to quickly escape from this weird situation into his room, but got stopped by Sam, as he pressed his hands against the baron's chest. Somewhat they both, Sam and Bucky, had a big problem doing that. Both men exchanged a warning glare, threatening, waiting for the other one to break the gaze.

"Don't test me." the sokovian snarled and pushed Sam's hand away. He did not stop him when Zemo returned to his room and locked the door from the inside, but the baron knew this wasn't over, instead only woke more curiosity in the avenger. Too bad that Zemo did not intend to share his emotions like a little girl at a slumber party. He could not even stay honest to himself and drank instead of thinking about what could be wrong with him- because deep down he already knew.

Zemo knew what he felt when Bucky's picture popped up inside his head and all he wanted to do was jack himself off. The only solution to get these images out of his head was to keep drinking until his mind was fully blank or he started to like these thoughts. Eventually he got hungry, but was far too faded to dare go into the kitchen, or even greet a delivery service, so he searched his pockets for some candy- Turkish delight and a lolly. Zemo's throat tightened and he hesitated, but sooner or later he reached for the lolly, unwrapped the plastic foil and gave himself a moment to stare at the pink candyware before he stopped denying the urge of letting it slowly slide inside his mouth. With slow movements he twirled his tongue around the pink sugar ball, quickly realising it was not enough, that it was not the thing he wanted to feel in his mouth. After a while the sokovian's eyes widened when he realised what he was doing and pulled the lolly out of his mouth to give it a disgusted look, then turned around to throw it furiously away. When the hard candy crashed against the window, it broke the glass and when Zemo saw the split, he felt something break inside him too.

He could not do it any longer. No second passed in which Zemo kept acting as if he were despising Bucky. The truth was, that the sokovian desperately longed for the other man, craved his touch beyond anything sexual. He wanted to feel Bucky's warmth around him and to smell his scents. Zemo wanted to kiss those pink lips so desperately, that deep inside it was almost painful to watch himself squeal under his own tormentment. And for fuck's sake he wanted to call him Bucky.

B-U-C-K-Y.

The sexiest alphabet combination Zemo could think of now. There was no logic explanation for his behaviour, to keep those walls up, because at the end of the tunnel everything was dark and there was nothing else to grasp and hold onto. Could he have developed an unhealthy obsession? It didn't matter. Everything that mattered was that when the soldat was close, Zemo could feel his tummy turn inside out, spreading a ticklish feeling from the pit of his stomach to the tips of his fingers. There was an electrical feeling joining him, whenever Zemo got touched anything, everything seemed so surreal, and he feared that one of the men would see him trembling. Of course he would blame it on the cold, nevertheless Zemo doubted himself to be a good liar in that state.

This had to end. It had to end now. The sokovian needed to find the perfect moment to speak with Bucky again, but with Sam by his side it was almost impossible. Maybe Zemo was like a little girl at a slumber party when he could not even manage to talk to the soldat unless he was all alone with him. He tried his best not to stare at Bucky while he discussed with Sam how to find John and Cap's shield, especially after realising that he had to be careful of the falcon's eyes.

"What do you have to say, Zemo?" Sam suddenly asked, caughting the sokovian for not listening at all. Zemo cleared his face and raised his eyebrows, focusing the annoyed man who had formed his eyes into slits by now.

"Pardon me?"

"Seriously man, are you fucking alright?" Sam groaned and rolled his eyes. His hands flew into the air as he turned with a swift move to reach for his wallet. Zemo dared to take a glimpse at Bucky and felt his cheeks heat up when he realised the soldat was already staring at him with a deadpan face. The short frequency of a moment in which his eyes were locked with Bucky's felt like an eternity. He even let out a relieved gasp when the other man broke the gaze to pay attention to Sam who gave his arm a short clap before leaving.

"Where are you going man?"

And with that, Zemo was all forgotten, turned their back on and left alone in the hotel room as Bucky followed Sam outside. He felt a mix of relief along with a stabbing pain in his heart. He wanted to scream, hey look at me, I am here! Don't go and leave me all by myself. No, he did not want Bucky to go. Don't leave me all by myself again…

Bucky was gone, everything that left was the sokovian in an empty room, trying to handle the loud noises in his head during that unbearable silence. It took him a while to move from his frozen state, turning around to clarify if he was really alone now or if he just dozed off again into his daydreams and meanwhile the men have returned.

Before Zemo would lock himself up inside his room again, he decided to prepare himself something to eat. That Lolly-thing could not happen again and the touching-himself thing needed to stop too. But how could it stop when Zemo already felt aroused of going back to bed so he could peacefully dream of Bucky? concentrate on the potatoes, fry the chicken, maybe ask Bucky if he wants-

Nope. Not happening.

The baron was actually quite glad that none of them returned until Zemo was finished with cooking and returned to his room. He actually was not even sure if they even came back and during the moment of peace, he couldn't care less. He ate and drank and rested on his bed, enjoying that his mind was blank for a brief moment this day.

A knock on the door woke Zemo late in the evening. He opened his eyes and for a moment he believed he had gone blind, then realised that his short afternoon nap seemed to have been longer than he thought it would be. The sokovian's legs still hung over the edge of the bed and he was fully clothed, so there was no need for the other person to wait long for the baron. Just as Zemo opened the door, he saw Bucky already turning around and walking away.

"Just wanted to inform you that Sam is going back to his sister for a few days." Bucky mumbled barely loud enough for the baron to understand. Now he did not give the sokovian a moment to answer.

I know what you're playing, Zemo thought. But is this just a game for you then?

The morning dew glistened on the broken window and the light of the sun shone through the small crack, spreading itself like it was a prisma. Zemo touched himself again and promised, how it would be the last time thinking of Bucky doing this. Dreaming that he was touching the other man, made no difference. Zemo should probably stop doing it but simply could not. He loved it too much. On the other end he would rarely reach his climax- and if he would he did not feel pleased by it at all. He was a mess, the cum on his stomach, over his freshly healed wounds reminded him of not long ago, when Bucky saved him and he feeled deeply ashamed.

A knock followed by,"Zemo?" made the man flinch. His cheeks turned into a deep scarlet and he moved fast to get clean, then he swiftly pulled his hand out of his boxers and closed the bathrobe he was wearing. For a glimpse second the sokovian felt caught in the act, even though the door was closed. Maybe because he did not expect the soldat to come to him again.

"I am not dressed." The baron replied dully.

A small pause.

"You can't keep it all inside, you know?" Bucky's voice echoed from the other side of the door. "Bottling it up won't do you any good."

Zemo's eyes glistened in curiosity and he raised one eyebrow, then brought one hand to his lips and thought about the meaning of those words. It was obvious that Bucky did not talk about the masturbating behaviours Zemo had developed recently, otherwise it would mean the soldat could read his mind and this would also incline he ignored his suffering all the time. It would only make the baron angry.

"What do you mean?" Zemo decided to ask instead of overthinking about the countless possibilities of interpretations.

"Sorry doesn't fix everything. You have to show that you mean it."

S-showing how to mean it?

What could he do to make it up to Bucky? To show him that he was truly sorry and not just looked for a way timo manipulate him again? He would burn the world down for this man and this might be the reason why the soldat could never see Zemo in a good way- he was arrogant to think he could sacrifice everyone for one person he cared about. It made him realise that he was no better than someone with super powers, if his own thinking led him to the same selfish choices that he judged the avengers for.

"At least we go through this together." Zemo answered in poignancy. "It's almost like back then, when it was just us."

"There were no us, there never was." Bucky replied untroubled and this time Zemo wished he left him alone.

#daniel brühl #tfatws #helmut zemo #helmut zemo x bucky #zemo #baron zemo #sebastian stan #zemo x winter soldier #sad boy

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petitelepus · 3 years ago

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Hi! May I get a dead by daylight match-up for a killer please?

(You matched me with a survivor before and let me just say your writing.....is immaculate! Also I saw your post about not wanting to write dbd match-ups due to using other peoples art and stuff. You don't have to give me a picture or anything but if you still don't want to do it then I completely understand! Also I do match-ups as well so if you'd like one I'd be happy to write you one! :D) Anyways tysm in advance and I hope you have a good day/night!

So I'm straight (might be bi) but for now I'm gonna go with straight. I use she/her pronouns, my top 3 zodiacs are Leo sun, Aries moon, and Leo rising. And I'm a ENTP.

So I'm kinda short I'm 5'4, super skinny and petite, I don't weigh a lot and I get made fun of a lot for it, and I have pale skin and freckles all over my face and body. I have brown thick hair that goes down to my mid back and brown eyes! I'm not very curvy I have the body of a cereal box but hey I have some nice hips and thighs I guess?

When people first see me I look intimidating due to my resting bitch face but if you talk to me I'm pretty nice and warm! Once you get to know me better I can be very sarcastic well no actaully about 99% of everything that comes out of my mouth is sarcastic but hey I just love some good sarcasm! And I can be very reckless and goofy!

I'm also very feisty and if someone even looks at me wrong then it's on....like I will not hesitate to put you in your place. I can be very stubborn and competitive as well. I also live by the saying "Fake it till you make it". Because thats literally what I do lol.

The other side of me is basically really bitchy and cold I kinda have trouble with feeling empathy torwards people sometimes and I tend to shut people out and isolate myself. I hate talking about my feelings and I cover those up too and I act fine but usually I'm not. Also anxiety sucks......and I have that really bad. I also push myself really hard with certain things to the point where it's just unhealthy and I can't stop myself usually other people have to step in and make me take a break for a while when that happens.

I love dry and dark humor that cracks me up a lot. And dad jokes too....I make a lot of those!

I loves 90's and 80's rock but 90's is the best and grunge music is just immaculate ✋😩. But I love anything under the rock genre basically. (Honestly I wish I lived in the 90's)

I also have a grunge style like I love flannels, band t-shirts, combat boots etc.

I hate spiders I have a phobia of them and will literally die if I see one. And I love horror movies!

WAIT, REALLY? I don't remember, I tried to look it up but I'm blind...! @c@

Y- You would really match me? ALRIGHT, I WILL MAKE EXCEPTION and Match you because you sound like such a sweetie. Remember others, that my Matchups are currently NOT OPEN.

I match you with Ji-Woon Hak aka Trickster!

Ji-Woon couldn't be any more drawn to you than he is already. You're a feisty and not to mention extremely cute little thing and he enjoys watching you, but he wanted you to know that he had his sharp eyes on you.

So when you're running away, he throws a knife at you and it hits the tree bark right before your face, forcing you to make a quick stop. There is a piece of paper wrapped in the knife's handle. You take the paper and quickly read it.

'Meet me at the Fog if you wanna have a good time'

What the Hell did that mean? You considered leaving the message be, but the invite proves to be interesting so after the trial, you wander away from the safe fireplace and into the cool Fog.

You don't know where you are supposed to go until you hear singing. It's not Huntress, but a man, and the voice comes closer until you see the Trickster himself.

"My darling, you really came?" He sounds extremely pleased, like a cat who got its paws into the cream.

"You promised a good time. What the fuck was I suppose to do?" You said and the Killer chuckled. "I knew there was a reason I wanted to see you more... Regularly."

"Meaning?"

"Haven't you dated anyone before?" Ji-Woon asked before grinning, "So innocent."

"Fuck you."

"I love you too."

The singer absolutely LOVES how sarcastic you can be. He could live purely by listening to you slay people, both Survivors and Killers with your razor-sharp tongue and quick witty mind. That's just one of many ENTP traits you have.

Also, your grunge style? Cute. You try to be fierce and powerful and he can respect that, but otherwise, he won't take it so seriously... Until the day you are actually wearing HIS band shirt and he is all smiles as he calls you good looking with a good style.

He can tell when your anxiety is taking over your head and he is that selfish that he thinks his singing would make you feel better. It does, but not as much as The Legion's music does. Good thing that Ji-Woon is on good terms with the young killers.

They will borrow their records to the Korean and he gives them for you to listen to. You cheer up in the manner of 6 songs and you're thankful that Ji-Woon went through the trouble getting you music that you like.

Though, you need to kiss him for not liking his songs as much. His songs are his life and he thrives when you listen to him sing.

Ji-Woon can handle it when you are acting bitchy and such and he doesn't mind it if you don't talk about your feelings. He is a little drama queen himself so he won't hold it in if he is feeling bad.

He understands that you don't really empathize with him and doesn't blame you for it. Also, he is ready to come between you and make you rest and while you may curse at him for it, he doesn't let it stop him from tucking you down so you can rest. He knew what he got into when he threw that knife with a note at you.

BIG YES TO DARK JOKES. He loves them and isn't afraid to 'throw' some at you also! Get it? Throw? I crack myself up.

He also finds your fear of spiders hilarious, but bring him a cockroach and he screams like a girl. This man does not like bugs that need to be burned before they will finally die.

Horror movies? Sure, why not but be warned, this man lives for gory movies where people scream. Reminds him of the home back in Korea before the Fog and Entity. But it also reminds him that without those two, he wouldn't have met you. His spicy little grunge girl.

#matchup #dbd #ji-woon hak #dead by daylight #the trickster #trickster #insane-horror-movie-addict #MATCHUPS ARE CLOSED

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fiercyy · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 11/? Fandom: Naruto Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Team 7 - Relationship, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Characters: Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi, Tsunade (Naruto), Orochimaru (Naruto) Additional Tags: AU, Post-Chuunin Exams, post chuunin exams attack, Minor Character Death, Trauma, Team 7 Family bonding, Genin Era, Everybody moves in with Sasuke, he's got room, semi-au, Plot Twists, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Roommates, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto) Feels, BAMF Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), Team as Family, Slow Burn Series: Part 1 of Post-Chuunin Exam AU Summary:

Sakura always wished she could relate to her teammates better. She wishes she could take it back.

In which Sasuke acquires some unwanted roommates and a team becomes a family.

"You skipped training," Kakashi's one visible eye is narrowed in a foreboding expression. His large body takes up the whole doorframe when he holds himself up at full height.

Sasuke turns back to his book, earmarked not him but by Sakura, who the book belongs to. It's a historical account of the longest battle of the First Ninja War. For something so violent, it's extremely boring. "What's the point?" He asks petulantly.

"What's the point in training?" Kakashi asks incredulously. Surely Sakura's win hadn't hit him that hard.

"What's the point in the training we're doing? I'm not getting any stronger!"

"I'm teaching you restraint," begins the lecture he's heard what feels like a hundred times, "The Chidori is powerful and dangerous. You could hurt someone without meaning to."

Sasuke scoffs, "Sakura can beat me. I don't need restraint. In a fight, I'm trying to hurt someone."

"If your ego is so fragile then you're not ready for the responsibility of power."

"I am!" he argues. "But if power is such a burden then why can Sakura and Naruto keep getting stronger and now me?"

"They don't want power for power's sake!"

"Neither do I, I want power so I can use it."

Kakashi's eyes narrow, "I'm your mentor, not theirs. If you want my techniques you'll do things my way."

"Then I don't need you!" And desperate to escape the conversation, he jumps out the window.

"If you had control you wouldn't have hurt Sakura!" Kakashi shouts after him.

"I don't care!" he screams back. But that's a lie.

Sakura, for her part, has never been so thrilled to lose a fight. It doesn't feel egotistical to think that she basically won. She's just a softy who couldn't let him fall. It's a good thing, isn't it? That her instinct was to protect her teammate. (Even if, had he been thinking properly, he could have grabbed onto the wall with chakra.) That was what Kakashi was always ragging on her about, no? Not putting her team first?

She managed to surprise Sasuke and get the upper hand. She never thought she could do that. Never would have thought to… before.

Thinking about her parents brings her down. She can't do it often, it hurts too much. Since her heart to heart with Kakashi, she's being trying to focus on what she does have, not what she lost.

Her life has been in a quagmire since the attack, but at least she isn't alone. For that reason, she pities Sasuke. They both lost so much but afterward he had nobody. And she had so much. She's learning to be grateful for that, honest she is. She just gets so mad sometimes.

It's like when she was little. She was an angry kid. Her parents worked with her and taught her all the calming techniques; breaking deepy, counting, shoving it all into a box… The box worked best. All her longterm furies shut up where no one could see them. She let the bullies hit her as hard as they wanted. She wouldn't strike out. They could tease her all they liked, she wouldn't give them the satisfaction of a reaction.

She can't hold in that inner Sakura anymore. She won't be contained. Instead she's trying to come to terms with it all; work through it as best she can. It's freeing, to be a being who can feel anger again. The fight now, is to not allow it to consume her.

"Hey," Naruto starts, only for Sasuke to stalk right past him and slam the door to their room. He glances at the clock on the VCR. It's 11:00. The lock clicks. Shit. He's terrible at picking locks. "Aw man, what am I gonna do now?"

Sakura—who sits on the opposite side of the table, books open and post-its at the ready—is unsympathetic. "Sleep on the couch."

Alone in his room, the nightmares plague him worse than before. The prophecy of being swallowed by the earth came true. He finds new things to fear.

Sasuke wakes in the middle of the night.

The voices no longer reside in sleep. Orochimaru's whispers reverberate all around him; promises of power, of bargains. How will you kill your brother if you keep you as you are? He asks with condescension.

Sasuke shakes his head and for now, the pressure in his skull is dislodged. He rises and leaves the bedroom for the living room.

The apartment is dark. There is just enough moonlight to see by. He treads softly into the living room and stares at Naruto's slack body, thrown over the couch and covered in the red wool blanket. It's large enough that all three of them fit under it but in the heat of sleep he's kicked it off his feet. His soft snores, so familiar, settle Sasuke.

He didn't want Naruto to hear his nightmares. They've woken him before, but he never seems to grasp what the nightmares are about. He knew he'd be talking in his sleep tonight. It's always worse when he goes to bed angry. Orochimaru is preying on those feelings, he won't be taken in.

Except he's told no one. They might see it as a sign of weakness, or Kakashi might try and reseal him. What power reserves would be taken from him then? The temptation of more than a taste of what the curse can give him… He's stagnating here, while others flourish. He needs to be stronger. Now. And Orochimaru wants to give him strength. It's that simple.

He'll kill him before fulfilling his end of the bargain.

That thought, formulating a plan, is what makes it too real.

Sasuke's birthday is last in the calendar year and on the first morning of his 13th year, he wakes up to yelling and the sweet smells of an unhealthy breakfast.

"I made you an omelette actually," Sakura assures, plating her pancakes. It's dry and over seasoned, but he eats every bite slathered in ketchup. There's candles in it and they make him blow them out.

The day is spent in his favourite manner: outside, training. They read together in peace in the grass, for a while after that. (Sasuke and Sakura read. Naruto doodles crude caricatures in the margins of a magazine.) They go to lunch, then the baths. They henge into adult versions of themselves, laughing all the while at their absurd visions of the future. They use the illusions to sneak into a bar that's hosting a pub quiz. A jolly civilian in his 20s hosts. Naruto's only correct contribution is a question about the minutiae of the Teenage Mutant Firefighting Turtles lore.

They win second prize—a pitcher of beer. Their weak, 13-year-old tolerance ensures than they're unable to hold their henges for long after that. Once one breaks, the others do too and laughing all the while, they're kicked out of the bar.

"Technically this is your fault for giving it to us!" Sakura argues, "We didn't order any drinks!" The bouncer is unamused.

They stumble home, leaning on each other.

And when Sasuke stares at the spinning ceiling that night, he doesn't think of his childhood, his anger or the future. For the first time, he relives the same day he'll relive for years-the best birthday he ever had.

"Teach me how to unlock the Magekyou Sharingan," Sasuke demands. He doesn't know what he's asking.

Kakashi tries to tell himself this, but when he reaches inside himself, looking for compassion, he finds only rage. "No."

"It's my clan's legacy, the next logical step. I need it if I ever hope to-!"

"If you're very lucky you will never have the Magekyou," Kakashi warns, "The cost is too great."

"I'll pay it!"

"If you do," he replies, enunciating carefully, "I will strike you down myself."

They ambush him in the evening on his way home from another seemingly useless session with Kakashi. The Sound Four and all of their formidable strength and second-hand arguments (such as they are) meant to persuade him to defect on his own. Or to take him by force.

His curse seal burns, curling across his body.

The time has come to remember his purpose.

Sasuke strains against his restraints, spitting and snarling at his teacher. Kakashi's impassive eyes rove around, but his fingers are tight on the wire. The bark itches and the blood trickles down his arm where the wire has cut him.

"What's this all about?!" He demands.

"Sorry, but I knew you wouldn't want to sit still for another lecture." The second today. "Let it go, forget about revenge. Trust me, following the path of revenge never ends well. You'll only tear yourself apart. Even if you succeed, what will you have then? Nothing. Emptiness."

"Shut up!" Sasuke's blood boils, "What makes you think you know anything about it? You have no idea! Maybe if I were to kill the most important people in your life, anyone who's ever meant anything then you'd understand," he threatens cruelly, uselessly.

"Interesting theory, but everyone I've ever loved is already dead," he says it so calmly. Sasuke never knew that about him. "Besides you. And Naruto and Sakura."

Sasuke's sharp intake of breath is the only indication that his words have any effect.

"You and I are lucky. We've found new people to love, who love us."

The boy looks so small, his head drops so Kakashi can't see his face anymore. He loosens the restraints.

"That's all I wanted to say. You'll do what you want."

In the room he shares with his teammate, only feet away from his bed, Sasuke packs a bag in the dark. There's a photograph on the desk that he considers taking with him, but that wouldn't be wise. He lays it face down and leaves the room.

He hesitates at the front door and doubles back.

He doesn't know which cousin Sakura's bedroom belonged to. He never visited them before the Massacre. It's one of the reasons he feels safe here, it's untouched by death. They died at the compound with everybody else.

He opens her door a crack. The hinges are well oiled so they don't creak.

Asleep in bed, Sakura's back is to him, arm tucked under her chin and hair falling over her shoulders. He watches her for longer than he should, heart hammering in his chest. He's really going to do this.

He stays until he can't stand it anymore, it's too much.

Outside, the village is quiet. The streetlamps haven't been fixed in many neighborhoods, so he passes through the light and darkness with equal swiftness. His unhurried gait stops at the gates. They loom in front of him, a portal into his future.

"SASUKE!" Sakura shouts, breaking the stillness of the night.

He turns and can't hide his surprise at seeing her. He's a fool. He must have woken her with his goodbye. "What are you doing here?"

"This is the only way out of the village," she evades.

"Go home Sakura."

Before I say things we'll both regret.

"No," her voice breaks. She darts in front of him to block his path. "Why? I thought I understood you but I don't. I just don't. How can you throw everything away?"

"You could never understand me," he replies coldly. "I'm throwing away everything that doesn't matter. Anything that doesn't help me accomplish my goals."

"I know in the beginning you couldn't stand me. You probably hated me. But I thought-" here Sakura hesitates and the tears drip from her chin. "I thought that things were different now. You told me once that I have no idea what it means to be alone, well now I do. I do and I wish I didn't. It's horrible. But it's a little less horrible with you." She chokes on a sob and slaps a hand over her mouth to muffle it.

"You're just as annoying now as you were then." He steps up to her, so they're standing close. "Move," he commands.

"No."

"Move or I'll move you."

Her stance widens but her knees quake. "Try it then."

"Don't you understand that I'll kill you if I have to?" Move!

She laughs, so sad, "For the sake of your revenge."

"I'm travelling a path that you can't follow," in telling her so, he hopes to be kind.

Sasuke pushes past her. Like a willow branch, she moves aside then springs back to watch him walk away. All the fight has gone out of her. "You don't have to be alone. You don't think we would help you?" She cries, "Naruto and I would do anything for you. Why won't you let us?!"

"I don't need you!" He roars. "We aren't the same."

"I love you, don't you understand? Please don't walk away!"

With his back to her, neither can see the effect their words are having on the other, but they can hope. They can imagine.

"Stay," she whispers brokenly. "Or take me with you."

He turns. "Where I'm going, I have no use for you. Forget you ever knew me."

"No. You know that I can't," she says with force. He advances and her speech quickens. "If you move I'll scream, I swear I will, I-" In a flash, he's behind her. A sharp pain in her neck. Darkness descends.

Whispered words. Thank you.

12 hours earlier…

Though some ninjas choose to work under the cover of night, many realize that it's far easier to work in plain sight, in the day, hidden by the crowd. Sasuke has only been to Kakashi's apartment once before, but he remembers the way. It's not so odd that a student would visit his master in the day time.

He knocks and Kakashi's surprised to find him at the door.

"Can I come in?" He trusts that his sensei's home is secure.

"Sure, Sasuke," Kakashi replies in his usual breezy tone. "What can I do for you?"

"I need you to get me a covert meeting with the Hokage."

In under an hour they're in her office. Shizune, their only witness. Tsunade surveys the boy over her steeples fingers. "What can I do for you, Uchiha?"

"I need you to assign me an S-rank mission, to infiltrate Sound." Kakashi's eye cuts to him, "As a double agent."

#sasusaku #team 7 #sasuke x sakura #naruto #fanfiction #IYC #if you can't hold on hold on #my fic

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lovelahela · 5 years ago

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❛ love of my life ❜ ─ bryce lahela, part two.

⇢ entry for choices february challenge !

⇢ pairing: bryce x f!mc (sunny soo)

⇢ genre: angst

⇢ prompt: heartbreak

⇢ song: love of my life, queen.

⇢ description: in which sunny finally confesses, but bryce is too afraid of hurting her.

love of my life, you've hurt me

you've broken my heart,

and now you leave me

love of my life, can't you see?

bring it back, bring it back

don't take it away from me because

you don't know what it means to me.

⇢ notes: keep reading tag will be added in the future. if u want to get tagged for open heart stuff tell me!! i hope u enjoy it ♡ feedback is appreciated!

Love.

It was a very strong word, but it's meaning and effectiveness have been diluted over the modern years. A word carelessly thrown around. Regardless, hearing three words that let you know you were loved was heartwarming, to say the least.

But saying them? That was a whole diffeŕent story.

And acknowledging that you are, in fact, in love with someone was a slap in the face in itself.

Sunny stood in front of her stove, humming some popular song she heard on the radio on the way to her apartment. Bryce stood beside her, leaning against the counter, careful not to stain his clothes with the sprinkles of BBQ sauce on the surface. He watched her with the semblance of a smile on his handsome features, admiring the way her hands skilfully prepared the traditional Korean dish she was so excited to let him try.

"It took me soooo long to get this recipe down. My mom was a mean cook, and I was a fire hazard in the kitchen up until I had to drop my unhealthy habit of living off instant ramen," laughed Sunny, sparing him a side glance. She sighed in content moments later as she appreciated the calming sound of rain drops pounding on whatever surface they could find.

"And you're sure you got it right this time?" Bryce grinned teasingly. Sunny gasped melodramatically and spun on her heels to face the surgeon she grew attached to over her hectic first year as a medical intern.

"Listen here, you little shit!" She pointed an accusatory finger in his laughing face, knowing he found her ridiculous rather than intimidating considering she had to look up to meet his eyes. A mischievous glint in her doe-like eyes and the evil smirk that stretched across her plump lips told Bryce that he was done for.

Sunny grabbed the spoon she had used to stir the ingredients in the pan, covered in tiny food particles and BBQ sauce, and smeared it right across his cheek. His eyes widened at her unexpected action and his lips, despite his horrified shock, stretched into an amused grin. She doubled over in laughter at his reaction, clutching her stomach after her abdominal muscles began to ache. Jovial tears streamed down her cheeks.

Bryce seized the opportunity and snatched the spoon out of her hands. He retaliated to her act of war by staining her mouth with the same substance his cheeks were covered in. She shrieked in horror and playfully punched his chest, dissolving into giggles yet again.

His heart fluttered when her laughter reached his ears and his gaze fell upon her lips, suddenly very eager to kiss her. Conflicted feelings arose in him, unsure of whether or not to act on his urges, knowing that once he did it, there was no going back.

But when she stared up at him with those wide, sparkling eyes and the most beautiful smile he had ever seen, logic crumbled under his impulses, and before any of them could process what was happening, Sunny Soo was in his arms with her lips locked with his in a kiss they had both only dreamed about before that moment.

His hands had gripped her waist tightly to keep her safe and steady against his larger body. She mustered the little physical power left inside her to stand up on her toes to relief the uncomfort from her craned neck.

And then, she muttered four seemingly harmless words against his lips that snapped him back to the harsh clutches of cold, hard reality.

"I love you, Bryce."

At that point, Bryce didn't know what to do anymore.

When they pulled apart, faces barely inches away from each other and breathing heavily, his heart broke at the hope sparkling in the gorgeous brown eyes he had fell in love with.

"Oh God..." The devastated whisper left his lips before he could process it. Sunny frowned, the light in her expression dimming by the second. Oh God? What was that supposed to mean? Was he... disgusted by her? Did he... not love her?

"Bryce?" Her cheeks were still burning, but her eyes had begun to glaze over with a thin coat of tears. The sound of her voice breaking damn near shattered his weakening resolve.

Words fumbled around in his brain in a confused mess. He stammered unintelligibly, eyes wide and breath quickening. He was panicked. For the first time in a damn long time, Bryce Lahela was speechless - clueless.

"I - I'm - I shouldn't have done that. I should not have done that."

Was he convincing her, or himself?

"What - What's that supposed to mean?" Her voice was growing weaker by the second. She took small, subtle steps away from him, beginning to feel smaller than she already was. Suddenly, they were both hyper-aware of the violence of the rain pattering against the window and the ground outside, mimicking the loud thumping of their rabid hearts.

"I... We can't. I don't... You deserve better. You deserve better." Sunny watched in surprise as he repeated those last three words in a hushed tone, as if attempting to assure himself. He ran his fingers through his hair, ultimately messing it up.

"I deserve better?" She laughed incredulously. "Bryce, I've spent the last few months convincing myself that I didn't even deserve to have you in my life, let alone love you."

"Are you - Are you fucking serious?" He rubbed his face with his hands and aggressively chewed on his bottom lip. God, I really messed up, he thought. "You're the most incredible person I've ever met. I'd move mountains for you - God knows I've tried."

He said the last sentence in a whisper, barely loud enough for her to catch - he didn't mean her to, really. Her eyes softened, but were still stained with the bitter pain of heartbreak.

"Bryce, please."

Pathetic, she felt. She was standing in her own kitchen, asking to be loved. How humiliating. The mortification overwhelmed her and pushed a steady flow of salty tears to run down her frowning face. She hugged herself in an attempt to feel less exposed under his watchful gaze.

Silence washed over them. He was racking his brain for ways to soften the blow to her, but part of him knew nothing could make the rejection she would face any easier. But this was for her own good, right? She was away from his buried feelings, away from the toxicity of his past, away from his unwanted trust issues. Sunny deserved someone who would grant her full, raw honesty and a stable relationship, because he could never give them to her.

"I can't. I can't do this, I'm sorry." His throat was constricted and strained the tone of his voice. She shut her eyelids as the words she was waiting for finally broke the silence that suffocated them and tested their diminishing patience. Despite her closed eyes, her cheeks were covered with a new coat of tears and her bottom lip trembled. She sucked it into the grasp of her teeth to try to keep it steady and hide how much his rejection truly affected her.

"Can you at least tell me if you felt anything at all?" mumbled Sunny weakly. "Is it just your insecurity holding you back, or do you really not love me?"

Nothing could prepare her or him for his answer. Bryce took a deep, shaky breath, mulling over whether or not he should tell the biggest lie he'd ever utter or yell the truth at the top of his lungs. Sadly, in the end, he knew better than to give her false hope for what never will, and did the only thing he knew would ensure he would never hurt her after that devastating moment.

"No, Sunny, I don't. I never did."

possible part three?

#choices stories you play #playchoices #choices fanfiction #bryce lahela #bryce x mc #bryce x reader #open heart #oph choices #choicesfebruarychallenge

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bitchforkreviewz · 6 years ago

Text

JAMES BLAKE: ASSUME FORM. PITCHFORK IS PROFOUNDLY CONFUSED

Review of Pitchfork’s review: ASSUME FORM

In May 2018, James Blake released Don’t Miss it, a single that was met with praise and criticism. Similar to a dog wanting to piss on a fire hydrant, Pitchfork has put forth yet another opinionated/unsubstantial review. Lozano noted that there seems to be “two James Blake at play: The one who loves to party and the one who likes nothing better than getting under the covers of his weighted blanket.”He then later states that Don’t Miss it is another “beautifully brutal song to add to Blake’s catalog of sumptuous sad boy music.”

After this review came out, Blake tweeted this big thing where he basically says: (1) he could not help but notice that “sad-boy” is used whenever he discusses his feelings in a song. (2) states that this characterization is unhealthy and problematic when used to shame men whom are expressing their feelings, which contributes to the “historical stigmatization of men expressing themselves emotionally” (3) Blake states we are in a epidemic of male depression and suicide.

So let’s unpack this: what did Lozano get right? Or what did Lozano get really right? This line sums up Blake’s true talent and shows Lozano is not completely out of touch: “The song’s complexity, for better or worse, comes from how Blake plays with his voice.” Why is this review important, and why is James Blake’s response important and or relevant to Assume Form?

This review of Don’t Miss it, which is a track on Assume Form in a sense foreshadows what review was to come. However, one would think that this album would land differently after Blake’s vehement response to the review of the single Don’t Miss it, but once again Pitchfork apparently did not get the memo, and continued to put him in the SAD-BOY category.

You really begin to get the sense that Sherburne is profoundly out of touch when he states that the line “I will be touchable/I will be reachable,”sounds“clinical,” which leads one to ask the glaringly obvious question: did this guy even listen to this album or did he just look up the lyrics? Has this guy even listened to a James Blake song?? Clinical? WHAT KIND OF THERAPIST OR PHYSICIAN ARE YOU SEEING PHIL? (Phil, feel free to reach out and send over a contact if possible.) If a person were to read the line out loud in a monotone voice, was wearing a lab coat, held up a chart maybe?? Sure, I can see how he arrived at this conclusion, but what separates James Blake from other artists is his ability to infuse an ordinary line or phrase with a feeling/mood with his unique vocals, so no Phil this is not quite “clinical.” As your counterpart, Mr. Lozano had said: “The song’s complexity, for better or for worse comes from how Blake plays with his voice.”

Unlike, previous albums all centering around feelings of loneliness or alienation, Assume Form focuses in on intimacy and sacrificing one’s tendency to look inward for the sake of another person.

Let’s rewind to 2016 when The Colour in Anything came out, which Pitchfork rated an 8.2, in part, because we feel Blake is maturing when we look back at his older albums like “Overgrown.” We begin to see a new side of James Blake, a side of vulnerability. Even though, Blake showcases a more tender side in his music you still get that the overarching theme here, is isolation, while at the same time you can sense that Blake is more comfortable in that isolation, indicating Blake is more introspective. It feels like Blake has matured in more ways than one The Colour in Anything when considering his previous albums.

Assume Form comes out and it takes a whole different approach. Certainly, James Blake did not throw us a major curveball, but this is different than any other album he has come out with because he is in a relationship, and it is going fairly well. And for that, I would like to personally say: congrats James!!!!!! James Blake is no longer the guy who can’t believe his siblings aren’t speaking to him. He is blossoming into a developed human being right before our eyes.

As it has been noted in other reviews of previous albums, James Blake is no “lyrical genius,” this is known, put to bed, and dealt with, so please Phil, spare us on this one. Sherburn notes that “there is the skeleton of a different, more interesting album lurking beneath the surface.”

And sure Phil, ok Blake is a creative artist who has been experimental in his music and albums, so without a doubt this is not the last time we hear from “sad-boy” Blake, but he took a different angle, because he is in a different stage of his life. Please refer to the James Blake tweet about the “sad-boy” box.

Although, it has been stated on multiple occasions that Blake is no “lyrical genius,” it is important to note that Blake meticulously captures moments, feelings, moods, and experiences in Assume Form.

For example, throughout the album Blake highlights on a tension or a tug of war between Blake’s need for solitude and wanting to be in a relationship with this person. In Power On, he thinks he would be better off without this person and admits “I was wrong.” Letting go of one’s ego is a central theme in this album.

In “Are you in love,” is Blake asking “we good?” or “are we on the same page here??” It’s like going on a fourth date and everything going really well and you really like this person, but you make a joke self deprecating joke that doesn’t quite land with them, and is just kind of sad, because they were supposed to laugh and they didn’t and you are not going to laugh, so it is just silent for about twenty seconds too long and conversation then picks up and things go well. Obviously, you regret it, but since everything else went so well you think “OK things are good.” But even then, you are second guessing yourself and feeling like sending a text saying something like “yo, we good??????” or like “heyyyyyyy, lol was just joking earlier haha! Did not mean to get so dark whoooooops. Had fun let's do it again” But you decide not to because it is kind of weird and you should just shrug it off or play it cool, and maybe they will forget about it completely if you do not bring it up EVER. I can’t be the only one who as ever felt this way.

Moving forward, this is a vulnerable side of Blake. He capitalizes on the universal feeling of insecurity and the subsequent need for validation, especially in this time and age, where it is more common to feel inadequate and insecure than it is to feel in tune with another person.

“Don’t miss” it is a piece that underscores what you miss when you look inward.

”The world has shut me out/ If I give everything I'll lose everything/ Everything is about me/ I am the most important thing/ And you really haven't thought all those cyclical thoughts for a while?”

He continues to discuss the implications of looking inward:” And as it keeps going/ I could never be involved/ I could never really see in real time/ I could never be involved/ And as it keeps on going/ I could avoid real time/ I could ignore my busy mind/ I could avoid contact with eyes/ I could avoid going outside/ I could avoid wasting my life/ I could avoid/ I could avoid 20/20 sight”

Blake comes to the conclusion: “And as it keeps on going/ You forget whether it was the beginning or end/ When you can't believe your luck/ (When you can't believe your luck)/ You're with your friend/ When you get to hang out with your favourite person every day/ When the dull pain goes away/ Don't miss it (Don't miss it)/ When you stop being a ghost in a shell/ And everybody keeps saying you look well/ Don't miss it/ Like I did/ Don't miss it/ Don't miss it like I did/ Like I did”

Sherburn claims Andre3000’s verse in What’s the Catch “ humorous self awareness” is what the album lacks most of all. Yes Phil. Ok, I can agree that the album lacks humor, but the album certainly does not lack self awareness, and if “Don’t miss it” is not self-aware enough for you, I have one question for you. Would you like James Blake to physically remove his heart, and send it in a box to Pitchfork HQs?!?!? Blake is not blithefully in love, but rather, is grappling with himself and his ego, which is evidently his biggest obstacle in his relationship.

Sherburn is right in the sense that Assume Form is heavy, but what he gets wrong is that Blake’s album is not “stagnant,” but rather, quite the opposite. Assume Form reinforces the fact that Blake is evolving as not only an artist, but also as a human being.

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preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

Text

Shut. The. Fuck. Up. You. Smug. Bitch.

by Dan H

Thursday, 05 February 2009Dan deals with That Woman again~

A quick mea culpa, added 20.09.09: A random anonymous troll picked me up yesterday on the title of this article - okay they actually picked me up on "whining" so I suspect they were just an outraged fanboy, but they were actually quite right that reaching for gender-specific insults as a first recourse in an argument with a woman, even one you're not actually talking to, is not okay. I'm leaving the title as it is, because I don't think you should try to cover these things up, but I do actually regret the choice. It's a rather nasty silencing tactic, and it shouldn't have been my first instinct.

While Kyra was writing her review of the insestimably worthy On The Jellicoe Road, a genuinely moving book about love and pain and hope, I was reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a genuinely infuriating book about what a great writer JK Rowling is.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a mercifully short collection of “stories” the sole function of which is to provide JK Rowling with a vehicle to have Albus Dumbledore suck her children's book cock.

Want to hear more? Here's a quick summary of the stories:

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

Summary: Good Wizard helps Muggles with magic. When he dies, his bad son decides not to help the Muggles, the good Wizard's magic pot starts jumping up and down and annoying the crap out of him, so he eventually gives in and helps the Muggles.

Cheap point scoring: Notice that while the hero of this story is the Good Wizard who helps Muggles with magic, and that the villain is his selfish son who refuses to help Muggles with magic, that in fact the Wizards in the world of Harry Potter never so much as think about using their magic to help anybody with anything (often including themselves – see “but why didn't they cast ...” moments passim ad nauseam).

Favourite Lines: “'Begone,' cried the son. 'What care I for your brat's warts!'”

Dumbledore Apologia: Rowling uses the first set of Dumbledore's notes to introduce us to two straw men who will remain with us throughout the book. The first is Brutus Malfoy who (along with many other “Muggle Haters” tried to suppress the story of the Wizard and the Hopping Pot because it was “Pro Muggle”. Because these books are about

tolerance

get it? The second figure that Rowling invents to make herself look good is Beatrix Bloxom who “believed that

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

were damaging to children because of ... their unhealthy preoccupation with ... death, bloodshed, wicked magic ... and eruptions of the most disgusting kind”.

Do you see? Because JK Rowling writes really dark, books where dark things happen in dark ways, and some people just can't

take

that.

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

Summary: Three witches and a Muggle knight travel to the Fountain of Fair Fortune, which can reverse all your misfortunes. One of the witches is terminally ill, the other is extremely poor, the last is heartbroken. The Knight is just a Great Big Loser. They face perilous quests, get to the top of the hill, and discover that It Was The Journey That Was Important. It turns out that The Fountain Isn't Magic After All. The knight marries the heartbroken witch.

Cheap Points Scoring: What the fuck? One of those chicks was suffering from an

incurable fucking illness

. You don't just make that sort of thing go away with positive thinking.

Favourite Lines: “The sky was rent with the first ray of the sun.” “The crowd surged forwards, each of them shrieking their claim for the Fountain's benison.”

Dumbledore Apologia: The Muggle-Haters tried to have it banned again! (Lucius Malfoy this time, because a witch marries a Muggle at the end). But Dumbledore was like, no way man, because people should totally be allowed to marry Muggles if they want to. I'm so glad that JK Rowling is presenting these thoughtful, incisive comments on the nature of racism to the British youth.

The Warlock's Hairy Heart

Summary: Actually this one's alright, because it's essentially ripped off from other, better fairytales and doesn't have anything to do with the Harry Potter mythos. Warlock cuts out his heart, tries to marry a hot chick for prestige, she asks him to put his heart back in, he does but it's gone TOTALLY EVIL and he kills her, then himself.

Cheap Point Scoring: Not from the text of the story, but Rowling takes pains to note in her introduction that the maiden in this story is the one exception to the rule that “Beedle's witches are much more active in seeking their fortunes than our fairy-tale heroines”. Becaues JKR is a FEMINIST. You can tell by the huge numbers of well realised, empowered female characters who get things done on their own behalf in the Potter books.

Favourite Lines: “Though many a maiden was intrigued by his haughty mein, and employed her most subtle arts to please him, none succeeded in touching his heart. The warlock gloried in his indifference and the sagacity that had produced it.”

Dumbledore Apologia: Dumbledore first of all tells us that the whole “removing your heart” thing isn't possible in the Harry Potter world. We had already worked this out because it was kinda cool, and Harry Potter magic sucks donkey balls. Then of course he goes on to tell us that this story is all about love love love love love love love. Because I don't know if you caught it, but the power of love was what the Harry Potter series was all about. That and tolerance. And death. Gosh they were a profoundly complex series of books.

I should also add that Dumbledore's explanation of this story is particularly heavy handed: “And sure enough in seeking to become superhuman this foolhardy young man renders himself inhuman. The heart he has locked away slowly shrivels and grows hair, symbolising his own descent into beasthood. He is finally reduced to a violent animal who takes what he wants by force, and he dies in a futile attempt to regain what is now forever beyond his reach – a human heart.”

Okay I know I was keeping these summaries short but what the

fuck

. I mean, I know JKR was always keen to have people interpret her work correctly, but even I never thought she'd be this blatant. I mean she is literally, literally having Albus Dumbledore tell you how to interpret the story. Literally. Fuck.

Babbitty Rabbity and her Cackling Stump

Summary: Stupid king wants to learn magic. Hires a conman to teach him. Conman gets Babbitty Rabbity to do magic so that the King thinks it's him doing it. This all goes wrong when the King tries to use magic to bring back a dead dog, because death is srs bzns in Harry Potter, oh yes. So Babbitty Rabbity runs away, and then threatens the King with a curse which makes everything better. Oh by the way, witches are being persecuted in this story because it is teh burnining tiemz!

Cheap point scoring: Babbitty Rabbity and her Cackling Stump is mentioned in Deathly Hallows. Were I feeling cheap, I'd suggest that Rowling wrote this completely fucking nonsensical story because having stuck herself with the title, she couldn't think of a remotely sensible way to make it work. I mean really “Babbitty Rabbity”.

Favourite Lines: “Seeking a vent for his fear and anger, the charlatan approached the window of Babbitty the washerwoman.”

Dumbledore Apologia: Dumbledore, of course, insists that this pile of nonsense involving stupid kings, fraudulent magicians and the like is all about

the tragic and irreversible nature of death

. This set of Dumbledore Apologia is particularly hilarious because it's basically a venue for JK Rowling to say “death is totally irreversible in my books, even though you can talk to dead people, and they can come back as ghosts, and portraits of them possess all the features which they had in real life, and are capable of experiencing all the feelings and emotions that person would in real life, death is still

totally overpoweringly important

in this world”.

I'm going to digress again, but the more JK tries to explain the whole death thing, the more stupid it sounds. No magic can bring somebody back from the dead. Okay, the mirror of Erised can show you your dead parents, but that's not bringing them back. Okay, your dead parents can appear out of a wand, and talk to you and give you messages from the other side, but that's still not bringing them back. And okay the dead literally watch over you in this world. And okay, magical artefacts exist which allow you to literally see the dead people who are literally watching over you. And okay, there are ghosts. And okay, if a portrait is made of a dead person you can talk to that person exactly as if they were still alive, and they'll have all the thoughts, feelings, and memories of the dead person, and you can talk to them every day, and they can express pride in your triumphs and console you in your failures, and they can make independent decisions, but that doesn't mean you can bring people back from the dead, oh no. Death is

final

in this world. So final that once you're dead you certainly can't show up and have long conversations with people in imaginary train stations. Oh wait.

Basically the prohibition against bringing back the dead in the Potterverse is like that business with the British Sausage in that episode of Yes Minister. You can have your dead relatives about talking to you and walking around all you like as long as you don't say they're back from the dead, it's okay. The moment the “B from the D” label gets put on somebody, they become a hideous twisted abomination created by a man's foolish desire to cheat nature.

The Tale of the Three Brothers

Summary: See

here

Cheap point scoring: See

here

Favourite Lines: “It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son.”

Dumbledore Apologia: See

here

and

here

Conclusion

In short,

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

sucks whatever unfortunate item or items you might care to present to it. It's written in this faux-Brothers Grimm style which sounds like a nine year old's first attempt at creative writing. Of its hundred and eight pages only fifty-six are taken up with the actual stories (including illustrations) the rest being Rowling's self-serving introduction and “Dumbledore's notes”.

Like everything JK Rowling wrote after

Prisoner of Azkaban

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

fails on pretty much every level. It's not a book of children's stories. Fairytales and folklore can't

deliberately created, not even by the world's best-selling novelist. No child is actually going to grow up listening to the story of the Fountain of Fair Fortune.

Ultimately, TToBtB is not about the tales themselves, it's about Dumbledore's notes. It's about providing with yet another way to tell her readership, directly, what they are supposed to think about love, death, the relationship between Wizards and Muggles, and of course about Albus Dumbledore and the Harry Potter books.

I rather suspect that her next published work will simply be a single note saying “having read this, you feel that you better understand the nature of love, sacrifice, and mortality.”Themes:

J.K. Rowling

Sci-fi / Fantasy

Young Adult / Children

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~Comments (

go to latest

)

Wardog

at 18:17 on 2009-02-05Quite frankly anyone who uses the word "benison" in cold blood deserves everything they get.

Seeking a vent for his fear and anger, the charlatan approached the window of Babbitty the washerwoman

Hello there, I'm seeking a vent for my fear and anger...

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Arthur B

at 19:45 on 2009-02-05Happy Christmas!!!!!!!

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http://rudecyrus.livejournal.com/

at 22:26 on 2009-02-06Man, Rowling really loves alliteration and rhyming words.

Can Dumbledore just go away already? We've spent more than enough time with the old coot.

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Wardog

at 10:53 on 2009-02-09Y'know, I think it says something about the nature/quality of your Xmas present to your good friend, Dan, that you had to also give him a

fighting fantasy book

make up for it

. =P

By the way, Rudecyrus, I've noticed a couple of comments from you scattered around the place - welcome :) I think an over-reliance on alliteration and rhyming words are yet more evidence of a mediocre author struggling to replicate a fairytale style in most superficial way way possible. Sigh.

Isabel, I'm so sad about President Roslin -

spoiler spoiler spoiler

When I thought she was dying of cancer, I was actually really into her - in that context, her semi-saintly and infalliable moral compass actually worked really well for me. For the first season and a half of BSG she was actually one of my favourite female characters on TV, like, ever - I loved the fact she was strong and vulnerable, compassionate and ruthless, and generally just a strong women in a position of power and responsibility. But then she kind of didn't die and from that moment on I completely lost faith in BSG as a whole, and the character alongside it. BSG still really upsets actually because until that exact episode (Epiphany - it is branded on my memory) I thought it was one of the best shows I had ever seen. There were problems associated with it than just Roslin, of course, but the conclusion of that arc was indictative to me.

Generally I start to hate characters when they stop being characters and start being mouth pieces for the author - like Dumbledore and, I have to say, Sam Vines and Vetinari by the latter Discworld books...

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Arthur B

at 10:59 on 2009-02-09The FF book was for Dan. Beedle the Bard was really for FB. :D

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Sister Magpie

at 17:03 on 2009-02-11

The Muggle-Haters tried to have it banned again! (Lucius Malfoy this time, because a witch marries a Muggle at the end). But Dumbledore was like, no way man, because people should totally be allowed to marry Muggles if they want to.

Oh man, really? For some reason of all the notes this is the most egregious. Too bad it wasn't a Wizard who married a Muggle man. That would get left out for not having anything to do with the story.

Isn't there also a thing that says these were supposed to have been translated from the ancient runes by Hermione? Which makes me think Hermione's a really poor translator, but also wonder why fairy tales were ever supposed to be written in ancient runes. But I only heard that second hand, so maybe I'm wrong there.

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Arthur B

at 18:35 on 2009-02-11

Given that she did the translation (if I remember right) in the middle of

Deathly Hallows

, this would imply that Dumbledore either:

a) Wrote his annotations in ancient runes for shits and giggles, rather than producing a proper translation himself - which you'd think he'd do, given that he seems to think it's important that these stories are told.

b) Dictated his commentary from beyond the grave.

c) Secretly survived the series and rode to the Moon on Hagrid's motorbike waving a middle finger at the audience and yelling

Fuuuuuuuck yoooooooou suckeeeeeeeeeeeeeers

, leaving behind reams of commentary on the writings of the Great Rowling.

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Dan H

at 11:35 on 2009-02-12

Isn't there also a thing that says these were supposed to have been translated from the ancient runes by Hermione?

Yes, they were. A poster on Death to Capslock did point out that this actually makes the really awful style make more sense (because if *anybody* would use the word "benison" in cold blood, it'd be Hermione). And of course since "Hermione" is really JKR's self-insert, it sort of fits anyway.

As for the runes: surely you know that *everything* was written in Runes in Olden Times.

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Rami

at 16:38 on 2009-02-13Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the entire point of runes was that they were easy to carve into solid surfaces like stone or metal? So were these tales supposedly engraved into stone slabs, like the Ten Commandments Of Worshipping The Great Rowling?

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http://miss-morland.livejournal.com/

at 23:16 on 2009-02-19At this point, I'm mostly interested in the HP books as source material for fanfiction. Alas, BtB doesn't seem to have much potential in that respect...

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Wardog

at 12:37 on 2009-02-20Well, not unless you want to ship Albus Dumbledore / JK Rowling

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http://miss-morland.livejournal.com/

at 13:24 on 2009-02-21Hee. I wonder if anyone has ever written that...

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Arthur B

at 00:19 on 2009-04-07

JK Rowling reads Beedle the Bard at the spouses of world leaders.

What I want to know is what terrible ransom the G20 paid Rowling to get her to let the hostages go. Are we looking at the world's first fantasy author with a nuclear arsenal?

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/tjLTVHEducFb4rKDHU5DukBHtQcCbTVMEEq55v0CxV4-#5e156

at 12:54 on 2009-08-09Hm I don't think guys who are ruthless enough to become leaders care for their spouses wellbeing that much.

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Viorica

at 01:57 on 2009-11-23Having stumbled upon this article by the miracle of the random generator, I do have to defend Rowling on one point. The crazy woman who thinks that these stories are unsuitable for kids due to their darkity dark darkness is probably a parody of Laura Mallory and her ilk as much as it is an advertisement for JKR's infinite wisdom.

I actually read a series of (fanfic) stories about Hermione telling Ron about Muggle fairytales, and Ron trying to puzzle out their logic. Unfortunately, I've lost the link . . .

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Rami

at 06:09 on 2009-11-23

probably a parody of Laura Mallory and her ilk

Er, Laura Mallory? Who's that?

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Dan H

at 11:01 on 2009-11-23

The crazy woman who thinks that these stories are unsuitable for kids due to their darkity dark darkness is probably a parody of Laura Mallory and her ilk as much as it is an advertisement for JKR's infinite wisdom.

Like Rami I've never heard of Laura Mallory, but yeah, I do get that the HP books have come under attack from people who insist that The Children Must Be Protected.

The problem is that Rowling *also* likes to deny (implicitly rather than explicitly) the existence of other works of children's literature which are *far* darker, *far* more mature and *far* more disturbing than her own. There's a kind of recieved wisdom grown up in the last few years that JKR is some kind of benchmark for the handling of serious themes in Childrens' books.

I actually read a series of (fanfic) stories about Hermione telling Ron about Muggle fairytales, and Ron trying to puzzle out their logic. Unfortunately, I've lost the link . . .

Oh come on, how OOC is that. Since when has Hermione *ever* shown an interest in her Muggle heritage...

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Arthur B

at 13:56 on 2009-11-23Google tells me that Laura Mallory is the person who claimed that the culture fostered by

Harry Potter

books pressures people into joining Wicca and causes school shootings. Best sources I can find for her views are a

carefully-written Daily Mail article

of the "we're giving this person coverage because she's crazy, but we're not going to call her crazy to her face" variety, and an

Encyclopedia Dramatica

writeup (watch out, potentially NSFW banner ads).

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Rami

at 16:35 on 2009-11-23

Oh come on, how OOC is that

Just want to confirm -- I'm guessing OOC == Out Of Canon?

Best sources I can find for her views are a carefully-written Daily Mail article

Hehehe, carefully written Daily Mail article.

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Arthur B

at 16:38 on 2009-11-23

Just want to confirm -- I'm guessing OOC == Out Of Canon?

I'm guessing either that or Out of Character...

Hehehe, carefully written Daily Mail article.

Well, written with sufficient care to make sure she doesn't notice they're making fun of her. Not written with sufficient care to make the reader not feel talked down to. ;)

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Rami

at 16:55 on 2009-11-23

I'm guessing either that or Out of Character...

Seriously, people, the TLA namespace is crowded enough already ;-)

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/gNLVidA.xeLuPiOU_2B_USM.HYNFjA--#b0b6b

at 15:13 on 2010-08-26Hi there, hope you don't mind a late and admittedly ranty comment. I only just got around to reading Beedle, and by god you're right: it is so smug and sanctimonious and badly-written and just plain

infuriating

I actually detested The Warlock's Hairy Heart a bit more than the others. In all her gushing and spewing about how wonderful and almighty Love is, through this story (maybe not so much in the actual HP series) JK seems bent on specifically endorsing the heterosexual, happy-ever-after 2.3 kids and a white picket fence kind.

It seems so because, at the outset, this baddie does nothing remarkably bad beyond deciding that the life and duties of a husband and father are not for him. But by the story's logic, this points him towards the Dark Arts and *

wham

* - he has become a SERIOUSLY EVIL WIZARD.

Later in the story when the Warlock reinstalls his heart and cosies up with the witch, his feelings are described in unmistakably sexual terms - like his being suddenly aware of the witch's smooth, silky skin and all that. This is what the reader is expected to recognise as Love.

But of course there's no change possible for Dark Wizards: he goes and kills the girl, because

of course

he was just repressing himself all these years, and everyone knows that abstinence turns people into the most horrible sexual deviants.

While Dumbledore's commentary on this story is as unenlightening as usual (his powers of literary analysis do not impress me, and neither does his deep familiarity with a single quote by Alexander Pope), it does perhaps become a bit interesting when you consider it against Dumbledore's own non-heteronormativity and brush with the Dark Side. As you've pointed out elsewhere, it seems quite clear that the two go hand in hand in Rowlingland. It also becomes apparent that Dumbledore is a flaming hypocrite.

We might make concessions for Beedle himself, who was writing in a different era, and for all we know maybe wizards traditionally had no role for celibates in their culture. But for Dumbledore to esteem Beedle's late-Medieval values as some sacred, universal truth frankly boggles the mind. Jodel on the Red Hen website writes viciously about the gaping lack of a sense of history in the Potterverse, and to me it shows here very starkly indeed.

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Dan H

at 15:26 on 2010-08-27I was okay with the Warlock's Hairy Heart as a fantasy archetype (although you're right that in the context of Rowling's wider worldview it's annoying).

What're Jodel's articles? There's a whole lot of stuff on the Red Hen and I thought I'd take a look, but can't find the article you mention here.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/gNLVidA.xeLuPiOU_2B_USM.HYNFjA--#b0b6b

at 07:58 on 2010-08-28Yeah, I see what you mean. I guess what gets to me is that the whole hairy heart thing ought to be recognisable as a fairy tale archetype, but instead it comes across as Family Values being hammered over the reader's head.

The article I'm referring to is

The History of Magic

. Rather long, but very interesting stuff.

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http://ipslore.livejournal.com/

at 00:54 on 2011-06-03'Fairytales and folklore can't be deliberately created, not even by the world's best-selling novelist.'

'Oh,' says Neil Gaiman. 'A challenge.'

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Arthur B

at 08:29 on 2011-06-03Neil Gaiman,

creating

folklore? I think you need to look again. ;)

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Michal

at 00:42 on 2011-10-13

Fairytales and folklore can't be deliberately created, not even by the world's best-selling novelist.

Ahem,

Ruth B. Bottingheimer disagrees.

So does Suzanne Magnanini.

(On whether fairy tales can be deliberately created, that is. I don't think either would give much merit to J.K. Rowling). Both books were assigned for my Fairy Tale & Folklore class back in uni.

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Shim

at 07:24 on 2011-10-13I'd be interested to know what fairy tales are actually discussed (the only one I saw mention of was "Puss in Boots", which I'm not sure I quite consider a fairy tale for some reason.

Anyway, without reading the books I'm not sure if they do actually disagree, but if they did I would disagree back. I mean sure, many traditional stories, including many fairy tales were deliberately invented out of whole cloth, rather than developing from fragments through many different storytellers. But when those authors were writing them, were they actually deliberately creating fairy tales, in the sense we think of them, or just writing stories? I mean a fairy tale to us is quite a specific thing and a bit hard to define; they're fantastical but not just fantasy, they have certain types of characters and roles... lots of things written around that time are probably not considered fairy tales (bet there's loads of stuff in Grimm's nobody cares about). And I'm not convinced the category of "Fairy Tales" existed in the same way at in the 16th century. I would expect that they were really just writing stories, and somehow some of those stories came to be what we now call Fairy Tales. It's a case of evolution over centuries. Whereas someone sitting down now, in a completely different literary environment, where authorship is known and protected, and you can't easily reuse someone else's material and change it about, and it hasn't had a few hundred years to get filtered and adapted... surely they're just writing a story. It's like the old "mythology as fantasy" "Beowulf as fantasy" thing.

It just strikes me as being like trying to invent a national pastime or traditional song. You might invent something popular, but the way things achieve those particular statuses is arbitrary, mysterious and impossible to control. Also it takes a long time.

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Orion

at 07:59 on 2011-10-13But the flaw with the "Beowulf as Fantasy" meme isn't just that Beowulf is old; it's that it's largely uninterested in the things fantasy books are interested in and not addressed to the same audience. You can point to a great many differences in function between a quasi-oral poetic epic and a strictly literary prose fantasy.

I'm not confident a similar gap exists between "stories about fairies written for print by individual Europeans from a few centuries ago" and "stories about fairies written for print by individual Europeans today"

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Arthur B

at 08:59 on 2011-10-13But fairy stories created by authors for print are an exception, the likes of Andersen and Morris arising as a response to collections like Grimm's which collected together stories originally recounted as an oral tradition. And only a very few fairy stories cooked up from whole cloth for print - most of them Andersen's - ended up feeding back into the oral tradition. (Chances are you didn't read Andersen's original text when you were little, you listened to someone paraphrasing them.)

And the point that I think Dan was trying to make in the article is that you can't artificially design something specifically to make that jump from being a story printed in a book to a part of an oral tradition retold and paraphrased and adapted by storytellers for generation after generation. The fact that Andersen's stories managed it was in many ways an incredible fluke; the prospect of Rowling's stories doing it is remote, not least because there's very little reason to be interested in them unless you've already got hooked on Potter.

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Michal

at 18:31 on 2011-10-13Shimmin, I hate to say "now that you put it that way", but...now that you put it that way, I'm not sure those books disagree, either. The audience for Straparola and Basile was not the same as the perceived audience for fairy tales in the 19th century, though you could argue that they were at least attempts at imitating oral traditions (namely, the

1001 Nights

). I think we can blame hyperbolic book-jacket blurbs for this one, since both books contest the original source of what would become fairy tales read to children; neither claims that this was what the authors deliberately set out to write.

(In regards to authorship,

Wikipedia

surprisingly has a good list of what made it from Straparola's

Facetious Nights

into

Grimm's Fairy Tales

. For anyone who cares,

the entirety of Facetious Nights is available online.

And if you want to see what fairy tales are discussed in

Fairy Godfather

and

Fairy-Tale Science

, Google books has a partial preview you can take a look at.)

The point about fairy tales today is also a good one, since the term

pretty ill-defined. I hauled out my

Spells of Enchantment

collection (edited by Jack Zypes, who's the big name in fairy tale scholarship and all) and its got stuff from Aurelius to Straparola to Voltaire to George Macdonald to Lord Dunsany (and even Jane Yolen!), which seems maybe a

bit

too large a net.

I hae no desire to read

Beedle

, since I didn't even like

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

back when I was 11 and I don't submit myself to books I know I'll hate. Maybe someone could fill me in: what does J.K. Rowling claim? Is it just a background book going "here's the folklore traditions of a world I created", or is she actually deliberately saying "this is a book you should read to children, with helpful notes in case your kid misinterprets what I wrote?"

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Michal

at 18:34 on 2011-10-13Side note: despite the title of her book, Magnanini seems to prefer the term "wonder tale"for what she's talking about.

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Dan H

at 18:57 on 2011-10-13

Maybe someone could fill me in: what does J.K. Rowling claim? Is it just a background book going "here's the folklore traditions of a world I created", or is she actually deliberately saying "this is a book you should read to children, with helpful notes in case your kid misinterprets what I wrote?"

I'm not sure she claims anything, which I think is sort of the problem.

When I said "Fairy-tales and folklore can't be deliberately created" (which was, I freely admit, a poor choice of words - as a couple of pointed out Hans Christian Andersen managed to do exactly that, and a lot of fairy stories do in fact have a specific author) I think what I meant (and it was a long time ago now) was that you can't sit down in the present day and write an original story which will be read by a modern audience in the same way that they would read a story passed down to them as traditional, unless you deceive your audience about the story's origins (what I actually said implies something stronger - that no consciously authored story can become traditional, and that clearly isn't true).

Beedle the Bard doesn't work as children's stories, because the stories only make sense in the context of the Harry Potter books, and the Dumbledore's Notes sections are as much part of the text as the actual stories (this also raises questions about how the book is supposed to be read - a book of fairy tales can be read in any order, whereas ToBtB seems designed to be read straight through).

The book is probably best viewed as a simple tie-in. It's not supposed to be enjoyed for itself, it's supposed to be enjoyed as a companion to the series, the pleasure of reading it comes almost entirely from recognition of familiar concepts from the Potter books. It's like Quiddich Through the Ages and Magical Beasts and where to find them, it's all about the novelty of somebody producing a "real" version of an in-world text.

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http://gx1080.livejournal.com/

at 21:59 on 2011-10-13That "History of Magic" article seems like a very long way of saying:

"The protagonists do the exact same shit that the bad guys do and they are never are called on their hypocrisy"

Which sounds like yet another fall of hack writing.

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Sunnyskywalker

at 22:41 on 2011-10-13There is certainly a lot of that in the Potter books and the Red Hen article. That, and "the wild guesses the protagonists make about some people a thousand years ago based on a few scraps of hearsay should be considered factually correct and not missing any essential details." Mixing up what the characters could reasonably be expected to know and understand accurately with what the author knows about the backstory, and expecting readers not to notice the difference: also hack writing.

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Andy G

at 23:51 on 2011-10-13Anyone else noticed how angry the RSS feed looks with this title repeated over and over again on it? ;)

There was a big thing in Romanticism of artistically re-creating nature and hiding your own artistry, and I guess the same thinking was behind fashioning fairy tales that were more Volks-y and authentic than the real thing.

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Janne Kirjasniemi

at 20:10 on 2011-10-15

Anyone else noticed how angry the RSS feed looks with this title repeated over and over again on it? ;)

Yes. Now I have a feeling that I shouldn't comment on anything and also a slight sadness over my unintended smugness and the hate it has inspired in the RSS feed.

On subject, like said, a traditional story or fairy tale or the very wide strata of literature discussed here is considered a part of story-telling heritage because several generations have upheld that tradition. So, for a modern author to write stories which in form or other qualities resembles this, it is not in any ways a bad thing and if they are succesful enough, well, they will beome traditional stories or whatnot in the future. But I suppose the problem is that J. K. Rowling did not just make up new tales as a new project, but rather made up some storytelling mythos for the Potterverse which feels like further milking of the success of Harry Potter in a rather cynical way. It seems like just a way to make parents and assorted other people to buy more of the same stuff, with the illusion that this is something new and special. Instead of writing new stories altogether perhaps?

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